August, 1997 

Dear ICE Subscriber:

I have been counselled by a mainframe computer programmer and others who are professionals working on the Millennium Bug not to go public with my argument that it cannot be solved, that the economy will crash. They know that it can't be solved, but they recommend that I keep quiet anyway. I was asked by several programmers to stop talking about the effects of y2k on the banks — and then on programmers' income — when I raised this matter on a discussion forum of y2k programmers. "This is not helpful," I was told.

Why do they say that I should not discuss it? Because, first, hardly anyone will believe me. Second, of those who do, few will be willing to do what must be done to protect themselves. Third, if they try to take action, their wives will veto it. Fourth, I won't make money by announcing, after 1999, "I was right"; there won't be any economy by then. Fifth, if I'm wrong about its impact, I'll look foolish. (They might add: "You've got a lot of theological enemies who you have beaten up in public, and they've waited for years to get even. If you're wrong, you're fried in 2000.") It's a no-win deal, they say.

Then why do I keep doing it? Because I believe my story is true. I believe I have a responsibility to warn people who will not listen. A tiny remnant will act.

What was your initial response to this story? "This cannot be true. I don't believe it." This may still be your response. Let me mention other true statements to which the vast majority of Christians respond, "This cannot be true. I don't believe it."

It is impossible to get a reliable education in any institution that does not teach every field of study in terms of the theocentric presupposition that the God of the Bible is sovereign over every aspect of history.

It is impossible to preserve liberty in a society in which the combined tax burden of all branches of civil government is as much as (let alone more than) God's church collects: the tithe.

Every government-funded retirement program will eventually go bankrupt.

Every government-run or government-authorized central bank paper money system will eventually become inflationary.

Every society that legalizes abortion will come under the visible judgment of God on something like an eye-for-eye basis.

It is impossible to maintain a freedom-providing civil government over many generations if all voting citizens are not members of Trinitarian churches and their elected representatives are not required to swear a personal oath of allegiance to the God of the Bible.

If Christians believed the first principle, they would pull their children out of the public schools and either teach them at home or send them to a local day school that offers a curriculum in which God is said to be the basis of all truth in every field, and every textbook is written from the point of view of what the Bible teaches. Furthermore, they would protest in writing to the Board of Trustees against the use of humanist-written textbooks in Christian colleges. They would not accept passively today's collegiate accreditation system, which requires faculty members to earn advanced degrees at secular universities.

Christians willingly pay 40% of their income to the government and call this arrangement democratic liberty. This is twice the rate of taxation imposed by Joseph on the Egyptians in the name of the Pharaoh, and Egypt was a tyranny. Combined taxes in the United States prior to 1913 were well under 10%. Yet Christians today think 40% is some kind of tax haven. Compared to Scandinavia, maybe it is. That's not saying much.

Christians trust Federal pension guarantees. Pastors willingly sign up for Social Security even though the law exempts them (and only them) if they refuse in the first 18 months after their ordination. Four decades ago in The Freeman, Rev. Francis Mahaffy warned pastors not to do this. Few of them have listened. The average American Christian believes and votes, in the words of H. L. Mencken, in the firm belief that the Federal government is a milk cow with 240 million teats.

A few Christians may not trust the national central bank. Most of them know nothing about it, and would not be interested in learning about it. Only a few Christians have bought gold and silver coins. Most Christians believe what they are told: pieces of paper with dead politicians' pictures on them are real money; gold and silver are not. They believe this situation will be true indefinitely, and surely until after they and their children are dead. They may be right, but not for the reasons (and time frame) they have in mind.

As for legalized abortion, why bother to go into details? If every Baptist in the South would picket every abortionist's office once a week, the sidewalks would be filled every day. But the only way you could get a Southern Baptist congregation to picket an abortion clinic would be to spread a rumor that the abortionist gives the woman a glass of beer after the abortion to steady her nerves.

The last statement is a defense of theocracy. The idea is rejected by most Christians on the basis of the existence of neutral natural law and neutral ethics — denied by both the Bible and Darwinian evolution — which fallen men can and do consistently honor and obey when passing laws and enforcing them. Christians say they believe in equal time for Jesus, but today willingly submit to a secular humanist government that removes every mention of God from anything funded with tax money. They would accept, though with grumbling for a couple of years, a government that removed tax exemption from any institution that mentions God. It has not yet come to this, but we can already see where things are headed. (The government removed Bob Jones University's tax exemption for banning inter-racial dating, a policy favored by parents of BJU students. I recall no outcry from the churches.)

Christians today have made their peace with humanist civilization and are content with the crumbs that fall from the table of humanists — in education, fiscal policy, the welfare State, monetary theory, population control, and political theory. Across the board, Christians shout, "We, too; we, too!" They believe in their heart of hearts that the kingdom of God in history is, and must remain, the kingdom of Satan. They believe that the best they can ever get in history is life in a State-approved ghetto. They have invented two eschatologies to accommodate this belief: amillennialism and premillennialism.

The bedrock assumption of their worldview is this: God does not bring predictable positive sanctions in history to covenant-keepers and negative sanctions against covenant-breakers. Also, God does not bring predictable positive sanctions to covenant-keeping, God-honoring societies in history. In fact, He brings negative sanctions against them. Conversely, God brings positive sanctions on covenant-breaking societies — not just temporarily, as a means of temptation, but as permanent historical policy. In short, they believe that the system of visible sanctions described in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 has been reversed: God smashes His people are upholds His enemies, in time and on earth.

The humanists have learned how to use Christians the way that farmers used to use oxen. They feed us a bit of corn and then work us all day. This worked in Egypt, too. Christians are like the Hebrews in Egypt. They have forgotten God's promise to Abraham, forgotten Joseph's triumph, and forgotten liberty. "That's Old Testament stuff! We're under grace, not law!" No; we're under lawyers, tax collectors, and an army of regulators. We're under state departments of education. Most Christians think this is the Promised Land. What can we expect from God? Deliverance. But first He must teach us that this is not the Promised Land. This painful lesson is coming a lot sooner than most Christians expect.

When the stock market is going up, voters will accept anything. Christians are like all the other voters. So, if you were God, and you wanted your people to change, what would be the most effective way to change your people's minds? First, suck them into a booming stock market with everything they have — their dreams for government-guaranteed retirement, their dreams of government-funded medical care, their dreams of equal time for Jesus someday soon. Then smash these government-guaranteed dreams in one gigantic crash, all over the world — a crash that will be remembered for a millennium.

For suggesting that it's going to happen before 2001, I am now taking considerable heat from Christians and hard-money newsletter editors. Why? Because I put a date on this? That's only the excuse. The real reason is that I say it will happen in the lifetime of today's residents of spiritual Egypt. The modern Christian likes his lifestyle in the ghetto. The Egyptians have not yet taken away our supplies of straw. We can still make our bricks for the state (40% of our income). Any suggestion that Egypt is doomed in our lifetime is a suggestion that Egypt will no longer supply us with subsidized leeks, onions, and straw. It is a suggestion that we belong in the Promised Land rather than in Egyptian bondage. And like Moses' call to liberation to the Israelites of old, my suggestion is hated with a passion.

Any Christian who suggests that this humanist tyranny is doomed to fail is called a "gloom and doom" fanatic. Why? Because he is predicting gloom and doom for the oppressors. Like the Israelite trustees of Egypt, today's comfortable residents of the various Christian ghettos resent this suggestion. Such talk might call the legitimacy of Pharaoh's bondage into question. Pharaoh's taskmasters might take away our straw.

And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not [di]minish ought from your bricks of your daily task. And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh: And they said unto them, The LORD look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us (Ex. 5:19-21).

I am saying that God, in His ineffable wisdom, lured a tiny handful of programmers a generation ago to save some money by dropping two digits out of the century portion of all programs. This decision was known at the time only to a handful of technicians who did not foresee the results of their decision. It sealed the doom of humanism. This decision will destroy central banking, fractional reserve commercial banking, the welfare State, the army of regulators, the tax collectors, the United Nations, and — this is the tough part — the modern division of labor. From around the world comes the cry: "It can't be. I don't believe it." The world's stock markets went up despite the June 2 issue of Newsweek.

My critics are now saying: "North has previously said that there will be a crisis. It never happens." Isaiah prophesied God's judgment in 750 B.C. Judah was carried off by Babylon in 589 B.C. In 650, no doubt some people said: "Isaiah was a doom-and-gloom fanatic. What a jerk! God's predictable negative sanctions in history? What a crock!" Today's residents of various Christian ghettos are deriding me in the name of timing, but in fact they are implacably committed to life in the ghetto for as long as Pharaoh supplies straw, and the price of leeks and onions is low. They do not care that they are State-enslaved brick makers. The truly important things for them are straw, leeks, and onions. And woe unto anyone who calls Pharaoh's sovereignty and welfare handouts into question!

As for me, I've moved out of the urban ghetto. I'll grow my own leeks and onions.

Sincerely,