A paper for Liverpool Diocese UPA Clergy seminar
15 February 2005

GO BACK TO 2. Getting to know my place
GO BACK TO 1. Introduction


3. Observations and questions raised


Influenced by these writers and (often urban) explorers I have undertaken a series of walks with a number of guiding principles including:

the aim that eventually every part of the parish will be covered, with particular concern to include the less obvious or more easily avoided routes;
a commitment to an aesthetic which puts truth over conventional ideas of beauty;
finding creative ways of walking and recording walks, sometimes in company so that the observations of colleagues, local children, elderly or disabled, community figures, are recorded over time (eg, we have a community poet and a couple of local historians);
being accountable to colleagues and local people for my output and encouraging feedback - a prime tool for this is the www, I post my walks online and people can, and do, use the comments facility to add their own observations or make constructive criticisms.

The sum of these walks so far is a fairly humble 37 web pages, but it is an ongoing work. Since the winter drew on the frequency of the walks dropped a bit and I have begun to turn my mind towards this question: having begun to discover what is distinctive about this place, how this slice of land is regarded and used, how then to begin thinking theologically about it?

It struck me from the beginning of my time in the parish that land may be a key concept with which to understand this area:

I arrived at The Good Shepherd just in time for the church's centenary celebrations and it struck me how radically the church's relationship with the land has changed in that time - from being a daughter church of St Mary's servicing the spiritual needs of the farmers of the surrounding fields and the estate-workers of Croxteth Hall, to becoming one of the few providers of community amenities on a vast residential estate with very little social provision;

The development of the vast estates of Norris Green and Croxteth in the middle decades of the 20th century were the consequence of massive changes in municipal housing policy which maybe signalled radical changes in the city's culture or, equally likely, provoked such changes;

The rise and fall of heavy industry affected the economy and lifestyles of the whole city of Liverpool, and some of the key sites were located in our area, GEC, Plessey and others on land now given over to urban wilderness or speculative commercial developments;

The ongoing saga of the Boot Estate is a major identifier of past and present realities for the people of the area. That story is all about the management of land;

Changes to the urban landscape continue to loom: particularly along the East Lancs Road corridor which borders our parish, including plans to build the biggest Tesco's store in Europe, plus the development of the first-phase Mersey Tram line which will criss-cross the parish en-route from West Derby Road to Kirkby.

And other, incidental but fascinating discoveries provoke an interest in the significance of land here: such as reading that Liverpool is the largest of a number of English towns and cities which were built on common land. In Liverpool's case it was built on common land belonging to the parish of West Derby...

Housing, commercial and industrial developments in the area are all rooted in the people's attitude towards land use. The history of the land says much about the shifting balances of power between people, local authorities and commercial concerns; says a lot also about hopes and aspirations, injustices and provocations. Says something about the interface between the material and the spiritual. Any serious engagement with the life of the parish must involve an understanding of these issues - it seems to me that any serious theological engagement must invite an understanding of land use and abuse.

Alongside this it has increasingly struck me how land is a key scriptural motif. Whether we're thinking about land as an actual physical entity or place, or in symbolic terms, it is everywhere present in scripture, is the foundation for the entire story of Israel - and of course is still vibrant in the present-day situation of the Jewish people.

We think of wilderness, we think of sojourn or asylum, we think of the promised land, we consider what kingship did - and does - with land, we contemplate exile and rebuilding, we reflect on jubilee... all of these key scriptural categories, all directly linked to land. And much of the detail about the people's relationship with God and the land is, or can appropriately be interpreted as, urban: from Babel to the new Jerusalem the scriptures meditate often on urban land use.

So in beginning to search for directions to go in this subject rich with possibilities, I have begun to seek out theologians who have already done some work in this area. Texts which will be of great value in this line of study include Norman Habel's The Land is Mine: Six Biblical Land Ideologies [1], published in 1995, and John Inge's A Christian Theology of Place [2], which offer rich models for interpreting scripture through the lens of land and place, terms which can hold specific meanings but are often interchangeable.

But in particular I want to share an outline of Walter Brueggemann's The Land: Place as Gift, Promise and Challenge in Biblical Faith [3], first published in 1977, recently updated, which seems the most fruitful staring-point for this area of investigation. In the time remaining to us I would like to outline some of the areas he touches on in that book, and offer some tentative suggestions as to where they might lead us in relation to the specific area of an urban theology of land.


Brueggemann

Brueggemann's work is rooted in a concern to address what he regards as a pervasive aspect of contemporary culture: the sense of being lost, displaced, and homeless. ³The yearning to belong somewhere, to have a home, to be in a safe place, is a deep and moving pursuit," he writes. It is experienced by people from all sectors of society and even those who appear to be well rooted and belonging can experience profound dislocation.

³This, of course, is not a new struggle," he continues, ³but it is more widespread and visible than it has ever been. Nor is this sense alien to the biblical promise of faith. The Bible itself is primarily concerned with the issue of being displaced and yearning for a place. Indeed, the Bible promises precisely what the modern world denies."

He suggests that land is a central, if not the central theme of biblical faith. ³Biblical faith is a pursuit of historical belonging that includes a sense of destiny derived from such belonging." He suggests that the urban promise of freedom and self-actualisation has failed, that it has not fed the human hunger for a sense of place, which is a primary category of faith.

By place Brueggemann is talking about specifics, as, he argues, scripture does.

Place is space that has historical meanings, where some things have happened that are now remembered and that provide continuity and identity across generations. Place is space in which important words have been spoken that have established identity, defined vocation, and envisioned destiny. Place is space in which vows have been exchanged, promises have been made, and demands have been issued. Place is indeed a protest against the unpromising pursuit of space. It is a declaration that our humanness cannot be found in escape, detachment, absence of commitment, and undefined freedom.

So biblical faith is not to do with a history of a people in random space; it is to do with a particular history of a particular people in a particular place. ³If God has to do with Israel in a special way, as he surely does, he has to do with land as a historical place in a special way."

Brueggemann identifies some scriptural themes which help draw us closer to the interface between God, people and land. Some obvious, some less so.

Israel as God's homeless people - as sojourners, as embodied in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob on the way to a land whose name they didn't know; as wanderers in the wilderness with Moses and Aaron where they are at their most vulnerable; and as exiles, displaced in Babylon, alienated from the place which gave them identity and security;

Israel as God's landed people - as embodied in Joseph, where Israel settled in the land of Egypt - a complex story where security and prosperity gave way to oppression and slavery; and also as embodied in the monarchy which ran its course from Solomon to Jehoiachin, where kings behaved as kings do and had their way in the land.

In a particularly stimulating essay titled Land: Fertility and Justice Brueggemann notes the suggestion offered by the lingustic link between Adam (humankind) and Œadamah (land), that in the same way as women and men are in covenant relationships together, we are in covenant relationship with the land. And having linked sexuality and economics in this way he goes on to identify three biblical themes which relate to both: the right of enclosure, the command not to covet, and defilement.

In his discussion of the right of enclosure, Brueggemann describes Israel's land theory as one where land is a covenant gift of trust or inheritance; and contrasts this with alternative theories which regarded the land as a tradable commodity. Proverbs 22 and 23 speak covenant language as they appeal to the powerful in the land not to move landmarks, ie, not to use their legal powers to adjust property boundaries in their favour to the detriment of the Œhave-nots' in the land;

In his discussion of the command not to covet, Brueggemann reclaims the tenth commandment from being ³a purely psychological matter concerning jealousy and envy" to being a text needing ³to be understood in terms of public policy and social practice," particularly land practice: Œdo not covet your neighbour's field'. Such covetousness is illustrated by ³the rapacious land policies of the monarchy (as in 1 Kings 21)" and is condemned by Micah and Isaiah, the two prophets, he says, who ³most consistently critique the royal apparatus in Jerusalem, which is to be understood, among other things, as an embodiment of land surplus, if not monopoly."

Brueggemann finds defilement the most difficult category to handle: ritual defilement of the land. Difficult, he says, because ritual defilement is a notion quite alien to us today. He references Deuteronomy 24.1-4 in which a woman returning to her previously-divorced husband is Œan abomination before Yaweh' which Œbring[s] guilt on the land'. Jeremiah utilizes this text when he presents an argument about how land is lost, in Jeremiah 2 and 3, in which Judah is the wife who has strayed into alliances with Egypt and with Canaanite religion - Œyou have polluted the land with your vile harlotry!' - and where Yahweh is prepared to put aside the judgement of the Torah to restore the broken relationship in the land.

Brueggemann also begins to articulate a New Testament theology of land, around the opposition between gift and grasp.

Israel had learned that the problem of land and the possibility of land consisted on the one hand in grasping with courage and on the other hand in waiting in confidence for the gift. In the period of the New Testament ... there was a mood of grasping in the form of urbanized syncretism that had oppressive implications. The movement clustering around Jesus, enigmatic as it is, appears to be a restatement of the theme of waiting in confidence for the gift.

Israel, from New Testament times through to today, is caught up in the tension between waiting in faith for the gift of land or seizing it through military assertion. And Christians live in a related set of tensions introduced by Mary in the Magnificat, and Jesus in his kingdom teaching: the ³poetry of inversion" in which the land-holders will lose what they have and the landless will gain: the meek will inherit the earth.

Brueggemann is keen to encourage readers not to over-spiritualise New Testament texts, and to consider Paul's writings on law and faith, and his texts regarding our reception of Abraham's inheritance as relating keenly to our life in the land. And finally he draws quite stimulating parallels between crucifixion and resurrection on the one hand and exile and the land of promise on the other. In the person of Jesus both histories of Israel are enacted, he suggests. The movement from being a landless people to the land is equivalent to resurrection (Gen 12.1-3 > Josh 21.43-45);the movement from being a landed people into landlessness is crucifixion (Judg 2.6 > 2 Kings 24.14-15)

It is the third history announced by Jeremiah, Ezekiel and especially Second Isaiah that comes to dramatic fruition in Jesus, the utterly homeless one who is given dominion.

Brueggemann argues compellingly that ³it is the history of gift and grasp that concerns the church."

It is a radical affirmation in the New Testament, but an affirmation that Israel surely learned: ŒKings who grasp lose. Pilgrims who risk are given.' And Paul affirms what the whole history of land is finally about: ŒWhat have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?' (1 Cor 4.7). It is not what one would expect. It is not how it seems with land. But it is the case nevertheless. Coveting yields nothing but anxiety. The meek, the ones claiming no home and living with homelessness, do indeed inherit the land. That scandal announces the absurdity of all alternative ways in the land, even if they seduce us.


4. Conclusion

You can see how these themes are rich in possibility in attempting to uncover an urban theology of land. I'm at a stage now where I can begin to interweave them with the raw material I've been gathering on my walks, to see what emerges:

- to ask to what extent identity and belonging are linked with land and property on our estate which has a history of disruption and discontinuity;

- to contemplate who are the homeless in our place: those sojourning, in anticipation, those in the wilderness, in deep struggle, and those in exile, here but with their minds and hearts elsewhere, on other pieces of land;

- to look closely at the commercial deals being done over land in our area with scriptural imperatives in mind - who is doing them, who benefits, what will they do to the land and the people on it, to the boundaries and covenants, are they likely to liberate or diminish, celebrate or pollute?

- to consider what happens to people who are settled in the land - Brueggemann warns that ³the land, source of life, has within it seductive power" - the temptation ³to reduce covenant place with all its demands and possibilities to serene space apart from history, without contingency, without demand, without mystery." To what extent is that happening where we are?

- to question whether the biblical language of covenant is valid or use-able in our setting today - will we be understood if we use terms like covet or defile, are these translatable in our context?

and more fundamentally still, to consider what we urban Christians truly believe about land - is it possible for us to regard it as God's gift, to think of the earth we tread as Christ's footstool as medieval theologians did, or are we too much the children of the industrial revolution to really accept such perspectives?

There are many other questions as well, and for me this work is at a very early stage. It may be that some things I have said will have resonated with your own experience, or perhaps clashed with your perspectives, and it will be good to spend the rest of our time together opening up these themes in conversation......


GO BACK TO 2. Getting to know my place
GO BACK TO 1. Introduction

NOTES
[1] Norman C. Habel: The Land Is Mine - Six Biblical Land Ideologies
[2] John Inge: A Christian Theology of Place
[3] Walter Brueggemann: The Land - Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith