We’ve compiled here a library of books on faith, land & community, as recommended by folks in the network. If there are books you’d like to suggest, please get in touch. We’d love to share them.
Wendell Berry,
Sex Economy, Freedom & Community,
The World Ending Fire: Selected Poems,
The art of the commonplace: the Agrarian essays of Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has called Berry the "prophet of rural America."
Berry, Goldman & Jackson,
Meeting the Expectations of the Land: essays in sustainable agriculture and stewardship
A collection of essays examines agricultural techniques designed to meet the needs of the people without depleting the land
Block, Brueggemann & McKnight,
An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture
Our seduction into beliefs in competition, scarcity, and acquisition are producing too many casualties. We need to depart a kingdom that creates isolation, polarized debate, an exhausted planet, and violence that comes with the will to empire. The abbreviation of this empire is called a consumer culture. A theological perspective on the practice of asset based community development.
Dave Bookless,
God Doesn’t Do Waste: Redeeming the Whole of Life
Planetwise: Dare to Care for God’s World
“I was in the act of throwing away my family's rubbish while holidaying on a beautiful island when I heard God speak. I could easily have missed it, but an inner whisper asked, "How do you think I feel about what you are doing to my world?"
Ellen F Davis,
Scripture, Culture and Agriculture: An agrarian reading of the Bible
This book examines the theology and ethics of land use. Nine interrelated essays explore the biblical writers' pervasive concern for the care of arable land against the background of the geography, social structures, and religious thought of ancient Israel. This approach consistently brings out neglected aspects of texts, both poetry and prose, that are central to Jewish and Christian traditions. The biblical exegesis is wide-ranging and sophisticated; the language is literate and accessible to a broad audience.
Vanessa De Oliveira,
Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism
Vanessa Machado de Oliveira presents us with a challenge: to grow up, step up, and show up for ourselves, our communities, and the living Earth, and to interrupt the modern behavior patterns that are killing the planet we’re part of.
Paul Ede,
Urban Eco-Mission: Healing the Land in the Post Industrial City
Why should we get involved in urban environmental regeneration? Is it just a pragmatic approach to engaging with our community? Is there a deeper reason? This fascinating study presents both theological-ethical reflection and practical learning about the community-based transformation of derelict and vacant land, and how this can in turn be deeply transformative for those who participate.
Isabelel Fremeaux & Jay Jordan,
We are Nature Defending Itself: Entangling Art, Activism & Autonomous Zones
In 2008, as the storms of the financial crash blew, Isabelle Fremeaux and Jay Jordan deserted the metropolis and their academic jobs, traveling across Europe in search of post-capitalist utopias. They wanted their art activism to no longer be uprooted. They arrived at a place French politicians had declared lost to the republic, otherwise know as the zad (the zone to defend): a messy but extraordinary canvas of commoning, illegally occupying 4,000 acres of wetlands where an international airport was planned. In 2018, the 40-year-long struggle snatched an incredible victory, defeating the airport expansion project through a powerful cocktail that merged creation and resistance.
Matthew Fox,
Fox uncovers the ancient tradition of a creation-centered spirituality that melds Christian mysticism with the contemporary struggle for social justice, feminism, and environmentalism. Basic to Fox's notion of creation spirituality is the gift of awe--a mystical response to creation and the first step toward transformation. Awe prompts indignation at the exploitation and destruction of the earth's people and resources. Awe leads to action.
Jeremy Martineau,
Changing Rural Life: A Christian Response to Life & Work in the Countryside
With Chapters focus on, cultural diversity, agriculture, globalisation and local economies, food production, biodiversity, isolated communities, spiritual refreshment for an urban population and more. Rowan Williams distills this shared wisdom in a theological afterword.
Sally Gaze,
Mission Shaped & Rural: Growing Churches in the Countryside
Using a compelling mix of theological reflection, sociological analysis, real-life case studies and personal experience this book explores ways forward for mission in a rural context in both traditional and fresh expressions of church.
Jean Giono,
Unforgettable short story about a man who decides to plant a hundred acorns a day.
Nick Hayes,
The vast majority of our country is entirely unknown to us because we are banned from setting foot on it. By law of trespass, we are excluded from 92 per cent of the land and 97 per cent of its waterways, blocked by walls whose legitimacy is rarely questioned. But behind them lies a story of enclosure, exploitation and dispossession of public rights whose effects last to this day.
The Book of Trespass takes us on a journey over the walls of England, into the thousands of square miles of rivers, woodland, lakes and meadows that are blocked from public access. Nick Hayes argues that the root of social inequality is the uneven distribution of land.
Dougald Hine,
'One of the most perceptive and thought-provoking books yet written about the multiple intersecting crises that are now upending our once-familiar world. . . Essential reading for these turbulent times.' Amitav Ghosh, author of The Great Derangement
Hodson & Hodson,
A Christian Guide to Environmental Issues
A valuable resource to help understand how we can live together for the good of all creation on this one planet with its finite resources. As such this book looks straight in the eye of the most serious set of environmental challenges humanity faces. Drawing together in accessible ways scientific evidence, biblical reflection and practical ideas it will provoke you to better think, act and pray for the renewal of creation.
—The Rt Revd Graham Usher, Bishop of Dudley
Rob Hopkins,
From What Is to What If? Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want
The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it’s more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.
Catherine Keller,
The Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming
Political Theology of the Earth: Our Planetary Emergency and the Struggle for a New Public
Facing Apocalypse: Climate, Democracy and Other Last Chances
As a landmark work of immense significance for Jewish and Christian theology, gender studies, literature, philosophy and ecology, The Face of the Deep takes our originary story to a new horizon, rewriting the starting point for Western spiritual discourse.
Robin Wall Kimmerer,
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.
Lewis & Maslin,
The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene
A remarkable exploration of the science, history, and politics of the Anthropocene, one of the most important scientific ideas of our time, from two world-renowned experts.
Richard Mabey,
Food for Free: A Fantastic feast of plants and folklore
This is the perfect pocket guide for aspiring foragers. Over 100 edible plants are listed, fully illustrated and described, together with recipes and other fascinating details on their use throughout the ages.
Hannah Malcom (editor),
Words for a Dying World. Stories of Grief and Courage from the Global Church
How do we talk about climate grief in the church? And when we have found the words, what do we do with that grief? There is a sudden and dramatic rise in people experiencing a profound sense of anxiety in the face of our ecological emergency, and a consequent need for churches to be better resourced pastorally and theologically to deal with this threat. Words for a Dying World brings together voices from across the world - from the Pacific islands to the pipelines of Canada, from farming communities in Namibia to activism in the UK.
Michael Mayne,
This Sunrise of Wonder, Letters for the Journey
'This keenly argued book confronts today's fashionable cynicism and despair, and thus has a message for the current moment when the experience of aging, or the environment, or of those complex skills and emotions which go into the creation of poetry or stories or music, are all distorted or ignored in favour of what is called "reality", but where the highest thought and achievement are concerned, is not at all real.' Ronald Blythe
Alastair McIntosh,
Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power
It is easy to feel helpless in the face of the torrent of information about environmental catastrophes taking place all over the world.
In this powerful and provocative book, Scottish writer and campaigner Alastair McIntosh shows how it is still possible for individuals and communities to take on the might of corporate power and emerge victorious.
Ched Myers, (editor)
This collection introduces and explores ""watershed discipleship"" as an approach to ecological theology and practice, and features emerging voices from a generation that has grown up under the shadow of climate catastrophe. Watershed Discipleship recognizes we are in a watershed historical moment of crisis, focuses on our bioregional locus as followers of Jesus, and urges us to become disciples of our watersheds. Myers traces his journey into a bioregionalist Christian faith and offers reflections on incarnational theology, hermeneutics, and ecclesiology. The essays feature more than a dozen activists, educators, and practitioners under the age of forty, whose work and witness attest to a growing movement of resistance and reimagination.
Guy Shrubsole,
Who Owns England? How We Lost Our Green and Pleasant Land & How to Take It Back
Behind this simple question lies this country’s oldest and best-kept secret. This is the history of how England’s elite came to own our land, and an inspiring manifesto for how to open up our countryside once more.
Ron Sider (editor),
Gathered by one of the fore-runners of Christian environmentalism, here is a collection of essays from 1974, on the call to live more simply in a time of despoiling excess.
Chris Smaje,
Farmer and social scientist Chris Smaje argues that organising society around small-scale farming offers the soundest, sanest and most reasonable response to climate change and other crises of civilisation--and will yield humanity's best chance at survival.
Greta Thunberg,
No One is Too Small to Make a Difference
The groundbreaking speeches of Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist who has become the voice of a generation, including her historic address to the United Nations
Graham Usher,
Places of Enchantment, Meeting God in Landscapes
The Way Under Our Feet: A Spirituality of Walking
There is a great and honourable tradition of finding God in landscapes. Many who have given up on church appreciate the spiritual benefits they gain from climbing a mountain or walking in nature. But how and why do we encounter God in land, forest, river, mountain, desert, garden, sea and sky? Graham Usher draws on faith, science and art, to ascertain how such encounters support our Christian pilgrimage and challenge our assumptions.
Ruth Valerio,
Every Christian in every generation down through the history of the church has had to work out what it means to be a follower of Jesus in their particular culture; we in the twenty-first century must think about discipleship in a globalised, consumerist context. Environmentalist and theologian Ruth Valerio examines these issues in a way that is intellectually rigorous yet practical, and as inspiring as it is challenging.
Various,
This is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook
Extinction Rebellion is a global activist movement of ordinary people, demanding action from Governments. This is a book of truth and action. It has facts to arm you, stories to empower you, pages to fill in and pages to rip out, alongside instructions on how to rebel
Rowan Williams,
Looking East in Winter: Contemporary Thought and the Eastern Christian Tradition
In these essays, Rowan Williams explores various threads in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Here he find illuminating paths along which the Christian can relate differently to the natural world, the storms of politics and to their own embodied life.
Norman Wirzba,
The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land
Agrarian philosophy, a compelling worldview with advocates around the globe, encourages us to develop practices and policies that promote the sustainable health of the land, community, and culture. In this remarkable anthology are fifteen essays from Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, Wes Jackson, Gene Logsdon, Brian Donahue, Eric Freyfogle, David Orr, and others. The Essential Agrarian Reader calls us to celebrate the gifts of the earth, through honest work and respect for the land.
Randy Woodley,
Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonized Approach to Christian Doctrine
Woodley suggests that while Western theology has settled for a particular view of God, Indigenous theology originates from a completely different DNA. Instead of beginning with God-created humanity, it begins with God-created place. Instead of emphasizing individualism, it emphasizes a corporateness that encompasses the whole community of creation. And instead of being about the next world, it is about the tangibility of our lived experiences in this present world. The book encourages listeners to reject the many problematic aspects of the Western worldview and to convert to a worldview that is closer to that of both Indigenous traditions and Jesus.
John Wright,
The Forager's Calendar: A Seasonal Guide to Nature’s Wild Harvests
John Wright is the country's foremost expert in foraging and brings decades of experience to this seasonal guide. Month by month, he shows us what species can be found and where, how to identify them, and how to store, use and cook them. You'll learn the stories behind the Latin names, the best way to tap a Birch tree, and how to fry an ant, make rosehip syrup and cook a hop omelette. Fully illustrated throughout, with tips on kit, conservation advice and what to avoid, this is an indispensable guide for everyone interested in wild food