Ruling in the Gates
Preparing the Church to Transform Cities
by Joseph Mattera
A Review by Dwight A. Moody
This is an unlikely book to catch my attention. It was written at the end of the last millennium (or 26 years ago!) and published just after 9-11 and before Donald Trump ascended to the throne in Washington. It was written by a minister in the Pentecostal tradition helping to shape the rise of the New Apostolic Reformation. The word “apostle” is used with abnormal frequency, and it is never quite clear what it meant by the word (at least, clear to me, an outsider to this ecclesial culture).
Author Joseph Mattera is “the founding pastor of Resurrection Church, and leads several organizations, including The U.S. Coalition of Apostolic Leaders and Christ Covenant Coalition. Dr. Mattera is the author of 13 bestselling books, including his latest “The Global Apostolic Movement and the Progress of the Gospel” (per his website). That is all I know; I wrote him but did not receive a reply. He would be considered, I think, an apostle in the New Apostolic Reformation network.
Here is what drew my attention: not the condemnation of abortion, homosexuality, and evolution; not the reference to “real Christians” in public offices (by which I think he means ,as opposed to pseudo-Christians like Jimmy Carter, George Bush, and Joe Biden); not his distinction between multi-ethnic and multicultural–these all can be assumed given his history and position; but it is his openness to what much of the Christian world calls “social justice”–concern for conditions of family and community that keep people in poverty, ignorance, and sickness.
He critiques most megachurches for moving out of the cities to the suburbs, away from the pressing needs of the city into the relative prosperity of affluent neighborhoods. In addition, he criticizes most churches, Evangelical, Pentecostal, and otherwise, as dwelling in a ghetto, by which he means “the church limiting itself to only the spiritual aspects of the planet” as opposed to the worlds of finance, education, politics, and such.
Instead of using the familiar “seven mountains of cultural dominion” common now among Christian Nationalists, Mattera adopts the image of the city gate, that place in Israelite culture where city leaders gathered to decide the affairs of the city. From the city gates, he contends, real Christians engage in the wide range of civic and national decision-making, “preparing the Church to transform cities” (to quote the sub-title of the book).
I wrote him because I wanted to ask some questions:
- can “real Christians” collaborate with others (including those of other religions) to “transform cities”?
- how would “real Christians” address the serious wealth disparity among individuals, cities, and nations?
- where is there in the world an educational institution (university) that embodies the kind of work you envision for other schools?
Apostle and pastor Joseph Mattera is not the only Christian leader leaning into the cities as the central strategy for gospel work. He quotes the Lord’s Prayer as his guidance and inspiration: “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” That is a vision that could gather enormous support from a far wider swath of Christians (and others) than he is probably prepared to embrace. But even the hope of that intersection of interests and energy is enticing; and coming from him, it is encouraging.
