A. PATRIARCHY BEFORE THE FALL

The first five Theses set forth the basic theological foundation for the rest of the 95 Theses.

From now on we'll be going through the Bible -- its history and its commandments -- in more or less chronological order.

Our overall purpose is to discern the Biblical pattern for human social organization. This is bigger than figuring out the "Biblical form of Government." That question is usually answered with such terms as "monarchy" or "democracy" or "republic." We're asking whether human beings are required to have a "form of government" at all.

We frequently use the term "patriarchy" to describe a Biblical society. The emphasis is on the family, which is how God created human beings. The emphasis is not on some domineering abuse of women by men. "Patriarchy" is simply is the best word we've been able to come up with to describe a society where the Family is the central unit of society, and there exists nothing we would call "the State" or "the Church."

The other phrase we use to describe such a state of "anarchy" is just "Vine & Fig Tree."

When people hear the idea of a society with no government, they are as scandalized as people were in 1776 when they heard the idea of abolishing the rule of the British monarch in the colonies and setting up a new system of social order with no king at all. Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, upon hearing of Locke's rejection of the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, said:

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.

America's Founding Fathers would never have dreamed of creating a society with no order, but they didn't believe social order required a king. They believed in "self-government" -- but they were also the product of their times, and believed that some form of representative civil government was necessary, even if it didn't require a king.

Their system failed.

The United States today is by every measure an atheistic dictatorship. Taxes are 20-30 times greater than those that sent tea into the Boston Harbor. And George III would never violate the liberties of the people as George W. has, and would never think of using tax revenue to fund abortions, pornography, offensive ("preemptive" as opposed to "defensive") foreign wars, or the removal of copies of the Ten Commandments from public places.

This means the Constitution of 1787 has failed its most fundamental task. America's Founders, separated by 200 years, would see this instantly, even though we have grown accustomed to it, and we think we are free.

If they were here today, America's Founding Fathers would be utterly outraged and indignant over what has happened to their "novus ordo seclorum" (new order for the ages). Our government is not in any meaningful sense adhering to their Constitution. The Founders would unquestionably take immediate steps to abolish the government they created, with more resolve and urgency than they abolished the British monarchy in the colonies.

What would they put in its place? In creating the Constitution, they deliberated for months, based on the study and reflection of a lifetime, to create a system of government which would protect ordered liberty, and preserve a nation of "Liberty Under God." But their best efforts to bind the state down by the chains of a well-deliberated Constitution were unsuccessful. It's impossible to imagine the dreary "statesmen" of our day writing a better Constitution.

It's time we admitted what they would admit.

Our claim is that America's Founding Fathers would now see the need to go beyond eliminating a king, to eliminate altogether the institutionalization of violence and plunder; that is, to organize society without any "civil government" at all. Rather, to let society organize itself spontaneously under the "Invisible Hand" of a Free Market, which is to say, with "Liberty Under God."

In the Garden of Eden there was no State, nor was there an ecclesiocracy (institutional church). Biblical Society consisted of the Family. Every sociological function necessary for the smooth (shalom) and Godly (“righteous,” “just”) operation of a society (e.g., health, education, welfare, etc.) can be provided by Godly Families.

But if there was no State in the Garden of Eden, when did it arise? Did God command its creation, or is the creation of the State an act of Humanistic rebellion?

As we go through the Bible, we will be asking, "Is this where God commanded human beings to set up a monarch, or a parliament, or an Internal Revenue Service?" At the end of each chapter, we will see the answer is No.

The next few theses will cover the period of human history from Creation to the Fall.