Trumpism's most revealing and characteristic instances – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of a few weeks, the American president started showing the public his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to erect it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of deaths resulting from his reductions to USAID amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and recently a study forecast his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have risked – truly, no previous leader would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying large sections of the White House in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of some of America's wealthiest, the majority of whom conduct transactions with the government.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the world' to 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the leader attempt to overturn the traditional concept regarding democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there is one large group of Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. That is those of us – among senior generations close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we learned about into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of hostility who blesses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in the Gospel; this change developed at a slower pace, across decades rather than months, yet it remains disturbing through similar means, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ that I grew up with, since in theory Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group among Americans might have little sense regarding him since they are atheists or uncertain individuals or nones. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the account of a powerful ruler emerging; instead, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a garage, who must quickly flee to a different country to avoid undercover officers. The baby grows up in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his teaching focuses on affection for other people, particularly for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to turn the other cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a way to instruct the attacker; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your coat you must offer him your sweater as well.
The apparent and straightforward fact that the Savior of the gospels advocates for a type of extreme compassion focused on the poor has perpetually caused Christian religion rather a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but owing to its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. In the fifties it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Best Among Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to witness the steadfast resistance to Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has provided great solace to help build the initiative that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired electorate to turn out in significant amounts during minor elections. We shall require to persist with it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you receive him and welcome him or reject?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by relationship to the highest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected through connection to that which renders it distinctive and beautiful, which is the example of Jesus. In all circumstances does it suggest pretending the worst regarding America and Christian faith did not happen; it signifies both modesty and conviction, a combination that genuine national faithful should embrace.
