Seeking a City with Foundations: Theology for an Urban World (Global Christian Library)

by David W. Smith

Western Christians long assumed their religious identity was essentially the same as their cultural identity. Now they are awakening to the fact that this is no longer a possibility. Christians from the other continents face a different set of circumstances. From the beginning they have carried the burden of living under censure, stigmatized as being disloyal to family and nation. Thus, Christians from different parts of the world and with contrasting histories now face the common challenge of forging a viable Christian identity for the next millennium.[33]

has been left for reminders of the created world, it is easy to forget our dependence upon the earth for the basic necessities which sustain human life. However, the recognition of the createdness of the world, of our position as stewards rather than lords of that creation, and of the need to live within the necessary limits imposed by our dependence upon the material basis of all life, is the foundation and starting point for a biblical urban theology.

The prophet Isaiah caught sight of a vision of a transformed city which would become a global centre of light and truth, resulting in all nations settling their disputes and destroying their weapons. Of course, when the vision was over nothing had actually changed in the empirical world of the prophet’s time! The actual city in which he lived remained as corrupt and violent as before. And yet, there was a difference, a revolutionary change within the prophet’s own imagination. The vision of God had convinced him, against all the odds, that the present arrangements were not final, so that he summoned his followers: “Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD” (Isa 2:5

God’s suffering is not such that he is overwhelmed by the experience; his emotions do not get out of control or lead to incapacitation. . . . God is able to absorb all the arrows of outrageous fortune that pierce him through and, instead of becoming callous or removing himself from the line of fire, still seeks to bring about a future which is good for those who inflict the wounds. . . God’s steadfast love endures forever.[62]

By creating contrast societies of love and sharing, the Jesus movement presented the pagan, Roman world with an enigma intended to provoke curiosity and investigation.

believers are “called to be an alternate city within every earthly city, an alternate human culture within every human culture, to show how money, sex and power can be used in non-destructive ways.”[37]

is time for the church to enter into creative and critical dialogue with an increasingly hybrid urban culture and to begin to build a “creative connection between new forms of church and new forms of urban community.”[41]

the nature of conversion will be the issue of critical importance for the future, and that only a Christianity which implants the gospel deep into people’s lives, in a manner that “damages and disrupts one’s own self-interests and aims at a fundamental revision of one’s habitual way of life,” can meet the challenge of our age.

is time to awake, to move beyond the syncretistic forms of religion in which modernity dictated that faith be confined within a very restricted area of the personal life, and to catch the vision of a whole world released from a culture of death and the bondage to idols. Perhaps the most critical issue for the church in the urban world concerns the quality of its worship, and the extent to which that worship impacts daily life, shaping decisions and choices which may have previously been driven by the values of an economistic culture. As Mark Labberton has said, in the act of worship “we cast our lives upon the faithful and just power of God” and in doing so “we oppose all acts of unjust power.”