I’ve been chewing on this post by Pastor Wilson. Like the last, I didn’t find it upsetting, but confusing. I like the argument that cultural sexual guilt creates pharisaical codes of righteousness, but the rest of it is a jumble. Here are a few examples:
“To take one hilarious example, on planet Earth, which is mostly water, we are in a panic over running out of water.”
This is amusing, but skirts the actual discussion. The Earth’s water is 99.9% salt water. Desalination is a very energy-intensive process. One of the main selling points of nuclear energy was that it would make wide-scale water desalination possible. An estimated one in eight people on the planet don’t have access to clean drinking water.
The difficulty is that prior partisan political commitments prevent us from looking at this issue with objectivity. Either we’re draining our aquifers, or we aren’t. The scientific process should be brought to bear in such a quantifiable issue. Conservative commitments prevent some from acknowledging that our irresponsibility might do harm to the created world (e.g., Pastor Wilson derides evangelical Christians who claim this is a “stewardship” issue), and see liberals as hopelessly confounded by their eco-guilt. Liberal commitments prevent some from acknowledging that the problem is solvable, or that man can affect creation for the better. Both get in the way of evaluating the issue Biblically and logically.
Where does Scripture tell us to beware of industralized food chains?
Here’s where the parallel between the Christian schooling movement and the current just economy movement come in handy again. Schaeffer established that the Bible speaks to all areas of life, not just a private religious life. Bahnsen illustrated that the application of the principles of biblical law are still morally binding. Our food system, like everything, can be evaluated in light of Biblical principles. Books like ‘Angels in the Architecture’ attempt to get Christians thinking about changing and creating culture.
And the people who are morally indignant about industrialized food chains are the same ones whose definitions of “natural” change radically as we move from the dining room to the bed room.
Pastor Wilson doesn’t say who he’s reading on the issue, but this statement does a disservice to almost every author I’ve read. Michael Pollan is a notable exception, but even he owes Wendell Berry for his best ideas, and Berry views his food ideas and his anti-progressive sexual ideas as cut from the same cloth (see his Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community). I also recommend reading Joel Salatin – a natural food pioneer, early homeschooler, and committed Christian. There is no disconnect between the dining room and the bedroom for either man.
Christians have been pioneers in this movement. But even if they weren’t, what difference would it make? Pastor Wilson is the person who introduced me to the concept of a co-belligerent (someone who fights alongside you in a cause but is not an ally because of fundamental differences of alleigance). But in this particular issue he does not see the co-belligerence, and accuses Christians I worship with on Sunday of being co-opted by a pagan movement created and sustained by unresolved sexual guilt.
Fortunately, the Christians I know working on this important cultural project are happy, grateful people. They are committed to creating a better way, and convinced that their results will speak for themselves. They are motivated by a divine discontent, yes (again, like the Christian schooling folks), but are fierce in their first loyalty to Christ’s Gospel and the promised renewal of all things.
This is a clever idea, and could serve as a stepping-stone to public acceptance of a local currency project. Here are two articles about the same idea:
Immortalized in gif form – he puts the animated in animated gif. His secret is that he’s reading a book by an eo theologian in the NSA library – devious!
O dread species!
overachiever, overpopulator,
you bore me to death.
At night while the stars hone their points
you multiply and inflate into obscene gestures.
You are the season’s homeless.
We pass you among us like orphaned children
until our sense of charity dissolves
under the sheer weight of your numbers.
Then do we stack you like firewood
and pray for lightening to strike.
Gabe – I’m right there with you. A new book called “Shop Class as Soulcraft” has raised some interesting points along these lines. A favorite blog (Front Porch Republic) just did a week-long symposium on it.  This summary of the book touches on a surprising amount of your questions – the value of the craftsman, how we got here, and where do we go from here. I’d be very curious to know what you think of it.
But in the meantime, perhaps this will cheer you up. It’s my new favorite (click to expand):
This helps frame the earlier post a lot better. 100% with this comment from Pastor Wilson from this post:
David, Christopher is right — I never “blanketly condemned” home births. I am against ideological home births, just as I am against ideological hospital births. We need to be careful not to demonize the method choices of others (as one commenter put it), but I can be critical of an ideological commitment that skews everything. That goes beyond method. For example, if some home birthers demonize the hospital, it can lead to odd commitments. “We are going to have our baby at home, but if anything goes seriously wrong, we have the Great Satan for backup.”
And remember also that my point in this thread has been one that many home birth practitioners have agreed with — don’t have the government pay for it.
So, you can make all the jokes you want about Canada being the Great White North or whatever. Truth is, it’s beautiful up here and you’re just jealous. But I did want to give you a couple examples of stuff that is frozen around here. Just to make you feel better.
Chris and I were talking about localism, and some of the opposition we’ve encountered locally to some new avenues of inquiry (a lil’ agrarianism, a dash o’ distributism, a big chunk of ‘true religion’, higher liturgy, etc. – trust me, they’re all related).
Anywho, he was talking to someone else who’s coming from a different direction (probably not a Co-op shopper, for instance) and the charge was raised that localism is marked by ungratefulness. “We hate corporations, banks are robbing us, WinCo is evil”
Chris made the argument that he’s doing all this precisely in order to be grateful, to know how the food gets from the ground to his mouth. We must always be doing this out of gratefulness and love, emphasizing the positive side of the case. Having a negative case makes it reactionary, a passing fad, and makes it easy to swing all the way to the other side. “We want to explore the benefits of this thing right here, we think it might be good, and growing our own food is healthy and good for our souls and we can maybe share it if we get good at it,” as Chris put it.
All good points, but I think the original objection radically misses the point. I think I might even own that objection. Every new movement is based on discontent, and populated my malcontents. We started our own Classical Christian schools because we were dissatisfied by the available options. All the standard cautions against being reactionary apply, but this community shouldn’t have any problems with movements.
In the end, this is tempest in a teakettle… we’re pursuing this stuff out of gratitude and divine discontent at the same time, and we’re attempting to be productive in all. I’m not an ivory tower kinda guy, so I test every new idea by attempting to do it and see if it works.
No offense intended to anyone, but I’m very grateful for WinCo, but there’s something off about it at the same time. I’m grateful for capitalism, but usury is evil. “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?†y’know?
