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Engaging the faith community in agricultural issues
Food for Life: The Spirituality and Ethics of
Eating
L. Shannon Jung
Fortress Press, May 2004 [in press]
168 pp., $15
During the past two years I have encountered a growing
number of people in Iowa and throughout the country who seem to
be wondering why the faith community is not more engaged in
issues surrounding food and agriculture. Many in the faith
community also want to know how they can properly address such
issues and seem to long for an articulation of theological
principles that can guide them in such engagement.
Shannon Jung has produced a simple but powerful monograph that
provides the Christian community with a theological framework
that may respond to some of those interests. Jung directs the
Center for Theology and Land and is a professor at the
University of Dubuque and Wartburg Theological Seminary, both
located in Iowa farming communities. Although Jung has explored
ways in which food and faith are correlated in the history of
Judaic-Christian thought, one suspects that many of his insights
apply to other faiths as well.
Jung argues that two themes permeate the food and faith
literature: sharing and delight. From the perspective of the
Christian faith, food is not just fuel for our bodies. Food is
always an opportunity to enjoy and to share with others.
Food also is an opportunity to be more connected with all of the
gifts of Creation from which our food comes. Jung implies that
if we do not know where our food comes from or how it is
produced, our lives are diminished. Therefore, it is not only
our personal relationships with people and food, but also the
structural systems that produce and distribute our food that
must engage the faith community.
Jung says that the faith community needs to invest in "efforts
to grow healthy food in ways that sustain local farmers,
communities, and the land." In all these things, the faith
community has a responsibility to offer and live out an
alternative food system vision.
Jung provides a long list of issues that might begin to
articulate such a vision. Here are a few of the items on his
list:
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A concern for the health of the soil and water and air quality
needed to grow healthy food in an ongoing way,
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Equitable prices for farmers and communities committed to
growing healthy food and renewing the health of the planet,
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Justice for those who are workers in the food industries,
which includes an income adequate for a good life, and
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Public policies that encourage business corporations and
political entities to invest in disadvantaged countries and
communities in long-term, cumulative and food secure ways.
Shannon Jung provides a good resource for people in the faith
community who want to become involved in food and agriculture
issues and for people who need a theological rationale for such
involvement. -- Frederick Kirschenmann |
