They're Doing in America What They Performed to Christianity

The Trump phenomenon's most telling and defining instances – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of multiple weeks, the nation's leader began displaying all observers his designs for a gilded ballroom twice the size compared to the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to construct it.

He has done things ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of fatalities due to his slashing to international aid amounts to 600,000 and growing, and presently a study projected his energy policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have dared – truly, no other president would have imagined – independently wrecking major areas of the White House to construct a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of multiple the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which conduct transactions with the government.

We went from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' to 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'

As disorienting as it is to watch the president try to upend the established notion about democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment among Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.

We have watched throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Essentially, they transformed an image of compassion into a figure of animosity who blesses specifically the brutality that he criticized in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.

A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold

So let me first describe the Savior that I grew up with, because theoretically Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans may possess limited understanding of him as they consider themselves non-believers or agnostics or spiritual independents. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that exist valuable insights of significant worth in the Christian story.

It is emphatically not the account of a powerful ruler arising; conversely, an infant arrives to displaced parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to escape undercover officers. The infant develops in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his teaching focuses on affection for others, especially for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. The Savior's reaction to violence is to present the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of compliant endurance, but as a means to instruct the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever someone steals your outer garment you should give him your sweater as well.

The apparent and clear reality that Christ from scripture requests a kind of radical love focused on the needy has consistently rendered Christianity rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the masses, but because of its inherent radicalness demanding to be contained. In the fifties it was contained by dilution – Protestantism was so widespread that it essentially baptized the status quo.

A Conflict for the Finest Within Us

So I have been inspired to witness the determined opposition against Trump develop during the previous year. It has provided great solace to help build the initiative that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged voters to participate in large quantities during minor elections. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags during all protests and requests to the best parts within national heritage.

We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or reject?

The nation is most protected, essentially, by reference to the highest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is most protected through connection to elements that cause it to be unique and wonderful, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In all circumstances does it mean feigning the most negative of both America and religious tradition never occurred; it represents both modesty and faith, a blend that serious US believers ought to accept.