City of God - Print

City of God: Faith in the Streets

By Sara Miles

Pbk 224pp
ISBN 9781455547302
Jericho Books (2015)
[Allow 4 weeks]

On Ash Wednesday, 2012, Sara Miles and her friends left their church buildings and carried ashes to the buzzing city streets: the crowded dollar stores, beauty shops, hospital waiting rooms, street corners and fast-food joints of her neighbourhood. They marked the foreheads of neighbours and strangers, sharing blessings with waitresses and drunks, believers and doubters alike.

City Of God narrates the events of the day in vivid detail, exploring the profound implications of touching strangers with a reminder of common mortality. As the story unfolds, Sara Miles also reflects on life in her city over the last two decades, where the people of God suffer and rejoice, building community amid the grit and beauty of this urban landscape.

City Of God is a beautifully written personal narrative, rich in complex, real-life characters, and full of the “wild, funny, joyful, raucous, reverent” moments of struggle and faith that have made Miles one of the most enthralling Christian writers of our time.

“Rarely, if ever, have I heard or read or experienced a more poignant or persuasive presentation of the city as metaphor and prototype for the Kingdom of God. Miles's panorama is lived theology, and its result is a kind of holy magnificence.” Phyllis Tickle, author, The Great Emergence