Cities of God (Radical Orthodoxy)

Rating:
Summary: theology of the city or sign?
Review: Ward unfortunately quickly moves from asking questions relevant to a great deal of Christian peoples like "What does it mean to be a Christian living in contempary urban settings" to entertaining flights of fancy revolving around questions of semiotics filled with post-modern jingoisms and pseudo-jargon without really making an compelling case for the connection between the two. The result is rather frustrating and makes much of writes unenlightening for practical theological concerns for Christian living. Ward obviously is more exhilirated about the idea of writing a theology of signification than of writing a theology of cities, for he spends much of his time addressing the former rather than the latter resulting in a seemingly endless discussion of irrelevant topics related merely to his own person theoretical interests such his much overplayed treatment of sexuality.

This, however, is not to berate the analyses that are present within work. It is clear that the relevancy of a theology of signs for the city arise for Ward from viewing the urban landscape as a type of text [an annoying tendency of bookish post-moderns who have read so many books that they start to think that the whole of existence is a text]. What is written about his theology of signs-or the ability to give a Christian reading of the [cultural] signs of the times-has a stimulating applicability to the notion of urbanity and Christian community and even newer concepts of modernized space such as those posed by our living much of our lives through the medium of cyberspace. His scholarship has wide-breadth and proves much more conversant in secular critical philosopher than many of more parochially minded theologian companions. Ward really does have a message to set forth upon the table for debate with many lucid observations worthy of consideration. In the end, his is a strong indictment of the cold, secularized universe that the decaying enlightenment tradition and its nihilistic detractors are shoving down our throats.

This work is eclectic drawing upon various sources ranging from obscure theology and philosophy to mass media [I was annoyed that he repeatedly misspelled the Wachowskis' name when discussing the Matrix-revealing he's not really so ultra-hip as he would like us to believe] and at times is very abstruse. It is hard to imagine it being of any value to anyone outside the academic or well-educated population. Nonetheless, it does provide a hearty alternative to the acquiescent and stale Christians portrayals of the city as one can find in the now defunct writings of Cox on secularity.