Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Baptized with the Soil
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.kevinmlowe.com/
CITY:
STATE: PA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.kevinmlowe.com/cv *
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2015008554
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2015008554
HEADING: Lowe, Kevin M.
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100 1_ |a Lowe, Kevin M.
670 __ |a Baptized with the soil, 2016: |b ECIP t.p. (Kevin M. Lowe)
PERSONAL
Born in Ithaca, NY.
EDUCATION:Cornell University, B.A. (magna cum laude), 2005; Drew University, M.A. (with distinction), 2007; Pennsylvania State University, M.A., 2009, Ph.D., 2013.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Researcher, educator, and writer. Worked as a research assistant to college professors; Pennsylvania State University, State College, research assistant for Pennsylvania Agricultural History Project, 2009-10, adjunct instructor, 2010-13.
MEMBER:American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, American Academy of Religion, Agricultural History Society.
AWARDS:Fellowships and grants from organizations including Pennsylvania State University and Penn State Center for Global Studies.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles and reviews to publications, including Religion Dispatches and Agricultural History.
SIDELIGHTS
Kevin M. Lowe is a writer and educator originally from Ithaca, New York. He began his college career at the local Ivy League university, Cornell, from which he earned a bachelor’s degree in religious studies with magna cum laude distinction. Lowe went on to obtain a master’s degree with distinction from Drew University and both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University. While still in school, he served as a research assistant to various professors. He also worked as an adjunct instructor at Pennsylvania State University from 2010 to 2013. Lowe has receive grants and fellowships from organizations including Pennsylvania State University and the Penn State Center for Global Studies. He has written articles and book reviews that have appeared in scholarly journals, including Religion Dispatches and Agricultural History.
In 2016 Lowe released his first book, Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural America. In this volume, he analyzes agrarianism in the United States in the early twentieth century and identifies its connection to religion. During the first part of the 1900s, industrialization began to revolutionize agriculture. Lowe explains that Christian agrarians were staunchly against industrialization. They worried that industrialization would harm rural towns. Christian agrarians thus banded together to form groups through which they would oppose industrialization. These people emphasized the importance of community, of supporting one’s neighbor, of being good stewards of the earth, and of the greater good. They looked down on individualism and a profit-hungry mind-set. Leaders of Christian agrarian groups approached politicians and other people of power and discussed their concerns about industrialization. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt were both sympathetic to the Christian agrarians’ concerns. The former called for the founding of the Commission on Country Life, while the latter instituted farm subsidies. Lowe connects these and other programs to programs currently available to American farmers. He also comments on how the Christian agrarians’ philosophy has evolved over the years.
Baptized with the Soil received favorable reviews. L. Shannon Jung, contributor to the Christian Century, commented: “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.” Choice critic A.R. McKee remarked: “Arguing that this movement has long been misunderstood, the author provides valuable insights about the key role Protestant agrarianism played.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice, April, 2016, A.R. McKee, review of Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural America, p. 1183.
Christian Century, August 17, 2016, L. Shannon Jung, review of Baptized with the Soil, p. 35.
ONLINE
Chronicle Vitae, https://chroniclevitae.com/ (April 6, 2017), author profile.
Kevin M. Lowe Home Page, https://www.kevinmlowe.com (April 6, 2017).
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, Department of History, 2013
MA, Pennsylvania State University, Department of History, 2009
MA, Drew University, Biblical Studies, with distinction, 2007
BA, Cornell University, Religious Studies, magna cum laude, 2005
PUBLICATIONS
Academic:
Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural America (Oxford University Press, 2016)
Popular:
“Soil and Soul: Our Protestant Agrarian Past," Christian Century 132:19 (Sep 16, 2015) - essay adapted from Baptized with the Soil
“Protesting the Pope’s (Not Yet Released) Environmental Encyclical? Check Your Doctrine," Religion Dispatches, June 8, 2015
Book reviews:
Evan Berry, Devoted to Nature: The Religious Roots of American Environmentalism. Agricultural History 90:2 (Spring 2016), 262-263
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Adjunct Instructor - Penn State University Department of History, 2010-2013
The World at War, 1939-1945 (Fall 2012, Spring 2013)
US History, 1865-present (Fall 2010, Spring 2011)
US History, 1865-present, online version (Summer 2011, Summer 2012)
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
2009-10 - Research assistant, Pennsylvania Agricultural History Project (Penn State)
2005-07 - Research/editorial assistant, Ancient Christian Commentaries on Scripture series (published by InterVarsity Press)
2006 - Research assistant, Dr. Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre (Drew University)
2004 - Research assistant, Dr. Kim Haines-Eitzen (Cornell University)
AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS AND HONORS
2012 - Penn State Center for Global Studies Fellow, spring 2012
2012 - Dissertation release, spring 2012 semester, Penn State University Dept. of History
2011 - McCourtney Scholarship, Penn State University Dept. of History
2010 - McCourtney Fellowship Grant, Penn State University Dept. of History
2007 - Research travel grant, Penn State University Dept. of History
INVITED TALKS
"Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural America," Baylor University, November 2015.
“Building the Kingdom in the Countryside: Christian Missionaries, Agriculture, and Globalization.” Penn State Center for Global Studies Brown Bag Lecture Series, April 2012.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
"The Agrarian Holy Earth: Spreading Liberty Hyde Bailey's Theology in the Soil Conservation Movement." Agricultural History Society, June 2016.
“The Call of the Wild: Nature and the Hermit’s Body in the Early National United States.” Penn State University History Graduate Conference, October 2009.
MEDIA APPEARANCES
“Vatican Activism and ‘Leaving Science to the Scientists,’” interview on State of Belief Radio, June 13, 2015.
BLOGPOSTS AND JOURNALISM
“No Child Left Inside on the Holy Earth: Liberty Hyde Bailey and the Spirituality of Nature Study.” OUPBlog, October 2, 2015.
“Ignoring the Pope on Climate Change is Not Like Using Contraception.” Religion Dispatches blog, June 18, 2015.
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
American Historical Association; Organization of American Historians; American Academy of Religion; Agricultural History Society.
Kevin M. Lowe is a writer, musician, and independent scholar of American religious history. Born and raised in Ithaca, New York, he earned his Ph.D. in American religious history from Penn State University in 2013. He is the author of Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural America (Oxford University Press, 2015).
QUOTED: "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."
Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade
for Rural America
L. Shannon Jung
The Christian Century.
133.17 (Aug. 17, 2016): p35.
COPYRIGHT 2016 The Christian Century Foundation
http://www.christiancentury.org
Full Text:
Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural America
By Kevin M. Lowe
Oxford University Press, 264 pp., $74.00
This book could be categorized as a paean to the rural life movement in U.S. Protestantism during the first half of the 20th century. Alternatively,
it might be seen as a powerful precursor of Christian ecotheology and other contemporary trends. Both are accurate.
Kevin Lowe presents a new history of agrarianism, which opposed the industrialization of agriculture primarily because of its negative impact on
rural communities. Participants in the movement believed that community is more important than the individual, solidarity is more important than
profit, and one should put one's neighbor and the Earth before oneself. These tenets are both currently relevant and blatantly nostalgic.
What is most striking in this history is the degree to which agrarian thinkers of the early 20th century believed that they should and could
influence national policy. These Christian leaders boldly claimed that they were building the kingdom of God and that God was present in their
work. They called on legislators, presidents, and other citizens to support their vision. And they succeeded. Theodore Roosevelt created the
Commission on Country Life, intended to promote rural development, and FDR helped create farm subsidy legislation. What emerges from this
story is how many current programs and organizations have antecedents in that movement.
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The word agrarianism referred to a belief in social leveling through the equal distribution of land. Although land is not the basis of the current
push for a livable wage, the Fight for Fifteen movement--calling for an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour--certainly champions a
greater degree of equality. Today agrarianism also refers to the importance of place, stability, work, and the health of the land. It seems
anachronistic in its opposition to industrialization and modernization, but the goals of this conservative movement have a fascination for those
who identify themselves with the goals of the Social Gospel.
Each of the early chapters of the book is devoted to a central tenet of the Christian agrarian crusade: commitment to the viability of the family
farm; devotion to rebuilding the Christian church as the center of the community; construction of the kingdom of God, including material
improvement of the lives of rural people; and development of a theology of environmental stewardship as faithful Christian treatment of the land.
In championing the family farm, Christian agrarians were supporting the value of the local rural community, family-operated farms rather than
tenant farms, the virtues they believed were generated by families, and the belief that a family ought to be able to be economically independent.
Though family farming has largely given way to corporate structures, many of these family communal and economic values continue to be
powerful.
The movement worked to strengthen the rural church and community by developing seminary courses in rural ministry for pastors, laypeople, and
rural missionaries. These programs continue in specific rural ministry curricula at a number of seminaries, in commissioned lay-pastor programs
in most Protestant denominations, and in the National Catholic Rural Life Conference.
Two programs that were designed to "construct the kingdom of God" were Rural Life Sunday, which continues today, and the Lord's Acre
movement. The Lord's Acre, a multigenerational devotion to raising and selling one acre of produce and donating the money to the church,
became a popular and spiritually generative activity that took a number of forms beyond the farm. Its descendants include the Foods Resource
Bank, Heifer International, Kiva, and other microfinance programs.
Lowe emphatically ascribes to Christian agrarians the roots of the environmental stewardship commitment to the care of land. Tracing the
beginning of the movement to the 1915 publication of Liberty Hyde Bailey's The Holy Earth, Lowe demonstrates the cooperation of soil
conservation services, the extension movement, and the development of an ecotheology during the 50 years that followed. These early roots have
blossomed into the Earth Community movement and programs to combat climate change. Many such initiatives are now cooperative and
ecumenical.
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.
Reviewed by L. Shannon Jung, coauthor of Practicing Care in Rural Congregations and Communities (Fortress).
Jung, L. Shannon
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Jung, L. Shannon. "Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural America." The Christian Century, vol. 133, no. 17,
2016, p. 35. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA461695391&it=r&asid=6bd9ca6f135dd33bc8980c992d335e37. Accessed 19 Mar.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A461695391
---
QUOTED: "Arguing that this movement has long been misunderstood, the author provides valuable insights about
the key role Protestant agrarianism played."
3/19/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Lowe, Kevin M.: Baptized with the soil: Christian agrarians
and the crusade for rural America
A.R. McKee
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
53.8 (Apr. 2016): p1183.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Full Text:
Lowe, Kevin M. Baptized with the soil: Christian agrarians and the crusade for rural America. Oxford, 2015. 249p bibl index afp ISBN
9780190249458 cloth, $74.00; ISBN 9780190249472 ebook, contact publisher for price
53-3472
BV638
2015-2330 CIP
An independent scholar of American religious history, Lowe argues that the American Protestant agrarian movement of the 20th century is
important for understanding how agriculture and rural life was imagined, practiced, and debated--not only within shifting Protestant mainline
denominations but in the nation as a whole. Arguing that this movement has long been misunderstood, the author provides valuable insights about
the key role Protestant agrarianism played in how rural Americans negotiated the terrain between traditional farming and the ever-increasing
industrialization and corporatization of land after WW I. Anxiety about rural life and its real and perceived decline (both morally and
economically) gave rise to a very particular vision of the farm as a moral cornerstone pitted against agribusiness. Instead of focusing on the
history of traditional religious movements of the 20th century--for example, fundamentalism and evangelicalism--Lowe examines how hard rural
people worked to keep ownership of their lands against shifting cultural tides that often worked against their Christian claims to the land. In part
this is a story about the middle ground between progressivism and romanticism, as rural communities dealt with very real concerns about the
stability of their lives and livelihoods. Summing Up: *** Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.--A. R. McKee,
Florida State University
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
McKee, A.R. "Lowe, Kevin M.: Baptized with the soil: Christian agrarians and the crusade for rural America." CHOICE: Current Reviews for
Academic Libraries, Apr. 2016, p. 1183+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449661603&it=r&asid=dfb2252d4b3e8cee49823b6ba9e1ebae. Accessed 19 Mar.
2017.
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Gale Document Number: GALE|A449661603