Chapter

One

INTRODUCTION

T he F1 Night Race in Singapore is one of the major highlights in

Singapore. The race weekend itself is a global event, watched by
millions around the world, and together with big-name live acts and
concerts, there is the “buzz” and excitement of having hundreds of
the world’s glitterati descend on the city to be part of the only night
race on the F1 calendar. For the race to happen, public roads have
to be closed and public buses re-routed, which adversely affects
some businesses in the area. Since Singapore wants to be in the F1
circuit and wants to be known as a hip and happening place, those
inconveniences will just have to be managed. This is the city.
Today, the majority of the world’s population live in cities,
hence governments, non-government organisations and even the
United Nations are concerned that cities are liveable. The UN New
Urban Agenda (NUA) has a vision for “the equal use and enjoyment
of cities and human settlements, seeking to promote the inclusivity
and ensure that all inhabitants, of present and future generations,
without discrimination of any kind, are able to inhabit and produce
just, safe, healthy, accessible, affordable, resilient and sustainable
cities and human settlements to foster prosperity and quality of
1
life for all.” Certainly we all want to live in such a place, and we
are aware that there are many connected aspects—the physical
structures as well as sound policies—which are necessary in order

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2  SEEKING THE SHALOM OF THE CITY

that a city may achieve this.

Singapore is a great city to live in, and in many ways has even
achieved the vision of the NUA. Furthermore, it achieves consistently
high rankings in various global indexes which measure different
aspects of city life. For example in the Global Power City Index 2016
by the Institute for Urban Strategies which measured the influence
and power of cities by their economy, research and development,
cultural interaction and liveability, Singapore was ranked fifth. In
the 2017 A.T. Kearney index of Global Cities measuring openness
to globalisation forces with regard to human capital, information
exchange, cultural exposure and political engagement, Singapore
was sixth. These days, with much concern for sustainability, the
Arcadis group, a design and consultancy group which does research
for natural and built assets measured sustainability based on
people, profits and planet factors ranked Singapore second in 2016.
These are not a measure for prideful boasting, they show that by a
variety of measures and in comparison with other cities around the
world, Singapore is a liveable city.
The Singapore government is aware of this and has also begun
to export her knowledge and expertise. In 2008, the Centre for
Liveable Cities (https://clc.gov.sg) was set up by the Ministry of
National Development and the Ministry of Environment and Water
Resources. Through conferences, research and publications this
Centre seeks to “distil, create and share knowledge of liveable and
sustainable cities.” The working framework of this centre which
seeks to live a high quality of life, depends on a thriving competitive
economy, and maintaining a sustainable environment. The systems
needed for these outcomes include integrated master planning and
development and dynamic urban governance. Singapore does well
in organising many aspects of city living, but we are mindful that
in many ways Singapore is unique—unlike many other cities in the
world, Singapore is a small island as well as a nation-state, thus
building and governing in this space has peculiar challenges and
opportunities. Figure 1 shows how the Centre identifies the varied
components of developing a high quality of life in the city.
 Introduction 3

High
Quality of Life

Competitive Sustainable
Economy Environment
Outcomes (What’s)
Integrated Master Planning & Development Systems (How’s)
• Think Long Term
• “Fight Productively”
• Build in some Flexibility
• Execute Effectively
• Innovate Systemically
Dynamic Urban Governance
• Lead with Vision and Pragmatism
• Build a Culture of Integrity
• Cultivate Sound Institutions
• Involve the Community as Stakeholders
• Work with Markets

Fig 1. Framework from Centre for Liveable Cities

https://www.clc.gov.sg/research/clcframework.htm

Living in Singapore, it is easy to just sit back and enjoy living

in a world-class city. What is a city?

Understanding Cities
Walk in any major city in the world, and we will see impressive
tall, glass buildings, cars and buses, and busy professionals rushing
around. Cities have their underbelly as well—slums, traffic jams and
homeless people. Cities are human settlements, built up physical
spaces, with areas or districts set aside for residence, commerce,
retail, office, and cultural activities. Since it is people who live in
the city, these spaces must be meaningful and useful for them.
Urbanism is the study of how the inhabitants of a city
interact with the built environment; and in the 1930s, American
sociologist Louis Wirth identified three factors—size, density and
heterogeneity—as a way to understanding the city, and the social
4  SEEKING THE SHALOM OF THE CITY

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organisation and attitudes of its residents. While some of the largest
cities by physical size are in the United States, the largest cities
by population and density are in Asia. For example Mumbai has
a population density of about 29,600 people per square kilometre,
compared with Singapore which is 7,797 people per square
3
kilometre. The heterogeneity of cities can especially be seen in the
people who live in cities—often a diverse mix of cultures, including
language and religions, socio-economic class, and occupations.
Today, New Urbanism (www.newurbanism.org) continues to study
how people relate with the built environment and is especially
concerned with such principles as walkability (such as pedestrian
friendly street design), quality architecture and urban design, and
sustainability and green transportation to maintain a high quality
of life for those who live in the city. Thus, cities are not just physical
spaces but are to be studied in relation to how people live in them.
Cities are places and locations of vibrant cultural activities.
Joel Kotkin studied cities through history and identified three
characteristics which make cities great: these cities have sacred
4
places, were safe and were busy. The earliest cities were centred on
religious structures like temples, cathedrals, mosques and pyramids
and even in today’s more secularly oriented times, cities seek to
recreate this sense through commercial buildings and evocative
cultural structures to inspire a sense of patriotism or awe, Kotkin
5
suggests. Thus, cities are great because they engender strong
attachment, “sentiments that separate one specific place from
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others.” More than the physical structures and the layout of the
city, the city has a sacredness, which comes, Kotkin suggests, from
a “widely shared belief system” rather than the mere dominance of
a religious institution. Therefore, to understand a city we need to be
able to incorporate its physical and the spiritual aspects.
Cities thus comprise overlapping dimensions: its physical
structures, its infrastructure and its supra-structure. The structure
includes the geography and topography—Singapore is unique
because it is an island city-state, without a hinterland, nor space to
expand. The structures include mainly what is seen and experienced
in the city, such as the buildings, houses, gardens, schools, roads
and transport system, the activities and events that take place
within the city, as well as the people who live in the city. Indeed
the residents of cities are diverse socio-economically—families and
singles, citizens and tourists and short-term migrant workers,
rich and homeless. All these groups will need their own spaces: for
 Introduction 5

example, the Singapore economy depends much on foreign workers,

and there were about 976,000 in the domestic and construction
7
sectors in June 2017. Where they spend their days off—in the open
public spaces—sometimes causes friction with other residents as
these spaces are so limited. Understanding these structures of the
city requires us to also understand the lives of its residents and
whether there are facilities for all their needs, including their
recreational needs.
The infrastructure of the city can be seen in two main aspects,
namely the physical infrastructure, as well as the policies which
determine the physical structures. There is the unseen physical
infrastructure of the city, such as the hardware which upholds the
technological possibilities of the city to make the city a “smart” city.
The unseen infrastructure includes the policies, such as the business
friendly policies which give companies tax breaks for setting up
their headquarters in the city; and informal policies which allow
for migrants to use public spaces. For example, hospitals are the
seen structures, but the policy infrastructure determines such
matters such as ease of access to healthcare, healthcare costs and
regulations.
Finally there is the supra-structure of a city, the overarching
framework which defines the character of a city, and includes
intangible values and unseen culture of a city. For example
meritocracy is a chief value in Singapore and impacts education
policies, hiring and promotion in the civil service and many
organisations. Because of this value, there is transparency and
the rule of law, which help to ensure that corruption is low. Hence
government institutions are dependable, if somewhat bureaucratic.
From these key values we can see the way that Singapore is
organised and run, which makes the physical Singapore what it is.
There are many other cultural factors which make a city, and gives
it buzz and life and which are then seen in the structures of a city.
For example, cities celebrate different cultural festivals—the Thai
New Year Songkran is celebrated publicly and visitors and tourists
are carried along with the flow of festivities. Cities worldwide still
compete to host Olympic Games because of the worldwide prestige
and potential revenue and long term boost to sports, though the
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costs of doing so is high.
These three dimensions—the structure, infrastructure and
supra-culture—are not discrete categories and there is some overlap.
We are not attempting to develop neat categories, but rather give
6  SEEKING THE SHALOM OF THE CITY

handles with which to understand the city in its complexities, in

order that Christians can engage. Understanding these different
structures reminds us that we need to seek Shalom at all levels, and
in a variety of ways, since one dimension does affect and influence
the other. For example, merely feeding the homeless in the city,
without addressing their personal worldview, or the policies which
may prevent them from finding employment, would be neither
effective nor sustainable in the longer term.
My interest in the city is as a Christian theologian-missiologist.
As a missiologist, the city is now the context for so much life and
ministry for so many people around the world. This is where
evangelism, discipleship, theologising, and missions take place.
Therefore as Christians we must profoundly know the depths, the
pull and push factors, and the complexities of the cities in which we
live and move and have our being. For Singaporeans, it is not just
about knowing how to live well in our home, but also to know how to
understand the cities in Asia where so many Christians do missions.
Therefore, knowing and understanding the different structures of
the city context well can help us do more effective and meaningful
ministry. Winston Churchill said “We shape our buildings, and
afterwards, our buildings shape us.” This is a reminder that our
built environment affects us and we should reflect on that in
Christian life and ministry in the city.
Theologically, the city is a strong motif in Scripture. When
God first created humankind He placed them in a garden. But from
then till the present time, humanity is moving to a new heaven and
new earth when the Holy City, the new Jerusalem comes down out
of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for
her husband (Revelation 21:2). So when speaking of the journey of
life, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says that Christians,
as a faith community, are in a journey forward to the city with
foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Hebrews 11:20).
The context of life for Christians, then and now, is the city. Indeed
New Testament Christianity began in the urban centres of the
Roman Empire. The first churches grew in cities such as Rome, the
greatest city in the Roman Empire; Corinth, a busy cosmopolitan
port rife with immorality; and Philippi a Roman garrison town.
Paul’s letters to these churches were not abstract theological
treatises, but exhortations to Christians to live out their faith in
those contexts facing issues of city life.
The call to “seek the welfare of the city” (from Jeremiah 29:7)
 Introduction 7

has gained traction in recent years, and has become a call to spur
Christians to be involved in the city. Christians in Singapore
are involved in their communities: as churches, such as Bless
Community Services set up in 2008 by Yio Chu Kang Chapel; or
as individuals, such as Abraham Yeo who, with his friends and
whoever will join him, walks the streets at night to befriend the
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homeless. More than just a call for Christians to do services in the
city, biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann rightly highlights the
incongruity of the verse:

Imagine that! A letter written to displaced persons in

hated Babylon, where they have gone against their will
and watched their life and culture collapse. And they are
still there, yearning to go home, despising their captors
and resenting their God—if, indeed, God is still their
God. And the speaker for the vision dares to say, “Your
shalom will be found in Babylon’s shalom.” The well-being
of the chosen ones is tied to the well-being of that hated
10
metropolis, which the chosen people fear and resent.

Yes, more than just a context of life, the Lord connects the
Shalom of his people with the Shalom of the city they are in; even
though in this instance the Jews were there against their will,
though it was God’s will. And the Shalom or well-being of the people
will be dependent on the well-being of the city.
Jeremiah was writing to the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar had
carried from Jerusalem to Babylon (Jeremiah 29:1). These Jews
were in Babylon against their will, struggling to come to terms
with being sent to exile (see for example Psalm 137). In fact, false
prophets during Jeremiah’s time had promised peace and that there
would not be an exile (Jeremiah 14:3) and so going into exile would
have been an unpleasant surprise, if not a major shock to the Jews.
Thus Jeremiah’s message in chapter 29 “was not a piece of rosy-
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eyed quietism based on a naïve faith in Babylon’s benevolence.”
They were there, “yearning to go home, despising their captors and
12
resenting their God.”
But while the exile was God’s judgement, it was also part
of God’s sovereign plan: “when seventy years are completed for
Babylon, I will come to you and fulfil my good promise to bring
you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you…plans
to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a
future” (Jeremiah 29:10-11). As exiles in Babylon then, they were
8  SEEKING THE SHALOM OF THE CITY

to “build houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they
produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your
sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have
sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease”
(Jeremiah 29:6).
The identity of God’s people as exiles is also a theme which
the Apostle Peter picks up in his first epistle, “To God’s elect, exiles
scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia and Bithynia” (1 Peter 1:1, emphasis added). In his letter,
Peter exhorts believers, “as foreigners and exiles to abstain from
sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good
lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong,
they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits
us” (1 Peter 2:11-12). Believers’ identity is as exiles and foreigners
on earth, not belonging to the earthly kingdom.
But even as exiles, Christians were not to just focus on heaven
or spiritual things, however understood, but they were to live good
lives here and now, which would glorify God. Peter goes on in the rest
of his letter to set out what that good life involves—earthy duties
such as submitting for the Lord’s sake to every human authority
whether citizens to governors or slaves to their masters (2:13-18),
wives submitting to husbands (3:1). He goes on in chapters 3 and
4 of his letter to encourage Christians to be prepared to suffer
for doing good, indeed to rejoice that they can participate in the
sufferings of Christ (4:13-16). This is life grounded in the reality of
the here and now.
This then is the Christian’s identity: citizens whose ultimate
home is in the final realised Kingdom of God, while remaining as
exiles in this earthly kingdom. Instead of living on either extreme—
being activist citizens on earth without a heavenly perspective, or
being so heavenly minded to be of no earthly good, Christians are
called to live in tension between the two. On the one hand, living as
loyal citizens of our passport countries; and on the other hand, being
strangers and foreigners of these countries since we are looking
forward to a better country, which is where our eternal citizenship
resides (Hebrews 11:13-16; Philippians 3:20). Keller calls this
posture being resident aliens in the city, citizens of one country and
13
yet full-time residents of another. I suggest that Christians have
dual citizenship, citizens of both their earthly countries as well as
the heavenly one, and this identity then shapes our engagement
and involvement in the city.
 Introduction 9

Even so, while Christians may be keen to do good in their cities,

do secular cities today want Christians to actively participate in
the public spaces? Singapore society, with a multi-racial and multi-
religious population but a secular government, is always wary of
such religious involvement. We will argue that this posture of being
exiles will instruct and guide Christians as to how they can be
involved in society.

Shalom and Doing Good

Today Christian ministry in the city brings to mind, for example,
ministries which seek to alleviate poverty especially in urban
14
slums. But God’s Shalom—the peace and prosperity—has a
broader vision for the life of the city. Seeking Shalom is not merely
to seek to bring economic prosperity or physical soundness of a city,
though that is certainly part of it.
As we have seen, for Peter, doing good meant right relationships
and conduct, as well as submission to those in authority. For
Jeremiah, the exiles were to settle in to life in Babylon, mixing with
the people there, continuing the divine mandate to fill the earth,
building homes planting trees and eating produce; in short, being
fully involved in life in the foreign city. The exiles were to be deeply
involved in the everyday nitty-gritty of life in the foreign land.
To build houses means that we need to understand the climate,
topography and physical geography—whether the place is prone
to flooding or susceptible to earthquakes—and how the weather
determines building codes. Planting gardens and eating what they
produce means adapting to the local food and diet: durian trees do
not grow in temperate climes, and apple trees do not grow in the
tropics. The exiles were to live physically and socially in the city, by
marrying and having children, to continue to fulfil the God-given
command to be fruitful and increase in number (Genesis 1:28).
Keller sets out the task: “[The exiles] were to be fully involved
in its life, working in it and praying for it. At the same time, they
were not to adopt its culture or lose their distinctive identity as God’s
holy people. God called the Jewish exiles to accept and embrace the
tension of the city for the sake of God’s glory—and this is exactly
15
what today’s Christians are called to do as well.”
We shall explore in greater detail the meaning of Shalom in
chapter 2. Brueggemann defines Shalom as a vision and a hope
16
which encompasses freedom, and unity and order. Therefore,
10  SEEKING THE SHALOM OF THE CITY

more than just the everyday life, the exiles were to have a vision for
Babylon because their well-being was connected to the well-being of
17
that “hated metropolis.” They were to be involved in the common
good of the city, in its “well-being” and “prosperity,” for therein lay
their own success and prosperity. For residents to flourish in a city,
the overall purposes and plans of the city must be for the good of all
who live in it. Therefore Christians are to be engaged in the city in
all ways, not just to win souls.

Involvement in the City

In Roman times, there were concrete ways where citizens could be
involved in the city. Such public civic benefaction was encouraged
and recognised by the rulers. Bruce Winter traces this involvement
and argues that the Roman epigraphic evidence of such benefaction
could be related to the biblical texts such as Romans 13:4 and 1
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Peter 2:14. Benefactions included supplying grain in times of
necessity by diverting grain-carrying ships to the city, erecting
public buildings or adorning old buildings with marble revetments,
refurbishing the theatre, widening roads, helping in the construction
of public utilities, going on embassies to gain privileges for the city
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and helping the city in times of upheaval.
Where Winter looks at details of epigraphic evidence, Rodney
Stark takes a broad sociological approach to attempt to trace the
rise of Christianity in the early centuries, wondering how the
obscure, marginal Jesus movement became a dominant religious
20
force in the Western world in a few centuries. He suggests, inter
alia, that the ministry of Christians in building robust and caring
social networks, the higher status and respect that were ascribed to
women in the church compared to in the broader Roman society, and
Christian charity and hope in the cities all contributed to the growth
of Christianity. These broad works of the church soon transformed
Roman society, and are the very deeds and actions which modern
day Christians can learn and emulate so as to contribute to the
Shalom of cities today.
In Roman times the wider society did not view the new religious
sect favourably, likewise today Christians are not always welcome
to take part as a religious group in the public square. Not everyone
in the city shares the same values; and there are firm lines between
religion and politics and the involvement of religious leaders
in politics. Thus, seeking Shalom in cities will depend much on
 Introduction 11

contextual factors such as the general relationship that Christians

and the church have with the wider society. Christians must also
be sensitive to their neighbours; while they should seek to be above
reproach when doing good, yet, as Peter points out, sometimes
Christians suffer for doing good and what is right (1 Peter 3:13-14).
Since so many people are interested in cities, and bodies such
as governments have many resources at their disposal, what is
the unique Christian contribution to the conversation on cities?
Indeed, many Christians have also lent their voice, for example the
Urban Shalom Project (www.urbanshalomproject.org) which seeks
to combine the resources of people in urban planning, land use,
community development, to care for the poor and to create better
cities around the world. This group, who are in partnership with
global evangelical movements like the World Evangelical Alliance
and Micah Global, hopes to be a voice which influences the UN’s
New Urban Agenda, and to that end have held several conferences
in different parts of the world, including in Singapore in November
2017.
My contribution here is more modest and is both theological
and practical. Drawing on some of these resources and situated
in Singapore, I would like to inspire readers to begin to seek the
Shalom of the cities in which we live or do missions. I shall do the
following in the next three chapters. First I shall expound what
Shalom means from biblical and theological foundations. We shall
see that the biblical Shalom is a vision that includes completeness
and wholeness between people, God and the environment. We will
explore ways that Christians can engage in Shalom in the city so
that the whole city, all parts of the city, and those who live in it,
benefits and thrives. Secondly, I shall exegete the city, unpacking
what it is that makes up a city. As we appreciate the complexities
of the city, we begin to see that ministry in cities should be holistic
and attempt to reach the whole city. Thirdly I shall suggest what
holistic urban ministry can be, and the profile of the urban minister
could look like in order to achieve this Shalom. Urban ministry is
about creating spaces which can be ‘home’ to those who are in the
city. One way of doing this is by being hospitable, not in the sense
21
of entertaining those who come, but by making room for others.
Christians can provide hope for those who live in cities, a hope of
completeness in Shalom, both in the present day and even in the
age to come.