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Theology
The theology of unity-based city transformation is a rich biblical theme, focusing on land, place, city, unity, kingdom and renewal. At Gather Movement we are seeking to provide a library of national and international unity-based city theologians and practitioners who can bring this important foundation to your work.
Towards a Theology of City Transformation
A theology of city or town transformation is found in the whole arc of Scripture, which is essentially about what God wants from a garden to a city. It is the big picture, the overarching narrative of Scripture, from creation to restoration. It is the old story of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.
In Genesis 3 and Revelation 21, two very striking images are set before us that tell us everything we need to know about God’s passion for the transformation of people and places.
Genesis 3 offers the powerful image of humanity in the garden of creation rejecting the gift of beauty and flourishing for the ugliness of self-absorption and fracture. Yet even here, God, as Creator, walks in the garden in the cool of the evening, looking for the woman and man he has made, calling out to Adam, “Where are you?”
The story jumps to the end of the Bible, where in Revelation St John sees a vision of the throne room of the Creator. A loud voice says: “Look, God’s home is now among his people. He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things have gone forever.”
The God who was looking for Adam in the garden is the same one who comes to live and be at home with his people. That is our story. It’s the narrative arc of Scripture: God wants to be with the people he has made, in the place he has made for them. He goes to extraordinary lengths to get what he wants, even to the point of giving his life so they can know him, trust him, and once again share the garden with him.
This huge narrative arc at both ends of the Bible is all about people and about place. Everything in the Old Testament is about people and place. People are never mentioned without their land being mentioned. In every promise of God, it’s about people and land. That is why Jesus comes to transform both people and places, and why he teaches us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Later, St Paul begins to experience and glimpse the transformation God is bringing. He writes that creation itself waits in eager expectation for the fulfilment of this great arc – God doing for the whole cosmos what he did for Jesus at Easter. The risen Jesus is the prototype of the new creation. God will do this through Jesus himself. The ascended Christ is now the ruler within the new creation as it breaks in upon the old.
God is in the business of transforming people and the planet they live on. This is the core of our story. Our neighbours, our friends, our local area and our town or city need to hear this because it is the right story. A story of hope and restoration. A story about the margins and the forgotten. It is a story of God’s joyous plans for the created world, and it includes the people around us.
It is a story that inspires improvement in business and education, shapes public policy and policing, and speaks to both CEOs and hospital porters. It gives meaning to marriage and parenting, wisdom and purpose to the long haul of growing humans and establishing deep relationships. It’s good news for the environment, reflecting God’s true heart for his creation and its renewal.
This theology has a number of implications
1. Transformation is God’s original intention
The church is what God is working through to help bring about this transformation. Transformation is not God’s response to sin – that is found in Jesus. God placed Adam and Eve in a garden, and before sin even emerges, he gave them a wilderness planet and told them: go out, fill the earth, subdue it, rule over it and make something of it. When we come to redemption, we’re not restored to perfection, but restored to participation in God’s original purpose. Transformation is who God is. It’s what he always wanted us to be involved in.
2. Transformation is human-centred
That doesn’t mean it centres on humans, but that it flows through them. God transforms people so they can become agents of transformation for his world. That’s what it means to be human, to be elected by God to cooperate with him in transforming the planet, in civilising the world. Transformation always works through people. That’s why the church is so important – a gathering of those being transformed by God, through whom transformation can come to others.
3. Transformation is Spirit-fuelled
The work of the Holy Spirit isn’t to make our worship more entertaining or emotional. The Spirit of God hasn’t come to tickle our toes or twitch our ears or give us funny feelings, though he may do all that. But it’s always with a greater purpose: to transform the world into what God intended.
The Holy Spirit is God’s transformation at work in us. The problem is, we often say yes to the Spirit, but no to the transformation. We need the Spirit – the creative, energising breath of God the Creator. We need more power to love and forgive, more creativity to serve our towns and cities, more wisdom to navigate this complex world, and a renewed conscience to stay true to Jesus’ values and vision.
The prayer “Let your kingdom come on earth as in heaven” and the prayer “Come, Holy Spirit” are the same prayer. Because the Holy Spirit comes to bring transformation and establish God’s Kingdom.
By Gerard Kelly,
edited by Roger Sutton
from a talk at Movement Day 17, London.
I see a new city
Poured out from Heaven
Dressed for a party
Blazing with beauty
Her rooftops are radiant
Trees trembling with laughter
And joy like a jewel
Shines in her streets
From her walls and windows
No weeping is heard
Through her gateways and gutters
Floods of tears do not flow
For in her homes and houses
No pain dwells
Bricks once broken down in mourning
Rise again in song and celebration
Stones thrown down by enmity and envy
Dare to dance
In swirling swathes of mercy
She sings
A billion voices rising
The long-lost languages of human hopes
The secret praise of human hearts
Released at last
Because her God is with her
Because his home is made within her walls
Because his voice is heard
Gentle like the rains of spring
Declaring
New! New! New!
I am making all things New
This is the city I see
The future I belong to
This is the blueprint
My heart holds on to
Even now in streets
That sing another story
Even here beneath
A darker vision’s shadow
This metropolis of mercy
Promising future realisation
Active now and love’s imagination
This is my dream
And though I wait
And though I long
And though the sacred city
May seem slow
Still I will hope
Still I will pray
Still I will
Today
Rise up and build
Gerard Kelly, I See A New City: Poems of Place and Possibility
Chamine Press 2020 ISBN9781091714007
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