Exegeting Cities
Summarized Input from Ron Boyce, Ray Bakke, Fr. Ben Beltran and Randy White
(with questions from Randy White)
Exegesis: greek meaning to lead out of (or, reading what’s important)
Boyce: Six Principles of Urban Geography for Exegeting Cities;
1. Cities are interconnected with other places, are embedded in a world system
a. Where in the world is this city connected?
b. How does that affect the church here and in those places?
2. The closer things are to one another, the more likely they are to interact with one another.
a. How does this city affect the surrounding cities?
b. How does the density of this environment affect things like marriage patterns,
shopping habits and the availability of goods, church attendance, etc.?
3. Interactions between places are directly proportional to relative size and inversely related
to accessibility
a. What do you observe that this city offers that is drawing people to its boundaries?
b. As you observe it, what about this city either makes what it has to offer more
accessible or less accessible to people?
4. Attitudes and values of any society are manifest in the physical structure of its cities.
a. What physical characteristics of this city suggest the core values of the society?
Explain.
b. What assets or amenities do you observe? How are they used?
5. People not only shape cities, but cities shape their inhabitants
a. What realities of this city are clearly shaping those who live here?
b. How well is our gospel presentation matched with people’s daily realities?
6. All cityscapes are created on a palimpset (re-written manuscript) of their past and each
generation partly erases the past producing a scrambled cityscape.
a. How are various realities of this city’s history (wars, revolutions, environmental
disasters, slavery or exploitation, etc.) affecting the way life is lived here today?
b. What tensions are there between generations (the old who remember the past,
and the new who don’t know or respect it), and how does this affect the way life
is lived here, affect civic goals or projects, affect the use of tax monies, etc?
c. What role might the church be able to play in mediating this tension?
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Boyce: Exegeting Cities at Macro, Meso and Micro levels
Macro: cities are seen as points
•
How does this city relate with other cities?
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How does it rank in the urban hierarchy?
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How is it different from other cities?
Meso: cities are viewed as areas or sites
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What are its basic topographical features of the built environment, neighborhood
boundaries, use of land?
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What are the chief characteristics of its special interaction?
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Who makes up the social fabric of this city?
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How does ethnicity or social class affect life or social interaction here?
Micro: cities are neighborhoods
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Are there clearly delineated boundaries, turfs, etc?
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Is there walkabiity?
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What can be learned by signage, language, and restaurants?
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What role is the church playing at the level of felt needs here?
Boyce: Six perspectives on the city
1. The Temporal Perspective from history and other disciplines:
a. What model cities from history do you know?
b. How does this one compare?
2. The Sacred Perspective from Religion and Anthropology:
a. How central are the religious institutions to the life of this city?
b. How prevalent are religious symbols to the culture of the city?
c. What sites in the city represent especially sacred space?
3. The Security Perspective from economics, urban planning, etc:
a. Was the city walled or gated in history?
b. What characterizes the law enforcement environment?
c. Are there centralized controlling entities like oppressive governments or
powerful corporations?
d. Are there strategically protected locations?
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e. Do the average populace feel safe to walk?
4. The Economic Perspective from economics, geography, political science:
a. What do you notice about the environment of commerce and trade?
b. To what extent does tourism drive the economy as opposed to industry or
manufacturing?
c. To what extent are churches in the various strata of society in tune with the
economic realities of their parishioners?
d. How accessible and fairly distributed is financing?
5. The Spatial Perspective from geography, urban planning, etc.:
a. To what extent is this a "vertical" or a "horizontal" city?
b. How do the various sectors of this city interconnect and relate?
c. To what extent are all parts of this city accessible to all kinds of people?
6. The Social Perspective from sociology, anthropology, political science, architecture,
philosophy:
a. What classes of people are evident here, and what do you observe about their
interrelationship?
b. Who participates in community governance?
c. What monumental works of the city testimony to social realities here?
d. What are the premier institutions in the city and who benefits from them?
e. To what extent does the church have a voice in the city shaping the values,
policies, and daily realities of life in this city?
Bakke: Luis Mumford said, “the unique office of the city is to increase the variety, velocity,
extent and continuity of human intercourse” (relationships/interchange).
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What specific evidences do you see that each of these are happening in this city?
Bakke: Urbanization vs Urbanism:
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Urbanization = growth, magnet quality of city, city as place
o
What has this city experienced in terms of recent growth trends?
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o
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How has this impacted the church’s focus or methodologies?
Urbanism = city as lifestyle, city as process
o
What impact does the city have on its residents in the areas of education, material
well-being, housing, religious life, entertainment, attitude, physical well-being,
etc.?
o
To what extent are its most educated residents staying or leaving?
Bakke: The church:
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What view do city churches have of the city and their role in it? A bad place we have to
save?
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Each church is a vantage point on the city, having unique constituencies and niches.
o
Who are they reaching?
o
How are they reaching them?
o
What are some outcomes?
Bakke: Strategies:
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Go to school principles, pastors, police captains, jails, city council persons, mayors and
ask them for their view of the community.
o
Show me the neighborhood through your eyes
o
what's the most important thing you have learned in your work/ministry here, that
you think I should know?
o
Thank you for serving here
Bakke: Challenges cities present to Christians and Churches:
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Sociological:
o
•
•
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what have been some of the darker moments in this city, and what wounds has it
created in the populace?
Structural:
o
in a 24-hour city what constituencies exists that the church might not know
about?
o
How are global events influencing this city?
Religious:
o
how is religious pluralism influencing youth?
o
how is the anonymity and secular culture of the city influencing religious
tradition?
Denominational:
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o
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Financial:
o
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if urban culture does not support brand loyalty with regard to church, what are
the implications for denominations as they seek to connect with young, urban
dwellers?
what are the special challenges for ministries, agencies and churches to function
in the often higher-priced environments of cities?
Theological:
o
what are the fault lines that divide Christians in this city?
o
What churches or agencies might see ministry here as being primarily personal
(Phillipian model) versus ministry here as being primarily structural (Colossian
model)?
o
What churches or ministries here might believe more in saving grace (what
happens to the soul after death) versus common grace (Luther and Calvin on the
things that benefit society)?
o
What churches and ministries here have trouble being truly trinitarian, i.e., have
only the category of the atonement agenda of Jesus versus the creation agenda of
the Father or the reconciliation agenda of the Holy Spirit? What implications do
each of these essentially Unitarian positions have for how life is experienced
here, with regard for urban environmental degradation, for example, or ethnic
tensions, etc.?
o
To what extent have churches divided along the lines of age cohorts?
Bakke: Specializations of ministry in urbanized world. What ministries or churches exist in this
city that reach out to:
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At risk peoples, from the pre-born to the aging, from damaged persons to gang members
to migrants, etc.?
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At risk communities or neighborhoods?
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Multiethnic and multi-language groups?
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Marketplace ministries and the powerful?
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Those in need of relief, justice or advocacy?
Beltran: Cities are made up of three realities, symbolized by the following Latin terms:
The Urbs:
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Where we get our word urban. Includes all the physical qualities of the environment, the
layout, transportation, sanitation services, boundaries, features, etc.
The Civitas:
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Where we get our word civic. Includes the behaviors of a city, its history, major events,
what it is known for, its reputation, its function in the world.
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The Anima:
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Our word animation comes from here. This includes the “unconscious universe" of its
residents, their assumptions, beliefs, ways of thinking. Some call this the "soul" of the
city.
White: A TRINITY OF IDENTITY MARKERS
Questions You Can Ask to Get to Know Your City
1. Urbs question: How many people live in my city? What’s the ethnic breakdown of the
population? Do certain ethnic groups tend to live in certain areas?
2. Urbs question: What geographic realities (for example, freeways, railroad tracks,
housing stock, transportation systems) influence how people interact, or don’t?
3. Urbs question: What percentage of the residents in my city can afford to purchase a
median-priced home? What is the rental vacancy rate? Where do the poor live?
4. Civitas question: Does my city have a reputation? What is it known for? What events in
the history of my city (good or bad) have contributed to this?
5. Civitas question: What kinds of things characterize the relationship in this city between
(a) ethnic groups and (b) classes?
6. Civitas question: What civic associations, coalitions, networks or groups exercise the
greatest influence in my city? Who are the key spokespersons for these?
7. Anima question: What kinds of things characterize the religious climate? What historical
forces have contributed to this climate?
8. Anima question: What popular beliefs or assumptions tend to contribute most to people’s
behavior in my city? What misunderstandings of God most inform these?
9. Anima question: What perceptions about my city are prevalent from its residents? How
does my city regard itself? Proudly? With shame? With arrogance? With gratitude?
What events in my city typify its self perception?
Questions taken from Encounter God in the City: Onramps To Personal and Community Transformation by Randy
White (IVP 2006). Categories attributed to Father Ben Beltran
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