Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural America

In the early twentieth century, many Americans were troubled by the way agriculture was becoming increasingly industrial and corporate. Mainline Protestant churches and cooperative organizations began to come together to promote agrarianism: the belief that the health of the nation depended on small rural communities and family farms. In Baptized with the Soil Kevin M. Lowe offers for the first time a comprehensive history of the Protestant commitment to rural America. Christian agrarians believed that farming was the most moral way of life and a means for people to serve God by taking care of the earth that they believed God created. When the Great Depression hit, Christian agrarians worked harder to keep small farmers on the land. They formed alliances with state universities, cooperative extension services, and each other's denominations. They experimented with ways of revitalizing rural church life-including new worship services like Rural Life Sunday, and new strategies for raising financial support like the Lord's Acre. Because they believed that the earth was holy, Christian agrarians also became leaders in promoting soil conservation. Decades before the environmental movement, they inspired in their congregations an ethic of environmental stewardship. They may not have been able to prevent industrial agribusiness, but their ideas have helped define significant and long-lasting currents in American culture.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction: Consecrating the American Countryside 1. Putting Down Roots: The Rural Church Movement and the Family Farm 2. Working Together in God's Country: Training Agrarian Ministers and Missionaries 3. Spiritual Efficiency: Rethinking the Rural Church Experience 4. Cultivating the Kingdom: The Lord's Acre Movement 5. The Gospel of the Soil: Soil Conservation and Environmental Stewardship Conclusion: Baptized with the Soil Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Kevin M. Lowe is an independent scholar of American religious history. He received his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University in 2013.

Review :
"Well-researched and thoughtfully argued, Lowe's work is a valuable addition to twentieth-century American religious historiography." -- Adam Sweatman, Religious Studies Review "Kevin Lowe's Baptized with the Soil deserves a wide reading because it challenges the standard narrative Lowe demonstrates that long before Aldo Leopold's important 1949 'land ethic,' Christian agrarians, in many and diverse ways were making the case and putting into practice soil conservation practices that were rooted in the theological conviction that the land is holy."--Norman Wirzba, Journal of Reformed Theology "Baptized with the Soil is informative for those interested in contexts of American religious history. It provides clarity as to how previous generations of church leaders thought about the relationship of church to society, mostly the rural influence on the wider culture. Rural pastors might gain insight on what it is many of their older members are missing (like Rural Life Sunday) and why they feel it so important. Every generation of believers seeks to reach others and influence culture; Christian agrarians were no different."--Marty Duren, Lifeway "This book represents a bold new history of the rural community and ecological impulse in the United States...Lowe makes an important contribution not only to our understand of 'Christian agrarianism' but also to the cultural underpinnings of a number of histories, including environmental history, the history of American civic religion, and the U.S. record of cultural imperialism. The book is an important study since Lowe certainly accomplishes-with a blizzard of information in an accessible text-his aim to demonstrate the centrality of Christian thinkers in the rural environmental movement."--The Journal of American History "Lowe's book complements recent histories of religious environmentalism..."--Agricultural History "Lowe has done the millions of pastors and congregants of small-membership churches a tremendous service by recovering the proud roots of rural ministry in the United States. His excavation and documentation of archival materials is exceptional. And the engaging narrative quality adds to the inspiration this book holds for present-day descendants of Christian agrarianism."--The Christian Century "Kevin M. Lowe's Baptized with the Soil fills a glaring gap in the history of American agrarianism-mainline Protestant denominations' efforts to support and improve rural life and communities. Lowe's solidly researched, clearly written, and informative analysis explores a variety of topics, from training rural ministers to soil stewardship as a precursor to the environmental movement." --Mark R. Stoll, author of Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism "Kevin M. Lowe's engaging and wide-ranging history uncovers the efforts of an important and largely forgotten network of twentieth-century Protestant agrarians who espoused a conservationist theology. These activists joined with land-grant colleges and federal officials to advocate for family farming and soil conservation in the era of agribusiness and rural industrialization. This is a timely and significant contribution to the history of American Christianity and its engagement with the environment." --Alison Collis Greene, Assistant Professor of History, Mississippi State University "Long before Silent Spring or the Community Supported Agriculture phenomenon, mainline Protestant agrarians fought for the health of the land, the vitality of rural congregations, and the realization of God's kingdom on earth. Kevin M. Lowe's sensitive and unique study reminds us of their work and demonstrates ways in which spheres often deemed antithetical-Christianity and environmentalism, farm life and modernity, theology and public policy-shared a fruitful past." --Elesha Coffman, author of The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline