You Can Trust Us - We're NOT Archists

Who Are We?
Why Should You Believe Anything We Say?

Kevin Craig

Hello, my name is Kevin Craig. I'm the Founder of Vine & Fig Tree, a 501(c)(3) non-profit tax-exempt educational organization, sponsor of The Anarchist Bible Bet Online Home Bible Study Program.

Vine & Fig Tree is a phrase which occurs a number of times in the Bible. These references are visual reminders of the Hebrew word for salvation, which means

• peace,
• wholeness,
• health,
• welfare, and
• private property free from princes and pirates.

When today's Americans hear the word "salvation," they usually think about going to heaven when they die. When the writers of the Bible used the word "salvation," they wanted you to be thinking about dwelling safely under your own Vine & Fig Tree during this life -- much more often than they wanted you to be thinking about what you'll be doing in the afterlife.

The best place to see the Vine & Fig Tree ideal is in the book of Micah. We'll look at that passage in some detail when you sign up for our anarchist brainwashing program.

Sometimes people say we're "un-American" because we're anarchists. We reply by saying our organization is dedicated to promoting the original "American Dream." According to the Library of Congress Website, George Washington was motivated by the Vine & Fig Tree vision revealed in the Bible:

No theme appears more frequently in the writings of Washington than his love for his land. The diaries are a monument to that concern. In his letters he referred often, as an expression of this devotion and its resulting contentment, to an Old Testament passage. After the Revolution, when he had returned to Mount Vernon, he wrote the Marquis de Lafayette on Feb. 1, 1784:

"At length my Dear Marquis I am become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, & under the shadow of my own Vine & my own Fig-tree."

This phrase occurs at least 11 times in Washington's letters.

"And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree" (2 Kings 18:31).

Peter Lillback, author of a 1,000-page study of Washington's life and thought, has found more than 40 references to the “Vine and Fig Tree” vision in Washington's Papers.

Many other American Founders wrote of this ideal. "Vine & Fig Tree" is the original "American Dream."

Our home page features an audio introduction.
More about Kevin Craig, your anarchist Bible coach.

A Vision for Humanity

The Curriculum of the colonial American one-room schoolhouse 2.0 will give students a vision for a Christianized world. We are all created in the Image of God, and hard-wired to aspire to the vision described by the Old Testament Prophet Micah 4:1-7:

Click for audio

Micah's Prophecy	Archetype	Controversy
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	Victory: Christ established His Kingdom at the first Christmas	“Predestination” “Preterism” Audio
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,	Globalism: It will continue to expand until it covers the globe	“Optimillennialism” Audio
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.	Law: Biblical Law will be our standard	“Theonomy” Audio
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.	Peace: We will pursue God's "shalom"	“Pacifism” Audio
And each of them will sit under his	Family: Beginning at home	“Patriarchy” Audio
Vine and under his fig tree, With no one to make them afraid. For the LORD of hosts has spoken.	Garden-Land: Healing the Environment	“Anarchism” Audio
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.	Community: Beyond the "Rugged Individual"	“Theocracy” Audio
You won't agree with everything in my curriculum, but you will be a better person for having wrestled with these ideas: Just as iron sharpens iron, friends sharpen the minds of each other. Proverbs 27:17		Audio

Kevin Craig

Christian Reconstructionism

Before I graduated from high school, I had come in contact with R.J. Rushdoony [Google], founder of the "Christian Reconstruction" movement. Soon thereafter, I wanted to be "the next Rushdoony" when I grew up. Some would say neither one has happened yet. I became a "Chalcedon Scholar" and wrote a regular column for The Chalcedon Report. I substituted on occasion for Rev. Rushdoony in the pulpit which he regularly occupied and from which he first delivered the contents of his magnum opus, The Institutes of Biblical Law. I was an overnight guest at his home. David Chilton and I met regularly with Rushdoony for mentoring. The Institute for Christian Economics (Gary North) also published several of my articles. North described this article as "dynamite."

Rushdoony was influential in starting the "scientific creationism" movement, by getting a book called The Genesis Flood published. Becoming a creationist was for me the first of many radicalizing departures from the status quo. My first article published by Chalcedon was on the creationist issue.

One of Rushdoony's protégés was Greg Bahnsen, who wrote the book Theonomy in Christian Ethics (1977). "Theonomy" comes from two Greek words meaning "God's Law." The alternative is man's law, or autonomy.

Vine & Fig Tree

I graduated from USC with a degree in political science in 1979. Because of the negative things Rushdoony said about secular universities, I did not want to go to college, hoping to move more directly to a Rushdoony-like career, but my father (a USC alumnus) was insistent. Perhaps the most enjoyable class I had was a class on "Political Philosophy" with John Hospers, who had been the Chairman of the Philosophy Department until he ran for President as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1972. Hospers could be described as a "minarchist." He believed society needed a small civil government. One of his recommended textbooks was Murray Rothbard's For A New Liberty. This was a breathtaking book in the mid-1970's. Rothbard argued that society needed no "civil government" whatsoever. I didn't think Hospers defended his minimal state against Rothbard's critique. My memory of chronology fails me, but if I was not an anarchist walking into Hospers' class, I was when I walked out.

Beginning around 1978 I began writing for an organization I envisioned called Vine & Fig Tree, which obtained tax-exempt status from the IRS as a non-profit corporation in 1982. The name comes from the Old Testament Prophet Micah, who spoke of a day when we beat our "swords into plowshares" and everyone dwells securely under his own vine and fig tree. More Info. I received positive encouragement on this venture from Dorothy Rushdoony, and on the trip back home from Vallecito, I think I realized that my future was not with Chalcedon, but rather with Vine & Fig Tree. My "swords into plowshares" pacifism, combined with a rejection of capital punishment (on strictly "Theonomic" grounds), seemed to me to be the logical development of Rushdoony's thinking, but ran contrary to the prevailing views of the "Christian Reconstructionist" mainstream.

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.

Our house was called "Isaiah House," and took its inspiration from Peter Maurin, a man who thought a great deal like Rushdoony. Maurin was a decisive influence in the life of Dorothy Day, a socialist agitator in the New Deal era, who converted to Christianity and founded the Catholic Worker movement, largely perceived today as a "left-wing" movement. Maurin said, "I am a radical of the right. I go right to the right because I know it is the only way not to get left." Maurin advised, "Read Our Enemy the State by Albert Jay Nock."

I moved in with these Catholic Anarchists because I saw in their kitchen and dining room the closest thing I'd seen to the L'Abri fellowship under Francis and Edith Schaeffer, a family setting I greatly admired and to which I aspired. The closest I came to the Schaeffers was seeing Francis Schaeffer live at the Anaheim Convention Center in 1977 when he was on tour promoting his book and film, How Should We Then Live.

Hospice

When my father got lung cancer, I helped him gulp down 70 pills a day and 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.

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.

2015 and Beyond

Beginning in 2002, I have been a perennial candidate for U.S. Congress, both before and after I moved to Missouri. Even though I haven't been able to get out of the house to do much campaigning recently, I've still managed to be the top vote-getter among Libertarian Party Congressional candidates in Missouri for the last few elections (FWIW). I would love to campaign full-time, and bring my brand of "Christian Reconstruction" before the press and electorate.

I am actually an "anti-candidate."

When I first decided to run, it was primarily to gain a soapbox. I knew I had no chance of winning any election (or being inaugurated into any political office). But being an "official" "candidate" presented an opportunity to appear on radio, TV, and newspaper which an "ordinary" propagandist cannot get.

My first decision was which political Party to affiliate with. I decided against the Constitution Party because of their advocacy of state violence against immigrants. I joined the Libertarian Party even though it is not an explicitly Christian party, as the Constitution Party is.

I try to fund my campaign by being a professional "Bible Coach."

Where to go from here:

If you already sense that I'm going to win this bet, and if you sense that America's Founding Fathers would urge you to enroll in this home study program, please sign up here, and I'll let you know when I have the program ready to roll.

If you're confused, click here for more details. Or arrange a time when we can talk on the phone.

If you still believe the United States is a shining "City upon a hill," click one of the options below. You are a victim of educational malpractice.

That's why you're going to lose this bet.

Why you will be delighted to fork over a thousand bucks after you lose this wager.

If you want to know all the details about our Online Home Bible Study Course, click here.