The Drama of a Rural Community’s Life Cycle: Its Prehistory, Birth, Growth, Maturity, Decline, and Rebirth
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Rural communities depend on the health of the agrarian cultures that compose them. These cultures grow out of the symbiotic relationship between a particular landscape and the human community that lives on and uses the land. Agrarian cultures had their origin in the development of agriculture and gave birth to the civilizations and empires of history. Based on the exercise of hierarchical power characteristic of their nature, empires and civilizations are always a threat to the welfare of their agrarian cultures, that by nature tend to be local, relational, reciprocal, and ecological. This is the story of the three Anabaptist agrarian cultures--Swiss German, Low German, and Hutterian--of the Freeman, South Dakota, rural community, and their sojourn within the empires of civilization through the centuries. More specifically, this is the story of their birth, growth, maturation, and death (or rebirth?) in the particular landscape of the Great Plains to which they came from Russia in the 1870s. Here we see the agrarian cultures’ struggle to adapt to the new environment of the Great Plains and to maintain their unique identity while living within American society. This is the drama of a rural community’s life cycle!
This is a Logos Reader Edition. Learn more.
“With pastoral learnings and prophetic vision, Kaufman crafts an
excellent case for restoration in rural communities. Through
careful examination of a place he knows well, he unveils
intertwining insights from land history, Indigenous people,
immigrant/settler challenges, agricultural systems, cultural
dynamics, ecological issues, theological underpinnings, and
concepts of renewal. Kaufman’s approach, analysis, and hope-filled
vision create an integrative model that will benefit people who
take seriously the regeneration of communities in many
settings.”
—Luke Gascho, Executive Director Emeritus of Merry Lea
Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College
“Roy Kaufman’s vision for the renewal of agrarian communities is
grounded in a close study of his Anabaptist ancestors on the
American Great Plains. Rejecting populist nostalgia, Kaufman calls
for a reckoning with the imperial dynamics that have both enabled
and degraded rural Anabaptist life. This insightful work of
contextual theology raises issues for congregational mission that
should be given serious attention by church leaders and
theologians.”
—Jamie Pitts, Associate Professor of Anabaptist Studies, Anabaptist
Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and Director of Institute of Mennonite
Studies
“Pastor Kaufman maps his place and people compassionately and
critically, exploring what in our work we call ‘landlines,
bloodlines, and songlines.’ Kaufman’s fulsome portrait of a
particular historic legacy of ‘Anabaptist agrarianism’ offers
lessons for contemporary resistance to ‘imperial
monoculture.’”
—Elaine Enns and Ched Myers, authors of Healing Haunted
Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization
- Title: The Drama of a Rural Community’s Life Cycle: Its Prehistory, Birth, Growth, Maturity, Decline, and Rebirth
- Author: S. Roy Kaufman
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Print Publication Date: 2020
- Logos Release Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
- ISBNs: 9781725269910, 9781725269897, 9781725269903, 1725269910, 1725269899, 1725269902
- Resource ID: LLS:9781725269910
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-10-16T06:44:37Z
S. Roy Kaufman grew up on a farm in the rural Freeman, South
Dakota community, where he now lives. As a student in the 1960s, he
farmed with his father and worked on his brother’s dairy farm. He
is a graduate of Freeman Jr. College and Academy, Goshen College,
and Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. He served five rural
congregations as pastor, including his home congregation at
Freeman. In 2013, he published Healing God’s
Earth.