Vine & Fig Tree
A World Without "The State"

In 1831, the French political writer Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States of America, a nation  which, by today's standards, existed in a state of anarchy. The citizenry had deemed unnecessary such things as income taxation, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, drug wars, economic regulations, gun control, and immigration controls. Tocqueville described the chaos:

The revolution of the United States was the result of a mature and dignified taste for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving for independence. It contracted no alliance with the turbulent passions of anarchy; but its course was marked, on the contrary, by an attachment to whatever was lawful and orderly.

It was never assumed in the United States that the citizen of a free country has a right to do whatever he pleases; on the contrary, social obligations were there imposed upon him more various than anywhere else. No idea was ever entertained of attacking the principles or of contesting the rights of society; but the exercise of its authority was divided, to the end that the office might be powerful and the officer insignificant, and that the community should be at once regulated and free. In no country in the world does the law hold so absolute a language as in America, and in no country is the right of applying it vested in so many hands. The administrative power in the United States presents nothing either central or hierarchical in its constitution, which accounts for its passing, unperceived. The power exists, but its representative is not to be perceived.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol.1, p.70

America's Founding Fathers were animated by Micah's vision of a decentralized, law-abiding, peaceful world of Vine & Fig Tree.

Anarchy?

Any politician who proposed making enough cuts in our present levels of government to bring them down to the size of government created by America's Founding Fathers would be called an "extremist" or an "anarchist." But Tocqueville says the Founders "contracted no alliance with the turbulent passions of anarchy." Everyone knows what he means, and this website joins him in opposing these passions. But the time has come to quibble over words. The idea that "anarchists" are bad and "archists" (the opposite of "anarchists") are good is the Biggest Lie in the history of Political Science.

The Biggest Government Lie of All Time

The Prophet Micah described the Vine & Fig Tree world as resting on "the Mountain of the House of the Lord," a reference to a restored Garden of Eden. In the Garden of Eden there was the Family. "The State" did not exist. The Prophet Micah speaks of a day when Edenic conditions will be restored throughout the earth. This means the disappearance of "the State." How do we describe a stateless society? Nobody likes the term "Anarchy." How about:

Patriarchy?

All human beings are created in families. Patriarchy is an inescapable concept. If the Christian pater does not train his family in the Ways of Peace, he will be oppressed by a “paternalistic” State. The Family is the basic social unit of a prosperous society.

The Institution called "The State" is unBiblical. It reflects rebellion against God's Law.

Obedience through the Family eliminates tyranny, protects property.

The whole history of man as recorded in the Bible is the history of sinful rebellion against society as created in the Garden of Eden, and the construction of institutions based on Humanistic power: coercion and violence. It is the history of Politics vs. Patriarchy.

Theocracy?

The word comes from two Greek words meaning "rule of God." Most people think it means "the rule of priests." It does not. What would happen if everyone obeyed God's Law? What would happen if a nation were truly "under God," and could say without hypocrisy, "In God We Trust?"

200 million people in America claim to be Christian. If all of them would

the State would disappear.

"Anarchy," "Patriarchy," "Theocracy" — we can't think of marketable names, so we just refer to it as the Vine & Fig Tree society.

One reason many of these Christians don't actively work for Micah's Vine & Fig Tree society is that they believe God has predestined the world to get worse and worse. This is an unBiblical view.
A second reason many Christians don't actively work for Micah's Vine & Fig Tree society is that they believe God has "ordained" the State, and that God commands us to have a State, and abolishing the State would be contrary to His will. This too is an unBiblical view. It begins with an erroneous interpretation of Paul's Letter to the Romans.
Vine & Fig Tree's Romans 13 Home Page
The most disastrously misunderstood Biblical text in history!

Romans 13 says "the powers that be are ordained of God." Defenders of the State take this to mean that "the State" is an idea that conforms to God's ethical standards, and that "the State" has God's ethical approval. Nothing could be further from the truth.

By using the word "powers" the Apostle Paul uses a Greek word which means "demonic" everywhere else in the New Testament. But does God "ordain" evil? Yes, emphatically: God ordains evil. The State is evil, and the message of Romans 12-13 is directly counter to the agenda of modern evangelical defenders of the status quo. Highlights:

  1. Angels and God's Throne of Government
  2. Stars and Idolatry
  3. Why the State Always Encourages Immorality
  4. Unlucky 13 -- Romans 13, Revelation 13 and Isaiah 13
  5. A Roman's-Eye View of Romans 13
  6. "Principalities and Powers"
  7. Lakes of Fire in "Smoke-Filled Rooms"
  8. Romans 13: The Burden is on the Archists
  9. Taxation, "Consent of the Governed," and the Myth of the State
  10. Why the State is not a "Divine Institution"
  11. Angels and Autarchy

Abolishing "The State"

From Cover to Cover, The Bible Describes the Battle: Politics vs. Patriarchy

Nowhere in Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, does God ever say to man, "I think now is the time to form an institution which substitutes vengeance for love of enemy, and funds all its activities by theft and fraud, buttressed with threats of unspeakable violence." Concerning the language of Romans 13 ("the powers that be are ordained of God"), James Benjamin Green, in his Harmony of the Westminster Standards, noted that: "It is not meant that God directly ordained the state by saying to man, Thou shalt set up a government or organize a commonwealth." Americans don't read the Bible from cover to cover, as they would a "Harry Potter" book. They quote John 3:16 and a few other verses.

The following survey of the Bible cannot be a substitute for your own reading of the volume cover to cover.

The Bible | | 1. Presence | | 2. Globalism | | 3. Theonomy | | 4. Peace | | 5. Family | | 6. Garden | | 7. Community
Index  | | Theology  | | History  | | Culture | | No State | | No Church | | Godly Families -- Everywhere | | Overview


The Christmas Conspiracy


Virtue


Vine & Fig Tree


Paradigm Shift


Theocracy

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