Norman Wirzba, Agrarian Spirit: Cultivating Faith, Community, and the Land (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022), pp. xiii + 246. $29.00

Abstract

Human beings are called to an agrarian life. At the heart of this simple and provocative claim lies a lively and grounded spirituality. Norman Wirzba ’ s most recent book, Agrarian Spirit: Cultivating Faith, Community, and the Land presents an alternative agrarian vocation which, if embraced, places us in deeper and more just relationship with God, self, neighbour and the land. Lest the reader assume (and summarily reject) a premise that the agrarian life comprises an atavistic return to rural life, we must quickly clarify: agrarians are not farmers. Agrarians in all kinds of places and contexts ‘ work to improve the lives of people and land at the same time ’ (p. 57). This work includes attention to ‘ good food, clean water, amiable company, good work, excellent tools, fertile soil, pollinating bees, helpful neighbors, protein-producing herbivores, and strong traditions of memory that pass on essential insights and skills to following generations ’ (p. 57). In Agrarian Spirit , Wirzba turns his characteristically interdisciplinary and agrarian lens to practices, the embodied ‘ ways ’ of Christian faith. Even so, his treatment of agrarian spiritual exercises remains philosophically and theologically grounded. The first part of the book adeptly frames the task of reimagining spiritual practices and dispositions through an agrarian lens, while the second part attends to a series of six practices and dispositions. In the first part, ‘ Agrarian