They're Doing to America What They Did to Christianity

Trumpism's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of multiple weeks, the American president started showing all observers his plans for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions compared to the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to construct it.

He has committed acts 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of fatalities due to his slashing to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and rising, and presently an analysis predicted his petroleum strategies would kill 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have dared – truly, no former commander would have imagined – unilaterally destroying large sections of the White House in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of numerous America's wealthiest, almost all of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.

We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' into 'the humble will perish of cholera'

As disorienting as it is to witness the leader attempt to overturn the old idea of democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who might not perceive it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.

We have watched across decades as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we grew up with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of affection into a symbol of hostility who blesses precisely the cruelties that he denounced in scripture; this transformation occurred more gradually, across decades as opposed to months, however it is still disturbing in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for many of us.

A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold

Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my upbringing, as conceptually the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group of Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him since they are atheists or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth within Christian narrative.

It is decidedly not the account of an authoritative monarch emerging; rather, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a garage, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to evade covert authorities. The child matures in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his message is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Jesus' answer to aggression is to present the additional cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a method to educate the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing states that when someone steals your outer garment you should give them your pullover too.

The obvious and direct fact that the Savior of the gospels calls for a kind of extreme compassion centered on the poor has consistently rendered the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but owing to its inherent radicalness requiring to be contained. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it practically sanctified existing conditions.

A Conflict for the Best of Us

Therefore I have felt inspired to see the steadfast resistance to Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has provided great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated voters to turn out in numbers in the off-year elections. We will need to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners at every demonstration and appeals to the best parts within national heritage.

We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you receive him and receive them or reject?

The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, through connection to the finest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to that which renders it special and magnificent, which is the example of Christ. In both situations does it mean acting as if the worst of both America and religious tradition never occurred; it represents both modesty and faith, a mixture that committed American Christians should be comfortable with.