Tough Love

In the current issue of Books & Culture (Jan/Feb 2014) there’s a good piece called “In the City We Trust.” It’s written by Noah Toly, who teaches urban studies and international relations at Wheaton College. The article is essentially a review of two books: A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook and Why Cities Matter to God, the Culture, and the Church by Stephen T. Um and Justin Buzzard.

I haven’t read either of those books myself (nor do I necessarily plan to), but the general trend of Christians showing a renewed interest in cities and neighborhoods is something I’ve found, on the whole, positive and encouraging. In spite of that—or better, because of it—I really think Toly is on to something here:

If the flood of books about the city tells us anything, it is that cities don’t just have stories that draw us into idolatry, but are becoming the story that draws us into idolatry. Cities themselves are becoming the things in which we trust for deliverance. Brook falls into this trap, making the dynamism and diversity of the city our great hope for deliverance from oppression. By not identifying the city as a potential idol, Um and Buzzard stumble into the same mistake, at points seeming to trust our idols to deliver us from our idolatry. Ironically, this idolatry will take any true dynamism right out of our urbanism. When we idolize something, we don’t try to change it. Instead, we absolutize it. We don’t critique our idols. We may hope that the diversity and dynamism of the city will deliver us from oppression, but placing our hope for the city in the city is likely to result in the perpetuation and sedimentation of social ills. People will suffer as we give up our ability to critique the city.

Like Brook, I appreciate the dynamism and diversity of urban areas. In fact, those were two significant factors that led us to buy a home in Tempe, a college town that is also more demographically diverse and densely populated than the sprawling Phoenix metro area as a whole. And like Um and Buzzard, I recognize that cities are places of renewal, yet prone to idolatries of various kinds. I’ve lived in enough cities (Guatemala City, Lancaster, DC, Phnom Penh, Phoenix, etc) for long enough to be disabused of the notion that they are entirely magical, happy places. Neither are cities merely places of hardship and struggle—they are also places of beauty, energy, shelter, and joy. Moreover, as places “where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet” (in Frederick Buechner’s eloquent words), cities are where God calls many of us to move, breathe, and have our being.

Toly, however, is right to say that advocates for the city—those reacting to the decades-old trend of withdrawal and suburbanization—can all too easily find themselves trusting the city itself for something the city is inadequate to provide. I hope those of us with “the flourishing of the city” effortlessly rolling off our tongues heed his wise caution.

Once again, I’m glad the narrative surrounding cities is changing, that urban areas are no longer simply thought of as places of blight, necessary evils to anchor immaculate suburbs. Until fairly recently, cities did not elicit warm and fuzzy feelings, at least among most of the evangelicals I know, so what has transpired recently has been a helpful paradigm shift.

Toly reminds us that where there are social ills, a loving critique is required, and some celebrations of the city fall short on that front. But it is also true that for a critique to be loving, we must first know what we love. It’s clear that a growing number of us are proclaiming our love for the cities to which we have been called, where we have been “sent into exile.” May it now be demonstrated that we love our cities enough to be honest about our city’s particular excesses, abuses, and failures, and then to sacrificially, courageously, and faithfully work toward shalom—comprehensive flourishing in all directions for our city and our neighbors.

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