A DIVIDING WALL

The Church and Trump's Wall

After posting a photo on Facebook of a migrant woman and her children fleeing tear gas at the border wall between Mexico and the U.S., I witnessed a caustic interchange of opinion that lasted for several days on my timeline. Most of the responders claim to be Christian, but their perspectives spanned the gamut of viewpoints, regarding how these migrants should be dealt with. Several days passed after that lively debate, before I received a link to an article discussing the issue of the wall, itself. The article insinuated that anyone who did not support the building of the wall was fighting against the will of God. It used the story of Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem, five centuries before Christ, as evidence that God would want a wall built at the American/Mexican border.

At first, I chose to ignore the link, but it had been sent by a long time Facebook friend, who I reckoned sent it as an invitation to reply. To build or not to build a wall is, apparently, an important issue to many of my readers, so here is my view on the issue:

I will begin by saying that I am neither for nor against the building of a wall at the southern border of the U.S. I do not see a wall as a moral or immoral, loving or unloving, move on the part of our people or government. I do not believe that I have ever taken a side on that particular issue in the immigration/migrant/caravan debate. My main concern has been the treatment of the migrants themselves.

What concerns me re: the issue of the wall is the fact that it is apparently becoming yet another nexus around which Christians are taking sides, judging one another, as to their rightness/wrongness/spirituality/maturity/immaturity, etc. We have plenty of such points of controversy already, which are dividing brothers and sisters from one another. The issue of a wall, a physical barrier along our national border, is becoming a metaphysical hot point for the Church.

Regarding the particular arguments put forth in the article, what I see is the all-too-common use of Scripture to validate a particular viewpoint in an essentially political (if not completely secular) debate. In order to accept that the story of Nehemiah, for example, can be applied to our own situation, one must first agree to compare the U.S. (or any region) to ancient Jerusalem. The fact that God encouraged the rebuilding of the Jerusalem wall is extrapolated into an endorsement to do the same on our southern border 2500 years later. I, frankly, do not see the comparison, except that any wall we would build is meant to protect our interior, just as Nehemiah’s wall was meant to protect Jerusalem. I do not understand making the spiritual application in the way the article seems to imply, that God wants the U.S. to do the same, unless the U.S. is some sort of New Jerusalem, revealed in our time.

As for what God wants, I believe walls can be either in or out of his will. I am not sure they are always good or always bad. What I think matters to God is the hearts of the people who would build them (or not). Fear of invasion can be a wise motivating factor, or it can be lack of faith. Jeremiah predicted there would come a time when God would “deliver into the hand of the enemy” the walls of Jerusalem’s palaces. Only God knows the hearts of the region’s inhabitants or its leaders.

But, let’s agree, for the sake of argument, that the U.S. is a holy nation, chosen of God, just as Jerusalem was (and is) the Holy City. If this is true, can we necessarily apply the story of Nehemiah to our own country? If we are going to do that, we must be very sure that we are in a “Nehemiahan” age. We are coming out of some era of prolonged punishment into an era of blessing, and God wants us to “rebuild” walls that have been broken down. We have decided to devote ourselves to righteousness and to put aside all that brought our suffering upon us in the first place. The people opposing the wall are, by inference, unspiritual opponents of God himself.

The story of Nehemiah takes place toward the end of the Babylonian Captivity, 152 years after King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and broke down its walls. The current King, Artaxerxes, of what was then called Persia, is allowing his Hebrew cupbearer, Nehemiah, to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the ancient walls. The Jews have sufficiently repented of their sins that God orchestrates this blessing.

Keep in mind that God had also orchestrated the destruction of Jerusalem itself and had prompted Nebuchadnezzar to take the Jews captive a century-and-a-half earlier. Always, God is in charge in overseeing what happens to the Jews (and to all things in this world and among its people).

So, are we in a Nehemiahan age? I do not think so. We have certainly not suffered much for our national sins. We have not come out of some prolonged punishment, found repentance and devoted ourselves to righteousness. From my perspective, we are setting ourselves up for some sort of retribution yet to come. God is not real proud of America, in my opinion. While there is always a“remnant” of the righteous, our national character has wandered far astray from the principles that made it great once upon a time. We are nowhere near a Nehemiahan age. We have not even experienced the wrath of God, to any great degree. We presently have an administration that wants us to become “great again,” that takes proper strides on some matters. But, the definition of “great” is not always a godly one, and too often we and our leaders, like Israel and Judah, have fits of revival only to fall back again.

I do agree that the story of Jerusalem can be applicable to many places and times. Jerusalem is always an object lesson for the world, just as the Jews themselves are. As for its walls, they are a visible record in stone of how God has dealt with unrighteousness and righteousness in a nation. One glance at the layers of stone that make up the wall will tell the story of conquest, destruction, and continual rebuilding that follow the moral history of the nation.

As for whether Jesus himself would help build Trump’s wall, I guess your take on this depends on how far you want to stretch the allegory of Jerusalem and the U.S. The one time Jesus discussed walls and buildings was just before his death, when he was walking in the Temple with his disciples. They were marveling at the magnificent structures, which would have doubtless included the encircling walls of the Temple Mount. Jesus saw their awestruck faces and warned them that the time was coming when not one stone would be left upon another that would not be thrown down. The fulfillment of that prophecy came in 70 A.D., when the Romans so razed the city that later visitors could scarcely believe it had ever been a city at all. It was rebuilt as Aelia Capitolina, a Roman colony, and remained that way for 600 years. Jews were not even permitted within its borders, on penalty of death.

So, if the U.S. is to be compared with Jerusalem, in an effort to support Trump’s wall, we must be sure we are in a Nehemiahan revival, and not due for an Aelia Capitolinan disgrace.

One more thing (and I say this knowing it will offend some), when we picture Jesus helping to build the celebrated wall, is he also among those standing at the top, lobbing tear gas canisters at those trying to scale it? 

In conclusion: I do not see the wall as an issue of important debate among Christians; I see the hearts of our nation, our people and our leaders as of far more importance in the eyes of God. 

THE PEN OF GOD

We climbed a long, gentle slope and were alone in a vastness and a distance that were like nothing I had ever seen or imagined. In all directions I could see the horizon, not a hill between that interrupted the smooth, round bowl-rim of blue. It was like being a very tiny ant on a table under Mother’s very biggest mixing bowl, a blue and silver bowl and a table-cloth all greeny-tan and full of little wrinkles….I felt a kind of smile inside myself, and a sense of awe that made me not want to say a word….It was like driving into a world nobody had ever seen before except God, a world God had just made, like the world in the Bible before there was an Adam or an Eve. Even the sounds were all new….not much louder than the squeak of a cricket in your pocket.

High, Wide and Lonesome – Hal Borland – 1956

I am reading the story of Hal Borland’s boyhood on the East Colorado plains in the early 1900s. Though it may not be a history that sings to many of us today, there are passages with such powerful description that they almost bring tears to my eyes. More than once I have had to stop and marvel at the talent that could create such haunting imagery, such transporting prose.

The ability of some writers to do this is a God-given thing. In fact, I believe language and its proper use is all a gift from God – one of the greatest of all gifts.

There is a reason Christ is called the Word of God: He is the ultimate expression of the Divine. And human language is a shadow of that expression. Without words, we are incomplete beings. It is not until we are able to express thought in words that we have fully “become.”

A child’s first word is cause for celebration. Grandparents are called, social media posts tell of the event, the family is all aflutter. Why? Because the child is now part of the communion of souls, able to give and take in the expression of life.

When Helen Keller, blind and deaf, uttered her first word, she “became.” Before that, she was unaware of her own separateness and the actuality of the world around her.

But great writing, great literature, is a step above and beyond basic communication. It is the art at the heart of God. By His word, worlds became. At His command, the earth and the universe, life itself, burst forth.

By our own words we create or destroy the very atmosphere around us. The word is a powerful thing.

Great language, great writing employs this gift at the highest human level, and often seems to be a divine thing. Wonderful writers will tell you that they do not always know where the words come from, that they seem to flow into and through them from beyond themselves.

Wonderful turns of phrase – elevating and profound, or pithy and simple – “just the right words” are not belabored. They just come.

Not all those who appreciate fine writing can write that way. But they recognize it when they read it or hear it. It touches them in the same way that a fine musical score touches them or a grand sunset or a mighty surf.

It is not only part of God’s creation, it is the origin of creation itself.

The next time you read a marvelous piece of prose or poetry, think of where it came from. At that moment, the author is the pen of God.

Rising Above the "Bestseller" Myth

It's tough being a legitimate publisher, in the current market of publishers and book sites who stretch the truth, manipulate sales rankings and report "success" for their authors, using deceptive promotional jargon. I spent a good part of one day just trying to understand the term "best seller" on Amazon. (Though, as I will point out later, Amazon is not alone in the practice of deceptive book marketing.)

Some time back, I was speaking with an author who was thrilled to tell me of her "bestseller" status on Amazon. As it turned out, her book was indeed a #1 bestseller, in the category of Children's Books>Toddlers>Featuring Toys (or something like that!). Furthermore, according to what I read, the sales rankings for both Kindle and print are "updated hourly," which means that the poor author's #1 status may well have changed an hour after she looked at it. (Details have been changed to protect the innocent.)

Even more confounding is the Free vs. Paid ranking on Kindle. A book might indeed show up with a very high rank on Kindle, but a glance at the labeling with reveal that the book was available for free download, and the ranking was based on this. The book’s ranking may be misconstrued as “bestseller,’ since Amazon lumps both Free and Paid listings under the heading Amazon Best Sellers Rank. Short of that, the publisher may report that a given book reached #1 status on Amazon, but fail to explain the particulars.

In reality, rankings on Amazon are not "historical" so much as "time sensitive." According to Amazon: "For the Kindle Store, Amazon Best Sellers lists are divided into Top 100 Paid and Top 100 Free. … Both lists are updated hourly." Such rankings do not give a true picture of how a book has done throughout its history, but are simply snapshots in time, showing how a book did within the last hour. So, essentially Amazon has taken it upon itself to redefine the age-old definitions of bestseller, recasting the term for its own benefit. It also throws the term around loosely, lumping various categories and modes of distribution under it, so that the unwary public can be duped into thinking they are buying a more popular book than is the case.

Lest you think I scorn the public’s naivete, let me tell you that I, myself, have been used this way. Years ago, when my book, The Priest, first came out, it achieved #7 in a fairly broad Christian category. I was elated, until I looked a little deeper into the stats. As it turned out, this was a blip on the register, due to a book club in a small town in Texas that had just purchased several copies at once. For a fleeting hour (probably), my book had skyrocketed…all due to the algorithm employed by Amazon.

I have been focusing on Amazon, but the tendency for the publishing/book marketing industry to “stretch the truth” is nothing new. It far predates the era of the internet. Many years ago, I was talking with an editor from a prestigious publishing house, who explained to me how book marketing was often manipulated. He said the term “copies in print,” often used as a marketing ploy (i.e. One Million copies in print!) actually referred to the number of books printed (not bound) and stored in a publisher’s warehouse. This was a legitimate way of promoting a book but did not necessarily translate to sales. Later, those unbound copies might actually be destroyed, or, if bound, “remaindered,” and sent out onto the secondary market. As for the term “books sold” (i.e. One Million sold!), he told me that a select group of bookstores were routinely queried for numbers of books sold in a given period. Those bookstores, in cahoots with publishers, would place outlandish orders for books, so that, on paper, it appeared sales for a given book were wonderful. After the book was listed in the newspaper as a bestseller, those orders were often downsized or cancelled. (Wikipedia has this to say about the NYT Bestseller list: It is “compiled according to ‘reports from leading booksellers in 22 cities.’ This methodology of ranking by bookseller sales figures remains to this day although the exact data compilation process is a trade secret and has evolved over time.”)

I know this may seem incredible, but “fact stretching” goes on in many ways, even among authors, themselves. I sat in on a seminar for book promotion, taught by an “expert” on the topic. He told the group, who were all wannabee bestsellers, that one way to catch the eye of a publisher is to have an agent. If you cannot find an agent who will take on your book, find someone who is willing to pose as your agent. He gave an example of an author who used his wife in this way. Her last name was different than his, so publishers were none the wiser (although I am sure most savvy publishers would see through this). Reviews can be garnered this way, too, as you promise whatever to your friends, if they will post great reviews of your book. Authors have even been known to sink boatloads of money into purchasing their own books, to elevate the sales figures, a tactic that is ultimately self-defeating.

So, what exactly is a bestseller? Traditionally, any book that sells over 50,000 has been considered a bestseller. 50,000 is a good minimum for hardback, paperback, fiction, non-fiction, religious, secular. I was told, years ago, that if a book sold 50,000, lightning had struck.

So, what is the takeaway from this blog? Ellen, are you just trying to discourage all those writers and readers who have been duped by this system? No…the takeaway is this, just as it has always been: DON’T WRITE FOR THE MARKET! Write to express your own soul, your interests, your heart. Write to encourage others, to educate, to inform. Be willing to promote your product, but don’t put promotion ahead of the quality of the product itself.

One of my favorite editors at Tyndale House Publishers told me, eons ago: “Cream rises to the top.” And, I would add that “the top” is also a matter of definition. If your book touches the heart or changes the life of only one reader, for the better, it has reached the top.