Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Brethren →
Jerry Royer
This is the fourteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we continue our trek through the 1960s.
A letter to the editor from Don Kaufman in the edition worried that “we have allowed conscientious objection to war to become meaningless by default” in the modern age when war is fought more by machinery than by troops.
He made note of John Howard Yoder’s essay on war tax resistance (see ’s post), and said “it would be interesting to know how many individuals in Mennonite congregations would qualify as authentic C.O.’s if examined on the basis of the U.S. position “which has through its courts held several times that any substantial contribution for war by an individual is legal proof that he is not a genuine objector to war.”
If Christians courageously refused to have their income tax money used for military purposes they would discover that it costs a person something to be a conscientious objector to war, even in the United States of America.
Judging by or record as a Mennonite Church it would appear that we are confused about what it means “to obey God rather than men.”
For example, in our personal life we oppose war (as most Mennonites have throughout their history), but with the money which we earn we support it (as most Mennonites have throughout their history).
Who can honestly say that this is consistent with “the Way of the Cross”?
I suppose the majority of Christians in our day consider it either presumptuous or scandalous when a person refuses to pay war taxes.
And yet if, as Ernest Bromley has observed, the taxpayer now plays the part the soldier used to play, then it becomes imperative that we examine more carefully what it means to pay taxes.
When paying taxes, are we really being faithful citizens of God’s kingdom of love?
A letter in the edition responded that tax resistance, like conscientious objection to military service, probably would have little effect on the government’s ability to wage war.
Further, it is a naive mistake to believe that because a person has not served in the army or paid taxes used for defense, he has not participated in or contributed to what used to be called the war effort.
The maintaining and developing of our defense system is tightly interwoven with our “peaceful” economy.
The company that makes light bulbs also makes jet engines and electronics equipment for the government.
The airplane that takes our Mennonite leaders to meetings and conferences around the world is likely to have been made by the same company that furnishes the Air Force with B‒52’s loaded and ready on the alert pad.
I believe that we support our government indirectly merely by participating in the economy of the country, and that it is now our duty to try to affect policy making, not merely by the indirect methods of “ban the bomb” and alternative service (and perhaps taxes) but by constructive, dynamic participation in government itself.
[D]oes not an ethical decision sometimes involve simply saying “no” to evil as we understand it?
“We mean to do good if possible, but in no case do we intend to do harm” (Milton Mayer).
This seems to be central in the tax refuser’s philosophy, and it may be a lot more realistic and a lot less sentimental than the noble alternative of “dynamic participation in government itself” — whatever that phrase means.
The National Council of Churches convened a conference on church & state issues in .
A Mennonite attendee noted:
In the plenary sessions most discussion centered around the question of civil disobedience.
Can the church ever encourage Christians to refuse payment of income tax?…
The issue reported on the jailing the previous year of Quaker war tax resister Arthur Evans on contempt of court charges for refusing to file an income tax return.
Finally, the edition reprinted “A Call to Income Tax Protest” by four members of the Church of the Brethren: Dale Aukerman, John Forbes, Merle Crouse, and Jerry Royer.
Here is the text of that Call:
The per capita military expenditure of the United States rose from less than $8 in to $268 in .
The Government has been spending less than one million dollars yearly on the problems of disarmament, in contrast to $47 billion on arms, a ratio of one to forty-seven thousand.
C.P. Snow, the eminent British physicist and novelist, has indicated that by some twelve countries, including China, might have nuclear weapons at their disposal.
He warns that, unless much progress is made toward disarmament, “within ten years from now some of those bombs are going off.
We know, with the certainty of statistical proof, that if enough of these weapons are made by enough different states, some of them are going to blow up — through accident, or folly, or madness.”
This letter, primarily to members and friends of the Church of the Brethren, is an appeal that we consider anew as Christians whether we can without protest go on handing over our income tax money when 75 percent of it is used in a way that makes more likely a general destruction of human life on the earth.
Hans de Boer has written, “He who sees a wrong and does not raise an outcry makes himself guilty of the wrong.”
We may feel uneasy about that word outcry.
The effectiveness of protests does not necessarily increase with their loudness.
But to the essential meaning we can perhaps agree: When we see wrong, we should give a strong No.
Our lives should be an agape Yes to God and men and a radical No to evil.
Jesus Christ is God’s Yes to us and His No to sin; and we are called in Him to embody that Yes and No.
American Christianity no longer tends to be a chain of narrow negativisms, but rather a blur of cushiony positives.
This shift has affected American pacifism.
The lament is still often heard that pacifism is understood too negatively.
We might do better to regret that pacifism has become so mildly and acceptably positive.
Alternative service is a highly significant long-range witness.
Its sorry failing is that in America it has so little potency any more as a No.
Draft refusal in France is a jabbing barb in the national conscience.
But America is quite content and even in a way reassured about its moral idealism to have handfuls of 1‒W’s working here and there.
With every lost year thrusting us much closer to the point of no possible disarmament return in the nuclear race it is imperative that we give a far more drastic No to nuclear madness than we have been giving by alternative service.
From Nazareth’s synagogue through the last week in Jerusalem Jesus proclaimed and lived a jolting emphatic No to the folly of His countrymen.
When a building filled with people has caught fire, drastic measures are in order.
Refusal to pay federal income tax for war (matched by a self-imposed alternative tax for peacemaking) has a potency for jarring the public conscience which draft refusal has lost.
For ICBM’s our money is far more necessary than our manpower.
Subservient brainpower is always there.
Along with it the government needs more and more money and can get along with fewer yielded bodies.
When we deprive the government of our tax dollars (even though the amounts and numbers involved be small), we prick the central vital nerve of the military Leviathan, because money — not manpower — is the crucial basis of its present spread.
In earlier periods the draft refusal No of the historic peace churches had considerable impact.
But we in these churches have been slow to see that this No does not at present any more than begin to express the intensity of the No we should be declaring against nuclear war.
It is past time for us to turn from our suburban coziness and discover together new Golden Rules to set forth in.
We should be engaging in more than tax protest but in the deepening crisis, tax protest would seem clearly to join draft refusal as part of the Christian’s minimal No to mass annihilation.
Considerations.
George Macleod of the Iona Community has pointed out, “This is the first age in all Christian history where the majority of Christians have no conscience at all, no principle, nothing to go on, except fear and political consideration.”
And we who can lay claim to having some conscience, haven’t we become pretty insensitive?
Remember the horror you felt in those .
There is little of it left.
Years of living with the ghastly prospects and the all-pervasive deceit of the mass media have lulled us.
The Church of Christ desperately needs horror at what the ultimate nuclear act would mean for man, at what it would be under God.
If we continue right on complacently paying federal income tax, with seventy-five cents out of every dollar going for the Pentagon “answer,” aren’t we lacking in horror, in conscience?
In colonial times and during the Revolutionary War there was much tax refusal by Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren.
An irate critic of the Church of the Brethren charged, “They not only refused to take up arms to repel the savage marauders and prevent the inhuman slaughter of women and children, but they refused in the most positive manner to pay a dollar to support those who were willing to take up arms to defend their home and their firesides, until wrung from them by the stern mandates of the law.
They did the same when the Revolution broke out.
They might at least have furnished money.
But no; not a dollar!”
It is not certain whether this writer referred to taxes or only to the substitutionary sum paid in lieu of the militia draft.
In either case the Brethren then had an alert ethical sensitivity about turning over their money for war.
“But the New Testament says we should pay taxes.”
It does indeed.
But if we hold that, just as it says that we are to obey the state, there are times when we must obey God rather than the state, may there not be times when, lest we go against God, we must not give to Caesar?
Is the exhortation to pay taxes any more an absolute rule than the exhortation to obey the state?
Was it right in the Civil War when conscientious objectors paid the sum the Government demanded of them for the outfitting of substitutes?
Was Thoreau wrong in refusing to pay the special tax levied for fighting the Mexican War?
May there not be at least some situations where tax refusal is justified, and if some, then isn’t the present surely one?
[There were typesetting errors in this paragraph that I have tried to correct, but I’m not confident I got it right.
―♇]
It is true that a portion of national taxes has always gone for war.
Taxes have been a part of the Christian’s involvement in the good and evil of society.
Christians are not to flee from taxes or tainting involvement.
But when the $8 has jumped to $268 and the ratio for arms and for disarmament is forty-seven thousand to one, when preparation for colossal evil has become the central endeavor and expenditure of the state, pressing us further and further along a course leading to the extermination of mankind, isn’t there then for the Christian a freedom and an imperative to say No with all that he is and has?
“But what else can you do?” say most pacifists.
“The Government will get your money anyway.”
That attitude seems suspiciously similar to the one the big majority of people hold about the draft.
Even those whose taxes are withheld can still protest.
No one need be complacent.
To take a stand, in the monetary context, against the nuclear blasphemy is a possibility for us all.
And even if the Government prosecutes (which it usually does not) and takes the tax objector’s money (if he has any), the crucial thing is that the lulled masses hear an incisive Christian No.
“But tax refusal is too extreme.
People just won’t understand.”
Most won’t maybe; but instances of tax refusal will hardly make them blinder about war than they already are.
The prospects are dim for enough people coming to enough common sense to prevent World War Ⅲ.
Yet it is heartening to see how in England the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has been rapidly gaining wide popular and political support.
A great many formerly indifferent people are getting their eyes opened.
This can happen in America too, especially if we reach the phase when the arms race begins to force severe alterations in our opulent pattern of living.
If we can find ways of bringing to people’s attention that the nuclear race is a ghastly dead end, there are many who will listen.
If we bob right along in the whole affluent military-geared rush of society, income taxes and all, can we be expressing a No that will really be noticed?
And if you say for yourself, “Tax refusal is too extreme,” — why?
Are you doing more than indicating an emotional disinclination?
What reasoned Christian case can you make for paying federal income tax in present circumstances?
Possibilities for protest.
Some have changed work so as to get out of the withholding tax setup.
This is nearly out of the question for most in the setup.
Clearly, tax protest is not to be the axis of our lives — nor is peacemaking.
But Jesus Christ, our axis and our peace, can guide us into more forceful witness to His Yes and His No.
Persons of a given area whose taxes are withheld could go together to hand in their returns and protest against the use of their money.
Where such group action is not feasible, the individual can send a letter of protest along with the return and give his protest circulation otherwise.
A person in religious or service work whose tax is being withheld could discuss with his organization what might be done.
Many pacifists keep (or find) their income at a level where they do not need to pay income tax.
This tax avoidance is good in respect to not supporting war; but it usually has little effectiveness as a clear protest.
If a person’s taxes are not automatically withheld (in full), then, whether income be taxable or not, the most forceful stand lies in not filing a return and in making this refusal a focus of one’s broader public No against nuclear war.
Most tax objectors figure that through various indirect taxes they pay their share toward the constructive fraction of governmental activity.
If one pays a fourth of the income tax stipulated, 75 percent of that fourth goes for war.
As a symbol of the Yes that overarches this urgent No
the tax objector will certainly want to give a corresponding voluntary payment, plus no less, say than 20 percent, to some peacemaking program, preferably non-sectarian, like a phase of UN activity or the work of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
This emphasis on giving for peace rather than for war can be crucial in enabling others to see what really is at stake.
The Brethren Service Commission and representatives of the Mennonites and Quakers have begun working for federal legislation allowing an alternative tax.
A Quaker group has drafted “A Proposed Bill” under which it would be national policy in working for enduring peace, and in recognizing freedom of conscience, to provide a proper means by which Federal income taxes of individuals having sincere convictions against military preparations may be designated for the United National International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
(Single copies available free from Peace Committee, Pacific Yearly Meeting of Friends, Box 61, Claremont, California.)
Such legislation will almost certainly not be passed unless there are far more objectors than now.
The present anti-permissive atmosphere does in fact afford better acoustics for the imperative No.
It could be asked, If such a bill becomes law, would you definitely feel that you should take advantage of it and pay the alternative tax?
If so, on what basis can you now decline to take the stand which many must take for such legislation to come?
Isolated tax objectors have at times made a notable witness.
But so much more can be done by groups of Christians acting in concert.
If we are called to act, we are called to act together.
Consider what an impact there might be if twenty — or fifty — Brethren ministers and many others would join in a declaration on why they believe they must refuse lo hand over their money for nuclear war and are giving it for peacemaking.
Might not such a declaration prove to be the most resounding Brethren word against war in a long time?
In , suddenly Brethren couldn’t stop talking about war tax resistance.
By war tax resistance had gone from heresy to something that was considered one possible appropriate Christian response to runaway militarism.
Take, for example, this mention in passing from Ralph E.
Smeltzer’s long essay on “The Church and the World” in the issue of Gospel Messenger:
When the Christian conscience and the demands of the state conflict, as many feel in the case of military service, taxes for military purposes, and defense jobs, the Christian must follow his conscience.
A lengthy war tax resistance letter-to-the-editor on war tax resistance led off that column in the issue (source).
The page scan (here and elsewhere in this volume) is difficult to read in parts, but I’ll try to restore it as best I can:
Taxes for War Purposes
The three of us, two ministers and a layman, have come to the conclusion that we can no longer pay Federal income tax for war.
This may seem an astonishing stand; but much more astonishing is our general Brethren complacency about paying income tax.
In colonial times and during the Revolutionary War there was much tax refusal by Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren.
An irate critic of the Church of the Brethren charged,
“They not only refused to take up arms to repel the savage marauders and prevent the inhuman slaughter of women and children, but they refused in the most positive manner to pay a dollar to support those who were willing to take up arms to defend their homes and their firesides, until wrung from them by the stern mandates of the law.
They did the same when the Revolution broke out. They might at least have furnished money.
But no; not a dollar!”
It is not certain whether this writer referred to taxes or only to the substitutionary sum paid in lieu of the militia draft.
In either case the Brethren then had an alert ethical sensitivity about turning over their money for war.
In the belief that many Brethren are becoming troubled about paying income tax, we submit for fraternal consideration the following statement on income tax refusal.
Because the per capita U.S. military expenditure rose from less than $8 in to $268 in ,
Because approximately 75% of the Federal budget for the past several years has been annually appropriated for military purposes,
Because the government has been spending less than one million dollars yearly on the problems of disarmament, in contrast to $47 billion on arms, a ratio of one to forty-seven thousand,
Because there is so little national conscience about what nuclear war would mean for man, what it would be under God,
We find ourselves constrained by the love of Christ to refuse paying Federal income tax and instead are giving a corresponding amount, plus no less than 20%, to UN or other peacemaking programs.
We reject, as blasphemy against Christ, the prevailing readiness to exterminate hundreds of millions, or even all mankind, in order to “defend our values, our faith.”
Since modern technological warfare is much more dependent on huge amounts of money than on manpower, we believe that refusal to turn over our bodies is not enough; we can no longer turn over our dollars for the present rush t[o our] mass annihilation. Let West an[d East] really take total disarmament a[s our] goal, and not merely toy with it [under] the pressure of world public o[pinion] as till now.
We do not discount the cons[tructive] aspects of Federal activity, a[nd we] welcome governmental endeavo[rs that] do make for peace. But with t[he best] prospects for disarmament fadi[ng fast] and the population of East and [West] mostly unaware of the imminen[ce of] and the certainty of disaster if [these] policies continue, we are impe[lled to] income tax refusal as a way of [calling] others to hear God’s warning:
[“I have] set before you this day life and [good, and] death and evil. Therefore choo[se life,] that you and your descendant[s may] live, loving the Lord your God, [obey]ing his voice, and cleaving to [Him.”]
Those interested in discussi[ng this] difficult issue should write Dal[e] [Auk]erman, Bechlinghoven bei [?] Glueckstrasse 3, Germany. [Dale] Aukerman, John Forbes, and [Jerry] Royer.
That letter got an enthusiastic reply from Dale Rummel in the issue (source):
Church Should Take a Stand
I read the letter on “Taxes for War Purposes,” by Dale Aukerman, John Forbes, and Jerry Royer in [the] Gospel Messenger for [.
I] feel that they are trying, const[ruc]tively, to reach the answer [to the] problem that has been plaguing Christians since the two world wars.
I would like to see Annual Conference take action along the line[s of] their statement.
Our government can crush individuals when they take a stand which is “illegal.”
But if an organization like our whole Brotherhood took this stand and backed up [the] individuals who carried it out, [there] is much more chance for its [doing] some lasting good. I believe, [also] that if we take this stand [other] denominations will join us in it[.]
This is no time for the Brethren to become fearful and cowardly [and] be afraid to step forward and [go] where we know it is right to [go].
Let us, with God’s guidance, go [for]ward, regardless of the phy[sical] consequences, in what we know [is] right.
A note in the issue (source) said that the Michigan district conference had asked the Annual conference to “study the possibilities of making the pacifist movement a political force in our country” by, among other means:
Attempting to work out a proposal for an alternative tax arrangement, so that the taxes of those who object to war on conscientious grounds may be used for peaceful and constructive goals of government.
In the issue, J.
Robert Boyer encouraged his readers to take more courageous stands for their faith, and not like Peter deny Christ three times before the cock crows.
One example he gives of when one might take a stand: “Will you send your tax money to Cape Canaveral, where missiles are launched to kill the enemy?”
The following letter from Charles E. and Cleda P. Zunkel appeared in the issue (source):
No Tax for War Purposes
In keeping with our pronouncements concerning war, the last of which was made at the Annual Conference at Richmond, Va., we Brethren have encouraged our young men to seek alternative service, in lieu of military service.
Our young men, who have followed our teaching, have borne most of the brunt of this course of action.
Have we, their parents, kept faith with them, as we have continued to pay our income tax money, 75% of which has gone for the support of military preparedness and war? I think we have not.
Some of our young men have challenged us to action, by appealing to us to cease paying the 75% of our income tax which goes to military purposes.
It seems high time that we oldsters make our witness for peace, as we have asked our youth to make theirs.
My wife and I have been spurred to action by this appeal of our youth, and by the recent appeal of our President for $2 billion more to be added to an already staggering sum for military might.
The accompanying letter was sent to the Internal Revenue Service and to our President to clarify our position.
It seems to us that we are called upon to make clear our faith and our action, in keeping with our historic understanding of the life and teachings of our Lord.
Director of Internal Revenue,
Richmond, Virginia.
President John F. Kennedy
White House
Washington, D.C.
Dear Sirs:
Since the late 1920’s we have been conscientious objectors to war, in the settlement of international disputes.
We believe in the historic faith of our church, The Church of the Brethren, that “all war is sin.
We, therefore, cannot encourage, engage in, or willingly profit from armed conflict at home or abroad.
We cannot in the event of war accept military service or support the military machine in any capacity.”
Believing as we have, we have had guilty consciences as we have seen our nation increase its military preparedness.
We have been aware that approximately 75% of all our income tax money has been spent for war, preparation for war, or mainten[ance] of military might. In 1938 the [total] military expenditure was $8 [per] capita; in 1958 it had risen to [$268] per capita.
From time to time, as we [have] filed our income tax returns, we [have] in letters to the government, [pro]tested this use of our money. [We] suggested that there be some [pro]vision whereby these funds now [used] for military expenditures be used [for] peaceful pursuits, such as the fee[ding] of the hungry of the world [and] the aid to underprivileged [people] through technical assistance.
Thus far, our protests have [not] been regarded. On , our local newspaper carried the notice that you, President Kennedy, were asking for $2 [billion] more than the amount already [pro]posed for military defense, ma[king] a total asking of $43,794,300,000[.]
Recently, we learned that two [nu]clear scientists warned the Nat[ional] Education Association in its co[nven]tion that we in the United States already have enough manufact[ured] fissionable material to blot ou[t all] life from the face of the entire [earth] and leave it pock-marked and vo[id like] the face of the moon.
In all good conscience, we ca[n no] longer give 75% of our income [tax] money for the support of mil[itary] might.
We are not opposed to pa[ying] tax, but rather, to paying tax for [that] purpose.
We feel as guilty as if [we] were giving our lives in the pro[gram] of the military method of settling international disputes.
Therefore, we are filing our income tax report as usual, paying [the] full tax for , but paying [only] 25% of the tax due for the first [quarter] of 1961.
The other 75% of our [income] tax will be given in quarterly [install]ments to the church, in addition [to] the 15% or more we already [give.]
We hope the time may [speedily] come when such vast military expenditures may cease, and the [money] so spent may be used to relieve [the] suffering and need in our world.
[We] hope, further, that in the [mean] time some alternative tax plan [may] be worked out whereby conscientious objectors may give their [tax] money to peaceful pursuits, just [as] young men may serve in alternative service in lieu of the military service.
The Gospel Messenger editor, Kenneth Morse, endorsed peace protest in general in his editorial, and war tax resistance as one possible protest: “Consider also the personal decision of the moderator of Annual Conference and his wife with regard to taxation for war purposes… It is always easy to criticize the stand that others take. But please note that some have at least taken a stand.”
A response from Jack Kline, however, in the issue, took issue with tax resistance on the usual render-unto-Cæsar grounds (source): “I think it well to protest the high military expenditure.
But the type of letter that was written to Mr.
Kennedy and to the Internal Revenue Department I think does not show good grace.
I am a bit embarrassed that leaders in our own church would write that type of letter and refuse to pay taxes which our Lord distinctly told the Jews, under a military occupation, they should pay.”
There was another dissent, from John L.
Mohler, in the issue (source).
His objection was more on the grounds of democratic political theory: “[B]y participating on the economic life of our national community and accepting our incomes from it, we obligate ourselves to payment of the tax which, by democratic procedures, a majority of our citizens have imposed upon us.” Mohler felt that if you were going to conscientiously object to the taxes on your income, you should do so by refusing the income in the first place: “It seems to me that, in the case of refusal to pay taxes, the removal [of the dissenter from the democratically-chosen endeavors] should precede and prevent acceptance of the income on which the tax is paid.” But he didn’t think that was such a great idea either.
He felt that the tax resister’s quest to morally isolate himself from the decisions of the democratic polis was futile, and that he should instead accept his share of guilt for those decisions and begin from there.
On the other hand, Virgil Rose, in a letter in the issue (source) “was moved with deep spiritual elation” by the news of Brethren war tax resisters.
Rose tried to contradict some of the arguments against war tax resistance.
For example, the individual contribution to the modern war budget, he says, dwarfs the tiny head tax in Judea that Jesus spoke of, and so they cannot be directly compared; and the idea that he straightforwardly counseled the payment of a tax to Rome contradicts the whole point of the render-unto-Cæsar parable.
Rose also wasn’t impressed with Mohler’s democratic theory, though as I interpret it, it seems they were talking past each other on this point (Mohler responded in the issue).
His conclusion:
Let us not shrug off the pricks of conscience that disturb us as we witness the courageous decisions these Brethren are marking.
What defense have we before God if knowingly and without protest we supply money to buy instruments for the destruction of our fellow men?
Russ Montgomery also chimed in, in the issue (source). “I would like to congratulate [Charles Zunkel] on the courage to take such a stand.
When such bold action is taken by leaders it seems to make them worthy of the name.”
The issue brought an update about Maurice McCrackin (source):
Presbytery Suspends Minister Who Refused to Pay Income Tax
The Rev. Maurice F.
McCrackin, pacifist Presbyterian minister who for some twelve years has refused to pay a major portion of his income taxes, has been suspended indefinitely by the Cincinnati Presbytery from his ministry.
Mr.
McCrackin has been pastor of the West Cincinnati-St. Barnabas church, a racially integrated mission congregation supported jointly by the Cincinnati Presbytery and the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio.
A spokesman for the Presbytery explained that Mr. McCrackin was suspended not for his stand on income taxes but for disobeying the law by ignoring a summons from the Internal Revenue Service, an offense for which he served a six-month prison sentence.
Many of the minister’s parishioners were reported sympathetic with his refusal to pay most of his income taxes on the ground that they were used for military purposes and that war is a sin.
The lead editorial in the issue (Morse again) again promoted conscientious tax resistance:
Just about the time that Valentine Byler, an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania, was ready to start his spring plowing, the Interal Revenue Service seized his three work horses and sold them at auction.
The reason was that Byler, who is conscientiously opposed to Social Security, had refused to pay a self-employment tax for that purpose.
Many members of the Amish sect regard Social Security as a form of insurance, and they are opposed to it. They have consistently refused to accept its benefits and do not take a Social Security number. While agreeing to the normal taxes on their property, they object to paying the Social Security tax required of farmers.
Thus we have another of those ironical situations in which the government finds itself [ba]nishing some of its most thrifty and self-reliant citizens.
Fortunately, as a result of the Byler case, several bills have now been introduced in Congress which would allow persons who are conscientiously opposed to Social Security to be excused from participating either in its support or its benefits.
We hope that some legal provision can be made for the benefit of those independent persons who have such scruples.
Many of us who would argue in favor of Social Security and even urge that it become available to more people still recognize the rights of conscience.
We respect the integrity of citizens who, like the Amish, may have some unique ideas as to how they contribute to the general welfare.
At the same time, is it not just as reasonable for the federal government to give some consideration to the scruples of citizens who are conscientiously opposed to paying taxes for war purposes?
A friend who is employed in the Treasury Department tells us it should not be too difficult for Congress to set up a general fund for nonmilitary purposes to which the tax payments of peace-minded citizens could be directed.
This would not satisfy all the concerns raised by taxprotesters, but it might at least provide an alternative more acceptable than the present arrangement.
A wise government should be able to find some way of conserving the conscientious contributions of citizens who cannot conform to policies they regard as wrong but who still desire to serve in constructive ways.
In the issue, an S.
Mohler (no idea if there’s any relation to the John Mohler referred to above) wrote in (source).
This letter began by saying that “in recent years I have read about a few Brethren suffering imprisonment for refusing to pay income taxes, because of the government’s military use of them.” I think this cannot be factually correct, as there were not very many Brethren war tax resisters at this point, and I don’t know of any who had yet been imprisoned for it.
Be that as it may, Mohler continues by saying that such “imprisonment for nonpayment of income taxes can be honorably and approvedly avoided” by increasing tax-deductible charitable contributions to the point where you do not owe taxes.
Mohler suggests that this is the method he or she has been using for “the past ten or fifteen years.”
Andrew R. Shelly, of the Board of Missions in the General Conference Mennonite Church, wrote in to second that suggestion, in the issue (source).
“Why should we not adjust our lives so that we can give very much more and at the same time materially reduce that which we pay directly to the war effort?”
(See ♇ 5 September and 9 September 2018 for Shelly’s contributions on this theme to the Mennonite Gospel Herald.)
The Brethren Evangelist was much more restrained in its coverage.
They did publish this wire service piece about Maurice McCrackin in the issue (source):
Presbytery Suspends Minister Who Wouldn’t Pay Income Taxes
Cincinnati, O. (EP)—
A pacifist Presbyterian minister who for some 12 years has refused to pay a major portion of his income taxes, has now been suspended indefinitely by the Cincinnati Presbytery.
The move not only halts his ministry but prevents his receiving communion in the church.
The Rev. Maurice F. McCrackin has been pastor of the West Cincinnati-St. Barnabas Church, a racially integrated mission congregation supported jointly by the Cincinnati Presbytery and the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio.
An Episcopal diocese spokesman explained that although the mission is a co-operative project in its religious program, disciplinary jurisdiction rests with the Presbytery since Mr. McCrackin is an ordained Presbyterian clergyman.
A spokesman for the Presbytery said that Mr. McCrackin has appealed this suspension to the Presbyterian Synod of Ohio, but it was reported unofficially that his only hope for reinstatement would be a formal declaration to the Presbytery that he would pay his income taxes in the future.
It was explained that Mr. McCrackin was suspended not for his stand on income taxes, but for disobeying the law by ignoring a summons from the Internal Revenue Service, an offense for which he served a six-month prison sentence.
Presbytery has been studying the case for nearly a year.
I did not notice any mentions of war tax or war bond refusal in The Etownian, The Pilgrim, the Brethren Missionary Herald, or Bible Monitor in .
