Glory to God in the Lowest: Journeys to An Unholy Land – Book Review

By Jim Miles

(Glory to God within the Lowest: Journeys to An Unholy Land. Donald E. Wagner. Olive Department Press, Interlink Publishing group, Inc. Northampton, Massachusetts. 2022.)

In “Glory to God within the Lowest”, Donald Wagner set out three themes for his memoirs: his transition from political apathy and social conservatism to activism within the civil rights and anti-war actions; a theological transition from fundamentalist Christian Zionism to progressive and liberation theology; and advocacy for Palestinian political and human rights. He succeeds remarkably nicely in all three areas.

It’s an incredible journey, one which he shared with many fellow vacationers, and Wagner describes it in a transparent, concise, and compelling narrative. A fourth theme, associated to the others, is his ongoing use of the thought of pilgrimage, not as a hard and fast journey to a particular finish, however the journey itself, of humbling oneself earlier than God and others with the intention to work for the betterment of humanity.

His theme of liberation theology took him from a conservative white evangelistic background, into the realm of the civil rights motion throughout its primary exercise within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies allied with the anti-war motion towards the Vietnam warfare – and in the end, all wars. Working as a pastor in a black church launched him to what he describes as a neighborhood compared to the individualistic method of the white society surrounding him. That concept grew to become far more strongly emphasised on his travels to the Center East the place he discovered the neighborhood, hospitality, and friendliness of the individuals to be a significant factor of their societies.

Palestine grew to become the main target of a lot of his actions as he witnessed, in each the Christian sense and the purely gut-wrenching bodily sense, the atrocities being dedicated by Israel towards the Palestinians. He watched the Israeli bombing of Beirut earlier than the Lebanon invasion, and its devastating toll on Palestinian civilians regardless of Israel’s propaganda that they used solely high-precision navy weapons on Palestinian terrorists. He was in Beirut once more the times after the Sabra and Shatila massacres by the Phalangist militia protected and promoted by the Israeli military and witnessed the devastation of the refugee camps.

On the recommendation of the individuals he met within the Center East, he acknowledged that his primary mission was to inform the individuals of america what their authorities and their navy have been doing. That concerned working with totally different church buildings that labored towards the false concepts of antisemitism that have been used for the Israeli narrative. In flip that was a theological combat towards Zionism in all its varieties.

Wagner recognized two primary kinds of Zionism. The primary, and authentic, is the fundamentalist evangelical Zionism selling the ‘finish instances’ of humanity through which all of the Jews are to assemble in Israel and both convert or die. The second type of Zionism is the European/western model that makes use of the holocaust as the rationale for the institution of a Jewish state on another person’s land. That is Herzl’s model of Zionism which Wagner describes in a single sentence “Zionism’s purpose was to take the land and take away the Palestinians: a transparent case of genocide.”

The latter type is also described as political Zionism because it derives from the social situations of Europe throughout a time when nationalism was a driving power for Europe generally – “a political ideology of Jewish nationalism….The liberal adoption of far-right Zionism because the abandonment of human rights and worldwide legislation.” Each points of Zionism come collectively in america: the millennial finish instances and the nationalist holocaust-driven narrative. Wagner, amongst many others, sees america as the most important supporter of Israel economically, politically, and militarily, every utilizing the opposite for their very own functions.

Additional to the concepts of liberation theology is the thought of colonial-settler colonialism as “a system of energy that perpetuates genocide and repression of indigenous peoples and cultures.” This was, and is, aided by the Papal “Doctrine of Discovery” which basically mentioned to European empires to go and seize as a lot of the world’s land as you’ll be able to for they’re solely inhabited by savages and lesser beings. In Palestine, this concept of terra nullius, of empty land to be settled and exploited by Europeans, grew to become part of the founding mythology throughout the Israeli narrative.

In his conclusion, Wagner writes, “Glory to God within the Lowest….[may] at some point blossom with the fruits of equality, justice, freedom, reconciliation, and peace for each nation. This can be a imaginative and prescient we can not afford to give up and it’s well worth the sacrificial love and advocacy of each one in all us.”

Wagner’s memoir, “Glory to God within the Lowest”, is a powerfully written work. It must be a bestseller, it must be on everybody’s shelf who has any curiosity within the Center East. It’s an intense work, motivating and compelling, inspirational for each Christians and non-Christians alike.

– Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a daily contributor/columnist of opinion items and ebook critiques to Palestine Chronicles.  His curiosity on this subject stems initially from an environmental perspective, which encompasses the militarization and financial subjugation of the worldwide neighborhood and its commodification by company governance and by the American authorities.