New Article: Review of "The Biggest Little Farm"

The Forum’s own @Christy writes a review of the soon-to-be-released documentary, “The Biggest Little Farm.” Whether they admit it or not, it looks to me like an incredible portrait of creation care. Christy also gives some great questions for discussion.

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Reminds me of the new book Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm. An excellent book, and looks like an excellent documentary.

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You would love it, Reggie. Is it going to play in the U.K.? I’m sure it will be streaming somewhere eventually.

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Thanks for the review and the trailer link. Will look for it and recommend it to our local private schools as well as homeschoolers.

Great review! We’ll have to look that up when it’s available. It would be very refreshing to watch something that tackles this issue without guilt trips – seems like those are abundant on both the conservative and liberal ends of the “back to nature” movement.

Yes, and unfortunately many of my friends and family smell a “liberal agenda” a mile away and it makes it hard to recommend otherwise good stuff to them. I don’t know if it was a conscious choice on the part of the filmmakers to make it apolitical, but they did a good job. I think they were hoping it would be used by school groups and so were aiming toward a diverse audience. There’s also a student discussion guide you can download at their website: Biggest Little Farm: Education Program | NEON

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Good review. I look forward to seeing it. The “back to nature” theme reminds me of the movies Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring.

I feel your pain.

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In conjunction with Christy’s review, Science Advances has an editorial of interest this month: Eden No More. From the article:

Eden is gone. While the planetary garden still exists, it is in deep disrepair, frayed and fragmented almost beyond recognition.

Not unexpectedly, the specific findings are depressing. More species are threatened with extinction than any time in human history. Ever growing human populations and their activities have severely altered 75% of the terrestrial environment, 40% of the marine environment, and 50% of streams and rivers. The health of freshwater biodiversity has been particularly neglected because freshwater is widely understood and managed more as a physical resource vital to survival rather than as the special and delicate habitat that it provides for an extraordinary array of organisms.

The primary drivers of negative trends are also no surprise: In descending order, these adverse impacts include rapid changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of natural resources, climate change, pollution, and invasive species. Of monumental note is that, collectively, significant destructive forces arise from the actions of impoverished peoples living at the edges of society, working to eke out an existence often with little choice but to have minimal concern for environmental impact.

Based on the author’s last statement, it seems to me that the Christian concern for the poor and “least among us” also has a direct bearing on care of the earth.

Thoughts, @Reggie_O_Donoghue?

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Hey, searching “creation care” on this site brought me here to this thread. Guess what, it’s playing in my town right now. Just deciding when to go and who to bring. @Alan_V, have you heard of this?

I think you’ll like it. It’s heartwarming and motivating.

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It sounds a lot like something I saw on PBS but I’m going to take a chance anyhow. Gardening is my thing in retirement albeit more for the feeling of being in touch with nature than for raising food. Perhaps I’m playing god. (I probably don’t warrant the capitalized G yet.) It is settled, the wife will come with me for a matinee.

Just finished watching. Much more to say later.

Yes, heartwarming and inspiring. It reinforces the value I place on maintaining as much of the web of life as possible. We really need to keep from over running this planet. We’d really be out on thin ice going it alone. We’re much better off within a wider biome.

I think some Christians at least think of this world as a kind of yolk sack needed by humans until they become all spirit as they imagine God to be. But for those Christians who understand evolution to be the manner in which God has created man, perhaps our interconnectedness with the rest of creation need not be imagined as a transitional state at all.

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