Beyond_harvey_cox_the_secular_city_towa.docx

Beyond The Secular City: Towards a Globalized, Post-Modern, Urban Theology By Clinton Stockwell 1988 Augustine’s ‘The City of God’ Most of the Christian interpretations of the city are built upon the Old Testament image of the city as capital of a commonwealth, or the city as a new society of the righteous. St. Augustine's The City of God contrasted the human city with its laws, and the redeemed city of the faithful. For Augustine, the City had no earthly significance, but represented two humanities, one devoted to God, the other devoted to this-worldly matters. Augustine was clearly with the former and saw nothing of significance in this worldly empires or cities. What Augustine advocated for in The City of God is in some respects the opposite of what one finds in Plato’s The Republic, or in Athens or Atlantis and other ancient cities, real or imagined. Augustine critiqued “social living,’ as idealized in Roman times, which was often fraught with worries and conflict. All human relationships are fraught with such misunderstandings. Not even the purehearted affection of friends is free from them. All history is a tale of slights and fights and spirits vexed, and we must expect such unpleasantness as an assured thing, whereas peace is a good unguaranteed—dependent upon the unknowable interior dispositions of our friends (The City of God, Book 19, chapter 5). This is not promising or hopeful. Augustine would argue that the tight ordering of Plato’s Republic or the virtues of Atlantis or Athens would not bring peace. Augustine has little hope for the merely human city. “The bigger the city is, the fuller it is of legal battles, civil and criminal, and the more frequent are wild and bloody seditions or civil wars. Even when the frays are over, there is never any freedom from fear. I find this a remarkable statement, and as Augustine goes on: “Even when a city is enjoying the profoundest peace, some men must be sitting in judgment on their fellow man. Even at their best, what misery and grief they cause. No human judge can read the conscience of the man before him. That is why so many innocent witnesses are tortured to find out the truth….” One could go on and on for pages regarding the evils of the city (City of God, chapters 7-28 of Book XIX). Augustine believed that the bigger the empire, the greater the problems for assuring or maintaining any semblance of peace or stability. A big problem is communication and language barriers, and then there is the problem of having enough force and will to control order, and therefore to insure the peace. Augustine defines a just war as resistance to an aggressor and the injustice of misused power, the very thing that the Empire expressed in maintaining its fragile peace. More generally, even if one could maintain a political peace, Augustine argues that there is no escaping human misery, for one’s loved ones die, even as each self does as well. Augustine seems to have more in common here with Ecclesiastes than with Plato’s Republic and the possibilities of an ordered city and society.

Augustinian hermeneutics employs symbolism and eschews any hope for a this-worldly peace. Jerusalem may be the city of peace, but that is for eternity, not for any human present. It is better, therefore, to speak of eternal life, rather than peace, since peace on earth is always evasive. Earthly peace, in contrast, seems only possible as an end to the waging of war, and then the prince’s understanding and promise of peace is generally only possible by imposing one’s will on another. Peace is therefore a peace for those in power, but never for those oppressed. The Mubarek regime in Egypt was a good example of this, for Mubarek, if you support his regime, there is peace, otherwise only chaos. So the choice is really between oppression versus chaos, with the former being labeled or sold as “the peace.” The victor imposes his will on his subjects, and then calls it peace. The so-called Arab Spring is now (as of summer 2013) in its second moment of chaos. Hopefully, genuine peace may be found in a reconstituted government. A great summary of peace for Augustine is found in his chapter 13. Peace there is defined as the “ordered equilibrium of all of its component parts. The peace of a political community is an ordered harmony of authority and obedience between citizens.” However, not all societies give rights to its citizens, and then, even if there is peace and order, does this result in happiness or the good life? To this I suspect Augustine would be skeptical! Of course, Augustine compares the earthly city, with an elusive earthly peace, and the heavenly city, with the hope of eternal peace. As a result, the Christian is a wayfarer, or a pilgrim, and awaits a heavenly peace in eternity, but has little confidence of finding peace in the temporal realm. Still, the Christian does find oneself in “common cause” with the welfare of both earthly and heavenly cities. However, the Christian sees himself as an alien, and a captive, and often finds himself either as a dissenter, or as one who ignores earthly quests for peace as at best, a nuisance. For the pilgrim, we have peace on earth by faith, but peace in the world to come by vision. It seems to me that Augustine’s politics is a barely tolerable politics of the earthly life. The wisdom of his experience or understanding compelled Augustine to look for a peace, not on earth, but of one coming about by faith in eternity. While one must live in the body, and in a city or empire on earth, for Augustine is was enough to look for a coming city, and to prepare for it rather than the diversion of seeking peace in the temporal realm.

The Medieval City In the Medieval city, this view moderated a bit, as the Church sought to recapture its place in the temporal sphere. Great Gothic Cathedrals were built as spatial symbols of God's presence. The assumption was that the Cathedrals influenced also other spheres of human existence, as they spatially, were the most impressive of architectures, more so than most of the castles of the kings. In medieval England, there were two kinds of Cathedrals, secular and religious ones, with the former having jurisdiction over secular society representing the ideal of Medieval Christendom.1 In this context, the Reformation exploded onto the scene as an urban event.2 The Reformers 1

"Cathedral," in Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. by F. L. Cross (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), 248-249; and E.S. Prior, Cathedral Builders in England (1905). 2

See, for example, Brend Moeller, Imperial Cities and the Reformation: Three Essays (Durham: Labyrinth Press, 1982); and Stephen E. Ozment, The Reformation in the Cities: The Appeal of Protestantism to Sixteenth-Century Germany and Switzerland (New Haven: Yale, 1975).

succeeded because they had the support of the cities. Calvin's Geneva was the archetypical reformed city, for it represented the city as controlled by the church of the reformers.3 Those in power politically had the sanction of those in power religiously. Geneva was to be a model community, for Calvin received government approval for the practice of the Lord's Supper, and the city government appointed persons to work in each quarter of the city, to note who might be subject to discipline of the church, and who might need to be expelled from the city. Calvin and Farel also managed to require that each citizen ascribe to a creed. By 1548, the older families were in revolt against Calvin, against his prescribed creed, and in reaction to the large numbers of refugees and foreigners who had flocked to the city. Calvin managed to hold off the opposition, but with much difficulty. His victory over Servetus had political as well as religious significance, as the whole town seemed united behind Calvin's reforms after Servetus' execution for heresy October 27, 1553.4 Calvin's model theocracy was short lived, but had influence for centuries, including the puritan vision of John Winthrop's "City on a Hill" (1630) just 66 years after Calvin's death (1564). However, philosophers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries sought to separate the city from religious influence. With increased secularization, the city became more and more ruled by law, as the product of the enlightenment, and less and less ruled by creeds of the churches. The Renaissance began the movement of rediscovery of the classics, and among them political philosophies that were more secular in nature in reaction to the reign of the church, Catholic or Protestant, in civil affairs. The enlightenment championed the use of reason apart from revelation or divine law as a way to conceive and order society. Society thus became construed not as covenant, but as civil contract, and not as the reign of divine law, but of laws produced by secular society in the age of reason. In this respect, the reformation was the last great reform movement of the Middle Ages, but also opened up the door for the enlightenment. For Will and Ariel Durant, "the central feature of medieval politics was the unifying supremacy of the papacy over the kings; the outstanding aspect of modern political history is the conflict of national states freed from papal power...."5 For the Durants, the enlightenment freed politicians from religion, and also freed religion from superstition. The enlightenment, and the emergence of secular society were thus, potentially, paths of liberation for both church and state. To the eighteenth-century thinkers- and to the perhaps profound philosophers of the seventeenth- we owe the relative freedom that we enjoy in our thought and speech and creeds; we own the multiplication of schools, libraries, and universities; we owe a hundred humane reforms in law and government, in the treatment of crime, sickness, and 3

See, for example, Andre Bieler, The Social Humanism of Calvin (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1964); W. Fred Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary: His Socio-Economic Impact (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1978); and E. William Monter, Calvin's Geneva (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1967). 4

Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church. Third Edition (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1970), 348-357. 5

Will and Ariel Durant, The Age of Reason Begins. The Story of Civilization. Vol. VII (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961), 626.

insanity. To them... we owe the immense stimulation of mind that produced the literature, science, philosophy, and statesmanship of the nineteenth century. Because of them our religions can free themselves more and more from a dulling superstition and a sadistic theology, can turn their backs upon obscurantism and persecution, and can recognize the need for mutual sympathy in the diverse tentatives of our ignorance and hope.6 The Secular City, Harvey Cox’s take on the New Urban Reality Harvey Cox's The Secular City is an attempt to come to grips with this new reality.7 For Cox, the secular city is the age where religion no longer dominates society. It is "an age of 'no religion at all.'"8 For Cox, urbanization is the "structure of common life in which diversity and the disintegration of tradition are paramount."9 The secular society means that freedom and diversity replace the conformity and uniformity of traditional society. Cox believes that secularization should be celebrated, as providing new forms of freedom for men and women in a society that "has come of age" (following Dietrich Bonhoeffer). Secularization was "the liberation of man from religious and metaphysical tutelage, the turning of his attention away from other worlds and toward this one."10 The process of secularization Cox linked to the rise of modern science, the rise of democratic institutions, and cultural pluralism. In short, the enlightenment, and the "age of reason" marginalized the effects of religion, allowing new secular paradigms to emerge. For Cox, this is a good thing, for secularization demolished both superstition and idolatry in Western culture. However, in true modern dress, Cox suggests that secularization has paved the way to several new developments, including the disenchantment with nature, the desacralization of politics, and the deconstruction of values.11 This is in contradiction to the current rise of "new age" spirituality, and the postmodern critique of secular society, a point to be returned to later. The final section of this paper will look at possibilities of a new urban theology in the post-modern city. Nevertheless, Cox helps to set the tone for a theology of the city that is influenced by the age of reason, and a "technopolis," the city as creation of science. For Cox, the secular city is to be celebrated, for it opens up the possibility of thinking theologically about the city of this world, not a 6

Will and Ariel Durant, The Age of Voltaire. The Story of Civilization, Vol. IX. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965), 786. 7

Harvey Cox, The Secular City: A Celebration of its Liberties and an Invitation to its Discipline (New York: MacMillan, 1965); and Harvey Cox, The Secular City: Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition with a New Introduction by the Author (New York: MacMillan, 1990). 8

Cox (1965), 3.

9

Ibid., 4.

10

Ibid., 17.

11

Ibid.

coming city. For Cox, we need a theology that will deal with the realities of urbanization, and not a theology that focuses on an "otherworldly" city. For, God can be found in the secular world, as well as the religious one. Secularization implies a deliverance from religious control, and a freedom from "closed metaphysical world views."12 This is basically a liberating development. It suggests that neither the creation, a politics, or a city should be construed as having the embodiment of truth. Truth can be found in other spheres as well. The exodus, for example, is construed to be an example of the desacralization of politics, a movement towards a this worldly religion and ethic. For the Exodus, the voice of God is not found in nature, or in natural phenomena, but in a historical event, the liberation of Israel from her captors. This act of liberation from a historical situation is an example of the secularization of religion. In the Secular City, it is important to make a distinction between primary and secondary relationships, and between private and public relationships. Urban people are required to interact with professionals in society who are familiar because of the roles they play, rather than their family names. Most transactions in urban society are with role players, with strangers, with those persons in a secondary realm of experience. Primary relationships, such as family and kinship ties, are reserved for private life. In urban society, most contacts are in the public realm, or are within the realm of strangers. Nonetheless, urban life demands that we treat the strangers as persons as well. This is a relatively new problem, as it pushes ones understanding of community outward, just as it forces definition of which people constitute primary and secondary relationships. Unlike rural environments, urban ones seek to have a clear demarcation between private and public relationships. Urban people have to distinguish which people they will allow in a small closed circle of primary relationships, while seeking to find ways to make relationships with the wider public more human. Urban anonymity need not be heartless. Village sociability can mask [the] murderous hostility.... Urbanization can be seen as liberation from some of the cloying bondages of pre-urban society. It is a chance to be free. Urban man's deliverance from enforced conventions makes it necessary to choose for himself. His being anonymous to most people permits him to have a face and a name for others.13 Urban life is characterized by public relationships. In such a society, it is important to humanize relationships with strangers, without jeopardizing the quality of personal, private social relations. An authentic corporate existence with strangers is necessary in urban society, an existence that values and respects the cultures of others, without overextending the private domain. Another characteristic of urban society is mobility. There is both geographical and social mobility. People today move geographically, and change jobs once every two to three years. Such mobility makes it impossible to develop any permanent sense of community, and certainly not the 12

Ibid., 20.

13

Ibid., 45, 47.

sense of community that people expected in pre-urban society, where the same families ruled a town or county for generations. When one adds to this the numbers of migrants and immigrants flooding our cities, one begins to appreciate, that in the secular city, no one ideology, theology, or culture can dominate. The secular city is a society in which all people are minorities. It is a society noted by radical pluralism and diversity. It is a society noted by multicultural realities. The world is found in today's secular city, and the secular city has become the global city. This is all okay with Cox. For Yahweh in the Bible is not a God limited to space, or to nature. God is the Lord of history, the God of change and surprise. The old traditions do not hold sway with the God of the Bible. Yahweh is always up to creating the new world, moving beyond tradition to liberating people and creation. For Cox, Yahweh reveals the Self in history, in liberating events, not in nature or tradition. God speaks to events of social change, such as the Exodus and the Captivity.14 Jesus too challenged the spatial and tribal limitation of an understanding of God. God is present in the spirit of a people, not in their temples or synagogues. For Jesus, God is not found in either Jerusalem or at Mount Gerizim (John 4), but in the hearts and minds of the worshipping community. Just as God speaks in history, so also does God speak in the profane, outside the sphere of the "religious" or "traditional." Cox would later write in Religion in the Secular City15 that God was now revealing the Self "from the bottom and edges of society." That is, God was doing a new thing in religions and cultures once perceived to be outside the mainstream of truth and history. The new movements of truth and freedom seem to no longer come to us from Euro-American churches, but from Pentecostals and charismatics, from Central America, and from the third world. Cox in the latter book observed that theologies of liberation began to emerge as subject and oppressed people began to discover that God was with them is a special way. In the secular city, God is found not just in the cathedrals, but in storefronts, in homes, and in offices. God is found not just in the shrines of the holy, but in the marketplaces of the secular city. Cox acknowledges that urban-secular people are profane and pragmatic. By profane, Cox means committed to this world, and by pragmatic, he means committed to what is useful and workable in the world as it is. Cox moves from an "ontological" to a "functional" understanding of ministry in urbanized society. What matters is not what is speculative or theoretical. What matters is what makes a difference in the world as it is. States Cox, "we are concerned with thinking rather than with thought, with acting justly rather than with justice, with the 'art of loving' rather than with love."16 Identity in urban society has moved in the same direction. In a world of secondary relationships, people are known by what the do, by their social role, not by their family relationships. In urbanized society, people respond to the question of identity, by describing what they do. "Thus the question of identity is identified with the question of purpose, of

14

Ibid., 56.

15

Harvey Cox, Religion in the Secular City: Toward a Post-Modern Theology (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984). 16

Cox, Secular City (1965), 65.

serviceability."17 Cox accepted some of the new directions of theology in the 1960s. For example, he follows Tillich in the search of the "God beyond the God of traditional Theism," and with Karl Barth, Cox believes that the Gospel has to be separated from the practice of religion. Religion moves in one direction as human effort, human strivings and traditional formulations; whereas the Gospel breaks new ground. Moving towards a "religionless Christianity" not unlike the prophets' call for justice and compassion that counters ritualism, Cox moves towards a reformulation of the Gospel that is profane, outside the gates of traditional religion. Theology is a living enterprise. The Gospel does not call man18 (and woman) to return to a previous stage of his development. It does not summon man back to dependency, awe, and religiousness. Rather, it is a call to imaginative urbanity and mature secularity. It is not a call to man (and woman) to abandon his interest in the problems of this world, but an invitation to accept the full weight of this world's problems as the gift of the Maker.19 For Cox, secularization is a liberating process, that "dislodges ancient oppressions and overturns stultifying conventions."20 Cox was later cognizant that he his theology was a precursor to the variety of liberation theologies (discussed briefly in the next section). He knew that Christianity as practiced was often the legitimator of the status quo. It had fostered the crusades, the inquisition, heresy trials and executions, imperialism and the conquest of native peoples. In the hands of many, it has fostered slavery and some of the worst forms of racism including apartheid, Nazi socialism, reservations for the Indians, and internment camps for Japanese-Americans. In the Secular City, native peoples have to be respected as equals. Understandings of God can be derived outside the gates of mainstream denominationalisms. Secularization is needed in an urban world where non-protestants have been second class citizens. Secularization has "brought about the much needed emancipation of Catholics, Jews and others from an enforced Protestant cultural religion."21 Cox questioned the function of traditional religious positions in urbanized society. Much like H. Richard Niebuhr, who's five typologies have influenced much discussion regarding the relationship of religion and culture in modern times,22 Cox too notes the promise and problems that 17

Ibid., 67.

18

Cox admits in the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition of The Secular City that he missed gender inclusivity in the earlier (1965) edition. "Since 1965 I have learned, often from my own students, that we can no longer read the Bible without realizing that it comes to us already severely tampered with... edited with an eye to perpetuating the authority of men" (In The Secular City (1990), xvii). 19

Cox, Secular City (1965), 83-84.

20

Ibid., 86.

21

Ibid., 99.

22

See, for example, H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (1951). Niebuhr postulated five views

traditional theological formulations have in addressing secular society. For Cox, Lutheranism too often sanctioned the status quo; Anabaptism retreated from the world; and Reformers or Liberals often thought their model was the only right one. Meanwhile, fundamentalists point to an other worldly utopia, and Catholics traditionally believed that their church should have control over politics and culture, not just religion. These theologies have their strengths, but for Cox, miss the challenge and the opportunity of the secular city. In the secular city, God is found in places and with peoples that were presumed by traditional theologies to be outside and without the truth. Today, the Gospel is often coming to the church from the margins, not from the centers of power. Cox pointed the way to a revolutionary theology, a theology that deals with issues of power and oppression, of community and alienation, of justice and peace in a world in conflict. In anticipation of the coming of post-industrial society, Cox noted that "we are entering an era in which power is based on not on property but on technical knowledge and intellectual skills."23 Cox understood that society was moving towards the information age, when the computer, leisure, and automation would replace an industrial labor-intensive society. However, Cox assumed that the problem, as it was in the 1960s, was not the availability or scarcity of resources, but the problem was more that of unjust distribution. Cox acknowledged that there would be fewer jobs in manufacturing or production, and more in service delivery systems. However, we now see in the 1990s that the service society has not replaced the jobs, income potential or standard of living that the older industrial society created. We now see the serious problems created by the globalization of multinational corporations, and their lack of accountability to nations and states. In 1965, Cox believed that "we can make enough to allow everyone to share in the goods of the earth, but the system we have to connect the supply of goods is breaking down."24 In the 1990s, we now have serious questions about the assumption of the supply of goods, and look for an economic system that is at once just, and is yet sustainable over time, with the pretext that the goods of the earth are limited, not abundant. Cox was a bit more farsighted on other topics, however. He lamented what others today call "privatism."25 He noted that in his native Boston, the middle class had fled to the periphery of the city. This for Cox, like Gibson Winter,'s The Suburban Captivity of the Churches,26 flight from the city represented a "civic abdication of the middle classes and their withdrawal into a parasitic

of Christ and culture; Christ Against Culture (Anabaptism); Christ and Culture in Paradox (Lutheranism); Christ Above Culture (Catholicism); Christ of Culture (Liberalism); and Christ the Transformer of Culture (Reformed Protestantism). 23

Cox, Secular City (1965), 115.

24

Ibid., 184.

25

Such as Robert N. Bellah, etal. The Good Society (New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1991), 60-62, etc. 26

Gibson Winter, The Suburban Captivity of the Churches (New York: MacMillan, 1962).

preserve."27 For Cox, it was not enough to "study" issues in emerging industrial society. Rather, it was important for faith communities to act on what they know and believe. Instead of abdicating the public realm, "the gospel summons man to frame with his neighbor a common life suitable to the secular city."28 Rather than a tribalized gospel, Cox believed that preaching today needs to address the realities of an urban, secular world, in an effort to recover the gospel's relevance and meaning for the modern world. For Cox, Jesus announced the coming of a new age, the kingdom of God. It was a gospel for the captives, the oppressed, the poor, the diseased, and the outcasts of society. It was good news to those marginalized from traditional religions. As Christ's "continuing incarnation," Cox believed that the church should continue the proclamation, and manifestation, of the kingdom in the world. In this respect, the church should become God's "Avant Garde," presenting a new reality, the "cutting edge" of a radical faith in critique of the older wineskins. This meant that the church not only needed to reformulate its message for the outcasts, but also needed to figure out how to address the principalities and the powers as well. For Cox, the "principalities and powers" represent "all the forces in a culture that cripple and corrupt human freedom."29 Yet, the principalities have been defeated. Rightly understood they no longer should have the power to determine human destiny. Cox believes that the church's role in society is to "tame the powers."30 The kerygma comes to a people when they stop blaming economic forces or psychological pressures for social injustice and family strife and begin to do battle against the causes of woe. The taming of the powers means that man is invited to make the whole universe over into a human place. He is challenged to push forward the disenchantment and desacralization which have expelled the demons from nature and politics.31 As God's avant garde, the church has the responsibility to be liberator and healer in the city. Cox notes that in the city there are tremendous cleavages, conflicts, and chasms. These include chasms of race, class, political persuasion, and social geography (city versus suburbs). In the 1990s, we would add the conflicts between religions, and the exploitation of women and and the growing "feminization of poverty." The church must carry its healing message to a world of dissension and strife. For Cox, the problems of urban society are the problems of the whole society. Often, it is society as a whole that has pushed the poor to the cities, just as it has pushed 27

Cox, Secular City (1965), 97.

28

Ibid., 121.

29

Ibid., 128.

30

This has been picked up recently by Walter Wink in his Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Fortress, 1984); and Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence (Fortress, 1986). A third volume, Engaging the Powers, is forthcoming. 31

Secular City (1965), 130.

Indians to reservations. Just as many unemployed people have been pushed off the farm to find jobs in the city, so also are welfare dependent populations pushed and pulled to the city to find needed services. But, the poor don't need services, they need liberation, and the hope of self-determination in society. The church, as God's new community, has a role in reversing these trends, and bridging the chasms and wounds that divide the people. For Cox, attention to structural issues and systemic causes of pain must be taken. "The wreckage and castoffs of ruthless competitiveness find themselves bunched together with the old, the infirm, the mentally deficient, the victims of racial and ethnic persecution. Only structural changes in the larger society will ever enable East Harlem (for example) to deal with these problems.32 Further, programs where liberal whites go into cities to rebuild homes, while needed, are not enough. On the one hand, such fosters dependency, and attitudes of condescension on the part of the middle class dogooders. On the other, the practices and attitudes of landlords or bank-sponsored efforts of redlining, that is systemic questions, are not addressed. The poor need less the help of the middle class, and need more ways to act on their own behalf, in "protest and action." Empowerment strategies and policy changes are needed, not just the bandaids of social service or advocacy programs. Cox goes on to note the importance of community organizations and city mission societies that seek to give skills to the poor, rather than resources to the middle class to act for the poor.33 "Inner city people represent the oppressed to whom Jesus said he had come to give not warm words, but liberty."34 What the poor need is not "help" that keeps the poor helpless, but resources so that the poor can help themselves. This would be not just freedom from oppression, but freedom to act, to "drink from our own wells" (Gustavo Guitierrez). Jesus for Cox was a "cultural exorcist." He went about naming and casting out demons and forces of wickedness that were exploiting and oppressing others. In a sense, the demons represented the principalities and the powers when they acted on their own authority, to maintain their own power, status, wealth and privilege, inevitably at the expense of others, those exploited and marginalized by powerful. Cox defines what he means by cultural exorcism as a ministry of the church in the following: The ministry of exorcism in the secular city requires a community of persons who, individually and collectively, are not burdened by the constrictions of an archaic heritage. It requires a community which, if not fully liberated, is in the process of liberation from compulsive patterns of behavior based on mistaken images of the world.... The church should be ready to expose the fallaciousness of the social myths by which the injustices of a society are perpetuated and to suggest ways of action which demonstrate the wrongness of such fantasies.35 32

Ibid., 137.

33

Ibid., 141-144.

34

Ibid., 143.

35

Harvey Cox, The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective. The Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition (New York: Collier, 1990), 135.

Against myths like American individualism, as in the lore of Horatio Alger, or the Gospel of Wealth, as in the writings and actions of such "robber barons" as Andrew Carnegie, Cox calls for an unmasking of such myths, which assumes falsely that the poverty of the poor is their fault, without reference to the social and economic structures, or the racial and prejudicial attitudes that exploit people, especially people of color, women and children.36 Cox calls the church to participate in a social revolution. Yet, anticipating perhaps the fall of communism as a bankrupt ideology, Cox distinguished between communism and a revolutionary Christianity. "We espouse a different kind of revolution, a revolution that makes the fruits of the earth available to all people without depriving them of the benefits of political and cultural freedom."37 If Cox did not anticipate the concerns in the 1990s for ecological justice, he was certainly attuned to the issue of distributive justice. The writer agrees with Cox's sense of justice for people, but also insists that we move beyond distributive justice to a sustainable sense of justice that respects the limits of the ecosphere. In addressing issues of urban-secular society, Cox pushed his readers not just to accept new propositions, but to accept new methodologies of "doing theology." A new way of thinking theologically is needed. Rather than abstract thinking, or in the formulation of timeless truths, Cox followed Gibson Winter in insisting on "theological reflection."38 Winter was influenced at the time by the Urban Training Center for Christian Mission in Chicago, as trainees were attempting to wrestle theologically with the meaning of the city through the data of the encounter with and experience of the city. Reflection was thus predicated on action, as one tried to correlate theological meanings with the facts of city life. "Reflection is that act by which the church scrutinizes the issues society confronts in light of those decisive events of the past- Exodus and Easter."39 Second, Cox suggests that the new paradigm for theology is not philosophical speculation or abstract argument, but politics. The Creeds of the church were formulated in response to the major philosophical questions of the time. In the secular city, the actions of the church must address and respond to issues as they are in society, urban-secular-global society. This is the methodological shift from ontological thinking to action-reflection. Theology today must be that reflection-in-action by which the church finds out what this politician-God is up to and moves in to work along with (this God). In the epoch of the secular 40 city, politics replaces metaphysics as the language of theology.

36

Ibid., 136-137.

37

Ibid., 157.

38

ibid., 222-223.

39 40

Ibid., 222.

Ibid., 223.

Finally, we need a new way to speak of God in "a world come of age." Rather than the God of the gaps, or the God of metaphysical speculation, we need a way to speak of the God who is at work in the world. God continues to surprise us by showing up in places we thought not. God shocks us by showing that the actions of the divine or not limited to the "box" of any particular theology. God is showing up on the margins of human existence, from the periphery, not just in what we once thought was the center, "our" center of life. More and more, in secular society, God confronts us from the standpoint of the other, and those of us who were once in the center discover that we are the audience, not the speaker. For Cox, this is very close to the God of the Bible. While saddled with various names, the name God used to describe the SELF, was "I am that I am," or "I will be what I will be." This is not a God who sits in place, but a God on the move, not a limited God, but a God found even in secular society. The God of the Exodus was not one to be found in the abstract, but one encountered in history, not a God of metaphysics, but a God in action, a God of praxis, a living God. The Limits of the "Secular City” Post Modern Interpretations Harvey Cox was aware that the secular city had its limits. In a post-modern world, the language of secularism and modernism is passe. It is gone with the wind of enlightenment humanism. Cox noted in the Introduction to the 1990 edition of The Secular City that an "illegible" post-modern city had replaced the city of reason and science. In pointing to this new direction, perhaps beyond the secular city, Cox noted that he was speaking of a God who is "Someone Else, the mysterious and elusive Other of the prophets and Jesus, who like Jacques Brel, was very much alive and well, although living in unexpected quarters."41 Much has happened since 1965. And we must move beyond the secular city of Harvey Cox, building on the foundations, but developing a theology that addresses issues of the post modern city. Since 1965, we have experienced the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the demise of what was once the Civil Rights Movement. We have seen the emergence not just of black power, but of liberation theologies, from Latin America, from African Americans, from women, and from Asians. We have witnessed the emergence of the global city, and the realization of our own interconnectedness with other parts of the globe, especially the Middle East. We have witnessed U.S. military failure in Vietnam, and "success" in Panama and in Iraq. Most significantly in the past decade, we have witnessed the demise of the Communist Eastern Block countries, and the rise of pro-democracy movements in Europe and other places. In a sense, the U.S. is the only superpower left, yet no longer has the capacity to control events in the world, and is in danger of collapsing economically with the largest financial indebtedness in human history. What then is needed for a theology for the postmodern age? For Cox, "liberation theology is the legitimate, though unanticipated, heir of The Secular City." Cox rightly points to the reality of theological reflection that has been occurring among the 42

41

Ibid., xiii.

42

Ibid., xv.

marginal of society for the past two decades. The current city is not a city defined by white dominance. In Chicago, as one example, there are perhaps "five cities," five ethnic and cultural communities that define their world differently due to their very different histories. EuroAmericans must figure out how to live in a world where they are no longer dominant. These "five cities" include Euro-American "nativists," the old immigration of Europeans, such as those Yankee Protestants from Northern and Western Europe, of English extraction. Secondly, it includes still sizeable numbers of immigrants, mostly of Roman Catholic, Lutheran or Jewish descent, including in particular the Irish and the Germans. Third, it includes those brought forcibly from their homeland, African-Americans. Fourth, it includes Hispanic-Americans of every variety. Finally, the new city includes "new immigrants" from all over the globe, who add to the complexity and diversity of the global city. These include refugees from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central America, Korea, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Philippines; as well as newer groups from former "communist block nations," Southern and Eastern Europeans such as Poles Romanians, Latvians, and or Yugoslavians. Hence, it is no longer possible to speak of America as "Protestant, Catholic and Jew" (Will Herberg), but also Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu. The Global City is the city of unprecedented pluralism. The gospel was never owned or completely understood by Euro-American descendants of Luther or Calvin. The American religious landscape is no longer dominated by Presbyterians, Methodists or Baptists. Rather, there are Black Pentecostals, Korean Presbyterians, and Filipino Catholics. Also, the cities of North America are no longer necessarily Judeo-Christian. In the recent past, shrines to Zoroaster, Mahivira, and Buddha have also emerged. There are more Muslims in, for example, the Chicago metro area (300,000) than Jews (275,000); and Muslims are growing at a phenomenal rate. In short, accompanying cultural diversity is a diversity of religious persuasion unprecedented since the days of the Mayflower. Cities are now international. New York City may be euphemistically called the "capital of Puerto Rico." Miami, in addition to its beaches, and Yankee vacationers, now has sizable numbers of Cubans, and its Haitian population is growing. Houston, San Antonio and Los Angeles have sizeable Mexican populations. In addition, cities like Chicago and Detroit have large Polish populations. In Chicago, there are said to be 40,000 Iraqis and 40-50,000 Central Americans. Greeks are said to own over 400 stores in the city's African-American neighborhoods, and local Vietnamese, Pakistani, and Korean business associations speak of the vibrancy of these populations. Indeed, the secular city has become a global city, as its Judeo-Christian foundations are shaken to the core. In addition to the "five cities" of the post-modern city, there are the "five new publics" that are dawning the doors of the church. These include once designated minorities, (African, Hispanic and Asian-Americans), second career persons, internationals, women, and people seeking to enhance their skills for the new world. Our theological schools have built a curriculum for the young, bright white male, ministers-to-be; but have not adjusted their curriculum for the new publics knocking at the door. Also, many of society's wounded have joined those wounded by traditions inadequate for the task of preparing leaders for the global city. These include divorced people, gays and lesbians, and those at the end of their first career. These have joined the five publics noted above who are seeking training to address issues of the emerging global city. A new

church and a new pedagogy is needed, not just for the secular city, but for the global post-modern city. In the post-modern city, cities are not just growing in the once industrialized northern hemisphere. Rather, they are mushrooming in the less developed world, what some more accurately refer to as the "two-thirds world." By the year 2000, 7 of the top ten largest cities will be in the less developed world. At the top will be Mexico City with almost 30 million people. Other cities will over ten million, three-four times the size of Chicago, will include Shanghai, Tokyo, Beijing, Sao Paulo, New York, Bombay, Calcutta, Jakarta, Rio de Janeiro, Seoul, Cairo, Madras, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Karachi, Delhi, Teheran, Baghdad, Istanbul, Manila, Paris, Dacca, and Bangkok. Notice the numbers of large cities in countries such a Brazil, India, China, Africa, and Indonesia. But this is only part of the picture. In 1950, there were only seven cities in the world that had a population of five million or more, only New York City in the United States. Today, there are thirty-five such cities, most of them (22 of 35) in the less developed world. Further, by the year 2020, there will be 93 such cities, with 80 of them in the so-called "two thirds" or less-developed world.43 With the destroying of the small farms, in this country and overseas, we can no longer dismiss the fact that we live now in an urban world, and urbanization is developing the fastest in countries like Africa, as Lagos, Nairobi, or Addis Abada, cities of at least one million in the once "dark continent." It is no longer possible to conceive of "missions" exclusively to rural hinterlands, remote tribes or enchanting forests. What has emerged is an enchanted city, a global city interconnected with the rest of world, a city that includes the tribal religiosity of the developed world, as well as the secular sophistication of the computer age.

Theology for the Global City What are the elements of a theology for the post modern city? The following typologies of urban theologies help us to a point. Ellul's critique in the Meaning of the City correctly notes that cities are often connected with evil. One need only mention the woeful practice of prostitution in Manila or in Tokyo, or the killing of thousands of homeless children in South America cities. These are only some of the scourges that seem concentrated in cities. Cities often are proud, and see themselves as standing alone, by their own power and might, rather than existing in humility to the Creator. The legacies of Babylon, and Rome, speak of this arrogance, an arrogance rightly judged by the prophets in biblical history. However, against Ellul, cities are not evil in and of themselves. They are neutral places, places where evil people sometimes rule, and where injustice is too often practiced. Cities are the victims of the rule of the principalities and the powers, and cannot be identified necessarily with those powers. Harvey Cox rightly prepared us for addressing issues of urban, secular, multicultural, global society. Cox reminded us of the legacy of traditionalism and colonialism. The former containers, he noted, were no longer adequate for a "world come of age." However, he was wrong when he considered that the world would remain a "secular world," as movements in Iran and Central 43

Robert W. Fox, "The World's Urban Explosion," National Geographic 166 (August, 1984), 179185.

America have underscored. The modernist assumptions of the secular city need to be transcended. We now live in a post-industrial, post- modern city, a city that has to wrestle again with the meaning of the sacred. Cox noted the limits of a theology that refused to deal with difference, with the stranger, and with the world and its issues as they are. He pointed us in the direction of developing a theology that would forthrightly address issues of the emerging global city. However, Cox did not go far enough. We must now transcend the secular city with its assumptions informed by reason, by technology, by secularity and the resultant marginalization of the church. We now live in a post modern world, in a global city, a city connected also with he ecosphere. Cox's Secular City points us to the promised land of the enchanting soft city of post- modernism, but he did not enter the now present reality of the global city. The post-modern city requires that we consider some of the things that Cox rejected. We must move beyond the disenchantment of the world, the desacralization of society, and the transcending of values to another reality, a theology of the post-modern global city.

Towards a Post Modern Urban Theology In the post-modern city, we can no longer accept a world that has lost its enchantment. It is this world that has in it the elements to create and sustain life. It is the modernist assumption of the impersonality of nature that has led scientists and technicians to devise ways to rape the earth and its resources, to deny the world as the creation of the Sacred. The result is the destruction of the Ozone layer, the rape of the Brazilian forests, and the deforestation of the planet. The result of modernism, and with it the positivism and poverty of a scientific worldview, is that most of the current actors in the political economy consider the resources of the planet something to be exploited and wasted. The assumptions of a modernist society is that resources are either plentiful, or that human beings are adaptable enough to find another fuel source once gas, coal, or wood is used up. The result of modernism has been the pollution of the planet, including acid rain, soil erosion, the extinction of numerous forms of wildlife, and toxic waste-dumping that will take millennia to become reabsorbed or modified by the earth's natural processes. In the post-modern city, we need a view of the world that returns to it a certain level of enchantment. In a recent book by the deceased anthropologist, The Power of Myth44, Joseph Campbell decried the loss of myth, and the loss of the sense of awe and humility regarding the planet, and of life in general. The result of the loss of a coherent myth regarding the planet has resulted in the escalating danger to the life of the human species, not to mention the survival of every other species. The impending danger to the Ozone layer is a threat to all of us, and is the product of the technological society.45 The collapse of the Ozone layer is a symptom of the secular city, and with it the loss of enchantment, a sense of the holy when we consider the marvel of our fragile eco-system. We need a new myth that recognizes that human beings including their cities are but one species on an endangered planet.

44

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers (New York: Doubleday, 1988).

45

Michael D. Lemonick, "The Ozone Vanishes," Time (February 17, 1992): 60-63.

The weakness of Cox's Secular City is that is assumes that human beings are at the center of the solar system. It assumes an anthropological-centered universe. In the global city, we need a new paradigm, a new myth, that sees, the city as part of the global ecosystem. We need to recover a theology of creation, and we need to rediscover our enchantment with the world. Human beings and the cities do not stand in isolation in the cosmos, but are part of the new global reality. Racial, economic, and social injustice must be joined to a concern for eco-justice as the rightful center for all our justice and peacemaking activities. In addition to an urban theology, we need also a recovery of a theology of creation, and a public theology. A public theology recognizes that all religious traditions have legitimate differences that they should continue to explore and propagate on some level. Yet, there are also concerns that transcend religions and denominations. These are concerns for the common good, for the welfare not just of individuals, or even of cities, but also the welfare of the globe. In such a theology, cities must become administers and conservators of global justice, not just consumers of the world's scarce goods. A public theology recognizes that there are certain truths, certain values, certain commitments, that all religions share, and that all people must work to preserve. This includes life on the planet, and the life of the planet itself. Has Kung, in a recent book, Global Responsibility46, has noted the imperative of developing a theology that seeks as its focus the preservation of the globe. He outlines several considerations that are also imperatives in the global city. They include the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Not just freedom, but also justice. Not just equality, but also plurality. Not just brotherhood, but also sisterhood. Not just coexistence, but peace. Not just productivity, but solidarity with the environment. Not just toleration, but ecumenism.

These for Kung, are requirements for a post modern society. "It has become abundantly clear why we need a global ethic. For there can be no survival without a world ethic."47 What we need in the global city is social justice, a discovery of the contribution of other cultures and heritages, a discovery of partnership between genders, a world order that furthers peace, not war, a world order that is friendly to nature, and a world order that is ecumenical, that seeks to learn from and respect other faiths, while maintaining our own evangelical integrity. For Kung, we have prided in our freedom and independence, but we have lost a sense of the public good. We have lost the sense of global interdependence, and our responsibility to each other, regardless of ideological and cultural differences. Second, while equality is important, especially in a world where the former Soviet Union has collapsed, and democracy on some level is being rediscovered, equality is not enough. A respect for diversity, and a toleration at a deep level of 46

Hans Kung, Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (New York: Crossroads, 1991). 47

Ibid., 67, 69.

those that believe differently is an imperative. We run the risk of a world that threatens the welfare of people on two levels, political-religious fundamentalism and globalism that requires a uniformity and conformity of culture, both of which pose a threat to democracy, and to the planet.48 One of the most striking developments of the post-modern age is the ascendency of the voice of women. If the industrial age was hard, industrial and male, the post-industrial age is softer, more aesthetic, and potentially more communal. It is women who are pointing the way to new directions, in theology, as well as in the sciences. Peace is important, not just for the welfare between nations and states and her peoples. We understand now that our warlike efficiency versus Iraq, in the first Gulf War, had devastating consequences for the Iraqi people, resulting in the deaths of 80,000 civilians, mostly women and children, after the war had officially ended. War is a threat also to the survival of the planet, and must be contained. We can no longer tolerate the "growth ideology" of the recent past. Productivity can no longer be the standard for manufacturers and industries. Rather, the new standard must be sustainability. How can we live within the resources of the planet that is sustainable over time? The notion of unlimited resources and inevitable economic growth poses a serious danger to the life of the planet. We must now work in solidarity with the environment, as wise stewards of the creation, not as master the world's master exploiters. Finally, there are values regarding human kind and the fragile ecosystem among the world's faiths that transcend the peculiarities of our faith. These differences are important, but toleration of difference is not enough. We must learn to work together on issues of common concern, while respecting the importance of our differences. Kung notes that a paradigm shift has occurred in protestant theology. With the rise of the global city, and the interconnectedness of all people with the future of the planet, it is impossible to hold the former paradigm of enlightenment rationalism. There are some things that are not reducible to reason, or even experience. The earth remains our great mystery, our great reminder that life and the preservation of life is of ultimate importance. No longer can we accept the former paradigm that reduces all things to matter, and all human beings to things. As the recent NASA film reminds us, in the Blue Planet, the difference between life and death on the planet is very thin line of oxygen and other gases that protect us from the radiation of the Sun, and the hostile forces of outer space. Cities too impact this reality, as any measure of smog, air pollution, and dangers to the Ozone layer indicates. Yet, cities are also places of community and of human habitat. However, the question now is how to create cities that do not pose a threat to the ecosystem, how to recognize that cities are part of the global ecology. Cities are not independent entities acting in isolation from these realities. A post-modern theology of the city is needed that recognizes that, in an urban world, human beings and their creations are but part of a very fragile ecosystem. Cities are neither good nor bad, but often exacerbate the problems now facing our environment, especially the human environment. As a consequence of the faltering industrial revolution, we invented smoke stacks, chemical plants, automobiles, pesticides, and products that we now know are harmful not only to life in the cities, but to life on the planet as well. The former theology of protestant individualism has contributed to the 48

This is captured well by Benjamin R. Barber, "Jihad vs. McWorld: The Two Axial Principles of our Age- tribalism and globalism- clash at every point except one, they may both be threatening to democracy," The Atlantic (March 1992): 53-65.

problem, as it was assumed that the virtuous would not only become prosperous, but would have the right to exploit the earth and its resources, as misguided "stewards" (read "exploiters") of the world's goods. We have accepted an ideology of privatism, that has viewed that neither the city nor the globe is the responsible domain of every resident of the cosmos. This is no longer tenable. Rather, we need a theology that recognizes the public role of the church. Individualism is no longer the model for global society. We need a theology that appreciates that all living things share the goods and the limitations of the planet, and that it is our collective role to develop policies and practices that respect the gift of the planet as God's creation. We need a theology that appreciates the integral connection of the human species, with each other, and also with other living species that share the earth. Considering the fragile nature of the ecosystem, and the fact that living species become extinct at every moment, this theology is at once urgent and timely. In this respect, the expectation of New Jerusalem is more than just an expectation of a coming ideal city, it is the coming of a new creation, a creation that recognizes that the whole of nature is sacred, belonging to God. This is a call for a theology of the global city, an enchanting city understood in the context of the cosmos, but no longer its apex, for the light of the coming city exudes from God, not from the city itself. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also, there was no more sea. Then, I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of the street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.... And there shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.49

49

Revelation 21:1-2; 22: 1-2, 5.