ABSTRACT
Can humans ‘build Heaven’? This might appear to be a simple question to answer. But an answer – at least from the perspective of Christian theology1 – requires thinking through a sense of how humans encounter place and building in life, as well as of how Christianity navigates between place and placelessness. This simple question, in other words, marks the place where theology can reflect on the intersection between nature, space, and the sacred. Using the example of Heaven as the paradigmatic religious re-imaging of place, I will argue that any manifestation of place can illuminate the sacred. Thus Heaven is built by engaging in the practice of recognizing the placeless depth of every interpretation and reinterpretation of place.
