Urban Christianities: place-making in late modernity

Bringing the Kingdom to the City: Mission as Placemaking Practice amongst Kenyan Pentecostals in London

“…I am interested here in exploring the kind of place Kenyan Pentecostals imagine the Kingdom of God to be and how they (attempt to) create it on earth. This interest coincides with the "spatial turn" in studies of religion, which follows two broad trajectories often referred to in terms of the politics and the poetics of space (Knott 2010;Vasquez and Knott 2014;Kong 2001Kong , 2010Bielo 2013;Chidester and Linenthal 1995). Taking as a departure point the notion that sacred space is contested space, the politics of space is interested in the interplay between power, identity, and difference.…”

What is the Place for Megachurches? A Comparison of 22 American Cities Based on the Causes ofEffects Approach1

“…Megachurches develop strategies to deal with the heterogeneity, density, and fluctuation of cities (Richardson 2017). In the sense of “place‐making,” they create an image of the places in which they want to grow and build their strategies based on that image (Bielo 2013; Rose 2019). With its focus on measurable growth, the megachurch movement has developed concepts and templates for church growth, which can “travel” beyond cultural contexts (Coleman 2013).…”

“A Web of Subversive Friends”: New Monasticism in the United States and South Africa

“…First, as already mentioned, new monastics place a great deal of emphasis on relocation away from affluent, suburban spaces, arguing for the need to settle in "areas that have been abandoned or neglected by American society" (Miller 2006), particularly poor urban spaces (Bielo 2011b(Bielo , 2011c(Bielo , 2013Markofski 2015). The practice of relocation, in the words of one proponent, is intended to physically demonstrate one's "conversion and commitment" to a new way of life (McKenna 2005, p. 15).…”