…seek the peace and prosperity of the city…
pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers,
you too will prosper.
Jeremiah 29:7

Among those who study cities, perhaps few would argue that the metropolis has shaped, and continues to shape, the face of Western civilization perhaps more than any other influence.  Years ago, evangelist Dwight Moody observed that cities either nourish the nation as refreshing streams or infect the nation as a cesspool.  Few also would argue that today’s large cities, like ancient Nineveh, desperately need a strong, biblically based witness to replace its polluted pools with nourishing streams. 

Lord knows (and I mean this literally!) the city has had its share of evangelistic campaigns complete with big-name preachers, best-selling gospel singers, a traveling market of Christian wares, and attention-grabbing gimmicks.  I well remember a campaign a few years ago that peppered the greater Washington, DC area with billboards proclaiming, “I Found It!"  I called the advertised number.  A woman explained that “it” was a new life in Jesus, then offered me free literature which I received a few days later.  Since that time, however, I've heard nothing further about this campaign.  "I Found It!" became just another traveling salvation show which blew into town, preached mainly to the choir, then blew out again, leaving much of the city as spiritually bereft as it was before.

Today's metropolis stands ripe for an orthodox, Christ-focused witness which is unafraid to stand toe-to-toe with anything ungodly the city can throw at it.  Unfortunately, a sentiment that is expressed far too often among evangelicals suggests that no self-respecting Christian should deign to step foot in a major city lest he or she be stricken with some form of incurable disease.  I've heard this very sentiment expressed on the radio by a well-known Christian apologist in response to a question about the value of writing to one’s Member of Congress.  Although the minister agreed that the caller should write, he warned the caller to avoid visiting Washington, DC, at all costs.  Just a few months earlier, I'd read where a popular Christian recording artist had taken great pains to apologize to his fans for having to come to the nation’s capital, explaining that he did so only to testify before Congress about violence in schools.  (This was just after Columbine.)

Incidents like these strengthen the perception that orthodox evangelicalism’s faded influence on Western society is linked to the church having lost touch—literally and figuratively—with the major cities, its leaders choosing to stand afar off, clucking behind stained-glass windows over the  state of the "godless" metropolis.  In his book, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds:  Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It, Os Guinness reveals one reason for the perception:

. . .evangelicals have concentrated their power in the peripheries of modern society rather than the center.  Whereas, for example, the Jewish community has concentrated its strength wisely and strategically in such cities as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, evangelicals have chosen to do so in less strategic centers, such as Wheaton, Colorado Springs, and Orlando.  The 1977 shift of the Christianity Today office from Washington, DC, to Carol Stream, Illinois, is the epitome of this attitude.

On any given Sunday, thousands of evangelicals can be heard in church singing their hearts out about wanting to be more like Jesus, knowing full well that, unlike their Savior who logged many miles in Jerusalem and the surrounding cities, they haven’t the slightest desire to leave their comfort-zone churches to witness to the big bad city.   In his book, Organic Christianity, Ron Mitchell blasts his fellow evangelicals' evasive maneuvers:

Christian’s today act more like Jonah than Moody.  They pick up and go in the opposite direction when God calls them to witness to the city.  Today, Christians are running away from their Nineveh’s, fleeing to suburban getaways or flying off to the (rural) ends of the earth.

Sadly, many evangelicals who act as if their churches and neighborhoods are a protection against the evils of the big city are blissfully unaware that one of the urban subculture's more sinister aspects--gangsta rap music--has already seeped into suburbia via young, white males.  The evangelical church would do well to remember Mordecai’s blunt warning to Esther when she hesitated to help her fellow Jews escape annihilation:  although help for the Jews would come from another place, Esther would be mistaken to think she would be protected merely because she lived in the king’s palace (Esther 4:14-21). 

Thankfully, God has not abandoned the city.  Instead, He is bringing His servants back to the urban world they, like Jonah so many years before, had been avoiding.  Ironically, He is using some of the same invasive measures used by others to spread evil.  According to Mitchell, God is pushing urban culture far beyond commonly recognized city limits, right into suburban and even rural seclusions.  Yet, unlike the ungodly aspects of the gangsta subculture, these influences resemble Moody’s streams and include such phenomena as racially diverse congregations, which eventually may end what is commonly known as the most segregated hour in American society. 

If the metropolis as a whole is ever to experience God fully, it will need to see godly teachers (Isaiah 30:20-21).  The Incarnate Christ was, of course, the Teacher of Teachers--the living, breathing, walking, talking image of God who, like the temple in Israel, tabernacled among His creation (John 1:14).   Today, the city needs to see God’s glory reflected in His people as they tabernacle daily

in its midst. 

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God instructed the Jews returning from Babylonian exile to seek their welfare in, and pray for, the city—and He has tasked Christians to do no less.  But until the evangelical community reframes its attitudes about the metropolis, the church is fooling itself to believe that its evangelistic message will have any widespread impact on our fallen society.  

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