Theology of Place: What is it?
individual and collective interactions with a particular place
Is there a place in the world that matters especially to you? For me, it’s my family's land in northern Minnesota. When my daughter put her toes in the lake this year, she was the first of the sixth generation to do so. Although my extended family, myself included, is spread out around the country, the lake is a deeper home to which we return each summer. It’s a place that means more than the houses we reside in daily. Perhaps your place is also family or ancestral land. Perhaps it is your own house. Perhaps it’s a state or county. Perhaps you aren’t able to identify a specific place. All of these are valid answers.
Especially in today’s culture in the U.S., we don’t place much emphasis on particular places. “Home is where the heart is,” we say. This isn’t untrue, but it’s incomplete. It lacks the intensity of care that develops for a plot of land, an ecosystem, or a neighborhood when we spend decades in it. Theology has something to say about this: it’s called “theology of place.” If “ecotheology” describes how our faith informs human interactions with Creation, “theology of place” describes how our faith informs our individual and collective interactions with a particular place.
For the next couple of ecotheology posts, I’ll review some scriptures and perspectives on the theology of place. Today, I’ll share some short perspectives from other voices on what a theology of place involves:
A theology of place describes how God calls his people to be a faithful presence in the particular places he puts them.”
— Midtown Church, Theology of Place Town Hall1
Place is space that has historical meanings, where some things have happened that are now remembered and that provide continuity and identity across generations. Place is space in which important words have been spoken that have established identity, defined vocation, and envisioned destiny… It is a declaration that our humanness cannot be found in escape, detachment, absence of commitment, and undefined freedom…[Storied place is] a place that has meaning because of the history lodged there. There are stories that have authority because they are located in a place. This means that biblical faith cannot be presented simply as a historical movement indifferent to place that could have happening in one setting as well as another, because it is undeniably fixed in this place with this meaning.
— Walter Brueggemann, The Land2
God as the ultimate placemaker, the one who creates places and people for times and seasons only he knows. But the idea of place also involves human lives, choices, and ideas.
— RuthAnne Irvin3
Place is “not just a piece of ground—it is the undeniable fact of our existence in relationship with the whole of creation.”
— Jennifer Allen Craft4
A Theology of Place: Town Hall Discussion. Midtown Church. 2020.
The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith. Walter Brueggemann. 1977.
Redeeming Home: A Christian Theology of Place in a Placeless World. RuthAnne Irvin. Augustine Collegiate Review 1/1. https://equip.sbts.edu/publications/journals/augustine-collegiate-review/acr-11-summer/redeeming-home-christian-theology-place-placeless-world/
Making a Place on Earth: Participation in Creation and Redemption Through Placemaking and the Arts (Ph.D.thesis, University of St. Andrews). Jennifer Allen Craft. 2013.
Love the vibe of those pictures. Superb.
I love this SO, so much. Theology of place is something I'm really passionate about; all of these perspectives you've shared illuminate it beautifully. I also love this from John O'Donohue: "Landscape is not matter nor merely nature, rather it enjoys a luminosity. Landscape is numinous. Each field has a different name, and in each place something different happened. Landscape has a secret and silent memory, a narrative of presence where nothing is ever lost or forgotten."
Have you read "Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place" by Philip Marsden? It's a delight.