God, America and Nonfiction

Spirituality Column #243
July 5, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

God, America and Nonfiction
By Bob Walters

I finally got around to reading David McCullough’s nonfiction book 1776, and realized something striking.

To be clear, this isn’t the musical 1776 about signing the Declaration of Independence. This is the exhaustively researched and meticulously footnoted 2005 Pulitzer Prize winning No. 1 bestseller that chronicles the ups and downs of George Washington’s fledgling Continental Army in 1776.

McCullough enlisted his own armies of researchers on both sides of the Atlantic to comb libraries, collections and historical societies for authentic personal letters, diaries, journals, memoirs, maps, newspapers, speeches and official correspondence that detail “what it was really like” in that place at that time.

The book ably collates countless sources into a fascinating story, liberally citing and directly quoting the American and English officers and soldiers, Patriots, Loyalists, politicians, onlookers and bystanders in their own words.

And here’s what was striking: the most elegant prose, the most common expositions and the weightiest communiqués were replete with sincere, faithful, earnest and reverent appeals to God. McCullough does not write to prove America a God-fearing country. The story itself reveals how thoroughly God was assumed to be attached to everyone’s lives and the momentous events of the day.

In 1776 America, the average conversation of the people reflected their absolute conviction that the Hand of the Almighty was intricately woven into the affairs of all.

It’s different today. The sad reality of our politically correct, postmodern, public “God” conversation in America was well represented recently by, appropriately enough, Susan Jacoby, the “Atheist Columnist” for The Washington Post. (An aside: If you have a Religion page, you have to have an “Atheist” column, right? SMH.)

Anyway, last week in this space we discussed the charming little book, Heaven is for Real. A 4-year-old boy nearly dies, really, and later tells his minister father how he visited heaven. The No. 1 bestseller is a heart-touching, simple, affirming story about Jesus, God and Heaven. It’s popular inside and outside of faith communities; scandalous among more than a few Bible-centric theologians … which is about normal.

Atheist Jacoby, reviewing Heaven is for Real with extreme snideness and confidently labeling contemporary American minds “immature,” wrote, “Only in America could a book like this be classified as nonfiction.”

Did you catch that? Jacoby says God should be classified as “fiction.”

I think … we are a better nation when we say God is real.

Happy Fourth of July.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) read 1776 because it was on sale at Costco. Also, “SMH” is Twitter for “shakin’ my head.”

This Book Sure Seems 'for Real'

Spirituality Column #242
June 28, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

This Book Sure Seems ‘for Real’
By Bob Walters

My Christian friend Nancy put a book in my hands just recently, wondering if I had read it.

“No,” I said.

“I guess a lot of people have,” she said.

Yeah, I guess so.

Heaven is for Real has been atop various New York Times bestseller lists since March. Published in November 2010 in paperback only, by mid-June with upwards of four million copies in print “for Real” remained the No. 1 title on the Times’ “Combined Print and E-Book Nonfiction,” “Combined Hardcover and Paperback Nonfiction” and “Paperback Nonfiction” lists.

I’ll not spoil the book’s story, except to say that a four-year old boy in small-town Nebraska has surgery and later begins telling his father, a Wesleyan minister, about visiting heaven and, among other things, meeting Jesus.

It’s a short, praiseworthy read; a couple hours of a simple yet magnificent – and dare I say, highly believable – exposition of one of this life’s greatest mysteries: “Is Heaven real?” Little Colton Burpo tells us it is.

There is no shortage of books on the “Heaven” experience. I’ve read some and not read others. I tend not to dwell much on either Creation or Heaven, because I trust God has them both all figured out. I can’t add much to His plan.

No, my routine reading and prayer focuses on my and mankind’s relationship with Christ, understanding the Bible, religion’s place in our culture, and learning and sharing all I can about the real existence of God, and the truth, goodness, knowledge and morality provided to humanity by the eternal Logos Word of God, Jesus Christ.

So, I’m examining our relationship with Christ? Here is a kid who – pretty convincingly – says he met Jesus.

It got my attention in ways other books haven’t.

The Shack was a mature man’s recollection of a dream, or an experience, or fiction, or something. It was charming and made people think; but it shouldn’t make anyone believe. Randy Alcorn’s Heaven was, to me, very unsatisfying (sorry) in its over-literalized attempts to define Heaven. I put it down after a few pages. Ninety Minutes in Heaven was compelling, but the storyteller was a Bible-savvy adult preacher.

Heaven is for Real is a child’s perspective. It smacks of the truth, to me, because it doesn’t smack of fiction. It is Biblically on point and simple enough to be real. I’m obviously not the only one who has noticed.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) notes that Jesus says a lot about children in the Bible. Matthew 19:14; Mark 10:14. For real.