Where Am I? The Middle-Class Crisis of Place
I want to wake Christians up to the crisis and have them take off their blinders. We are out of touch with what is going on. Christians haven't led the way on this issue. Non-Christians are capable of enormous insight and in a sense, we have to catch up.
What contributes to Christians' blinders?
The diagnosis is that we have lost a robust doctrine of creation. Place is rooted in the doctrine of creation. If we recover that doctrine of creation and see the wonderful redemption in Christ as God recovering his purposes for his whole creation, then suddenly all these issues—like city, home, gardening, and farming—are spiritual and thus not second-rate.
Of the several hundred thousand churches in the United States, many are property owners. Just imagine if each of these churches attended closely to their property as a place and develop it in healthy—not necessarily expensive—ways. This would make a major contribution to the commons of our culture and bear plausible witness to Christ. Just as the creation constantly declares God's goodness and power (Psalm 19), so too our places would continually bear witness to this extraordinary God who has come to us in Christ.
Are urban churches the exception to this?
Of course, churches are people and not only places, but it is normal for a church to have a place. You can have a family without a home, but it is not good for a family to not have one. It is good for a church that is growing to have its own building to attend to.
Being a person means having a connection to multiple places, and that needs to develop in ways that bring human flourishing and bring glory to God. Downtown urban churches may be more in touch with their place, and it may be because it is so obvious they are impoverished placially. It is a broken urban center that the church is trying to help in contrast to the middle-class suburban church.
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Grady Walton
As an extreme introvert my eyes glaze over on stories like this. But even I must admit a longing for place, especially in the church where it seems like people pass through like parts on a factory conveyor belt. I was in one church where nearly the entire congregation turned over in five years. Pastors, as well, seem to come and go with the wind. Churches that struggle to find a permanent physical place seem to bleed people each time they move. That can't be healthy. Sure, there are times when it's right to move, but I think we might be too casual about our sense of place in the community.
RICK DALBEY
Wright's emphasis is wrong, not biblical. It is liberal theology baptized with Christian jargon. Of course we have an obligation to be responsible and use the earth's resources wisely but here we have no continuing city.
RICK DALBEY
This place is temporary, it is passing away. As the author of Hebrews says, “For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” We are “looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” NT Wright notwithstanding, We are “strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.” “they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” The old gospel song says, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through, my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue”.