…[Fred] Bahnson, a Duke Divinity School graduate and a pioneer in the church gardening movement, had a different view of farming than the older tobacco farmer. He knew that if he gave back to the soil more than he took out ”” in the form of compost, manure and other soil food ”” he could create an abundant garden.
It was a different way of farming, born of a reverence for the Earth and a deep theological commitment to wholeness, community and peacemaking.
Bahnson’s new book, “Soil and Sacrament: A Spiritual Memoir of Food and Faith,” recounts some of the struggles at Anathoth Community Garden, and fleshes out portraits of four other faith communities ”” places where growing food has produced what he calls “a physical manifestation of God’s presence.”