How We Lost the Vine & Fig Tree Vision

Princeton University, one of the most prestigious institutions of higher education in the world, shared the humble origins of "The Log College." A great professor, sitting on a log with a handful of students, can change the world -- without large buildings and football teams. According to the Princeton University website,

Log College was the name given to a school that William Tennent, an Irish-born, Edinburgh-educated Presbyterian minister, conducted at Neshaminy, Bucks County, Pennsylvania from 1726 until his death in 1745. Here, in a ``log house, about twenty feet long and near as many broad,'' Tennent drilled his pupils in the ancient languages and the Bible and filled them with an evangelical zeal that a number of them, his four sons included, manifested conspicuously during the religious revivals known as The Great Awakening.

Like Harvard, Yale, and nearly every college in America in the 1700's, training ministers of the Gospel was a primary purpose. Among Princeton's best-known Presidents are Jonathan Edwards and John Witherspoon, a clergyman who signed America's Declaration of Independence in 1776. When Witherspoon was President, the University had these requirements for students:

Every student shall attend worship in the college hall morning and evening at the hours appointed and shall behave with gravity and reverence during the whole service. Every student shall attend public worship on the Sabbath.... Besides the public exercises of religious worship on the Sabbath, there shall be assigned to each class certain exercises for their religious instruction suited to the age and standing of the pupils. . . . and no student belonging to any class shall neglect them.
The Laws of the College of New-Jersey (Trenton: Isaac Collins, 1794), pp. 28-29.

These men would be horrified at what passes for "higher education" today. They would say of you:

These were the three themes of the first letter Harvard graduate Samuel Adams wrote to Americans through a network of communication known as "The Committees of Correspondence." It put Adams on a path to becoming known as "The Father of the American Revolution." You would probably be embarrassed if Sam Adams could travel through time and ask for your opinions about that letter. Even among the declining number of Americans who can actually read, few can understand the concepts and the reasoning behind that letter. Just as "The Federalist Papers" cannot be understood by most Americans today, even though they were originally written as newspaper columns for ordinary farmers in upstate New York. Adams learned Latin and Greek in high school, and in 1736, at age 14, began studying at Harvard.

But if America's Founding Fathers, and the founders of America's greatest educational institutions, were all that great, why are Americans today so stupid? Why do they tolerate tyranny and public immorality? America was once the most prosperous and admired nation on earth, but today the situation is reversed: The United States is bankrupt and despised even by our former admirers. Unbelievable.

In 1869, Lysander Spooner complained about growing government centralization and tyranny in the United States. He said

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

The Founders of America's Greatest Educational Institutions would say today's universities are unfit to exist.

But it's their own fault.

These Christians planted the seeds of the destruction of "religion, morality, and knowledge."

All of these men believed they had captured the robes. What they didn't realize -- and what you don't realize -- is that "the robes" must be destroyed.

What are "the robes?"

Three classes of people wear robes: Judges, Clergymen, and Professors.
                                                            State, Church, and Academia.

In America in 1718 all three were explicitly Christian. Only Christians could hold public office. Our clergy were trained in our greatest universities, all explicitly Christian.

In America in 2018, they are all explicitly anti-Christian.

Nobody in 1718 would have believed that in three hundred years a man who openly admits -- with unrepentant "pride" -- that he engages in homosexual sodomy with another man (or men) could wear a robe.

But communists, progressives, atheists, and others on the left "captured the robes" in the 19th and 20th centuries.

They now wield power.

What William Tennent and Samuel Adams did not understand is that Christians are not to be like the kings of the Gentiles and their priests and oracles.

In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, Jesus discovers His disciples arguing about who was going to "wear the robes" 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."

Jesus clearly says His followers are not to be "archists." They are to be "servants."

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

So what is an "archist?" What exactly is the "archist" that the "an-archist" is not?

An "archist" is someone who believes he has a right to impose his will on others by force.

The belief that some human beings have the right to rule over other human beings is a belief that dominates the robes: it is taught in our universities, sanctioned by our churches, and practiced by our politicians. It is contrary to the Bible. It is the opposite and the enemy of the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview.

Vine & Fig Tree

Here are seven "Core Values" that can be seen in Micah's vision:

Utopia!

Here's what I believe:

If we (human beings) would just take the Bible seriously
as it is the Word of God
we could create Heaven on Earth.

Another way of saying the same thing:

If we (human beings) would just take the Bible seriously
as it is the Word of God
we could create Paradise on Earth.

Nobody in 2018 agrees with me.

Many people tell me, "But human beings are sinners."

Yeah. So? I'm saying (to use the words of the great psychologist, Bob Newhart) "Stop it!"
I'm saying, "Let's stop ignoring the Bible!"
"Let's do what it says!"

Many people tell me, "That's just a utopian delusion."

I reply, America became the most prosperous and admired nation in history by following such a "utopian delusion."

I say "utopia" means "a good place." (From the Greek eu, "good," and topos, "place.")
Other people say "utopia" comes from the Greek ou, "not" or "no," and topos, "place." "No place." No place that will ever exist.

R.J. Rushdoony, the founder of the "Christian Reconstruction" movement, has advocated a different way of looking at "utopia":

"Theonomy" means "God's Law." See Micah's prophecy below.

Adams helped negotiate (and signed) the The Paris Peace Treaty of September 30, 1783, a treaty imposed by the victorious Americans on the defeated British after the Americans won the War for Independence. That official treaty begins with these words:

Adams also signed the Declaration of Independence (1776). That document speaks of "The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." One of the most celebrated legal scholars of that day, William Blackstone, said that these laws "are to be found only in the holy scriptures." He was echoing John Locke (1632-1704), who was a Christian philosopher who had a great influence in America. Locke said:

"Theonomy" means God's Law, or God's Will. Jesus told His disciples to pray that God's Will would be done "in earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). In other words, that God's Will would be done by human beings on earth as it is done by angels in heaven.

In other words, that the Bible would be obeyed in Church and State.

The overwhelming majority of people who call themselves Christians in 2018 do not believe that this prayer will ever be answered.

I believe it is already being answered.

But it won't be answered if we don't pray it.

And if we don't work for it.

If we obey Jesus and pray that God's Will would be done on earth, then God will "dispose the hearts" of sinful human beings to do so.

Including your own heart. And mine.