Wendell Berry, the revered farmer, poet, and environmental activist who passed away on August 31, 2026, at the age of 92, spent decades cultivating a profound land ethic deeply anchored in his Christian Baptist faith. Operating from his Lane’s Landing homestead in Henry County, Kentucky, Berry rejected industrial efficiency in favor of draft horses, natural crop rotation, and an unwavering theological commitment to guarding the Earth. His lifelong advocacy for rural communities and sustainable stewardship laid the groundwork for what is recognized today as the creation care movement—challenging both exploitative agribusiness models and dominionist interpretations of scripture.
Rooting Environmental Ethics in Genesis
Berry built his philosophical framework on a specific reading of the Book of Genesis, which establishes humans as caregivers rather than absolute owners of the planet. Throughout his extensive body of poetry, fiction, and essays, he frequently pointed to Genesis 2:15, writing, “We are allowed to make no exceptions – every person’s obligation toward creation is summed up in two words from Genesis 2:15: ‘Keep it.’” This interpretation directly countered dominionist perspectives derived from Genesis 1:28, which some religious groups used to justify exploiting natural resources for human dominance.
This theological stance was far from abstract. In 2011, Berry put his body on the line during a multiday sit-in protest at the Kentucky Capitol against mountaintop-removal coal mining, an extractive practice that devastated local streams and forests. Explaining his ongoing activism, he stated at the time, “I intend to stay interested in it and involved as long as the Lord spares me.” His opposition to such devastation emerged directly from his conviction that destroying the natural world amounted to a profound moral failure.
Critiquing Agribusiness and the Ideology of ‘Enough’
As industrial agriculture accelerated through the latter half of the 20th century, Berry emerged as a fierce critic of what he termed “agripower.” In his landmark 1977 text, The Unsettling of America, he argued that modern corporate farming showed reckless disregard for soil fertility, community thrift, and ecological health. He admired the Amish lifestyle for its deliberate rejection of convenience in favor of simple, faith-centered living. As Berry noted in his writings, “It is possible, I think, to say that this is a Christian agriculture, formed upon the understanding that it is sinful for people to misuse or destroy what they did not make. The Creation is a unique, irreplaceable gift, therefore to be used with humility, respect, and skill.”
Central to his worldview was the concept of “enough,” an idea he positioned in direct opposition to consumer capitalism. According to research by religious studies scholars examining modern faith-based environmentalism, Berry’s agrarian writings helped catalyze the broader organic farming and farm-to-table movements of the late 20th century. By urging both religious and secular individuals to question technology and consumption patterns, he provided an ethical vocabulary for limiting human appetite to preserve the earth.
The Long Afterlife of a Kentucky Agrarian
Alongside his wife and collaborator of 69 years, Tanya Amyx Berry, Wendell Berry published over 50 books that documented a counter-cultural path centered on locality, community, and reverence for life. While the institutional church struggled for decades with environmental divides, the grassroots creation care movement blossomed during the 1980s and 1990s, drawing deep theological inspiration from the exact biblical stewardship principles Berry championed.
As contemporary society confronts new technological frontiers—marked notably by a cross-generational public backlash against massive AI data centers and aggressive resource extraction—Berry’s core warnings remain intensely relevant. His enduring legacy suggests that true sustainability requires recognizing the limits of human mastery, honoring the integrity of the soil, and treating the planet not as an endless warehouse of commodities, but as an irreplaceable gift.
