Albert Borgmann

Albert Borgmann is Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Montana, Missoula where he has taught since 1970. His special area is the philosophy of society and culture. Among his publications are Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (University of Chicago Press, 1984), Crossing the Postmodern Divide (University of Chicago Press, 1992), Holding On to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium (University of Chicago Press, 1999), Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology (Brazos Press, 2003), and Real American Ethics (University of Chicago Press, 2006).

Lisa McMinn

Lisa Graham McMinn, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology and Writer at Residence at George Fox University. She writes and speaks about gender and sexuality, creation care, food ethics and agriculture. Her books include, Sexuality and Holy Longing (Josse Bass 2004), The Contented Soul (IVP 2006), Growing Strong Daughters (Baker 2007), Walking Gently on the Earth (IVP 2010), Dirt and the Good Life: Stories of Fern Creek (Barclay Press 2012) and most recently, To the Table: A Spirituality of Food, Farming, and Community (Brazos Press, in publication).

On Lisa’s blog (Preserving Life at Fern Creek) she describes herself as a farmer, Quaker, beekeeper, and sometimes potter. Her job, she says, “is to love Creation–to laugh, hope, nurture, and mostly, to pay attention. So I tend tomatoes and fruit trees, nurture bees and chicks, preserve beans, my grandmother’s traditions, and a more simple way of life.”

Lisa lives on Fern Creek, a small CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm outside of Newberg, Oregon, where she and her husband Mark tend chickens and bees and grow food for 30 families. They bring two apprentices a year every year to live, walk, and work alongside them. Lisa and Mark have three married daughters, and six grandchildren.

Norman Wirzba

Norman Wirzba is Research Professor of Theology, Ecology, and Rural Life at Duke Divinity School. He is the author or editor of numerous essays and books, including The Paradise of God: Renewing Religion in an Ecological Age and The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land.

Paul & Pamela Butler

Paul & Pamela met as students at Moody Bible Institute and subsequently got married in 1993. They lived in Chicago for 17 years while Paul worked at Moody in radio and education. They recently moved to north-central IL where they live in a church with their 3 children and 6 cats