Ellul wrote the book in 1951; it was published in English translation in 1970, and then in French in 1975 as Sans feu ni lieu : Signification biblique de la Grande Ville.
"This shows that, out of love, God revises his own plans, taking into account the history of men, including their maddest revolts.
This means that the author, here, seeks within the Bible all passages which relate to the city, as the basis for a biblical definition of this place.
[2] This remark, published in the Revue du MAUSS, critiques Ellul's theistic thrust, but also shows the extent to which man wants to live without God, considering that true liberty cannot exist in relation to a creator.
But man refuses the life for which God has destined him, which is unsettled, and men have gathered and organized themselves in order to depend no longer on nature.
This political project (see Ellul 1965, L'Illusion politique), the management of the metropolis, underlies the city: security, survival, commerce, collective living...
But this city, created to strengthen human solidarity and protect man against natural aggressions, becomes the place to isolation and insecurity.
"Divine or celestial, the city reflects with the space of European culture a religious ideal of 'collective life', on which converge all the major issues of future society.
"Ellul was constantly recognizing his debt to Charbonneau", said pastor and theologian Jean-Sébastien Ingrand, director of the Strausbourg Protestant Media Library.
[9] The city has grown to the size foretold by Ellul and Charbonneau, who were witnessing the urbanization of the world, the universalization of technique, and the standardization of all civilizations.
"This, then, is what separates the two men: against the catastrophism of Charbonneau, Ellul presents a Christian hope, which leads from the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem foretold in Revelation.".