Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Brethren →
Dale W. Brown
In , members of the three historic “peace churches” — Brethren, Mennonites, and Quakers — held a series of regional conferences and then a national one under the “New Call to Peacemaking” banner.
Among the more newsworthy things to come out of the national conference was a call to renew and strengthen the tradition of war tax resistance (though the conferences covered a larger range of issues than this).
The findings of the national conference included these:
We urge the development of support groups within congregations and meetings for those individuals who are working at peace issues such as war tax resistance, simple lifestyles, and nonviolent action.
We call upon members of the Historic Peace Churches seriously to consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes, as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.
We challenge ourselves and also our congregations and meetings to uphold war tax resisters with spiritual, legal, and material support.
We call on our church and conference agencies to enter into dialogue with employees who ask, for reasons of moral conviction, that their taxes not be withheld.
We suggest that alternative “tax” payments be channeled into a peace fund initiated by the New Call to Peacemaking or into existing peace funds of constituent groups.
We call on our denominations, congregations, and meetings to give high priority to the study of war tax resistance in our own circles and beyond.
In keeping with our past support of alternative service provisions for conscientious objectors to the draft, we urge support for congressional enactment of a World Peace Tax Fund as an alternative to compulsory financial support of war and preparation for war.
Wealth and violence go together — a root of war often overlooked and often denied.
Wealth depends on the violence of oppression for its earnings.
And once gained, wealth needs the threatened violence of armies to protect its profits.
Since most of us share in the wealth of the western world, we’re caught in this trap.
“Is it right to refuse to go to war or to complain to Congresspersons about the military budget or to refuse to pay the military portion of the income tax,” LeRoy Friesen asked the California New Call to Peacemaking meeting in , “when it is the protection of the standard of living which you and I share which makes such an army necessary?”
[T]he New Call to Peacemaking has called on its members seriously to consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes.
Such action would be a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.
Those responding in this way would soon find that in confronting a powerful government that has widespread support, they need congregations and meetings to uphold them in spiritual, emotional, legal, and material ways.
The Evangelism of Tax Resistance
The call to resist paying taxes that support war and preparations for war remind us that peace and justice go together.
And tax resistance is also an opportunity for evangelism as well as a proclamation that Christ is Lord of all creation.
“It is for this reason that the question of tax resistance has become an important symbol,” says Dale W. Brown.
“For it involves our pocket books, raises questions of support for the church, and defines the peace witness in broader terms than what our seventeen or eighteen year old youth do in response to the coercive power of the state.”
Does tax resistance express love for the poor and oppressed?
Does it make a clear statement about obedience to God?
Is tax resistance a hindrance to evangelism or a support to it?
Stem the Growth of Militarism
One of the current concerns about militarism relates to the large amount of money being spent on military budgets.
Efforts need to be made to redirect the use of these resources into programs that meet human needs.
Tax resistance is one strategy receiving growing support.
“We call on our denominations, congregations, and meetings to give high priority to the study of war tax resistance in our own circles and beyond,” said the New Call to Peacemaking at its national meeting in .
Christians who take tax resistance seriously express condemnation of the world arms race.
“For the foreseeable future,” says John K. Stoner, “war tax resistance will be an action that is taken at some cost to the individual or the church institution with no assured compensation except the knowledge that it is the right thing to do.”
Is tax resistance an expression of servanthood?
Is it a way to identify with the cause of the poor?
How can we demonstrate the urgency of our concern and the dedication of Christian peacemakers to stemming the growth of militarism?
Revolution in the World Peace Tax Fund
Other persons support the World Peace Tax Fund as an alternative to compulsory support of war and preparation for war.
This proposal, yet to be made into law, would allow concerned persons to designate their tax money for peaceful use rather than for war.
Thus, they would register a conscientious objection to the financing of war in much the same way that objectors to the draft register a protest against military service.
The World Peace Tax Fund appeals to those concerned for proper ways to make their concerns known.
If enacted, and if large groups of people voted for peace with their tax money, it could have a revolutionary and radical impact.
What are the prospects of the World Peace Tax Fund being seriously considered by the United States Congress?
Does its passage not wait until a larger proportion of the population has engaged in war tax resistance assuring that they will not be turned back by penalties and even imprisonment?
[W]hat can we do that will have immediate impact?
Tax resistance has important meaning for peacemakers and the powers they confront.
“We call upon members of the historic peace churches seriously to consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes,” said the national meeting of the New Call to Peacemaking in , “as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.”
The Pittsburgh meeting of the New Call to Peacemaking suggested a further step.
“The peace churches should consider refusing to withhold income taxes from their employees for ultimate payment to government.
This should be done in a manner to lay the responsibility upon the churches and not the individual employees.”
Civil Disobedience as Divine Obedience
Tax refusal as one form of protest to militarism is one of a number of ways available to peacemakers to show that their supreme loyalty is to the Risen Lord.
For them, it is also a tool to change the policies of a warmaking government.
“War tax resistance,” says John K. Stoner, “might just be a cloud the size of a man’s hand announcing to the nations that the reign of God is coming near.”
Though even in the peace churches, tax refusal is sometimes viewed with suspicion, it is receiving wider acceptance and understanding.
“As the church has grown in its discernment of what the Bible teaches about slavery and the role of women,” says Stoner, “so it must grow in its discernment of what the Bible teaches about the place and authority of governments and the payment of taxes.”
For through tax refusal, the peacemaker makes a statement of faith.
“War tax resistance means accepting the discipline of submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the nitty-gritty of history,” says Stoner.
“Call it civil disobedience if you wish, but recognize that in reality it is divine obedience.
It is a matter of yielding to a higher sovereignty.”
Is civil disobedience the method of last resort, the action taken when no other ways are open?
Would you advise draft resistance for young men and women facing conscription?
Why?
Or, why not?
We have been inconsistent in praying for peace while continuing to pay for war.
Our contributions to the violence of the world are obvious at many places.
Our complicity with the affluent lifestyle of life all around us is one place of compromise.
Another failure of integrity has been in our willing payment of taxes which support the war-making power of our country.
“It is, at the root, a simple question of integrity,” says John K. Stoner.
“We are praying for peace and paying for war.
Setting euphemisms aside, the billions of dollars conscripted by governments for military spending are war taxes, and Christians are paying those taxes.
Our bluff has been called.”
He notes that the church has not tried tax resistance and found it ineffective.
It has rather found it difficult and left it untried.
If we step back a bit and view ourselves, we will often see how much we are like those we want to change.
The reasons generally given for not taking such radical action as tax resistance are much like those excuses given by German Christians who refused to resist the excesses of Nazism.
“It was always a matter of waiting for some new, more obvious proof that the regime was evil, of believing explanations of what was happening when such explanations were couched in religious or semi-religious language,” says Stoner, “of expecting some person in a position of authority to make the break first and of hoping that right would ultimately prevail without requiring any personal sacrifice beyond the ordinary.”
The lesson from history is not an easy one to learn.
Says Stoner, “We expect more from others than we do of ourselves.”
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.”
The Church of the Brethren decided to divest from U.S. government bonds, and considered engaging in corporate phone tax refusal as well, and in the debate began to spill over into more conservative branches of American Brethren.
Chuch Investment in U.S. Bonds
In , the Church of the Brethren General Board met, and among the items on the agenda was Church investments in the war industry and in U.S. government bonds.
The Messenger covered this in its edition (source).
Excerpt:
Government bond ownership by the church, like the war that bonds are said to support, may be winding down, but not winding up — as some persons are urging.
Replying to the National Youth Conference resolution calling on the church to dispose of all government bonds, the General Board rejected a proposed reply from its investment committee and asked the Administrative Council to bring further options in March for handling fiscal operations without the use of bonds.
Board members also called for the investment committee to consider selling any stocks held with the dozen top corporations supplying war materials.
The rejected proposal would have put the board on record as reconfirming its opposition to war, not purchasing additional bonds as long as the national budget is so heavily military oriented, permitting the sale of bonds held as cash needs arise, and opposing immediate liquidation of the remaining bonds held.
Board views ranged from those who sought to dispose of the $617,933 in bonds held by the church “as a witness to the nation” for peace, to those who saw the bonds supporting many good things of government.
Other arguments against disposal included the cash liquidity on short notice of the bonds, the loss that would be suffered in the sale of the bonds, and the fact that $259,880 of the total is pledged for a Bethany Seminary loan.
One staff member challenged the assumption that the bonds are a means of financing the war, but rather lend stability to the government.
Another indicated that the cash put into a savings account could be invested by the bank in bonds anyway, and that the church owed a fiscal responsibility to donors of the money in not risking a financial loss in any premature sale of the bonds.
“The government bonds in the investment portfolio are not considered war bonds,” noted the board’s investment committee, “but are issues which were put out from time to time for general government operations, including programs that we enthusiastically support.”
Many of the bonds held by the Brethren were purchased in the 1950s, and no further purchases have been made since 1965.
During the past fiscal year the church sold half a million dollars in government bonds.
Likely to come before the Cincinnati Conference next year is a query from Southern Ohio that the church investigate payment of the telephone tax and the holding of U.S. government securities which are believed to support war.
The issue brought more details about where these queries were coming from (source).
Excerpt:
Southern Ohio district is bringing a query to the Conference asking for a study of the payment of the telephone tax and the holding of U.S. government securities by the church’s national offices.
Likewise, the Pacific Southwest Conference, at the initiation of some youth and the Lynnhaven, Phoenix, and Glendale, Ariz., congregations, has requested Annual Conference to “consider the moral question of holding United States Savings Bonds when we as a church are trying to divorce ourselves as far as possible from the military-industrial complex.”
The General Board gave in to the pressure, as reported in the issue (source).
Excerpt:
The Church of the Brethren General Board will sell its stock holdings in corporations directly producing defense or weapons-related products and its governmental securities that are believed to channel funds into military appropriations.
Meeting at Elgin, Ill., in , the board also tightened its investment guidelines, declaring that words and acts should be brought together “so that the clearest possible witness can be given to the inclusive reconciling love of Christ.”
The statement recognized, however, that “at any given moment the commitment can be one of direction only — it cannot be one of absolute achievement.”
The implication is that mergers and company reorganizations sometimes bring into the firm products or ideals inconsistent with the Brethren stance.
Based on market prices the divestment of stocks represents four percent of the general investment portfolio and 6.5 percent of the pension fund portfolio.
US Treasury bonds being sold amount to $248,813.
The board declined, however, to sell the $274,894 in bonds pledged for a loan to Bethany Theological Seminary.
They will be sold only as they are released from escrow.
Board treasurer Robert Greiner estimated a loss of $18,300 instead of an $18,000 gain that would have been realized if the bonds had been held until maturity.
Any possible loss on the stock investments being sold and reinvested was not known.
Last year’s National Youth Conference in a resolution urged the board to sell its
US Treasury bonds.
And in the National Council of Churches’ Corporate Information Center, in which the Brethren participate, divulged the stock-holdings of ten denominations in the top 60 firms in military sales.
The Church of the Brethren had investments in nine such companies, totaling $329,258 in cost value prices.
The church’s pension fund also held $613,303 of common stocks in 13 corporations appearing in the list.
The revised guidelines now declare that the board will not knowingly invest in corporations producing defense or weapons-related products; in companies which fail to practice fair and equal employment opportunities; nor in banks or firms which transact business with governments having apartheid policies.
Similarly prohibited are investments in the tobacco and alcoholic beverage industries and companies making excessive profit.
More positively, the guidelines stipulate the board will invest in companies working to improve the environment, in government agencies that are clearly non-military, and in such industries as food, housing, clothing, utilities, education, and medical supplies.
When the board discovers that it has holdings in a company that does not meet the religious, racial, or social ideals of the church’s official statements, the investment committee may approach the company or speak at stockholders’ meetings.
Failing to effect a change in company policy, the stocks are to be sold.
Producing the sharpest disagreement was the question as to whether government bonds contribute to the Vietnam war effort or simply toward regular government operations.
Still, a strong majority of the board believed that the bonds directly supported the war effort and should be divested.
Such action, some contended, bespeaks a “disengagement from the US government” and fails to recognize that a large part of the federal budget goes toward programs of which Brethren could heartily approve.
On the other hand, a couple speakers noted that even in such nonmilitary programs as agriculture and economic development, government policy can be repressive and manipulative and divergent from Brethren ideals.
Moderator Dale W. Brown of Lombard, Ill., said that the church needs to confess its credibility gap. “I’m calling for an acknowledgment that we haven’t done our best.”
Among a few board members disassociating themselves from the majority action was Jesse H. Ziegler of Dayton, Ohio.
He described the sale of the government bonds as a “divisive act that finally will drive the Church of the Brethren to the point of increasingly making people ask what we’re about.”
He pleaded for the board to take healing and compromising action that would leave room for various views among the membership.
The board’s officers were instructed to estimate any loss of principal or income that may accrue from the divestment of Treasury obligations and issue an appeal for interested members to make special contributions so that the ongoing ministry of the church or the equity of the pension funds will not be curtailed.
The guidelines are also commended to other church agencies and to individuals.
Despite the eight hours over two days of sometimes intense debate, David B. Rittenhouse of Dunmore, W. Va., expressed the feeling of most board members in saying that he voted for divestment of the stocks and bonds not with enthusiasm, but out of genuine humility, struggle, and soul-searching.
The discussion of the issue at the General Conference was covered in the issue (source):
Investments: What is Caesar’s, what is due to God?
⋮
the General Board voted (not unanimously) to divest itself of government bonds and stocks in corporations involved in defense-related contracts.
The action resulted in some loss of income and brought severe criticism from many individuals and from some congregations.
Conference delegates, however, voted to approve the Board’s investment guidelines which state that the Board will not knowingly purchase securities in corporations or industries that are “direct producers of defense or weapons-related products; involved in tobacco and alcoholic beverage produce: involved in unfair employment practices; or involved in excessive profits.”
In reporting to the Conference the Board indicated that it had decided to sell all US Treasury bonds or notes except for those pledged to secure a loan for Bethany Theological Seminary.
Disposing of these prior to their maturity resulted in a loss of more than $20,000.
The church’s holding of US Government bonds was questioned at its last Annual Conference and forcefully opposed by the national conference of Brethren youth.
In commending the Cincinnati conference for its support of the Board’s action, the Rev. Wendell Flory, a delegate from Staunton, Virginia, noted the persistence of youth in their opposition to war and urged them to help make up the financial loss resulting from following the new investment policies.
War Tax Resistance
In addition to the bond investments issue, ordinary war tax resistance was also a topic of discussion.
The inaugural issue of included a profile of Church of the Brethren moderator Dale W. Brown (source) that noted: “He refuses to pay his telephone tax because it was levied specifically for war.”
The issue noted (source): “The La Verne, Calif., church board voted to support the Southern California Telephone War Tax Suite, involving the withholding of the ten-percent federal excise tax.”
The Annual Conference debate over whether the Church of the Brethren should resist the phone tax corporately was covered in the issue (source):
Telephone tax: Delegates decline to counsel tax refusal
…[D]elegates in are not quite ready yet to counsel tax refusal for their Board and its offices.
They were made aware that a growing number of individual Brethren as well as some Brethren institutions have been refusing to pay the telephone excise tax, which they say is specifically designated as a “war tax” helping support the Vietnam war.
The Conference agreed to appoint a committee of five to study “the problem of the Christian’s response to taxation for war.”
But they voted down a proposal directing the General Board to withhold payment of the tax on the telephone service to its Elgin, Ill., headquarters.
Board officers said that the tax, which amounts to about $130 a month, currently is paid under protest.
Earlier conference statements on the payment of war taxes, while deploring the use of tax monies for war purposes and recognizing the right of tax refusal, noted several optional choices and left the decision up to individuals.
General Board member Leon Neher, Quinter, Kan., said in the floor debate that he regarded refusal to pay war taxes as being compatible with a positive attitude toward government.
He said “resistance comes because of our love for our nation.”
Other delegates noted that a study was needed so that members could be aware of the legal implications as well as the moral implications of tax refusal.
(The members selected “[t]o study a response to taxation for war” were Dene E. Denlinger, Galen Detwiler, Vemard Eller, James F. Meyer, and Robert B. Myers.)
The issue brought this news: “In Illinois the York Center congregation has voted to ‘instruct the church treasurer not to pay the federal excise tax on the church telephone as an act of conscience against the Indo-China war, and that the Internal Revenue Service be informed of the decision.’ Pastor Dean Miller noted, ‘We felt we’ve tried all [other] channels open to us.’ ” (source)
All this while I’ve been scanning through issues of the Elizabethtown College student newspaper, The Etownian to see if there has been any mention of tax resistance there.
Finally, in the issue, there’s a mention of “A Tent (‘Freedom’) City” that was being erected on campus and hosting teach-ins (source).
The first one on the agenda: a 45-minute discussion of “tax resistance.”
A later report (source) said that a rainstorm had cut into attendance, but that the teach-ins had gone on:
Ted Landon started the morning by speaking on the background of resistance and its meaning for the individual who practices it.
Bob Blatt enlarged on this as it related to tax resistance.
He pointed out that 61% of the nation’s yearly budget is spent for military matters, and that all other pressing bills must be paid from the remaining 39%.
The stodgy Brethren Evangelist was forced to take note when the General Board of the Church of the Brethren decided to divest from military industries and U.S. government bonds, though they merely reprinted a wire service dispatch about it (source):
Brethren Will Drop Defense Investments
Elgin, Ill. (EP)—
All holdings in corporations directly involved in defense or weapons-related industries will be dropped by the General Board of the Church of the Brethren.
The vote, not unanimous, was seen as an attempt by the denomination to bring its investment practices into line with its peace pronouncements.
The church officials also voted to sell $248,813 in U.S. Treasury bonds and not to purchase new governmental securities that might channel funds into military appropriations.
The board of 25 members also voted to withhold investments from companies failing to practice fair and equal employment opportunities, and from banks or firms which transact business with governments having apartheid policies.
Even the Bible Monitor finally added its voice to the debate.
It included an article on “The Christian’s Relation to the Nation” in the issue that touched on the war tax resistance issue:
The Christian also obediently pays his taxes (Romans 13:6,7; Luke 20:25).
One pacifist used his “fist” against the government by calling upon Christians to withhold some of their taxes (war taxes) by saying that when Christ said, we are to “render… unto Ceasar the things which be Ceasar’s,” He did not say how much.
May we remember that Christ did tell us how much to pay to the state when He said that we should render that which bears his image.
Therefore, when the nation asks for it, we give it to them and it is never our responsibility to tell the government how it may use its money.
If I owe a person some money, I have no right to refuse to pay it on the grounds that he will not use it properly.
Nor can I refuse it unless he promises to use it the way I say he should.
While we find it our duty to pay Ceasar his required tax, it would be contrary to the principle of the Scripture to voluntarily or otherwise invest in war bonds, thereby becoming an investor in the war program.
No non-resistant person would want to make a profit on the war.
In , a Church of the Brethren committee formed to study the war tax resistance issue released its report, which went nowhere near far enough for those promoting resistance.
One called it a “slap in the face of the tax refusers, but perhaps we needed it.”
The issue of the Messenger printed a letter from John & Sandy Zinn, wrote to who “commend the General Board for selling their government bonds and stock in ‘war corporations’ ” and enclosed a check “to help offset the financial loss incurred by this decision,” encouraging others to do the same (source). “If all individuals and churches refused to let their money be spent for war, it would certainly become more difficult to wage war.”
The issue briefly noted that “[t]he Worthington church, Reading, Minn., in joined congregations withholding the excise tax on their telephone bill, in opposition to the Vietnam war” (source).
The issue introduced readers to the Clark family (source):
“Mike and Lois decided to enter totally into volunteer ministry.
One factor was their opposition to US participation in the war in Southeast Asia.
Lois told the congregation last summer:
‘We lacked the courage to defy our government by withholding taxes.
So, we decided to live on a subsistence income.
We then will not have to contribute taxes supporting the Vietnam War.’ ”
The issue reported on a “Cost of Discipleship” group formed in the Southern Ohio District whose work “has included investigation of war-tax resistance” (source).
“In personal responses, some members of the group have withheld the percentage of the income tax which goes for war purposes.
Others have refused to pay the federal excise tax on the telephone and sent a like amount of money as a ‘second-mile’ gift to an Alternative Fund.”
Later in that issue, Bob Gross described reluctance to resist war taxes as a symptom of a lack of faith (source). Excerpts:
Although we claim to believe in the power of the Spirit, it seems we more often choose to base our lives on worldly power.
We say we love our enemies, yet many of us follow the government’s call to war, many of us work for or invest in companies which produce weapons, and most of us willingly pay the taxes which make war possible.
We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” while we surround ourselves with new cars, carpets, and color televisions.
We call God our protector, yet we live behind locked doors and life insurance.
We have our excuses, of course, but Jesus strikes down every one of them.
We say that we have a “right” to whatever possessions and comforts we can afford, but Jesus would instruct us as he did the rich young man:
“Sell your possessions and give to the poor… and come follow me” (Matt. 19:21).
We say that if we quit our job at General Electric because GE is a major war contractor, it will mean a loss of salary and position.
Or we cry that we can’t live on an income below taxable levels, because we need more money than that.
Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow and reap and store in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
You are worth more than the birds!” (Matt. 6:26), and “I tell you this: a rich man will find it hard to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:23).
The expression of our faith must not be confined to our spare time.
We are called to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength.
Halfway is not enough.
This means we must quit our jobs if they contribute to war or to the destruction of God’s world, we must refuse payment of taxes for war purposes if we believe that human life is sacred, and we must cease laying up treasures on earth.
When we refuse to answer to worldly power, we can then turn our energies to the bringing in of the kingdom.
We can then “be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.”
In the Church of the Brethren General Board adopted a statement entitled Taxes for War Purposes.
In it our denomination urged us to consider whether or not we can conscientiously pay taxes to support war and military purposes.…
To remind us of the statement, portions are quoted here:
The church recognizes and encourages freedom of conscience regarding war and the payment of taxes for war purposes.
Although it recommends alternative service instead of military service* it recognizes that not all members will hold the belief which the church recommends.
The same may be said regarding the payment of taxes for war purposes.
Although the church opposes the use of federal taxes for war purposes and military expenditures, it recognizes that not all members will hold this belief and that, even among those who do, there will be different expressions of that belief.
Present Alternatives. Four positions on the payment of federal taxes for war purposes are evident:
Paying of taxes
Paying the taxes but expressing a protest to the government
Voluntarily limiting one’s income or use of services to such a low level that they are not subject to federal taxation
Refusing to pay all or part of the taxes as a witness and a protest…
* In , the Church of the Brethren Statement on War was amended so that both alternative service and nonviolent noncooperation are commended to persons facing the draft.
On behalf of the World Ministries Commission, I would like to know how Brethren have responded to the Statement on Taxes for War Purposes.
I would appreciate your taking time to return the following questionnaire, using the space provided here to share interpretation of actions and feelings.
The results of this survey will be shared with all who respond.
I (we) have taken the following stance regarding the payment of federal income and telephone taxes.
Payment of taxes.
Payment of taxes under protest.
Voluntarily limiting income so as not to be subject to federal taxation.
Nonpayment of all or part of the taxes.
Signed ⸺
Address ⸺
Return to: World Ministries Commission, Church of the Brethren General Board, 1451 Dundee Avenue, Elgin, Illinois 60120
I wonder what happened to the results from the similar survey the Messenger featured, more prominently, in a issue.
The issue gave a preview of what would be discussed at the Annual Conference (source), including:
Telephone Tax and US Government Securities.
Introduced by the Southern Ohio Board of Administration, the query as it now stands focuses on “the problem of the Christian’s response to taxation for war.” In the report [see ♇ 17 May 2020] the five-member committee examines “a proper balance” between two callings — one of obeying God’s law rather than humans’ law, the other of participating responsibly in the common life of the world.
In terms of precedents both from the New Testament and Brethren history, the statement concludes the weight is on the side of the Christian’s paying and not withholding taxes.
Two recommendations are that concerned Brethren express their dissent or testimonies through recognized means and that active support be directed to the World Peace Tax Fund Act and similar legislative efforts.
A warning is sounded that the church would be diverted in its task of deepening biblical and theological understanding of the Christian peace position if it were to become focused on one particular form of protest.
In the issue, William G. Willoughby recapped the tax resistance debate from the Annual Conference (source):
My wife and I have had a continuing discussion over the question of nonpayment of the telephone excise tax.
I argued that such refusal would be a symbolic protest to the government against the Indochina conflict, while she argued that the government would eventually get the money anyway, and I would do better to put my efforts elsewhere.
So it was with considerable interest that I anticipated the report of the Conference committee on “The Christian’s Response to Taxation for War.”
This item of business turned out to be the most prolonged of the entire Conference, which indicates something of the struggle of conscience that many Brethren have been going through in paying heavy taxes for past, present, and future wars.
The committee report, with all its supplementary materials, showed its members had studied carefully the biblical teachings on taxation and had examined carefully the practices of the Brethren on payment of taxes.
Their conclusion was that there is no biblical counsel that taxes be withheld, but there is “some calling for the payment of taxes even to a sinful, militaristic government.”
The committee recognized, however, that some Brethren arrive at a different conclusion, feeling led of God to make protest by means of tax refusal.
At the preliminary hearing on , with more than a hundred people present, it was evident that the majority there were dissatisfied with the committee’s report.
The spirit of the discussion was honest, open, considerate, and good-natured, but beneath the surface many “tax refusers” felt somewhat betrayed.
They, too, had searched the scriptures and had examined Brethren history, and now — when they were subject to harassment and possible indictment by a vindictive government — the committee was raising questions about the biblical basis of their position.
When the committee report was made to the Conference business session, the committee capably defended its paper.
A valiant effort to recommit the paper for further study by an expanded committee which would include two tax refusers was narrowly defeated.
In the lengthy and at times impassioned debate, the issues were sharpened.
Did the Brethren always support voluntary payment of all taxes to a war-making government?
Was the committee too literalistic and legalistic in its interpretation of the biblical teaching?
Did it take into account the total context of New Testament teaching against war?
Is it morally right to refuse to be conscripted to drop bombs but allow one’s money to be conscripted to pay for the bombs?
Immediate past moderator Dale Brown thought that the committee’s report was a “slap in the face of the tax refusers, but perhaps we needed it.”
James Beard of Indiana contended that “the scriptures teach that we should pay our taxes and we should obey them.”
Harley Utz of Ohio argued that an act against the law and our government is an act against God.
Ben Simmons of Indiana believed that that issue is not “pro or con tax refusal, but our desire for Caesar’s property.”
Art Gish of Pennsylvania maintained that the church should give moral support to those who conscientiously refuse to pay a portion of their taxes.
When the debate was all over, and the report adopted by the Conference, I was left with many lingering questions:
What is the teaching of the Bible on this issue?
What should I do?
Should the church discourage people from refusing to pay taxes?
Perhaps Vernard Eller, Dale Brown, and others will write some books or at least articles that will be of real help to us in the years to come.
The issue has not been laid to rest!
Doris Cline Egge added her thoughts on the debate (source). Excerpt:
What is our witness?
Is it to withhold the telephone tax, all taxes?
I heard people sincerely upholding what they considered the biblical position on several sides of that issue.
I found developing a disturbing position for myself that perhaps a more faithful position might be the one James Myer, member of the committee, reiterated from the paper.
That position would be that discipleship should lead me to renounce that income that rises above the taxable floor, so in effect wage earners keep income so low they are not required to pay taxes.
For how can I faithfully tell my government, “You can do this and this with my money, and I’ll withhold funds from any expenditure I don’t like,” without encouraging people to do the same thing with the local church budget?
Dale Brown made a good point that a negative position against taxes for war purposes must not allow us to lose perspective in a positive emphasis — a vital peace witness.
Perhaps there is another position that would say, “If I can contrive to arrange my income so that I pay no taxes at all, I have relinquished any rights to influence government spending because I have no stake in it.”
I must admit that, for me, God has not yet written the last word.
In , Cliff Kindy wrote a full-throated encouragement of war tax resistance for the Church of the Brethren Messenger, the Camp Mack / Waubee conference enlisted people to sign a war tax resistance pledge, and a “New Call to Peacemaking” conference brought representatives of the three traditional peace churches together.
Wilbur J. Stump wrote in to the issue to promote the World Peace Tax Fund bill, which he claimed “would enable me, and others who feel as I do, to have the war part of my taxes used for peace projects” and would be “a legal alternative to paying taxes for military purposes” (source).
That proposed legislation was also boosted by an article a few pages further on in the same issue (source).
That article quoted a card that the National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund was asking supporters to send to Washington as saying that the bill “would allow conscientious objectors to have that portion of their taxes which would normally go for military purposes used instead for peace projects.”
The article quoted Brethren bill booster Dean M. Miller:
It is obvious that the payment of federal taxes inevitably involves us in war and preparation for war, since tax monies are not clearly differentiated into military and non-military categories…
One avenue of escape for this dilemma is to refuse to pay taxes.
However, money refused from tax payments is refused as much from the humane programs of government as from military programs.
We are not always able to make clear that we are protesting war and not taxation itself.
Furthermore, whatever taxes are withheld as an act of conscience, the government is able to collect by means of levies and confiscations.
An article in a later issue noted that an accompanying Senate bill had been introduced by bipartisan sponsors.
Another noted that the United Church of Christ had also endorsed the legislation.
And that’s it for .
All of the talk of war tax resistance that used to fill the pages of the Messenger is gone, replaced with this (ultimately fruitless) lobbying.
It’s worth noting that the “peace tax fund” legislation originally being promoted was better in many ways from the similar legislation that’s floundering today.
That said, this goes to show that from the very beginning, the “peace tax fund” movement has discouraged war tax resistance.
The issue brought the first full-throated encouragement of war tax resistance in a long time, from Brethren resister Cliff Kindy (source):
What to render unto Caesar
, 44 people from seven states gathered at Camp Mack in Northern Indiana to study and fellowship together to discern God’s will for the church as it faces requirements from the US government to pay vast sums of money for military-related purposes.
We were a mixture of Methodists, Mennonites, and Brethren who had been struggling with this issue for many years.
In the face of the fact that as church people we are paying over three times as much money in only the military-related portions of our taxes as we give for all church and charity purposes, our Bible study of the weekend focused on the clear word that Jesus is Lord of the earth.
Our time together was filled with joyful singing, unifying times of worship, meaningful moments of sharing our feelings and experiences, and deep periods of Bible study with openness to Jesus’ call changing our very lives.
The retreat was pulled together by Chuck Boyer of On Earth Peace and the BVS peace team from New Windsor.
There was a real openness on the part of the leadership (Donald Kaufman, author of What Belongs to Caesar?, and Lee Griffith from Advaita House in Baltimore) to allow the Spirit to change the agenda of the weekend to fit the call coming out of the discernment process.
Although retreats such as this are often little more than times of learning and fellowship, this gathering was an exciting exception with the potential to call the church to a fresh understanding of how total are the demands on those who profess Jesus as Lord of their lives.
On , out of moments of worship, listening for the word of the Lord, and sharing together came the Waubee Peace Pledge (named for Lake Waubee, the location of the Camp Mack retreat) and commitments to continuing activities of witness to our church and the world around us.
Although we were at different positions in our own lives, there was an amazing unity in feeling at Camp Mack that the pledge should be one written as strongly as the Word of God dictates and yet shared with the humility which the sin of our own lives necessitates.
What follows is the pledge in its final form with an invitation to each of you to join, if after deep, prayerful searching you find that you must.
Waubee Peace Pledge Ⅰ
Jesus Christ is Lord and we pledge our lives to his Lordship.
This is a pledge which we do make and we can make because the Lord fills his people with faith, hope, and love.
This is a pledge which we make with humility, but also with conviction, aware of the risks, since under all circumstances, we must obey God rather than people.
We believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, knowing that it is in the resurrection that we have our life.
We need follow death no more.
Death is conquered.
God chooses life for us.
We therefore pledge ourselves to the service of life and the renunciation of death.
Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and his way is the way of peace.
We will seek to oppose the way of war.
Specifically we make this pledge to our brothers and sisters in Christ:
Since we do not give our bodies for war, neither will we give our money.
We will refuse payment of federal telephone taxes and federal income taxes which go for military purposes.
Where our treasure is, there our hearts will be also.
If our treasure is involved in making war, our hearts cannot be set toward making peace.
We will pay no taxes for war, and if that means legal or other jeopardy for any of us, we will seek to support one another as sisters and brothers.
The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.
Render unto God what belongs to God.
We further pledge ourselves to urgently communicate with brothers and sisters in our churches, urging them to join us in refusing money for war.
We will also work to have annual meetings of our churches take a firm position against payment of war taxes, and to have church agencies agree to refuse withholding of these taxes from the pay of employees.
We believe that we who are the body of Christ should not serve as a military tax collection agency.
We further pledge ourselves to keep our hearts and lives open to the movement of God’s Spirit and to follow where Christ might lead us on the path of peace.
We pray for help and guidance — that we might be instruments of God’s peace.
We invite others to join in doing the words of this covenant and we seek to support those who are struggling toward this and other means of witness against war in the world.
We want to join you in whatever ways of sharing and commitment are possible through our common life in Christ.
Peace be with you.
Because we are at different points of commitment, a second pledge came out of this conference.
There was a common understanding by participants in the conference that Jesus is the King of Peace and that it is wrong to pay taxes for war, but for some that witness to life takes a different form.
Support for the World Peace Tax Fund is the form that takes for some of us.
Overall, though, the feeling of the conference was that, as a church, God calls us much beyond that in our witness for peace and our no to war.
As signers of Waubee Peace Pledge Ⅱ, we invite you to join if you feel God’s leading in the matter.
Waubee Peace Pledge Ⅱ
We, in spirit and in conscience affirm the Waubee Peace Pledge and fully support our sisters and brothers of that covenant.
At this time in our lives we feel unable to commit ourselves to non-payment of income and phone taxes.
We do commit our time, energy, and resources to searching for alternate channels of resistance, and pledge ourselves to continued seeking of God’s will for us in acting definitively to oppose those taxes for payment of war.
We give thanks for the freedom given us through Christ which enables us in this search, and we pray for the strength and hope to use our freedom as servants of God.
Out of these pledges and the activities of the weekend came several commitments and decisions.
It was felt that there was no need for a new newsletter but that our effort should be joined with the God and Caesar newsletter (Commission on Home Ministries, General Conference Mennonite Church, Box 347, Newton, KS 67114) and be supplemented as needed by a memo from the BVS peace team.
An exciting development was the surfacing of a group interested in serious Bible study of scriptures dealing with the issue of taxes.
Tony Sayer will be coordinating that study through the mail.
Three commitments relating to the church were to 1) share with congregations and individuals on the topic of the church and taxes which are used for war; 2) ask the decision-making bodies of our churches to endorse a statement calling all our church-related institutions to stop withholding taxes for IRS when most of those go to the US military; and 3) offer ourselves if the need arises to fill (in name only) the positions of high risk which might be threatened with prosecution by IRS because of the radical nature of some of our stances for peace.
Many at the conference will be working toward a concerted witness in the spring with the institutions of the US government that are ignoring the breaking of the Kingdom of God into our midst.
Whatever our point of commitment we want to encourage each other to deeper Christian discipleship in spite of the radically scandalous nature of the kingdom as it takes shape in our world.
May God grant us the grace to travel in that way.
Following this was a list of the names of twenty-two signers of pledge #1, and five of pledge #2.
The issue went back to peace tax fund stuff, with a profile of National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund promoter Wilbur Stump (source).
Stump was an attendee at the Waubee / Camp Mack conference, and one of the signers of pledge #2.
Anita and Richard Buckwalter shared their letter to the phone company in which they announced “we are no longer going to pay ‘protection’ money (blood money) to support [Uncle Sam’s] death machine” (source):
P.S. We donate the amount of our withheld phone tax to the Peace Tax Fund at Lansing Church of the Brethren, to be used in ministries for peacemaking.
They also shared their letter to the IRS in which they explained their refusal to pay a portion of their income taxes. Excerpt:
If you check your files, you will see that our protest has been consistent and lengthy.
Our purpose was then and is now to witness to the way of the Prince of Peace and to register our conscientious opposition to the use of our taxes for war-making.
To this end, we now feel called to move one step farther in our witness.
We can not in good conscience or in good faith sign over to you that portion of our taxes — roughly 35 percent in — that goes for present military use.
We refuse to take the initiative in paying for death and the destruction of God’s creation.
Therefore, we will not willingly forward this money to you; this is our witness to the powers that be — that God’s will for peace lives on in the victory of Christ over the powers of death.
Please note that we do not argue with the government’s power to collect taxes.
We accept the legitimate taxing powers of the state and willingly submit our taxes when we conscientiously can; we will even help to pay for past sins and wars of this nation — otherwise the percentage would be much higher.
But after much study of the Bible, prayer, and dialogue, we have come to the conviction that we will make this witness to the gospel of peace as over against the insanity of planning for war and nuclear holocausts.
Unfortunately, because the World Peace Tax Fund Act has not been enacted yet by Congress, our actions mean some inconvenience to you.
We regret this, and for your sake hope for the day when that law will make our witness “legal.”
Until then, we know that you have the power to collect our money.
We will not obstruct your efforts in that direction; neither will we hide or make personal gain from the money.
We are now and always will be open and direct with you about our intentions; we don’t wish to cause offense.
And we will forward copies of this letter to our elected representatives.
If you have any questions regarding our beliefs, we would be glad to dialogue with you.
There were three queries, from three separate congregations, concerning the World Peace Tax Fund Act, on the agenda at the Annual Conference.
A Standing Committee drafted a statement in response, “urging that Brethren support the WPTF through Annual Conference communiques to the President of the United States and appropriate Congressional committees, dissemination of information from the General Offices, continued promotion by the Washington Office, and congregational and individual letter-writing to members of Congress.” (source)
But some skepticism began to emerge:
While the Standing Committee recommendation passed with negligible delegate opposition, discussion of the issue included challenging questions about means of conscientious objection to war.
Cliff Kindy asked the church to consider the link between affluent life-styles and warfare, and suggested that living below a taxable income level is one response to the tax issue.
He urged the church to grapple again with tax refusal as a form of resisting participation in war.
Another speaker warned that the WPTF is “an attempt for us to be more comfortable with what is happening in the world” by seeking government approval of our resistance rather than acting boldly regardless of legal sanction.
John Reimer, of Western Plains District, asked if the WPTF would actually reduce military spending, or merely create a fund for peace research and education by reducing civilian sectors of the federal budgets while leaving the growing military budget unchallenged.
The issue noted that the Shenandoah District Board had begun a sort of conscientious objector census, asking draft-age youth to register their conscientious objection, while “[p]ersons who are supportive of conscientious objection to the payment of war taxes may register their beliefs on a third form.” (source)
Finally, the “New Call to Peacemaking” conference was also covered in the issue (source).
That conference was the first attempt to convene for a coordinated peacemaking response from members of the three traditional peace churches.
Excerpt:
Reaching consensus on war tax resistance was not as easy.
Although it was listed third among the concerns of this section, tax resistance was clearly the most widely debated item at the conference and support for the idea came from many of the regional meetings.
Finally, in five strong statements, delegates called upon Brethren, Friends, and Mennonites to “seriously consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship,” challenged congregations to uphold those who do resist with spiritual, legal, and material support; called upon church and conference agencies to seriously consider the requests of their employees who ask that their taxes not be withheld; suggested that alternative “tax” payments be channeled into a peace fund established by New Call to Peacemaking; and called upon the denominations, congregations, and meetings to give high priority to the study and promotion of war tax resistance.
Dale Brown of the Church of the Brethren also penned an article on “The Bible on Tax Resistance” for Sojourners magazine in .
The very different attitude toward war taxes (which usually went without mention) at The Brethren Evangelist can be illustrated by this excerpt from the convocation delivered by Ashland College dean Joseph Schultz (source).
Schultz was an ordained minister in the Brethren Church, with which Ashland College is affiliated:
One cannot visit the Strategic Air Command Headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, without experiencing a welter of conflicting emotions.
Predominant is gratitude for the sense of security which those enormously complicated defense systems can generate, and a more tolerant attitude even toward taxes.
There is, of course, a feeling of awe, mixed with a tinge of doubt as to whether man actually can master such technological refinements.
And there is also an overpowering tug of regret that so much money must be spent for such expensive gadgets which may never be used.
A still greater foreboding is that they may be used, and expanded.
Again in , only the Messenger (of those Brethren periodicals I reviewed) covered war tax resistance, but they did so often.
In a Brethren church in Indiana hosted a war tax resistance workshop:
A concern for active Christian peacemaking was the motivation for the gathering of over 50 people from at least seven religious traditions .
The event, sponsored by the Peace Action Committee of the Northern Indiana District and held at Prince of Peace Church of the Brethren, was a war tax resistance workshop led by Dale Aukerman of the Brethren Peace Fellowship.
The two main body presentations dealt with “our peacemaking and the end of the world,” and “war tax resistance as seen from the perspective of Matthew 18:15–17.” Participants were called to “claim the sovereignty of God and take our Christian discipleship seriously.
The key to our peace witness is to strive to be faithful to God.”
The workshop is one of a growing number being held throughout Brethren churches, often in conjunction with other denominations.
The groups explore nuts-and-bolts alternatives of withholding taxes and support each other in maintaining the witness under Internal Revenue Service pressure, as well as sharing the vision of peace inherent in faithfulness to God.
“Participants in the war tax resistance workshop led by Dale Aukerman (lower left corner) explore peacemaking theology and alternatives of withholding taxes.”
Kevin Zimmerman shared the thinking that went into his war tax resistance in the issue of Messenger (source).
Excerpt:
Although my body is not being conscripted to support war, my tax money is, and at this point in history which do the military powers need more?
My money!
As Dale Brown notes, “If it becomes possible through automated warfare to kill and destroy with unmanned aircraft and minimal personnel, then the witness of withholding economic support may become an issue of even greater importance to the conscientious Christian peacemaker.”
I am not opposed to supporting my government or paying taxes to my government.
But I believe when our government goes directly against Christ’s teachings we are to follow Christ.
Peter and the apostles found themselves forced to resort to civil disobedience in an attempt to fulfill Christ’s teachings and, when arrested, responded, “We must serve God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
I would like to see Congress pass the bill supporting the World Peace Tax Fund.
That portion of my taxes supporting our military could instead be put into this fund to be used for such peaceful purposes as United Nations activities, research into nonviolent solutions to international conflicts, disarmaments efforts, and international education and welfare.
In this way I can support my government as well as the peaceful lifestyle demonstrated by Christ.
Christianity has never been and will never be a spectator sport.
We are commanded to go out and spread the word by helping our neighbors and sharing their burdens, but also by letting our government know too, by letter or by civil disobedience, when they have broken God’s laws.
By sharing my feelings, I hope others will seriously and prayerfully consider how their tax money is being spent, their role in our military machine, and Christ’s teachings to “love our enemies.”
The issue covered the Supreme Court ruling against Old Order Amish who wanted their conscientious objection to the social security system allowed by law (source).
Excerpt:
When the case reached the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger agreed with the IRS, saying, “The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge tax systems because tax payments were spent in a man-er that violates their religious belief.”
Such an attitude could seriously hamper efforts to establish an alternate peace fund into which conscientious objectors could channel taxes that now fund military budgets.
That issue also announced the formation of a “Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund” (still going strong today as the War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund):
Dave Leiter, of North Manchester, Ind., is heading up a network of people interested in distributing the burden of penalties or interest levied against military tax resisters.
An example of such support would be for 200 people to share a $500 penalty by each contributing $2.50. If interested, write the Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund…
Another article in the same issue, on possible responses to the nuclear arms race (source), recommended war tax resistance as one of the possibilities:
Refuse to pay some of your Federal income taxes as a witness to your faith.
If you’re scared, try a small amount like $7.77. If that’s too scary, at least send a letter describing the difficulty of praying for peace and paying for war.
Mike and Carol Zuercher Stern shared their war tax resistance journey in a letter-to-the-editor in the issue (source):
The way a person spends money is an indicator of one’s personal priorities.
In the past year (perhaps more clearly than any other time in recent history) our country has corporately demonstrated what it considers to be most important by how it spends money.
Top priority is military superiority over all other nations — bigger and better bombs, submarines, missiles, and napalm.
As Christians and conscientious objectors to war, we cannot accept this national priority as though it were our own.
We oppose the building of weapons whose ultimate use means the shedding of human blood.
Each April 15 we are reminded of our personal participation in funding a national priority which we believe stands in direct contradiction to our Christian faith.
Our response each year has been to file all the legally required tax forms while witnessing by a variety of symbolic protests against the use of tax dollars for weapons of war.
This year we felt compelled by conscience to refuse to pay the entire amount of taxes which had not been withheld already from our salaries.
This $438, less than 25 percent of our total tax obligation for the year, will be given instead to charitable organizations.
In doing so, we affirm our commitment to the gospel of love, healing, and reconciliation.
That issue also reported on Ralph Dull’s theatric tax resistance protest:
Ralph Dull, of the Brookville, Ohio, Church of the Brethren, has refused to pay a portion of his income taxes each year as a protest against military spending.
This year he chose a new way to draw attention to the issue.
On he pulled up in front of the Federal Building in downtown Dayton to offer the Internal Revenue Service 325 bushels of corn in lieu of taxes owed.
The action was “to dramatize and emphasize the need for the Federal government to turn its priorities around and support constructive people programs,” Dull said, “rather than use our resources for an arms race that is murderous and suicidal.”
He asked the IRS to sign a statement acknowledging the value of the grain and guaranteeing that its value would be used only for non-military purposes.
When the IRS refused to sign.
Dull sold the corn to a local elevator.
A check for about $777 was made out to Church World Service and given to the National Farmers Organization’s Food for Poland project.
“Apart from the religious aspect of this issue,” said Dull, “what this symbolic action lifts up for consideration is human decency.
It is vulgar to squander material and human resources while there is so much opportunity to relieve existing human misery.”
a classified ad from the issue
An article from the issue, focused on resistance to draft registration, noted in passing that “The United Methodist Church… said [in ], ‘We… support all those who conscienttiously object to preparation in any specific war or all wars; to cooperation with military conscription; or to the payment of taxes for military purposes; and we ask that they be granted legal recognition.”
A report on the Annual Conference in that same issue noted that war tax resistance was a last-minute addition to the agenda:
Brethren war protesters who decide to withhold tax money going to war purposes may find their employers less than enchanted with the idea.
Brethren employers may be sympathetic to the idea but are up against federal regulations to withhold taxes.
So what’s a body (such as Annual Conference) to do?
Acting on a late-breaking query from Northern Indiana District, Annual Conference elected a committee of five to study the problem and report in .
The committee is charged to come up with helpful guidance for church institutions so they can adequately respond to their employees employees who wish to withhold their “war taxes.”
The study was approved, despite at least one speaker grousing that he hadn’t “heard one good thing about the US government this week.”
Chances are he was correct.
The Annual Conference of the Church of the Brethren will not be remembered as an exercise in flag-waving patriotism.
For the majority of the delegates to Wichita, judging by the voting record, patriotism was best evinced in responsibly and prayerfully calling one’s government to account in the areas of justice and peace.
That committee would include Dale W. Brown, William R. Faw, Ramona Smith Moore, Phillip C. Stone, and Marty Smeltzer West.
In the issue, Ingred Rogers reported on a war tax resisters’ alternative fund that her Brethren church established:
The Manchester Church of the Brethren has established a “Fund for Life” as an expression of support for those who feel moved to refuse payment of war taxes.
This was a significant step in a long process of soul-searching and consciousness-raising.
The process began in when several members formed a tax-concerned group.
Driven by the conviction that to contemplate nuclear holocaust is sin against God and humanity, we came together to discuss how to express our conscientious objection to war taxes.
Careful reading of the Bible convinced us that the Scriptures give no single, absolute statement about payment of taxes.
But we are indeed called to obey God above all, and trusting in weapons of mass destruction is clearly idolatrous.
From the beginning, we saw our action as an effort to maintain faithfully the Brethren peace testimony.
It became increasingly important to us to allow the church to make a witness on behalf of tax resisters.
Our denomination as a whole had already committed itself to recognition of war-tax resistance as a form of conscientious objection.
Now it was a matter of asking for support from the local congregation that had nurtured us and had had a vital influence on tiie formation of our peace position.
After the first church board discussion on the issue, the tax group prepared a proposal for a Fund for Life.
The original draft provided that resisters would deposit in the fund the money withheld from taxes.
Money unclaimed by the Internal Revenue Service was to become the property of the Manchester church as a completed gift by the original depositor and used for peace work.
As in an escrow account, money up to the amount deposited could be returned to the individual if the IRS should claim the sum.
The church board raised two objections.
If the money can be returned in full to the original depositor once the IRS demands it, where is the witness, the risk, the sacrifice?
If the church holds money owed to the government, might the whole congregation legally be implicated?
The board decided to bring the proposal to the next council meeting for discussion, and to delay a final vote for another six months to allow the congregation to reflect upon the issue of war-tax resistance.
The resulting education program was thorough and rewarding.
As expected, we met with disagreement and heated debate.
A second draft suggested that the money should be a completed gift from the beginning without strings attached.
Also, money deposited would not necessarily have to be withheld from taxes; anyone could contribute as an expression of support.
The tax group found this second draft more true in some ways to the original intent.
Both drafts were presented in Sunday school classes.
After three more modifications, the group settled on this wording:
The congregation leaves the withholding of war taxes to the individual conscience of each member or friend.
Any member or friend of the Manchester Church of the Brethren may contribute money to the Fund for Life.
The income from said gifts and the gifts themselves shall be used by the church for activities that are expressly peace-making, including the support of those persons mentioned in item four.
None of these gifts or the income from said gifts shall be used for the operating budget of the church.
Upon request, our congregation shall financially assist any member or friend who withholds war taxes if the Internal Revenue Service presses for collection of his/her tax liability.
Such contributions shall come from the fund or from special contributions of individual members of the congregation.
This latest version was adopted by the church in the .
Our need for education and discussion on this subject increases.
Every year we are painfully made aware of the shift in priorities in our national budget; every year more billions are sacrificed for weapons which will destroy God’s creation.
The Fund for Life has been an attempt to seek alternatives to quiet acquiescence.
It is a small but significant step in accordance with the faith we proclaim.
The study of peacemaking has led some Brethren to question the payment of taxes that support the military system.
Southern Ohio has a special committee on the World Peace Tax Fund.
Michigan’s district conference in will act upon a resolution that urges congregations not to pay telephone taxes.
Manchester (Ind.) church has created a Fund for Life (see [above]).
Galen and Wanda Miller, of Oregon/Washington District, divide their Federal tax into two checks — one made out to the Department of Health and Human Services and one to the Internal Revenue Service — and include a letter stating that they don’t object to paying taxes for constructive programs.
In , Brethren churches had to make tough choices of how far to go to support their war tax resisting pastors in battles with the government.
At the Annual Conference , the Church approved a position paper recommending that congregations consider civil disobedience in such cases.
The issue of Messenger reported on how, in the wake of a discouraging Supreme Court decision in an unrelated case, “[t]he General Conference Mennonite Church has put on hold a war tax lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.” (source)
, the magazine reported on a Brethren congregation that struggled to decide how far to go to support a war tax resisting pastor:
After agonizing debate.
Prince of Peace Church of the Brethren, South Bend, Ind., voted to comply with an order to pay the Internal Revenue Service part of the wages of pastor Louise Rieman, a war tax resister.
Prince of Peace is the first Church of the Brethren congregation to be faced with the tax-resistance issue.
Louise Rieman and her husband, Phil, have been withholding a percentage of their taxes to protest military spending, and have also withheld information about bank accounts from which the IRS could take tax money.
When the church was asked to hand over part of her wages, the Riemans asked the church board to refuse.
The board passed a resolution that supported the Riemans and denied the IRS request.
But the resolution was defeated 20 to 16 when it was sent to the church council for consideration by the entire congregation.
The debate focused on the biblical basis for and against tax resistance, the moral implications of breaking the law, and preservation of the congregation amidst the controversy.
, in response to a Northern Indiana District query, Annual Conference formed a committee to study war tax resistance.
A report is expected at the conference in Baltimore.
An Oregon congregation, however, decided to take a stronger stand (from the issue):
Peace Church of the Brethren, in Portland, Ore., has voted unanimously to refuse to comply with an Internal Revenue Service effort to collect war taxes owed by pastor Rick Ukena.
The congregation also voted to issue a public statement explaining the decision, and to raise funds to pay any fine arising from noncompliance with the IRS.
Ukena and his wife, Twyla Wallace, have withheld taxes , and the government has seized the money each of those years.
IRS actions against war tax protesters have become speedier and more severe under the Reagan Administration, and this year a levy was imposed against the church.
After a committee explored alternatives with an attorney and with Chuck Boyer, Church of the Brethren peace consultant, a special congregational meeting was held to consider the options.
“Most inspiring was the way the church took it on without my insistence,” said Ukena.
“People were really trying to discern the Spirit.”
Earlier this year, Prince of Peace church in South Bend, Ind., voted to comply with an IRS order regarding pastor Louise Rieman (see [above]).
Ukena was a conscientious objector in and says tax resistance has become a way of life for him.
“I would encourage people to not take the action,” he cautioned, “unless they’re aware of what they’re doing.”
“It was a really scary decision at first,” he added.
“We really prayed and talked to others and read the Bible to determine what was right.
It’s nice to fear God more than the IRS.”
Shirley Whiteside wrote in to applaud the Peace Church’s stand (source):
I rejoice to see this kind of integrity supported within the church.
I hope that one day the greater church will realize our hypocrisy.
To officially proclaim “All war is sin,” while we are party to war with no visible resistance, decries our loyalty to the gospel we claim.
At the Annual Conference, the Church of the Brethren decided whether or not to take a stronger stand that might include corporate civil disobedience.
By a supermajority, they voted to do so:
What started out at the Annual Conference as a study on war tax resistance came out of the Conference as a position paper.
The job of the study committee on war tax consultation was to answer the basic question of how an institution should respond to employees who object to payment of the part of their taxes that goes for military support, said Phillip Stone, General Board member and chairman of the committee.
In its list of recommendations, the committee suggested that “congregations and church-related institutions give consideration to a range of extra-legal options.”
Included is the option of corporate civil disobedience by supporting an employee involved in war tax resistance.
Moderator Paul Hoffman said that by recommending civil disobedience the study paper became a position paper, and needed a two-thirds majority — which it did receive from the delegate body.
Preceding the listing of extra-legal options was a listing of legal means by which institutions could support employees involved in tax resistance.
The committee stated that only after legal means were exhausted should an institution enter into civil disobedience.
In conclusion, the committee called on the larger church community to give support to any church-related organization involved in civil disobedience.
This statement is conspicuously absent from the Church of the Brethren Resolutions & Statements listed on the official Annual Conference website today.
I’m not sure how to explain that.
Maybe we’ll find out as I continue to hunt through the archives.
We need to name the huge expenditures for weapons for what it is, blasphemy against the goodness of God’s creation, a sin we commit together.
In light of this reality I would like to pass on a suggestion from the New Call to Peacemaking Conference at Elizabethtown College :
Instead of focusing on the division between those who pay and those who resist war taxes, let’s all join together in witnessing against war taxes even though we do this in different ways.
Some will witness to people in government through letters accompanying or sent concurrently with their tax payment and returns.
Some will reduce their income or increase their giving in ways as to decrease or eliminate war taxes.
Some who pay under protest will support by word and deed brothers and sisters who withhold a portion or all of their taxes.
Some of us will continue to witness our strong concern through withholding monies in civil disobedience to the tax laws.
This attitude and these actions are consistent with our Annual Conference decisions on this issue.
The issue reported on the war tax resistance debate as it was taking place in the General Conference Mennonite Church (source), and the issue followed up with a report of Church employees who had asked the church to stop withholding war taxes from their salaries (source).
Another news brief in the issue described the World Peace Tax Fund as a bill that “would amend the Internal Revenue Service Code so that conscientious objectors could have their tax payments spent for nonmilitary purposes,” and reported on lobbying efforts.
The issue gave another example of corporate tax resistance in the Church of the Brethren:
The Michigan District board has instructed its district personnel to withhold the Federal excise tax on district telephone bills.
It is forwarding the resolution to the Internal Revenue Service and to congressional representatives.
The withheld funds will be redirected to a Michigan District Peace Tax Fund and used by the district witness commission.
The action was based on Annual Conference statements of , , and .
The board “commend(s) this witness to all Brethren, local congregations, the General Board, and Annual Conference for their study and prayerful consideration,” and also encourages other forms of witness, such as lobbying for the World Peace Tax Fund Bill.
A profile of Brethren Volunteer Service volunteers Steve & Sue Williams in the issue included this detail:
Another attraction to volunteer service for the Williamses was their desire not to pay taxes for war purposes.
Before they married, Steve was a tax resister, withholding a certain amount of money as a protest against the government’s using his taxes for the military.
But Sue was uncomfortable with tax resistance and, after they married, they began looking for an alternative.
One was simply to make a lot of donations to charity.
“Before BVS we were working full-time and giving a lot of money away,” Steve said.
“We began looking for a way to give away time and not money.”
I also found this article in The Morning News of Wilmington, Delaware (). Excerpt:
Brethren still withholding taxes
How to protest “sin of war” is on denomination’s conference agenda
by Eileen C. Spraker and Stephanie Whyche Staff reporters
In , the Vietnam War sparked members of the Wilmington Church of the Brethren not to pay the church’s federal telephone excise tax for a year.
Although that war is dead, tax-withholding among members of the Church of the Brethren is very much alive.
How to support Brethren institutions and individuals who choose to withhold “war taxes” will be on the denomination’s agenda during their national conference, which opens in Baltimore.
Traditionally, the denomination has held to the belief that all war is sin.
Brethren 35 years ago established the Brethren Volunteer Service for conscientious objectors as an alternative to military service.
Some members of the church, for reasons of conscience, have chosen to withhold part or all of their taxes to avoid supporting the military.
A paper to be presented at the Baltimore meeting will discuss the lawful choices available to such people, the church’s position on civil disobedience, and support for institutions and people pursuing tax resistance.
“This is one of the most timely issues we have right now,” says the Rev. Allen T. Hansell, pastor of the Wilmington Church for the Brethren.
According to Hansell, some employees of the six Brethren Colleges and employees in at least one of the Brethren retirement homes are currently involved in tax resistance efforts.
But some are less than successful because their employers are withholding taxes from their employees’ pay in accordance with regulations.
“The issue is these employees, on the basis of conscience, don’t want this money withheld.
Legally, the employers are bound.
That’s why this issue is coming before the conference,” Hansell said.
What’s more, Hansell said, although there’s “no war right now, the telephone excise tax continues,” even though Congress promised to discontinue it once the Vietnam war had ended.
During the Vietnam War, members of Hansell’s church, in Richardson Park, stirred up a lot of controversy because they refused to pay the church’s federal telephone-excise tax.
The action was because of their belief that part of the tax was financing the war.
“Our concern was to make a witness of the issue that this money was going directly to the war effort,” Hansell said.
“It was a matter of principle.”
The proposal to be presented before the conference calls upon employers of employees involved in military tax-resistance efforts to take the issue seriously and maintain open dialogue with their employees.
It does not recommend that church institutions get involved in tax resistance efforts, but if they do, it calls upon the denomination to support that effort through such methods as legal assistance.
Other recommendations will suggest that Brethren seek voluntary wage reductions, and that they work with the Mennonites and Society of Friends to bring about changes through legislation.
One of the best debates I have seen about the biblical basis for tax obedience or tax resistance was found in the Messenger in .
In the issue, the Messenger hosted a debate between Vernard Eller and Dale Aukerman on the biblical basis for war tax resistance or obedient tax payment:
The report to Annual Conference of the Committee on Taxation for War shows a great diversity of opinion within the committee itself.
Accordingly, there is at present no inclination to try for any change of policy.
Rather, the recommendation is for a churchwide study of the Conference statements already on the books.
And because I find myself highly in favor of this proposal, I offer this article as a contribution to the study for which the reports calls.
I address myself solely to the matter of scriptural evidence and interpretation.
Accidentally, as it were, I have been doing major research on the subject — for a book even now in press.
I had no intention of studying tax resistance per se, but was addressing the much broader question of how a Christian should relate to the host of regimes, parties, and ideologies competing with each other in the effort to direct and control society.
My mentors in the matter make up a 150-year-long string of biblically oriented thinkers who constitute the modern theological tradition I feel comes closest to Brethrenism.
These people are Soren Kierkegaard, J.C. and Christoph Blumhardt, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Jacques Ellul.
And as I chased them down on my particular topic, I found them regularly going to the New Testament tax passages.
It became apparent that this was not so much their doing as that of the Bible itself.
The logic of the move is this:
The all-dominating political reality of Palestine during the New Testament period was that of a most evil and vicious Roman regime occupying, oppressing, and eventually destroying the homeland of the Jewish people (and earliest Christians).
Over against this power was pitted that of the Jewish liberationists and freedom fighters commonly known as the Zealots.
Thus, the pattern of political decision forming the context not only of our tax passages but of all New Testament political counsel is one that applies as well to almost any issue, ancient or modern:
One can either (1) legitimize the presently established regime as representing God’s will for the nation, or (2) follow God’s will in supporting the efforts of the revolution against that regime.
“Revolution” here does not necessarily imply terrorism, guerrilla warfare, or other forms of physical brutality, but identifies any bringing to bear of political power in the effort to overthrow an evil regime or to pressure it into becoming good.
By its very nature, of course, the gospel would have as much as prohibited Christians from any desire to legitimize a cruel and pagan Roman Empire.
Yet, also, by its very nature, the gospel would make it very tempting for Christians to align themselves with liberation movements and efforts at just revolution.
Accordingly, on the one hand the New Testament consistently refuses to encourage any legitimizing tendencies — while on the other hand it actively discourages the greater temptation of revolution.
And “tax revolt” — i.e., withholding taxes as a power-play against government evil — becomes the New Testament’s regular signal and symbol of Zealot liberationism in particular and, in general, all forms of revolution.
(It is significant that this symbol has Christianity opposed to revolutionism quite prior to and apart from its physical violence.)
Regarding particularly the exegesis of Mark 12, in addition to the five thinkers named above I consulted four contemporary New Testament specialists: Martin Hengel, Gunther Bomkamm, Leander Keck, and Howard Clark Kee.
All nine scholars are in total agreement, each reading the tax passages in the context of the historical situation described above.
In the process, the scriptures come clear, manifesting their theological consistency as warnings against Christian involvement in political revolutionism.
My researchers are not exhaustive; but I failed to come across even one reputable scholar doing serious biblical exposition who concludes that these passages actually imply a support for (or even a leaving room for) Christian tax resistance.
The crucial New Testament passages are three:
Mark 12 — which is actually Mark 12:13–17 (the fact that both Matthew and Luke later pick up the incident for their own Gospels adds no new meaning but does corroborate the significance it held in the eyes of the early church);
Romans 13 — which is actually Romans 12:14–13:10;
and Matthew 17 — which is actually Matthew 17:24–27.
All of my nine, except the Blumhardts, address the Mark 12 passage — and all agree as to its reading.
The earliest writer, Kierkegaard, says it best.
(Consider that, in the historical context, to make Jesus “king” or to call him “Messiah” politically could mean nothing other than “revolutionary leader against Rome.”)
The small nation to which Jesus belonged was under foreign domination, and naturally all were intent upon the thought of shaking off the foreign yoke.
Hence they would acclaim him king.
But, lo, when they show him a coin and would constrain him against his will to take sides with one party or the other — what then?
Oh, worldly passion of partisanship, even when thou callest thyself holy and patriotic — nay, so far thou canst not stretch as to break through his indifference… No, he posits the infinite yawning difference between God and the Emperor: “Give unto God what is God’s!” For they with worldly wisdom would make it a question of religion, of duty to God, whether or not it was lawful to pay tribute to the Emperor.
Worldliness is so eager to embellish itself as godliness, and in this case God and the Emperor are blended together in the question,… that is to say, the question takes God in vain and secularizes him [by implying that whether the Emperor does or does not get his tax coin is an issue somehow related to or comparable with whether God does or does not get what belongs to him].
But Christ draws the distinction, the infinite distinction, and he does this by treating the question about paying tribute to the Emperor as the most indifferent thing in the world, regarding it as something which one should do without wasting a word or an instant in talking about it — so as to get more time for giving God what belongs to God.
Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Ellul speak a single mind on the Romans 13 passage.
Each finds it to be in complete agreement with Mark 12;
Ellul thinks that Romans 13 even shows that Paul was familiar with the Mark 12 incident.
Yet Barths’s exposition is easily the most extended and insightful of the three:
The revolutionary seeks to be rid of the evil by bestirring himself to battle with it and to overthrow it.
He determines to remove the existing ordinances, in order that he may erect in their place the new right…
The revolutionary must, however, own that, in adopting his plan, he allows himself to be overcome of evil (Rom. 12:21)… What man has the right to propound and represent the “New,” whether it be a new age, or a new world, or a new spirit?…
Overcome evil with good.
What can this mean but the end of the triumph of men, whether this triumph is celebrated in the existing order or by revolution?… There is here no word of approval of the existing order; but there is endless disapproval of every enemy of it.
It is God who wishes to be recognized as He that overcometh the unrighteousness of the existing order…
Even the most radical revolution — and this is so even when it is called a “spiritual” or “peaceful” revolution — can be no more than a revolt; and that is to say, it is in itself simply a justification and confirmation [not of God’s “new” but] of what already exists [namely, one human ideology or another]…
For this cause ye pay tribute also (Rom. 13:6).
Ye are paying taxes to the State.
It is important, however, for you to know what ye are doing.
If I might interpret: If you are paying those taxes as a positive legitimization of the state and its evil activity, you are wrong.
If, on the contrary, you are withholding those taxes as an act of protest and defiance against the evil of the state, you are wrong again.
“But what other option is there?”
Well, if Jesus is correct that Caesar’s image on the coin is proof enough that it belongs to him, then, rather than saying that we do pay him taxes, would it not be more correct to say that we do not try to stop him from taking what is his, do not revolt, do not return evil for evil?
As Barth puts it, “It is important for you to know what you are doing.”
The Matthew 17 incident is not as crucial as the first two; only a couple of our scholars mention it — and that merely in passing.
However, the words Jesus speaks on this occasion are as significant as anything we find on the subject.
In the process of explaining why he pays the tax, Jesus forestalls any idea that a Christian’s payment of taxes is to depend upon the relative righteousness or unrighteousness of the collecting regime.
He says, in effect, that no human regime is righteous enough for the Christian ever to owe it anything.
No, there is only one Father and King of whom Jesus knows himself and his followers to be “sons.”
No one except that “father” can claim anything from these “children.”
So the kings of the earth will have to do their collecting from “others,” not from Jesus and the children of God.
Thus, when Jesus goes on to say that he chooses to pay the tax even though he doesn’t owe it, he is saying that Christian payment never is made as recognition of either the rights or the righteousness of the State.
No, it is made to regimes good, bad, and indifferent — and that sheerly out of obedience to God’s command to love, not revolt, and not cause offense.
It strikes me that the word of God speaks quite clearly on the matter of tax resistance — and that that word is hardly in support of the practice.
I do fully honor the conscientious integrity of those who feel led to withhold some of their taxes; but I cannot confirm that leading as being biblical.
Rendering to Caesar [con]
by Dale Aukerman
If the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb is thought of as the width of a lead pencil, the destructive potential of the current nuclear arsenals is the height of Mount Everest.
If the United States were to explode a bomb each day to destroy a city, the present stockpile would last more than one hundred years.
The Reagan administration plans to build 1,700 additional nuclear bombs a year and press ahead in an arms buildup that is taking us into the war that can destroy God’s earthly creation.
Or to give just one example of the increasing ghastliness of conventional weapons, white phosphorus bombs have a sticky jelly, which adheres to the human body, burns at a temperature of more than 3000° Centigrade for at least 24 hours, and turns victims into agonized human torches.
The United States has been supplying these bombs to a number of countries, including El Salvador and Israel, which used them against civilians in its invasion of Lebanon.
As for the huge sums in federal tax dollars needed to purchase all these weapons and much more.
Brother Vernard Eller seems to say:
No problem; we have the clear command of Jesus to pay up.
After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in , they changed the Temple tax mentioned in the Matthew 17:24–27 story into a tax for the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome.
Some governments have levied taxes so exorbitant as to leave children and others starving.
Certain taxes have been imposed specifically for financing a war.
A government could use half its budget to keep masses of people in concentration camps or to run a network of brothels for the diversion of the male population.
Vernard evidently says: No problem basically;
Christians go by the command of Jesus.
According to the Friends Committee on National Legislation, $350 billion or 55 percent of the 1984 federal budget went to military spending and the cost of past wars.
Figured on a per-capita basis, the fraction of that for the Church of the Brethren membership was $255 million.
All Brethren church-related giving for the year was somewhat over $55 million.
As Vernard sees it, we need not to be troubled that hundreds of millions of Brethren dollars go to finance the arms buildup;
paying is “the most indifferent thing in the world.”
Vernard’s greatest service to us Brethren has come through his insistence that, if we claim to be a New Testament church, we must strive to live by the New Testament.
I stand with him in that insistence.
If Jesus in Mark 12:17 was saying that disciples of his should pay without question every tax levied by whatever government they are under, that, for us, should settle it.
But did Jesus say that?
Vernard failed to find “even one reputable scholar” whose treatment of the passage would leave open the option of Christian tax resistance.
I would call his attention to some.
A.M. Hunter writes: “This was an ad hoc answer, not a fixed and permanent rule for every situation.”
Jean Lasserre gives this interpretation:
“Jesus is not passing any judgment on the lawfulness of the Roman tribute;
He is speaking only of this particular coin.
It represents the things that are Caesar’s, not a foreign tyrant’s right to exact a tribute.
In other words, Jesus recognizes Caesar as having the right to the coin but not to the tribute.
This is what disconcerts His questioners and breaks their trap.”
Francis Wright Beare comments,
“The famous saying leaves untouched the fundamental problem: how are we to draw the line between the legitimate requirements of the society to which we owe allegiance, and the demands of loyalty to God?”
The insight of Paul S. Minear is most helpful:
“By his reply Jesus forced them, as students of the law, to decide for themselves where to draw the line between God’s jurisdiction and Caesar’s…
The riddle remains that each must solve for himself or herself.
Keep in mind that the first audience for this riddle was neither the crowd nor the disciples, but only their adversaries.”
Jacques Ellul, whom Vernard points to as one of the six thinkers decisively supporting the pay-without-question interpretation, states in The Ethics of Freedom that Jesus “refuses to answer the question whether he is for or against Caesar or whether taxes should be paid or not.”
In any case, appealing to the authority of European theologians within other church traditions has not for Brethren been a main way of discovering what faithful discipleship to Christ is.
Those enemies of Jesus thought they had the perfect trap.
If Jesus said, “Don’t pay the tax,” they would denounce him to the Roman authorities.
If he said, “Pay the tax,” they would trumpet that to the common people, who hated the tax as symbolizing Rome’s repressive occupation of their country.
His enemies could spread the word:
“The Messiah is to liberate us from Roman rule, but this fellow supinely tells us to pay the tax.”
The reply, “Don’t pay the tax,” would have pleased Jesus’ adversaries the most, and that they did not get.
According to the interpretation Vernard advocates, they did receive the other answer, “Pay the tax,” and could proceed with their strategy contingent on that reply.
That is, their trap did catch Jesus.
But the close of the story in each Gospel brings out that the trap did not succeed.
“And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him by what he said; but marveling at his answer they were silent” (Luke 20:26).
Jesus had not said, “Pay the tax.”
Jesus’ enemies were intent on exposing him as a collaborator, if not a Zealot revolutionary.
When they produced the detested Roman coin, they — not Jesus — were exposed as the collaborators.
When the Jewish leaders brought Jesus to Pilate, they accused him of “forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar” (Luke 23:2).
They would hardly have used that accusation if Jesus a short time before, in a public context charged with excitement about him, had counseled payment of the tribute.
Usually people quote, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” and omit the rest.
This pernicious misuse of the saying has had immense significance in the history of the West.
Vernard emphasizes that the second part of Jesus’ reply is vastly more important than the first, but he remains within the traditional interpretation by holding that on the matter of taxes we can take the first part and know its meaning for us without the second part.
Brethren historically have held that young men should not simply comply with whatever notice comes from a draft board and that what can rightly be given to the government has to be discerned in relation to giving ourselves totally to God.
Brethren who are deeply concerned about paying money into a monstrously expanding military buildup are not advocating refusal of all taxes, complete noncooperation with government, or trying to overthrow it.
But we believe that we can come to a Christian understanding of taxes that should be handed over to the government only in the light of Jesus’ supremely central command that we give ourselves fully to God.
The crucial issue is whether the first part of Jesus’ reply is taken by itself as a clear, sweeping command or whether it is seen as a riddle calling for the discernment that can come within our striving to love God and follow Jesus.
Jesus, as a Jewish male between the ages of 14 and 65, was subject to the Roman poll tax of one denarius a year.
We have no record that he paid it (his adversaries could have cornered him on that point) — or that he did not pay it.
But in Matthew 17:24–27, the tax in question was for the Temple in Jerusalem.
Jesus told Peter that children of the heavenly King are free from any obligation to pay taxes, but “not to give offense… give the shekel to them for me and for yourself.”
Here too Jesus did not command that all taxes are to be paid regardless.
(Much of what Vernard finds in the passage is not there at all.)
The key consideration is that one not give offense, cause others to fall away from faith.
Had Jesus refused to pay the Temple tax, he would have appeared to reject the Mosaic law (Exodus 30:11–16) and the Temple itself.
But in some circumstances paying a tax can constitute giving offense, impelling others away from God.
When national leaders are stumbling blindly toward slaughtering unimaginable multitudes of those for whom Christ died, casual payment of all the money asked for toward their mad projects amounts to abetting them in their fateful falling away from God.
To resist paying such taxes can provide opportunities for pointing agents of government to Jesus as Lord.
On the Romans 13 passage John Howard Yoder writes:
“Verse 7 says ‘render to each his due’; verse 8 says ‘nothing is due to anyone except love.’
Thus the claims of Caesar are to be measured by whether what he claims is due to him is part of the obligation of love.
Love in turn is defined (verse 10) by the fact that it does no harm.”
Paul was probably restating the teaching of Jesus found in Mark 12:17 and his Master’s call to the most careful discrimination between what under God can be rightly rendered to the ruling authority and what cannot.
Thus we have cogent reasons for concluding that Vernard’s article, the Brethren tradition of paying all taxes without question, and the Annual Conference Statement on Taxation for War (of which Vernard was a principal writer) depend on a mistaken understanding of the words of Jesus.
There is no easy answer— certainly not in four Greek words in Mark 12:17 taken by themselves.
In this issue we need together to seek a fresh discernment of what from us belongs to God.
Bob Gross wrote a letter-to-the-editor in response, in which he made this point (source):
Eller may not realize that for many Brethren who feel led to refuse to pay taxes for war, the primary reason is not the one his article cautions against.
Rather than “an act of protest and defiance against the evil of the state,” our non-payment is a simple, humble attempt to refrain from contributing to that evil.
This is not done in a quest for purity or out of guilt.
It comes from a desire to be more conformed to the will of God and to witness to God’s kingdom.
John Stoner from the Mennonite Central Committee also wrote in to reiterate that “When Jesus was asked, by people wishing entrap him, ‘Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ his answer was not ‘Yes.’ ” (source)
Barry Shutt, on the other hand, took the point of view that war tax resistance was not an effective response, and should be discouraged for that reason (source). Excerpts:
[A] legitimate concern for any witness is the question of effectiveness.
One could seriously question if violating the law is very effective in a society where most people believe it is best to work within the system to initiate change.
And if tax resistance only leads to the tax resister paying more money to the government in fines and penalties, the question of effectiveness becomes an even greater concern.
The point to be made, of course, is, “How do we work effectively to bring about change?” When the system provides adequate means by which one can voice concerns and attempt to change priorities, tax resistance as a means to bring about change becomes even more questionable.
If tax resisters would argue that effectiveness is not the primary concern or objective but simply the witness alone is the objective, then one should ask if simply writing letters of protest to our elected officials is any less of a witness?
If God hears prayers made from the privacy of the prayer closet, God surely takes note of witnesses made through the less conspicuous channels available for us to voice our concerns.
Being fined or arrested may not be necessary, and I would suggest neither is tax resistance.
A further letter in support of resistance, by Dale Hess, did not add much new to the argument, but, in implicit contradiction to Shutt, said of war tax resistance: “The importance of this type of peace witness is hard to overestimate” (source).
The Annual Conference had assembled yet another committee to issue yet another report about war tax resistance, and that committee reported on its work in .
The messenger reported on their recommendations (source):
The assignment from last year’s Annual Conference was two-fold.
In response to a request that the committee study and recommend how Brethren should respond to the dilemma of paying taxes for war, the committee chose not to write a new position paper.
Instead it recommends that Brethren undertake an extensive study of earlier position papers and then determine more specifically what, in addition to the previous papers, is called for in the query.
The committee was also asked to make a recommendation about General Board payment of the federal telephone excise tax.
The committee recommends that the decision be made by the board itself, because of the liability of individual officers.
In action for war growing out of a General Board query of , delegates approved a study committee’s recommendation that the church undertake its own study of previous position papers before deciding whether a new paper on taxation for war is desired.
The General Board is to prepare a study packet and to compile responses from across the denomination.
In an unusual move, the delegates extended the life of the study committee, directing it to recommend to the Cincinnati Conference a process to complete the study.
The same committee, assigned to respond to a Michigan District query about telephone tax redirection, recommended (and Conference approved) that any decision about whether the General Board should withhold the federal telephone excise tax should be made by the Board, since its staff could be held liable.
“A gratified war tax study committee regrouped after finding it had two more years of life.
Clockwise from left:
Chuck Boyer, Gary Flory, Phil Rieman, Dick Buckwalter, Vi Cox.”
A letter in the issue dissented from the war tax resistance craze on the grounds that “many non-Christian people who deeply resent having to support welfare programs” would use the same logic to avoid their taxes (source).
, a group of Brethren showed up at the Lombard, Ill., Internal Revenue Service office and tried to pay part of their taxes with bags of groceries.
The group from Bethany Theological Seminary included about 33 students and faculty member Dale Brown, and they wanted to let the IRS know that they objected to paying taxes for war.
“I believe in paying taxes, but not for defense,” said Brown.
The group took about $160 worth of food to the IRS and contributed about the same amount to peace organizations.
IRS officials refused the groceries, which were then given to local food pantries and soup kitchens.
