I've been mulling over the following:
The Speckled Mind: For the Love of the City
I should probably avoid comment, since I don't know much about the topic, but ignorance breeds conflict (witness our president), and a good blog is nothing without a little conflict.
1) "But there's everything in the Bible that says you ought to want to [live in a city]." Where the hell is this piece of scripture? We ought to want to live in a city? What is a city? Since Dr. Keller is a pastor in NYC, I assume "city" = large metropolitan area? Those poor farmers, working in the country (dumb hicks) and suckers living in small cities like Des Moines.
2) When Christians talk about wanting to become "counter culture" centers of society, I get nervous. I know the idea is a noble one. Usually the argument involves the city on a hill can't be hidden argument: Christians should be ambassodors of love, peace, joy, etc, and hence "counter-cultural." I've yet to ever see this play out in practice.
3) My good friend Timmer asks an interesting question: "How does this all affect the way we live within culture?" What is "culture"? The question presupposes "culture" is a universal concept, but shouldn't we speak of cultures rather than culture? In practice, there are multiple cultures at work within society.
1 comment:
So....I'm guessing you didn't listen to the audio before writing. It's pretty hard to do such a long presentation justice on a blog. He pretty well deals with your concerns. I think you will see his point and perhaps *gasp* even agree with a lot of what he has to say. Particularly, he deals with why this ISN'T some kind of elitist strategy and what counterculture DOESN'T mean.
I'm telling ya, Joel. Take a listen to it. For an old white guy, Keller's got a lot of good things to say.
What you didn't know is that I was sticking my tongue out at you while typing this entire response. How's that for getting even :P
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