We live in a time of great and growing human displacement. Driven by conflict, persecution, and the ecological repercussions of a changing climate, 60 million people were forcibly displaced in 2014. Even for those who have never known such radical displacements, the human experience of and relation to place is changing. Whether by wanderlust or economic necessity, many people in the developed world find themselves living less rooted, more mobile lives, linked to one another not by bodily presence in shared places but by disembodied connections in virtual networks. And yet, conceptual resources for reflecting theologically on place and displacement are inadequate. The resources that do exist focus on the life-giving, knowledge-grounding, God-bespeaking aspects of beautiful places where a sense of God’s presence is close to the surface of things. This leaves theologies of place open to the critique of sentimentality, that is, that they speak of the glory of creation, but not its brokenness, toxicity, or suffering, of the power of place, but not of the use of that power to oppress, imprison, or deny entry.

This dissertation constructs a theology of place and displacement centered, in spirit and in method, at the cross — Christ’s own and as made known in the ongoing suffering of the world. This dissertation gives the church language with which to speak of a God who inhabits the places of vulnerable creaturely life and suffering, and who calls the church to practices of risky re-inhabitation and radical hospitality.