Trumpism's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of multiple weeks, the US president began displaying everyone his designs for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing portion to build it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of deaths resulting from his reductions to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and recently a study forecast his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have attempted – truly, no former commander would have conceived – solo demolishing significant portions of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the planet' to 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the leader try to upend the traditional concept of democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment of Americans who might not perceive it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics close to half – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed over the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we learned about into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of affection into a symbol of hate who endorses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more gradually, over decades as opposed to months, however it is still disturbing via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and because the fastest-growing cadre within America may possess limited understanding about him since they are non-believers or doubters or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with different religions; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is emphatically absolutely not the narrative of a mighty king appearing; instead, a baby is born to homeless parents in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to evade secret police. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his teaching focuses on affection for fellow humans, specifically for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Jesus' answer to aggression is to present the other cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a way to educate the attacker; his crime policy is that if an individual takes your jacket you must offer him your sweater also.
The evident and clear reality that Christ of the gospels advocates for a type of radical love concentrated on the poor has consistently rendered the Christian faith somewhat of a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but owing to its natural unconventionality needing to be restrained. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so prevalent that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Battle for the Highest Within Us
Hence I have become encouraged to see the steadfast resistance against Trump emerge in this past year. It has been significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated voters to participate in numbers in the off-year elections. We shall require to persist with it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners at every demonstration and requests to the finest aspects of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or not?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the best within national tradition, just as Christianity is most protected by reference to that which renders it unique and magnificent, specifically the model of Jesus. In neither case does it mean acting as if the worst of both America and Christian faith did not happen; it signifies both meekness and belief, a mixture that serious national faithful should embrace.
