Space Between - Paperback

by Eric O. Jacobsen (Author), William A. Dyrness (Editor), Robert Johnson (Editor)

Outreach Magazine's 2012 Resource of the Year Award Winner

2012 Book of the Year Award, Foreword Magazine

The entire material world can be divided between the Natural Environment and the Built Environment. Over the past forty years, the Natural Environment has received more attention of the two, but that is beginning to change. With a renewed interest in "place" within various academic disciplines and the practical issues of rising fuel costs and scarcity of land, the Built Environment has emerged as a coherent and engaging subject for academic and popular consideration.

While there is a growing body of work on the Built Environment, very little approaches it from a distinctly Christian perspective. This major new work represents a comprehensive and grounded approach. Employing tools from the field of theology and culture, it demonstrates how looking at the Built Environment through a theological lens provides a unique perspective on questions of beauty, justice, and human flourishing.

Back Jacket

Thinking Theologically about the Built Environment

"Eric Jacobsen sets himself two goals: to get us to attend to urban space--the space between the buildings in a city or village--and to explain why Christians in particular should care about the quality of urban space. He succeeds admirably on both counts. A fine contribution to an extremely important topic that has been neglected for too long by too many."
--Nicholas Wolterstorff, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia

"The Space Between is a seasoned Presbyterian pastor's account of the reciprocal relationship between urban form and communal life. Jacobsen, working from a Christ-centered perspective emphasizing both justice and generosity, articulates what religious communities have to gain from traditional towns and neighborhoods, and what they have to give. Highly recommended."
--Philip Bess, University of Notre Dame School of Architecture; author, Till We Have Built Jerusalem

"The Space Between takes us on an eye-opening tour of the places that both shape and reflect us. Readers may never look at their homes, neighborhoods, towns, and churches in the same way again. An important first step in reclaiming the locality of the local church."
--Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

"Jacobsen demonstrates that the church's intellectuals are bringing to bear on the world of ideas the insights of Christian theology and their own intuitive experiences of the places they inhabit. Given the scale of what we have built--from the sprawling exurbs to the troubled cities--there is much to say and do. The Space Between opens our imaginations to see that the places we make can and should be sustainable realizations of beauty and places of justice."
--Christopher C. Miller, Department of Architecture, Judson University

"Jesus urges us to love our neighbor, but in many modern cities we have destroyed our neighborhoods, making it much more difficult to know who our neighbors are let alone love them. In this compelling and beautifully written book, Jacobsen tells us how that has happened, why it matters, and what we should be doing about it. This book calls us to think again, and more theologically, about the way our built environment shapes our life together."
--Murray Rae, University of Otago

Author Biography

Eric O. Jacobsen (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Washington. He is the author of Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith and numerous articles exploring connections between the Christian community, the church, and traditional neighborhoods. He is also the coeditor of Traditions in Leadership and The Three Tasks of Leadership.