Seeing like a city: a kenarchic theology

As the world becomes increasingly urban, and the power and importance of cities grows, scant attention has been paid by both political theology and political theory to the politics of urbanism. The hegemonic idea of the liberal democratic nation-state, together with the global order on which it is based, faces multiple threats and crises. ‘Seeing like a city’ is a radical critique of the hegemony of ‘seeing like a state’ and reframes the political in the city, within a global cosmopolis of interconnected cities. This thesis develops a political theology of the city as theorised by Henri Lefebvre and by the ensuing ‘spatial turn’ in urban theory, with a focus on the city as polis and not merely a political subsidiary of the nation-state. Most contemporary political theology critiques the nation-state and its relationship with the church, while ‘urban theology’, for the most part, considers the role and responsibility of the church in the city. In both cases, the influence of Augustinian ‘two cities’ theology has resulted in a generally negative view of the ‘secular city’. The question of how God ‘takes place’ in the complex spatiality of the secular city logically precedes any discussion of what it then means to be church in the city. Whereas the nation-state is predicated on its political sovereignty, it is argued that the city is inherently resistant to sovereignty and so invites a theological approach which disavows divine, and therefore also human, sovereignty. Kenarchic theology (keno-arche) finds common ground with “seeing like a city”, and offers an engaged, embedded, and theologically positive hermeneutic and praxis for cities. The thesis concludes that the city is an important and exciting new field for political theology beyond the old accommodations of church and state.