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ADVANCING THE GOSPEL INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
Part IV: City-Focused Strategy
by Tim Keller, Senior Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church

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How the city determines society/culture: The divinely-given ability of the city to do 'culture-making' can be discerned at the most practical level by the urban resident.

The city attracts the minorities of any society who can band together for mutual support. Thus the city is deeply merciful to those with less power, creating safe enclaves for singles vs. families, the poor (and even the rich!) vs. the bourgeois, immigrants vs longer-term residents, racial minorities vs. majorities. Thus the city will always be the most diverse human-life structure.

Because I am put together (by its density) with unique numbers of diverse people, all my thinking and views are radically challenged. I am confronted with creative new ways to think about things, and I must abandon my traditional ways or become far more knowledgeable and committed to them than I was before. Thus I become vastly more creative, committed, skillful in all I am or do.

Sin takes this divine-strength - the diversity of the city - and turns it unto a place (also) of conflict and strife. The gospel is needed to resist the darkside of this gift.

The city puts me together with unique numbers of people like me.

The city also attracts the strongest as well as the weakest (see above). The challenge of the city attracts the most talented, ambitious, (and restless, see below). Thus, whoever you are, when you come to the city you are confronted by far more people who are far better than you at whatever you do.

Because I am put together with unique numbers of like-but-extremely skilled people in my field, I am radically challenged to 'reach down deep' and do my very best. More than that, I feel driven and pressed by the intensity of the density to realize every ounce of my potential.

Sin takes this diving-strength - the culture-forming intensity - and turns it into a place (also) of both deadly hubris and burn-out. The gospel is needed to resist the darkside of this gift.

Cities draw and gather together human resources and tap their potential for cultural development as no other human-life organizations structure can.

2. New Testament - God sends to cities - as urban ministry goes, national mission goes.

Paul's missionary journeys essentially ignored the countryside. When he entered a new region, he planted churches and then he left!

Why? The reason for ministry in cities mirrors what we've seen about the nature of cities.

Cultural cruciality. In the village, you might win the one or two lawyers to Christ, but if you wanted to win the legal profession, you need to go to the city where you have the law schools, the law journals published, etc.

Global cruciality. In the village, you can win only the single group that is there, but if you want to spread the gospel into 10-20 new national groups/and languages at once, you go to the city where they can all be reached through the one lingua franca of the place.

Personal cruciality. In the village little changes and people live is very stable environments. Thus they are suspicious of any major change. Because of the diversity and intensity of the cities, urbanites are much more open to radically new ideas - like the gospel! Because they are surrounded by so many people like and unlike themselves (see above), and so much more mobility and subject to change, urbanites are far more open to change/conversion than any other kind of resident. They may have moved to the city out of the searching restlessness. But even if not, once they get to the city, the pressure and diversity makes even the most traditional and hostile people open to the gospel.

Result? By year 300 AD, 50% of the urban populations of the Roman empire were Christian, while over 90% of the countryside was still pagan. (Note: Some believe that the very word "pagan" comes form the Greek paganus meaning a farmer or man of the country.) Because Christianity captured the cities, it eventually captured the society, as must always be the case. What captivates the cities also captivates the art, media, scholarship, and the professions. Cities are the "culture forming wombs" of the society, made by God to be so.

God's urban alternative. When Israel made Jerusalem its capital, God directed that the temple be built on Zion, an elevation within the city, so that it rose above the city as its 'skyscraper'. But unlike the skyscrapers of the "city of man", designed for their builders own prosperity (e.g. the skyscraper of Babel built "to make a name for ourselves" - Gen 11:4) God's city is different. "In the city of our God, his holy mountain is beautiful in elevation - the joy of the whole earth (Psalm 48:2) in mind when he spoke to his disciples and said to them: "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill... " (Matthew 5:14). Jesus calls his disciples to form a society that is an alternate city within the city. A mini-city where sex, money, and power are used in life-giving ways. A mini-city where people who cannot get along outside can get along inside. A center where artists show it is possible to produce cultural products that bring hope to people rather than just despair and titillation.

Somebody might ask: "But can't Christians be an alternate city out in the suburbs?" Well, of course. Absolutely. I have just discovered over my years in New York that it is considerably easier to show the world God's urban alternative in an actual human city. In racially homogeneous towns it is pragmatically harder to show how the gospel uniquely undermines racial barriers (Ephesians 2:11ff). In places where fewer artists live it is pragmatically harder to show the gospel's effect on art. In economically homogeneous places, physically removed from the human poverty that is so pervasive in the world, it is pragmatically harder for Christians to realize how much money they are spending on themselves.

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