Pretend God is Here, Now
About the author: Rev. Micah Cronin (M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary) is an Episcopal priest of the Diocese of New Jersey. He is the Associate Rector at St. George's By the River in Rumson, New Jersey.
If there were such a thing as a Gospel of New York City, Fran Lebowitz would be its chief apostle. Leibowitz, an atheist Jewish lesbian who almost exclusively wears oversized men’s blazers, jeans, and cowboy boots, forged her way into New York in the late 60s, working odd jobs as she began a career as a writer. But since publishing two works of cranky social commentary, Lebowitz has suffered from a decades-long case of writer’s block and, for quite some time, has been making a living by kvetching for interviews and live audiences. She is living my dream.
One of Lebowitz’s latest projects is a 7-episode Netflix special (directed by her friend Martin Scorsese) titled Pretend it’s a City. In this project, Lebowitz brings her complaints, comments, and opinions on American life in New York to the binge-watching masses. The title comes from an exchange Lebowitz had with an audience member at one of her speaking events:
Audience member: Speaking of people in the street, does it bother you—
Lebowitz: Yes. [Audience laughs].
Audience member: when people stop in the middle, in the flow of traffic, and look at their maps, or…
Lebowitz: Unfortunately, I’m not going to have time to answer this question. Do people on the street bother me? Absolutely, they bother me. … I feel like I should write a manifesto (I used to be a writer). … The title of which would be, and this is kind of an address to those people that you’re talking about, “Pretend it’s a City.” Okay? Pretend it’s a city. [1]
Now, if Fran Lebowitz and I were to meet, she would probably already dislike me because I still live in New Jersey and lack the masochism necessary to move to the city. But she would probably be able to run a whole new sardonic speaking tour just on the knowledge of how often her little quip, “pretend it’s a city,” runs through my head when I think about God, or Karl Barth, or the church.
Karl Barth responded to, among other things, the theology of modernism, which rendered God into an abstraction. One of Barth’s axes to grind was that theology, the gospel, and the Church is about God, and God is present, living, and free. The agonizing reality for theologians and preachers, and Christians in general, is that our one task is simply to proclaim the reality of this God and this God’s Good News; in our finitude, however, we cannot. We need God’s intervention even for this task. Yet our struggle to be faithful to this God and this task is worth it because at least it deals with reality. Pretend it is a city. Pretend God is real, and here, now.
Surely, there is no one who could venture far enough into the depths of Lebowitz’s irritations to fully understand them. Still, as far as I am willing to go, I will guess that her frustration with New York City tourists is that the city is an idea for them. It is an amusement park, a destination, a vibe. It is a place to buy an “I [heart] NY” t-shirt, an NYPD baseball cap, and a book from the Strand outpost in Times Square. Leibowitz’s villainous tourists do not understand that the city is an actual city where real people live their lives, and these flesh-and-blood people do not have time to navigate the sidewalk around a group of fanny-pack wearing tourists walking glacially slow and three or more across. Jesus Christ, pretend it’s a city!
Such was Barth’s feeling when he encountered theology that was abstract from the reality of God. In some written reflections at a conference on humanism in Geneva in 1949, Barth wrote this of “Christian humanism”:
…all words ending in ‘ism: are inappropriate in serious theological language. They speak of principles and systems. They proclaim a point of view or a moral philosophy. They announce the existence of a Front or a Party. The gospel, however [is none of these]. It is spirit and life, a good message of God’s presence and work in Jesus Christ. …It forms congregations, and these exist for service among all [people].[2]
This is to say, there is no real Christian message except that God is real and alive and free and makes Godself known to us in Jesus. This message drives us to the reality of the present—the gospel is not a concept that can remain abstract or separate from our lives; rather, this message brings people into physical, emotional, and spiritual contact with each other, and these people are the Church. Pretend God is real, here and now!
What kind of priest, what kind of Christian am I if I “pretend” God is real, here and now? I recently had a conversation with a clergy colleague in a different call about some of the difficulties of parish work. Really, we were complaining about the hard transition that the Episcopal Church, and the whole mainline, is navigating from de-facto cultural importance and relevance to shepherding our people as we all try to follow Jesus in a culture that does not necessarily find that pursuit compelling. (And really, what culture ever truly has?) My colleague said something to the effect of, “well, if our people don’t see the importance of the church, it’s our fault. We have to make it important to them.” And immediately, the thought came to me—but what if we pretended that God is real?
There is no excuse for lazy, apathetic clergy. But for as many ineffective priests there are, there are just as many who forget that God is real and alive and free, and thus, the conversion of sinners and the perseverance of the Church is entirely God’s work, not theirs. If that is the case, all I have and all I can do is proclaim that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, is alive for your sake and mine. And this is both freeing and humiliating, usually at the same time. All I must do is proclaim, and God will sort out the rest. Our Christian task is exhilarating in its simplicity, but it also breaks my heart because I desperately want the gospel to come alive for those God has entrusted to me. With everything, I want the conclusion God has promised in Jesus’ resurrection to come to fruition here and now. But, because God is real and I am only a person, all I have is this good news God has entrusted Christians to proclaim, today, right where we are. The real pretending is the delusion that there is anything else.
[1] Pretend It’s a City, “Pretend It’s a City,” Season 1, Episode 1, 2021, Netflix. Cast: Fran Lebowitz. Directed by Martin Scorsese.
[2] Karl Barth, “Humanism,” in God Here and Now, trans. Paul M. van Buren (Routledge, 1964 and 2003), 124.
I think this is a really important and carefully thought essay. Thank you, Rev. Cronin.