Christianity Becomes America's Best Hope Against Trump

United States evangelicals can support immoral US President Donald Trump. However, faith still offers hope for freedom and progress.

Trump after delivering the State of the Union speech. (Photo: Reuters)

Christians in the United States are currently welcoming the Lenten season, a time of conversion and reflection. The weeks beginning with Ash Wednesday culminate in the Holy Week commemorating the celebration of Easter around AD 33. At that time Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem, and was condemned and crucified by the Roman authorities. In the Christian understanding of the world, Easter culminates in Jesus rising from the dead.

According to the prayer of the Anglican Church during the 40 days of Lent, Christians plead with the Lord to “come soon to help those of us who are attacked by many temptations; and as You know the weakness of each of us, You are Strong to save. "

Given the state of the United States for two millennia, it is hard to imagine anything more contrary to Christian ideals. For many Americans, especially non-Christians, the thought that Christian morality is a useful guide for many things these days is simply impossible, especially since so many evangelicals have poured their fortunes on US President Donald Trump who is relentlessly fond of snickering, bragging, and sneering.

The 2020 Christian rights political hero has used the annual National Breakfast and Prayer event to mock the New Testament commandment to love enemies. Obviously, prominent conservative Christian voices placed the Supreme Court above Jesus' famous sermon on the Mount.

However, Jon Meacham of The New York Times argues that history shows that religious-inspired activism may have the best hope for those who oppose the Trump order in America.

Jon Meacham of The New York Times sparked this view in publishing a small devotional book on Jesus' last words from the cross. The reflection reminds the motive power of a Christian message that is not based on Fox News, but on what those first century words used to mean and what they mean today.

"Father, forgive them."

"Verily, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."

"Father, into your hands I lay down my life."

These statements from the story of the Suffering in the Gospels form the kind of final sermon of Jesus on patience, duty, love, and compassion.

Jon Meacham of The New York Times as a Christian and historian pondered the beginnings of the faith story that led to thinking about the use of faith in Jesus for thousands of years. Christianity has been a tool of oppression, but in the memory of Americans, Christianity has also been used as a means of liberation and progress that gives hope that Christianity can again become a force for good.

The secular desire to separate religion from the public sphere remains enduring, but it will quickly end. Americans may also try to dispel economic, geographic, or partisan concerns

"All men," wrote the Greek philosopher Homer, "need gods." The more productive task was to manage and structure the effects of religious feelings on the wider republic.

"In the age of faith, the ultimate goal of life was placed outside of life," said French diplomat and historian Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America written in the Jackson Era.

"The people of this age learned at an unreasonable rate to suppress the many little fleeting desires."

Jon Meacham of The New York Times wants his words to be considered as important as those of American civil rights advocates John Lewis and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., those whose Christian beliefs held the United States to account for domestic apartheid more than half a century ago. Their words and actions can be traced directly to Jesus' words and actions. King's vision is based on the Bible and Indian politician Mahatma Gandhi.

"The Sermon on the Mount, not the doctrine of passive resistance, had originally inspired the Montgomery Negroes to dignified social action," King recalls of the Montgomery bus boycott.

"Jesus of Nazareth has moved the Negroes to protest with the creative weapon of love."

King has been greatly influenced by theologian Walter Rauschenbusch and his 1907 book Christianity and the Social Crisis which argued that Jesus called on the world not only to ponder but also to act. “The best gospel deals with the whole person, not just his soul but his body. Not only his spiritual well-being, but also his material well-being, ”wrote King, inspired by Rauschenbusch.

"Any religion that claims to care about the human soul and does not care about the slums that condemn them, the economic conditions that choke them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually dying religion awaiting burial."

Representative John Lewis (Democrat / Georgia) is perhaps King's most loyal student. Growing up in Pike County, Alabama, he overcame childhood stuttering by preaching to chickens on his parents' farm. Hearing King on the radio, Lewis was moved to action and helped support the pastor's Christian nonviolence philosophy.

Their inspiration comes from the New Testament Gospels: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth; Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of truth, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. "

As Lewis recalled, the struggle in time and space was about “Heaven and earth. This is the Social Gospel in action. This is love in action, what we call the power of our souls. " Its target is the "Beloved Community", according to which it is "nothing less than the Christian concept of the kingdom of God on earth."

It is a vision that held the United States to account in the mid-1960s. It is a religious vision. Americans do not need to profess their traditional faith to support it. No sect or nation has a monopoly on virtue. As the fourth century Roman writer Symmachus wrote, in the debate against Christians who wanted to move an altar to the pagan goddess Victory, "We cannot achieve a mystery of this magnitude by one means."

America's past has clearly stated, one way to more complete unity, one way to a country where equality before the law and before God is more universal, is the King and Lewis way of equality, which is also the way of Christ.

The faithful of the United States are once again called upon to bow at the foot of the cross. It was a terrifying place to stand. However, that is where the biblical story adopted by Christians begins. It is a story about love, not hatred. It is a story about generosity, not greed. In modern times, the desire for power too often trumps the words of Jesus. Jon Meacham of The New York Times concludes that this is why the American people and true people must again listen to and inspire the words of Christ.

Source: https://www.matamatapolitik.com/agama-kristen-jadi-harapan-terbaik-amerika-melawan-trump-opini/