I recently discovered my church was lobbying to create policy on agriculture, and not in a positive way. An email was sent from a ranking official in my church chastising farms that use modern technology. The email encouraged recipients to express dislike of modern livestock farms to their local media. Upon doing some research, I discovered my church had policies on agriculture that were not beneficial to the future of agriculture, or our nation’s ability to grow our own food supply.

A meeting was set up between me, our local church leader, the official who sent the email, and a few local members of the church. It was astonishing to hear the church’s agriculture policy, and to learn my donations to the church were being used to put my farm out of business. This church’s policy would force agriculture to go back to methods of farming used by farmers over 50 years ago. However, the church neglected to consider that 50 years ago, we had more acres in production agriculture than we do today, and we fed fewer people on those acres. Today, 1 farmer feeds 143 people. I urged my church to do more research and learn more about the issues they were trying to regulate. I expressed the important role modern technology plays in providing enough food for our growing nation, and others. My encouragement fell on deaf ears unfortunately and I was told their policy wouldn’t be changed.

As a result, my family and I have found a new church to worship in, one that leaves politics outside of the church. I go to church for spiritual guidance and fulfillment. I expect my church to be an expert in the teachings of the Bible, not politics, agriculture, energy, banking, etc. In my search for a new church, I learned my old church was not the only church that had policies on agriculture, the Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran and Episcopalian Churches all have national policies on agriculture. I also found out many of these policies are being driven by activist groups, not the local members of the church.