‘My city of ruins’ is the title of a song by Bruce Springsteen and will accompany a public
theological reflection of imagining alternative cities. A city of ruins is either a city of ruins in
the sense that it is a city in ruins. Alternatively it is a city of ruins in the sense that it is a city
that is built from ruins, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. The article will reflect on the
second alternative namely the poiesis of a habitable, sustainable and political space (polis) in
a time when all the meta-discourses of constructing and social engineering lie in ruins (have
been deconstructed). The article will focus on Derrida’s ideas of deconstruction and the hope
and prayer of perhaps. Springsteen’s song includes the prayer: ‘come on, come on, rise up!’
A city of ruins prayed into existence, rising up by the call (prayer) of those longing for a
liveable, sustainable city to rise up from the ruins of too many empty promises of the various
political agendas. Creating and imagining a city of prayer, which involves the prayers for
justice incarnate in the broken language (ruined language) of revolutions, and transformations
and political construction, thus calls a city of promise into existence.This article forms part of
the special collection on
‘Doing urban public theology
in South Africa: Visions,
approaches, themes and
practices towards a new
agenda’ in HTS Teologiese
Studies/Theological Studies
Volume 70, Issue 3, 2014.http://www.hts.org.zatm201