"Baloney!" you say.
I don't blame you for being skeptical about that claim. The Harvard University website says tuition, fees, and room and board in Cambridge, MA is almost $80,813 per year. Per year.
And admission is limited to the brightest straight-A students.
But it isn't your grades that would keep you from getting a Harvard education. Or the fact that your parents aren't millionaires and can't afford to pop for $320,000.00 for 4 years at Harvard.
Here is the more important point -- something nobody else is going to tell you.
If the Founders of Harvard could travel through time from their day (in 1636) to our day (in 2023) they would see immediately that the college they founded no longer exists.
The Founders of Harvard would say you cannot get a "Harvard Education" at Harvard.
The Founders of Harvard would say NOBODY can get a "Harvard Education" at any university on planet earth. Not in 2023.
The University that still bears the name "Harvard" is at war with everything the Rev. John Harvard and the Puritan church-state in Massachusetts stood for.
These are the things that made America the most prosperous and admired nation in history.
These were the very things that were stripped from your K-12 education.
How would the Founders of Harvard advise you if they were here today?
This is the only place in the world where you can get the answer to that question.
But your education thus far has brainwashed you to reject their answer.
That's what I have for a sales page so far.
I want to start an online college that will someday be more influential in our world than Harvard University.
I realize that sounds audacious, utopian, even ridiculous. Who am I to create something bigger than Harvard University?
I take solace in these facts:
The premise is simple:
I think they would be shocked, horrified, angry, even apoplectic.
What would be their diagnosis? What went wrong?
What would be their prescription? What can be done?
Harvard's Founders would doubtless agree with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who explained why one hundred million human beings were murdered by Communists in the 20th century: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”
But the West not only forgot God, they forgot His Word, the Bible. Once you have discarded the Bible, you can be your own god. A god who is nicer than the God of the Bible. A god who won't condemn you for killing your neighbor so you can possess his wife.
Once Harvard discarded the Bible, Harvard graduates could be their own gods. Before you will enroll in my new university, you must apprehend the horror of that statement.
In order to be "sold" on the idea of enrolling in my new university, the prospective student must find the following to be more plausible than not:
Two categories:
1. Government. "Senators," etc.
“Suppose we think of a man made of water in an infinitely extended ocean of water. No surface above, no bottom below. Infinite water. Desiring to get out of water, the water-man makes a ladder out of water. He sets this ladder upon the water and against the water and then attempts to climb out of the water.
So hopeless and senseless a picture must be drawn of the non-Christian man’s methodology based as it is upon the assumption that time or chance is ultimate. On his assumption his own rationality is a product of chance. On his assumption even the laws of logic which he employs are products of chance. The rationality and purpose that he may be searching for are still bound to be products of chance.”
A universe of random chance is ultimately a meaningless universe.
2. Debauchery, Superstition, and Corruption.
1. Pederasty. This is the homosexual union of an older married man with a teenage boy. The men often met the boys on their way to the gymnasium, the building in which the boys danced and played sports naked. The men then became the boys' lovers and teachers.
2. Demonism. The Greeks were polytheistic. Greek family life rested on a system of sacrifice to demons that masqueraded as the spirits of dead male relatives. So did clan life, which became political life. These demons also presented themselves as underground gods and spirits, who demanded sacrifices and special rituals to keep from destroying people. On this point, see the works of the early 20th century archaeologist-historian, Jane Ellen Harrison. This never gets into the textbooks, although specialists are well aware of it. (See on Socrates, below.)
3. Warfare. At the center of the literature of classical Greece was Homer's poem, The Iliad. It is the story of how Achilles' resentment against King Agamemnon raged because the king took his kidnapped concubine for himself. All the other men had concubines for the ten years they were at war. But no children are mentioned by Homer. Now that's real Greek mythology! Their wives stayed home and kept the ritual home fires burning -- to placate the family's departed male spirits. Athens destroyed itself in Pericles' needless imperial war against Sparta. Then the Macedonians conquered war-ravaged Greece. But the textbooks praise Pericles as a pillar of wisdom, reprinting Thucydides' posthumous version of Pericles' suicidal imperial oration.
4. Slavery. At least one-third of Athens was enslaved. The figure was as high in Sparta. Every household owned a slave. This provided leisure for their owners, who despised physical labor as beneath them -- servile. Slavery was a universal institution in Greece.
5. Autonomy. Greek philosophy was based on the ideal of man's mind as completely sovereign -- no personal God allowed. Well, not quite. Socrates claimed he was given guidance in his thinking by a demon (daimon). But rationalistic scholars, beginning with Plato, have always downplayed this. They have sometimes said this was just hyperbolic literary language. Socrates could not really have believed in a demon. After all, they don't.
6. Welfare State. At least one-third of all male Athenians were on the government's payroll in the time of Pericles.
7. Human Sacrifice. This was a basic theme in Greek literature. It was part of Athenian religious liturgy. There was no widespread movement to decry the earlier practice. The great expert here was Lord Acton, who wrote a long-ignored essay, "Human Sacrifice," in 1864. It is online here. It is included in Volume 3 of Selected Writings of Lord Acton, published by the Liberty Fund. From the day he published it in order to refute the great historian Macaulay, historians have refused to incorporate it in their narratives. It is way too embarrassing.
8. Cyclical View of Time. The Greeks did not believe in long-term progress or a final judgment -- just endless cycles forever: rise and fall, rise and fall. According to the historian of science, Stanley Jaki, this was why the Greeks never developed science, only technologies.
9. Female Inferiority. Wives were only for procreation. They could not be citizens. They had no legal rights. A man needed a male heir to perform the ritual sacrifices to feed him after he died. Women had no political influence except as prophetesses and mistresses.
You would not want to live in ancient Greece or Rome. See also this and this. You would say they were "uncivilized." Bishop Augustine was saddened by the fall of Rome, but Salvian the Presbyter understood that real civilization is based on Christian morality: Salvian rejoiced at the fall of the Roman Empire.
Harvard's Founders wanted America to be a Christian Republic. It has turned out to be an atheistic empire. I will say this more than once on this page: During my lifetime, "my" government has killed, crippled, or made homeless TENS OF MILLIONS of innocent, non-combatant, non-white civilians around the world. The "old men" in the House and Senate voted for this. And Americans -- victims of educational malpractice -- voted for these "old men," year after year, election after election. And the Empire of Lies and Death lumbers on. For a few years more.
As these words are being written, the Old Man of the U.S., Joe Biden (age 80), wants to put the Old Man of Russia, Vladimir Putin (age 70) out of office. To get Putin out of office, the old men of the U.S. have spent $113 billion. This is more than needed to prevent the starvation of 40 million people around the world. The old men are willing to use nuclear weapons, even at the cost of tens of millions of innocent lives. Even at the risk of human life on planet earth. There is nothing "wise" about these old men -- and the citizens who allow them to stay in power. The "senex" men are insane. They too are victims of educational malpractice.
Many students pick their college based on which one they think will give them a "good job."
Imagine you get your degree in the health sciences from an ordinary college. You're fully "accredited." You get a job with a medical group, and you're ready to help patients. But you're told you need to give your patient an over-priced drug that will not help your patient. It helps a big pharmaceutical company, and your medical group gets a kickback, but it's not in the best interests of the patient. Your medical group will lose federal funds if you don't follow "protocol." The "health" system promotes death. Are you happy with your job?
Imagine you get your degree in electronics and engineering. You get a job in the "defense" industry. The Black Box you're working on is sold to Saudi Arabia, who uses the program to guide missiles that blow the arms and legs off children in Yemen. Did your college classes teach you about the humanitarian disaster in Yemen? The U.S. and Saudi Arabia will soon have killed a million men, women, and children there. Are you happy with your job?
In field after field, college graduates are expected to be drones, worker bees that mindlessly obey the rules of the Corporate Queen Bee. You're not serving your clients, and you're not serving God.
Attending your typical college or university only puts you on the fast-track to a life you will look back on with sadness and shame.
To transform your world, you must transform yourself, and that requires a transformed university.
But transformation requires a blueprint. A standard. Today's universities are built using a completely different blueprint from the educational blueprint used to build Harvard in 1636.
Harvard's 1636 blueprint made America the most prosperous and most admired nation in history.
Today's educational blueprint has transformed America's prosperity into bankruptcy, and admiration into loathing and ridicule.
Today's America is a mish-mash of two contradictory blueprints, which we call "Harvard 1.0" and "Harvard 2.0"
This unstable combination is collapsing into chaos, crime, poverty, fascism, militarism, total surveillance, suicide, nihilism, and mass death. Some blueprints see you eating bugs and having sex with dozens of people of different "genders," rather than being married, committed, and faithful to one person of the opposite sex for life.
You need to decide for yourself if that's what you really want for your future.
If you don't want to live in a nation of illiterate bug-eating sex-bots, you need to ask serious questions about your life's blueprint.
Consider America's Declaration of Independence (1776). This document was written by products of the older Harvard; men like Samuel Adams (Harvard class of 1740), John Hancock (class of 1754), and John Adams (1755). Graduates of the newer Harvard will not allow your local public school teacher to teach children that the Declaration of Independence is actually true.
Nearly all universities today will teach you that these ideas are all myths. If you get your college degree and your teaching certificate and (nevertheless) want to attempt to teach your students that the Declaration of Independence is actually true, you will be reprimanded by your principal. Organizations like the ACLU, "Freedom from Religion Foundation," and "Americans United for Separation of Church and State" will say you're "trying to impose a theocracy" on these secular united states.
The word "Theocracy" comes from two Greek words meaning "God governs." If a nation is governed by God, it must be a nation "under God." America was always this kind of "Theocracy," from the very beginning. It was never "secular."
Samuel Adams began attending Harvard in 1736, one hundred years after Harvard was founded in 1636. He became known as "The Father of the American Revolution." In the first letter he sent to America's town halls through a network of communication known as "The Committees of Correspondence," he coached the colonists to become
Sam Adams learned these things at Harvard. These things made America great.
If Sam Adams and other Harvard graduates of his day, like John Hancock and John Adams, were to travel 300 years into the future, would they find any extraordinary Christians coming out of today's colleges? Are there any people who love America and believe in the Declaration of Independence getting jobs in today's corporations?
The more you know about the Harvard of yesterday, and the more you know about the corporations of today, the more you know the answer to that question is NO.
America's Founders are criticized because a few -- not all, not even a majority -- owned slaves. They are denounced even though many of the united States of America were the first governments in human history to abolish slavery, like Vermont in 1777. Something Americans can be proud of. But the Founders are criticized by college graduates who are slaves to corporations that are destroying the planet and killing, crippling, or making homeless millions of people every year, and who know only one-tenth as much as the Founders did when it comes to liberty and morality.
But America's Founders were not perfect, and it was Harvard's Founders who planted the seeds of Harvard's destruction. We'll look at those seeds below.
Vine & Fig Tree University exists to be the lost Harvard, and the Harvard that could have been. Vine & Fig Tree University exists to make you
But the last 13 years of your "public" education has brainwashed you into believing that everything the original Harvard stood for is wretched. Not "progressive."
That's why you don't want to enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University. You can't see the value of Vine & Fig Tree University without first attending Vine & Fig Tree University. That's why
The Public School system you attended is at war with the public school system created by the Founders of Harvard University.
You don't want a "Harvard Education" because you're a victim of educational malpractice.
That's why we offer you your first semester at no charge -- we have to teach you what you need to be taught, and why you should learn it.
The world needs people who have a Harvard Education, of the kind that can no longer be found at Harvard University, but can only be found at
"They will beat their swords into plowshares,
and everyone will dwell in peace under his own Vine & Fig Tree."
Micah 4:1-7
America was once the most prosperous and admired nation in the world. This is because every school in America viewed the world through the lens of the Bible's “Vine & Fig Tree” vision of "Liberty Under God."
In the last century, this worldview was banned from America's schools, and a "secular" government transformed America's prosperity into bankruptcy, and admiration into loathing and ridicule. America was transformed from the New Jerusalem into the New Rome, becoming the most evil and dangerous nation on earth.
"Liberty under God" was replaced with "Security under Harvard Graduates in the Deep State." As a result, we have lost both liberty and security.
The American dream of living securely under your own Vine & Fig Tree was replaced by a 30-year mortgage and "eminent domain."
Micah's prophecy was the most popular Bible verse in America 300 years ago. Today it is almost completely unknown.
IAQ - Infrequently Asked Questions
Why there is only one major at VFTU
Below:
the most profound, beneficial, or we will DOUBLE your tuition back During your first semester, you will do an in-depth study of Micah's Vine & Fig Tree prophecy. Each day during your first FREE semester, we'll also study Five Things that America's Founders would say you should have already been taught -- but weren't. Each week during the 16-week semester we'll study one core theme from Micah 4:1-7. Five Things You Need to Know
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Ironically, it was Harvard's Founders themselves who planted the seeds of Harvard's destruction, and ultimately of the Christian West. The diagnosis comes from Christian philosopher Cornelius Van Til. It goes back at least as far as the church father Tertullian (c. 155 AD – c. 220 AD), who asked,
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What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church?... Our instructions come from “the porch of Solomon”.... Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition! We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus...! |
I think I could convince Harvard's Founders that we need a Jerusalem-centered curriculum which is not "mottled" with a "classical curriculum." Harvard's curriculum was largely a Bible-centered curriculum, but not entirely, and 400 years later we can see that we need to purify the Puritans.
I like to think of this university as Harvard 3.0
This is what John Adams, later second President of the U.S., wrote in his diary on February 22, 1756:
Like others of his day, Adams was a theonomist! |
"Theonomy" comes from two Greek words meaning "God's Law." The opposite of "Theonomy" is "Autonomy," "self-law"; every man his own god. Augustine drew the contrast between "The City of God" and "the City of Man." Modern writers draw the contrast between "utopia" and "dystopia" (although modern secular writers want us to believe that a world under God's Law would be the dystopia).
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The Federal Government says that teachers in government-operated schools paid for by your local property taxes cannot "endorse" or "promote" these ideas. Oh, sure, students can be taught that a long time ago some people like John Adams believed the Declaration of Independence was true, but teachers cannot say The Declaration of Independence really is objectively true, regardless of whether any human being or any government believes it to be true, and that students should stand up and risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in defense of those unchanging true principles. Students should be led to believe that people like Donald Trump and Joe Biden are wiser than people like John Adams, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and other graduates of Harvard University back when it was Christian.
The "new and improved" Harvard 2.0 gave us graduates like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, and George W. Bush. (who are they?) Harvard 2.0 transformed America's prosperity into bankruptcy, and admiration into loathing and ridicule. America was transformed from the New Jerusalem into the New Rome: the most evil and dangerous nation on earth.The name comes from a number of Bible verses which speak of a day we beat our "swords into plowshares" and everyone dwells peacefully "under his own vine and fig tree." These verses were the most popular Bible verses in America 400 years ago. Today they are virtually unknown, and if known, despised.
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What would the world be like if everyone started to obey God's commandments and "walk in His paths?"
What would the world be like if everyone converted their military armed forces into vine-planters and house-builders (Isaiah 65:17-25)?
According to John Adams, one of America's "Founding Fathers" and Signer of the Declaration of Independence, a “Vine & Fig Tree” world would be "paradise" or "utopia."
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In principle, when John Adams spoke of taking the Bible as our only law book, Adams was advocating "Theocracy." Today that's a dreaded word. Adams wrote as a graduate of an institution created by Theocrats to perpetuate Theocracy, that is, a nation governed by God. Adams is saying we should be "temperate" and "kind" followers of the Prince of Peace, governed by God and His Law Book, the Bible. This is all very simple. But we are all victims of educational malpractice in schools which brainwashed us into believing that following the Bible is "primitive" or "unrealistic." We've been taught to react with horror to any extremist who proposes to take the Bible seriously. Pure "Theocracy" is a threat to the power held by secular politicians.
Suppose I had an unlimited advertising budget and supernatural powers of persuasion and pedagogy, and while your back was turned, I persuaded every human being on planet earth to enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University and they were instantly educated into the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview, and all humanity began to put the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview into effect in their home country. What would be the result? If you were the only person in the world who did not believe in the “Vine & Fig Tree” version of Christianity, how would that affect your plans for the future? If you're an atheist, you may well lose your job and social status. Not because Theocratic “Vine & Fig Tree” Christians will put you in prison, but because they will stop voting for politicians who redistribute money from Christians in "fly-over country" to liberals on the coasts.
Click here for Sales Page excerpt.
The “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview has been systematically purged from today's government-run atheistic indoctrination centers ("public schools"). The first part of our mission is to set forth this worldview. If that sounds complicated, it's not. American children in 1776 understood this worldview. It's laid out in the Catechisms which were found in every one-room schoolhouse in America. It's basic. It's "square one." Students in Harvard 3.0 would be embarrassed to be caught learning this stuff.
To the extent that today's students understand what the Bible teaches, they have been systematically instructed that this basic system of morality and ethics is "impractical," "primitive," "patriarchal," "repressive," "Puritanical," and "a threat to our Democracy." So the second part of our mission is to debunk all these excuses for not becoming as little children (Matthew 18:3) and following Biblical principles, but doing so as mature adults created in the Image of God (1 Corinthians 13:11; 1 Corinthians 14:20; Psalm 119:99; Romans 16:19; Ephesians 4:14-15; Hebrews 5:12-13).
So Vine & Fig Tree University is "remedial," educating victims of educational malpractice in the basics of Christianity, and then it is radical, going to these roots and watering them, tearing out secular weeds by the roots, to develop an abundant and counter-cultural harvest.
Robert Fulghum wrote a book entitled, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Think of the list of nine things John Adams believed would create paradise on earth: three concerning ourselves, three concerning our neighbor, and three concerning God. The prophet Micah summed it up in the same way:
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
• But to do justly,
• To love mercy,
• And to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8
This passage from the Bible is inscribed on the walls of the Library of Congress.
Jesus repeated these same three things, saying they were "the weightier matters of the Law" (Matthew 23:23 -- "justice, mercy, and faith").
Vine & Fig Tree University exists to (1) inculcate Biblical morality -- going back to Kindergarten -- and to (2) refute all of modern man's theories as to why it's perfectly acceptable -- "smart," "practical," "rational," "modern" -- to hurt people and take their stuff.
Vine & Fig Tree University does not assign as much reading to students as Harvard University does. Our basic textbook is the Bible. The ideas are fairly simple, straightforward, and obvious. It doesn't take much work to pass the class. What takes a lot of work is de-programming students who are victims of educational malpractice. Today's students are the brainwashed victims of a dangerous authoritarian cult. What takes work is overcoming years of indoctrination, and developing an apologetic (1 Peter 3:15) to answer a world that is at war with the Bible. If any graduate of today's atheistic university were to enroll in a class with John Adams in Harvard 1.0, today's student's head would explode.
Why "pacifist?"
I was born in the year of "Sputnik," the Russian satellite that inaugurated "the Space Race" which was a part of "the Cold War." I wasn't yet in high school when the Vietnam War raged, and when the nation was divided by anti-war protesters. I was raised to believe that socialism was evil and capitalism was good. I believed that the anti-war protesters were a bunch of anti-American commies. (They may well have been incited by Communists and used by Communists as tools or pawns in Moscow's attempt to bring down the American/capitalist system. But they were on the right side of an immoral war.*)
During my lifetime, "my" government has killed, crippled, or made homeless TENS OF MILLIONS of innocent, non-combatant, non-white civilians. An atheistic United States government drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes, on average. Barack Obama, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace, maintained U.S. military bases in nearly 100 nations around the world, and dropped an unprecedented number of bombs across the globe.
I had always been raised to trust the military and "support the troops." It was only when I became a fundamentalist Bible-believing Christian that I began to question all this.
I would like to advance the argument that a person is not a real Christian if that person is not a pacifist. You may not agree with that conclusion, but following the argument will stimulate thought. You will be glad you gave the argument some attention.
Most people would agree that a person who says we should hammer our "swords into plowshares" and "never again train for war" (Micah 4:3) is a "pacifist." Is this a "fringe" belief or is it central to the Christian faith?
Consider James 1:27
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
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If it's wrong to fail to "visit" or "watch over" widows, it is certainly wrong to create widows by killing their husbands.
This makes the United States the enemy of pure religion.
But I had been raised to believe that all good Christians were to "support the troops."
In the last section of Matthew 25, Jesus says the way you treat widows and orphans and the sick and homeless and illegal aliens and those in prison is a measure of how Christian you are. People who traumatize widows and orphans and cause them to cry themselves to sleep at night are probably "goats," not "sheep." They are undoubtedly victims of educational malpractice.
Take an American child who has not yet entered government-run schooling and show the American child a photo of a child in Yemen or Iraq who has had her arms blown off by a U.S. bomb. That American child will know that something is wrong. Show that same photo to that same child after the child has graduated from Harvard University and has a prestigious job in the U.S. State Department. Watch the five-dollar words start flying: "Collateral Damage." "Realpolitik." "U.S. Partners and Allies." "National Security Interests."
Some might say that we are not commanded to take care of women and children if their husbands and fathers are our "enemies." That is, if those poor men have been conscripted at gunpoint by a tyrannical dictatorship and forced to fight against "U.S. armed forces" invading their homeland. After all, they are our "enemies." "Kill the commies." "Support our troops."
But Jesus commands His followers to love their enemies.
| “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,” Matthew 5:43-44 |
Jesus sacrificed Himself to save His enemies.
| Christ died for the ungodly God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. Romans 5:6,8,10 |
The heartfelt desire of every true Christian is the
Regeneration,
Repentance,
Restitution,
Reconciliation, and
Redemption
of "the enemy."
Not the destruction of the enemy.
In short: "Love your enemy." (Matthew 5:43)
"Thou shalt not kill." (Exodus 20:13).
You cannot love your enemy after you kill him.
It is better to be killed than to kill. Jesus chose to be killed rather than to kill.
1 Peter 2:21 commands us to follow "in His steps" at precisely the point where physical violence is unrighteously threatened against us. Whether by a home invader or a nation invader.
All of this is obvious to a child, but we adults don't buy this nonsense. We are victims of educational malpractice.
The word "pacifism" comes from the Latin word for "peace." It does not come from the English word "passive." Graduates of Vine & Fig Tree University are active in beating swords into plowshares.
The dictionaries usually give two definitions for "pacifist." First, an opponent of war. Second, an opponent of self-defense. That second definition is inaccurate. I know of no pacifist who would say that if you have a shield and someone comes after you with a sword, you cannot defend yourself against the aggressor's sword with your shield.
The real issue is lethal "self-defense." If your sword-bearing attacker gets tired of whacking his sword against your shield, and lies down to take a nap, the pacifist would say you should defend yourself against further attacks by running away, not by cracking your attacker's skull open with your shield.
Our definition of "pacifist" is "one who keeps the commandments of Christ."
Here's what "swords into plowshares" pacifism means:
Jesus said ("Thou shalt not kill." Mark 10:19, quoting Exodus 20:13). John Calvin recognized that
"The sum of this Commandment is, that we should not unjustly do violence to any one. Under the word 'kill' is included by synecdoche all violence, smiting, and aggression."[1]
Jesus also said "Thou shalt not steal," (Matthew 19:18; Exodus 20:13-16; Deuteronomy 5:17-20), meaning, Thou shalt not confiscate someone else's property.
Matt Kibbe gave his book a title that puts it all into one sentence: Don’t Hurt People and Don’t Take Their Stuff.
But Jesus goes further.
He says we are not to hurt our enemy. Even if our enemy hurts us first.
We are not allowed to confiscate the stuff belonging to our enemy, even if he's our enemy because he did not join us in voting for the winning candidate. Consider these commands:
So how does the world get to the “Vine & Fig Tree” world? According to the Bible, just follow basic Christian morality:
Then if someone else decides to hurt you or take your stuff.
That means that if someone hurts you or takes your stuff, and you seek reconciliation, but you're rebuffed, then you cannot hire a Mafia "hit-man" to take vengeance against your unrepentant enemy.
Most Christians will agree with that.
But here's the kicker:
If someone hurts you or takes your stuff, and you seek reconciliation, but you're rebuffed, then you cannot "vote" for a "representative" to tax your neighbor and build a "military-industrial complex" to take vengeance against your unrepentant enemy. You will vote such politicians out of office. If you vote all non-pacifists out of office, you will no longer have a "government."
That claim causes many people to do a double-take. Your Sunday School teacher never put it quite like that.
In other words, if you take Jesus seriously, you will not only be a "pacifist," but you'll be an "anarchist" -- that is, an advocate of no "elected representatives." No "civil government." "The Bible as our only law book."
If Jesus commands you to
why would you not obey the command to beat your swords into plowshares? Why would you not be a "pacifist?"
Jesus said, When the enemy government enslaves you for one mile, Go a second mile (Matthew 5:41). If you take this verse seriously, it means "national defense" is a sin.
But nobody takes Jesus that seriously. That's "taking things to an extreme." Well, it's taking things to 100%. We believe in obeying Jesus with 100% of our heart, 100% of our soul, 100% of our mind, and 100% of our strength (Mark 12:30).
We believe God should be the government over every area of our life. Being pacifists, and letting God govern us, is the path to Utopia.
If you approached your next door neighbor and demanded money, and threatened to lock your neighbor in your basement with a psychopath who will repeatedly sodomize your neighbor if your neighbor doesn't give you the money you demand, your neighbor would rightly conclude that you are a criminal. "The Government" does this. "The State" is an organized crime syndicate. It claims the right to commit the acts that you and I would call "crimes." Systematically. As an institution. As a monopoly. Every political science professor in every university on planet earth will agree that the essential nature of "The State" is a Monopoly of Violence, or a monopoly of crime. No other criminals are allowed by "the State" to compete against the State in its commission of crimes. No criminals claim to have a right to your patriotic devotion.
The Prophet Micah says we should beat our swords into plowshares and not engage in war any more.
That is a prescription for "anarchy." That would eliminate "The State."
Virtually every political theorist in the last two thousand years has said that the central justification for "the State" is to protect citizens against invasions. Typically this means in "war." But Jesus says we are not to resist foreign invaders. We are not to make the wives of foreign invaders widows.
Parenthetically,
There was actually never any danger that Russia would bomb the United States during "the Cold War." Socialist economies are always dependent upon the vastly more productive capitalist economies. But if the U.S. was taken over by Russia or China, how would you know? What would be the most visible evidence that the machinery of the U.S. government is now being administered by Chinese Communist satraps appointed by the People's Republic of China? Is there really a noticeable difference between the socialism-fascism we now live under in the U.S. "Republic" and the socialism of the "former"
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?
The median income in China is about $2,000 USD. Half the population makes more, half the population makes less. Suppose the U.S. beat our swords into plowshares and took the approximately one trillion dollars we spend on the military and gave it to the Chinese people, with a letter that said "It's nice living in a Christian capitalist nation. You all should try it." That would double the income of hundreds of millions of Chinese people. It comes out to about $714 for every man, woman, and small child in China. Would China bomb the U.S. if we beat our swords into plowshares and did this?
Another digression: Eschatology
Micah's “Vine & Fig Tree” vision is a prophecy about a future in which people beat their swords into plowshares and don't learn war any more.
When does this take place?
In the last 100 years, many Christians have been deeply interested in prophecy, and themes like the "rapture," the "antichrist," "armageddon," and the "great tribulation" have been on their minds. These Christians would probably agree that swords will not be hammered into plowshares and war ended until the second coming of Christ. In the meantime, we have no moral obligation to end war. "Support the troops!" these Christians might say.
The fastest growing school of eschatology is called "preterism," from the Latin word for "past." It holds that this prophecy began to be fulfilled in the past. The "establishment" of the Messiah's reign began in "the last days" of the Old Covenant, at the first coming of Christ. Christians who are waiting to be "raptured" don't usually spend a lot of time reading the books of Micah, Isaiah, Kings, and Judges. The focus on the book of Revelation and a few other prophecies they believe speak of a yet-future coming of Christ. A whole-Bible Christian finds it easy to believe that if Micah could travel through time from his day 700 years before the birth of Christ to our day, 2000 years after Christ's first coming, Micah would be astonished, and would fall on his knees in gratitude and praise to Jesus the Messiah for bringing worldwide peace. The pages of the Old Testament are filled with violence, war, captivity, and idolatry. Today there are 8 billion people on the planet -- itself an astonishing fact -- very few of whom face the prospect of war and captivity, very few of whom worship idols of stone, most of whom engage in capitalistic commerce, and enjoy a standard of living that Micah could not have dreamed of. Historians have concluded that most human beings living in Micah's day faced unspeakable violence, and a third or more died violent deaths or died from the effects of violence. Today, most human beings die peacefully, of old age. This would have been unimaginable to Micah, Isaiah, David, or Moses. The world of the Old Testament was uncivilized, and the Egyptians with their pyramids, and the Greeks with their Olympics, are no exception. It is Jesus the Messiah who has given human beings civilization:
The mainstream secular media want us to believe that the world is filled with war and viruses. But COVID kills only a fraction of a percent of human beings, as does war. Both COVID and war are created by governments. We could end the few wars that still exist tomorrow. But too many Christians do not believe we have a moral obligation to do so. In fact, some have said that any attempt to make the world a better place will only postpone the rapture and second coming of Christ, so better not get involved in social improvement.
If we eliminated this pessimistic eschatology, then another question arises: which nation will be the first to obey the command to beat swords into plowshares? Most Americans -- and everyone at the Pentagon -- will say "not us!" We expect evil nations like Russia and China and Iran to be the first to obey God's command to end war. Only after the evil nations obey God will we Americans obediently beat our swords into plowshares.
Eschatology is critical. It has to be dealt with.
No university or Bible college covers eschatology from a "preterist" perspective.
End digression.
Two simple questions:
Simple, but profound. And Vine & Fig Tree University is the only university on planet earth that requires students to research and formulate answers to these questions.
It goes without saying that you never heard the anarcho-pacifist “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview in Sunday School or church. No organized church or denomination agrees with John Adams the Theonomist and Micah the anarcho-pacifist.
As we explain elsewhere, Vine & Fig Tree University stands squarely on this proposition:
Very few church-going Christians agree with that. We explain how this is true on this website:
Most theologians would agree that the "Jesus" of today's televangelists (e.g., Joel Osteen) is not the same Jesus as that of the Protestant Reformers (e.g., John Calvin) or the Calvinist Founders of Harvard University. Perhaps Joel Osteen is just creating a "Jesus" in his own image. Maybe Calvin did too. Maybe I am too. But I'm willing to put my cards on the table so you can see what I'm holding. Maybe this will change your impression of Jesus.
"Swords into plowshares" logically implies the abolition of all "government." Every professor of political science in every university on planet earth -- even so-called "Christian" universities or "Bible colleges" -- will denounce or scoff at the idea of taking Jesus seriously in the political realm. They will warn us that taking the Bible seriously, following Jesus consistently, will lead to "anarchy." Technically, this is true, which is why
That strikes the modern mind as preposterous and self-contradictory.
"Theocracy!" "Anarchy!" is the ACLU's reaction to Christians who are just trying to take the Bible seriously.
"But how can you advocate Theocracy and Anarchism at the same time?"
It's simple. We advocate being governed by God ("Theocracy!") and not by the Harvard-educated false gods in Washington D.C. ("Anarchy!").
It's so simple it takes 13 years of K-12 public schooling and four years at a modern secular university to convince you it isn't true.
Let's look at both "Theocracy" and "Anarchy"
The word "Theocracy" comes from two Greek words which mean "God Governs." (Not to be confused with "ecclesiocracy," from two Greek words meaning "the church governs.")
The Founders of Harvard University were the Puritan Theocrats in the church-state of Massachusetts. They believed both church and state were "under God." They did not believe in "the separation of church and state," by which today's Harvard means "the separation of God and government."
Today's Harvard definitely does not advocate for the Calvinist Theocracy that the original Harvard was built to perpetuate. The original Harvard believed in Theonomy [God's Law]; today's Harvard believes in autonomy [self law].
Like the original Harvard, Vine & Fig Tree University is also "Theocratic." We do not believe in "the separation of church and state," that is, the separation of God and government. Every human being in every government on planet earth has a moral obligation to obey God, follow Jesus, and be a "pacifist."
It seems hard to avoid the conclusion that in order to follow Jesus, every king would have to abdicate, and every politician and bureaucrat would have to resign and get a job in the "private sector."
Unlike the original Harvard, and also unlike today's Harvard, Vine & Fig Tree University is "anarchist." Not only do we reject the "separation of church and state," we believe in the abolition of church and state. We believe these institutions are built upon Roman premises, not Hebrew (Biblical) premises. It's the recurring conflict between Jerusalem and Athens. A society governed by God ("Theocracy") is possible in the absence of either "church" or "state." John Adams would hesitate to affirm this, but his vision of "utopia" and "paradise" shows us the way.
The word "anarchist" comes from two Greek words meaning "not an archist." Jesus talked about this.
An "archist" is a "ruler." We here at Vine & Fig Tree invented the word "archist," deriving it from a Greek word found in Mark 10:42-45, from which the English word "anarchist" is derived.
In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, Jesus discovers His disciples arguing about who is going to be the "greatest" in the Kingdom of God. Their concept of the Messiah was someone who would use force and violence to vanquish the Roman occupation army that held Israel under tribute. They looked forward to the coming of a Messiah who would enlist them into a Messianic Israeli Army which would "stick it to" the Romans. But just as Micah said we should beat "swords into plowshares," Jesus said His disciples should "love your enemies," and if their soldiers conscript you to carry their provisions for one mile, you should go with the occupation forces two. The disciples didn't understand that Jesus' Messianic Kingdom was quite unlike the kingdoms of the world.
But Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, "You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. {43} Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. {44} And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. {45} "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." |
The word translated "rulers" comes from the Greek word from which we derive our English word "anarchist" ("a + archist" -- the first "a" is the Greek letter "alpha," known as the "alpha privative," meaning "not" -- a[n]archist -- the letter "n" bridges the "alpha privative" and the word "archist").
"Lords," "rulers" and "great ones" are "archists."
An "archist" believes he has the right to impose his will on other people by force. He need not rely solely on persuasion. He need not give others anything of value in exchange for what he wants from others. He can threaten violence, and carry out those threats if he doesn't get what he wants. It would be sinful for others to engage in such violent extortion or vengeance, but the "archist" claims a "legal" and moral right to do what others must not do. The "archist" claims a monopoly on violence.
A pacifist denies the claims of the "archist" and is therefore an "an-archist."
Jesus clearly says His followers are not to be "archists." They are to be "servants."
A Christian society is an archist-free society.
We have been brainwashed in "public" schools (run by archists) to believe that an "anarchist" is:
The Biggest Lie in the history of human political thought is the idea that anarchists are bad people. By being trained to believe that "anarchists" are bad, we've been subtly inculcated with the belief that those who protect us against "anarchists" (logically, "archists") are good. This is logical. By etymological definition, the opposite of an "anarchist" is an "archist."
But the Bible says archists are bad, and explicitly prohibits us from being archists. Most of the Bible is about archists (see the books of "Judges," "Kings," etc.) who put the prophets (and Jesus) to death for denouncing their archism. This is why we teach that the Bible is an "Anarchist Manifesto."
Anyone can be called an "anarchist" by someone who wants to vilify an opponent, but most of those who call themselves "anarchist" have reached their position by their opposition to violence. I am a pacifist, therefore I am opposed to any institution of systematic violence and coercion (e.g., "the Mafia," "the State," etc.), therefore I am an "anarchist."
Jesus says His followers are not to be archists. Connect the dots.
www.HowToBecomeAChristianAnarchist.com
When the Bible commands us to beat "swords into plowshares," it is commanding "archists" to become pacifists, which is to say, anarchists.
In Mark 10:42-45, Jesus teaches that
| “Private Sector” | “Public Sector” |
| Competitive Sector | Monopoly Sector |
| Persuasive Sector | Coercive Sector |
| Peaceful Sector | Violent Sector |
| Productive Sector | Parasite Sector |
Other libertarian writers have spoken of "anarcho-socialism," or "anarcho-communism."
Vine & Fig Tree University defends the right of Murray Rothbard to be an "anarcho-capitalist," and of groups like the Amish and native Americans to be "anarcho-communist." We oppose the claims of governments to be archists, and to confiscate the land used by anarchists, or to impose a way of life on anarchists ("regulate") by force or threats of violence.
In principle, John Adams is advocating "anarchy."
No, he wasn't advocating "anarchy" directly. Adams' purpose was just to praise the Bible.
But nobody in government today would ever say what Adams said: We should take the Bible for our only law book.
That's too "radical." It's . . . it's . . . "homophobic." Or something. Only a "domestic terrorist" would say something like this. (And if Adams could travel through time from 1756 to 2023, the ACLU would call him -- and all of America's "Founding Fathers" -- an "extremist," a "theocrat" and a "domestic terrorist.")
But Adams did not really believe society could have the Bible for its only law book. Abolish all governments? Repeal all government codes of law? Naaaahh.
Adams was not an anarcho-capitalist, or anarcho-anythingist. Adams and his professors at Harvard would have been horrified at the idea of a stateless society. People like Adams believe that if all human governors were removed from office, society would collapse into chaos. Adams -- and the university he attended -- believed that God required human beings to form "governments." This idea -- that human society requires human "gods" -- comes from the Greeks, not the Bible. From Athens, not Jerusalem. Biblical prophets said that the desire for an earthly king was a rejection of God as King (1 Samuel 8).
Benjamin Rush was not afraid of "Anarcho-Theocracy." Benjamin Rush signed the Declaration of Independence and served in the Presidential administrations of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison -- each of whom came from a different political party. And of what party was Rush? He answered,
I have been alternately called an aristocrat and a democrat. I am now neither. I am a Christocrat. I believe all power. . . will always fail of producing order and happiness in the hands of man. He alone Who created and redeemed man is qualified to govern him.
The overwhelming majority of church-going Christians in 2023 would be appalled at the idea of abolishing all earthly governments and trusting completely in the government of Jesus Christ, the Messiah-King. The Bible says Jesus is the only legitimate Governor. In the Bible, human governors are false gods. Human governments are idolatry. (It will take a couple of semesters of study at Vine & Fig Tree University to come to see the Bible as an Anarchist Manifesto.)
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Rushdoony authored a book called Institutes of Biblical Law, explaining how the Bible had been used as a law book in John Adams' day, and how it could be used today. Rushdoony's "law book" is not the same kind of "law book" as those found in a law library, containing statutes and decrees of government, enforced by violent earthly enforcers. There is no verse in the Bible that anyone in our day can point to and say, "This verse gives me the right to take vengeance on my enemies (cf. Romans 12:19), extort money from others to finance my acts of vengeance, and threaten violence against anyone who tries to compete with my system of 'justice,' and God will not hold me guilty of sin for doing so."
When the Bible says we are to leave vengeance to God (Romans 12:19), it's saying we should leave all "law enforcement" to God. But those who are not anarcho-capitalists are deists. They don't believe God will intervene in history to take vengeance and establish justice.
Rushdoony's book, Institutes of Biblical Law, is a book of Biblical exegesis, social theory, and world history.
This is what the Vine & Fig Tree University curriculum is like.
Adams wasn't literally advocating the abolition of "civil government," but I believe the Bible does. Visible, physical, earthly kings are false gods, since only God is our King.
I believe the only law book we need is the Bible. The Bible is a textbook for every subject, not just religion. In our day, that's one of the most controversial things anyone can say. "Law books" full of statutes to be enforced by government violence are created by "governments." No governments, no law books. No law books, no governments.
Every legitimate, non-sinful "service" provided by "civil government" is a service that can be provided by entrepreneurs in a Freed Market at a lower cost, in greater supply, and with higher quality. Nothing in the Bible prohibits businessmen from providing consumers with these services -- in competition with those who claim to be "kings" -- and consumers are not prohibited by anything in Biblical Law from choosing a non-State service provider in a Freed Market. Eventually, the goal is the elimination of all visible, earthly, physical kings, as they all repent and join the Freed Market under King Jesus.
As long as they remain in power, all earthly, visible, physical kings eventually ban the Bible, because they (correctly) see the Bible as an "Anarchist Manifesto." Even once-called "Christian nations," like the U.S.A., have now banned the Bible. The primary purpose of public schools when they were created 400 years ago was to teach the Bible. This is now outlawed in the once-Christian United States.
A Christian society does not need a secular Washington D.C., or even a Washington D.C. that purports to be "Christian" or "Theonomic." A purportedly Theonomic "civil government" must use violence to suppress competition, or it is no longer a "civil government." By definition, a "government" has a monopoly on the use of violence, even as it uses violence to perform otherwise good deeds like "helping the poor." Good deeds which could be better performed by a Freed Market without violence.
The Bible says God is our Lawgiver, Judge, and King (Isaiah 33:22). That's all three "branches" of government under the U.S. Constitution.
Vine & Fig Tree University is based on the Bible. We view the Bible as an "anarchist manifesto." In 2023, this causes heads to explode.
Our curriculum is disarmingly simple.
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When I talk with secular Christians (those who claim to be Christians but believe in evolution, Keynesianism, Marxism, or "liberalism"), I'm always told that I cannot trust the Bible to give authoritative answers in whatever field we are discussing. The evolutionist says, "The Bible is not a textbook on geology" or biology or whatever. The Keynesian says, "The Bible is not a textbook on economics." The liberal says "The Bible is not a textbook on political science." Whatever the discipline, the Bible is "not a textbook" in that field.
The implication is clear: the Bible is only a textbook on "religion." This is no threat to the secular pseudo-Christian, because he has relegated "religion" to the "upper-story" of his life, which at best takes only one hour on Sunday morning. Religion is hermetically sealed off from every other area of life.
In fact, for these people, the Bible is not even a textbook on religion. Name one secular university religion class that uses the Bible as a textbook, that is, teaches religion as the Bible says religion should be taught. Sure, the Bible is an "exhibit" in most religion classes, along with Greek and Roman mythology, the Bhagvad Gita, and the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. But it has no more authority in the religion class than these pagan religion texts. All religions are equal; equally irrelevant.
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If the Bible is not a textbook of science and economics, |
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When the Bible is said to not be a textbook in any area of life, then the true authority in every field is the religion of Secular Humanism.
The issue here is not facts: not science, not history, not economics, not politics. The issue is morality. The secularist is saying, "Keep your morality out of my life." What is right and what is wrong for these secularists is determined by the scientists, or the economists, or the politicians -- any "expert" but Moses and the Prophets; any authority but God.
Even worse than saying the Bible is a textbook on geology is saying that the Bible is an infallible textbook on geology. This means that when the Bible speaks of a world-wide flood at the time of Noah, there is no option but to accept it and make it the foundation of all geological theories and explanations. What makes this so offensive is not the facts that would remain unexplained by bringing the Bible into the classroom (for more facts are explained by the Bible than by uniformitarianism), but by the actions in our lives that would be scrutinized and judged by the Bible. This is what motivated the development of "the theory of evolution." The theory justifies the more highly evolved people (Caucasians) ruling over the less-evolved people (non-whites). The theory of evolution justifies some people being "gods" over others. (Plus, rulers get to cheat on their wives.)
| If the Bible is a textbook for the geologist, it means he faces God's Judgment for his political life. | Darwin wrote of his victory over Noah, and his joy that the Bible was no longer a textbook on geology:
No doubt his belief produced great relief. Sir Julian Huxley articulates the secular equivalent of "whew!":
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| If the Bible is a textbook for the politician, it means he faces God's Judgment for his sexual exploitation and his perjury. | The lines were vividly drawn by Aldous Huxley, grandson of "Darwin's Bulldog," Thomas H. Huxley:
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To say that the Bible is a textbook on geology is not to say that it contains every formula, every date, every molecular structure. Consider Orlin Grabbe's textbook on International Financial Markets. While it may discuss digital cash, foreign currencies, "forwards," "swaps" and interest parity, there are many subjects it does not discuss. Does this mean it is no longer a "textbook?"
There are many subjects not discussed in the Bible, and many facts not mentioned. It is, nevertheless, the Word of God, and it governs us in every area of life, and whatever it states on any subject of life, it is our infallible authority. What makes this proposition so offensive is that the Bible addresses every area of our lives. There is no field of study or endeavor that is not governed by the principles in the Bible. God claims jurisdiction over every action, every thought.
Consider the Table of Contents from Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law. Under the pattern of the Decalogue (The Ten Commandments), Rushdoony surveys all the case laws, prophetic utterances, and the commands of the Lord and His Apostles. Decades of study are evident in hundreds of footnotes to "secular" sources, to which Biblical Law is applied in detail (over 3000 Biblical citations). It can be seen that no area of life is not addressed by God's Law. Most evangelicals would never think to apply the Bible's authoritative and concrete direction to such problems as these:
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It is obvious that The Institutes of Biblical Law is no gushy, "pious" devotional reader. It is a pathbreaking, foundational Reconstruction of Law, Politics, Jurisprudence, and Social Morality. Every Christian Lawyer should read the book from cover to cover (849 pages). Every political scientist should do the same. It is not the last word, but it is the first word in generations attempting to rigorously apply Biblical laws to the problems of contemporary society from a Bible-believing perspective. The importance of Rushdoony's Institutes and of the "Theonomic" movement in general is not in the details of their applications, but the inescapable conclusion that the Bible provides all the Law we need to apply to the facts of our lives.
Rushdoony and the Reconstructionists have completely challenged the prevailing "piety" of the Protestant and Evangelical churches. Breaking asunder the previously impenetrable barrier between the "clergy" and the "real world," Rushdoony shows how every believer-priest must apply the Word of God to every area of his life. Since its publication (1973), the Reconstructionists have continued to apply God's Word to contemporary problems in new areas and in new ways.
We may disagree with his applications and interpretations, but we must begin where Rushdoony begins: with the recognition that the Lord claims sovereignty over all the earth, and has given us His Law in written form in the Bible. Every Christian, in whatever capacity he exercises his gifts, must bring every thought captive to the lordship of Christ. Lawyers are not excepted. Nor are judges, politicians, educators, scientists, and all others involved in "secular" matters. The Bible is not an out-dated document for the "religious," for "church-workers," and for the "ordained clergy" and other ecclesiastics. God's Law governs all men.
From John M. Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God, p. 7 text+n.11:
The lordship of Christ is not only ultimate and unquestionable, not only above and beyond all other authorities, but also over all areas of human life. In 1 Corinthians 10:31 we read, "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (cf. Rom. 14:23; 2 Cor. 10:5; Col 3:17, 23; 2 Tim. 3:16-17). Our Lord's demand upon us is comprehensive. In all that we do, we must seek to please him. No area of human life is neutral. note: This was the insight of the great Dutch thinker Abraham Kuyper. He saw that the lordship of Christ requires radically different Christian forms of culture. Christians should be producing distinctively Christian
• art,
• science,
• philosophy,
• psychology,
• historical and
• biblical scholarship, and
• political and
• economic systems.
And Christians should educate their children in distinctively Christian ways (note the God-saturated education urged in Deut. 6:6ff. after the challenge to love God exclusively). For many of us, such considerations mandate home schooling or Christian schools for our children, for how can we otherwise compete with up to seven hours a day of public-school secularism mandated by law? In any case, Christians may not take the easy road, uncritically following the thinking of the unbelieving world. Consider Kuyper's remark: Of all the territory in the creation, Jesus says, "It is mine."
The Bible is the foundational textbook for every area of human thought and endeavor.
I know my way around a law library. I've spent hundreds of hours there, studying the law, and I passed the California Bar Exam, but was denied a license to practice law because America -- once a Christian nation -- is now a secular nation, and Christians cannot become attorneys (according to the Supreme Court of the United States) because their allegiance to God's Law Book trumps their allegiance to Washington D.C.'s law books. Details.
My parents were "theistic evolutionists." They taught me to believe that scientists had "proven" that life on earth evolved over billions of years. But, they added, "God did it." Then in high school I learned that evolutionists did not want God in the picture. They wanted us to believe that Mother Nature did it. And "Mother" is, like "Our Father who art in heaven," too personal. Evolutionists wanted the cold, impersonal, meaningless forces of physics and chemistry to have done it. With God out of the picture, it would be easier to rape and steal without a nagging conscience.
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"Theistic evolution" is a contradiction in terms. "Evolution" was invented to get rid of God entirely. Gary North writes:
Believers in Darwinism in the United States have a major problem. Almost nobody thinks they are correct.
In 1982, a total of 9% of the people surveyed by the Gallup organization said that they believed that man evolved over millions of years, and that God had nothing to do with the process. This is straight Darwinism. It is the theory of evolution through natural selection. In 2012, 15% of those surveyed said they held to this view. In other words, 153 years after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, the Darwinists have failed to persuade 85% of the American population of the truth of their position.
This is the case, despite the fact that Darwinists have by law captured all of the public schools, the vast majority of the universities, and most of the media, which includes captured Hollywood, the news networks, the publishing industry, and cable television. This has been the most concerted effort in government-financed, government-regulated propaganda in the history of the United States, and it has come a cropper. The overwhelming majority of Americans think that the theory is nonsense.
Darwinists do not rejoice when somebody says that he believes in evolution, but an evolutionary process guided by God. This idea is anathema to the Darwinists. Darwin took his stand against exactly this position. In his day, intellectuals believed in an old earth. They believed in God-directed evolution. God imposes order on the universe, they argued. Darwin's idea of evolution through natural selection was the answer to this view. This is why the Darwinists are passionate in their rejection of the ideas promoted by a movement that calls itself "intelligent design." Darwinists reject intelligent design as being as unscientific as the six-day creation movement.
The main point of Darwinism is not the idea of evolution. That idea long preceded Darwinism. It goes back to classical Greece. The main point of Darwinism is to promote the idea of purposeless life prior to the advent of man. It promotes the idea that all life came out of a purposeless universe, and until the advent of man, there was no purpose in the universe.
The main motivation of Darwinists has always been to elevate man as a replacement of God. What God is not allowed to do, namely, shape history, including cosmic history, in terms of His purposes, man is now said to be able to do, and therefore he has a responsibility to do it. It is the elevation of man as the new God that is the essence of Darwinism, not the doctrine of evolution. This is why Darwinism is a religion.
Darwinism, Badges, and Guns
"No purpose" means "no morality."
Notice that little phrase, "by law." If a public school teacher teaches children what my parents taught me -- that "God did it" -- that teacher could lose her job. It is illegal to teach "theistic evolution" or "intelligent design" in government-controlled schools. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public schools cannot even present "both sides" and give atheism and theism "equal time."
Controlling Federal Court decisions even prohibit teaching a semi-secular concept of "intelligent design" in government-controlled schools. Not "God." Certainly not "Our Father." Just "Intelligence." Maybe with a capital "I."
The Trial of Kitzmiller v. Dover | American Civil Liberties Union
"Straight Darwinism" -- atheistic evolution -- is the only legal option in the once-Christian United States. Theistic evolution must be censored. Children must be shielded from this dangerous religious cult.
And yet most parents -- "insurrectionists" and "domestic terrorists" -- defy the law and believe it anyway.
Evolutionists and secularists often claim that America's Founding Fathers and the authors of the U.S. Constitution were "deists." But today's thought-police say that teaching "deism" is "unconstitutional."
(Headline correction: As far as I know, I'm the only self-conscious "anarcho-creationist" on planet earth.)
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* Communists opposed the Vietnam War just like Communists said they opposed segregation. But how many blacks were allowed to live under Communism in caucasian Russia (outside the Gulags)?
Back when Harvard was a Christian university, it produced graduates like Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and John Adams
More recently, when Harvard had repudiated the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview, it produced graduates like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, and George W. Bush
In the third TV debate in the 2000 primaries, Tom Brokaw, serving as moderator, asks for viewers' questions, getting this: "What political philosopher or thinker...do you most identify with?" Candidate Steve Forbes stood with John Locke. Candidate Alan Keyes came out with the Founders.
The question was repeated: "Governor Bush — a philosopher-thinker and why."
Bush: "Christ, because he changed my heart."
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Not because He changed Bush's political policies, foreign policy, or military strategies. Clearly, Jesus had no impact on Bush's decision to harm children by destroying Iraqi neighborhoods. But Bush may be sincere when he thinks of himself as a follower of Christ, because Bush believes that Christ is Lord in religious areas only, but not military areas. After all, it simply isn't "practical" or "realistic" to apply Jesus' teachings to international relations. We can believe Jesus in our hearts, and go to heaven when we die, but applying Jesus' teachings literally in the political or military arena is suicidal. Many people -- even atheists -- agree with Bush in this respect. Would Jesus Celebrate Memorial Day?
It would be very difficult -- if not impossible -- to find a Harvard graduate -- much less a Harvard Professor -- in the last 100 years who applies the teachings of Jesus and the Bible to "the real world" the way Vine & Fig Tree University does.
Harvard was founded by Christians who wanted to Christianize the world. Today's Harvard is governed by those who want to create a secular "New World Order." A Christian world is a Vine & Fig Tree world; a secular world is a beehive governed by Ivy League-educated archists and plutocrats profiting off of worker-drones.
He would be indicted for war crimes by America's Founding Fathers. Many people believe Kissinger is "an amoral egotist who enabled dictators, extended the Vietnam War, laid the path to the Khmer Rouge killing fields, stage-managed a genocide in East Timor, overthrew the democratically elected government in Chile, and encouraged Nixon to wiretap his political adversaries."
Kissinger is a graduate of Harvard University (class of 1950).
So is George W. Bush (MBA, 1975) who destroyed the largest Christian community in the Arab world by violently overthrowing the government of a dictator in Iraq that the U.S. government had helped put in power and maintain in power during a decade-long war with Iran, which the U.S. helped spawn by overthrowing the democratically-elected government of Iran for the benefit of Western oil companies.
Kissinger and Bush represent the liberal, secular "Establishment" and "the Deep State" swamp which Trump campaigned against, but which Trump is powerless to drain because he too is a victim of educational malpractice and knows nothing about the Bible's “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview.
