The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall
become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’
- The Prophet Isaiah

According to general consensus, the Agrarian Project would have begun and ended with “I’ll Take My Stand” were it not for two prominent failures: President Hoover’s administration and the Economy.

Prior to the Great Depression, the pervasive attitude regarding the general nature of life was well guarded by what the Agrarians had termed the “gospel of Progress,” a pseudo-gospel of sorts, one that promised stability, happiness, and prosperity if citizens simply trusted in the revolutionary forces of development and industrialized technology. Against this worldview the Agrarians were less than comprehensible. Americans simply did not have the patience, nor the appetite, for the “humane virtues of a simpler, more elemental, non-acquisitive existence.”3  Newness had become virtue; oldness was vice. The old was inferior; the modern valuable. It was believed human innovation, not age-old wisdom, would address humanity’s ills.

However, this system of thought proved to be vulnerable in the growing wake of the Great Depression. Large industrialized cities were hit hard. Solutions were desperately needed. In 1932, the year Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President of the United States, forums seeking these new solutions were opened. New opportunities for a more concrete agrarianism developed. Fearing the New Deal would pass them by, half of the original Agrarian group did the unthinkable. They ignored their own advice and hitched the movement to the political machine, lobbying for political reform, publishing, and presenting a form of agrarianism that could easily be translated into public policy.

From here, the story of New Agrarianism becomes convoluted, its narrative encompassing a wide range of digressions. Specifically, by becoming a political movement all manner of neoconservative styles were invited to join the cause, all of which advocated federal intervention of some kind. For example, one sees European traditionalists, medievalists, proponents of “forty acres and a mule,” new country living advocates, and even environmentalists, conservationists, and transcendentalists all espousing some component of the Agrarian Project. Of course, one is still able to pick through and identify the true spirit of Agrarianism both in thought and practice (over 150 doctoral dissertations have proven this). But in short, the low-grade hum of the political machinery did more to hurt than help the cause.

Which brings me to Wendell Berry. Over the last twenty-five years the spirit of agrarianism has experienced a resurgence under his watch. Why? I do not believe it is because of his early writings on how to rebuild a Great Rural Civilization. History has shown us the futility of this approach. Rather, I believe his effectiveness lies in his ability speak as a poet and prophet, a voice crying out from the wilderness. To put it simply, Berry seeks an inner “conversion” of sorts. By eulogizing age-old wisdom, which is a largely vanished way of life, he courts the reader’s soul and stirs awake deep, fragmented longings ignored and often created by our technological age. With resolute stories of land ownership, home, hearth, marriage, faith, friendship, and clear devotion to one’s place (all of which are core principles of Agrarianism), Berry creates a deep hunger for the tried and true. He opens the reader’s eyes to a better way of life, a life that savors harmony with God, others, and the created world, a way that is often overlooked by Christians even though its beauty and vitality is subtly depicted throughout the great narratives of the Bible.

Since the founding of the movement, New Agrarianism has sought a way to reconcile modernity and tradition, progress and human nature. At its core is the desire to reform home-life, shelter rural-life, and literally build culture from the ground up. I may be wrong in saying this, but it is my conviction that as more and more people struggle with the fragmenting effects of excessive materialism, rampant individualism, and land disassociation, New Agrarianism’s core truths will only grow in their appeal, both in the church and society at large.

Presently, the movement’s vision is thriving only in the social margins at this centuries beginning. The ethos of American evangelicalism is still predominately shaped by optimism in modern technique and programatic formulas. But even this is waning. More and more pastors are growing weary of feeling like frenzied paramedics on a blood stained battle field. Bleeding wounds and casualties demand immediate care, but they are starting to reconsider the fundamental nature of the battle. They are beginning to question the flock’s assumptions about innovation, progress, and technique; questioning what truly constitutes the good life. Even the average layperson is asking these same questions. The Modern experiment is proving to be an hollow existence. As one person put it, “Busyness is a great way to make money, but it lousy way to live.”

I am hopeful that as these questions grow, the church will have better answers to these basic human longings. The New Agrarian Project is not the end all. It is not a one stop shop. But it is certainly a voice crying out from the wilderness. It’s spirit is deeply tuned in to the ethos of Holy Scripture. For those who slow down and stop to ponder its message, a hidden vista comes into view, a path of sorts, one foretold by the prophet Jeremiah and one we would be wise to follow:

“Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.”
- Jeremiah 6:16

by Duane D. Otto

——————————————-

3 Louis D. Rubin, Jr., “I’ll Take My Stand” (Baton Rouge: LA State University Press, 1977), p.XV.

If change is to come, then, it will have to come from the outside. It will have to come from the margins. As an orthodoxy loses its standards, becomes unable to measure itself by what it ought to be, it comes to be measured by what it is not.  - Wendell Berry

In 1930, Harper & Brothers published an agrarian symposium entitled I’ll take my stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition. In it, twelve men sought to do the impossible. They labored to preserve a coherent set of values that were at once “socially conservative and economically radical.”1

Specifically, they articulated the good life by drawing attention to the ancient values of domesticity, esteeming the family as the true foundation of society, commending the arts and amenities of life, stressing religion, and earnestly defending the values of rural life and man’s proper place within the created order. Contrary to popular opinion, the Agrarians argued neither for social structuring, nor from the growing pain of nostalgia. Rather, they simply believed the emerging spirit of the age was a formula for deracination. Thus by expounding upon what they believed to be timeless human values, they hoped to abate the prevailing drift toward consumerism, materialism, and mass dehumanization.

Did anyone listen? It is fair to say that Harper’s symposium commanded an audience. Their fervid convictions challenged the status quo and exposed many of the fallible assumptions of modern day life, culture, and familial living. Yet at the end of the day the warnings and concerns of the twelve agrarians primarily went unheeded. Their voices neither stirred emotions nor moved people’s minds to question the hidden trappings of modernity. Why is this? Notwithstanding the many socio-historical factors available for critique, I believe the failure of their project can be pinned to two suppressive forces, forces that are still at work to this day, subtly squelching even the most celebrated and creative voice of the movement thus far – farmer and poet, Wendell Berry.

To begin with, the Agrarian Project was fighting a giant of global proportions. They were fighting a movement called Progress, a movement that presumed to know the truth. Progressives rejected age-old wisdom. They systematically questioned and dismissed the traditional values and principles of the American Founders. Their goal was to shape a new democratic citizenship, one guided by the union of science and politics. And in their zeal to improve the world and overcome the growing conflicts between individual concerns and social goods, they squelched any and all voices that questioned their utopian hope, dismissing them to the margins of life and labeling them as echoes of a detached and by-gone age.2

The southern agrarians certainly understood the pride and power of this movement. They entered the battle with moral passion. Thus the reason for their “stand.” But the question in need of answering is this: who did they stand with? Who did they enlist to fight with them? The answer is the second suppressive force at work within the noble project called New Agrarianism.

by Duane D. Otto

————————————————-

Footnotes:

1 Alan Carlson, The New Agrarian Mind (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2004). p.4

2 See: Bob Taylor, Citizenship and Democratic Doubt: The Legacy of Progressive Thought (University Press of Kansas, 2004).

Duane Otto is a pastor, farmer, and the founder of Ithaka Fellowship in Gridley, IL, where he lives with his wife and six children. He received his degree in Agriculture (BS) from the University of Illinois, and degrees in Divinity (MDiv) and Counseling (MAC) from Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO.

1. When did you begin to be attracted to the ideas associated with the “New Agrarianism”?
I discovered the writings of Wendell Berry about seven years ago. From Berry and Zimmerman, through Lytle, Agar and Father Ligutti, my “New Agrarian” imagination grew.

2. Are there ways in which you differentiate yourself from the “New Agrarianism”?
Yes. The agrarian project reflects the dynamics of any large-scale social development. It is composed of many diverse thinkers, each possessing their own monolithic agenda and/or ideology. It’s kind of like eating fish. The bones need picking.

3. What is one way the concepts associated with the “New Agrarianism” can be translated to an urban context?
Since we live in a society that is primarily urban, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, people need to understand that agrarianism is more than farming. It is primarily a mindset, an ordering of the mind that is in tune with place, the particularities of place, and God’s active presence in creation. For example, cooking and eating can be an expression of faith when practiced as an agrarian act, not simply an act of consumption. “The Spirit of Food,” edited by Leslie Fields, is an excellent book on this subject.

4. Why are you a Christian?
About thirty-five years ago the gospel exposed my sin and unveiled the glory of God’s presence. At the same time the message revealed the complete sufficiency of Christ’s atoning work to make me fully acceptable before the Father and it beckoned me to repent and trust in Christ alone as my Savior and Lord. This threefold message changed my life, and it continues to do so to this day.

5. Tell us more about Ithaka Fellowship.
Ithaka is an agrarian study centre that seeks to strengthen the interrelationship that exists between Christ, Man, and the Created World (Colossians 1:19 ff). Emphasis is placed upon wisdom theology since the order of creation, the gift of life, stewardship, and the vitality of human beings are fundamental themes throughout the wisdom corpus. Throughout the year we host Friday night lectures and special events. We also open our home to visitors and offer counseling in a farm setting. You can find us on the web at IthakaFellowship.org