An Argument for the City

In our current age, there has developed a strong push towards environmentalism. The kind of mentality that argues for a return to nature, for the equal treatment of animals (or even for the superiority of animals), and a deprecation of technology.

It must be first recognized that a discussion such as this must be held in a proper context and balance. We must not fall into the error of only seeing a dichotomy. We must not argue for nature or for the city. This would be false. There is in fact a middle ground.

The first place to begin is with the concept of stewardship. God has given us this universe to take care of and develop. It started in a garden that was already beautified and man's responsibility was to extend that work over the entire planet. It is interesting to note that man was originally placed in a garden and history ends with man worshipping God in a city.

The original structure of creation was threefold. There was the world abroad, there was the land of Eden and there was the Garden of Eden. With man's sin of rebellion, he was cast out of the garden and into the land. With Cain's sin of murder, he was cast out of the land of Eden and into the world abroad.  With the global sin of mankind during the time of Noah, all men except for Noah and his family were removed from the world. At this point in history, mankind started over and began working back toward the garden. Noah was placed back into the world after the flood, then with Noah/Joshua, God's people were placed back into the land (Israel), and then finally, with the construction of the temple (which was designed to look like a garden on the inside), man was allowed back into the garden. But this structure was symbolic. The incarnation of Jesus Christ brought the reality and fulfillment of these symbols. Now that Jesus has defeated sin and death by his life, death and resurrection, we, as a redeemed, cleansed and sanctifying people, can again take up the responsibility of ordering and structuring the universe. Allow me to make this very clear. Our goal is not to return to a garden state. That has already been accomplished by Jesus' work. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the law, reopening the Holy of Holies. Jesus has provided access to the garden.

Our job now is to take that garden and turn it into a God glorifying city. This may take a very long time, possibly thousands of years. This is one reason why I believe that the second coming probably won't happen for a very long time.

So we have the first argument of Adam's job of taking dominion over the earth. He failed at this by his sin of rebellion, giving power over to Satan. Satan of course did the reverse and led man into death spiral of chaos and confusion. We see this in the barbarism, cannibalism and destruction of man over all of history.

It has not been until the spread of the gospel through missionary activity that the trend toward chaos has begun to reverse. This is certainly not to argue that our efforts have been flawless. Man's sinful nature has caused many problems all over the earth including missionary work as well. But this was due to sinful or misguided or erroneous thinking and action on man's part, not because of fault with the gospel.

The second argument is seen in the development of Israel, the Old Covenant people of God. The pattern that they developed was not a return to primitivism and nature, but a development of the land around them into advanced culture and civilization. They came into the Promised Land and began taking it over, destroying what was evil and redeeming all the rest.
This is the pattern that we are to follow as well. Jesus Christ, as the archetype Joshua, has led us into the Promised Land (not any one particular nation but the world as a whole).  Jesus has defeated sin and death and given us the power and responsibility of cleansing sin in ourselves, thus purifying our world as well. We have the responsibility of maturing our world.

The third argument is about community. As the people of God, our faith is not "just Jesus and me".  Instead, we are part of the body of Christ, each an important part in the whole of the body. We are to worship, repent and grow together as part of a whole. We can only fully do this by being part of a city, with regular interaction in the body of Christ. This kind of interaction is, I argue, very difficult, if not nearly impossible to do in a widely dispersed agrarian or primitive culture. To take Paul's argument in a slightly different direction, when we are focused on the things of the world (the time consuming labor of farm work and/or manufacturing everything yourself), the high majority of our time is spent in earthly labor.

An argument for the city consists of a closely-knit neighborhood built around the church as the body of Christ, involving and revolving around one another in community. Specialization allows for a more efficient use of time and energy as we strive to grow in personal godliness and help one another to grow in our faith.

Ultimately, this is about growth and maturity, not just as persons, but also as the body of Christ. Just as Adam was created perfect, he was immature and needed to grow up, so too we as the body of Christ have already been perfected in Christ but still need to grow and mature. One way in which this manifests itself is in the physical realm. As man, we were created body and soul. As Christians we reject the idea of our spirit trapped in the prison house of the body. The sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, in addition to enlightening our darkened souls and purifying the stain of sin, will also sanctify and cleanse the world around us. What this means is a move toward civilization and culture, not primitivism.