CITIES NEED RELIGION

Los Angeles County's recent decision to remove a tiny cross from its seal has inspired enormous protest, one that seems likely to embroil the county in a storm of lawsuits and possibly lead to a divisive ballot measure during the next few months.

The whole battle smacks of a kind of amnesia

That postmodern, secular approach would surely have seemed odd to our urban predecessors. Until recently, the linkage between strong cities and robust worship was obvious to all sensible observers.

Religion has played a critical role in urban history from the cities of Mesoamerica, to China and India, the Islamic cities of the Middles Ages to Renaissance Europe, right up to the latest two hundred years of American urbanity. Historically, religious authorities have generally been the ones who devised the codes that kept increasingly crowded and complex societies operating in what we might call a civilized manner.