Season 3: Reading with Eric & Sara Joy
Episode 4 - Home from nowhere
Can Christians learn from an author who has a skeptical view of religion and throws some direct punches at Christianity? Eric and Sara Joy delve into some of the most interesting theological engagement with the reading list thus far as they discuss Home From Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler, who writes some surprisingly provocative insights about cities and the human condition.
Kunstler, an artist in several respects, makes a case for retaining value judgements when it comes to creating places of beauty and civic art. To do so honors who we are and our connection to the past and the future as participants in a larger story. He unpacks this call more through his discussions of charm, shame, freedom, and responsibility, throwing some new ideas and curve balls around what he thinks these words truly mean and how they relate to our civic life and how we ought to design our cities. In short, Kunstler believes we need to rebuild our cities to make them worth caring about, which means valuing public space. Since brazen and bold statements are his modus operandi, some of what he writes can be edgy and should be taken with a grain of salt. In spite of this, he adds some keen insights to the conversation around cities, design, civic life, and the human condition.
Links to resources and terms from this episode:
Resources
The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler
Home from Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler
The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition by James Howard Kunstler
The Ghastly Tragedy of the Suburbs, TED talk by James Howard Kunstler
Lawless Prophet: James Howard Kunstler and the New Urbanist Critique of American Sprawl by Eric O. Jacobsen
Romans 7:15-19 "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing."
John 12:3-8 "Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. Jesus said, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me."
key terms
Charm
Chronological Connectivity
City Beautiful Movement
Civic Art
Traditional Neighborhood Development