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Mennonite General Conference midtriennium conference on war tax issues, 1979
This is the twenty-fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today brings us up to 1977.
In our last episode we watched various executive committees and commissions and boards in the Mennonite General Conference pass the buck back and forth as the Conference impatiently waited to learn whether they would or would not continue to withhold taxes from the paychecks of their conscientiously objecting employees.
The board [General Board, I think ―♇] was sharply divided on whether to grant the employee’s request and thus risk violating tax regulations.
Board members also could not agree on whether the issue should be decided by the board or wait for action by the entire conference at the triennial sessions in .
Cornelia Lehn, the employee bringing the request, met with the board for the first time and told them, “It was also a very difficult decision for me over a long period of years.
Finally I gave up seeing through the difficulties; for me, I simply had to obey God and leave the consequences up to him.”
The resolution reviews the history of General Conference discussion of the war tax issues from a sentence in the statement “The Way of Peace” [see ♇ 22 July 2018] to General Board deliberations on an employee’s request that war taxes not be taken out of her paycheck.
The resolution asks that congregations and regional conferences “commit ourselves to a serious study of civil disobedience during , that the Commission on Home Ministries help facilitate such a study… and that a midtriennium miniconference be convened for congregations to report on their study and to recommend actions related to civil disobedience and war tax resistance, including the question of Mennonite institutions serving as war tax collectors for the state by withholding these taxes from employees.”
In three separate votes, the delegates first turned down, 1,190 to 336, an amendment which would have adopted an interim policy for eighteen months “instructing the conference to honor the requests of those employees who ask not to have withheld from their salaries that portion of federal income tax they believe helps the government prepare for war.”
The next evening, delegates adopted, 1,178½ to 453½, the main motion.
Its effect is to delay any action on the request of conference employee Cornelia Lehn that federal income taxes that would go for war not be taken out of her paycheck.
It also calls for a midtriennium official delegate conference to recommend actions related to civil disobedience and war tax resistance, including the question of Mennonite institutions serving as war tax collectors for the state by withholding these taxes from employees.
A second resolution that evening gave General Conference endorsement to the World Peace Tax Fund Act in the U.S. Congress and encouraged similar legislation in Canada, if appropriate.
The act would allow conscientious objectors to war to designate the military portion of their taxes into the peace fund.
The resolution also “continue(s) to support individuals who feel compelled by Chrisian conscience to adopt other methods of witness against payment of war taxes such as voluntary reduction of income or nonpayment of war taxes.”
Cornelia Lehn tells of her struggle with war taxes.
Discussion of the war tax withholding issue began with a testimony by Ms. Lehn, who writes and edits children’s curriculum for the Commission on Education, who first came to the conference business manager two years ago with a request that she be allowed to resist payment of war taxes.
Presently the business office is following federal regulations that estimated taxes be withheld from each employee’s paycheck.
The regulations do not apply, however, to ordained persons employed by the conference, some of whom are resisting voluntary payment of war taxes without implicating the conference as a whole.
“It is a long journey from the little Mennonite village in the Ukraine, where I was born, to Newton, Kansas,” she began.
“It was a long pilgrimage until I came to the conviction to resist war taxes and was able to act on it.”
Ms. Lehn told of her struggle with the command to pay taxes, on the one hand, and the knowledge that her tax dollars were being used for killing.
“I can’t extricate myself from the system, but I finally have to take a stand against a demonic armaments race,” she said.
“I do not know where this will lead, but… for my part, I must obey the Spirit of God as I understand it to be revealed in the Bible and leave the consequences to God.”
Delegates kept coming to the microphones to speak to the resolution until debate was cut off.
“As a pastor, I could not advocate civil disobedience,” said Dan Dalke of Bluffton.
“The taxes Jesus said to pay were to the Roman Government,” said a former IRS employee.
“I have proper respect for laws, but I also recognize that if Felix Manz, Conrad Grebel, and Menno Simons had had greater fear for the law than for God, we would probably not be here today,” commented Lauren Friesen, pastor from Seattle.
“This morning we passed a resolution supporting missionaries for acting faithfully in oppressive situations abroad,” said Steve Linscheid of Goessel, Kansas.
“We should not expect more from our missionaries than we are willing to do ourselves.”
“Many people are concerned about our tax dollar, but we should work much harder trying to come to a common mind with other Mennonite groups,” said Henry A. Fast of North Newton, Kansas.
“We should keep on pushing the World Peace Tax Fund Act.”
Donovan Smucker of Kitchener, Ontario, cited many Christians throughout the ages who have obeyed God rather than man and said, “The problem is, When do you stop the democratic process that is pushing you into something that is evil?”
“It’s best to work through the system and use the privileges we already have,” said Art Waltner.
“Our right to conscientious objection to military service did not come through petition in Washington,” Ted Koontz of Boston reminded the delegates.
“It came because our forefathers spent years in prison in World War Ⅰ.”
The World Peace Tax Fund resolution, which supports legislation to allow people to resist war taxes without breaking the law, passed later in the evening by voice vote without audible opposition.
Most of the U.S. district conferences had already adopted resolutions supporting the proposed legislation.
In a way, this was more of a triumph than a defeat for the promoters of war tax resistance.
If the triennium had voted the other way, one employee, and maybe a handful more, would have benefited somewhat from the new policy.
But by voting this way, the triennium prompted discussions in every Mennonite congregation about whether or not war tax resistance was the right thing to do.
There was… lengthy deliberation about the midtriennium civil disobedience conference called for by a Bluffton resolution.
One of the main concerns was whether Canadian churches would see the issue of civil disobedience and war tax as relevant to them.
Would they send delegates?
Another worry was whether delegates would carry a large number of proxy votes.
The constitution of the General Conference allows for a quorum with 50 percent representation, and since one delegate can carry up to twenty-five votes by proxy, it would be possible for forty persons to make a decision affecting the whole conference.
About 1,000 votes are needed for a quorum.
The hope was expressed that the study process being initiated would create good interest and also broadly based, informed representation.
Beginning in an attitudinal survey on civil disobedience is scheduled.
A study guide is to be ready by for use in Sunday school sessions and other study groups.
A definite place and time for the midtriennium conference will be decided later, though is a strong possibility.
Already the executive committee is faced with a question of civil disobedience.
Only a few days prior to the meeting the Newton office received notice from the Internal Revenue Service of the United States to pay personal income taxes owed by Heinz Janzen (general secretary) and his wife, Dorothea Janzen.
Since Heinz is ordained, it is legal for him to categorize himself as self-employed, and hence, his salary check from the General Conference has no income tax deductions.
he has been refusing to pay the military portion of his income tax, placing it in a bank account, and informing the IRS of his reasons.
Until this levy arrived the IRS has simply confiscated the bank accounts of such persons and withdrawn the unpaid portion from the accounts.
Now the IRS has demanded that the General Conference employer be responsible for paying Heinz’s unpaid tax out of Heinz’s salary check.
The executive committee decided to delay a decision on the IRS levy until the meeting of the General Board.
They were concerned that any action in the current case is not to be seen as a predetermination of the issues which by Bluffton conference resolution are to come before the midtriennial conference.
They did, however, see the levy as different from the request of General Conference employee Cornelia Lehn to have the military portion of her tax not withheld from her salary check by the General Conference.
The Janzen case is seen as civil disobedience by individuals and not by the incorporated body, the General Conference.
This is the twenty-fifth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I’m going to try to cover 1978.
I say “try” because there was a frenzy of war tax resistance activity reported in The Mennonite .
Maybe I can try to sort it thematically…
A New Call to Peacemaking
“A New Call to Peacemaking” was an initiative coordinated by Mennonite, Quaker, and Brethren activists that began in and would eventually culminate in a statement urging people, Christians in particular, to refuse to pay taxes for war.
The Mennonite General Conference’s Peace Section,
U.S. division, met
and its executive secretary, John K. Stoner, reported that the Call
“has
gained widespread support.”
Invited to the meeting are 300 persons — Brethren, Friends, and Mennonites.
Named the New Call to Peacemaking, this coalition of historic peace churches
believes that “the time has come for all Christians and people of all faiths
to renounce war on religious and moral grounds.”
During the last year twenty-six regional New Call to Peacemaking meetings, involving more than 1500 persons, took a new look at the teachings of their churches.
They gave special attention to war and violence which they continue to see as denials of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Not surprisingly the groups agreed to urge upon all governments “effective
steps toward international disarmament.” However, none of the regional
meetings expressed the hope that politicians, soldiers, and diplomats would
put an end to war. Rather, the thought was that people at the grass-roots
level must demand a change in the system. Further, the idea was often
expressed that tax resistance and civil disobedience are necessary tactics in
convincing governments that a new order can bring security in place of the
present insecurity.
A New Call to Peacemaking conference which convened at Old Chatham, New York, last April, asked itself rhetorically, “Are we going to pray for peace, and pay for war?” A similar conference in Wichita, Kansas, gave its encouragement to “individuals who feel called to resist the payment of the military portion of their federal taxes.”
When the national conference convenes in Green Lake it will be receiving
requests from the regional meetings for a strong position on tax resistance
proposals. It will also be asked to give guidance to individuals and church
organizations on approaches to tax resistance. Theological, economic, and
social justice issues are also on the agenda.
“Citizens should organize themselves and act without waiting for government, especially the major powers, to take positive action,” says Robert Johansen in a paper being studied by the Green Lake delegates.
In another document prepared for the Green Lake meeting, Lois Barrett, a
Mennonite journalist from Wichita, Kansas, notes that the peace churches have
long “recognized refusal to pay war taxes as one of many valid witnesses
against war.”
In the Church of the Brethren recommended “that all who feel the concern be encouraged to express their protest and testimonies through letters accompanying their tax returns, whether accompanied by payment or not.” In the General Conference Mennonite Church said, “We stand by those who feel called to resist the payment of that portion of taxes being used for military purposes.”
The number of persons within the peace churches actually withholding a portion
of their taxes is still thought to be small, but it is growing. The Internal
Revenue Service will not release figures on the number of tax resisters in the
United States.
Members of the Green Lake planning group include John K. Stoner, Mennonite Central Committee, Akron, Pennsylvania; Lorton Heusel, Friends United Meeting, Richmond, Indiana; and Chuck Boyer, Church of the Brethren, Elgin, Illinois.
Coordinator for the New Call to Peacemaking is Robert J. Rumsey, Plainfield, Indiana.
After the gathering, The Mennonite seemed surprised at how tame and nonconfrontational it ended up being (they titled their article “Peacemakers shy away from shocking anyone”).
Excerpts:
The Green Lake conference is part of a cooperative effort by the historic peace groups to do five things — stir up rededication to the Christian peace witness, clarify the biblical basis for it, extend a call to the larger church to see peacemaking as a gospel imperative, propose actions the U.S. Government can take for peacemaking, and determine contemporary positive strategy for peace and justice.
Planning for the consultation began in and has included 26 regional meetings in 16 different areas of the United States.
Over 1500 people were involved in these meetings.
[Church of the Brethren theologian and professor Dale] Brown said one new way of expressing a peace witness was to protest the country’s military expenditures by withholding income taxes.
Tax resistance, he reflected, is an important symbol because it involves our pocketbooks and enlarges the peace witness beyond what 17- and 18-year-old youth do in response to conscription.
[T]he findings committee created a final document satisfying the diverse peaceniks.
For the conservative the final statement was too radical; for the activists it was too limp.
There are two main thrusts to the document — actions that are directed inward
among the peace churches to enhance the integrity of the peace witness, and
actions that are directed outward to enlarge the visibility of the peace
witness.
At the end of the national New Call to Peacemaking conference delegates urged all Friends (Quakers), Mennonites, and Brethren to firmly oppose militarism and to become personally involved in the struggle for justice for the oppressed.
Included in the final paper approved is a call to the 400,000 members of the three peace church
traditions “to seriously consider refusal to pay the military portion of their
federal taxes as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.” This
statement is as strong as the 300 delegates could jointly affirm.
Other parts of the war tax statement are equally muted.
In the first draft of the paper, church and conference agencies were asked to “honor” the requests of employees who do not want the military portion of their taxes remitted to the government.
In the final draft, however, “honor” is changed to “enter into dialogue with.” Several evangelical Quakers were especially antagonistic to even including a reference to war tax resistance in the final document.
Yet tax resistance received new encouragement from the conference.
About 60 persons attended a Saturday afternoon workshop which detailed tax resistance strategies.
Studying the War Tax Issue and Christian Civil Responsibility
The Mennonite General Conference had been asked to stop withholding taxes from the paycheck of one of its conscientiously objecting employees.
This led to a long debate over the advisability of such a policy that caused arguments about war tax resistance to echo throughout the Conference in .
A special General Conference delegate session was scheduled to convene in just to respond to this single issue.
In preparation for that session, congregations had been encouraged to put some
serious effort into understanding the subject, and some studies were written up
to help guide these investigations.
A Christian’s response to civil authority will be given concentrated emphasis by the General Conference during .
The study is an outcome of a resolution at the triennial conference in Bluffton, Ohio, .
That resolution called for a thorough study of civil disobedience which is intended to state an official position of the General Conference with respect to that portion of income taxes which are used for funding military expenditures, and in general, to research the whole question of obedience-disobedience to civil authority.
Responsibility for the study has been given to the peace and social concerns
committee of the Commission on Home Ministries. They, however, requested that
a special obedience-civil disobedience committee be formed to give general
direction and leadership. This latter group consists of Palmer Becker, Ted
Stuckey, John Gaeddert, Harold Regier, Perry Yoder, and Heinz Janzen.
To date three major aspects of the study have been planned — an attitudinal survey, an invitational consultation in , and a study guide to be ready by .
Included in the survey are twenty-eight questions with responses varying from
“strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” chosen to provide an inventory of
congregational attitudes towards the authority of the church, and of the
state. It will also indicate attitudes to particular issues such as abortion,
capital punishment, and payment of taxes for military purposes. A copy of the
questionnaire will be sent to every congregation to be duplicated locally.
A second major happening is scheduled for at Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana.
An invitational consultation will bring together about thirty participants, including persons not committed to civil disobedience.
The gathering will include administrative personnel from the General Conference, lawyers, biblical scholars, as well as representatives from Mennonite Central Committee and the Mennonite Church.
It is expected that the study guide will evolve from the proceedings of the
consultation. Five of the thirteen lessons in the guide will focus on
peacemaking in a technological society. What sort of peacemaking should
Mennonites be about in an age of nuclear warfare and worldwide arms shipments?
The remaining eight lessons will center about the meaning of civil
disobedience. Was it practiced in the Bible? Is nonpayment of taxes a case in
point?
The study process will culminate in the special midtriennium conference scheduled for .
That gathering will be an official decision-making conference to which congregational delegates will come.
At that point a decision on the meaning and practice of civil disobedience will be made.
After the conference the questionnaire
will again be used to determine whether the churchwide discussion on
obedience-civil disobedience has generated any changes in attitudes.
A few more details came after the Commission on Home Ministries met in , and, according to The Mennonite:
Perry Yoder, part-time CHM staff member, outlined the process planned for dealing with the war tax or civil responsibility issue raised at the Bluffton conference.
Because of this issue’s “divisive and emotional potential in the conference,” a survey instrument has been designed to get congregational input; a consultation at the seminary will work toward a study guide, and congregations will be encouraged to use the study in preparation for a special General Conference delegate session at Minneapolis, called solely for the purpose of responding to the Bluffton resolution on tax withholding.
Another article said this study guide would be “available [and] will look at present militarism in North America, previous acts of dissent by Mennonites, and biblical texts on dissent, payment of taxes, and corporate action.”
During the first session on , board members locked onto the planning for the midtriennium conference on war taxes and civil responsibility.
Uneasiness about the process erupted quickly.
The structure of the invitational consultation on the issue was strongly faulted, as was the conference itself.
Board member Ken Bauman, pastor of First Mennonite Church in Berne, Indiana,
galvanized his colleagues with his allegations. “The consultation is not
structured for dialogue — it is monologue. The way it has been set up upsets
me deeply.” Later he declared that the Commission on Home Ministries should
not serve as the launching pad for the study and the planning leading to the
conference in . “Why ask
CHM?
The image of
CHM
is stacked. It should be the responsibility of the General Board.”
His assessment was the beginning of a fruitful debate which occupied several more sessions of the General Board, one session of CHM and hallway discussions.
The debate crystallized about several key questions. What is wrong with the
study process initiated by the obedience-civil disobedience committee of
CHM?
Is the issue of war taxes so divisive that a schism in the General Conference
is inevitable? Is the delegate
conference viable?
By , perhaps symbolically, the hard-hitting process of charge and countercharge had evolved into understanding and affirmation of the original plans.
On paper, little had changed, but in the minds of those who spoke for the “unheard,” — the “conservatives,” the “common person,” and the Canadians — there was a restoration of confidence in the process.
Tenseness was dissipated.
The mood became one of working together.
The consultation will meet at Mennonite
Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana. About twenty-five persons are invited.
These include theologians and biblical scholars, attorneys, administrative
staff of the General Conference, several
MCC
staff, and representatives from the Mennonite Church and the Mennonite
Brethren Church. The proceedings of the consultation are to serve as the basis
for a study guide on civil disobedience.
The committee planning the consultation and the midtriennium conference was called in to justify its ideas.
One member, Perry Yoder, observed, “Getting people to participate is very difficult.
People are very tense about this.”
“We thought the trust level would be quite high,” said another member, Harold
Regier. “Requests for speakers were made on the basis of scholarship and the
purpose is biblical. It is not a matter of pro or con.”
“We don’t know where the scholars will come out,” declared Don Steelberg, chairperson of CHM. (A complete list of scholars invited is not yet available — some are still considering the invitation.)
It was noted that since the concern on abortion had been handled insensitively
at the Bluffton conference, there was fear that the same thing would happen
with the issue of war taxes. So why should those who oppose withholding war
taxes bother to participate? They won’t be heard anyway.
Another fear was that the Canadians would also stay away. “My gut reaction is that it is a U.S. issue,” said board member Loretta Fast.
She was challenged on that.
“Don’t Canadians also pay military taxes?” queried Ben Sprunger.
“Yes,” replied another Canadian board member, Jake Klassen, “but we have not gone through the trauma and frustrations of the Vietnam War."
Hence, if both the Canadians and those opposed to withholding war taxes stayed
away from the delegate
conference, the gathering would be a farce. The conference would not be viable
if large blocs of delegates simply weren’t there.
For a brief time the board lost nerve.
Should the conference be canceled?
However, chairman Elmer Neufeld injected reality by reflecting, “The issue is not going to go away.
So, what is the next step?"
Over the board
recovered confidence in itself, in the planning already done, in the
possibility of bringing the dissenters into dialogue, despite differences in
theology and nationality, and in the voice of the discerning church. “I came
to the Mennonite church because of discerning congregations. If we cannot
discern in a process like this, then we have missed the boat,” reflected Don
Steelberg.
That was the next step.
They reminded themselves that the Anabaptist movement grew out of several
forms of civil disobedience.
They decided to adjust some of the personnel for the consultation.
They decided to promote serious study of the civil responsibility issue among congregations so that delegates would be conversant with it.
They decided to book the Leamington Hotel in Minneapolis as the place for the midtriennium conference.
The General Board also affirmed the action of its executive committee when they refused to pay a tax levy from the Internal Revenue Service.
The personal income taxes are owed by Heinz Janzen (general secretary) and his wife, Dorothea Janzen.
Under U.S. tax laws an ordained minister is self-employed, is not subject to normal payroll deductions, and hence, Heinz has refused to pay the military portion of his income tax.
Normally the
IRS
simply confiscates the amount owed from the bank account of the person
protesting. But with the levy the
IRS is
attempting to collect directly from the General Conference as employer. The
General Board agreed with the executive committee that the Janzen case is
civil disobedience by individuals, and not by an incorporated body, the
General Conference.
Editor Bernie Wiebe, himself based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, wrote an editorial for the edition expressing his unease about the direction Canada was taking, at how blasé his fellow-Canadian Mennonites were about it, and at how comparatively little concern there seemed to be there about the war tax issue that was roiling the Conference:
I am uneasy because I don’t hear my brothers and sisters protest against Ottawa.
Somehow we manage to wash our hands and keep pointing at the Pentagon…
At Bluffton, the majority voted for a midtriennium conference on the war-tax
issue. Every discussion I have since heard on this subject turns to the fear
that the Canadian third of the General Conference may refuse to participate;
after all, that’s a
U.S. question.
The conference was meant to bring in experts on the question who could help better inform the upcoming debate.
Participants in the General Conference Mennonite Church invitational consultation on civil responsibility have been named and the schedule outlined.
The consultation will convene
at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Elkhart, Indiana.
Beginning , Ted Stuckey and Reg Toews, representing the business administration arms of the General Conference and Mennonite Central Committee respectively, will present information on the administrative dimensions of the war tax question.
The question, Is there a biblical case for civil disobedience? will be the
focus of scholarly input Friday morning. Millard Lind, professor at AMBS,
will speak from an Old Testament perspective; confirmation from the scholar
asked to provide a New Testament analysis is still pending.
A more specific look at the issue of war taxes is scheduled for .
Is civil disobedience called for in this specific case?
David Schroeder, professor at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Winnipeg, and Kenneth Bauman, pastor of First Mennonite Church in Berne, Indiana, will speak to the question.
Erland Waltner, president of Mennonite Biblical Seminary, will respond.
Corporate action and individual conscience is the theme for
. Speaking to this are J.
Lawrence Burkholder, president of Goshen (Indiana) College, and William
Keeney, professor at Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas. Another person has
yet to confirm acceptance. Peter Ediger, pastor of the Arvada Mennonite
Church, will respond.
Elvin Kraybill, legal counsel for Mennonite Central Committee, will talk about legal questions related to civil disobedience.
Responding to his presentation are Duane Heffelbower, a member of the Division of Administration of the General Conference, and Ruth Stoltzfus, an attorney living in Linville, Virginia.
In addition to the formal input, various church leaders and administrative
staff will contribute to the consultation. These people are Heinz Janzen,
general secretary of the General Conference; Harold Regier and Perry Yoder,
cosecretaries of peace and social concerns of the General Conference; John
Gaeddert, executive secretary of the Commission on Education; William Snyder,
executive secretary of
MCC;
Urbane Peachey, executive secretary for
MCC
Peace Section; Hubert Schwartzentruber, secretary for peace and social
concerns of the Mennonite Church; Ed Enns, executive secretary of the
Congregational Resources Board of the Canadian Conference; Peter Janzen,
pastor, representing the Canadian Conference.
Six persons will form the findings committee.
They are John Sprunger, pastor, Indian Valley Mennonite Church, Harleysville, Pennsylvania; Palmer Becker, executive secretary of the Commission on Home Ministries; Elmer Neufeld, president of the General Conference; Hugo Jantz, chairperson of MCC (Canada); John Stoner, executive secretary for MCC Peace Section (U.S.); and Larry Kehler, pastor of the Charleswood Mennonite Church, Winnipeg.
Kehler is also the writer for the study guide which is to be published by fall.
[T]he issue was how Mennonite institutions should respond to those employees who request that the military portion of their income taxes not be withheld by the employer.
Several Mennonite organizations are facing the issue. The General Conference
is seeking the will of its 60,000 members in answering such a request from one
of its employees, Cornelia Lehn. The consultation in Elkhart was one part of
the discerning process leading to a delegate assembly, and a decision in
.
Bible scholars, theologians, pastors, administrators, attorneys — twenty-nine persons in all — presented papers, exchanged insights, and probed the issue.
Much of their analysis will be incorporated into a study guide to be published by .
There was general agreement that militarism and the nuclear arms buildup are a
massive threat to human existence. “We are in pre-Holocaust days,” asserted
John Stoner, director of Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section.
How does one change the direction of society?
How does one influence government policy so that it is prohuman?
Some individuals claim that the witness of taxes withheld from the military could do much to change American priorities.
Is civil disobedience biblical?
Is there a biblical case for civil disobedience?
Seminary professor and Old Testament scholar Millard Lind said the question was wrong.
He declared the question assumes that the government provides the norm for the person of faith, and asks whether there may be a religious basis for sometimes disobeying it.
On the contrary, he counseled, the biblical accounts emphasize the absolute
sovereignty of the God of Israel. Biblical thought challenges the sovereignty
of the civil authorities, calling it rebellion. Not only individuals, but
above all, the state, with its self-interest and empire building, are against
the rule and order of Yahweh.
Is civil disobedience called for in the specific instance of taxes spent for military purposes?
Two papers were presented on this question, one by David Schroeder of Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the second by Kenneth Bauman, pastor of First Mennonite Church in Berne, Indiana.
“It is clear,” said Schroeder, “that the New Testament speaks for civil
disobedience, but it is difficult to determine the form.” Interpreting the
will of God must be done in the community of believers. The Scripture must not
only be searched to know the will of God, but also to bind ourselves to doing
it.
He observed that the issue of taxes for military purposes is often seen in isolation from other options.
He counseled that the church needs to look at all avenues which would lead to peace, and then choose those options which would be effective at the individual and corporate levels.
A noticeable reaction of surprise was evident after Schroeder indicated that
as a Canadian member of the General Conference he would abstain from voting at
the mid-triennium conference in .
“Those (Americans) who must take the consequences of tax withholding must take the responsibility,” he opined.
When questioned on this Schroeder said he held the position because he would not, as a Canadian national, be able to effectively support an American practicing tax resistance.
Later in the conference, however, he appeared to modify his position.
Bauman’s paper was a careful overview of the tax situation in the time of
Christ, of Jesus’ stance relative to the authorities, and of Anabaptist
practice.
He indicated that Jesus’ political stance was not with the ecclesiastical nor with the social establishment.
Nor did Jesus identify himself as a radical social revolutionary.
Rather, Christ was a representative of the kingdom of God with a prophetic call to repentance, faith, and righteous living which transforms society through the transformation of the individual.
“It is amazing,” he reflected, “to see the early church and the Apostles show
such respect and subordination to a political system that crucified their Lord
and killed their leaders.”
When asked at what point he would practice civil disobedience, Bauman said, “For me it would be more than taxation; it would be when government becomes an object of worship.”
Mennonite practice he noted has been to pay taxes. Only the Hutterites have a
consistent pattern of resisting taxes.
Kings and prophets
In a humorous manner, J. Lawrence Burkholder, president of Goshen College, illuminated the tension between individual conscience and management responsibility.
“The Bible is stacked against managers,” he remarked. The managers (kings)
were always getting critiques from the prophets. Burkholder confessed that
before becoming a college president (a “king”) he had often been prophetic in
his utterances.
But now as a manager he values continuity, order, and making life possible.
Decisions often have ambiguity built into them.
Further, although individuals are free to order their lives as they wish, a corporation incarnates the many wills of its supporters into a limited function.
Is it right to expect a corporation to respond in the same way as an individual?
Burkholder did conclude though that a corporation must be willing to die for
the sake of principle. For a Mennonite school he suggested such a case would
be required ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps).
In his paper on the same topic, William Keeney of Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas, warned that biblical and Anabaptist history illustrate that the voice of the majority is not necessarily the voice of God.
He also noted that for many people there is a double ethical standard, one for the Christian, and one for the state.
Keeney said Christians should have a bias in favor of loyalty to the prophets, and to the way of the cross and costly discipleship.
From this he concluded that corporate action needs to respect the individual conscience.
In his response to the above papers, Peter Ediger, pastor of the Arvada
(Colorado) Mennonite Church, cried out, “I would hope that management could be
prophetic. Can leadership in institutions not give evidence of faithfulness to
God? Why do we see this question (tax withholding) as a threat to our
institutions? We need more faith in the powers of resurrection. Do we foster
fear or faith? Spread the rumor that the Lord is going to do wonderful
things.”
The attorneys present provided a legal framework, as distinct from a biblical rationale, for approaching the issue of not withholding taxes used for military purposes.
The General Conference could, if it wished, simply stop remitting taxes and wait for the government to take action.
A long process of litigation might ensue in which the church could argue that
using the corporate body to collect taxes violates the conscience of tax
objectors, and also violates the principle of separation of church and state
because the church is held hostage by the state, under penalty of fines or
imprisonment of its officers. The attorneys also observed that the
IRS
(Internal Revenue Service) could decide to avoid litigation and its attendant
publicity, and simply go to the individual to collect.
In essence the attorneys said there were ways of working on the issue through legal, legislative, and administrative channels.
Findings
A findings committee — Palmer Becker, Hugo Jantz, Elmer Neufeld, John Stoner, Larry Kehler — drafted a statement.
After hours of discussion and subsequent changes the persons at the consultation agreed that the statement fairly represented their thinking.
Some excerpts:
“Our Christian obedience has to find new and creative responses to the
proliferation of military weaponry and technology…
“Christians respect the governing authorities… which leads to a broad
range of activities in support of the public good. Nevertheless, at times
our call of prior obedience to God’s sovereignty leads us to disobey the
claims of the state…
“We… have differing convictions about refusing to pay taxes for the
military.
“Let us be open to the possibility that the Spirit of God may lead some of
us in a direction that is both prophetic and full of risks.
“We agree that a way should be sought which will facilitate the expression
of the convictions of conference employees who request that their taxes
not be withheld.
“We need to seek the counsel of and work with other Mennnonite groups and
denominations, particularly the historic peace churches, in developing the
most appropriate response to this issue.”
Two multi-part articles and two additional stand-alone articles stretched
across multiple issues of The Mennonite and also
served to summarize some of the points of debate:
“The North American military” by Harold Fransen (part 1 and part 2)
These articles begin with an unflattering look at U.S. military personnel, suggesting that even if you put the violence of war off to one side, the drunkenness, ignorance, and sexual immorality found among those in uniform is enough not to recommend the institution to Mennonites.
The first part ends: “If we have come to the realization that we can not go to war, maybe the time has come to… say that no one can go to war on our behalf either.
As we fill out out income tax forms this year, so that the military can do the job which we refuse to do, let us remember what effect it has on the lives that are bound up in its powerful grip, and be in prayer as we move toward the General Conference’s midtriennium session to deal with this issue.”
Part two looked at this issue from the Canadian perspective, noting that
Canada was deeply involved in the international arms trade and was boosting its
own military spending. “Can we any longer brush off war taxes as a
U.S. issue?”
“Is this our modern pilgrims’ progress”
This article summarized the recent history of the General Conference in grappling with the issue that would come to a head at the session:
If the conference delegates decide that nonpayment of military taxes is justified the decision is binding on the administrators of the General Conference.
Impetus for such an assembly began in when employee Cornelia Lehn requested the General Conference
business office not to remit the military tax portion of her paycheck to the
IRS.
Prior to 1974 the issue of “war taxes” had been discussed, and as early as
, delegates at the triennial sessions in
Fresno, California, passed a statement protesting the use of tax monies for
war purposes. The delegates also said, “We stand by those who feel called to
resist the payment of that portion of taxes being used for military purposes.”
However, the General Board did not think that directive from the delegates
authorized them to stop remitting Lehn’s military taxes. Her request was
refused.
Three years later… [at] the next conference… delegates called for education regarding militarism, reaffirmed the 1971 statement, and agreed that serious work be done on the possibility of allowing General Conference employees to follow their consciences on payment or nonpayment of military taxes.
Educational materials have included the periodical God and
Caesar and two study guides, The Rule of the
Sword and The Rule of the Lamb. In addition
to these efforts two major consultations were convened in
and in
. At these consultations scholarly
papers were presented on militarism, biblical considerations for payment or
nonpayment of military taxes, and Anabaptist history and theology related to
war tax concerns.
Despite the protracted input the General Board could not reach a consensus on the issue.
Consequently the problem was brought to delegates at the triennial… [where] the delegate body committed itself to serious congregational study of civil disobedience and war tax resistance during .
The delegates also decided to discuss the issue in detail at a midtriennium conference in .
In an effort to implement the Bluffton
resolution an eight-member civil responsibility committee was formed. Several
actions were taken by it to encourage serious study.
an attitude survey on church
and government was conducted. Approximately 2,500 responses were received,
including 463 from a select sampling in 31 churches. A scholarly consultation
was held in . One of the key ideas
which came out of this consultation was whether those who feel strongly about
not paying military taxes should be encouraged to form a separate corporation
within the General Conference. To assist churches in their study of the issue
two study guides were published. The Rule of the
Sword deals primarily with facts and concerns related to militarism.
The Rule of the Lamb centers about the sovereignty
of God and biblical texts on taxes and civil authority.
Each of the more than 300 congregations in the General Conference is being encouraged to prepare a statement to bring to the conference.
It is evident from the sale of the study guides that a minority of congregations are actually making an effort to study the issue, although all congregations have received sample copies of the guides.
Many Canadian churches feel the issue is strictly an American problem, and there is a considerable diversity of conviction and thought among American congregations.
Some congregations do not intend to send delegates.
What this means for the Minneapolis conference is difficult to assess, except
for one feature. There will be a lot of stirring debate. After
will there be some
resolution of the withholding question? No one is predicting the outcome.
“Countdown to Minneapolis”
This article tried to put the debate into a larger context of what it meant for the congregations in the General Conference to be deliberating together in this way.
It also seemed to be trying to drum up more attendance; there seemed to be some worry that Canadian Mennonites, and more conservative congregations, might just not turn up.
“Our Christian civil responsibility”
This article, by Larry Kehler (author of The Rule of the Lamb), attempted to put all of the pieces together for readers ahead of the conference.
Excerpts:
General Conference churches have the opportunity of either growing through the process of working on the war-tax question or of stagnating and splintering.
I am somewhat more confident now than I was even six months ago that we will mature through this experience, and in the process perhaps reassert some of our Conference’s flagging leadership in the field of peace.
Perhaps it is only because I have been talking to more optimistic persons.
But I do have the impression that General Conference people are more ready now to participate in the struggle for an answer than they were even as late as last winter.
The easy answer of letting this debate be the occasion for some congregations to sever their ties with the General Conference seems to be more of a “cop-out” than a reasonable response to a difficult question.
Will your congregation have delegates at the midtriennium sessions in Minneapolis?
If it won’t, both the conference and the congregation will be the poorer for it.
You see, the question is not only how we will respond to the issue of tax-withholding as a witness against war, but how we go about dealing with questions on which we have not yet achieved clarity or unanimity.
The process we go through may well be much more vital to us than the answer we finally come up with, and that is not to diminish the seriousness of the problem of militarism.
Coming to Minneapolis without advance preparation, however, could be almost as
destructive as not coming at all. Each congregation should do some serious
struggling within its own setting on the various dimensions which this issue
is raising for us.
The war-tax issue offers the General Conference one of its best opportunities in many years to work seriously at Bible interpretation on a question about which we have widely differing views.
How do we make decisions when we disagree?
The tax texts
What does the New Testament say about taxes?
Here are the four primary passages:
Mark 12:13–17
is a description of the Pharisees and Herodians trying to entrap Jesus with
the question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus responds by
taking a coin and showing them Caesar’s image on it and saying, “Render to
Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”
Luke 23:1–5 recalls the accusations made against Jesus before Pilate.
Among them is the charge that he has forbidden his people “to give tribute to Caesar.” In response to Pilate’s question about his kingship over the Jews, Jesus replies ambiguously, “You have said so.”
Matthew 17:24–27
talks about the temple tax. Some Bible interpreters feel that the tax question
is a secondary issue in this passage. The writer’s main purpose in telling
this incident, some scholars say, is to underscore Jesus’ sonship.
Romans 13:6–7 urges followers of Christ to be subject to the governing authorities and to pay taxes where they are due.
A straightforward reading of these passages has led many persons to conclude
that taxes are to be paid regardless of the use to which they might be put.
“How can you argue against such clear, simple statements?” they ask people who
suggest that there may be more to these comments than can be seen on the
surface.
It is the tension between these two approaches to the Bible which lies at the heart of the problem which the General Conference is now facing in its attempt to come up with a biblical response to the “war tax issue.” How do we interpret and understand the Bible?
Is the easiest reading of a biblical passage always to be taken as the most likely intention of the writer?
Some Bible scholars say that it is sometimes quite deceiving to accept the easiest reading.
Others wonder if that sort of remark doesn’t simply underscore the Bible’s assertion that some truths will confound the wise and yet be very clear to more down-to-earth and average persons.
Well, maybe.
But doesn’t it cheapen the Bible if we think that a book which has come to us from another millennium and a decidedly different culture can be read on the surface — much like one reads a twentieth-century pop-psychology book — and applied to situations in our day without adaptation?
Can any statement in the Bible be taken by itself without first testing it
against the background from which it came and against related statements
elsewhere in the Bible?
Modern, easy-to-read paraphrases of the Scriptures and our general attitude toward the Bible have led us to believe that “hermeneutics” (the interpretation of the Bible’s message) is not a difficult task.
In some cases it isn’t, but in others it is.
In places the Bible is so inscrutable that we can seemingly never be quite sure about its full intention.
So we have to launch out in faith on some questions, hoping that more clarity will come as we proceed.
We may discover as we go that we have started off in the wrong direction.
Then we need the humility to admit our error and change our direction.
The major agenda item at the midtriennium sessions in Minneapolis may turn out
not to be “war taxes” at all. This issue may be God’s way of prodding us into
becoming more of a “hermeneutic community”…
The tax texts need to be studied intensely at the congregational level, each participant bringing an open mind and heart to the discussion.
If clarity and unanimity do not come immediately let us not be discouraged.
Other groups have had similar difficulties before us.
That is all the more reason why we should continue to struggle with this question.
The summary statement prepared by the people who attended the
war tax conference contained this paragraph:
“After considering the New Testament texts which speak about the Christian’s
payment of taxes, most of us are agreed that we do not have a clear word on
the subject of paying taxes used for war. The New Testament statements on
paying taxes (Mark 12:17 and Romans 13:6–7)
contain either ambiguity in meaning or qualifications on the texts that call
the discerning community to decide in light of the life and teachings of
Jesus.”
For Canadians too
The war tax issue is a U.S. issue and should be decided by them.
Right?
Wrong! It’s an issue for the entire General Conference.
But Canadians wouldn’t be taking any of the risks if the U.S. Government should bear down and hand out some jail sentences or fines for the Conference’s not withholding its employees’ income taxes.
Too much emphasis has been put on the possibility of fines or jail terms.
These consequences might come, but they’re not likely. The fear of a
confrontation with the law has taken the focus off the main point of this
whole exercise. The purpose is to give a firm, clear, and prophetic witness
against the diabolic buildup of the machines of war, which is occurring at an
ever-increasing pace in the United States and in many other nations. Are we
going to sit back and allow this escalation to continue without at least
giving our governments some sort of message that we cannot any longer go along
with this race toward self-destruction?
The arms race and the manufacture of war goods is very much part of the Canadian scene too… I have not yet been able to discover any tax resisters in Canada, but this does not mean that militarism is not a front-burner issue in Canada.
It is, and it should be.
I don’t know why there aren’t tax resisters in Canada. There are certainly
other forms of objection to the military buildup. “Project Ploughshares” is an
interchurch witness against militarism. Mennonites are actively involved in
its program of research and information-sharing. Thus, even though tax
resistance isn’t part of the Canadian experience now, Canadian Mennonites
shouldn’t withdraw from the General Conference discussion. They can
legitimately be fully involved on the basis of principle.
If the General Conference is going to say, “Yes,” to those of its employees who don’t want their income tax withheld, that should be the decision of the entire Conference, not just a portion of it.
The decision, whichever way it goes, will carry much more weight, I believe, if all the congregations in the Conference have participated in it.
Canadian involvement is important.
Some have indicated that the present set of options offered to the
delegates — that is to vote either yes or no on the withholding question — is
not sufficient. Other alternatives must be developed. If not, the Conference
may become polarized, and it might even split.
The question therefore is: How can the General Conference, as an international body, make a clear-cut witness against militarism without splintering the Conference?
Some U.S. Mennonites have stated that Canadian participation is crucial to the process.
After the conference in Bluffton in it
appeared that there would be minimal Canadian involvement at Minneapolis.
There is still no guarantee that participation from Canada will be adequate,
but good efforts are being made to encourage Canadian churches to send
delegates.
The General Board of the Conference of Mennonites in Canada at its last meeting went on record urging Canadian participation.
It will communicate this concern to the churches.
Several congregations are making special efforts to prepare for the convention.
Bethel Mennonite Church, Winnipeg, Manitoba, held a weekend seminar on this topic.
Grace Mennonite Church, Regina, Saskatchewan, arranged a similar event.
The Winnipeg meeting was covered in a later issue.
About fifty people met and came up with a set of recommendations as they prepared to select their delegates to the conference.
Sharon Sawatzky of the Canadian Conference staff in Winnipeg prepared a Canadian supplement for the study booklet The Rule of the Sword by Charlie Lord.
Copies of the supplement have been sent to all Canadian congregations who have ordered the five-lesson study booklet on militarism.
Faith and Life Press, Newton, reports that to date (I write this on
) more orders for the study
materials (The Rule of the Sword and
The Rule of the Lamb) have been received from Canada
than from the United States.
The prophets and the managers
The tension created by the war tax question in the General Conference is heightened by people’s disparate understandings of what it means to be good stewards of our church-related institutions.
Some have seen it as a tension between the “prophets” and the “managers.”
Who shapes the direction and philosophies of our churches and their agencies?
Is it the people who have a “prophetic” vision of biblical responsibility? Is
it the administrators who have been charged with “managing” these
organizations and creating as few waves as possible? Both? Partially? Neither?
Questions related to this apparent tension are included in the study guide The Rule of the Lamb…
J. Lawrence Burkholder, who is himself the “manager” of a major Mennonite
institution (Goshen College), has frankly described the predicament in which
leaders of institutions find themselves.
Here is a summary of his observations…
An efficient and well-trained corps of managers has emerged to run the
Mennonites’ growing number of institutions. The “constituency” of each of
these institutions insists that it is to be run in a businesslike, fiscally
responsible, and basically conservative way. Actions which might jeopardize
the welfare of an institution are not likely to be looked upon with much
favor.
The war tax issue, said Burkholder, is a problem of personal ethics as opposed to corporate ethics.
Our way of understanding the Bible is based on a one-to-one decision-making process, where the individual can respond quickly and simply to a situation.
A corporation’s response to an ethical question, on the other hand, involves
many wills. A number of “publics” make demands on the institution to decide
the issue their way. This does not mean, the Goshen College president
emphasized, that moral demands cannot be made of corporations. Nor should it
be said that all institutions are alike.
Corporations tend toward the status quo.
They emphasize different values than “prophetic” Christians.
Corporations tend to take a positive view of the broader culture in which they operate, they recognize the ambiguity of the situations in which they are making their decisions, and they look less judgmentally on people than do the “prophets.”
On the other hand, prophets have the luxury, according to Burkholder, of being
able to speak abstractly, of idealizing certain things from the past, and of
talking about perfection and ideals in an imperfect society.
Managers of church-related institutions have a clear line of accountability to their constituency, he said, “but who holds the prophets responsible?” Prophets are usually judged to be true or false in retrospect.
A prophet, therefore, doesn’t have to take responsibility for actions, words, and decisions in the same way that a manager does. “Sometimes,” said Burkholder, “present-day prophets come off ‘cheap.’ ”
He emphasized that Mennonites should continue to identify with the prophetic
tradition. They should be aware, though, that this means they will have to be
willing to remain somewhat on the edge of society.
“We will also need to develop a theology of corporate life,” he added. “We already have a theology of fellowship, but we don’t have a theology of the institution.”
Debate in the Letters Column
There was plenty of debate about the propriety of war tax resistance itself in the letters-to-the-editor column, sometimes explicitly prompted by the debate over withholding and the upcoming conference, other times more general.
John K. Stoner said that if the Conference were to fail to endorse war tax
resistance, “I would like to be able to have the confidence that they made
their decision in full awareness and with truly informed knowledge of the
dimensions of the nuclear abyss into which we are staring. At this point I
do not find it possible to have that confidence.” In short, they seemed to
be unaware of just how bad things had gotten.
I do not wish to imply that tax resistance or some other form of civil disobedience is the only kind of response which faithful Christians should be making to the unprecedented evil of the nuclear arms race. (It is my judgment that the situation confronts us with more than adequate grounds for civil disobedience.) However, I do wish to imply that those who counsel against tax refusal and civil disobedience would be much more convincing if they were leading out in other visible kinds of response to the nuclear crisis.
Carl M. Lehman wrote in to again remind readers that there was no such
thing as a “war tax” and that such nomenclature comes from “a less than
completely honest persistence in using labels to create a straw man to
attack.”
Money is only a convenient medium of exchange and not a real necessity to conduct war…
I have no quarrel with the person who simply wants to refuse to pay
taxes as a protest technique. As an attention-calling device it may very
well be effective. It is not exactly the kind of role I would feel led
to play, but I would not want to condemn anyone who felt they must use
such a tactic. I would, however, strongly protest any attempt to make
such a tactic mandatory for all Mennonites, and this is exactly what is
being attempted. Not mandatory, of course, in the sense that it would be
a test of membership, but mandatory in the sense of a normal commitment
expectation for a nonresistant Christian.
I maintain that tax resistance is a deviation from our heritage of faith.
The fact that it is a deviation in no sense makes it wrong and certainly does not mean that we pay no heed.
It does, however, very much suggest that the burden of proof is on the deviant, and that the deviant ought not to equate obedience to God with conformity by others.
John Swarr called on Mennonites to repent for war and in true repentance
to “change our ways.” He disagreed with Lehman’s dismissal of the moral
import of money. “Money is indeed a medium of exchange, but as Christian
stewards of God’s gifts we must be concerned about the things for which
that money is invested, donated, or paid.” He also disagreed that war tax
resistance was a deviation from Mennonite tradition, pointing to examples
from history in which Anabaptists took the issue seriously and came down
on both sides.
Karl Detrich took a hard Romans 13
line on the question, saying that the question of whether Christians
should or should not pay taxes had long ago been closed by that chapter.
While the New Testament also contains examples of civil disobedience, “in
each case these men were following the dictates of a higher law, namely,
that we should have no other gods besides our Lord.”
Jesus tells us that in the last days there will be, among other tribulations, wars and rumors of war.
Rather than going against the teaching of God’s word in a vain effort to forestall the inevitable, should we not give our time and energies to the worship of God and the proclamation of his gospel, so that we can do our part to hasten the day of his coming?
Paul W. Andreas saw simple living as a key to avoiding war taxes, and
resisting war taxes as a key to avoiding despair:
The submission to evil (no government has been free of it) produces despair.
I believe that love of my fellow humans is fundamental to not only
Mennonite faith but to Christ’s message. If I am compelled to violate
that message by hiring killers and providing weapons, I despair. For me,
no charitable contribution undoes the evil I unleash by paying taxes
that are used for such ends. Fortunately the practitioner of the simple
life can reduce his wage and thus avoid the income tax used for evil.
James Newcomer, in the course of taking Mennonites to task for the
“red-baiting” he’d found in their midst, took some time out to praise war
tax resistance:
I am deeply moved… by the witness of Peter Ediger at Rocky Flats, Colorado, and by many others who through war tax resistance and protest are trying to focus their own understanding of the modern Christian experience at the risk of losing middle-class luxuries and future security.
Miscellany
And if that weren’t enough, there were several other news items that discussed war tax resistance without relating directly to the upcoming conference or the specific debate to be dealt with there.
For example:
“A weekend seminar on war tax resistance” organized by Philadelphia Mennonites at which “[s]pecific strategies for implementing war tax resistance were discussed,” and the usual biblical verses were hashed out.
A four-point resolution on peacemaking called the Eastern District to: (1) serious Bible study on peace and a General Conference resolution on “The Way of Peace” (2) involvement in disapproval (through congressional representatives) of national actions promoting war, poverty, and terror; (3) support of those who feel led to withhold portions of their taxes; and (4) a midyear assembly to promote peacemaking.
After vigorous discussion, point three was stricken from the resolution
and point two was amended to include encouragement for righteous actions.
The amended resolution was adopted.
The Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section (U.S.) met. But in spite of all that was going on around them, it merely “reaffirmed its recommendation to Mennonite institutions ‘to study the conflict between Christian obligations and legal obligations in the collection of federal taxes…’ ” When they would meet again “a resolution on militarism, the future of New Call to Peacemaking, and the question of alternatives to the payment of taxes for military purposes” would be on the agenda. At that meeting, they took a stronger stand:
We support those who resist the payment of taxes for military purposes and call upon all members of the church to seriously consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes.
While Mennonite church institutions continue to struggle with an administrative response to the issue of “war tax” withholding, individual Mennonites are voicing their convictions through refusing to pay the portion of their taxes designated for military use.
About $4,000 has been received by the Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section’s “Taxes
for Peace” fund, contributed by Mennonite war tax refusers.
Nonpayment of taxes violates national laws, but tax refusers are convinced that paying taxes is disobedience to God when slightly over half of that tax money is allocated for the past, present, and future military expenditures of the United States.
Most of these tax refusers paid only 47 to 50 percent of taxes owed to
the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS),
forwarding the remaining amount to
MCC
and other Mennonite agencies. Statements to
IRS
clarified that the withheld tax money was not for personal profit but
rather for meeting human needs, promoting peace and reconciliation, and
supporting life instead of death.
James Klassen, Newton, Kansas, who claimed a Nuremburg Principle tax deduction in an amount sufficient to result in a 50 percent refund of the amount of taxes due, recently received the refund in full and forwarded the check to MCC. (The Nuremburg Principles, unanimously affirmed by the United Nations after World War Ⅱ, specify that crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity are crimes under national law.)
“This is the first time we have deliberately broken the law of our
country,” say tax refusers James and Anna Juhnke, North Newton, Kansas.
“It is not an easy decision. We love our land and we respect the
authority of the government. We want to show our respect by making our
civil disobedience a public act and by accepting the penalties which may
result from our action.”
“As a Christian who accepts the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament as normative for life and ethics, I am a ‘conscientious objector’ to participation in war and to the resolution of human conflict by violence,” concludes Marlin Miller of Goshen, Indiana. “It is my conviction that the financial support of war and military expenditures cannot be reconciled with this stance any more than actual military service itself.”
They and other Christians feel that Christ’s calling to a life of love,
nonviolence and reconciliation supersedes demands of the state.
Thirty-three persons and families thus far have identified themselves as “war tax resisters” after God and Caesar in its issue provided the opportunity for people to do so.
The respondents represent eleven denominations as well as those with no church affiliation.
One recent case of a non-ordained employee at a Mennonite institution
hoping to resist paying war taxes involved Esther Lanting, a teacher at
Western Mennonite School
(WMS),
Salem, Oregon, who on
wrote a letter to the
WMS
board requesting that her income tax not be withheld from her check.
On , Lanting was invited to meet with the board to explain her reasons.
The board decided to seek the counsel of the conference executive committee, and secure study papers on the tax issue.
Finally, on , after
extended study, the peace and social concerns committee of the conference
recommended that the
WMS
board grant Lanting’s request and discontinue withholding her taxes.
On , the WMS board considered the committee’s recommendation.
By a vote of six to two they decided not to follow the recommendation, but to continue withholding all tax as legally required.
At this same board meeting three other WMS teachers or staff members acted as follows: Ray Nussbaum submitted a letter requesting that the board stop withholding his tax; Floyd Schrock made a verbal request that his tax not be withheld; and Cindy Mullet asked that the board decrease her salary to the level where she will owe no tax.
The board granted Cindy Mullet’s request for a reduction in salary. The
board is willing to reconsider the issue if more faculty members should
make the same request to have the board refrain from withholding taxes.
MCC has taken no official position on the refusal to pay taxes for military use, but MCC Peace Section (U.S.) adopted a statement in which in part recommended “that Mennonite and Brethren in Christ continue to work toward reduction of military spending, not resting content with special provisions exempting us from payment of taxes for military purposes.” It affirms “those in our midst who feel compelled by Christian conscience to refuse payment of all or some federal tax because of the large percentage of such taxes used for military purposes.”
In concluding his war tax talk Yoder said church members are generally more ready to disregard what the church has to say than what the government says.
Issuing a direct challenge to those who believe war tax resistance is wrong he counseled, “It would be more credible if those who are in favor of paying all their taxes would show through some other action what they are doing to love our national enemies.”
This is the twenty-sixth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
I’m going to try to cover 1979.
Preparing for the Minneapolis Conference
In , there was a special
general session of the Mennonite General Conference especially to discuss war
tax resistance, and in particular, to decide whether the Conference would
support its tax-resisting employees by refusing to withhold taxes from their
paychecks.
In our last episode, the heat was
rising, with opinion pieces and study guides and letters to the editor
addressing the issue. Now, with the session approaching and the decision
imminent, things really began to boil.
The issue hosted
a
long letter to the editor from Albert H. Epp (dated
) in which he accused
The Mennonite and the Commission on Home Ministries
of putting their thumbs on the scale in favor of war tax resistance. Excerpts:
Some of us… are part of the “silent majority” that feels inundated by the
tax-resistance mail arriving almost daily.
The Kauffman-Harder profile () stated, “A
member of our churches ought not to pay the proportion of his income taxes
that goes for military purposes.” Only 15 percent of our denomination agreed;
and no more than 8 percent among the Mennonite Brethren and Brethren in
Christ. Even fewer actually withheld tax. Eighty-five percent disagreed!
Now Minneapolis looms ahead. Many of us feel we are being swept helplessly
downstream toward an ill-advised showdown. I was one of the 453 delegates at
Bluffton () who voted “no” on resolution 11.
But it carried. There seems to be a wide gap between delegate-action at
conference and constituency-opinion at home. How did “the few” persuade “the
many” to agree to a February session that will cost about $100,000?
We are witnessing one of the strongest attempts at shaping conference-opinion
in 20 years, and possibly our entire history. Long-held views on civil
responsibility are being challenged by brethren who are crusading for tax
resistance and civil disobedience. Neither Scripture nor history are normative
in the ways they used to be. “We have something new,” we are told, “in the
present nuclear threat.”
Behind this ideological shift stands our Commission on Home Ministries. Three
years ago
CHM
began publishing a war-tax newsletter, God and
Caesar. In the fifth issue they report on a two-day war tax conference
they conducted at Kitchener, Ontario. “The evidence suggests that most
Anabaptists did pay all their taxes willingly…,” the report avers; but
CHM
leaders pledged themselves “to raise consciousness about war tax and
militarism issues…” Highly significant is the fact that two scholars. Miller
and Swartley, emerged at that session as men willing to say that the Scripture
does not give us a clear command to pay taxes used for military purposes.
It is my impression that Mennonite stalwarts of recent decades, H.S. Bender,
Guy F. Hershberger, Erland Waltner, and John C. Wenger, to name just a few,
all taught the full-paying of taxes on scriptural grounds. Their general view
agreed with Paul, who taught the paying of taxes in Romans 13
and was fully aware that Rome had crucified Christ, had subjugated many
nations, and was now ruled by the despot Nero.
H.S. Bender, writing on “Taxation” in ,
claims that “few if any Mennonites” were presently refusing to pay the portion
of income tax calculated to go for military purposes, which he estimated to be
about two-thirds of the total.
Guy F. Hershberger, in his classic on nonresistance, discusses the answer of
Jesus in Matthew 22:
“…the situation here is almost precisely like that in Romans 13.
Jesus’ questioners were not men who would be interested in service
in the Roman army. If anything, they would be interested in a military
rebellion against the Roman authority. There Jesus says, ‘Give to Caesar that
which is Caesar’s.’ That is, do not rebel against him, not even to the extent
of refusing to pay the tax.”
The current tax-resistance movement requires a major shift in biblical
interpretation. This is something new.
It appears to me that today’s tax-resisters are hard put to proof-text their
views. Swartley admitted to Kitchener ()
“…there is no New Testament text which either explicitly or clearly implicitly
tells us not to pay taxes.” Yet some go from text to text progressively
untying the knots of normal interpretation. But the knot of
Romans 13.
will not easily yield.
Donald Kaufman (What Belongs to Caesar, page 48) chides Oscar Cullmann for “his lack of moral discernment” when he insists that disciples of Jesus pay tax, no matter to what government.
John Howard Yoder, well-known for his personal tax-withholding procedure, nevertheless, in his oft-reprinted masterpiece The Politics of Jesus (page 211), approvingly quotes C.E.B. Cranfield, “taxes and revenue, perhaps honor, are due to Caesar, but fear is due to God.”
In sketching the limits of subordination, Yoder stops short of using Romans 13 for tax resistance.
Not so Larry Kehler in The Rule of the Lamb.
Using his stature as editor-writer, Kehler seems to infer that Paul supports our tax resistance.
The truth of the matter is that for every scholar who teaches tax resistance from Romans 13, there might be 50 competent professors who teach otherwise.
A tax protest based on Romans 13 is an exegesis not easy to defend.
The method of promoting the new idea also deserves comment. Basic to good
human relations is the concept that issues are best discussed without the
injection of personalities. When Cornelia Lehn’s speech at the Bluffton
conference was programmed into the civil-disobedience debate by conference
officials, it almost gave the appearance of being a psychological pressure
tactic to sway votes. After all, who can speak against womanhood? Who can deny
that Nellie’s stand is courageous? But someone has to venture the tough
question “Is it fair to ask thousands of Mennonites to approve civil
disobedience because of one person’s convictions?”
Is it possible that
CHM
has moved ahead too quickly on this issue — even out of earshot? Take their
suggestion that the General Board no longer honor tax-withholding laws for
some employees (The
Mennonite, 2 November 1976, page 648). On
the constituents turned back
Resolution 12 (yes — 336, no — 1,190) on this issue. Bluffton delegates later
gave the mandate for a midtriennium conference, but even this decision process
was interlaced with
CHM
influence. The delegates, caught in the euphoria of the moment, unable to
confer with churches at home, approved the surprise resolution. Most
surprising of all, Larry Kehler, as recent as , wrote, “I have not
yet been able to discover any tax resisters in Canada…” Little wonder
CHM’s
promotion is so voluminous.
When churches in the Midwest ask
CHM
for a clarification of issues, men are readily available to give excellent
thought-out defenses for tax resistance and civil disobedience. But no one
seems willing and/ or permitted to present the traditional biblical-Anabaptist
stance and say, “That’s my view.” So we, the silent majority, feel like people
with no representation. While we collect thousands of dollars for conference
coffers, no one pleads our case — the case of the majority.
Any protest, it seems to me, needs keen discernment. Picketing a tax office,
withholding income tax, or balking at withholding laws may all be misdirected
efforts. The Internal Revenue Service is only a collecting agency. Do we
punish the newspaper boy, refusing to pay when we dislike an editorial? No, we
phone the editor. Why not spend our energy on the decision makers?
A hope seems to flicker in some minds that a domino reaction, “me too, me
too,” will bring out an avalanche of Mennonite tax resisters. Then, some aver,
a frustrated government might negotiate. However, worse things may accrue.
Attorney J. Elwin Kraybill says that evading tax is a felony (26
USC 7201) and can
result in a fine (maximum $10,000) and/or prison (maximum 5 years). At the
least most Mennonites would be subjected to the harassment of an annual audit.
At the worst they could be accused of spawning anarchy — a trend already
evidenced in teachers’ strikes and police strikes.
I wonder if tax resistance won’t trap us in a blind alley — in a stance too
negative. Why curse the darkness? Let’s plant a light. In past decades our
conscientious objector position was transformed by creative service in refugee
camps, mental hospitals, and mission schools. Today we again need positive
solutions. Could Mennonite Central Committee possibly establish a research
center with departments like peace, pollution, and world hunger? When our
scholars really tackle these complex problems, our governments will knock at
our door. In retrospect, I was proud when President John F. Kennedy turned to
MCC
for advice on the Peace Corps.
I am a Mennonite, both by birth and by choice. I deeply appreciate our
Anabaptist theology. As a pastor I can affirm with my parish
CHM’s
conviction of (1) the limited nature of Caesar’s power; and (2) the lethal
character of its weaponry. However, we do not feel it biblical or Anabaptist
to rob government of its right to taxation, or even some national defense.
Where government abuses this right we wish to exhaust every legal channel of
protest before we engage in illegal maneuvers.
In my congregation one brother is reducing his income; another has enclosed a
protest letter with his tax return. Many of us have increased contributions to
reduce taxable income. But not one, to my knowledge, is refusing to pay taxes.
As one brother put it, “Can we be harsh on Uncle Sam while our financial
stewardship level is so low in Mennonite circles?”
A final word. I tested this letter with my Board of Deacons. All seven
present, to the man, encouraged me to send it. Editor, thanks for letting us
speak.
Richard K. MacMaster addressed the history of war tax resistance among
American Mennonites in an article that appeared in the
issue:
I read with great interest your articles about the forthcoming discussion of
war taxes at Minneapolis.
I’ve had a great concern to write some few lines on one small aspect of this
large question, but generally put it off as a nit-picking historical footnote.
Observing that “historical perspective” will play a role in the consultation
, I thought I should take
time to clarify what might possibly lead to misunderstanding.
A number of recent discussions on the war tax issue have stated that
Mennonites and Brethren paid their taxes in obedience to the biblical
injunction of “taxes to whom taxes are due.” The reader might reasonably
conclude that, unlike Friends, neither Brethren nor Mennonites were troubled
in conscience about payment of taxes levied for any purpose. The point would
be too insignificant to raise in even some nitpicking scholarly review, if it
did not have consequences for our understanding of our own heritage in regard
to a current issue of great importance.
In Peter Brock published his monumental
Pacifism in the United States from the Colonial Era to the
First World War. The scope of his subject precluded his searching into
every manuscript collection that might bear some relation to it, and he relied
heavily on printed sources. The limited number of published works on Mennonite
history is reflected in his footnotes and bibliography. Walter Klaassen leaned
heavily on Brock for his interpretation of the American scene, since his own
scholarly work has been in the European Anabaptist sources. There is a danger
in this process that, in spite of passing through the hands of two very
distinguished modern scholars, the material is no better than the sources
available to Mennonite historians 50 or 75 years ago.
The danger of allowing this recycled history to determine our understanding of
our own heritage is compounded by the fact that Brock made assumptions that
went beyond his somewhat limited sources in describing the position held by
Mennonites on key issues, notably on the payment of taxes. The first mention
of any Mennonite attitude on this question involved Mennonite settlers in the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in . Brock noted that they “were able to obtain exemption by the
payment of militia fines, against which — unlike the Quakers — they had no
deep-seated scruples of conscience,” but that they petitioned in
(sic) for relief from militia fines,
“not because of any fundamental objection to this alternative to service
(for was it not merely rendering Caesar his due?), but on account of
their poverty as frontiersmen eking out a bare subsistence.” He cited as his
only source Harry A. Brunk’s History of Mennonites in
Virginia, but Brunk does not make any of the statements I have quoted;
he is quite clear in his statement that conscience was involved.
Virginia Mennonites petitioned the authorities in Williamsburg for relief from
militia fines in and again in
. No copy of these petitions is known to be
extant and we know of the contents only from the brief minutes entered in the
Journal of the House of Burgesses. Since the
Virginia lawmakers exempted Quakers from payment of militia fines for the
first time in , it is not surprising that
Mennonites sought the same privilege, which was granted them by the House of
Burgesses in .
Their motives in petitioning for exemption were explained in a Mennonite
petition of , which asked that the earlier
privilege be restored. Militia bills passed during the Revolutionary War had
taken it away and enrolled conscientious objectors in the militia, once again
making them subject to fines. This petition, signed by 73 “members of the
Menonist Church in behalf of themselves and their religious Brethren,”
declared that their forefathers had come “to America to Seek Religious
Liberty; this they have enjoyed, except by the Infliction of penalties for not
bearing Arms which for some time lay heavy on them. But on a representation,
and their situation being made known to the Honorable the Legislature, they
were indulged with an exemption from said penalties until some few years past,
when by a revisal of the Militia Law they were again enrolled and are now
subject to the penalties aforesaid.” (The original petition is in the Virginia
State Library.)
This petition and one offered the previous
year by Rockingham County Mennonites and Brethren did not succeed in changing
the law, and the payment of fines was the subject of occasional petitions from
all three of the peace churches. What is significant about the
Virginia petition is its statement that
payment of militia fines violated the liberty of conscience that Mennonites
otherwise enjoyed and that this was true under the king as well as during and
after the Revolution. It would appear to me impossible to square this
contemporary Mennonite document with the interpretation that Mennonites paid
militia fines as merely rendering Caesar his due!
The conscientious objection to payment of a fine or equivalent to militia duty
in Virginia on the eve of the Revolution might help us in understanding the
position of Pennsylvania Mennonites. There was no compulsory militia law in
Pennsylvania prior to , so no question of
fines or other equivalent would have arisen as early as it did in Virginia.
In Pennsylvania authorities requested
voluntary contributions from those who scrupled against bearing arms and the
Continental Congress itself made a similar appeal. Records of the county
committees entrusted with collecting this money suggest that it had a mixed
reception. Objections were heard very early, however, against levying
contributions from conscientious objectors on a purely voluntary basis. In
the Pennsylvania Assembly debated
imposing a set amount as a special tax on non-associators. They read petitions
from the Quakers and from the Mennonites and some members of the Church of the
Brethren. The meaning of these petitions seems perfectly clear. A well-known
military historian understood them to mean that “not a few Quakers and
Mennonites joined to oppose not only the Association but any tax levied in
lieu thereof.” (Arthur J. Alexander, “Pennsylvania Magazine of History
and Biography, ⅬⅩⅨ, , page 16.)
This would follow logically from the position taken by Virginia Mennonites,
who were closely related to the Pennsylvania congregations.
When a Militia Law was enacted in in
Pennsylvania, no provision was made for the exemption of conscientious
objectors, and a special tax was imposed on them in lieu of military service.
It was this tax that was under discussion among Franconia Mennonites when a
majority of the preachers opposed Christian Funk’s contention that it ought to
be paid. I am well aware that Pennsylvania Mennonites felt uneasy with the new
revolutionary regime and declined sending a formal petition to the legislature
in since it would involve addressing them as
“the representatives of the freemen of Pennsylvania.” Hostility to the new
government may well have colored the attitude of Funk’s opponents, but it does
not explain why they opposed payment of this particular tax and not
of all taxes levied by the new state. There is no hint in any
official document, newspaper, letter, or other contemporary source that any
Mennonite in Pennsylvania refused payment of any other tax. Surely there would
be some notice taken by someone of tax resistance, particularly if it were on
the quasi-political ground that the new government had no legitimate
authority. On the other hand, reluctance to pay a tax levied in lieu of
military service would square with the Virginia documents, the obvious
sense of the petition, and the minutes of
the Church of the Brethren annual meetings that refer to persons with
conscientious objection against paying for substitutes and paying the tax
(singular).
I do not know that this leads us very far on our present quest. But it is
sufficient, I hope, to indicate that Mennonites have expressed “deep-seated
scruples of conscience” and “fundamental objection to this alternative to
military service.”
The edition included this
op-ed from Harold R. Regier:
The sovereign Lord and the sovereign nation will be in tension at Minneapolis
when the General
Conference, in official session, will be “In Search of Christian Civil
Responsibility.”
Will we be ready at Minneapolis to decide issues related to paying those taxes
required of the state used for death-threatening militarism and weapons
building? Much depends on how adequately congregations study and discuss
The Rule of the Sword and The
Rule of the Lamb prior to Minneapolis. Much depends on adequate
congregational representation. And much depends on an openness to hear each
other and the leading of God’s Spirit.
What are specific questions we must answer at Minneapolis?
What is the biblical teaching on civil responsibility and civil
disobedience? Are Christians ever called to civil disobedience?
If civil disobedience may at times be a Christian response to government,
what conditions or principles guide that response? Is the payment of taxes
used for war purposes one such condition?
If “war tax” resistance is a Christian response to a government’s
militarism and to the nuclear arms race, to what extent and in what ways
should that response be encouraged and initiated? Is conscientious
objection to paying for war in today’s context equivalent to conscientious
objection to physical participation in war in the past?
Should General Conference and other Mennonite institutions honor
employees’ requests that the portion of taxes used for military purposes
not be withheld from their paychecks? Should Mennonite employers even go
beyond this and refuse to be “war tax” collectors for the state for any of
its employees?
Is the bottom line for the Minneapolis conference the question of tax
withholding? Not necessarily. Other options for faithfulness and witness may
be discovered. Our search for Christian civil responsibility must be
open-ended rather than locked into the consideration of only one kind of
action. However, the withholding question is a very important one on which we
are committed to making a clear decision.
The withholding question is significant, but not because this is the only
alternative for the employee. There are other ways to have less tax withheld.
Possibilities include refiling a tax form to include allowances for expected
(“war tax”) deductions, forming an alternative employing agency, or
contributing up to 50 percent of salary to charitable causes. The withholding
issue’s greatest significance lies with the questions of corporate
responsibility and the issue of church as an agent of the state.
I would suggest five reasons for the conference to consider honoring requests
from persons asking that their taxes not be withheld. (1) Honoring these
requests would eliminate the discrimination between ordained and nonordained
employees. In the
U.S., ordained
employees are considered “self-employed” by the tax department and are exempt
from withholding regulations. Nonordained persons have to follow a more
difficult procedure to enable resistance. Currently at least four ordained
employees of the General Conference offices are not voluntarily paying the
military portion of their taxes. (2) Honoring nonwithholding requests would
represent a corporate peace witness rather than leaving such witness and
action solely to the individual. (3) A corporate conference voice and action
would make a much stronger witness for peace and justice than lone voices here
and there. (4) Nonwithholding would be one appropriate way to initiate a test
of the constitutionality of requiring church agencies to collect taxes for the
state. (5) This corporate action builds on our Anabaptist theology of peace
and takes seriously the way our financial resources contribute to warmaking.
My hope for Minneapolis is that the General Conference Mennonite Church will
act to do something together about our nations’ militarism. This
could be corporate action regarding withholding “war taxes.” This could be a
commitment to a large-scale symbolic resistance to “war tax” payment
(e.g. “each” Mennonite withholding $10 and
explaining why). As a conference we could send a strong message to our
governments regarding militarism and the taxation which supports it. We could
issue a “war tax” statement to be shared with the larger church (other
denominations) as well as to our governments. We could make a stronger effort
to promote the World Peace Tax Fund Act in the
U.S. and instigate
other alternatives in Canada.
These are only suggestions. Delegates need to think of other options.
Minneapolis will be a failure if we conclude that “everyone do what is right
in their own eyes.” Minneapolis will be a success if we take some large or
small step toward corporate responsibility and action.
He began by noting the paucity of charity by American Mennonites is devoted to “the crucial urgency of tragic situations in the Third World” compared to how much is spent domestically.
“It appears our dedication somehow is absorbed in our words which seem to psychologically liberate us to expand lavishly on the home front.”
While I respect individual conviction, I am cool toward the effectiveness or the witness of withholding taxes.
(In recent months I have been going over old magazines and clipping articles related to war taxes.
There has been a rash of articles on this subject every 6–10 years in the past decades.)
In , the U.S. federal budget increased 48 percent for defense, space, and foreign affairs (probably not even keeping up with inflation).
The human-resources part of the budget jumped 378 percent during the same decade.
Not all these programs are effective, yet they represent an attempt to cope with areas of great need.
When we criticize government expenditures, let us remember that we Mennonites have been increasing our budgets in North American institutional and church developments rather than for that part of the “one in Christ” where poverty is indescribably great.
In short: “Until we have done what we ought we should not say too much to other segments of society.”
Furthermore, Shelly felt that there was an overemphasis on war as a source of violence.
Alcohol, reckless driving, and abortion, were also examples of violence that deserved at least as much attention.
Finally, the way to peace, he felt, was not through civil disobedience or
protest or peace witnessing, but simply through spreading the gospel and
getting more people to adopt Christian values. For example: “during the
massacre in Uganda almost all Christians refused to shoulder guns.” So
Mennonites should stop arguing about taxes and rededicate themselves to
missionary work.
Kenneth G. Bauman penned an op-ed for the edition, from the point of view of
“some of us”.
Bauman thought the Bible offered little or no support for war tax resistance.
Jesus did not counsel it, even when pitched a softball. Paul explicitly
said Christians should pay their taxes to Rome and the Roman Empire wasn’t
exactly peaceful. Those examples of civil disobedience found in the Bible never
touch on war taxes or on conscientious objection to government spending.
Mennonites, he felt, shouldn’t just skip over this on the way to making their
own independent moral judgments about war taxes.
Bauman also challenged the view articulated in Richard K. MacMaster’s essay
that war tax resistance had strong footing in historical Mennonite practice:
A good historical development of this issue is found in Walter Klaassen’s
pamphlet Mennonites and War Taxes. A summary is
found on pages 40–41 in The Rule of the Lamb. The
only groups that refused taxation were the Hutterites and the Franconia
Conference in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. The issue was
probably not “war taxes” but rather who was the legitimate government, the
British or the United States? Recent Mennonite scholars hold the traditional view.
Check the writings of Guy Hershberger in War, Peace, and Nonresistance (page 369),
Harold S. Bender’s “Taxation” in The Mennonite Encyclopedia,
and Robert Kreider’s “Anabaptists and the State” in The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision.
Kreider states, “The Anabaptists agreed unanimously
that the Christian owes obedience to the civil authorities insofar as the
prior claims of God are not violated in those duties. The Christian gives this
obedience freely and not grudgingly. He pays taxes, tithes, interest, and
customs as required by the magistracy. No evidence can be found to
substantiate the frequently made accusation that the Anabaptists refused to
pay these obligations” (page 190).
The new threat of nuclear war, Bauman thought, was not a reason to rethink this
established wisdom. After all, the murder of one person and the obliteration of
millions are both terrible sins: “Is the biblical teaching on the sacredness of
life on a sliding scale or is even one person’s life sacred?”
Some of us respect the individual conscience as we want our conscience to be
respected, but we are not convinced that those who believe in withholding
taxes have seriously considered all the options. Several alternatives are (1)
filing suit against the government to recover taxes, (2) setting up a
subsidiary corporation, and (3) greater efforts toward a World Peace Tax Fund.
We are grieved that in this hour when we need a united witness against
militarism, with selective service a real possibility (which will also include
women), we are divided. We object to our peace position being questioned
because we do not see withholding taxes as being biblical or
Anabaptist-Mennonite.
Some of us are waiting for open dialogue on the tax issue. The other side has
not been formally presented in the General Board, nor was it given adequate
representation at the Consultation on Civil Responsibility at Elkhart, nor has
it been given a fair presentation in The Mennonite.
We question whether the midtriennium conference will change the situation.
Marie J. Janzen, in a letter
to the editor, wrote that she thought Bauman was “attempt[ing] to find a letter of the law that would justify us not to refuse taxes.”
It is true, for instance, that Peter was referring to the Jewish leaders and
not to the state when he said we must obey God rather than men, but the
principle would be the same in either case, wouldn’t it?
It seems to me that the Christian gospel speaks to the needs of each age, and
different things need to be done in different ages. There would have been no
need to warn early Christians to drive carefully lest someone’s life might be
taken in an accident. But today there certainly is. When Jesus said to his
disciples that they would do greater things than he had done, didn’t he imply
that there would be a need for greater things in later ages than there was in
the time of the early church? The common person at that time had no rights, no
influence on government. In a democracy we Christians have responsibilities
the early Christians did not have. I don’t have to pay income tax; I don’t
know whether I would have the courage to refuse if I did. But I certainly
admire the ones who do refuse to pay taxes for conscience’ sake.
…Of course, there may be other alternatives which are more effective than the
refusal to pay taxes. For instance, as my sister suggested, if we would deluge
the government with letters and with telephone calls and insist that this arms
race must stop — or at least that they give us the right to have a peace
tax — that might do more good.
On the other hand, David A. Somner wrote in to praise what he called Bauman’s “clear, biblical, historically accurate” statement.
A
letter from Gary Martin, written on but not published until , thought that the war tax issue was overshadowing the fact
that Mennonites had lost their way and were neglecting some of the foundations
of their faith and practice. This was followed by a letter from Don Kaufman,
in which he related an anecdote from a repentant soldier and thought it “could
be instructive for us too as we wrestle with the implications of the Christian
gospel concerning war taxes.”
A letter from David C. Janzen, dated , published in the
edition, said that “[b]ased on our congregational meeting on the issue, it
would appear that the [war tax] protesters are a small but very vocal
minority.” He thought the conference was a waste of time trying to relitigate
an issue that had been decided by Jesus way back when.
A letter from Eugene Klassen, dated but also not published until , also took the line that the Bible was black-and-white about
taxpaying: “Romans 13
clearly tells us to pay taxes to whom taxes are due. Yet we allow the use of
our conference time, money, and publications to debate both sides of the
issue.”
Drumroll please. The conference was held, and all of these years of kicking the
can down the road and avoiding a decision came to an end as a general assembly
of the Mennonite General Conference, after lengthy study and debate, concluded:
Moved that we request the General Board of our conference to engage in a
serious and vigorous search to use all legal, legislative, and administrative
avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption from the legal
requirements that the General Conference withhold income taxes from the wages
of its employees. If no relief can be found within a three-year period, they
shall again bring the question to the attention of the conference.
So… the can kicked another three years further down the road. Well, what were
you expecting?
Seven hundred persons came to the bitter cold and deep snow of Minneapolis,
, “in search of Christian
civil responsibility.”
…Would our General Conference grant an employee’s request to no longer
withhold from her salary that portion of the income tax which goes toward
military expenditures?
Many predicted a collision course. Minneapolis would be a showdown.
The drama has happened. And the unexpected far outdid the expected.
only a few
hundred people had registered. Polarized positions surfaced in many
congregations. There was talk of maneuvering, boycott, and schism.
The annual Council of Commissions met at Minneapolis on
to do the usual review and
projection of
GC program and
budget. Hardly a session went by without reference of concern about the
midtriennium.
By it became obvious that
God’s Spirit was again among us in unusual ways.
In faith, space had been reserved for 500 people. Over 700 came.
We found the issue is not “yes-no” “either-or” regarding war taxes. It
includes our lifestyle. Do we live in ways that share Christ’s salvation,
love, and justice to all. This is not just for a few brave radicals.
Each of us needs to choose again and again to let our light shine.
We found the issue is not Cornelia Lehn and civil disobedience. It is
obedience to Jesus in today’s world.
We found the issue is of deep concern to our youth. About 100 persons present
were under 25. And they spoke up. Their generation most directly faces the
nuclear shadow. If we want to leave them a heritage of peace we must address
our faith to this global threat.
The main resolution (above) passed 1,218 to 134.
The following issue expanded on that first draft of history. It included the
details that delegates from 176 churches were represented at the midtriennium,
that the 700 attendees included “almost 500 delegates and more than 200
visitors” who at one point broke up into “78 small groups”, and further noted:
Following the… conference the General Board set up a six-person task force to
implement the decision of the delegates. The persons for this committee have
been appointed and upon acceptance their names will be released.
A
later article named them as Delton Franz, Duane Heffelbower, Bob Hull,
Heinz Janzen, Ernie Regehr, and Ben Sprunger, and noted that “[t]he task force
had its first meeting in Columbus,
Ohio.” Later
Stanley Perisho, Chuck Boyer, Winifred Beachy, Janet Reedy, and Gordon Zook
were added to the list.
Though the conference officially started , most people arrived
in time to watch a group
from the Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna, Manitoba, present
The Blowing and the Bending, a musical drama
highlighting the themes of wartime intolerance for conscientious objectors and
Mennonite struggles with the war spirit.
Some of the themes played out in the small groups and by the symposium were
the following:
the gospel is first, pacifism is secondary.
it is important to be legal.
it is better to be faithful.
a witness for peace has to have the integrity of an appropriate
lifestyle.
the government is more willing to accept conscientious objectors than the
church.
there are other social and political issues which need to be spoken
to.
a corporate witness is/is not the route to go.
militarism today is a qualitatively different problem than anything
civilization has had to face before.
the response to militarism is a theological and faith issue.
When one delegate called for a show of hands to indicate who had done some
protest against nuclear proliferation and militarism about 20 percent of the
assembly said they had.
Though most of the delegates who spoke during the afternoon plenary session
admitted they were troubled by worldwide military expenditures over one
billion dollars daily, they nevertheless said the church as a corporate body
should not engage in illegal activities in its witness against war
preparations. Instead speakers urged alternatives.
A sentiment often expressed, however, was that the church, while avoiding
illegal actions, should actively support its members who engage in civil
disobedience on the basis of conscience.
Roy Vogt, economics professor from Winnipeg, Manitoba, berated the assembly
for loading the responsibility for witness upon isolated individuals. “It is
morally reprehensible,” he said, “to give only moral support. We must provide
financial and legal support for those prophets who have arisen from our
middle-class ranks.”
In contrast to the social activists at the conference Dan Dalke, pastor from
Bluffton, Ohio, castigated the social activists for making pacifism a
religion. “We will never create a Utopia,” he said. “Jesus didn’t come to
clean up social issues. Our job is to evangelize the world. A peace witness is
secondary.”
Some of the statements were personal. A businessman confessed that while he
could easily withhold paying military taxes on the basis of conscience, he was
frightened. “I am scared of being different, of being embarrassed, of being
alienated from my community. Unless I get support from the Mennonite church I
will keep on paying taxes.”
Alvin Beachy of Newton, Kansas, said the church seemed to be shifting from a
quest to being faithful to the gospel to being legal before the government.
By the small groups were
into serious wrestling with these open-ended statements: (1) The biblical
teaching on obedience to God and its relation to civil responsibility is… (2)
Civil disobedience may be a faithful Christian response when… (3) With respect
to whether the General Conference should withhold the taxes of employees who
would rather practice war-tax refusal, we urge that… (4) With respect to the
threat of militarism in North America, we feel that the General Conference as
a Christian body should now…
By the groups were supposed to have
their consensus ready for the findings committee. Many of the statements came
later in the evening, and the findings committee of six began to sift through
the material. They spent a good part of the night at it, got up again
, had it typed (three
pages, single spaced), and by 800 copies were being distributed.
Action on the floor did not, however, center on the findings committee
statement. Immediately after the Bible lecture a ballot was distributed to the delegates. It
asked for a “yes” or “no” vote on this question: “Shall the General Conference
Mennonite Church refuse to withhold from salaries and refuse to remit to the
U.S. Internal
Revenue Service a portion of the federal tax due in those cases in which this
is requested by employees on the grounds of conscience, even though such
action on the part of the conference is against the law?”
There was a flurry of action on why the midtriennium conference organizers had
brought this question to the assembly so early in the day. Conference
president Elmer Neufeld replied that the intention was to bring the question
to the delegates in a clear and forthright manner. The General Board executive
committee had decided to present the main question of the midtriennium in
ballot form as a way of helping the decision-making process. After some
discussion on the procedure Kenneth Bauman of Berne, Indiana, moved the
ballot. It was seconded and discussion began.
Shortly after the midmorning break David Habegger of Wichita, Kansas, brought
in a substitute motion. It stated: “Moved that we request, the General Board
of our conference to engage in a serious and vigorous search to use all legal,
legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving conscientious objection
exemption from the
U.S. legal
requirement that the conference withhold income taxes from the wages of its
employees. If no relief can be found within a three-year period they shall
proceed to a constitutional test of the First Amendment by whatever means
appear most appropriate at the time, including the option of honoring
employees’ requests that their tax not be withheld.”
This sparked a miniprocedural debate. Was a substitute motion the same as an
amendment? Checking their judgment against Robert’s Rules
of Order, the three-man procedural committee said it was. There was
some objection to the ruling.
It was a key ruling. From the tenor of discussion, and from the statements
which 75 churches brought to the midtriennium, it was apparent that most
GC
congregations were not willing to vote “yes” on the first motion. If the first
motion had come to a vote the decision would likely have been against those in
favor of not paying war taxes.
Hence the substitute motion was debated first. In short order it was also
amended by Herman Andres of Newton, Kansas. The amendment carried by a vote of
906-to-458. The amendment changed the second sentence to read: “If no relief
can be found within the three-year period they shall again bring the question
to the conference.” The vote was taken just prior to the
break.
Gordon Kaufman, professor at Harvard Divinity School in Boston, probably made
the key speech of the morning, thereby paving the way for delegates to be
sympathetic to the substitute motion.
Kaufman said he was puzzled by all the concern about legality. He commented,
“The early church was illegal. The Anabaptists were illegal. Illegality is not
a Christian question. We talk as if we are concerned about a massive
illegality. We are not asked to sign pledge cards. The question is are we
willing to test the law that asks the church to collect taxes? We need to test
the law of separation of church and state, and freedom of religion. In this
country it is a matter of civil responsibility to test the law.”
After a rushed noon break — “Here they come,” said one restaurateur — the
final session of two hours began. A vote was taken on the substitute motion
and it passed by a plurality of nine-to-one, 1,218-to-134 votes.
A miracle had happened. It was essentially a consensus. Longtime peace
advocate Henry Fast of Newton, Kansas, called it “an historic moment.”
At this point people made editorial comments about the findings statement. As
a summary of what people at the conference thought it attempted to cover the
spectrum of conviction. Most comments were affirmative and on a voice vote the
conference adopted it. It noted that the world is “caught in a tragic system
of threat and counter-threat, violence and counterviolence.”
“We want to be obedient citizens, but even more we want to be obedient to
Jesus Christ… We are convinced that citizens of Christ’s kingdom must choose
ways to speak and act against this suicidal race to universal destruction.”
During the afternoon session various people made capsule comments and appeals.
One of the appeals was to take an offering to assist those who are resisting
the payment of war taxes.…
The offering realized $3,030.
The magazine helpfully tallied the delegates by district.
Curiously, I thought, the Eastern District was the most well-represented, with
81% of their votes represented by either delegates or proxies. I saw some
evidence in our last episode that the
Eastern District might be particularly conservative on this issue. The least
well-represented of the United States districts was the Pacific, with only 46%
of its voters represented. Canada turned up to a greater extent than some had
worried, with 57% of voters from the Conference of Mennonites in Canada voting.
The edition gave a summary
of the report of the findings committee. Excerpts:
Never in our history have so many engaged their energies so extensively in
preparation for a conference decision.
We want to be obedient citizens, but even more we want to be obedient to Jesus
Christ. In this quest we are aware that the Bible and our people’s experience
do not give us fully explicit answers on the tax issue. At this moment,
therefore, these are our best discernments.
As Christians we must speak and act. We hope that Mennonites will support sons
and daughters in their leadings to witness for Christ — even in such acts as
refusing to pay taxes destined for war. This means prayerful, moral, and
financial support. Our tradition has been to be a quiet people. We yearn to
act and to witness in sensitive ways which exhaust every acceptable legal
process available to the constituency.
We encourage the General Board to work at developing alternative possibilities
for the handling of tax withholding and to work in collaboration with other
church bodies and institutions in seeking to extricate itself from the role of
being a tax-collecting agency.
It is easy to call governments and conference offices to faithfulness. Perhaps
the most urgent call proceeding from this conference is a call to each
other — to individual church members, to families, and to congregations — a
call to renewed faithfulness. What are we prepared to do in revising our style
of life as affluent witnessing against the powers of darkness in this world?
How does my life vocation fulfill the claims of Christ for this age?
We yearn for unity in our churches. We want to proceed together in our
pilgrimage of obedience but don’t want to tarry long in fear and indecision.
We want to affirm those individuals whose consciences are sensitive on issues
not fully shared by all.
Reactions continued to reverberate through the letters-to-the-editor column and
op-eds:
Mary Gerber,
on told the Mennonites who
weren’t resisting taxes that they were in the right and shouldn’t feel
guilty about it.
[S]everal of the church statements and many individuals expressed a
feeling of guilt that they were not following in the steps of those
“prophets” who were refusing to pay a portion of their tax. In order to
compensate for their personal unwillingness to break the law they
enthusiastically offered to provide moral and financial support for those
who did.
…[P]aying someone else to perform what is also my moral duty is
blatant hypocrisy.
If we… honestly wish to follow Christ in all, we will respond as he did
in similar circumstances. We will love and correct that brother, not aid
and abet him.
Ralph A. Ewert,
on , suggested that people
(in the U.S.
anyway) who did not want to pay a percentage of their income taxes should
figure out how much they would have to donate to charity in order to reduce
their taxable income enough to eliminate that much tax and then donate
away.
Mark Penner,
on related the temple
tax and render-unto-Caesar episodes from the Bible as slam-dunk reasons to
oppose tax resistance, as though nobody had thought of that before.
Jack L. Mace,
on found that the Bible
suggested a possible new if counterintuitive technique of tax witness:
While I would like to stop warring uses of my taxes by refusing to pay,
and giving instead to peaceful purposes, I know the
IRS
will collect the money — in spades — and my witness will be just to the
collectors and their supervisors. The government will not prosecute such
tax resistance, because that would draw too much public attention.
I want to witness to the policy enactment levels of government. My study
of the issue brought me to the words of Jesus in
Matthew 5:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil, but if anyone
strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if anyone
would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if
anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”
These words speak of positive responses to negative problems, and of a
method to make a tax witness virtually impossible to be ignored by even
the most recalcitrant legislator; a “second mile theology of witness.”
Taking these words seriously led me to decide that with a letter of
protest to the
IRS
I will pay my full taxes. Then I will send an amount hopefully equal to
the “war taxes” to my senators and/or representative in a check made out
to the government along with a letter of witness.
I will try to find a way to give the money so that disposition on the
congressional floors might be expected — if that be possible — but even
if the legislators send the check back they have had to come to grips
with its existence and its accompanying witness. The returned check would
then call for another letter containing the check, which again could not
be ignored.
The letter will contain a brief statement of my conscientious objection
to killing and its implications to the use of my tax dollars for war.
Then it will turn to the disposition of the check. Explaining
respectfully that since they are acting against my will as a provider for
the military machine with my tax dollars, I will ask as diligent action
on my behalf for the use of the money enclosed for the
proliferation of peace. The money is to be used by the government within
the framework of not doing violence to my conscience. I will list some
uses of the money which would violate my conscience, and why — being
careful not to suggest specific uses I would desire. The whole idea is to
get legislators to dialogue with their conscience on this issue.
I will actually split the check, sending at least two letters. Our new
Kansas senator, Nancy Kassebaum, needs to be made aware of our faith
early on. On the other hand, Robert Dole is one of the most recalcitrant
senators at the point of military spending. He had the temerity to come
to our Mid-Kansas
MCC
relief sale in his campaign last year and speak on the “need” for
increased military spending. It may even be advantageous for my
congressman, Dan Glickman, to receive a letter with part of the money. He
is a Democrat, and with Dole and Kassebaum being Republicans he might
just act as political conscience to the others. In each case of a split
check, all recipients will be told that there are others and the total
amount of the checks written.
After sharing this idea on the conference floor, there was sufficient
informal response between sessions that I decided to share more in this
letter and to invite anyone else who wishes to join me in this effort. It
would be desirable to make a coordinated effort so that the letters
arrive within a relatively short time for the greatest impact. It might
even be good to split up the amount into quarterly payments to be sent at
strategic times throughout the congressional year.
If you are interested in dialogue on this idea or if you plan to try it
with me, I would appreciate hearing from you and receiving your input.
Stanley E. Kaufman,
on expressed his disappointment
at the timidity of the “too-reluctant” Minneapolis resolution. He urged
The Mennonite to publish frequent updates on the
work of the task force searching for a “legal alternative” along with
suggestions for how people could help that work, and that people who do
independent outreach to officials keep The
Mennonite informed of their actions. He also said that while the
institutional church dithers, “each of us individuals [should]
consider stronger forms of witness”.
Direct tax resistance should not be forgotten for three years but should
be actively debated in our congregations and experimented with in our
lives. One of the biggest barriers to this is not knowing who and how
many others are currently engaged in tax resistance. I am refusing to pay
voluntarily my telephone tax (being a student, I have no income), but I’m
finding even this relatively simple stance rather difficult because I
feel I’m standing alone. I suggest that The
Mennonite could provide a forum — perhaps through a special
column — in which all those resisting taxes could find each other and
communicate experiences they’ve had, arguments they’ve encountered,
statements of the bases of their actions,
etc.
In our efforts to be faithful to God in this matter — to attempt to
change U.S.
military policy through tax witness — we need to be “wise as serpents and
harmless as doves.” We need to refine our strategies, improve our
communication, and support each other’s involvements.
It appeared that our over-politeness got in our way to deal effectively
with the issue at hand. It appeared as though the issue at hand was put
on the back burner to simmer to give us Mennonites more time. More time
for what? It will give a few people more time to pursue other legal
alternatives to the specific tax issue. It will also give many of us
grass-roots people in the church more time to remain silent and not be
directly faced with a Mennonite stand on the issue. It is those long,
noncommitted silent periods which trouble me… A firm and committed voice
by the Mennonite people needs to be heard in our world now.
Gaynette Friesen,
on , wrote that though “we
still have nearly 2½ years to resolve ourselves, hopefully as a unified
body, to the question of war taxes,” that’s no reason to slack off.
The edition gave another update on
the activities of the “task force”:
Two meetings of the task force on taxes have been held. The task force has
been expanded to include representation from the Church of the Brethren, the
Friends, and the Mennonite Church. This group of 11 is expected by the
participating churches to establish the legal, legislative, and administrative
agenda of a corporate discipleship response to military taxes.
The Minneapolis resolution mandated the task force to seek “all legal,
legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector
exemption” for the GCMC
from the withholding of federal income taxes from its employees. (About 46
percent of U.S.
federal taxes are used for the military.)
At their second meeting () the
task force members rejected administrative avenues. Within the scope of
U.S. Internal
Revenue Service or Revenue Canada regulations this would involve extending
ordination, commissioning, or licensing status to all employees of church
institutions. It was a consensus of the task force that this would be an
administrative loophole. It would not develop a conscientious objector
position in response to military taxes.
However, both the judicial and legislative options will be pursued
simultaneously. Plans for the legislative option are the more developed.
For the legislative route to work, says Delton Franz, director of the
Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section office in Washington,
D.C., the
problem of conscience and taxes will have to be defined carefully. Currently a
paper focusing on the reasons the General Conference has a major problem of
conscience with collecting taxes from its employees is being drafted. After it
has been reviewed and okayed it will be sent along with cover letters by
leaders of the historic peace churches to congresspersons representing major
constituency concentrations and those on key subcommittees. Later on church
members will also be asked to write letters. It is important, says Franz, to
define the problem of conscience in such a way that it will motivate
congresspersons to work vigorously for the bill.
Another follow-up to these initiatives will be a visit to Washington of the
most influential peace church leaders to solicit support from selected members
of Congress and to obtain a sponsor for an exemption bill.
In preparation for the next meeting of the task force in November law firms
are being contacted for advice on optimum judicial procedures should the task
force decide to initiate a case as plaintiff. However, there is doubt that a
judicial process would be productive.
There is a possibility that a parallel task force will emerge in Canada. Ernie
Regehr, director of Project Ploughshares, Waterloo, Ontario, notes the
necessity of defining the question of militarism in Canadian terms for
Canadians. Regehr is attempting to gather a Canadian task force.
This mirrored a growing enthusiasm for the Peace Tax Fund legislation in many
organizations and congregations of the General Conference. This would
ultimately allow Mennonites to pass their well-worn buck all the way to
Washington,
D.C., and let
Congress take the blame for further delays.
New Call to Peacemaking
The New Call to Peacemaking initiative continued in .
Tax resistance was on the agenda at the follow-up meeting for churches in the central United States in .
Bruce Chrisman
In , a hundred participants,
mostly Mennonites, but also Quakers, Brethren “plus several Catholics and a
Presbyterian” came to
the fourth Mid-America New Call to Peacemaking.
“Conscription of Youth and Wealth” was the theme, and tax resistance was
again high on the agenda:
In the workshop on conscription of wealth Bob Hull, secretary for peace
and social concerns of the General Conference, suggested some
alternatives to paying war taxes. Others offered their own suggestions.
It was decided that resisting war taxes is a complicated affair and that
each person should decide according to their conscience. Several
expressed the desire to pay taxes for education, welfare, and other
social services, and wished there was an alternative such as the World
Peace Tax Fund. [Richard] McSorley, who has had contacts on Capitol Hill,
responded by saying that until there is a large grass-roots movement of
tax resistance the
WPTF
doesn’t stand a chance.
The latter half of the workshop included sharing by Bruce Chrisman,
Carbondale, Illinois, who is involved in a federal criminal case, one of
two in the
U.S.
involving tax resistance. His case is significant because it will provide
a precedent either for or against tax refusal on the basis of conscience
and religious convictions.
In Chrisman received draft counseling
from James Dunn, pastor of the Champaign-Urbana (Illinois) Mennonite
Church. He made a covenant with God to only pay taxes for humanitarian
purposes. Since that time he has paid no federal income taxes. It wasn’t
until this year, however, that the government prosecuted him, charging
that he willfully failed to disclose his gross income in
. “Willful” is the key term, because
Chrisman claims he conscientiously chose not to disclose his income. He
feels the government has purposely waited to build its case.
“The government wants to establish a precedent in order to prosecute
other tax resisters.” But Chrisman is confident. “We’re going to win and
establish a precedent the other way,” he said. He believes he has a
strong case. Part of that strength comes from his affiliation with the
General Conference Mennonite Church. He read from a statement from the
triennium which opposes war taxes and
supports those who resist paying them. “That’s a beautiful statement!” he
exclaimed, explaining that it has important legal implications for his
case.
In a moving conclusion to his talk Chrisman said that when he first
appeared in court this year
he was “scared to death.” “Today,” he said, “I have no fear in me. God
has given me an inner peace. I know I’m doing what he wants me to do.” No
one disagreed.
Chrisman would lose his court case.
On he was convicted
of failure to file (he filed, but the government contended the
information on the filing was not sufficient to make it legal).
During the pretrial hearings Judge J. Waldo Ackerman allowed Robert
Hull, secretary for peace and social concerns of the General
Conference, and Peter Ediger, director of Mennonite Voluntary
Service, to testify about Mennonite witness against war and
conscription of persons and money for war purposes. But the
testimony was disallowed at the trial.
Chrisman would ultimately be sentenced
to pay the taxes and court costs, to do a year of Mennonite Voluntary
Service, and to probation. He spun this as a victory of sorts:
“I’m amazed… I feel very good about the sentence. The alternative
service is probably the first sentence of its kind for a tax case. I
think it reflects the testimony in the trial and its influence on
the judge.”
Chrisman’s attorney filed an appeal of the conviction, which
was heard in , with the Mennonite General Conference filing an amicus curiae in Chrisman’s behalf.
Miscellany
A letter to the editor from Jacob T. Friesen described how he withheld a symbolic $13 from his income taxes “to gain attention and create opportunity to ‘dialogue for peace.’ ”
The issue told of the Manitoba Alliance Against Abortion, whose bank accounts had been frozen by the Canadian tax agency to pay for the taxes the organization’s president, Joe Borowski, had been refusing to pay for several years. The organization disputed that the funds belonged to the organization’s president and could thereby be seized, saying that the funds were meant for a legal battle against legal abortion. A letter-writing campaign by supporters of the group was credited for pressuring the government to abandon the seizure.
Chris Dueck, in the edition, called Mennonites out for complaining about Caesar’s war taxes while hoarding Caesar’s currency. “For us to refuse payment of taxes is to say ‘we want to keep the money we get through your military-economic policies, but we don’t want any of the guilt.’ The war tax issue is shedding guilt without shedding the selfish heart.”
In the edition, Gordon Houser looked into the New Creation Fellowship intentional community — which “was born out of the concern of a small group of people about the sad state of our society [and] a common involvement in simple living, war tax resistance, and prison reform.”
In , twenty people “from the General Conference Mennonite Church, the Mennonite Church, the Conservative Conference, and the Beachy Amish” met “to air trends within the Mennonite church and to share concerns.” Among those concerns, as expressed in a jointly-framed statement:
According to the direct command to pay taxes (Romans 13:6,7)
and according to the specific word of Christ on the payment of taxes to
“Caesar” (Matthew 22:15–22)
we believe we are under obligation to pay taxes levied by the law. We
regard taxation as the power of the state to collect monies needed for
its budget and not as voluntary contributions by citizens.
The Minneapolis conference
was given credit
for encouraging peace-minded clergy to come together and discuss the arms
race and peace advocacy.
William Stringfellow addressed the Church of the Brethren Symposium and suggested that the contemporary urban church should renounce its tax-exempt status. “since present tax privileges curtail the church’s freedom to speak out on important matters and keep it from engaging in tax resistance.”
[G]ood citizenship does not imply that we should obey our government
without regard for Christian conscience. Rather, good citizenship leads
us to work as a church and human community towards the establishment of
God’s kingdom on earth… We believe that Christ’s strength is in his
weakness and that the present aggressive stance of the world’s military
powers runs counter to our call to be peacemakers.
In the issue, Ferd Wiens
attacked “what may be called a ‘peace” cult” of
Mennonite flagellants
who, in his view, had turned the doctrine of nonresistance on its head to
make it a doctrine of civil disobedience — calling out promoters of war tax
resistance in particular.
Walter Regier agreed, writing that “[e]mphasis on world peace through demonstrations and nonpayment of taxes simply brings confusion into our ranks” and distracts from “more important issues that we face in our day… like abortion, homosexuality, and divorce”.
The U.S. branch
of
Pax
Christi (a Catholic peace movement) invited some of their Mennonite
counterparts to their annual convention in
.
Mennonites Bob Hull and Don Kaufman of Newton, Kansas, led a workshop on
tax resistance and the World Peace Tax Fund Act. Interest in this was
strong. About 40 persons, including some tax resisters, participated.
Hull is peace and social concerns director for the General Conference;
Kaufman is author of The Tax Dilemma: Praying for Peace, Paying for War.
In a private meeting with Sister Mary Evelyn Jegen, executive secretary
of Pax Christi
USA,
and Gordon Zahn, a Catholic conscientious objector in World War Ⅱ, Hull,
Kaufman, and William Keeney explained the General Conference resolution
on war taxes. Keeney, North Newton, Kansas, is director of the Consortium
on Peace Research, Education, and Development.
Although Pax Christi
USA,
supports the World Peace Tax Fund it has not responded to its members who
engage in war tax withholding and are requesting official support from
Pax Christi.
Albert H. Epp
felt that civil disobedience and other sorts of confrontation with
government “can ensnare a people in activities that make them obnoxious to
the general citizenry. It is ‘good’ deeds that earn respect and give us a
right to speak.” For this reason “It seems improper for Christians to start
at the point of urging illegal tax-resistance rather than first declaring a
church-wide month of prayer for a national crisis.”
In my congregation we took a poll on ideal ways to influence government.
We prefer to exhaust all legal means to achieve peace before we engage in
illegal maneuvers. Only 5 percent approved of refusing to pay one’s tax
as a protest. But in terms of practical, positive solutions, we found
that 65 percent approved the World Peace Tax Fund alternative; 85 percent
approved writing the President and Congress; 85 percent approved using
the ballot box to elect responsive leaders; and 89 percent approved
increased giving to decrease taxes.
But David Graber
responded that in his opinion “the demand to lay down our tax dollars
is a similar call to idolatry” as those that prompted the civil
disobedience of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. “Thank God for
Christians today who refuse to cooperate with our government’s demands
in Jesus’ name. Where is Epp’s recognition of their witness?”
And Mark S. Lawson added that the blessings of government that Epp
felt we should all be humbly grateful for weren’t all that. For
example: “My country forces me to cut my income below the taxable
level so I can obey both the laws of God and man. Religious liberty is
only for those who support the killing in wars financed by their tax
money.” He seconded the idea that only through “widespread tax
refusal” could pacifists pressure Congress into creating an
alternative for conscientious taxpayers.
C.B. Friesen
was more appreciative of Epp’s take. He trotted out the usual
Render Unto Caesar ⇒ Romans 13 ⇒ 1 Peter 2
biblical justification for submission to civil government and said
that those who counsel war tax resistance “mostly benefit their egos”
in service of their “own philosophies and pet theories”.
The Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section (U.S.)
met at . They
“formally supported the passage of the World Peace Tax Fund bill” but
“decided against sponsoring a vigorous campaign to promote Mennonite
participation in a war tax resistance campaign. Section members felt such a
resolution would not reflect the will of their constituent bodies.” So they
instead adopted the kick-the-can routine, passing “a resolution that the
section ‘is prepared to consider at its meeting a decision to promote participation in a war tax
resistance campaign.’ ” There seemed to be some acknowledgment of flaws in
the Peace Tax Fund bill:
The section said in resolution “that it is conscience that the
WPTF
legislation might not in itself force a significant reduction in military
spending, but it recognizes that it would provide funds for peacemaking
efforts and would be a witness against military spending.”
This is the nineteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal
of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
The Mennonite Church Peace Section
(U.S.) met on
. I found
this cryptically-worded note
in a Gospel Herald report about the meeting:
The arms race and war tax questions remains a vital one. Its focus seems to be
shifting from tax withholding to the issue of civil disobedience for
conscience and God’s sake.
A Christian’s response to civil authority will be given concentrated emphasis
by the General Conference Mennonite Church during . The study is an outcome of a resolution at the triennial
conference in Bluffton, Ohio, . That
resolution called for a thorough study of civil disobedience leading to a
special conference , which is
intended to state an official position of the General Conference with respect
to that portion of income taxes which are used for funding military
expenditures, and in general, to research the whole question of
obedience-disobedience to civil authority.
Responsibility for the study has been given to the peace and social concerns
committee of the Commission on Home Ministries. They, however, requested that
a special obedience-civil disobedience committee be formed to give general
direction and leadership.
To date three major aspects of the study have been planned — an attitudinal
survey, an invitational consultation in ,
and a study guide to be ready by the fall quarter.
Included in the survey are 28 questions chosen to provide an inventory of
congregational attitudes toward the authority of the church and of the state.
It will also indicate attitudes to particular issues such as abortion, capital
punishment, and payment of taxes for military purposes. A copy of the
questionnaire will be sent to every congregation. If the congregation decides
to use the survey it will be duplicated locally to save on costs. After the
conference the same questionnaire will
again be used to determine whether the churchwide discussion on
obedience-civil disobedience has generated any changes in attitudes.
A second major happening is scheduled for at Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart,
Ind. An invitational
consultation will bring together about 30 participants, including persons not
committed to civil disobedience. The gathering will include administrative
personnel from the General Conference, lawyers, biblical scholars, as well as
representatives from Mennonite General Committee and the Mennonite Church.
It is expected that the study guide will evolve from the proceedings of the
consultation. Five of the 13 lessons in the guide will focus on peacemaking in
a technological society. What sort of peacemaking should Mennonites be about
in an age of nuclear warfare and worldwide arms shipments? The remaining eight
lessons will center in the meaning of civil disobedience. Was it practiced in
the Bible? Is nonpayment of taxes a case in point?
The study process will culminate in the special midtriennium conference
scheduled for . That gathering
will be an official decision-making conference to which congregational
delegates will come. At that point a decision on the meaning and practice of
civil disobedience will be made.
There was a followup in the
issue. From the coverage, I get the impression that the Mennonite Church was
playing spectator and taking a wait-and-see attitude:
If debate among members of the General Board of the General Conference
Mennonite Church is the litmus test of what it means to be a discerning
church, then the denomination is pointed toward an exciting future. The two
issues, war taxes and fundraising, were the preeminent concerns during
meetings in Newton, Kan.,
.
Although thorough reports were heard by the 16-member board on all aspects of
programming — overseas mission, education, home ministries — and dozens of
decisions were made, the two keynote issues were civil disobedience and how to
communicate the need for increased giving.
During the first session on , Board
members locked onto the planning for the midtriennium conference on war taxes
and civil responsibility. Uneasiness about the process erupted quickly. The
structure of the invitational
consultation on the issue was strongly faulted, as was the conference itself.
Board member Ken Bauman, pastor of First Mennonite Church in Berne,
Ind., galvanized his
colleagues with his allegations. “The consultation is not structured for
dialogue — it is monologue. The way it has been set up upsets me deeply.”
Later he declared that the Commission on Home Ministries should not serve as
the launching pad for the study and the planning leading to the conference in
. “Why ask
CHM?
The image of
CHM
is stacked. It should be the responsibility of the General Board.”
His assessment was the beginning of a fruitful debate which occupied several
more sessions of the General Board, one session of
CHM,
hallway discussions, and coffee confabs.
The debate crystallized about several key questions. What is wrong with the
study process initiated by the obedience-civil disobedience committee of
CHM?
Is the issue of war taxes so divisive that a schism in the General Conference
is inevitable? Is the delegate
conference viable?
By ,
perhaps symbolically, the hard-hitting process of charge and counter-charge
had evolved into understanding and affirmation of the original plans. On paper
little had changed, but in the minds of those who spoke for the
“unheard” — the “conservatives,” the “common person,” and the
Canadians — there was a restoration of confidence in the process. Tenseness
was dissipated.
The consultation will meet at
Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart,
Ind. About 25 persons are
invited. These include theologians and biblical scholars, attorneys,
administrative staff of the General Conference, several
MCC
staff, and representatives from the Mennonite Church and the Mennonite
Brethren Church. The proceedings of the consultation are to serve as the basis
for a study guide on civil disobedience.
Asked about his personal goals for the peacemaking initiative, the pastor
listed: 1) a more radical community in all three denominations that will break
down barriers in talking about peace with other Christians and non-Christians,
2) a radical change in our attitudes toward material things, and 3) a unified
position on the problem of war taxes.
Fahrer has recently finished work on a four-unit war tax Bible study guide. He
anticipates its publication by Ohio and Eastern Conference.
The Lancaster Conference had its own war tax study guides in the works, as
shown in these excerpts from the
and
issues:
Mennonites and War Taxes is a 28-page booklet by
Walter Klaassen which traces the history of the war tax issue in Anabaptism
and suggests how Mennonites might relate to that history. It was first
published by the Lancaster Conference Mennonite Historical Society but is now
published by the Commission on Education of the General Conference Mennonite
Church. Copies of the booklet may be ordered from Faith and Life Press…
“Honoring God with My Tax Dollars” is an excellent little pamphlet that deals
with some big questions. Produced in (and
revised in ) by the Peace Committee of
Lancaster Mennonite Conference, this piece was prepared as “a study guide to
be used in congregational or group discussion settings.” A bibliography of
related resources is included at the end. Available at no cost from Lancaster
Mennonite Conference…
The world arms race, nuclear threat, and militarism were the backdrop for a
discussion of war tax resistance. The Section reaffirmed its
recommendation to Mennonite institutions “to
study the conflict between Christian obligations and legal obligations in the
collection of federal taxes, especially when employees request that war taxes
not be withheld from their wages, and that institutions be encouraged to honor
such requests.”
Some disappointment was expressed that, with a few exceptions, constituent
conferences and congregations of
MCC
have not wrestled with the war tax question.
A cross-organizational consultation on how Christians ought to behave in
relation to the governments they live under was held in
:
Five themes — the nuclear menace, taxes for military purposes, the lessons of
biblical and Anabaptist history, faithfulness, and effective
witness — dominated a consultation on civil responsibility in Elkhart,
Ind.,
. In its sharpest focus the
issue was how Mennonite institutions should respond to those employees who
request that the military portion of their income taxes not be withheld by the
employer. Under current law employers must deduct income tax from payrolls and
remit the tax to the government.
Several Mennonite organizations are facing the issue. The General Conference
is seeking the will of its 60,000 members in answering such a request from one
of its employees, Cornelia Lehn. The consultation in Elkhart was one part of
the discerning process leading to a delegate assembly, and a decision in
.
Bible scholars, theologians, pastors, administrators, attorneys — twenty-nine
persons in all — presented papers, exchanged insights, and probed the issue.
Much of their analysis will be incorporated into a study guide to be published
by .
A findings committee — Palmer Becker, Hugo Jantz, Elmer Neufeld, John Stoner,
Larry Kehler — drafted a statement. After hours of discussion and subsequent
changes the persons at the consultation agreed that the statement fairly
represented their thinking.
Some excerpts from the statement are listed below:
“Our Christian obedience has to find new and creative responses to the
proliferation of military weaponry and technology…
“Christians respect the governing authorities… which leads to a broad
range of activities in support of the public good. Nevertheless, at times
our call of prior obedience to God’s sovereignty leads us to disobey the
claims of the state…
“We… have differing convictions about refusing to pay taxes for the
military.
“Let us be open to the possibility that the Spirit of God may lead some of
us in a direction that is both prophetic and full of risks.
“We agree that a way should be sought which will facilitate the expression
of the convictions of conference employees who request that their taxes
not be withheld.
“We need to seek the counsel of and work with other Mennonite groups and
denominations, particularly the Historic Peace Churches, in developing the
most appropriate response to this issue.”
While delegates from nearly every government in the world met at the United
Nations to debate whether they should continue the arms race, some 30
Mennonites representing North American conferences met at the Associated
Mennonite Biblical Seminaries to debate whether they should continue to pay
for it. Most Mennonite delegates likely knew something of the
U.N. Special
Session on Disarmament although probably none at the
U.N. knew about
the Mennonite meeting. The two groups had in common a deep concern about the
crushing momentum of the arms race which places in jeopardy the very survival
of the human race.
The Consultation on Civil Responsibility was initiated by the General
Conference Mennonite Church with the support of the Mennonite Church and
MCC
Peace Section
(U.S.) for
discussion of paying taxes used for military purposes. Christians living in
nations with nuclear weapons face a crisis of faith and morals. Such
Christians live amidst wealth that is heavily generated and protected by
military/economic systems whose focus is the perfecting of weapons for
massive, indiscriminate global destruction. How can the church give a faithful
and credible witness that its trust is not in these powers of death but in the
life-giving power of Jesus Christ?
Mennonite Central Committee was represented at the consultation by four staff
persons — William Snyder, Reg Toews, Urbane Peachey, and John Stoner.
MCC’s
interest in the war tax question grows out of (1) Peace Section’s assignment
to explore issues related to the historic Mennonite and Brethren in Christ
testimony of peace and nonresistance, (2) MCC’s administrative problem with
war tax withholding, and (3) the relationship between the arms race and world
hunger. Janet Reedy of Elkhart,
Ind., attended in a dual role
as a member of
MCC
Peace Section
(U.S.) and as a
representative from the Mennonite Church.
The question of tax collection came up as a part of the report from Peace and
Social Concerns secretary, Hubert Schwartzentruber. In increasing numbers,
workers in church institutions have asked that their federal income taxes not
be deducted from their paychecks so that they may refuse voluntary payment of
the part of their taxes that goes for military purposes.
The Board reacted to this possibility with caution. For one thing, to fail to
collect taxes is a federal offense. All persons responsible for such refusal
are liable to prosecution, from the lowest to the highest in terms of
responsibility. Also there was expressed a strong opinion in favor of positive
instead of negative witness for peace, a position separated from civil
disobedience on the one hand and civil religion on the other.
The question of tax withholding was designated for further study.
We readily pay our taxes. In paying our taxes, we not only pay for the many
services we receive from the government, but we also pay to help care for the
needy among us and beyond our borders. In willingly paying our taxes, we still
have the opportunity to be critical and communicate our concerns about how the
money is being used such as in military spending. We remember it is through
paying our taxes that good is promoted and evil restrained.
And in
an interview with John Howard Yoder
in the same issue, he complained that the church had been lagging on coming to
a sensible consensus about war taxes:
Where is our Mennonite peace testimony in danger?
We are not any clearer than before on the old problems such as separatism,
civil disobedience, and tax resistance. We have made no progress in
fashioning creative responses to these issues. They are talked about but
there is no united action.
War tax resisters in Japan were back in the news as well. Michio Ohno spoke at
the Mennonite World Conference, Peace
Interest Group, giving his talk a provocative title:
Over 80 Japanese citizens did not pay all or part of this year’s income taxes
or asked for refunds, says Michio Ohno, Japanese minister who spoke on war tax
resistance in Japan at the MCC-sponsored
Peace Interest Group at Mennonite World Conference. Ohno is chairman of the
Mennonite and Brethren in Christ Evangelical Cooperative Conference.
Ohno was introduced to pacifism while studying at the Mennonite Biblical
Seminary in Elkhart, Ind., in
. He was pastor of a church in
Kyodan for six years and for the past year has taught English and led Bible
studies in his home.
Ohno says he became involved with war tax resistance in
when he owed the
U.S.
[sic] $4.40 in taxes. “I was troubled by the table on the
back of the income tax form which stated that 6.5 percent of the tax money had
been used for the military’s so-called “Self-Defense Forces” during the
previous year.
“Shortly before, I had read in The Mennonite
periodical about the World Peace Tax Fund Bill, a
U.S. legislative
measure, which if approved would allow conscientious objectors to rechannel
their tax money to nonmilitary purposes. This idea impressed me because I knew
that as a pacifist, I could not pay for war and war preparation.
“The next day I visited Gan Sakakibara, one of Japan’s leading Anabaptist
scholars, to discuss this. I remembered his answer to a high school boy who
had once asked him why Christians were not persecuted like the early
Anabaptists had been.”
He answered, “That is because we are not true Christians. We are not good or
bad. We are not the medicine or the poison. If we were, we would be
persecuted.”
Ohno said he visited the tax office and explained why he could not pay the
tax. “I told them I didn’t mind if they took my possessions.”
A group of people favoring conscientious objection to war taxes began meeting
in Sakakibara s home.
When a civil lawyer sued the state for repayment of his tax money, believing
that conscientious objection to war taxes was legal, he was invited to speak
to the group. The lawyer’s visit resulted in the formation of Conscientious
Objection to Military Tax
(COMIT),
a citizens’ group of 250 members including Mennonites, Quakers, Catholics,
Buddhists, and nonbelievers.
COMIT
now holds summer study seminars and publishes “The Plowshare,” a bimonthly
paper.
The 80 people who have not paid their taxes for this year have received
notices demanding payment, but none has been arrested and no property has been
seized. Additionally, 120,000 members of the General Conference of Trade
Unions in Japan have asked for a tax refund to express their desire for peace.
“A huge olive tree grows up from a tiny pit,” he concluded. “We are sowing
olive pits and tending seedlings. Someday there will be a stout olive tree,
and one of the big branches, I hope, will be conscientious tax objection.”
The “New Call to Peacemaking” initiative was ramping up, with Mennonite
participation:
During the last year, 26 regional New Call to Peacemaking meetings, involving
more than 1,500 persons, took a new look at the teachings of their churches
with special attention to violence, war, and peace.
The Wichita, Kan., group gave
its encouragement to “individuals who feel called to resist the payment of the
military portion of their federal taxes. The Wichita meeting also asked its
churches and agencies to discontinue collecting taxes from its employees so
that “they can have the option to follow their consciences in war tax
resistance.”
When the national New Call to Peacemaking conference convenes in Green Lake,
Wis.,
,
it will be receiving requests from the regional meetings for a strong position
on tax resistance proposals. It will also be asked to give guidance to
individuals and church organizations on approaches to tax resistance.
The Green Lake Conference, which will be attended by some 300 members of the
three sponsoring Peace Churches (Brethren, Friends, and Mennonites), will look
at theological issues as well as matters of economic and social justice,
including respect for human rights.
The New Call to Peacemaking conference is just around the corner. It is
scheduled for
at Green Lake, Wis. Invited
to the meeting are 300 Brethren, Friends, and Mennonites. Leaders of the
conference have called for effective steps toward international disarmament
and support for the United Nations,” saying that “mutual trust and cooperation
are the only bases for long-term national and international security.” Citizen
action, refusal to pay war tax, and other measures will be considered as ways
of undercutting war. The Green Lake meeting, according to Dale Brown, Brethren
theologian who will open the conference, will issue a call to the peace
churches and those who sympathize with their aims to take new risks.
Two films on television commercials and a slide/cassette set on war taxes have
recently been added to MBCM
Audiovisuals, the rental library of Mennonite Board of Congregational
Ministries… “Conscience and War Taxes” is an excellent 20-minute color slide
set/cassette presentation produced by the National Council for a World Peace
Tax Fund. It traces the history of the
U.S. income tax,
gives information on the military budget, and examines some of the economic
consequences of military spending. The World Peace Tax Fund is discussed as a
legal alternative to paying for war which could provide more than two billion
dollars for funding peaceful solutions to world problems and at the same time
provide more jobs for peaceful pursuits than are currently provided by
war-related industries. The “Conscience and War taxes” slide set, cassette
tape, and a resource packet can be obtained from MBCM Audiovisuals…
“New Call to Peacemaking generated 26 regional meetings in 16 different areas
of the U.S. during
,” reported Maynard Shelly to the conference in a summary paper, “A
Declaration of Peace.” The records showed that more than 1,500 people were
involved in those meetings and they generated 170 pages of reports,
statements, and resolutions.
When asked what he expected to come out of this conference, before the
sessions began, Peter Ediger, of Arvada,
Colo., said, “Words, plenty
of words.”
A number of delegates, for instance, were calling for “dramatic action,”
whatever that might have been. As it turned out, because of the task
orientation of the conference, the “action” was a statement agreed upon by the
assembled, which covered the waterfront, but probably pleased only a few.
One of the central themes which stirred the most emotions turned out to be
war-tax resistance. This was an issue the Mennonites felt strongly about.
Those presenting the issue wished for action that would have given them a
context for action. As in the case of the “dramatic action,” so much desired
by some, this desire was also frustrated.
Organizers and conference leaders had projected the Green Lake meetings to be
a working conference. The meetings were set up to assure some kind of action
and/or product. Finally, after much careful shifting on the part of the
findings committee, and public discussions that were sometimes hotter than
illuminating, the conferees agreed to approve a revised statement of the
findings committee. This heavy emphasis on task fulfillment almost restricted
the creative work of the conference too much, according to some observers.
But, of course, the conferees had been informed of the nature of the
conference beforehand.
The findings statement was accepted by most participants, yet could count on
ownership by few. Besides the document, inspiration, fellowship, and sharing
that went on, there was little to show for everyone’s efforts. Nevertheless,
“We see this not as the end of our journey but as the beginning stage of a
continuing pilgrimage,” read the statement.
A world alternative to taxes for the military was endorsed and encouraged. And
while the “children of the sixties” worried about war taxes, the younger set
was most concerned about conscription, which seems to be looming over the
horizon.
“We’re releasing a new focal pamphlet in
titled The Tax
Dilemma: Praying for Peace and Paying for War. Peace is central to our
theology, not an option added on.”
The issue gave a preview of
the upcoming General Conference Mennonite Church midtriennium meeting which
they had convened especially to hash out the war tax withholding issue:
The program for the midtriennium conference of the General Conference
Mennonite Church (GCMC) has been finalized.
As an official meeting of the denomination delegates will discuss the nature
of a Christian’s civil responsibility, particularly the question of a
Christian peace position in a militaristic society. For some participants the
question is whether the withholding of payment of the military portion of
their income taxes is justified. If so, then several employees of the GCMC
would like the denomination to stop remitting the military portion of their
taxes to the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS).
For , the
issue will be debated in the Leamington Hotel in Minneapolis,
Minn. If the conference
delegates decide that nonpayment of military taxes is justified the decision
is binding on the administrators of the GCMC.
Impetus for such an assembly began in when GCMC
employee Cornelia Lehn requested the General Conference business office not to
remit the military tax portion of her paycheck to the
IRS.
Prior to , the issue of “war taxes” had been
discussed, and as early as , delegates at the
triennial sessions in Fresno,
Calif., passed a statement
protesting the use of tax monies for war purposes. The delegates also said,
“We stand by those who feel called to resist the payment of that portion of
taxes being used for military purposes.” However, the General Board of the
GCMC
did not think that directive from the delegates authorized them to stop
remitting Lehn’s military taxes. Her request was refused.
Three years later, St.
Catharines, Ontario, was the location for the next conference. There delegates
called for education regarding militarism, reaffirmed the
statement, and agreed that serious work be
done on the possibility of allowing GCMC
employees to follow their consciences on payment or nonpayment of military
taxes.
Educational materials have included the periodical God and
Caesar and two study guides. The Rule of the Sword and
The Rule of the Lamb. In addition to these efforts two major
consultations were convened in
and in . At these consultations
scholarly papers were presented on militarism, biblical considerations for
payment or nonpayment of military taxes, and Anabaptist history and theology
related to war tax concerns.
Despite the protracted input, the General Board could not reach a consensus on
the issue. Consequently the problem was brought to delegates at the
triennial conference in Bluffton,
Ohio. At this juncture the delegate body committed itself to serious
congregational study of civil disobedience and war tax resistance during
. The delegates
also decided to discuss the issue in detail at a midtriennium conference in
.
In an effort to implement the Bluffton
resolution an eight-member civil responsibility committee was formed. Several
actions were taken by it to encourage serious study.
an attitude survey on church and
government was conducted. Approximately 2,500 responses were received,
including 463 from a select sampling in 31 churches. A scholarly consultation
was held in . One of the key ideas
which came out of this consultation was whether those who feel strongly about
not paying military taxes should be encouraged to form a separate corporation
within the General Conference. To assist churches in their study of the issue
two study guides were published. The Rule of the Sword deals
primarily with facts and concerns related to militarism. The Rule of the
Lamb centers in the sovereignty of God and biblical texts on taxes and
civil authority.
Each of the more than 300 congregations in the GCMC
is being encouraged to prepare a statement to bring to the
conference. It is evident from the sale
of the study guides that a minority of congregations are actually making an
effort to study the issue, although all congregations have received sample
copies of the guides. Many Canadian churches feel the issue is strictly an
American problem, and there is a considerable diversity of conviction and
thought among American congregations. Some congregations do not intend to send
delegates.
What this means for the Minneapolis conference is difficult to assess, except
for one feature. There will be a lot of stirring debate. After
of searching will there be some
resolution of the withholding question? No one is predicting the outcome.
My job is managing public communications for a large organization. In simple
terms, I’m a propagandist — one who, according to my dictionary, spreads
ideas, facts, or allegations deliberately to further a cause.
Interestingly, the root of this widely misunderstood word is in a division of
the Catholic Church established to propagate the faith,
i.e., to ensure that the church membership
continue to be convinced of the church’s teachings and that others might
become so convinced. Church-owned periodicals, such as this one, can thus
rightly (and proudly) be said to be propagandistic.
As a propagandist, I am writing to point out some of the things I see in the
current reporting by the Mennonite press of the war-tax-resistance movement.
Not surprisingly, the reason I am writing is because I do not agree that
resistance, nonviolent coercion or force,
etc., are highly
ethical strategies for Christians or that, specifically, war-tax resistance is
an effective tactic in achieving peace.
Please understand that, while I personally think that war-tax resistance is
getting considerably more than equitable coverage in the Mennonite press, that
is not my point of concern. Rather, it is the aspects of that coverage that I
believe Mennonites should question. These are:
First, source. The articles seem overwhelmingly to originate in the several
information offices of Mennonite boards and agencies. Like me, the authors are
propagandists who, it can be assumed, for whatever reasons, are producing
releases representing their own biases or those of the persons employing them.
Second, style. The articles on tax resistance are written as news stories, not
as expository pieces which are the common vehicle for the expression of both
majority and minority opinions in the Mennonite press.
The last concern, and closely related to the second, is perspective. By
adopting the news-reporting style, the tax-resisting position is presented as
a given, accepted method of Christian witness. This style boldly assumes that
not paying one’s taxes is widely held among Mennonites as Christ’s way, as
well as that tax resistance is a rational means of bringing peace to the
world.
Am I suggesting that Mennonite papers quit giving space to the tax-resistance
movement? Definitely not. Nor, even that such coverage be necessarily reduced.
For, despite my personal feelings, I am interested in the faith of my brothers
and sisters who feel Christ is calling them to resist taxation.
Rather, I’m suggesting that coverage continue, but in the form of exposition,
advocacy, and response; that brothers and sisters who are tax resisters be
invited, even urged, to present the scriptural and other bases of their
convictions and actions. And the same goes for other practitioners of
nonviolent direct action: marching, sitting-in, disruption.
While the rest of us are waiting for these articles to emerge, brother editor,
I would not want to be guilty of demanding that this or any other subject be
suppressed. But, I know at least a few of us wonder sometimes if
demonstrations and acts of resistance are really the most newsworthy events
going on in the Mennonite subdivision of Christ’s kingdom.
Hubert Schwartzentruber with
a commentary
in which he wrote:
It is no secret that our nuclear capabilities have brought the whole world to
the brink of suicide and murder. Yet only a few people are blowing the
trumpets of warning. There is still strong resistance by most Christians even
to think of becoming war tax resisters. There seems to be little urgency to
adopt a lifestyle which would model peace for all the peoples of the earth.
The courage to confront the principalities and powers seems to be lacking.
Was it true that the growing war tax resistance movement in the Mennonite
Church was beginning to lose its momentum?
This is the twentieth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal
of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
In , the Mennonite Church had the luxury of
being by-standers as the General Conference Mennonite Church wrestled with the
war tax issue, and in particular about whether to continue to withhold income
taxes from the salaries of their employees who were conscientious objectors to
military taxation (the Mennonite Church would get its own chance to wrestle
with these issues a bit later on), at a special mid-triennium conference on the
issue. Meanwhile, disgruntled conservative Mennonites met at the Smoketown
Consultation, Peace Tax Fund advocates ramped up their campaign, and the New
Call to Peacemaking pushed the Peace Churches to step up their game.
As a result, there was a plethora of war tax resistance-related content in
Gospel Herald that year.
“The federal income tax is the chief link connecting each individual’s daily labor with the tremendous buildup for war,” Donald D. Kaufman observes in his new book, The Tax Dilemma: Praying for Peace, Paying for War (Herald Press: ).
“Preoccupied as some citizens are with paying too much tax, I suggest that the crucial issue has to do with the purpose for which tax monies are used,” Kaufman maintains.
“While a young person can be exempted from personally serving in the Armed
Forces, no one is easily exempted from making contributions to the military
leviathan.” In his book, Kaufman considers issue of the two kingdoms. After a
brief examination of the biblical background, he traces the history of
conscientious objection to war taxes. He discusses a dozen viable options
which concerned Christians can use “to register our faithfulness to Jesus
Christ as Lord and our opposition to corporate war making by the state within
which we live.”
[W]hat words can we say to our brother in his new responsibilities? Lawrence
Burkholder in the consultation on
taxes and war initiated an intriguing discussion on the manager (or the
administrator) and the prophet and corporate responsibility. He observed that
with only a few incidental references, "the Bible is almost solidly against
those who assumed responsibility for institutional life" (a distressing word
for a biblical scholar on his inauguration).
Ray Horst reported that two staff members have said they would want to
consider a personal response on war taxes should Mennonite Board of Missions
seek alternatives to such withholdings. The directors acted to continue
discussions with other Mennonite groups and Mennonite Church agencies on the
war tax question.
There has been much discussion about the appropriateness of paying for war as
we pray for peace. Some have sought ways in which they can refuse to pay
federal income taxes and thus give a concrete witness against the militarism
which plagues the
U.S. and many other
countries of the world — even, alas, poor countries.
The focus on income taxes may obscure the fact that there are many other
federal taxes which are also used to support the national defense
establishment. In fact, in the personal income tax provided only about one half of the
non-trust fund U.S.
federal revenue. The other half came from a variety of sources such as the
corporation income tax, excise taxes (on many items such as telephone service,
air travel, automobile tires, gasoline, and especially alcohol and tobacco),
estate and gift taxes, and customs duties.
Can we avoid paying these taxes? Not completely, but we can reduce the amount
we pay by the simple device of not buying at all the things which are harmful
and by reducing our expenditures for all other items by holding down our
standard of living. The United States tax law is very generous in allowing
deductions for making contributions to churches and charitable institutions.
(The Canadian law is less generous.) Up to 50 percent of income may be
deducted.
These charitable gifts will first of all reduce sharply the amount of federal
income tax we pay — in some cases even avoiding the tax completely. But in the
second place, since the gift to charity will reduce our remaining disposable
income we will have reduced our standard of living and thus will have to pay
less of the hidden taxes which also support the defense establishment. The
corporation income tax, for example, is one third the size of the personal
income tax.
Although the check to pay the corporation income tax is sent to the government
by the corporation, rest assured the corporation will, if they possibly can,
pass on the tax to the consumer in the form of higher prices for the things
the corporation sells. If we don’t buy the product, we aren’t paying this tax.
Reducing our standard of living as a means of avoiding federal taxes has an
important additional benefit. It is a powerful witness that we are disturbed
by the disparities in wealth and income throughout the world. Our lives should
demonstrate that we can get along without buying the multitude of things an
affluent America deems important.
A report on an protest at Titan Ⅱ missile base
noted that “Also scheduled for the same day will be a nonviolent protest at the
Wichita offices of the Internal Revenue Service, designed to draw attention to
tax money being used for military expenditures…” And
a separate report on a protest at Rocky Flats said that
“On ,
tax resisters made statements about their refusal to pay for war in a press
conference outside the
IRS
office.”
The issue brought news of the
Quaker war tax resisters Bruce & Ruth Graves’ court battle:
A Quaker couple from Ypsilanti, Michigan, attempted to claim a “war tax”
credit on federal income tax returns, but has lost an unusual case before the
U.S. Supreme Court,
the Associated Press reports. The court left intact lower court rulings that
Bruce and Ruth Graves, as conscientious objectors, may not claim such a
credit. The couple had sought a refund of the portion of their taxes used for
war materials.
, the Graves have converted the
“foreign tax credit” on their federal tax forms to a “war tax credit” and
entered only 50 percent to the income tax otherwise due. Each year they have
asked a refund but not received it. So after failing to get the couple to sign
corrected tax statements, the government initiated action to collect the
“deficiency” even though it had already collected the correct amount. The
appeal argued that the government’ s action violated the Graves’
constitutional right to freedom of religion.
Catholic priest John M. Garvey also fought the law and the law won, a bit. The
Gospel
Herald had the scoop:
Father John M. Garvey gave up his car for Lent. Actually, the Internal Revenue
Service hauled it away on Ash Wednesday. It now sits amid big, drab army
trucks behind a fence topped with barbed wire 20 miles away in Mobridge,
S.D. It is there
because the Roman Catholic priest has not paid income taxes as a protest
against military spending and the federal government’s treatment of Indian
people.
Without a car on the South Dakota prairie, the priest has been walking more,
hitchhiking, and riding buses. “It’s been inconvenient,” he said, and when he
does he gets some puzzled looks. “But it’s no big dramatic thing. I’m not
standing out there shivering to death.”
John K. Stoner, in the issue,
imagined
the conversation
between a taxpayer and his or her Maker in the aftermath of a nuclear
holocaust:
There was a blinding flash of light, an explosion like the bursting of a
million bombs, and in an instant everything was burning in a huge ball of
fire.
The first time it was the Flood.
But next time the fire… It was the End.
Afterward a prominent evangelical leader was being quizzed by his Maker.
“You say you were taken by surprise. But didn’t you know it might happen?”
“Well, yes, Sir. I guess I did, Sir. But You see, Sir, they…”
“Wasn’t anybody talking about the fantastic risks involved? But not risks
really. It was a certainty. As predictable as death and taxes.”
“Well, Sir, I can see it now. But hindsight is always better…”
“What do you mean, hindsight? Couldn’t you discern the signs of the times?”
“Well, Sir, we were kind of busy…”
“Doing what?”
“Well, Sir, some of us were searching for remnants of Noah’s Ark. We thought
if we found it maybe they would believe in You…”
“But surely you weren’t all hunting Noah’s Ark?”
“Well, Sir, not exactly. But a lot of people who weren’t hunting it were
watching movies about the search. And then we were busy defending the Bible.”
“Why didn’t you know it was going to happen? Surely there were people warning
you. In fact, I had assigned a few Myself to sound the alarm.”
“Well, Sir, You see, Sir, those people… I don’t know quite how to say this…
er… they didn’t believe the way we… er… I mean I…”
“Did you think you could go on building three more bombs a day forever and not
blow things up?
“Well, Sir, You see, I thought You would look after those things. I didn’t
think it would happen unless You wanted.
“Women nursing infant babies? Children swinging on the side porch, playing in
the lawn sprinkler? An old man reading his Bible? Millions of people, burned
up?”
“Well, sir, in retrospect it does look rather overwhelming. I’m not sure it
was really fair. But then, things were getting rather bad, what with
communism, homosexuality, welfare, big government, pollution…”
“And capitalism, national security, the good life, nuclear deterrence.”
“Well, Sir, I hadn’t thought of those things as…”
“Why not?”
“Well, Sir, You see, the people who talked about those things were not… er…
Bible believing. As an example, they talked about resisting war taxes, even
though the Bible says, ‘Render unto Caesar…’. Things like that…”
“You paid your taxes?”
“Well, Sir, yes, Sir, I did.”
“Every penny?”
“I think so, Sir.”
“Are you saying that I am responsible for this fire and your tax dollars were
not?”
“Well, Sir, I… er…”
“Next!”
Allan W. Smith responded in a
letter to the editor,
saying that Christians should beware of inadvertently putting themselves under
an Antichrist who promises worldly peace at the expense of abandoning Biblical
truth:
In Stoner’s depiction of the scene of judgment day, it is to be observed that
Jesus dictum, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” is
contradicted. It is not to be supposed that Jesus and Paul, who both told
people to pay their taxes, were ignorant of the way that Rome got and held its
power. Taxes are, after all, not freewill gifts to the state, and we may well
be grieved with the way the state uses them. However, we must all live by our
Word-enlightened consciences.
A proposed Mennonite Church statement on militarism and conscription,
originally drafted by MBCM
staff members Hubert Schwartzentruber and Gordon Zook in consultation with
several other persons, was presented. The Board gave the statement extensive
discussion and some refinement, and unanimously approved the document for
submission as a recommendation from MBCM
to the General Board for presentation to the
Mennonite Church General Assembly. The statement contains sections on peace
and obedience, use of material resources, Christian service and conscription,
and militarism and taxation.
That article also noted that the Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries
met and approved a “task force to represent the Mennonite Church in cooperation
with the General Conference Mennonite Church committee on conscientious
objection and tax exemption.”
Sensing the radical nature of his comments on the theme, “The Way of Peace,”
Schwartzentruber said that he could be taken to jail if he put into action his
beliefs on such issues as war taxes and conscription. If he had to go to jail,
he said, it would be easier to go with brothers and sisters in the faith.
Peacemaking is the way of Jesus, but it has to be the work of the church and
not of individuals alone, he said.
Representatives of the Mennonite Church gathered in Waterloo,
, and
war tax resistance was on the agenda
but was overshadowed by other concerns about draft registration:
Debate over the proposed statement on militarism and conscription was centered
in two subpoints. One counseled Mennonites not to comply with any military
registration law that might be passed by the
U.S. Congress if
the Department of Defense and not civilians would be responsible for the
registration program. The other point counseled administrators of church
schools not to comply with any legislation which might be passed that would
require them to provide information about their students for purposes of
registration.
Noting that passage of any such registration bill is very much in doubt,
Linden Wenger, Harrisonburg,
Va., told fellow delegates,
“It seems to me we’re being a bit premature in making an issue of these two
items.” Wenger also said that he “will not hinge my decision” on whether to
support compliance with a registration law on whether it is administered by
civilian or military personnel.
Other delegates, including John E. Lapp of Souderton,
Pa., responded that it
was important that the items in question not be deleted.
In the amended statement which was finally approved, the two items were
combined and weakened slightly, but were retained. A subpoint urging “careful
biblical study” on the issue of war tax payment was added. In addition, the
statement was upgraded from “guidelines” to a full statement of position.
The eventual statement on militarism and conscription that came out of the
Waterloo conference on was
reprinted in Gospel Herald. It included the following
section:
We recognize that today’s militarism expresses itself more and more through
expensive and highly technical weaponry and that such equipment is dependent
upon financial resources conscripted from citizens through taxation.
Therefore,
We encourage our members to pursue a lifestyle which minimizes such tax
liability through reduction of taxable income and/or increase of tax
deductible contributions for the advancement of the gospel and the relief
of human suffering.
We endorse efforts in support of legislation which would provide
alternative uses for taxes, paid by conscientious objectors to war, which
would otherwise be devoted to military purposes.
We encourage our congregations to engage in careful biblical study
regarding Christian responsibility to civil authorities including issues
of conscience in relation to payment of taxes.
We recognize as a valid witness the conscientious refusal to pay a portion
of taxes required for war and military efforts. Such refusal, however, may
not be pursued in a spirit of lawlessness nor for personal advantage but
may be an occasion for constructive response to human need.
We encourage our congregations and institutions to seek relief from the
current legal requirement of collecting taxes through the withholding of
income taxes of employees, especially those taxes which may be used for
war purposes. In this effort we endorse cooperation with the General
Conference Mennonite Church in the current search for judicial,
legislative, and administrative alternatives to the collection of
military-related taxes. In the meantime if congregational or institutional
employers are led to noncompliance with the requirement to withhold such
taxes, we pledge our support for those representatives of the church who
may be called to account for such a witness.
On ,
Robert C. Johansen
(“president of the Institute for World Order”) spoke at Goshen College and
boosted war tax resistance:
Johansen encouraged his listeners to become part of a “new breed of
abolitionists,” to take a more active stance, even if this included refusing
to pay war taxes and refusing to be drafted. He reminded his audience that
those in opposition to slavery had also defied the law in order to bring about
change.
Gordon Zook, in the issue,
wrote that the whole economy was distorted towards militarism, and took a
sort of sideways look at tax resistance in that context:
One current issue of obedience is the militaristic mentality which keeps
producing new weapons systems at the expense of basic human needs. So much of
North American “abundance” results from the distorted values and priorities of
our militaristic economy. Many are wondering, how to repent of such
involvements including questions of responsibility for the use of tax
revenues.
In the same issue, John K. Stoner was back to urge
conscientious objection to nuclear deterrence
which necessarily meant action before the nuclear war, not just
options to be held in reserve for after the war started:
Mennonites who believe that the Bible teaches conscientious objection to
military service should also be conscientious objectors to the concept and
practice of nuclear deterrence. We have expressed conscientious objection to
military service by refusing military service, whether by refusing to put on
the military uniform, going to prison, doing alternate service, or emigrating.
We should express our Conscientious objection to the concept and practice of
nuclear deterrence by publicly rejecting the myth of nuclear deterrence,
denouncing the idolatry of nuclear weapons, refusing to pay war taxes, and
identifying with resistance to the nuclear madness.
Mennonites should do this because the concept and practice of nuclear
deterrence is a form of military service in which the entire population has
been conscripted. The concept of nuclear deterrence epitomizes the spirit of
war. The practice of nuclear deterrence is to war what lust is to adultery,
and whoever engages freely in lust should not consider himself innocent of
adultery. As E.I. Watkin has said, it cannot “be morally right to threaten
immoral conduct.” To plan and prepare for the annihilation of millions of
people is a culpable act in the extreme, and whoever does not deliberately and
explicitly repudiate the concept and practice of nuclear deterrence
participates in the act.
The U.S. branch of
the international Roman Catholic peace movement, Pax Christi
USA,
initiated informal contacts with General Conference Mennonite peace
spokespersons .
Rural Benedictine College at Atchison,
Kan., provided the setting for
the sixth annual convention of Pax Christi
USA,
at which Mennonites Bob Hull and Don Kaufman of Newton,
Kan., led a workshop on tax
resistance and the World Peace Tax Fund Act. Interest in this was strong.
About 40 persons, including some tax resisters, participated. In a private
meeting with Sister Man Evelyn Jegen, executive secretary of Pax Christi
USA, and
Gordon Zahn, a Catholic conscientious objector in World War Ⅱ, Hull, Kaufman,
and William Keeney of Bethel College, North Newton,
Kan., explained the General
Conference Mennonite Church resolution on war taxes. Mennonite Central
Committee Peace Section’s Christian Peacemaker Registration form received
active interest at the convention, particularly during a workshop on
“Militarism in Education.” The possible resumption of registration and perhaps
the draft in the
U.S. is stimulating
regional Pax Christi groups to promote conscientious objection to war by
Catholic youth.
Resolutions concerning the
Iranian-U.S. crisis,
SALT
Ⅱ, and the proposed World Peace Tax Fund were passed at the fall meeting of
Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section
(U.S.),
Nov.
30–Dec. 1 at Akron,
Pa.
Section members also agreed to postpone a decision on a resolution to support
war tax resistance campaign until they could have further dialogue with
constituent members…
The World Peace Tax Fund
(WPTF) bill
now before Congress also received an endorsement from the Peace section group.
The bill would provide a legal means for conscientious objectors to channel
the portion of their tax dollar which now goes for the military budget to be
used in a special fund for projects to promote world peace.
The section said in resolution “that it is conscious that the
WPTF
legislation might not in itself force a significant reduction in military
spending, but it recognizes that it would provide funds for peacemaking
efforts and would be a witness against military spending. The section
continues to support other forms of witness against military spending,
including persons who refuse to pay war taxes.”
Although Peace Section has given staff time to the promotion of a better
understanding of
WPTF in its
constituency, it had not before been a formal sponsor of the bill.
Peace Section has also established a bureau of Christian speakers available to
address congregations and other groups concerning
WPTF.
Federal court convicts Mennonite in Illinois war tax resistance case
Bruce Chrisman, 30-year-old General Conference Mennonite, was convicted on
by U.S. District
Court in Springfield, Ill.,
of federal income tax evasion.
Chrisman, who lives in Ava in southern Illinois, was charged with failing to
file a tax return in . Actually Chrisman did
file a return in and other years for which
the government said he failed to file. But the returns did not contain the
financial data the Internal Revenue Service contends constitutes a legal tax
return.
Chrisman attached letters to his returns saying he objected on religious and
moral grounds to paying taxes that support the
U.S. military. His
defense lawyers said the government had to prove that he “willfully” failed to
file a return — that he knew what the statute required and purposefully
decided not to comply.
At a three-day criminal trial Chrisman said, “The returns I filed with the
IRS were
in accordance with the dictates of my conscience and religious beliefs and the
IRS
code.”
He testified that his father never hit him and that “guns, even cap guns, were
never allowed in our home.”
The prosecuting attorney read Romans 13, Luke 20:20–26, and Matthew 17:24–27
and asked Chrisman, “Don’t you believe in the Bible? Doesn’t it state here you
should pay taxes?”
Chrisman said, “The government is not the supreme authority in my life, but
Jesus Christ is.”
In the closing arguments to the jury the prosecution said Chrisman’s “joy” and
“peaceful composure” exposed his lack of deeply held religious beliefs.
James Dunn, Mennonite pastor in Urbana,
Ill., observed the trial. He
said evidence of Chrisman’s character and of his pacifism were not allowed as
testimony by the judge, J. Waldo Ackerman.
During the pretrial hearings, Ackerman allowed Robert Hull, secretary for
peace and social concerns of the General Conference Mennonite Church, and
Peter Ediger, director of Mennonite Voluntary Service, to testify about
Mennonite witness against war and conscription of persons and money for war
purposes. But the testimony was disallowed at the trial.
One of Chrisman’s attorneys, Jeffrey Weiss, in addressing the 12-member jury,
argued that Chrisman’s religious beliefs and his conscientious objector status
during the Vietnam War should exempt him from paying that portion of his
federal income tax that supports the military. “He did not try to hide behind
the shield of religion to rip off the government but honestly believes he is
exercising his constitutional rights to religion.” he said.
Chrisman, married, with a two-year-old daughter, faces up to one year in
prison and a $10,000 fine The verdict will be appealed to the
U.S. Court of
Appeals in Chicago.
A pair of articles advertised seminar on war tax resistance that would be held
at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center in
:
Does Caesar ask for only what belongs to him?
Should there be a Mennonite consensus on paying or not paying war taxes? These
and related questions will be the agenda for a seminar at Laurelville Church
Center, .
The seminar is entitled “War Taxes: to Pay or Not to Pay?” It is jointly
sponsored by the Church Center and Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section.
Persons on both sides of the issue are encouraged to participate. More
information is available from Laurelville Mennonite Church Center…
“War Taxes: To Pay or Not to Pay?”
is the title of a seminar cosponsored by
MCC
Peace Section and Laurelville Mennonite Church Center. Persons on all sides of
the issue are encouraged to participate as such questions will be raised as:
What belongs to Caesar and what to God? What are these taxes buying? What are
the alternatives? More information is available from Laurelville Mennonite
Church Center…
The GCMC Mid-Triennium
This was the first Gospel Herald report from the
General Conference Mennonite Church special mid-triennium conference on war
taxes:
Debate was vigorous and heated as more than 500 delegates from the General
Conference Mennonite Church and some 200 visitors met
to discuss how Christians should respond to the nuclear threat and to massive
expenditures for defense. War tax resistance, or the refusal to pay for the
military portion of the federal budget, was among possible responses discussed
at the meeting, held in Minneapolis.
A few delegates present at the first day of the conference said the church
should not act as tax collector for the state through withholding taxes from
employees’ paychecks. But most of the delegates present the first day said
that while they were troubled by worldwide military expenditures of over one
billion dollars daily, the church as a corporate body should not engage in
illegal activity in its witness against war preparations. Instead, speakers
urged alternatives such as pressuring congressional representatives to reduce
defense expenditures, eliminate the arms trade, and to increase aid and trade
to Third World countries. A few observed that Mennonites contribute to the
disparity in living standards around the world through their affluent
lifestyle.
A sentiment often expressed, however, was that the church, while avoiding
illegal actions, should actively support its members who engage in civil
disobedience on the basis of conscience.
Roy Vogt, economics professor from Winnipeg, Manitoba, berated the assembly
for loading the responsibility for witness upon isolated individuals. “It is
morally reprehensible,” he said, “to give only moral support. We must provide
financial and legal support for those prophets who have arisen from our
middle-class ranks.”
In contrast to the social activists at the conference are Mennonites like Dan
Dalke, pastor from Bluffton, Ohio, who castigated the social activists for
making pacifism a religion. “We will never create a Utopia,” he said. “Jesus
didn’t come to clean up social issues. Our job is to evangelize the world. A
peace witness is secondary.”
Some of the statements were personal. A businessman confessed that while he
could easily withhold paying military taxes on the basis of conscience, he was
frightened. “I am scared of being different, of being embarrassed, of being
alienated from my community. Unless I get support from the Mennonite church, I
will keep paying taxes.”
Alvin Beachy of Newton, Kan.,
said the church seemed to be shifting from a quest to being faithful to the
gospel to being legal before the government. Echoing this view, J.R.
Burkholder of Goshen, Ind.,
said, “The question is not who is most faithful, but what does it mean to be
faithful?”
A follow-up article in the
issue filled in some blanks:
General Conference Mennonites voted
to launch a vigorous campaign to exempt the church from acting as a tax
collector for the state.
Five-hundred delegates, representing 60,000 Mennonites in Canada and the
U.S. passed the
resolution by a nine to one margin. Charged with responsibility to implement
the decision is the highest policy-making body of the General Conference
Mennonite Church, the General Board.
Heinz Janzen, executive secretary for the denomination, said the decision will
increase political activism among Mennonites, a group which has traditionally
kept distant from legislative activities.
Delegates met
in a special conference to discern the will of God for Christians in their
response to militarism and the worldwide arms race.
Some Mennonites are practicing war tax resistance — the refusal to pay the
military portion of federal income tax. This was a central focus of debate
during because one of the
employees of the General Conference has asked the church to stop withholding
war taxes from her wages. In , Cornelia Lehn,
who is director of children’s education, made the request on grounds of
conscience. Her request was refused by the General Board because it would be
illegal for an employer to not act as a tax collector for the Internal Revenue
Service.
Although delegates to this convention affirmed that decision, they instructed
the General Board to vigorously search for legal avenues to exempt the church
from collecting taxes. In that way individuals employed by the church would be
free to follow their own conscience.
The campaign to obtain legal conscientious objection to war taxes will last
three years. If fruitless the question is to be brought back to another
meeting of the church.
Activists in the church were not completely satisfied with the decision. They
would prefer that Cornelia Lehn’s request be granted. These delegates spoke
for an early First Amendment test of the constitutionality of the church being
compelled to act as a tax collector.
Nevertheless, Donovan Smucker, vice-president of the General Conference and
from Kitchener, Ont., said of
the decision, “Something wonderful is happening. We are beginning to bring our
witness to the political order.”
Vernon Lohrenz, a delegate from South Dakota, observed, “We must proceed in
faith, and not in fear. If this is the right thing to do, God will take care
of us.”
From the discussions on taxation, it seemed the issue will not easily be
resolved.
Implementing the decision of the General Conference Mennonite Church “war tax”
conference in Minneapolis has
not been easy.
The Minneapolis resolution mandated a task force on taxes to seek “all legal,
legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector
exemption” for the General Conference Mennonite Church from the withholding of
federal income taxes from its employees. (About 46 percent of
U.S.
federal taxes are used for the military.)
Two meetings of the task force have been held. The task force has been
expanded to include representation from the Church of the Brethren, the
Friends, and the Mennonite Church. This group of 11 is expected by the
participating churches to establish the legal, legislative, and administrative
agenda of a corporate discipleship response to military taxes.
At their second meeting () the
task force members rejected administrative avenues. Within the scope of
U.S. Internal
Revenue Service or Revenue Canada regulations, this would involve extending
ordination, commissioning, or licensing status to all employees of church
institutions. It was a consensus of the task force that this would be an
administrative loophole. It would not develop a conscientious objector
position in response to military taxes.
However, both the judicial and legislative options will be pursued
simultaneously. Plans for the legislative option are the more developed.
For the legislative route to work, says Delton Franz, director of the
Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section office in Washington,
D.C., the
problem of conscience and taxes will have to be defined carefully. Currently a
paper focusing on the reasons the General Conference has a major problem of
conscience with collecting taxes from its employees is being drafted. After it
has been reviewed, it will be sent along with cover letters by leaders of the
historic peace churches to members of Congress who represent major
constituency concentrations or sit on key subcommittees. Later on, church
members will also be asked to write letters. It is important, says Franz, to
define the problem of conscience in such a way that it will motivate Senators
and Representatives to work vigorously for the bill.
Another follow-up to these initiatives will be a visit to Washington of the
most influential peace church leaders to solicit support from selected members
of Congress and to obtain a sponsor for an exemption bill.
There is a possibility that a parallel task force will emerge in Canada. Ernie
Regehr, director of Project Ploughshares, Waterloo,
Ont., notes the necessity of
defining the question of militarism in Canadian terms for Canadians; for
example, arms export revenues. Regehr in attempting to gather a Canadian task
force. Heinz Janzen, general secretary of the General Conference Mennonite
Church, is convener of the war tax expanded task force. Mennonite Church
members are Winifred Beechy, secretary for peace and social concerns under the
Board of Congregational Ministries; Janet Reedy, member of the Mennonite
Church committee on tax concerns; and Gordon Zook, executive secretary of the
Board of Congregational Ministries.
A New Call to Peacemaking
The “New Call to Peacemaking” campaign continued.
Another conference
was announced for :
workshops will deal with conflict
resolution, tax resistance and the World Peace Tax Fund, economic conversion
and the arms race, and resources for peace education.
Campaign organizers assert that interest in the “issue of conscience and war
taxes” has been growing recently. It was given a “high priority” by the New
Call to Peacemaking national conference in Wisconsin.
Results of the conference
(which had apparently been pushed back a few weeks) were reported by Winifred
N. Beechy:
More war-tax opposition
A group of 30 to 40 church people met on , at City Church
of the Brethren, Goshen, Ind.,
to consider the moral dilemma faced by Christians who are opposed to war as a
method of settling disputes but who involuntarily contribute to war by payment
of taxes.
Participants in the one-day seminar came from 12 area congregations and
represented four denominations. The focus of the meeting was on that portion
of the federal income tax which goes to support the military and weapons
production. This group felt that the increasing militarization of our society,
the escalation of the arms race, and production of highly technological
weapons of destruction posed the problem of priorities and stewardship, and
the contradiction of “paying for war while praying for peace.”
Willard Swartley, professor of New Testament at Associated Mennonite Biblical
Seminaries in Elkhart, spoke on “Biblical imperatives,” emphasizing the
Christian’s mandate for responsible use of the earth’s resources. Cliff Kindy
of Goshen then outlined what we pay for war, giving a breakdown of the federal
budget with percentages of expenditures going to current and past military and
war-related items. He computed current military spending as roughly 25 to 30
percent, while a more comprehensive figure, taking into account veterans’
expenses and interest on the war-related portion of the national debt, reaches
as high as 50 percent of the national budget. Kindy also estimated that
members of Mennonite and Church of the Brethren churches in Elkhart County pay
more for war taxes than they contribute to their churches.
A survey of the history of war tax resistance among the historic peace
churches since the Reformation was presented by Leonard Gross, archivist of
the Mennonite Church. Current responses to the problem of war taxes were given
by a number of people. Janet Reedy of Elkhart and Jim Sweigart of Goshen
discussed possible options such as refusal to pay that portion of the income
tax which goes to support war, payment made with an accompanying letter or
protest, or voluntarily limiting income below the level of tax liability.
Following the presentations the group broke up into three workshops for
further discussion. From these emerged a consensus on the need for a
continuing support group such as this. Participants expect to draft a
statement which can be presented to their respective congregations for
consideration.
The seminar was planned by a New Call to Peacemaking Committee made up of
members from six Church of the Brethren and Mennonite Churches in Goshen, with
Virgil Brenneman from The Assembly (Mennonite) serving as chairman.
Bruce Chrisman told a New Call to Peacemaking Workshop of his war tax resistance.
The workshop on national service and voluntary service discussed a proposal by
members of Rainbow Boulevard Mennonite Church, Kansas City,
Kan., regarding a legal tax
alternative which would involve cooperating with a national service plan.
In the workshop on conscription of wealth Bob Hull, secretary for peace and
social concerns of the General Conference Mennonite Church, suggested
alternatives to paying war taxes. Others offered their own suggestions.
Several persons expressed the desire to pay taxes only for nonmilitary
programs, and said they wished there was legal provision for this, such as the
World Peace Tax Fund. McSorley, who has had contacts on Capitol Hill,
responded by saying that until there is a large grass-roots movement of tax
resistance the
WPTF doesn’t
stand a chance.
The latter half of the workshop included sharing by Bruce Chrisman,
Carbondale, Ill., who is
involved in a federal criminal case, one of two in the
U.S. involving tax
resistance. His case is significant because it will provide a precedent either
for or against tax refusal on the basis of conscience and religious
convictions.
In Chrisman received draft counseling from
James Dunn, pastor of the Champaign-Urbana
(Ill.) Mennonite Church. He
made a covenant with God to only pay taxes for humanitarian purposes. Since
that time he has paid no federal income taxes.
It wasn’t until this year, however, that the government prosecuted him,
charging that he willfully failed to disclose his gross income in
. “Willful” is the key term, because Chrisman
claims he conscientiously chose not to disclose his income. He feels the
government has purposely waited to build its case.
In the conclusion to his talk Chrisman said that when he first appeared in
court on
this year he was “scared to death.” “Today,” he said, “I have no fear in me.
God has given me an inner peace. I know I’m doing what He wants me to do.”
The Smoketown Consultation
The Gospel Herald covered
“the Smoketown Consultation”
of , in which conservative
Mennonites organized against innovations like war tax resistance. It noted that
“All 25 persons invited were white males,” but also reproduced the statement
that came out of the conference.
Several letters to the editor reacted to this news:
“I… wondered about the inclusion of the specific war tax issue. Were
individuals who sincerely hold to an alternate point of view asked to take
part in the discussion? Again, I am not questioning the conclusions of the
group so much as to ask whether any ‘by-invitation-only’ meeting can speak
for the church with any more integrity than can existing boards and
commissions of the church.”
“It is very easy to pick a Scripture verse to use to prove or disprove
almost anything. The group at one point (Statement #2) speaks about total
commitment to Jesus Christ but then uses quotations from the Apostle Paul
(Statement #5) to validify payment of all taxes. If Jesus Christ is
central, let’s use His example and specific words to guide us! I can
imagine the Pentagon people jumping for joy upon hearing such a statement
about taxes. I’m sure they are glad for this voluntary assurance (from
‘peace church’ members) that money will continue to roll in so that the
military can increase its nuclear arsenal. Because of the apparent
unquestioning payment of taxes by German Christians, Hitler was able to
annihilate millions of persons. We
(U.S.) will be
able to do it with nuclear weapons Neat, eh?”
“At Smoketown Ⅱ, when we assume the sisters of the church will take the
opportunity to share their thoughts, we suggest that a fuller range of
statements be reported. Issues, the unavoidable places where doctrine
meets practical decisions, should be identified and addressed to give
definition to the positive reaffirmation of the authority of Scripture and
a renewed zeal for personal and church evangelism. And, for the grass
roots, a minority report on the nonpayment of war taxes could be
included.”
Verburg didn’t think much of all this talk about war taxes, saying that
the peace witness was about more than opposition to military, so the war
tax emphasis was sign of an imbalance. “We are not the flower children of
the sixties. We are Jesus people and there is a big difference.”
[Gordon] Zook [executive secretary of the Board of Congregational Ministries]
noted the difference between the Smoketown statement “that we should pay all
taxes” and the statement on peacemaking passed by the General Assembly at
Waterloo. The Waterloo statement recognizes the withholding of war taxes as a
valid option. Which statement represents the church? he asked.
Peace Tax Fund Legislation
The edition included an
article by Dan Slabaugh laying out the case for the World Peace Tax Fund bill.
An editor’s note in that issue mentioned that “The
U.S. copies of the
issue of the
Gospel Herald carried a center insert with cards that
may be used by readers to encourage
U.S. lawmakers to
support the World Peace Tax Fund. The following article provides the author’s
rationale for support of the Fund legislation. Readers who care to are
encouraged to make use of these cards or to write their own leaders on its
behalf.”
Any collection of taxes for military purposes has created problems of
conscience for those committed to the peaceful resolution of conflict. Many
members of the “historic peace churches” have viewed war taxes as a denial of
religious freedom since such payments forced them to engage in personal sin.
The question has been put this way: “How can I, as a follower of the Prince of
Peace, willingly provide the government with money that’s needed to pay for
war?”
The most recent war tax in the United States, aside from the income tax, has
been the federal telephone tax. This levy was initiated originally to support
the Vietnam War, but is still continuing for a few more years. Many people
have refused to pay this tax to the federal government. Instead, they have
been sending the equivalent amount to the [“]Special Fund for Tax Resisters”
of Mennonite Central Committee’s Peace Section, or to similar designated
organizations.
To a smaller percentage of individuals the payment of the federal income tax
(approximately 50 percent of which they know goes to support wars and military
activity) also has been considered a matter of personal sin. They therefore
have informed the government that in good conscience they cannot voluntarily
pay that portion of their tax. In some cases persons have deposited the amount
in a local bank where the Internal Revenue Service comes and “steals” it from
them. By so doing these persons are freeing themselves of personal
responsibility for the money’s eventual use and also providing a visible
protest against the evil.
To most of these law-abiding, peace-loving people continual confrontation with
their own government has been an unhappy prospect. So nearly a decade ago a
small group of Christians at Ann Arbor, Michigan — with considerable faith in
the American legislative process — came to believe that it might be possible
to draft a bill and eventually convince the federal government to legalize
“peace” for those citizens so inclined.
A faculty member and a few graduate students at the University of Michigan’s
Law School drafted such a proposal. It provides, for the individual requesting
it, a setting aside of that percentage of the federal income tax which the
U.S. Attorney
General would determine to be earmarked for military purposes. This amount
would then be placed in a trust fund to be administered by a board of trustees
to fund peaceful activities, as approved by the
U.S. Congress.
This legislation, which has become known as the World Peace Tax Fund bill, was
introduced into the
U.S. House of
Representatives by Ronald Dellums of California in
. In the
National Council for a
WPTF was
invited to present its case in the House Ways and Means Committee. The bill
was introduced into the Senate in by Senator
Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon. In the last Congress it had 25 sponsors in the
House of Representatives and the three in the Senate (The legislation was not
enacted and so must be reintroduced to be considered by the present Congress.)
The World Peace Tax Fund bill is often misunderstood. It does not call for any
tax relief or special favors benefiting anyone financially. The bill, if
passed, probably will not affect the
U.S. government’s
military activities. In all likelihood it will not cut the military budget, or
of itself, stop wars. And it will not diminish the need to continue peace
teaching or peace activities.
But it will allow a citizen to legally refrain from contributing to the cost
of war and violence. It will provide a fund to finance peace programs and
support efforts to eliminate the causes of violent conflict.
The biggest obstacle to getting this bill passed in the
U.S. Congress is
the large number of people who say they are committed to peace, but who
seemingly feel no responsibility regarding the government’s use of their tax
money. As a result, legislators tell us that they can’t see the payment of war
taxes as much of a problem because they get very few letters expressing
concern about the matter.
To a large degree, Congress is “problem-oriented.” An alert young Congressman
told us personally that “this bill probably will not be passed until enough of
you refuse to pay war taxes — even if it means going to jail. In other words,”
he was saying, “create a problem that Congress must deal with.”
I am convinced that the conscientious objector provision of the Selective
Service act of never would have been
included had it not been for the “problem” created by
C.O.’s who
refused induction during World War Ⅰ. As the
U.S. was mobilizing
for World War Ⅱ the government did not want another “problem” on its hands, so
it agreed to make provisions for the C.O.’s — not
necessarily out of concern for religious liberty, but in order to keep the
boat from rocking too much.
We should remember that God’s prophets and even His own Son were seen as
“problems” in terms of natural human tendencies toward power, selfishness and
greed. Few of us like to “cause problems” for others. We like to work at
solving them — and be successful in our efforts. But in matters of conscience,
we haven’t been called to be successful, we have been called to be faithful.
“Conscience and War Taxes” is the title of a slide set produced by the
National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund. A resources packet accompanies
the 78 color slides, 20-minute cassette. “Conscience and War Taxes” can be
obtained from MBCM Audiovisuals…
The first issue the class tackled was the payment of war taxes. In
U.S.
Rep. Edward Mezvinsky
was invited to church for Sunday lunch and a discussion of the war tax issue.
“He sidestepped every issue,” said Jim Yoder. Mezvinsky promised to vote for
the World Peace Tax Fund Act if it ever made it to the floor of the House, but
declined to help the bill out of committee.
“He spent most of his time expounding upon his efforts to kill the
B-1 bomber,” recalled Nyle.
When the Fourth of July rolled around that Bicentennial year, the class
sponsored an alternate celebration for the church. Guy Hershberger was asked
to chair the meeting. He interviewed some of the local
“veterans” — conscientious objectors Henry Miller, Henry Brenneman, and Sol
Ropp — who had been badly mistreated by the
U.S. Army during
World War Ⅱ. He also discussed the war tax issue.
Later in the year the class presented a proposal to the congregation, asking
the church to lend moral support to people who did not pay the portion of
their taxes going for war. After initial misunderstandings and further
discussion, the congregation approved the proposal.
Nyle [Kauffman] and Jim were the only class members making enough to have to
worry about paying any taxes at all in . Both
withheld 33 percent of their estimated tax and sent a check for the amount to
Mennonite Central Committee.
This is the twenty-first in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal
of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
In there was a lot of discussion of war tax
resistance, and a lot of individual Mennonite war tax refusal and redirection,
but Mennonite Church institutions seemed more reluctant than their General
Conference to take corporate stands supporting their war tax refusing
employees.
The issue brought an update
in the case of a Mennonite war tax resister who was fighting his case in court:
Bruce Chrisman of Ava, Ill.,
a General Conference Mennonite who was convicted on
of failure to file an income tax return in ,
was sentenced on
to one year in Mennonite Voluntary Service.
Chrisman is a war-tax resister. He believes conscientious objectors should be
exempt on First Amendment grounds from paying that portion of federal income
tax that supports the military.
Judge J. Waldo Ackerman of the
U.S. District Court
in Springfield,
Ill. ordered the unusual
sentence, giving Mennonite Voluntary Service
(MVS)
staff 30 days to work out a program with Chrisman.
“I’m amazed,” said Chrisman. “I feel very good about the sentence. The
alternative service is probably the first sentence of its kind for a tax case.
I think it reflects the testimony in the trial and its influence on the
judge.” Chrisman could have been sentenced to one year in prison and a $10,000
fine.
Chrisman and his wife, Mary Anne, and two-year-old daughter, Venessa, live on
a small farm near Ava. Plans are for them to join
MVS
as a family. They will remain in their home community and engage in prison
ministries and peace education work along with their farming. Charles Neufeld,
regional
MVS
administrator, is working with the Chrismans and local support committee
headed by Ted Braun, pastor of United Church of Christ in Carbondale,
Ill., to give guidance to
this ministry.
At the trial Bob Hull, Jim Dunn, and
Peter Ediger joined with Chrisman in testifying to Christian conviction
against warfare, including payment of taxes for support of war. When the
prosecution cross-examined Chrisman from the Bible they also called Ediger as
a trial witness. Ediger, who is director of Mennonite Voluntary Service,
articulated Mennonite pacifist beliefs and how the tax code infringes on the
First Amendment rights to religious pacifists.
Dunn, who is pastor of the First Mennonite Church in Champaign-Urbana
(Ill.), was a character
witness. Hull, secretary for peace and social concerns of the General
Conference Mennonite Church, and Ediger testified about Mennonite beliefs
during the earlier pretrial hearing.
An appeal of the case has been filed by Chrisman’s attorney, Jeffrey Weiss,
not to contest the sentence, but to test the court’s rulings denying relevance
of First Amendment rights in this case. Persons interested in helping with
court costs may contact the General Conference Mennonite Church, Commission on
Home Ministries…
The Chrismans are ready to share their faith and concerns for peacemaking in
their community and beyond. Persons or churches interested may write them at
Route 2, Ava, IL 62907.
A prayer for believers who voluntarily pay war taxes: “Father, forgive them,
even though they know very well what they are doing.” ―from Daniel Slabaugh, a
conscientious objector to voluntary payment of war taxes, pastor of the Ann
Arbor (Mich.) Mennonite
Church.
Elam Lantz, currently residing in Washington, spoke on “First Amendment
Religious Freedom.” He spoke at some length on the “free exercise” phrase as
some have tried to apply it to war-tax resistance.
[T]he board responded to an inquiry from James Longacre, Mennonite Church
representative on
MCC
Peace Section
(U.S.). Longacre
sought counsel on whether Peace Section should approve a proposal for advocacy
of “war tax” resistance. The Board acknowledged that there is a lack of
consensus on the subject in the church and counseled caution, urging
sensitivity toward those who hold to different practices.
In a controversial decision, the bishop board reported that “after careful
consideration… we do not support promoting participation in a war tax
resistance campaign.”
Calling on congregations to stand with draft-age young people in a costly
peace witness, meeting participants urged “a stronger stand” in resistance to
the payment of taxes for military purposes and called for “increased
participation in existing and expanded service programs by young and old
alike.”
An commentary by Michael Shank
and Richard Kremer pushed Mennonites to take a stand with their taxes, if only
a small, symbolic one:
During the past year, the Mennonite congregation of Boston has felt a growing
concern about the enormous military expenditures of our government and about
our silence as a church. Events of the past months — Americans increasing
demands for military intervention to “solve” the stalemate in Iran, the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, and President Carter’s requests for sharply increased
military spending, for opening new military bases near the Middle East, for
restoring draft registration — have made us realize, yet again, how close a
nation ostensibly “at peace” can be to war.
, we spent several meetings
discussing militarism and war taxes so that our congregational representative
could speak for us at the General Conference Mennonite Church consultation on
war taxes held in . Since that
time we have been grappling with our responses to the war tax issue, both as
individuals and as a congregation.
Why do we think this issue is so important? First we assume that as Mennonites
our commitment to reconciliation and our refusal to participate in war-related
activities remain fundamental to our understanding of the gospel. In this
respect, we remain in continuity with the conscientious objection to war
voiced by our predecessors, particularly during World War Ⅰ and the wars which
followed.
Although this commitment has not changed in any fundamental way, the world
situation in which we find ourselves is significantly different from that of
our parents and grandparents. Until very recently, manpower appeared to be the
crucial ingredient for war. Since we could not in good conscience participate
in war, we objected to the government’s demands for our military service. This
stance led to the imprisonment of Mennonites and other conscientious objectors
during World War Ⅰ, and later to alternative service legislation during World
War Ⅱ.
During , however, the
character of warfare has changed in drastic ways. The threats to human life
and peace presented by large armies, unfortunately, have been completely
dwarfed by nuclear weapons, which our country did not hesitate to use on an
earlier occasion. These weapons of large-scale and indiscriminate death
presently exist in quantities sufficient to destroy all human life many times
over, and the stockpiles continue to grow.
Under such circumstances, the military branches of our government no longer
need our bodies as badly as they need our money and our silence. Every year
they need new funds:
to research, develop, and test more accurate and efficient means of
carrying bombs to their targets;
to produce, deploy, and maintain these weapons;
to train technicians to use them; and
to attract, recruit, and pay people who presently “volunteer”
for the armed forces.
All of these activities take place without our direct participation (unless,
of course, the draft is cranked up again); none of them could take place
without money. These expenditures are authorized by our representatives and
paid for by the taxes we contribute.
In contrast to the Roman Christians to whom Paul wrote, we have alternatives
beyond silent submission or open revolt. Our government expects its citizens
to voice their concerns. Our constitution and laws have provided channels for
doing so. These include, among others, communications to representatives, and
provisions for challenging bad laws by testing their validity
(e.g., by refusing to comply so that a higher
court will need to examine the law). Under such circumstances, our government
and representatives can be expected to interpret our silence, both as
individuals and as a church, in only two ways: either we approve of their
policies, or we do not care.
Many in our congregation are convinced that the biblical teachings and
arguments which led Mennonites to the conscientious objector position in World
War Ⅰ (when this position was not legal) and in World War Ⅱ (when it was) lead
us also to object to the use of our tax dollars for weapons of mass
destruction. The quiet payment of war taxes today is as inconsistent with the
spirit of Jesus life and teachings as the act of joining the army was earlier
(and indeed still is). The same concern for obedience today demands a response
suited to the new circumstances into which military developments have placed
us.
There is yet another reason why we must voice our concerns. Many of us would
undoubtedly make use of the World Peace Tax Fund, if such an option were
presently open to us. But how will we honestly be able to call ourselves
conscientious objectors to war taxes in the future (if and when such a
possibility becomes legal) if we raise no objections whatsoever now? What
grounds will the government have for believing our sincerity if it has no
record of our past objections either as a church or as individuals?
, a number of our members took the
symbolic step of withholding $10 from their income tax payments and forwarding
this amount to the Mennonite Central Committee. Others included letters with
their tax returns protesting use of their tax monies for military purposes. We
plan to reconsider our tax-paying responsibilities as
approaches once again. We
encourage other Mennonite congregations to join with us in seeking to build
peaceful relations among all peoples and nations and to denounce the tendency
to solve world problems solely through military might.
D.R. Yoder wrote a
letter to the editor
in response, rejecting war tax resistance for lack of scriptural support.
Seminar participants elected workshops, Saturday afternoon on organizing
public peace witness, war tax alternatives, the draft and conscientious
objectors, and the arms race and the economy.
The Mennonite brotherhood stands firmly on the position that Christians should
not serve in the military. The basic reason for this position is that the
military is a force and a power of destruction, and it cannot be brought
together with the role of a servant as we understand the call to commitment in
the New Testament. To avoid military service in various countries and
centuries Mennonites have used different methods. Substitutes have been hired,
men have refused to serve and have been imprisoned and killed. Since the
1940s, Mennonites have been excused from serving and have been allowed to do
alternative service.
The methods of fighting wars and being a power have changed greatly since the
1600s. World War Ⅰ and most of World War Ⅱ were fought with the same methods
as for thousands of years, that method being vast numbers of men and hand
weapons.
World Wars Ⅰ and Ⅱ also brought new ideas and methods to the “act of
war”: the fighter plane and the bomber, that now destroys women, children, and
the old who are not in the military through the bombing of cities; tanks and
rockets and (the thing that ended the war with Japan) the atomic bomb, not by
destroying or defeating the army, but by destroying two cities and killing old
people, women, and children. War and power are not measured today so much by
the number of men carrying a rifle but by the number of atomic bombs, tanks,
bombers, jet fighters, aircraft carriers, submarines, other ocean vessels, and
even computers.
War is fought today not so much with men but with machines. I believe that
this change in war methods also calls for a change in the way we as Christians
respond. We need to refuse to serve, as we have done in the past, but we also
need to refuse to support the war machine with our material resources.
President Carter has recently asked for a large increase in military spending.
Since the peak of the Vietnam War in , the
amount spent on military in the
U.S. has gone from
$77.3 billion to the $142.0 billion projected for
. What is or should be our response as
followers of the Prince of Peace? Do we continue to pay our taxes without
speaking out against or doing something about the insanity of war and the
terrible waste of money and natural resources, to say nothing of the potential
for destruction? What should be a Christian response to the enormous spending
for the military? I will not argue with the right of the state to determine
its own course, but I believe that we as Christians have a responsibility to
decide whether we participate with the state in destructive goals.
My wife and I have attempted since the early 1970s to avoid supporting the war
machine by not paying income taxes. We have not withheld payment from the
government but have used another method that has been taught in our
fellowship. I must say, we have not been 100 percent successful with our
method. In the last six years we have paid small amounts of income tax of
under $100 for two or three years, one year we paid a larger sum and the other
years we paid nothing.
This method is adaptable to just about everyone and is very legal. We
have attempted to reduce our income below taxable levels by giving it to the
work of the church and deducting it from our income taxes as an itemized gift.
This method has two very positive goals; the first, it gives needed money to
the mission and service programs of the Mennonite Church and, second, it
speaks out against our consumeristic society because we have to learn to get
by on less than normal in the line of material possessions, but usually still
more than we actually need.
The second goal is difficult to fulfill. We find out continually how our
society has an influence on our lives. Simple living is not easy to
accomplish, but by reducing our incomes we can speak out forcefully against
the excess consumption and the senseless military spending. I believe that our
money is an extension of ourselves, that is, when we give money to
MCC
or a mission in the Mennonite Church we are in reality there working, where
that money is being used. In the same way when we give money to the government
for taxes and the government buys and builds weapons of destruction, we are
there too, every bit as much as on the mission field. Can you imagine the
force for good and the amount of work that could be done in the world today if
the people in our brotherhood would reduce their income in an attempt to defer
support of war through giving to our church missions and relief organizations?
The decision is yours and mine whether we want to further the kingdom of God
or give our money to the building of a war machine. Let us seek the Lord and
seek broader counsel in our brotherhood for the answer on how to be faithful
today.
A letter to the editor,
from Jon Byler () also promoted
the simple living technique:
Why, when the Lord Jesus spoke so clearly about the dangers of wealth, and
when we have so many people seeking ways to avoid supporting the military
machine, has this been overlooked? If we are willing to reduce our standard of
living to help our brothers, we can speak positively against the consumer
waste, materialism, and disposable society; we can similarly be in complete
obedience to all the laws, and still refuse to support a military machine that
we all believe is wrong. I realize this is easier for myself, being young (25)
and single, but I am happy to say that I have never paid a single
cent that was used to bomb innocent children or to burn their homes, or to
support political torture by our “allies.”
The payment of taxes for military purposes is a growing source of concern for
more and more people. In response to the increasing awareness of the function
of taxation in the world arms race. Peace Section
(U.S.) is
sponsoring an educational effort to aid in the search for a biblical response.
As part of that effort, Paul and Loretta Leatherman were interviewed by Ron
Flickinger for Peace Section. Excerpts from that interview are presented in
the hope that the Leathermans’ convictions and experiences will provide useful
information to those who are considering their own action in the future. Paul
and Loretta began resisting war taxes when they returned from an
MCC
term in Vietnam in . Paul is presently
employed by
MCC
as director of the Self-Help program and Loretta is teaching in the Ephrata
public school system. Their home is in Akron,
Pa.
Question:
What led you to begin resisting war taxes? Did your
experience in Vietnam influence your decision to do so?
Loretta:
We saw the war effort change from manpower to money
power. Men aren’t used as much anymore and, instead, our money was being used
to do intensive bombing. We would not go to war ourselves and so we thought we
should resist having our money being sent to war also.
Paul:
I think serving in Vietnam radicalized us in that sense.
About every night we were there, we went to sleep with the sound of bombing
and we saw bombs exploding from our house. We lived in the middle of the war
and saw what it did to children and families. You recognize that it’s done
through your taxes and you begin to take a pretty serious look at it.
Question:
Do you also see consequences in the future if people do
not start resisting the use of their money in this way?
Paul:
Well, this is supposedly peacetime but I see the military
budget increasing in real dollars. It goes up in addition to inflation while
many other government programs are being trimmed. It doesn’t make much sense
to keep building up and building up the military machinery which is capable of
destroying the world. I think history shows that whatever military equipment
is made is always used, so I think sometime there is going to be a big nuclear
war.
Loretta:
There isn’t much sense in being able to destroy oneself
so many times. It’s a terrible waste.
Question:
Many people who are resisting war taxes have voiced
specific concerns for their families, their children, their grandchildren. I’m
sure this has a part in your thinking, too.
Paul:
Well, I think it does. I don’t know that we’ve specifically
said we’re going to resist taxes because of our own children, but more simply
for the world community. Our children are certainly a part of that.
Question:
Do you feel as Christians that you have something to say
to government? Many people don’t think they are responsible for what the
government does with their money once their taxes are paid.
Paul:
I’m pretty convinced that we have to say something. If
Christians don’t, who will? Where does the conscience come from? How is man
going to see the sin and evil of his ways unless someone speaks up to it? As
we would understand the way of Christ and what He has taught us, we need to be
prophetic in terms of what that means in the world. We can’t be Christians and
be quiet about it. If we are going to be citizens of another kingdom, then we
have to speak out about what it means and live it out as well.
Question:
What kind of reactions do you get from friends and
acquaintances?
Paul:
I think we get a strong resistance from people in the church
who are thoroughly convinced that we must pay all of our taxes and that any
tax resistance is going directly against biblical teaching. Mark 12:17 says,
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s…” and those who don’t pay all
of the taxes Caesar asks for are specifically disobeying the teachings of the
Bible. I don’t know all of their motives behind that sort of conviction, but I
think there is a stronger resistance there than any place. Now, there are also
outside the church the superpatriotic people who believe that anything that
tends to speak against the structure of the
U.S. military is
bad. But there are also a lot of people who are sort of questioning the
direction of things in the world today. They are open to thinking about ideas
and, while they may not agree with all of it, at least they see some of the
reasoning behind it all.
Question:
How do you respond to people who don’t agree with
you?
Paul:
That depends very much on who it is. I don’t think there is
much point in arguing, but if people want to discuss it in a real way, then I
think we can. It’s not a point one can win by arguing and I think we could
probably do more harm than good by doing so. We’re not out waving the flag of
tax resistance every place we go, not at all. Simply when the opportunity
presents itself, we will discuss it. I think we have felt the importance in
doing this as much within our own church as any other place. It’s within our
own church fellowship that we need to help our brothers and sisters understand
what our tax dollars are doing around the world, such as we saw happen in
Vietnam. We want to try to help sharpen consciences on this issue.
Loretta:
You have to think of the saying, “Those who do not stand
up for the powerless are acting against them.”
Paul:
The thing that we’ve been doing on taxes has given us the
chance on numerous occasions to at least talk about it, share it in a way that
has helped us as people in the church understand what it means to live in a
complicated world.
Question:
What has been the
IRS
reaction? Tell us about some of your contacts with
IRS
agents.
Paul:
One of the first years we resisted paying war taxes, we
actually owed a little bit of money at the end of the year. We claimed a war
tax credit and asked for a refund. The
IRS
turned it down and called us in to audit the credit and also our
contributions, which were somewhat above the norm. The inspector took 25
minutes to audit our contributions and concluded that they were exactly right
to the penny. He said that was okay but that he simply could not allow the war
tax credit and there was no use in talking about it.
“Now look,” I said, “you asked us to come in here for an audit and we had to
leave our jobs to come. You’ve taken 25 minutes of my time auditing something
which I knew all along was correct and I’m equally convinced that I’m entitled
to the war tax credit. I’d like at least 25 minutes of your time to discuss
it.” He said okay, let’s talk. We discussed the pros and cons of why we were
opposed to paying war taxes, why we thought it was wrong. He listened and sort
of entered into the discussion and then at the end of 25 minutes, I said,
“Well, you’ve given me 25 minutes now, but there are still many more things we
could talk about. Would you be interested in reading a little more about this?
He said he would, so I gave him Kaufman’s What Belongs to Caesar? and a few other things.
Then I said, “After you have had a chance to read these, why don’t you come over for dinner next Wednesday and we can talk about it some more.”
He accepted the invitation. We weren’t sure if he would come but he showed up
and we had a very good discussion with him for about three hours. He was very
much against the Vietnam war but he thought that our tax resistance was
completely useless and that there was no way to succeed.
One year, we took our case all the way to court. Loretta didn’t take off from
teaching but I took our case all the way through the appeals process. We were
turned down at each place and were finally scheduled to go to the tax court in
Washington,
D.C. At that
point, I decided to take it out of that court and asked to have it tried in
the small tax court in Harrisburg,
Pa. The decision in the
small tax court was not precedent setting nor could it be appealed. If I had
kept the case in the tax court in Washington,
D.C., I
would have been able to appeal that decision all the way to the Supreme Court.
I decided not to do that because the preparation for the case would have had
to be much more careful in order to be heard and not simply dismissed on a
technicality. I wrote my own briefs and presented the case myself. It was
about three to four months before we got the judge’s opinion turning it
down.
Question:
Have you ever felt that you have risked a prison
sentence by refusing to pay?
Paul:
Well, that’s another story I can tell. After the court
trial, an
IRS
agent came to see me at the office. The receptionist called me and told me
there was someone out there to see me but I didn’t recognize his name. Only
when I got out there and he showed me his credentials did I realize who he
was. That was when we had the open office at
MCC
so rather than taking him into a conference room, I brought him in beside my
desk. I wanted to be on my own turf when he questioned me.
He asked me about the bill and I said, “Yes,
IRS
thinks I owe that amount and the judge thinks I owe it. I acknowledge that
from the
IRS
perspective it is a legitimate bill but I don’t have any intention of paying
it.”
He replied that he was here to collect the bill and he didn’t expect to leave
until I paid it.
“Well,” I said, “I already told you that I don’t expect to pay it and since
I’m not expecting to pay it, I think you ought to put me in jail. My wife has
been expecting that you might come around sometime and she said that if I go
to jail, she’d like to know where I’m going so she could write to me. I would
also like to know how soon it would be so that I can make arrangements for
somebody to take my place at this desk.” He looked at me and said he had never
heard anybody talk like that before. He went up to the bank the next day and
issued an order to draw the money out of my bank account.
I must admit that even when I was talking to him I didn’t think I was risking
a jail sentence. I didn’t think the
IRS
would put anyone in jail because they have other ways to collect the money. It
is too hazardous for them to take someone out of the
MCC
office and put them in jail. I don’t think they can risk that.
Question:
What has been your experience with the
IRS
attaching your bank account?
Paul:
Usually they have just issued an order for the money and the
bank notified us that the money was being withdrawn. One time, though, we
didn’t have enough money in the account to cover the bill, so the
IRS
attached the account and nothing could be paid out of it until they got their
money. It took about a month before we got our account cleared again.
Loretta:
Every time we wanted to cash a check they would have to
call Lancaster to find out if the account was clear. It was embarrassing. I
wanted to run in quick to withdraw some cash and it would take all of 45
minutes before I found out I couldn’t get any.
Paul:
Our banking was really skewed. The checks we issued that had
not been cashed all bounced because the
IRS had
withdrawn all the money. The bank stamped on the cheeks that the account had
been attached by the
IRS. One
of the checks we had written was a contribution to the World Peace Tax Fund.
When it bounced we got a note from the
WPTF office
saying, "Good work, brother. Keep it up. We don’t mind losing this kind.” That
was sort of interesting but it was a very marked inconvenience for us. That
was one of the worst experiences we have had in tax resistance.
Loretta:
That was when the people in the bank knew what was going
on.
Paul:
Yes, one of the brothers in the bank is from the Mennonite
Church. The first time my account was attached, he took the money out and I
just got the notice in the mail. I scolded him for that and told him that he
should at least let me know before he took the money out. The next time it
happened, he called me saying he had a notice to attach my account and asked
me to write a check to the
IRS so
he wouldn’t have to attach the account. I said, “No way, brother. Thanks for
calling me, but now it s on your conscience. If you think you can be a tax
collector, then go ahead and do it.” I was kind of mean to him. I won’t think
less of him if he pays the
IRS, but
as least he has to think through what he is doing.
Question:
What keeps you working at this in spite of the
inconveniences and the people that disagree with you?
Paul:
I thing we’re getting a little tired. That’s our mood
actually now, that we re getting a little tired.
Loretta:
It’s kind of a lonely struggle.
Paul:
It’s a question of how much you really ought to share what
you are doing, whether it’s a real sharing of where you are or whether you are
bragging about what you are doing. In the final analysis, when the time comes
to fill out your
IRS
form, you’re not doing it in a support group and the consequences are going to
be yours.
Question:
What suggestions do you have for someone who is thinking
about resisting war taxes?
Paul:
Do it. The first time we did this it was a very difficult,
emotional experience.
Loretta:
And even when the telephone rang. I was just terribly
worried about what it might be.
Paul:
Well, I have a strong feeling that we ought to pay what
is due. I think it’s correct that we ought to render unto Caesar or anybody
else what is their due. We also give unto God what is due and I think that is
the important thing. When these two come in conflict, then my moral, ethical
training is not to pay Caesar. But not to pay becomes a very difficult
struggle whether it’s 34¢ or $34 or $340. The one was about as difficult as
the other when we started, and starting this is not easy. But in starting, you
make a kind of commitment that does something to you.
The other thing is the time and energy to do it. You know it’s easier to do
the status quo thing. Resistance takes a lot more energy and time.
A letter to the editor in response
() from Allen King noted “There
are a number of people in our community who believe the same way but do not
know how to go about it.”
In an
International Mennonite Peace Committee meeting
was held, which allowed for an update from the war tax resisters of Japan,
though this is all that Gospel Herald readers learned
about it:
Michio Ohno of Asia, remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki, demonstrates his
concern about the destruction of nuclear war by his resistance to payment of
taxes used for military purposes. He is president of the Tokyo (Japan)
Mennonite Conference.
A pair of Mennonites went to court to try to gain legal conscientious objector
to military taxation status:
On , a federal circuit court judge
agreed that Janet and Stan Reedy of Elkhart,
Ind., had a case worth hearing
after they had claimed a conscientious objector deduction on their income tax
report.
Supported by members of their church, the South Side Fellowship of Elkhart,
the Reedys presented testimony in opposition to the motion of the Internal
Revenue Service that the petition for a conscientious objector deduction is
“insufficient, immaterial, and frivolous.”
“As the motion to strike points out,” said Janet Reedy, “there is presently no
provision in the
IRS code
which authorized the deduction we are claiming. That is precisely the problem.
The First Amendment to the (Constitution states, ‘Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof…’ I want to argue that the present
IRS law
violates our rights and the rights of all persons who are conscientiously
opposed to war by requiring us to pay for war even though it is contrary to
our religious beliefs. Thus we are denied a right guaranteed to us by the
First Amendment.”
In support of this argument, Janet told of her conviction that killing is
wrong and that paying the tax for killing is no different than killing. She
asserted that “the law should recognize the right to refuse to pay the taxes
that make it possible for others to kill.” She concluded that “the First
Amendment guarantees us rights to the free exercise of our religious beliefs
which are not being honored by the present
IRS
code.”
Stan followed with corroborative testimony, stating that “the United States
government, through its instruments of the
IRS and
the courts can of course force what appears to be obedience… But some day the
hard, inflexible, and brittle mass of the
IRS code
will shatter upon or be dissolved by the soft voice of conscience.”
As reported by Kathy Rohrer, one of the Fellowship members in attendance, when
Stan was seated the judge asked one question: “Do you come to this court with
a new argument?” Janet answered that they had never before claimed the First
Amendment in their arguments. The judge was so impressed by their evidence
that he denied the
IRS
claim that their petition for a hearing was “irrelevant, immaterial,
impertinent, and frivolous” and granted them a hearing in federal court where
the constitutionality of the case will be judged. No date has been set for
this hearing.
Ken Reed: The Mennonite Church has been a beautiful experience for me, but
it’s only been the past several years that I’ve seriously asked myself:
What is the vision of the Anabaptists? and I’ve concluded it says
something about us being both a community of love and a community of
resistance. We’ve emphasized the love side perhaps — MCC,
Voluntary Service, and giving ourselves in service (the towel and the basin).
Perhaps we haven’t emphasized resistance to evil. Then I look at
Luke 4,
where Jesus says: “This is what my mission is all about in coming to the
world” — He talks about a mission of love and a mission of resistance, a
mission of identifying with people and also a mission of saying “no” to the
evil that was around Him. I take His life as a model for my own.
, I was thinking
about taxes and where my tax dollars go. I was looking through a book on
Hiroshima which was produced by a committee of Japanese journalists and it
just struck me that my money is paying for future Hiroshimas. At that moment,
I made a commitment to myself, “I don’t want to be part of that.”
The General Conference Mennonite Church will “initiate a judicial action
seeking exemption from withholding taxes from the income of its employees” and
take its case to the
U.S. Supreme Court
if necessary. It is planned to base the case on the First Amendment of the
U.S. Constitution,
which embodies the separation of church and state. The action was approved by
delegates to the church’s triennial sessions at Estes Park,
Colo., held
.
Duane Heffelbower, a Mennonite attorney from Reedley,
Calif., and member of the
conference’s task force on tax withholding, said that the suit would be aimed
at seeking an injunction against the Internal Revenue Service, which presently
requires the church’s central offices to withhold the income taxes of its
employees. “We hope to move the suit to the district court level within a
year,” he said.
The Estes Park resolution stated further that all General Conference churches
in the U.S. and
Canada support the Task Force on Taxes through special offerings or budget
allocations and that
U.S.
congregations support efforts for the passage of the World Peace Tax Fund.
This proposed fund would allow those who object to paying taxes in support of
military causes to channel their taxes toward peaceful and humanitarian
projects. The church hopes to find some support for its tax collection test
case among its fellow historic peace churches; namely, the Church of the
Brethren, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and the Mennonite
Church.
The newly adopted resolution grew out of a motion passed at a special
conference session in Minneapolis,
Minn., in
which asked the General Board of the
conference “to engage in a serious and vigorous search to use all legal,
legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector
exemption from the legal requirement that the conference withhold income taxes
from the wages of its employees.” Should the GCMC
be successful in gaining the injunction against forced tax collection, the
conference’s employees would receive their wages in full and then follow their
individual consciences in deciding whether to pay or not pay war taxes.
A pair of commentaries from Peter Farrar ( and )
urged Mennonites to “Refuse war taxes! Refuse registration!” without waiting
for the government to grant them special conscientious objector status. Farrar
wrote of the traditional Mennonite “nonresistance” position: “We may choose not
to resist aggression against our persons. We cannot countenance being the means
of aggression against others.”
Pax Christi continued to highlight how taxpaying made citizens complicit in the
arms race, and continued also to encourage war tax resistance as a response
():
A Catholic peace group has called on the
U.S.
bishops to reinstate meatless Fridays as “a penance for and protest against
the arms race.” The statement, issued by Pax Christi
U.S.A.,
at a two-day meeting in Maryknoll,
N.Y., also calls for the
establishment of a National Catholic Peace Week to promote disarmament, and
urges American Catholics to “refrain from the manufacture or use of nuclear
weapons” and to “support those people who refuse to pay for the war machine
with their taxes.” Pax Christi
U.S.A.,
is a branch of the international movement founded in France at the end of
World War Ⅱ. The American unit was begun in .
Spurred by the return of draft registration, a number of Christian groups
have increased their continuing efforts to counter what they see as a growing
tide of militarism in the United States.
Some members of the Society of Friends, disregarding possible penalties of
fines and imprisonment, have advised young men to refuse to register with the
Selective Service System when they come of age. The Church of the Brethren has
affirmed “open, nonevasive withholding of war taxes as a legitimate witness to
our conscientious intention to follow the call of discipleship to Jesus
Christ.”
Going one step further, the General Conference Mennonite Church, meeting at
Estes Park, Colo., in
, committed itself to go to the Supreme
Court, if necessary, to secure release from its current obligation to collect
from its employees income taxes used in large part to support military
programs.
All three bodies work together in the New Call to Peacemaking. This coalition
has invited 400 delegates to a national conference in Green Lake,
Wis.,
,
to devise additional ways for its members to reply to conscription, war taxes,
and what they see as the growing hazards of so-called military security.
Approximately 300 Mennonites, Brethren, and Friends from across the
U.S. have called on
their meetings and congregations to intensify efforts in the search for
alternatives to militarism, conscription, and the payment of war taxes.
The conference’s eight-page findings report was written and revised by a
committee which attempted to integrate the minutes of 27 discussion groups
which met regularly throughout the weekend. The final statement dealt with the
tasks of envisioning peace, nurturing peacemakers, countering militarism,
responding to the conscription of youth and taxes for war, and witnessing to
peace.
With respect to the issue of payment of taxes used for war purposes, the New
Call restated its commitment to urge
Christian peacemakers to “consider withholding from the Internal Revenue
Service all tax monies which contribute to any war effort.”
The statement of findings recommended the following as alternatives to the
payment of war taxes: (1) active work for the adoption of the World Peace Tax
Fund bill which, if passed by the
U.S. Congress,
would serve as a legal alternative to payment of war taxes just as
conscientious objector status is a legal alternative to military service, and
(2) individuals are urged to consider prayerfully all moral ways of reducing
their tax liabilities, including sizable contributions to tax-exempt
organizations and reduction of personal income.
The concern that New Call not issue a declaration more radical than meetings
and congregations would be willing to hear was raised at several points during
the meeting.
The Mennonite Church general board met in
and cautiously decided to
throw its support behind the General Conference Mennonite Church’s legal
challenge to withholding taxes from objecting employees. This was one of the
earliest examples of corporate support for war tax resistance from a Mennonite
Church institution:
One other action of significance had to do with an invitation from the General
Conference Mennonite Church to join in its effort to “initiate a judicial
action seeking exemption for the General Conference Mennonite Church from
withholding taxes from the income of its employees.”
On the basis of action taken at the last Mennonite Assembly in Waterloo,
Ont., which reads: “We
encourage our congregations and institutions to seek relief from the current
legal requirement of collecting taxes through the withholding of income taxes
of employees, especially those taxes which may be used for war purposes. In
this effort we endorse cooperation with the General Conference Mennonite
Church in the current search for judicial, legislative, and administrative
alternatives to the collection of military related taxes.”
The Board acted to: (1) support the judicial action of the General Conference
Mennonite Church to seek exemption of our institutions from withholding taxes
from the income of employees with the understanding that this implies an
invitation to Mennonite members to join in financial support for this judicial
action and (2) we encourage the MBCM
to the task force on taxes to seek to generate a wide support for the World
Peace Tax Fund throughout our constituency by appropriate General Assembly
action and encouragement.
The Board was careful to clarify that this action does not constitute civil
disobedience but rather attempts to work within the domain of the first
amendment in the
U.S. constitution.
