organic and cruelty free: God help me.

I wrote a blog post sometime ago on a book I had to read for my Old Testament class, and I'm not going to lie it changed my life... Well let me rephrase that, it continued the process of change that the love of my life started.  This way my wife gets all of the credit and I score points with her!

You can view that blog post here: christians should be organic and further thoughts on it here: further thoughts on agrarian

The process has been quite a challenging one.  It's just a preference for me that I want simply because it sounds nice... its far more theological for me, I guess you could say its more of a conviction that I think I, as Christian, should eat organic.  It's more than just nicer and cleaner, it's also more "right."  That is, I think Scripture points towards a more ethical, not economic, treatment of the earth and Creation.  (notice the globe... it means my view is holistic and cares for the earth... you know, typical)

Further thoughts on agrarian

So I have had a particularly interesting discussion with my brother, of course, I don't know if you can't have an uninteresting discussion with him...
He made the comment that agrarian is fine and all, but that I shouldn't expect it to feed the world.  I think its a good point, if I am going to propose a way that is a more ethical treatment of the land, it should also be an ethical treatment of the people the land feeds.  In this case, ethical in that it actually does feed everyone and not force people into starvation simply for the sake of ethical land practices.
I agree with that, and if agrarian farming can't feed the world then we have a whole different ethical issue on our hands... which I'd love to, but won't, get into... right now.

I do disagree with him on the facts that he's using and the land ethic such a conclusion comes from.  No one can claim that agrarian farming can't feed the world.  We have no model to judge it by, agrarian farming is completely different from small scale, family farming.  It is an ethical practice that informs farming practices, it is not a farming operation type.  Agrarian farming can cut across all sorts of operation sizes and produce; therefore we have no agrarian model to compare to the current corporate farming model.  The green revolution wasn't changing an agrarian system that couldn't feed populations to a corporate system that could; it was the import of technology that enabled the small farmers to get bigger and produce more.  Any one that argues that agrarian farming can't feed the world is coming from the same place as I am when I say it can, a reasoned hypothesis.  I do not doubt that corporate farming looks like it can feed the world, but I also do not doubt that it looks that way simply because it is the way that we have known for so long that we don't know how any other way would work.
I am not an advocate of getting back to the "good ole days" of farming prior to corporate take over.  That won't work, because the purpose then was the same purpose as now, and that's evident of the dust bowl.  The dust bowl was the result of unagrarian farming practices: using the land to get produce.  I could be able to say that most of human history has farmed in similar ways, but I don't want to because I don't want to justify the statement!  So instead I will go on... Corporate farming is just fine, I have no problem with the ideas of corporations owning and running big farms, I do have a problem with how they run them, and why.  This is where agrarianism, at least as I see it, cuts across all farming operations, a corporate farm can be agrarian, it can farm the land ethically, it can treat the land as God's gift to man and rule over it as God rules.

Perhaps agrarian farming can't feed the world, but I would also say that neither can corporate farming.  Agrarianism might not be able to do it because its practice won't produce enough yield; Corporatism won't be able to do it because it is unsustainable and will eventually farm the land to a point to where it simply can't produce enough yield.  But I think the underlying issue here is the idea of the land's purpose to serve us.  So long as the world views land in that selfish light it will never be able to feed the world; the population will continue to live beyond its means by way of over-population with the idea that they can force the land to keep up, leading to over-production.   This is why I mention the creation story's idea that humanity is created to exercise dominion how God does, and the perfect picture of how God does that is Christ.  There is nothing selfish about God, he does not demand things from us, instead he seeks only to do everything for us.  There is a difference between how God desires fellowship with humanity, and how humanity demands produce from the land so that it can live how it wants to.

Christians should be organic.

     This is a relatively new view for me.  I mean I've always leaned toward the green perspective due to my parents leaning that way, but I've always kind of seen the whole organic thing as a healthy diet type of thing, not really as a way of viewing the world.  And so discredited it.
     Perhaps a better way to say it isn't so much Christians should be organic, but be agrarian.  Scripture, Culture and Agriculture has opened my eyes more to this perspective.  I've been telling everyone that I have been wanting to read a book like this; one that looks at Scripture with an environmental hermeneutic, not simply pulling out verses here and there and then pulling them together for some sort of exhortation.  Finally in this book I have it!  Also, in some of my classes is an individual who majored in organic farming and shed light on the fact that its not about a healthy diet but how to treat the land, unfortunately most people don't look at it this way.
     Like I said, I've always leaned green; I've viewed the creation story in Genesis 1 as saying, among other things, that we should take better care of this planet.  God has given us the task to "subdue the earth" and "rule over" all of the animals, but just before that it tells how God created humans in his own image.  It says quite obviously that we are to subdue and rule in the way that God would.  So the question I ask is, "How does God rule?"  And the place that  am brought to most easily is how God exercises dominion over humans... by serving them, doing everything he can for them to give them all of his glory and riches by going to the cross and suffering in their place.
     The amazing thing about this book is that it goes way beyond that, it gets into Leviticus, among others books, and all the dietary laws and other laws that seem haphazardly put together and looks at them through this agrarian perspective.  Most of what I have read so far I have really enjoyed reading.  I'll admit in some places I feel like she's stretching the analogies and perhaps reading into something that's not there, but the overall view really works well.  I would and I am recommending this book to people to gain a new perspective or develop one they already have.
     The view that we should be living on this earth, by ensuring its well being and not ours.  After all the world is God's and he has entrusted us to take care of it, unfortunately we mostly look at it as full of resources to be had, which s reflected in the way we farm, raise cattle, mine, etc.  Christians should be intent on caring for this world better.  Let's just thank God that he exercise dominion over us far better than we do over creation.