Next Thought.
"Cities: the Big Empty", OR "Lectures about Cities: The Big Empty". Alright, that's a little cheeky but I will get to the point soon enough.
On Tuesday I attended a lecture called "Cities: The Big Empty". In it, the lecturer presented the ideas of a few different theologians/philosophers - Jacques Ellul, a Reformed Christian sociologist who is highly critical of technology; Paul Shepard, and William Desmond. The idea was to view cities as a large scale human-made technology. Jacques Ellul had come up with the idea that cities are a bad thing, and here's why.
When God found Cain after killing Abel, and banished him, God put a mark on Cain as a sign that he would avenge him if anyone hurt him. The Bible says Cain went off and built a city. Ellul's idea is that the spirit embodied in city-building is one of distrust in the protection of God. He says Cain didn't figure God was actually going to do a good job of protecting him, so he put up some walls, got some people together, and then set out to create a secure, ordered community where he could shelter himself. THEREFORE, Ellul says, the concept of city, the origin of city, is based on idolatry. A trusting of oneself before God. It goes further.
He maps out a trajectory of the city. It starts with Cain, then climbs until the tower of Babel, and from then on, Babylon (= Babel) is considered the ultimate of idolatrous cities, and the trajectory starts to decline from there until the end of time. I wasn't quite sure if this meant the importance of cities as symbols of idolatry declined or what, but that's my guess. So all cities since then are a model of Babylon, (even Rome is just a copy, and is referred to as Babylon in the NT) and Babylon, in trying to ascend to the heavens, embodies a direct challenge to God.
All of this seems to me to be a very serious judgment of one of the most unavoidable building blocks of our world, based on a massive "reading-into" of one little bit of Scripture.
If Ellul's thoughts are at all credible these are my questions: How do we respond to the imagery of the book of Revelation, which portrays heaven (largely) as a city? Is this a representation of God's ability to redeem something totally idolatrous, or is the point that God's trajectory has always included human technological contributions, including the city? Also, since heaven (in the book of Revelation) is portrayed as part city, but also part Garden, are there some practical ways that we should be bringing this future vision into reality by intermingling garden with our cities? (e.g. are urban vegetable gardens biblical? haha)
To close... an explanation of my cheeky comment at the beginning. In pondering the content of this lecture, and the possible implications of what Ellul says, I have also been pondering this: "So what?" If cities are a representation of Cain's idolatry, if they are a model of Babylon, if they're evil... so what? We all live in them, society is built on them, reality can't avoid them. All of Ellul's ideas can't really call us to any reasonable action. The only response to his statements would be to cut oneself off from cities, to cease to participate. So what's the point in a theory that puts us in the place of believing something that cannot shape our actions except to make us feel bad for participating?
Talk to me.
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It strikes me that a whole lot of things in our world started out as evil but have become a cornerstone of our existence and survival. One simple example, is clothing. Adam and Eve were naked. It has occurred to me several times in my life, that clothing, which is basic to our survival today, is a result of humanity's sin. They wanted to hide themselves from God. They didn't want to be vulnerable. We could even view clothing to be a technological invention to hide our vulnerability, much like today's electronic means of communication.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't mean we should not wear clothing, or not live in a city, or not use Facebook, just because they were created out of a wrong motive. Some extremists might respond by moving out to the country and living off the land, or moving out to a nudist colony. And they would not be wrong. But Jesus came and lived in cities, although he did go out to the country a lot, and he wore clothing. He integrated himself with the world he was living in, for the purpose of redeeming it.
I think it is indeed very significant that Heaven is pictured as a city, and Revelation also mentions that those who conquer will be given robes of linen, i.e., we won't be naked in heaven either.