ABSTRACT
It is a city without the need for a church, for ‘Secular man [sic] relies on himself and his colleagues for answers. He does not ask the church, the priest, or God’ (Cox: 1965, 81). The Church is criticised for its small-town mindedness and its inability to face the new urban reality of rapid social change. Cox addresses it with a call to repentance, since the secular city is the symbol of the coming of God’s Kingdom (Cox: 1965, 116-23). It is the call to adult accountability. Therefore the Church should be prophetic and avant-garde in proclaiming this new world, help people to grow up and ‘stop blaming economic forces or psychological pressures for social injustice and family strife’ (Cox: 1965, 130). Employing the language and style of the dialectical theologians, he calls the Church to the crisis of choice.
