Essay on The Meaning of the City

from a previous course, while on “Urban Term” in San Diego, California’s ‘City Heights’

“Implications from The Meaning of the City”

The Meaning of the City

Driving down the route fifteen-freeway, only a Mid-City resident will notice how little of City Heights is visible from the bottom of the human made ditch. He/she may remain ignorant of one of the poorest places in San Diego. She may never notice the lack of affordable housing in a place where the least expensive rent housing costs more than a mortgage in Bakersfield. As a student at Point Loma Nazarene University, I have been formed to avoid City Heights. However, City Heights is the place where God is most present. Through my internship at experience Church of the Nazarene in Mid-City, and through professors and fellow students I have interacted with, I have been able to grasp a little bit of the meaning of the city.

Jacques Ellul’s The Meaning of the City is about the difference between God and humanity. The book attempts to describe the literal and symbolic uses of the city in scripture. The scriptural uses of the city tell a story of God in relation to the fall of humanity, the human attempt to restore creation, and God’s choosing of a people through which to restore creation. The cities of Babylon and Jerusalem are Ellul’s focus through the course of the book. He discusses the way each city is a model of every city that has ever existed, including the city in which we live today. Ellul concludes the book with discussion of the role that the church has within the city, and of the actual and symbolic New Jerusalem.

Ellul’s book attempts to tell a story about God. He starts this story shortly after the fall of humanity. After the fall, humans were separated from God. However, though they were separated from God, they were still a part of God. In other words, if ‘good’ is another word for God, and if God called God’s own creation ‘good’, then everything that exists is a version of good (or God). But only the version of good that is called upon by God is the true version of good. Thus, the version of good that humans call ‘evil’ is merely humanity’s attempt to create humanity’s own version of good.

Cain is the first example that Ellul uses for this. Cain is biblically known as the first person to have committed murder. According to Ellul, Cain did not want to suffer God’s punishment, so he fled to “the land of wandering” (3). Thus, when Cain built the first city (Ellul 6), Ellul refers to it as a human rebellion against the original world order that was present in the Garden of Eden. Cain’s rebellion against God is a sign, according to Ellul, of humanity’s rebellion against God, and humanity’s quest to create a human world order (or a human version of good). Through Cain’s building of the city, God curses the human world order (the city).

The story of God does not end here. After Cain’s lifespan ends, God chooses a people who will bear witness to God. Through the chosen people, Israel, God has an agenda to restore God’s own creation back to the original world order. So, when Israel builds a city for the first time the city has “an entirely different meaning” (Ellul 24). Because they once were forced to build Egypt’s cities as slaves, they are reminded when they built their own cities that when one participates in the city, he/she is enslaved to humans. Hence, the city tells the Israelites to fear human organizations, and that participating in the city’s politics prevents God’s chosen people from being solely sovereign to God.

Ellul uses two biblical cities to compare the human world order to the God’s world order. Babylon is an historical and symbolic model of the human order. As I noted earlier, the city is a rebellion against God. In addition to that, Ellul writes that “the city was built as a protection for [hu]man[s]” (58), and that it is a place where “[hu]man[s] [are] subject to [hu]man[s], instead of to nature” (61). Thus, in the historical aspect of the city, Babylon is a place where those who participate in the order of the city use intellectual formulas (53) to solve the “urban problem” (46). Kings and rulers try to enforce laws to maintain peace and order, yet the city manages to find itself in the midst of conflict and war. As a symbolic city, Babylon represents all cites that have ever existed, and ever will exist. The “urban problem” becomes in the twenty-first century an issue for “sociologists and law makers, urban specialists and politicians, architects and economists, humanists and revolutionaries…looking for a moral solution” (46-47). Ellul’s lesson of Babylon is that “the city cannot be reformed.” The ideal of the “garden city” will never happen within the human order of good (Ellul 57).

The city of Jerusalem is opposite to Babylon according to Ellul. This city, which is identical to Babylon, becomes “adopted” by God to be the dwelling place for God’s chosen people. However, though Jerusalem is supposed to have the character of God, it has not yet fully achieved the character of God. So Jerusalem identifies mostly with its symbolic meaning. This city (salem=peace) is the model of the “City of God” (St. Augustine) which operates under a social and economic order that is different from the city of Babylon.. Since humans insist on building their cities, God has become present to the city. While God has not changed God’s own mind- the people chose to build the cities, God works now within the construction of the city.

In relation to the ancient and modern city, the church is the body through which God is revealed. This body operates in the order of peace, and not war. The church loves all other members of creation, and is not selfish. Within this City of God, the church no longer participates in the order of humanity (city of people), but is ordered through the revelation of God that is in Christ. The church proclaims that Jerusalem has no meaning separate from Babylon, other than its apocalyptic meaning (109).

The New Jerusalem is the apocalyptic symbol of what is to come. The New Jerusalem it a statement that no city will last forever, but that the church will always be the chosen people of God. In the New Jerusalem, creation worships God by participating in the “City of God” (St. Augustine). This City of God is structured by the character of God, which is known in the book of Revelation as the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is present today in form of the church, as it points to the day when all creation shall live in the New Jerusalem.

Implications

As the church we are an alternative community. But we still must interact with the city. As a witness to God we are the physical revelation of God’s character. This revelation draws creation to a communion with God, so that creation cooperates with God. This includes those who participate in the city, those who govern the city, and those who seek to solve the problems of the city. Through the Eucharist, all world orders are called to come to the table of the Eucharist. Thus, all creation will eventually participate in God, which is the true and original form of good.

However, we should realize that the city is not going to end until history ends. True and complete repentance of the entire world will not occur until then. So, until the final judgment of creation, cities like Babylon will continue to exist. Also, just as Jerusalem continues to be imperfect, falling slave to the government of humans, so will the church as an institution fall into the government of humans. So, the body of Christ must learn to keep from structuring themselves within the city construct of ‘institution’, but must become a body that is solely characterized by God. Ellul concludes the book by saying that as “[hu]man[s] [return] to dust,” so will the human-built cities return “to the sand from which it was taken” (177). Thus, the eternal church points to the eternal New Jerusalem where all creation will be finally and fully restored.

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