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Introduction to Conspiracy Theories
We've all heard of "conspiracy" theories of history. Great events in history didn't "just happen," we are told, but they were planned by conspiratorial architects, acting in secret, hiding their true intentions from the ignorant masses, and carried out by dedicated, brainwashed, or fanatical followers. The founding of the Federal Reserve System, the assassinations of both Kennedys, Martin Luther King, and even John Lennon, were all planned beforehand by people in high places, in order to solidify their power. At least some people think so.[1]
Even if all these conspiracy theories are true, they pale in significance compared to the greatest conspiracy of them all: The Christmas Conspiracy. This conspiracy is no mere theory, but inescapable fact.
The
Christmas Conspiracy is so incredible, so worldwide in scope, and was executed so flawlessly, that it has always been denied even by those who were its intended beneficiaries. And those opponents of the Conspiracy who were caught off guard have never been able to admit that they were on the losing side. Everyone is simply so amazed at this fantastic plot that they are aghast and even paralyzed. Everyone seems to talking about "Christmas," but they're really only talking around it.In order to understand this Conspiracy, we have to start small. Imagine the following "small potatoes" conspiracy:
Imagine that instead of killing 200,000 Iraqi men, women, and children during the first Gulf War,[2] the United States Central Intelligence Agency gave high-tech espionage assistance to the Kurds, who were thereby enabled to assassinate Saddam Hussein.
But imagine further that the Kurdish assassin lost communication with his Kurd leaders, who then assumed that the assassin was killed in action and failed in his conspiratorial mission. In fact, however, the Kurdish assassin was given assistance by defecting members of Saddam's Republican Guard, who made the assassin the new President of Iraq by acclamation.
Now imagine that you are a Kurd in Northern Iraq. As far as you know, Saddam is still exercising his ruthless dictatorship over the land your ancestors have lived in for generations. Local units of the old Republican guard, unaware of the assassination and change of government, still persecute the rebels and intimidate weaker Kurds into submission. The village in which you live long ago acquiesced to the violent intimidation of the Guard and no longer attempts to resist. Members of the Guard continue to patrol your village, and you and other villagers bow before the troops as you encounter each other in the streets. You are in the habit of awaking at 4:00 AM for calisthenics and government announcements. Since the assassination, there have been no announcements, but you continue to rise to hear the troops announce that there are no announcements.
Now imagine that a garrison of troops arrives in your village to officially announce the success of the conspiracy: the assassination of the evil one, and the now "legitimate" rule of the Kurds over Iraq.[3] You no longer have to bow before members of the old Republican guard, you no longer have to wake at 4:00 AM for word from Saddam, and you need not be afraid to discuss publicly concepts of freedom and Kurd history. The troops tell the villagers the "good news": "Joy to the world!"
There's a hitch. You don't believe it. Hard-line sympathizers with Saddam's reign, hoping by their lukewarm lives and docile acquiescence to gain favor from those in positions of power, quietly spread the word that this is all a test to see which villagers are truly loyal to Saddam Hussein. Those who continue to bow before the Guard and voice support for the "legitimate" reign of Saddam will be rewarded by the government. You would like to believe that Saddam has been assassinated; you would like to join the Kurd government and help establish the Kingdom of Kurd. But peer pressure is hard. Seems like no one believes the good news: "What? You don't actually believe that conspiracy theory nonsense, do you?"
The
Christmas Conspiracy was a success, but nobody believes it. That old Persecutor of God's People, the Evil One, has been assassinated. The Divine Rebel has assumed control and directs His co-conspirators to exercise a non-violent government. His co-conspirators, however, are unsure. They fear that the cosmic Saddam is still in control, and are reluctant to proclaim the crown rights of the Prince of Peace.Their old habits persist: they rise at four to hear the announcements of the old regime on TV; they bow before the credentialed elites of the dying establishment; they see no future for their just cause.
This essay was written to expose the Conspiracy, to proclaim the "Good News" that Jesus is the Christ[4] of The Christmas Conspiracy.
One of the most amazing things about The Christmas Conspiracy is that it has always been exposed. The Divine Conspirator was completely up-front about His plans, and even told His co-conspirators to "spill the beans."
And Jesus came and spake unto them saying, 'I have taken control; I have pulled off "The Christmas Conspiracy." Tell everyone in every nation what we have done, and initiate them into our conspiratorial compact in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to carry out My conspiratorial blueprints in every area of life. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age'
(Matthew 28:18-20 [New International Conspiracy Version])
One of the Christ's co-conspirators (called "Apostles") was arrested for his role in The Christmas Conspiracy. Although the Christ had been executed in a government attempt to thwart the Conspiracy, He rose from the dead to assume power, and this follower, named Paul, was urging Republican[5] loyalists to defect and join the conspiracy. The Resurrection of the Christ was no secret, and Paul was not lurking in the shadows. He spoke boldly at his trial:
For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner.
Acts 26:26
Several hundred years earlier, the Great Conspirator had sent one of His messengers to tell everyone the details of The Christmas Conspiracy. Micah 4:1-5 is one of many Old Testament prophesies which told the world what was going to take place. The Conspiracy (also called "The Kingdom"), would not be conducted in secret, behind the well-guarded walls of an executive suite or secret Pentagon chamber, but would be a period of history where the Lord Jesus Christ openly asserts His victory -- not just in the hearts of believers, but with a visible, external effect in the economics, politics, and social lives of individuals and nations. Here is how Micah describes The Christmas Conspiracy:
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
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,
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.
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.
And each of them will sit under his
Vine and under his fig tree,
With no one to make them afraid.
For the LORD of hosts has spoken.
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.
Another propagandist for the Conspiracy even announced to the most powerful ruler of his day that the Conspiracy would be like a stone that grows to the size of a mountain (Daniel 2:35) becoming the greatest Kingdom and consuming all other kingdoms (Daniel 2:44), and yet, "Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end" (Isaiah 9:7; cf. Matthew 13:31-33).
This was not a conspiracy to commit evil, but rather a conspiracy to commit the greatest good for the greatest number. It promised the eventual regeneration of the entire planet. It was nothing that needed to be kept in the shadows.
Notice some of the glorious features of The Christmas Conspiracy as Micah described it:
In the conspiratorial propaganda written before the first Christmas, such as that in the 11th chapter of Isaiah, the activity of the Grand Conspirator is prominent. This Outsider infiltrates world governments and overthrows them, and then
He shall not judge after the hearing of His ears, but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked.
Isaiah 11:3-4
If this sounds too good to be true, wait till you hear the first step of The Christmas Conspiracy:
The Great Conspirator, the Outsider Who infiltrated the despotic empire and was enthroned as King, went undetected because of the most incredible disguise ever effected by any conspiracy. The CIA has never pulled off a cover-up as ingenious as that of The Christmas Conspiracy. The soon-to-be King of the Earth, the Governor of the Universe, came disguised as a tiny, helpless newborn infant born of a homeless couple amidst the barnyard animals in an old stable. Co-conspirators had told of the coming of this King, but few expected Him to come like this. The Divine Usurper went completely undetected, until the time of His enthronement.[6]
It is the greatest paradox of all time: How the most Powerful Being in the Universe, indeed, the Creator of the Universe, became a human being -- a weak, infant human being -- declares Himself the Ruler of the Nations, and begins overthrowing violent, despotic empires through the unarmed power of Love. Incredible.
This little Babe so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan's fold;
All Hell doth at His presence quake,
Though He Himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak unarmed guise
The gates of Hell He will surprise.
With tears He fights and wins the field,
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns Cold and Need,
And feeble Flesh His warrior's steed.
His camp is pitched in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall;
The crib His trench, haystalks His stakes;
Of shepherds He His muster makes;
And thus, as sure His foe to wound,
The angels' trumps alarum sound.
My soul, with Christ join thou in fight,
Stick to the tents that He hath pight.
Within His crib is surest ward;
This little Babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from this heavenly Boy.[7]
Few people are aware of how completely successful The Christmas Conspiracy was. Most people who believe in this "Conspiracy Theory" don't really know all the details, and aren't having nearly as much fun as co-conspirators should. Nevertheless, each year at Christmas we celebrate the advent of this promised Divine Conspirator and the inauguration of His Conspiratorial Kingdom. The propaganda of this Conspiratorial movement is often set to music, and these conspiratorial folk songs become well-known even by those who are not fully participating in The Christmas Conspiracy.
Back in 1719, a Christian propagandist named Isaac Watts wrote about this conspiratorial take-over in a song called "Joy to the World." In this hymn, Jesus is said to be the King Whom the world should receive. When we do, the curse placed on the world after Adam's fall is lifted, and the thorny wilderness becomes a Garden once again. We can do no better than to quote the lyrics in full:
Joy to the world! The Lord is come:
Let Earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing!
Joy to the world! The Savior reigns:
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy.
No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love.
There are many other examples of such "Christmas Carols," which openly taunt those who deny this great Conspiracy Theory. There really is nothing secret here.
But it is incredible.
The overthrow of violent empires throughout the world by the Babe who was born a King will prove to be every bit as successful as His Christmas disguise.
Not surprisingly, the Establishment has engaged in a massive campaign of counter-revolutionary disinformation. Conspiratorial circles have been infiltrated by "preachers" and "theologians" trained in the "seminaries" and "universities" of the Old Regime. Some of them claim to believe in The Christmas Conspiracy, but they say it hasn't happened yet. We all hear about their counter-conspiracy theories, in which we are told that The Conspiring Christ never intended to overthrow the Powers, and we don't really know when He intends to begin reigning, as propagandists before the first Christmas said He would. Turn on any "Christian" radio preacher any you may hear a discussion about whether Christ is King now, or waits for a "Second Coming." "When is the coming of His Kingdom? Did the Kingdom Christ conspire to establish start when Jesus Christ came the first time, or was the establishment of His Kingdom postponed until His Second Coming?"[8]
Faithful co-conspirators with Jesus know that we are in "the millennium," that Christ is now extending His reign over all the earth, and that we have significant, cosmic responsibilities as Christians: ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:18-20), soldiers (1 Timothy 1:18, 6:12; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5), priests, and kings (Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:4). We are sons of Abraham, the Patriarch (Galatians 3:29), a man of wisdom and wealth (Genesis 26:5; 18:18-19; 13:2). Those who pooh-pooh The Christmas Conspiracy are allied with the powers of the Old Regime.
The Conspiratorial texts collected in the Bible seem to teach that Christ's reign does not commence until after the following have taken place:
This miraculous Age would not come, said the Prophets, until after the coming of the promised Savior-King.
Because another conspiratorial propagandist spoke of this Age of Peace as being "a thousand years" in length, this age of the Messiah's reign has been called the "Millennium" (Latin for "thousand years").[9]
If we were to use 20th-century theological jargon, we might say that when the Prophets spoke of the advent of the Christ, they were "pre-millennial" in perspective, meaning that the Messiah must come before the increase of His Kingdom can begin to have no end. But this is confusing, since modern "premillennialists" do not believe that the Messiah established His Kingdom when He came. It seems they believe that His attempted assassination and Christmas coup d'etat was a dismal failure.[10]
This defeatist view of Christmas gained popularity in the early part of this century. Establishment unbelievers -- atheists and secularists -- were gaining power. The Media said Clarence Darrow made a monkey out of William Jennings Bryan at the "Scopes Trial." Christians retreated into Bible schools and missions. They turned the universities and other institutions over to the Secular Humanists, who taught us all that the Bible is not true, that we are just mutations of chemicals that crawled out of the primordial soup, and that life is ultimately meaningless.
Twentieth Century man is a failure. He feels it in his gut. He lashes out at others in violent rage to establish his manhood. He seeks to "take control" by losing control. With each act of violence he slips deeper into failure: attempted domination (sadism) and unconquerable depression (masochism).
The Christian Patriarch is a man of confidence and dominion. The Conquering Christ lives in him. He is a man of action as he rules with the Ascended Christ.
Nevertheless, so-called "Christian" institutions continue to preach failure and the politics of guilt and pity.
The New Testament clearly confirms that Jesus of Nazareth, at His First Advent, accomplished all things necessary to usher in the anticipated Kingdom Age. We spoke above of three requirements for the success of The Christmas Conspiracy and the establishment of the Kingdom. Let us examine each of them.
Go to Part Two
of the First Archytype of The Christmas Conspiracy(1)
I believe most of these conspiracies. Psalm 2:2 says that the nations "conspire" against God and against His Anointed. But I'm not afraid of these conspiracies. Isaiah 8:12-14 says, "Do not say, 'A conspiracy,' Concerning all that this people call a conspiracy, Nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. {13} The LORD of hosts, Him you shall hallow; Let Him be your fear, And let Him be your dread. {14} He will be as a sanctuary . . . ."(2) . . . and instead of destroying countless valuable archeological sites throughout Babylon (which might have rendered astonishing insight into Biblical history) by relentless carpet-bombing of the land . . . .
(3) As if any human rule is ever "legitimate."
(4) "Christ" is the Greek code-word for a King anointed by God to lead His People into a Kingdom of Righteousness and Peace.
(5) The Saddam Hussein of that day, called Caesar, also spoke of his despotic empire as a "Republic."
(6) Actually, as we will see below, His enemies had studied the propaganda, knew of the plan, and even tried killing all infants in the kingdom in an attempt to kill the Great Conspirator. It is often His friends that don't believe He came as a human baby. They're still waiting for Him to come, amidst nuclear war and intimidating displays of political and military power, as a dominating powerful Emperor.
(7) These words are adapted from those by Robert Southwell and set to music in A Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten (1942).
(8) It is doubtful that this is THE big dispute, and in fact this whole argument may have been prompted by the underlying issue: Did Jesus conspire to establish
(a) a political kingdom in which an elite political priesthood rules over ignorant slavish masses, - or did Jesus conspire to establish
(b) a Spiritual, decentralized network of anarchist, voluntarist communities in which disciplined and intelligent people commit revolutionary acts of love and self-sacrifice in their daily affairs?
Does Jesus call us to self-sacrificing service, or to a "gospel" of accumulation of political power, academic prestige, and "financial security"?
Once you figure out what kind of Kingdom Jesus came to establish, then it's easier to wade through the theological quibbling over "prophetic timetables" and figure out what happened at that First Christmas.
(9) This concept is discussed below.
(10) One of the greatest sources of this disinformation is Hal Lindsay, whose books have sold millions. He denies that Christ is the Anointed King, but says that Jesus is going to return "any day now" to become the King. He's been saying "any day now" for twenty years.
The Greek word for "king" is "Christ." Hal Linsday denies that Jesus is the Christ. He says Jesus will be the King - someday - but that He is not the King now. This is a terrible thing to do. (1 John 2:22)
Go to Part Two
of the First Archytype of The Christmas ConspiracyPrevious | | Next | | E-Mail | | Contents | | V&FT
Vine & Fig Tree