The Blast Furnace

The blast furnace, which has been around in some form for about 2,500 years, takes ore, fuel and limestone and by moving it through fire constantly fed with forced air, produces molten iron in a process called smelting. Not surprisingly, the blast furnace was a major contributor to the industrial revolution.

When one thinks of blast furnaces and industrial metal production, it is easy to immediately leap to images of black smoke and soot, overshadowing overcrowded streets. Of all the great metal-producing cities America’s history, none is more widely known than Pittsburgh, and none has undergone more change than Pittsburgh.

As late as the early 1950s Pittsburgh was a city of black smoke and soot – so much so, that business executives often needed to take an additional white shirt to the office for important late-day meetings. But through a civic clean air project begun at that time called “Renaissance” and a cultural revitalization effort called Renaissance II” in the late 1970s, Pittsburgh has been transformed into a place that consistently ranks very high is lists of “most livable cities.”

Renaissance, or resurrection?   

Nevertheless, the evidence of Pittsburgh’s Steel City history abounds. Because the city flanks the banks of three rivers, dozens of impressive steel bridges serve as constant reminders of its earlier industrial incarnation.

Think of the Pittsburgh Steelers. 

This is still the Steel City.

Perhaps coincidentally, but altogether fittingly, Pittsburgh’s geography also echoes its history. Downtown sits at the point of confluence of two Pennsylvania rivers – the Monongahela flowing west along the south and the Allegheny flowing southwest from the north. Called the “Golden, Triangle,” this point of confluence is where these two rives combine to create a third – the Ohio, which flows for nearly a thousand miles as the largest tributary of the Mississippi.

This confluence is a bit like nature’s blast furnace – but instead of producing molten iron from raw materials it produces a mighty river.

General Assembly brings together dedicated and committed women and men to a biennial point of confluence in a shared hope of creating something better and mightier. Of course, far too often what is created is really little more than re-packaging, re-branding, and recycling. But the hope is still there. 

It is our hope in Jesus Christ.

Perhaps we need to feel the heat of the blast furnace.