The Velvet Curtain

Then, when she finally began to make yearly trips to Eastern Europe shortly after the fall of Communism and then return to her home in the States, she was conscious of another kind of “Curtain” which was smooth, velvety, and terribly smothering. This, she finally concluded was indeed a curtain of velvet which every true Christian has to combat if he or she wishes to survive spiritually. One day, she decided, she would write about this curtain. And, finally, she did, and so the series “The Velvet Curtain” came into being.

Harvey Christian Publishers does not normally publish novels but the trilogy “The Velvet Curtain Series,” is now available on its online Christian bookstore. And although they are not, strictly speaking, devotional books such as our books on prayer, humility, suffering, etc., they embrace all of these subjects, for how on earth is anyone to resist the smothering effects of the Velvet Curtain, if they do not bathe themselves in prayer, be clothed in humility, and be prepared to suffer? Christians belong not to a Western or Eastern Culture but to a Heavenly Kingdom and as citizens of that kingdom, their lives contradict at all points worldly systems and maxims.

When Trudy Harvey Tait wrote these books, she did not visualize their being printed in Eastern Europe but hoped they would be helpful to immigrants to the States to be forewarned that although they might have escaped the Iron Curtain, they would soon encounter a far more subtle “Curtain” as they began their new lives in the West. It wasn’t long however, before it became evident that in countries such as Romania and Russia, there was a crying need for such a warning. The Velvet Curtain was not confined to America or Western Europe but, following in freedom’s wake, it was attempting to enfold churches and individuals, who were basking in their newfound liberty, in its insidious folds. And it has turned out that The Velvet Curtain Series has actually more appeal in the East than here in the States. Why? Who knows? Perhaps one lady who owned a Christian Bookstore in the UK was right when she told a friend, “The person who wrote the Velvet Curtain was very courageous.” And when asked why, she replied, “Because the books are counter-cultural here in the West.” And her sentiments were echoed by a business man in the States who wrote that he had never been aware of this Velvet Curtain until he read the book “The Velvet Curtain,” the first in this series. It had made him aware of its danger and truly thankful.