Living Like the End is Nigh, and Living Like it isn't.
How then is the agrarian to live?
“How then should an agrarian live?” It’s a good question, possibly even among the most fundamental questions one can ask. It is a question, though, to which I have no answer; or more accurately, no universally applicable answer. In fact, the only answer I am prepared to give is “It depends.”
Before I am accused of evading the question, or of giving what modern slang calls a “cop out”, let me explain. Instead of being insufficient or evasive, I strongly believe “It depends” is the only wise and only proper response to the question under consideration. The question itself is an abstract one, and agrarians should, by and large, refuse to answer abstract questions. And certainly, they should never give abstract answers — something I have been guilty of in the past.
As Wendell Berry says, “Agrarianism can never become abstract because it has to be practiced in order to exist.”1 Practiced is the key word here that defines what agrarianism is all about, and good and proper practice utterly depends on the contexts of place, limitations, and personal capacity. That is why “It depends” is the only proper answer. It is an answer which seeks more information — more context — before it gives concrete and useful advice. And it is an answer that affirms that there is no universally correct agrarian way (or set of practices) that is applicable anywhere and everywhere. However, there is a right agrarian way to live somewhere. Somewhere specific that is.
This need for context becomes obvious when we consider for a moment just how diverse the places we live in are. Whether one lives at the coast or deep inland; on clay or sandy soil; in the city or out in the hinterlands; on a slope or on land as flat as a pancake; on land they own or on land they rent; the answer to “How then should an agrarian live?” will differ tremendously from place to place. Take for example the suitability of no till agriculture, hailed by many as a universal silver bullet for sustainable agriculture. If you live in a place with stable and dry soils and with a low weed pressure, then yes, this is likely to be the best way of farming. However, if you live somewhere where the weed pressure is high and the soil severely compacted or rocky, ploughing is likely to be necessary.
To till or not to till? Well, it depends.
Thus, one should ignore anyone who tells you that what they are expounding is the only way to practice agrarianism, whatever the practice may be. There is no silver bullet. There is no quick and easy solution. There is only the hard and painful work of working out what is best for your place through trial and error and seeking the wisdom of others. There are no shortcuts to the good life. Only a fool believes that there are.
There is another angle that “How then should an agrarian live” may be asked from, and that is the temporal perspective. It is a perspective that any Christian advocating for agrarianism, conservation, or creation care is likely to butt up against at some time or other.
The encounter — for which all agrarians should have a ready answer for — goes something like this. Along comes Mr Smug, or his ally Mr Dismissive, who, like the pharisees of old who tried to trap Jesus in His words, think that they are able to catch you out with their hyper-rational logic and neatly packed eschatology:
“Good sir, I see you are advocating for ecologically-sound agrarianism and creation care. But I must ask, why bother doing all this work of long-term agrarianism if the world is going to end soon? Why spend (ahem, waste) your time creating beauty that is going to be imminently destroyed? Why plant trees that are only going to serve as firewood for the end times? Why conserve species that are going to be wiped out by the apocalypse? Why live as an agrarian if all your good work is going to be destroyed, and destroyed so soon?”
Mr Smug continues, “We need to save souls not seals… or earthworms or soil for that matter. What’s more, we should enjoy what we have left rather than conserve what we ourselves will never enjoy. Good sir, your intentions are noble, but highly irrational. Living like an agrarian in the end times just doesn’t make sense. It’s all going to soon burn, is it not?”
At the end of his monologue, Mr Smug stands there grinning thinking to himself that he has clearly won the argument. His hyper-rational logic gleaned from some popular Christian bestseller seems to him to be utterly watertight. Another convert to his view has been won! However, his pride is a bubble you should well and truly burst. Apart from responding to Mr Smug, “Why then do you continue to build up your investment portfolio if it is going to become worthless soon?” — which should wipe that grin off his face — one should also draw attention to his arrogance. Gross arrogance I might say.
Firstly, we must show Mr Smug that he is presuming to be privy to knowledge even the Son of Man was not privy to on earth in His perfect humanity.2 Jesus remarked that “concerning that day [the second coming] and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”3 What then makes Mr Smug think he is able to know more than Jesus when he arrogantly insists that the end is imminent?
Of course, the end might come tomorrow, or it might not. That is for God to decide. Every generation has contained many who firmly believed that they would witness the end of the world; and every generation up until now has been wrong. The chances are that those end-time prophets of this generation — especially those arrogant enough to predict a date — are wrong too, Mr Smug included.
Secondly, it is arrogant because this presumptuous belief is used as an excuse for living wasteful and ecologically unsound lives, or at the very least as an excuse for showing little to no care for creation. If the world is going to end tomorrow, then yes campaigning to save the wildflower meadow, improving the soil or planting a tree might not be the most rational things to do (though apparently Luther4 would disagree). But when has what is rational been the sole metric used to judge what is a good thing to do? Further, what Mr Smug is wrong? What if these “last days” last for another two thousand years? We have already been living in what the Bible says are the last days for two thousand years; who is to say that this earth doesn’t have two thousand more? What then?
Well, then it does make rational sense to plant a tree, to conserve an endangered species, and to farm in a manner which conserves the soil — things we should be doing anyway. However, if we follow Mr Smug’s advice and live like there is no tomorrow, using up the earth’s resources and neglecting to do anything that is of long-term significance, then future generations will suffer greatly and will judge us severely for our folly. Surely Mr Smug does not want that to be his legacy?
Mr Smug does though have one point in his favour. There is a sense in which we agrarians should live like the world will end tomorrow. We must live in the manner in which we wish to be found by Jesus the He returns — living a moral life now and with urgency. This means treating our workers fairly and caring for our animals; shunning abuse, violence, neglect and destructiveness; caring for the poor and needy in society; forsaking immorality, unbelief, and greed. We should live this way now for, who knows, the end might come tomorrow or today. Woe be the man who is found at the end living in his sin.
But, as paradoxical as this sounds, at the same time as living like there is no tomorrow, we should live like there is going to be two thousand years more. Plant trees that you will not see the fruit of and protect the soil from degradation. Exercise restraint for the sake of future generations and conserve wildlife for your great-grandchildren to enjoy. Take time to make your farm or your garden beautiful and sustainable — something that will last for generations. Live like this world is going to continue for a long time to come, for who knows, that might just be God’s plan.
So, my fellow agrarian, here is my final advice. Make sure you are living and working according to what is best for your particular place and then live like the world will end tomorrow — and like it will continue for two thousand more years.
Live like the end is nigh; and live like it isn’t. That is my answer to your question.
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Wendell Berry, The Whole Horse.
https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/detrinitate/why-doesnt-jesus-know-the-day-and-the-hour-in-matthew-2436/
Matthew 24:36
If the apocryphal story is to be believed “If I knew that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant an apple tree today!” - attributed to Martin Luther.
I started your article not knowing what an agrarian is. By the end, I had gathered it means to tend, to care for God's creation according to our circumstances. And to seek wholeness, healing, and beauty. Have I got that right?
One other thing, you have an important typo you might want to correct: an out-of-place not. I am ** going to give the game away.
The solution is to remember Einstein's remark that time is just a stubbornly persistent illusion. Easier said than done in our current reality, but true.