A Tale of Two Cities
by David Wildman
"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times...."
–- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Cities since biblical times have symbolized the heights and depths, the best and the worst of society: Babylon, Ninevah, Rome, Jerusalem. In Charles Dickens’ day, the state of cities was intertwined with the rise of industrial capitalism. London was a premier city of empire, trade and culture, yet Dickens described a city of debtors’ prisons, child labor and grinding poverty. People forced off the land labored long hours in factories and city workhouses.
In 1908, "The Social Creed of the Churches" was adopted by the Methodist Episcopal Church General Conference, and later by the Federal Council of Churches. The Social Creed galvanized 31 Protestant churches to respond to degrading labor conditions and the hardships of urban poverty.
In a study guide to the creed, Harry Ward, a founder of the Methodist Federation for Social Action, said:
"Our cities are recognizing the fact that the right of children to the air and sunlight is paramount over the right of property owners to profits....[Churches] must see that proper building standards for their community are measures of the City of God."
In Matthew 12:25, Jesus says:
"Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand."
A tale of two places
In many ways, current U.S. society remains divided into a tale of two cities –- one increasingly rich, the other increasingly poor. It is a tale of two places –- suburbs versus cities –- one seen as good, another as bad. For years, middle-class families have seen suburbs as their personal Garden of Eden where they can leave behind the problems of the city. Now many fear inner-city problems are creeping into the suburbs.
The challenge in the mission study on "God’s People in an Urban Culture" is to affirm that we are all God’s people. Though we live in different places, we are all part of the same community –- a city with two tales. This study offers us a chance to hear one another’s tales and affirm with Paul:
From biblical cities to today’s central cities to sprawling horizontal cities, urban areas exhibit five features we can examine:
A tale of home
All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem... (Luke 2:3-4).
If the world were registered as in Jesus’ day, where would each of us go? Is there a homestead or gathering place for your family? Do members of your family live in the same community? What moves and changes have members of your family made and why?
In 1900, only 10 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. Today, close to half the world’s people live in urban areas.
By 1920, half of the U.S. population lived in urban areas. Today, more than 75 percent is urban. But what do we mean by urban? The U.S. Bureau of the Census defines urban as a population of more than 5,000. A metropolitan area has a central city of more than 50,000 people and a suburban population of 50,000.
For several decades, cities have spread out –- expanding in land use faster than in population. This sprawl has increased road construction, driving times, and air and water pollution.
According to an article in the Nov. 21, 1999, New York Times, Atlanta, Ga. -- where residents spend more time driving than anywhere else in the United States –- consumes "forest land at the rate of 50 acres a day."
U.S. population has shifted from rural and central-city areas to the suburbs to the point that a majority of U.S. residents now live in the suburbs. Joe Feagin in The New Urban Paradigm writes:
"Today about three quarters of whites live in suburbs... while the majority of people of color live in cities....Ever larger numbers of Americans are living out the reality of spatial apartheid within, and sometimes between, the metropolitan areas."
Jonah’s tale
The Book of Jonah asks, "Who are God’s people?" Are those in Nineveh God’s people? Jonah says no, but God says yes! In Jonah’s eyes, it was a tale of two cities, two peoples –- one righteous, the other sinful. Jonah’s racism led him to see Nineveh’s people as the problem. They were different and thus irredeemable.
For God, the problem was unjust and violent practices in Ninevah. Repentance meant redirecting the people’s actions as a community, thereby restoring justice in the city.
Where do we find ourselves living in Jonah’s tale? Is God calling us to minister in a city where we do not want to go? Is God calling us to ministry with people we do not want to know? Do fears and prejudices push us away from where and who God is calling us to be?
Many national and state policies on low-income housing, public education, community development and public health have written off whole communities, including such people as the homeless, inner-city schoolchildren, unskilled workers and the uninsured. As a society, we seem to be following Jonah –- seeking private escape from common problems by distancing ourselves from those we label as the problem.
Perhaps Jonah feared inner-city problems spreading to his area. William J. Wilson in When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor observes:
"In the eyes of many in the dominant white population, the minorities symbolize the ugly urban scene left behind. Today, the divide between the suburbs and the city is, in many respects, a racial divide."
In 1 Corinthians 12:26, Paul reminds us:
If one member suffers, all suffer together.
A midwives’ tale
They set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities...for Pharaoh (Exodus 1:11).
Perhaps supply cities were the ancient Egyptian version of today’s giant malls –- a place with everything one could possible want. Yet malls, like Pharaoh’s supply cities, are not affordable and accessible to all. Malls are private property.
Are there supply cities in your area where people who work in low-paying jobs cannot hope to shop or live?
For years, rural communities have viewed cities with suspicion and resentment. Vast natural resources from rural areas have accumulated in cities only to benefit the wealthy and powerful. Indeed, many biblical stories condemn cities such as Babylon, Nineveh, Tyre and Sidon for such unjust disparities.
In U.S. popular culture, it is Main Street versus Wall Street. Yet this dichotomy overlooks generations of hardworking, exploited workers who built today’s supply cities:
Today’s midwives are those women who continue to sacrifice and resist creatively so they and their communities might live.
A tale of two walls
"You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem...." Then they said, "Let us start building!" So they committed themselves to the common good (Nehemiah 2:17-18).
Nehemiah tells a story of a massive public-works project wherein each resident’s safety and well-being depends on working together with her or his neighbors. Yet Nehemiah tells two tales. While the walls serve to build up those within, they also exclude those who are different, including foreigners.
What kind of walls -– infrastructure -– have we as a society built? Who do they serve? Who do they exclude?
After World War II, U.S. government policies put massive funds into the interstate highway system. Begun in the 1950s, these highways made suburban sprawl more affordable and accessible to families and businesses. Federal transportation policies favored cities planned around car and truck transport rather than rail or other mass transit. Federal energy programs supporting oil exploration and production insured gas prices would remain low.
At the same time, large expenditures on military research and production contributed to rapid growth in information and high-tech industries. As these industries located in suburbs so did high-paying jobs.
Ann Markusen in "The Economics of Postwar Regional Disparities" in Readings in Urban Theologies notes that large military contracts in certain industries "created relatively homogeneous, politically conservative suburban communities favoring white male professional and technical workers."
We have built a society with two tales –- some people are paid well to make missiles smarter even as public schools and affordable housing crumble.
In contrast, the Nehemiah Project, supported by local churches, builds affordable housing in poor communities believing that providing decent housing to those in need uplifts the whole community.
Lydia’s tale
"If you have judged me to be faithful to God, come and stay at my home..." After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home... (Acts 16:15b,40).
What spaces do we share today? To whom do we extend hospitality? Where does our community gather? Is it the mall, the stadium, the workplace, parks, country clubs, schools, churches? Or do we spend more time meeting electronically in cyberspace?
The 1999 State of America’s Cities report, published by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, says:
"People living in sprawling developments gather less often in public places and feel less responsible to one another and shared surroundings than residents of more dense communities."
As people and resources in a community change, many an urban church has found itself with a large building, a shrinking congregation and a disappearing budget. Sharing becomes a matter of survival.
Who do we invite into our churches? Do people who gather in our churches weekdays in day-care centers, soup kitchens, food pantries and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings differ from those there Sunday mornings? In today’s urbanizing world, Lydia’s ministry of hospitality is needed more than ever.
A tale of two boats
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God....
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
(Psalms 46:4-5)
Hunts Point is where waters from the Bronx River pass into Long Island Sound in New York. It is home to a huge market where truckers from farming communities and city stores meet and transfer fresh produce bound for fancy restaurants and soup kitchens alike.
Politicians want to make Hunts Point a place from which to ship the city’s garbage. Some see it as a dumping ground of drugs and a center of crime. Others believe it is a community dumped on, abandoned and impoverished.
At the edge of the river, there is a barge that serves as a juvenile detention center for boys and young men, ages 10-15. These youth are confined on a boat going nowhere.
Hunts Point is also home to "The Point," a community-development center, which empowers youth through the arts. Recently, I visited the center with high-school students from the Dakotas Conference who were in New York City for a United Methodist seminar. It was an encounter of contrasts: rural and urban meeting; Whites, Blacks and Latinas/os meeting; middle class and poor meeting. In less than an hour, the strangers were making music together and becoming friends.
The Point converted a bagel factory into space for the youth for small shops, dance classes and a theater. In the center of the building, the youth built a 20-foot rowboat, working together on it for six months. Last summer, they launched it ceremoniously into the waters off Hunts Point. It took all of them, working as a team, to steer the boat. Working together and working for their community is what empowerment is all about.
Hunts Point is a tale of two boats that symbolize two tales of the same city. One boat houses incarcerated youth. The other offers opportunities for youth to grow into community. Instead of offering individual lifeboats for escaping painful realities, The Point leads youth to create a vessel for transforming social currents in their community.
Which tale is the church writing –- the tale of an ark of personal refuge or the tale of a vessel of social transformation? Do we in churches large and small have courage to row upstream against currents of injustice and division?
Are we willing to meet as sisters and brothers –- rural, urban and suburban –- to make all groups one in Christ?
David Wildman is a Women’s Division seminar designer for United Methodist seminars at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York City.