urban christians

Tim Keller's preaching and ministry model often inspires me and gets me thinking. He recently wrote an article for Christianity Today that did both to me again. As I contemplate the issues of the biblical ministry of justice and love for neighbor, I was drawn into what Keller has to say. The article is entitled "A New Kind of Urban Christian" and it rasises many issues that resonate with the life nad ministry of John Perkins (see previous post). Among the statements that caught my eye:

• "As the city goes, so goes the culture...People who live in large urban cultural centers, occupying jobs in the arts, business, academia, publishing, the helping professions, and the media, tend to have a disproportionate impact on how things are done in our culture. Having lived and ministered in New York City for 17 years, I am continually astonished at how the people I live with and know affect what everyone else in the country sees on the screen, in print, in art, and in business."
• "Once in cities, Christians should be a dynamic counterculture. It is not enough for Christians to simply live as individuals in the city...Christians are called to be an alternate city within every earthly city, an alternate human culture within every human culture, to show how sex, money, and power can be used in nondestructive ways."
• "Christians should be a people who integrate their faith with their work. Culture is a set of shared practices, attitudes, values, and beliefs, which are rooted in common understandings of the "big questions"—where life comes from, what life means, who we are, and what is important enough to spend our time doing it in the years allotted to us. No one can live or do their work without some answers to such questions, and every set of answers shapes culture."

Check out the article and share your thoughts...