They're Doing across America What They Executed with Christianity

Trumpism's most illuminating and characteristic instances – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of multiple weeks, the US president commenced revealing the public his designs for a lavish reception room two times larger than the White House and then began independently demolishing the East Wing portion to build it.

He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of casualties from his cuts to international aid stands at 600,000 and rising, and this week an analysis projected his energy policies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have dared – truly, no previous leader would have conceived – unilaterally destroying major areas of the executive mansion to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of some of America's wealthiest, the majority of whom conduct transactions with federal agencies.

We went from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' toward 'the meek shall die of cholera'

As confusing as it is to witness the president try to upend the old idea about democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.

We have witnessed throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we were raised with into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of compassion into a figure of hostility who blesses specifically the brutality that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more gradually, through multiple decades instead of months, however it is still disturbing through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.

A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold

Therefore allow me to outline the Christ that I grew up with, because theoretically the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and because the fastest-growing cadre within America could have minimal awareness about him because they identify as skeptics or doubters or nones. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that there are pearls of great price in the Christian story.

It is decidedly not the narrative of a mighty king emerging; rather, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to escape secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine concerns compassion for other people, specifically for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to present the other cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a method to instruct the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing is that if someone steals your jacket you should give the person your additional clothing as well.

The obvious and clear reality that the Jesus in biblical accounts requests a type of profound affection centered on the poor has consistently rendered the Christian faith rather a scandalous religion: engaging for the populace, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so dominant that it practically sanctified existing conditions.

A Battle for the Finest Within Us

So I have been inspired to witness the persistent defiance against Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has served as great solace to help build the campaign that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated electorate to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to maintain it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags during all protests and requests to the finest aspects of American history.

We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you receive him and welcome him or not?

America is best defended, essentially, through connection to the finest within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended by reference to elements that cause it to be unique and magnificent, specifically the model of the Savior. In neither case does it imply feigning the most negative regarding America and Christianity did not happen; it signifies both meekness and belief, a blend that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.