The latest issue of Christianity Today has an article about a suburban family that moved out to rural Illinois to become farmers. Can't find it online, sorry; you'll have to find a hard copy if you're really interested. (You can read about the family on this website, though.) It struck me that the article made much of a religiously motivated organic farming movement, but social justice concerns were not discussed. The movement was tied to a sort of traditionalist, homeschooling attitude and "doing things God's way." It wasn't tied at all to concerns about globalization and the conditions of the people who raise our food on the other side of the world.
This really isn't that surprising, I guess. The organics movement gets a lot more traction out of the idea that food raised this way is better for you, rather than being better for anybody else. One wouldn't necessarily expect the discourse to change when the organic farmers are self-avowedly Christian.
Understand that I'm not looking down on CT or these farmers for not talking about globalization. If they asked me to establish that there really was something for them to be concerned about, I don't know how convincing I would be.
On the other hand, Books and Culture had an almost throw-away statement at the end of one of their reviews that advocated eating locally. This review I was able to find online, thus redeeming my status as a blogger. An interesting read.
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