Spirit in the Cities: Searching for Soul in the Urban Landscape

by Sheila Briggs

In recent decades economic dislocation, immigration, new architecture, and other forces have transformed the physical, social, and even religious landscape of large cities. There gleaming skyscrapers tower over struggling ghettos, abandoned businesses mar upscale shopping areas, and tall-steeple churches sometimes languish where storefront mosques thrive. Exploring the religious significance of this new urban landscape, a group of theologians, members of the Workgroup on Constructive Christian Theology, traveled to select cities and found an exciting, vibrant, and multivoiced religious spirit at work. In these essays five leading American theologians delve deeply into the contemporary spiritual geographies of five cities, capturing, through a mix of personal and historical narrative, political analysis, and theological rumination, a sense of this new sacred space and the spirit aborning there.

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2004

Reviews

[Drick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book grew out of some work that a group of "contextual theologians" looking at urban communities thru a theological lens. For me the book had promise but was uneven in its theological analysis. The chapters on Newark and Philadelphia were most compelling as the authors looked at the history and changing demographics and applied theological thoughts to their analysis. The chapters on LA and Detroit, were written to impress other theologians but really said little. The chapter on Havana, illustrated how where we are born stays with us even as we move, but did little with theology. I am plesed to know that there are others out there who are thinking theologically about communities, and for that I was drawn to the book. While it did not fully deliver, it also did not disappoint.

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kathryn Tanner has brought together five case studies with theological analysis of life in the city -- four are American and one is "multi-site". As Tanner notes in her preface, the authors lay out the geogrpahy of Los Angeles, Detroit, Newark, Philadelphia, and Havana. The authors of these case studies bring theology and political life together. This is contextual theology -- asking questions about how we think of the city as a place where the Spirit is present, especially in places of great poverty, violence, and hopelessness. Having lived in greater Los Angeles area, I have a great interest in that story. The same is true of Detroit.

I was directed to this book by others with interest in urban ministry. I believe these essays are helpful in thinking about our own place in the story -- especially those of us living and working in the context of the suburbs of the cities.