Is This Oregon? No, It’s Heaven, Pastor Says; State Disagrees : Religion: Paul Revere claims a flock of 200 and exemption from worldly laws, including taxation. But officials say unless he pays $10,000 in overdue levies, his ‘kingdom’ will be confiscated.

For pastor Paul Revere, getting into Heaven is easy. It’s getting out that’s a problem.

The last time Revere drove his white car out of the 34-acre Kingdom of Heaven, he wound up in jail for displaying Heaven license plates and carrying a Heaven-issued driver’s license.

State officials haven’t heeded Revere’s claims of celestial citizenship. Nor do they believe the forested estate Revere calls the Kingdom of Heaven embassy belongs to God and is thus exempt from county tax rolls.

Heaven owes more than $10,000 in property taxes, and the county plans to foreclose.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is not of this world,” Revere said in response. “The county has declared war on the saints.”

Revere, the slender, bearded leader of the Embassy of Heaven church--and until 1985 known as state Department of Transportation employee Craig Douglas Fleshman--says it is impossible to serve both God and the state. He and his followers have renounced their worldly identities and function solely as citizens of Heaven.

Revere said his flock numbers 200, but only five currently reside in Heaven: Paul and his wife, Rachel, their daughters, Brooke, 14, and Skye, 11, and a scholar simply named Abraham.

The road to Heaven is full of potholes and dust, but the paradisaical plot is lush with trees, wild berries and a garden. The Revere family and their pet cat live in a spacious wood cabin with a deck overlooking a stream. A small hydroelectric plant provides Heaven with light.

A typical day features Revere preaching on various topics, Abraham working on his own translation of the Bible, and Rachel, Brooke and Skye baking bread and carrying out clerical duties.

“We are an earthly kingdom,” Revere said. “Jesus has established his government on Earth, just as it is in heaven.”

Verily, he said, there are no taxes in Heaven.

“Jesus did not pay taxes,” he said. “My rule is simple: Love God, love neighbor. I don’t need 10 books of Oregon statutes to tell me how to live.”

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Marion County tax collectors say that if the taxes aren’t paid during the two-year redemption period, Heaven will be placed on the market.

Jo Stonecipher, the county’s assistant legal counsel, said that each time a notice is sent to the embassy, “the note comes back asking God to bless us and informing us that the embassy is not part of Oregon and they do not owe taxes.”

Revere said he intends to remain steadfast in his claim that the state has no authority over God’s property.

“I would rather lose my body,” he said, “than my soul.”

Twice under arrest this year, Revere allowed his body to erode with hunger fasts. He refused every order by police officers, impassively stating that the state had no authority over him.

Revere’s speech, sprinkled with admonitions and blessings and a “saith” here and there, offers only harsh words for worldly governments. In short, the state is the Antichrist, and the courts are the Halls of Satan.

“The court is Satan’s religion carried on by the state,” Revere said. “There is a reason why everyone has an attorney, why the judge wears a black robe. It is part of their satanic worship.”

For Revere, to participate in a worldly government is blasphemy. And that is the one charge worthy of expulsion from Heaven.

Revere asks his followers to do what he has done: Become “unyoked” from the governments of the world.

Throw away state-issued driver’s licenses and Social Security cards, close bank accounts, give up voting, leave public schools, and tear up library cards. Reject the worldly bonds of car insurance and vehicle registration.

For modest prices, Kingdom citizens can carry Heaven documents, kindly issued by Revere from the embassy in Sublimity, about 20 miles southeast of the seat of state power in Salem.

Though they are invalid, Revere has issued between 200 and 300 license plates for use in the United States and Mexico. Recently, he began printing passports, complete with embossed gold lettering and a watermark from Heaven.

“I’m a bureaucrat for Jesus,” he said.

Currency may be next, although Revere said, “I don’t believe handling a Federal Reserve note is condemnation.” He said the group prefers to use gold and silver, and also relies on generous gifts, ranging from bags of wheat to computer systems, from area Christians.

Revere said Heaven’s income from cash sales of license plates, documents and brochures is God’s business and no one else’s.

Membership lists are closed as well, and Heaven citizens are impossible to track except by their former worldly identities, which are secret. Revere refused even to utter his former name or that of his wife, Rachel, who once was called Marilyn.

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Revere considers the Kingdom a sovereign nation. He established the outpost in 1987 to serve citizens living in what he calls foreign lands such as Oregon, Utah and Texas. He hopes to have “embassies” in every foreign state someday.

Heaven citizens are accountable only to God, Revere said, and he considers “arbitrary regulation” such as speed limits to be no more than a good idea.

At least a dozen Heaven drivers have been caught speeding in the United States, then carted off to jail for their other-worldly documentation.

Revere said he expects to be arrested again himself for not showing up for his next court date this month, but he doesn’t seem concerned.

“Just because they pretend that we are not God’s people but residents of the state of Oregon,” he said, “doesn’t change anything.”