They're Applying across America What They Did with Christianity

The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and distinctive instances – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of several weeks, the American president started showing everyone his plans for a lavish reception room two times larger of the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the eastern section to erect it.

He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of casualties from his cuts to USAID stands at 600,000 and growing, and recently research projected his energy policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have dared – genuinely, no previous leader would have conceived – solo demolishing major areas of the White House in order to erect a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of some of America's wealthiest, almost all of whom conduct transactions with federal agencies.

We went from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' into 'the humble will perish to cholera'

As bewildering as it is to witness the president try to upend the established notion about democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.

We have observed across decades as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we grew up with into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of hostility who approves precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, over decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless unsettling through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for numerous individuals.

A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold

Hence I shall explain the Jesus that I grew up with, because theoretically the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre within America might have little sense about him as they consider themselves skeptics or agnostics or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that there are pearls of great price in biblical accounts.

It is unquestionably not the narrative of a powerful ruler emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a garage, who must quickly flee to a different country to avoid covert authorities. The child matures in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his doctrine concerns compassion for others, specifically for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to hostility is to offer the opposite cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a method to educate the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing states that when someone steals your jacket you should give him your sweater also.

The evident and direct fact that the Savior from scripture calls for a form of radical love focused on the impoverished has perpetually caused the Christian faith something of a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but because of its natural unconventionality requiring to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – Protestantism was so dominant that it practically blessed current circumstances.

A Conflict for the Best Among Us

Hence I have become encouraged to see the determined opposition regarding Trump arise during the previous year. It has provided substantial consolation to help build the movement that has protested openly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated citizens to participate in large quantities in the off-year elections. We must have to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners during all protests and appeals to the highest qualities in US history.

We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or reject?

America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the finest within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected through connection to elements that cause it to be unique and magnificent, which is the example of the Savior. In both situations does it suggest acting as if the most negative about the nation and Christian faith did not happen; it means both modesty and faith, a mixture that genuine US believers should embrace.