I want to be a teacher:

I guarantee that if my students complete my assignments, they will experience

“the most profound, beneficial, massive, and lasting
personal transformation of your entire life”

America's Founding Fathers said my curriculum is so good that it is "necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind." [source]

• I want to teach what public school teachers taught 300 years ago.
  But this curriculum has been banned, and I have also been banned. [details]
• I do not want to teach "the 3 R's," just the core "worldview" subjects taught in public schools 300 years ago. The subjects that have been banned. [details]
• My low prices make this program an amazing value. [comparison]

I would like to start an online school. I can cover 12 years of a colonial American one-room schoolhouse Christian worldivew education in just 12 months. Twenty minutes in the car on the way to work, twenty minutes on the way back home, and a live Q&A webinar each week (more often if there's demand). Results guaranteed.

Banned

1. It is illegal for me to teach in government-run schools. [1]
2. It is illegal for me to teach what public school teachers taught 300 years ago in government-run schools.[2]
3. No private school I know of will let me teach what teachers taught 300 years ago, either for reason #1 (me) or reason #2 (my curriculum). [3]

Value

4. In 2010-11, Americans spent $632 billion K-12 education.
   That's about $13,000 per student per year. [4]
5. America's Founders would say today's curriculum is worth $00.00 (zero). [5]
6. They said my curriculum was "necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind." [6]
7. My program is much cheaper. You can start clicking links for free if you're an auto-didact, or pay one dollar per month for the 12-month program to be rolled out to you every day.

My résumé

1. The Business
2. The Vision
3. The Program
4. The Marketing Issues

The Business

Vine & Fig Tree is a 501(c)(3) non-profit tax-exempt corporation. We incorporated as non-profit in order to raise tax-deductible donations to offer scholarships for those who cannot afford our HomeStudy/Coaching Program.  
  

The “Vine & Fig Tree” Vision

The original "American Dream" was described by America's Founders as everyone living securely "under his own vine and fig tree." This phrase is found repeatedly in the Bible: 

A fuller statement of the "Vine & Fig Tree" vision is found on our homepage.

Our goal is to teach the Bible so that Americans are once again animated by the "Vine & Fig Tree" vision.

"Public schools" were a by-product of the "Protestant Reformation" with its slogan of "sola Scriptura," to make sure everyone in society could read the Bible for themselves. The Bible was the foundation of America's government, laws, and institutions, and made America the most prosperous and admired nation in history. The Bible has been progressively banned from the public square and public schools, and now the U.S. is bankrupt and despised.

Our corporate mission is to implement the "Vine & Fig Tree" vision, not as a feel-good Hallmark™ Card, but as a textbook for every other subject; a blueprint for legal, socio-political, and economic reform; a "worldview." We are primarily an "activist" social change agent. Sales of books or other study programs are means to that end. We seek to:

• abolish the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex ("beat swords into plowshares")
• repeal the U.S. Constitution and abolish the U.S. Government
• raise up affiliates in other nations to pursue this vision in countries around the world
• transform America into a Biblical Theocracy once again and pick up where we left off until 
• "the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9; Habakkuk 2:14) and
• "the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever" (Revelation 11:15)

From a marketing perspective, we are fully aware that we are trying to sell the three most offensive and hated words in the modern political lexicon:

• "Pacifism"
• "Anarchism"
• "Theocracy"

All hated. All slandered. All misunderstood.

• As Theocrats, we do not believe in "the separation of church and state."
• As Anarchists, we believe in the abolition of church and state.
• As Pacifists, we believe in persuasion only; no government coercion or violent revolution.

The Program

Our primary product at this time is a "homeschool program for adults." Education is not just for children. Adults should be lifelong learners.

We believe America's Bible-free secular public schools have made adults victims of educational malpractice. We can duplicate 12 years of colonial American education in just one year, through an online home-study/coaching program.

We offer coaching and accountability to help adults read through the Bible from cover to cover each year, along with four other works which were among the most important works in the history of Western Civilization.

One example of our Bible Study Coaching Program -- targeting fans of George Washington -- is "GeorgeWashingtonCoaching.com." Our goal is to dress up our program to target fans of other heroes, who, if they were alive today, would recommend our goal and program.

Another example: How|To|Become|A|Christian|Anarchist.com  
To anticipate the marketing issues (below), we have assumed that some marketing incentive would be necessary to get anyone to sign up for this Program. Hence: Anarchist|Bible|Bet.com

Marketing Issues

An Analogy from History

Imagine a young man whose father runs a small brewery. He loans his son money to start a business. The business fails. The young man resorts to working for his father. After his father dies, he inherits this brewery, and within a few years manages it into bankruptcy. He becomes a political agitator, ending up on the government's terrorist watchlist. He becomes known as "The Father of the American Revolution." His name is Samuel Adams.

Could Samuel Adams have made a living by getting Americans to pay him to teach them why they should support The Declaration of Independence?

Probably not. The reason? Americans already knew why they should support the Declaration of Independence. They had learned from childhood in America's public schools that:

• that there really is a God, and His existence is a "self-evident truth"
• that our rights really are the product of the intelligent design of our Creator
            (not a gift from the government)
• that all Americans really are obligated to conform their lives to
            "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"
• that one day our actions really must pass judgment with
            "the Supreme Judge of the world"
• that all Americans should have "a firm reliance on
            the Protection of Divine Providence."
• that Americans have a duty -- not just a right
            -- to abolish any government
            that becomes a tyranny.

The mission of our business is to propagate these "self-evident truths." We want people to pay us to tell them things that they already, deep down, know to be true.

Our “Boat” from “Pain Island” to “Pleasure Island”

Our "boat" is our Program, which takes our clients from their present situation ("Pain Island") to the place we believe is best for them ("Pleasure Island"). 

(It may sound arrogant [in our "tolerant" culture] to claim "we know what's best" for our clients. A school teacher believes the student will never get to "Pleasure Island" [successful, prosperous functioning as an adult] unless the student memorizes the multiplication tables. Not only does the student not believe this process is the "Boat" that gets to "Pleasure Island," but that the process is "Pain Island" itself. Millions of people in the last few centuries have believed that this is why education must be backed by government coercion. We reject that belief.)

All human beings are created in the Image of God. They are hard-wired to function best in a “Vine & Fig Tree” world. A violent, atheistic world causes trauma deep in the core of every human being. An internal FAITH in the “Vine & Fig Tree” vision helps overcome the effects of this trauma when the external trauma itself cannot be immediately removed. FAITH means actively working to replace violent atheism and restore a “Vine & Fig Tree” world, with a confidence that this is not only actually ultimately possible, but is an assured certainty.

More on "Pleasure Island."

“Target Market”

Our target market is every human being on the planet. Saying this gives marketing experts aneurisms.

“Ideal Client”

Our ideal client is Kim Jong-un, Vladamir Putin, George Bush, and Barack Obama. They are "ideal clients" in terms of impact in promoting our corporate mission. They are not "ideal" in terms of reach. 

There is, however, a theory called "Six Degrees of Separation," which says that Vine & Fig Tree can reach any human being on earth with no more than five affiliates. Thus:

• Vine & Fig Tree knows
• Affiliate-1 who knows
• Affiliate-2 who knows
• Affiliate-3 who knows
• Affiliate-4 who knows
• Affiliate-5 who knows
• Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran

Among those people we are more likely to reach in the near-term, our ideal client is someone who

• does not realize he is on "Pain Island,"
• has been brainwashed to believe "Pleasure Island" is hell, and
• believes floating on water violates "the laws of physics."

While these people are easier to reach than superpower "archists," they are not easy to persuade. But these are clients who can most benefit from our efforts.

These people are also the most rewarding clients from the perspective of the teacher. The "ideal student" is not necessarily the bland "straight-A" student who doesn't really need a teacher ("auto-didact"), but the student who tries but just can't seem to "get it." The teacher has to reach inside the student for an anchor that can form the basis of an analogy:

This is a good feeling for the student, and gives a sense of accomplishment to the teacher.
Our "ideal client" is someone who doesn't "get it," but has an awareness that there is something to "get."

Nobody is Googling “Vine & Fig Tree.” Billions are yearning for it.

Our marketing strategy is to pick -- almost arbitrarily, and one after another -- a segment of the market with an identifiable "anchor" (also called "gateway problem") from which we can build a path to “Vine & Fig Tree.” The anchor could be a point of pain or pleasure.

• "George Washington" could be an example of a point of pleasure/admiration.
• "Family breakdown" could be a point of pain/trauma. Click here for a fuller discussion of "trauma."

An "Irresistible" Paradigm Shift

You hear that phrase (“paradigm shift”) thrown around a lot these days. Everybody wants their idea to be the next "paradigm shift." Paradigm-shifters are now mainstream. Vine & Fig Tree represents a true break with the status quo, a change as momentous as that described by Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, upon hearing of Locke's rejection of the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings: 

Never before had I heard the authority of kings called in question. I had been taught to consider them nearly as essential to political order as the sun is to the order of our solar system.

Vine & Fig Tree really is a new "paradigm," a "Copernican revolution," a radical way of looking at politics and society. It is one step beyond the radical vision that motivated America's Founding Fathers. It is a vision so old that it appears to be utterly unprecedented.

The vision of Vine & Fig Tree gives energy and hope to those who work for it. It inspires dedicated action. 

For Rush, who was present in the Congress as a representative of Pennsylvania, the events surrounding the creation of the Republic marked nothing less than a turning point in the course of human history. "I was animated constantly," he reflected in later years, "by a belief that I was acting for the benefit of the whole world, and of future ages, by assisting in the formation of new means of political order and general happiness."11 ___________________           11. The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, edited by George W. Corner (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948), p.161.

Vine & Fig Tree's mission is to contribute to the Glory of God and the greater happiness of mankind. The vision of Vine & Fig Tree will animate future leaders and captivate the hearts and minds of many.

Dr. Rush speaks of "a turning point," which is to speak of a turning  from something to something else. From what should we turn? To what should we aspire? 

I believe we must move

• From a world of priests and princes ruling over the immature and irresponsible, a world which is simultaneously "secular" and suffused with a host of pagan faiths
• To a world of self-governing families in which all believers are priests and kings under Christ, where the knowledge of the LORD covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Many people balked at the "turning point" which the Declaration of Independence represented. Many will balk at Vine & Fig Tree -- it is the overthrowing of ideas which many have believed are as essential to social order or the Christian faith "as the sun is to the order of our solar system."

The marketing challenge is to make this vision a "turning point" in the history of mankind. We want to make this vision "irresistible."

But what one person finds "irresistible," another finds repugnant. A member of ISIS does not find anything "irresistible" in the message of Jesus Christ: "Love your enemies." Can any marketing guru re-work the "copy" to make the message "irresistible" to a violent barbarian without changing the meaning of the message?

Our goal is to remove language which is unnecessarily offensive and to state the message clearly in a way that appeals to the "Image of God" in every human being, and to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" which are written on the stoniest of hearts.

Notes

Public school teachers are required to sign a statement of allegiance to the Constitution. A Federal Court in Los Angeles said I could not take that oath because my allegiance to God is greater than my allegiance to the government, and if the government ever ordered me to do anything I thought was contrary to God's Law, I would obey God's Law rather than man's law.

Public schools in America were originally created to teach everyone the Bible. More evidence of this. The core subjects of the colonial American one-room schoolhouse have been described by America's "organic law" as "religion, morality, and knowledge." Teaching the Bible and Christian morality in public schools is now said to be a violation of the modern myth of "separation of church and state." (And it is a myth.)

1. In fact, public school teachers cannot even teach students that the Declaration of Independence is really true; only that people "a long time ago" used to believe such stuff to be true.
2. Religion, Morality, and Knowledge: The Christian Worldview.

   1. "Religion" in 1787 meant "Christianity"; more about the Christian religion.

   2. "Morality" meant "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," which Blackstone said are to be found only in the holy scriptures.  Some call this "Theonomy." More about Christian morality.

   3. "Knowledge" meant knowledge of how the world works;
      • How "Divine Providence" acts as "an invisible hand" to ensure a "harmony of interests."
      • Why liberty is better than tyranny, and capitalism better than socialism.
      • Why we have a "duty" to "abolish" any government that threatens the "unalienable rights" with which we were endowed by our Creator.

   4. Textbooks: see below.

No private school I know of will let me teach what teachers taught 300 years, either for reason #1 (me) or reason #2 (my curriculum).

1. I believe the Bible is an "anarchist manifesto." The Bible is critical of "archists" from cover to cover, thus logically making it "an-archist."
2. I believe the Declaration of Independence says true Americans have a "duty" to "abolish" any government that becomes a "tyranny," and the government of the United States today is a mega-tyranny compared to the "tyranny" which America's Founders abolished in a war that lasted from 1776-1784.
3. I believe America's "War for Independence" was un-Christian. Jesus said pay your taxes, not kill "the Red Coats." I believe "national defense" is un-Christian. I oppose the violent overthrow of the government.

No private school I know would unleash anyone with these views onto their students.

Although Americans are willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on worthless education, they "can't afford" the education I offer, even at 1/10th the price. Their path to educational malpractice takes 12 years @ $13,000/yr. My path takes 12 months, and I would be happy if my clients paid me $12/hr.

America was once the most prosperous and admired nation on earth.
      America is now bankrupt and despised.
      Today's compulsory secular education is largely to blame for our woes.

Justice Douglas admitted that:

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."

Surely I should be able to find some customers for something that is "necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind."

Who Invented Public Schools -- and Why?

The entire concept of "public schools" was created by Bible-believing Christians following the Protestant Reformation ("Sola Scriptura!") in order to make sure every citizen could read the Bible.

One of the first public school laws in America is known today as "The Old Deluder Satan Act" because it began with these words:

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, 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 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

The 1636 rules of Harvard declared:

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

That's our Program. Read the Bible twice a day. Get a Harvard education like Samuel Adams.

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. In the early 1960's, the U.S. Supreme Court banned the Bible* from public schools, along with voluntary prayer. One of the Justices who concurred in this secularization was honest enough to admit that removing religion from public schools was directly contrary to the intentions of America's Founders:

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."

Many territories, when they applied for admission to the union. repeated those words verbatim in their state constitutions. Nebraska in 1875 was the last state to copy these words into their constitution. As we saw above,

1. "Religion" in 1787 meant "Christianity"; more about the Christian religion.
2. "Morality" meant "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," which Blackstone said are to be found only in the holy scriptures.  Some call this "Theonomy." More about Christian morality. "Religion and morality" was also called "piety and virtue."
3. "Knowledge" meant knowledge of how the world works;
   • How "Divine Providence" acts as "an invisible hand" to ensure a "harmony of interests."
   • Why liberty is better than tyranny, and capitalism better than socialism.
   • Why we have a "duty" to "abolish" any government that threatens the "unalienable rights" with which we were endowed by our Creator.

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 any government which 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:

This is exactly what The Preterist Bible Bet will do for you. You can compensate for what the federal government denied you as a little boy or girl by enrolling in our year-long online Home-Study program.

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 weapons and pornography.

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:

. . . 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]

The internet makes it possible to create an educational infrastructure which can again send the Bible around the world.

According to a report from the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, global spending on education is $3.9 trillion, or 5.6% of planetary GDP. America spends the most–about $1.3 trillion a year–yet the U.S. ranks 25th out of the 34 OECD countries in mathematics, 17th in science and 14th in reading.
One Man, One Computer, 10 Million Students: How Khan Academy Is Reinventing Education - Forbes Magazine

The Khan Academy is replacing public schools for "the 3 R's," but there is no complementary Academy which teaches the subjects below, which America's Founders believed were "necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind." In the long run, even the Khan Academy cannot help nihilists. Or worse, it will turn them into capable criminals.

How about a bird's-eye view of these five works that I would like to teach in "Colonial American One-Room Schoolhouse 2.0"

You will read Five of the Most Important Works in the History of America

1. The Bible - Most important book in the history of the human race
2. The Westminster Catechism - behind the Bible, the most widely-circulated document in America in 1776.
   • taught in every classroom in America
3. The Wealth of Nations - the superiority of Capitalism vs. Socialism
4. The Myth of "the Separation of Church and State" - America was created as a Christian nation
   • Documents from a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1892
5. "Novus Ordo Seclorum" - The Myth of "the Second Coming of Christ"
   • The Christian case for optimism about the future of "American Exceptionalism."

The Bible

The Westminster Standards

America's Founders said that "religion and morality" were "necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind." A good summary of "religion and morality" is found in the Catechisms and Confession of Faith drafted in Westminster in the 1640's.

B.B. Warfield, professor at Princeton in the late 1800's, wrote of the Westminster Standards,

[T]hey are the final crystallization of the elements of evangelical religion, after the conflicts of sixteen hundred years. . . . [T]hey are the richest and most precise and best guarded statement ever penned of all that enters into evangelical religion. . . .[1]

Richard Gardiner, in his impressive collection of "Primary Source Documents Pertaining to Early American History, lists many sources which introduce the average Secular Humanist to the now-unknown religious foundations of  American Independence and Government. Among these sources are the Westminster Standards. Gardiner says of them:

The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) In addition to being the decree of Parliament as the standard for Christian doctrine in the British Kingdom, it was adopted as the official statement of belief for the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Although slightly altered and called by different names, it was the creed of Congregationalist, Baptist, and Presbyterian Churches throughout the English speaking world. Assent to the Westminster Confession was officially required at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Princeton scholar, Benjamin Warfield wrote: "It was impossible for any body of Christians in the [English] Kingdoms to avoid attending to it." [Link goes to chap.23, "On the Civil Magistrate."] The Westminster Catechism (1646) Second only to the Bible, the "Shorter Catechism" of the Westminster Confession was the most widely published piece of literature in the pre-revolutionary era in America. It is estimated that some five million copies were available in the colonies. With a total population of only four million people in America at the time of the Revolution, the number is staggering. The Westminster Catechism was not only a central part of the colonial educational curriculum, learning it was required by law. Each town employed an officer whose duty was to visit homes to hear the children recite the Catechism. The primary schoolbook for children, the New England Primer, included the Catechism.  Daily recitations of it were required at these schools. Their curriculum included memorization of the Westminster Confession and the Westminster Larger Catechism. There was not a person at Independence Hall in 1776 who had not been exposed to it, and most of them had it spoon fed to them before they could walk. [Link to Q. 127 of Larger Catechism; cf. also Q. 129.]

Anarcho-Capitalism and the Wealth of Nations

In 1776, the year the Declaration of Independence was signed, Adam Smith wrote a book that is considered the first treatise on Capitalism. Full title: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations. What causes some nations to be wealthier than others? Freedom, personal responsibility, and morality. Pretty obvious, really; a nation characterized by rampant theft can never become prosperous. When competition turns into vengeance, and life is not respected, civilization crumbles. Subsequent economists have crystallized Smith's thesis:

Capitalism is the social system based on
the rejection of the initiation of force or violence against others.

A nation that is virtuous and free from the initiation of force and threats of violence, is wealthier than a nation which covets, steals, and initiates force against others. "Religion and morality" is the key to a Market freed from tyranny.

Pacifism

The foundation of a prosperous and humane economy is the repudiation of violence. Human beings know how to resolve conflicts without violence, but politicians and defense contractors want us to believe we need government compulsion and threats of violence to maintain "order." But order comes from a commitment to non-aggression. As we read the Bible, we face the requirement to beat our "swords into plowshares." This means pacifism and a Freed Market. You have questions about pacifism? We have answers.

Anarchism

Too many people, when they voice opposition to "capitalism," are actually thinking of "crony-capitalism," fascism, Keynesianism, and other systems of government coercion or favoritism in the Market. That's why I use the phrase "anarcho-capitalism," or "100% Pure Laissez-Faire capitalism." "Laissez-Faire" is French for "Let us work," "Let us conduct our business the way we think is best," or just "Let us alone!" Politicians do not know how to run a profitable business or make an economy thrive. When governments face competition, they drop bombs on innocent consumers. When businesses face competition, they lower prices or raise the quality, or invent something totally new to benefit consumers and raise our standard of living.

That is to say, businesses whose CEO's who are not victims of atheistic educational malpractice do not resort to violence. This is why America's Founders believed that "religion, morality, and knowledge" were "necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind." Good schools create good businesses.

Good schools cannot create "good government." "Government" is force; government is violence; government is theft. "Good government" is a contradiction in terms. In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, Jesus discovered His disciples arguing about who is going to be the "greatest" in the Kingdom of God. They didn't understand that Jesus' Kingdom was quite unlike the kingdoms of the world.

The word translated "rulers" comes from the Greek word from which we derive our English word "anarchist."

"Lords," "rulers" and "great ones" are "archists."

Jesus clearly says His followers are not to be "archists." They are to be "servants." The biggest government lie in the history of the human race is that "anarchists" are the bad guys, and those who oppose "anarchists" (logically, "archists") are the Good Guys and defenders of civilization.

This is a "paradigm shift." The most orderly and prosperous society is the one with the greatest liberty, not the most powerful Emperor. But the essential foundation of liberty, prosperity, order and peace is the Bible, and

"Religion, morality, and knowledge are necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, therefore schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
[adapted from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787]

Consider the exposition of the 6th Commandment ("Thou shalt not kill") and the 8th Commandment ("Thou shalt not steal") found in the Westminster Larger Catechism. These two commandments alone, if taken seriously, consistently, and faithfully, would rid the world of all governments. When we all stand before "the Supreme Judge of the World," nobody is going to hear, "Oh, you worked for the government? Then all your acts of  theft and murder are excused. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

Instead of reading Adam Smith's 18th-century work, we'll read a modern version of the same theme, called Healing Our World.

Why do we need to "heal" our world? Since I was born, the U.S. federal government has killed, crippled, or made homeless tens of millions of innocent non-combatant civilians around the world. I would say this makes the United States the most evil entity on the planet and the enemy of mankind. And most Americans, if aware of this, say the price "is worth it" to keep the cost of gas down. Bad government is a reflection of bad education. The worse the education, the larger the  government. The world today is being strangled by the tentacles of immorality, violence, and crony-capitalism. But don't blame "them." We have to blame ourselves if we're going to Heal Our World.

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," having been invented by rebels and nowhere commanded or endorsed in the Bible, is a complete failure, leading to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, enslavement of billions, and the destruction or confiscation of trillions of dollars of property. In the 20th century alone.

Theocracy
The Myth of "the Separation of Church and State"

We are told that teaching the Bible in public schools violates "the separation of church and state."

Really?

Which church?

Or as James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" would say, which "ecclesiastical body."

Today's myth of the "separation of church and state" has nothing to do with denominations of ecclesiastical bodies, or "churches" (which is what the First Amendment is really about). It actually means "the separation of God and Government." It means the government is not obligated to obey God. It means the government now claims to  be  god, instead of being "under God" -- which is where America's Founders intended government to be, not "separate" from God; ignoring God; pretending God does not exist. Because of the modern myth of "separation of church [God] and state,"

• that there really is a God, and His existence is a "self-evident truth"
• that our rights really are the product of the intelligent design of our Creator
            (not a gift from the government)
• that all Americans really are obligated to conform their lives to
            "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"
• that one day our actions really must pass judgment with
            "the Supreme Judge of the world"
• that all Americans really should have "a firm reliance on
            the Protection of Divine Providence."
• that Americans have a duty -- not just a right
            -- to abolish any government
            that becomes a tyranny. This is a religious duty.
            As Jefferson put it, "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God."
            Secularists inevitably make the government their god.

The Federal Government says that teachers in government-operated schools paid for by your taxes cannot "endorse" or "promote" these ideas. Oh, sure, students can be taught that a long time ago some people believed the Declaration of Independence was true, but teachers cannot say The Declaration of Independence really is objectively true, regardless of whether any human being or any government believes it to be true, and that students should stand up and risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in defense of those unchanging true principles.

Clearly, nobody who signed the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution would agree with this framework.

In 1892 the U.S. Supreme Court emphatically declared that the U.S. was "a Christian nation." The Court made a lengthy review of all the most important "organic" documents in American history. By reading the Court's opinion and the charters it cites, we will show that the modern idea of "separation of church and state" is a destructive myth, and that America was intended be a nation "under God."

Consistent with what we learned under "Anarcho-Capitalism" above, we reject any attempt to use government coercion to promote "the true religion." But more important, we reject government coercion to suppress the Christian values of the Declaration of Independence.

We've been taught to fear the word "Theocracy" as much as we've been taught to fear the word "anarchy."

• We've been taught to fear "anarchy" because our wise overlords want to keep their job.
• We've been taught to fear "Theocracy" because atheistic tyrants don't want to be reminded that God is on the Throne, and they are answerable to His Law.

 A truly Biblical, Christian Theocracy is an anarchist Christocracy.
 

Optimillennialism
Confidence in the future possibility of “Peace on Earth.”

The doctrine of "the Rapture" was unknown in 1776. It was invented in the early 1800's. Nobody in Christendom had ever heard of it before. This doctrine, and the larger eschatological framework in which it appeared ("dispensational premillennialism") substituted "waiting" for "working," and allowed atheists to secularize America in the years that followed -- while Christians retreated and waited for the Rapture.

There is good reason to believe that "Peace on Earth" -- the message of the angels to the shepherds on the first Christmas Day -- is possible. Politically and Economically possible, and Eschatologically inevitable.

Too many Christians have bought into erroneous ideas about things getting worse and worse leading up to "Armageddon" and other apocalyptic nightmares. America's Founders were optimistic and future-oriented and believed they were creating a "Novus Ordo Seclorum" -- the motto on the official U.S. Seal which means "New Order for the Ages." Nobody in 1776 believed in "the Rapture." They believed peace, liberty, and prosperity were possible.

For Rush, who was present in the Congress as a representative of Pennsylvania, the events surrounding the creation of the Republic marked nothing less than a turning point in the course of human history. "I was animated constantly," he reflected in later years, "by a belief that I was acting for the benefit of the whole world, and of future ages, by assisting in the formation of new means of political order and general happiness."11 ___________________       11. The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, edited by George W. Corner (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948), p.161.

Christians who believe in "the Rapture" do not believe in "future ages." They believe Christ is going to rapture them "at any moment," and destroy the planet and everything man has worked for. Rapturists do not work "for the benefit of the whole world," nor assist in "the formation of new means of political order and general happiness." As we have mentioned several times, America's Founders believed that teaching children the Bible every day from their earliest years was "necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind." Secular schools and theories of rapture are why we now have bad government and depression, instead of "good government" and "happiness."

Click for audio
  

* 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 allocated 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:

But the objection itself assumes the proposition that Christianity is not to be taught, because ecclesiastics [clergy] are not to be instructors or officers. But this is by no means a necessary or legitimate inference from the premises. Why may not laymen instruct in the general principles of Christianity as well as ecclesiastics. There is no restriction as to the religious opinions of the instructors and officers. They may be, and doubtless, under the auspices of the city government, they will always be, men, not only distinguished for learning and talent, but for piety and elevated virtue, and holy lives and characters. And we cannot overlook the blessings, which such men by their conduct, as well as their instructions, may, nay must impart to their youthful pupils. Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as a divine revelation in the college -- its general precepts expounded, its evidences explained, and its glorious principles of morality inculcated? What is there to prevent a work, not sectarian, upon the general evidences of Christianity, from being read and taught in the college by lay-teachers? Certainly there is nothing in the will, that proscribes such studies. Above all, the testator positively enjoins, "that all the instructors and teachers in the college shall take pains to instil into the minds of the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that on their entrance into active life they may from inclination and habit evince benevolence towards their fellow-creatures, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, adopting at the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them to prefer." Now, it may well be asked, what is there in all this, which is positively enjoined, inconsistent with the spirit or truths of Christianity? Are not these truths all taught by Christianity, although it teaches much more? Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament? Where are benevolence, the love of truth, sobriety, and industry, so powerfully and irresistibly inculcated as in the sacred volume? The testator has not said how these great principles are to be taught, or by whom, except it be by laymen, nor what books are to be used to explain or enforce them. All that we can gather from his language is, that he desired to exclude sectarians and sectarianism from the college, leaving the instructors and officers free to teach the purest morality, the love of truth, sobriety, and industry, by all appropriate means; and of course including the best, the surest, and the most impressive.

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."

About Kevin Craig - Personal History

• "Christian Reconstruction"
• Vine & Fig Tree
• School Teacher
• Legal Education
• "Seminary"
• Homeless
• Hospice

Christian Reconstructionism

Before I graduated from high school, I had come in contact with R.J. Rushdoony [Google], founder of the "Christian Reconstruction" movement. I wanted to be "the next Rushdoony" when I grew up. Neither one has happened yet. I became a "Chalcedon Scholar" and wrote a regular column for The Chalcedon Report. The Institute for Christian Economics also published several of my articles.

Vine & Fig Tree 

I also began publishing for an organization I formed called Vine & Fig Tree, which obtained tax-exempt status from the IRS as a non-profit corporation. More Info

School Teacher

My mother taught in California public schools for 30 years. The first job I had after graduating from college was teaching in a small Christian school. Part of our ministry to the homeless was teaching English as a second language to dozens of "illegal" immigrants. One of my housemates went on to teach in public schools, and I spent many hours helping her with bureaucratic administrative paper work.

Legal Education

Rushdoony was a proponent of Christian education, frequently appearing as an expert witness in Christian school cases vs. the increasingly-secular government. I worked with homeschoolers and studied law to help defend them in court. This was when homeschooling was illegal in California. By the time I passed the California Bar Exam, it was less persecuted. But then I was told by a Federal District Court in Los Angeles that because my allegiance to God was greater than my allegiance to the State, I could not be permitted to take the oath to "support the Constitution" required of all would-be attorneys, so I could not get a license to practice law. Details

"Seminary"

I shared the pulpit at a small church in Anaheim, CA with David Chilton, until he joined Gary North, James B. Jordan and the "Christian Reconstructionists" in Tyler, TX. Greg L. Bahnsen, one of the leaders of the "Christian Reconstruction" movement and a pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, wanted to see if he could get me ordained in the OPC by apprenticing me, rather than through the modern "seminary" system. I thought that was quixotic, but I enjoyed his one-on-one mentoring. Bahnsen was a Christian scholar with integrity and a sharp mind. Scholarship is a virtue.

Homeless

After passing the Bar Exam, I spent the better part of a decade with a small group of Christian anarchists who rented a large house in the "wrong" part of town and opened its doors to those who were homeless and wanted to get clean and sober, find a job, and save up first- and last-month's rent for a place of their own. We gave shelter and encouragement to over 1,000 people during the time I lived there, with an average of about 19 people at a time sharing our home, and served tens of thousands of meals and passed out thousands of bags of groceries to the poor in our neighborhood. We held weekly candlelight vigils in front of the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station to question militarism and violence.

Hospice

When my father got lung cancer, I helped him gulp down 70 pills a day and daily pumped into his heart two liters of an anti-cancer solution under an FDA clinical trial. After his death I moved my mother back to Missouri (where she was born), and the house was destroyed by a tornado. After being taken by helicopter to the hospital, she came back to my care on a feeding tube. For six years she was immobile, and for the last three years of her life my full-time job was turning her over in bed every three hours to avoid bed sores. She died a few hours before 2015 began.

2015 and Beyond

During all of the above, I have been researching and writing, preparing to advance the Vine & Fig Tree vision, and have produced in the neighborhood of 2,000 webpages and blog posts. Some of them have been duplicated on other sites by people I don't think I've even met.

I have also been a candidate for U.S. Congress, both before and after I moved to Missouri. I haven't been able to get out of the house to do much campaigning recently, but I've still managed to be the top vote-getter among Libertarian Party Congressional candidates in Missouri for the last few elections.