About Wallwritings

From 1972 through 1999, James McKendree Wall was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois.

He continued as a contributing editor for that magazine from 1999 through 2017.  Jim launched this new personal blog on April 27, 2008.

If you would like to receive Wall Writings alerts each time a new posting is added to this site, send Jim a note, saying, “Please add me”, to: jameswall8@gmail.com. 

To return to the Home Page for Wall Writings, go to wallwritings.me

Biography:

Journalism was Jim’s undergraduate college major at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. He has earned two MA degrees, one from Emory, and one from the University of Chicago, both in religion.

He is an ordained United Methodist clergyman, and a retired member of the Northern Illinois annual conference.

He and his wife, Mary Eleanor, are the parents of three sons, the grandparents of four grandchildren, and the great grandparents of three great granddaughters and one great grandsons.  Jim and Mary Eleanor currently reside in Elmhurst, Illinois.

Jim served for two years on active duty in the US Air Force, and three additional years in the USAF reserve. While serving with the Alaskan Command, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant.

He has worked as a sports writer for both the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. He was editor of the United Methodist magazine for clergy, the Christian Advocate, for ten years, 1962-1972. He served as editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine for 27 years, starting in 1972.

Time magazine wrote in a news feature that when the new editor arrived at the Christian Century in 1972, he was determined to turn the magazine into a hard-hitting news publication.  

Time concluded its essay with this summary of what the new editor had planned for the future.

He sees the mainstream churches at least as often foolish as they are wise. He believes that the Century, and liberal Protestants generally, must shift from pious approval of their churches to a more realistic and vigorous appraisal. Concludes Wall: “What we have to say about the church and the world will be gutsy and robust.”

The inspiration for Wall Writings comes from that mindset and from many other sources that have influenced Jim’s writings over the years, including politics, cinema, media, American culture, and the political struggles in the Middle East.

He has made more than 20 trips to the Middle East as a journalist, during which he covered such events as Anwar Sadat’s 1977 trip to Jerusalem, the first and second Intifadas, and the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. He has interviewed, and written about, journalists, religious leaders, political leaders and private citizens in the region.

Wall Writings deals with all of these topics, and others, as they emerge, from within an understanding of the ambiguity of the human condition as perceived from a religious perspective.

Wall Writings was initially used by Jim as a column title in 1946 in the Georgia Tech weekly Technique, when he served as sports editor of that publication.

“The Sounds of Silence” is one of the songs from the 1960s that captured the prevailing ambiguity of those days: [youtube=http://youtu.be/dTCNwgzM2rQ]

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon God they made.

And the sign flashed out its warning,

In the words that it was forming.

And the signs said, the words of the prophets

Are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls.

And whispered in the sounds of silence.

This song addressed the uneasy mood that permeated a rebellious period, the 1960s, a mood chronicled in Director Mike Nichols’ film, The Graduate.

“The words of the prophets” come to us from different places, like subway walls, tenement halls, poetry, movies, novels, and surprise gifts of grace that break through the mists of secular creativity.

Such a moment comes to us when first we encounter the deadpan expression of Dustin Hoffman, as Benjamin, a recent college graduate, who has returned to his stultifying suburban home. At a family party, the most important advice a friend of his father’s can give him is “plastics”. The only meaning Benjamin can expect in a godless universe is to be found in a successful career that gives him a home in the suburbs with a swimming pool out back.

Read the signs wherever you can find them, and then act upon them.

For additional reading on the author of Wall Writings, see:

 Chicago Reader “God is in the Precincts” http://bit.ly/2trjvoX;

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_M._Wall;

Newsweek “Onward, Christian Century,” March 25, 1974.

Media Development, pp. 21-26, “A Road Trip from Georgia”. http://bit.ly/2wgDbzE

The Simon and Garfunkle audio of The Sounds of Silence is from You Tube.

The header at the top shows trees and the wall around Bethlehem. It was taken by Connie Baker.

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