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This website has three purposes.
First, we are attempting to get "Bible-believing Christians" to
actually believe their Bible and join The Christmas
Conspiracy. This is not an easy task, as most
"Christians" have been brainwashed by the same Empire which executed Christ.
Second, as we explain the "Vine & Fig Tree"
vision, there are many non-Christians who are attracted by the vision of a decentralized
society which beats its "swords into plowshares." But as we examine with
searching detail the words of the Prophet Micah,
many of them will ask,
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?
This is a question everyone asks. And I do mean everyone. Not just those who are
actively working to brainwash Christians and prop up their "New World Order"
military dictatorship, but church-going Catholics and Protestants too. Even
Evangelicals and Fundamentalists for all their Bible-thumping are a product
of their culture, and our culture is at war with Micah.
And Isaiah.
And Abraham, Moses
and Jesus.
Our culture is at war with the Bible.
So Third, we want to convince atheists and non-Christians that they should seriously consider the Bible.
Vine & Fig Tree is a movement in solidarity with Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, and millions of working-class families who have given their lives to protect copies of the Scriptures from the violent institutions of church and state, attempting to live that revelation out in their homes and in the world. This is part of what we refer to as Patriarchy.
It goes back to the book of Genesis, the Patriarch Abraham, and ultimately back to the Creation of the World.
If you're an atheist or if you're a modern Christian who believes the Fundamentalists are totally out to lunch on their view of the Bible, then this page is for you. You won't be convinced in the 15k that makes up this web page, but hopefully the dialogue can get started. I hope you email your comments to me at "Kevin4VFT @ vftonline.org."
There are three reasons I believe the Bible is the Word of God.
First, I like the story.
I like the idea of being created in the Image of God.
I like the idea of loving one's enemies rather than taking vengeance on them.
I like the idea of beating swords into plowshares and everyone dwelling safely under his own Vine & Fig Tree.
I like the idea of the Prince of Peace reigning around the world.
If I look at myself, the world around me, and the history of the world through the lens of the Bible, it makes sense in an attractive way.
But a nice story is just a fairy tale if it's not really true. How do I know the Bible is the Word of a true and trustworthy God?
One reason I believe the Bible is because unbelief is horrifying.
I don't like the idea of being created by random, meaningless, impersonal forces of "nature," that make me fundamentally no different than a rat or a pig.
I don't like the idea that there's no significance to one randomly-mutated collection of chemicals raping, stabbing, and killing another randomly-mutated collection of chemicals.
I don't like the idea of the military-industrial complex killing millions of human beings to protect overseas corporate investments.
I don't like the idea of a world where everyone thinks he's his own god, and all these would-be gods plunging the world into violence and chaos.
If the Bible is the Word of God, I have a good reason for believing that man has value. If the Bible is false, the idea that randomly-mutated conglomerations of chemicals have value is a fairy tale.
Of course, if you want to rape and kill whenever you feel like it, denying the inspiration of the Bible is a necessary first step in avoiding cognitive dissonance.
I've never heard an argument against the Bible that is compelling enough for me to reject its story and embrace the alternative of meaninglessness. In fact, my
Second reason for believing in the Bible is that it is demonstrably a miraculous book.
Most of the arguments against the Bible share common traits with one of the most common: "The Telephone Game" argument.
At a party, the first participant in "the Telephone Game" will whisper a sentence to the person in the next chair, who whispers the message to the person in the next chair, and so on around the circle. The final person in the "phone chain" reveals the message, which is compared with the first participant's real message. The two are found to be totally different, and everybody laughs.
As the argument goes, this is like the transmission of the Bible over the centuries. Nobody involved in copying the Holy Scriptures took it all that seriously, they whimsically changed words, sentences, or paragraphs to suit their fancy, and the Bible we have today bears no resemblance whatsoever to what Moses or whoever started the chain had in mind.
This argument can be made to sound very educated and sophisticated, but it is pathetic and juvenile.
Here is some information on the actual transmission of the Biblical text.
In 1912, Frederic Kenyon was knighted Sir Frederic Kenyon for his service as Director and Head Librarian of the British Museum. He describes how the Jews meticulously copied the Old Testament:
Besides recording varieties of reading, tradition, or conjecture, the Massoretes undertook a number of calculations which do not enter into the ordinary sphere of textual criticism. They numbered the verses, words, and letters of every book. They calculated the middle word and the middle letter of each. The enumerated verses which contained all the letters of the alphabet, or a certain number of them; and so on. These trivialities, as we may rightly consider them, had yet the effect of securing minute attention to the precise transmission of the text; and they are but an excessive manifestation of a respect for the sacred Scriptures which in itself deserves nothing but praise. The Massoretes were indeed anxious that not one jot nor tittle, not one smallest letter nor one tiny part of a letter, of the Law should pass away or be lost.
In Kenyon's day, the oldest copy of the Old Testament was a copy from the 10th century after Christ. But in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, and they contained a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah, dating over one thousand years earlier than that 10th century copy. The results astonished the scholarly world. Gleason Archer, in comparing the manuscript variations of the Hebrew text with pre-Christian literature such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, states that it is amazing that the Hebrew text does not have the phenomenon of discrepancy and MS change of other literature of the same age: "Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A. D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible" with the exception of minor variations in spelling, on a par with the British "colour" and the American "color." "Even those Dead Sea fragments of Deuteronomy and Samuel which point to a different manuscript family from that which underlies our received Hebrew text do not indicate any differences in doctrine or teaching. They do not affect the message of revelation in the slightest."
This proves that atheists live in a world of fantasy. They have a completely different conception of history than historical reality, and a completely different view of religious people than reality.
Here's an analogy that better represents the analysis of different copies of an ancient manuscript. Suppose you won the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Everyone wants your winning apple strudel recipe. So you hand-write a copy. Then another. Then another. You end up making 50 copies of your recipe. Then you lose it. You call all your friends and tell them you lost the recipe, and request that they send you the copy you made. When you get the copies, you discover that on a handful of copies you made minor mistakes. On one copy you put "2 Tbs" instead of "2 tsp." On another recipe you wrote "20 minutes at 350ฐ" instead of "30 minutes at 350ฐ." But since all the other copies had the correct item, it's easy to see which copy had the mistake. This is the science of "textual criticism."
There are thousands of copies of the New Testament, some written decades after the original. There are only a handful of copies of the History of Herodotus (B.C. 488-428), and they are centuries older than the long-lost originals. F. F. Bruce notes,
Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest manuscripts of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals.
The Third reason I believe the Bible is the Word of God goes back to the first reason, relating to the story: I believe the story-tellers. There are two reasons I believe them.
First, they appear to be people of integrity. Simon Greenleaf, a co-founder of the Harvard Law School and the greatest authority on the law of evidence in the 19th century, said that if the New Testament were to be subjected to the Anglo-American laws of evidence in a court of law, the resurrection of Christ would be an established fact. The witnesses (the authors of the Gospels) are credible witnesses.
It has been said, "History is written by the conquerors." The Old Testament is different. It is obviously not written by biased Jews who wanted Israel to look good. The Old Testament is in a sense the most "anti-semitic" book ever written. It paints a picture of a group of people who were chosen by God and given every favor, and still rebelled and failed. They are portrayed as history's most faithless losers. And yet their story was meticulously and faithfully copied over and over by those very same folks.
But one element of the story these credible witnesses report is that God moved them to speak and to write exactly what God wanted written. That's their testimony. I believe it. I believe it because I like the idea of living in a universe that's lovingly controlled by a personal and sovereign God. There are no credible reasons given by atheists why I should not accept this entire worldview.
Most people -- especially those who deny that He is God incarnate -- will say that Jesus Christ was "a great religious teacher." But they lie. They really HATE Jesus Christ. If you were to quote some of His more offensive lines, and attribute them to Jerry Falwell or some other well-known controversial figure, that figure would be accused of bigotry, hate-crimes, and delusional behavior.
The Jews of Jesus' day were not dumb. The Jews executed Jesus because He claimed to be the Christ, the Anointed Messiah, equal with God. If Jesus was not equal with God, then He was nuts. Whatever other nice things He said, things that might sound good on a Hallmarkฎ Card, If Jesus was not who He said He was, then He was a liar or a lunatic.
Jesus predicted His own assassination, and said that all His claims would be verified by His resurrection from the dead. If you are willing to exercise your human abilities to study history, evaluate evidence, and reach conclusions, you will conclude that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead, that His claims are true, and that the Bible is reliable. One of the architects of the Harvard Law School, whose 3-volume treatise on the Law of Evidence was the standard authority on the subject for generations, investigated the historical records which we call the Gospels, and concluded that Christ's Resurrection was an historical fact and could be proven so in any court of law. More here.
Any court, that is, which is Christian. A court which refuses to accept the claims of Christ is a court which is committing suicide. Christianity is the necessary presupposition of justice, the foundation of the very concept of "proof." The Bible is the chronicle of human rebellion against logic, facts, proof, reason, justice, and life itself.
There are two accounts of the Creation and Purpose of Man competing for your loyalty.
THE BIBLE SAYS that the human race was created by a loving, Infinite-Personal God, Who placed Man into a beautiful Garden to live in families and take care of the planet.
MODERN SCIENTIFIC DEMOCRACY SEZ there is no God, except as you decide to create him/her/it. Man is the random mutation of genetic material, emerging without purpose and without meaning from a "primordial soup" of chemicals and energy. Marriage and families are "oppressive," and the planet is to be (a) worshipped [the "left"] or (b) exploited, "for tomorrow we die" [the "right"].
What are the results? What has "modern" actually delivered?
These words come to mind:
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* violent * superficial *
selfish * materialistic * conflict * secular * |
People everywhere feel it:
Something's not right.
People everywhere feel powerless:
What can be done? To whom can we turn?
Who are our heroes? Where are true leaders?
People everywhere feel lost:
Are there no absolutes?
Are there no values worth living for worth dying for?
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THIS IS THE MODERN WORLD |
The Christmas Conspiracy as seen in Micah's Vine & Fig Tree prophecy is a movement which self-consciously defends the Bible as an infallible revelation of the hope, values, and love of God. The "Enlightened" Empire of the Status Quo is at war with the Bible and with followers of Christ who for centuries have believed it to be the Word of God.
The Christian Patriarch accepts as bedrock fact the Bible's historical chronicle of
Eden vs. Empire
Patriarchy vs. Politics
The Kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of Caesar
To ignore these choices is to choose to die at the hand of the Status Quo.
But can I trust the Bible?
And, really now, PATRIARCHY!?!
I answer: Can we trust those who say we can't trust the Bible?
I'll say it again: I can't convince you to become a Fundamentalist in one web page. All I can do is infect you with a desire to rethink your opposition to the Bible, and indicate my own willingness to continue to dialogue with you.
Let's take one of the most controversial issues surrounding the Bible: Creationism vs. Evolutionism. I'm a six-day Creationist.
You take the Bible literally?
You believe the world was created in six days?!?
What are you, some kind of obscurantist?
DON'T YOU LISTEN TO SCIENCE?
It is precisely because my eyes are wide open to what "scientists" have done to us that I reject their lies. I find it far more comfortable to side with peasants who stood against powerful, violent Empires quite apart from any faith that God used them as mouthpieces of His revelation to us.
Anyone who's honest will admit that scientists were not "forced" to abandon Creationism by "the facts." Evolution was a "scientific"-sounding philosophical rationalization for a hatred of the Bible which resulted from an unwillingness to submit to its Authority. It is simply not a case of "The Facts" vs. the Faith. The issue is ethics, not knowledge. The unwillingness of scientists and philosophers to bridle their wills under the Standard of God's Commandments resulted in the "Military-Industrial Complex," the technocratic institutionalization of violence; the quest for god-like power.
What do I think of when I hear the word "science"?
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* The Atomic Bomb * monosodium glutamate
* smog * MTV * HMO's * |
Pretty impressive.
But it's not the inventions; it's the ideology. It's the religious values upon which modern science is built.
Yes, religious.
The powerful and well-trained minds of the military leaders and politicians who plan their wars and turn the wheels of their war machine in an unmovable path toward death and destruction are dominated by a view of the world indeed, of the entire universe which is self-consciously at war with reality God's reality as it is described to us by God through Jesus and the Prophets.
Scientists want all the world to believe as they do, to accept their view of the universe its origin, nature and destiny and, having accepted this view, to place our trust in them as those who understand best the path to health, prosperity, safety, security in short, to salvation.
Everybody wants "salvation." Call it "the good life," or "the American Dream." The question is, How do you get it? Modern science says, "Better living through chemistry." Politicians have learned the lesson: Salvation comes through the barrel of a gun. Urban twelve-year olds carry machine guns in pursuit of this faith. The structures of our society teach Salvation through Power. Members of The Christmas Conspiracy are committed to resisting their propaganda.
There are some people today who consider themselves "radicals" or "resisters." They have not resisted as they should have. Most people in the "Peace Movement" believe that the universe is as the President and his generals and scientists describe it. Conservatives listen dutifully to the prophets of the Empire, and spend great sums of money to send their children to their seminaries (Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc.).
The priesthood of the Bush/Clinton regime in their white coats or silk ties, working in their university degree-lined offices has convinced nearly everyone that Jesus and the Prophets of God are hopelessly misinformed concerning reality. Rather than accepting their Word as an Absolute Authority, we have been taught to choose for ourselves. We are all "liberals" now, not "Fundamentalists."
The simple fact is that there are two competing religions here: Biblical Christianity, and an idolatry which we might call "neo-Baalism."
We must understand these two religions, see that they are in complete opposition, discern which one leads to life, and then begin to live in terms of the one we choose.
Who believes in Neo-Baalism? |
Who believes in Creationism? |
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The Apostle James says,
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
James 1:26-27
As a conservative Bible-thumper, it took me a while to realize that True Religion is not a mind full of facts and crafty arguments ready for rapid deployment in a theological debate. I still believe that we ought to strive for "doctrinal purity," but the ultimate goal is to be "unspotted" from the Empires of the world. A bridled tongue and compassion for the weak are among the Christ-like character traits we must develop. The Apostle Paul says that when we develop these traits, we will not be "carried about" by the Modern World, by defenders of the Status Quo, which is founded on "the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting."[12]
I want my children to choose Micah's religion, not Caesar's. I want them to look forward to a day indeed, to make today the day we beat swords into plowshares. I want them to resist those who hypnotize us all into forging spears for killing instead of hooks for pruning. I want to see them live in terms of Micah's Vine & Fig Tree vision. I am naive if I expect them to be indoctrinated in this vision in any institutional church or Empire-run school.
To the extent our thinking has not been clarified, and as we are not consistent with our foundational principles, we will not experience the harmony that God intends for us and described through the words of the prophet Micah.
We have already seen this in the 20th century. We have seen it, but we refuse to see it. Over 200 million people have been deliberately killed in this century alone; a greater percentage of the population than any previous century. The century of atheism is the century of mass death. Evolutionism means Genocide.
But modern man seeks the Tempter's fantasy: "to be as gods" (Genesis 3:5). Anything is better than admitting that God is God and we are not. Even death.
All they that hate Me, love death. Proverbs 8:36
And so I write with a sense of urgency.
And yet I don't write all I could because I don't have the strength to face the battle. When a known adulterer and crack user becomes President and tells a nation that "I didn't inhale," and when the nation can apathetically view televised scenes of the government bringing tanks against Waco, Texas citizens whose only "crime" is non-conforming thought, we are only days away from the time when those same viewers will hear the televised call to take up arms against any and all who will not confess that man is god and the State is his savior.
Jesus said His followers must be willing to "take up your cross." In our day He would have said, "take up your firing squad."
I am ready.
Are you?
Is Modernism a Force for Peace?
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you,
that I have set before you
life and death
blessing and cursing
T H E R E F O R E C H O O S E L I F E
that both you and your children may live;
that you may love the LORD your God,
that you may obey His voice,
and that you may cling to Him,
for He is your life and the length of your days.
Deuteronomy 30:19
Vine & Fig Tree
is my choice; the Bible, not the Status Quo.Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD! And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. Joshua 24:14-15
(9) Just as our nation has apostatized from the theology and cultural vision of the Puritans. [Return to text]
(10) We'll be discussing "Baalism" later on. It was an ancient religion which most scientists in our day believe. [Return to text]
(12) Ephesians 4:14. [Return to text]