From Below, to Inclusion, Through Transformation: Urban Theology in the Twenty-First Century

2.1 Scope of the Review

As a method, systematic literature review aims to identify, review, and synthesize the available research concerning a certain subject. The specific stages of the review provide transparency and rigour, which enhance the validity and reliability of the findings. Although different models and types of systematic reviews have been presented, most of them include a specific definition of the focus of the review (research question), reporting on the databases used and other sources, specific time period of the search, specific search terms, defined inclusion/exclusion criteria, reporting on the initial number of studies retrieved and the studies included in the review, and a method of synthesizing the results.^[34]

The research question of this review is: “How is urban theology understood in Western academic literature published in English in the twenty-first century?” Literature was searched from the following academic databases: Helka (Online Library of the University of Helsinki), Ebscohost (including Academic Search Complete, Atla Religion Database with AtlaSerials, SocINDEX with Full Text, eBook Collection, and eBook Academic Collection), and Google Scholar, as well as the following publishers’ databases: Brill, Sage, Taylor & Francis Online, and Web of Science – Core Collection. The scope of the language was narrowed to English, and the timespan was set between 1 January 2000 and 30 September 2020. The keywords used in the search were “urban theology” and “urban” + “theology,” with most of the databases yielding the same results with both wordings.

Since the review concerned academic urban theology, the scope was narrowed to only peer-reviewed, scholarly literature. It comprises both theoretical and empirical approaches. The religious scope was narrowed to the dominant religion in the English literature: Christian theology and/or comparative religious studies that include Christianity. The geographical subset of the content was narrowed to the so-called Western world,^[35] as the material would have otherwise been too large to handle or analyse. However, the geographical subset was not strictly exclusive, whereby literature discussing urban theology at the global level was also included if it had a link to the West. The purpose or reason for these contextual limitations was not to underestimate the significance of the literature on urban theology in so-called non-Western countries – on the contrary, a systematic literature review on urban theology is greatly required on a much wider scale than we can provide here. Urban theology is a rising field, for example, in South Africa, but as contextual theology, it has somewhat different emphases in the southern hemisphere, such as HIV, the global food crisis, and also critiques of Western (urban) theology.^[36] While these viewpoints certainly bring a key contribution to urban theology, they would have broadened our data and its thematic analysis excessively. Therefore, the geographical subset in this review was limited to – and our research question focused on – the so-called Western world, where the social, cultural, economic, political, and religious contexts have at least some (historical) concurrencies.

In total, the search in the selected databases yielded 987 hits (including many overlaps). From these hits, 893 sources did not meet the criteria of the review. The majority of them did not mention neither “urban” nor “theology” in their title, abstract, or table of contents. Over fifty of them discussed South Africa (including overlaps)^[37] and a few concerned Asia or Latin America. More than a dozen represented biblical or historical studies, lacking the link to modern times. Another dozen represented devotional literature lacking the required academic style and/or references, even though they were found in scholarly databases. Only a few hits represented book reviews or editorial articles. In terms of religion, a couple of hits featured the study of Judaism or Islam.

The remaining 94 sources were included for closer reading, based on their titles, abstracts, and tables of contents.^[38] If the search function was enabled, the term “urban theology” was searched from the body text. New sources were also searched from the references of the included articles. After going through all 94 sources, 29 sources (22 articles and 7 books) were finally included in the data for closer analysis (Table 1). Those 29 sources both mentioned the whole concept of “urban theology” and used it purposefully, so that it was possible to deduce how the authors defined or understood it.

2.2 Description of the Included Sources

As shown in Table 1, 14 of the 22 included research articles were published in academic journals, ranging from the International Journal of Public Theology (up to five sources) to Expository Times, Black Theology, and Political Theology, for instance. Eight of the research articles were published in edited books, half of them originating in “Faithfulness in the City,” edited by John Vincent (2003). Five of the monographs represented theological and social scientific research, and two (24 and 26) drew from biblical studies. The range of journals and books demonstrates the variety of fields and approaches from which the urban theology of the twenty-first-century stems.

All 29 sources represented qualitative research, the earliest (6 and 25) being published in 2000 and the latest (13) in 2019. More than two-thirds of the sources were contextualized or originated in the United Kingdom, which may be due to the history of the field (“urban theology” as a concept has been used predominantly in the United Kingdom in the twentieth century), but also the criteria of language and geographical subset of the review. Only one source (7) was established in the Global South. This source was included in the analysis because it represented the global or so-called “planetary” approach to urban theology (shown in the review criteria earlier). Table 1 addresses the country wherein each source was contextualized, or if that was not inferable, the origin of the author of the source. The table also addresses that only six sources represented (at least partly) empirical research, leaving the remaining 23 sources as theoretical. Most of the sources were written from within the Christian tradition, representing thus the style, content, and aims more typical of theological scholarship than of sociology of religion, for example.

2.3 Thematic Analysis

To answer the research question: “How is urban theology understood in Western academic literature published in English in the twenty-first century?,” we analysed the included sources by means of thematic analysis, which is a method for identifying, analysing, organizing, describing, and interpreting patterns of meaning discovered from a given data set.^[39] First, we went through all the data and marked the passages in which “urban theology” was mentioned or discussed. Second, we went through the data by coding it into the following categories: a) explicit quotations on urban theology, b) the substance or field of urban theology (= implicit definitions), c) the context of “urban” (in urban theology), and d) the disciplines or fields related to urban theology. Third, we analysed the codes through the following questions, which come close to a systematic analysis: a) How is theology understood and how are theological concepts used in urban theology? b) What are the place and purpose of contextualization and how are they done in relation to urban theology? c) From whose perspective is the research done or written, and how is this positionality grounded? d) How do the texts understand the time and how do they position urban theology in a temporal continuum?

Through these questions and a close reading of the coded data, three main themes with respective sub-themes were finally drawn from the data. The main themes are as follows: 1) Theological rootedness, 2) Societal rootedness, and 3) Reforming urban theology. Through these themes, urban theology becomes manifested as a certain type or way of doing theology that stems from a specifically defined urban context. We will next present the results in more detail through these three main themes and their sub-themes, which grasp the theological and societal rootedness as well as the tasks and phases of reforming urban theology.

3.1 Theological Rootedness

The first main theme, theological rootedness, refers to the perhaps unsurprising but permeable theological foci of the included articles. Despite its often interdisciplinary aims and methods, urban theology is first and foremost grounded in theological foundations. According to the included sources, the task – or telos – of urban theology is understood as a contribution to a holistic understanding and vision of urban society particularly from a theological perspective. This main theme includes two sub-themes: 1) Theological concepts and 2) Theological positioning.

The use of theological concepts and biblical imagery is remarkable in the literature. For instance, many of the sources discuss two different theological premises, according to which the city is viewed either as “sinful” or as “God’s creation.” The sinful or “fallen” city is outlined by referring to the biblical cities of “Sodom and Gomorrah” (e.g. 15, 28) or “Babylon” (e.g. 2, 25, 26, 28), whereas the city as “creation” is outlined by referring to the eschatological vision of “New Jerusalem” (e.g. 2, 15, 25, 26, 28) or Eden, the first “garden city” (15 and 28). These ideas are seen to originate in the dual vision of Civitas terrena and Civitas Dei by Augustine of Hippo in his “City of God,” but they are also actively challenged and criticized from the modern perspective (e.g. 2, 16, 25). Furthermore, urban theology also discusses the division between urban (in biblical references, “Judea”) and rural (in biblical references, “Galilee”; 2, 23, 24) when defining its context. By rooting itself in the Bible, history, and the writings of Augustine, urban theology becomes legitimated as an “ancient phenomenon” rather than something completely new or foreign.

Since its very beginnings, Christianity has been an urban phenomenon. From its origins in Jerusalem, as major centres of population, commerce and political rule, cities facilitated the spread of the gospel. Cities—as hubs of cultural pluralism, of extremes of wealth and poverty, social mobility and immense dynamism—have always occupied the heart of the church’s missionary strategy and its theological imagination. (2, p. 392)

While many included sources explicitly resign from so-called “traditional” theology – or, as Peters puts it, “idle academic analysis motivated by intellectual curiosity” (26) – they still utilize many theological concepts such as sin, creation, incarnation, Trinity, koinonia, shalom, and Missio Dei in their theological reflection on urban society, experience, architecture, culture, and planning. Indeed, urban theology utilizes the heritage of systematic theology (e.g. Christology and pneumatology), practical theology (e.g. ecclesiology), pastoral theology (e.g. the study of spirituality), history of religion (e.g. the study of the Church Fathers), and biblical studies (e.g. hermeneutics). What separates it from so-called classic theology, however, is its performative, embodied nature: urban theology is found “on the streets, in estate communities, in the slums and favelas” (4 p. 35) rather than the “ivory towers of secure, tenured university posts” (28, p. 247). It is not abstract but concrete, and it arises from mundane life, which is seen to carry practical yet transformative wisdom.

Instead of sterile, dogmatic theology, planetary urbanisation – in its dynamism, fluidity and complexity – calls for poetic, vibrant and imaginative theologies, rapped out at festivals, resisting through occupations and guerrilla gardens, designing reconstructions and innovating subversions, buzzing on social media and infiltrating minds through graffiti-like invasions, caressing the soul and animating the body, healing the wounded and tending to creation. (7, p. 18)

In style, as vividly manifested in many of the quotes, urban theology often emerges as metaphorical and imaginative, even aesthetic, thus coming close to theopoetics.

Theological positioning is visible not only through resigning from “traditional” theological analysis as described above but also through association with different contextual and liberation theologies in many of the included articles. Urban theology is placed in the family of contextual (3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29), liberation (2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29), or public theologies (1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 14, 15, 18, 29) – and, as the statistics show, many times in two or all three of them. The quotation below illustrates this sometimes even messy synergy.

A theology of regeneration forms part of the landscape of urban theology, itself set within the broader framework of public theologies of space and place. In their turn I would argue that these theologies have derived from contextual theologies rooted in the liberation theology of the 1970s and 1980s. The background to these developments is a movement (partial and incomplete) from modernist, normative faith and theology to a more postmodern interpretation. (14, p. 225)

Some of the authors position urban theology very consciously with thoughtful argumentation, while others do it more intuitively. Some even intentionally seek differences and similarities between different branches of theologies to which urban theology is seen to be attached. For example, Jordan (11) compares urban and liberation theology with each other, concluding that whilst Latin American liberation theology is committed to discussing and responding to “social” alienation, urban theology is also committed to “religious” alienation, as the position of the Church and Christian faith are rather contested in Western urban contexts. Shannahan (27) instead categorizes urban theology into different branches or schools based on their premises, distinguishing “urban liberation theology,” “globalization theology,” “urban black theology,” “reformist Urban theology,” and “post-religious urban theology,” arguing himself for so-called “cross-cultural urban theology” that would “move beyond existing models.” (27). Vincent (29), in turn, discusses whether urban theology should be categorized under public or liberation theology, arguing for the latter as it appears more accurate and historically correct for him.

As contextual theology, urban theology engages with the life courses and concrete situations of the urban environment, people, or culture by asking the prominent question “What does God require of us here and now in this context?” (4, 23). Contextual urban theology is legitimated from below, even when done or written by academic theologians. Similarly, urban theology as liberation theology becomes authorized from the bottom, as it is done for, with, and even by the urban marginalized and oppressed themselves. Urban liberation theology is committed to the mundane life that carries “the wisdom and practical insight born of daily struggles with unemployment, drug abuse, crime and unsuitable housing” (6, p. 56). Urban theology of liberation calls for “ortho-praxis” rather than “orthodoxy” (17).

The rapid changes we find in cities across the world demand that we are able to enter the public realm, able to use flexible and innovative analysis and vocabulary but embody and incarnate the divine in those changes and struggles. It will also be about how we bring others into the conversations. Theology must be a tool to examine the discourses and narratives upon which social arrangements are based, but to leave it there would be to leave it emasculated. Theology must also be a process through which praxis is determined […]. (5, p. 35)

When defined as public theology, in turn, urban theology usually takes the voice or voices of local communities, institutions, churches, and denominations. Public urban theology discusses the “urban” at a more abstract level and in dialogue with “other publics,” such as economics, government, and civil society, yet calling for praxis and advocacy. As public theology, urban theology challenges the “myth” of secular society and acknowledges “the performative nature of religious engagement with the public space” (7, p. 36)^[40]

[…] public, urban theology is far from passive, and impacts on the urban through diverse mechanisms; liturgies, rituals, the design of places, laws, norms, and the like. Public theologies are part of the assemblage of narratives that seek to manage and administer diverse aspects of urban subjectivity and experience. (15, p. 87)

As illustrated above, the range of theologies to which urban theology becomes attached is not limited to contextual, liberation, and public theologies, but is expanded to, for example, black (9, 13, 15, 17, 27, 29), feminist (9, 13, 14), eco-, (12, 25), and political theology (24). Even though urban theology is relatively seldom identified as political theology per se, engaging in politics is an inherent part of its nature, as it is argued that urban theology criticizes neoliberal ideology and consumption-based ecology and aims to influence politicians and decision-makers discussing “reports and policy initiatives that emanate from government and think-tanks” (4, p. 232). Likewise, the aspect of liberation is present in many more sources than those explicitly identifying urban theology as liberation theology.

In addition to the above theologies, urban theology is also identified as, for instance, “discipleship theology” (29), “endogenous theology” (21, 29), “everyday theology” (14, 15), “particular theology” (4), “performative theology” (e.g. 1, 5), “place-based theology” (14), “post-colonial theology” (9), “postmodern theology” (14), “practical theology” (4), “queer theology” (14, 15), “vernacular theology” (9, 14), and “theology of regeneration” (14). The wide range of prefixes illustrates the diversity of urban theology and its multiple vantage points. However, urban theology is still separate from, for example, sociology of religion, as it actively chooses its side alongside the most vulnerable and commits itself to both the city and Christian calling.

While forms of urban religion are be acknowledged in urban studies, the place of theology remains ambiguous. Those concerned with the phenomenology or sociology of urban religion guard their empiricism carefully, not wanting to be associated with what is perceived as a subjective confessional approach—appropriate material for analysis, but not as a contribution to the discourse. (5, p. 33)

Thus, urban theology is always somewhat normative and somewhat confessional, as it engages with the reality of the life of urban people, communities, and built environment through its “divine bias.” It aims to alleviate injustice, resist oppression, critique power, and find “incarnational principles already enacted and embodied” (5, p. 43) in the city. It cannot be “objective” or “neutral” in relation to these principles, and thus, it takes another kind of epistemological and methodological path vis-à-vis so-called mainline academic approaches.

3.2 Societal Rootedness

Although one could claim that in an urbanized world “all theology must be urban” (23, p. 11), the included sources highlight that when defining and doing urban theology, it becomes crucial to consciously acknowledge and explicitly identify the social, spatial, cultural, political, and structural features of urban life before submitting them to theological reflection. Such acknowledgement and identification are in our analysis divided into two intertwining sub-themes: 1) Social scientific viewpoints, and 2) Political approach.

The first sub-theme, social scientific viewpoints, refers to the ways in which “urban” is outlined in the data, and how social sciences, humanities, and urban studies are applied in the analysis of urban as a social and physical setting, particular culture, and experience that shapes life in Western societies. Urban as a physical and social setting, culture, and certain experience is usually framed with the assistance of social and urban theorists, including for example, Manuel Castells, Anthony Giddens, Paul Gilroy, Henri Lefèbvre, Doreen Massey, Lewis Mumford, Leonie Sandercock, Saskia Sassen, and Edward Soja. With the assistance of other sciences, urban is approached as both a physical and social setting. The physical setting, or place, includes architecture and nature, while the social setting, space, comprises human relationships, culture, experiences, and the symbolic meanings of the city. For instance, Bergmann refers to “sacred geography,” which combines spatial and theological reflection with ethics and aesthetics, thus constructing the city as a “habitable place for all its people” (3, p. 79). Urban theology is not viewed to be content with only discussing urban features and theories as if they were some distant field from theology, but do theology through them, as illustrated below.

The importance of place that can be shaped, trusted, and storied is an essential part of the Biblical tradition’s preoccupation with land and belonging. Space becomes place only when there are stories and hopes lodged there. The experience of exile and captivity is the experience of coerced space in contrast with trusted place. (4, p. 242)

It is also seen that the task of urban theology is to open new dialogues between sciences by utilizing the information arising from the city. Multidisciplinarity is an inherent imperative for urban theology, as it seeks to reflect and analyse life in cities from various perspectives and thereby enhance the spirit of respectful dialogue, or “emancipatory koinonia,” as Kjellberg defines it.

There is a need for honest and modest dialogue, where the role of theology is a reconciling one: its purpose is to seek ways of achieving a holistic process in a dialogue between open-minded sciences with respect each other’s findings. This would be the implication of the process of emancipatory koinonia on the function of theology itself among other sciences. The implications of the interdisciplinarity that theology as a science represents are both liberating and uniting: the dialogue is carried out among sovereign parties in mutual respect. (25, p. 72)

The information brought up by social sciences, humanities, and urban studies legitimate the agenda of urban theology. However, many of the authors still emphasize that it is important to keep social theories and theology somewhat separate; for instance, Shannahan (27, p. 46) states that “if urban theologians are to engage in a creative dialogue with the insights and analytical grasp of social theory it is important to do so in a critical manner.” Shannahan sees social theories as “top-down” formulas that do not engage and liberate the urban inferiors the way they should. However, with the assistance of social and urban studies, it becomes clear that urban societies are in need of fresh ethical perspectives, spiritual resources, and theopractical tools. This is viewed as the agenda of urban theology, which also links to the second sub-theme, the political approach.

Utilizing the aforementioned theories and viewpoints is viewed to have no value if they are not used to emancipate urban dwellers and strengthen social justice. Indeed, the most crucial feature of the urban in urban theology is the oppression that so many urban people face in contemporary cities, highlighting the political approach of the articles. People “at the bottom” are found to suffer from, for instance, racism (e.g. 4, 13, 14, 17, 18, 23), violence (e.g. 4, 6, 13, 23, 26, 28), corruption (e.g. 2, 24), poverty (e.g. 2, 5, 6, 13, 14, 17, 19, 23, 26, 28, 29), xenophobia (e.g. 13, 19, 20, 28), unemployment (e.g. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 14, 19, 26, 27), and poor housing (e.g. 1, 3, 6, 26, 27). These manifestations of oppression are seen to be bound up with some more ideologically shaped trajectories, such as consumerism (e.g. 2, 5, 6, 14, 20, 24, 28), (post)colonialism (e.g. 5, 9, 13, 27, 28), neoliberalism (e.g. 1, 5, 7, 14, 24), and capitalism (e.g. 1, 2, 28) – or “mammonism,” as Bergmann (3) critically calls it. By addressing these trajectories, urban theology frames urban life from a political perspective. In framing the urban, it simultaneously engages theological normativity, the “preferential option for the oppressed” (e.g. 2, 11, 14, 19, 27).

Theological engagement with the greater urban debates should lead us to investigate new approaches to our urban environment that will give all residents a sense of home; a stake in its future, as they begin to control to their own destiny; a sense of safety; a sense on trust, in those who have been traditionally portrayed as experts – in planning, architecture, social policy, community development; (this applies also to the Church); a sense that they are part and can contribute to the shaping of the future as equal partners, not as junior partners as a token consultation, or because they have been included or regenerated on someone else’s terms. (4, p. 243)

At the macro level, urban setting is discussed through the cultural paradigms of postmodernism and post-secularism. These developments are seen to shape identities, hierarchies, and power and politics within cities. Urban societies, shaped by trajectories such as immigration, digitalization, gentrification, and segregation, emerge as “crucibles” where different worldviews and social and moral values both crash and become polarized, thus causing atomization, alienation, and exclusion – at least to some urban dwellers (e.g. 27).

Cities are contested by many different interests. They are cultural combat zones in which traditional systems of political and economic control can seem insignificant faced with global forces and the politics of the street. Urban marginality and exclusion are demarcated on a global scale in new hierarchies. Old projects of multiculturalism are challenged as new pluralities and transglobal identities emerge. ‘We puzzle’, writes Patsy Healey, ‘over how to manage our co-existence in shared spaces.’ Paul Gilroy writes of the ‘challenge of being in the same present’. (5, pp. 32–33)^[41]

Urban is also defined through universal trajectories such as globalization and climate change, which are seen as something of a threat to humankind and the planet, but also as an opportunity for growth and flourishment, especially when processed through theological discourse (e.g. 5, 7, 12, 18, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29). For instance, according to Smith (28), the task of urban theology is to address an “alternative vision of globalization.” Even though urban emerges as hybrid, fluid, and fragmented, it is also regarded as a potential site of hope and encounters.

Cities are ambivalent places. Vibrant city-space can be experienced as confusion and its breathless excitement as threatening disorder. The anonymity of the crowd can be the site of alienating loneliness. The diversity of the city can stimulate a fear of difference or its joyful celebration. (27, p. 3)

3.3 Reforming Urban Theology

The third main theme concerns the implicit division between so-called “old” and “new” urban theology/ies described in the data. The old urban theology is typically located in the last millennium, and the new or “contemporary” urban theology denotes the literature reviewed here, which has been published in the twenty-first century. This main theme is divided into two sub-themes: 1) Inclusion, and 2) Critical research. These themes address the ways in which the authors (implicitly or more directly) criticize the so-called old urban theology and define the new one.

Some of the sources locate the old urban theology explicitly to some decade or identify it, for instance, with Harvey Cox’s The Secular City (1975) or Faith in the City report (1985), which are seen as crucial landmarks in the history of the discipline (e.g. 1, 2, 9, 25, 27). The most obvious examples of the history and evolution of urban theology are the ones presented by Baker (1), Baker and Graham (2), Harvey (10), and Shannahan (19, 27), although the reflection between so-called old and new or becoming urban theology is prevalent in the other sources too, even if not so directly. For instance, it is often argued that urban theology “should” or “must” represent something in the contemporary era or the future, which implicitly suggests changes in its style, positionality, and agenda in order to meet the changes of the emerging context.

If twenty-first-century urban theologies are to resource a contemporary preferential option for the oppressed then it is essential that we look at the metropolis through the eyes of those who are most marginalized. In order to do that, urban theologies need to re-learn the way cities work in this new century and listen with critical openness to the prophetic voice that is being sounded within social theory, urban studies and cultural studies. … So in the new city urban theologies need to ask again: Who is in control? Who builds the city? Where does power lie and what forms does it take? Who is included and who is excluded? (27, pp. 15, 23)

“Old” urban theology is criticized as academic, anthropocentric, hierarchical, uncritical, (post)colonial, and predictable. By the same token, contemporary urban theology is defined as fluid, dynamic, cosmocentric, critical, progressive, decolonial, and constructive, implying a shift in the points of interest and inclusion of different viewpoints (inclusion), and the position of the research and the researcher (critical research). The sub-theme of inclusion is emphasized in the ways in which contemporary urban theology is defined as critical of its whiteness (8, 15, 17, 18, 27), hetero-normativity (14), and the historical tendency to serve the status quo (1, 7, 8, 28). It is argued that this “postsecular” theology lies in the “cracks and crevices beyond the purview of both institutional church and theology” (1, p. 5).

Increasing diversity and the need for inclusion are highlighted as defining features of urban societies, which must be taken seriously in the foci of urban theology. According to Harvey, the focus of contemporary urban theology is shifted from poverty and deprivation to community problems, migration, and multiculturalism, “towards the healing of tensions and divisions which are caused by the increased awareness of the diversity of urban populations” (10, p. 27). The context of contemporary urban theology is viewed as “multi-faith” (27) and “post-religious” (27), which requires readiness and willingness to dialogue not just with the ecumenical and interreligious but with irreligious parties, too. According to Shannahan (27), we are in need of “cross-cultural urban theology” that uses a “liberative dub” to deconstruct and reconstruct the experiences and values of the urban “others.”

The environmental concern of the new millennium is also included in the viewpoint of inclusion, thus taking the emancipatory aspect to global and glocal domains as well. Urban theology is called upon to nurture and heal the injuries caused by universal climate neglect and to address the holistic, cosmocentric nature of the resurrection in response. The cosmic nature of liberation and salvation emphasizes the contribution of theology to sustainable urban planning (7, 12).

The risen Christ is the planetary Jesus, the one who is in deep solidarity with those crucified and wasted by the spoils of planetary gains. … Following Jesus in an age of planetary urbanisation would require, even more than before, perpetual acts of subversion. … Faith communities have an incredibly important role to play in accompanying planning practices that are connected to people and planet in humble, loving and just ways. (7, pp. 35, 36, 41)

Urban theology of the twenty-first century is thus framed as a universal approach that urges people to protect the globe by living in peace and solidarity with each other, including the environment. It “mirrors the fluid and intra-contextual character of translocal urbanism” (27, p. 236), by means of which exploitation not only concerns people living in the margins but endangered species too.

Inclusion intertwines with the other sub-theme, critical research, which refers to the need for new urban theology to critically reflect on the positionality of the researcher and the methods used in research. In contemporary urban theology, the reflexivity of the position of the researcher, the “recognition of our own cultural conditioning” (10, p. 26), becomes central. This requires transparency of the cultural embeddedness of the researcher, as his/her cultural and societal position affects the presuppositions set for the context and the subject of research and, accordingly, the nature of the discipline. Furthermore, criticality towards the history of the discipline and the researchers’ positionality are likewise recommended.

Critical research refers also to the methodology of contemporary urban theology. It is viewed as a progressive and transformative process that utilizes ethnographic and action-based approaches – which, as Baker calls them, are “visual and performative as a new theological hermeneutic” (1, p. 7) – emphasizing the insights of laypeople and communities with little or no theological education. Critical research reflects so-called “third space” theology (e.g. 18, 19, 27), where a diversity of perspectives and methodologies is an aim rather than an obstacle. Compared to the old urban theology, the critical approach emphasizes horizontality over verticality; this becomes manifested in the ways urban theology defines its subject, the “social,” for instance. By referring to Bruno Latour’s Action-Network Theory^[42], Baker identifies the “social” as follows:

Rather than seeing the social as the outcome of a simplified meta-narrative social theory which prioritises certain tropes and dynamics that reflect the perspective of the privileged elite, it is in fact made up of a horizontal plane or landscape consisting of the interactions of many elements: human and non-human; material and non-material. (1, p. 4)

Social life is thus seen as embedded in a “plurality of epistemologies” (1, p. 4). This postsecular reading of the city requires an attitude of learning from the field rather than teaching the field. The critical research paradigm seeks to liberate not just the subject of the research but the discipline itself.