Big City, Big God Problem

Spirituality Column #32
June 19, 2007
Current In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Big City, Big God Problem?
By Bob Walters

The Economist, that staid yet cutting edge British magazine of business and trends worldwide, reported last month that 50 percent of human beings now live in big cities.

In 1800, the number was 3 percent; in 1900, 13 percent.

This shift toward cities will affect how Christian missionaries will fulfill Christ’s “Great Commission” (Romans 28:19-20) to “baptize … and teach all the world” about the love of Jesus. The thing is, no one is sure exactly how to do that.

History teaches us it is difficult to evangelize cities.

The Economist article notes that cities originally were organized around farming, commerce, transportation, water, security and, significantly, a religion or temple. Yet considering a list of cities in the Bible – Babylon, Ninevah, Tyre, Sodom, Gomorrah – makes me think God isn’t much of a fan of big cities.

The article says that today cities are organized around and nurture secular culture. In the megacities – think New York, Tokyo, Mexico City, New Delhi, Sao Paulo, etc. – religion’s influence has all but disappeared. The organizing community expression is culture, not God.

It occurs to me that culture, in this sense, is the culture that provides enjoyment – the arts, museums, urbane pleasures, 150 cable channels, broadband and the like. Bigger cities equals bigger culture equals bigger enjoyment.

The Christian religion would call that kind of big culture “temptation.”

A Christian’s hope and faith, a Christian’s joy, is in the Lord; in working our faith and being involved in it; in personally engaging and endeavoring to produce spiritual fruit.

This rush toward cities, even in the poorest cultures where urban squalor is preferable to rural hopelessness, shows that people simply banding together – whether for richer or for poorer – has little to do with producing spiritual fruit.

To figure out how to evangelize megacities, it will take a greater power than us.

Hey, now there’s a thought …

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), a Carmel resident, doesn’t think having more people standing on busy street corners shouting about Jesus is the answer.