David Hegeman

I had seen this book recommended on several Christianity and Culture amazon booklists, but judging the book by the cover, I never wanted to buy it. It's funny, they say don't judge a book by it's cover, then they design a cover to try to sell the book. Anyway, I thought it was a book about farming, or utopian agrarian societies, so it never caught my eye.

But after I read the Intro from the canon press website. ( Here is a PDF version of the intro) I ordered the book on amazon and read it in a few weeks. It was excellent.
Here is a quote from a review at Amazon:

"Plowing in Hope seeks to affirm the power and glory of human culture within a clearly defined biblical theology. True culture, Hegeman writes, "is not an activity to keep mankind occupied until something else (presumably better) happens. It has a particular God-ordained end in view: the development of the earth into a global network of gardens and cities in harmony with nature--a glorious garden-city." Placing the development of human culture in a biblical context through a close examination of key words in Greek and Hebrew ("work," for example), the author explores the true importance of the labor we do upon the world, arguing that true work must involve the "threefold connotation of work, service, and worship."

Anyway, I was reminded of it when I found the author's blog today: http://thenativetourist.blogspot.com/