Farmer-poet Wendell Berry’s environmental ethics were deeply rooted in his Christian faith and belief in caring for creation

Wendell Berry, who died August 31, 2026 at 92, farmed his Kentucky homestead with draft horses and crop rotation rather than diesel tractors, grounding his environmental ethic in his Christian Baptist faith and a reading of Genesis 2:15 as a call to 'keep' the Earth. The essay contrasts this with a dominionist theology, also drawn from Genesis, that some Christians have used to justify resource exploitation.

Berry spent decades opposing practices like mountaintop-removal coal mining, joining a multiday sit-in in 2011, and wrote over 50 books arguing against agribusiness and consumer culture in favor of smaller, communal farming. The author, a scholar of American Christianity, credits him with helping seed the modern Christian creation care movement and today's family-farm and farm-to-table movements.

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