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God Loves Cities
By daniel | July 21, 2008
How about that? God loves cities. Cities are like a magnifying glass on the state of the people within it. Sort of like when you or I are under stress, when we’re squeezed, what’s inside comes outside. Same with a city, except all the time, the density of the people is a constant squeeze on said people.
From Vintage Jesus, by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears
As an aside, it is important to note that the new creation will not be the idyllic rural lifestyle that has dominated so much American vision of faithful Christianity. Rather, at the center of the new creation will be a grand metropolis from which Jesus will rule over the earth.
The entire storyline of the Bible is not from garden to garden, but rather from garden to city. The Bible opens in its first few pages with a beautiful garden paradise. But the Bible closes in its final few pages with the vision of heaven as a dense city filled with people—the ultimate goal of creation is an urban paradise.
Practically speaking, a city is marked by both greater density and diversity than suburban or rural areas. For the first time in the world’s history, roughly half of the world’s population is urban. That number is expected to swell to 60 percent by the year 2030.Sadly, most Christians associate the city with vice, not virtue. In truth, cities have long been seen as a haven for violent crime, sexual sin, and drug abuse. But sin is often most clearly seen in the city because it is more concentrated in the city than in suburban and rural areas. As a result, the related need for God is most clearly seen in the city. The rawness of the city makes it exactly the kind of place that God would use to convince people of their need for him. Furthermore, by revealing the unveiling of a city upon his return, Jesus intends for Christians to love cities in the meantime.
Unlike today where Christians have largely fled the cities in favor of homeschooling about the rapture amidst large stacks of canned goods readied for a hunkering down at the unleashing of Armageddon, Christianity has historically been an urban religion. A reading of the history book of early Christianity, Acts, reveals that Christianity began as an urban movement led by Paul, whose itinerant church planting ministry was almost exclusively urban as he moved from city to city and bypassed the rural areas.
Historians like Rodney Stark and Wayne Meeks say that by a.d. 300, upwards of half of the people living in major Roman cities were Christian, while more than 90 percent of those living in the countryside were still pagan. Curiously, our word pagan likely came from the Greek word paganus, which meant “someone who lives on the farm.” Most of the Christians lived in cities and most pagans lived on farms.
Indeed, God’s people should bring the gospel to any place where there are people, because God loves all people. But since there are more people in the city, it also makes sense that bringing the gospel to cities would be a priority.
One of the reasons Christians in our day are to love the city as they await the unveiling of Jesus’ city is that the city is the most strategic place for Christians and the gospel. If culture is like a river, then cities are upstream, creating culture that then flows downstream to the masses.
Because government, law, education, healthcare, information, media, arts, sports, entertainment, trade, travel, population, and industry are concentrated most in a city, cities are the fountains from which culture flows. Therefore, for Christians to flee from cities then to only complain about the kind of culture that is flowing into the culture from the cities is both foolish and hypocritical. The answer is for Christians to love the city, move to the city, pray for the city, and serve the city until Jesus returns with his city from which all culture will emanate throughout the new earth.
Here’s an interesting article about Jerusalem (funny enough, on Jerusalem’s web site!).
Topics: Life in the Way, Spirituality - Thoughts, The Word |
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