Holy Agrarianism: A Christian Environmental Ethic
“We have been given the earth to live, not on, but with and from, and only on the condition that we care properly for it” – Wendell Berry [1] We are mudmen. Molded from the soil and ensouled by Divine breath, humanity was given the monumental duty to image the Creator. In Hebrew, the word for “man” has its root in the word for soil. Man is inextricably linked to both the land from which we were formed and the God who formed us. Theology does an excellent job describing that first relationship, but not so much on the second. Ecological ethics wrestles with our relation to the land, but that often fails to take into account the God who gave it to us. Scripture provides the framework for environmental ethics better than any other. The Bible portrays an ontological agrarianism rooted in God’s sovereignty which ought to compel the Church into hopeful action. Agrarianism can be defined as “a way...