Customer Reviews

The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective

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What Cox does best in this book is to review the decline of historical American rural Protestantism in the face of the growth of major metropolitan areas. He manages to explain our age's sense of loss of the familiar and intimate in the traditional human contexts. He attempts, not always successfully, and never intending a summation, to cast a positive light on the inescapable modern reality of urban life.

His critique of the Church, in the broader sense of the word, is one concerning adaptation to the times. It was more timely, or at least urgent, when it first came out (which is when I first read it) than today. It will sound hackneyed to someone who sees everything in the light of theopolitics since 1981; but Cox wrote this long before the words "moral majority" were used to misname a movement.

Basic liberal Christian apology - an attempt to recast Christianity in a way that appeals to educated, liberal urbanites. It is, in his words, "verbal byplay in which . . . [he tries] to convince contemporary nontheists [and non-Christians in general] that the differences among men today over the reality of God are merely verbal" (259). Of course, he uses these words to criticize others' theology, not his own.

In essence, he says to the liberal, educated urbanite, "You're right: mankind has outgrown religion. But only as it has been cast in the past. In reality - i.e., in the way I cast it - that is the heart of true religion (read: Christianity). God is trying to get humans to abandon their unhealthy reliance on him and become 'true' humans." In it, "the Gospel" becomes a euphemism for Christianity

To begin with, Cox recognizes that his audience is probably well educated, and even biblically literate. To that end, he must answer one question that plagues contemporary Christianity: how is it that the God we see in both the Old and New Testaments is so radically and concretely involved in human life compared to what we see today? In the Bible we have God parting the Red Sea and raising Jesus from the dead (which of course means nothing other than God raising himself from the dead, according to traditional theology); destroying complete cities with fire and brimstone from heaven and enabling people to walk on water. And yet he is curiously absent in our present reality. No donkeys are talking to anyone; no whales swallowing stubborn televangelists. There are no pillars of fire, no booming voices. What happened to God? Well, the problem, according to Cox, lies in the question itself. God is hidden, and "He cannot be expected to appear when we designate the place and time" (261). Very clever. The problem is that we're basically daring God to exist rather than looking "to the hints God has dropped in the past in order to make out what He is doing today" (254). The Bible, then, is just a collection of "hints" (not divinely inspired as such, and not infallible - a great relief to educated urbanites). In fact, God "does not 'appear' in Jesus; He hides himself in the stable of human history" (258). We just need to figure out where God is working and join him. This includes "standing in a picket line" (256) or, as implied on the back-cover biography of Cox, spending time in jail because for the cause of civil rights. In other words, he's saying, "Rest easy, liberal, educated urbanites. I'm not out to change your ultimate concern. I'm just trying to get you to frame it in a different way."

In other words, he's saying, "We're not trying to convert the world to Christianity, so if that's one of your main obstacles to Christianity, you can go ahead and convert because it's not a legitimate concern." It's liberal Christian apology, and nothing else. "Being Christian is basically being nice to others and helping them occasionally," he seems to be saying. A comfortable, educated middle class liberal perspective. Get involved, but not too involved. You don't need to risk everything to be a Christian, because that removes responsibility from others.

But what about the exclusivist claims of Christianity? No problem, for if "we need the nontheists" then certainly we need others of other religious faiths. It's like trying to convert people without admitting that you want to convert everyone.

In the end, it's a theological version of having your cake and eating it too. The liberal, social activism and the comfort of Christian belief. "They're one and the same!" says Cox. It's sort of like suburban liberation theology.

By necessity, it's squishy theology - long on abstract notions, short on concrete specifics:

We speak of God to secular man by speaking about man, by talking about man as he is seen in the biblical perspective. Secular talk about God occurs only when we are away from the ghetto and out of costume, when we are participants in that political action by which He restores men to each other in mutual concern and responsibility (256).

Now we get a hint as to what this might mean from his picket line comment, but he's careful not to give too many specifics, lest he face the accusation of merely being a "liberal in Christian clothes."

There are some good portions of the book. I was particularly pleased with the section dealing with Playboy magazine as a method of subversively dealing with (and consequently perpetuating) the male fear of sex that has arisen in our culture.

Other than that, silly nonsense.

Dr. Cox hits hard at church convention. He does an excellent job of exposing some flaws in the dogma of the church, and offers ways he thinks the flaws can be repaired. Some of his more controversial suggestions conflict with biblical standards, and pose implementation problems. Overall, the work is informative, innovative and inspiring