Who Is the City? Theological Approaches to the City Leopoldo A. Sánchez M.
T
he city is not a what, but a who. It is not ultimately a bunch of buildings, blocks, and businesses. If we see the city primarily as a particular type of human settlement, then getting a sense of the reality of the city is partly an exercise in theological anthropology, that is, an attempt to grasp not so much what is the city as much as who is the city. Without intending to be exhaustive, this essay offers a sample and evaluation of four attempts to grasp who is the city, especially in the United States.1 I argue that a bird’s-eye view of selected contemporary writings on the city from across a spectrum of Christian traditions reveals a variety of theological approaches with their own anthropological assumptions about the people who inhabit the urban landscapes of North America and proposals for how the church should respond to or interact with these neighbors. I call these reflections the redemptive, relational, dialogical, and eschatological approaches to the city, and explore the theological sources, views of neighbors, and the relationship between the church and the world that guide each proposal. The four approaches align with authors who have reflected theologically on their experiences working in various urban settings. They are Matthew Harrison (redemptive), Robert Lupton (relational), Timothy Keller (dialogical), and Eldin Villafañe (eschatological). The essay concludes with a brief analysis of their views and recommends a neighbororiented approach to the city that accounts for the complexity of their inhabitants within the framework of a Lutheran anthropology. Leopoldo A. Sánchez M. is the Werner R. H. and Elizabeth R. Krause Professor of Hispanic Ministries and director of the Center for Hispanic Studies at Concordia Seminary, Saint Louis. His most recent books include Sculptor Spirit: Models of Sanctification from Spirit Christology (IVP) and T&T Clark Introduction to Spirit Christology (T&T Clark).
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