Seeds of the Kingdom: Utopian Communities in the AmericasIn these skeptical and disillusioned times, there are still groups of people scattered throughout the world who are trying to live out utopian dreams. These communities challenge the inevitability and morality of dominant political and economic models. By putting utopian religious ethics into practice, they attest to the real possibility of social alternatives. In Seeds of the Kingdom, Anna L. Peterson reflects on the experiences of two very different communities, one inhabited by impoverished former refugees in the mountains of El Salvador and the other by Amish farmers in the Midwestern U.S. What makes these groups stand out among advocates of environmental protection, political justice, and sustainable development is their religious orientation. They aim, without apology, to embody the reign of God on earth. The Salvadoran community is grounded in Roman Catholic social thought, while the Amish adhere to Anabaptist tradition. Peterson offers a detailed portrait of these communities' history, social organization, religious life, environmental values, and agricultural practices. She discovers both practical and ideological commonalities in these two comparatively successful and sustainable communities, including a strong collective identity, deep attachment to local landscapes, a desire to preserve non-human as well as human lives, and, perhaps unexpectedly, a utopian horizon that provides both goals and the hope of reaching them. By examining the process by which people struggle to live according to a transcendent value system, she sheds light on both the actual and the potential place of religion in public life. Peterson argues that the Amish and Salvadoran communities, geographically and culturally removed from the industrialized West, have relevance for the political and environmental problems of the developed world. These communities have succeeded in the face of significant internal and external challenges, offering important practical and theoretical lessons on how to achieve ecological sustainability and social justice in the wider world. |
Contents
Residence on Earth | 3 |
Anabaptist Agriculture and Community | 17 |
Progressive Catholic Agrarians in Latin America | 45 |
3 Nature | 77 |
4 Community | 101 |
5 Utopia | 125 |
Notes | 147 |
165 | |
179 | |
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Common terms and phrases
achieve activists alternative Amish agriculture Amish communities Amish farms Anabaptists animal areas believers bioregionalist bishops camps Catholics and Anabaptists Chalatenango Christian community church districts Colomoncagua community-supported agriculture create crops culture David Kline democratic Despite ecological economic efforts El Salvador embody environmental especially ethics farmers fertilizers FMLN global goals God’s groups Guarjila guerrilla Holmes County human individual institutions interview by author Jesus John Howard Yoder kingdom labor larger Latin America leaders live Luther mainstream Mennonites MorazaŽn movement munities natural North America Old Order Old Order Amish Order groups organizations participation pastoral peasant people’s political possible PPLs practices Press problems production progressive Catholics projects Promised Land refugees region reign religious repopulations residents rural Salvadoran San Salvador Sandinistas Schleitheim Confession share society soil survive sustainable agriculture theology tion tradition transform United utopian values villages vision Yoder zones
References to this book
Democratic Communications: Formations, Projects, Possibilities James Frederick Hamilton Limited preview - 2008 |