Why read Wendell Berry?
Theologian Norman Wirzba reflects on what he has learned about theology and Creation as a longtime friend and student of Wendell Berry.
I grew up on a farm in southern Alberta but then left to study theology and philosophy. I thought the world of farming, along with the sensitivities and sensibilities that farm work affords, were firmly in my past. After all, no farmer ever showed up on any syllabus for the classes I was taking. Moreover, the demographic trends were pointing to an urban future. As a newly minted Ph.D., I assumed that farmers didn’t have much to teach us and that attention to farming risked devolving into an exercise in nostalgia.
Yet over the course of regular visits, Wendell Berry was helping me see that these assumptions were wrong. If you eat, you must also care about farming. If you care about life, you must also nurture the land and the creatures that nurture you.
In one of our earliest conversations, Wendell said that the prophets Amos and Hosea were among the world’s earliest agrarian writers. He then pointed me to Genesis 2 and said that it gave the best description of what a human being actually is: soil + divine breath. The Bible said it long ago, while recent scientific research on the human microbiome confirmed it: Humans are a variation on soil.
So many of the philosophers and theologians I had been reading were dualists: A human being = soul (or mind) + body. Wendell and I would go on to spend several years together unpacking the agrarian difference, what it means and why it matters for everyone, city folks included. Gradually, I came to understand that there can be no long-term human health apart from the health of all the plant and insect and animal lives that draw their nurture from soil.
The theological implications of this central insight are enormous.
God delights in soil and all the life that circulates through and depends upon it. God animates the soil and is present within it, making the diverse profusion of life we can see, hear, taste, smell and touch both good and beautiful. God cares for the soil because it would be impossible to care for people without also caring for the land upon which people depend. No wonder, then, that the scope of Christ’s saving and reconciling work is necessarily cosmic, meant for “all things in heaven and on earth” (Colossians 1:15-20).
In his early essay “A Native Hill,” Wendell says that as important as heaven is, his questions and his thinking do not aspire beyond the earth. In part this is because we can only imagine and desire heaven in terms of what we know of earth. Instead, his questions aspire toward and into the earth, perhaps even aspire through it.
From beginning to end, Scripture reveals God to us as the one who always comes close, even comes within, to feed, heal, forgive, befriend and reconcile the whole of creaturely life. The Christian drama does not end with people’s souls escaping earth to be with God somewhere “beyond the blue.” It ends with God descending to earth to dwell among mortals forever (Revelation 21:1-4). What sort of homecoming are we preparing for God?
Now in his early 90s, Wendell continues to call Christians to a more earthly faith and a spiritual life that results in practices that promote soil fertility, clean water, vibrant plant life, contented animals, respected and honored farmers, nutritious food, safe neighborhoods, strong communities, good work, person-affirming health care, just economies, democratic and participatory governance and Sabbath rest.
We don’t need to go elsewhere to find God, because Creation simply is, as Wendell says, “God’s presence in creatures.”
Why read Wendell Berry? was first published in Faith & Leadership. The original blog can be found on the Faith & Leadership website linked HERE.
About the Author:
Norman Wirzba, Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor, Duke Divinity School
Additional Resources:
Watch the 2026 National Faith + Climate Forum
Watch the 2026 American Climate Leadership Awards
Join the Campaign: One Home One Future
Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Children and Youth Report 2023