Norman Wirzba has done it again: this is-literally and figuratively-the most grounded (and grounding) book I've read in a long age. It will lead you to contemplation, and then, if you're lucky, to change. -Bill McKibben, author of The Comforting Whirlwind
With uncommon depth and breadth, Norman Wirzba's Agrarian Spirit urges us to embrace and celebrate human and non-human creatures as co-becoming, embodied expressions of God's creating and sustaining love. He urges us to acknowledge our self-insufficiency and our dependence on others as a gift and as a challenge to develop the nurturing relationships that can heal our world and inspire our hope. -Steve Bell, author of the Pilgrim Year book series
Norman Wirzba's agrarian spiritual exercises reposition us 'down and among' all living things, close to the God who sustains the life of every creature.
Agrarian Spirit renews our desire to make a home in this world and to keep faith with the generations coming after us. -Stephanie Paulsell, co-editor of
Goodness and the Literary Imagination If 'incarnate spirituality' sounds like an oxymoron to you, let Norman Wirzba be your guide to the agrarian arts of faith. This book is the culmination of decades of thinking and writing and work, and there is no writer better equipped to articulate how an agrarian sensibility should shape our spiritual practices. -Jeffrey Bilbro, author of Reading the Times and editor-in-chief at Front Porch Republic
Agrarian Spirit isn't luddite, nostalgic, or angry. Rather, it's a gentle, wise, and hopeful call forward, casting a vision for how to live as God's people in God's world. I loved this book, and it flooded my imagination with pictures of what the Kingdom of Heaven could be, right now, right in my neighborhood. -Andrew Peterson, author of The God of the Garden
This is an inspiring synthesis of current ecological thought and spiritual reflection in the Christian tradition. . . . Wirzba acknowledges the difficulties in constructing this vision alongside the spotty record of ecological care in Christianity's past, yet he still finds possibilities within the tradition to create a framework that draws on religious meaning and energy to advocate a holistic, responsively ecological way of living. -Library Journal
There are multiple books on the philosophy and history of American agrarianism, but Norman Wirzba provides-for the first time-a comprehensive 'spirituality' of agrarian consciousness. . . . Wirzba's book comes at the right moment, pointing us to the shared vulnerability-the deep interconnectedness-that is at the same time our plight and our salvation. -Current
This is an outstanding place to start for both personal and communal work in the redemption of our earthly call to live fully within God's creation and live wholly in our creaturely selves. . . . Wirzba offers this gift to the church as a way for all of us to cast aside an ideology we may not have known we have, one that puts humans in a singular relationship with God and leaves all the rest of His good creation as merely a backdrop. -Christian Scholar's Review
I knew this would be a good book, and it is. In his typical clear style, Norman Wirzba takes complex philosophical arguments, agrarian practical insights, and solid theological teaching and mixes them together in accessible prose to encourage and challenge readers. -The Christian Century
At its heart, this book is an attempt to prompt readers to think more deeply about themselves as but one creature among many in God's creation and to live more lovingly and gently in creation as a result. . . . Readers will find this a source of inspiration for pursuing a more bountiful way of life among God's other creatures. -Reading Religion
Our current economic habits reveal a vision of the world in which people and creation are disposable capital, to be caught up in the machinery of production and profit. In Agrarian Spirit, Wirzba offers a balm-a restorative perspective that undermines the values of disposability and exploitation. -Englewood Review of Books
