Culture Making, Recovering Our Creative Calling Andy Crouch InterVarsity Press, 2008 281 pp., $20 Andy Crouch's very fine Culture Making will be joining the short list of books that I read again and again, and fervently recommend to others, for insights into how we are to live as Christians. On behalf of one of my employers I have placed an advance order at my favorite bookstore, Byron Borger's Hearts & Minds, for ninety copies to share with my colleagues, and students in one of the undergraduate courses I teach will be reading Culture Making early in 2009. Culture Making is rich in provocations—for example, in its re-telling over several chapters of the overarching story found in the Christian Bible and the implications drawn from this re-telling, or in its critique of H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture, or in its definition of cultural power as "the ability to successfully propose a new cultural good." I was particularly struck by the distinction that Crouch draws between cultural gestures and postures. "Our posture," Crouch writes, "is our learned by unconscious default position, our natural stance. It is the position our body assumes when we aren't paying attention, the basic attitude we carry through life." In response to the various circumstances we encounter, we make a variety of gestures through the course of a day—Crouch lists as examples stopping to pick up mail, curling up in a chair to read to a child, reaching for something high on a shelf, embracing a spouse, or warding off the attacks of an assailant. "Over time," he suggests, "certain gestures may become habit—that is, become part of our posture": I've met former Navy SEALS who walk through life in a half-articulated crouch, ready to pounce or defend. I've met models and actors who carry themselves, even in their own home, as if they are on stage. I've met soccer players who bounce on the balls of their feet wherever they go, agile and swift. And I've met teenage video-game addicts whose thumbs are always restless and whose shoulders betray a perpetual hunch toward an invisible screen. What began as an occasional gesture, appropriate for particular opportunities and challenges, has become a basic part of their approach to the world. Expanding his observation into metaphor, Crouch makes this connection: "Something similar, it seems to me, has happened at each stage of American Christians' engagement with culture." Crouch argues that American Christians adopted broadly four stances in relation to culture during the course of the 20th century, in each case taking an appropriate gesture toward certain elements of culture and inappropriately expanding it into a comprehensive posture toward the common culture in general. While some cultural products (like sex trafficking) demand outright condemnation from Christians, a posture of condemnation fails to account for the goodness of culture, warps Christian testimony to hope and mercy, facilitates hypocrisy, and—particularly in response to artistic works—comes across as "shrill and silly." Critique, by contrast, is an entirely appropriate response to works of art, the more so the better the art. But a posture of critique diminishes the delight to be taken in many good products of culture, and encourages a certain kind of cultural passivity that overemphasizes analysis and under-appreciates participation and production. A pot of tea, a loaf of bread—the best first response to these is savoring consumption. But a posture of consumption limits us to living "unthinkingly within a culture's preexisting horizons of possibility and impossibility." Consumerism is capitulation to the existing culture at a deep level, allowing our very identity to be defined by what we can purchase. Copying from a culture is, at best, a recognition of "the lesson of Pentecost that every human language, every human cultural form, is capable of bearing the good news." But copying as a posture produces inauthentic, dated, and tame results. Instead, Crouch says, the cultural postures Christians should adopt are those of cultivation and creation. Cultivators are "people who tend and nourish what is best in human culture, who do the hard and painstaking work to preserve the best of what people before us have done." And creators are "people who dare to think and do something that has never been thought or done before, something that makes the world more welcoming and thrilling and beautiful." Another particularly helpful provocation comes in the chapter titled "Why We Can't Change the World." I confess to having often used the phrase "changing the world" as shorthand for "Christian cultural engagement." But Crouch challenges my language. He argues that we are confronted with a paradox: Culture—making something of the world, moving the horizons of possibility and impossibility—is what human beings do and are meant to do. Transformed culture is at the heart of God's mission in the world, and it is the call of God's redeemed people. But changing the world is the one thing we cannot do. And then he intensifies his message: "As it turns out, fully embracing this paradoxical reality is at the very heart of what it means to be a Christian culture maker." At the center of Culture Making (around page 140 of about 280 pages, for those who count) is the acceptance by Jesus of the calling of the cross. Jesus' taking the folly and failure of humanity upon himself in his death and resurrection is the pivot of human history, the great act in terms of which all human culture-making is to be understood. And what the cross makes of human culture is surprising indeed: "The strangest and most wonderful paradox of the biblical story is that its most consequential moment is not an action but a passion—not a doing but a suffering." Among the consequences of the cross, Crouch suggests, are that—rightly understood—it prevents Christians from indulging in a cultural triumphalism (the conviction that Christian culture-making will somehow achieve the New Jerusalem within history) or progressivism (the conviction that history necessarily trends toward improvement). There are several reasons, Crouch continues, why it is hubris for humans to imagine or plan that we can "change the world." Drawing on the examples of stock markets and Hollywood movies, he demonstrates how very difficult it is to predict what the outcome of a particular human action will be, given the multitudes of factors interacting to produce historical effects, the prevalence of unintended consequences, and the statistical likelihood of error in forecasting historical events. "On a small enough scale," it's true, "everyone has the power to change the world." At the scale of a family, the family members can profoundly "change the world" for one another—can set bedtimes and vacation times, can decide on meal menus and nicknames, can develop common habits and patterns of living together. But on the scale of the world as a whole, "there are no sufficient conditions for cultural change." The larger the scale on which we dream of cultural change, the smaller the likelihood of our dreams being realized in a form close to what we imagine. Worse, because of our sinfulness, even on the smallest scale we often fail to change things for the better—we fail to change our own bad habits and to cultivate good habits in their place. "On a daily basis we break our promises, indulge our addictions and rehearse old fantasies and grudges that even we know we'd be better off without." Human sin and folly profoundly foil us at every scale. And yet, Crouch reminds us at the conclusion of this chapter, returning to the paradox with which he began, "we are made to change the world." We must undertake that charge with humility, combined with confidence in God's working out his purposes within human history. This chastened understanding of our calling must also inform our exercise of power. We are repeatedly tempted to use whatever cultural power we possess to move ourselves ever closer to further sources of power, to secure our own comfort and control over the world around us. The discipline of service takes us in the opposite direction, beyond comfort and control, and alongside relatively powerless people. Using the biblical examples of the Exodus and the Resurrection, Crouch argues that the discipline of service does not primarily entail using our power on behalf of the powerless but rather calls us to use our power alongside those who are less powerful, placing us in a relationship of partnership rather than in a relationship of asymmetrical charity. So too the discipline of stewardship involves investing our cultural power—acknowledging that what power we have is in the first place a divine gift—to enable others (in particular those who appear to be powerless) to cultivate and create. It guides us toward such cultural investment "in places where there will only be a return on investment if God is indeed at loose and at work in the world." But neither the discipline of service nor the discipline of stewardship requires Christians to withdraw from people who do exercise power, as if in fear of contamination, since, as Crouch writes, "if God's basic work is to build partnerships between the powerful and the powerless, to cut ourselves off from people with cultural power is to deprive both them and us of an opportunity to see God at work." Culture Making undermines the rationale both for Christian withdrawal from the common culture and for Christian hubris with regard to "changing the world." I am sure that over time, shortcomings and unintended negative consequences of the arguments in this compelling book will become apparent. Other reviewers may notice some of these more clearly and more quickly than I have. But for now I cannot wait to see how readers of Andy Crouch's manifesto will be inspired to "make something of the world."

The infrastructure of my life shifted five years ago when I drove my daughter to the Calgary airport to embark on her way to the University of King's College in Halifax. Her mother was going with her for a week to help her settle in. In the days preceding this event, I was excited for my daughter, our firstborn, and this next big step in her life. I was not apprehensive in the slightest, knowing only that she would be home again in 14 weeks or so and that she had no shortage of relatives out east to provide a safety net should something go wrong. I was proud of her. Still am. That same mood prevailed right through the (overweight) baggage check-in and up until the moment when the little girl who was no more hugged me goodbye. And then I began to weep. Not huge, sobbing tears, mind you; just a soft, seemingly restrained and yet relentless trickle of tears that was without sharp pain but rife with nostalgia. Waves of memories of little butterfly kisses and bedtime stories, of kittens and cuddles and giggles and tickles and sugar and spice and all things nice overwhelmed me. I cried as she turned her back and headed through the security gates. I cried as I watched her long, beautiful hair bounce out of sight, and I cried as I walked back to the car with my son. Then I cried all the way home. For an hour I couldn't stop, even as I tried manfully to mock my sniffles and chuckle along with the comforting words of my equally bemused son. I think about that day and the day three years later when we drove our son to Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C. I was more composed then, because I knew what was coming when he and I bade his boyhood farewell (even though I'm not sure he recognized The Moment as clearly as I did) with a hug. This time I was ready, and he and I being guys and all that, well, I didn't want to embarrass him. I stifled - okay, almost - the tears as they welled up. Nipped 'em in the bud, I thought. But about half an hour down the road, as the car began the climb up into the mountains and across to the Big Blue Sky that is my home, I was once again wiping away gentle tears and the same snakes and snails and puppy-dog tails and hockey games thing started bopping around in my head like Gene Kelly. Perhaps tears come to men - at last, some might say - in middle age. I struggle still to understand how thoughts and feelings, the depth of which I was obviously not fully conscious, could have caught me so unawares. And I still wonder for whom I was crying and why it was, as Shakespeare said, such a sweet sorrow. I certainly wasn't sad for my children, of whom I am sinfully proud. They, after all, were heading off to lives that I dream will be full and rich, even though we all know they will suffer disappointment and heartache at some point and I won't be there to care for them. Was I mourning for me? After all, I can still recall making a visit back to my university when I was about 40 and staring across its beauty at ancient Acadian dykes and the Bay of Fundy and sighing, "Man, I've missed this place," only to have my son immediately rip away my mask and send a dagger through my poetic pretense with a quick "Dad, I think you just miss being young." Was it my youth I mourned when my daughter turned her back that day? When my wife puts a 15-year-old picture up on the fridge of the kids holding hands as they head off to school together, or jostling with Pooh and Goofy at Disneyland, is it nostalgia for their youth or mine that makes me pause? A full answer will probably never be available, which is fine for people like me who enjoy asking questions that don't always have answers. All I know is that I neither heard nor foresaw the emotional train that hit me on those days, and that, on the day I left home for university myself, I regret having bid my own parents such a casual farewell. I should have said thank you. But I didn't know then what was coming any more than I knew what was coming five years ago. That, I guess, is the beauty of life. Even when it hurts, it can have a gentle sweetness.

Urban centres across North America are currently experiencing rapid growth accompanied by exciting revitalization projects. However, even as cities experience these positive developments, our cities also display expressions of need. The mushrooming growth of New Canadian communities within the mosaic of the city has only further accented and diversified the complexity of need. In spite of incredible development less and less positive or productive dialogue is taking place. Loneliness, hopelessness and despair are painted on the faces of a troubling proportion of the population. Are these really the indicators of where our urban society is moving? Gentrification, while key to revitalizing economically depressed areas of cities, often comes with the side-affect of displacing affordable residences which house poorer members of the community. One of the greatest challenges emerging in our cities is the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Strategic and sophisticated city planning which enables these diverse populations to coexist in an atmosphere of respect and mutual support are critical to a healthy urban future. Religious institutions—particularly the Salvation Army—have a role to play in helping city planners achieve this harmony. In order to appreciate the position being presented here, it will help to understand who and what the Salvation Army is. I can speak most knowledgeably from my own background as a member and an employee of the Salvation Army. While I am not writing as an apologist for The Salvation Army, this article is written through the eyes of a Salvationist who seeks to express and to address the needs of the urban community.The Salvation Army was founded in 1865 by William Booth, an ordained Methodist minister. Aided by his wife, Catherine, Booth formed a group dedicated to reaching the people living in the midst of appalling poverty in London's East End. Booth worked among the thieves, prostitutes and drunkards. To congregations that were desperately poor, he preached hope and salvation. From its start in London's East End, the Salvation Army movement expanded rapidly and is now active in virtually every corner of the world. The basic social services developed by William Booth have remained an outward visible expression of the Army's strong religious principles. New programs that address contemporary needs have been established. Among these are disaster relief services, day care centres, summer camps, holiday assistance programs for the aging, AIDS education and residential services, medical facilities, shelters for battered women and children, family and career counseling, vocational counseling, correctional services, and substance abuse rehabilitation to name but some of the ministries. In all of this social services work, however, the Salvation Army does primarily remain a church—"Christianity with its sleeves rolled up" to quote Vachel Lindsay. Given its beginnings and ongoing work, The Salvation Army is very much an urban creature. For more than 120 years, the Salvation Army has established its place in the fabric of the urban community.Having traced the history of the Salvation Army, I now turn to how it can help develop strategic policies for healthy urban societies. When we use the term, "urban society", what defines the community upon which we are focusing? In Canada, we can no longer assume that "urban society" is the conglomerate of street people and slum dwellers in which substance abusers, petty criminals, and the poverty-stricken. The mix has become far more complex. If it ever was possible to name a few programs and services that would enable the traditional urban dweller to survive, it certainly is no longer the case. Competing for space and an opportunity to establish their chosen life-style now are former suburbanites and new Canadians from all over the world. These new urbanites bring with them many attributes and attitudes that make them foreigners to the prevailing culture of the original residents—in most cases, they have a sense of direction; they dress and eat well; and they have jobs which allow them to enjoy the benefits of city life through going to theatres and the sports events. This latter attribute is generally taken for granted by the new urbanites. What's more, if they lose their job or, more often, leave a position, they have the expectation that they will find a new position very quickly due to their level of training and marketable skills. This is not the case for the former population. Their prospects for finding new, meaningful employment, unlike their new neighbours, are bleak indeed. Dion Oxford, director of The Salvation Army's Gateway hostel in downtown Toronto, describes the situation this way: I call it the modern-day famine. In the Bible, famine is usually related to agriculture when labour bears no fruit for so long that the work finally stops and all hope is lost. In the urban famine, it is working one low-paying job after another, without promotion, and then getting laid off because of someone's bottom line not being met.It's entering the cycle and having it happen again and again and again. It ends with all hope being lost. It ends with being afraid to even go to a job interview to avoid the terror of facing yet another rejection.That's the urban famine. It's okay to focus on providing housing for the homeless, but it will not work unless employment is brought into play. I look upon housing and employment as being the same as two tracks to a train. You need both or you derail. In order to pull together the factors I have laid out in terms of the Salvation Army's work and the need to rethink our cities policies, I will refer to the work of Abraham Maslow and his signature work on The Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow noticed early in his career as a psychologist that some human needs take precedence over others and, until those needs are met, people do not pay much heed to the others. Dr. George C. Boeree of Pennsylvania's Shippenburg University describes how Maslow laid out five broad layers of human needs which I have paraphrased in the next two paragraphs. The most basic layer consisted of physiological needs such as oxygen, water, protein, salt, sugar and calcium, the maintenance of a body temperature of 370C, sleep, avoidance of pain and other survival conditions. When the physiological needs are largely taken care of, the second layer, the safety and security needs, come into play. This raises the awareness of the need for safe circumstances, stability and protection and concern for fears and anxieties rather than the food and water needs that were prevalent initially. Once the physiological needs and safety needs are largely addressed, the love and belonging needs begin to emerge. The individual begins to feel the need for friends, a sweetheart, children, affectionate relationships in general and a sense of community. Dr. Boeree observes that the individual becomes "increasingly susceptible to loneliness and social anxieties". The fourth level encompasses the esteem needs. At the lower level, Maslow noted the need for the respect for others, the need for status, fame, glory, recognition, attention, reputation, appreciation, dignity and even dominance. The higher form involves the need for self-respect, including such feelings as confidence, competence, achievement, mastery, independence and freedom. Maslow calls all four levels deficit needs. If you don't have enough of something, you have a deficit and feel the need. He sees all these needs as essentially survival needs. The levels correspond to our developmental phases from the time we are born. Under stressful conditions, or when survival is threatened, we can "regress" to a lower need level. For example, if your family ups and leaves you, it seems that love is again all you ever wanted.The last level is a bit different. Maslow used a variety of terms to refer to this level. He called it growth motivation, being needs (or B-needs in contrast to D-needs) and self-actualization. These needs involve the continuous desire to fulfill potentials, to "be all that you can be". They are a matter of becoming the most complete, the fullest, "you"—hence the term, self actualization. It follows then that, to be truly self-actualizing, a person's lower needs must be taken care of, at least to a considerable extent. If you are hungry, your are focused entirely on getting food; if you are unsafe, you have to be continuously on guard; if you are isolated and unloved, you have to satisfy that need; if you have a low sense of self-esteem, you have to be defensive or compensate. When lower needs are unmet, you can't fully devote yourself to fulfilling your potentials.Pre-dating Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs by more than forty years, William Booth made it clear to his followers that "You can't preach to men about salvation when they have an empty stomach." Booth's approach to addressing the human condition was expressed in more tangible terms. Booth's "soup, soap and salvation" philosophy expressed his understanding that when lower needs are unmet, you can't fully devote yourself to fulfilling your potentials.Human needs exist amongst all echelons of the evolving diversity in the "renewal" of our urban centres. Tragedy befalls the rich and the poor; fatal accidents, serious and terminal illnesses, personal tragedies such as marriage break-ups and children making dangerous life-style choices are common to humanity as a whole. While D-needs such as nutrition and shelter may not be issues common to the new urbanites, sleep disorders and anxieties often are. Loneliness and a sense of betrayal beset all classes of humanity. As municipalities and church leaders wrestle with the challenges of creating viable plans for urban renewal, it is essential to find ways to meet not only the differences that divide the new and the old but to be mindful of the vital threads of common needs shared by all. When Canada was in its infancy, the genesis of large urban centres began mainly on a blank sheet. The first manifestations of European-style civil society began very humbly. As decades passed, larger and more urbanized populations gathered in what became Canada's major urban centres. The demand for services grew roughly along the same pattern as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The requirements for supplies of food and clothing and acceptable shelter were gradually met and a new focus on safety and security needs replaced them. The pattern extended further to meet the requirements for health and hospital care. In Canadian cities, churches were the initial agents to establish these institutions. This was also the case for educational facilities at all levels from primary children right through university level. Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist and the Salvation Army churches were just some of the groups that were active in setting up hospitals and schools. While contemporary religious institutions do not often establish hospitals, they still have the capacity to assess what is happening in the communities surrounding them, Some, although not all, have the skills to identify the classes of need that are emerging in the new urbanism. Those that do not can easily train personnel or partner with sister communities which have the skill sets to determine first steps in meeting those needs. In spite of the tight budgets within which most religious communities operate, they still tend to represent a cross-section of professionals, activists and people who, in general terms, want to make a difference and to help their community in tangible ways. The power and impact the intervention of religious communties—particularly the Salvation Army with its history, location, and philosophy—in the process of renewing an urban society or community can be immeasurably enhanced if the work is conducted in partnership with other religious communities, agencies and the local government. One of the keys to making a real difference can be found while making the initial assessment of community needs. That key is the match between the undertaking and the capacity, mission and commitment of individual communities. Working together as partners, the city and religious communities can develop the tools and expectations for a new and better urban centre.In conclusion, then, I will be bold and suggest some possible paths religious communities and city governments might consider in their quest to understand and respond to all the aspects assossiated with the urban renewal process. One approach is to identify a specific group within the urban community with which to work. The strategies may then range from language training, cultural acclimatization, advocacy, and preparing to enter the employment market. Another possible approach is to focus on creating links between the various constituent groups in the urban centre for the purpose of fostering greater understanding amongst them. The strategies here might include controlled town-hall meetings amongst leaders of the groups in which the goal is mutual support and appreciation for the needs and desires of each other. Still further approaches might include establishing community programs to meet the social and recreational needs of the community. Often religious communities have the largest, most available facility to which community groups may gain access. Within downtown areas, these are most often churches. By adopting an approach which affirmed community capacity development as the strategy of choice, the steps forward could be maintained and assured as the community and the church work toward the goal of just urban renewal. The avenues of partnership are countless but, in closing, the point must be made again that the key rests in ensuring there is a match between the real needs of the urban community and all of the factors already mentioned. Just as this will involve listening intuitively to urban group members, it also demands religious institutions to discern the needs of their community and the avenues they take in their work within the urban context—just as William Booth did in his establishment of the Salvation Army.

Calgary may rank only 66th on the recently released 2008 Mercer List of the world's 143 most expensive cities, but it has soared 26 spots in the past year and is closing in on Vancouver in the race to be Canada's second-priciest domicile behind Toronto. This is not good news. While Vancouverites always seem comfortable paying for their own sense of being Eden and Torontonians assume only fools would be incapable of grasping the cost of class, the same cannot be said for Calgarians. Yes, summer is wonderful, but while winter is not terribly harsh, it is long (the leaves will be gone in a mere 60 days), the roads are clogged and we wedge nervously into commuter trains that are either too packed or sparse for physical and psychological comfort. The streets may be paved with gold for some; for others, they are merely lining the pockets of civic and private parking authorities in this, Canada's most expensive city in which to drive. Office rent is the country's highest and while jobs are plentiful and wages high, real incomes are nowhere near as competitive as they were 10 years ago. Efforts by Christian charities such as the Mustard Seed and Inn From the Cold to establish shelter and housing for the homeless have been rebuffed as inappropriate for a downtown that prefers gentrification. In a city where labour is in great demand, none of these are helpful trends; Saskatchewan offers better real incomes. Little wonder the city is cranky. Honking and angry fingers are more frequent, happy howdies fewer. Police not only battle road rage, they recently had to deal with "golf rage" after a man was allegedly beaten following an errant shot. This is a city increasingly in need of, yes, a really good transportation system, but more than anything it needs calm; happy and inspirational spaces and places that ease and enliven the soul and allow for a step sideways off the treadmill that we all know will hit like a hurricane again after Labour Day. Its downtown core, to which city planners are urgently trying to direct new homeowners, contains an imbalance between commercial and cultural influences. Calgary is at risk of what is described by Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, in his book Municipal Mind: Manifestos for the Creative City, as a "failure of heart" or becoming merely "a place of business, or indentured servitude." It's not likely that Calgary could lose its soul, although it is quite possible it could sell it by mistake. One would expect that if nothing else, its long-standing sense of chauvinism is bristling in response to the very idea that the self-styled "heart of the New West" would beat in anything other than a passionate and prideful fashion. A city this well-resourced should be able to respond to even these nuanced challenges by releasing its creative minds to give liberty to, as Mr. Di Cicco calls it, "the desire of the citizen for elements one no longer dares to ask for - conviviality, joy, delight in wonder, the shared forum of imagining and play, of unreserved laughter and serenity ... all the playful and ecstatic registers that justify city life." Everywhere there is talk of cultural renovation and innovation, whether it is any of the many successful theatre companies creating or building new homes, completion of the Stampede grounds expansion, a new arena for the Calgary Flames, development of the East Village, a massively redesigned arts centre and district, new condo towers and even an imposing Opera Centre that would replace aging and oh-so-20th-century structures such as the Jubilee Auditorium as the home for things of great beauty; of things that can make people swoon. All great stuff, but whether Calgary succeeds in using its commercial muscle for cultural flourishing will depend on how fully it can embrace the truth that gentrification is not the answer. It is the spirit of values such as empathy and mercy that fuels the construction of these and other dreams; that stained glass is better than tinted glass and preventing a city with depth of soul from transforming into just a city with lots of stuff depends on understanding that creativity is the path to civic grace. That is a big ask, perhaps too much. We shall see. In the meantime, we might have to settle for a few more cars on the C-train.

Last month's Calgary Herald Black Mark series focused on lower voter turnout as a sign of "dwindling democracy." And while citizens voting, vibrant political parties and effective political processes are important characteristics of democratic health, not enough attention is paid to the contribution of other civil society organizations. The public square involves much more than politics. Joining civil society organizations is as much an act of citizenship as is voting. On the one hand, we take it as a given that community groups, labour unions, chambers of commerce, and trade associations take positions on the issues of the day. We expect to read their opinions in the news and we understand that public opinion on issues is often informed by the back-and-forth between organizational spokespersons. On the other hand, we dismiss much of this as self-serving on the part of these organizations. If the conversation is about undoing the dwindling of democracy, then the importance of civil society institutions is a necessary topic. Civil society organizations need to be challenged to think in terms of the public good. They are most compelling when they inspire a vision that benefits everyone, not just their members. They are uniquely positioned to bring the expertise of their constituency to bear on the issues of the day. In most cases, it turns out that the long-term interest of their constituency is best served by such a public good focus. A cultural shift also needs to happen in how individuals view joining such organizations. Take a business person joining an industry association, for example. One might consider it using a private cost-benefit analysis. Another approach would be to consider joining the association as an act of citizenship, in the same way that going to vote is making a civic contribution even if you are convinced that your vote is unlikely to alter the election's outcome. Consider how an industry association shapes public life. It is almost a default reaction for politicians to seek credit (or be given blame) when the local job climate changes, but the vibrancy of the industry association can play as significant a role as general economic policy. At the local level, most operators define their competition within their own product area. In other words, a widget manufacturer only sees his or her competitors as being other widget manufacturers. The nature of a global economy, however, is such that real competition happens between sectors rather than between companies. While Company A may see Company B against whom they bid for specific jobs as their competitor, in the larger scheme of things a local industry is competing as a group against other similar groups in other regions (or depending on the product), on the other side of the globe. It is often the industry association that does the legwork that provides the opportunity for Company A and B. How can a single company manufacturing widgets in Calgary hope to exert real influence in this sort of world? Well, it can't. Or to put it another way, it can't do it individually, but it can create a voice if it acts through or forms an industry association. Effective companies have known this for years and have acted on the local level to define and act on issues of shared interest through groups like the Calgary Motor Dealers Association and the Canadian Home Builders Association -- Calgary Region for dealing with local matters. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is better equipped than government to deal with certain issues that impact the Calgary economy than is government. A vibrant industry association is a vital component to a healthy economic sector. Another function of trade associations is to build social capital. Often these associations assist in the development of the skills necessary for individual social capital capacity. They also assist by organizing events and opportunities that allow members to interact with customers, partners or competitors that individuals are unlikely to know or meet otherwise. It is important that citizens vote and are engaged in the political processes if our democracy is to be sustained. But there are other things that also need to occur. Civil society institutions need to be vibrant and active and also retain the engagement of their constituencies. This is necessary both to sustain the public conversation and to carry on what they can do best. Joining and being involved in such an association is as much an act of citizenship as voting. Our democracy would be strengthened if more of us did both.

Calgary is currently buzzing with architectural ambition and aspiration. The skyline will be changed with the construction of EnCana's new building, The Bow, along with several other new downtown projects. Various new residential communities market features that not only make them distinct, but also reflect creativity and a desire for beauty.Ideally, a city's architecture should not only be an inspiration to its citizens, it should be a reflection of those things that are at the core of its values and beliefs. It is a concrete and steel manifestation of how we dress; the colours we choose to highlight our natural state and the cut of cloth we select to best enhance our God-given features.Cities that do not pay attention to their architecture -- physical and intellectual -- are likely to be as unattractive and incapable of inspiring interest and excitement as any one of us would be if we showed up for an evening out wearing a sweat suit and a pair of brogues.In that sense, cities of aspiration are no different than individuals. Cities, too, need to dress for success.When it was first established, Calgary was no different than most 19th century cities. It was designed around commercial and cultural establishments -- the train station, the stockyards, hotels, theatres, secondary and post-secondary schools and certainly churches.These were the places where people worked, lived, learned and found inspiration. Yet throughout the 20th century, Calgary developed much like many other western North American cities, building from within an imbalanced central core.The downtown remained a centre of commercial activity, but as people moved to the suburbs their cultural activities moved with them.Given that the family home is the core of culture, this shift inspired churches, schools and shopping centres to follow people to the suburbs -- a move that almost clear-cut culture from the civic core, leaving it a place only for commercial or business activity. And, too often, the rush of churches, schools and shopping to the suburbs was not planned in an architecturally inspired fashion.Suburbs, for the most part, are comfortable and utilitarian, but quite uninspired. There are exceptions. McKenzie Towne, located in the southeast corner of the city, is one example of a community where core ideas, and not simply utilitarianism, shaped the design.The residential areas of the community offer distinct styles that incorporate elements of European, English, and Greek architecture. Following the "New Urbanist" principles that inspired it, McKenzie Towne has a pedestrian-friendly and accessible main street with shops that provide the staples of modern life as well as quaint items of interest.Critics will argue, not entirely without merit, that despite its design McKenzie Towne is not a real town. They point to the fact that it still averages almost two cars per household and that few of its residents actually work in the neighbourhood, meaning it is incomplete as a centre of commerce and culture.There is merit to this argument, but there is also little doubt that the developers of the area have created a framework for a real town, offering streets that give opportunities for intimacy and surprise, and structures -- High Street, McKenzie Towne Church, the Towne Hall, St. Albert the Great Church -- that offer a sense of distinctiveness.There is certainly more than one way to achieve a well-dressed city. Midnapore, a classic example of how suburban lava can consume a real town, offers different hints at how identity can be revived and re-established.St. Mary's University College and its presence have not only allowed the area to preserve its past, it seems also to inspire its mind and soul for a brighter future.As Calgary continues to grow, we need to aspire together to build a city that works and expresses itself well. Imagine, for instance, the difference that would be made if Calgary were to have its own opera house -- something that would impose itself on the city's visage in the manner of the Sydney Opera House in Australia -- instead of the somewhat utilitarian and non-descript presence of the Jubilee Auditorium.What a huge difference would be made to how we looked and how we felt about each other if the Epcor Centre for Performing Arts were as imposing and inspiring as the Lincoln Centre in New York?The Calgary Flames will be shopping for a new arena soon. What should it look like, particularly given the unique design of the Saddledome has become synonymous with the city's physical and cultural image? Are there other organizations needing a new home which could end up defining both them and Calgary?Ideas matter and civic planning is about the practical expression of ideas and imagination. Calgary has plenty of heart, but only planning in good faith can make sure it achieves its true potential as a city of aspiration.Ray Pennings is vice-president of research for the Work Research Foundation. Check out his blog at www.rpennings.blogspot.com.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a solitary figure wearing a hat and dark glasses would slip into the back pew of Ottawa's Notre Dame Basilica on Sussex Drive, several times a week, just in time to attend Mass. Forty years ago, this solitary devotee of the Mass began his tenure as Prime Minister of Canada, and instigated and institutionalized a legal, moral, social, and constitutional revolution unmatched by anything in Canada?s history. The devotee was none other than Pierre Elliott Trudeau whose name was given to a type of Canadian Liberal, to a decade ? the 1970s, and to the revolution he led. But was he a revolutionary? As Lester Pearson's attorney-general, Trudeau oversaw a Law Commission whose terms of reference were reform of the Criminal Code. Trudeau summed up the reform as getting "the State out of the nation's bedrooms." In 1969 as Prime Minister, Trudeau pushed through an omnibus Criminal Code reform bill that, among other things, liberalized abortion. Although the law permitted abortion only on 'therapeutic' grounds with the authorization of a hospital-based committee, abortion on demand was de facto the case in large parts of the country by 1970. On the economic front, no longer was the Liberal Party the party of balanced budgets. Trudeau opted for neo-Keynesian public spending that saw budget deficits grow to $34 billion with an accumulated federal debt just over $200 billion by 1984. But it was after he had lost power in 1979 and recovered it in 1980 for a final mandate that Trudeau institutionalized and launched his coup d'tat. The Canada Act (1982) put amendment of Canada's main constitutional tradition the BNA Acts, squarely in the hands of Canada?s federal Parliament and provincial legislatures, and created the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). ?Coup d??tat?? No longer would Canadians ask the British Parliament to pass a statute amending the BNA Act. But while Canadians were empowered to amend their own constitution, parliamentary (legislative) supremacy was overthrown in favour of judicial supremacy. Up till 1982, the power of judges to review legislation and policy was limited to sorting out federal and provincial jurisdictions. For example, because the court ruled that unemployment insurance fell under provincial authority, a constitutional amendment was required before the federal government could create the federal Unemployment Insurance program in 1943. But from 1982 forward, the court was called upon to review all legislation and public policy when any citizen applied to it. Even if a federal or provincial government dared use Section 33 ''the notwithstanding clause'' it could only do so in respect of the rights enumerated in Sections 2 and 7 through 15. Rights in other sections were untouchable by Parliament or the legislatures. Less than six years after its proclamation and four years after Trudeau left office, the court sided with Henry Morgentaler in R v Morgentaler (1988), striking down Section 251 of the Criminal Code of Canada. All legal impediments to abortion on demand throughout pregnancy were removed. The Charter revolutionized Canadian culture, public and private. Where once schoolchildren were taught to appreciate the 'privileges' of education and of living in Canada, Charter children were indoctrinated into the culture of rights and entitlement. Where once Canadians were known for their tolerance of differences, the Charter culture of political correctness was imposed upon them. As the Charter's individualist, self-actualized rights-bearer was made king, institutions were diminished, including church, marriage and family, as well as the thousands of voluntary associations that made Canada fit for human habitation. The social contract of each generation?s leaving Canada better than they found it for the next generation, by self-sacrifice and service, was displaced by the Charter culture of individualism, self-centredness, and of the hedonistic, nihilistic, now! As John Paul II or the the ancient, Hebrew liberator and lawgiver Moses might have put it, Canadians gave up the culture of life, choosing instead the culture of death. How did a devout (as adjudged by his attendance at the Mass) Catholic Christian become responsible for instigating, and instituting, the most profound social, moral, legal, constitutional, and cultural revolution in Canadian history? He swallowed the secularist lie that faith is merely private, that it has nothing at all to do with what we do in public. But this is a lie, since someone's articles of faith, moral, legal, and otherwise, will tell us what is good, how we should act, and what we should expect of others. Who will reject the lie and lead a 21st-century revolution?

Cairo, Egypt?s capital and most populous city, is a chaotic hub of economic, cultural, and political activity; it is also deeply religious. Mosques dot the landscape of the city, becoming local nerve centres for the citizens as they go about their daily prayers. The city hums in resonance as its population is called to prayer five times a day. Christian youth flock to weekly question-and-answer sessions with the Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church. But behind the richly textured sights and sounds of the city?s mosques and minarets, religious institutions provide far more than is readily apparent.The city of Cairo, while predominantly Muslim, also has an historically strong Christian presence. For the Christian Zabellin, the city?s garbage collectors,participation in the church has had a profound impact on their community and the city itself.The Zabellin live on the outskirts of the city collecting, sorting, recycling, and selling its garbage. They provide an indispensable service to the city and many have actually made a good living out of their lifestyle, but the lifestyle is a malodorous and undesirable one which has consigned the Zabellin to an area on the fringe of Cairo known as the garbage village. The streets are grimy, uneven, and full of refuse. Families live in makeshift homes where garbage is sorted on the bottom floor, while people live in the upper floors.Until the 1980s, the thousands of Christians who inhabited the garbage village had no churches because Egypt maintains rules on the construction and refurbishment of churches that are intended to limit and politicize the expansion of churches. Moreover, the mainly Coptic Christians who lived in garbage city had difficulty accessing the churches within the city because of the distance and stigma associated with their profession.However, a priest with a vision came to the garbage village and began a church. Over time, the church grew into a network of several churches which transformed the community by establishing schools, health clinics, and churches. Despite the transformation, the newly formed churches had to solve the problem of not being able to build church buildings. The answer came with the discovery of a series of natural caves. The excavation of these caves provided an opportunity to create open-air churches without construction permits. Finally, a massive cathedral was created out of the largest of the caverns.Close to 6000 Egyptians attend weekly services at this outdoor cathedral. It has now been decorated with raised relief carvings by European artists inspired by the story of the so-called ?Monastery of St. Samaan.? Christians from all over Egypt come to visit the garbage village and to gasp in wonder at the beautiful churches that have been carved out of the cliff face. The cavernous cathedral has become a centre of pilgrimage for Christians from around the world. In one of the most unlikely of places the church has created something beautiful which has in many ways transformed the city.Michael Van Pelt, president of the Work Research Foundation, has observed that ?those who have spent a significant amount of time outside the global North are quick to see institutional religion alive, thriving, and bringing renewal and revival to the most depressed urban spaces.? Garbage city?s cathedral is a testimony to the vibrancy and pungency of religion in today?s urban spaces. The same is true of our urban centres; however, for those of us who live in the global North, the impact of religious institutions remains unseen.Historically cities have had an immense role in the propagation of religion, and religion has been a core element of the success and importance of cities. Ancient cities were typically organized around the shrine of a local god, and throughout history important religious buildings and teachings formed the lifeblood of cities. It is a conceit of our western culture that cities are solely planned communities that revolve around access to markets and transportation links which are built to service major industries or services. Yet, our western urban centres are still deeply impacted by religious institutions. Like the Cathedral of Garbage City, our faith centres have influenced the fabric of our cities.Unseen but Present: Three Impacts of Religious InstitutionsThere are at least three ways in which religious institutions have had an impact upon our cities.The first, is the way in which church buildings contribute to the physical environment of a city. I fear at times that we have lost the wondrous way in which a church changes up the mundane skyline of a city; they contribute greatly to the character of a city. I grew up close to a large Pentecostal Assembly that boasted a colossal light-up cross that provided a landmark for the entire city. In another neighbourhood, the exotic architecture of the local mosque provided me with my earliest envisionings of Islam. Some of the most beautiful photographs from my hometown are those that feature portions of the local Roman Catholic basilica. No matter the excesses and pitfalls that have attended the phases of religious architecture, I think that these buildings take seriously Gideon Strauss?s comment in ?An Urban Village Vanguard?? that, ?they should seek to delight the imagination and offer social comfort? to those inside and outside the faith community. How much poorer and less interesting would the city be without these spaces?A second way in which religious institutions impact our cities is by providing services to the community. The highest profile agencies of social action are often those of a public and secular nature, but the workhorses of social policy in most every country around the world are not the departments of social welfare or ad hoc community networks, but rather religious charities. For example, the largest providers of comfort to the urban poor and destitute in the city of Vancouver are the Salvation Army and the Union Gospel Mission. There is also a burgeoning network of refugee hospices throughout Canada which arose from the model pioneered by The Matthew House, a Christian organization in Toronto. Furthermore, it is often religious communities that provide the social spaces for the mentally handicapped within our cities. Organizations like L?Arche form global networks of care for the mentally and physically handicapped members of our society. These are merely a few of the services and initiatives provided by our religious institutions, and they are vital to the well-being of our cities.Finally, religious institutions impact our cities as intellectual and social networking points. They serve as modern agoras in the network of ideas. I have spent much time in academia, which tends to think of itself as the epicentre of thought, when in fact it is largely a derivative of a more time-honoured trend among the great religious traditions of the ages. Religious institutions are where many of us are trained, socialized, and meet others to engage in debate, discussion, and friendship. They have cultivated and preserved music, craft, and visual artistry. They provide venues for other local organizations, from the conservatory of music, to political movements, to polling places. Without the church, our societies would be far more atomistic, would lack many networking opportunities and places to share our lives.So What?If religious institutions are so vital to the well-being of our urban communities, what does this mean? Why is it important for us to identify the role of religious institutions?First, the observation calls governments and other city stakeholders to look for creative ways in which religious institutions can help with the challenges that face cities. I am not suggesting the corporatist mode of state-society relations that grants to the state a role in cultivating and organizing churches, but a renewed discussion within a pluralist model of interest representation for religious institutions to be constructively engaged. States and religious congregations need to open up space for this kind of engagement. Both sides of the conversation need to be willing to work together to diffuse possibleAt a minimum, elected officials should cultivate links with faith communities and display their value through public statements and actions. Faith communities must also work to develop partnerships and strategically engage municipalities to bring about positive change within cities. This will often bring both conversation partners out of their own comfort zones and into contact with faith communities outside their own. It seems to me that a myriad of problems that arise among certain religious communities could be headed off merely through the display of respect for the sensibilities and feelings of all religious groups, no matter the size and apparent political significance.But, it seems to me that in most liberal democratic societies there is already a strong sense among elected officials of the importance of local faith leaders. However, I believe there is significant room for improvement in this relationship when it comes to the civil service and academia-- each of which has approached faith groups with either suspicion or apathy. Faith dialogue and involvement in both of these sectors has always seemed in a state of arrested development. In particular, there are certain communities that either lack natural connections with the establishment or have underdeveloped institutional capacities to deal with government and academe. It seems to me that the absence of these relationships is one of the most dangerous phenomena of our time.The religious institutions of our urban centres may often be unseen but their impact is tangible. As we look to understand and to build better cities which exist in an increasingly global world, we must continue to work to realize the impact religious communities have on our cities. Old-time mysteries occasionally bid the reader, ?cherchez la femme?. Perhaps I?m asking us all to ?cherchez l?eglise.? How much more goes on among the religious cloisters behind the scenes in the greatest cities of the world? How many communities are finding new life because of the activities of religious networks? I venture to guess that it is more than we know. We have taken a step forward in this call to understanding the intersection of religious institutions and the city, and I hope that it becomes the first step in a much longer journey.

Building a city is easy enough for most people to understand in terms of physical infrastructure - concrete and steel, in other words.Most everyone can appreciate the need for offices, factories, shops, apartments, houses, hospitals and roads, buses, airports and trains to connect people and move them from one place to another. And they understand that playing fields and hockey rinks and gymnasia and libraries all play a part, too. They even recognize that parks are nice for relaxing and breaking up the monotony of endless expansion.But talk to them in terms too esoteric and you will lose them when you venture into the more ethereal realms of architecture, beauty, art and the importance of establishing an identifiable civic aesthetic. Not everyone wants to go there. Not everyone can. The meaning of life, after all, can be summarized for many as the contentment that comes from a warm fire, cold beer and the company of trusted companions. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.Undaunted, however, many groups in Calgary are attempting to bridge that communications gap and ensure that the city doesn’t miss the opportunity that prosperity has brought to its door. Arts groups, particularly, are interested in the development of cores of civic beauty, plazas of genuine personal interconnection and so on. At issue for most of them is the fact that as society evolved over the past 50 years, many civic centres became little more than the hole in a suburban doughnut, filled only during work hours by people buzzing back and forth to their homes, gardens and soccer fields in the suburbs.Back in the pre-suburban era, it was easier to recognize the cores of cities – even those in decay – because they were designed around churches and the plazas and marketplaces surrounding them. Today, in many North American cities, these centres have been replaced by new cathedrals - football and baseball stadiums and hockey and basketball arenas. Yet even they fill up and empty in a matter of hours. People come and people go. The same can be said for theatre districts and arts centres, although they do tend to hold the crowds a little longer.The point is that no single one of these genres is enough to allow a city of genuine intimacy and surprise to emerge and flourish. The churches, the theatres, the arenas and the civic centres all need to be engaged or, in the case of churches (which still provide homes for athletes and artists) they need to be re-engaged. Yes, their power may have waned, but their influence in people’s lives is still remarkable. Even if, for instance, only one in five Calgarians attends a place of worship on a once a week basis, there are still at least 220,000 of them who dependably gather for a specific, common purpose every week. To put this in perspective, the Calgary Flames would have to fill up the Saddledome 11 times each week with 11 completely different crowds in order to display the same drawing power. A study released in March by a Canadian Think Tank, the Work Research Foundation, pointed to this quite clearly. The report, Toronto the Good, used statistics compiled by University of Lethbridge sociologist Dr. Reg Bibby, Project Canada and Statscan to support the need for truly inclusive civic engagement. Bibby’s data illustrates adherence to cohesive social values which some would see as a strong argument in favour of engaging the spiritual side of our citizens and putting it to work. When asked to rate which virtues they consider very important, theists and atheists rated some of them (the full report is at www.wrf.ca/pdfs/sgu/Toronto.the.Good.pdf) as follows, with the theists’ ratings first: Honesty, 94% & 89%; Kindness 88% & 75%; Family life 88% & 65%; Being loved 84% & 70%; Concern for others 82% & 63%; Forgiveness 84% & 52%; Patience 72% & 39%; and Generosity 67% & 37%.The point here isn’t to indicate that the church people are better than other people because they aren’t. But it does show that while they may have fallen out of fashion, they can bring it when it comes to building a city that cares about purpose, art, beauty and aspiration to cohesive social values.Calgary will be a unique city if it can break down the barriers between the visible and the invisible worlds, release the power of all the segments of its society and put its engineers, artists, poets, pastors, bricklayers and bishops equally to work. That, after all, is how the builders of the world’s greatest cities achieved their ambitions. All we have to do is remember what they knew.