Learning To Be Complete Citizenry With My Congregants In The City

Reformation Day 2004 – John L. Ng © Copyright 2004

Since moving back to New York, my congregants have taught me how to enjoy city life again. We enjoy lunch in Nobu or a late night dessert in Café Mozart; watch Shakespeare in Central Park or Cary Grant movies in Bryant Park; picnic on the grass in a Garth Brooks concert or watch the Yankees while wolfing down a corn beef on rye; take an afternoon stroll in the Cloisters or browse through an impressionists exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; wait in line for half price Broadway tickets or for The Lord of the Rings.

City life is the highest form of community living. It is culturally rich, socially enriching and spiritually renewing. Living in New York is “beauty-full.” Like any urban place, New York is also “ugly-full.” In some ways, city life is also the worst of being human. More than 100,000 New Yorkers have died of AIDS and another 100,000 are homeless. Before the year’s end, 1000 will be murdered, 2000 will be raped, 48,000 will be robbed, and 44,000 will be assaulted. Being human that we are, we naturally take what is good and avoid that which is bad. But that is not complete citizenry. Being good Christians also mean being good citizens.

While in college, I helped a group of working class (mainly Chinese) tenants in their fight against eviction by the telephone company. As their representative, I met with several local politicians to seek their help. The first thing they showed me was a voters’ registration sheet. One said to me, “Few of you register to vote. Why should we help you?” That cynical official had a point. When citizens don’t get involved in the city, why should the city involve them.

It is obvious that the gay community has a powerful voice in New York. One reason is than many gays are involved in city politics. On the other hand, the Evangelical community, especially the Asian church, has one of the weakest voices. Of the several Chinese churches I know personally, most of their congregants including pastors, overseas born and American-born alike, have not even registered to vote. While the Chinese community in recent years has become more political, the church has been glaringly apolitical.

A church may have a vibrant ministry and yet be marginalized in the city. When we planted Vision Church, its potential for marginalization was much on my mind. I wanted my core group to envision our church’s active presence in the city. We worked hard to reflect that in our mission statement: We want to build a culturally sensitive and spiritually dynamic urban church that would impact our community and city culturally, socially, economically and spiritually with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Space would not allow a detailed explanation. Suffice to say that we sought to teach our congregants to be active in city politics. The word politics comes from the Greek root for city. To involve in politics is to involve in the city. I read somewhere that politics is the management and the exercise of power. Aristotle adds that politics is for the common good. Taking these thoughts together, politics is the management and exercise of power for the common good in the city. To be a complete citizenry, Christians get involved in the city to make it a better place culturally, socially, economically and spiritually.

What does it mean to be a complete citizenry? Christians should do at least seven things: be grateful to God for the city, pray for its needs, pay taxes, vote in elections, serve in jury duty, support its cultural amenities, and volunteer in community services. Through the years, I have encouraged my congregants to do likewise. However, as significant as these activities are, the list seems trite. Complete citizenship is more than doing the minimum. It requires an imaginative vision of the church in the city. I have some unfinished thoughts toward shaping this imagination. They revolve around six theological models through which we see the church in the city. (The models are inspired by H. Richard Niebuhr’s great book, Christ and Culture)

City of Church

In Isaiah 60 the prophet envisions Jerusalem as the eternal City of Yahweh. God speaks of the city as the center of commerce and religion in redemptive language. The redeemed city will shine with the glory of God. All earth’s peoples will gather in the city of God to serve God. Peace will be its administrator and righteousness will be its overseer (verse 17).

This theological model praises the harmonious relationship between the church and the city. We see the church in the city as analogous of heaven. Through the presence of the church, God is redeeming the city. The church is for the city and the city is for the church. While waiting for God to complete his work, God’s people are to live meaningfully and actively in the city. As they enjoy all that good in the city, they also work against all that is bad. Good citizenry means that we live, move and have our being in the city, effecting cultural, social, economical and spiritual changes.

City Above Church

After Jerusalem fell in the sixth century BCE, God’s people find themselves in exile in Babylon. Exile is where people, customs, language, clothes and foods are strange. They are anxious to go home and refuse to unpack their bags. Living as exiles makes them angry with anxiety. Jeremiah gets a wind of this and in a letter in Jeremiah 29 urges them to settle down as good citizens. He exhorts them to build houses, plan gardens, get married and raise families. Above all, they are to seek the peace of the city. Toward this end, God makes two profound statements. In verse 7, God says that when the city prospers they will also prosper. In verse 20, God says that they have been sent there with a divine purpose. Therefore, they should live as productive citizens in the place where God has called them.

This theological model appreciates the estrangement between the church and the city. Christians are exiles in the city. The city is above the church. Its dominant culture dominates. They can never quite fit in comfortably. Yet the church cannot be a religious ghetto living in isolation. Christians are to live normal lives by contributing to the welfare of the city in prayer and participation. Get involved in city politics. When the city does good and well, all citizens, including Christians, will benefit from it.

Here a distinction between social concern and social action is made. Social concern has to do with the church’s collective voice speaking out for good and against bad. Social action is when church members individually participate in bringing good and ridding bad. Three examples: the church needs to address the issue of gay marriage. And individual members need to get in the political process to influence gay marriage policies. The church needs to speak to policies for the working poor; this also means that congregants have to invest their money and energy to serve in a soup kitchen or tutor disadvantaged students after school. The church needs to give voice in the politics of public education; instead of home schooling, parents should work with local school boards toward a more acceptable curriculum.

City Against Church

St. Paul in Philippians 3.20 reminds the church that “our citizenship is in heaven.” Our sense of belonging is heavenly. In another place, the Bibles says that Christians are citizens of another city “whose architect and builder is God.” They are but “foreigners and strangers.” (Hebrews 11.10,13) In essence, the church is a colony sent to represent God in the city. As resident aliens, Christians ought to keep from being soiled by the secular (from Latin that means this present time) pollution of the city. We should not assume that just because we all breathe the same air and utter the same vernaculars means we share the same worldview. On the contrary, city culture is against all that is true of the church.

This theological model warns about the disparity between the church and the city. The disparaging differences can transform sincere Christians in extreme reactions. Some Christians insulate themselves from all that is in the city – a kind of sanctification by isolation. Other Christians may indiscriminately assimilate into city life – a kind of survival by acclimation. Both extremes are wrong. The church is called to live not in isolation or assimilation but to represent God. I like the original meaning of the Roman Catholic Mass. Mass comes from an old Latin liturgy that means “now, get out of here.” At worship’s end, the congregants are dismissed with God’s blessing to get out into the city as bridge builders. New York has more than 50 bridges that connect its neighborhoods and neighbors. As God’s representatives, Christians are to connect the Kingdom of God with the politics of the city. Thus, their presence is God’s presence; their voice becomes God’s voice.

City and Church in Paradox

James, the brother and apostle of Jesus, in James 4.4-5 admonishes the church that its affinity with the world is animosity toward God. “Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God,” he cautions. The ways of the city can dangerously estranged us from the ways of God. St. James is talking more than an immoral urban lifestyle. It is that complacent attitude toward secular living that agitates James. The believer who lives in faith actually lives in conflict in the city. City culture and church values are in paradox without any room for compromise. The two worldviews are diametrically opposed to each other.

This theological model accepts the dualistic environment in which the church does ministry. If the city culture is opposed to God, then how shall the church live? Some Christians become “taker-citizens” in the city. They eat in its fine restaurants, frequent it trendy stores, enjoy its theaters and museums. They take what is good and ignore what is bad in the city. A few don’t even like the city. There are too many worms in the Big Apple. So their existence consists of three places: home, work and church. Besides staying, going to work and church, they have nowhere else to go.

I know a Christian who keeps company with his colleagues at work. They eat and play together. They go to Knicks basketball games at the Garden and play softball in Central Park. Yet for more than ten years, no one suspects that he does something different on Sunday. I know another Christian who also works and plays with people in her office. But she sips ginger ale while her colleagues order cocktails; she laughs but not at their sexually laced jokes; she “dates” non-Christians yet always in a group setting. She permeates their conversations with a theistic rational for who she is and what she does as a Christian. It seems to me, while living in cultural paradox, this Christian still enjoys the city and be a disciple of Christ.

City Transforms Church

The angel of God speaks most harshly to the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3. 14-22. No church does ministry in an ideal setting. Every church deals with its cultural and political contexts in mixed success. Somehow the Laodicean church has let the city’s decadent lifestyle substitute its life in the spirit. It is the only church of which Christ does not affirm in Revelation. There is nothing more grim than for its congregants to be lukewarm in spirituality. The cultural influence of the city has crept into the church and zaps them of spiritual reality and ministry vitality.

Years ago, an elder was standing in the back of the sanctuary during the church’s annual meeting. He lamented out loud but to no one in particular: we don’t pray for our finance anymore. I think what he meant was that the church had become so self-sufficient that it became indifferent to the things of God. In his devotion on Revelation, William Barclay says that indifference is the most difficult sin to overcome. Indifference renders the church amnesic and its members anemic in its mission. Evangelization is a two way street. The church and the city in their own ways seek to transform the other. When the church is lukewarm, in effect, the city has already transformed the purpose of the church.

This theological model sees the threat of urban living to the mission of the church. Woody Allen, the movie director and a New Yorker, joked: why ask if there are other life forms in the universe; it’s hard enough finding your way in Chinatown. Finding our theological bearings in New York is tough; doing church work is tougher. There are thousand voices shouting at the top of their lungs for our attention. The tacit urge is to walk the road of less resistance. Going along with the city’s politics may be the easiest choice. Some pastors may feel that when preaching the hard lessons of the Bible. Church leaders may think that in the church’s ministry priorities. The congregants may want that when coping with social acceptance or career promotion. Enough mainline churches have opted for the social gospel seemingly because it is the natural response to the city’s social needs.

Christ’s knocking on the door of the Laodicean church is an eucharistic invitation for recovery of the church’s true relationship with God, and the city (Revelation 3. 20). The invitation sounds so evangelistic that many use it to invite non-Christian to come to Christ. But the invitation is for Christians to return to their real identity. It implores them to recover their relationship with the risen Christ so that the life of Christ may be lived through them. How else can they transform the city as its light and salt.

City Transcends City

Pagan and Heathen are words often used for those who are anti-church. Their etymology is interesting. A pagan is someone who lives in the suburbs. A heathen is a person who cuts shrubs for a living outside the city. Pagans and heathens are not urban dwellers. The faithful of God are ones who live in the city. Ray Bakke, an Urban Mission professor, coins a phrase that defines the global impact of those who in the city. He calls it urbanism. Urbanism is what ever happens in the cities of the world will impact the whole world. That is, those who live faithfully in Christ in cities will most effectively reach the world for Christ.

Revelation 21-22 provides an imaginative vision of urbanism. And this is the audacious hope I have for the church in the city. Verse 11 of chapter 21 sees the city of light that shines with the glory of God. Every workday, more than two million workers commute to New York. This year, 39 million tourists will have visited the Big Apple. Each day, hundreds of immigrants come; another few hundred urban nomads leave. Imagine the impact in the world when people return to their places of origin after they come to New York and in hearing the gospel see the light of the glory of God.

Verse 12 sees the city of walls and gates. A city is a community where walls are protective and gates are receptive of its people. In New York, where there are more than 400 neighborhoods. Each is a local community. The church can be both the walls and gates of true community where people can enter to find God and their true self. Imagine the impact on the city when the church has a viable presence in every neighborhood. Verse 16 says the city’s foundations are a cubical symmetry. Every city has its political and economic structures, and social and cultural infrastructures. By getting involved with the people and politics of the city, the church can exert a great influence in the city’s structures and infrastructures. Imagine the impact it has for the common good.

Verse 22 envisions the city of religion where there is no temple because God himself is present. Most people come to New York to make money, acquire power and find pleasure. The presence of the church in the city becomes the presence of God to these people. When the church does what it does best in worship and pray, it will draw many to God. Augustine says that the city of God becomes the gathering place for pilgrims of many languages and from many places, as they pay homage to God. Imagine the kind of city New York will become when most people are there to serve God. Finally, chapter 22 imagines a river flowing from the throne of God through the city, where a fruit-bearing tree takes rooted. That is, when the church prays, like a river glorious the shalom of God will flood the city. And the fruits of righteousness will ripen. God’s voice is like thunder when he declares: I will make all things new (Revelation 4.5, 21.5). When the congregants as good citizens of the city prays in response, their collective voice is like reversed thunder.