Pahl, Jon. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos
Press, 2003. 286
pp. $19.99 (USD). ISBN: 1-58743-045-2.
[1] This critical work, in two parts, explores a process of “Salvation
by Grace through Place” (259). The author analyzes
the sacred as revealed in place and object as presented in
contemporary life in the U.S., and then the traditions of the
Jewish and Christian scriptures. Part one (“Discovering
God”) examines the fashion system, concepts of “place,” the
shopping mall, Walt Disney World, the suburban household, and
affordable housing. Part two (“God’s Clothing”)
reviews the biblical iconography of living waters, light, rock,
vine, body and cities.
[2] Jon Pahl, an associate professor of theology and American
religious history at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia,
has written a helpful and honest analysis of contemporary American
civil religion, along with a critique of it based on orthodox
Christian biblical exposition. Pahl takes as his central
thesis the contention that both his contemporary countrymen
and the scriptural authors within the Jewish and Christian
traditions share an instinct to locate senses of the sacred
within physical space and object. The contrasting of
the titular “Sacred Spaces” from these two vantage
points provides both a useful guide to the topography of the
spiritual in our own places of work, play, and worship, and
a useful initial bag of tools for the task of Christian missiology.
[3] Pahl ranges widely in his working definitions of space
and place. In his opening chapter (“Does God Wear
Clothes?”) he sets out an epistemology with which any
authentically Christian theology must engage. That is
to say, he wrestles with the fundamental conceptual divide
between those who would hold that the spiritual can, by definition,
only pertain to that which is not physical (or, at least, supra-physical)
and those who try to make sense of the central Christian conviction
about the Incarnation, of God made flesh in the revelation
of Jesus Christ. He places himself wholeheartedly on
the side of incarnational epistemology while usefully reviewing
the dangers of literalising the metaphors with which we clothe
God, appealing to figures as diverse as Martin Luther, Sallie
McFague and Lawrence Langer to mark out some of the necessary
boundaries to such God-talk.
[4] A great strength of this book is its balance of the general
and particular, or applied, argument. Pahl is fluent
in his discussion of such large cultural and anthropological
topics as the religious dimensions of our experiences within
a market economy, yet his contentions are expressed in an accessible
style, using case studies of shopping malls such as the Mall
of America near Minneapolis, MN. As such, this
text could prove useful for undergraduate students in cultural
studies (or even conscientious economists; Pahl’s citing
of detailed statistics underscoring Americans’ approach
to–even reverence for–the suburban, domestic household
is fascinating, and he even dares to call American tidiness
demonic!).
[5] In calling together a composite picture of biblical metaphors
for God and God’s agency, calling to mind water, light,
rock, vine, body and city, Pahl does work which has been done
by many others. Here, though, it is done in order to
shed critical light on practices and patterns of seeing and
living which many Christian readers will have regarded, theretofore,
as innocuous or unremarkable. In helping Christians to
ask questions such as “What would a healthy, Godly city
or neighbourhood look like?” Pahl is urging those in
the community of faith not to be content simply to leave civic
and communitarian questions to be resolved by others.
[6] Writing this review from the U.K., I am aware that there
is much that is recognizable as broadly parallel in British
and American cultures, especially touching on the violence
of banality and the crisis of affordable housing. Certainly,
I have felt emboldened by Pahl’s very positive and assertive
conclusions to the chapters of part two of the book to recognize
the need for Christians in my own neck of the woods to contribute
to the needed discussions around the development of good, healthy
places in which our whole community can live and flourish.
[7] Whether for undergraduate students of theology, cultural
studies, or land management, this text would serve well. It
might even be manageable as a resource for a series of studies
for intelligent readers within a church study group. For
all of the above-mentioned reasons–and not least for
its studied avoidance of talking about the ecclesiastical building
as a locus for the sacred space!–I applaud both the direction
and the considerable achievements of this important book.
Paul K. Trathen
United Kingdom
Paul.trathen@btopenworld.com
