AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

Biblical spiritualities of the 'City to come' : narratives of meaning, complexity, and resistance

by Toit Calvyn Du




Institution: University of South Africa
Department:
Year: 2015
Keywords: Biblical spirituality; City spirituality; Christian spirituality; Complexity; Urban
Posted: 02/05/2017
Record ID: 2064880
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/10500/19691


Abstract

“How does one develop an appropriate urban Christian Spirituality?” is the question this study asks. First, I develop a rigorous, yet open, theoretical framework with which to describe Christian Spirituality’s complexity: a description focused primarily on constraining the markers of Biblical Spirituality and City Spirituality. Within the limits placed on the complex system of Christian Spirituality, I begin exploring various, mostly minor, tropes of urban biblical spiritualities in the “Old” and “New” Testament. From these analyses, I evince the implications of these biblical spirituality tropes for the current city theater, and also construe a set of questions evaluating the appropriateness of mitigating urban communities. The study culminates in an imagined ideal mitigating urban community named an ekklesiastes: a wisdom teaching technology of urban meaning, complexity, and resistance. Advisors/Committee Members: Lombaard, Christo (advisor).