Chapter 7 Sowing Hope in a Polarized Agricultural Debate

In: The Calling of the Church in Times of Polarization
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Jan Jorrit Hasselaar
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Philipp Pattberg
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Peter-Ben Smit
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1 Introduction1

On October 1, 2019 farmer protests caused the largest traffic jam ever in the Netherlands. Two weeks later, military trucks in the streets of The Hague were preventing farmers from protesting at ‘Het Binnenhof,’ the political heart of the Netherlands. These protests were a response to recent discussions about reducing the emission of nitrogen. In September 2019, the Remkes commission recommended in the report that ‘not everything is possible’ and that farms situated close to nature reserves should be bought out or transformed into more environmentally friendly farms in order to reduce these emissions.2 As indicated, the farmers became furious and caused the traffic jam.

The nitrogen reduction recommendations seem to trigger an underlying feeling of ‘us-them’ amongst farmers, as expressed by Mark van den Oever, one of the protest organizers, just before the traffic jam: “We feel as if we’re being put in the dunces’ corner by city types who come and tell us how things should be in the countryside.” The ‘city type’ can appear in many forms: the activist, the politician and the journalist. According to Van den Oever, there is a sentiment among farmers that they get blamed for everything and that the city types try to bully them away. In other words, Van den Over experiences an us-them feeling between farmers on the one hand and ‘city types’ on the other.3

Earlier that year, on May 13th, there was a clear physical illustration of ‘us-them’ when one hundred animal activists from the international organization Meat the Victims occupied a pig farm in the municipality of Boxtel in North Brabant (Netherlands) to draw attention to animal suffering. Farmers gathered to counter-protest and tipped cars that belonged to animal activists into a ditch. As a result of this confrontation, the previously mentioned Van den Oever founded the Farmers Defence Force, an agricultural action group defending the interests of farmers with its own website and a WhatsApp group.4 “Now, if there is a raid somewhere, all the farmer has to do is send a WhatsApp message and we come to help him.”5 These illustrations seem to indicate a growing ‘us-them’ thinking in the debate over the future of agriculture.

The debate about the future of agriculture is related to several Sustainable Development Goals (SDG s). In the past few years, the SDG s have become the common language of governments, NGO s and business to address the most pressing development challenges for humanity and the planet, including climate change, biodiversity, poverty, and gender issues. The SDG s prescribe an agenda for sustainable development in the period 2015–2030. However, reaching the SDG s remains a major challenge. As SDG 17 notes, cooperation and partnership are required to achieve the other 16 SDG s; but such cooperation is not always self-evident. One of the main challenges is overcoming polarizing positions between parties when it comes to particular SDG s, as seen in the agricultural sector in the Netherlands.

This article explores a religious-inspired contribution to transition research. It seeks to develop an interdisciplinary contribution to the transition to circular agriculture in the Netherlands by exploring the potential role of the concept of hope. More specifically, we investigate whether the concept of hope might be able to facilitate moving beyond polarization in the transition to circular agriculture in the Netherlands. In doing so and while drawing on theology in Jewish and Christian traditions as a resource, it makes sense to take scripture itself as the point of departure. This takes place in two ways: (a) we focus on the concept of hope, derived from the biblical narrative of the Exodus, set forth by Jonathan Sacks, a British scholar and public intellectual in the tradition of Judaism; (b) we substantiate the dialogical approach to discernment that views diversity and even disagreement and conflict as a resource and catalyst for creativity rather than an obstacle that needs to be overcome or passed over by means of an appeal to canonical hermeneutics as they have been developed in the field of biblical studies and the theological reflection on the canon of the (Christian) Bible.

The remainder of this article is structured as follows. After this introduction, we describe the situation in the agricultural sector in the Netherlands. The following section conceptualizes the problems in the agricultural sector as a wicked problem. The section thereafter highlights subsequent governance challenges when it comes to wicked problems. Next, the notion of hope in the work of Jonathan Sacks is explored. Then, an operationalization of the concept of hope is illustrated in the mining sectors in South Africa. The section thereafter investigates an implementation of the concept of hope in the ‘Food Valley’ (the Netherlands). Then some questions about ecclesial innovation are made. The last section offers some concluding remarks.

2 Dutch Agriculture

Having witnessed the Dutch famine at the end of the Second World War, Sicco Mansholt, Dutch Minister of Agriculture (1945–1958) and European Commissioner for Agriculture (1958–1972) was determined to ensure that Europe would be a place without hunger. Mansholt was convinced that Europe needed to become self-sufficient and that a stable supply of affordable food should be guaranteed for all inhabitants of Europe. Therefore, he set in motion a program to modernize agriculture profoundly in order to avoid future shortages and guarantee production efficiency. One of his policy measures was the rationalization and upscaling of farm productivity, which resulted among others in the application of chemical crop protection substances and technological development to save labor. From a production perspective, the Dutch agricultural sector has been highly successful. For example, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and Wageningen Economic Research, the agricultural goods exports from the Netherlands amounted to an estimated 90.3 billion euros in 2018. With this export value, the small country of the Netherlands is the world’s largest exporter of agricultural goods after the United States. Agricultural commodities account for nearly one-fifth of Dutch commodity exports: 18.2 percent in 2018. Domestic production accounts for 72.4 percent of these agricultural exports.6

In September 2018 Carola Schouten, Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, published the vision Agriculture, Nature and Food: Valuable and Connected. In this vision she describes the current situation of farming, horticulture and fisheries in the Netherlands. Characteristics of these sectors, in line with Mansholt’s modernization, are that they produce at low costs and that there is an emphasis on cutting costs and increasing production, resulting in upscaling. In her vision, the Minister highlights the added value and achievement of the sector. However, at the same time she argues that the current production methods are not without cost. In her vision, she states that these methods lead to two substantial imbalances.7

First, cost reductions and production increases result in small and sometimes even negative profit margins, which makes the sectors vulnerable in economic terms. This leads to substantial income uncertainty for actors in the sector.

Second, intensive production has come at the expense of biodiversity, the environment, the quality of drinking water and the attractiveness of the landscape.

According to the Minister, these reasons provide an argument to make a transition to circular agriculture. Katrien Termeer, Professor of Public Administration and Policy (Wageningen University), deepens this argument by stating that there are not just two imbalances in the agricultural sector, but that there is a range of problems and challenges, among others strengthening the position of the famer in the chain, synergy between agriculture and biodiversity, adaptation to climate change, reduction of food waste, reduction of CO2 emissions, animal welfare and limited resources.8 Termeer uses the term ‘wicked problems’ to describe these problems and challenges.

3 Wicked Problems

Wicked problems were originally defined by Churchman,9 and Rittel and Webber10 as those incomprehensible and resistant to a solution. Head and Alford argue “that degrees of ‘wickedness’ can be understood by reference to multiple dimensions and that it is possible to frame partial, provisional courses of action against wicked problems.”11 Wicked problems arise in situations wherein “stakeholders may have conflicting interpretations of the problem and the science behind it, as well as different values, goals, and life experiences.”12 Wicked problems are also known to have key characteristics. According to Head and Alford, they are associated with (a) social pluralism (i.e., multiple interests and values of stakeholders); (b) institutional complexity (the context of interorganizational cooperation and multilevel governance); and (c) scientific uncertainty (fragmentation and gaps in reliable knowledge). Wicked problems have been identified and studied in various policy domains, including disasters and crises, climate change responses, natural resource management, health care, urban and regional planning, business planning and cybernetics. Rittel and Webber identified ten primary characteristics of wicked problems:

  1. There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem;

  2. Wicked problems have no ‘stopping rule’ (i.e., no definitive solution);

  3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true or false, but good or bad;

  4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem;

  5. Every (attempted) solution to a wicked problem is a ‘one-shot operation’; the results cannot be readily undone, and there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error;

  6. Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan;

  7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique;

  8. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem;

  9. The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways;

  10. The planner has no ‘right to be wrong’ (i.e., there is no public tolerance of experiments that fail).

We will argue that these characteristics of wicked problems seem to help us to understand the cause of polarization in the agricultural sector. In the view of Termeer, several of these characteristics of wicked problems can be applied to the problems and challenges in the agricultural sector.13

First, there are many parties involved in all layers of government (local, regional, national, European, global); an increasing number of policy domains (agriculture, environment, nature, health, energy, aid and trade); public and private domains (farmers, parties in the chain, service providers, governments and civil organizations) and the wider public (citizens, neighbors and consumers). These parties often have different and conflicting values and targets.

Second, and important to understanding the cause of polarization, the parties have different and often conflicting ideas of the problem at hand. This can vary from reduction of the fertility of the soil to presence of too many animals. Due to different points of view and interests, parties have divergent ideas about solutions, ranging from innovative sustainable systems in factory farming to reduction of the consumption of meat.

Third, the impossibility of giving the problem a definitive formulation. The problems change regularly in shape due to interventions and autonomous dynamics (e.g., economic growth); policy intervention (e.g., abolition of the milk quota and agreements regarding climate change); and incidents (Q fever, fipronil, drought and flooding). Most problems have a long history of policy interventions.

Fourth, every problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem. Many examples can be given of solutions that were useful in the past, but lead to problems in the present situation. The reason for this is that there was only attention to a partial problem, some effects were unforeseen or values in society have changed. For example, measures with regard to animal welfare that caused extra emission of particulates, the consequences of detailed legislation on fertilizers for soil fertility, or undesirable side-effects of several generations of Common Agricultural Policy.

Fifth, today’s solutions lead to the problems of tomorrow, including the lack of a stopping rule (to know when a problem has been resolved). Despite the ambitions and efforts of successive governments, the problems appear not to be solved once and for all.

Describing the problems and challenges in the agricultural sector as wicked problems raises at least the corner of the veil of the cause of polarization. The parties involved have often different and conflicting ideas of the problem at hand. Reducing the complexity of the ‘wicked problem’ to a single cause and a related one-dimensional solution leads to further polarization of the debate about the future of agriculture. Is it possible to tackle this tendency toward polarization?

4 Governance of Wicked Problems

Termeer argues that dealing with the interdependent problems and challenges in the agricultural sector demands a transition that is characterized by a shared urgency to deal with the problems and challenges involved.14 In her vision, the Minister states also that the entire supply chain, the government and consumers have a role to play.15 Or, to put it in the words of the Council for the Environment and Infrastructure (RLI): “The inescapable need to adapt our food system provides an excellent opportunity to unite farmers, the food processing industry, the retail sector and consumers in a unique coalition for sustainable and healthy food.”16

Cooperation may be required in order to stimulate a transition toward a circular agriculture, but in the introduction we have seen that there is a current tendency toward polarization. The tendency was also reflected in a large survey in 2018 showing that more than 80% of Dutch farmers want to use more environment-friendly methods. However, the survey also shows that farmers experience a big gap between farmers and consumers/citizens and society, farmers and supermarkets and farmers and their representing organizations. Interests diverge and trust is often lacking. In 2019, an extended version of this survey was done. This survey shows that there seems to be a further polarization of opinions between farmer-citizen and city-agricultural sector. At the same time, although less visible, there is a tendency toward cooperation and connection. What is striking are the more radical and extreme positions of young farmers (under the age of 40) in the debate.17

Over the last decennia, several initiatives have been taken to create a transition in the agricultural sector, for example reducing livestock, easing the tension between consumer-citizen perspectives, and strengthening the position of the farmer in the chain.18 These earlier initiatives all started with high ambitions and a lot of energy and then got stuck in blockades and quietly died due to the presence of taboos, in the sense of strongly held convictions that are hard to change and about which it is hardly possible to speak about. Termeer states that it is necessary for a real transition to face these taboos and make them a subject of conversation. The best way of approaching such a conversation is a political and societal dialogue.19 Kim Putters, director of the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau), also argues for a societal dialogue to deal with wicked problems in Dutch society instead of dealing with them as being relatively ‘simple’ policy problems.20

This chapter investigates a somewhat unexpected—and therefore potentially innovative—approach to support this direction of dealing with wicked problems given by Termeer and Putters. We delve more deeply into the concept of hope of the wisdom traditions of Judaism and Christianity.

5 Hope

The first sections of this article elaborated on the challenges in the Dutch agricultural sector. The next is about the challenge for the church in these situations. Here we want to highlight ‘hope’ as a promising concept for overcoming stagnation and conflict in the context of wicked problems. Hope can be considered, together with faith and love, as one of the core values in the Christian tradition (1 Cor. 13: 13). Recently, Volf and Croasmun have reminded us that religious wisdom traditions, and theology as a systematic reflection on them, are about a certain perspective of flourishing life.21 In the following we argue that, in the context of polarizing positions and resulting paralysis, there is a biblical tradition that identifies ‘hope’ as a promising concept for overcoming stagnation caused by conflict.

In the twentieth century important contributions on hope were made, such as Ernst Bloch’s three-volume compendium The Principle of Hope (1954, 1955 and 1959), Jürgen Moltmann’s Theology of Hope (1964) and Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope (1968). Although the concept has received much scholarly attention, its potential for addressing 21st century challenges has been left curiously underexplored. For instance, in 2015, literary scholar and cultural critic Terry Eagleton remarked that hope “… has been a curiously neglected notion in an age which, in Raymond Williams’s words, confronts us with ‘the felt loss of a future.’”22

To move from the concept of hope to hope as a catalyst for overcoming conflict and contestations in the sector of agriculture, we look in particular at the understanding of hope set forth by Jonathan Sacks, a British scholar and public intellectual in the tradition of Judaism. The reason for this is that Sacks provides a particular view of hope that is promising in relation to the issue of decision making in situations of conflicting positions and uncertainty. Innovatively utilizing the resources of the Jewish tradition, Sacks conceptualizes, based on the narrative of the Exodus, hope as a narrative of individual and societal transformation. In this process of transformation, key stakeholders, individually and collectively, learn to open up their identities, the images—of themselves, others and the world—people live by, and to include the interest of oneself and others into a common identity.23 Therefore, hope is best expressed as a learning process that seeks to create relations of trust that teach one how to honor both the interest of oneself and others. According to Sacks, this process is supported by two institutions: covenant and public Sabbath. In the covenant, parties with often contrasting interests exchange voluntarily and each on their own terms a promise to take responsibility for a shared future. The public Sabbath has the following characteristics.24

First, the public Sabbath as Utopia Now celebrates the liberating perspective, the new ‘we,’ in the present order not to get lost in the transformation, not to forget that the present situation is no longer one’s identity and to remind people of what they are aiming at.

Second, the public Sabbath seeks to orientate people to something larger than their present identity. The Sabbath is a neutral space, as it values the dignity of difference among the participants. The experiences of these differences can make people aware of their own perspective and has the potential to open them up to the possibility of developing a new and common identity.

Third, the public Sabbath seeks to stimulate positive other-regarding behavior, especially relations of kindness and love, that seek to honor oneself and the other, especially those yet excluded. These relations can never be taken for granted and have to be developed, because they are never immune to fear, free-riding, cynicism and power games to gain influence.

Fourth, the public Sabbath is an embodied performance that can bring in the power of symbol, music, memory, narrative, poetry, prayer, ritual, art and imagination in order to create and shape a common identity. Music, for example, has the ability to imagine and dream about a different reality than the present one or to express frustration about the current state of affairs, and can thus help to make the first steps to become honest and to put a vision into practice.

Sacks considers a public Sabbath as the key to a politics of hope.25 The reason for this is that the Sabbath is a regular institution to stimulate individual and societal transformation. Nevertheless, covenant and Sabbath are two sides of the same coin. During the transformation, stimulated by a public Sabbath, the parties involved develop the willingness to exchange promises for a shared future (covenant). Several dimensions of such a public Sabbath can be found in a real-life initiative. The following section discusses an operationalization of Sacks’ concept of hope, including a public Sabbath.

6 Courageous Conversations

An example of an operationalization of hope as a transition, including a public Sabbath, can be found in the so-called Safe Space Dialogue (SSD) in South Africa. SSD is a social design approach that has been developed in the context of the transition in the mining sector in South Africa and was expressed in the initiative of ‘Courageous Conversations.’ This initiative was started by Thabo Makgoba, successor of Desmond Tutu as Archbishop of Cape Town. It consists of a series of courageous conversations between parties involved in the mining chain in order to co-create a vision of the future. The conversations are held in safe spaces. These spaces have several characteristics of the public Sabbaths above. The objective of the SSD is to establish a platform for transformative discussions between representative actors in the mining sector in a way that is not about narrow self-interest, positioning or antagonism, but rather a transparent, honest, and constructive dialogue reflecting on the complex challenges and opportunities that this sector faces. The SSD is supported by a Steering Committee. The composition of the steering committee represents the interests of the various stakeholders involved in the project. The SSD is also supported by several task teams, for example a team on Socio-Economic Development (SED). These teams meet regularly to facilitate, implement and oversee the programs within the mining communities. The diagram below presents the management structure of the Courageous Conversation project in South Africa, including the roles of the Steering committee and its involvement and relationship with the various task teams.

The next section discusses how such an approach can be applied to the agricultural sector in the Netherlands.

FIGURE 7.1
FIGURE 7.1

Management structure of the Courageous Conversations in South Africa

7 Food Valley Case Study

We have argued that earlier initiatives for a transition in the agricultural sector started with high ambitions and a lot of energy, but got stuck and quietly died. Therefore, Termeer and Putters argue for a political and societal dialogue. Sacks’ understanding of hope provides a transition pathway in which dialogue between all relevant parties plays a key role.

During a Round Table, in May 2019, first steps were taken to explore and operationalize Sacks’ concept of hope in order to overcome polarized situations in the agricultural sector in the Netherlands, more in particular in the Food Valley.26 This Round Table was initiated by Rabobank, the municipality of Ede, and an interdisciplinary research group, including economists, theologians and political researchers of the Amsterdam Sustainability Institute of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The Round Table brought together farmers, representatives of environmental organizations, bankers, politicians (local, regional and national), clergy, policymakers and scientists. The Round Table was structured by three rounds. The first round started with challenges in the agricultural sector explored from the perspective of a farmer, the perspective of an environmental organization, and from the perspective of an Environmental Assessment Agency. This round made visible that over the years the same kind of problems come back—e.g., manure surplus, biodiversity loss and the number of animals in the sector living under poor conditions— but each time in a different form. Problems related to, e.g., phosphate and fertilizers were addressed technically. As a result, one problem was solved but two new ones emerged. During the discussion, it became clear that in the agricultural sector the problems should be considered in interdependency. But this raises questions like: Where should we start? and Who is responsible?—especially when uncontrollable international dimensions play a role as well. A topic that comes up in the discussion is the difficulty farmers face earning a decent income. Although the farmers state that it is necessary to earn a living, what they really miss is recognition for the work they are doing. The agricultural sector is often blamed for what is wrong, but farmers feel that they rarely receive appreciation for the work they are performing. In the discussion, the importance of good communication was stressed. According to several parties around the table, every topic can be discussed, but it should be done in a respectful way.

In the second round, the perspective of hope as a contribution to overcoming the challenges identified in the first round was explored from a scientific perspective and a perspective from the region. In this round, the daily tragedies with which farmers often have to deal was mentioned, e.g., avian influenza, fipronil and/or the burning down of a stall. Where then is the hope? The question is answered by a reference to two examples in which people worked together toward a shared future. The first example refers to joined participation in courses about the fertility of the soil by farmers, civil servants, ecologists, water authorities, and so on. The second example is about the Manifesto of Salentein in which farmers and politicians explore the future of the agricultural sector. The last round explored the usefulness and necessity of next steps forward of developing hope as a catalyst for furthering responsible and broadly supported decision making in the context of the transition to circular agriculture. The focus of the third and last round is on the question of whether it is appropriate to develop further connections between the discussed concept of hope and a transition toward circular agriculture. In this round, a banker argues that the present perspective toward a circular agriculture is still too abstract to put farmers in motion. The importance is stressed of developing a shared image of the future together as has been done with the Deltaplan for Biodiversity, in line with the above-described concept of hope. In this plan, all stakeholders are involved. Although there are conflicting interests in the present, a shared image and the possibility to create more time for the transition allows stakeholders to explore steps forward in the present. Besides that, it is considered as essential to change the way parties are treating one another. The importance is stressed of creating space for one another, even or especially when there are conflicting interests. A local politician highlights the need for a new covenant between all stakeholders based on taking responsibility for a shared future. Such a covenant allows parties to go beyond a ‘we and them’ in the present. However, a key question is raised: Who should take the lead in creating such a covenant? A representative of the church states that the churches played such a role in the past, but that it is hard for the church to play this role in the present due to its changed and marginalized role in society. Recommendations are made, for example to organize the next meeting with all relevant stakeholders in order to create a shared perspective for the Food Valley.

8 Ecclesial Innovation

On what basis can the above outline of a communal hermeneutics be built? A number of available—and interrelated—paradigms exist, for instance theologies that proceed from a ‘social’ understanding of the Trinity, or theologies that use a ‘liturgical,’ or more emphatically ‘eucharistic’ paradigm, or theologies that stress the hermeneutical nature of the church qua community of interpretation.27 In the context of discourse that also draws on Christian theology as a resource, it stands to reason to draw on something that is key to most forms of Christian theology: scripture itself, in particular the hermeneutics that can be seen to be implied by the formation of and the subsequent functioning of the biblical canon.28 As one building block of the argument of this essay, it will be shown here how precisely the Christian tradition’s foundational witness can be seen to embody a hermeneutics that undergirds the communal discernment of hope as discussed above.

Canonical critics, such as James A. Sanders and Francis Watson,29 have explored in depth the question of whether the way in which a writing or a corpus of writings has come into existence should not be taken into account in its interpretation; both answered this question affirmatively, drawing attention to the hermeneutics implied by the formation and early reception of the biblical canon.30 Aspects of this include the following, utilizing New Testament examples for the sake of argument (HB/OT examples could also be adduced easily). In the case of the Gospels, as well as, to be sure, in the case of the work of Paul and its reception (in pseudepigraphical Pauline letters, as well as in those of James and Peter), part of the documents pertaining to the prehistory of the canonical writings has been canonized as well. Because Mark and Luke, Matthew, and John have become part of the canon, documents belonging to at least two stages of the process (Mark on the one hand, the rest on the other) of the formation of the authoritative memory of Jesus have been enshrined in its authoritative scriptures. If Matthew, Luke, or even John had been intended to replace Mark, the canon partially reverses this development: now all four are canonical.31 All of this applies also to the work of Paul and its diverse reception, already in the writings that are now canonical. This has one important implication: The ongoing search for identity ‘in Christ’ with the appertaining production of ever new authoritative or at least supplementary texts is documented in the canonical writings themselves, which, therefore, are only authoritative in concert with each other, no longer on their own.32 All of this constitutes, in fact, a prolonged reflection on the hermeneutical consequences of a principle of historical-critical, more specifically tradition-historical research, that is to say: the principle that the genesis of a text is of importance for understanding it. If this is the case, then it becomes particularly inviting to further reflect on the question of what it would mean for the interpretation of the canonical writings whether the fact that historical emergence of the canon had many centripetal aspects does not need to be taken into account when reading its contents. Doing so invites considering the following insights of the New Testament scholar Michael Wolter:

The intensive search for a linguistically and existentially differentiable and unifying center of Christian identity and the impossibility to determine it unambiguously … [was] already an integral part of the historical existence of the Christian communities from the beginning. The tension between unity and diversity would therefore not be a problem given only with the canon, but a fundamental and thus irrevocable fact of the historical existence of Christianity in general.33

According to Wolter’s line of thought, the conceptualization of a notion such as the ‘unity of the church’ (as well, to be sure, as that of the ‘meaning of the canon’) shifts from a fixed or fixable historical or current situation to that of a process. The image that emerges is one in which the canonical writings do not so much constitute a stable and clear form (or source) of Christian identity and unity and communicate this (when read correctly) in an unequivocal way, but are rather the witnesses of (and catalysts for) an ongoing dialogical and even conflictuous search for such unity and identity. This search is evidenced precisely also by the various differences and disagreements between the canonical writings, given that these have been enshrined into one single canon and thus made to be in conversation with each other.34 While this might sound like a relativization of what one might want to see as ‘biblical’ view of Christian identity, according to Wolter’s line of thought, this is not at all the case; the question is rather how one understands notions such as ‘unity’ and ‘identity’ from the perspective of the emergence of the early Christian writings, including the canon itself, which is also a literary construct. Following this line of thought, one might agree with Wolter again:

The differentiation of the one confession into different and competing concepts of salvation including their life-world implications [must] not be understood as a loss of an original unity, but [has] been an integral part of the plausibility of the confession itself, without which the reception of the Christian message of salvation would not have been possible. What the testimony to the Christ event means in concrete terms (i.e., with which signs which meaning is ascribed to this testimony) is not fixed from the outset, but is negotiated in context-dependent processes of meaning; this is documented in the canon.35

Identity, accordingly, is a continuous process of conversation and even of ‘negotiation.’ Precisely the differences between the canonical texts provide the necessary conditions for this—without difference, no conversation is possible—and create the space for this.36 This conversation takes place among different communities and their ‘cultures’ (e.g., those of Matthew and Mark) and between different political and/or cultural settings (e.g., those of Luke and John, the Seer), in order to discover and narrate again and again what faith is. This conversation can be termed ‘intercultural,’ as it has been formulated in the work of the Austrian theologian Judith Gruber as follows:

The differences that a genealogical view reveals in the canon make it appear as a compilation of particular theologies of theologies that bear witness to the Christ event by recourse to the meaning structures of their cultural context. The differences are not faded out, but compiled within the canon. In the differences a space of interculturality is constituted … By making differences visible, the canon creates a space of interculturality in which Christian identity is negotiated; as a normatively set document, it thus standardizes it as a disparate product of intercultural processes of translation and transformation between particular theologies.37

The kind of identity and unity that becomes visible in this way in the writings of the New Testament (or even biblical) canon is one that is less conceptual in character but rather has the shape of an ongoing search for identity and unity, which is fed by the diverse perspectives and witnesses of the canon in conversation with each other and the location of the person and/or community that participates in this search. Conflict and diversity are no longer a threat to unity, but rather necessary for the (ongoing, even eschatologically oriented) search for it.38

It is precisely this understanding of the foundational witness of the Christian tradition that undergirds the project outlined in this essay. If identity, emphatically: Christian identity, is both communal and processual, meaning that a polyphony of voices—even dissonant ones!—is needed to propel it forward, then the kinds of communities of discernment as a reinvention of a public Sabbath discussed earlier can well be understood in analogy to what ‘church’ is, and the ‘hermeneutical ecclesiology’ implied by the witness of the biblical canon can serve as a source of inspiration to further, precisely for theological reasons, such undertakings in the context of endangered sustainability. On this basis, both the concept of hope, as Sacks has highlighted it and the dialogical approach to the discernment of a potentially common hope, as it has been proposed above, can be seen as continuing lines of thought present in the foremost source of Christian theology, the Bible itself. This also means that churches face the challenge to live up to the dialogical basis that they refer to as a key part of their tradition, i.e., scripture; can churches see this as a form of vocation, i.e., to become and invite others to dialogical communities of discernment, both for the good of the churches and for the common good? The round table referred to above would suggest that this is possible and also point the way. Such tables could well be understood as a further performance of the dialogical identity that is at the heart of the Christian tradition and calls for continuous, faithful and inclusive conversations that do not shun tensions, but balance them out with a desire to walk together, ecclesially and societally.

At the end of this article, it seems to be justified to ask whether the church in general, and the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) in particular, can play a role in bringing polarized parties together based on hope. To put it more strongly, based on the conference theme, is the church called to contribute to hope in times of polarization? There seems to be only one answer possible. The PKN presents itself as a place of faith, hope and love, both in a traditional and experimental way.39 Sacks’ understanding of faith, hope and love challenges the church to go beyond its own group of believers and contribute to hope in polarized contexts. What could that contribution be? Several answers are possible. Here we focus on one answer. The Christian community is trained in and devoted to developing places of hopes. Therefore, the Christian community seems to be able to play a facilitating role in bringing different parties and stakeholders together in a workplace of hope. However, such a realization has to start with suitable humility. The church, at least in the Netherlands, no longer seems able to bring them together. Traditional religious leaders do not have this societal role anymore. What is more, their own traditional (church) places of hope show a sharp decline in attendance in recent decades. Most (church) places do not seem able to be of added value with regard to the fears and hopes of most people. One can blame the people for that, but that might be too easy. The church is not only called to hope in a polarized context. The church is also called to reinvent the good news of faith, hope and love in its own context. Therefore, these times of polarization are an opportunity for the church to work with (secular) parties to reinvent and creatively redesign workplaces of hope that are accessible and of added value to all involved.

9 Conclusion

In this article we have explored the potential role of hope, based on the work of Jonathan Sacks, to facilitate moving beyond polarization in the transition to circular agriculture in the Netherlands. This concept seems to provide a new vantage point for enabling cooperation between the stakeholders in the agricultural sector, who hold often strongly conflicting positions. The reason for this is that this concept of hope is considered as a learning process that seeks to create relations of trust in honoring the interests of oneself and others. The institution of a public Sabbath can bring together parties with different, even conflicting, interests because it considers differences as a source of renewal instead of a source of polarization. The question is whether such a concept can also work in practice. Therefore, an operationalization of a similar concept in South Africa was highlighted. The article also presented a case study in which relevant stakeholders in the Food Valley discussed the questions in the sector at hand in relation to Sacks’ concept of hope and the operationalization in South Africa. Of course, this raises context-related questions. In South Africa, an Archbishop can lead the conversations, while that is less likely in the Netherlands. But that does not mean that the church in the Netherlands is not also called to contribute to a perspective based on hope in times of polarization. By crossing the divide between theory and practice, by pioneering an interdisciplinary approach, and by focusing on the role of ‘hope’ in the agricultural sector, the article contributes to bridging the gap between conceptual and practical approaches to ‘hope,’ several disciplines and to overcoming paralyzed situations. Finally, based on the theme, the article states that the church is called to develop places of hope in polarized contexts. These places are also an opportunity for the church to reinvent itself in terms of faith, hope and love in interaction with (secular) parties.

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1

A special thanks for his constructive remarks to dr. Paul Koster, Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

2

Adviescollege Stikstofproblematiek, Niet Alles Kan: Aanbevelingen voor de Korte Termijn (Not everything is possible: Short term recommendations) (25 September 2019). Available at https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2019/09/25/eerste-advies-adviescollege-stikstofproblematiek.

3

Emiel Hakkenes, “Den Haag wacht grimmig boerenprotest: ‘Stedelingen zetten ons in de verdomhoek’” (The Hague awaits grim farmer’s protest: ‘City types put us in the dark’), Trouw, 28 September 2019, https://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/den-haag-wacht-grimmig-boerenprotest-stedelingen-zetten-ons-in-de-verdomhoek~b2ebabbc/, accessed November 1, 2020.

6

Mark Dolman, Gerben Jukema en Pascal Ramaekers, De Nederlandse landbouwexport in 2018 in breder perspectief (Dutch agricultural exports in 2018 in a wider perspective) (Wageningen: Wageningen Economic Research en het Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2019). Available at http://edepot.wur.nl/468099.

7

Carola Schouten, Landbouw, natuur en voedsel: Waardevol en verbonden. Nederland als koploper in kringlooplandbouw (Agriculture, nature and food: Valuable and connected. The Netherlands as a frontrunner in circular agriculture) (2018), 11–12. Available at https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/beleidsnota-s/2018/09/08/visie-landbouw-natuur-en-voedsel-waardevol-en-verbonden.

8

Katrien Termeer, Het bewerkstelligen van een transitie naar kringlooplandbouw (Achieving a transition to circular agriculture) (Wageningen: Wageningen University & Research, 2019), 2.

9

C. West Churchman, “Free for all,” Management Science 14 (1967), B141–B142.

10

Horst W.J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” Policy Sciences 4 (1973), 155–169.

11

Brian W. Head and John Alford, “Wicked problems: Implications for Public Policy and Management,” Administration & Society 47:6 (2015), 711–739.

12

Marshall Kreuter, Christopher De Rosa, Elizabeth Howze and Grant Baldwin, “Understanding Wicked Problems: A Key to Advancing Environmental Health Promotion,” Health Education & Behavior 31 (2004), 441–454.

13

Termeer, Het bewerkstelligen van een transitie, 8.

14

Termeer, Het bewerkstelligen van een transitie, 3.

15

Schouten, Landbouw, natuur en voedsel, 20.

16

Raad voor de leefomgeving en infrastructuur, Duurzaam en gezond: Samen naar een houdbaar voedselsysteem (Council for the living environment and infrastructure, Sustainable and healthy: Together towards a sustainable food system) (Den Haag: Raad voor de leefomgeving en infrastructuur, 2018), available at https://www.rli.nl/sites/default/files/duurzaam_en_gezond_samen_naar_een_houdbaar_voedselsysteem_def_1.pdf.

17

“De Staat van de Boer” (The farmer’s state) (2018). Available at https://destaatvandeboer.trouw.nl/.

18

Termeer, Het bewerkstelligen van een transitie, 8.

19

Termeer, Het bewerkstelligen van een transitie, 3, 8.

20

Kim Putters, Veenbrand: Smeulende kwesties in de welvarende samenleving (Peat fire: Smoldering issues in the prosperous society) (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2019), 214.

21

Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun, For the Life of the World: Theology That Makes a Difference (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2019).

22

Terry Eagleton, Hope without Optimism (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015), XI.

23

See Jonathan Sacks, The Politics of Hope (London: Jonathan Cape, 1997); Jonathan Sacks, Future Tense: Jews, Judaism, and Israel in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Schocken Books, 2009); Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation, Exodus: The Book of Redemption (Jerusalem: Maggid Books, 2010).

24

Jan Jorrit Hasselaar, “Hope in the Context of Climate Change: Jonathan Sacks’ Interpretation of the Exodus and Radical Uncertainty,” International Journal of Public Theology 14 (2020), 224–240.

25

Sacks, Exodus, 331.

26

The Food Valley is an important agro-food centre of Europe and located around municipalities like Ede, Nijkerk and Wageningen, close to the middle of the Netherlands. The reason to choose the Food Valley is twofold. First, in the Food Valley there are intensive relationships between town and country, the presence of farmers involved, global players in the primary sector, the supplying and processing industry and the knowledge and education institutions. These relationships contain the ingredients for a proper case study. Second, Minister Schouten has selected the Food Valley as one of her ‘region deals’ (Regio Deals) to face challenges as expressed in the transition to circular agriculture (Schouten, Landbouw, natuur en voedsel).

27

Reference to all of these paradigms is made in: Peter-Ben Smit, Traditie als Missie: 125 Jaar Unie van Utrecht—1275 jaar in de voetsporen van St. Willibrord (Tradition as mission: 125 Years of the Union of Utrecht—1275 years in the footsteps of St. Willibrord), (Amersfoort/Sliedrecht: Oud-Katholiek Boekhuis/Merweboek, 2015).

28

What follows has been adapted from: Peter-Ben Smit, “From Divisive Diversity to Catholic Fullness? Canon and Ecclesial Unity Reconsidered,” in Catholicity under Pressure: Proceedings of the 18th Academic Consultation of the Societas Oecumenica, Beihefte zur Ökumenischen Rundschau 105, eds. Dagmar Heller and Péter Szentpétery (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2016), 391–409.

29

Cf. James A. Sanders, Canon and Community: A Guide to Canonical Criticism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) and Francis Watson, Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). See also: Peter-Ben Smit, “Authority in the New Testament and the New Testament’s Authority,” Ecclesiology 13 (2017), 83–101.

30

Cf. also, e.g., Theo K. Heckel, Vom Evangelium zum viergestaltigen Evangelium (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), as well as the essays in Richard Bauckham (ed.), The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).

31

See on this, the general argument of Watson, Gospel.

32

Michael Wolter, “Die Vielfalt der Schrift und die Einheit des Kanons,” in Die Einheit der Schrift und die Vielfalt des Kanons, eds. John Barton and Michael Wolter (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003), 45–68, 65; Judith Gruber, Theologie nach dem Cultural Turn: Interkulturalität als theologische Ressource (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2013), 20, 25–26; see also: Judith M. Lieu, Neither Jew nor Greek? Constructing Early Christianity (London: T&T Clark, 2002), 2–3: “Texts do not simply reflect a ‘history’ going on independently of them, they are themselves part of the process by which … Christianity came into being. For it was through literature that … a self-understanding was shaped and articulated, and then mediated to and appropriated by others, and through literature that people and ideas were included or excluded. What the texts were doing is sometimes as, if not more, important than what they were saying.”

33

Wolter, “Vielfalt,” 52–53: “Die intensive Suche nach einer sprachlich wie existentiell ausdifferenzierbaren und einheitsstiftenden Mitte der christlichen Identität und die Unmöglichkeit, sie eindeutig … zu bestimmen, [war] bereits von Anfang an integraler Bestandteil der geschichtlichen Existenz der christlichen Gemeinden. Die Spannung zwischen Einheit und Vielfalt wäre demnach nicht ein erst mit dem Kanon gegebenes Problem, sondern eine fundamentale und damit unaufhebbare Gegebenheit der geschichtlichen Existenz des Christentums überhaupt.”

34

The diversity that exists concerning the text of the canonical scriptures of Christianity can be understood along the same lines.

35

Wolter, “Vielfalt,” 55: “Die Ausdifferenzierung des einen Bekenntnisses in unterschiedliche und miteinander konkurrierende Heilskonzepte einschließlich ihrer lebensweltlichen Implikationen [darf] nicht als Verlust einer ursprünglichen Einheit verstanden werden, sondern [ist] ein integraler Bestandteil der Plausibilität des Bekenntnisses selbst gewesen, ohne die die Rezeption der christlichen Heilsbotschaft nicht möglich gewesen wäre. Was das Zeugnis vom Christusereignis konkret bedeutet (d.h. mit welchen Zeichen diesem Zeugnis welche Bedeutung zugeschrieben wird) steht nicht von vornherein fest, sondern wird in kontextabhängigen Bedeutungsprozessen ausverhandelt; das wird im Kanon dokumentiert.”

36

See also the notion of the ‘epiphanic space’ opened up by the (different) ‘other,’ as underlined by Hans de Wit, My God’, She Said: ‘Ships Make Me so Crazy.’ Reflections on Empirical Hermeneutics, Interculturality and Holy Scripture (Amsterdam: VU University, 2008), 65, 87.

37

Gruber, Theologie nach dem Cultural Turn, 19: “Die Differenzen, die ein genealogischer Blick im Kanon offenlegt, lassen ihn als eine Kompilation von partikularen Theologien erscheinen von Theologien, die vom Christusereignis im Rückgriff auf die Bedeutungsstrukturen ihres kulturellen Kontextes Zeugnis ablegen. Die Differenzen werden nicht ausgeblendet, sondern innerhalb des Kanons zusammengestellt. In den Differenzen konstituiert sich…ein Raum der Interkulturalität. Indem der Kanon Differenzen sichtbar macht, schafft er einen Raum der Interkulturalität, in dem christliche Identität verhandelt wird; Als normativ gesetztes Dokument normiert er sie damit als disparates Produkt interkultureller Übersetzungs- und Transformationsvorgänge zwischen partikularen Theologien.”

38

See Gruber, Theologie, 20: “Christliche Identität geschieht hier performativ im Konflikt—gerade weil über unterschiedliche Interpretationen verhandelt wird, zerfällt christliche Identität nicht. Die im Kanon normative gesetzte konfliktive Interkulturalität weist so einen Weg zwischen einem Verständnis von christlicher Identität, das Differenzen ausblendet, und ihrer Zersplitterung entlang der im Kanon dokumentierten Bruchlinien.”

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