Learning the Language of the Fields: Tilling and Keeping as Christian Vocation

by Daniel G. Deffenbaugh

Overview

Deffenbaugh calls us to “live in a reciprocal relationship” with our biotic communities-the plants, animals, and other non-human cultures that share our particular places in the world. By rerooting our global lifestyles in the ecological knowledge of our homes, we may truly begin to mend the health of our planet. Deffenbaugh marries Christian theology and spiritual disciplines with Native American mythology and the practice of organic gardening to deepen our engagement with the places in which we live.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781561012824
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/25/2006
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.49(w) x 8.33(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Daniel G. Deffenbaugh teaches a variety of religion courses at Hastings College, in Nebraska. When he is not teaching or writing, Dan enjoys organic gardening, canning and cooking, fly fishing, raising chickens, bird-watching, and playing bluegrass music with his friends.

Editorial Reviews

Learning the Language of the Fields would be more than adequate as a book about a Christian view of ecology and environmental stewardship. And heaven knows we need to be reading those kinds of creation-care books. But it is more. As the back cover states, it 'connects ecology with ritual and spirituality with community.' Deffenbaugh writes in gentle, flowing prose even as he argues forcefully that our aggressive agricultural models have been disastrous. It is a very nice book.

Heartsandmindsbooknotes.Blogspot.Com

Something is bound to go terribly wrong when so many Christians see the planet as an unimportant holding place where we await salvation; or when preachers and teachers of the faith place too much emphasis on humanity's privileged status without also explaining our responsibilities to tend the garden; or when Christians see God as transcendent but not immanently present in creation. The result, according to religious studies professor Daniel Deffenbaugh, is twofold: an ecological crisis and an 'evident exodus' of ecologically sensitive individuals from churches across the country.

Sojourners

Deffenbaugh calls Christians back to a reverence for place instead of the traditional eschewing of time on earth coupled with a yearning to be with God in heaven.. .. [He] brings ecology down to earth and challenges the Christian community to develop a new spirituality of place.

Spirituality and Practice

Learning the Language of the Fields would be more than adequate as a book about a Christian view of ecology and environmental stewardship. And heaven knows we need to be reading those kinds of creation-care books. But it is more. As the back cover states, it 'connects ecology with ritual and spirituality with community.' Deffenbaugh writes in gentle, flowing prose even as he argues forcefully that our aggressive agricultural models have been disastrous. It is a very nice book.

Heartsandmindsbooknotes.Blogspot.com