Welcome to The Suburban Agrarian, a blog by Chad Butler.

This is not my first blog by any means.  I have been involved in blogging for a number of years, going back to early 2003.  My primary blog (http://butlerblog.com) focuses primarily on WordPress, its development, and the plugins I have developed for it.  That is also the site of my technically focused articles (or will be, if I ever finish all my content migration).  At this time, there is other content there not related to these topics, but I am trying to move that to a more relevant location.

The focus of suburbanagrarian.com is to be a running commentary of my journey to a more agrarian lifestyle.  I believe in agrarian living and would love to move to a self-sustaining existence in the country.  But that is not happening at this point.  Instead, we continue to live in the suburbs.

But that does not mean we cannot incorporate agrarian principles into our everyday life.  I believe that by incorporating agrarianism into our here and now, we can live better, healthier lives with less impact on the environment.

Let me say, however, that I am not a believer in the environmentalist movement.  This movement is human-focused and human-centric.  It is a perfect example of man deciding that he is no longer satisfied to be in the image of God, he wants to BE God.

I believe that God has given man dominion over His creation.  Man is to charged with the care of creation.  To that end, we should be good stewards of the land.  But we should not forget our purpose, nor our Creator.

Certainly, many of the tenets of Christian Agrarianism and Environmentalism cross over.  For example, we both believe that Industrial Agriculture’s confinement model to be morally reprehensible.  The dignity of all life should be preserved and protected.  Animals deserve to live comfortable lives while they are being raised.  They should not be confined to structures they cannot turn around in, nor pumped full of antibiotics to keep them alive.  They should not be treated simply as production units, but rather respected as living creatures.

But here is where we diverge with the Environmentalist.  The man-as-God view says that the animals are equal to (or in some cases above) man himself.  We should treat these animals as equal to ourselves.  The Christian Agrarian, however, would not go so far.  Rather, he views himself as a steward of God’s creation, of which the animals are one.  By virtue of the fact that man was created in God’s image, man is set above the animals.

So this blog will focus on bringing the principles of Christian Agrarianism into our everyday lives – even if those lives are lived in an urban or suburban setting.