The Grace of Babel

Very few Latin@s in the Christian faith know the importance of small town Ruidoso, New Mexico. There, in a little hacienda in the late 80s, a group that would become some of the leading Latin@ voices in theology and biblical studies made a choice that changed the Brown Church for the next thirty years. The scholars gathered to imagine a new theological association for Latin@s. They discussed the challenges facing Latin@ immigrants to the US and the faith experiences of their people. Nestor Medina had the opportunity to interview Orlando O. Espín, a participant at this gathering, and he summarized the group’s decision by writing: “Aware of their differences and of the wrong perceptions they had of each other’s communities, they decided to downplay the differences that divided them and instead emphasize the suffering and marginalization they had in common” (emphasis added).

Downplay the differences. Emphasize the common struggle. This became the standard style for Latin@ theology in the US. To downplay the differences, the group of scholars adopted mestizaje as a central hermeneutic for understanding Latin@ identity and experience. Three decades later, theologians are asking if flattening the differences between Latin@s made certain struggles – like that of Afro-Latin immigrants who face the “double punishment” of anti-immigrant and anti-black bias – more difficult to overcome. By disaggregating the category “Latinos,” these younger academics reveal the greater challenges facing Latin@s made invisible by the homogenizing work of the past. Many today argue for a dispersion of Latin@s into smaller, specific designations rather than larger monolithic categories. Perhaps it can be said that Latin@s need the scattering of Babel. It’s time we speak in different languages.

For many, the Tower of Babel is a story of curse and punishment. The people in the story gathered to build a city and a tower to reach the heavens. After reviewing their project, the Lord thwarted their work by changing their tongues. Unable to speak to one another, the people scattered across the earth. It is common for this reading of Genesis 11 to be accompanied with a reading of Pentecost (Acts 2) as the reversal of Babel. In Genesis, God cursed the people into language diversity; in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit makes people understand one another. Several biblical scholars have challenged this reading of Babel and Pentecost, and it is important to reconsider these stories in light of the question of Latinidad. How are Latin@s one together? Must our oneness equal sameness? Must we focus only on our commonalities while ignoring our differences? How might a rereading of these stories provide a new biblical vision?

Eric Barreto points to the particulars of Acts 2 to note the disconnect between it and Babel. If God intended to reverse a curse, would God not have caused the people to speak the same language? Instead, the Holy Spirit causes those diverse speakers to hear and understand the good news in their own tongue. Language diversity remains intact. Therefore, it seems unlikely that God intended language diversity as a punishment, and the Holy Spirit does not appear to be undoing such diversity. If Acts 2 honors the diversity of languages, how does that change the way we read Genesis 11?

Pablo R. Andiñach proposes that we read the story of the Tower of Babel as an anti-imperialist story. He observes in the story an ironic use of the name Babel that relies on similarities in different languages. In Akkadian, the city is named Bab-il, which means the “door of God.” This was the short form of the full word, babilani¸ “the door of the gods.” A careful reading of Genesis 11 notes the motivation credited to the builders of the city. They wanted to make a name for themselves (v. 4). These builders, says Andiñach, were attempting to establish their supremacy by declaring their city as the gateway to the gods. Their city was to be the city, and their empire was to be endorsed by the gods connected there. It was their intention to establish this city as the seat of power. Already, Genesis 11 foreshadows the hegemonic vision of domination embedded in Babylon. The Hebrew writers mock this city when they write that God scattered the builders, and it is for this reason the place is now named Babel (Hebrew: confusion). God renames. God does not choose Babylon, nor does God permit the imperialists to absorb all peoples into their kingdom. The empire has been confused, scattered, left in disarray. What does this mean for language diversity?

“Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues; for I see violence and strife in the city.”

— Psalm 55:9

Andiñach argues that language control, like the naming of a place, city, or people, is tied to power. Babylon is the biblical name for the empire, one which Israel would later enter as prisoners of war. The Israelites would one day be forced to speak the language of the empire, forced to live under the cultural hegemony of its oppressors. Genesis 11 is a foreshadow of God’s intention for Babylon. God condemns Babylon’s supremacy claims. God scatters the empire, and in doing so, God privileges those the Babylonians would eventually oppress. The story indicates God’s intention for the world. God does not want monolithic absorption into the empire’s ways of being. Instead, God forced the peoples back out to continue to fill the earth with teaming and flourishing. Language diversity is what God intended for the world. Babel was dismantled because it threatened God’s intended order. The rest of the Hebrew Bible cyclically shows God destroying Babylonian echoes; wherever monolithic violence is the dominant form of being, God dismantles it.

We must be cautious about how we judge the Latin@s of the past as they faced the empire’s monolithic violence. In the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, the US was operating an assimilationist vision for racialized minorities. This vision dates back even further to the early 1900s, as Daniel Burnham and other prominent city planners imagined field houses where immigrants would be taught the “American way of life.” These field houses would also host language classes, and it was Burnham’s vision that immigrants be required to attend these classes. This vision didn’t fully materialize in Chicago, Burnham’s city, but the spirit of this planning continued in similar political programs. The goal was to produce one way of being, according to the logics and visions of white leaders in power. In the face of assimilation programs like these, the scholars of the past resisted by naming themselves and honoring their own traditions and cultures. The protection of identity and culture is, in part, what drove the Latin@ scholars meeting in Ruidoso to collaborate. To understand their decisions, they must be reviewed against the Babylonian operations of the US.

Latin@s and Asian Americans

As mentioned earlier, the hacienda meeting is the origin of mestizaje as a significant theological tool for Latin@s in the US. Those present chose to use Virgilio Elizondo’s work as a central hermeneutic for understanding the Latin@ experience. To this day, mestizaje remains the dominant way of understanding Latin@ identity. We are the mixed people of the borderlands. Those who are ni de aquí, ni de allá (not from here or there). We are, according to the logic of mestizaje, neither white nor black; we are “brown.” Mestizaje presented the possibility to speak of our in-betweenness. The usefulness of the identity marker was its gathering power. Latin@ theologians from Cuba, Mexico, the US, and Puerto Rico could now speak as one “mestizo” people. They could live under one name.

This decision is not strange for its time. In the late 60s, student activists in California went on strike for an ethnic studies curriculum. In an interview for Asian Americans Generation Rising, Penny Nakatsu says she heard the term “Asian American” for the first time in 1968 while attending these strikes. The 60s and 70s were a time of coalition building, of gathering people from diverse nationalities under a single name. With their larger numbers this group could apply political pressure to get their needs met. Like the Latin@ theologians, Asian American students were most concerned about the shared suffering and marginalization of their peoples. They gathered to resist a common oppressive regime.

In 2021, Asian American, Latina/o, Hispanic, and other similar designators are contested by politically active students and scholars who share the motivations of their counterparts in the 60s and 80s. Today’s activists use a greater diversity of identifiers with the expressed desire of advocacy for unseen groups. This commitment is an echo of the past, but many in this younger generation believe the terms of the past are too homogenizing. Too monolithic. Among Latin@s, some even accuse the scholars of the past of essentializing the Latin@ identity. Essentialism is the inflection point. Yet the turn to more specific identities may not solve the essentialism problem. In a video about the erasure of black Latinas from reggaeton music videos, La Gata suggests we reinstate the brown paper bag test to ensure sufficiently dark Afro-Latinas are cast; Afro-Latinas with the potential to “pass” are her concern. In a desire to do justice, she risks essentializing Afro-Latinidad around the boundaries of pigment.

Missed in the tension between generations is the origin of the essentializing/naming problem. The marginalization of distinct groups in the 60s, which demanded a gathering response, and today’s homogenizing of minorities into a single “othered” group, which demands a scattering response, are both operations of white supremacy. These machinations are part of what Emilie Townes refers to as the fantastic hegemonic imagination of the US. “The fantastic hegemonic imagination traffics in peoples’ lives that are caricatured or pillaged so that the imagination that creates the fantastic can control the world in its own image.” The fantastic is not limited to works of art, marketing, or media. Townes argues that images of and about minoritized peoples shape the very fabric of the everyday. Yolanda M. Lopez reveals this most vividly in her 1994 art installation The Nanny, from the Women’s Work is Never Done series, in which she sets the uniform of a nanny, often worn by Latinas, between two marketing posters depicting white women exploiting Latinas. The marketing, in this case a tourism ad and a wool fabric promotion from Vogue magazine, continues to perpetuate an imagination that negatively shapes material conditions for the most abject.

Artworks like The Nanny demonstrate what Townes calls the cultural production of evil. The ads, uniform, and other elements of the installation demonstrate the way little everyday things perpetuate evil imaginings of minoritized peoples; they maintain the fantastic hegemonic imagination. The ubiquity of things that perpetuate this imagination ensures that everyone internalizes it. Townes again: “It is found in the privileged and the oppressed. It is no respecter of race, ethnicity, nationality, or color. It is not bound by gender or sexual orientation. It can be found in the old and the young. None of us naturally escape it, for it is found in the deep cultural codings we live with and through in US society” (emphasis added). How, then, do we avoid the cultural production of evil that consistently marginalizes whole collections of diverse peoples? How do we resist the fantastic hegemonic imagination and its tendency to group, name, and define people according to its own image? How do the generations work together to resist the empire?

ESSENTIALISM AND WEST SIDE STORY

In the 60s, when Latin@ scholars chose to live under a single name, they did so to gain greater political power within a system that ignored them unless they assimilated. The system, however, turned their gathering efforts into a tool in the fantastic hegemonic imagination, and it was used to perpetuate visions of Latinidad that further marginalized the people it named. This is perhaps most evident today in Spielberg’s recent remake of West Side Story. During a recent panel discussion with leading Puerto Rican scholars, Grammy-nominee Bobby Sanabria shared about his involvement on an advisory board that consulted Spielberg, Tony Kushner, and their team on the cultural issues to consider for their remake. Sanabria explained that the original film resonated with him personally because he remembered having to join a Puerto Rican gang in the 50s “to protect ourselves from the white gangs that didn’t ‘dig us’ too much…” He continued, “it’s a reality that happened and is still a reality today.” Brian Eugenio Herrera, another panelist, pushed back, noting that the reality of gangs was and is certainly true, but the impact of West Side Story is that it filled the US imagination with images of Caribbean Latin@s as criminal gang members.

The image produced by the film is not of gang life as self-defense but rather gang life as violent criminality. Over the 60 year period since the release of the original film, young Afro-Latinos have resisted this perception. What had been impactful for Sanabria was poison for the next generation. The problem, as explained by Herrera, was the development of an aesthetic archetype, a permanent caricature of what it means to be Puerto Rican. The film may have portrayed something specific to its time, but this image became the universal, essential description of Latino youth even beyond Puerto Ricans. With the release of this remake, the question of essentialism returns to the fore.

RESISTING THE AESTHETIC ESSENTIALISM OF BABYLON

The debate about West Side Story runs along the grain of the generational tensions already described here. An older generation praises the film; a younger generation resists it. Some within the older generation perceive positive power in it. A younger generation feels debilitated by it. Herrera rightly notes that the film, like the scholars of Ruidoso, set the style for what it means to represent Latin@ people. The scholars of the hacienda in Ruidoso also set the theological style for Latin@s, adopting mestizaje as their tool to downplay their differences. To resist the empire today, however, perhaps what we need to do is release the hegemonic controls of style and aesthetic. Again, we need the grace of Babel and the affirmation of Pentecost.

Victor Anderson, Professor of the Program in African American and Diaspora Studies and Religious Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School, observes a similar generational tension in the work of his black students. According to Anderson, students continue to ask questions he thought were resolved by the previous generation of scholars. Questions like, “What makes one black? Must black scholarship be political? Are black films, literature, and arts anything produced by a black person? To what extent may black scholars embrace multiculturalism as a mode of difference and remain distinctively black? Is not there something about being black that is shared with no other race?” These questions echo contemporary questions about Afro-Latinidad and Latin@s more generally.

Instead of essentialized styles that restrict the identity to one form, Anderson proposes that black scholars conceive their work as expressions of the manifold manifestations of blackness. For Anderson, blackness should be understood as an “unfinished state” and a “complex subjectivity.” By unfinished state, Anderson is suggesting that the final, definitive word on black identity remains unsaid. Each new generation contributes to the shape and formation of black identity; they add another manifestation to the manifold. Complex subjectivity is an acknowledgement that each person within a group is multi-site, connected to other worlds that shape their identity. As Emilie Townes puts it: “we do not live in a seamless society. We live in many communities – often simultaneously.” Together, the ideas of these scholars point to a post-Babel world that affirms the desires of both generations and opens to a diversity of peoples.

The story of Babel and Pentecost reflect God’s affirmation of a diversity of peoples. Again, Babel is not a curse into diversity, nor is Pentecost a reversal into homogeneity. In both stories, God affirms the minoritized other and does so in contrast to the empire. (Pentecost serves as an early encounter between the Church and Rome.) How do we reconcile the two generations and avoid the essentializing tendency of Babylon? There are at least three lessons presented by the scholars discussed here.

1)    Resist the fantastic hegemonic imagination inside us

Emilie Townes stressed the real possibility that the hegemonic imagination can be internalized. This is just as true for the older generation as it is for the younger. Is it possible that the older generation failed to see the inherent essentialism in their advocacy? Yes, of course. However, to critique them without acknowledging the ways they resisted hegemonic forces of assimilation in their own day is to reduce their story. Is it possible that contemporary discussions about Afro-Latinidad risk essentializing blackness in Latin@ communities? Again, yes. But, to ignore the ways black experience was made invisible since mestizaje became an archetype would align us with the empire’s tendency to erase and assimilate. All peoples are non-innocent regarding the empire. To remember the Latin@ story in detail, that is part of our resistance. To acknowledge what inspired students in California to adopt “Asian American,” to remember why Latin@s adopted mestizaje, to remember why their differences were less important than their shared struggle, this is what’s required if we are to collaborate against the empire’s operations.

2)    Celebrate “Complex Subjectivity” as the grace post-Babel

While trying to explain her womanist theo-ethics, Emilie Townes writes, “life and wholeness (the dismantling of evil/the search for and celebration of freedom) is found in our individual interactions with our communities and the social worlds, peoples, and life beyond our immediate terrains.” The point is that diversity does not equal a society without seams. Diverse communities, however distinct, continue to have points of intersection. And, as Townes says so well, wholeness demands we work within our distinct group and with others beyond our tribe. We can delight in and celebrate the gift of Babel, the gift of diversity in language and peoples, while still connecting along the seams of connection. To say it differently, we can now celebrate the differences instead of downplaying them. This celebration should parallel our continued work against our common struggle. Celebrate difference. Resist the common struggle. That should be the formula going forward.

3)    Work in the Everyday (lo cotidiano)

For Latin@ and Black scholars, the everyday is the location for resistance. The artwork of Yolanda M. Lopez reminds us that the fantastic hegemonic imagination of the empire produces everyday objects of evil. So, our resistance must also operate in the everyday. Everyday we must be attuned to the ways our imagination is being shaped, and everyday we have an opportunity to make otherwise worlds. As non-innocent, complex subjects who live together in the grace of God’s work in Babel and Pentecost, we can create virtuous cycles of cultural production that set people free to live into their language and identity. Everyday arts, everyday products, everyday words can liberate people from the monolith. Everyday rituals can point people to the Word that judges Babylon and sets its captives free to testify of His goodness in their tongue and tribe.

About Emanuel (Ricky) Padilla

Emanuel Padilla is president of World Outspoken, a ministry preparing the mestizo church for cultural change. Emanuel is committed to serving bi-cultural Christians facing questions of identity, culture, and theology. He also serves at The Brook, a church on the northwest side of Chicago, along with his wife Kelly.

Follow him on Twitter to learn more.

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Planting in Babylon Pt. 2

Maybe I’m not over it. Maybe the choice to start by telling this story is proof that it still bothers me. Still. Even if I’m “in my feelings,” I’m convinced he missed the point. Several years ago, while still in grad school, I submitted a paper on a model for multi-cultural congregations that I was quite proud of in the end. I had worked hard on the paper and included a theological argument for diversity I thought was soundly reasoned. When I got it back from my favorite professor, it included this feedback:

“I am puzzled why you have turned to the Exodus narrative to emphasize the multiethnic nature of God’s redeemed people.  Why not [use] the NT passages that more explicitly emphasize … God’s design of making His church multiethnic and its theological significance?”

This question is at the heart of this article. I believe God’s plan was always about making a mestizo people that would reflect His character on earth by making the world as it should be – a place of beauty, justice, and goodness. People failed to do this time and time again, but that doesn’t change the plan. He is redeeming a mixed multitude and calling them to create, to plant gardens, and build communities that set things right and restore His order. If this was always His plan, then it should be seen in the story the first time He rescued people and called them His own. In fact, the identity of Israel should hint to God’s plan for a multiethnic people just as the Church finally displays it. And, it does.

Returning from Exile

At the end of part one of this series, I noted the promise God made to Israel while they were exiled in Babylon. He said, “I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you, and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile” (Jer. 29:14). This promise reveals a second important identity marker for God’s people. The first was our non-innocence, our inability to work in Babylon as self-righteous missionaries detached from the city. The second is our mestizaje, our mixed identity as one chosen nation, a royal priesthood called to reveal His character (1 Pet. 2:9). We do this in our work (which will be explored further in the final part of this series), but we also do this in our very existence as a community. This is the focus of this article, and with all due respect to my former professor, the best way to show the importance of our mestizaje is to start at the beginning of the story.

The first time God rescued a people from slavery and called them His own, he rescued a mixed multitude (Exod. 12:38). The exodus story – the story of how the Lord rescued Israel from slavery to Egypt by sending Moses as His messenger – is essential to understanding how salvation happens in the Bible, what it means, and what it does to those who are saved. The Exodus was a significant part of ancient Israel’s history and identity.[1] It shaped their understanding of God and His works of salvation.[2] In fact, every time salvation happens in the bible, it’s meant to be understood as an echo of the exodus, a “new exodus,” a repetition of the pattern set in Egypt. While in exile, Israel waited on God to rescue them yet again in another powerful exodus that would bring them back home to their land. However, when they finally did return home, they quickly realized they had not yet been fully freed, and the exodus pattern remained unfinished. That is how the Old Testament ends, but for the careful reader paying attention to the pattern, the start of the New Testament should thrill because it introduces a new Moses, Jesus of Nazareth.

The writers of the New Testament, being faithful Jews, framed the story of Jesus as a great exodus. N.T. Wright argues that in the letter to Ephesus Paul is using the phrase, “guarantee of our inheritance” to draw from the themes of the Exodus narrative.[3] According to Wright, Galatians chapter four is part of a larger thought-unit “of the rescue of God’s people and the whole world from the ‘Egypt’ of slavery.”  He observes clear “exodus language” in Galatians 4:1-7 that is echoed in Romans 8:12-17. He goes on to say, “by overlaying that great story across the even greater one of the accomplishment of the Messiah, rescuing his people from the present evil age, Paul is able to say… this is therefore how you are rescued from sin and death.”[4]

If the exodus is this important to our understanding of all the salvation acts in the Bible, especially the way we understand Jesus’ acts in saving the Church, then the details of Israel’s salvation identity should inform the way we read Paul and other NT writers’ words about the multi-ethnic makeup of the Church. Precisely for this reason, Exodus chapter 12 verse 38 can’t be glossed over. At the very least, the mixed multitude of Israelites who left Egypt as God’s people included the half-Egyptian children of Joseph that formed the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. That means that “Israel” included some who had the blood of their oppressor. The verse says that a “mixed multitude also” (emph. mine) went with Israel. This suggests that other non-Israelites-by-blood went out of Egypt as part of God’s people. The instructions that follow Israel’s exit assume this mixed group.

The first instructions are for the Passover meal which commemorated God’s rescue of Israel from slavery. In these instructions God includes this accommodation: “A foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land … The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you” (Exod. 12:48-49). This instruction, including its details about circumcision, and the ones that immediately follow are all about marking the identity of Israel. They make clear who belongs as part of God’s people. For instance, the next instruction is for a memorial that would be celebrated on the new calendar God gave them (see 12:2; 13:3-9). Holidays were established for Israel to remember who they were as the rescued slaves that were now God’s people.

The New Exodus

As the greater Moses (Heb. 3:3), Jesus accomplished a greater exodus. Therefore, the mixed multitude of Israel is only but a hint of the mestizaje of the Church. Like any biblical theme, the mixed identity of Israel grows more complex yet clear as the story continues. By the time Israel was exiled in Babylon, Ruth the Moabites had married into Israel. Rahab the Jerichoan prostitute joined the nation. These are only two examples of the many times Scripture makes clear that “Israel” is a complex name for a mixed people belonging to the Lord. When Jeremiah writes his letter to the exiles, he reveals that the Israelites were going to experience another mestizaje. They wouldn’t return to Israel exactly as they had left it. They would now bring back some of Babylon with them.

The Lord’s instructions to the Babylonian exiles was to plant gardens, build homes, and marry off their children. They were to become part of the fabric of Babylon. It was there, as members of the city, that the Jewish community developed synagogues. It was there that they developed new cultural rhythms that would mark them as God’s people. When Jeremiah, on behalf of the Lord, writes, “I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you, and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile” (Jer. 29:14), he is hinting that Israel would be a land of diverse experiences with a new Israeli community that now includes cultural expressions from nations abroad. Indeed, this is seen today. In Jerusalem, near the old city, there is a series of banners along a popular bike/walk path that display people from many ethnic groups in a prayer position. The text below the banners reads, “One of the most important visions for the city of Jerusalem is its existence as a cultural and religious center for all peoples.” The banner then quotes another prophet, “for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Isaiah 56:7).

Jesus was born a Jewish man in Israel while it was under Roman rule. His experience, his cultural context, included yet another mestizaje where Roman culture played a significant role. As the new Moses, He accomplished the greatest exodus of all, and through His death and resurrection, those who follow Him are part of the greatest mixed multitude to be saved from slavery. He is fulfilling that promise written by Jeremiah and more. There is one final theological contribution from the Exodus story. Peter Enns comments that the Exodus pattern is closely aligned to the new creation theme. According to Enns, “to redeem is to re-create.”[5] God, in recreating a people of a mixed identity, is now calling them to care for and develop a culture that reflects the world as He intended it. This is the subject of the final part in this series. For now, may we live in Babylon as one beautiful display of God’s unifying love for all people. Together, we are His holy nation, His Church.

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Footnotes

[1] Ronald S. Hendel, “The Exodus in biblical memory,” Journal of Biblical Literature 120, no. 4 (2001) 601 [601-622].

[2] Otto Alfred Piper, “Unchanging promises: Exodus in the New Testament,” Interpretation 11, no. 1 (January 1, 1957) 4 [3-22].

[3] Wright, Simply Christian, 125.

[4] Wright, Justification, 136. See also pg. 157-158 point 4, where Wright argues the Exodus slavery language is part of the summary of Paul’s theology

[5] Enns, New Exodus, 216.

Beyond Racial Binary Pt. 2

Miles Morales. That’s the name of the Spider-man at the center of the newly released Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse. He is half African American, half Puerto Rican, and the first bi-racial superhero to hit the big-screen. As a true coming-of-age story, the movie portrays Miles ascending to the idea that he too can be spider-man. This is the main theme of the film, and it’s summarized in a mid-credit title card that reads: “That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero” (Stan Lee). The Spider-verse, with its many spider-people, is a forward-thinking contribution to the race conversation, one that subtly adopts a thicker identity than the binary (i.e. black/white) so common to the discussion. Miles is more than a black character. Spider-man is more than a white Peter Parker. The super-hero behind the mask is recast as a Criollo, a product of a complex racial world.

Original Artwork/Christian Perez

After reading our previous article on the racial binary, a reader sent me the following critique (I’ve shared it in full because it is the question at the center of this second article):

“This article proved that historical events demand a more nuanced view. Now you should take it further and explain how [a tri-racial history] will not only account for what actually happened in America but what that historical accuracy will do for discussions about race in America. So yes, the truncated [binary] starting place doesn’t account for the history of the west and south, but how will the new proposal change the discussions about our racialized history?”

Essentially, I believe this reader is asking for points of application, for the “what now” that follows from a tri-racial American identity and history. My goal is to answer his question by building from the same two points that I proposed in the original post. A tri-racial dialog on race is one that is rooted in a thick history of non-innocence and the Criollo/Mestizo Identity, and together these provide a base for reconciliation and unity. Miles Morales will serve as a contemporary case study, an example of how a history of non-innocence and a Criollo identity can shape us all for the better. While Miles serves as the social example, I intend to draw points of connection between these ideas and the Bible when appropriate. In making these connections, my aim is to show that the Church is uniquely equipped, when guided by Latino/a brothers and sisters, to be the ambassador of reconciliation in a racialized America.

A History of Non-innocence[1]

In the previous article, I briefly covered a history of racial oppression and violence in the west coast. By recounting this history, I demonstrated that the Hispanic experience in America includes acts of racism dating back further than the history used to support a racial binary. However, this more nuanced historical account is not meant to be used to lay claim on land once stolen by Americans. That is not my goal.  On the contrary, the Hispanic social identity does not permit me, nor my people, the gift of innocence when it comes to ownership claims on the land. Remember, the means by which these lands became Spanish was conquest and encomienda (see previous post), practices no more honorable than those used by Americans years later.

Hispanics are the mixed products of Spanish conquistadors and indigenous people. Our inheritance is always a mix passed down from guilty ancestors. As Justo Gonzalez remarks,

Our Spanish ancestors took the lands of our [Native] ancestors. Some of our [Native] ancestors practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism. Some of our Spanish forefathers raped our [Native] foremothers. Some of our [Native] foremothers betrayed their people in favor of the invaders. It is not a pretty story. But it is more real than the story that white settlers came to this land with pure motivations, and that any abuse of inhabitants was the exception rather than the rule. It is also a story resulting in a painful identity.[2]

A Criollo history, a mixed, tri-part history that accounts for the crimes of our ancestors and acknowledges that our inheritance is the result “not merely of hard labor, daring enterprise, and rugged individualism but also of theft” can cultivate the empathy necessary to pursue justice together.[3] This is the great gift and therefore the great responsibility of a Hispanic heritage: to challenge the myth of innocence in the American past.

Miles and his Heritage (Spoiler Alert)

One of the tensions of the Spider-verse movie is the relationship between Miles and the male figures in his family. His father, Jefferson, is a hard-nosed police officer who lives on clear cut lines of right and wrong and pushes Miles to transcend the mire of life in Brooklyn. In a powerful moment between father and son, Miles questions why he must go to the new magnet school instead of being in a traditional public school “with the people.” Jefferson’s answer is firm: He wants something better for Miles; he doesn’t want Miles to become his uncle. To this, Miles responds, “What’s wrong with uncle Aaron?”

Miles admires his uncle Aaron, who is a clear foil of Jefferson. The big reveal of the film is that Aaron is The Prowler, a murderous villain who works for the Kingpin. During a tragic scene following the revelation of Aaron’s alter-ego, Miles is encouraged by his dying uncle to do better, to be better, because he is “on his way” to greatness. Miles’s own family is complicit in the crimes, his uncle is caught up in the wrongs, yet he drives Miles to transcend as Jefferson had hoped. Miles’s hero was also a villain. This is part of his complex inheritance. This history of non-innocence undergirds Miles’s embrace of his call to be Spider-man. In the end, we see Miles paint a tribute to his uncle in the police station with his father, a beautiful act of remembrance.

A History of Non-innocence and the Church

The way we capture and relate history affects the way we perceive the world and the Bible. This is one of the basic claims of Justo Gonzalez’s book, Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective. Justo demonstrates that Bible stories are not politically and socially neutral, and he convincingly argues that American retellings of biblical stories tend to sterilize them and remove these aspects. However, a slow examination of the Older and Newer Testament would prove to be quite contrary to this mostly innocent account of the stories. The history of Israel is a dark heritage which includes rape, the murder of the innocent, and the oppression of the poor. The heroes of the Old Testament are often deceitful and out for their own gain. The disciples in the New Testament are not much of an improvement. As Justo writes,

In short, biblical history is a history beyond innocence. Its only real heroes are the God of history and history itself, which somehow continues moving forward even in spite of the failure of its great protagonists. Since this is also the nature of Hispanic history, it may well be that on this score we have a hermeneutical advantage over those whose history is still at the level of guilty innocence, and who therefore must read Scripture in the same way in which they read their own history.[4]

Justo concludes his remarks with a clear challenge to read the Bible as it is intended, as a record of an entirely guilty humanity in need of God’s grace. This reading of Scripture and act of responsible remembrance, argues Justo, leads to right action in the present. Again, if we are all ladrones (thieves), we are readier to empathize and challenge injustice together.

A Criollo/Mestizo Identity

I introduced the criollo/mestizo identity in the previous article. These words have been given theological significance as well. Jose Vasconcelos (a Mexican writer, philosopher and politician) was the first to take the term mestizo and redeem it as a positive term. In his early writings, Vasconcelos argued that America could be the place where La Raza Cosmica (The Cosmic race) could develop. He saw great potential for unity in the Hispanic identity because it transcends designation by skin color. Many Hispanic theologians since have followed his line of reasoning to portray the Church as a kind of mestizo group.

Virgilio Elizondo, for instance, argued similarly in The Future is Mestizo.[5] Much of his work focuses on the theological significance of the mestizo/a and the process of mestizaje, which defines the mixing of the three bloodlines (African, European, and Native) not only biologically but culturally and religiously as well. These theologians reflect deeply on their ethnic-social identity, but they also reveal a key observation about God’s people throughout history. From their very origin, the people of God were a mestizo (mixed) group. A brief review of the biblical story reinforces this identity.

When the Lord first redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt, the Bible tells us that “a mixed multitude also went with them” (Exod. 12:38). Moses married a black woman, though he was criticized for it (Num. 12). When Israel crossed the Jordan river into the promised land, Rahab, a prostitute, helped Israel in their conquest of Jericho. She would marry into Israel, and later genealogies reveal that she is a foremother of Jesus (Matt. 1:5). Ruth, a moabite, is another foremother of Jesus. The Bible tells us that one of the earliest converts to Christianity was an Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:28-40). The church where the term Christian was first used was a mixed church led by a group that included a black teacher named Simeon (Acts 13:1). The early church included Jew and gentile alike, and the startling conclusion of the Bible foretells that God will be praised by a multitude “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9).

From the beginning, God’s people include a mix of Africans, Europeans, and Israelites as one group. The history is one of non-innocence and the identity is uniquely and profoundly mixed. Mestizaje is the process by which Hispanics became one group consisting of brown, white, and black people. One of my Abuela’s favorite reminders is that you cannot identify a Puerto Rican by the color of their skin. Indeed, my family includes relatives of white skin with blue eyes and others with dark skin and curly hair. Despite these physical differences, we are united in one culture, one spirit, and one family. Is this not what Paul envisions in Ephesians chapter 4 when he challenges the church to walk worthy of their call by living in profound union?

Anglo Americans already have a sense of this mixed identity and union. They typically do not self-identify as German, English, French, Dutch, etc. Instead, the identity is now subsumed in the racial category: white. Mestizaje, however, moves beyond skin color and is rooted in more nuanced history; it produces a social group readier to welcome the other with genuine hospitality.

Conclusion

Miles Morales is a criollo Spider-man deeply committed to his family. When he faces the villain of the film, it is his connection to his family that lifts him to the task of defeating evil. He wins the fight by remembering his father’s words and using his uncle’s move. Miles is black, he is Rican, and he’s Spider-man. His empathy and desire for justice are rooted in his heritage and the complexity of his identity. Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse was an excellent display of the gift of mestizaje. Like Miles, the Church can learn from their brown family members to remember responsibly and act justly in the world. This is the great gift and great responsibility inherited from the Hispanic identity and the Latino/a church.

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Footnotes

[1] Credit must be given to Justo L. Gonzalez for this title and framework for history. His thoughts on history shaped what I propose in this section, and I recommend readers consider his book Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective.

[2] Justo L. González, Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective, Reprint edition edition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 40.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., 77.

[5] I suggest reading Nestor Medina's book called Mestizaje: ReMapping Race, Culture, and Faith in Latina/o Catholicism as a primer. Nestor dedicates an entire section of the book to expounding and critically reviewing the ideas of Elizondo.

Babylon By Choice

In 1965, four years before Neil Armstrong took a low-gravity step on lunar soil, my friend Dr. Martin Marty published Babylon By Choice. It’s a booklet about the mission of the Church, and in it, Marty makes two claims: 1) the new environment for Christian mission is urban, and 2) the basic reality of urban life is its secularity. Fifty years later, Marty’s voice reverberates all-round the Christian community. Popular evangelical pastor, Tim Keller, insists the “very models for ministry must become increasingly urban.”[1] Redeemer City to City, a ministry he co-founded, recently had an inaugural North American conference where they hoped to “accelerate and support gospel movements in North American cities.” Sean Benesh, former Developer of Urban Strategy and Training for TEAM, coined the word metrospiritual to capture the “urban-centric approach to faith and Scripture.”[2] Prominent evangelical universities are providing degrees, creating centers, and implementing new models of education that focus on the city. These all form the chorus that echoes Marty’s words; the city is the mission field of the Church.

Marty’s second claim is equally prescient and relevant to contemporary discussions among Christians. Erwin Lutzer’s recent book, The Church in Babylon, is one of many books preparing believers to engage a world that no longer supports decades of comfortable Christendom. These recent publications resemble the voices of Marty’s day, bringing forward the same posture that led churches to suburbanize and flee the city.[3] As Marty reports, the urbanizing world of the late 60s and early 70s saw a society where the influence of the Christian faith was rapidly diminishing, and churches were slow to adjust. Keller writes this about Western churches in the 70s:

“While many Christian leaders were bemoaning the cultural changes, Western churches continued to minister as before – creating an environment in which only traditional and conservative people would feel comfortable … All they preached and practiced assumed they were still in the Christian West, but the Christian West was vanishing.” [4]

Both the focus on the city and the fear of its influence reveal that Marty properly esteemed the significance and power of “Babylon,” an ancient city that now symbolizes all cities and their corruption. In his booklet, Marty challenges his readers to choose Babylon, to commit to a sort of “lovers quarrel” with it, to make it the Church’s home. The World Outspoken tagline, “The City We Make,” is yet another echo of Marty’s voice. Our project reflects a commitment to Babylon, a love for it. It also reflects a commitment to a future city, one “with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10).

My goal in this article is to explain our mission to make the city, tell a different story, and contribute to the culture-making. Our urban-centric focus has generally caused one of three reactions. Some immediately feel our work does not include them because they do not live in a city or live in an urban community that doesn’t compare in size to cities like Chicago. Others are suspicious of our ideology, and they divide into two possible groups. They either suspect we are optimists promoting the creation of a utopia, or they suspect we are aligning ourselves with specific political and theological agendas contrary to the gospel. To these three communities, I’d like to provide a response by considering three question: 1) What is the City, 2) How does it work, and 3) Why should we choose it?

What is The City?

By asking this question first, I am not trying to be overly philosophical. The reason this question is even being asked is because of the resistance to the city and its ways. Most evangelicals (particularly white-evangelicals in the US) are still wary of urban places. Many Christians still tie the gospel to a rural mythology. They believe the myth that “only people in contact with the soil can have real spirituality.”[5] They think “the Christian message’s interest in developing real and authentic persons makes sense only in traditional societies and not in the modern city.”[6] We see this in the way they talk about spirituality. For these faith-people, God is a horticulturalist who made and cares for the natural world, and the city is a wicked construction of corrupted humans.

In Theology as Big as the City, Ray Bakke remembers an article entitled, “Why Evangelicals Can’t Survive in the City” (pb. 1966; one year after Marty’s booklet). The author of the article suggests the Bible is fundamentally a rural book that shows shepherds and farmers as God’s favorite people. According to the author, David was God’s chosen one while he remained a shepherd, but his life as king in the city corrupted him. The lesson presented in the article was simple: Christians should stay away from the city.[7] In a more recent example, Jen Pollock Michel writes this referring to the sin of man in building the Tower of Babel: “They reject the good gift of land and choose as a substitute the domestication of a city.”[8] Her comments suggest that building a city at all was a sin rather than connecting sin, the rejection of God and corruption of man, to the telos (i.e. purpose) of the city that was built. The problem with this mythology is that it misreads the book of Genesis, and ultimately the full arch of the Bible story.

We need a more complete image of the city. We see in these examples that many still see the city as the place of vice, violence, and evil. To this group, the city is only ever Babylon, the place of the Tower of Babel. Today there are others, however, who envision the city as Utopia, the place of power, recognition, and freedom. The first group seeks escape from the city, and the latter flocks to it. Neither vision captures fully what a city is, yet together they reveal the partial beauty and brokenness of it. To help us see an image that captures the city’s very real propensity to violence and its equally real power for fostering human flourishing, we must first recall the backgrounds for the words “urban” and “city.”[9]

Urban life recalls the Latin background of our language in the term urbs. To most thinkers this word represents “the world man builds for himself.” It is the largely physical side of man’s own creation. “Urban” refers to the form or structure of life. It is, so to speak, the apartment that man has to furnish.

The word “city,” on the other hand, carries the memory of the Latin civitas, a word that immediately throws the idea of civilization into our minds. Civitas refers to the psychic or mental and spiritual side of man’s world. It implies not the form of the city but the activity in the city. It does not represent the furnished apartment but the working and thinking of the people who live in the apartment.

Our image of the city needs to account for its two dimensions. The city is both the world we choose to build for ourselves and the spirit with which we relate to it, each other, and those transcendent realities we call goodness, truth, and beauty. The urban, meaning the conglomeration of buildings, streets, parks and plazas – the furnishings in the human apartment – is an agent in service to the city; it supports the city in forming the minds and spirits of its people. This reveals the first of two images I think account for the city’s complex dimensions. The city is an incubator for culture-making.

The City as Incubator

In his day, Marty observed the power of media and entertainment in promoting a very urban image of life. He writes, “Truly, because of the power of mass media of communication [sic], the whole world is becoming a city.”[10] Keller, again a contemporary echo of Marty’s voice, similarly argues that globalization and the internet have strengthened and expanded the reach of urban culture, making it more difficult for rural areas to continue unaffected by the urban world. In 2010, Edwin Heathcote noted that cities like Laos were growing and absorbing smaller cities and suburbs in their growth. He observes that these bigger, “metacities” needed greater connectivity, and he writes, “digital networking has not, as was forecast, led to a decline in the city. Rather, it has led to an urbanisation [sic] of the rest of the planet.”[11]

My point is that it is no longer possible to ignore or distance ourselves from the influence of the urban world. The apartment is nearly fully furnished, and the only questions now are: what kind of world did we make and what does it do? “If the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is henceforth condemned to live. Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense of the nature of his task, in making the city man has remade himself …”[12] We have to contend with the urban world as a real force capable of engaging all of us. Lewis Mumford, attempting the remarkable task of writing a history of “the city,” concludes this:

“From its origin onward, indeed, the city may be described as a structure specially equipped to store and transmit the goods of civilization, sufficiently condensed to afford the maximum amount of facilities in minimum space, but also capable of structural enlargement to enable it to find a place for the changing needs and the more complex forms of a growing society and its cumulative social heritage.” [13]”

— Lewis Mumford, The City in History

As I already stated, the urban world, increasingly large as it is, is an agent, a servant to its other dimension: the city. The structure is uniquely made to hold and promote the goods of civilization. Therefore, thinking of the urban as an incubator is helpful. The urban world is a node of cultural power. It captures and sustains the spirit of its citizens. It can do so for good or for the detriment of humanity. The urban world is as good as it is built to be, and that reveals its inherent flaw. It will only ever reverberate the character of its maker. In my studies of Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago, I discovered the research of Kristin Schaffer. She argues that Burnham believed the urban world is:

An iconographic reservoir that is capable of inspiring belief in the larger social body and in one’s duty to it. Thus, the city is a physical as well as representational realm that organizes the life of its citizens and promotes them to social affinity and proper behavior in public spaces. The citizen would be instructed to be sure, in the schools, the day-care centers, the orphanages, and the adult citizenship classes given at the neighborhood park field houses, but the citizen would also be taught symbolically through architecture. [14]

With the incubator image still in mind, we should consider the second image for the city.

The City as Fire

The ancient Greek philosopher, Lycurgus, claimed the city was the only unit of government capable of establishing a relationship with the individual strong enough to make it (the city) a formative agent.[15] In other words, the city is of greater influence on the character of its people than the state or nation. This explains why people in cities like New York, Tokyo, Seoul, and London are likely to have more in common with each other than with the non-urban citizens in their own countries.[16] Remember, these global cities are connected to one another and are promoting (i.e. incubating) a similar form of life.

In a previous article, I argued that culture is what we make of the earth. It is what we make in two senses: 1) it is the stuff we produce from the natural resources around us (i.e. the urban apartment and all its furnishings), and 2) culture is the meaning, the sense, we make of the worlds that we create. This is where the name, World Outspoken, originates. Culture is the world we make and live in together. We already saw that this world is urban in design, and its built to foster human culture-making. Now, I want to turn our attention to the meaning, the sense we make of this urban world order.

The cultural world can be broken down into four spheres: story, space, community, and time; the most important of these being the story. Stories are foundational to human life. We cannot make sense of our actions without the stories that guide them. These stories, however, are not enacted in a vacuum with no regard to space and time. The city, then, is not merely a dense collection of buildings made of brick, glass, and steel. It is the setting, or space (second sphere), where a community of persons (third sphere) live out a story (first sphere) according to a specific rhythm of life (i.e. time, the fourth sphere).[17] Urban environments help us act out our stories.[18] They also serve as instructors for new community members, helping them understand the values implicit in the community narrative. The objectification of virtues – the work of making ideas and values concrete in objects – is part of the city’s program for the formation of its people. Values are embedded in narratives and narratives take form in places. The human spirit is externalized in stories that give shape to life and setting alike. To return to the original metaphor, the urban incubator is powered by the fire of the human spirit. The city dimension, then, is this fire.

In her classic book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs uses this metaphor to explain what a city is. For Jacobs, a city is a large field in darkness being illuminated by scattered fires of varying sizes, each representing intense, diverse, and complex human community. As the community works for mutual support and benefit, they give shape to the “field” around them; their life together brilliantly reveals the necessary form for the space they coinhabit. As the community teems with flourishing people, a city is born. It is important to acknowledge that this fire is intended to benefit the citizen. It’s meant to illuminate a good way of living. As Aristotle once wrote, “Men come together in the city to live; they remain there in order to live the good life.”[19] The pursuit of this good life is the end of the city, the revelation of this fire. This image reveals three basic functions for the city that we can now explore in our next question.

How does The City work?

I will only briefly detail the functions of the city since many of them have already been described in the answer to the initial question. First, cities are places of human advancement. Human advancement is a phrase meant to capture the reality that cities are not full of poor people because they “make poor people, but because cities attract poor people with the prospect of improving their lot in life.”[20] Secondly, cities are places for technological advancement. Finally, cities are places that enable human cooperation.[21] Of course, these functions can and generally do become corrupted. The city can enable systems for human oppression, the development of technologies that result in human harm, and the cooperation of a society that sustains a city resembling Babylon. Park’s ominous warning is worth remembering: if the city is the home we build, it is the world we are condemned to live in together.

As the incubator and burning focal point for cultural power, the city maintains the basic functions of society. Political legislation is written in the city. Cultural trends begin in the city. Economic enterprise is run from the city; even the farmers travel into the city for their market. Its influence is felt emanating through the suburbs and out into the rural communities of the surrounding region. So, the culture we make in the cities of the world has the potential to shape whole regions for good (or evil). Therefore, we must choose the city. We choose to intentionally make the city according to a better, truer, more beautiful story than those that created Babylon.

Before moving to the final question, I want to address the secularity of the city. The truth is that the city runs on the interface of several stories. Immigrants move to the city with narratives from their home culture. The rich and the poor each present their own vision for life in the city. Religious groups proclaim their meta-stories, and the social elite and media outlets (journalists, entertainers, artists, etc.) channel stories directly into the family’s living room. For these narratives to coexist the city maintains a a variation of a secular, or non-religious, dominant story. The modern city is pluralistic. Secularity, as Marty notes, is the basic reality of urban life. This presents challenges to the Christian mission. However, there is no reason for Christians to fear this reality. Instead, we must adapt to and embrace the new context for Christian mission.

Why should we choose The City?

In the Bible, there are two important images for the city. I’ve introduced the first image already: Babylon. This ancient city was a display of power for its kings, who often boasted great conquests and war victories.[22] It was the symbol of their ability. It was an expression of boast. In City of God, Augustine presents the City of Man – an image synonymous with Babylon – as governed by libido dominandi (the lust for mastery). This lust to dominate others is a perversion of power. Indeed, Mumford notes that many of the cities of the ancient world grew into their full form on the parasitism of surrounding areas and the use of slaves. He argues that capital cities like Babylon expanded by imposing required tributes and “by bringing about a negative symbiosis based on [the] terrified expectation of destruction and extermination.”[23] Babylon, and all the cities after it, harbors this base abuse of power. Cities can and are the places of great injustice, severe violence, and deep-seated inequality.

However, the Bible has a second image for the city, an alternative that drives Christian mission. This city is called Zion. Just as Babylon is an image that captures a certain behavior, so too Zion is an image that drives a Christian ethic. This is vital to the Christian mission in the city, but we must be careful not to present our message as nothing more than a Utopian future. To present Zion as simply a hope for a future heaven will not suffice in the context of the secular modern city. Instead, Zion introduces a dual identity for the Christian in the here and now. In fact, I argue that Zion is the urban future for a present city that is inherent to the Church’s very character. Allow me to explain.

City on a Hill

Jane Jacobs’ image of the city as an illuminating fire resonates in one sense with the city-image in the Biblical story. Jesus connects the nature of the Church with the nature of the city by envisioning the Church as “light of the world … city set on a hill” (Matt. 5:14). The Church is the radiant-city. It stands in a fire that burns but does not consume, illuminates but does not destroy. In the darkness of the field, the Church is built as part of a city all-together good, beautiful, and truly conducive to human flourishing. In their life together as resident aliens and travelers, immigrants, the Church is given space and instruction to make their current place resemble a future urban place, one built by God (Heb. 13:14). The Church is God’s alternative to man’s failed attempts at building an urban world and the modern city’s plague of loneliness, rootlessness, alienation, and injustice.

In one provocative piece of writing, famed missiologist Leslie Newbigin argued for the possibility of a Christian government. “He contends that the logic of the cross should lead such a government to be non-coercive toward minorities, committed to the common good of all, and therefore could still allow a pluralistic society to flourish.”[24] I am by no means advocating for a Christian government or the literal construction of a Christian city, but Newbigin’s “logic of the cross” presents the way for Christian mission in the modern city. We should choose Babylon that we might reveal to Babylonians a way of life that fits their aspirations. For instance, people all over the world desire justice and societies of equality, but the cities they make are built on stories and uses of power that cannot engender commonwealth. This is essentially Augustine’s critique of Rome. In City of God, Augustine critiques another writer named Cicero for suggesting that Rome is, in fact, a commonwealth. He does this on the basis that justice is part of the very essence of a commonwealth. Augustine suggested, however, that Rome only created a semblance of justice. It is his contention that Rome, like all other earthly cities, is still inherently charged with humanity’s self-love and the libido dominandi.[25]

Conclusion

In 1965, before the world exploded into urban life, Marty concluded his booklet with a simple charge to the Church. He observed in his own day that the modern city “cut off” the Church from “the kinds of decisions in which basic life … is affected and formed.”[26]  Christian leaders and pastors are relegated to specialized roles in modern cities and kept from engaging more and more in the public elements of life. Marty notes that many conservative Christians have accepted this new place in the city, saying “that the only responsibility of the Christians toward the environment is to rescue and snatch people out of it.”[27] These same sincere Christians, observes Marty, “then turn around to criticize most vocally the secularizing of life to which they abandoned society and its people.”[28] Instead, Marty proposes a different way of engaging Babylon with the Christian message.

Because the pastors of the world are marginalized from many of the public and powerful functions of the city, Marty suggests the Christian lay person - the scientists, teachers, historians, artists, marketers, chefs, and bankers – are the necessary workers for Zion. They must carry on the Christian Mission and lead the exodus from Babylon to Zion. “They will be effective from the human way of speaking to the degree that they penetrate the varieties and definitions of urban life.”[29] Secondly, Marty challenges the Church to deep unity in a city of frayed relationships. “While “we” work in division, the city “closes itself off” without us.”[30]

World Outspoken is an echo of both moves in Marty’s charge. Our mission is “to inspire, train, and equip culture-makers speaking good news into the cities they make.” We focus on culture-makers because they are the leaders in Christian mission. We also work with Christians and non-Christians alike because we are committed to the common good of the cities of the world. Finally, our desire is that the city we make resemble the unity born from the death and resurrection of King Jesus. World Outspoken is the city we make.

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Footnotes

[1] Timothy Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City, 8.9.2012 edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012).

[2] “Books | Sean Benesh,” accessed September 27, 2018, http://seanbenesh.gutensite.net/Books.

[3] For more on this phenomenon, see Eric O. Jacobsen, William Dyrness, and Robert Johnson, The Space Between: A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012).

[4] Keller, Center Church, 253.

[5] Martin E. Marty, Babylon by Choice: New Environment for Mission, 4th Printing edition (Friendship Press, 1965), 18.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Raymond J. Bakke, A Theology as Big as the City (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic, 1997).

[8] Jen Pollock Michel and Katelyn Beaty, Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition and the Life of Faith (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 2014), 83.

[9] What follows is an excerpt of Babylon by Choice (pg. 10).

[10] Ibid., 16.

[11] “From Megacity to Metacity,” Financial Times, April 6, 2010, https://www.ft.com/content/e388a076-38d6-11df-9998-00144feabdc0.

[12] Ralph H. Turner, ed., Robert E. Park on Social Control and Collective Behavior: Selected Papers, 2nd Print edition (Phoenix Books, 1969).

[13] Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (San Diego New York London: Mariner Books, 1968), 30.

[14] Kristin Schaffer, Introduction to Plan of Chicago, by Burnham and Bennett, First Edition (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993), xiii.

[15] Burnham and Bennett., xii.

[16] Keller, Center Church, 155.

[17] Time can be understood as the plotline, or rhythm of life, for the story. Jacobsen suggests one could ask, in light of human life understood as the actions of people in a drama, “When are you” with regard to their position in the story (i.e. opening scene, climax, resolution). Each story lives according to a different rhythm.

[18] Note: Because cities are the physical settings for cultural narratives, they can be created with unique forms. In other words, cities have peculiarities and nuances just as people have peculiarities that distinguish their unique personalities.

[19] As quoted by Mumford, The City in History, 85.

[20] Sean Benesh, Blueprints for a Just City: The Role of the Church in Urban Planning and Shaping the City’s Built Environment (Urban Loft Publishers, 2015).

[21] Benesh.

[22] Genesis 10:8-10 identify Nimrod, a mighty man and hunter, as the founder of Babylon.

[23] Mumford, The City in History, 160.

[24] As noted by Keller, Center Church, 223.

[25] Augustine, Augustine: The City of God against the Pagans, ed. R. W. Dyson, y First edition edition (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), xviii.

[26] Marty, Babylon by Choice; 61

[27] Ibid., 62.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid., 63.

[30] Ibid. Marty is quoting Roger Schutz here.