Theology in its Spatial Turn: Space, Place and Built Environments Challenging and Changing the Images of God

Abstract

AbstractSpace and place have been marginalised or even absent in theology for long periods of its history. Christian theology, hereby, mirrors a strong characteristic of the so‐called ‘Western culture and its history’, which consequently has placed time over space. In the twentieth century's last years, however, space/place reflections have moved out from the margins to several sectors of sciences and the humanities in what has been summarised as ‘the spatial turn’. Spatial metaphors and the central image of the Earth as ‘our home’ are at the heart of environmentalism. This article starts with a discussion whether the spatial turn represents just a new theme or a necessity at theology's own depth and argues for the later. Theology's reflections about space and place provide a deep challenge and an urgent necessity for theology to become aware of its embeddedness in the existential spatiality of life. Thereafter its first section presents in detail those approaches that recently have regarded the theme of space and place explicitly as a central dimension of theology. Among the profiled approaches we find reflections about themes such as the space of Creation, God's spatiality, the loss of place, and spiritual practices as well as justice, redemption and aesth/ethics in the built environment and the ecological city. A second section maps some of the substantial subthemes in the dynamically emerging agenda. Among the many themes we find are God in the city, lived religion, architecture, eco‐feminism, geography and religion, land, new religiosities, pilgrimage, movement and mobility. In general one can identify two directions of theology in its spatial turn: on the one hand theologians explore what Christian images and practices in space and at place mean for theology's classical questions; on the other hand, they move, slowly but safely, into other discourses by experimenting with theological contributions to other disciplines and public discourses. This article shows how a constructive understanding of theology, which does not only focus on religion's destructive capacity, is fertilised and assisted by the self‐critical reflexiveness in academic theology that embeds the space/place reflection in a broader ecological horizon. Thanks to the embedding of theology in a broader ecological perception and understanding of Creation, the new plastic and spatial theology increases it strength to operate on different scales of nature, society and culture. The overview ends with an open question: Can space set free theology?