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Giving Little Ones with Special Needs Room to Bloom

By Marlin Miller, Publisher of Plain Values

I began our first post with this question and a statement. “What do the Amish, little ones with special needs, two nonprofits, four adoptions, two one-room schoolhouses from the 1800’s and a monthly print magazine have to do with homesteading in 2023? It is the story of our family, and it is a joy to share how the Lord has pieced it together over the last twenty years.” This is the second installment of that story.

Everything we discuss and share inside Plain Values magazine is focused on loving our neighbor. From adopting a child, raising extra tomatoes and peppers, helping that neighbor build a fence or a woodshed… it’s all about living out the two greatest commandments: to love God and love your neighbor.

The Technological Age Collapse

By Pastor Andrew Isker

If you are even the slightest bit aware of what is happening to our country, you have probably said something like, “it can’t go on like this forever, eventually there is going to be a collapse.” From an economic perspective, you instinctively know that, eventually, you will run out of other people’s money. For decades now, you could tell how much a website’s audience was aware of reality and, therefore, how rightwing it is based on how many ads there were for disaster preparedness and food storage. For those with eyes to see, it is obvious that things are much more fragile than anyone wants to admit. 2020 was a peek behind that curtain for the few willing to look. Everyone with even the mildest rightward sensibilities knows things are in decline and our civilization, especially our standard of living, is on life support. It is not hard to see—if you are willing to see it.

Confessions of a Steward—Beginnings

By Joel Salatin, Plain Values

Does God Care How I Farm? That question defines my life’s work and vision because it moves the visceral, practical decisions I make in my farming vocation to a place of sacredness and godly living. If God cares about physical and practical things in my life, then my theology and belief structure are more than academic pursuits.

They are not just discussion groups and conversations. If God cares how I farm, then I should enthusiastically embrace searching for techniques and protocols that please Him. After all, it’s all His stuff. The courthouse may say I own this land, but ultimately I don’t. Legally and culturally, I may advocate for property rights, but really it’s all God’s property. Does He care how it’s handled? Does He care how I leave it? Does He care what I do with it?

A Christian Perspective on AI

AI is about to shift the fundamental reality of our entire society, culture, and world. I feel it is my responsibility to help my brothers and sisters in Christ understand this fact, come to grips with it, and encourage them to start building before our enemies gain too much ground.

Christians have been building and using tools to glorify God for millennia. This is nothing new, and it’s only scary if we allow the enemy to take dominion over these new tools and use them against us as we, unfortunately, did with the last great leap in technology: social media.

Parallel Christian Society in 1000 BC

King David’s Israel as a Model For Life in 21st Century America

by Pastor Andrew Isker

David has been on the run from Saul, and now things are beginning to change. David has assembled a kingdom in exile that is growing more powerful, and Saul is waging war not only on David but on Yahweh Himself. For those with eyes to see, this passage is an example of how God’s people can not only survive godless, bloodthirsty tyrants, but prepare to rule after God removes them.

The Roundtable — Amish Insights on: Pride

by Ivan Keim, Plain Values

First, a note from Marlin Miller, Publisher of Plain Values Magazine:

Across the news and nation, I have sensed a renewed drive to get communities together again, more like the “good ole days.” Now, I’m not a fan of wishing to go back, but the interest and thoughtful questioning of a few of my Amish friends confirmed my hunch time and again. We have assembled a panel of Amish folks, some older and a few younger, who are passionate about strong communities and taking care of one another as God asks us to.

The Amish are not perfect, but they do take care of one another in extraordinary ways, and I believe we have much to learn from it all. There are not many more well-known examples of this than “a good old-fashioned barn raising!” Philippians 2:3–4 says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but to the interests of others.”

Our family has had the luxury of having grown up in and around Amish communities our entire lives, and we do indeed have wonderful neighbors. I have no doubt that The Roundtable will become a favorite for many of our readers in the months to come.

Marlin Miller, always looking for more friends

Christians Must Enter the AI Arms Race

If you are an engineer who has experience with AI and are interested in working on this project with us, please get in touch: [email protected]

There has been a lot of debate recently about artificial intelligence with the launch of Chat GPT, Silicon Valley’s latest technology darling. To call Chat GPT “intelligent” is misleading, as it has no actual intelligence.

Technology like Chat GPT is trained to generate information by ingesting enormous data sets and generating sentences based on that data. It is subject to the biases of both the data it ingests and the programmers who train it. It can mimic different writing styles and be forced to ignore taboo or “hateful” subjects its designers program it to avoid. Think of it more as a Google search and Wikipedia on steroids than a Terminator-esq sentient AI.