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On the destruction of the Empires, see Daniel 2:34-35,44. On the Blessing of Families, see Galatians 3:8.
For a full Scriptural discussion of the overthrow of political systems and a return to Biblical Patriarchy, see 95 Theses on Patriarchy.
Q.2: Excuse me . . . Did you say "Patriarchy"?
A. Sorry. How else would you describe a Biblical Society? Think about the Gospel as described in Galatians 3:8.
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed."What does this mean? Go back to Genesis 12, which is quoted by the Apostle.
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.This is a wonderful promise, and it's too bad that it's not "politically correct" to speak of "Patriarchy." Those who attack "patriarchy" defend military socialism, relativism, and -- ultimately -- all the things we put at the top of our home page:
We are "conspiring" to live out the Gospel of Christmas, which means that by the Blood of Christ we have been restored to our original mandate in the Garden of Eden. In the Garden there was no State, and no "church." There was a Family in the Presence of God. Not politics, not religion: the Family is the most important institution in society.
The Second Adam has rejected the Tempter's slogans: "You can be as gods!" "Your vote is your voice!" "The vote of the People is the Voice of God!" (Genesis 3:5) We are the "seed of the woman," and we smash the seed of the serpent, pulling down their political myths (2 Corinthians 10:2-5).
Q.3: How do you propose to eliminate the State?
A. Demythologize it. The Myth of State Legitimacy must be destroyed. People everywhere believe that they are so incompetent -- or even evil -- that other people have the right to make decisions for them, take their money from them and spend it the "best" way. Others are more conniving, thinking they can use the State to keep from experiencing harmful consequences to their stupidity or evil, or even to get rich by confiscating the wealth of others. Both groups believe that other people have the right to call themselves "the State" and kill, steal, or kidnap. There are thus two strategies to the Christmas Conspiracy:
"I'm running for political office. Please give me your permission to steal from your neighbor and give some to you. Give me your permission to kill in your name. Give me your permission to impose my moral (or immoral) views on others (at others' expense)."People must be taught to react to this "campaigning" with the same disgust that they would have for someone who says, "Give me some money and I will have adulterous sex with you."
Q.4: Do you plan on engaging in illegal or unconstitutional acts?
A. In all likelihood, yes. It is apparently illegal and unconstitutional to be a Christian or to hold non-conforming views. Waco and Ruby Ridge indicate that these "crimes" are punishable by death.
Q.5: Do you plan on storing or selling arms like those at Waco and Ruby Ridge?
A. No. Information is posted elsewhere describing a civil action now being decided by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Depositions and Interrogatories from the Federal District Court show that members of the Christmas Conspiracy reject violence. It is hoped that this will ultimately spare conspirators from the sentence of death. Psychologically, agents of the FBI and ATF probably react in fear to those who practice their 2nd Amendment rights to bear arms. This was the stated purpose of the Amendment: to keep the government in check by threat of violent revolution. Members of the Christmas Conspiracy reject the Communist and Americanist strategy of violent revolution.
Q.6: In your writings, you emphasize the phrase "Vine & Fig Tree." What does this mean?
A. Our name, "Vine & Fig Tree," comes from the Old Testament Prophet Micah.
Below is the prophecy, from the 4th chapter. Click on the word or phrase that interests you.
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.
You did not create yourself, so you must ask yourself, What is the nature of that external force which brought me into being? Is it a cold, impersonal "time+chance," or is it a loving and personal God such as described in the Bible?
The central issue of life is Sovereignty. Who is God? Is reality determined by what the God of the Bible decrees, or by blind impersonal force? (Of course, only the "experts" of the State -- its universities, its military, its priesthood -- are able to guide the "family of nations" through the impersonal forces of "nature." If we put our faith in their theories, we should be prepared to put our tax dollars in their pockets.)
Q.9: Yeah, OK, conspiracy stuff aside: 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"?
The evolutionist says we are no different from animals; that we are a randomly-mutated conglomeration of chemicals, brought about by the cold, impersonal forces of time + chance.
But . . . If you were created by the Loving, Sovereign Lord God of the Bible, and bear His Image, then you do have what you call "free will." The fact that this God predestines all that comes to pass does not "violate" your pre-existing "free will," it creates all meaningful human attributes.
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.10: 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.
Everybody who believes in God believes in predestination. Christians who deny predestination still seem to believe that the world is predestined to get "worse and worse" until Jesus comes. "Vine & Fig Tree" is the Bible's vision of a loving, saving 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.12: 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.13: 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.14: I'm asking the questions here.
A. Sorry.
Q.15: What did He mean by that?
A. 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 Kingdom Sovereignty, and then they tasted death.
Q.16: 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.17: 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. (At one time the Apostles may have believed that Christ was to be a military king, not a Suffering Servant, but they also at one time believed that the execution of Christ was a disruption of God's plan. They simply didn't get it.) 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.18: 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. Has this belief made Christians more holy?
Not even close. It makes them lazy. Everyone is waiting, not working. 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.20: You're wildly post-millennial aren't you?
A. Got that right. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.22: 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.24: 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.
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, just less sin and longer lifespans before death. The key to successful living and victory over sin is not to have all challenges removed from life, but to experience Christ's victory over them.
But as Milton wrote, "Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven." We have the choice to live in Eden or live in hell, and we always choose hell. 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 -- Believe in Jesus" 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.
[Back to Micah 4.]
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.
If the "Identity" movement teaches acts of violence against non-caucasian races, the movement is an ignorant pawn of the Old World Order, not a faithful servant of the New. [Back to Micah 4.]
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. [Back to Micah 4.]
Q.29: 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; 4:4) [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) [Back to Micah 4.]
"Ways" -- patterns which should become habits in our lives;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.]"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.
Q.33: 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 paper-pushing covetousness and contented manual labor.
Q.34: 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 maim 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 -- Authorized Personnel Only"?
Jesus and Micah agree: 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.40: When you say "Patriarchy," do you mean polygamy?
A. No.
Q.41: 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.]
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.]-- 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. Western arms manufacturers have been paid by western governments to put billions of dollars of arms in the hands of pagans of low moral character in the interests of "detente" or "western interests" or "national security." Yet we still feel radically insecure. Duh.
-- 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.
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 are enriched and have meaning. We serve and we are served. Faith is a product of community. [Back to Micah 4.]
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this,I desire with my whole heart to be a person of "pure religion." I want to be the kind of person who spontaneously, and from the heart, has the compassion of Jesus, and visits the weak and afflicted. For this reason, it is absolutely vital that I remain "unspotted" by the agenda, mythology, and weltänschauüng of the world. The world-and-life view of our culture is summed up in the phrases "survival of the fittest," "looking out for number one," "I’m not going to let him get away with that," and "take this job and shove it." It is an impure religion of the worship of self, and the denial of God. It is the refusal to love even our enemy, and to follow Jesus to the Cross. It is the religion of Secular Humanism. I must get these ideas out of my head if I am to live a life characterized by the "works of mercy" which Jesus said are necessary if I wanted to be at Christ’s right hand (Matthew 25:34). The emphasis in Scripture is on our relationship with the weak and abandoned, the crippled and those who cannot repay us. [Back to Micah 4.]
To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and
to keep himself unspotted from the world.
The Bible says we who were once aliens should treat foreigners with grace and an open hand. Our nation's zenophobic scapegoating is reflected in laws which are polar opposites of God's Law. Repeatedly, God commands us to treat aliens as we would our own countrymen: "You shall have the same law for the stranger and for one from your own country; for I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 24:22) But we deny aid to aliens by law. Further, our judicial system lets mass murderers and drug dealers (a.k.a. "politicians") go free, while pathetic, depressed, penny-ante addicts are given 25 years in prison. The spiritual roots of America's "naked nomads" is ignored. Enemies of the State need to hear God's "Good News" as much as the political butchers who mete out the punishments. [Back to Micah 4.]
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
I Peter 2:9
But the weapons of our "national defense" are not built by Rockwell:
[4] (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)Why do so many Christians believe that the power to reform and reconstruct lies in guns and gas chambers, rather than the powerful two-edged sword of Scripture? The desire for a Christian police state is a movement away from light and a return to darkness. [Back to Micah 4.]
[5] Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
2 Corinthians 10:4-5
These concepts, repeated throughout the Bible, can be grouped into seven Archetypes. These themes are the foundation for "The Christmas Conspiracy" and Vine & Fig Tree publications:
Q.51: 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.52: You're a cult of one, aren't you.
A. Sure seems like it. (1 Kings 19:14,18)
Q.53: 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.
(1) Not quite true; I often believe the "left-right" dichotomy is false and misleading. 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.]