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Towards An Urban Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

John J Vincent
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The origin of the Urban Theology Unit resides, I fancy, in a quite fundamental question which has seemed to me to be elemental in any search for Christian discipleship. It was something like: Where do I have to place myself so that Gospel things happen to me?

I had satisfied at least myself that the peculiar and distinctive genius of Christianity lay in its uncovering and empowering certain secular dynamics which were for the wholeness of humanity.

The call to be a disciple, in this light, was therefore the call to place oneself strategically, so that the dynamics of the Christ-events could be recognised and entered into. The evangelical motive, “What must I do to be saved?” was therefore secularised into “Where must I be that salvation happens?” The church therefore had to be discovered around and within those events, people and movements which could be part of the on-going secular dynamic which continued the acts of Jesus. The acts of Jesus, in turn, were the immediate and often microcosmic happenings which embodied and pointed to the Kingdom of God.

It seemed to me, further, that the calling of a theologian always had to be secondary to the calling to be a disciple — or, more pertinently, that a theological vocation was impossible except as a development of a discipleship vocation. This meant that theorising had to issue from commitment, speaking from acting, systematising from experimenting. Indeed, I later learned that the whole life pattern of Jesus reflected this kind of dialogue between engagement and withdrawal, conflict and spirituality, politics and privateness, and that the peculiar group that he called into being likewise existed as alternative communal society (the New Israel) and as his own alternative inner being (the Body of Christ).

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 64 , Issue 751 , January 1983 , pp. 4 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Cf. Vincent, John J, Secular Christ (London: Lutterworth Press: New York: Abingdon Press, 1978), esp pp 219‐225Google Scholar.

2 See Vincent, John J, Here I Stand: The Faith of a Radical (London: Epworth Press, 1967), pp 69‐79Google Scholar. The terms were those of Albert van den Heuvel in a lecture on '“The Place of the Cathedral”.

3 Cf. Secular Christ, pp 212‐215, where I speak of an “ethical existentialism”, applicable to politics and nations.

4 Vincent, John J, “Innovation in Great Britain: The Sheffield Urban Theology Unit”, in Coe, Shoki (Ed), Learning in Context (Bromley, Kent: Theological Education Fund, 1973), pp 116‐131; pp 118‐11Google Scholar9.

5 Ibid. p 128.

6 Boesak, Allan A, Farewell to Innocence (Maryknoll: Orbis Books; Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1977), pp 1‐2Google Scholar.

7 Op. cit. p 6.

8 Cone, James A, God of the Oppressed (New York: Harper & Row; London: SPCK, 1975), pp 84‐85Google Scholar.

9 See John J Vincent, “Finding Good News in the City”, Crucible, April June 1979, pp 80‐88.

10 See Doing Theology in the City, Urban Theology Unit, 1977 (New City, 11)Google Scholar.

11 See Crowder, Roy B, Action Education, Urban Theology Unit, 1982Google Scholar.

12 See Todd, George, “Mission and Justice”, International Review of Mission, Vol LXV, 259, 1976, pp 251–261,CrossRefGoogle Scholar esp “Theological roots and orientation”, pp 252‐5.

13 See Situation Analysis, Urban Theology Worksheet, No 3. Urban Theology Unit, 1981.

14 Edward S Kessler, Small Church Theology (1978); John J Vincent, Ten Ways into the Gospel (1978); Laurie Green, My Faith, My Story (1981), UTU Worksheets No 1, 2 and 4 (Urban Theology Unit).

15 Cf. Some of my recent efforts: Alternative Journeys (Urban Theology Unit, 1981)Google Scholar; Starting all Over Again (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1981)Google Scholar; and “Doing Theology”, in Agenda for Prophets: Towards a Political Theology for Britain (London: Bowerdean Press, 1980), pp 174‐191Google Scholar.

16 Edward S Kessler, “A Jubilee and Disciples”, Stirrings, pp 47‐68.

17 Roy B Crowder, “Inner City Incarnation”, Stirrings, pp 69‐88.

18 “Strategies for Mission”, in Epworth Review, Vol 4 No 2 (1977), pp 50–62.Google Scholar Reprinted as New City Special No 1, Urban Theology Unit, 1977.

19 John D Davies, “Faith as Story”, Stirrings, pp 33‐46.

20 Dale, Alan T, Davies, John D, Vincent, John J, A Worker's Mark's Gospel, Lutterworth Press, 1982.Google Scholar