Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The theology of the built environment
- 2 Constructed space and the presence of God
- 3 The land
- 4 The human dwelling
- 5 From Eden to Jerusalem: town and country in the economy of redemption
- 6 The meaning of the city
- 7 Constructing community
- 8 But is it art?
- 9 God, nature and the built environment
- 10 Towards Jerusalem?
- Select bibliography
- Index of names
- Index of subjects
10 - Towards Jerusalem?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The theology of the built environment
- 2 Constructed space and the presence of God
- 3 The land
- 4 The human dwelling
- 5 From Eden to Jerusalem: town and country in the economy of redemption
- 6 The meaning of the city
- 7 Constructing community
- 8 But is it art?
- 9 God, nature and the built environment
- 10 Towards Jerusalem?
- Select bibliography
- Index of names
- Index of subjects
Summary
One is calling to me from Seir,
‘Sentinel, what of the night?
Sentinel, what of the night?’
The sentinel says:
‘Morning comes, and also the night.
If you will inquire, inquire;
come back again.’
(Isaiah 21.11–12)At the end of his three volume analysis of the current world situation, Manuel Castells is upbeat:
History is just beginning, if by history we understand the moment when, after millennia of a prehistoric battle with Nature, first to survive then to conquer it, our species has reached the level of knowledge and social organization that will allow us to live in a predominantly social world. It is the beginning of a new existence and of a new age.
Peter Hall today seems to share this enthusiasm, but writing in 1988 he was much more cautious:
The watchman on the height is calling; but his message could spell doom to the city, unless the day rises also on the city of darkness just outside the gate. There is a riddle here, so far unanswerable by the wit of planners, or indeed, of that of any other kind of social engineer; and, as the millennium approaches, it casts a deep pre dawn chill.
This pre dawn chill seems to have evaporated at the turn of the millennium, but worries about the city of darkness just outside the gate – growing poverty, growing numbers, the ability to adequately feed and house them – nevertheless obtrude.
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- A Theology of the Built EnvironmentJustice, Empowerment, Redemption, pp. 241 - 261Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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