When we were in the Scottish borders recently, we re-visited Hadrian’s Wall.  This 73 mile-long fortification from east to west coast was built by the Roman emperor Hadrian in AD 122 to guard the north-west frontier of his vast empire, and was completed within six years.  Hadrian’s Wall is a remarkable monument to one man’s desire to leave his mark on history and to build a wall as a symbol of Roman power and domination over the conquered local population of this country.   It also served to keep out the people on the far side of the wall who were viewed by the Roman conquerors as different, dangerous and unwelcome. 

This human desire to build a barrier between people and protect oneself from alien or unfamiliar populations has a long history, as witnessed with the Great Wall of China, built to protect the northern borders of China from Eurasian nomadic travellers.  More recently, the wall built by former American President Trump to separate Mexico from the USA became a hot topic of debate.  Significantly his plan to build it formed a key part of his winning election campaign in 2016.

Building barriers is entirely at odds with the Christian belief that we are all members of the same human race, brothers and sisters to each other, and made in the image of God.  One of the five marks of mission which the Anglican Communion identified as the mission of Christ is “to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind, and pursue peace and reconciliation”.  The Mexican Wall seems completely out of kilter with the Christian commitment to removing unjust structures, not least because it was designed with the intention of stopping the flow of illegal immigrants, many of whom are seeking an escape from poverty to find new opportunities in the more prosperous society of the USA.  Any wall which is designed to prevent poorer populations from accessing the improved standard of living which others enjoy on the far side of the wall is morally dubious.  Perhaps it is no coincidence that Scandinavia, the most advanced economic area in terms of providing social care and welfare, imposes the highest taxes to pay for their social responsibility, and also has the greatest openness to receiving refugees and migrants from abroad seeking a new start.

Finally, building walls has long been a way of imposing a proprietorial sense of ownership on the land.  During the clearance acts of the late 18^th century, Scottish landowners decided to enclose public land for their own profit and farming purposes. This prevented the shared grazing rights which many poorer families had relied upon for subsistence crofting over hundreds of years, and turned their meagre livelihood into complete poverty and deprivation.  Once again, walls were used to exert superiority and domination.

Each week in our Communion service, we state the following prayer: “Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the splendour, and the majesty; for everything in heaven and on earth is yours.  All things come from you, and of your own do we give you.”  Our Christian faith teaches us that we possess nothing in our own right but are merely temporary custodians of the generous gifts of our Heavenly Father.  And we should share that largesse with others, especially those who have left their former way of life behind in their desperation for a new start.   Building a wall to exclude others or a barn to squirrel away our temporary assets in selfish isolation is not the way to transform this world’s unjust structures.

Sarah Bourne, Chaplain for the Arts – 18^th August 2021     sarahbourne@banburystmary.org.uk