By the Sweat of your Brow

Agricultural Living, Physical Labor, and Self-Sufficiency

(PART I).

I. The Biblical-Theological Basis for The Agrarian Way.

In this, we are showing forth how, not merely in doctrines and ethics, but in actual work and life, we are taking a stand against the ways of the decadent modern world.

Man was made to work and to be stewards of the Earth (Genesis 2:15), both in terms of it being a garden of produce (1:29), but also of all the animals which God created (1:30).

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.” (Genesis 1:27-30)

“And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:” (Genesis 2:15-16)

Some might be tempted to think that this particular circumstance in the Garden was isolated for that time, but we know that this is not the case scripturally. The dominion mandate is reiterated after the great worldwide flood:

“And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.” (Genesis 8:15-17)

“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.” (Genesis 9:1-3)

In both cases, ante-diluvial and post-diluvial, the command of God to His people is to take dominion and such is framed and phrased in specifically agricultural terms. Most modern theologians, even conservative ones, wish to make this requirement symbolic as to accommodate the Christian life to a futuristic world of technologically-driven non-physical work and urban living disconnected from the land, or even of lifelong military service, or work in the entertainment industry. For such men, the dominion over plants and animals, the working in the garden, the taking of dominion, can all be allegorized to depict life in a cubicle, making bombs for Raytheon, and acting in Hollywood depicting villains, harlots, or criminals which is all okay because “it's just pretend.” Such men also make “being fruitful and multiplying” to somehow mean “preaching the gospel through facebook posts” and “filling the earth” to mean “coming together to create giant metropolises.”

However, notice the ante-diluvian vs post-diluvian similaries of the apostate lines; both of who were cursed by God (the line of Cain prior to the Flood and the line of Ham after the flood):

The Ante-Diluvian Apostate Line of Cain:

And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. (Genesis 4:16-17)

This is not the same Enoch as the holy man of God mentioned later; however, the main point here is that Cain was driven from the presence of God, and he is the inventor of cities.

"And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah. And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold." (Genesis 4:19-23)

Note here that as we continue along that evil line of Cain that we have several inventions that originate in apostasy: (1) polygamy or the taking of multiple wives. (2) Nomadic living (not merely the raising of animals, for righteous Abel raised sheep) or a lifestyle of not being settled in one place and being content with what that land can produce, but in having so much of one animal that one must travel with them all over different lands. (3) the development of entertainment (not merely the use of instruments, but in making a career of being paid to merely entertain others). (4) the development of various technologies and conveniences in an attempt to make work easier and more efficient in an attempt to alleviate the curse handed down from God. Lastly, (5) the return of violence and murder to mankind after the direct pattern of Cain himself. It cannot be stressed enough that this narrative of Cain’s line is not matter-of-fact, but has moral overtones in regards to what this line was up to and there is something about all of these inventions which flies in the face of God’s intended design for mankind.

The Post-Diluvian Apostate Line of Ham:

"And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim (Egypt), and Phut, and Canaan. And the sons of Cush; Seba, and

Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.

And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh,and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city. And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim. And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn, and Heth, And the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, And the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha. These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations." (Genesis 10:6-20)

The line of Ham created great cities, which are mentioned multiple times and these cities were known, all through the old testament, for their wickedness; including Ninevah, Sodom and Gommorah (which God destroyed), Sidon (from where Jezebel originated), Babel which was founded by a man of war named Nimrod (which God eliminated), and of course, all of the other enemies of God’s people such as the many tribes of Caananites which God ordered His people to destroy because of their wicked behavior and child sacrifice, as well as the Phillistines and even the Egyptians who had enslaved God’s people in order to build their great cities and technologies.

"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." (Genesis 11:1-9)

Several important points can be made about this text: (1) we already know that the city was founded by Nimrod who was a man of violence. (2) The people of God were told to spread throughout the earth to fill it and subdue it and we see in this text that they build the city of Babel and its power for the explicit purpose of NOT DOING that very thing! (3) We see that desire to create a great work of technology that they might be like GOD ascending into heaven (sounds an awful like the argument the Snake used with Eve in the temptation), and (4) God punished them by forcing them again to be “scattered out” in accord with the original dominion mandate through the means of confusing their languages.

So what are to make of all this? What else could we possibly make of this? We see that those bloodlines which were cursed, apostate, and separated from God, did everything they could to go against God’s original design. Thus, whether it be in having more wives instead of having just one as man was created to have, killing other men which God obviously did not create man for, developing an idle entertainment industry instead of working with ones’ hands, becoming nomads instead of taking dominion of a part of God’s earth in order to subdue it, developing all sorts of technologies to thwart God’s curse instead of embracing it, or coming together to create cities instead of spreading out to fill the earth, in all these acts these lines, before and after the flood, show forth their rebellion against the natural design of God.

“For when man is faced with a curse he answers, "I'll take care of my problems." And he puts everything to work to become powerful, to keep the curse from having its effects. He creates the arts and the sciences, he raises an army, he constructs chariots, he builds cities. The spirit of might is a response to the divine curse.” (Jacques Ellul)[1]

Is not our own world doing the same? Through the internet, the proliferation of English as a lingua franca, and the development of a one world government through the merger of transnational corporations and governments, do we not see the pattern of the wicked? Do they not wish for all men to live in great cities in pods where they can get their rations and directly deposited stipend? Do they not desire to conquer planets, extend lifespans, and promote instant gratification, next day shipping, and all sorts of mighty works of constructions and invention? Do they not promote streaming services, a teen culture obsessed with musicians and play-actors? Do they not see to promote homosexuality, polyamory, and every kind of sexual depravity contrary to the manner in which man and woman was made in union in the Garden?

We must ask, what then was the Godly line doing different before and after the flood?

The Contrast of the Godly Line of Seth:

“And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.” (Genesis 4:25-26)

Now, in examining the following line of Seth, we are going to break it up instead of examining the whole lineage of names, but instead note those verses in which extra commentary is given by God, which tells us a great deal as to the Mind of God as to what man’s station was to be. All of the following verse are from the line of Seth specifically and NOT the line of Cain. Hence, as we see in the text above, from the line of men which “called upon the name of the Lord.” (Genesis 4:26)

“ And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters……And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters…… And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch….And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he wasnot; for God took him……. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: And he called his name Noah, saying, This sameshall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed….. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. ”(Genesis 5:3-4, 5:6-7, 5:18, 5:21-24, 5:27-29, 6:7-8)

What do we see here? (1) Seth is said to be the seed, but why is not Cain considered a seed? His line was still around at the time of Seth’s birth? Because the seed of the woman that would crush the head of the Serpent (the Holy line of Christ, the people of God or Church) was one in which would always have a remnant preserved by God’s election (Genesis 3:15, Romans 9:11), for the gates of hell cannot ever prevail against (Matthew 16:18), and since Abel was dead and Cain was accursed, Seth by matter of deduction was the true promised seed that would eventually destroy the Serpent that had plunged man into sin. (2) Not only this, but Adam even says, in a way he does not say of any of his other offspring, that Seth was “was in His image and likeness,” for as in Adam all men die, through one man will man be saved in Christ, who came from the line of Seth (1 Corinthians 15:21-22). (3) We see that it was in the time of Seth’s son that these men began to call upon the Name of the Lord (worship Almighty God). (4) We see that of this line of Seth is Enoch who was so righteous in walking after the ways of God that God took him up into heaven bodily, an honor that was only ever given to Elijah the Prophet (on a separate note, this means that 50% of the men who were holy enough to go directly to heaven, were married men with children). (5) When Noah was born of Lamech, we see him declare an interesting point; that they (the righteous line of Seth) had toiled with their own hands and worked the land which had been cursed, which is EXACTLY the OPPOSITE of what the line of Cain had done in its inventing of cities, nomads, minstrels, polygamists, technocrats, and men of violence. (6) Though all the line of Cain had become wicked and even many in the line of Seth seemed to have also fallen away from the faith, Noah alone found favor and Grace in the sight of God.

Now, as the story goes, after the days of Noah, men start becoming wicked again and doing those things which had been done before the flood and even the offspring of Noah seemed to have fallen into the worship of other gods, but God called Abraham out of this land of Ur and so then we have the beginning of God’s people which would come to be called Israel.

Conclusion: The People of God were called, from the beginning, to live in harmony with the earth by tending it and subduing by working with their own hands in spite of the curse that was placed upon it, and they were created to, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Likewise, the women were called to obey and assist their husbands in their work of dominion and to bear forth children, in spite of the curse they received to desire to usurp their husbands and in having pain in childbirth. Thus, to say that our new life in Christ is indifferent as to whether we are to emulate the ways of work and recreation exhibited in the apostate lines of ancient times, as if such were spiritually indifferent, strains all reason and moral sense beyond the breaking point. Instead, we should emulate that line which first “called upon the Name of the Lord”and “toiled with their own hands in the earth which God has cursed.”

This is the theology of our vision for the life of a Christian community.

II. The Practical Theology of The Agrarian Way.

In Scripture, we see constantly the emphasis on Agriculture and agricultural terms throughout texts used to describe not only the processes of life, but of theology as well [2]. What use is the phrase wheat and tares in a society that knows nothing of either?

“Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.” (Matthew 13:24-30)

In the modern developed world, particularly the American dominated west; the cosmopolitan multiculturalism of urban decadence has drained the poorer and more conservative areas of life as the temptations of plentiful work, convenience, and every sort of pleasure made readily available has led people to the cities which, since the beginning of time, have been known for their immorality, irreligion, governmental tyranny and general incompatibility with the having of large families.

As the family farm disintegrated with the increase of cities and technology, we see also an increasing disintegration of the family and with the family, the church. Margaret Sanger, the pioneer of modern contraception and champion of Abortion who founded Planned Parenthood, convinced Protestants to allow birth control in the early 20th century when they had, with the ancient churches, always opposed such, and she argued quite poignantly that in order to destroy Christianity, the father had to be destroyed, and the father could not be destroyed until the family was destroyed through low birth rates which would make female subordination far less central, for a wife could possibly get a job or hold political office with two kids at private school, but nearly no family with 7, 8, or 12 kids could ever have the woman be outside of the home in pursuit of such a vocation [3]:

For this is the model that God has revealed and the pattern of all healthy societies, both Christian and pagan, since time immemorial. With every civilization that has collapsed, we have seen a depopulation of rural areas, the increase of urban areas, the increase of welfare and disconnection with the land, the decrease of birth-rates, and the rise of decadent sexual behavior and irreligion [4].

“With the coming of war, country people began to move to the cities and the machines moved from the cities into the fields. The good farm economy weakened and withered. The wayward passing of farmland across the generation began. Also disappearing, were the tasks that only true communities could provide; the care of old, the care and education of the children, family life, neighborly work, the handing down of memory, the care of the earth, respect for nature and wild creatures. The government took over the care of the old and the education of the children. The other tasks were mostly forgotten. Within a few decades, the farmland itself was in decline…fields and whole farms abandoned, given up with their scars unmended; washing away under the weeds and bushes; fine land put to row crops year after year, without rest or rotation; buildings and fences going down; good houses standing empty, unpainted, their windows broken.” (Wendell Barry) [5]

But what is the life of the Christian to be? We will talk more about the role of women, but as we discuss especially that of Christians in general and of men as head of their own homes, what shall we conclude?

St. Paul states quite clearly the vision of the Christian life:

“For that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. ” (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12)

In the Old Testament we see that we are to eat the fruit of our own labor;

“Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD. The LORD bless you from Zion! May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life! May you see your children's children! Peace be upon Israel! ” (Psalms 128:1-6)

This being said, we are not going to shame Christians for having to use food stamps or free health insurance for their families if they were diligent in working a living, especially in the convoluted economies of the western nations, but even they would have to admit, that if they could, they would prefer to make their own way completely to give their enemies no grounds of accusation; “you can only have all those kids and that wife at home because you get assistance!”The forked tongue of the devil lashes day and night as the state breaks a man’s leg with taxes and regulations and then hands him a crutch called welfare and glibly says; “see if you didn’t have the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk!”

Be not discouraged!

You can live the biblical vision for the Christian life, not being a burden to anyone by working with your hands (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12), eating the fruit of your labor (Psalms128:1-6), having all things in common (Acts 2:44), and providing for your own household (1 Timothy 5:8) and you don’t have to flee to the mountains and go off grid to do it!

Indeed, homesteading and going off-grid have become popular alternatives to the modern world for Christians. When I attended the Homesteaders Conference in Virginia, with the exception of a few old and well-meaning hippies, the vast majority of homesteaders were Christians who were in the process of raising up large families. They well know what all serious family-centered Christians know, that the modern lifestyle is poison and that they have to get away from it in order to raise their families right.

Indeed, anytime you speak with Christian men, you end up trading stories about how many times nosey and worldly people have called you in to Child Protective Services, because Christians are hated for the ways they raise their children. Christians spank their children as the Bible commands, they make their children work hard, they make their children practice true religion, and they let their kids play and make mistakes, often unsupervised, and outside. The world, that is barren and infertile and yet claims to love children through coddling and spoiling, in reality hates children as the Bible clearly teaches:

“Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”(Proverbs 13:24)

Christians are right to get away from such people, but in their isolation they soon discovered the lonely misery of being disconnected from other believers. Rural churches are destitute of life and have wasted generations compromising with the culture and old families in their midst to the detriment of true devotion, they have no care for healthy and clean food, and the fact that they have a Trump placard in their yard says little of their actual faith and sense of righteousness.

So, is there no value in this? Is there no value in separating from the world and homesteading to produce one’s own food, energy, etc?

Of course not, indeed, our family has homesteaded off grid for years now as many other Christians are also doing or aspiring to do, but we were never meant to sacrifice fellowship and community for self-sufficiency and natural living, the two were always meant to go together.

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another for the stirring up of love and of good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves, just as is the custom for some, but exhorting one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:23-25)

Like the monasteries of old, and the practice of many Anabaptist communities such as the Hutterites and Amish, the life of self-sufficiency and community practiced together is the optimum environment in which to raise a Christian family. How much easier is it to home school kids and have them work a farm, when all such work is shared with ten other families? How much easier is it to make a field ready for planting when it is done by a dozen men with their sons instead of just one man and his few older children? How much easier is it to find Christian spouses when you can work with equally faithful neighbors to arrange a courtship, or organize with other Christian families to have a barn dance? Would this not be better than to try to find some other Christian families or spouses online over a span of hundreds or even thousands of miles? Why do we have to settle or compromise just to live the Christian life?

Let's change this status quo.

As Christians we need to fulfill our curses boldly, women were cursed with pain in childbearing and men were cursed in difficultly in work, especially agricultural work, and Scripture blesses and commends our return to the work for which we were created in Genesis in spite of the curses we received in the fall. We do not run from the curse but face it boldly in pursuing the design God had always intended for us, to be fruitful and multiply and take dominion of the earth.

BY THE SWEAT OF OUR BROW (PART II)

“So, are you saying we should go Amish?”

No, we are not legalists about technology.

Anecdotally, as someone who grew up in Amish country, I’ve seen firsthand the convoluted rules and inconsistencies that have arisen from such rules as not using rubber or electricity (from taking the tires off the rim on wheel-barrows to pull-starting special gas powered circular saws). We have even seen a wealthy Amish man, who though forbidden to drive a car himself, purchased an exotic super car and hired an “Englishman” to drive him in it after the cover of night.

This is NOT our view of technology; however, to say that there is no threat caused by the intersection of human sin and the use of technology is outrageous and to say that such is but a morally neutral tool is insufficient. The internet is not a neutral tool; it eliminates the ability to truly preserve, in physical form, important information, it is used to control and censor individuals and in reality, it always lended itself to that sort of control. Smartphones are destroying a generation (even physically) and the damage that such does; whether censored or uncensored (hard to say which is really worse for young Christians), far outweighs the “twitter evangelism” that Christians have been attempting to engage in. The automobile has destroyed communities (the effect of the interstate of my small town was devastating) and refrigeration and the microwave have caused generations of men and women to entirely lose the ability, not only to preserve their food in times of danger, but to even cook a nutritious meal at all.

As was mentioned earlier, much of technological innovation depicted in the Bible is depicted as evil as such often originates in sinful motives. Everyone agrees that much of the technologies we have adopted have increased efficiency, but at what cost? The cost is resilience, the cost is independence. Are we to be dependent on the rich and powerful and on unbelievers? Or are we to be dependent on other Christians and the Providence of Almighty God? When the bible says to be good keepers of the home, do you really think St. Paul would think pressing “start” on the dishwasher and turning on your automated robo-vacuum would be “consistent” with what he had in mind? Do you think when St. Paul told men to “work with their own hands” he would regard uploading files to a gmail account and hitting “send” or making phone calls from a chair in which one’s ever widening ass is planted would be what he envisioned for the Christian life? You think he would look at our lifestyle in the west and say, “well that is a good application of what I meant in these modern times.” Really?

At what point would we stretch the Scriptural context beyond its plausible application? If a man can put on a headset while lying in bed all day to do his “work” in the metaverse, are we going to say that if he had a five-minute glitch in his day that this is what was comprehended by Scripture’s statement that “the earth is cursed and will grow thorns and thistles for you?” (Genesis 3:18). If a woman can have her baby develop in an artificial womb or c-sectioned in eight minutes by a robot and that if it happened to take an extra two minutes, that such is what would be comprehended in “pain in childbearing?” (Genesis 3:16) At what point do Christians say, “we have a problem here.” At what point is the A.I. and the algorithms simply part of a scheme that the faithful must admit and come to terms with as being “used by the works of the devil to destroy traditional Christian culture?”

How long will you go and how many body modifications and injections will you accept before you see that God’s design is being spat upon? Make no mistake, the globalists believe, and have stated, that technology has but one ultimate aim; to merge man with artificial intelligence so that they may “become gods,” as the public intellectual and author Yuval Harari himself states:

“Like every major invention, it (artificial intelligence) has both a good and bad potential. But the scale is completely different. I titled the book Homo Deus because we really are becoming gods in the most literal sense possible. We are acquiring abilities that have always been thought to be divine abilities ― in particular, the ability to create life. And we can do with that whatever we want.You talked earlier about how humans create networks of cooperation around abstractions. I don’t like the word “abstractions” very much because most people don’t think in abstractions. That is too difficult for them. They think in stories. And the best stories are not abstract; they are concrete. If you think about the great religions that have united large parts of humankind, people believe gods are very concrete ― there is an angry old man in the sky, and if I do something wrong, he will punish me. In the book, I use the term “fiction,” not abstraction, because what really unites humans are fictional stories. That is also the case with the new revolution that is now unfolding. It is not going to be an abstract revolution but a very concrete one. The basic idea of dataism is a shift in authority. Previously, authority resided above the clouds and descended down to the pope, the king or the czar. Then for the last two or three centuries, authority came down from the clouds and took up residence in people’s hearts. Your feelings became the highest source of authority. The emotions of the voters in a democracy, not his or her rationality, became the number one authority in politics. In the economics of the consumer society, it is the feelings of the customer that drive every market. The feelings of the individual are the prime authority in ethics. “If it feels good, do it” is the basic ethical ideal of humanism. So authority came down from the clouds, moved to the human heart and now authority is shifting back to the Google cloud and the Microsoft cloud. Data, and the ability to analyze data, is the new source of authority. If you have a problem in life, whether it is what to study, whom to marry or whom to vote for, you don’t ask God above or your feelings inside, you ask Google or Facebook. If they have enough data on you, and enough computing power, they know what you feel already and why you feel that way. Based on that, they can allegedly make much better decisions on your behalf than you can on your own”. (Yuval Harari) [6]

“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. ” (Genesis 3:4-5).

“And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. ” (Genesis 11:3-4).

We are not condemning Christians for using a microwave, automobile, cell-phone, or refrigerator. That is not our point, but our point is that those technologies which make men entirely dependent on other men who are most often wealthy and anti-Christian in their disposition puts Christians in unnecessary danger and risk. If a Christian opposes LGBTQ+ rights online and as consequence, they had their electricity shut off and their driver’s license suspended, would they be able to survive? Would they be more tempted to recant? To capitulate to plain evil?

We all know the answer to this.

No, we do not need to become Amish, nor are we luddites per se, but we are aware that if a Christian community is to be self-sufficient it must operate with limited external outputs; hence, the less dependent on gasoline, the less dependent on external utility hook-ups, the less dependent on having to buy feed, groceries, and fertilizer, the better situated the community will be in resisting the rise of atheistic totalitarianism. They can shut off the gas, they can tear down the power-lines, they can close the stores, but we will continue on un-phased. That is our goal.

Now, this does not mean we will never watch a movie on a projector screen, or upload information about our community onto the internet through a laptop, run a gas-generator, or buy bulk rice; however, it does mean, that we seek to be dependent on none other than other Christians within our community in general and as an ultimate goal-in-progress and we wish to break connection with the temptations of the internet other than official business.

As we experienced ourselves on our own homestead, these things can be done, and if they are done with other families, you won’t miss the coddled ways our culture has lulled us into accepting. Your children will not miss the smartphones and videogames if they have dozens of other Christian children to run and play with, and you won’t miss your binge-watching sessions with your spouse when you can enjoy dances, games, and studies with other Christian couples. You won’t miss easy mac and hamburger helper when you are eating homegrown scratch cooking every day. You won’t need your monthly checkup and prescriptions anymore when you are eating healthy, working outside regularly, using homegrown remedies with millennia-old-pedigrees, and living a life of faithful obedience to the Word of God free of the stress of having to deal with unbelieving coworkers and relatives on a daily basis. You will be free, not to indulge your own desires to buy crap you don’t need and gratify worldly pleasures, but free to truly love and benefit other Christians.

“For you, brothers were called to freedom; only do not use freedom for an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Galatians 5:13-14)

I assure you, that you won’t miss the rat race if you’ve been stuck in it, nor will you miss the isolation you’ve experienced if you’ve tried to cut yourself from that rat race only to be alone in the woods somewhere. What we are seeking is what we all need. The independent, healthy, and self-sufficient benefits of being off-grid with the security, fellowship, and comfort which comes with having a Christian community. The time to compromise our values is over, let us live them together to the fullest in the hope of His coming!

“In the midst of pandemic, economic crisis, violence, and the apparent breakdown of law and order, I turn again to some of the most basic questions: Why are we here? What is our purpose? How does God want us to live our lives? The Christian answer comes from Genesis 1 and 2, with elaborations from the Gospels and Epistles. And it points to “one flesh” marital unions and the begetting of children as pleasing to the Creator and the source of fulfillment and happiness for his creatures. Long human experience also shows how the family farm serves as an ideal “habitat” for the children co-created with God.” (Allan C. Carlson)

-Joshua Johnson

Footnotes

[1] The Meaning of the City. by Jacques Ellul….I will say that he has his own serious theological flaws, but on these subjects of urbanism and technology from a Christian perspective, he is spot on.

[2]The amount of Scripture-references that reference agriculture terms or make agricultural assumptions about the nature of human society are so extensive that simply listing them would take pages of just citations. Here are but a few of the references: Genesis 37:7, Luke 13:6-9, Ruth 2:3, 3:2, Romans 11:17-19, Isaiah 28:24, Amos 7:1, Proverbs 31:16, Job 1:14, Isaiah 5:2, 6, Isaiah 17:5, Exodus 22:6, Judges 6:11, Nehemiah 13:15, 1 Corinthians 3:6-8.

[3] Margaret Sanger wrote such things when she contributed to the anarcho-communist publication called “No Gods No Masters” at the beginning of the 20th century.

[4] Oswald Spengler, the philosopher of history, demonstrated in his work “The Decline of the West” that nearly all civilizations that have ever existed have followed similar patterns in this regards; whether it be the Hellenized world, Rome, the ancient Islamic world, China, India, etc. Indeed, nearly all philosophers of history who studied the rise and fall of civilizations have noted the same phenomena. Cultures start out vibrant, religious, patriarchal, fruitful, and self-sufficient and become large, bloated, stagnant, irreligious, decadent, egalitarian, and dependent on foreign investments, wars, and immigrants.

[5] Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community by Wendell Berry.

[6] This is from his interview with the Huffington Post.