Category: md-3-2

The task or honor of teaching the Christian disciplines to those living in poverty is often avoided or met with cynicism. There is an underlying assumption that they are not capable of the higher order of thinking that is necessary to experience the profundity of these practices. It is, however, not only possible but also vital. Five topics for consideration—awareness of culture of the poor, relationship, appropriate language, story, and community—are discussed to assist in this endeavor.

Spiritual disciplines are exercises that usher one into God’s presence, where God then has the opportunity to transform our lives. Richard Foster brought these ancient practices back into popularity with his book Celebration of Discipline. In it he designates the internal disciplines of meditation, fasting, prayer, and study as well as the external disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service.1 Through these practices, we make ourselves available to God’s shaping. A transformed life is a gift from God, not something we can accomplish by our own efforts.

My journey teaching the disciplines to those in poverty began in my work with a nonprofit employment readiness program. It began with an eye-opening conversation with the executive director. She sat across the breakfast table from me and talked about the struggle she was having with her volunteers. “They are well-meaning and loving, but they talk over the heads of the students as if they weren’t there. Or they treat them as children, even though some of them are twice their age. There is also a lot of ‘us’ and ‘them’ language. Can you help them change their perceptions to be less discriminatory?”

I offered several training sessions to the staff on working with the poor. Many of these volunteers had little experience with this socioeconomic population. They were surprised to realize that some of their interaction with the poor was discriminatory. The director also asked me to share a discipline with the students—the process of Examen—a practice taught by Ignatius of Loyola. Shortly after I began consulting with this nonprofit, I was sitting in a residency for an extension program on leading contemplative prayer groups and retreats. It was a time of rich learning and deep experience with God. Yet all was not right. Having been introduced to the population in the nonprofit, I looked around at the other participants. They all looked like me. There was some ethnic diversity, but we certainly were in the same tax bracket. The program cost $4,000, and although churches sponsored some of the individuals, I knew the cost was out of reach to many. I again was seeing a form of discrimination. Those from the poor population were excluded. How could we open this wonderful opportunity to those in the lower income bracket? I had the opportunity because I had the means, and yet the need for the transforming experience of the disciplines reached beyond economic barriers.

As the title suggests, this article will address engaging the poor in Christian spiritual disciplines. The literature on the coupling of poverty and the disciplines suggests that, although not difficult, the disciplines are advanced teaching—profound and targeted for those with a higher educational level. It focuses attention on teaching these disciplines to those ministering to the poor. The practice of the disciplines encourages workers to lean on God for strength in the midst of ministries that are demanding and can lead to discouragement and burnout. Thankfully, the gap is closing, as there is an increase in programming that offers spiritual formation to those in poverty. We are all in dire need of encouragement. Regardless of socioeconomic level, we need avenues to let go of our heavy burdens and lean into God’s loving embrace. The challenge lies not in the lack of receptivity, but in the perception of those who might teach as well as the manner in which they do so. In order, therefore, to consider teaching the Christian disciplines to those in poverty, I offer the following topics for consideration: the relevance of the disciplines for the poor, an awareness and respect for the culture of the poor, a focus on relationships, appropriate language, the role of story, and the importance of community.

Relevance of disciplines for the poor

It would appear that many do not think the poor capable of practicing Christian disciplines. As with the above-mentioned nonprofit staff, they are often relegated to a “less-than” status, viewed as childlike, incompetent, or uninterested. Teaching that is offered may be limited to the requirement of chapel attendance in order to receive a meal or regular attendance at a bible study or church service. But the in-depth experience of being in an intimate relationship with God is saved for those who are in a better financial situation.

The assumption that the poor are not capable of spiritual disciplines finds some support in the theory of Abraham Maslow. Maslow offers a hierarchy of needs that has had a significant influence on Western perception.2 The hierarchy suggests that until a person’s basic needs are met, they cannot rise to higher-order thinking—the abstract thinking necessary for spiritual thoughts and ideas. This would necessitate that a person must be clothed, sheltered, fed, and secure before they have the ability to be insightful and retrospective. Although beneficial in encouraging the addressing of needs, this theory has been used in a subtle way to encourage classism. There are many who do not fit this hierarchy; artists like Rembrandt or Van Gogh, or the many self-actualized in large poor countries like India. Those who have participated in a mission trip to a majority-world country have experience that confirms this critique. They have seen the hunger for a relationship with a personal Lord in many who have few earthly possessions. Unfortunately, this theory continues to influence those who work with the poor. The belief is that one needs first to lift them out of poverty, and then they can delve into the depths of spiritual life.

Jesus was not bound by this perception. There are many examples in the Gospels of Jesus offering deep teaching to those who had little in the way of material possessions. In Matthew 5-7, Jesus spends the day on the side of a mountain offering some of his most profound teaching to a poor population. He ends the day by feeding them—expressing concern that they might grow faint from lack of food. He did not wait until they were fed to address their spiritual needs. He offered spiritual sustenance that would carry them in and through their difficult physical lives.

Many have followed the example of Jesus in meeting the spiritual needs as well as the physical needs of those in poverty. William Creed, SJ, founded the Ignatian Spirituality Project in response to the need of the homeless for spiritual guidance.3 He began offering retreats to this population that combined the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola with the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve-step program. They address both homelessness and issues of recovery by focusing attention on the third step of AA—placing one’s dependence on God. What he began in Chicago is now offered in many cities across the nation. People are being transformed as they learn to center their lives on God and his kingdom. The success of this project speaks to the spiritual need that it meets.

I have personal experience regarding the relevancy of the disciplines for the students in the above-mentioned employment readiness program. The program targets the unemployed and underemployed, many of whom come from generational poverty. For several years, I led each class in the process of Examen. Examen, or examination of consciousness, is a process taught by St. Ignatius of Loyola as a part of the spiritual exercises.4 This was offered in the first couple of weeks of each cohort and was quickly embraced by all the students. It gave them an opportunity to share their blessings and their struggles and pray for each other. Although most were living chaotic lives, they were able to let go of that in order to invite God into these struggles and to praise God for their blessings.

Awareness and respect for the culture of the poor

The second topic for consideration when teaching the disciplines to those in poverty is that, in general, there are differences between the values of the poor and those of the middle class. Recognizing this allows an attitude of respect for the strengths of each socioeconomic class. Ruby Payne, an educator in the inner city of Houston, brought national attention to this issue.5 She found that the pedagogy she was using was not as effective with children living in poverty as with those coming from middle-class homes. In order to address this problem, she looked at the differences in these contexts and articulated an understanding of the cultural differences of the socioeconomic levels. She stated that when one is in the midst of a culture (i.e., poverty, middle class, or wealth), there are values of the culture that are invisible to that individual. The cultural values must be made overt in order to recognize them.

Her intent was to assist educators in recognizing that their values may not be applicable to a poor student’s socioeconomically shaped culture. However, the student’s own values may still be worthy of respect. This is similar to the experience of being in a foreign culture. Perceptions vary in other cultures about food, money, relationships, possessions, and many other aspects of life. Yet, one can still have respect for them. Thus in working with the poor, a person from a middle class context can see characteristics of generational poverty as cultural differences and treat them as such. Without this insight, generalizations may be applied to all people in poverty rather than the few to whom they apply. Common generalizations are that those living in poverty are lazy, manipulative, or taking advantage of the system. Although Payne’s work is anecdotal in nature, her contribution is to spotlight the unrealized biases from which one may operate. Further research is necessary to substantiate her claims.

Respect also is important at the individual level. Often society—including those in the church—offers the poor the dregs. Holding a person in respect is manifest in the way they are treated. For example, the LaSalle Street Church in Chicago reaches out to the homeless through a ministry they call “Breaking Bread.”6 Through this ministry, they show value to the homeless through the way they treat them. They invite them as family to the table. Real plates and silverware are used and the church serves these guests to a sit-down meal. This is the entrée into the church, but it goes further in the depth and intimacy into which they invite the homeless. The church integrates them into the church life and expects them to fully participate.

The implication is that the poor have something to offer the body. And of course they do. They certainly do not have the material distractions that can get between them and God. I had the privilege of teaching a course on disciplines of Christian living at the Tennessee Prison for Women. It was a course with fifteen inmates and fifteen traditional undergraduate students. Some of the women inmates (or “inside students” as we called them) had a depth of faith and intimacy with God that was inspiring. They had nothing else to cling to, so they learned to cling to God.

Appropriate language

Despite the rich depth of the Christian disciplines, they are in reality simple ways to connect with God. Along with the awareness and respect for the culture, a third topic of discussion is that one must have the ability to speak the language of the population. One would not use difficult foreign language or illustrations if in a different culture, and one should not use complex, specialized language with a group of people who typically are poorly educated or even illiterate.

We again turn to Jesus and his example of teaching deep theological concepts to the poor. He used their language and taught by referring to common everyday events. Lessons were taught by talking about a sower who went out to sow, a man on Jericho road, a rich man and his tenant, or a widow with a mite to offer at the temple. The people understood these situations and could relate to the lessons imbedded in them. This same method is applicable to working with the poor today. They certainly are not all uneducated, but the vast majority is, and it is important to make the teaching simple and relevant to their everyday experience.

John Hayes, director of InnerChange Ministries,7 uses curriculum that is present-oriented. He states that if they speak about the past, it is disregarded. If too much about the future, it can be dismissed or feed into the sense of hopelessness pervasive among those in poverty. They focus on Jesus and the Gospel writings. In addition, they have found that they must encourage action as well as reflection. The listeners invest in the teaching if they are encouraged to be introspective and incorporate what they hear into their lives.8

Another example of keeping language simple is to use common everyday expressions to explain many of the classic spiritual disciplines. One can talk of “listening prayer” or “listening to God” rather than use the language of contemplative prayer. Or when teaching the aforementioned Ignatian process of Examen, the teacher can speak of sharing the “highs and lows” of the day rather than the consolations and desolations. More complex language can gradually be introduced if there is a reason to do so, but it is more important that the words used to discuss a discipline do not discourage its use.

A focus on relationships

The fourth topic for consideration when teaching the Christian disciplines to those in poverty is that one must be attuned to the importance of being in relationship with students. Payne suggests those in poverty value relationships above everything else.9 A person living in poverty may think, “If the rent is due tomorrow and my sister needs money, I will give my rent money to her.” People are the highest priority. This behavior may appear to be irresponsible to someone from another socioeconomic class, but in reality, it is a variance in values.

Teachers must establish friendships in order to move into a teaching or sharing relationship. Furthermore, the friendship must be valued in its own right rather than as a means to teach. One should not view the person in poverty as a project to salve an uneasy conscience. Many churches like the idea of reaching out to the marginalized until it moves beyond theory. The question must be asked, “Can I open my circle of friends to include a person living in poverty?” The book Same Kind of Different as Me shares the relationship of Denver, a man who was homeless, and Ron, an international art dealer.10 Ron’s wife brought him into the relationship and he was unsure of what he was getting into. He soon developed a liking for Denver and wanted to pursue the friendship. At the beginning of their interaction, however, Denver asked Ron if he was in the relationship for the long haul or if it was just “catch and release.” He was not interested in investing his time or energy if Ron was going to walk away when he lost interest. When one has little else, the people in one’s life are highly valuable.

Being in relationship with another is inherent in the Ignatian Spirituality Project and their offerings. The staff spends time with participants in various venues. They select individuals to attend a daylong or overnight retreat and lead them through the spiritual exercises and the twelve steps. This is followed by an invitation to monthly groups that meet on an ongoing basis. They take pains to ensure that participants have every opportunity to attend. The staff offers rides, the day is scheduled on the same day every month, and contact information is updated at each meeting to keep up with the transitional life styles of those in poverty. The participants and staff form deep friendships.

The deep friendships come as a surprise to many who begin working with those in poverty. One quickly moves from a superior perspective to the recognition that they are gaining as much as or more than their students. Staff develop an appreciation for the richness of these individuals who were also made in God’s image. And as in other relationships, there can be disappointments. If one goes into a relationship with the expectation of gratitude or repayment of the gift of friendship, one may become disillusioned. The friendship does not negate the chaos and coping skills that have developed in the individual’s difficult life. One must enter the friendship with an open heart and give freely of oneself.

My husband, Randy, walked alongside a woman for many years. She was hardened, tough beyond her years, and looked much older than she was. He and some others set her up in an apartment and helped her get established. Yet, she was very difficult to be in relationship with. She would periodically disappear for months at a time and then call needing help out of a difficult situation. Those who befriended her learned to accept her as she was and offer their friendship without strings attached.

Significance of story

The fifth topic is that of the value of story telling. Oral tradition is important to those of lower socioeconomic status, again due to low levels of education and illiteracy. The ability to entertain others through one’s words is highly respected. After years of trial and error, InnerChange Ministries learned to recognize the value of story and developed a way to use it in working with those living on the streets. They use story intentionally at several levels. First, they start with the individual’s story. They listen, learn, and highlight aspects of the story that the storyteller may not see. This is similar to a counseling technique called Narrative Therapy. The therapist listens to a person as they explain their story through a problem-saturated lens. As a person outside the story, the therapist is able to hear and accent parts of the story that are positive. The client is so close to their situation and so discouraged that they cannot see the victories and the strengths inherent in their story. So it is with Hayes and his ministry team. They hear aspects of the person’s story that offer a much broader picture—both negative and positive. As people outside the person’s life, they can see through a different lens and, as believers, they can see how God has been working in the life of the individual.

Next, InnerChange Ministries’ approach invites the poor to see themselves as part of God’s story—as part of something bigger than themselves. The staff has a familiarity with the individual’s personal story, so they can make a connection to both the biblical narrative and especially that of the gospel. This necessitates the inclusion of the spiritual history of the community in the story. Focus can be given to both the overt spiritual history of local churches and Christians and to the manner in which God works through the goodness of community members. Including this history demonstrates how God has been working throughout the years and invites them into the effort. Not only does this offer the individual the opportunity to learn of their significance in the eyes of God, but it moves the story of God from that of institutional religion to a personal, relevant offering.

Community

The final issue to address when teaching the disciplines to those in poverty is that of community. Community is similar to the topic of being in relationship but it does have unique characteristics worth mentioning.

In the employment readiness program mentioned at the beginning of the article, the students found in their cohort a healthy community. For some of them it was the first they had experienced. As graduation drew near each semester, the students from most cohorts expressed concern about losing this vital link to their new way of being. They feared that if they went back into their old communities, they would return to their former lifestyle. The director of the nonprofit worked very hard to offer them opportunities to stay connected with their new community.

This also comes into play when offering the disciplines to those who live in poverty. The communal nature of the teaching offers a support group for learning and an opportunity to wrestle with unfamiliar ideas and experiences. The Ignatian Spirituality Project views community as a key to their success. They keep their retreats small, limiting them to twelve to allow for transparency and intimacy. The members hold each other accountable, taking each other to task when they are not honest. They also offer each other a forum for confessing their spiritual struggles and for working through the exercises.

Steven Hebbard is another who has found community to be central in teaching the poor.11 He founded the Karpophoreō Project, a communal garden, in Austin, Texas. The Greek word comes from Colossians 1:6 and means “bearing fruit in every good work.” The project brings ministry staff alongside those from the neighborhood to raise the garden. People in the neighborhood soon realize that Steven and the others are worthy of their trust. The staff uses the gardening to teach spiritual lessons and invites the participants to worship with them. They offer an example of bearing both literal and spiritual fruit through communal experience.

Grace Episcopal Church in Allentown, Pennsylvania, chose to stay in the inner city as their neighborhood declined, while many of the other area churches fled to the suburbs.12 All but a few of the members drive past other churches on their way in to worship and fellowship. They work in collaboration with the residents of the neighborhood to provide a food closet, AIDS service center, GED classes, and other services. They know they are needed, so they are committed to staying. The neighbors are open to participating in the liturgy of the worship because of the church’s social action. The two depend on one another, and none of it would be possible without the culture of solidarity that has grown up in their unusual community.

Conclusion

Teaching the disciplines to the poor is a task worthy of our efforts. We approach this opportunity with recognition that those in poverty have a deep hunger to be in relationship with God. We use appropriate language and understand that we may see the world through a different socioeconomic lens. And we offer relationship and community to those we are teaching. This is more than a casual message; it is about sharing in the kingdom together. Teachers soon discovers that they are receiving much more than they are offering. The experience is richer for the mutual learning.

Jackie L. Halstead, PhD, LMFT, is the Director of Programming for the Institute for Christian Spirituality and an Associate Professor of Spiritual Formation at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee.  She teaches courses in spiritual formation, Christian disciplines, and the life of the minister. Jackie’s doctorate is in Marriage and Family Therapy. She specializes in working with clergy and their families. Jackie speaks on the national and international levels on topics of spiritual formation, relationships, and mental health. She can be reached at jackie.halstead@lipscomb.edu.

Bibliography

aha! Process Inc. http://ahaprocess.com.

Byassee, Jason. “The Church Downtown: Strategies for Urban Ministry.” Christian Century 125, no. 5 (March 2008): 22-27, 29.

Carnes, Tony. “Back to the Garden: Row by Row, Urban Christians Learn to Bear Literal and Spiritual Fruit.” Christianity Today 55, no. 7 (July 2011): 56-58.

Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. 3rd ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1998.

Hall, Ron, Denver Moore, and Lynn Vincent. Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006.

IgnatianSpirituality.com. “The Daily Examen.” Ignatian Prayer. http://ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen.

Ignatian Spirituality Project. “Welcome to the Ignatian Spirituality Project.” http://ignatianspiritualityproject.org.

InnerCHANGE: A Christian Order Among the Poor. “About InnerCHANGE.” Explore. http://innerchange.org.

Malloy, Patrick L. “Grace in the City: Urban Ministry in the New Normal.” Anglican Theological Review 92, no. 4 (September 2010): 769-76.

McLeod, Saul. “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.” Maslow. Humanism. Perspectives. SimplyPsychology. http://simplypsychology.org/maslow.html.

Payne, Ruby K. A Framework for Understanding Poverty. 4th ed. Highlands, TX: aha! Process, Inc., 2005.

St. Milletus College. “Panel 3: Urban Spirituality and Discipleship.” Seek the Welfare of the City. http://www.stmellitus.org/sites/stmellitus.org/files/panel_3.mp3.

The urban age has dawned. For the first time in the history of humankind, the majority of the world’s population is now urban, having crossed the threshold at some point in 2008. By some estimates, in 2050 the number of people living in cities will exceed 70% of the total population. In terms of sheer numbers, the city will dominate the global landscape in the very near future. The world is migrating to the cities.

It hardly needs stating, therefore, that the future of Christian mission is tied to this wave of urbanization. According to urban missiologist Ray Bakke, mission has “moved from a world of about 200 nations to a new world of some 400 world-class cities.”1 If twenty-first century mission is increasingly post-colonial, post-Christendom, and postmodern, then it is also, and perhaps preeminently, post-rural. Cities are the frontier of the gospel, the “new ‘10/40 window’ of the next generation.”2

Coming to terms with the phenomenon of urbanization, though, goes far beyond recognizing migration patterns. Urbanization is a “process of sociocultural shifting”3 that involves “distinctive forms of human relationships, interconnection, and complex patterns of cultural, economic, and political life that transcend the close-knit patterns of smaller communities.”4 Urbanization generates not one but multiple urbanisms—kaleidoscopic ways of living fostered by the urban matrix. Christians located in the cities must learn to think and live in critical dialogue with this variegated, urban world.

But it is not just Christians living in city centers who will have to respond. The urban “imagination” stretches beyond the geographical boundaries of the world’s cities through the immense influence that cities exercise in the global landscape. Cities concentrate power and resources that position them as “nodes of formal and informal, licit and illicit, global circuits.” Thus, they serve as “command and control centers” for the economic, social, political, and ecological decisions that steer global development and human socialization.5 These facts and figures show, in short, that Christians—urban, suburban, or rural—who proclaim a God who loves the world must learn, as never before, how to love the city.

Loving the city, it seems, has not been a strength of Christians in the recent past. Rather, much modern Christian reflection has participated in the mainstream tradition of anti-urbanism. This editorial is not the place to trace the lineage of anti-urbanism or its Christian iterations, which have been documented elsewhere,6 except to point out that its effects are frequently felt in Christian mission-talk regarding things “urban.” Unfortunately, Christian usage of the descriptor “urban” too often conjures up only negative realities and anxieties. What is more, “urban” is a term habitually used (even by more affluent urban dwellers!) to identify lower-income communities in the city.7 Because it linguistically constructs detrimental patterns of relationship, this kind of usage is highly problematic for several reasons. It can exacerbate racial, social, and cultural division, encourage stereotyping, and feed an “us versus them” mentality. Second, it can unfairly associate a whole community with deleterious behaviors that apply only to discrete parts or members within it and implicitly deny wider interrelationships, even culpability, among wider communities—urban, suburban, exurban, and rural. In addition, labeling a particular type of ministry among marginalized communities as “urban” can denigrate the gifts of faithful Christians living in those communities. Finally, such language represents a failure to imagine all urbanized communities in terms of the promise and potential of the city.8

The rich diversity and gifts of an urban area, however, present a distinct set of challenges to Christians who live, work, and minister in its midst. Some urban communities exhibit an intensity and breadth of social needs—needs that are frequently viewed in light of a perceived scarcity of resources.9 Second, heterogeneity can strain attempts to build relationships and identify common ground on which to forge alliances for the common good. Behaviors of alienation, fear, and violence that are found at some level in all geographies are heightened in many urban contexts because of the stark juxtaposition among peoples of different class, race, or ideology.10 Moreover, the capacity of the city to foster asymmetrical relationships and structural injustice, ensconced in bureaucracy, fractures community both locally and globally.11 Finally, the population’s vulnerability to larger economic forces, which, among other issues, frequently demands mobility from the workforce, can work to thwart long-term relational connection and sustained ministry efforts. While none of these issues is exclusive to the city, the clustering of all these issues in one place makes the urban arena a particularly demanding context in which to serve.

These challenges have regrettably caused many Christian congregations to adopt one of two responses: to stay in the city and develop a fortress mentality that opposes the city or to abandon the city for its outer edges. Not only does the latter reveal a failure of missional imagination, it also fails to grapple with the interconnectedness of the urban with its hinterlands. The urban fabric stretches from city center to suburban to rural communities, whose existences are inextricably tied to decisions of the urban community (and even more so in this globalized age). In short, what affects the city today will ripple through its neighboring communities tomorrow.12

We need more Christians prepared for and by the city—our understanding of missiology needs to migrate, along with the world, to an urban locus. To speak personally, it was not until I entered graduate school that I first pictured “mission” and “city” in redemptive combination. Both my home congregation and the Christian university I attended fired my imagination predominately with bucolic images of mission work. My experience is obviously not universal, but neither do I think it is all that peculiar for many in the North American Restoration tradition. Global reality, however, demands that all Christians take up with much more tenacity the task of acting in, reflecting on, and promoting mission in an urban context. Like the Apostle Paul, an outstanding urban missionary, we need a God-inspired vision that imparts direction in our quest to spread the gospel in unfamiliar territory (Acts 16:6–10). According to Philip Sheldrake:

The future of human cities and their meaning is one of the most critical spiritual issues of our time. . . . What is so often missing from contemporary concerns about cities is precisely a vision. And vision or perspective, rather than some kind of definitive conclusion, is a primary theological task.13

Thus, the following issue of Missio Dei aims to help fill this gap by offering reflections that attempt to re-imagine mission to urban peoples with theological verve. May our blessing be that we, like Paul, become convinced that God has called us to proclaim the good news to them (Acts 16:10).

Bibliography

Bakke, Ray, and Jon Sharpe. Street Signs: A New Direction in Urban Ministry. Birmingham, AL: New Hope Publishers, 2006.

Bess, Philip. Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architecture, Urbanism, and the Sacred. Religion and Contemporary Culture Series. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2006.

Bounds, Michael. Urban Social Theory: City, Self, and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Brugmann, Jeb. Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities are Changing the World. New York: Bloomsbury, 2009.

Conn, Harvie M., and Manuel Ortiz. Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City, and the People of God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001.

Davey, Andrew. “Being Urban Matters: What Is Urban about Urban Mission?” In Crossover City: Resources for Urban Mission and Transformation, ed. Andrew Davey, 24–36. London: Continuum, 2010.

Florida, Richard. The Great Reset: How the Post-Crash Economy Will Change the Way We Live and Work. New York: HarperCollins, 2011.

Glaeser, Edward. Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier. New York: Penguin Press, 2011.

Gleeson, Brendan. “Critical Commentary. The Urban Age: Paradox and Prospect.” Urban Studies 49 (April 2012): 931–43.

Gorringe, Timothy. A Theology of the Built Environment: Justice, Empowerment, Redemption New York: Cambridge University, 2002.

Green, Clifford J, ed. Churches, Cities, and Human Community: Urban Ministry in the United States 1945–1985. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.

Peters, Ronald E. Urban Ministry: An Introduction. Nashville: Abingdon, 2007.

Saunders, Doug. Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History Is Reshaping Our World. London: Pantheon Books, 2010.

Smith, David W. Seeking a City with Foundations: Theology for an Urban World. Nottingham, England: InterVarsity, 2011.

Smith, P. D. City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age. New York: Bloomsbury, 2012.

Stone Bryan P., and Claire E. Wolfteich. Sabbath in the City: Sustaining Urban Pastoral Excellence. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2008.

Swanson, Eric. “Nine Game-Changers for Global Missions: Trends that Shape the Future.” Downloads. Resources. Leadership Network. http://www.leadnet.org/docs/Nine_Game_Changers.pdf.

Toly, Noah J. “Introduction to the Theme Issue: Christian Perspectives on the City.” Christian Scholar’s Review 38, no. 4 (Summer 2009): 409–13.

Thompson, Michael J., ed. Fleeing the City: Studies in the Culture and Politics of Antiurbanism. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009.

Wirth, Louis. “Urbanism as a Way of Life.” The American Journal of Sociology 44, no. 1 (July 1938): 1–24.

The present wave of urbanization compels Christians to reflect scripturally on the place and purpose of the city in God’s mission. To that end, the following essay surveys various appearances of the city in the Old Testament. Some have charged the Old Testament with a largely pessimistic view of urban centers. Though the Hebrew Bible presents the city as a human construct fraught with peril, it also imagines the urban center as locus of God’s redemptive blessing.

INTRODUCTION

The present and unprecedented global wave of urbanization summons Christians to imagine what role the phenomenon of the city plays in the mission of God. Christian reflection upon the city, however, does not happen in a historical vacuum. Augustine’s City of God stands unrivaled in its impact on the Christian urban imagination throughout the last two millennia. Augustine identified two societies of humankind with two cities. Those who live according to God’s will inhabit the city of God, and those who live by human standards populate the city of men. Though Augustine was speaking largely allegorically, some have charged him with bequeathing to Western tradition a negative appraisal of the city qua city.1 Fast-forwarding more than a millennium, Raymond Williams has shown that a pessimistic portrayal of the city—together with a favorable view of the country—operates as a major motif in English literature from the sixteenth century forward.2 In a similar vein, Timothy Gorringe describes Cowper’s famous line “God made the country, and man made the town” as a succinct summary of a “conventional topos of Western thought”—namely, the demonization of the city and the “idyllisation” of the country.3 The American mythos, in particular, has embedded within it a certain amount of bias against the urban environment.4 Of course, Christians in the last two millennia have not wholly demonized the city.5 Nevertheless, critical reflection upon the city, from both Christian and secular perspectives in the Western tradition, attests that the city carries negative emotional baggage.

Does the biblical narrative lend any support to such pessimism about the city? The Bible certainly offers plenty of theological grist for Christian reflection on urban environments. The city appears early and often (Gen 4, 11, 18), and continues to make regular appearances throughout, both in the foreground and in the background, all the way up to the close of the Christian canon, which takes place in a city (Rev 21-22).6 However, some Old Testament scholarship leaves the impression that Scripture has little positive to say about the earthly city, outside of an ideological praise for Jerusalem.7 For example, a significant strand of interpretation reads into Israel’s canonical witness a none-too-subtle polemic against urban society. George Mendenhall and Norman Gottwald popularized a theory of Israel’s emergence in the land that cast proto-Israelites as a countermovement against Canaanite city culture.8 In their reckoning, Canaanite cities embodied the social stratification, exploitation, and human injustice that Israel’s pastoral, egalitarian community was formed to oppose. Furthermore, the Deuteronomistic History has been read as a historical retelling of the demise of the Israelite state due in large part to a failure of human institutions, centralized in and epitomized by cities.9 The prophets too have been construed as anti-urban, pointing to a restoration of Israel’s failed urban experiment in ways that hark back to an idealized pre-urban (egalitarian/desert) tradition, which is often associated with idyllic “back to nature” categories.10

There is surely truth in these observations. Though the Old Testament does not provide anything like a doctrine or theology of the city (nor is the city qua city a major topos of biblical literature), Scripture nonetheless frequently presents the city in a negative light. Much of its literature can even sound at times as if it is rejecting urban civilization. Our review of the biblical evidence will demonstrate that the Hebrew Bible imagines the city as an unavoidable human construct where power and people collide, and subsequently where lurks the potential for great harm. But it will also show that the Bible holds out hope that the city can be a context of human flourishing and divine blessing, and that Scripture does not endorse a predominately pessimistic view of the urban environment. The city is the major setting of much of what the Bible says about sin, judgment, and restoration, though not to the exclusion of the countryside. Indeed, we will see that in the imagination of the Hebrew Bible, city and countryside are tethered theologically. This essay will show that the overall biblical portrayal is more ambiguous than negative—the phenomenon of the city is shaded with gray far more than with either black or white.

DEFINING THE BIBLICAL CITY

The Bible is full of cities. They are a part of the “symbolic geography” of the biblical writers and more broadly the literature of the ancient Near East.11 Before going any further, it is necessary to give attention to what is meant when talking about “the city” in ancient Israel. Frank Frick describes the city as “the crowning achievement of the ancient world,” but just what constitutes an ancient city is a major point of discussion.12

The English connotation of the term “city” does not correspond to the ancient reality in multiple ways. First, ancient cities were far smaller in size and population than what the term suggests today, and cities in ancient Palestine were even smaller than most cities of their contemporary nations.13 Consider, for example, that Hezekiah’s Jerusalem covered at most 150 acres.14 Most recently, William Dever has postulated a multi-tiered hierarchy of Israelite sites in the eighth-century BCE. in which he heuristically defines an Israelite city as a site of ten acres or more with a population of 1,000 or more (using a coefficient of 100 people per acre).15 Based on these population estimates, Dever calculates that the land of Israel was home to around twenty cities, and very few of these exceeded a population of 3,000.16 Moreover, the vast majority of the population did not reside in cities. Dever estimates that only twenty-five percent of the population would have lived in communities of 300 or more people, and eighty percent of these communities were towns of only 300–1,000 people. Thus, approximately five percent of the total population dwelled in urban centers.17 These figures highlight the fact that when pondering what the Bible says about the city, one must keep in mind that the space to which it refers does not much resemble our modern cities in size or density.

Second, cities in the ancient world for the most part did not recognize the modern-day dichotomy between city and country. Most recent sociological study of ancient Israel has stressed that the city was dependent on and deeply vested in the countryside.18 Many of the “urban elite” would have been rural landowners not confined to the city (e.g., Boaz).19 Furthermore, the city gave to as well as took from the countryside, fueling the economic engine that profited all the population of its immediate environs. If a strict urban-rural divide did exist, it would most likely have involved only a small number of specialists (probably associated with the royal court) and only in the capital cities of Jerusalem and Samaria.20

Third, the main Hebrew term for “city” (⁽ îr) has a broader semantic range than its English translation suggests.21 Earlier biblical archaeologists commonly distinguished a city from a village by the presence of a wall, but the biblical authors use the term just as well for an unwalled village as for a fortified city (e.g., Deut 3:5).22 Nor does the term carry any implicit population marker, and Scripture makes no systematic distinction between city, town, and village, as there is in English usage.23 Furthermore, just as there was no uniform physical profile of the city, neither was there a uniform role for how the city related to its environs.24 The Hebrew Bible can designate any inhabited human settlement set “ideologically apart from its environs”25—whether for military, economic, religious, or social purposes—as a city, though most often cities were associated with physical features such as a wall or gate, or other monumental architecture (e.g., a temple).26

Despite this lack of definitional specificity, archaeology has contributed significantly to (and broadly supported) the biblical picture that Israel experienced a wave of urbanization with the rise of the monarchy.27 At this time, major cities in ancient Israel began to take on various and somewhat distinct kinds of functional characteristics, so that it becomes possible to categorize cities accordingly. Frick helpfully names four types of cities: (1) major (capital) cities with large populations and a symbolic presence among a host of cities; (2) administrative centers, which though not heavily populated, contained extensive water works, storage facilities, courtyards, temples, and palaces; (3) industrial cities, mainly characterized by industrial installations and craft workshops; and (4) forts that were located at strategic military points.28 Of course, many of these functions overlapped among cities, and some of the largest cities (e.g., Samaria, Jerusalem, Hazor) no doubt encompassed all of them. I might add one other significant category, the ceremonial city, to describe the urban centers that were main ritual destinations for the population (e.g., Jerusalem, Samaria, Dan, Beersheba, Bethel).29

The disciplines of anthropology and sociology shed additional light on some of the common functions of cities in ancient Israel.30 Among the most important, ancient cities were centers for trade and work-related specialties, tax collection and distribution, the administration of law and order, and the housing of nobility and/or wealthy gentry as well as specialists not associated with food production, such as bureaucrats, religious officials, and scribes.31 Moreover, by virtue of their defenses, cities offered protection from chaotic forces abroad. But the walls served an important sociological function as well, bonding people together in common cause. Most of the city’s working class denizens (peasants, artisans, traders, etc.) lived outside the gates, in close proximity to the city or in nearby villages, and in this way the city extended its dominant influence over the surrounding countryside.32

The various functions of cities comport with the biblical presentation that urban centers held powerful sway over the social, economic, and religious character of their dependents. Because of this kind of influence, the biblical witness often depicts a city, as Ellen Davis observes, “more like a person than an inert object. It has moral as well as physical character; its character grows and changes, for good or for ill. A city has a spirit, and a city with a future has a store of creative energy that enables it to respond to challenge.”33 Yet, in the biblical witness concerning cities, we will see that though cities embody the highest hopes of humankind, they also manifest the basest capacity for human sin. They can both protect and violate their inhabitants; both prosper corporate ingenuity and multiply creative evil. They magnify the effect of both the virtues and the vices of their people.34 This dialectical capacity for both blessing and destructiveness stands behind the ambivalence with which the biblical text evaluates the city as a human construct.

CITY IN THE HEBREW BIBLE

The biblical record includes an abundance of material related to the city and its happenings, to be sure, but outside of Jerusalem, the city is mentioned only as a byproduct of other issues.35 Nevertheless, in the biblical narrative the city appears at critical junctures in the history of redemption. In the following I will selectively trace reflections about the city in the biblical narrative in an attempt to come to some conclusions about what is an unsystematic presentation of the city in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Primeval History

The first observation to note is what is not said about the city in Israel’s story of beginnings. In stark contrast to some of the mythic literature of her contemporaries, Israel’s creation account makes clear that the earthly city has no divine prefigurement in the heavenly sphere nor is its appearance an act of creation.36 Instead of building a city for divine habitation (as, e.g., Marduk, the head god of the Babylonians, does after defeating Tiamat and creating earth), the God of the Bible plants a garden. Only on the outside of this garden, in the wider world, does the city come to be, and this at humanity’s initiative (Gen 4:17). The city, then, is a fully human establishment, leading the reader to suspect from the beginning that it will participate wholly in the weal and woe of humanity. Furthermore, given the city’s appearance so soon after the expulsion from the garden, the biblical author seems to consider it an inevitable human development. Nonetheless, the Bible is not clear whether the first urban building project is a positive or negative development.

On the one hand, Cain’s murderous actions set in motion a process leading to the construction of the first city.37 This inauspicious chain of events shrouds the city’s beginning in suspicion.38 Moreover, Cain’s acquired insecurity is a God-willed consequence of his violent act, yet such insecurity is the very thing a city is built to avoid. The connection of the city to violence perhaps reappears in the description of Nimrod, who is credited as the founder of great cities in Assyria and Babylon (Gen 10:10-12). Nimrod is portrayed as a mighty warrior and hunter (Gen 10:8-10). Does this briefest of descriptions imply that the city is necessarily tied to subjugation and violence, despite the fact that Nimrod’s conquests appear to be credited to the Lord (v. 9)? The Bible does not make the answer explicit.

On the other hand, Cain’s offense is not city building but fratricide, and the city could be understood as a development permitted by God in mercy to Cain and his sons. Furthermore, Cain’s descendants are credited with the cultivation of the arts and specialized technology, two developments associated with urban civilization. The first city, then, bequeaths gifts to humanity that the Genesis writer surely regarded as beneficial (Gen 4:21-22). Yet, these advances are tainted by the co-temporal violent aggression of Lamech (Gen 4:19-24), whose words might be taken, again, to tie together violence and advances related to city living.39 Urban society seems a mixed blessing.

The narrative about Babel may appear less ambiguous in regard to the city. Yet, the underlying polemic in this text is not against the urban project per se but directed at the sinful manifestation of human ambition that becomes exemplified in city building. In short, “the problem with the polis . . . is power,” not population growth.40 The community on the plain of Shinar wishes to construct a city in order to make a name for itself, signaling that the lust for power and control always lurks in the shadows of dreams for urban high-rises. In the ancient world, cities were more often than not built by slave labor, as Israel was all too aware, based on her slavery in Egypt (Exod 1:11). Perhaps, then, there is reason to hear in this story a polemic against the urban oppression of one group by another. Babel represents a centralization and use of authority that was engineered to thwart God’s purposes.41 The project’s success demonstrates that cities have an uncanny ability to catalyze human ingenuity, though the Bible illustrates how such a project can quickly devolve into a corrupt exercise in apotheosis. About Babel, Christopher Seitz observes:

The problem with city building is that no one can tell exactly when the appropriate need for protection and justice and organization slides over into name seeking, human endeavor in love with itself, and a false sense of independence and unity, achieved rather than granted. The story warns about this danger and lets the example of Babel stand as a signpost.42

Thus, the primeval history ends with a failed city that falters because of its aberrant ethos—though it does not necessarily pronounce the phenomenon of the city a doomed enterprise.

The Pentateuch

Cities continue to dot the landscape of the Pentateuch. Sodom, perhaps the most well-known city in the Bible other than Jerusalem, is the topic of an extended dialogue between Abraham and God in Gen 18. The people of Sodom sinned greatly against the Lord (Gen 13:13). The account of the sexual perversion and inhospitality of Sodom’s denizens notwithstanding, the text specifies only that God becomes interested in Sodom because of the “outcry” that goes up against it (18:20-21; 19:13). In other contexts, this specific language of “cry” is connected with the cry of injustice, of the oppressed against the oppressor.43 Again, the text appears to offer an episode about a city that facilitates relationships of injustice, likely pointing to Sodom’s relationship with the surrounding (and dependent) countryside.44 Nevertheless, God solicits Abraham to pray on behalf of the city. God’s exchanges with Abraham, no mere account of haggling over the city, are rather a demonstration of the lengths to which God is willing to go to save the city.45 Even though finally too few righteous exist in the city to merit its salvation, God’s actions underline God’s desire to bless the city because of the righteous therein. Furthermore, because the wider biblical witness uses Sodom as a paradigm for wicked cities (e.g., Deut 29:23; Isa 13:19-20; Ezek 16:48-50), one might also view Abraham’s intercession as one model for how God’s people ought to posture themselves toward the city.46

The Exodus narrative opens with oppressed Israel building supply cities in Egypt (Exod 1:11). The supply cities that were once their salvation (Gen 42:1-5) have become their curse. Though the motif of the city does not play a key role in the exodus, Ellen Davis astutely shows that the character of work entailed in such building projects is a main focus of the narrator.47 The account of the construction of the tabernacle (Exod 25-31, 35-40) is, among other things, a counternarrative to the oppressive work of Egypt, which Israel experienced in Egypt’s building program. The problem with Egypt is not the desire to build but the desire to build without reference to worship of the one true God—a perversion of God’s creational gift of good work. The construction of the tabernacle shows Israel the character of good work, or, said differently, how to build rightly: by observing the rhythms of the Sabbath (31:17; 35:2), by everyone offering their God-given talents and materials (35-36:7), and by keeping covenant with God through it all (32-34). Israel will need to recall these exodus-defined “building codes” when she settles into the land.

On the plains of Moab, poised between past experience (Egypt) and future anticipation of urban dwelling (Canaan), Israel receives in Deuteronomy a vision of city living.48 Up to this point in the canonical-literary context of Scripture, most reflection on the city has been negatively formulated. In Deuteronomy, however, the city is presented explicitly as a gift from God that Israel will acquire (Deut 6:10; 17:2).49 Israel must now learn how to behave faithfully as urban dwellers.50 John Goldingay nicely summarizes six concerns of Deuteronomy’s vision that are particularly pertinent to Israel’s urban imagination:51

1. Honesty and truth in social and economic relations, as opposed to fraud and violence (17:8-13; 19; 25:13-16);
2. A system of care for the needy as opposed to exploitation (chs. 14-15; 26);
3. Social cohesiveness, as opposed to anonymity and/or individualism (note the language of brotherhood throughout Deuteronomy);
4. Womanhood (ch. 15; Deuteronomy frequently adds concern for women alongside that of men);
5. Family order and sexual relations (ch. 22);
6. Regular celebration and joy, in the form of urban festivals (ch. 16).

In a block of text at the heart of the book (16:18-17:20), Moses instructs the Israelites on the challenge of the administration of justice in cities (16:18). That this is a main concern should not surprise the reader given the character of cities previously encountered in the Pentateuch.52 Here, though, the cities are gifts, and city administration performed justly contributes something integral to the broader vision of Israel’s existence.53 Finally, it should be noted that the blessings proclaimed in Deuteronomy imagine cities fully unified and at peace with the countryside (Deut 28:3-7).54 Deuteronomy’s urban vision integrates the concern for the practice of religion, politics, economics, and even ecology (cf. Deut 20:20) in its overall concern for city existence. Thus, Deuteronomy’s vision provides another contribution to what it means to practice faithful urban habitation.55

Jerusalem

David’s capture and subsequent selection of Jerusalem as the capital of his kingdom opened up new vistas in Israel’s imagination about the city (2 Sam 5:7-9). Jerusalem looms large in Israel’s historical, poetic, and prophetic literature.56 Regularly, Jerusalem is cast throughout Israel’s canon as a personified female figure; she is the most frequently referenced female agent in the Hebrew Bible, and perhaps the most complex of any human character.57

Theologically, Jerusalem was beset by a fundamental tension.58 On the one hand, David’s transfer of the ark of the covenant and Solomon’s construction of the temple cemented the centrality of Jerusalem as the holy city and dwelling place of YHWH—signified by the name “Zion” (1 Kings 8; 11:36; Pss 46; 48; 132). Over time a “Zion” tradition developed that celebrated Jerusalem as the special meeting point of heaven and earth (Pss 9:11; 50:2), creating a mythic aura of invincibility because of an assumed divine protection (Pss 46:5; 48; 125:1). As the location of the temple, Jerusalem was the epicenter of God’s blessing, from which every nation would receive blessing (43:3). Jerusalem and its temple were a routine focal point of Israel’s prayers (Ps 122:6-9). As long as Jerusalem stood, its people presumed a measure of security, because it was the place from which YHWH ruled the earth (Ps 99:1-2). On the other hand, many of the prophets inveighed against the city’s inhabitants for the jingoism supported by these presumptions, particularly in light of their callous covenantal unfaithfulness (e.g., Isa 1-5; 24; Ezek 16; Jer 7). Because of the people’s idolization of Jerusalem the prophets pronounced God’s judgment. Ezekiel, for example, shows that God is not monopolized by the city but can depart from God’s dwelling leaving the city to be destroyed (Ezek 10). Nevertheless, the prophets envision for the city an eventual salvation.

Jerusalem, for all its flaws, becomes in the imagination of Scripture something of a model for God’s agenda for urban life. Jerusalem as a metaphor stands for a reality and truth larger than itself, namely, the possibility and problems of God’s dwelling among any human city. Historically it is experienced as a place where evil is magnified; but many prayers and prophecies testify that the city can also survive by the creative power of God. For this reason, Ellen Davis compares Jerusalem in Scripture’s imagination to “an icon: a holy, healing image whose function is to invite worshipers into a different experience of the world and their own humanity.”59 As an icon, Jerusalem embodies a theology of urban dwelling where justice and righteousness find a home (Isa 1:21), to which people stream for its life-giving capacities (Ps 87; Mic 4:1-2), and where divine blessing finds an outlet to the far reaches of the earth (Isa 2:3; Pss 72; 134). Because of its enduring connection to God’s love, Zion could be said to be the “mother” of all good city dwelling (Ps 87:5).60 Thus, Jerusalem teaches readers both what to pray for and what to offer praise for in regard to the city.61

Prophets

In no other part of the canon is the city as dominant a theme as in the prophetic literature. The prophets give expression to the ambiguity of the city just as we have seen in other parts of the canon, but the prophets provide the largest and most conspicuous picture of the city in its peril and promise.62 In a brief essay it is impossible to plot the polyphony of responses to the city in the prophetic corpus.63 Below I paint in broad brushstrokes a few of the most important truths that the prophetic literature offers to a theological assessment of the city.

To recall earlier comments, the prophets are often understood as railing against a corrupt, wealthy urban system from the perspective of the exploited, poor rural community. Indeed, the prophets inveighed against sins associated with the city (e.g., Isa 1:21-23; 3:16-17.; 5:8-13; Amos 3:9-10; 4:1; Mic 6:9-16.; Hab 2:12; Nah 3-19; Zeph 3:1-7) and the wealth garnered from exploitation of agricultural communities (e.g., Isa 5:8-10; Amos 5:11; 8:4-6; Mic 3:9-12). But to read a generalized anti-urban attitude64 overlooks the fact that the prophetic critique often concerns the totality of the population, with city names frequently standing as metonyms for a much larger population.65 Furthermore, many of the prophets themselves probably hailed from privileged backgrounds or were at least associated with cities and the wealthy power holders therein (consider, e.g., Samuel, Jeremiah, Huldah, Isaiah).66 Far from an urban polemic, those texts that castigate the city should be read instead as a sharp reminder of the degree of interconnectedness of city and country.67

The prophets were religious spokespeople who were covenantal truth tellers, warning and interpreting for urban audiences the impending judgments of YHWH.68 In the prophets, God’s judgment on the city frequently targets the city for its arrogant, persistent belief in its own security (Isa 17:9-10; Jer 7; Ezek 13:1-16; Hos 8:14; 13:10; Amos 6:8).69 The prophets regularly chide cities and their officials for not delivering on the promise of the city to be a place that fosters the practice of justice and righteousness: “How the faithful city has become a whore! She that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her—but now murderers!” (Isa 1:21).70 All through the prophetic literature, it seems that cities “impress” prophets for their persistent ability to harbor evil. The defeat of the wicked “city of chaos” as a phenomenon takes a typological, apocalyptic response (Isa 24-25). The city that is the mirror of the human lust for control and power must finally die to its pride and injustice.

But if in the prophets the city frequently fell under the judgment of God, the city also was the setting for the restoration of God (Isa 2:2-4; Mic 4:1-4). In dialogue with two texts (Isa 24-27 and Jer 7), Robert Carroll develops the argument that the dialectic of judgment and restoration, of despair and hope, points to a symbolic understanding of the topos of the city in the prophets: every city may at one point be the life-giving Jerusalem-Zion or may be the death-dealing “city of chaos.” Carroll surmises:

All the cities in the Bible represent different phases of the one city—the city of humankind. . . . There is no city of god unless it be Jerusalem, an all too human city. . . . In the Hebrew Bible, unlike in the New Testament, there is no city outside the human sphere which may descend in due course from heaven nor is there a Jerusalem which is from above (Gal. 4.26) or at the end of history (contrast Rev. 21.1-4), there is only the human-all-too-human city of humankind where justice and peace may reside, along with murderers and the lovers of bribes who also live there, oppressors and oppressed together.71

Carroll has likely not given enough due to the prophetic vision of Jerusalem’s restoration in redemptive history, or to the evil that is symbolized by Babylon;72 nevertheless, his point stands that the prophetic literature as a whole testifies that no city is beyond the pale of God’s redemptive activity. For the Jews of exile a strict bifurcation between Jerusalem and the wicked city (e.g., Babylon) does not makes sense of either Jeremiah’s command to pray for the peace of the city (Babylon! Jer 29:7) or the literature of Jewish heroes and heroines within the city (e.g., Joseph, Daniel, Esther). Rather, in one sense every city was to one degree or another tinged with Babylon but also invested with the potential to be a renewed, Zion-like habitation of peace.73 Indeed, one need only recall the message of Jonah. God announces the wickedness of Nineveh (1:2), and Jonah’s message to Nineveh is devoid of hope (3:4). Yet the city exemplifies a remarkable capacity for repentance, and God, in turn, a remarkable capacity for mercy, showing that “no great city is past praying for.”74

CONCLUSION

This survey of the city in the Hebrew Bible has been selective, and I have noted that care must be taken in transferring what the Bible says about the city to the context of the modern urbanized world. Our investigation has revealed that though the Bible often exhibits ambivalence about the city, the God depicted in various parts of the canon cares about the fate of the human city. The city is not divinely underwritten, and the times when humans are susceptible to such a belief, the biblical text makes clear that God is not monopolized by any city, even Jerusalem. Still, the city is the setting for the cultivation and sustenance of civilization (Ps 107:4-9). Moreover, Zion as an epitome of the human city shows that the city has the stunning potential to manifest the presence of God.75

The city, then, is quite an important development, but one that the biblical witness recognizes is fraught with danger. This is so not because of an ideological bias against all things urban; the city and countryside share a similar destiny. Rather, people are sinful, and because cities consist of a concentration of people, they can manifest and magnify the evil inclinations of their constituents. But the concentration cuts both ways, and the prophets teach us that God does not finally abandon the city, which “bears the hope for redemption.”76 As a potential image of Zion, every city can thrive if it fosters the same environment imagined for the holy city of God.77

The human city cannot sustain itself without the saving mercy of God. In this way it is no different from any other human construct:

The city is one of a series of human devices such as sacrifice, monarchy, and temple, which are taken up by God, even though they did not arise from God’s initiative, and are worked into God’s purpose so graciously that we would not be able to conceive of worship or of Jesus or of the fulfillment of God’s final purpose without them.78

The city may represent an ambiguous moral sphere, but this does not stop the biblical tradents from treating it as the subject of prayer, praise, prophecy, lament, and hope. Surely all this attention is a show of love. Thus, if the narrative of the city is a narrative of repeated failure, it is also a narrative of faith in the power of God to create something lovely in the midst of human foundering. “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth” (Ps 50:2).

Nathan Bills is a ThD student at Duke Divinity School. His focus is in Old Testament, and he is particularly interested in the intersection of Old Testament theology, ecclesiology, and urban communities of poverty. In the Spring of 2013, Nathan will join the Bible faculty of Lipscomb University, where he anticipates teaching and living in this intersection. You can contact Nathan at nbills80@gmail.com.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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