Religion in the Modern World: Including Correspondence with Thomas Merton

Lord Northbourne (1896-1982), born Walter Ernest Christopher James, Fourth Baron Northbourne of Kent, England, was an agriculturist, educator, translator, and writer on both agriculture and comparative religion. Educated at Oxford, he was for many years Provost of Wye College, the agricultural college of London University. In 2022, Angelico Press republished Lord Northbourne's influential book Look to the Land, in which he introduced to the world the term "organic farming." Northbourne had a gift for expressing the profoundest spiritual truths in simple, graceful language.

"I have just finished reading your book Religion in the Modern World. Not only is the book interesting, but I have found it quite salutary and helpful in my own case. It has helped me to organize my ideas at a time when we in the Catholic Church, and in the monastic Orders, are being pulled this way and that. Traditions of great importance and vitality are being questioned along with more trivial customs, and I do not think that those who are doing the questioning are always distinguished for their wisdom or even their information. I could not agree more fully with your principles and with your application of them. . . It is most important first of all to understand deeply and live one's own tradition, not confusing it with what is foreign to it, if one is to seriously appreciate other traditions and distinguish in them what is close to one's own and what is, perhaps, irreconcilable with one's own. The great danger at the moment is a huge muddling and confusing of the spiritual traditions that still survive. As you so well point out, this would be crowning the devil's work. . . . I am very grateful for your important and thoughtful book, and I am sure you can see I am in the deepest possible sympathy with your views." --from a letter to the author from Fr Thomas Merton

Walter Ernest Christopher James, 4th Baron Northbourne (1866-1982), was an agriculturist, educator, and writer on both agriculture and comparative religion. Educated at Oxford, he was for many years Provost of Wye College in England. His first published writings were on organic farming, in which he applied the theories of Rudolf Steiner to the family estate at Kent (where the first biodynamic farming conference in Britain was held). In 1940 he published Look to the Land (Angelico Press edition, 2005), which raised many of the issues still current in the field of organic agriculture. After reading this book, Marco Pallis (mountaineer and author on comparative religion) contacted Northbourne and introduced him to the writings of the Traditionalist school, which he integrated into his own writings and life. He was a frequent contributor to the journal Studies in Comparative Religion. In addition to authoring books of his own, Northbourne translated the works of several fellow Traditionalists, including René Guénon's major work, The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, Light on Ancient Worlds by Frithjof Schuon, and Sacred Art in East and West by Titus Burckhardt. Correspondence with Thomas Merton is included in the present (Angelico Press) edition of his work Religion in the Modern World (2025).