Duke Divinity School Professor Norman Wirzba has written a book on how Christianity changes the way people view the natural world by describing it as creation—a view that can result in healing to our lands and communities.

The new book, From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving Our World, was just published by Baker Publishing Group as the next book in the critically acclaimed The Church and Postmodern Culture series.

A professor of theology, ecology and agrarian studies, Wirzba draws on philosophers, environmentalists, and cultural critics to show how the modern concept of nature has been deeply problematic. He then explains that understanding the world as God’s “creation” rather than as “nature” or “the environment” creates an imagination shaped by practices of responsibility and gratitude, which can help bring healing to lands and communities.

By learning to give thanks for creation as God's gift of life, Wirzba says, Christians bear witness to the divine love that is reconciling all things to God. The book chapters address knowing where or who we are, idolizing nature, perceiving creation, the human art of creaturely life, and giving thanks.

Wirzba is the author or editor of numerous books  including: Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating, Living the Sabbath, Making Peace with the Land (coauthored with Fred Bahnson), The Essential Agrarian Reader, The Paradise of God: Renewing Religion in an Ecological Age, and The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry.