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the most profound, beneficial, or we will DOUBLE your tuition back
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"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.
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.
Should you enroll in college?
Statistically speaking, enrolling in a traditional "secular" university will be the worst decision of your entire life.
On this website you'll find proof that if you enroll in any other college or university,
Can you answer this simple math problem?
Find the % of students who enroll in college who are successful and happy with the work they do.
1. In the box below are all the students who enroll in college, hoping for happiness and success. A couple of million each year. We'll call them "Group A"
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2. 50% of Group A will not graduate, so enrolling in college was a waste. Google something like "what percent of college students graduate?" Some years it's 51%, some years it's 47%, but it's about half on average. In the box below, Group B = 50% who enrolled but did not graduate, Group A = 50% still hoping for happiness and success from college:
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Group B |
3. Of the graduates in Group A, 50% will get a job they could have gotten without attending a single college class, so enrolling in college was a waste of time and money. Group C ["underemployed"], joining Group B [enrolling in college was a waste].
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Group C |
Group B |
4. 50% of those remaining in Group A graduate, but do not get a job in the field they majored in. They thought they loved the field of X, but they end up with a job in the field of Y. We'll call them Group D ["misemployed"], joining Groups C ["underemployed"] and B [enrolling in college was a waste]
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Group D |
Group C |
Group B |
[It is an unfortunate fact that many employers have been brainwashed by the University-Industrial Complex and require employees to graduate from college even though what they study in college has no relationship to the work they'll be doing on the job.]
5. 50% of those remaining in Group A, who got their degree and actually get a job in their major field of study, don't believe the work they do makes the world a better place. We'll call them Group E, joining Groups D, C, and B [enrolling in college was a waste]
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Group E |
Group D |
Group C |
Group B |
The more questions you ask, the smaller "Group A -- People who found success and happiness by enrolling in college" becomes.
Before you spend four years and tens of thousands of dollars (for which you may end up paying an equal amount in interest) you should be sure you can answer this question:
What percent of people who
believe the work they do makes the world a better place?
What percent of those who enroll in college end up successful and happy in the work they do?
Pursuing a traditional path of classroom schooling could land you a traditional job.
Pursuing an alternate path of education could land you an alternate kind of job: one that makes you happy and benefits humanity.
College may not train you or equip you to benefit humanity, but it qualifies you to hold certain jobs. You can't get these jobs without that piece of paper called a "degree." Often these jobs are government jobs or government-approved jobs. That is, a job approved by a government that has
Have you really thought through the kind of life you want to lead, and whether an over-priced college degree is the best way to help you serve the planet?
Q.1: What percent of students who didn't know what they wanted to do with their lives by the time they graduated from high school are happy because they got a college degree?
Q.2: What percent of students who never enrolled in college and are doing the work they wanted to do when they graduated from high school are happy?
The answer to Question 2 is much larger than the answer to Question 1.
Your K-12 public school education did not equip you to answer these questions.
Do you believe in God?
Why did God put human beings on planet earth?
Why are you here? What are you supposed to be doing?
What is the Chief End of Man?
This was the first question in the Shorter Catechism. When Samuel Adams enrolled in Harvard in 1736, every English-speaking human being in America could have recited the answer to this question. From memory.
If you don't already know what young children in 1776 knew, you are a victim of educational malpractice, and you might want to visit this website.
See this chart [source]. It proves that people who work instead of going to college and invest their earnings instead of going to college and don't invest any more for the rest of their lives earn more from these years of investing than people who go to college and then start investing after college when (it is hoped) they get "a good job," and continue to invest every year for the rest of their working life.
That is a staggering fact. If you're not staggered, you didn't understand it. Four years of work and investing vs. four years of college and working for the rest of your life.
Unfortunately, college graduates in positions of government power are destabilizing the economy and making investment impossible.
To make the future rosier, 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 securely 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 “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.
Jerusalem vs. Athens
Ironically, it was the Founders of Harvard who planted the seeds of America's destruction. They tried to combine the Bible with the "glory" of Athens and the Roman Empire. They tried to combine Christianity with the philosopher-kings who put Christians in a coliseum filled with bloodthirsty spectators who cheered as wild animals tore the flesh off of Christian martyrs. Vine & Fig Tree University is being created to refine the educational infrastructure created by America's founders, focusing on Micah's “Vine & Fig Tree” vision, removing the dross and leaving the purest gold; surgically excising the Greco-Roman cancer and allowing the body to grow healthy and strong.
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The “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview has been purged from the modern curricula of modern universities, all of which started out Christian.
The first 150 graduating classes of Harvard would have known what is meant by “Vine & Fig Tree.” They knew before their first day of college.
Page Smith was a historian, winner of the Bancroft Prize, earning his M.A. degree in 1948, and Ph.D. degree in 1951 from Harvard. In his book Religious Origins of the American Revolution (Scholars Press, 1976), Smith writes about graduates from the older Harvard, like Samuel Adams (1740), John Hancock (1754), and John Adams (1755). He says the passage in the book of Micah about “every man…under his vine and under his fig tree” was
the most potent expression of the colonist’s determination to be independent whatever the cost,…having substantial control over his own affairs. No theme was more constantly reiterated by writers and speakers in the era of the Revolution.
The American Revolution might thus be said to have started, in a sense, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg. It received a substantial part of its theological and philosophical underpinnings from John Calvin’s Institutes Of The Christian Religion and much of its social history from the Puritan Revolution of 1640- 1660, and, perhaps, less obviously, from the Glorious Revolution of 1689.
Put another way, the American Revolution is inconceivable in the absence of that context of ideas which have constituted radical Christianity. The leaders of the Revolution in every colony were imbued with the precepts of the Reformed faith.
Indeed, he adds, in early America, the Reformation
left its mark on every aspect of the personal and social life of the faithful. In the family, in education, in business activity, in work, in community and, ultimately, in politics, the consequences of the Reformation were determinative for American history.
As remote or repugnant as Puritanism may be to some, Smith says “it is essential that we understand that the Reformation in its full power was one of the great emancipations of history.”
America became the most prosperous and admired nation in history because it was a Calvinist Theocracy. You were trained by your government-approved teachers to be offended and appalled at that claim. And it is unfortunate that Calvin and his progeny were not consistent Christian Theocrats. They tried to combine "Jerusalem and Athens." Instead of a pure "Theocracy," which literally means "God governs," they wanted clergymen to govern. So here is the rise and fall of Harvard:
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John Adams wrote this in his diary on February 22, 1756, one year after graduating from Harvard, forty years before being elected the second President of the United States. Two centuries later, you would be hard-pressed to find a Harvard graduate who would voice a similar desire. Too many of today's Harvard grads are far more comfortable with a law library full of statutes and court judgments than they would be with a Bible-centered world. And why not -- there's more money to be made in politics than in an honest vocation.
| The U.S. Federal Government prohibits a school teacher in a government-run school from teaching students that the Declaration of Independence really is true. |
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If the Founders of Harvard University could travel through time, they would say there are
Five Things You Need to Know
You should have been taught these Five Things in your K-12 public education. The same people who formed Harvard formed the first public schools to teach the Bible and these important things. You were denied these things. You need to know these five things before you can begin your Harvard education. We need to teach you these Five Things before you will see the value of a Harvard 3.0 Education:
- Thing #1: The Three Subjects Banned From Your Government-Approved Education
- -- and why you must access them. || Details
- Thing #2: The Three Goals for You from Samuel Adams
- -- and why you must achieve them. || Details
- Thing #3: The Three Huge Mistakes America's Founding Fathers Made
- -- and why you must avoid them. || Details
- Thing #4: The Three Most Hated Words in Politics Today
- -- and why you must adopt them. || Details
- Thing #5: The Three Things You Need to Become Extraordinary
- -- and why you must activate them. || Details
Harvard was created to train experts in the Bible. The Founders of Harvard believed that everyone in society needed to be able to read and understand the Bible. The Bible was the basis for our civil laws and the habits that make a prosperous and admirable society possible. So we needed Bible experts, which today we call "clergymen." The Bible experts who preached sermons on Sunday taught in classrooms the rest of the week. After Harvard was created in 1636 to train Bible experts, public schools were formed in 1647 so that Bible experts could teach children the Bible. When these Bible-educated children grew older, they would go to Harvard to become Biblical lawyers, Biblical mathematicians, and Biblical everything-else. You were denied a Bible-based K-12 education, and were brainwashed into believing that a society like the one created by Harvard's Founders was a terrible thing.
So you don't want a Harvard Education, even for only $5,000.
This makes our marketing task a formidable one. You don't want what we sell. We have to give you a complete K-12 education in order for you to see why you should buy a Harvard education.
If the Founders of Harvard could travel through time, and if they had the government authority they had in 1636, they would shut down Harvard University.
They would shut down the entire Education-Industrial Complex.
They would put their heads together to avoid the mistakes they made (mistakes that made the transformation from Harvard 1.0 to Harvard 2.0 inevitable) and create Harvard 3.0 -- Vine & Fig Tree University.
They would also re-create K-12 education, putting it back on a Biblical foundation as it was in the beginning.
If we're going to sell you on enrolling in Vine & Fig Tree University, we're going to have to re-educate you from the bottom up.
Whatever their faults, the Puritans gave America the worldview that made America the most prosperous and admired nation in history. Not a knowledge of arcane factoids, but character, like "The Protestant Work Ethic." As Ronald Reagan was fond of pointing out, the Puritans turned a hostile wilderness into a shining "City Upon a Hill."
When it was founded in 1636, Harvard was a Christian institution designed to create Protestant clergymen. But one of the ideals of the Protestant Reformation was the concept of "The Priesthood of All Believers," meaning that being a Butcher, a Baker, or a Candlestick Maker is just as sacred and holy a calling as being a clergyman. So by the time Samuel Adams enrolled in Harvard in 1736, the college was producing lawyers and mathematicians as well as "ministers of the Gospel." Every field of study was undertaken in the context of a Christian worldview. Here are the Theses titles for the Harvard graduating class of 1787, when John Quincy Adams graduated. Warning: they are all in Latin. An oral defense of a thesis was in Latin.
From a "howling wilderness" to a Garden and then to the City of God, the Puritans moved America from savagery to civilization.
Harvard was originally created to promote a view of the world which holds that civilization is better than savagery. If you live in a Christian civilization, you enjoy a more prosperous life and are a more admirable human being than if you live in a pagan wilderness. But some people prefer the wilderness over the Garden. They would rather live in
• the housing projects of Chicago, or
• the suburbs of Los Angeles, making a living by manipulating people into buying worthless trinkets, or
• Wall Street, gambling with taxpayers' money, putting the profits in their account, and making the rest of us cover their losses.
Today's Harvard has rejected Christian Civilization. Most universities today oppose the original "American Dream" of everyone dwelling peacefully under his own "Vine & Fig Tree," and promote atheism and paganism in its many modern forms.
But the problem is not just today's Harvard.
Suppose now instead of Harvard's Founders traveling through time from 1636 to 2023, you traveled through time from 2023 back to 1736, when Samuel Adams ("The Father of the American Revolution" and "the Last Puritan") was admitted to Harvard at age 14. Knowledge of Greek and Latin were not graduation requirements, but entrance requirements.
Harvard students were required to give their assent to the system of Calvinist theology found in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. Same with Princeton and Yale. Virtually every six year-old in America was schooled in the Shorter Catechism, the second most widely circulated document in America in 1776 behind the Bible. Has a single member of the incoming Harvard freshmen in 2023 even read those documents? I doubt a single freshman at Harvard in 2023 has read them and would "assent" to them.
There probably isn't a single member of the incoming Freshman class of Harvard in 2023 who could have gotten admitted to Harvard in 1736 along with 14 year-old Samuel Adams.
If you were to travel back in time to 1736, you would not even want a Harvard Education like the one Samuel Adams was about to receive.
Or lack thereof.
Here's what no college in America in 2023 will tell you.
You are a victim of educational malpractice.
You have been brainwashed by the Education-Industrial Complex to loathe and ridicule a Harvard Education, and demand an inferior education at 10x the price. You don't really want a Harvard Education, even for less than $5,000.
You just want a piece of paper that will get you in line for a job, ahead of applicants who couldn't afford that piece of paper. A job in a cubicle turning a hamster wheel. You will spend your life paying off your student loans, your mortgage, and your taxes, and the next generation will forget that you ever existed. All the while your government drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes.
Your education thus far has been compulsory. You have never been educated to be a good consumer of education. You have never had to shop for education. You were just told to show up for the government's one-size-fits-all school system, or be declared "truant." This website will give you a three-hour education on how to be an educated consumer of education.
When Harvard's Christian curriculum was banned by the government or abandoned by wimpy college administrators in the last 200 years, America's prosperity turned to bankruptcy, and the once-admired Christian Republic turned into a despised murderous atheistic empire.
The Framers of the Constitution in 1787 declared that a Christian curriculum as Harvard once had (and as Harvard students had received for years before admission to Harvard) was "necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind." That worldview has been abolished by the federal government in all public schools grades K-12, and abandoned by Harvard and all other universities. As a result,
Americans used to score #1 on international academic tests. Today, American students are #27, and they cannot find the other 26 nations on a map.
Instead of being outraged and appalled at the corruption, murder, and illiteracy that has come to characterize the United States under secularism, you just want to fit in and get a paycheck. Nobody who risked "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" in 1776 would admire you as an American, as a Christian, or as a human being.
But a new university has been started, one that can make you prosperous and admired, just as Harvard did to America 400 years ago.
We don't require you to know Latin (and we explain why below).
If you want to be a part of a community that promotes civilization by giving you the education that Harvard gave Samuel Adams, there's only one university to apply to:
"They will beat their swords into plowshares,
and everyone will dwell securely under his own Vine & Fig Tree."
Micah 4:1-7
Your First Semester is FREE
The next full year is just $497
The total cost of a 2-year A.A. Degree is just $997
We offer a complete, 100% money-back guarantee.
No other university on planet earth offers a money-back guarantee.
Your next two years, leading to a B.A. Degree are $997 each year.
If you get a passing grade on all your assignments,
we guarantee you will experience
the most profound, beneficial,
massive, and lasting
personal transformation
of your entire life
or we will DOUBLE your tuition back.
How can we make such an extraordinary guarantee?
The answer is in one word:
AMERICA
Using the extraordinary technology of the computer and the Internet, in a 100% online education format (no Administration Building, no paper-and-ink library, no football stadium), we give you the education that Americans received from 1620 to 1820 -- the education that made America the most prosperous and admired nation in history. The equivalent of a K-12 education, plus 4 years of post-secondary Christian worldview education, for less than $5,000 (a savings of up to half a million dollars).
The curriculum of Vine & Fig Tree University now has 400 years of empirical testing to prove that it works. When schools taught it, America was prosperous and admired. When schools banned it, America's prosperity turned to bankruptcy and admiration turned to international loathing and ridicule. Blessed when you follow it, cursed when you reject it.
We follow the advice of Harvard graduate Samuel Adams, the "Father of the American Revolution" and "the Last Puritan" who told Americans how to become
More important, we guarantee our curriculum because we have -- like the Framers of the Declaration of Independence -- "a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence." "Providence" is the opposite of deism. Not a single "deist" signed the U.S. Constitution. Not one. Our curriculum -- and our entire educational experience -- is a supernatural one. If "The Great Lord and Ruler of Nations" does not transform you in an extraordinary way, you might as well get your money back. And to entice you to take that step of faith and enroll, we'll give you DOUBLE your money back if you take up the plow, sow the seeds, but do not receive a harvest.
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Warning: This website is a brain-dump. As Mark Twain might have said, "I wanted to write a shorter web site, but didn't have time."
Harvard's Founders would say there is a need for a Christian Theocratic University.
Whether there is a market for such a university is another question.
Harvard's Founders would say society has a moral obligation to make sure a university like the one they founded exists, and a moral obligation to create a market for it.
Here is where that University begins, someday to have more influence in the world than the modern-day Harvard:
Vine & Fig Tree is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Its mission is to help bring about the fulfillment of Micah's "Vine & Fig Tree" prophecy (Micah 4:1-7) in which he speaks of a day we beat our "swords into plowshares" and everyone dwells peacefully under his own "vine and fig tree."
This was also the goal of the "Great and General Court" of the Theocratic church-state of Massachusetts when they created a "New College" for a New Jerusalem in New England in a New World in 1636.
Vine & Fig Tree would like to create a new college.Soon after forming the New College, the Rev. John Harvard donated his entire library (400 volumes) and half his estate (£1600) to the college, and the New College was subsequently renamed "Harvard College" in his honor. and is known today as "Harvard University."
The first graduating class of Harvard in 1642 consisted of nine students who had been taught by a single "master."As the founder of Vine & Fig Tree, I will donate my entire library of 10,000 volumes and my entire estate to "Vine & Fig Tree University." I would like the first graduating class to have a minimum of ten students, optimally from as many different nations.
Why did America -- this once-Christian nation -- not fulfill its dream and beat its "swords into plowshares," but instead become the largest seller of weapons of mass destruction on the planet?Why is the Harvard of today so diametrically opposite the Harvard of 1636? What went wrong?
Ironically, the seeds of Harvard's destruction were planted by Harvard's Founders.
I said above that today's Harvard is at war with everything the original Harvard stood for.
Harvard's curriculum in 1636 was not perfect. Unfortunately, everything good about the Puritans has been repudiated by today's Harvard, or banned by the Federal Government, and everything bad about the Puritans has been amplified. The Christian worldview of the original Harvard has been eradicated. America's prosperity has been replaced by bankruptcy, and admiration by loathing and ridicule. Led by modern graduates of Harvard.)
Everything that was wrong with the Puritans can be summed up in a sentence: They promoted "the classics."
At Harvard, they tried to combine a Biblical education with a "classical" education.
In the Bible, the "City upon a Hill" was Jerusalem, on Mt. Zion. America's founders thought of themselves as creating a New Jerusalem.
The Church Father Tertullian (c. 155 - 240 A.D.) asked, "What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church?" Details: What is "the Academy?"
Augustine described the conflict between "Jerusalem and Athens" as the conflict between "The City of God" and "The City of Man." Jerusalem leads to the “Vine & Fig Tree” society. Athens leads to Christians being torn to pieces in the Coliseum.
But the Founders of Harvard were infatuated with Athens. For all their Bible-thumping, they placed equal (and in some cases more) confidence in pagan Greco-Roman philosophy than they did in the Bible. Harvard and America were a thoroughly Biblical "loaf," but "a little leaven leavens the whole loaf" (Galatians 5:9).
"Jerusalem" means the Ten Commandments and the rest of Biblical Law. "Athens" has also been described by the term "natural law." One of your first lessons at Vine & Fig Tree University will be on the subject of "Natural Law." See below.
There were two components of a "Harvard Education" in 1636: The Biblical and the "Classical." One of these components -- the Biblical; "Jerusalem" -- made America the most prosperous and admired nation in history. The other component -- the "classical"; "Athens" -- was at war with the first component. It is vital that you see the contrast between "Jerusalem" and "Athens." See below. You should master one, and relegate the other to the dustbin of history. Unfortunately, Harvard and the rest of today's Education-Industrial Complex has banned the best and imposed the worst of these two components. In the last 200 years, "Athens" has triumphed over "Jerusalem" in American higher education -- indeed, in all education, K-12 and beyond.
Vine & Fig Tree University is committed to avoiding this tragic end.
The Biblical worldview promoted by Harvard in 1636 (and by Harvard graduates for 200 years) helped make America the most prosperous and admired nation in history. It was not Athens that did this; it was Jerusalem. Higher Education today is dominated by the mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome: the idea that their ideas brought peace and a libertarian political order. See this important essay.
The last two hundred years have seen Harvard morph into Athens -- from Micah's “Vine & Fig Tree” society, where the Bible is the only law-book, to Plato's fascist Republic -- and as it exists today Harvard is at war with the Christian worldview of her Founders. Jerusalem has been completely removed from the curriculum, and the Religion of Secular Humanism (which pervades Harvard's present curriculum) has transformed America's prosperity into bankruptcy and admiration into loathing and ridicule. The decline is staggering; even those who sense the decline are not fully aware of how deep it goes.
The Bible is the central textbook at Vine & Fig Tree University. We recognize the antithesis between Jerusalem and Athens. If Athens has any worthwhile ideas, they were stolen from Jerusalem.
We can see the "Jerusalem-Athens" conflict in the Founding of the United States in the late 18th century, particularly in the lives of three members of the Adams family of Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, and John Quincy Adams.Samuel Adams worked to abolish the government.
John Adams also resisted British tyranny, but then tended toward tyranny himself.
John Quincy Adams was urged by his father to pursue an Athenian Education. Interestingly, John Quincy Adams described the abolition of the government:
Probably every graduate of Harvard in the last 50 years would be horrified at the prospect of being "left without any Government whatever."The war was revolutionary. It began by the dissolution of the British Government in the Colonies; the People of which were, by that operation, left without any Government whatever.
An exception: A Harvard Professor who was not afraid of anarcho-capitalism.But Americans in 1776 had a skill that Americans in 2023 do not have: self-government. This skill was the by-product of education in the Bible. Liberty exists only when people are governed by God.
Jews in Harvard and Liberty in Jerusalem
All Pagans throughout history have been created in the Image of God. All Puritans sinned and fell short of the Glory of God (Romans 3:23). Nobody is a perfectly consistent Christian, or a logically consistent Satanist. Sometimes pagans say true things, and sometimes Christians get it wrong. The University-Industrial Complex today denies that there is such a thing as truth. You can't say the Christian Samuel Adams was closer to the truth than an Islamic terrorist, because the terrorist is "sincere," and his violent Shariah "culture" is just as valid as that of a peaceful and prosperous City upon a Hill in a Christian nation.
Micah's “Vine & Fig Tree” vision is a "Theocratic" vision.
The word "Theocracy" comes from two Greek words meaning "God governs." For the Founders of Harvard, "God" was the God of the Bible, who made His home (temple) in Jerusalem on Mt. Zion, and then "tabernacled among us" in the man Jesus of Nazareth. In the eyes of Harvard's Founders, every human being in every nation on earth has a moral obligation to be governed by God, by obeying God's Commandments revealed in the Bible.
Today's biggest rivals to this vision of Christian Theocracy are
"Secular" individuals often worship their own collective deified humanity, embodied in "the State," and as the philosopher Hegel described it, "The State is god walking on the earth." The Religion of Secular Humanism is a theocratic religion. The State is god.
Every nation on planet earth is a theocracy of some sort -- or in a process of transition from one form of theocracy to another.
The Founders of Harvard University would say there ought to exist in 2023 a University like the one they founded in 1636. A university which educates people into creating and maintaining a Christian Theocracy.They wanted New England and the New World to be a "City upon a Hill" (a reference to Jerusalem in Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount"). They wanted every area of life sanctified to the service of King Jesus; nothing was to be "secular." They believed a Bible-based education was "necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind."
Harvard University today promotes a Secular Humanist theocracy. The United States today is a Secular Humanist theocracy. Most nations today are secular theocracies. Islamic theocracies are an obvious exception. Note.
In the Bible, "the sword" is often a symbol of "the State." "Everybody knows" that Jesus commanded His followers to be "pacifists" -- to love even their enemies (Matthew 5:44) and to beat their swords into plowshares (Matthew 26:52). Using the power of "the sword" ("the government") to promote the Christian religion is a betrayal of the Christian religion. That claim has been a "fringe" view ever since Constantine merged Christianity and the Roman Empire in the 4th century.
The person who is a consistent opponent of aggression is not just a "pacifist," but an "anarchist." (An "archist" is someone who believes he has the right to impose his will on others by force or threats of violence. An-archists oppose "government" as the institutionalization of violence and aggression.)
Obviously Constantine and the Founders of Harvard in the Church-State of Massachusetts were neither "pacifists" nor "anarchists." And for this reason, they were not consistent Christian "Theocrats."
The Founders of Harvard believed the State ("the sword") should endorse and promote Christianity. So did Harvard graduates like Samuel Adams, John Adams, and John Hancock. "The Sword" was used in some colonies to promote the Presbyterian version of Christianity, and in other colonies to promote the Anglican version. After the American Revolution, few Americans wanted the Sword to promote the Church of England (which was "disestablished" by the Revolution). So they asked, which version of Christianity should "the government" promote?
There was a consensus that no "ecclesiastical body" (a favorite phrase of James Madison, "Father of the Constitution") should be promoted by "the sword." There was still a consensus that the State should promote generic Christianity.
Not only was there no consensus that the State should be "secular," there was hardly a single human being in North America who believed the State should promote the Religion of Secular Humanism. There were still a handful of clergymen who wanted the State to promote their own denomination, but gradually they realized that if the State had the power to promote e.g., the Baptist faith by making it illegal for Presbyterians to baptize babies, that same power -- the power of "the sword" -- could be co-opted by Presbyterians in the future to prevent Baptists from promoting their denominational distinctives.
In our day, "the Separation of Church and State" does not mean the separation of "ecclesiastical bodies" and government power. In our day the phrase means "separation of RELIGION and government," which is an impossibility. Whether Christianity, Islam, or the Religion of Secular Humanism, some religion -- or as Harvard Professor Paul Tillich described it, "Ultimate Concern" -- is going to decide how the sword will be used, as long as the Sword exists. All laws are the "legislation of morality." The source of morality is the "god" of society. Government is religion externalized. When a non-Christian religion controls the Sword, a Christian cake-baker who refuses to use his cake-baking skills to promote homosexuality will have his business destroyed by "the Sword."
"The Separation of Church and State" -- which really means the separation of God and State -- means the separation of Christianity and State, but not the separation of the Religion of Secular Humanism and the State. Ultimately this principle means the separation of God and Business, the separation of God and Media, the separation of God and Charity, and the separation of Christian morality from every public area of life. The separation of God and State produces an ungodly state.
I want to believe that if they could travel through time to our day, the Founders of Harvard would see how their belief in a church-state has developed, mutated, and metastasized. They believed that the institution of "civil government" -- "the sword" -- was necessary to prevent lawlessness, promote "the common weal," and ultimately bring about the original "American Dream" of everyone dwelling securely under his own “Vine & Fig Tree.” I want to believe that they would see that it is impossible to promote consistent Christianity using "the sword." Doing so deforms Christianity itself, and ultimately ends up promoting an atheist theocracy, where every man is his own god, and the totalitarian state is the apotheosis of Secular Man.
| During my lifetime, "my" government, "The United States of America," has killed, crippled, or made homeless TENS of MILLIONS of innocent, non-combatant non-white civilians around the world. America used to be a Christian nation (if any "nation" can be "Christian"), but today the U.S. is a "diverse" and "inclusive" nation, where every pagan idea is included, and only Christianity is excluded, and lawlessness is publicly condoned and even promoted in a way that would horrify Harvard's Founders. They would see instantly that the United States is the enemy of God and humanity. It is the enemy of the idea of the "City upon a hill." It is the enemy of the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview. |
A Christian university cannot promote "the separation of church and state" where that phrase means "the separation of God and State." There are many so-called Christian universities, but none of them challenge the myth of a "secular" state, because they are afraid of being accused of trying to "impose a theocracy."
I would like to create the university that Harvard's Founders would create if they could travel through time and witness the phenomenon of the world's governments murdering an average of 10,000 human beings every day of the year during every year of the entire 20th century:Is the institution of "the University" a method of teaching which is consistent with Christianity?
Nobody is asking that question.
Maybe they should.
The New Testament records the growth of Christianity as an illegal religion, spreading "from house to house." Christianity in Communist China is growing that same way. The authority among Christian house-churches was the Scriptures, and the Bereans were praised for searching the Scriptures daily to question even Apostolical spokesmen (Acts 17:11). This house-to-house anarchist pedagogical model is closer to an apprenticeship than to listening to the lecture of a tenured Ph.D. and taking a written exam. Churches in America today are like university classrooms, but "the sermon" is not the Biblical model. The "sermon" originated in Athens, not in Jerusalem.
Vine & Fig Tree University will not be a "university" in the conventional classroom sense, but rather an educational alternative for the millions who sign up for student loan debt every year, thinking they need to go to college in order to discover their calling and get the ideal job; an alternative to millions of people around the world who are being oppressed by Harvard-educated dictators. (The problem is not just Harvard, or any single university, but what we call "the University-Industrial Complex.")
Creating a Christian Theocratic university would be extremely controversial in our day.Creating a "City upon a Hill" -- a peaceful and prosperous society -- not just in America, but in every nation -- does not require highly-technical mathematical formulae discoverable only by a super-genius with three earned doctorates, or laws and prison terms decided upon by a blue-ribbon committee of bureaucrats, policy-makers, or philosopher-kings. The path to a the “Vine & Fig Tree” society is obvious to all, big, and common-sense: Obey God's commandments, and thereby make Him your Governor. Your great-great grandmother understood it (if she lived in America), and she would make a better U.S. President than the last dozen Presidents. Robert Fulghum wrote a book entitled, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. "Keep your promises." "Don't hit people." "Don't take their stuff." Jesus said you must become as a child to enter the Kingdom (Matthew 18:3). That may mean un-learning everything you were told as an adult by University Professors, Military Generals, and Politicians. Vine & Fig Tree University describes this process as "de-programming" from the world's most dangerous authoritarian cult.
It's not enough to be as a child. Jesus also said those who are as gentle as doves must also be as wise as the serpents (Matthew 10:16). So while the first two years of a four-year program should be remedial, with students learning those things that are "necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind," the latter two years must be apologetic in nature, learning how to give an answer (1 Peter 3:15) to the arguments and propaganda of the forces of bad government and human misery. We must give an answer to Ph.D.'s and politicians as well as to those who are clinically depressed or suicidal.
The Bible says God is our King, our Lawgiver, and our Judge (Isaiah 33:22). Some would see in that statement all three branches of government under the U.S. Constitution. But the Bible says that the desire for an earthly king is a rejection of God as King (1 Samuel 8). The Bible says earthly kings are false gods. Statism is idolatry. Jerusalem stands in opposition to the philosopher-kings of Athens. From the perspective of Harvard's modern-day intelligentsia, the Bible is an Anarchist Manifesto.
Theocracy A always rejects the god of Theocracy B. Today's Harvard theocrats reject the God of Harvard's Founders, and would be shocked at the very idea that our society could function prosperously and peacefully without their Ph.D.-led planning and control.
But Athens triumphed over Jerusalem, and now
Digression: The Messianic Character of American Education
Digression: Lowest-common denominator elites
Digression: Jefferson on education and liberty
Both Adamses -- and probably every graduate of Harvard during the first 150 years of its existence -- would agree that the government of the United States as it exists in 2023 ought to be abolished.In its place the Bible prescribes what Jewish economist Murray Rothbard (1926-1995, BA, Ph.D, Columbia) called "anarcho-capitalism," but what advocates of "enlightenment democracy" would still call a "Theocracy." I'll call it "Anarcho-Theocracy."
I want to create an online learning platform where students can learn that the Bible is an Anarchist Manifesto, a "textbook" for every field of learning, and a blueprint for a peaceful and prosperous "Vine and Fig Tree" society.Every single person who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would say that the curriculum I advocate is "necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind."
Opposing Athens and championing Jerusalem is the exact opposite of what the University-Industrial Complex approves. I'm keeping Harvard's original focus on Biblical Theocracy and tossing the Enlightenment, while the mainstream has done just the opposite.
I would purge "Athens" from the curriculum and focus entirely on "Jerusalem."VineandFigTree.university/Jerusalem versus Athens
(Except from the perspective of apologetics: equipping students to defeat "Athens" using the weapons of "Jerusalem" requires reconnaissance of the enemy's positions.)The contrast between "Jerusalem and Athens" is the contrast between
• Biblical Theocracy (Jerusalem)
and
• Enlightenment Secularism (Athens)• Every one dwelling safely under his own "vine and fig tree"
• "Economic man"
vs.
• Philosopher-kings ruling over slaves in Plato's "Republic"
vs.
• "Political man"
VFTonline.org/Patriarchy/definitions/economic-man
Another way of summarizing the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview is in these three words:
This is another way of describing the philosophy of life and society that made America the most prosperous and admired nation in history.
Despite its proven track record of success, this philosophy is the most hated and "politically incorrect" view in the United States today. Vine & Fig Tree University hopes to be the first university with one million online students, but most of those students will probably be outside the increasingly-socialist and secular United States.
Liberty |
Under God |
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"Liberty" is derided as "anarchy." |
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| "Liberty" means "freedom from the initiation of force."
At Vine & Fig Tree University, we speak of people who enjoy initiating force against others, or who think they have the right to do so, as "archists." The English word "anarchist" comes from two Greek words meaning "not an archist." The "archist" thinks he can steal from others, and kill those who resist. |
A nation "under God" is a nation whose people are willing to say "I am not God." For the Founders of Harvard, that "God" was not the god of Osama bin Ladin, but rather the God of the Bible, seen in Jesus Christ. A nation "under God" can speak of Christianity as "our holy religion," as America's Founding Fathers did. To say "I am not God" is to say "I am not an archist." |
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Liberty Under God No human being has the right to be an archist. This is how a Harvard political scientist in 2023 would label the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview: |
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Theocracy |
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This is how Harvard Graduates spoke of the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview 250 years ago: |
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John Adams wrote this in his diary on February 22, 1756, one year after graduating from Harvard, forty years before being elected the second President of the United States:
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I believe the only law book we need is the Bible. The Bible is a blueprint for a civilized society, and a textbook for every subject, not just religion. In our day, that's one of the most offensive things
anyone can say.
I know my way around a law library. I earned my degrees after studying law and passed the California Bar Exam, but was denied a license to practice law because America -- once a Christian nation -- is now a secular nation, with a new god, and Christians cannot become attorneys (according to the modern 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. |
| The Founders of Harvard also created "public schools" for younger students, the primary and central purpose of which was to make students competent to understand the Bible and apply it to every area of life. Both Samuel Adams and John Adams agreed that education -- from infancy to Kindergarten to Ph.D. must be Bible-based and Christian. Details. Uneducated people are easily enslaved by political demagogues. See Jefferson's secularized version of this outlook. | In 1776, there was no such thing as "Kindergarten" in America, nor was the "Ph.D." degree offered in any university. Details |
Notes on Introduction [skip]
Comparing Harvard Graduates: Then and Now
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
But didn't George Bush claim to be a Christian?
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.
Digression: Islamic Theocracies
A better label than "Islamic Theocracy" for some oil-rich Arab nations is simply "clan dictatorship." Their sometimes irreligious leaders use religion to profit from tourism and disarm resistance by the masses. U.S. intelligence helped cultivate terrorist Wahhabi Islam in an effort to destabilize the Soviet Union, and continues to subsidize terrorism as a political tool against Ba'athist governments (Iraq, Syria; not strictly "Islamic Theocracies," but more "secular," and opposed to terrorists like the "Islamic State") that do not bow to U.S. petrodollar interests. An "Islamic Theocracy" can still be a puppet of a "Secular Theocracy."
Digression: The Messianic Character of American Education
The atheistic worldview of Harvard is also seen in other elite universities. These elite universities claim to create the "philosopher-kings" that would (and should) rule over the masses. The Teachers' College at Columbia University created a generation of teachers who programmed the masses to be governed by the elites. As a result the masses are incapable of self-government.The Messianic Character of American Education: 50th Anniversary
Digression: Lowest-common denominator elites.
Even today's elites are less elite in character than the masses were in 1636. The vast, overwhelming majority of applicants to Harvard University in 2023 would not be admitted to Harvard when Samuel Adams was admitted in 1736. Adams was able to translate the New Testament from the original Greek, not because that was a graduation requirement, but because knowledge of the original languages of the Bible was an entrance requirement for high-schoolers applying for admission to Harvard. Also required was assent to the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms. Virtually nobody applying to Harvard in 2023 has even read those theological standards, and none would give their assent to this Calvinist theological system, which was required of students at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. In short, nobody in 2023 could be admitted to Harvard in 1736. Students in 2023 would be considered victims of educational malpractice.(Admittedly, and unfortunately, some colleges required knowledge of Greek in order to study Athens as much as the New Testament. Few if any required knowledge of Hebrew. Latin was also required to read Roman philosophers. Tragic.)
What this means is that Vine & Fig Tree University cannot duplicate the curriculum of Harvard College in 1636. Today's dumbed-down students, victims of educational malpractice, can't handle a curriculum from a more disciplined and educated era. Our curriculum will have to be largely "remedial." At least for the first year or two. Some students may be required to go back to high school.
Digression: Jefferson on education and liberty.
Thomas Jefferson said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was & never will be."
Read this quotation from Thomas Jefferson:
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 6 Jan. 1816
Our amplification is on the right:
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Monticello Jan. 6. 16. if a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be. |
Ignorance breeds despotism. But factoids alone cannot save a culture. The key is morality. Jefferson should have said, |
| the functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. | Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts." The power or authority to seize the property of others corrupts you. You think you are god. You think you are beyond morality.
Looking to government to redistribute wealth is a violation of God's Commandments ("Thou shalt not covet," "Thou shalt not steal.") |
| there is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; | There is no safe deposit for these powers. These powers should not exist. They should not be "delegated" to "representatives." |
| nor can they be safe with them without information. | For Jefferson, "the Press" would expose government corruption, and the people -- armed with this knowledge -- would remove them from office. But mere "information" cannot save us. We need morality. Corrupt people love corrupt government. They want corrupt government. They hope to profit from corrupt government. That's really the whole point of having a government: to do what individuals should not do. Simply "exposing corruption" does no good. |
| where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe. | How about: Where the school is free and every man able to read, all is safe. Schools today are not free. They cannot teach the morality of Jerusalem, only the morality of Athens. All is not safe. Civilization is not safe. Where men acknowledge that they are not god, and that Jesus is the Savior of the World, civilization is safe. |
| "Morality" takes the form "Thou shalt not . . . ." In Grammar, "Thou" is the "second person." The "first person" is the one saying "You must not . . . ." But who is the "First Person?" In a Christian Theocracy, the First Person is God. In a secular theocracy, every man is his own god. In a secular theocracy, every individual is the one saying, "I must not steal." Or, "I must steal if I need to." Or, "I must steal if I want to." Or, "I must vote for the political party that will steal for me." And that is how civilization ends. |
An interesting exception to the claim that everyone at Harvard would be shocked at the idea of abolishing the government, would be Robert Nozick, author of the book Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974). Nozick held the Joseph Pellegrino University Professorship at Harvard University. But Nozick was educated at Columbia University (A.B. 1959, summa cum laude), and later at Princeton University (Ph.D. 1963), and at Oxford University as a Fulbright Scholar (1963–1964).
It is interesting that although most Jews today are atheists, many of them are allies of Jerusalem, in the sense that they are hostile to Plato's Republic and the State as god. Nozick is an example, along with Ayn Rand, Julian Simon, Randy Barnett, Richard Epstein, Ronald Hamowy, and Nathaniel Branden. Notable Jewish economists who oppose statism include Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, David Friedman, Walter Block, Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, Henry Hazlitt, Israel Kirzner, Nobel laureate Gary Becker, Arnold Kling, Robert Levy, Richard Posner, David Ricardo, and Ludwig Lachmann.
Karl Popper, opponent of Plato and proponent of "The Open Society," was born in Vienna (then in Austria-Hungary) in 1902 to upper-middle-class parents. All of Popper's grandparents were Jewish, but they were not devout and as part of the cultural assimilation process the Popper family converted to Lutheranism before he was born and so he received a Lutheran baptism. Martin Luther would say Popper was no Lutheran. Popper spoke of Micah's “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview as "the Jewish myth."
Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek is sometimes considered Jewish:
Since his youth, Hayek frequently socialized with Jewish intellectuals and he mentions that people often speculated whether he was also of Jewish ancestry. That made him curious, so he spent some time researching his ancestors and found out that he has no Jewish ancestors within five generations.
Wikipedia
The first woman to receive an Electoral Vote in a Presidential election was also Jewish: Tonie Nathan (1972 Libertarian Party Vice-Presidential candidate). Notable Libertarian-Leaning Jews
Jerusalem vs. Athens
This conflict is seen in the education of John Quincy Adams
Young Adams was educated by private tutors – his cousin James Thaxter and his father's law clerk, Nathan Rice.[5] He soon began to exhibit his literary skills, and in 1779 he initiated a diary which he kept until just before he died in 1848.[6] Though frequently absent due to his participation in the American Revolution, John Adams maintained a correspondence with his son, encouraging him to read works by authors such as Thucydides and Hugo Grotius.[7] With his father's encouragement, Adams would also translate classical authors such as Virgil, Horace, Plutarch, and Aristotle.[8]
John Quincy Adams - Wikipedia
"Kindergarten" and the Ph.D. degree symbolize the influence of Prussia on the American education system.
The Prussian Connection | The Land of Frankenstein - John Taylor Gatto
The New York Times took note of the surplus of Ph.D.s.Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Edmund Wilson, in his devastating essay, The Fruits of the M.L.A. [Modern Language Association] (New York Review of Books Publication, 1969), writes that we missed our chance to abolish the Ph.D. as a "German atrocity" during World War I.
(Gary North, "Subsidizing a Crisis: The Teacher Glut," in An Introduction to Christian Economics, p.298.)
What did Tertullian mean by setting "Athens" and "Jerusalem" in antithesis?
| Athens is often viewed as the womb of "Western" non-Christian philosophy, beginning with Protagoras, an early Greek philosopher, who claimed that "Man is the measure of all things." This is the essence of the Religion of Secular Humanism. But Athens was not wholly "secular." Athenians believed in a host of false "gods." Socrates was executed as an "atheist" for advancing a wholly secular outlook. His student, Plato, re-affirmed a more conventional belief, when he said, "In our eyes God will be “the measure of all things” in the highest degree—a degree much higher than is any “man” they talk of." But this "God-talk" was just a formality. Plato was not talking about the God of the Bible, the God who made His earthly home (temple) in Jerusalem on Mt. Zion. "Athens" is the repudiation of the God of Jerusalem. The Apostle Paul made this clear when he spoke to the philosophers in Athens (Acts 17). |
What did Tertullian mean by "the Academy?"
| Socrates and his student Plato, who founded his own school of philosophy there in c. 387 BC, calling it, ”The Academy.” Plato's student Aristotle also formed his own school. "The School of Athens," painted by Raphael on a wall in the Vatican in 1511, depicts the struggle between Plato and Aristotle. In the painting, they are walking through the Academy, Plato on the left, pointing up with one finger, while Aristotle, on the right, is pointing down with fingers outspread. They are disagreeing on the fundamental reality of the universe, and the fundamental reality of government and human society. Plato claiming that reality is “up there” in its Ideal Form (Platonism), while Aristotle said ultimate reality is “down here” in the particulars of life (Aristotelianism). This is also described as the conflict between the "one" and the "many," or unity vs. individuality. See the painting, "The School of Athens" by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino |
Plato's "Republic" was a tyranny of the one ("the government," elite philosopher-kings, political unity) over the "many" (individuals, slaves). Platonism leads to the destruction of the freedom of the individual. But without form or unity, Aristotle's particulars cannot be brought together as the object of science. They are atomistically unrelateable. In either case, knowledge (scientia) collapses; society collapses. Secular philosophers still debate these ideas. Endlessly.
In Christianity, the Oneness of God is equally ultimate with the "many" of the individual members of the Trinity. Neither is subordinate to the other. God's Law (revealed in the Bible) is a blueprint for human life and dominion over nature (science, Genesis 1:26-28) that avoids completely the tension between unity and diversity, form and matter. Philosophers at secular universities never debate this solution. Ever.If they could travel through time and have a long conversation with you, getting to know you and getting your guided tour of America, Sam Adams, John Harvard, and the other Massachusetts Puritans catapulted through time would say you are a victim of educational malpractice. They would say this to you whether you were just getting out of high school, or whether you already had a college degree, or even a post-graduate degree. They would tell you
Wow. Those Puritans didn't mince words.
But there's good news. Using the internet, you can re-capitulate 12 years of a colonial one-room school house, and four years of Harvard College into just 12 months of online study. There's no doubt whatsoever that if you follow this curriculum, you can become
Our curriculum is not new. It's very old. In a very important legal document, which legal scholars refer to as America's "organic law," America's Founding Fathers said that my curriculum is "necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind."
Tragically, being a victim of educational malpractice, you don't see the value of this education. You don't really care about being an extraordinary American, or an extraordinary Christian. And your idea of being an "extraordinary human being" is being a celebrity, athlete, millionaire, or rock star, who would never risk "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor" to fight tyranny, and could not steer a covered wagon across a continent and build a city like Los Angeles or San Francisco out of the California desert.
But I'm also writing a "business plan," directed to potential supporters or consultants.
I admit I'm more of an evangelist than a marketer. I want to target the "unconverted" to some degree, not just those who are already itching to buy.
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| The World as a Campus: | Vine & Fig Tree University is 100% online, but when a student recruits another student as an affiliate, the two become a "campus" of Vine & Fig Tree University. We envisage a network of campuses around the world, not just a single campus in Taxachusetts. |
| No Professors | One of the most important aspects of the modern university is the football team, both in terms of "student life" and fundraising. In order to ensure that the football players enter the stadium in peak physical condition and readiness to coordinate their talents, NO college or university hires a "Professor of Football." They hire coaches. Students at Vine & Fig Tree University
can hire a coach to help the student maximize the benefits of our unique curriculum.
In fact, students will need to be coached in order to enroll in the first place. Our marketing goal is heroically uphill. We're bucking 12 years of atheistic, socialist brainwashing. |
| Students as Coaches: | Therefore we need an army of coaches to recruit new students. We believe one-to-one marketing will beat any online funnel. Recruiters can make money by helping their friends enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University. It's called "affiliate marketing." Big companies like Amazon.com use affiliate marketing. You get a commission if you coach your friend into enrolling in Vine & Fig Tree University. Amazon pays less than a 10% commission. We pay 60% (sixty percent). That means if you get two friends to enroll, your full tuition is free, plus you get 20% in your bank account. Recruiting new students is "coaching." Recruiting is converting a product of compulsory one-size-fits-all government mal-education into an educated consumer of education. In short, the affiliate/recruiter is a mentor, or coach. We all need coaching to get to the City of God. We all need to coach someone else. The best way to learn something is to teach it to others. You're always a little bit ahead of the other guy. You have a coach of your own. Companies that do "Affiliate Marketing" If you're a church pastor, you should get your entire congregation to enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University. You'll never have to "pass the plate" again. No other college on planet earth uses "affiliate marketing." They are not missionaries like we are. They are tuition-collecting machines. |
| Unique Curriculum | Most colleges claim they prepare their students for high-paying jobs by giving students the skills they need to be hired. This just makes the average student a cog in The Machine. Vine & Fig Tree University teaches students the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview. This is the worldview (or philosophy of life) that made America the most prosperous and
admired nation in history, and when this worldview was banned from public schools, the United States had already begun to be the most evil and dangerous nation on earth, Banning the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview transformed America from prosperity to bankruptcy, and from admiration to loathing and ridicule. Instead of requiring dozens of $150
books like most universities do, Vine & Fig Tree University's first-year curriculum requires reading just five books which are in the public domain; five of the most important books in the history of Western Civilization. Not just to crack open the books the night before the final exam, but to really master these books -- as thoroughly as America's Founding Fathers did -- even before they were admitted to one
of America's many Christian colleges. Our curriculum is described on an old website here. |
| Self-Evident Curriculum. | The Vine & Fig Tree curriculum is not tricky or complicated. The emphasis is on ethics and morality, not "academics." Our curriculum is not beyond the grasp of the "C" student. It is rather obvious, once you see it, but nearly all Americans have been brainwashed not to see it, and if they see it, to ridicule it and not consider it seriously. Once you see the Big Picture, your head
is likely to explode. Not because the curriculum is too difficult for people with an average IQ, but because it blows apart the prevailing paradigms of a society that has killed tens of millions of innocent non-combatant civilians during the last few decades, allows three thousand mothers to kill their own babies every single day of the year, has a higher prison population than North Korea and Iran, and now invites small children to story
hour with drag queens.
The Vine & Fig Tree curriculum does not require MENSA-level intelligence, it only requires self-discipline and moral character.
Our curriculum is essentially the curriculum of the colonial American one-room schoolhouse. Two of the five textbooks were literally in every school room in America in 1776. One of the five textbooks was written in 1776. The other two were written in 1876 and 1892. Five textbooks plus some supplemental updates. They are the most politically incorrect books on planet earth. They will cause psychological trauma; you will shake and scream. After the trauma, you will be free. Your assignment is simply to read the books, and take a 5th grade-level comprehension quiz, just to show you read the words. You don't have to agree. You just have to read, comprehend, and by reading allow us to plant seeds in your mind that will eventually bring a great harvest. |
Our culture is dominated by a widespread perception that "going to college" is necessary and expected.
Your first semester is FREE.
Your first semester is a long sales pitch.
Samuel Adams would want you to know Five Things. You should know them, but were never taught them.
Samuel Adams would want you to read Five Books. I'll tell you about those books. They are the core of the “Vine & Fig Tree” curriculum.
An overview of these Five Things and Five Books is here.
You should enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University.
Especially if you are college-aged and thinking about chaining yourself to student loans for the next few decades.
But even if you already have a Ph.D., you should still go "back to school" as an undergraduate freshman.
Vine & Fig Tree University makes an astonishing claim:
Complete your assignments for the first year, and you will experience
the most profound, beneficial,
massive, and lasting
personal transformation
of your entire life ...
or we will refund 100% of your tuition back to you.
No other college or university comes close to saying this. All other universities are all about getting your money, or exploiting you as a tool to get money from taxpayers.
It's not about information.
It's not about regurgitation of information.
It's all about transformation.
Vine & Fig Tree University is a radical Christian alternative to the now-secular Harvard University and the entire atheistic University-Industrial Complex.
Harvard University was formed as a Christian University, but not consistently so.
In the same way, America was formed as a Christian nation -- a "City Upon a Hill" -- but not consistently so.
“Vine & Fig Tree” was the original "American Dream." People came to America for a chance to live peacefully under their own “Vine & Fig Tree.” The Bible paints this picture, and the Bible was the foundation of America and all of America's first universities.
When America was more Christian, America was the most prosperous and most admired nation on earth. American students beat all other nations on academic tests.
But when America became "secular," America went bankrupt, and Americans are loathed and ridiculed around the world. Americans are beat out by 27 nations on test scores, and Americans can't even find those nations on a map.
But it's not about information. It's not about finding countries on a map, or answering multiple-choice questions.
It's about Civilization.
And civilization is more about morality than "facts." It's more about character than technological "skills."
The Founders of Harvard and the United States had an excessive tolerance for the "civilization" of the depraved pre-Christian Greek and Roman empires. They tried to mix "Jerusalem and Athens." They tried to combine "The City of God" and the City of Man.
What was "Classical Greece" all about? Gary North writes:
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.
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.
Western Civilization is not Greco-Roman civilization. Rome fell.
Western Civilization is Christian Civilization.
Both Harvard and the U.S. Government have followed their inconsistencies in the wrong direction, and are now the enemies of God and humanity.
During my lifetime, the United States has killed, crippled, or made homeless TENS of MILLIONS of innocent non-combatant non-white men, women and children.
Not in defense, but in an aggressive quest for materialistic "personal peace and affluence."
America has gone from being a land of "Liberty Under God" to being a soul-less empire that thinks it is god.
America's Founding Fathers and the founders of Harvard would both agree that today's Americans are victims of educational malpractice because the “Vine & Fig Tree” vision has been banned from America's public schools. Even the Declaration of Independence (1776) has been banned, because many of its ideas come from the Bible.
Your K-12 years deprived you of the three most important things education should provide, according to America's Founding Fathers.
Enrolling in college before correcting this deficiency will be the worst decision in your life.
You will
It will lower the entire ethical quality of your life.
Vine & Fig Tree University seeks to train Christians to believe and act more consistently with the Christian foundations of Harvard and America (and with the teachings of Jesus and the Scriptures), and less consistently with the "New World Order" mentality of the Secular "Liberal" Establishment. We believe a consistent Christian would work to abolish atheistic nations like the United States and atheistic institutions like Harvard and convert the world into a Global Christocracy. Non-violently.
That sounds like the mad rant of a lunatic or imbalanced "fundamentalist" "theocrat." But it was the original goal of Harvard University and the Puritan Theocratic Church-State that created Harvard (originally called the "New College"). They did not perceive or proclaim the goal as consistently as we are trying to do.
The problem with a "church-state" is not that it denies the "separation of church and state." That whole thing is a myth. The modern doctrine of "separation of church and state" actually means the separation of God and Government. Nobody in the first 300 years of American history believed this, and if one or two figures did, they never mentioned it in public. The modern doctrine has nothing to do with separating the State from "ecclesiastical bodies" (as James Madison, "Father of the Constitution," described them). Everybody agrees that the State should not tell the church how and to whom it can administer the sacraments. Everybody agrees that a politician does not have to be a member of any particular denomination or ecclesiastical body in order to hold public office.
That's all anybody was talking about 200 years ago.
Today, in stark contrast to everything Harvard and America stood for, the "Separation of Church and State" means
Above all, the bottom line is, as Hegel put it, the "separation of church and state" means "The State is god walking on the earth."
The "Separation of Church and State" is the Orwellian totalitarian reign of the Religion of Secular Humanism. We saw this in the Stalinist Soviet Union. And we're seeing it more and more in the now-secular United States.
The problem with a Puritan "church-state" is that it uses the violent machinery of "the State" to Christianize the planet.
Jesus did not believe in the "separation of church and state." He believed in the abolition of church and state. That's what the Bible teaches.
Vine & Fig Tree University is the only university in the world that seeks to Christianize the entire planet, and does not believe a future "antichrist" and "Armageddon" will obstruct these efforts.
We are "optimillennialists."
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I created Vine & Fig Tree University in 2018.
My dream is for Vine & Fig Tree University to become more influential in this world than Harvard University.
When I say "be more influential," I mean "change more lives."
But I don't mean "change more people into Harvard-like graduates than Harvard does."
I mean "influence more people to embrace Christian Civilization than Harvard influences against it."
What is “the Vine & Fig Tree view of the world?”
I suspect that every 15 year-old in America in 1776 would have known what I'm talking about. Most Americans are clueless about this today.
The decision to enroll in a traditional college or university is perhaps the most important decision a person can make. It potentially sets the trajectory for the rest of the student's life. That decision should take more study than the college itself. The K-12 years should prepare a student to make a wise decision about life and one's calling, but it doesn't. It only prepares them to make the standard choice of college leading to a hamster-wheel job. Students entering college today are victims of educational malpractice.
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I'll tell you more about the “Vine & Fig Tree” view of the world in a minute, but here it is in a nutshell: It means using the Bible as a blueprint for the construction of a world which beats "swords into plowshares" and everybody dwells safely under his own Vine and Fig Tree. See for example Micah 4:1-7. This was the original "American Dream." This was the ideal in the minds of those who created the most prosperous and admired nation in history. Schools created 400 years ago all shared a common goal of making sure everyone could read the Bible so that we could all live in a “Vine & Fig Tree” society.
Ironically, that was the original purpose of Harvard University.
Rivaling Harvard may sound like an unrealistic, extravagant, delusional ambition. "Peace on earth" is a line from a children's Christmas story. And becoming an institution as powerful as Harvard University is delusional.
But consider how Harvard University got its start, and then consider how Harvard University now represents the systematic enemy of the “Vine & Fig Tree” world.
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Harvard University was created in 1636 by the Theocratic Puritan Church-State of Massachusetts ("The Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony"), called at first the "New College." John Harvard was a clergyman who donated his library (400 books) and half his estate (£800) to the "New College," which was then re-named after Harvard, in appreciation of his gift at his death in 1638.
The first graduating class of Harvard in 1642 consisted of nine (9) students who studied under a single "master."
So I'd like to start out with ten (10) students for our first year.
The university I dream of will not be charted by either church or state, but rather a non-profit organization called Vine & Fig Tree, which is dedicated to
Vine & Fig Tree's assets now include a library with about 10,000 volumes, and a bank account about twice the size of Harvard's in 1638.
Harvard's library is now over ten million volumes, and Harvard's endowment is greater the total economy of several independent sovereign nations. In fact, larger than the GDP of the poorest 93 countries on earth. If Harvard were a separate nation, its endowment would put it half-way up the list of all the nations in the world today in terms of their economic output.
But a library of paper books is something of an anachronism in the age of the Internet, and Vine & Fig Tree University is a 100% digital (online) university. No bricks, no mortar, no football stadium, no groundskeepers.
For one year of undergraduate study, Harvard University tuition is $44,990, fees are $3,959, room is $10,300, and board is $6,360. The total of tuition, fees, room, and board is $65,609 per year.
Harvard University Scholarships 2019 (Fully Funded) - Scholarships for International Students 2018-2019
Harvard University is actually rather generous with their multi-billion dollar endowment. The Harvard website says:
Because Harvard is committed to affordability, our scholarships are designed to completely cover your demonstrated financial need. International students receive exactly the same financial aid as Americans. In fact, approximately 70 percent of our students receive some form of aid, and more than 50 percent receive need–based scholarships and pay an average of $12,000 per year. Twenty percent of parents pay nothing. No loans required.
Rich kids pay a lot for a degree; poor kids don't. Getting accepted is the trick.
Vine & Fig Tree University exists in "the Cloud," administered on laptop computers by graduates of Vine & Fig Tree University, in America, Chile, Ghana, and Singapore. Its influence comes not as a huge brick-and-mortar campus, but as a network of thousands of graduates around the world who are passing on the Vine & Fig Tree Curriculum to a handful of new students.
Obviously Vine & Fig Tree University does not presently have the reputation of Harvard.
In addition, because 99% of all prospects are victims of educational malpractice, they do not understand the value of the Vine & Fig Tree University curriculum. A significant part of our teaching must take place in our advertising.
For this reason, I propose making the first semester free. The first 95 days will explain to the student why the next 3½ years will be the most valuable in the student's entire life.
I would like to charge all students $1.00 USD (one dollar) to earn an accredited degree. I'll explain that in a minute.
All courses will be posted on the internet for free. Our model here is the Khan Academy. Several other universities have begun posting their classes online for free.
Students who are not autodidacts (self-teachers) may wish to employ a Vine & Fig Tree "coach" to help them through the free curriculum. I'm thinking of pricing this coaching at $495 per semester for unlimited "office hours." All Vine & Fig Tree coaches are graduates of the Vine & Fig Tree University curriculum, and are continuing lifelong learners.
Students and graduates who recruit new students will be paid a commission -- 60% of the new student's tuition. This is called "affiliate marketing." To my knowledge, no other university offers this recruiting incentive.
As of July, 2019, I need help convincing enough people to enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University and paying enough in coaching fees, and raising enough in tax-deductible donations ( + whatever is appropriate to pay out of the present Vine & Fig Tree endowment) to allow me to quit my day job and run the University. I believe this can be done from my laptop starting at $25,000 per year. Continued growth will allow hiring designers, academic consultants, and others who can enhance the educational offering.
Aren't there enough universities already? According to Countries arranged by Number of Universities in Top Ranks, there are 26,368 universities in the world as of 2017. Somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 in the United States.
Vine & Fig Tree University is utterly unique. There is nothing else like it.
And if John Harvard could travel through time from 1636 to 2023, he would agree, and he would leave his library and estate to Vine & Fig Tree University, rather than to the University that still bears his name.
There probably isn't a single employee of Harvard University (or any accredited university in the world) that would disagree with that claim. (I'll wager it won't be long before "Social Justice Warriors" will demand that the statue of John Harvard be removed from Harvard Yard for its various alleged "micro-aggressions" and/or offenses.)
Harvard University was originally a Christian University. It's central purpose was to train Christian clergymen.
In the same way Harvard was a Christian University, America was a Christian nation. The Supreme Court of the United States acknowledged this legal and historical fact in the case of Holy Trinity Church v. United States (1892).
Today Harvard is an atheistic ("secular") university, and the United States is also an atheistic ("secular") nation. Here are my complaints about the current atheistic system, which is a far cry from the Vine & Fig Tree society.
Not only is Harvard University an atheistic university, but the atheistic United States has erected a vast system of compulsory atheistic indoctrination. Within this educational gulag, it is illegal to teach the Bible the way the Bible was taught in Harvard University in 1640. Or 1740, when Samuel Adams graduated from Harvard. It is illegal to teach public school students that the Declaration of Independence, which Samuel Adams signed in 1776, is objectively true.
The overwhelming majority of Americans today are victims of educational malpractice. They cannot read the Bible for themselves, nor the Declaration of Independence, nor the first letter Samuel Adams sent to Americans through a network of communication called "The Committees of Correspondence."
Every American in 1776 would know what I mean by the “Vine & Fig Tree” society. But today nobody knows what “Vine & Fig Tree” is about.
Vine & Fig Tree University is not dedicated to training Christian "clergymen" as Harvard was originally. The “Vine & Fig Tree” ideal has no place for "clergymen" or politicians.
Unlike today's atheistic Harvard University, which was founded by the Massachusetts church-state, “Vine & Fig Tree” University does not believe in the "separation of church and state," but the abolition of church and state. See the Meaning of “Vine & Fig Tree” below.
Vine & Fig Tree University will not resemble any university that presently exists.
Forming and running a university may seem like a daunting, impossible dream. It isn't. A completely digital, 100% online university -- no bricks, no mortar, no football stadium, no groundskeepers -- starting with nine students can be hosted in "the cloud" and administered on a laptop for many years to come.
In fact, the idea of a "university" is simply a marketing gimmick to sell the Vine & Fig Tree "coaching" programs that have been on the drawing board for many years, e.g., George Washington Coaching. Most people don't see the value in hiring a "coach," but every year 4 million Americans enroll in a college or university, and half -- 2 million people -- will end up not getting a degree, but only student loan debt, and they will have wasted time and money, because their K-12 schooling has left them victims of educational malpractice, and several years of college will only compound their problems.
I have a thousand ideas swirling around in my head. I need to organize them. You'll see that I continually digress from one idea to another, and then back to the original idea. My apologies.
Further, this webpage started out as a sales page, intending to sell prospective students on enrolling. But I decided that was premature. And certainly the pitch was premature, because it digresses all over the place. So this is now an internal "Memo" to V&FT supporters to help get Vine & Fig Tree University founded on solid ground.
Most Americans today -- even those with a college degree -- don't know what the phrase “Vine & Fig Tree” means. Every 15 year old who was alive in America when the Declaration of Independence was signed (1776) could have told you.
It's the original "American Dream."
It's the worldview that made America the most prosperous and admired nation in history.
Your local public school teacher is prohibited by the federal government from teaching you about the Vine & Fig Tree worldview.
As a result, The United States is now bankrupt and despised even by our former admirers.
A more prosperous and more admirable America 300 years ago would say that you are a victim of educational malpractice. An accredited degree from a university that knows nothing of the Vine & Fig Tree worldview will not help you.
The name "Vine & Fig Tree" comes from the fourth chapter of the prophet Micah, and is set forth below. If you're well-read, you might have heard Micah's words before -- we beat our "swords into plowshares" and everyone dwells safely under their own "Vine & Fig Tree."
America's Founding Fathers were familiar with this vision: "Vine & Fig Tree" is the worldview that made America "the greatest nation on God's green earth."
George Washington's diaries are available online at the Library of Congress. The LOC.GOV website introduces Washington's writings with these words:
No theme appears more frequently in the writings of Washington than his love for his land. The diaries are a monument to that concern. In his letters he referred often, as an expression of this devotion and its resulting contentment, to an Old Testament passage. After the Revolution, when he had returned to Mount Vernon, he wrote the Marquis de Lafayette on Feb. 1, 1784:
This phrase occurs at least 11 times in Washington's letters.
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| The phrase occurs a number of times in Scripture. These references are visual reminders of the Hebrew word for salvation, which means |
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| When today's Americans hear the word "salvation," they usually think about going to heaven when they die. When the writers of the Bible used the word "salvation," they wanted you to be thinking about dwelling safely under your own Vine & Fig Tree during this life -- much more often than they wanted you to be thinking about what you'll be doing in the afterlife. |
Vine & Fig Tree University will teach you what universities 300 years ago taught,
and which led to America to become a beacon of light to immigrants around the world,
and a land where everyone could dwell safely under his own "Vine & Fig Tree."
Vine & Fig Tree is a non-profit institution committed to bringing about the Vine & Fig Tree world described by the prophet Micah. We do this by enticing people to study the Vine & Fig Tree worldview and offering to give them an accredited college degree if they complete our assignments. In our view, getting a "degree" is not as important as getting the worldview. But some people think they need a "degree." If you think you need a degree, we'd like to sell you on getting your degree from Vine & Fig Tree University.
"Vine & Fig Tree" is a very small non-profit organization dedicated to spreading the "good news" of the Bible.
The best place to see the Vine & Fig Tree ideal is in the book of Micah.
Let's look at Micah's prophecy (on the left) and ask a few questions (on the right):| And it will come about in the last days That the mountain of the House of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains And it will be raised above the hills |
Are we in the "last days?"
When did this establishment take place? |
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| And the peoples will stream to it. And many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD And to the House of the God of Jacob, |
Is Christianity doomed to minority status throughout history? Hasn't Christianity been growing since the first century? | |
| That He may teach us about His ways And that we may walk in His paths." For from Zion will go forth the Law Even the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem. |
What should be the Christian's attitude toward the Law? Isn't every Word of a "Lord" "Law?" | |
| And He will judge between many peoples And rebuke mighty, distant nations. Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation will not lift up sword against nation And never again will they train for war. |
Are we commanded to beat our swords into plowshares today? Or do we wait for the Second Coming? Are Christians "pacifists?" |
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| And each of them will sit under his | What is a family? What about private property? |
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| Vine and under his fig
tree, With no one to make them afraid. For the LORD of hosts has spoken. |
What about technology? What about the military? What is it that really brings "security?" | |
| Though all the peoples walk Each in the name of his god, As for us, we will walk In the Name of the LORD our God forever and ever. |
What if all the politicians, university professors, TV commentators, bloggers, newspaper editors, rock stars, scientists, CEO's, celebrities, athletes, authors, and think-tanks repudiate the Vine & Fig Tree vision and tell you not to believe it? | |
| In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted; And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever. |
Should we strive to be on top, or to help those on the bottom? Is God on the side of those who have accomplished much by their own power and initiative, or is He on the side of those who are willing to be used by God to accomplish much to His Glory? |
Here are nine "Core Values" that can be seen in Micah's vision:
| Bibliolatry | We believe the Bible is the Word of God. Some people call this "Bibliolotry." Fine. Whatever.
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Micah 1:1 The Word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Micah 4:4 Micah 4:6 |
| Preterism | Jesus is the Christ, today. | "The Mountain Established"
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And it will come about in the last days That the mountain of the House of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains And it will be raised above the hills |
| Optimillennialism | The World must be Christianized. | "All nations, all peoples"
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And the peoples will stream to it. And many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD And to the House of the God of Jacob, |
| Theonomy | Jesus alone is the Christ, the Lord, the King, the Lawgiver, the Judge | "His path, the Law-Word"
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That He may teach us about His ways And that we may walk in His paths." For from Zion will go forth the Law Even the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem. |
| Pacifism | Peace through Peace, not through "Strength." | "Swords into Plowshares"
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And He will judge between many peoples And rebuke mighty, distant nations. Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation will not lift up sword against nation And never again will they train for war. |
| Patriarchy | The monogamous heterosexual family is the root of civilization. "Patriarchy" is a hated word. It doesn't mean what you think it means.
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And each of them will sit under his |
| Agrarianism | "Salvation" in the Bible means the restoration of the conditions of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1-2)
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Vine and under his fig
tree, With no one to make them afraid. For the LORD of hosts has spoken. |
| Character | The ability to stand against the crowd, in faith, in obedience to God. | Though all the peoples walk Each in the name of his god, As for us, we will walk In the Name of the LORD our God forever and ever. |
| Community | "No man is an island." Community: Serving the weak rather than the powerful | The "driven out" and "afflicted"
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In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted; And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever. |
Roman Catholics believe
Protestants said that our theological doctrines should come from the Bible alone, not from clergy.
Protestants started creating schools so that everyone in town could learn how to read the Bible for himself.
One of the first public school laws in America is known today as "The Old Deluder Satan Act" because it began with these words:
The 1636 rules of Harvard declared:It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue [Latin], so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with love and false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth the Lord assisting our endeavors.
It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general....
"The Old Deluder Satan Act," Massachusetts, 1647
Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17.3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of Him (Prov. 2, 3). Every one shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein
Did you do this for 12 straight years: Read the Bible twice a day? If not, you didn't get a Harvard education like Samuel Adams. You're a victim of educational malpractice.
The 1690 Connecticut law declared:
This [legislature] observing that... there are many persons unable to read the English tongue and thereby incapable to read the holy Word of God or the good laws of this colony... it is ordered that all parents and masters shall cause their respective children and servants, as they are capable, to be taught to read distinctly the English tongue.
You were denied this kind of Bible-centered Education.
- Religion was once deemed to be a function of the public school system. The Northwest Ordinance, which antedated the First Amendment, provided in Article III that
- "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
Most Americans have never heard of the "Northwest Ordinance" (1787). It was a benchmark for the drafting of state constitutions by Territories when they applied for admission to the union. The states often repeated those words verbatim in their state constitutions. Nebraska in 1875 was the last state to copy these words into their constitution. It wasn't until the early 1960's that the Supreme Court "discovered" than the Framers of the Constitution and the Northwest Ordinance intended to give the Federal Government the power to order local public schools to remove "religion" (Christianity) from classrooms.
The Government today prevents students from being taught the Bible, "religion, morality, and knowledge." Every single person who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would say that secular schools are a threat to "good government and the happiness of mankind," and a government that imposes secularism on the people should be "abolished," just as they abolished the British government over the colonies for offenses far less serious.
Samuel Adams, the "Anti-Federalist," did not always agree with his cousin John Adams, the "Federalist." Sam wrote:
| Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age, by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity . . . and, in subordination to these great principles, the love of their country. . . . In
short, of leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system.
1790 Letter to John Adams, |
The "Christian system" is different from the Secular Humanist system, the Moslem system, and the Soviet system. If you'll complete all the assignments in the Vine & Fig Tree university, you can compensate for what the federal government denied you as a little boy or girl by committing to "the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system," as laid out by the Prince of Peace.
If America's Founding Fathers could travel through time, what would they say is America's Most Pressing Problem?
I think they would say it is the fact that America is no longer a nation "Under God," but is an atheistic nation ("secular" sounds so much nicer than "atheistic"). The nation that once sent missionaries and Bibles around the world is now the world's greatest exporter of pornography and weapons of mass destruction.
And the root of this problem is a national system of compulsory atheistic education for all children 5-17 years of age. America's Founders would be horrified, outraged, apoplectic. Princeton professor Archibald Hodge saw the trend back in 1887, and sounded this alarm:
He was right. If our Godly and virtuous ancestors could see American schools and American culture today, they would be screaming: "Are you people insane??" "What are you doing about this!?!?". . . I am as sure as I am of Christ's reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.[1]
What are you doing about this? Of course, you are paying for this propagation of atheism and immorality. Are you doing as much to stop it or counter it as the danger warrants?
Then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Have you taken your own kids out of public schools? Terrific. But you yourself are still a victim of educational malpractice.
Because of their Biblical education, America's Founding Fathers realized that "the Divine Right of Kings" was not a Biblical doctrine. You have been denied this education by an imperialist regime that can only be described as "the enemy of mankind." You don't see half of what America's Founders saw. If they were here today, they would see not only that the "divine right of kings" is an unChristian concept, but the entire concept of "the nation-state" is a complete failure, having been invented by rebels and nowhere commanded or endorsed in the Bible. "The State" is institutionalized violence, and utterly contrary to the Vine & Fig Tree vision.
I'm not talking about "the 3 R's." I'm talking about the worldview that made America the most prosperous and admired nation in history.
By skipping "the 3 R's" (which you can quickly learn through the Ron Paul Curriculum or the Kahn Academy if you need to), twelve years of colonial American worldview education, covering "religion, morality, and knowledge" can be covered in just 12 months by reading through the entire Bible and four other works which are among the most important works in the history of western civilization, listening to audio lessons on the commute to work and back home in the evening, 20 minutes each way. Then each week attend a live Q&A webinar for laser coaching and clarification. Share your progress with others in an online community.
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* Did the Supreme Court really "ban the Bible" from public schools? Public school students can certainly be taught that the Bible exists. But they cannot be taught that it is true, and that it is a "sacred" book because it is the Word of God. In other words, the Court banned the teaching of the Bible as the Bible would be taught by those who wrote it. The Court also banned the Bible as the Supreme Court ruled 150 years earlier it "must" be taught. A decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1844 involved a wealthy Frenchman who left a large sum of money in his will to the City of Philadelphia to build a school in which no clergy would teach. This generated a firestorm of controversy. Virtually all schools back then were run by churches or Christian organizations and clergy often taught the classes Mon-Fri. The Court had to decide whether the will of this obviously deistic Frenchman should be enforced. Today the Supreme Court will allocate 30 minutes to hear important cases. Daniel Webster argued this case before the Court for 3 whole days. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that just because clergy couldn't teach, that didn't mean that lay teachers could not continue to teach the Bible as the Word of God in a school administered by the city government. In fact, the Court said -- and the City of Philadelphia enthusiastically agreed -- that teachers "must" teach Christianity and the Bible as a "divine revelation" and a "sacred volume." Here are the words of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1844:
There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution which forced the Supreme Court in the early 1960's to repudiate Christianity and remove the Bible "as a divine revelation" from public schools. Justice Douglas was correct to admit that the teaching of Christianity "was once deemed to be a function of the public school system." |
Some people attend a university because they want specific skills. Someone who wants to be a doctor needs to learn certain skills. Someone who wants to be a lawyer needs to learn certain skills.
But most people attend a university because they've been told that's how to "get a job." Any job. It doesn't matter what you major in, it doesn't matter what job you want, you just have to go to college.
After all, you'll need a job to pay off your student loans.
Having a piece of paper ("diploma," "degree") from a university is like getting "cuts" in line to get a job, putting you ahead of other applicants who didn't go to college.
If all you want in life is that piece of paper and that boring job, this is not the website you're looking for.
This website is for extraordinary people who want an extraordinary education so they can lead an extraordinary life.
America was once an extraordinary nation. It was built on the “Vine & Fig Tree” vision, found in the Bible, which describes a day when we beat our "swords into plowshares" and every one owns their own home, free from threats of confiscation by princes and pirates, so that they live securely under their own “Vine & Fig Tree.” The first schools in America were created so that everyone could learn to read the Bible, to protect this “Vine & Fig Tree” utopia in the New World. Harvard, Yale, and other Ivy League colleges were explicitly Christian and were designed to perpetuate the vision of “Vine & Fig Tree.”
Unfortunately, our ancestors were not consistent with the Biblical blueprints.
Today, education in the United States begins in "Kindergarten," a German word which describes the first of 13 years of social conditioning that was modeled after the Prussian system. Our society spends $13,000 per year per child to condition Americans to sit in rows, stand in line, wait for the bell, and unthinkingly regurgitate what the teacher says. You might say that's a cynical exaggeration. But this is no exaggeration: if the men who signed the Declaration of Independence could travel through time from 1776 and become acquainted with Americans in 2023, they would correctly conclude that more than 90% of Americans are victims of educational malpractice. Even our government admits that half of high-school aged kids are functionally illiterate, even those with their diploma, to say nothing of those kids that dropped out and can't get jobs because employers have been conditioned to hire only those with a piece of paper.
Why would America's Founding Fathers say that nearly every American born after 1957 is a "victim of educational malpractice?"
Because in the 20th century, the three most important components of education were banned by the Federal Government.
Vine & Fig Tree University provides these three components. We provide the holistic Biblical worldview education that schools in America provided 300 years ago.
Vine & Fig Tree University condenses 13 years of undergraduate education and 4 years of college into one year of online study, one hour a day. We zero in on the most important things. No fluff. No fraternities. No football.
If you spent 17 years in government-approved schools, then your mind is going to explode when you're exposed to the vision that made America the most prosperous and admired nation in human history. You've been brainwashed to reject this vision. You're going to have many questions.
That's why “Vine & Fig Tree” University is doing something no other university is doing. Every student gets a personal Life Coach, to help understand the “Vine & Fig Tree” curriculum and to apply it to "the real world." Included is unlimited 15-minute laser coaching sessions with your personal Vine & Fig Tree Life Coach for the full year. You're also a member of a private Facebook group where you can gain clarity with help from faculty and students. Every day is enrollment day. Students who enrolled six months ago enjoy helping those who enroll today. In six months you too will enjoy helping those who are just getting started.
We don't worship America's Founding Fathers. They made serious mistakes. We expose and denounce them. But if their compass was off by a couple of degrees, our social compass has us going 180° backwards.
Vine & Fig Tree University is a 100% online university dedicated to the “Vine & Fig Tree” vision in the Bible.
We're tiny. The others are huge. Remind you of anything?
The Core Vales of David vs. the Core Values of Goliath |
Imagine that you have been given a full scholarship to Harvard University.
Imagine also that you've been given a choice:
• you can become a member of the Harvard University graduating class of 2026, or
• you can become a member of the Harvard University graduating class of 1740.
What kind of a human being will you become if you enroll in Harvard University in 2023?
What kind of a human being would you have become if you had enrolled in Harvard University in 1736?
Enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University for one semester and you will be equipped to know the difference, and make an informed choice.
In 1736, Samuel Adams enrolled in Harvard University when he was 14 (having already learned Greek and Latin, which were entrance requirements, not graduation requirements for Harvard), and Adams became known as "The Father of the American Revolution" for orchestrating the "Boston Tea Party," and inspiring Americans to overthrow a tyrannical government.
Imagine that the Signers of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were judges in a collegiate debate between members of the Harvard graduating class of 2026 and the Harvard graduating class of 1740. Samuel Adams and his class would win the debate. The Harvard class of 2026 would make America's Founders puke, either from despondence or outrage.
Imagine that the Signers of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were judges in a collegiate debate between members of the Harvard graduating class of 2026 and the 2026 graduating class of Vine & Fig Tree University. The Signers would say that the Vine & Fig Tree University students won the debate hands-down. The topic of the debate:
Vine & Fig Tree University loves "America," but hates "the United States."
"America" was an ideal. It was once known as a "Christian nation." A land of "Liberty Under God," where everyone could dwell peacefully under his own Vine & Fig Tree.
Since the federal government of "the United States" banned the Bible from public schools, the United States has legalized the killing of children in the womb. The United States has killed, crippled, or made homeless tens of millions of innocent non-combatant civilians around the world. The U.S. drops a bomb somewhere every 12 minutes.
The United States is at war with America, and has become the enemy of God and humanity.
Size Doesn't Matter. The first graduating class of Harvard University consisted of nine (9) students.
Princeton University grew out of something called "The Log College."
All of America's greatest universities began as small Christian colleges.
And today all of these universities are at war with the Vine & Fig Tree worldview and the values of Samuel Adams and "Liberty Under God."
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Princeton University, one of the most prestigious institutions of higher education in the world, shared the humble origins of "The Log College." A great professor, sitting on a log with a handful of students, can change the world -- without large buildings, football teams, and contracts to do "research" for the "Military-Industrial Complex." According to the Princeton University website,
Log College was the name given to a school that William Tennent, an Irish-born, Edinburgh-educated Presbyterian minister, conducted at Neshaminy, Bucks County, Pennsylvania from 1726 until his death in 1745. Here, in a ``log house, about twenty feet long and near as many broad,'' Tennent drilled his pupils in the ancient languages and the Bible and filled them with an evangelical zeal that a number of them, his four sons included, manifested conspicuously during the religious revivals known as The Great Awakening.
Like Harvard, Yale, and nearly every college in America in the 1700's, training ministers of the Gospel was a primary purpose. Among Princeton's best-known Presidents are Jonathan Edwards ("Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God") and John Witherspoon, a clergyman who signed America's Declaration of Independence in 1776. Witherspoon's students included, in addition to a president (Madison) and vice-president of the United States, nine cabinet officers, twenty-one senators, thirty-nine congressmen, three justices of the Supreme Court, and twelve state governors. Five of the nine Princeton graduates among the fifty-five members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were students of Witherspoon. When Witherspoon was President of Princeton, the University had these requirements for students:
Every student shall attend worship in the college hall morning and evening at the hours appointed and shall behave with gravity and reverence during the whole service. Every student shall attend public worship on the Sabbath.... Besides the public exercises of religious worship on the Sabbath, there shall be assigned to each class certain exercises for their religious instruction suited to the age and standing of the pupils. . . . and no student belonging to any class shall neglect them.
The Laws of the College of New-Jersey (Trenton: Isaac Collins, 1794), pp. 28-29.
These great Americans of the past would be horrified at what passes for "higher education" today. And K-12 education. They would say of you:
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These were the three themes of the first letter Harvard graduate Samuel Adams wrote to Americans through a network of communication known as "The Committees of Correspondence." It put Adams on a path to becoming known as "The Father of the American Revolution." You would probably be embarrassed if Sam Adams could travel through time and ask for your opinions about that letter. Even among the declining number of Americans who can actually read words, few can understand the concepts and the reasoning behind that letter -- just as "The Federalist Papers" cannot be understood by most Americans today, even though they were originally written as newspaper columns for ordinary farmers in upstate New York. Adams learned Latin and Greek in high school, and in 1736, at age 14, began studying at Harvard.
But if America's Founding Fathers, and the founders of America's greatest educational institutions, were all that great, why are Americans today so stupid? Why do they tolerate tyranny and public immorality? America was once the most prosperous and admired nation on earth, but today the situation is reversed: The United States is bankrupt and despised even by our former admirers. Unbelievable.
In 1869, Lysander Spooner complained about growing government centralization and tyranny in the United States. He said
But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have ... or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
The Founders of America's Greatest Educational Institutions would say today's universities are "unfit to exist."
But it's their own fault.
These Christians planted the seeds of the destruction of "religion, morality, and knowledge."
All of these men believed they had captured the robes. What they didn't realize -- and what you don't realize -- is that "the robes" must be destroyed.
Three classes of people wear robes:
| Judges | Clergymen | Professors |
| State | Church | Academia |
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In America in 1720 these robed offices were all explicitly Christian. |
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| Only Christians could hold public office. | Our clergy were trained in | our greatest universities |
| all these institutions were explicitly Christian | ||
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In the United States in 2023, they are all explicitly anti-Christian. |
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Nobody in 1720 would have believed that in three hundred years a man who openly admits -- with unrepentant "pride" -- that he engages in homosexual sodomy with another man (or men) could wear one of these robes.
But communists, progressives, atheists, and others on the left "captured the robes" in the 19th and 20th centuries.
They now wield power.
What William Tennent and Samuel Adams did not understand is that Jesus said His followers are not to be like "the kings of the Gentiles" and their priests and oracles. (State, Church, Academia)
In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, Jesus discovers His disciples arguing about who was going to "wear the robes" in the Kingdom of God.
They didn't understand that Jesus' 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."
Jesus clearly says His followers are not to be "archists." They are to be "servants."
"Lords," "rulers" and "great ones" are "archists."
So what is an "archist?" What exactly is the "archist" that the "an-archist" is not?
An "archist" is someone
who believes he has a right to
impose his will on others by force.
The belief that some human beings have the right to rule over other human beings is a belief that dominates the robes: it is taught in our universities, sanctioned by our churches, and practiced by our politicians. It is contrary to the Bible. It is the opposite and the enemy of the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview.
Today, Vine & Fig Tree University is
a handful of students, sitting on a digital log,
studying the Vine & Fig Tree worldview together.
There are a billion human beings on planet earth who live under tribal dictators or Harvard-educated socialist despots. These folks would love to live in America. But even better, they would love to live in their own home nation and help transform their backward nation into a Christian nation like America once was. Vine & Fig Tree University is for these people, who are now connected to the Internet and "yearning to breathe free."
We guarantee that if you complete our “Vine & Fig Tree” curriculum you will become
| • An Extraordinary American, • An Extraordinary Christian, • An Extraordinary Human Being. |
We guarantee you will experience
the most profound, beneficial,
massive, and lasting
personal transformation
of your entire life ...
or we will refund 100% of your tuition back to you.
No other college or university comes close to saying this. All other universities are all about getting your money, or exploiting you as a tool to get money from taxpayers.
Vine & Fig Tree University isn't about money. Those other universities will say Vine & Fig Tree University is about "brainwashing" you into the Vine & Fig Tree worldview. And that's true. Just as all the other universities are all about brainwashing you into believing that a Vine & Fig Tree world is a "utopian" impossibility.
Click here to learn more about the Vine & Fig Tree worldview and about the Core Values of Vine & Fig Tree.
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The first thing we have to sell you on is the Vine & Fig Tree worldview.
Because that's what Vine & Fig Tree University is all about.
Our curriculum teaches nothing but the Vine & Fig Tree worldview.
That's where we get our core values.
There are many famous College Rivalries (Wikipedia article). Among them:
But this is all just for show. There is no conflict between any of these universities in the classroom when it comes to core values.
They all train their students to be highly-paid archists, or highly-rewarded patriots (supporters of the institutionalized violence we call "the State").
They all train their students to believe that the Bible is a myth.
They all train their students to believe that the Bible can safely be ignored.
What are the Core Values of Harvard University?
How do the Core Values of Harvard University differ so dramatically from the Core Values of Yale University?
Despite the facade of college rivalry, most people can't answer those two questions.
Neither can most Yale and Harvard graduates.
See if you can tell which "Mission Statement" belongs to which University :
| [This University] is committed to improving the world today and for future generations through outstanding research and scholarship, education, preservation, and practice. [This University] educates aspiring leaders worldwide who serve all sectors of society. We carry out this mission through the free exchange of ideas in an ethical, interdependent, and diverse community of faculty, staff, students, and alumni. | The mission of [This University] is to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society. We do this through our commitment to the transformative power of a liberal arts and sciences education. Beginning in the classroom with exposure to new ideas, new ways of understanding, and new ways of knowing, students embark on a journey of intellectual transformation. Through a diverse living environment, where students live with people who are studying different topics, who come from different walks of life and have evolving identities, intellectual transformation is deepened and conditions for social transformation are created. From this we hope that students will begin to fashion their lives by gaining a sense of what they want to do with their gifts and talents, assessing their values and interests, and learning how they can best serve the world. |
Does it really matter?
How do the Core Values of the University of Texas differ so dramatically from the Core Values of the University of Michigan?
[crickets]
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If Harvard and Yale switched their mission statements in the middle of the night, would there be a great outcry the next morning from donors, alumni, professors, and students? Would there be student sit-ins in the administration building? Would the professors walk out on strike?
Nobody cares.
They have no "core values."
And yet, if any university from Harvard and Yale to the Podunk Community College were to adopt the Vine & Fig Tree worldview, there would, in fact, definitely, be hell to pay (so to speak). Hell would be outraged. The donors would follow. The "diversity" student who was awarded a full scholarship to Harvard would withdraw and surrender the scholarship if Harvard adopted a mission statement which committed the university to promoting the Vine & Fig Tree worldview.
Click here to learn more about the Vine & Fig Tree worldview
and about the Core Values of Vine & Fig Tree.
Everyone knows that for the 20.4 million students who were expected to attend American colleges and universities in the fall of 2017, it really doesn't matter which college 20.3 million of them attend. They're going to try to get a job where the Human Resources bureaucrat just has to check a box that says "college degree," and moves on to the next item on the form. These savvy students know that if that box doesn't get checked, they go to the end of the line of applicants for the job. If that box is checked, they get "cuts" in front of people who may be more qualified for the job, may be more creative, hard-working, and intelligent, and in the long-term may bring the business more profits, but don't have an "accredited college degree." Who you are as a human being doesn't matter. What matters is whether you have a piece of paper that says "degree" and that box gets checked.
This is the "core value" of nearly all students who go into debt for a college degree.
This is not a core value for Vine & Fig Tree University.
That's why we sell accredited college degrees for just one dollar.
They really have no value in a Vine & Fig Tree world
Chances are, if you embrace the Vine & Fig Tree worldview, you won't want to work for any business that doesn't care about you as a person, and gives the last four years of your life a checkmark in a box on an impersonal employment form.
Chances are also very good that if you embrace the Vine & Fig Tree worldview, such a business will not hire you, no matter where you received your degree.
The Founder of Vine & Fig Tree University graduated from the University of Southern California, and passed the California Bar Exam, but was denied a license to practice law in California because he embraced the Vine & Fig Tree worldview. Courts have ruled that the core values of the Vine & Fig Tree worldview render one
unsuited for a job as an "officer of the court," a public school teacher, certified elevator inspector, or draftsman for the County of San Diego, or any other employment which requires an oath to "support the Constitution" (cases). If you were born outside of the U.S., and you are committed to the Vine & Fig Tree worldview, you
cannot become a naturalized U.S. citizen.
If you are thinking about spending tens of thousands of dollars going to college for the next 200 weeks
and you don't know (or even care)
what you're going to major in
so you can get a job
and you don't know (or even care)
what you're going to do in that job
(besides pay off your student loans)
then you're setting yourself up to be a zombie --
just another gear in the University-Industrial Complex,
a worker-drone in a corporate bee-hive.
If you've already spent 4-10 years in college and worked the last 40 years in a hamster-wheel job,
you're wondering if your life will end up having any significance.
No matter where you fall on the spectrum of life,
you need to enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University.
If you want to find a meaningful life,
you must be willing to lose a meaningless life (Matthew 16:25)
No, this isn't about becoming a "missionary" in Africa.
It's about becoming the person God created you to be.
Not the cog which The Machine wants you to be.
No university in the year 2023 is teaching what any university in 1720 taught.
Universities in America 300 years ago helped create the most admired and prosperous nation in human history.
Universities today are why Americans are despised and the U.S. is bankrupt.
And not just universities, but your K-12 schools as well.
The concept of the "university" was invented by Christians a thousand years ago.
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According to Wikipedia,
A university (Latin: universitas, "a whole") is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in various academic disciplines.
The university is generally regarded as a formal institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian tradition.[26][34] European higher education took place for hundreds of years in Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools (scholae monasticae), in which monks and nuns taught classes; evidence of these immediate forerunners of the later university at many places dates back to the 6th century.[35] The earliest universities were developed under the aegis of the Latin Church by papal bull as studia generalia and perhaps from cathedral schools.
The original Latin word "universitas" refers in general to "a number of persons associated into one body, a society, company, community, guild, corporation, etc."[4] At the time of the emergence of urban town life and medieval guilds, specialized "associations of students and teachers with collective legal rights usually guaranteed by charters issued by princes, prelates, or the towns in which they were located" came to be denominated by this general term. Like other guilds, they were self-regulating and determined the qualifications of their members.[5]
The Vine & Fig Tree University is a body of people who study the Vine & Fig Tree worldview in the Bible (the whole Bible), and seek to apply it to the whole of human existence.
The Vine & Fig Tree University is not chartered by either Church or State.
The "University" today is a four-year period of oscillating between frenetic cramming for exams and mindless partying. Four years of freedom from responsibilities, paid for by your parents or by taxpayers.
The Vine & Fig Tree University is a way of life. A life of prayerful study and contemplation; a life of growth; a life of personal action and social leavening.
The medieval university was run by students, who hired experts to serve the students.
Today's universities are "accredited" by Ph.D.'s not by students. To be a professor in a modern accredited university, you do not have to know the first thing about serving students, especially about assisting them to be "approved unto God." You need multiple degrees awarded by other accredited universities.
Vine & Fig Tree University will never be accredited.
iPhones Are Not Accredited, So Why Are Colleges? News: The Independent Institute
Again, the seeds of destruction were sown early on.
Every great university in America -- Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc., etc. -- began as Christian universities.
If you wanted to become royalty in the Holy Roman Empire, you could go to the University of Bologna in Italy, founded in 1088.
Or if you wanted to become clergy in the Holy Roman Empire, you might enroll at the University of Oxford, founded in 1167.
A thousand years ago, the entire civilized world ("Christendom") strove to be Christian ("holy") but also "Roman." This is like wanting to be wheat, but also wanting to be a "tare" at the same time (see The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, Matthew 13:24-30).
Universities today are no longer "holy," they are just imperialist.
If you are a college graduate, you are either an Emperor or you are a serf. (Serfs today are paid better than serfs a millennium ago; they enjoy a higher standard of living than serfs a millennium ago. But more people around the world have been killed, crippled, or made homeless by secular American college graduates during my lifetime than during all of the Crusades put together.)
Maybe you are not THE Emperor, but you have a cushy job serving in the Royal Court.
Maybe you don't think of yourself as a "serf." Think again. Two-thirds of everything you earn is taken by your feudal lords. Tens of millions of feudal parasites milking a nation of over 300 million people.
If you're thinking about going to college, enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University for one semester and we will blow your mind. You'll re-think the entire idea of attending a typical 4-year college and you'll enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University instead.
Or maybe you'll go ahead and enroll in a typical 4-year college, but with eyes wide open. It will be completely different experience for you.
The Vine & Fig Tree University curriculum revolves around the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview, which is found throughout the Bible, and especially in the 4th chapter of the prophet Micah. That passage and a short explanation are found below.
We believe God breathed-out the Bible through human penmen. We believe the Bible is the primary textbook for every academic subject and the foundational blueprint for every field of human action. In 2023, no accredited college begins education with that assumption. Four hundred years ago, in 1620, everybody believed that. A hundred years later, in 1720, every college in America was a Bible-based Christian college. You will not hear that philosophy in any history, economics, sociology, law, political science, or any other class in any other accredited university today.
During this first semester at Vine & Fig Tree University, you'll learn five things:
- Thing #1: The Three Subjects Banned From Your Government-Approved Education
- -- and why you must access them.
Why you're a victim of educational malpractice.
- Thing #2: The Three Goals for You from Samuel Adams
- -- and why you must achieve them.
Why America was once prosperous and admired, and why the U.S. is now bankrupt and despised.
- Thing #3: The Three Huge Mistakes America's Founding Fathers Made
- -- and why you must avoid them.
Not a single person who signed the Constitution was a "deist" or an atheist. But they didn't see the full implications of their Christian faith.
- Thing #4: The Three Most Hated Words in Politics Today
- -- and why you must adopt them.
If you try to become a consistent Christian, and avoid the mistakes made by America's Founders, you will be attacked.
- Thing #5: The Three Things You Need to Become Extraordinary
- -- and why you must activate them.
You won't find these three things in any other university.
In your first semester, you'll be introduced to some uncomfortable facts:
If you've already graduated from college, I'd like to invite you to experience a massive transformation into
| • An Extraordinary American, • An Extraordinary Christian, • An Extraordinary Human Being. |
Those were the three challenges Samuel Adams made in the first letter he wrote to Americans through a network of communication known as "The Committees of Correspondence." Here's another fact to think about:
Vine & Fig Tree University exists to promote the Vine & Fig Tree worldview. Everybody in America in 1776 would have known what that meant. If you don't know what that means, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you're a victim of educational malpractice. [Click here to learn about the Vine & Fig Tree worldview.]
The Federal Government says public schools cannot endorse or promote the Vine & Fig Tree worldview. The Federal Government also says public schools cannot teach students that the Declaration of Independence (1776) is really true. If a student asks a teacher if the Declaration of Independence is really true, the teacher must say "I don't know," or "Some people a long time ago used to believe it was true," or something like that. The Federal Government says public schools cannot teach the Bible the way the writers of the Bible would teach the Bible, even though the original reason public schools were formed was to make sure that everyone in town could read the Bible, since the Bible was a revelation from God and the blueprint for our society.
Before you enroll in a college that has the government's approval, and spend tens of thousands of dollars, enroll for one semester in a college that does not have the government's approval. We guarantee you will experience
the most profound, beneficial,
massive, and lasting
personal transformation
of your entire life ...
or we will refund 100% of your tuition back to you.
No other college or university comes close to saying this. All other universities are all about getting your money, or exploiting you as a tool to get a hundred grand from taxpayers.
Vine & Fig Tree University isn't about money. Those other universities will say Vine & Fig Tree University is about "brainwashing" you into the Vine & Fig Tree cult. And that's true. Just as all the other universities are all about brainwashing you into believing that a Vine & Fig Tree world is a "utopian" impossibility. [The now-atheistic United States has all the classic earmarks of a dangerous authoritarian cult.]
īˌatrəˈjenikadjective
Imagine setting an appointment with a doctor for a medical problem you're having, and then learning that 50% of the patients who visit this doctor leave his office sicker than they were when they went in. Not just uncured. Sicker. Worse. More ill. Maybe with an additional medical problem that now needs treatment -- in addition to the problem you went in for. If you heard these facts, would you cancel your appointment?
When a 5 year old child tearfully boards the school bus and leaves home and parents for kindergarten in the public school system, the child is at a peak of curiosity, creativity, and receptivity to new knowledge. Untrained, uncertified, and unaccredited parents, siblings and peers have taught this child a language -- "the mother tongue" -- separating the child from all other animals, and distinguishing the child for having accomplished a feat of prodigious human learning.
It's all downhill from there.
Now the child is going to be a victim of "iatrogenic education." A system of "education" which actually makes the child less educated, less curious, less creative, and less able to think critically than the child would be if he or she had never gone to school.
All of us who went to government-operated or government-accredited schools are victims of educational malpractice.
If you don't admit, deep down, that that's true, we will bury you with facts in just a moment.
Universities tell us that we need a college degree to get a better job, which will pay us a better salary with better benefits, so we can lead a better life. But 50% of those who enroll in college
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This year, there are about 4 million people in the U.S. who are going to enroll in a college.
Almost half of those people (2 million) will end up dropping out and not getting a degree, but just getting a boatload of debt.
They wasted their time, and wasted a lot of money.
Time and money that could have been used to make themselves more productive, more valuable to an employer.
They did not make their lives any better.
They did not make the world a better place.
Most of them don't really know why they want a degree ("to get a job," any job, and make more money than someone without a degree).
They don't know how college will help them achieve their personal life goals, other than getting that piece of paper.
They may not even know what their personal life goals are.
Some people just go to college to figure out their life. "I need to find myself." A very expensive way to do this. A very counter-productive way to do this. An iatrogenic way to do this. You won't really find yourself by going to college. You won't find the "self" God created. You'll find the "self" the University-Industrial Complex wants you to be: a faceless statistic that funnels money into the University-Industrial Complex.
Even many of the people who actually did get a degree got a job they didn't really like anyway, and had little if anything to do with the subject they majored in.
They spent tens of thousands of dollars and four years of their life just to have a Human Resources bureaucrat check off the box that says "college degree" and move on to the next part of the employment form.
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Then they spent decades spinning the hamster wheel 40-60 hours a week.
Now they've lived most of their allotted time on earth, and soon they're going to "meet their Maker," the "Supreme Judge of the World" (to quote the Declaration of Independence), and they're asking if they lived the life their Maker wanted them to live.
It's never too late to start a new life. To start a wonderful life.
But that may require you to question some of society's most respected institutions.
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There is another "core value" shared by nearly every university in the United States.
Except, of course, the Vine & Fig Tree University.
What is that core value?
Football.
Major universities invest millions of dollars in their football programs.
Even though Vine & Fig Tree University does not have a sports program, we agree with every college football program in the country on one essential fact.
Even though colleges spend millions of dollars to develop winning football teams, and want to do everything they can to make sure their students can play competitive football at their peak level of performance, not one of them hires a "Professor of Football."
They hire "coaches."
Vine & Fig Tree University has no "professors."
If you cannot complete our academic program, and master the Vine & Fig Tree worldview, you don't need a "professor."
You need a "coach."
The first lesson you need to learn upon enrolling in Vine & Fig Tree University is that your atheistic education up to this point has left you a victim of educational malpractice. You don't have the "Protestant work ethic," the self-discipline, the personal character, and the intellectual skills to master the Vine & Fig Tree worldview. Great Americans in the past -- those who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution -- as well as millions of unknown but hard-working, ethical, admirable Americans -- would say you are a victim of educational malpractice.
The Vine & Fig Tree Curriculum is free. The degree costs only one dollar.
But there's a "catch."
You probably won't be able to complete the assignments.
You lack the self-discipline that men like Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and John Hancock had 200 years ago. You are weak and whiney.
Your success is crippled by a "victim mentality."
Your years from Kindergarten through High School were pretty much wasted, and four more years of college will only further cripple you.
In this respect, you're like half of all college students. Bill Gates, himself a "college drop-out," recently wrote on his blog that while it's great that more than 2 million American students will start college this fall, high dropout rates are cause for concern. "Based on the latest college completion trends, only about half of all those students (54.8 percent) will leave college with a diploma." The rest drop out.
If this is you, you need a coach, not a professor. What you need is a personal Coach to hold you accountable, to encourage you to stay on track, and to answer your questions about the Vine & Fig Tree Curriculum.
You can hire a Vine & Fig Tree Coach through Vine & Fig Tree University.
That might make the cost of your "degree" considerably more expensive than one dollar, but still less than one-tenth the price of any college you were considering attending.
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“Gentlemen, this is a football.” The iconic coach Vince Lombardi began each season standing before a room full of professional NFL football veterans holding up a football and saying, "Gentlemen, this is a football." As if they didn't know. Lombardi's point: championship teams are made not by concocting unprecedented "Hail Mary" plays, but by going back to the basics, building a rock-solid foundation, and consistently executing disciplined progress toward the goal. |
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Once you lay a solid foundation and master the basics,
your personal coach can help you
overcome big problems
or achieve extraordinary goals
in all the most important areas of your life:
| Faith | Family | Finances | Fitness |
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... and many other goals to achieve and problems to solve |
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Vine & Fig Tree University is not about classroom "education." It's about personal transformation. The kind that leads to world transformation.
Unlike "professors," your Vine & Fig Tree Coach comes with a 100% money-back guarantee. If you are coachable, and if you complete our assignments, we guarantee you will become
| • An Extraordinary American, • An Extraordinary Christian, • An Extraordinary Human Being. |
We guarantee you will experience
the most profound, beneficial,
massive, and lasting
personal transformation
of your entire life ...
or we will give you your tuition back.
No other university offers such a guarantee.
If you're not satisfied with your Vine & Fig Tree education, just ask for your money back.
But you will have to become an extraordinary person to climb this mountain.
We want to be your "sherpa."
We're not here to flunk you.
We want to take you to the top.
That's why we exist.
*WE* are the "missionaries."
You are about to leave the uncivilized jungle of educational malpractice
and feel the exhilaration of seeing for the first time the City of God.
“Gentlemen, this is a Fig Tree ”
If George Washington could travel through time and coach America, where would he begin in pre-season training? The vast majority of Americans have never heard the phrase “Vine and Fig Tree,” don't understand the culture it symbolizes, and don't know where the phrase comes from.
“Gentlemen, this is the Bible”
This is where George Washington would start. This is where America's “Vine and Fig Tree” Dream began.
What about the Constitution, which Washington helped create in the Constitutional Convention? The Constitution is dead meat. Washington wrote:
The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest of purposes.
Here is the full name of our university:
This name gives our marketing department aneurisms. The only word that could be more offensive and unmarketable to most Americans today -- more than the word "Theocracy" and the word "Anarchy" -- is the word "pacifism."
And we're that, too. "Swords into plowshares."
"Theocracy" comes from two Greek words meaning "God Rules."
If you reject "Theocracy" (being ruled by God), you will live under "anthropocracy," from the Greek word anthropos , "man."
When man rules rather than God, the Bible says you'll get "plutocracy," from the Greek word ploutos, "wealth."
Proverbs 22:7
The rich rule over the poor [plutocracy]
and the borrower is slave to the lender [student loans]
Every Caesar, Pharaoh, and Führer is alarmed by the idea of their serfs and subjects governing themselves according to the Law of God. James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," is reported to have said,
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves ... according to the Ten Commandments of God.
If we obey God's Law, human lawmakers are superfluous. If we are governed by God, we do not need human governors.
The goal of Christianity is an anarchist Theocracy, where God rules, not man.
"Anarchist" comes from two Greek words meaning "not an archist."
This is what "archists" do. (And for archists like Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, this character trait is especially manifested towards women, though not always with handcuffs.)
We've all been trained (in schools controlled by "archists") to think of "anarchists" as bomb-throwing assassins and destroyers of private property. But "archists" drop more bombs, kill more people, and destroy more private property than "anarchists" -- by orders of magnitude.
We have been trained think that "archists" from other countries are bad, but "our" archists are good, and year after year we keep re-electing the same incumbent "archists."
We have been trained to believe that we need "archists" to protect us from those bad foreign "archists" who "hate us for our freedoms."
We also need "archists" to protect us from those nasty "anarchists" at home.
This is why "pacifists" -- those naive idealists who say we should beat our swords (police and military-industrial complex) into plowshares -- are so hated. They are un-patriotic. They are "cowards" (because "real men" like to dress up in uniforms and kill non-white children in foreign countries).
If pacifists had their way, "EVIL WOULD TAKE OVER." Exclamation point.
Think about that. (You'll be doing a lot of that -- thinking -- if you enroll in Vine & Fig Tree Theocratic Christian Anarchist University.) If we could send all the "archists" in the world to the moon -- all those Presidents and Congressmen and Generals and bureaucrats and SWAT teams that "protect" us from "anarchists"
-- just remove them from the planet -- then "evil would take over." That's what we're told. That's what we believe.
By "evil," I guess they mean the meth-head who breaks into his neighbor's garage to make some money for more drugs.
No, they probably mean some sinister organized crime figure.
"Don Corleone."
These criminals will "take over" the world if we get rid of all the "archists" who protect us.
If some organized crime godfather told you to dress up in a military uniform and go to Iraq and destroy the largest Christian community in the Arab world, would you sign up?
No, you probably wouldn't, because you realize this guy is a criminal. (And probably a high-school dropout.)
The real danger to the human race and planet earth is not from "criminals," it is from College Graduates.
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"Criminals" will always try to "take over." And the best way to do this, for the last thousand years or so, has been to start a "university" and train the pawns that will help you take over.
Vine & Fig Tree Theocratic Christian Anarchist University trains students to follow Christ, who
If human beings will let the God of the Bible rule us ("Theocracy") by obeying His commandments ("Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not steal," -- "anarchism") ("Love your neighbor," "love your enemy" "beat swords into plowshares" -- "pacifism") then we will all live safely under our own Vine & Fig Tree. That's the promise God makes in the Bible, an "Anarchist Manifesto."
That's right: the Bible is an "anarchist manifesto."
There are 30,000 verses in the Bible, and most "Bible-believing Christians" only know a handful, like John 3:16. "Everybody knows" that a lot of those 30,000 verses are about icky stuff like war and slavery and empires like Egypt and Babylon. Yuck.
But your secular, Bible-denying public schools and universities want you to believe that the Bible somehow approves of imperialism, war, and slavery.
Even your "Bible-believing" church wants you to believe that Harvard-educated tyrants and bureaucrats are a "divine institution." "Romans 13."
Most "Bible-believing Christians" today are deists. They don't believe God actively works in history to bring about the "Vine & Fig Tree" world described by His prophets. They believe God is standing by, helplessly, as the world plummets toward Armageddon. "Any moment" Jesus will return to earth (we've been told this for decades) and will do what He refused to do when He was here the first time: become an earthly dictator of a "theocratic" police-state, sitting on a throne in Jerusalem (John 6:15), rather than ruling from the right-hand of God in heaven.
The Bible is against deism, as well as all forms of earthly archism.
At Vine & Fig Tree Theocratic Christian Anarchist University we teach the most controversial proposition in the world today:
Famous Archists in History: |
You'll recognize one of those archists above as Adolph Hitler.
Hitler did not kill six million Jews.
Name one Jew whom you can prove Hitler killed.
Six million Jews were killed by
six million Germans
who chose to wear a silly uniform, walk a silly goose-step, and follow the orders of a beyond-silly, pathologically evil man.These Germans were archists. They were "ordinary people." Just like you.
If you don't take immediate steps to become an anarchist, then by default you'll be an archist. Plus, you'll be unable to resist the temptations, the bribes, the pressure and the threats by archists to become an archist. You'll become an archist just like those rows and rows of "good" Germans above. They are just like you. You are just like them. "Sensible." "Rational." "Practical."
You might be saying, "Sure, there are bad archists. But aren't there good archists? And aren't there bad anarchists?"
No. And No.
It's like being "a little bit pregnant."
These are not anarchists. They are vandals. They are archists.
This kind of "anarchy" is multi-archy. Lots of archists.
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Who is the Greatest Threat to |
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A. "Governments"
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B. "Criminals"
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Organized "government" claims to protect us from "criminals" who might steal from us or kill us.
Name one "anarchist" who built a concentration camp, or bombed an entire metropolis "back to the Stone Age." More governments have been overthrown by other governments than by "anarchists." In the 20th century, organized "governments" intentionally killed an average of 10,000 human beings each and every single day. (That figure does not include abortions, which occur today an average of 135,000 times per day around the world.) Our program will prove to you that "the government" is the greatest force for crime and evil on the planet. By the time you finish this program,
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Now, do you really want to be Enroll Now |
No matter who you are, or how "diverse" your outlook, our curriculum will brainwash you into becoming a Theocratic Christian Anarchist, or we will refund 100% of your tuition.
Our tuition is one dollar.
You can hire a Vine & Fig Tree coach to help you graduate when you realize that you are a victim of educational malpractice, and cannot complete the kind of rigorous curriculum that Samuel Adams studied at Harvard in 1736-40. That will cost more than one dollar. It will be worth every penny. It will be a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of dollars that an atheistic archist
university will charge you (or the taxpayers).
You have to read our assignments and correctly answer the 5th-grade level questions in order to get your degree. You don't have to believe in the truth of our ideology to answer the questions and get your degree. You only have to know what we think the correct answers are.
We can't force you to be a "true believer." We just plant seeds. We believe the seeds will eventually yield a harvest.
Click here if you want to know what “Vine & Fig Tree” means.
Some colleges boast about the percentage of students who get jobs after graduating.
Can Vine & Fig Tree University guarantee a job? Will completing courses at Vine & Fig Tree University increase your chances of getting a certain kind of job?
Here's an important lesson we want you to learn at Vine & Fig Tree University:
You don't want to work for XYZ Corp.
Imagine two job applicants who think they want to work for the XYZ Corporation.
Which applicant would YOU hire?
XYZ Corporation will not hire Applicant A because Applicant A has no piece of paper called a "degree." Won't even give an interview. HR rep just checks off the boxes on a form.
I would think an important lesson that should be learned is
You don't want to work for XYZ Corp.
But XYZ offers "stability" and a good chance that eventually student loans will be paid off.
Vine & Fig Tree University will NOT increase your chances of getting a cubicle job at XYZ Corp.
Perhaps we will someday get "accredited."
Then we can get you a degree.
You can get a job.
To pay off your student loans.
You can become another gear in a big machine.
You can become a part of the University-Industrial Complex.
Is that what you really want?
We think there's more to life than a diploma and a job in a cubicle.
You are invited to enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University.
Even if you already have a college degree.
In fact, especially if you already have a college degree.
And especially if you have a job in a cubicle.
You are most likely a victim of educational malpractice.
“Vine & Fig Tree” was once a universally-understood shorthand for "the American Dream." Today that vision is lost. It's time to reclaim it. Time to live it.
Today "the American Dream" means "owning your own home." That means leaving your home every morning and spending most of your day working at a job you don't like to earn money to pay a quarter of a million dollars in mortgage interest on the home you "own." A home the government can take from you ("eminent domain") and give to a mall developer if the mall developer claims he can use the land your home sits on to generate more tax revenue for the government than you now pay.
The modern "American Dream" is a nightmare. It is so contrary to what God created us to be and to do, that it traumatizes us, and induces something like PTSD in us.
Vine & Fig Tree University is nothing like any "university" you've ever heard of.
First, all of our classes are free.
Pay tuition only if you want your papers graded and want to talk with other students.
We offer a 100% money-back guarantee. No other college does that.
We guarantee you will experience the most profound, beneficial, massive and lasting personal transformation of your entire life.
In fact, if you complete all of our courses and you don't agree that enrolling in Vine & Fig Tree University was the best thing you've ever done, we'll refund all your tuition -- and cut you a check for one thousand dollars ($1,000.00).
Second, we don't have "professors."
We have "coaches."
Our coaches are graduates of Vine & Fig Tree University.
They can answer your questions about the curriculum, and help you make the Vine & Fig Tree vision a reality in your day-to-day life.
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Third, you can make money by enrolling in Vine & Fig Tree University and helping people you know enroll.
It's called "affiliate marketing." Big companies like Amazon.com use affiliate marketing. You get a commission if you coach your friend into enrolling in Vine & Fig Tree University. Amazon pays less than a 10% commission. We pay 60% (sixty percent). That means if you get two friends to enroll, your full tuition is free, plus you get 20% in your bank account.
In short, you become a mentor, or coach.
The best way to learn something is to teach it to others.
You're always a little bit ahead of the other guy.
You have a coach of your own.
If you're a church pastor, you should get your entire congregation to enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University. You'll never have to "pass the plate" again.
Fourth, Vine & Fig Tree University is not a four-year program. You could complete the entire program in one year, depending on how you spent your time in high school.
On the other hand, you could conceivably spend the rest of your life in Vine & Fig Tree University. It all depends on how deep you want to follow the rabbit hole.
When you enroll in Vine & Fig Tree University, you will be asked to sign a statement that you whole-heartedly agree with three Bible verses:
- Acts 17:11
- "Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true."
You must be willing to study your Bible every day, as students in every university in America were required to do in 1720, and challenge all earthly authorities with the Word of God.- Proverbs 18:17
- "The first to state his case seems right until another comes forward and examines him."
Expect some of your cherished beliefs to be challenged.- Proverbs 27:17
- "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
Be willing to challenge others and to be challenged yourself.
In your second year, you have the option to learn the specific skills you need for the job you want, doing the things that God created you to do, through an apprentice system, like one called Praxis.
During your apprenticeship, your Vine & Fig Tree Personal Life Coach will be with you to help you apply the Vine & Fig Tree worldview you learned in your first year to your real-world vocation.
The Praxis apprenticeship is not for you if you are over 30, but your Vine & Fig Tree Personal Life Coach definitely is. After you get the basics down -- the basics that you were denied in your Prussian K-12 schooling and your secular college education -- you and your Life Coach can work together to solve your problems and achieve your goals in the four foundational areas of your life:
| Finances | Fitness | Family | Faith |
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You're getting two years of unlimited laser coaching to help you learn and apply the Vine & Fig Tree worldview.
The tuition is $10,000 for the one-year curriculum with coaching and the additional year of coaching.
Generous scholarships are available, but usually for people in "third-world" countries. (If you're an American, suck it up -- you're among the wealthiest human beings who have ever lived on the planet.)
You can sign up today without a credit card or a Pell Grant and start receiving the daily lessons of the “Vine & Fig Tree” curriculum. When you're ready to get serious and hire your Vine & Fig Tree Personal Life Coach to help you through the curriculum, you can pay your tuition and get started in earnest.
Click here to get started.
Or keep reading for more information.
I'm willing to bet $1,000.00 that you're going to love attending the Vine & Fig Tree University. If you complete all the assignments, and you don't agree, I'll refund 100% of your tuition and cut you a check for $1,000.00 (one thousand dollars). No other university even comes close to saying this.
America just celebrated "Independence Day" on July 4th. According to surveys, tens of millions of Americans believe that they get the day off from work on the 4th of July to celebrate the freeing of the slaves.
Go ahead. Laugh at these ignorant Americans:
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You wouldn't have found your way to this website if you weren't smarter than 99% of all Americans. So have a good laugh. But America's Founding Fathers would laugh at you.
I'll prove that, and you'll hang your head in shame.
And then I'll show you how, by enrolling in the Vine & Fig Tree University Program, you can become
| • An Extraordinary American, • An Extraordinary Christian, • An Extraordinary Human Being. |
I'm willing to wager $1,000.00 (one thousand dollars) that you will look back on your enrolling in the Vine & Fig Tree University Program and agree it was the best decision you made in your entire life. I'll wager $1,000.00 (one thousand dollars) that you will experience
the most profound, beneficial,
massive, and lasting
personal transformation
of your entire life ...
Which of America's Founding Fathers is your favorite? Samuel Adams? Thomas Jefferson? George Washington? Patrick Henry?
What if your favorite Founding Father could travel through time and become your Personal Life Coach?
What worked for a nation will work for you as an individual.
You can become prosperous and admired by following the advice -- and learning from the mistakes -- of America's Founding Fathers.
| Finances | Fitness | Family | Faith |
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... and many other goals to achieve and problems to solve |
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Life is a seamless garment. All of these issues are inextricably intertwined. Financial struggles put a strain on marriages. Marital struggles increase your blood pressure. When your health and energy are sagging, you let tyrants run your life. Government becomes your savior. And at the end of your life, you look back and hear Jesus, "the Supreme Judge of the world," say those words nobody wants to hear:
I would like you to give me 5 minutes of your time to think about the following hypothetical scenario:
Imagine that your favorite Founding Father has stepped into a wormhole in the space-time continuum and has landed in your living room.
If I may, I'd like to join the two of you. I'd like to show this time-traveling Founder two things:
When I'm done, your favorite Founding Father will tell you two things:
I would add to what he said:
If you complete the Vine & Fig Tree University Program, you will experience
the most profound, beneficial,
massive, and lasting
personal transformation
of your entire life ...
or we will DOUBLE your money back.
Are you willing to imagine the conversation with one of America's Founding Fathers? One of the people who risked his Life, his Fortune, and his sacred Honor to abolish the government?
This little exercise in imagination will get pretty grueling. Humiliating. Depressing.
Thanks.
Let's give him a tour of your home. TV, microwave, hot and cold running water; he's totally amazed.
"You must be a king."
Nah, you're just "middle class." Everybody has this stuff. Even the poor have air-conditioning.
Wait until he seats himself in that horseless steel carriage in your garage -- which is as powerful as a hundred horses.
He's blown away.
We could spend an hour or more just "touring" your smartphone and explaining to your favorite Founder the global technology behind it. (Actually, having read Adam Smith's 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, our Founding Father could probably teach you a thing or two about "Providence" and the worldwide "division of labor.")
Do you begin each day with a sense of profound gratitude?
The three richest, most powerful human beings on the planet in 1776 could not even dream, much less possess -- at any price -- the wealth you take for granted.
But now, if I may, I'd like to share with your favorite Founding Father the dark side.
At this point, your favorite Founding Fathers has gone from amazement to disappointment. He's shocked. Horrified.
He asks what you've been doing about it. He reminds you that his generation risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to resist a government that they called a "tyranny," but the "despotic" reign of King George III was a kindergarten class compared to the vile, murderous, atheistic, imperialist, planet-suffocating tentacles of the regime we call "Washington D.C."
"Have you taken up arms?" he asks.
"Oh, no," you answer.
"Wait," I interrupt. "There's more."
I point out that just during the last 50 years, the government created by the Constitution has done the following:
Jesus warned:
At this point your favorite Founding Father is not just horrified, he's angry. Outraged. Fuming.
And not just at "the government."
"Have you at least sent an email each day to one of the hundreds of political hacks who claim to "represent" you and have contributed to this heaven-offending disaster?"
You look at the floor.
You say nothing.
"Are you going to do something about this?" he demands.
At first you thought that it would be pretty cool to have a real-life Founding Father travel through time into your living room, but this is pretty humiliating. Even depressing.
"What can I do?" you ask.
"I'm just one guy."
Your favorite Founder reminds you that throughout history "one guy" has started revolutions and reformations. Your problem is not that you're alone. Your problem is that you are unarmed.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
Ephesians 6.12f
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on the life eternal.
1 Timothy 6.12
Take your part in suffering hardship, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 2:3.This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
1 John 5.4
"Not only that," your favorite Founder concludes, "you've been bribed. You've been bought off. Your silence -- your unwillingness to risk an IRS audit -- has been paid for with all your luxuries (which you consider necessities)."
"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?" (Matthew 16:26)
What has happened to the soul of America?
You don't know what to do to save America -- a land of "Liberty Under God" -- because you love the United States -- a socialist tyranny under atheistic Man, which buys your votes and your allegiance with trinkets and gizmos.
Welcome to Vine & Fig Tree University .
We have the answer to your question, "What can I do?"
We have the ammunition you need.
An education and coaching program composed entirely of advice from America's Founding Fathers, and the five texts that most influenced the creation of a once-Christian America.
What if your favorite Founding Father could travel through time and become your Personal Life Coach?
You would become
| • An Extraordinary American, • An Extraordinary Christian, • An Extraordinary Human Being. |
These were the three goals of Samuel Adams in his first letter to Americans through the “Committees of Correspondence,” November 20, 1772. This letter put Adams on the path to becoming known as "The Father of the American Revolution." || Details || Of the few Americans who can actually read the words of that letter, only a few can understand their meaning and significance. Yet the average 15 year old in colonial America could have understood the letter. The Bible and the Westminster Shorter Catechism were the staples of his education. They could be found in every one-room school house in America. Teenagers understood the Declaration of Independence. They were more adults than the average 26 year old American in 2023, who attended government-controlled schools where it was illegal for a government-hired teacher to teach students that the Declaration of Independence is actually, objectively TRUE.
If you're still reading this, you're probably among the 99th percentile of Americans in the eyes of any Founding Father who might travel through time and talk with a sample of today's Americans. But even so,
That's why you haven't risked your life, your fortune and your sacred honor, and why you don't even know how to do this, or what blueprint you would follow.
But if you complete the Vine & Fig Tree University curriculum, you will know what to do in the face of tyranny. You will have clarity on the will of God for your life. Your children will admire you. You will experience
the most profound, beneficial,
massive, and lasting
personal transformation
of your entire life ...
or we will DOUBLE your money back.
You can't find an investment deal like that anywhere on Wall Street.
You can't find an educational deal like that in any university. Anywhere.
You can't find a reformation/transformation opportunity like this in any church. Anywhere.
But put away your credit card.
You're not ready for this program.
And we're not here to pass out checks to people who want double their money back.
This week, we're going to begin a 95-day "orientation" boot camp. It's FREE, but you must complete the boot camp before we will allow you to enroll in the 12-month Vine & Fig Tree University Program.
A complete, day-by-day outline of the 95 day boot camp is found below. Most people who continue reading this page conclude they can't handle it, and they don't enroll. You're better than that. In a few weeks we'll post information on how to sign up for the 95-day boot camp.
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The Vine & Fig Tree University Program
How can we make such an extraordinary claim?When America followed George Washington's advice, When Did This Happen?Piece by piece, the Federal Government prohibited public schools from following the educational advice of George Washington. The average colonial American 17-year old in 1776 knew more about what it takes to make America a prosperous and virtuous nation than the average American adult in 2023. The average colonial American teenager would be horrified at the things American adults tolerate in 2023: Tyranny, public immorality, idiocy. Unbelievable. America was the most extraordinary nation in the world, because America was made up of extraordinary individuals. Individual Americans in 1776 were extraordinary, compared to Americans in 2023.
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Welcome to Vine & Fig Tree University
Frequently Asked Questions
Short Biography of George Washington Fifty years ago, America's students were "Number One" in academic achievement. |
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- If George Washington could travel two centuries through time, and see what has happened to the United States of America, he would be horrified. He would be outraged.
He would see we have a big problem.
The first problem is that most people don't see we have a problem.
Even America's most intelligent, most patriotic citizens -- like you -- would be taken back if George Washington looked you right in the eye and said,- “YOU have a problem.”
- It's not just that George Washington fought a government which was like a cockroach in a child's sandbox that needed to be removed. Our government is like a huge Godzilla, towering like a skyscraper, crushing whole schoolyards full of children with one foot.
Washington would say to you,- “You ARE the problem.”
- We want to think we are the solution, and everyone else is the problem.
But the solutions to America's problems do not begin with others, they begin with you.
The Solution begins with recognizing this embarrassing problem:
You are a Victim of Educational Malpractice
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There were three things taught in every public school classroom in America when George Washington went to school. All three have been banned by the federal government from today's schools, and from the schools you went to. You probably spent 17 years of your life in government-approved classrooms, and they were sanitized from the three most important things that would have made you |
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A complete day-by-day description of the Orientation Program is found below. Or keep reading, and we'll spell out the whole shebang -- the orientation program and the full-year program -- on this webpage.
Do you know why If you are not a part of the solution,
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Imagine it: If George Washington, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, or any other "Founding Father" of America could travel through time and spend a few weeks in your home watching TV, visiting your local public school, and learning about the federal government in 2023, what would he think? I believe he would be horrified at what America has become. He would be shocked that you are not shocked. America's Founders risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to resist a government that they called a "tyranny," but the "despotic" reign of King George III was a kindergarten class compared to the vile, murderous, atheistic, imperialist, planet-suffocating tentacles of the regime we call "Washington D.C." You watch late-night comedians joke about taxes, but you really do nothing, even though taxes are 20 times greater than in 1776, and we undoubtedly have less representation. Samuel Adams would tell you, in words he learned from your TV, Facebook, or public school: |
You SUCK at Being an AMERICAN
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What if George Washington -- "the Father of his Country" -- or Samuel Adams -- the architect of the "Boston Tea Party" and "The Father of the American Revolution" -- could be your personal coach?
Happily, there's GREAT NEWS on this website. You can be transformed into • An Extraordinary American, These were the three goals of Samuel Adams, Ring-leader of the "Boston Tea Party" (1773), and Signer of the Declaration of Independence (1776), who laid out a program of personal and national transformation in his first letter to America's Town Halls through a network of communication called "The Committees of Correspondence." His letters ignited the American Revolution, and they can ignite a revolution in your life. As a result of this timeless program, Samuel Adams became known as "The Father of the American Revolution." We call him "America's Coach." Tragically, you probably cannot understand what Adams is saying in that letter. Most Americans can't. And you won't be motivated to take the medicine unless you're convinced you're sick. So continue to exercise your imagination by imagining what Sam Adams or George Washington would think if they could travel through time to your day. America's Founders would be horrified, then outraged, at what has happened to the government they created. They would ask why YOU are not carrying out the duty you have (according to the Declaration of Independence) to abolish any government as tyrannical as ours. After seeing what is taught -- and what is not taught -- in government-approved schools, Samuel Adams would say, You are a victim of educational malpractice. He would prescribe a curriculum of five of the most important works in the history of Western Civilization, to be read over the next 365 days, while asking three life-changing questions. Following this program will make you as well-educated as the average American 17 year-old in 1776, and you will be far more qualified to help "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." |
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A complete day-by-day description of the Orientation Program is found below. |
Listen to a 95-minute tour
of the 95-Day Orientation Program.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Foundational Admission: Overview:
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| That's the syllabus for the 95-day Orientation Program
Just sign up now.
This 95-day program is just a sampling of the year-long coaching program.
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Christian Civilization depends on Biblical Law (Jerusalem) Not "Natural Law" (Athens)
And it will come about in the last days
That the mountain of the House of the LORD
Will be established as the chief of the mountains
And it will be raised above the hills
And the peoples will stream to it.
And many nations will come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD
And to the House of the God of Jacob,
That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths."
For from Zion will go forth the Law
Even the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
Micah 4:1-7
Rushdoony's critique is based on Van Til's "Theonomy-Autonomy" dichotomy, and Van Til's critique of "natural law." Background on "natural law" is essential to understand why non-Theonomic Reformers and Puritans were unBiblical.
Suppose a civil magistrate seeks to draft a criminal code regarding sexual conduct. Should the government's laws be based on Leviticus 18, or on the latest thinking from the Harvard Law School? Tragically, many Reformers and Puritans opted for Harvard, speaking in terms of "natural law" or "the law of Nations." This means the laws of Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans.
Leviticus 18 says that the gentile nations would be judged and destroyed if they did not act Theonomically. God's Law was not just for Israel. But the gentile nations didn't always agree with God's Law. Here is some evidence that the gentiles did not agree with God's Law on sexuality:
The Biblical Source of Western Sexual Morality
This might not surprise even anti-Theonomists, but the same is true for non-Christian political thought:
Greek Mythology: The Myth of Classical Politics
Getting government laws from these people is not just a "practical" mistake, it is rebellion against the Authority of God in His inscriptured Word.
This philosophical conflict has long been described as the conflict between Jerusalem (Christianity) and Athens (the Enlightenment). That was the title of Van Til's festschrift.
Gary North explains the foundational worldview assumptions of Roman culture:
(1) The legitimacy of homosexuality, especially the seduction of teenage boys by men over age 30;
(2) warfare as a man's supremely meaningful activity;
(3) polytheism;
(4) a personal demon as a philosopher's source of correct logic;
(5) slavery as the foundation of civilization;
(6) politics as mankind's only means of attaining the good life, meaning salvation;
(7) the exclusion of women from all aspects of public religion;
(8) the legitimacy of female infanticide.
The Harvard Law School contends that all of this "natural law" thinking is light-years more advanced than the "primitive" and "oppressive" laws of God in the Bible. And too many Reformers and Puritans agreed.
From the earliest church fathers to the most recent "process philosophy," Van Til built a body of work showing the compromise of Christians with unbelieving thought, primarily in the fields we call "philosophy" and "theology." Rushdoony applied Van Til's work to the State, and Gary North has done the same in the field of economics.
This is the big question in the "Theonomy Debate":
Is Natural Revelation Sufficient to Govern Culture?
Gary North,
Cooperation and Dominion: an Economic Commentary on Romans
Chapter 2, "The Work of the Law and Social Utility"
Natural law theory originated after the conquest of the Greek city-states, first by Alexander the Great and then by Rome. Stoic political philosophers had to replace their theory of the autonomy of the polis and its laws. They wanted to find some theoretical foundation for their ethical system, which had previously relied on intellectual defenses based on the sovereignty of the polis. Natural law theory was their solution.(7)
Natural law theory assumes that there is a common logic among men. This common-ground logic is said to bind all men, so that by adopting it, we can persuade all rational men of truths regarding social and political ethics. Christian philosophers have adopted this idea. They have confused it with the work of the law written on all men's hearts, which is a doctrine of common-ground ethics, not common-ground logic. The main effect of natural law theory today has been to persuade Christians to abandon the Bible as the basis of civil law and to begin a quest for common civil laws and common civil sanctions.
The theoretical problem with natural law theory is that covenant-breakers suppress the truth in unrighteousness.(8) Their powers of reasoning have been negatively affected by sin. They begin with the assumption of their own intellectual autonomy. They cannot logically conclude from this assumption the existence of the absolutely sovereign God of the Bible and His binding law.(9) Natural law theory is a logical system that begins with the assumption of man's autonomy, which means that natural law theory has nothing in common with the assumption of God's sovereignty. Natural law theory assumes that covenant-breaking men can build and sustain a just society on the basis of natural laws, natural rights, and universal logic.
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Natural law theory also assumes that sin and its effects have not adversely distorted the image of God in man. It assumes that fallen men do not actively suppress the truth. These two errors lead to a false conclusion, namely, that an appeal to common-ground logic can persuade fallen men. But if Paul was correct, how can natural men be persuaded to obey God, based on natural law theory? Paul entertained no such hope. "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). God's law is spiritually discerned, but only by those who are spiritual -- and not even by very many of them, as the history of Christian political theory indicates. The work of God's law is naturally discerned to a degree sufficient to condemn men for disobeying it, but not sufficiently to enable them to build a biblically moral society. Paul makes it clear in Romans 1 that the natural man suppresses the testimony of creation regarding God the Creator, reinterpreting God to conform to his covenant-breaking interpretation of reality. Why should Christians believe that the natural man will not do the same thing with the work of the law written on his heart? Why should Christians believe that an appeal to natural law should be any more successful in bringing men to judicial truth than to theological truth?
Today, Christian scholars are among the few remaining defenders of natural law theory. Darwinism has undermined faith in natural law theory among most humanists. Autonomous, evolving nature is widely believed to offer no moral standards. Even the survival of a species is not a moral imperative. Darwinian nature has no moral imperatives. For Darwinism, there is no permanent natural law. Everything evolves, including ethics. Because man's social and physical environments change, says the Darwinist, any ethical standards that do not promote the survival of humanity must be abandoned if mankind is to survive, yet survival is not an ethical imperative of nature unless man somehow represents nature on behalf of . . . whom? Man? God? Nature?(10) There is no agreement among Darwinists regarding either the existence or the content of fixed ethical precepts that are derived from nature. Darwinian ethical systems are shaped by mankind's uniquely perceived requirement to survive in a constantly changing environment. This is the creed of social Darwinism, whether statist (e.g., Lester Frank Ward) or individualist (e.g., Herbert Spencer).(11) This is also the creed of free market economists, Rothbard excepted.(12)
Natural law theory is always an attempt to fuse Jerusalem and Athens. It is an attempt to reconcile autonomous man and the God of the Bible. No such reconciliation is possible. Because of God's common grace, covenant-breaking men are restrained in their suppression of the work of the law in their hearts. But, as they think more consistently with their presuppositions regarding God, man, law, consequences, and time, they become more hostile to the work of the law in their hearts. Logic does not persuade them.
7. Sheldon S. Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960), pp. 77-82. ^
9. This was a major argument in the philosophy of Cornelius Van Til. ^
10. The deeply religious movement known as the deep ecology movement specifically rejects the idea that mankind in any way represents nature or possesses legitimate authority over nature. A clear statement of this movement's views is Bill McKibben, The End of Nature (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1989). The book became a best seller. It has been translated into at least sixteen languages. ^
11. Gary North, The Dominion Covenant: Genesis (2nd ed.; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987), Appendix A. ^
12. Rothbard defended the idea of permanent ethical standards, which he believed are derived from Aristotelian natural rights theory. Rothbard broke with Mises' utilitarianism and Hayek's social evolutionism. Murray N. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, [1982] 1998). On Hayek, see North, Dominion Covenant, Appendix B. ^
Natural law theory was born in a time of breakdown: the breakdown of faith in the Greek city-state. Alexander and then Rome had conquered them all. Stoic philosophers sought a substitute theory of the local religious rites-based theory of the city-state.
The substitute was a theory of universal mankind, an idea foreign to classical Greek politics. This universal humanity possesses a common reason, they argued. Common reason allows men to come to agreement about ethics and law. Natural law theory was an attempt by philosophers to provide legitimacy for a world empire.
Natural law theory died as a widely believed social philosophy when Darwin's theory of evolution through unguided natural selection destroyed intellectuals' faith in an ethically normative nature.
Today, only a few conservative social thinkers, a few Protestant conservatives, and followers of Murray Rothbard still proclaim faith in natural law theory as a ground for ethics and society.
WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
Natural law theory has always suffered from the dualism of all Greek thought: law vs. change. The unchanging pure logic of Parmenides cannot be reconciled to the constant historical flux of Heraclitus. Greek philosophy never resolved this dualism. No humanist philosophy ever has, either.
The problem today is that the tiny handful of natural law theory defenders are trying to breathe life into a long-dead horse. They are wasting precious time. Natural law theory has never worked as the basis of any social order, but after Charles Darwin, the academic community abandoned natural law theory. Darwin taught that nature is impersonal and not normative. There is no universal ethics. There is only a constant struggle for personal survival. I have written about this in Appendix A of my book, The Dominion Covenant: Genesis.
Natural law theorists have yet to come up with a solution to this inconvenient fact: reason, meaning the never-proven, always sought-for "right reason" of natural law theory, has not led masses of people to adopt the same system of philosophy, ethics, or religion. Yet the theory rests on the assumption -- never proven -- that rational people can agree on these issues sufficiently to enable society to function both ethically and predictably, meaning rationally.
If the vast majority of men refuse to accept a concept of a fixed, universal common logic, let alone fixed, universal social and ethical laws, we cannot build a society based on natural law. This has always been true, but after Darwin's theory of natural selection, it has become more obvious to all but a handful of natural law defenders. They defend the idea of a universal theory of ethics and social order, the details of which have yet to be presented in a form that more than a few social theorists are willing to accept. Natural law theory requires logical universality to be true, yet the supposedly universal practical details of the system have never gained anything like a simple majority.
Christian social theorists (there are not many) are among the few remaining defenders of natural law theory. This is ironic, because natural law theory cannot be defended biblically. Paul wrote, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God" (I Corinthians 2:14a). He wrote that natural men turn to false Gods and suppress the truth that is in them (Romans 1:18-22). This undermines any theory of natural law for a consistently Christian society.
Natural law theory rests on these presuppositions, all of which are denied by the Bible: (1) the autonomy of man's mind; (2) the sufficiency of reason; (3) the autonomy of the universe; (4) the common ethics of all revealed religion. In short, the natural man does not need to receive the things of the spirit in matters of social theory and policy. In these areas, men do not need the things of the spirit, which are divisive. Natural men are therefore autonomous, and natural law theory rests on this presupposition.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
We need a detailed history of natural law theory that reveals the perpetual conflict between fixed law ("Parmenides") and changing circumstances ("Heraclitus"). The book should demonstrate that natural law theory has always been afflicted by this unresolved dualism: law vs. flux, logic vs. history.
The Greeks did not solve this problem. The Greek city states exhausted themselves in continual warfare. Alexander the Great conquered them. Then Rome conquered the remains of his empire. Natural law theory was an attempt to provide meaning and hope in a world without the autonomous local Greek polis.
Show from the sources that Christianity imported natural law theory and tried to make it correspond to the Bible's revelational ethics. Show how the attempt failed because of (1) the conflict between biblical ethics and natural law categories, and (2) the inherent dualism of fixed rational law and historical flux.
The culmination of this failed attempt was Thomas Aquinas' philosophy. Show why the system he developed inevitably broke down: the Greek law vs. flux dualism and the Bible vs. Greek philosophy dualism.
Show why modern social theory since Edmund Burke has suffered from dualism: universal natural rights (French Revolution) vs. the constitutional rights of Englishmen or whoever (conservatism).
Show how Darwinism destroyed the acceptability of natural law theory among evolutionists.
WHERE TO BEGIN
Begin with the works of Cornelius Van Til. Start with In Defense of the Faith: A Survey of Christian Epistemology (In Defense of Biblical Christianity, Vol. 2). Then go to A Christian Theory of Knowledge. Or buy his CD-ROM, which is searchable: The Works of Cornelius Van Til.
For a survey of the dualisms in Greek, medieval, and modern (post-Kant) philosophy, consult Herman Dooyeweerd, In the Twilight of Western Thought (1960). For detailed discussions of specific philosophers and issues, consult his 4-volume study, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (1953--58).
On the local religious rites-based origins of the Greek city-state, see Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City (1864).
On the breakdown of Roman philosophy, a standard treatment is Christianity and Classical Culture (1940), by Charles Norris Cochrane. It has been reprinted by Liberty Fund.
For late-medieval philosophy, a good introduction to its inherent dualism is the little-known book, Bradwardine and the Pelagians (1957), by Gordon Leff.
Then go to Otto von Gierke's standard book, Natural Law and the Theory of Society, 1500 to 1800 (1957).
On the substitution of the theory of evolution for natural law theory in economic theory, see my book (on-line, free), The Dominion Covenant: Genesis (1987), Appendix B.
Gary North
Boundaries and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Leviticus
Chapter 14: Impartial Justice vs. Socialist Economics
The issue of the absolute authority of God's specially revealed civil law challenges the competing theoretical structure of natural law, natural reason, and natural revelation. We need to ask: Can these three theoretical ideals serve as sufficient guides for establishing God's legal requirements? Or is direct revelation from the God of the Bible mandatory covenantally in the civil realm?
Let us take the easiest case to analyze. God told Adam that he was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If natural law, natural reason, and natural revelation were sufficient to inform mankind of the judicial boundaries established by God, then why did God reveal to Adam this single binding law and its single negative sanction? Adam was morally perfect. His eyes were not yet blinded by sin. The creation was without blemish in Genesis 2. It did not yet provide misleading information to mankind. But God nevertheless revealed His law verbally to Adam. Why? Because natural law, natural reason, and natural revelation alone are not sufficient to enable men to know God's binding covenant law in its entirety. If this was true for Adam, then it is surely true today, since men possess only fallen reason, and the creation itself is under a curse.
Had God's civil laws been revealed in some way other than through direct verbal revelation to Moses by God, such as through the universal reason of mankind, there would have been no need for God to require that the whole law be read publicly in Israel every seventh year (Deut. 31:10-13). Men would already have known this requirement "rationally." But they did not know.(5) Then what do men know? They are responsible before God, so they must know something about God's law. Men always know enough about God's covenant law to get themselves condemned by God eternally -- the work of the law (not the law itself) written in their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15)(6) -- but not enough to enable them to build the kingdom of God in history. This is why those Christians who affirm natural law rather than biblical law as the sole authoritative moral standard for society almost always also explicitly deny that it is either possible or required by God that Christians build the kingdom of God in history as God's designated judicial agents.(7)
A Question of Judicial Subordination
The inherent ethical dualism of natural law theology has had catastrophic effects in history. The dualism between Bible-revealed personal Christian ethics and religiously neutral, universally perceivable civil law inescapably demobilizes Christians in society and simultaneously anoints pagans as the lawful interpreters of natural law. Ethical dualism inevitably places God's designated judicial agents -- Christians -- under the civil and cultural authority of Satan's designated judicial agents. Why? Because it places natural law, natural revelation, and natural reason above God's revealed law, His progressively restored creation,(8) and the mind of Christ (I Cor. 2:16).(9) There is no neutrality; there is always judicial hierarchy. Some law-order must be on top. Some transgressors of this law-order must be on the bottom. Christian natural law theorists in principle place a hypothetically neutral natural law on top and Christians on the bottom.
In the early stages of this cultural conquest by covenant-breakers, natural law theory is a highly useful tool for covenant-breakers in their epistemological and political disarming of Christians. The infiltrators applaud ethical dualism: separate ethical standards for believers and skeptics, but a common civil law-order for all. This common law-order must not be based on some "narrow" appeal to standards uniquely revealed in the Bible, an ethical handbook for covenant-keepers only. Dualism keeps Christians happily subservient to politically successful pagans in the name of Jesus. That is to say, dualism keeps Jesus covenantally subordinate to Satan on earth and in history. When Norman Geisler asks, "Whose ethical standard shall we use?" and immediately answers, "a moral law common to all men"(10) -- natural law for the natural man -- he has in principle delivered society into the hands of Satan's designated judicial agents in history. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit (I Cor. 2:14); therefore, the ethical dualist is logically compelled to affirm, the Holy Spirit has nothing judicially binding to say or do with society and politics. If He did, then the natural man, not being able to receive the things of the Spirit, would be spiritually unreliable to exercise civil authority. Political pluralism rests philosophically on ethical dualism, for it asserts the legitimacy of common citizenship based on religiously neutral civil law. Ethical dualism necessarily asserts the judicial irrelevance of the Holy Spirit to both social theory and political theory. For almost two millennia, ethical dualism has been the dominant outlook of the church's main spokesmen.(11)
There is no neutrality. The ethical dualist denies this with respect to civil law. By elevating natural law, natural reason, and natural revelation above God's inspired word for the purpose of establishing social and political theory, the Christian ethical dualist has anointed the covenant-breaker as the lawful master of the covenant-keeper in every area of life outside the four walls of the Christian church and the Christian family. But the consistent covenant-breaker is not about to honor these two fragile, judicially unprotected institutional boundaries, any more than Pontius Pilate honored the innocence of Jesus Christ against the Pharisees' court.
Here is the problem: Christian ethical dualists keep insisting, century after century, that the Pilates of this world are judicially reliable. The Pilates of this world are supposedly not in need of personal regeneration and the revelation of the Bible in order to carry out their lawful and judicially neutral cultural mandate in history. On the contrary, we are assured, they need only be faithful to "ancient Hindu, Chinese, and Greek writings," to cite Dr. Geisler's recommended primary sources.(12) This is why Christian ethical dualists are at war with biblical civil law, biblical civil sanctions, and covenantal postmillennialism.(13) Christian natural law theorists implicitly offer this daily prayer to God: "Thy kingdom not come, thy will not be done in earth as it is in heaven." (Unless, of course, they become really consistent and argue that natural law in principle should rule in heaven, too. Then their prayer becomes: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in heaven as it is on earth." We do not find such consistent ethical dualists.)
6. John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1959), I, pp. 72-76.
7. I have in mind all Protestant ethical dualists, from Martin Luther to Norman Geisler. Luther was amillennial; Geisler is premillennial-dispensational; both deny that God's kingdom can triumph in history through the Spirit-backed efforts of Christians. On Luther's ethical dualism between Christian ethics and civil ethics, see Charles Trinkaus, "The Religious Foundation of Luther's Social Views," in John H. Mundy, et al., Essays in Medieval Life (Cheshire, Connecticut: Biblo & Tannen, 1955); Gary North, "The Economics of Luther and Calvin," Journal of Christian Reconstruction, II (Summer 1975), pp. 76-89. On Geisler's equally dualistic ethics, see Norman L. Geisler, "Natural Law and Business Ethics," in Richard C. Chewning (ed.), Biblical Principles and Business: The Foundations (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1989), pp. 157-74. Geisler explicitly identifies the work of the law (Rom. 2:14) with natural law: ibid., p. 158. God holds all men responsible for their acts; hence, Geisler concludes, if some men do not know about God's revealed law, God cannot lawfully condemn them. "If there is no natural law," Geisler says, "God is unjust." Ibid., p. 160. Geisler misunderstands biblical justice. Natural law, natural reason, and natural revelation are sufficient to condemn every sinful person to hell and the lake of fire, but they are insufficient to enable people to build the kingdom of God. God's system of sanctions for the reprobate is simple and clear: "Heads, I win; tails, you lose." For proof, see Romans 9:10-21.
8. Gary North, Is the World Running Down? Crisis in the Christian Worldview (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1988).
9. The mind of Christ is imputed to His people at the time of their conversion, and it is progressively revealed in history, both individually and corporately, through their covenantal faithfulness. Anyone who denies this progressive, corporate, intellectual sanctification must also deny the progress of the church's various theological confessions. I know of no Christian who is willing publicly to deny the progress of the confessions at least through 1647 or 1788.
10. Geisler, "Natural Law and Business Ethics," p. 157.
11. The main exceptions historically were the New England Puritans of the first generation, 1630-60. On their theocratic legal theory, see Charles Lee Haskins, Law and Authority in Early Massachusetts: A Study in Tradition and Design (New York: University Press of America, [1960] 1985).
12. Geisler, "Natural Law and Business Ethics," p. 158.
13. Gary North, Millennialism and Social Theory (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), ch. 12: "Our Blessed Earthly Hope in History."
See this: Little Things Everywhere
Greek Mythology: The Myth of Classical Politics
There is no such thing as "judicial law" in the Bible.
James Jordan, "Appendix E: Salvation and Statism," in The Law of the Covenant, 240-42 (1984), This Book in PDF, HTML
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James B. Jordan, “Calvinism and ‘The Judicial Law of Moses': An Historical Survey,” Journal of Christian Reconstruction 5(1978-79):19:
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Gary North, THEONOMY: AN INFORMED RESPONSE, p. 259-60
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North's suggestion does not go far enough. He's basically just renaming the categories:
Everyone agrees that "the ceremonial law" can be fulfilled only in Christ. The requirement to bring a lamb to the temple can be obeyed only by faith in Jesus, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
The problem is with the "judicial" or "civil" category.
There was no "civil government" in Israel until 1 Samuel 8, which expressly declares that the desire for a "civil" government is a rejection of God, who alone should be our King, Lawgiver, and Judge (Isaiah 33:22).
Since there was no "civil government," Moses gave no "civil law" or "judicial law." When Moses predicted that Israel would apostatize and ask for a king like the pagans (Deuteronomy 17), he did not legitimize their apostasy by handing down a corpus of "civil law." He gave a few commands to the king which would not be obeyed and would only serve to confirm the depth of Israel's rejection of God as King. God had His purposes for allowing this apostasy. Some kings, like David, served as a type of the coming Messiah. But it was not one of God's purposes to create a permanent "civil service" structure.
It is helpful to incorporate North's insights in his distinction between three kinds of religion (in Moses and Pharaoh):
In the Bible, the original social structure is Patriarchy: the Family. To the Family was given the command to "exercise dominion" (Genesis 1:26-28). When one "nuclear family" ("patria") engages in commerce with another "nuclear family," a market emerges: "agora." We might speak of this as "patriagora" — family + market
Franz Oppenheimer, in his book The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically, distinguishes between "Economic Man" and "Political Man."
These categories match North's religions:
"Escapist Religion" emerges when "economic man" seeks to evade the responsibilities of dominion and God's Law, and he retreats into "Escapist Religion."
Escapist Man is easily seduced by the claims of "Political Man" that the "civil government" created by "Political Man" will take care of "Escapist Man."
In Luke 22:25 Jesus said to His disciples, "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors." According to Thayer's Greek Dictionary, "benefactor" is a
title of honour, conferred on such as had done their country service, and upon princes, equivalent to Soter, Pater Patriae.
"Pater Patriae" means "father of his country." Soter is the Greek word for "Savior."
Luke 2:11
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Soter [σωτὴρ], which is Christ the Lord.
"We're from the government. We're here to help"
is equivalent to
"We're from the government. We're here to save."
"Escapist Man" happily accepts this offer.
In practice, Luke 22:25 should read: "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called Saviors." This is the frosting on the cake of our "three branches of government" which parallel Isaiah 33:22 :
| For the LORD is our Judge, | = "Judicial Branch" |
| The LORD is our Lawgiver, | = "Legislative Branch" |
| The LORD is our King; | = "Executive Branch" |
| He will save us | = "Benefactor" |
Christians have accepted the categories of "the kings of the gentiles" -- the Emperors, Pharaohs, and Führers -- operating under "natural law" -- rather than the categories of the Bible. In the Bible there is only "moral law" and "ceremonial law."
To return to Deuteronomy 17/1 Samuel 8, it was not God's purpose to create a permanent "civil government" in Israel. The coming Messiah, Jesus the King, was "the Last Adam" who would destroy all kings [pdf] (1 Corinthians 15), end "power religion" (and escapist religion) and restore man to his original Edenic dominion mandate.
"Civil Government" is a False god.
"Civil Law" is False Law
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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...! |
There is a chilling contrast between "Jerusalem" (the Kingdom of God, the Bible) and "Athens" (the reign of man the would-be god).
Let's look first at "Jerusalem" through the eyes of the prophet Micah (chapter 4):
| And it will come about in the last days That the mountain of the House of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains And it will be raised above the hills |
| And the peoples will stream to it. And many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD And to the House of the God of Jacob, |
| That He may teach us about His ways And that we may walk in His paths." For from Zion will go forth the Law Even the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem. |
| And He will judge between many peoples And rebuke mighty, distant nations. Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation will not lift up sword against nation And never again will they train for war. |
| And each of them will sit under his |
| Vine and under his fig tree, With no one to make them afraid. For the LORD of hosts has spoken. |
| Though all the peoples walk Each in the name of his god, As for us, we will walk In the Name of the LORD our God forever and ever. |
| In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted; And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever. |
Here are ten "core values" of "Jerusalem" as seen in Micah's prophecy: We can contrast those values with the values of "Athens" in the modern university
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Jerusalem
|
Athens Gary North (Ph.D., History, University of California) writes: "You want to know more about the worldview of classical Greece. What did they believe in? What were the foundations of classical Greek civilization? I offer you this list."
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Let's compare these core values in more detail. Jerusalem is on the left, Athens on the right, usually quoting Dr. North.
Jerusalem |
Athens |
Athens mocks Jerusalem, just as Marx coined the word "capitalism" and Queen Elizabeth mocked Calvin's metric Psalms as "Geneva Jigs." Our belief in the Bible as the Word of God is called
| 1. Bibliolatry
Micah 1:1 Micah 4:4 Micah 4:6 We believe the Bible is the Word of God. Some people call this "Bibliolatry." Fine. Whatever.
The issue is Authority. Who is in charge? Who decides what is right and what is wrong? See "Theonomy" below. |
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.
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. |
Jerusalem |
Athens |
| 2. Preterism
Micah 4:1 Jesus is the Christ, today. | "The Mountain Established"
Reincarnation and other eastern concepts keep threatening a resurgence against the Christian concept of linear progress in history. |
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. |
Jerusalem |
Athens |
| 3. Optimillennialism
And the peoples will stream to it. The World will be Christianized. "All nations, all peoples"
|
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.
|
| Only Christianity has abolished slavery. Our modern concept of "liberty" was completely unknown in Athens. All "nations" (Gk: ethnè) are created in the Image of God, and that Image, distorted by the Fall, is being restored in every nation. | The Gentile (ethnos) in Scripture |
Jerusalem |
Athens |
| 4. Theonomy
That He may teach us about His ways
Micah says the citizens of Jerusalem, the "City of God," will "walk in His paths." "Theonomy" comes from two Greek words, "Autonomy" comes from two Greek words, The Autonomous, Secular University -- purged of God's Law-Word -- is a Satanic University. More |
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. Gary North ("Natural Law Theory") writes:
From the "city-state" to the "world-state." However,
Unfortunately, the idea of the "world state" did not die with "natural law theory." While we no longer have the idea of the "barbarian" who lives outside the city-state, we are still plagued with "natural law" thinking among too many Christians, and the quest for a "world-state" among too many secularists. More on "Natural Law" |
Jerusalem |
Athens |
| 5. Redemption/Atonement
That He may teach us about His ways Part of God's path in Old Covenant Jerusalem was a system of blood sacrifices, including what Athens calls "capital punishment." Jesus is the Lamb of God, the final scapegoat. If you reject Christ's atonement, you punish yourself (masochism) or others (sadism) in a futile attempt to gain atonement. |
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 ["Power corrupts"], 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. |
Jerusalem |
Athens |
| 6. Pacifism
And He will judge between many peoples Peace through Peace, not through "Strength." | "Swords into Plowshares"
Jesus is "The Prince of Peace." |
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. |
Jerusalem |
Athens |
| 7. Patriarchy
And each of them will sit under his The monogamous heterosexual family is the root of civilization. "Patriarchy" is a hated word. It doesn't mean what you think it means.
The Family vs. The Polis
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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. 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. |
Jerusalem |
Athens |
| 8. Agrarianism
Vine and under his fig tree,
|
Dr. North has no direct antithesis in "Athens" to the "Vine & Fig Tree" vision of "Jerusalem." St. Augustine contrasted "The City of God" and the City of Man. Autonomous Man separates the Garden and the City, corrupting both.
The Greek word for "city" is polis, from which we derive the English word "political." POLIS: The Empire of Man vs. the City of God |
Jerusalem |
Athens |
| 9. Character
Though all the peoples walk The commandments of God, lived out in practice. Examples What if all the politicians, university professors, TV commentators, bloggers, newspaper editors, rock stars, scientists, CEO's, athletes, authors, and think-tanks repudiate the Vine & Fig Tree vision and tell you not to believe it? Grow up. Be strong. Resist the mainstream. Service is better than domination or celebrity status. Love isn't just a feeling, it's a life-long commitment to Christian Civilization. Parents have a duty to instill Biblical character in the next generation. Education: Jerusalem or Athens? Deuteronomy 4:9-14; 6:7-12, 20-25; 11:18-21 Education: Jerusalem or Egypt? What should children learn?
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Arete (Greek: ἀρετή), speaks of moral excellence. Some "classical"-Christian schools promote Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: We support the Bible, not Aristotle. Theonomic Ethics is more important than "Nicomachean Ethics" "Classical" schools contend that Americans today lack even the Greek ideal of moral excellence. True enough. But if we pursue Athens rather than Jerusalem, we will eventually end up with
We must go to Jerusalem, not Athens. |
Jerusalem |
Athens |
| 10. Community
In that day, saith the LORD, "No man is an island." Community: Serving the weak rather than the powerful | The "driven out" and "afflicted"
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Welfare State. At least one-third of all male Athenians were on the government's payroll in the time of Pericles. Community is impossible in a society where every man thinks he is his own god. As the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre put it, "If I am god, my neighbor is the devil."
For those whose god is their belly and their own material advancement, cut-throat competition replaces community. The weak will be trampled on in the quest to climb the ladder of material success. The monogamous family is where adults live out (and children learn about) commitment. This is the foundation for community. The welfare state destroys true religion and community. Instead of community, the welfare state hands out an impersonal welfare check from an anonymous bureaucrat. The homeless need homes, not bureaucracies.
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Jerusalem |
Athens |
| Civilization is not "Western," it is Christian. | 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. |
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This section will be radically expanded soon. For now, see the article in Wikipedia, which defines "Christendom" as "countries in which Christianity dominates or prevails." I will define "Christendom" as "Christian Reconstruction in every area of life." Going further, I will define "Christendom" as "Civilization." Some call this "Western Civilization." I've heard some Christian commentators, like Eric Metaxas, describe "western civilization" as the combination of "Jerusalem and Athens." But "Christendom," or "Christian Reconstruction," should be defined as "Jerusalem WITHOUT Athens," as Tertullian said.
It has been said that the average human uses less than 10% of the awesome power of the human brain.
"Christendom" has used only a small fraction of the civilizing power of the Bible. Too often, Christians have resorted to the strategies of Athens and the Roman Empire to build "civilization."
True civilization, which is Christian Civilization, is founded on the Bible, and the three most hated words in secular/classical/enlightenment/humanistic political philosophy:
If you were educated in secular schools, you are a victim of educational malpractice, and have been brainwashed into believing that those three concepts undermine "democracy" and "civilization."
The word "pacifism" comes from the Latin word for "peace." It does not come from the word "passive." Our definition of "pacifism" is active civilization-building dominion conducted in accordance with the ethical prescriptions of the executed Christ. It is these prescriptions that modern secular man finds so offensive.
Jesus goes further, and says that if anyone does these things to you, you must
And if all these fail to bring repentance, restitution, and reconciliation,
To say that you must leave vengeance to God means you must not hire a Mafia hit-man to take vengeance on your enemy. To do so would be "unChristian" and therefore "uncivilized."
To say that you must leave vengeance to God means you must not VOTE for a Mafia hit-man to take vengeance on your enemy. To do so would be "unChristian" and therefore "uncivilized."
The moral and ethical similarity between a contract killer and a politician is not often contemplated. Nor are the frequent connections between politics and organized crime.
The Bible says that throughout history, God has raised up contract killers and vile, reprobate, pathologically violent nations to take vengeance on sinners. See Isaiah 10 for the prophecy of God using Assyria to punish Israel. Although Israel deserved punishment, it was morally wrong for Assyria to do so. Therefore God destroyed Assyria, as Isaiah went on to prophesy.
You and I must leave vengeance to God.
Autonomous Man will not do this. Autonomous Man takes vengeance autonomously, sometimes using verses of Scripture to justify his own vengeance.
It is wrong to hire vengeance-takers.
It is wrong to vote for vengeance-takers.
"Vengeance is Mine" saith the Lord. "I will repay." (Romans 12:19, quoting : Deuteronomy 32:35; cf. Psalm 94:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:6; Hebrews 10:30).
This completely rules out "politics" as secular man defines it.
Too many Christians have sought to ground the creation of an institution of human vengeance on commands given to the priesthood of Israel. See more on this.
Pacifism -- forgiveness and leaving vengeance to God -- leads logically to "anarchism."
Civilization without "Archists."
The word "anarchist" is derived from two Greek words meaning "not an archist."
An "archist" is a vengeance-taker. An "archist" believes he has the right to impose his own will on others by force or threats of violence.
Every professor of political science in every university on planet earth agrees that the essential nature of "the State" is a monopoly of violence. See here.
An "archist" is the opposite of a "pacifist."
Modern secular political philosophy opposes pacifism and anarchism for the same reason. Taking Jesus literally means the end of "civilization" as they know it.
Liberty was a 19th-century anarchist periodical published in the United States by Benjamin Tucker from August 1881 to April 1908. Included in its masthead is a quote from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon saying that liberty is "Not the Daughter But the Mother of Order."
Most people think that liberty and prosperity are the products of imposed order -- order imposed by "the State."
"The State" says "We have a moral right to take vengeance on the bad guys and take money by force [extortion] from the good guys." This is false. The Bible says vengeance belongs to God, not to any earthly creature. Extortion is a sin. When "the State" attempts to impose order on a society, it engages in sin. Even if the State has some noble motivation, and even if the bad guys are genuinely bad, the State sins, and legitimizes sin, and when sin is legitimized, Christendom is undermined.
Relentless, systematic institutionalized vengeance is uncivilized.
"The State" is the enemy of True Christendom. For Wikipedia, above, "the State" is essential to "Christendom." This is because Wikipedia is the vassal of Athens, rather than Jerusalem.
Civilization is the byproduct of obedience to the Commandments of God, and especially those pacifist-sounding Commandments of Christ which "the State" and "the institutional church" relegate to the "personal" and "private" sector, freeing up "the State" to use violence and aggression to pursue State objectives.
Jesus is "the Prince of Peace." Prior to His Incarnation, the world was uncivilized. The Reign of King Jesus is fulfilling "Messianic Prophecies" from the Old Testament which emphasize "peace on earth." True Pacifists are anarchists. Christian pacifists create true Christendom.
The idea of imposing Biblical commandments on the State is anathema to secular humanistic autonomous political philosophy.
They will say Christians are attempting to "impose a Theocracy" on "our" democracy.
The word "Theocracy" is derived from two Greek words meaning "God governs."
A pure Theocracy is not a government by clergymen. That would be an "ecclesiocracy," from the Greek ekklesia, which is usually translated "church" in the New Testament.
God rules/governs when people are obeying His commandments.
True Christian Civilization is a society that obeys God's commandments.
Civilization is Christian Theocracy, or "Christocracy."
Benjamin Rush signed the Declaration of Independence (1776) 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.
"Civilization" is the result of being governed by the Prince of Peace. All those who trace their genealogy to Athens despise Christian civilization. Their civilization puts them in power over a society characterized by
All those who trace their genealogy to Jerusalem are champions of Christian civilization, and are at war with Athens. The symbol of the Athenian State is "the sword." Christians battle against the sword with the Word of God:
Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
No sensible person wants to be "uncivilized."
The English word "civilization" comes from the same Latin root as "city." Augustine wrote a book "On the City of God" (De Civitate Dei).
The City of God leads to life, peace, and prosperity, while the "City of Man" ultimately leads to death, either through tyranny (genocide) or through chaos and meaninglessness (suicide).
Our job as human beings is to build the City of God following God's Blueprints. This is the only path to lasting civilization.
Before the Advent of Christ, the world was uncivilized. It was a world of dehumanizing violence, irrational occultism and demonism, and the complete absence of any concept of personal liberty. Jesus, the Messiah, by His reigning from the Throne of David, has created Christian Civilization. Every corner of the earth has now been touched by the City of God. Our job is to continue to invite the world to live in this peaceful and prosperous City -- to become "civilized."
Civilization is holistic salvation. The word "salvation" comes from the same Hebrew root as "JESUS." The name "Jesus" comes from the Hebrew word Yhowshuwa', which is derived from yasha', which is the Hebrew word most frequently translated "salvation." Here's how one mainstream scholar defines the Hebrew word for "salvation:"
| Yasha and its derivatives are used 353 times. The root meaning . . . is “make wide” or make sufficient: this root is in contrast to sarar, “narrow,” which means “be restricted” or “cause distress.” To move from distress
to safety requires deliverance. [T]he majority of references to salvation speak of Yahweh granting deliverance from real enemies and out of real catastrophes. That which is wide connotes freedom from distress and the ability to pursue one’s own objectives. Thus salvation is not merely a momentary victory on the battlefield; it is also the safety and security necessary to maintain
life unafraid of numerous dangers. Hartley, John E. (1999). 929 יָשַׁע ["yasha"], in R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament  ,
vol. 1, pp. 414-15. |
Let's think about this definition. An "uncivilized" person with power is called a "tyrant." When God threatens a sinful and rebellious nation, He often threatens to send "a sword." "Sword" is a symbol for violent uncivilized people with power: Tyrants and their armies. These uncivilized tyrants are a threat to "civilization," our society's salvation. Here again is Hartley's definition, with key words highlighted.
Yasha and its derivatives are used 353 times. The root meaning . . . is “make wide” or make sufficient: this root is in contrast to sarar, “narrow,” which means “be restricted” or “cause distress.” To move from distress to safety requires deliverance. [T]he majority of references to salvation speak of Yahweh granting deliverance from real enemies and out of real catastrophes. That which is wide connotes freedom from distress and the ability to pursue one’s own objectives. Thus salvation is not merely a momentary victory on the battlefield; it is also the safety and security necessary to maintain life unafraid of numerous dangers. • tyrants cause insufficiencies and shortages
• tyrants restrict our liberties
• tyrants are our enemies
• tyrants cause "catastrophic meltdowns"
• tyrants restrict freedom
• tyrants interfere with our pursuit of happiness
• tyrants leave us insecure
• tyrants are the object of our fears
"Civilization (and "Salvation" in the Bible) is therefore "freedom from tyrants." America's Declaration of Independence complained about an empire that "has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance." Around the world, most famine is caused by tyrants, not nature; uncivilized tyrants with power to blockade ports, confiscate family farms, and put farmers in concentration camps. Technologically advanced but morally uncivilized people who wield political power are the greatest threats and obstacles to civilization.
Tyrants depend on thousands or millions of uncivilized people to carry out the tyrant's de-civilizing orders. Tyrants depend on victims of educational malpractice, who don't know what "civilization" really is.
| Who is more "civilized?" These guys: 
... or these guys: |
I once read an intelligent person on Facebook (or do I contradict myself?) speak of an uncivilized person as "a pagan swine herder in some northern European forest or an illiterate peasant on the wild windy coast of Celtic Britain." I don't claim that pacifism can eliminate coastal winds (?), but if the opposite of a "swine herder" is Constantine, I would rather herd swine.
|
Does a truly civilized person leave his home and family to lead a military expedition to conquer foreign nations, using the cross or other Christian rhetoric to baptize the invading army, with the death and destruction it brings?
Who is more "civilized" -- the "illiterate peasant" who bears the fruit of the spirit and the character of Christ, or a conquering tyrant leading sociopathic armies and violently exacting tribute from "illiterate peasants?"
Imagine that you had a button, the pushing of which would cause all professing Christians to take Jesus seriously.
If you take Jesus seriously, the unbelieving world (and most church-goers) will say you're "unrealistic," "impractical," and "utopian." They will call you a "pacifist" and an "anarchist."
"Taking Jesus Seriously" means the following:
Objections to this claim are almost universally based on misapplications of Old Covenant "ceremonial law," or interpretations of a small number of New Testament verses, e.g., Luke 22:35-38 -- interpretations which John Calvin would have described as "truly shameful and stupid ignorance."
The pacifist says "I will not intentionally kill another human being, even to defend my own life."
Christians who take Jesus seriously would believe that we are to
The Westminster Larger Catechism (1647) gives detail on the meaning of the Commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill." It is a pacifist manifesto.
It also explicates the implications of the Commandment "Thou Shalt Not Steal." It is an anarchist manifesto, since "the State" is based on theft ("taxation," "eminent domain," "asset forfeiture," currency debasement, etc.).
"Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom with power and glory and the holy angels." (Matthew 16:27-28; Mark 8:38-9:1; Luke 9:26-27)
"Pushing the button" would mean that Americans would not believe that Jesus is "coming soon" to destroy all the bad guys at "Armageddon" and deliver the Kingdom to Christians on a silver platter. I know: very controversial. Just read all the verses. [details]
This means the end of the American Revolution. Americans would not get out their muskets and kill the "Red Coats." Rather, they would do what Jesus and the Apostle Paul commanded: Pay your taxes. People today would accuse such Americans of being "pacifists."
In Mark 10, Jesus discovers the disciples arguing about who is going to wield the most power in the coming Kingdom. Jesus tells them that "the kings of the Gentiles" like to wield power, but Christians are not to be like them, but are to be servants instead. Jesus uses the Greek word from which we get the English word "anarchist." He says we are not to be "archists." What is an "archist?" What makes "the kings of the Gentiles" different from other Gentiles? Answer: kings claim the right to impose their own will on other by force: by prisons, by armies, by the sword. Christians are not to be "archists." People today would call consistent Christ-followers "anarchists."
How This Would Have Changed the World
Suppose that in 1761 (when John Adams said the American Revolution really began) that all of "Christendom" had repudiated archism and adopted pacifism. Notable nations with this Christian heritage include Britain, Germany, and Russia.
This archist-free world of Christian pacifism would have resulted in the following, during the 20th century, according to Prof. R.J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii:
Some people will become downright angry at this "easy-button" scenario. They would refuse to "push the button." They say that if sufficient numbers of people became "pacifists" and we abolished all governments and their armies and police -- especially "our" government -- then "evil would take over." This would mean the end of "civilization." It would mean a reign of "warlords."
I've heard that many times.
Let's think carefully about this. We're supposed to believe that
If "We the People" take Jesus seriously
and refuse to form "governments,"
then "EVIL" will "take over."
Really?
Please tell me what "evil" looks like if it is not:
How could the world have been more evil than it was under "governments" in the 20th century???
Seriously.
If "We the People" do not create the machinery of "government," what will evil "take over?" What institutions will evil men employ to do evil?
Adolph Hitler did not kill six million Jews.
Six million Germans killed six million Jews -- and many of them were church-going Lutherans. But they did not take Jesus seriously. They did not say "We must obey God rather than man" (Acts 5:29). If Hitler were transported through time to a future day when everyone took Jesus seriously, Hitler could get no evil done, because nobody would take him seriously. Nobody would have said, "I was just following (Hitler's) orders." Because everyone
would be saying "I am following Jesus' orders."
| Evil and uncivilized tyrants need the traction afforded them by millions of "Christians" who are encouraged by their tyrant-approved "Pastors" not to take Jesus seriously. |
It is a myth that "evil" could "take over" a world where everyone takes Jesus seriously. If there were no "governments," there would be no laws requiring people to do evil. Nobody would run the trains that take the Jews to the death camps. Nobody would bomb other people "back to the stone age." People do these horrible things because they believe that "governments" have the right to be "archists" and use force and violence to impose their will on other people (people who are not "the government," or people of other "governments").
Too many church-goers say we can't take Jesus seriously because . . . Jesus is a loser.
That's really what they're saying.
Jesus' advice doesn't work.
We have to be "prudent."
We have to be "practical."
We have to be "responsible"
and make sure that evil does not take advantage of the naïveté of Jesus and those who take Him seriously.
Because God is not Sovereign.
God is not in control.
We must act like God and take vengeance on our enemies.
"Civilization" is not the product of bureaucracies and armies.
"Civilization" is the result of regenerated hearts, the gift of God's grace.
"Civilization" is not the result of "prudent" archism, which is in fact the machinery of REVOLUTION, feeding fallen man's desire to be as god, creating social salvation autonomously rather than in dependence on Divine Providence.
Because we trust in "the State" instead of God's grace, we live in a "civilization" which is more like Nazi Germany than an Amish barn-raising. More like the Roman Empire under Constantine than Celtic farmers. And we as Americans are particularly blind to the brute force of statism which is behind "Western" civilization and all the creature-comforts we've grown to assume are normal.
You may have heard it said that the average human being uses less than 10% of the total brain power with which we have been endowed.
It is likely that the human race has only applied about 1% of the pacifist teachings of Christ.
But just this 1% is responsible for what we call "civilization."
The "uncivilized" person is not a pacifist. He is an "archist." He believes he has the right to extract what he wants from others through force or threats of violence. He believes in vengeance. Civilization -- peace and the prosperity that peaceful cooperation and trade brings -- is impossible on these terms, in the long-run.
Human beings before the Advent of Christ were not pacifists. Historians and anthropologists have speculated that anywhere from 30% to 60% of all human beings died violent deaths in the years "B.C." (Before Christ). Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, previously at MIT, wrote a controversial article entitled "Why is There Peace?" What was most controversial about this article was not his data on the violence of the human race before Christ, but his claim that there is, now, today, peace. Most people have been brainwashed by the mainstream media to believe that our world is awash in war and violence. But compared to the ages before Christ, we now experience unimaginable "peace on earth." Pinker claims that the peace which human beings enjoy today is the result of the modern revival of statism that was born in Greco-Roman culture. This page argues that "civilization" was not the product of Rome and "classical" values, but is the result of the reign of Jesus the Christ as Messiah, in fulfillment of Biblical prophecies concerning global peace.
If you doubt that Christianity teaches pacifism, and that Christian pacifism is responsible for "civilization," you need to explore the six links above. More verses. If you believe that "classical" Greece and Rome are responsible for "civilization," you're on the right page.
Some people don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah predicted by the Old Testament prophets. Let's look at a Jewish website and an article called "Why Jews Don't Believe In Jesus." It says,
Jews do not accept Jesus as the messiah because . . . Jesus Did Not Fulfill the Messianic Prophecies.
What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? One of the central themes of biblical prophecy is the promise of a future age of perfection characterized by universal peace and recognition of God. (Isaiah 2:1-4, 32:15-18, 60:15-18; Zephaniah 3:9; Hosea 2:20-22; Amos 9:13-15; Micah 4:1-4; Zechariah 8:23, 14:9; Jeremiah 31:33-34)
I would like to suggest that Jesus is in fact fulfilling those Messianic Prophecies, and understanding why this is true can revolutionize your faith. (For a detailed response to that article from the Jewish website, click here.)
Most people who call themselves "Christians" today believe that Micah's prophecy (and the others cited) will not begin to see fulfillment until Jesus returns to earth a second time. The Jewish website understands this rationalization:
Because no one has ever fulfilled the Bible's description of this future King, Jews still await the coming of the Messiah. All past Messianic claimants, including Jesus of Nazareth, Bar Cochba and Shabbtai Tzvi have been rejected.
Christians counter that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming. Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright; in the Bible no concept of a second coming exists.
But the Bible teaches that Jesus was born during "the last days" of the Old Covenant, and He put into effect a New Covenant, and as a result of this New Covenant, billions of human beings have been streaming to "the mountain of the Lord" (Micah 4:2), and the world is more obedient to God's Commandments today than it was before Jesus was born. The world is more peaceful. The world is more civilized. The Pentagon, the Mainstream Media and secular academia do not want you to understand this.
Nor do most clergymen. The more perceptive clergy will say that our belief that Micah's prophecy is already being fulfilled (along with all the other Messianic prophecies), and that we should continue beating swords into plowshares, is "dangerous." They will warn you that we are promoting the ancient heresy of "anarcho-preterism." They are correct (we are indeed promoting "anarcho-preterism") except for two things:
Yes, Jesus is described as a violent Archist Warrior as well as a Prince of Peace:
“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean…On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords.'”
Revelation 19:11-14, 16
But I believe the book of Revelation describes a Day of Vengeance against . . . the "Institutional Church" of Jesus' day.
"Who warned you to flee from the wrath about to come?" (Matthew 3:7)
"The axe is already laid at the root of the trees." (Matthew 3:10)
"You shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes." (Matthew 10:23)
"The Son of Man is about to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds. There are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." (Matthew 16:28; cf. Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27)
"'When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?' '....He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers, who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.' '....Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a nation producing the fruit of it.' ....When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them." (Matthew 21:40-41,43,45)
Matthew 22:7 But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.
Matthew 23:31 “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Vengeance belongs to the Prince of Peace, not to the princes we might elect through "political activism."
Why "Civilization" is Good Imagine that you're walking down the aisle of your local grocery story buying the things your family needs, choosing from tens of thousands of hygienically packaged, neatly displayed, economically priced items that have been gathered for your convenience from around the world. There are still millions of people on this planet (though their numbers are rapidly evaporating) who would think this is a miracle, and that you must be one of the richest people alive. Now imagine that you're caught in some strange time-warp, and you find yourself in a strange land, in a strange time. You're no longer getting your food from the shelves in the store, nor are you wearing your mass-produced cotton clothing. There is no sign of "civilization." You are among people that cannot speak your language. You are in the exact same spot you were in when you were reaching for the milk, but now you are hundreds of years in the past. You are now living with the "indigenous peoples" of the Americas, centuries before Christopher ("Christ-bearer") Columbus would meet them in 1492. No suburban home with hot and cold running water, air conditioning, and protection from storms. No doctor, no hospital. No grocery stores. No car, no way to escape except on foot. And nowhere to escape to. Do you feel like you've been "liberated?" Are you now "free" from status symbols, paying bills, and keeping up with the Joneses? Or do you feel trapped? Can you get used to your new life? Will you celebrate the "thriving culture" that Columbus will someday meet? Or will you long for "western civilization" for the rest of your life? -- a life which now, in this new (to you) time and place, will be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short?" You would rather live in America than in Laos or Zimbabwe. This isn't because Whites are superior to Asians or Africans. You would rather live with Asians in Hong Kong than stand in line for four hours with a bunch of Caucasians in Moscow waiting to buy a quart of milk, and you would rather spend a week at an all-black Southern Baptist Church camp than a week in a Soviet Gulag, being tortured by white atheistic communists. This is because Western Civilization is better than Eastern Civilization. Western Civilization is better than Buddhist Civilization or animist tribalism.And this is because Western Civilization is Christian Civilization. |
Five Books on the Progress of the Reign of King Jesus in His Messianic Kingdom
Subjects of Chapters from the Table of Contents of each book, plus links to other materials by other authors outside those books. Subjects found in these books:
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At this point, I need to revise this page. The books below speak glowingly about "achievements" by Christians which may have been as de-civilizing as civilizing. It would be hasty to applaud an action simply because the actor was a professing Christian. There was a time in my life when I might have said that a Christian who did not vote Republican was a "pietist" (where "pietist" is very pejorative). There are contexts where "pietism" is more civilized than "political activism."
| D. James Kennedy What If the Bible Had Never Been Written?  |
D. James Kennedy What if Jesus Had Never Been Born?  |
Alvin J. Schmidt How Christianity Changed the World  |
Thomas E. Woods How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization  |
Rodney Stark The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success  |
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In important ways, Justinian also Christianized the Eastern Roman Empire, and the "civil law" nations followed suit. Justinian the Great | Influence of Theodora |
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| morality | morality | America's Founding Fathers frequently reminded the nation that it is not government or constitutions which keep people free. It is religion and morality.
The Bible made America the most prosperous and admired nation in history. The Bible is the Word of the Messiah. |
Western Morality | ||
It is interesting that none of these books has a chapter on "peace."
And yet, all of these chapters lead to peace. As even atheists like Pinker admit, the Christian era is vastly more peaceful than the pre-Christian era. |
When every man is his own god, his neighbor is the devil. Violence and vengeance are rational in this worldview.
Jesus is "the Lamb of God" that takes away the sins of the world. We no longer need to punish our neighbor to gain a sense of atonement. We no longer need to punish ourselves (or let others do so) to atone for our own sins. |
Christian morality is pacifist morality, while non-Christian morality is warlike.
Some will say that if we follow the pacifist teachings of Jesus, and beat "Swords Into Plowshares" (Micah 4), that "evil will take over." We must be more "practical" and "realistic" we are told. "Peace through strength" we are assured. But the political and military machinery we have created to be more "practical" and preserve our "security" has, in the last 100 years, resulted in the murder of hundreds of millions of innocent non-combatant civilians, the enslavement of billions under socialism and fascism, and the destruction or confiscation of trillions of dollars worth of private property. If the billions of people who find Jesus to be "impractical" were to take Jesus seriously, their taxes would be cut in half and their sons and daughters would not have died in vain. Trusting in "the State" rather than the Messiah is vain. |
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| Public schools were created in America to make sure that everyone in town could read the Bible. | education | Christianity's Impact on Education | Church and University | Universities were created by Christians, not atheists. | |
| science | science | Science: Its Christian Connections
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Science | Theology and Science | |
| Christianity produced science. Non-Christian religions gave us alchemy and astrology; pseudo-science, not science. | |||||
| The Eighth Commandment - "Thou shalt not steal" | If you cannot trade it, you do not own it. If you do not own it, you cannot trade it for something you want more, up to a better position. Economic growth is therefore impossible without the recognition of private property. A Society of Mutual Benefactors |
Socialism Is Evil | Christian Economics in One Lesson | Property Rights | |
| law | government | Christianity puts limits on the State. Primitive religions worshiped the State and the King. | Western Law | Limiting States and Kings Command Economies |
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| politics | freedom, civil liberties | Liberty and Justice for All | Rise of Individualism | ||
| Slavery Abolished: A Christian Achievement | Abolition of Medieval Slavery | ||||
| art | Christianity's Stamp on Art and Architecture | Art, Architecture | |||
| literature | Hallmarks of Literature: Their Christian Imprint | ||||
| music | The Sound of Music: Its Christian Resonance | ||||
| free enterprise, economics work ethic, honesty, morality | Labor and Economic Freedom Dignified | Economics | [Stark's book is mostly about the rise of capitalism in Christian Europe] | ||
| medicine, healing | Hospitals and Health Care: Their Christian Roots | ||||
| sex, family, | Christianity Elevates Sexual Morality | ||||
| women children | Women Receive Freedom and Dignity | ||||
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| Non-Christian religions are evolutionary. The "Struggle for Survival" and the "survival of the fittest" has always meant the poor have no hope. They ought to be discarded in favor of the "fittest." Evolution and Genocide |
welfare, charity, compassion mercy | Charity and Compassion: Their Christian Connection | |||
| Value of human life | The Sanctification of Human Life | ||||
| missions exploration |
Christopher Columbus was motivated by the prophecies of Isaiah. He was a Christian hero. Christians were the first to condemn slavery. Columbus repented of his sub-Christian behavior, which is more than can be said of Marxists. Voluntary colonialism is not all that bad, compared to idolatrous superstition and bitter poverty. | International Law | |||
| society founding of America everyday things |
The State is not Society | People Transformed by Jesus Christ | Globalization and Modernity | ||
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Our secular schools (operated by swarms of modern-day Red-Coats) taught us that "civilization" originated with the ancient Greeks. Gary North writes:
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. |
Athens or Jerusalem?Western Civilization is not Greco-Roman civilization. Rome fell.
Western Civilization is Christian Civilization.
Is America a Christian nation? Are the American ideals of "equality before the law" and "the rule of law" products of Christianity, or are they products of "the Enlightenment," which restored principles of the Empires of Rome and Greece, lost during the Christian "dark ages"? On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 10:43:35 -0700, Libertarian Party Congressional Candidate Joe Cobb wrote:
The idea of an "Enlightenment" is wrong on all counts. The Christian middle ages were not devoid of Greco-Roman influence. In fact, Athens pervaded the middle ages. Thomas Aquinas is well known for his efforts to synthesize Aristotle and Christ. Medieval Christians were converts to Christ from Rome, and brought Rome into the Church. It was Christian scholars who preserved the writings of the "classical" age. But there were some parts of Rome that could not be synthesized into Medieval Christianity. Greco-Roman philosophy was homosexual and fascist.
This philosophical conflict has long been described as the conflict between Jerusalem (Christianity) and Athens (the Enlightenment). Gary North explains the foundational worldview assumptions of Roman culture:
The Old Testament Prophet Daniel predicted the destruction of the ancient imperial world, and the inauguration of a new world order under Christ.
Undergirding American capitalism and American prosperity are "family values" which are antithetical to Enlightenment thinking. America's Founding Fathers drew from the Bible and Christianity far more than they drew from Rome. Clinton Rossiter notes that even when they mentioned Rome,
Dinesh D’Souza adds,
The rest of his article shows that it was Christianity that transformed the ancient world into the modern world. Everything that was good about classical philosophy had been set forth centuries earlier, in "the Law and the Prophets." The Greek idea of nomos was preceded by several centuries in the Hebrew concept of Wisdom, which undergirded King Solomon's advice to his son in the book of Proverbs, notably chapter 8, in which Wisdom speaks throughout:
Similarly,
. . . and in other political verses too numerous to mention, verses which are "Hayekian" to the core. The Christian concept of "logos" was found in the Septuagint, the 3rd century BC Greek translation of the Old Testament, and the baton was passed to John who wrote that this Wisdom existed before the foundation of the earth (John 1:1) -- certainly predating the Greeks.
It's certainly true that some philosophers in the Greco-Roman tradition warned against the excesses of power, and America's Founding Fathers often quoted them, as did John Calvin and the Puritans, but on the whole it was a debauched slave-state, and the Founders more often referred to Rome as a warning of what would happen if America abandoned its Biblical quest to be "a City on a Hill": Clinton Rossiter: The Religious Foundation of Government Thomas Paine quoted the Bible (1 Samuel 8) in his revolutionary pamphlet against British Monarchy, Common Sense. Tyranny violated a higher law, he said. When Samuel warned Israel of the consequences of seeking a king "like all the nations," he spoke around the year 1000 B.C., and had not "absorbed" anything from Greece or Rome. (Plato wrote his blueprint for tyranny around 360 B.C.)
For libertarians to reject the Hebrew-Christian logos in favor of Greek philosophers is truly suicidal. Plato's Republic is a blueprint for dictatorship, while the Bible is a sustained critique of messianic Statism and a blueprint for anarcho-capitalism.
John Lofton has compiled some telling quotations from scholars in a previous -- more Christian -- century. What follows is from his essay: And make no mistake about it. Regardless of what you’ve heard regarding the alleged greatness of the ancient, Greco-Roman, pre-Christian world, there was no real, true freedom and/or liberty during this era. None. In his book The
Ancient City: A Study On The Religion, Laws And Institutions Of Greece And Rome
For example, Aristotle and Plato incorporated into their ideal codes the command that a deformed baby son was to be put to death. And in his “Laws,” Plato says (and this sounds very familiar today): “Parents ought not to be free to send or not to send their children to the masters to whom the city has chosen [for their education]; for the children belong less to their parents than to the city.” And in ancient Athens, a man could be put on trial and convicted for something called “incivism,” that is being insufficiently affectionate toward the State! Coulanges says (emphasis mine):
Commenting on our Lord’s God/Caesar distinction, Coulanges says:
Because of this hideous tyranny, it is no surprise that self-murder (suicide) was so rampant in the ancient world. As Dr. Gerhard Uhlhorn tells us in his The Conflict Of
Christianity With Heathenism
And he quotes Seneca, who said that “the aim of all philosophy is to despise life,” as saying, concerning the suicide option:
To which Dr. Uhihorn adds:
And in a little noticed and seldom quoted passage from Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville says:
The historian Arnold Toynbee saw, accurately, the great failing of the ancient Greeks, that they “saw in Man, ‘the Lord of Creation,’ and worshipped him as an idol instead of God.” And this rejection of the true God —- which similarly threatens modern Western civilization —- led to Hellenism’s breakdown and disintegration. Rejecting Gibbon, Toynbee says neither Christians nor barbarians destroyed the Roman Empire; they merely walked over a corpse. And in his book Religious Origins of the American Revolution (Scholars Press, 1976), Page Smith points out:
Indeed, he adds, in early America, the Reformation
As remote or repugnant as Puritanism may be to some, Smith says “it is essential that we understand that the Reformation in its full power was one of the great emancipations of history.” He says the passage in the book of Micah about “every man…under his vine and under his fig tree” was “the most potent expression of the colonist’s determination to be independent whatever the cost,…having substantial control over his own affairs. No theme was more constantly reiterated by writers and speakers in the era of the Revolution.”
Antonio Gramsci on Christianity and Western Civilization
Gary North The Biblical Source of Western Sexual Morality
Civilization and the Protestant Reformation U.S. Constitution Found to be Unconstitutional The Rise, Fall, and Renaissance of Classical Liberalism-Part I Christian Civilization Medieval Perspectives for Today . . . Decentralized Christian Civilization - NRA Old Truths Have Not Passed Away Reconciliation Press Online - News and Articles Christian Civilization |
Marks of a Civilized Man*The English word "civilized" is derived from the Latin word for "city." A truly "civilized" man is one who graces the City of God. Romans 6 says we must put to death our old uncivilized man (or our old man who fit in well in the City of Man) and put on a new man who bears the likeness of Christ, an appropriate citizen for the City of God.
The first step to becoming civilized is to kill your old man. The second step is to obey the commands of Christ.
* If I capitulate to modern sensibilities and add "or woman," I will soon have to add a reference to all 57 varieties of gender that are being imposed on us. |
May 1995, Vol. 24, No. 5
"A New Vision of Man: How Christianity Has Changed Political Economy"
by Michael Novak*
Author , The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
One of the 20th century's greatest religious writers, Michael Novak, addresses the relationship between religion and economics. He argues that Christ revolutionized the human conception of the political economy in at least seven important ways.
This presentation was prepared for a July 1994 seminar in Crakow, Poland on "Centesimus Annus and the Free Society," and for a November 1994 seminar sponsored by Hillsdale's Center for Constructive Alternatives seminar, "God and Man: Perspectives on Christianity in the 20th Century."
For centuries, scholars and laymen have studied the Bible's impact on our religion, politics, education, and culture, but very little serious attention has been devoted to its impact on our economics. It is as if our actions in the marketplace have nothing to do with our spiritual beliefs. Nothing could be further from the truth. My aim here is to demonstrate how Judeo Christianity, and Jesus, in particular, revolutionized the political economy of the ancient world and how that revolution still profoundly affects the world today.
I wish to propose for your consideration the following thesis: At least seven contributions made by Christian thinker, meditating on the words and deeds of Jesus Christ, altered the vision of the good society proposed by the classical writers of Greece and Rome and made certain modern conceptions of political economy possible. Be warned that we are talking about foundational issues. The going won't be entirely easy.
Be warned, also, that I want to approach this subject in a way satisfying to secular thinkers. You shouldn't have to be a believer in Jesus in order to grasp the plausibility of my argument. In that spirit, let me begin, first, by citing Richard Rorty, who once wrote that as a progressive philosopher he owes more to Jesus for certain key progressive notions, such as compassion and equality, than to any of the classical writers. Analogously, in his book, Why I am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell conceded that, although he took Jesus to be no more than a humanistic moral prophet, modem progressivism is indebted to Christ for the ideal of compassion.
In short, in order to recognize the crucial contributions that the coming of Christ brought into modern movements of political economy, one does not have to be a Christian. One may take a quite secular point of view and still give credit where credit is due.
Here, then, are the seven major contributions made by Jesus to our modern conceptions of political economy.
From Jerusalem, that crossroads between three continents open to the East and West, North and South, Jesus brought recognition of the One God, the Creator The name this God gave to Himself is "I AM WHO AM" , He is, as opposed to the rest of us, who have no necessary or permanent hold on being. He is the One who IS; other things are those who am, but also are not. He is the Creator of all things. All things that are depend upon Him. As all things spring from His action in creating them, so they depend upon Him for their being maintained in existence, their "standing out from" nothingness [Ex + sistere, L., to stand out from].
The term "Creator" implies a free person; it suggests that creation was a free act, an act that did not flow from necessity. It was an act of intelligence, it was a choice, and it was willed. The Creator knew what He was doing, and He willed it; that is, "He saw that it is good." From this notion of the One God/ Creator, three practical corollaries for human action follow.
Be intelligent. Made in the image of God, we should be attentive and intelligent, as our Creator is.
Trust liberty. As God loved us, so it is fitting for us to respond with love. Since in creating us He knew what He was doing and He it, we have reason to trust His will. He created us with understanding and free will; creation was a free act. Since He made us in His image, well ought we to say with Jefferson: "The God who gave us life gave us liberty."
Understand that history has a beginning, and an end. At a certain moment, time was created by God. Time is directed toward "building up the Kingdom of God...on earth as in heaven." Creation is directed toward final union with its Creator.
As many scholars have noted, the idea of "progress," like the idea of "creation," are not Greek ideas , nor are they Roman. The Greeks preferred notions of the necessary procession of the world from a First Principle. While in a limited sense they understood the progress of ideas, skills, and technologies and also saw how these could be lost, in general, they viewed history as a cycle of endless return. They lacked a notion of historical progress. The idea of history as a category distinct from nature is a Hebrew rather than a Greek idea.
Analogously, as Lord Acton argued in the essays he prepared for his History of Liberty, liberty is an idea coincident with the spread of Christianity. Up to a point, the idea of liberty is a Jewish idea. Every story in the Bible is about a drama involving the human will. In one chapter, King David is faithful to his Lord; in another unfaithful. The suspense always lies in what he will choose next. Nonetheless, Judaism is not a missionary religion; normally one receives Judaism by being born of a Jewish mother; in this sense, Judaism is rooted in genealogy rather than in liberty. Beyond this point, Christianity expanded the notion of liberty and made it universal. The Christian idea of liberty remains rooted in the liberty of the Creator, as in Judaism. Through Christianity, this Jewish idea becomes the inheritance of all the other peoples on earth.
Recognition of the One God/Creator means that the fundamental attitude of human beings toward God is, and ought to be, receptivity. All that we are we have received from God. This is true both of our creation and our redemption. God acts first. We respond. Everything is a gift. "Everything we look upon is blessed" (Yeats). "Grace is everywhere" (Bemanos). Thus, offering thanksgiving is our first moral obligation.
It is difficult to draw out, in brief compass, all the implications for political economy of the fact that history begins in the free act of the Creator, who made humans in His image and who gave them both existence and an impulse toward communion with their first breath. In this act of creation, in any case, Jefferson properly located (and it was the sense of the American people) not only the origin of the inner core of human rights: "...and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including...."but also the perspective of providential history: "When in the course of human events..." The Americans were aware of creating something "new": a new world, a new order, a new science of politics. As children of the Creator, they felt no taboo against originality; on the contrary, they thought it their vocation.
When Jesus spoke of God, He spoke of the communion of three persons in one. This means that, in God, the mystery of being and the mystery of communion are one. Unlike the Greeks such as Parmedides, Plato, and Aristotle, who thought of God or the Nous as One, living in solitary isolation, the Christian world was taught by Jesus to think of God as a communion of three. In other words, the mystery of communion, or community, is one with the very mystery of being. The sheer fact that we are alive sometimes comes over us at dusk on an autumn day, as we walk across a corn field and in the tang of the evening air hear a crow lift off against the sky. We may pause then to wonder, in admiration and gratitude. We could so easily have not been, and yet we are, at least for these fragile moments. Soon another generation will take our place, and tramp over the same field. We experience wonder at the sheer fact: At this moment, we are. And we also apprehend the fact that we are part of a long procession of the human community in time; and that we are, by the grace of God, one with God. To exist is already something to marvel at; so great a communion is even more so. Our wonder is not so much doubled; it is squared, infinitely multiplied.
This recognition of the Trinity is not without significance for political economy. First, it inspires us with a new respect for an ideal of community not often found on this earth, a community in which each person is separate, distinct, and independent, and yet in which there is, nonetheless, communion. It teaches us that the relation between community and person is deeper and richer that we might have imagined. Christians should not simply lose themselves in community, having their personality and independence merge into an undifferentiated mass movement. On the contrary, Christianity teaches us that in true community the distinctness and independence of each person are also crucial. Persons reach their full development only in community with others. No matter how highly developed in himself or herself, a totally isolated person, cut-off from others, is regarded as something of a monster. In parallel, a community that refuses to recognize the autonomy of individual persons often uses individuals as means to "the common good," rather than treating persons as ends in themselves. Such communities are coercive and tyrannical.
Christianity, in short, opens up the ideal of catholicity which has always been a mark of true Christianity. Katholike means all of humanity, the whole human world. In this world, persons, and even cultures, are distinct, and have their own autonomy and claim on our respect. E pluribus unum. The many form one; but the one does not melt the many into the lowest common denominator. The many retain their individual vitality, and for this they show gratitude to the community that allows them, in fact encourages them, to do so. Person and community must be defined in terms of each other.
In Plato's Republic, citizens were divided in this way: A few were of gold, a slightly larger body of silver, and the vast majority of lead. The last had the souls of slaves and, therefore, were properly enslaved. Only persons of gold are truly to be treated as ends in themselves. For Judaism and Christianity, on the contrary, the God who made every single child gave worth and dignity to each of them, however weak or vulnerable. "What you do unto the weakest of these, you do unto me." God identified Himself with the most humble and most vulnerable.
Our Creator knows each of us by name, and understands our own individuality with a far greater clarity that we ourselves do; after all, He made us. (Thomas Aquinas once wrote that God is infinite, and so when He creates human beings in His image, He must in fact create an infinite number of them to mirror back His own infinity.) Each of us reflects only a small fragment of God's identity. If one of us is lost, the image of God intended to be reflected by that one is lost. The image of God reflected in the human becomes distorted.
In this respect, Judaism and Christianity grant a fundamental equality in the sight of God to all human beings, whatever their talents or station. This equality arises because God penetrates below any artificial rank, honor, or station that may on the surface differentiate one from another. He sees past those things. He sees into us. He sees us as we are in our uniqueness, and it is that uniqueness that He values. Let us call this form of equality by the clumsy but useful name, equality-as-uniqueness. Before God, we have equal weight in our uniqueness, not because we are the same, but because each of us is different. Each is made by God after an original design.
This conception of equality-uniqueness is quite different from the modern "progressive" or socialist conception of equality-sameness. The Christian notion is not a levelling notion. Neither does it delight in uniformity. On the contrary, it tries to pay heed to, and give respect to, the unique image of God in each person.
For most of its history, Christianity, like Judaism, flourished in hierarchical societies. While recognizing that every single person lives and moves in sight of God's judgment and is equally a creature of God, Christianity has also rejoiced in the differences among us and between us. God did not make us equal in talent, ability, character, office, calling, or fortune.
Equality-uniqueness is not the same as equality-sameness. The first recognizes our claim to a unique identity and dignity. The second desires to take away what is unique and to submerge it in uniformity. Thus, modern movements such as socialism have taken the original Christian impulse of equality, which they inherited, and disfigured it. Like Christianity, modern socialist movements reject the stratification of citizens into gold, silver, and lead, as in Plato's scheme. But, since they are materialistic at root, their traditional impulse has been to pull people down, to place all on the same level, to enforce uniformity. This program is inexorably coercive, unlovely, and depressing.
It is true that virtually all peoples have traditions of compassion for the suffering, care for those in need, and concern for others. However, in most religious traditions, these movements of the heart are limited to one's own family, kin, nation, or culture. In some cultures, young males in particular have to be hard and insensitive to pain, so that they will be sufficiently cruel to enemies. Terror is the instrument intended to drive outsiders away from the territory of the tribe. In principle (though not always in practice), Christianity opposes this limitation on compassion. It teaches people the impulse to reach out, especially to the most vulnerable, to the poor, the hungry, the wretched, those in prison, the hopeless, the sick, and others. It tells humans to love their enemies. It teaches a universal compassion. It teaches people to see the dignity even of those who in the eyes of the world have lost their dignity, and those who are helpless to act on their own behalf. This is the "solidarity" whose necessity for modernity Rorty perceives.
In the name of compassion, Christianity tries to humble the mighty and to prod the rich into concern for the poor. It does not turn the young male away from being a warrior, but it does teach him to model Himself on Christ, and tires to become a new type of male in human history: the knight bound by a code of compassion, the gentleman. It teaches him to learn, to be meek, humble, peaceable, kind, and generous. It introduces a new and fruitful tension between the warrior and the gentlemen, magnanimity and humility, meekness and fierce ambition.
Christianity has taught human beings that an underlying imperative of history is to bring about a law-like, peaceable community, among all people of good will on the entire earth. For political economy, Christianity proposes a new ideal: the entire human race is a universal family, created by the one same God, and urged to love that God. Yet at the same time, Christianity (like Judaism before it) is also the religion of a particular kind of God: not the Deity who looks down on all things from an olympian height but, in Christianity's case, a God who became incarnate. The Christian God, incarnate, was carried in the womb of a single woman, among a particular people, at a precise intersection of time and space, and nourished in a local community then practically unknown to the rest of the peoples on this planet. Christianity is a religion of the concrete and the universal. It pays attention to the flesh, the particular, the concrete, and each single intersection of space and time; its God is the God who made and cares for every lily of the field, every blade of grass, every hair on the head of each of us. Its God is the God of singulars, the God who Himself became a singular man. At the same time, the Christian God is the Creator of all.
In a sense, this Christian God goes beyond contemporary conceptions of "individualism" and "communitarianism." With 18th-century British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke, Christianity sees the need for proper attention to every "little platoon" of society, to the immediate neighborhood, to the immediate family. Our social policies must be incarnate, must be rooted in the actual flesh of concrete people in their actual local, intimate worlds. At the same time, Christianity directs the attention of these little communities toward the larger communities of which they are a part. On the one hand, Christianity forbids them to be merely parochial or xenophobic. On the other hand, it warns them against becoming premature universalists, one-worlders, gnostics pretending to be pure spirits, and detached from all the limits and beauties of concrete flesh. Christianity gives warning against both extremes. It instructs us about the precarious balance between concrete and universal in our own nature. This is the mystery of catholicity.
The Creator of all things has total insight into all things. He knows what He has created. This gives the weak, modest minds of human beings the vocation to use their minds relentlessly, in order to penetrate the hidden layers of intelligibility that God has written into His creation. Everything in creation is in principle understandable: In fact, at every moment everything is understood by Him, who is eternal and therefore simultaneously present to all things. (In God there is no history, no past-present-future. In His insight into reality, all things are as if simultaneous. Even though in history they may unfold sequentially, they are all at once, that is, simultaneously, open to His contemplation.)
Our second president, John Adams, wrote that in giving us a notion of God as the Source of all truth, and the Judge of all, the Hebrews laid before the human race the possibility of civilization. Before the undeceivable Judgment of God, the Light of Truth cannot be deflected by riches, wealth, or worldly power. Armed with this conviction, Jews and Christians are empowered to use their intellects and to search without fear into the causes of things, their relationships, their powers, and their purposes. This understanding of Truth makes humans free. For Christianity does not teach that Truth is an illusion based upon the opinions of those in power, or merely a rationalization of powerful interests in this world. Christianity is not deconstructionist, and it is certainly not totalitarian, Its commitment to Truth beyond human purposes is, in fact, a rebuke to all totalitarian schemes and all nihilist cynicism.
Moreover, by locating Truth (with a capital T) in God, beyond our poor powers fully to comprehend, Christianity empowers human reason. It does so by inviting us to use our heads as best we can, to discern the evidences that bring us as close to Truth as human beings can attain. It endows human beings with a vocation to inquire endlessly, relentlessly, to give play to the unquenchable eros of the desire to understand that most profoundly restless drive to know that teaches human beings their own finitude while it also informs them of their participation in the infinite.
The notion of Truth is crucial to civilization. As Thomas Aquinas held, civilization is constituted by conversation. Civilized persons persuade one another through argument. Barbarians club one another into submission. Civilization requires citizens to recognize that they do not possess the truth, but must be possessed by it, to the degree possible to them. Truth matters greatly. But Truth is greater than any one of us. We do not possess it; it possesses us. Therefore, humans must learn such civilizing habits as being respectful and open to others, listening attentively, trying to see aspects of the Truth that they do not as yet see. Because the search for Truth is vital to each of us, humans must argue with each other, urge each other onward, point out deficiencies in one another's arguments, and open the way for greater participation in the Truth by every one of us.
In this respect, the search for Truth makes us not only humble but also civil. It teaches us why we hold that every single person has an inviolable dignity: Each is made in the image of the Creator to perform noble acts, such as to understand, to deliberate, to choose, to love. These noble activities of human beings cannot be repressed without repressing the Image of God in them. Such an act would be doubly sinful. It violates the other person, and it is an offense against God.
One of the ironies of our present age is that the great philosophical advocates of the Enlightenment no longer believe in Reason (with a capital R). They have surrendered their confidence in the vocation of Reason to cynics such as to the post-modernists and deconstructionists. Such philosophers (Sophists, Socrates called them) hold that there is no Truth, that all things are relative, and that the great realities of life are power and interest. So we have come to an ironic pass. The children of the Enlightenment have abandoned Reason, while those they have considered unenlightened and living in darkness, the people of Jewish and Christian faith, remain today reason's (without a capital R) best defenders. For believing Jews and Christians ground their confidence in reason in the Creator of all reason, and their confidence in understanding in the One who understands everything He made , and loves it, besides.
There can be no civilization of reason, or of love, without this faith in the vocation of reason.
Christianity teaches realistically not only the glories of human beings , their being made in the image of God , but also their sins, weaknesses, and evil tendencies. Judaism and Christianity are not utopian; they are quite realistic about human beings. They try to understand humans as they are, as God sees them both in their sins and in the graces that He grants them. This sharp awareness of human sinfulness was very important to the American founding.
Without ever using the term "original sin," the Founders were, in such documents as The Federalist, eloquent about the flaws, weaknesses, and evils to which human beings are prone. Therefore, they designed a republic that would last, not only among saints, but also among sinners. (There is no point in building a Republic for saints; there are too few of them; besides, the ones who do exist are too difficult to live with.) If you want to make a Republic that will last, you must construct it for sinners, because sinners are not just a moral majority, they are virtually a moral unanimity.
Christianity teaches that at every moment the God who made us is judging how well we make use of our liberty. And the first word of Christianity in this respect is: "Fear not. Be not afraid." For Christianity teaches that Truth is ordered to mercy. Truth is not, thank God, ordered first of all to justice. For if Truth were ordered to strict justice, not one of us would stand against the gale.
God is just, true, but the more accurate name for Him is not justice, but rather mercy. (The Latin root of this word conveys the idea more clearly: Misericordia comes from miseris + cor , give one's heart to les miserables, the wretched ones.) This name of God, Misericordia, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is God's most fitting name. Toward our misery, He opens His heart. Precisely as sinners, He accepts us. "At the heart of Christianity lies the sinner," Charles Pιguy wrote.
Yet mercy is only possible because of Judgment. Judgment Day is the Truth on which civilization is grounded. No matter the currents of opinion in our time, or any time, may be; no matter what the powers and principalities may say or do; no matter the solicitations pressing upon us from our families, friends, associates, and larger culture; no matter what the pressures may be , we will still be under the Judgment of the One who is undeceivable, who knows what is in us, and who knows the movements of our souls more clearly than we know them ourselves. In His Light, we are called to bring a certain honesty into our own lives, into our dealings with others, and into our respect for the Light that God has imparted to every human being. It is on this basis that human beings may be said to have inalienable rights, and dignity, and infinite worth.
These seven recognitions lie at the root of Jewish-Christian civilization, the one that is today evasively called "Western civilization." From them, we get our deepest and most powerful notions of truth, liberty, community, person, conscience, equality, compassion, mercy, and virtue. These are the deepest ideals and energies working in our culture, as yeast works in dough, as a seed falling into the ground dies and becomes a spreading mustard tree.
These are practical recognitions. They have effects in every person and in every moment of life, and throughout society. If you stifle these notions, if you wipe them out, the institutions of the free society become unworkable. In this sense, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice once wrote, "Our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being." They do not presuppose any Supreme Being. They presuppose the God of Judaism and Christianity. And not only our institutions presuppose these realities. So do our conceptions of our own identity, and the daily actions of our own lives. Remove these religious foundations from our intellects, our lives, and the free society , in its complex checks and balances, and its highly articulated divisions of power , becomes incoherent to understanding and unworkable in practice.
For the present form of the free society, therefore, we owe a great deal to the intervention of Jesus Christ in history. In bringing those of us who are not Jewish the Word that brings life, in giving us a nobler conception of what it is to be human, and in giving us insight into our own weaknesses and sins, Jesus shed light available from no other source. Better than the philosophers, Jesus Christ is the teacher of many lessons indispensible for the working of the free society. These lessons may be, and have been secularized , but not without losing their center, their coherence, and their long-term persuasive power.
But that alone would be as nothing, of course, if we did not learn from Jesus that we, all of us, participate in His life, and in living with Him, live in, with and through the Father and the Holy Spirit in a glorious community of love. For what would it profit us, if we gained the whole world, and all the free institutions that flourish with it, and lost our own souls?
[1] Michael Novak, former U.S. ambassador to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, currently holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
He is the author of a dozen books, including: The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, This Hemisphere of Liberty, Freedom with Justice, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, and Belief and UnBelief.
The Polish Solidarity movement and the Czech underground studied translations (often secretly and illegally) in the 1970's, as did members of pro-democratic movements in South Korea, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and the Philippines, and China in the 1980's. Pope John Paul II's Centesimus Annus, published in 1991, is widely regarded as having been influenced by Mr. Novak's writings, and in her memoirs former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher noted that they "proved the intellectual basis of my approach to those great questions brought together in political parlance as 'the quality of life.'"
In May of 1994, Mr. Novak was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.
Reprinted by permission from IMPRIMIS, the monthly speech digest of Hillsdale College (www.hillsdale.com)
I.C.E. Cover Letter - May, 1995
May, 1995
Dear ICE Subscriber:
Earlier this year, I received a letter from the headmaster of a Christian high school. The school, he said, is committed to providing a classical education. He asked me if ICE could supply materials that would improve his curriculum. I wrote back to him that the most important thing he could do for his students is to scrap his curriculum.
Peter wrote: "But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire" (II Peter 2:22). He was not writing about classical education, but he could have been.
Classical education undermines Christian orthodoxy. Christian orthodoxy has tried to make classical education Christian for over eighteen centuries, and it has always failed; the reverse always happens. Classical education is a Trojan horse: Greeks bearing gifts.
Classical education begins with a premise: the student must learn the classics. The classics are pagan: Greek and Roman literature and philosophy. They were based on the premise that man is the measure of all things, that man's reason is ultimate. The rational side of the Renaissance was based on the same premise. (Its irrational side was also a revival of Greek and Roman religion: occult, magical, and either chance-based or fatalistic.)
Medieval Scholasticism was as committed to the classics as the Renaissance was, though without classical occultism and pornography. The Scholastics were committed academically far more to Aristotle than to the Bible, especially in their political philosophy. They worshipped at Aristotle's shrine. Prior to the eleventh century, medieval theologians had worshipped at Plato's shrine: neoplatonic mysticism. The Scholastics substituted Aristotle for Plato. There was some gain — Aristotle at least was not a communist, as Plato was — but not in the realm of men's presuppositions. It was the equivalent of substituting Milton Friedman for Karl Marx: better economics, but the same old humanism. For humanism, man is the measure, and man's mind is the sole valid instrument of measurement. The Bible denies this view.
From the beginning, the medieval university was committed to classical education, and from the beginning, rationalism and irrationalism (mysticism) undermined the Christian roots of education. By the time of Cromwell and the Puritan Revolution of 1642-59, the Puritans suspected that the curriculum of Oxford and Cambridge was against them, yet they did not seek to change it. They hoped that inward salvation would somehow make Renaissance rationalism Christian. Cromwell changed nothing at Oxford, even though as Lord Protector, he was chancellor of Oxford. John Morgan writes in his survey of Puritan education, Godly Learning: Puritan Attitudes towards Reason, Learning and Education, 1560–1640 (Cambridge University Press, 1986):
Puritans did not venture far from the traditional academic routine. The structures of educational institutions, and the content as affected by Renaissance urgings, seemed to satisfy their need for an academic base. There can certainly be no doubt of the very limited effects of puritans to the legacy of the Renaissance, or in developing the human intellect in the Baconian sense of the `advancement of learning.' . . . A novel theory of learning or education lay outside the necessities of a puritan blueprint for the future (pp. 305–6).
To indulge in classical education is to indulge in Renaissance education. To force a child to learn Latin is to encourage him to accept the premises either of medieval Catholicism or the Renaissance. Yet today's would-be Puritans have accepted the error of those Puritans who built Harvard. Harvard went Unitarian in 1804. Christians know something is wrong with rationalism, yet they seem incapable of breaking with the past.
Van Til's apologetics should warn us: the history of Christian philosophy has been one long compromise with the philosophy of autonomous man. From Plato to Newton, from Newton to Kant, from Kant to some cast-off liberal fad, Christian philosophers have sought to baptize humanism. They hope to appropriate for Christ the anti-Christian philosophies of their day or an earlier day. They trust the natural mind of the natural man, refusing to acknowledge the enormous danger involved: the importation of alien philosophical categories into the Church. And so, without exception, Christians for over 1800 years have surrendered education, and therefore the future (inheritance), to the humanists.
What is the obvious sign of this surrender today? The futile attempt to revive Latin. Why force a child to master Latin rather than New Testament Greek? Greek will enable him to read the New Testament in the original — an obvious benefit. But what is the benefit of Latin? Except for the historian of the ancient or medieval eras — for whom there will be no paying employment — Latin is peripheral. Yet it is seen as the mark of true learning. Latin was the universal language of the Western Church, i.e., Roman Catholicism and early Protestantism. But that learning was deeply compromised with Renaissance humanism. At best, Latin will enable a tiny handful of highly skilled, highly motivated, and poorly paid Christian scholars to read fragments of the Latin Church fathers. Meanwhile, we live in an era in which the vast majority of Christians know nothing of Calvin, where Calvinist pastors have yet to read all of The Institutes of the Christian Religion, let alone Calvin's commentaries. Forget about Latin; teach the Institutes. Abandon the futile boast: "My child is receiving a classical education, just like the good old days." The good old days produced the bad new days, step by step. The assumption of intellectual neutrality is the Church's great enemy. Latin education was the primary agency used to spread this lie.
I see home school mothers who cannot read Latin, who have no intention of reading Latin, who are utterly uninterested in anything written only in Latin, buying Latin grammars to inflict on their hapless children. Why? Because somebody they trusted told them that "Latin is basic to a well-rounded education." To which I reply: "Latin was basic to the initiation process of pagan and/or deeply compromised academics to gain control over the training of each generation of Christian leaders in England and America." Latin was a wedge used to separate Christian children from their parents. In the same way that the sex education fanatics today devise ways to keep parents from finding out what teachers are really teaching the children, so was Latin for six or seven centuries. To open the doors of ecclesiastical office and government patronage to your child, Christian parents had to surrender him to the Latin-based curriculum, a curriculum that rested squarely on the autonomy of man. The child was initiated into classical humanism by way of Latin.
What is nothing short of astounding is that there are dedicated Christians today who insist on doing this to their children. They insist on reviving the tool of their ancient enemies in the name of traditional education. But traditional education was Satan's own tool for capturing the souls of Christians as well as their inheritance. Satan's agents abandoned that tool only late in the nineteenth century, when it became clear that mass education was going to make the traditional Latin school obsolete as an initiation process for the elite. At that point, the humanists substituted the modern curriculum, in which Latin plays no role. Latin has become a lost tool of learning. Let's keep it that way!
Is there a role for Latin? Only historical. If there were a self-conscious effort on the part of dozens of Christian schools to create a cooperative program for translating the 220 volumes of J. P. Migne's Latin Church Fathers, I would approve. But the cost — $65,000 for four CD-ROM disks, shared by four schools — is prohibitive. Christian schools do not have the funds or the vision to begin a project like this. Until they do, it is foolish to indulge in the waste of time that a Latin curriculum involves. The vast majority of children so initiated will learn only the equivalent of pigeon Latin. If a child cannot sight read a foreign language without a dictionary by age 14, then whatever benefits he has received from the exercise of learning that language are indirect, e.g., learning the rules of grammar. If someone is going to be forced to do this, then he should learn a language useful to Christians: Greek, first; Hebrew, second, and Latin only a distant third. But what do we see? Mostly Latin, with no Greek and no Hebrew. This is Renaissance pride in action.
What does your child really need? First, he must learn how to read early, so he will enjoy reading throughout his life. He must learn to read critically. This means he must also learn to write, for in writing, the student learns how others have communicated with him through the printed page. Reading and writing are complementary skills.
Second, he should gain a knowledge of the Bible. I prefer the King James Version, for these reasons: (1) the language is magnificent; (2) its unique phrases stick in the mind, making Bible study easier; (3) the Strong's numbers are tied to the King James, making serious Bible study easier, especially with a modern computerized Bible search program.
Third, he must master mathematics. Until there is a self-consciously Christian version of Saxon's math program available, we should go with Saxon, which emphasizes review and mastery. Fourth, anything else that interests him. Let him master a subject for the joy and experience of mastering it.
Christian education should be highly focused on a handful of topics: reading-writing, Bible, and mathematics. To force a child to take six courses per semester is both traditional and foolish if the child has not first mastered reading, writing, arithmetic, and the Bible. If he has mastered these, he can pick up the other courses in short order, such as by preparing through Advanced Placement exam cram courses.
Students can sometimes gain admission to a local junior college and take courses that count for both high school and college. My son did this: he started college part-time at age 14. He graduated from high school at 15. He will be a junior in college the month he turns 18. Even if a child does not graduate, he or she can attend a junior college at age 18, when, by law, the JC must accept the child on a provisional basis, even without a diploma.
A child who has gone through the King James Bible twice and Saxon's calculus once will get 1,000+ on the SAT, and will gain provisional acceptance in most colleges without a high school diploma. I have my 15-year-old daughter taking Saxon math (algebra II) and Shakespeare. Every week she writes a paper on one of the plays. She is getting a feel for the most magnificent English ever written. Then I have her use a computerized typing course (Typing Tutor), so that she can type her weekly paper. Her grammar is generally correct; she can communicate on paper. She is learning how to think.
The lust for academic certification is what has placed the Christians under the domination of the humanists for nine centuries. How will we break the cycle? Christians make their children take high school biology. Why? So they can cut up frogs and learn Darwinism? They make them take high school chemistry. Why? So they can find out that hydrogen sulfide smells rotten? They make them take high school history. Why? So they can get the Enlightenment view of American history, which is what most of the high school textbooks teach?
All of this can be picked up in college by anyone who has mastered the King James Bible and calculus. It does no good to force a child to speak pigeon history, pigeon chemistry, and pigeon anything else at the expense of fluency in reading, writing, Bible, and mathematics. Yet Christian day schools and most home schools are tied to the state-approved curriculum. The "innovative" ones then add classical education. We compel our children to read the lies of Greece and Rome that led to the persecution of the early Church. Like kidnap victims, the early Church's apologists proclaimed the wisdom of their own kidnappers — what two decades ago was called Patty Hearst syndrome. That famous poster of Patty Hearst holding a machine gun during a bank robbery should be placed above the door of every Christian school headmaster whose school teaches classical education.
Sincerely,
The recommendations of this international conference of enlightened statesmen will doubtless have the considerate attention of Congress and its cooperation in the removal of unnecessary barriers to beneficial intercourse between the nations of America. But while the commercial results which it is hoped will follow this conference are worthy of pursuit and of the great interests they have excited, it is believed that the crowning benefit will be found in the better
securities which may be devised for the maintenance of peace among all American nations and the settlement of all contentions by methods that a Christian civilization can approve.
Benjamin Harrison: First Annual Message, December 3, 1889
I have appealed against race discriminations as to civil rights and immunities, and have asked that law-abiding men of all creeds arid all colors should unite to discourage and to suppress lawlessness. Lynchings are a reproach to any community; they impeach the adequacy of our institutions for the punishment of crime; they brutalize the participants and shame our Christian civilization.
Benjamin Harrison: Letter to the Virginia State Baptist Convention on Lawlessness in the Southern States, May 21, 1892
The proposition of the Democratic platform is to turn over the islands as soon as a stable government is established. This has been established. The proposal then is in effect to turn them over at once. Such action will lead to ultimate chaos in the islands and the progress among the ignorant masses in education and better living will stop. We are engaged in the Philippines in a great missionary work that does our nation honor, and is certain to promote in a most effective
way the influence of Christian civilization. It is cowardly to lay down the burden until our purpose is achieved.
William Howard Taft: Address Accepting the Republican Presidential Nomination, July 28, 1908
The four hundredth anniversary of the printing of the first English Bible is an event of great significance. It challenges the reverent attention of English-speaking peoples the world over. To that day, October 4, 1535, when Myles Coverdale, an Augustinian Friar, later the Bishop of Exeter, produced this Book in the common vernacular, we trace not only a measurable increase in the cultural value and influence of this greatest of books, but a quickening in the widespread dissemination of those moral and spiritual precepts that have so greatly affected the progress of Christian civilization. The part that William Tyndale played in this English translation is generally acknowledged by the historian. It is also evident that there were others who made valuable contributions to the monumental undertaking. Independent of and apart from the devotion of these zealous translators, the work they did marks the beginning of one of the great epochs in the history of English-speaking peoples.
It would be difficult to appraise the far-reaching influence of this work and subsequent translations upon the speech, literature, moral and religious character of our people and their institutions. It has done much to refine and enrich our language. To it may be traced the richest and best we have in our literature. Poetry, prose, painting, music and oratory have had in it their guide and inspiration. In it Lincoln found the rounded euphonious phrases for his Gettysburg address. Speaking of its place in his life, he says: "In regard to the great Book, I have only to say, it is the best gift which God has ever given to man."
One cannot study the story of the rise and development of the men and women who have been and continue to be the pathfinders and benefactors of our people and not recognize the outstanding place the Bible has occupied as the guide and inspiration of their thought and practice. Apart from their professed allegiance to any particular form of Christian doctrine or creedal expression of faith, they have found in it that which has shaped their course and determined their action. Look where we will, even in periods that have been marked by apostasy and doubt, still men have found here in these sacred pages that which has refreshed and encouraged them as they prosecuted their pilgrimage and sought for higher levels of thinking and living.
In the formative days of the Republic the directing influence the Bible exercised upon the fathers of the Nation is conspicuously evident. To Washington it contained the sure and certain moral precepts that constituted the basis of his action. That which proceeded from it transcended all other books, however elevating their thought. To his astute mind moral and religious principles were the "indispensable supports" of political prosperity, the "essential pillars of civil society." Learned as Jefferson was in the best of the ancient philosophers, he turned to the Bible as the source of his higher thinking and reasoning. Speaking of the lofty teachings of the Master, he said: "He pushed His scrutinies into the heart of man; erected His tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head." Beyond this he held that the Bible contained the noblest ethical system the world has known. His own compilation of the selected portions of this Book, in what is known as "Jefferson's Bible," bears evidence of the profound reverence in which he held it.
Entirely apart from these citations of the place the Bible has occupied in the thought and philosophy of the good and the great, it is the veneration in which it has been and is held by vast numbers of our people that gives it its supreme place in our literature. No matter what the accidents and chances of life may bring in their train, no matter what the changing habits and fashions of the world may effect, this Book continues to hold its unchallenged place as the most
loved, the most quoted and the most universally read and pondered of all the volumes which our libraries contain. It has withstood assaults, it has resisted and survived the most searching microscopic examination, it has stood every test that could be applied to it and yet it continues to' hold its supreme place as the Book of books. There have been periods when it has suffered stern and searching criticism, but the hottest flame has not destroyed its prevailing and
persistent power. We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a Nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Its teaching, as has been wisely suggested, is ploughed into the very heart of the race. Where we have been truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity; where it has been to us as the words of a book that is sealed, we
have faltered in our way, lost our range finders and found our progress checked. It is well that we observe this anniversary of the first publishing of our English Bible. The time is propitious to place a fresh emphasis upon its place and worth in the economy of our life as a people. As literature, as a book that contains a system of ethics, of moral and religious principles, it stands unique and alone. I commend its thoughtful and reverent reading to all our people. Its
refining and elevating influence is indispensable to our most cherished hopes and ideals.
Franklin D. Roosevelt: Statement on the Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Printing of the English Bible, October 6, 1935
At the Pan American Conference at Buenos Aires, and again at Lima, we discussed a dim and unpleasant possibility. We feared that other Continents might become so involved in wars brought on by the school of destruction that the Americans might have to become the guardian of Western culture, the protector of Christian civilization.
The great achievements of science and even of art can be used in one way or another to destroy as well as to create; they are only instruments by which men try to do the things they most want to do. If death is desired, science can do that. If a full, rich, and useful life is sought, science can do that also. Happily for us that question has been solved—for in the New World we live for each other and in the service of a Christian faith.
I am a pacifist. You, my fellow citizens of twenty-one American Republics, are pacifists too.
But I believe that by overwhelming majorities in all the Americas you and I, in the long run if it be necessary, will act together to protect and defend by every means at our command our science, our culture, our American freedom and our civilization.
Franklin D. Roosevelt: Radio Address Before the Eighth Pan American Scientific Congress. Washington, D.C., May 10, 1940
We have come to realize the greatest attack that has ever been launched against freedom of the individual is nearer the Americas than ever before. To meet that attack we must prepare beforehand—for the simple reason that preparing later may and probably would be too late.
We must prepare in a thousand ways. Men are not enough. They must have arms. They must learn how to use those arms. They must have skilled leaders—who, in turn, must be trained. New bases must be established and I think will be established to enable our fleet to defend our shores. Men and women must be taught to create the supplies that we need. And we must counter the agents of the dictators within our Nation.
There is, moreover, another enemy at home. That enemy is the mean and petty spirit that mocks at ideals, sneers at sacrifice and pretends that the American people can live by bread alone. If the spirit of God is not in us, and if we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction.
Franklin D. Roosevelt: Address at Dedication of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, September 2, 1940
On this day—this American holiday- we are celebrating the rights of free laboring men and women.
The preservation of these rights is vitally important now, not only to us who enjoy them—but to the whole future of Christian civilization.
American labor now bears a tremendous responsibility in the winning of this most brutal, most terrible of all wars.
In our factories and shops and arsenals we are building weapons on a scale great in its magnitude. To all the battle fronts of this world these weapons are being dispatched, by day and by night, over the seas and through the air. And this Nation is now devising and developing new weapons of unprecedented power toward the maintenance of democracy.
Franklin D. Roosevelt: Labor Day Radio Address, September 1, 1941
I HAVE ASKED Mr. Myron C. Taylor to return to Italy as my personal representative to His Holiness the Pope, with the rank of Ambassador.
After the cessation of hostilities Mr. Taylor came home for consultation and report. I have studied his report of his several audiences with the Pope with interest and with profit. I feel that he can continue to render helpful service to the cause of Christian civilization if, at my instance from time to time, he resumes his duties in Italy. As on his previous trips Mr. Taylor will confer not only with the Pope but with other leaders in the spiritual world and in the world of politics and secular affairs as he travels through Europe in the fulfillment of his mission.
The cessation of active fighting has left the world in a state of unrest. In many quarters we witness lamentable conflicts of principle and policy. Out of all of this unrest and conflict, however, one conviction emerges as dear as the noonday. It is that we shall establish an enduring peace only if we build it upon Christian principles.
Harry S. Truman: Statement by the President Upon Reappointing Myron Taylor as His Personal Representative at the Vatican, May 3, 1946
I don't think that we should get too excited about these surpluses, until we approach that place of unusability, deterioration, and spoilage. Then it gets serious, because I believe now that we have a moral value involved. I just don't think it is right for the sweat and toil and resources of the United States to be thrown out in the middle of the ocean when someone else is starving.
Now, you say "all right, if it is not socialistic, it is based on a purely humanitarian thing"--and I believe George Kennan argues that humanitarian and moralistic values have no place in foreign relations. But after all, we do believe that we are a product and a representative of the Judaic-Christian civilization, and it does teach some concern for your brother. And I believe in that.
Dwight D. Eisenhower: The President's News Conference, June 17, 1953
My friends:
We have come together in memory of an inspiring moment in history-that moment, 300 years ago, when a small band of Jewish people arrived on the ship "Saint Charles" in what was then the Dutch colony or state of New Amsterdam. It was an event meaningful not only to the Jews of America, but to all Americans--of all faiths, of all national origins....
In this respect--as in so many others--they were no different from scores of other groups that landed on our shores. Only 34 years earlier, another party had landed at Plymouth Rock. That group, too, came here in the hope of escaping persecution, of gaining religious freedom, of settling quietly in the wilderness to build their homes and rear their families.
And there was another noble concept of our common Judeo-Christian civilization shared by these two groups: the ideal of peace.
I recall that wonderful prophecy of Isaiah: "And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever."
The pursuit of peace is at once our religious obligation and our national policy. Peace in freedom, where all men dwell in security, is the ideal toward which our foreign policy is directed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower: Address at the American Jewish Tercentenary Dinner, New York City, October 20, 1954
This is our power, and this our freedom. This is our future. And through this power—not drugs, not materialism nor any other "ism"—can we find brotherhood. And you can create the new Europe—a Europe democratic, a Europe united east and west, a Europe at long last completely free.
Now, we hear it said by some that Europe may be glum about her future, that Europe dares no more. Well, forgive me, but I think this kind of talk is nonsense. And I hope you think it's nonsense, too. It is you, Germany, and you, Europe, that gave the values and vitality of Judeo-Christian civilization to America and to the world. It is Europe that has known more tragedy and triumph than any place in history. Each time you suffered, you
sprang back like giants—the giants, Adenauer and Schuman, Churchill and Monnet.
Ronald Reagan: Remarks to Citizens in Hambach, Federal Republic of Germany, May 6, 1985
Prime Minister Berlusconi. As President Bush has just mentioned, in Brussels, during the NATO meeting, I spoke, and then I spoke at Göteborg during the dinner that we shared. And I said that I was in agreement with what President Bush had said very clearly. The world scene has changed. There is no antagonism between Europe and the United States, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other hand. The Soviet Union is something different.
And we're very interested as Europeans with the support of the United States; we look to a progressive journey of the Russian Federation. Maybe tomorrow, the day after, the Russian Federation might even become part of the European federation, where we have countries that share a common Christian civilization. And I believe that in the future we will also be able to speak of a Russian Federation that becomes part of the Atlantic Alliance.
George W. Bush: The President's News Conference With Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy in Rome, Italy, July 23, 2001
And why the Bible is so offensive to the modern university
Our starting point is the existence of God. Not a silent god, but the God of the Bible, who communicates to man.
God is our Creator. The creature owes deference and obedience to the Creator. This is "Theonomy," and it is offensive to Autonomous Man and the University of Autonomy.
Before the Creator created all that is, the Creator knew the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10; Revelation 1:8; Revelation 21:6, 13). God knows the future because God created it. The future has already been created. This is called "predestination," meaning the destination of the creation was designed and set in motion before ("pre") it was even created. The path of every molecule and sub-atomic particle in the universe was set in motion, and is carefully and lovingly conducted by God through history to its predestined end. The thoughts I think and the feelings I feel are wave-particles of energy and chemicals that travel across the synapses of my brain and through my heart and "reins." All predestined by God. Some say my belief makes man a "robot." But God did not create man as a robot. You and I both know that we are not "robots." God created man in His Image. That means when I think and plan, when I paint a picture or compose a symphony, when I build a log cabin or a skyscraper that can house 25,000 people, I am engaged in the wonder-filled task of exercising dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26-28), something animals do not do.
No matter how glorious I think man is (by virtue of his being created in the Image of God), there are those who feel that my conception of God "violates" human "free will."
"Arminians" call me a "Calvinist." They don't want me in their churches.If you believe in "free will," you do not believe that the Bible is the Word of God.
If you believe in "free will," or that God cannot "violate" man's "free will," then you cannot logically believe that the Bible is the Word of God.
The words in the Bible were written by the hands of human beings, but I believe the Bible is the Word of God. God speaks through those human words. This says something about the words, something about the human authors of the Bible, as well as something about the God.
God wrote the Bible using "human pens." God made their hands move the way He wanted them to move. In the Bible, the will of God is sovereign over the will of man. 1 Peter 1:21 says
For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Of course, it was the "will" of Moses and Isaiah and Paul and other authors to write down words. Moses wrote what God told him to write, but perhaps Moses would say he wrote those words "of my own free will." Nobody pointed a gun at Moses' head and forced him to write. But what Peter says is controversial. Even though Moses and other Biblical authors freely wrote the words they intended to write, God was doing something through them, and the words they wrote were the words God wanted to be written. They did not write those words solely by their own "free will." Their hands moved the way God willed them to move. Their voices spoke the words God wanted spoken.
It's true, we can tell the differences between the words Moses wrote, the words Luke wrote, the words John wrote, and the words Paul wrote. They all had their own individual personalities and writing styles. But the men who wrote the words of Scripture had their lives — their parents, training, and life experiences — all orchestrated by God so that — guided by the Holy Spirit — they would write the exact words that God wanted to be written so that God could communicate exactly what He wanted to communicate to the human race. Their words are God's words. God's will trumps their will. Paul told Timothy that God "breathed out" His words through these human authors (2 Timothy 3:16, [theópneustos (Strong's #2315, from 2316 /theós, "God" and 4154 /pnéō, "breathe out"]).
To say that the Bible is the Word of God is to say that God's will is sovereign over the will of man. Some people find this deeply offensive. God made the mouths of Moses, David, and Isaiah speak the words God wanted spoken. God made the hands of Matthew, Paul, and John write the words God wanted written. If God did not overrule the "free" and fallible will of man, how did their will to speak and write beget the infallible Word of God?
I don't use the term "free will," because secular philosophers use that term to suggest that if there is a god, such a god doesn't know what's going on, and is constantly being surprised at what the will of man does. So I would never say that I have "free will" and can do something that will catch God off-guard. God knows what I think and what I feel and what I will do because He predestined it all. But I am not a rock, or an insect, or an animal, or a robot. I am a human being created in the Image of God. Amazing.Some will say that since God predestines even sin, and then punishes sinners for the sin God predestined them to commit, it would be better if sinners had never been born. They had no "free will." They had no choice. "That's not fair." And if it's not "fair," it can't be true. But Mark 14:21 says exactly what Autonomous Man does not want to hear: God predestined Jesus to be put to death by sinners, who were held accountable for the sins they were predestined to commit.
"The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born.”
That's pretty scary. Judas had no choice in whether he would be born. God created Judas without asking Judas for permission, and predestined Judas to commit a terrible sin (John 19:11).
But Judas was created in the Image of God. All sinners are created in the Image of God. And in the end, every knee will bow and every sinner will admit that God's Judgment is fair (Isaiah 45:23; Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10-11). All sinners will say "I admit. I sinned." All sinners will admit that God is just. Even though He predestined them to sin (Romans 9; Isaiah 10).
Acts 2:23
Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
Acts 4:27-28
“For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.
Christians who oppose the Sovereignty of God and uphold the "free will" of man claim that predestination "makes man a puppet." But as I said, man is clearly not a puppet; we both know that; man is created in the Image of God. But the Bible agrees that God's sovereignty makes man a "puppet" of God's decree. The Bible describes man not as a "puppet," however, but as a bucket of water.
Well, not a bucket, but a river of water.
Proverbs 21:1
The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord,
Like the rivers of water;
He turns it wherever He wishes.
How is this not like being "a puppet?"
Is a meandering river created in the Image of God?
How is the opponent of God's Sovereignty not making an accusation against God?
I said I believe the Bible is the Word of God. That means I worship the Bible. That alarms nearly every church I know.
The Bible claims to be the Word of God. It claims that God speaks to human beings. It claims that God used human beings the way I am using a keyboard as I write this.
Let's consider first the claim that God speaks, and the Bible is God speaking to us.
Imagine that a UFO lands on the White House lawn, and an extraterrestrial being hands the President a Peace Treaty. The ET says, "Read this Treaty. It tells you how to cure cancer, end war, obtain free energy, eliminate the threat of global warming, and extend life-spans by hundreds of years. If you agree to abide by its terms, our race will help your race. If you do not agree, we will destroy you. We will wait right here for your answer."
Network television will have their cameras at the White House 24/7. Commentators will be speculating endlessly about what the extraterrestrial Treaty says, and whether or not the President will accept their terms. People will cancel vacations and having children, breathlessly waiting for the decision, knowing their entire future hangs in the balance.
If there are any ET's in the universe, they were created by the God of the Bible. His Word is more important than the word of any ET. But we spend more time watching CNN or FoxNews than we spend listening to the Bible, even though the news channels aren't covering anything as interesting as a UFO on the White House lawn. For some, "news" doesn't get our attention as much as sports, soaps, or celebrities.
All the while, we have a book from the Creator of the universe sitting un-read on a shelf next to the Flat Screen TV.
What the heck is wrong with us?
The Bible is a Peace Treaty that God is willing to enter into with those who have been in rebellion against Him. The Treaty calls for unconditional surrender on our part.
Autonomous Man hates the very existence of the Bible.
(1889), Fustel de Coulanges spells out in detail the darkness of this Christless world:
!["The School of Athens" by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_of_Athens#/media/File:"The_School_of_Athens"_by_Raffaello_Sanzio_da_Urbino.jpg){kind=link}