NBierma.com > Heaven

Bringing Heaven Down To Earth
Connecting This Life to the Next
by Nathan L.K. Bierma

Chapter 5
Nurseries of Virtue: An Urban Heaven

• Synopsis
• Discussion Questions
• Quotation Citations
• Further Reading

Synopsis
The name “Jerusalem” has specific functions in the prophecy of Revelation, but we may also take it broadly as a metaphor for heavenly existence. Heaven will be urban. A city is, after all, an icon and emblem of the cultural development of the earth which God commissioned. Although we cannot know with any certainty whether heavenly citizens will all inhabit one self-contained city or many different cities--nor can we deny that there will be suburban and rural civilization on the New Earth--nonetheless we must see in the cities around us the palpable cultural energy that foreshadows a dynamic, harmonic social world that gives glory to God. Although recent history has brought suburbanization--the massive turning away from the poverty and ills of the City by the prosperous--we must rededicate ourselves to serving our current cities as citizens of the heavenly city.

Discussion Questions
• What do you find surprising, and what do you find appealing and comforting, about Revelation's image of urban life in eternal heaven?
• What urban setting is it easiest to imagine in eternal heaven on the new earth?
• Explain an example of the tension of "both Babylon and Jerusalem" in your city.
• What are some examples of what the chapter calls "urban habits that will eventually come to define our eternal life"?

Quotation Citations
• Kamin, Blair. Why Architecture Matters: Lessons From Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 2001. p. xiv.
• Jacobsen, Eric O. Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith. Brazos Press, 2003. On "firmly fixed as the center of the hopes," p. 40. On "an unbroken sea of strip malls," p. 20 ff. On " take our cities seriously," p. 45.
• Gorringe, T.J. A Theology of the Built Environment: Justice, Empowerment, Redemption. Cambridge University Press, 2002. On "both Babylon and Jerusalem," p. 140.
• Franzen, Jonathan. How to Be Alone: Essays. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. On "New World ideal of house-as-kingdom," p. 192.
• Mouw, Richard J. When the Kings Come Marching In. On "partial picture of the Christian sojourn," pp. 120-121.


Further Reading
Bianca, Stefano. Urban Form in the Arab World: Past and Present. Thames & Hudson, 2000.

Bierma, Nathan. "Churches take stock of mission." Chicago Tribune, 29 January 2003.

Conn, Harvie et al. The Urban Face of Mission: Ministering the Gospel in a Diverse and Changing World. P&R Publishing, 2002.

Duany, Andres, et al. Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. North Point Press, 2001.

Harvey, Barry A. Another City: An Ecclesiological Primer for a Post-Christian World. Trinity Press International, 1999.

Hayden, Dolores. Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000. Vintage, 2004.

Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. Oxford University Press, 1985.

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Vintage Books, 1961.

Katz, Peter. The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community. McGraw-Hill, 1994.

Kemmis, Daniel. The Good City and the Good Life: Renewing the Sense of Community. Houghton Mifflin, 1995.

Kuntsler, James Howard. The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape. Touchstone, 1993.

Kutcher, Arthur. The New Jerusalem: Planning and Politics. M.I.T. Press, 1973. A

Lampl, Paul. Cities and Planning in the Ancient Near East . Braziller, 1968.

Lynch, David. The Image of the City. M.I.T. Press, 1960.

O'Daly, Gerard. Augustine's City of God: A Reader's Guide. Clarendon Press, 1999.

Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon and Schuster, 2000.

Rae, Douglas. City: Urbanism and its End. Yale University Press, 2003. (See review in "Urban Eden," Bierma, Books&Culture online, accessed at <www.christianitytoday.com/books/features/bookwk/031201.html>

Ruokanen, Miikka. Theology of Social Life in Augustine's De civitate Dei. Vandehoeck & Ruprecht, 1993.

Rybcynski, Witold. City Life. Touchstone, 1995. (See review in "First City," Franzen, in How To Be Alone.)

Van Pelt, Michael, and Greydanus, Richard. Excerpts from Living on the Streets: The Role of the Church in Urban Renewal. Work Research Foundation, 2005. <Excerpt>/<Full Text>