Back in October 2010, I had the privilege of facilitating a workshop on Justice and Human Trafficking at the Vineyard Missions Conference. At the conference, I got into some great discussions, but the one that has provoked me the most was a few conversations with Roy Conwell and his encouragement and direction in how to exegete my community. This has been reverberating in my mind as I actually put into practice some of what Dr. Conwell (way to go Roy on earning the Doctorate!) illuminates. A particular piece of God wooing us toward Pittsburgh is that we feel called "into the city". Warnings and conversations with our parents and good friends aside, I sense something bigger going on in all of the "warnings" and fear of the "city".
So I've been poking and digging around, doing some initial research (i.e., exegeting my community). In their study regarding religion and sociology, Divided by Faith, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith express the ways in which the fruit of evangelical spirituality and practice seem carried along by an underlying prejudice that seems deeply engrained, which engenders an environment that deepens racialization and segregation; thus making many evangelicals into the kinds of people who are captured by their culture rather than prophetically being God's "peculiar people" in a counter-culture kind-of-way...in many aspects we have merely become trend-followers of the dominant American cultural bias. I know, this is very controversial for many out there, but I think we must address their well-founded research.
The Spirit is calling us to push-back and discern, as this prejudice is at such odds with our common "future-focus" in scripture describing the redemption of a diverse community made up of "every nation, tribe, people and language." (see Revelation 7:9) This is extremely discouraging to me and it makes me want to run screaming, but I can't. We've heard the call of the Father. I've felt it. And this impacts what has all ready been set into motion in terms of what we are going to do in cultivating a faith community in urban Pittsburgh. We want to participate in the on-going redemption of Jesus Christ, His Mission, which includes redemption and reconciliation whether it be racial, social, environmental, urban or suburban or rural, etc.
I love how Mark Mulder and Jamie Smith explain how suburbia and exurbia can be just as corrosive a setting as anyplace else, and in fact, recent studies in social research point to "the unique possibilities for community in urban settings." That's really, really encouraging to us as we seek the peace and flourishing of the city God sends us. Of course, that brings us to today and the fact that we are also wrestling with another fruit of evangelical practice and spirituality raised by Emerson and Smith: a prejudice that engenders fear of the city. Their study seems to bring to the fore the fear of urban environments inherent in the mostly suburban and exurban evangelical subculture. This 'anti-city' bias again seems to run counter to our Reign of God hope that locates redemption in a city (Revelation 21:2).
Now, of course, I own up to being part of a tribe that is mostly evangelical and suburban. But they're family, and even now I see that we are working on it, seeking to change the trajectory and embrace and cultivate diversity. I'm headed off to the Society of Vineyard Scholars conference in Seattle in a little over a week, and I know my acquaintance Steve Schenk up in urban Buffalo is taking us to task for our primary suburban-orientation and possibly getting into some of this "fear of the city" that I have been discovering myself. I look forward to the conversation, because we know that there will still be challenges and bias from the 'burbs to overcome...and we city-folk come with our own bias as well.
In fact, maybe nowadays - at least according to Becky Nicolaides, an urban scholar - change is perhaps all ready afoot. She even goes so far to say, "...hell moved from the city to the suburbs," in her survey of urban studies, How Hell Moved from the City to the Suburbs: Urban Scholars and Changing Perceptions of Authentic Community. This sentiment is also captured in a recent Cutting Edge article: Death by Suburb? So perhaps its become an "urban legend" that the city is 'hell' incarnate, as the Suburban and Exurban life are being cast in the same role previously given to City life in the American cultural imagination as we speak...
In fact, maybe nowadays - at least according to Becky Nicolaides, an urban scholar - change is perhaps all ready afoot. She even goes so far to say, "...hell moved from the city to the suburbs," in her survey of urban studies, How Hell Moved from the City to the Suburbs: Urban Scholars and Changing Perceptions of Authentic Community. This sentiment is also captured in a recent Cutting Edge article: Death by Suburb? So perhaps its become an "urban legend" that the city is 'hell' incarnate, as the Suburban and Exurban life are being cast in the same role previously given to City life in the American cultural imagination as we speak...
[to be continued...]
2 comments:
I wonder if the urban / suburban tension is one we'll see more of in the future.
After living, working & ministering the last decade in New York.. I have seen community thrive & struggle at the same time. I think there's a myth in the idea that people only associate in their neighborhoods making "community" easy.
My experience is that people do find community in their geographical communities, BUT also reach across them. So it's not uncommon for someone to live in one part of a borough, work an hour away & hang out 45 mins away from that... which can make for either a) a very isolated existence, b) fragmented shallow connections or c) very deep roots that might be dispersed, but deep because they have to work at it.
Now living in the suburbs (for 2 weeks) for the first time since I'm a child, the challenges seem different, yet similar.
I also wonder if we'll continue to see people transfer from suburban to urban, back to suburban, back to urban & so on. The old school urban demographic has gradually (& continues to) move further away, while new urban professionals move in, but are very transient.
The only groups that I know have stayed for life are the Hasidic community & the upper tier of society who seem to comfortably afford good city living. That might be different in a place like Pittsburgh, I don't know.
If you've not read some of Tim Keller's work on engaging a city in the context of restoration, vision & revitalization, I think you should. A good friend has been close to a Redeemer (Keller) plant in Berlin that has exceeded expectations, largely from Keller's approach to engaging the city with the Gospel.
thanks for the experienced perspective, as well as the nod to Keller...I've heard good things.
How are the Phoenix 'burbs treating you and the family?
Post a Comment