For an excellent piece on how vast swathes of America can be revitalized go here to read "How Rural America Is Saving Itself." Sioux County, Iowa, about which I blogged below, is an excellent example of what can be done.
It's not often that one rural county in one rural state is featured for three days, even in that state's leading newspaper. But that's what happened to Sioux County, Iowa this week. The Des Moines Register published a series of three articles (here, here, and here) describing the economic powerhouse Sioux County has become and, most interesting to me, connecting that success to the religious tradition to which many of the county's residents adhere. (For an earlier post about the boom--and potential bust--in the price of Sioux County farmland check here.)
That many if not most Sioux Countians follow the Reformed/Calvinist tradition of Protestant Christianity is well known, at least to me. I spent four years of my undergraduate life studying at Dordt College, a bastion of Reformed Christianity if ever there was. Dordt specifically and the Reformed tradition generally (whether in its Dutch or Scottish Presbyterian flavors) have been characterized by intense theological effort and precise ethical prescriptions. These are the sorts of folks that generated the insight that became Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. And if you ever want to see an example of theological precisionism, check out Dordt's 10-page "Educational Task of Dordt College."
While I continue to adhere to the system of doctrine of the Reformed tradition, I am not fully persuaded that assenting to its truths equates to lives of material prosperity. In fact, I firmly believe there's no necessary correlation. There's a reason the book of Job in in the Bible, after all. More to the modern-day point of Sioux County, its wealth was (and indeed to a large extent still is) based on the extraordinary fertility of the region's soil. Corn and soybeans in every-increasing abundance. And with the avalanche of those grains, a surfeit of cattle and hogs to sate the American appetite for good meat and lots of it. Then, from the prosperity of the land, the rapid growth of ancillary industry, particularly shops to fabricate the machines that make modern industrial farming possible.
A couple of thoughts. First, the remarkable soil of Sioux County is a gift. Whether from God, as I believe, or as a result of the unplanned residue of pre-Wisconsinan glaciation, it has nothing to do with the respected Calvinist work ethic. It is also the case that Sioux County's corn-based wealth has much to do with federal subsidies. As much as the farmers of Sioux County may decry government handouts to the poor, they benefited greatly from the absurd ethanol subsidies that finally ended only earlier this year. (You can read about the pernicious effects--home and abroad--of the ethanol subsidy here.)
The great but unearned blessing of Sioux County should provoke gratitude. Such an attitude was hard to glean from the series in The Des Moines Register but that doesn't mean it isn't present. But more than providing a point from which to stand in judgment of others, we (read "I") should live in gratitude for the richness of God's blessings in out lives.
It's not often that one rural county in one rural state is featured for three days, even in that state's leading newspaper. But that's what happened to Sioux County, Iowa this week. The Des Moines Register published a series of three articles (here, here, and here) describing the economic powerhouse Sioux County has become and, most interesting to me, connecting that success to the religious tradition to which many of the county's residents adhere. (For an earlier post about the boom--and potential bust--in the price of Sioux County farmland check here.)
That many if not most Sioux Countians follow the Reformed/Calvinist tradition of Protestant Christianity is well known, at least to me. I spent four years of my undergraduate life studying at Dordt College, a bastion of Reformed Christianity if ever there was. Dordt specifically and the Reformed tradition generally (whether in its Dutch or Scottish Presbyterian flavors) have been characterized by intense theological effort and precise ethical prescriptions. These are the sorts of folks that generated the insight that became Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. And if you ever want to see an example of theological precisionism, check out Dordt's 10-page "Educational Task of Dordt College."
While I continue to adhere to the system of doctrine of the Reformed tradition, I am not fully persuaded that assenting to its truths equates to lives of material prosperity. In fact, I firmly believe there's no necessary correlation. There's a reason the book of Job in in the Bible, after all. More to the modern-day point of Sioux County, its wealth was (and indeed to a large extent still is) based on the extraordinary fertility of the region's soil. Corn and soybeans in every-increasing abundance. And with the avalanche of those grains, a surfeit of cattle and hogs to sate the American appetite for good meat and lots of it. Then, from the prosperity of the land, the rapid growth of ancillary industry, particularly shops to fabricate the machines that make modern industrial farming possible.
A couple of thoughts. First, the remarkable soil of Sioux County is a gift. Whether from God, as I believe, or as a result of the unplanned residue of pre-Wisconsinan glaciation, it has nothing to do with the respected Calvinist work ethic. It is also the case that Sioux County's corn-based wealth has much to do with federal subsidies. As much as the farmers of Sioux County may decry government handouts to the poor, they benefited greatly from the absurd ethanol subsidies that finally ended only earlier this year. (You can read about the pernicious effects--home and abroad--of the ethanol subsidy here.)
The great but unearned blessing of Sioux County should provoke gratitude. Such an attitude was hard to glean from the series in The Des Moines Register but that doesn't mean it isn't present. But more than providing a point from which to stand in judgment of others, we (read "I") should live in gratitude for the richness of God's blessings in out lives.
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