EPS Blog

The 2012 theme of the Evangelical Philosophical and Theological Society meetings is focused on"Care for Creation."

Come gather for the EPS plenary address on Wednesday, the 14th @ 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM (Frontier Airlines Center, Ballrooms ABC).

Noted philosopher Charles Taliaferro's (St. Olaf) will discuss the following topic: "Christian Agrarianism Today; Some lessons from early land stewardship and community-based agriculture in New England":

In recent decades, there has been a revival of Christian agrarianism with such important spokespersons as Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson. Christian philosophers have much to learn from Berry and others as well as from the agrarian movement in the southern United States. And yet some of the southern agrarians were weak on sustainability, excessive in their opposition to corporations, and less vital than their New England counter-parts in their Christian understanding of virtue and neighborliness. In this address, I propose that there is a neglected, but rich vision of Christian agrarianism in early, colonial New England that can provide us with important resources for thinking about agriculture today. My hope is there might be a movement today of "new theism" (as a counter-part to "new atheism") which combines an analytic, philosophically rigorous articulation of theism in concert with a heightened sense of our shared, God-given responsibility for land and neighbors.

Labels: 2012 EPS conference, agrarianism, charles taliaferro, creation, creation care, new theism, sustainability