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Every Somewhere Sacred: Rescuing a Theology of Place in the American Imagination
Reimagine "Place" and Reconnect with the Space Around YouIt’s possible for American Christians to live everywhere and nowhere at the same time. We’re often disconnected from the places we inhabit—cut off from nature, our neighbors, people different from us, and a sense of rootedness. It’s time to imagine a better way.Each of us is placed by God in a specific "somewhere." Drawing on social science research and their experiences across American landscapes and the Middle East, Ben Norquist and Brian Miller show how Christians in the US can develop a redemptive imagination for place. Many people have uncritically accepted American cultural assumptions about land, property, home ownership, and the good life. Yet our identity as followers of Jesus should transform how we live in the physical world, even as we recognize how places shape their inhabitants.This book explorestools for deeply understanding or “reading” places,perspectives from Scripture and theology on land and place,connections between colonialism, race, social class, and American landscapes,and more.Norquist and Miller offer a variety of personal and corporate practices—including land research, reassessing priorities and habits, advocating for others, and reconsidering the nature of sacred space—to help each of us connect in a healthy way with our own "somewhere." They prompt us toward a broader vision for how God works through space, using biblical lenses of landscape as gift, sacrament, kin, and home. Are you longing for a rooted, meaningful faith that responds to the needs of your community? Do you crave guidance towards engaging deeply with the place where God has set you? Every Somewhere Sacred is your hopeful invitation to receive the world with gratitude and steward it well for the next generations. Get your copy today!
- GenresTheologySpirituality
256 pages, Paperback
Published June 16, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 13, 2026
What does place have to do with faith? In a mobile society, where people are always on the move, does place or land have theological meaning? As we ponder that question, we might consider what is happening in Israel/Palestine. It does appear that this conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is centered on the question of who possesses the land and how far back one must go to prove ownership. Then there is North America, and more specifically, the United States. How do we understand place theologically? As we ask that question, we might want to ask where God fits into the question of ownership. In recent years, at least in my circles, conversation about land and its sacred worth has centered on the implications of the "Doctrine of Discovery," a concept that goes back to papal decisions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that gave Portugal and Spain (primarily) the right of conquest of lands inhabited by nonbelievers. While Africa and Asia would come under this dictate, it especially applied to the European discoveries of the Americas, lands previously unknown to most Europeans. This doctrine, which took different forms, essentially empowered Europeans to take land that belonged to the indigenous peoples in the name of God.
Numerous studies, including books, have been published in recent years reflecting on the impact of European presence, conquest, enslavement, and attempted conversion of the peoples living in the Americas. These actions displaced peoples who had lived on these lands for millennia, often in the name of another "doctrine," that of Manifest Destiny. Among the books by Christians that address this reality is "Every Somewhere Sacred: Rescuing a Theology of Place in the American Imagination," by Ben Norquist and Brian Miller. The two authors have a background in sociology and, in the case of Norquist, work with Churches for Middle East Peace. Thus, Norquist has firsthand background with the Israel/Palestine situation.
In this book, the authors seek to reclaim for us a theology of place that recognizes its sacredness and the ways in which views of land and place have been distorted. This is because our experience of place is one of rootlessness. We are disconnected from the places where we live, which leads to distorted lives. Their goal here is to help the reader, as followers of Jesus, transform the way we live in land and place. While this is rooted in theology, they wish to see this discussion applied to daily life. That is, they want us to reflect on our own "somewhere." This includes the natural world, but it also includes homes, workplaces, roads, our places of worship, and other somewheres. This is a reminder that we are embodied persons living in a physical world. The Introduction, titled "Why American Christians Need a New Way to Live in Place," provides the reader with definitions and guidelines for the journey ahead.
The authors divide the book into three sections, which start in Part One with the title question: "Where Do We Think We Are?" In asking the question of where we are, they take us back to the question of where we think we are by providing us with the tools we need. So, the title of the first chapter is "Spatial Texts: Tools for Reading Places." Spatial reading involves thinking about place. Some of the metaphors they offer for us to use in analyzing place include networks, time traveling, overwriting (a reminder that spatial developments often overwrite previous configurations), copy-paste (replicated forms), etc. They also offer diagnostic questions followed by a discussion of how to apply the tools. With the foundation laid, in Chapter 2, Norquist and Miller offer "American Land Stories." Here they speak of the metanarratives we use to tell our story of place. They offer four American stories about land, starting with exceptionalism and moving to frontiers, private property, and generating wealth. After introducing us to these four metanarratives, they speak of religious land stories, including the creation of the doctrine of discovery and the concept of dominion, both as it is used in the United States and in Israel/Palestine. They note that our stories are often held in tension, such as the claims made on the land by Israelis and Palestinians.
After introducing us to the question of where we think we are at, in Part Two, titled "How Did We Get Here?" the authors speak to how understandings of space and land developed in the United States. They explore this question through three vantage points or axes. First, in Chapter 3, titled "Settler Places on Indigenous Land," they address the way European settlers took indigenous land and made it their own, displacing the people who had inhabited the land for millennia. Here again we see the Doctrine of Discovery at play, as well as European ideas of land ownership and use, which differed greatly from those of the indigenous people. They define "settler colonialism" as "the domination of a territory and its people for the purpose of transfer -- that is for the purpose of displacing current inhabitants to make room for a new, settler population" (p. 101). This effort at transfer is related to the second axis, "Race and Class" (Chapter 4). Consider the practice of redlining or restrictive covenants that were used to limit access to communities to persons of certain races and economic classes (mainly white). In this chapter, the authors define race, ethnicity, social class, and show how these categories have functioned in American life. The third axis is "Types of Space" (Chapter 5). Here they discuss four kinds of space --- Wild, Rural, Suburban, and Urban. They take us on a historical tour of how these four kinds of space have been understood historically, especially as we moved from wild to suburban. As they introduce us to these spaces, we gain a better understanding of our place in this space.
Part Three is titled "Is There a Better Story?" This is an important question because the discussion to this point has been rather disheartening. So, is there a better way? The first chapter in this section is titled "Four Themes for Rereading Bible Stories About Land" (Chapter 6). They remind us that land and place are important themes throughout the Bible, beginning with the creation stories in Genesis 1-2 a nd concluding with the eschatological vision of a new heaven and new earth in Revelation. Here they speak of land as gift, sacrament, kin, and home. In expanding on these themes, they offer new pictures of God, including as the ultimate homemaker, as well as the role that sin plays in displacement. Chapter 7, titled "Swords into Plowshares: Revising Christian Land Stories," here the authors help us learn to tell better stories that will bless creation and all people. Here it is important to note that we cannot set aside land stories. Rather, we must learn to tell/inhabit new ones. Chapters 8 and 9 focus on "Living Out the Better Stories," first as individuals (Chapter 8) and then "Together." When it comes to individuals, they remind us that the Western world tends to sever us from "places, land and ultimately God." However, we're not just brains on sticks. As Christians, we need to remember that we live in specific spaces as God created us for. Western Christians tend to embrace individualism, a reality discussed in chapter 8, but the expectation is that we live out these stories together, as community. So, here they explore our response collectively to place. Land and place do matter to Christian life, so we're invited to study, act, and be in response.
Norquist and Miller write not as theologians but as social scientists. However, they do good theology in this book. In doing so, they help us tell better stories of land and place so that we might embody land and place individually and collectively as Christians, recognizing where we've gone wrong and how we might move forward from those wrong turns to a better future.
Numerous studies, including books, have been published in recent years reflecting on the impact of European presence, conquest, enslavement, and attempted conversion of the peoples living in the Americas. These actions displaced peoples who had lived on these lands for millennia, often in the name of another "doctrine," that of Manifest Destiny. Among the books by Christians that address this reality is "Every Somewhere Sacred: Rescuing a Theology of Place in the American Imagination," by Ben Norquist and Brian Miller. The two authors have a background in sociology and, in the case of Norquist, work with Churches for Middle East Peace. Thus, Norquist has firsthand background with the Israel/Palestine situation.
In this book, the authors seek to reclaim for us a theology of place that recognizes its sacredness and the ways in which views of land and place have been distorted. This is because our experience of place is one of rootlessness. We are disconnected from the places where we live, which leads to distorted lives. Their goal here is to help the reader, as followers of Jesus, transform the way we live in land and place. While this is rooted in theology, they wish to see this discussion applied to daily life. That is, they want us to reflect on our own "somewhere." This includes the natural world, but it also includes homes, workplaces, roads, our places of worship, and other somewheres. This is a reminder that we are embodied persons living in a physical world. The Introduction, titled "Why American Christians Need a New Way to Live in Place," provides the reader with definitions and guidelines for the journey ahead.
The authors divide the book into three sections, which start in Part One with the title question: "Where Do We Think We Are?" In asking the question of where we are, they take us back to the question of where we think we are by providing us with the tools we need. So, the title of the first chapter is "Spatial Texts: Tools for Reading Places." Spatial reading involves thinking about place. Some of the metaphors they offer for us to use in analyzing place include networks, time traveling, overwriting (a reminder that spatial developments often overwrite previous configurations), copy-paste (replicated forms), etc. They also offer diagnostic questions followed by a discussion of how to apply the tools. With the foundation laid, in Chapter 2, Norquist and Miller offer "American Land Stories." Here they speak of the metanarratives we use to tell our story of place. They offer four American stories about land, starting with exceptionalism and moving to frontiers, private property, and generating wealth. After introducing us to these four metanarratives, they speak of religious land stories, including the creation of the doctrine of discovery and the concept of dominion, both as it is used in the United States and in Israel/Palestine. They note that our stories are often held in tension, such as the claims made on the land by Israelis and Palestinians.
After introducing us to the question of where we think we are at, in Part Two, titled "How Did We Get Here?" the authors speak to how understandings of space and land developed in the United States. They explore this question through three vantage points or axes. First, in Chapter 3, titled "Settler Places on Indigenous Land," they address the way European settlers took indigenous land and made it their own, displacing the people who had inhabited the land for millennia. Here again we see the Doctrine of Discovery at play, as well as European ideas of land ownership and use, which differed greatly from those of the indigenous people. They define "settler colonialism" as "the domination of a territory and its people for the purpose of transfer -- that is for the purpose of displacing current inhabitants to make room for a new, settler population" (p. 101). This effort at transfer is related to the second axis, "Race and Class" (Chapter 4). Consider the practice of redlining or restrictive covenants that were used to limit access to communities to persons of certain races and economic classes (mainly white). In this chapter, the authors define race, ethnicity, social class, and show how these categories have functioned in American life. The third axis is "Types of Space" (Chapter 5). Here they discuss four kinds of space --- Wild, Rural, Suburban, and Urban. They take us on a historical tour of how these four kinds of space have been understood historically, especially as we moved from wild to suburban. As they introduce us to these spaces, we gain a better understanding of our place in this space.
Part Three is titled "Is There a Better Story?" This is an important question because the discussion to this point has been rather disheartening. So, is there a better way? The first chapter in this section is titled "Four Themes for Rereading Bible Stories About Land" (Chapter 6). They remind us that land and place are important themes throughout the Bible, beginning with the creation stories in Genesis 1-2 a nd concluding with the eschatological vision of a new heaven and new earth in Revelation. Here they speak of land as gift, sacrament, kin, and home. In expanding on these themes, they offer new pictures of God, including as the ultimate homemaker, as well as the role that sin plays in displacement. Chapter 7, titled "Swords into Plowshares: Revising Christian Land Stories," here the authors help us learn to tell better stories that will bless creation and all people. Here it is important to note that we cannot set aside land stories. Rather, we must learn to tell/inhabit new ones. Chapters 8 and 9 focus on "Living Out the Better Stories," first as individuals (Chapter 8) and then "Together." When it comes to individuals, they remind us that the Western world tends to sever us from "places, land and ultimately God." However, we're not just brains on sticks. As Christians, we need to remember that we live in specific spaces as God created us for. Western Christians tend to embrace individualism, a reality discussed in chapter 8, but the expectation is that we live out these stories together, as community. So, here they explore our response collectively to place. Land and place do matter to Christian life, so we're invited to study, act, and be in response.
Norquist and Miller write not as theologians but as social scientists. However, they do good theology in this book. In doing so, they help us tell better stories of land and place so that we might embody land and place individually and collectively as Christians, recognizing where we've gone wrong and how we might move forward from those wrong turns to a better future.
July 3, 2026
Some books give you new information. Others quietly change the way you see the world. Every Somewhere Sacred is firmly in the second category.
I found myself looking differently at my own neighborhood, the roads I drive every day, my church, my garden, and even the history beneath the ground I walk on. The central argument—that Christians have largely lost a theology of place and need to recover it—is both convincing and timely. Once the authors begin peeling back the layers of what makes a place, it's difficult to look at any landscape the same way again.
What impressed me most is the breadth of the conversation. The book moves comfortably between Scripture, theology, history, sociology, geography, architecture, and personal experience, yet it never feels like an academic exercise. It's intellectually substantial without being inaccessible. The ideas are challenging, but they're always connected to the ordinary places where we actually live our lives.
I also appreciated that the book resists easy ideological categories. It asks difficult questions about how Christians have inhabited the American landscape while keeping its focus on discipleship rather than politics. The goal isn't simply to critique our relationship with place, but to recover a richer, more faithful way of belonging—to neighborhoods, communities, and the created world God has entrusted to us.
Full disclosure: one of the authors is my twin brother. That certainly made me eager to read it, but it's not why I am recommending it. I genuinely think this is an important contribution to a conversation the church needs to have. It's the kind of book that stays with you because it changes not just what you think, but how you see.
I found myself looking differently at my own neighborhood, the roads I drive every day, my church, my garden, and even the history beneath the ground I walk on. The central argument—that Christians have largely lost a theology of place and need to recover it—is both convincing and timely. Once the authors begin peeling back the layers of what makes a place, it's difficult to look at any landscape the same way again.
What impressed me most is the breadth of the conversation. The book moves comfortably between Scripture, theology, history, sociology, geography, architecture, and personal experience, yet it never feels like an academic exercise. It's intellectually substantial without being inaccessible. The ideas are challenging, but they're always connected to the ordinary places where we actually live our lives.
I also appreciated that the book resists easy ideological categories. It asks difficult questions about how Christians have inhabited the American landscape while keeping its focus on discipleship rather than politics. The goal isn't simply to critique our relationship with place, but to recover a richer, more faithful way of belonging—to neighborhoods, communities, and the created world God has entrusted to us.
Full disclosure: one of the authors is my twin brother. That certainly made me eager to read it, but it's not why I am recommending it. I genuinely think this is an important contribution to a conversation the church needs to have. It's the kind of book that stays with you because it changes not just what you think, but how you see.
July 2, 2026
This is a journey. It tells stories but also has a method. It inspired me to look back at the homestead land my great-grandparents acquired in Alabama, where my father was raised. It helped me to reimagine the gift of land in terms and stories written about in the Bible. This is a beautifully written book that weaves together place, story, and the Bible. It's a testimony that looking at where you have been has a role in where you are going.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
An important and necessary read, especially for a generation that is increasingly untethered to land and physical space. A wonderful primer on the theology of place and a history of how America tells stories about place.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews