In 2021, the global hunger crisis hit alarming levels, with 193 million people living on the brink of starvation, according to the World Food Programme’s Global Report on Food—almost double the population in crisis just five years earlier.
Factoring in those living with food insecurity, the numbers are even grimmer: 236 million experience ongoing stress over acquiring sufficient food.
This spike, experts claim, is caused by the confluence of COVID-19, global conflict, and climate change. With an increase in droughts and flooding, farmers around the world have found their yields increasingly at risk. Because the majority of people facing hunger live in regions susceptible to extreme climate events, these numbers are set to rise rapidly in coming years.
According to theologian Jenny Howell, a reduction in emissions and an increase in global aid is only part of a solution. Sustainable change requires a renewed love for the earth that mirrors God’s love for all that his hands have made.
This kind of change may begin in the head or the heart, but God’s own story of creation is being written quite literally in the garden.
Finding God in the Dirt
“Do you want to be a better theologian?” Howell’s professor challenged her during her graduate studies. “Then maybe you should be gardening more.”
So she did. And as she planted, watered, and harvested, Howell realized that the theological ideas she was wrestling with couldn’t be adequately grasped through reading and writing alone. The soil, in all its stench and glory, served as a tactile marker of the relationship between life and death, inspiring her to explore those connections and invite others to do the same.
In the creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2, soil plays a pivotal role. God commands the earth to bring forth vegetation and living creatures of every kind. God calls it good but determines that there is something missing. Then God picks up a handful of lush adamah, Hebrew for soil. Enlivening it with the breath of life, he crafts the first human, or Adam.
God places the humans in the garden and gives them a simple command: to till it and keep it. In a beautiful act of shared agency, they were to cultivate the very soil from which they were made.
“A lot of churches don't tend to the call that God has for us in our Scriptures to care for creation, to care for the land,” says Howell, who is now the founding director of the Theology, Ecology, and Food Justice Program at Baylor’s Truett Seminary. “But this is our confession, right? That Christ came down to us to redeem us and to heal not only us, but creation itself.”
As any gardener or farmer can attest, growing flowers, fruits, and vegetables is a lifelong journey to understanding the needs of the soil—much like the lifelong journey of faith.
But we are called beyond a metaphor to a stewarding of God’s gift of creation. We are called to care for the literal soil that is responsible for feeding humans and animals all around the world.
It’s easy to view climate extremes affecting farmers in far off places as disconnected from our own backyard gardens or the cornfields next door. But emissions produced through industrialized agriculture impact us all. The very farming methods developed to serve as a solution to global hunger are now also a source of harm, which makes the Christian call to feed the hungry and care for creation a complicated one.
“The physical health of the land is compromised when we can talk pretty, but we’re not actually fulfilling our duty to the land,” says Emma Lietz-Bilecky, a fellow at Princeton’s Farminary and a graduate of Duke’s joint Master of Theological Studies and Master of Environmental Management program.
“It all gets a lot more complex when you get into questions like, ‘What does it actually take to run a farm?’” Lietz-Bilecky adds.
A Christian response to the call to care for creation requires a robust understanding of the needs of the land, as well as the barriers that prevent it from flourishing today. It is out of that love and attention that thorough solutions to address the food and climate crises of the moment can grow.
Heber Brown III, founder of the Black Church Food Security Network, agrees. He’s seen many eager pastors energized by the commands found in Genesis 2. But all too often, he finds that their focus remains on food and environmental justice in the abstract, writing beautiful sermons without fully understanding the multifaceted food industry or finding potential solutions that address its many injustices.
“Exegete the food industry like you exegete the text when you preach,” Brown says. “Don’t eisegete it.” In other words, don’t speak on something without having the lived experience to back it up. Instead, he recommends getting to know the people who know food best—farm workers, fast-food employees, and food justice advocates.
“Don’t start preaching on food until you have experienced picking tomatoes or sweeping the floors at a McDonald’s,” Brown adds.
Digging Deeper
The goal of Baylor’s Master of Arts in Theology, Ecology, and Food Justice program is to navigate the complex relationship between food and faith. Classes are taught at the World Hunger Relief Farm, where students integrate traditional learning with hands-on experience. The program brings into conversation a range of experts from different fields to help students address the question, “What does the Christian call to care for creation and to feed the hungry look like in the face of climate change?”
Built in consultation with the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, the program provides students with a holistic understanding of the larger issue of food justice within a theological framework for creation through interdisciplinary and experiential learning. To learn more about the work Baylor is fostering, check out its Theology, Ecology, and Food Justice Program.
Kendall Vanderslice is a baker, author, and the founder of the Edible Theology Project, an educational media nonprofit connecting the Communion table to the kitchen table.
