Over the last few months I’ve been periodically leading a bible study at my church. In doing so, a month ago I took my group through an exercise which was significant for the denomination I used to work for.
Since this denomination was an unification of three existing denominations - with subsequent amalgamation of facilities - it was important to allow space for elder members of the congregation to grieve what combining created and ended.
For some, they lost buildings full of memories.
They saw the place they got married sold.
They saw the place their kids got baptised demolished.
They saw the building they grew up in redeveloped.
And, this resulted in hurt.
Furthermore, my previous denomination was very active within the indigenous peoples and indigenous theology.
In many ways, they sort to acknowledge the pain caused to and the work required by/with the indigenous communities.
In short, I grew up in and worked in an organisation which had a highly developed theology of space and place.
For, every believer holds to a theology of where they have been and what they have experienced.
They have places of significance.
They have spaces where they’ve strongly felt the presence of God.
In regards to the bible study I was leading, in order to begin to recognise the devastation of the Jewish exile, when we start to identify our own theology of place and space, then we can begin to empathise with what was lost in the exile.
As a middle-class Anglo, the more developed our personal sense of space and place is, then we the more we are able to relate to both those sent to Babylon, but also those within our own boarders who have been dispossessed of their lands, memories and significant places.
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