Dear Friend of the Catholic Worker Movement,
I have been working on a book for some time. Most of the writing is now complete, but I would like to get some opinions from others. Someday I`ll either send it off to a publisher or publish it myself. I have found over the years that I benefit more from criticism than compliments, so don't be afraid to be honest with me about my proposed book.
How I Came to the Catholic Worker
The Prophet Micah's Vision of the "Vine & Fig Tree"
If anything makes this book interesting, it might be the fact that since 1988 I have been living in the Santa Ana Catholic Worker (a movement widely regarded as radical "left-wing"), yet before that I was a member of the "Christian Reconstruction" movement (widely regarded as extreme "right-wing"). Bill Moyers, who interviewed Dorothy Day for Public Television, also interviewed R. J. Rushdoony, the "Patriarch" of the Christian Reconstruction movement. Very few people are aware of Rushdoony's influence. The "Religious Right" would not exist today were it not for Rushdoony and his Chalcedon Foundation. I used to have a regular column in his Chalcedon Report.
I consider myself a right-wing extremist,[1] and I was attracted to the Catholic Worker because its founders billed the movement as a right-wing anti-communist movement. It sometimes seems as though there are no "entrance requirements" into the Catholic Worker. Nevertheless, I feel a need to justify myself. To use a phrase from the McCarthy era, "I am not now, nor have I ever been, a card-carrying member of the Roman Catholic Party." Still, I was formally tried and excommunicated from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church for calling the Protestant Reformers "fascists."
It wasn't just an emotional outburst. It was a well-thought-out conclusion drawn after years of study. I was a fanatical student of the theology of John Calvin. I still am. But then I studied the economics and politics of Calvin (and Luther, and Zwingli) and was less enthusiastic. In fact, I began publicly singing the praises of the "Radical Reformers," the Anabaptists. My study of their persecution by both Protestants and Catholics led me to become a pacifist and an anarchist. That jeopardized my standing in the "Christian Reconstruction" movement, and culminated in my ejection from Protestantism. (I was formally excommunicated from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.)
While perusing a computer database on "Anarchist" movements, I discovered the Catholic Worker movement. I subscribed to the N.Y newspaper. They published a list of all the Houses across the country. I visited the Catholic Worker "Hippie Kitchen" in L.A. and was hooked. When I visited the House in Orange County, and met the Parfrey family serving the homeless in their family dining room, I fell in love and moved in. That was 1988. I've been there ever since.
I only expected to "check out" the Worker for a year, then leave[2] and return to my work -- starting a movement of my own. I had been working on it off and on since the late 1970's. I incorporated a non-profit charitable organization in 1982. Its name and theme come from the Prophet Micah. I have been writing about the theme for nearly 20 years. I once called this book Vine & Fig Tree: Christianity for the Third Millennium. Now I speak of it in terms of the "Catholic Workers' Paradise." Here is the passage that started it all. The jumps attached to key words provide a brief overview of the important themes present in Micah's Prophecy:
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 render decisions for 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.
Q.1: Why bother with the
Bible? Why bother trying to understand the Bible and some peasant religious nut who
lived three thousand years ago? I am "modern" and "scientific" and I
have no interest in church or religion. Please don't give me the Bible. What do I
need with the Bible?
A. Vine & Fig Tree is not about religion. The
author of this FAQ does not "go to church" and hasn't been
a member of any church for over 10 years. Vine & Fig Tree opposes "modern
science." "Modern science" means nuclear destruction, mass death, and
cultural fragmentation. Jump to What
do I need with the Bible? and find out more.
Q.2: Do you believe in Predestination?
A. Predestination is an inescapable concept. Everyone believes in it. God predestines
everything, and everyone has a god; either himself, the State, impersonal evolutionary
forces, or the God of the Bible. The central issue of life is Sovereignty. Who is
God? Is reality determined by what the God of the Bible decrees, or is reality determined
by man and his institutions?
Q.3: Doesn't predestination by the God of Moses violate man's free will?
A. Let me ask you a question: What do you mean by "free will"?
Do you mean the ability to gather data, reflect on past experience and tradition, ask
questions of your trusted counselors (and expect those questions to be understood), think
through your choices rationally, and then take decisive action?
Do you mean the ability to decide which poem to read or music to listen to, and then to
let the artist speak to your soul? Do you mean the ability to love your spouse and your
children, and to experience tears of joy?
Do you mean the struggle of conscience you endure when the State orders you to pull the
trigger and execute a Fundamentalist, or run their children over with a tank?
All of these things are things human beings engage in, and animals do not. This is because
we human beings are created in the Image of God, as the Bible says. The evolutionist says
we are no different from animals; that we are a randomly-mutated conglomeration of
chemicals, brought about by the impersonal forces of time + chance. If evolution is true,
neither you, nor a cockroach, nor a rock have what you think of as "free will."
If you were created by the Sovereign Lord God of the Bible, and bear His Image, then you
do have "free will." I choose to believe the Bible, not Darwin and Hitler.
And yet I confess with Christ, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit."
Q.4: Predestination is so controversial. Why make a big deal out of it?
A. Evolution teaches that man is not qualitatively different from a snail darter or other
"endangered species," and evolutionists like Hitler will exterminate any species
they feel is a threat to their "national security." Denying Biblical
Predestination results in genocide.
Christians who deny predestination still seem to believe that the world is predestined to
get "worse and worse" until Jesus comes. Everybody who believes in God believes
in predestination. If the vision of "Vine & Fig Tree" is not God's plan, all
of our efforts will not bring it about. If it is God's plan, we can work for it
with the calm repose of faith. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.5: I've looked at some of the pages on your site and you never once say "we are
in the last days," and "Jesus is coming soon." You don't sound like a
typical Evangelical.
A. I'm not. Jesus is not coming soon. We are not in "the last
days."
Q.6: But doesn't the Bible say we are in "the last days?"
A. The Apostles were living in the last days of the Old Covenant and the
first days of the New Covenant. That's why they wrote "We (the Apostles and their
readers) are in the last days."
Q.7: But didn't Jesus say He was coming soon?
A. Yes, He did. He did not say that there would be a 2000 year wait for His coming. In
fact, He said "Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste
death till they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom." (Matthew 16:28) What does
He mean by that?
Q.8: He couldn't have meant that the Second Coming would be within 30 years.
A. Why not?.
Q.9: Because the world did not come to an end during that generation.
A. Yes it did -- the Old Covenant world came to an end. The prophets often used
language like that to express the seriousness of God's coming judgment. I think He meant
that "this wicked generation" -- or as one popular writer phrased it, "the
terminal generation" -- was about to be terminated. They oppressed the poor, they
misled people, they were unloving hypocrites, and they executed the Messiah. Jesus said
they were the most unGodly generation in history (Matthew 23), and for this they would be
destroyed by Roman armies (Luke 21:20). They saw the Son of Man exercising His
Sovereignty, and they tasted death.
Q.10: So you don't believe in "the premillennial return of Christ."
A. The Old Testament Prophets were "pre-millennial." They said the Messiah must
come before ("pre-") the world could experience radical
"shalom" (called "the millennium" because of a symbolic reference to a
"thousand years" in the Book of Revelation). The New Testament is clear: Jesus
is the Messiah, and at His Resurrection and Ascension He was seated on the "throne of
David" at the Right Hand of God. As priests and kings in His Kingdom, our task is to
extend His Kingdom.
For this reason, a growing number of Christians are "post-millennial," and
anticipate the return of Christ after ("post") this "millennial" age.
Jesus came two centuries ago to inaugurate a New Covenant. Micah is talking about the
"last days" of the Old Covenant. The Apostles unmistakably and repeatedly assert
that they were then living in the "last days" of the Old
Covenant.[3] What was necessary to begin fulfilling Micah's Vine
& Fig Tree vision was not a 2,000-year wait for nuclear war and the "great
tribulation," but the end of Old Covenant blood sacrifices and the pouring out of the
Holy Spirit. It happened in the "last days" of the Old Covenant and the
beginning of the New. Progress is possible.
Q.11: Don't the majority of theologians believe that the Bible teaches that Jesus
can come at any moment?
A. In the last century there were two theological movements which are still important. One
was German liberalism. Liberal scholars said that the Apostles taught that Jesus would
return at any moment and set up a hierarchical kingdom in Jerusalem, militarily
overthrowing the Roman Empire. Clearly (the liberals taught), the Apostles were wrong,
Jesus did not come again, and the Bible cannot be trusted.
Another movement was the so-called Darbyites, who popularized the
"premillennial" return preceded by the "pretribulational rapture of the
church." This view gained widespread acceptance through The Scofield Bible.
Both the liberals and the pre-mills are mistaken. The Bible does not teach the imminent
coming of a physical, military, hierarchical kingdom. (The Apostles may have believed this
at one time, but at one time they also believed that the execution of Christ was a
disruption of God's plan.) The Bible as a whole sets before us the vision of a
decentralized Kingdom in which government stems from self-sacrificing service, not a
police state, and the Messiah-King rules not with a physical rod of iron, but through the
Holy Spirit, Who changes people's hearts.
Q.12: But if Jesus is isn't coming "any moment now," what incentive is
there for holy living?
A. Millions of "Christians" believe that we are in "the last days" of
planetary history, that things are prophesied (predestined?)
in the Book of Revelation to get worse and worse, until Jesus returns again (after a
nuclear war) to rule the world for a thousand years from a throne in Jerusalem.
This belief strips the salt of its savor (Mt. 5:13). These Christians believe He could
come "at any moment," and they are culturally and socially useless. Why work for
peace or justice if war and "tribulation" are the keys to bringing Jesus back?
Such a belief should be "thrown out and trodden under foot by men." [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.13: Micah speaks of "the Mountain of the Lord." What does that mean?
A. The Book of Genesis states that the Garden of Eden was on a mountain, and "the
Mountain of the Lord" is a symbol for the Garden. It is used throughout the Bible to
refer to God's blessings in the Garden, and calls us to work for the global restoration of
Edenic conditions, not to wait for a "Rapture." Vine & Fig Tree is
about a decentralized world restored to its original Edenic beauty and growing in harmony.
[Back to Micah 4.]
Q.14: You're wildly post-millennial aren't you?
A. Got that right.
Q.15: Is the Mountain related to "the House of the Lord?"
A. Exactly. The Temple (which was a symbolic re-creation of the Garden of Eden) was
centrally-located in Jerusalem. The goal of Micah and the Prophets was for true worship to
be decentralized and world-wide (John 4:21,23).
Q.16: So you are against churches?
A. Many wonderful people attend churches. But the world would be a better place if all
churches were eliminated and Christians turned their homes into community centers. Ecclesiocentrism is unBiblical:
Christ's execution was the last liturgy (Heb. 10); we are all priests in the bloodless
liturgy of life-reconstruction (1 Peter 2:9) [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.17: So we are already in "the millennium"? We're already in "the
Kingdom?"
A. Jesus was the Messiah foretold by the Prophets, including Micah. In A.D. 70 He
destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and created a New Temple in His Body. This marks the
establishment of His Kingdom. We shouldn't be waiting for a "Second Coming."
[Back to Micah 4.]
Q.18: I always thought "the millennium" would be a sinless paradise, like on
the cover of the little magazine the Jehovah's Witness gave me the other day.
A. Paradise, yes. Sinless, no.
We have the choice to love our enemy or to destroy him. We could spend a billion dollars
on food, medical supplies, and Bibles, and ship it to our enemy with "Made in the
USA" on the box. Instead, we spend a billion dollars on land mines and fuel bombs and
leave half a million Iraqi peasants crippled and burned.
We have the choice to live in Edenic conditions, or to destroy ourselves and the creation.
Most Christians would rather be raptured than work for paradise.
The "paradise" described in the Bible is not sinless. The "New Heavens and the New Earth" described by Isaiah (65:17-25) still has sin and death in it.
Q.19: What are the "hills" Micah describes?
A. In Biblical prophecy, pagan governments are described as rival hills or mountains, and
Biblical history reveals that pagan empires had always imitated the true Kingdom by
building their own temples and their own gardens on hills. These were places where the
creation (rather than the Creator) was worshipped, often through ritual sexual lawlessness
(rather than obedient service). "Baalism" is the religion of the modern world.
We call it "Secular Humanism." [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.20: Are you part of the "Identity" movement?
A. The Bible says all races will become Christians. Even people from Africa will be a part
of the New Israel (Psalm 87).
Christianity is not a strictly Anglo-Saxon religion. The Patriarch Abraham was Semitic,
but his religion was not limited to his physical descendants. The Bible is an Oriental,
not Occidental, text, but all the different kinds of human beings will one day become
Christians, followers of the Word. Vine & Fig Tree is a universalist (or
"Catholic") perspective. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.21: Nobody seems to be "streaming" to the Gospel these days. Are you sure
things aren't getting worse and worse?
A. God is sovereign over the hearts and minds of human beings. Micah says people from
every background will delight in God's Word from the heart, and will move with radical
dedication and fervor toward the things of God, and away from the things of secular
humanist empires. The work of the Holy Spirit is people who are not "normal" and
lukewarm. The "gospel" you hear on television is a gospel of self-centered
mediocrity and escape. When the ideas of "Vine & Fig Tree" are preached,
people will "stream" to it. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.22: You claim to be anarchist, but Micah speaks of "nations." Jesus said we
are to "make disciples of all nations." Aren't you missing something?
A. The word translated by the King James Version as "nation" is the word from
which the English word "ethnic" is derived. All human beings are descended from
the original 70 families, or nations, recorded in Genesis 10. People of different
languages and cultures are often coercively collectivized by the State into political
units called "nations," or "nation-states." Although the Bible does
not recognize the moral legitimacy of these arbitrary political
divisions, it can certainly be said that these political forces will not deter the Holy
Spirit from converting every ethnic group in the world and bringing all people under a New
Authority. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.23: Oh, so you're one of those United Nations types?
A. Hardly. The UN is a collection of Harvard-educated dictators and torturers. They
exploit the concept of the nation-state as a tool to Global Dictatorship. They talk about
a "New World Order." But the Bush/Clinton regime is really the "Old World
Order," from which we are to remain "unspotted" (James
1:27) [5] The Old World Order lies to us. The words of Micah's
prophecy concerning "swords into plowshares" is carved into the concrete of the
United Nations building in New York. That organization ordered the carpet bombing of Iraq
and the murder of over 250,000 men, women, and children. Many voices pay lipservice to the
Prophets, and to the Messiah they foretold. But "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord,
Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My
Father in heaven." (Matthew 7:21)
Q.24: You claim to be anarchist, but you defend "God's Law." Didn't Jesus
take us out from under the law?
A. "Law" (Authority) is a tremendously important concept. As human beings
created in the Image of God, the very structures of law are impressed in the fabric of our
being, and then in the fabric of our society. But like man himself, man's law is fallen.
It must be redeemed and converted. Micah expresses the importance of hearing God's Law and
patterning our own law (behavior, social structures) after His. Micah speaks of law as
"Ways" -- patterns which should become habits in our lives;
"Paths" -- which show us the direction in which we must move;
"Law" -- which is holistic and personalist, not like that of the lawyers and the Pharisees who executed Jesus.
"Word" -- every Word spoken by our Creator is Law for us.
Jesus came to put God's Law into force (Matthew 5:17-20). Man's law leads to death; God's Law brings salvation and life. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.25: "Judge" seems like such an unloving, Old Testamentish concept. Didn't
the New Testament do away with all this?
A. The New Testament commands us to
judge. Millions of people who say we are not supposed to judge stand silently by while
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Bush commit genocide against the "enemy." We must speak
out. Before God does.
Violation of God's Law is not only an offensive assault on the legitimate Authority of
God, illegitimate (Lawless) human authority destroys life and the creation. The Creator will step in to judge these abuses and instruct the humble
in the Ways of Life. Jesus returned to destroy those who killed Him and to put an end to
their religious hypocrisy. His saints apply His Word to their lives and societies as
priests and kings. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.26: Are you anti-technology?
A. Not in theory. We are thankful to God for the creative engineering and inventions which
make our lives safer and more efficient. But in practice, this industrialism has been
financed by debased currency and other abominable practices which oppress the poor.
Q.27: Do you advocate agrarianism?
A. The dependence of human beings upon the land is inescapable; agriculture unites people
of all nations. God has promised to provide for us, as with the sparrows, but Humanistic
Man seeks the provisions of life through autonomous violence, rather than obedient work.
The City vs. The Country represents the struggle between lazy covetousness and contented
work.
Q.28: Don't "plowshares" groups advocate violent civil disobedience?
A. Some "plowshares" groups pour blood on nuclear warheads. This seems like a
silly Jewish ritual. Other plowshares groups disarm nuclear weapons so that they cannot
kill and main innocent people. They are thus opposed to violence.
As for civil disobedience, if all the guards at a Nazi Concentration Camp suddenly fell
asleep, would you sneak in and let the prisoners free? Even if there were a sign saying,
"No Trespassing"?
The meek will convert instruments of death and lawless authority into tools of
productivity and service. By so doing, they will inherit an Edenic earth. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.29: You claim to be pacifist. Didn't God ordain the Sword (Romans 13)?
A. God predestines the use of the Sword, as well as other evils. Use of the Sword is evil.
God predestines
evil.
God, the Potter, commands man, the clay, not to kill. Man asserts his own divinity by
taking life. War, capital punishment, and population planning are euphemisms for murder.
We think they will make us more "secure." Use of "the sword" brings
the judgment of God (Matthew 26:52). [Back
to Micah 4.]
Q.30. Don't we need to train for national defense?
A. Education reflects our hopes -- or our fears. It expresses our
vision for a just society; or it expresses Man's aspiration to "be as god."
Militarism educates in terms of conflict, implicitly declaring that God is not abundant in
mercy and goodness, and that we must fight and kill to obtain the necessities of life.
Militaristic education is a self-fulfilling prophecy: we are taught that existence is
meaningless unless we forcefully impose our own meaning upon it. War is the result. We
must visualize an Edenic society built upon God's Law and train in terms of that hope.
Micah might say today, "Read my lips: No more war." [Back
to Micah 4.]
Q.31: I thought anarchists were against private property.
A. "Thou shalt not steal" is the foundation of peace. It establishes private
property as a Godly stewardship. The French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is often
quoted as saying "Property is Theft." But Proudhon also believed in patriarchy,
and saw that much of what passes as "private property" is really State-defended
property. It is property backed by violence. God's Law is personalist. Biblical Property
does not mean, (1) "I will elect politicians to kill you if you step foot on my
land." It means, (2) "I will obey God, conquer covetousness, and respect your
stewardship and your efforts at dominion." A society dominated by the first kind of
"property" is a warlord society. Those in the second kind of society are willing
to follow Jesus to the Cross, to lose all their property rather than resort to violence,
and they possess more property as a result (Mark 10:30; Genesis 13:2). Property is more
secure in a Godly anarchist society than in a Secular Humanist military dictatorship.
[Back to Micah 4.]
Q.32: You say you don't advocate agrarianism, but
doesn't "Vine & Fig Tree" lead to something like that?
A. Would you rather live in well-watered garden, or die of thirst in a parched desert? The
Garden of Vine & Fig Tree is a human archetype. But Vine
& Fig Tree cannot be legislated by Congress or Parliament. Each of us must
"put to death" the old autonomous man and be resurrected to obedience in Christ,
each day, in every area of life. God is merciful and abundant in goodness, and the earth
will pour out its fruit if we will obey God's Law, dismantle our Military-Industrial
Complex, and live lives of contentment and service. [Back to Micah
4.]
Q.33: What do you mean by "patriarchy."
A. Human society without Church or State. Human beings are created in families; we are
patriarchal beings, not political beings. Institutions such as "church" and
State are rebellious rejections of patriarchal responsibilities, according to the Bible.
Biblical property is patriarchal property. Modern Humanistic economics is political,
granting all property to the State -- that is, to the powerful -- and embodies theft and
violence as legitimate policy. Every form of politics is a form of socialist dictatorship
and a denial of true property.
Q.34: When you say "Patriarchy," do you mean polygamy?
A. No.
Q. 35: Do you mean men can beat their wives?
A. Don't you get it? Men who beat up Iraqi peasants and put pathetic, depressed drug
addicts in prison for 25 years might beat their wives, but "Vine & Fig Tree"
anarcho-pacifists who follow Christ to the Cross do nothing of the kind. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.36: Shouldn't we have a healthy fear of the Russians, or terrorists? Don't we need a
State, at least a small one, to protect us from criminals?
A. No. God is bigger than the Russians, bigger than terrorists, bigger than criminals.
-- National Security:
Because our allegiance is to a nation-state rather than the transnational Kingdom of God, we take up arms against our "enemies," those of rival nation-states, even though they might profess the same Christianity we do. Trillions of dollars have been spent in this century in order to kill hundreds of millions of people. Yet we still feel radically insecure.
-- Crime in the Streets
Because our allegiance is to ourselves rather than to other members of the Body of Christ, we board ourselves up in our homes to keep safe from those who, like us, are loyal to no one but themselves. The U.S. Supreme Court, committed to a philosophy of human autonomy, has declared it "unconstitutional" to teach children the Ten Commandments, including commands against stealing, raping, and killing. We demand prisons, not preachers. We harvest the bitter fruit.
A "little state" is like a "little murder," and a "little theft." The overwhelming majority of murders in this century have been committed by "governments." The overwhelming majority of theft has occurred when a "government" "nationalized" private property at gunpoint. No "organized crime syndicate" commits as much evil as the "government." And all criminals -- from the time they are children -- learn a valuable lesson from the State: If your goals are frustrated, resort to violence. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.37: You sound like the Amish. Are you withdrawing from society?
A. The Humanistic structures in "the modern world" make it more difficult to
live peacefully and righteously. We are surrounded by propaganda which tells us it is not
"sensible," "practical," or "businesslike" to follow Jesus.
We must not be "radical," "idealistic," or "fanatic," we are
told. Micah says the more our society obeys God's Law, the easier it becomes to obey even
more. Peter Maurin spoke of a society where it is "easier
to be good." [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.38: Do you believe in "family values?"
A. The vision of "Vine & Fig Tree" is essentially conservative, but also
radical. Micah's vision of "family" is that of the Patriarch Abraham, who
adopted into his household literally hundreds of the dispossessed victims of the Secular
Humanist Empires around him. The vision of "family" espoused by the Christian
Coalition and the "Religious Right" is that of Ozzie and Harriet.
V&FT goes back to the roots; the "Religious Right" is "modern" in
comparison.
Modernists want the poor and imperfect to be taken care of by the State: out of sight, out of mind. They do not want to be burdened by them. They do not want to take up the Cross. They are "rugged individualists" who want to be left alone to pursue "personal peace and affluence." The "nuclear family is spiritually and culturally sub-Biblical.
"Patriarchy" means social government is provided by families. Adoption and domestic apprenticeship are God's answers to statist "welfare." "God sets the solitary in families" (Psalm 68:6). If we believe God's Word, open our homes, and train our households to follow Biblical Law, we find our lives have meaning. We serve and we are served. Faith is a product of community. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.39: Why do you call yourselves "anarchist" and still bring in all this
religious and Biblical stuff?
A. We are anarchists because Jesus commanded us not to be "archists." (Mark
10:42-45.) We deny the moral legitimacy of the State and similar human institutions.
Christians reflect the Name of Christ, the Prince of Peace. Secular Humanists carry the
name of man, the autonomous rebel.
Authority creates direction, purpose, and meaning in life. Theonomy directs us
toward life, love, and harmony. Autonomy creates class war, mass death, and
nihilism. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.40: You seem to downplay "heaven" and "eternal life."
A. The Bible does not speak of "heaven" one-tenth as much as modern evangelists.
The modern focus on "heaven" is actually quite selfish and individualistic. We
must develop an eternal perspective, which transcends the temporal and selfish
agenda of Hollywood, New York, and Washington, D.C. Jesus says we must seek first the
Kingdom of God and His Righteousness. [Back to Micah 4.]
These concepts, repeated throughout the Bible, can be grouped into seven Archetypes. These themes are the foundation for Vine & Fig Tree: The Catholic Workers' Paradise:
The Bible says man was created in a Garden. If we would worship God, He would provide
for us. But we chose to "be as gods" (Gen. 3:5), and substituted a wilderness of
scarcity and disease for the beauty and abundance of God's Garden. Contentment and a
harmonious relationship with the land was replaced with dog-eat-dog militaristic
industrialism. In our poverty and fear, we called out to the demonic slave-traders of the Polis
for protection, and became their slaves.
(See questions [13], [15], [19], and [32])
Jesus paid the price necessary to "redeem" us (buy us back) from the slave-traders of the Polis. By destroying this slavery, Christ established His Kingdom at His First Advent. He is not "coming soon." In history, the slave-traders, not the Christians, are "raptured." (See questions [5], [17], [40].)
Christ promises victory: that His Kingdom will spread across the globe, and will include all nations, all peoples, all races. Humanistic divisions along lines of class, politics, or genetics are destroyed. (See questions [20], [21], [22].)
This growth will be in terms of obedience to Biblical Law, which is Christ's Standard of Love, Justice, and Holiness. All authority and power are God's. (See questions [24], [39].)
The Law of God requires attitudes of virtue and service; when mature, these qualities beat "swords into plowshares." (See questions [25], [26], [29], [30], [36].)
The root and center of this growth will be the Family -- not the violence of the State, nor the sycophancy of ecclesiasticism. Vine & Fig Tree means a return to Biblical Patriarchy -- and then new growth in terms of this paradigm. (See questions [15], [31], [33].)
"God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land." (Psalm 68:6) The Patriarch Abraham extended his family to include hundreds of homeless. Christians live in extended families of community, resisting the myths of the pre-Christian "principalities and powers." (See questions [15], [30], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40].)
This is the Gospel which the Scripture preaches from cover to cover (Galatians 3:8). "Vine & Fig Tree" is a vision of trust and obedience to God and His Law; a return to the peaceful, agrarian Patriarchal society of the Bible. God promises to bless this repentance with a restoration of Edenic conditions. It is a vision which is "unrealistic," "utopian," "impractical," and "idealistic," and therefore can only be accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit, and thus God, not man, and not the United Nations, will get all the glory.[7]
Q.41: So how many people are members of "Vine & Fig Tree?"
A. I sometimes speak of Vine & Fig Tree as a "movement." We may laugh
at this presumption -- at least for now. No viewpoint is more of a minority
viewpoint that this one; it is certainly not the dominant world-and-life-view. But I
believe that the vision of Vine & Fig Tree will become a world-wide,
culture-shaping mass movement, although possibly not until the generation of my
great-grandchildren (or beyond). But in God's time, the Vine & Fig Tree
vision as I have set it out here, presently an overwhelmingly isolated and fringe
viewpoint, will become the dominant cultural perspective. Sometime thereafter, the
weaknesses, shortsightedness, and egotism of these writings (or an apostasy
from this vision[9]) will become evident to people who will be a
tiny minority. They will then begin, as I am now, to critique the dominant culture. We
must not "despise the day of small beginnings" (Zechariah 4:10) The prophet
Micah says that Vine & Fig Tree is the winning side.
Q.42: You're a cult of one, aren't you.
A. Sure seems like it. (1 Kings 19:14,18)
Q.43: So what is your goal?
A. The goal of Vine & Fig Tree is to publish writings which will motivate
people to follow the Hebrew-Christian Bible and make its vision a reality. Our projects are described
at our home page.
If I have not answered your question, please write to me and I will include it in a future update. Kevin4VFT@aol.com
(1) For studies of leftism, see Erich von Kuehnelt-Lehddin, Leftism, and James Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men. Actually, I don't often identify myself as "right-wing" except to make a point. It's a word freighted with bad connotations. I often believe the "left-right" dichotomy is false and misleading. The Bible says we are not to depart from the path God has set before us "to the right or to the left." I am uncomfortable with both "left" and "right." But since everyone else identifies themselves in these terms, you will find me associated with -- both. [Back to text.]
(2) Shades of Stanley Vishniewski! [Back to text.]
(3) Hebrews 1:2; 9:26; 1 Peter 1:20; 4:7; 1 John 2:18; Acts 2:16-17. [Back to text.]
(5) Along with churches which buttress the power of Empire, and simultaneously provide "escape" through non-Biblical theological and liturgical amusements. [Back to text.]
(7) The Westminster Shorter Catechism says "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." To the extent man seeks to "be as god" (Gen. 3:5), life is unenjoyable. [Back to text.]
(9) Just as our nation has apostatized from the theology and cultural vision of the Puritans. [Back to text.]