Abstract:
From its Latin root, ‘city’ (civitas) is closely associated with ‘civilization’
(civilis) where city life is equated with civilized life. In the history of
humankind, construction of cities was the result progression. Unfortunately, in
the course of the human history, cities and city life became precarious for
humanity. The Bible too seems not very positive about cities. The Old
Testament narrative of Babel and the history of Sodom and Gomorrah
highlight the negative aspects of urban life. Jerusalem lost its divine protection
when it became a great city in the worldly sense. Jesus condemned the cities
of his time, namely, Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. This shows that
though cities and city life mark the growth of humankind, they also represent
the decadence of human civilization. Sri Lankan cities are not exceptional to
this fact. The spiritual wellbeing of the world religious traditions once visible
in these cities is slowly fading away. This paper, along with the positive
effects, analyses in detail the severe negative effects of Sri Lankan city
life from a Christian perspective. The hypothesis is that though cities empower
life with many facilities, they have apparently reduced the human being to be a
material commodity. The objective of this study is to explore how
Christianity, in terms of its faith, beliefs and practices could mediate hope in
the context of such negative elements of urbanity. The inductive, observatory
and deductive methods are used to achieve this end. The benefit of this study
in the terrains of public theology is the application of the Christian values of
equality, individual dignity and rights, non-exclusion, and spiritual wellbeing
combined with the experience of transcendence to the Sri Lankan experience
of cities and city life.
