Tara Woodward

Princeton Theological Seminary

"Reading Rural"



Biography

Tara Woodward has called many places "home"—the golden grassland of Nebraska, sunflower fields of Moldova, cornfields of Iowa, rust-red dirt of South Africa, but most recently the garden at Princeton Seminary's "Farminary" in New Jersey. Each home has shaped her love and academic interests in place, pedagogy, and agrarian readings of sacred texts. Tara is currently a senior MDiv/MACEF student at Princeton Theological Seminary, with a Master of Arts from Western Theological Seminary (MI).

Paper Abstract

I have never seen a bush burn like it did for Moses, but I have seen grassland turn golden. As children no taller than the prairie grass which grew on our rural Nebraskan ranch, my sister and I ascended the slope of the largest Sandhill—nicknamed "Mount Sinai"—to catch a glimpse of the grass in all its golden glory.

While God's breath seemed then more inviting among the crickets and the cows than in a church classroom, years later I marvel at how tangible sacred texts are for rural readers of scripture. How almost instinctive the connections are between agricultural contexts and the agricultural world of the Old Testament.

My paper's aim is to research rural readings of scripture and a farmer's spiritual relationship to their land and animals. These two aspects—agrarianism and hermeneutics—connect, but the problem is, no one is asking farmers how they connect. There is both an interconnectedness and a disjunction between farmers, their land, animals and scripture, and there are many tensions present between the agrarian and academic world. To answer the question of what we should do with these tensions and what's at stake for the changing landscape of rural congregations, conversations with farmers must be explored regarding religion, readings of scripture, and the urban/rural divide. How might rural Christianity lend a long-forgotten lens on the agrarian world of the Bible? How might rural congregations' reading of scripture renew interest in the Old Testament?

My research includes interviewing five farmers (or agricultural workers) to ask them questions about the impact of faith and farming when reading Old Testament texts. Whether it is praying for rain during a season of drought or pulpit illustrations about "God as Farmer", the "lived theology" of rural congregations speaks towards tangibly constructed theologies of scripture.