Trumpism's most illuminating and defining instances – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the US president started showing all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to construct it.
He has committed acts 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of deaths resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and rising, and recently a study forecast his energy policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have dared – genuinely, no other president would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the executive mansion to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the direct cooperation of numerous the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' into 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed over the years as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we grew up with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they turned a figure of affection into a figure of hate who endorses specifically the brutality that he criticized in biblical teachings; this has happened at a slower pace, through multiple decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless unsettling via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Christ from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and given that the quickly increasing segment of Americans may possess limited understanding about him because they identify as skeptics or uncertain individuals or nones. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that there are pearls of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the narrative of a powerful ruler emerging; instead, a baby is born to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to avoid secret police. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his teaching focuses on affection for fellow humans, especially for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and housing. Jesus' answer to violence is to offer the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the assailant; his crime policy states that when a person pilfers your jacket you ought to provide the person your additional clothing also.
The obvious and clear reality that Christ in biblical accounts calls for a kind of profound affection centered on the impoverished has consistently rendered the Christian faith rather a controversial faith: attractive to the populace, but due to its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. In the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Best of Us
So I have been heartened to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump arise during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the movement that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated voters to show up in significant amounts during minor elections. We shall require to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners during all protests and calls to the finest aspects of American history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, by relationship to the best about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured by reference to what makes it distinctive and beautiful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it imply pretending the worst about the nation and Christianity was nonexistent; it signifies both humility and belief, a blend that committed US believers should embrace.
