In a hundred years it may be more important that you are from New York, Shanghai, New Delhi, Johannesburg, or Amsterdam, than that you are from the United States, China, India, South Africa, or Holland. The city is becoming central in new and unique ways. The great institutions of the last 500 years are the nation-state and the university, both of which are now in severe decline. Nation-states increasingly cannot govern, and our universities have become strongholds of civilization destroying nihilism.
We are living through the end of one covenant, and we will be brought by the Living God into a great covenant renewal. Cities will lead the way to a renewed world, as God renews cities through the renewal of the church in each city, and as the church becomes, and comes to be viewed, as “the city within the city.” Denominations will not disappear, nor will nation-states. But denominations will become secondary to the church in each city, and the nation-state will be minimized as the cities of each nation-state become the predominant economic and sociological entities.
In this course, Pastor Richard Bledsoe will examine the role of the church in the city, and explore how to conduct ministry to the city and to city leadership. A.K. Shauku will examine racial dynamics in American cities, and how the church can address them. Register here.
Richard Bledsoe is a Fellow of Theopolis. See his biography here.
A.K. Shauku is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alabama, where he also teaches. He is an adjunct in the Department of Government at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and researches in American Politics, Public Policy & Administration, and Comparative Politics. A.K. blogs at EconomicsandInstitutions.com.
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