Most of the article concerns the “show me the law”-style tax protesters — folks like Charles Rielly, Paul A. Hein
Jr., Irwin Schiff, Gordon S.
Buttorff, Charles A. Dodge, and Alton Moss — and their various arguments and
techniques. But there is also some mention of war tax resisters:
On , Brandeis University professor
Paul Monsky was convicted on tax evasion charges in
U.S. District
Court in Boston. The 43-year-old math teacher did not pay taxes for six
years to protest military spending. It took a jury less than two hours to
decide Monsky was guilty of defrauding the government by claiming 42
exemptions, even though he attached explanations on his tax forms.
He faces a possible $500 fine and a one-year prison term when sentenced.
Bruce Chrisman, a Mennonite pacifist from Ava,
Ill., made the same claim
on his return and received a similar
verdict .
Chrisman, an organic truck farmer who grows alfalfa sprouts, maintained his
conscience as a Christian pacifist prohibits him from supporting killing,
even indirectly through taxes to finance the military.
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
There was plenty about war tax resistance in the Friends Journal in , but it seemed to involve tax resisting Mennonites as least as often as tax resisting Quakers.
The issue announced that the Center on Law and Pacifism was organizing a critical mass style tax resistance action:
The Center… has prepared and has available a “Conscience and Military Tax Resolution,” which may be signed by any conscientious objector to military taxes, witnessed (not necessarily notarized), returned to the Center.
When officially notified by the Center that there are 100,000 such resolutions on file, the signer may carry out his or her resolve to withhold the military portion of the federal income tax.
Alternatively, he or she may deposit the withheld taxes in an escrow account for the World Peace Tax Fund, pending passage by Congress of the WPTF Bill, deposit them in an alternative fund or donate them to some other peace purpose.
The issue was all about anti-war work, and it opened with an article on the history of Quaker war tax resistance by editor Ruth Kilpack.
Excerpts:
[W]e should not suppose that this is a new concern among Friends and members of other Peace Churches, who, by the very nature of our faith, have a conscience tender to such questionings.
For Friends, the searching extends back to the seventeenth century, when Robert Barclay, the English Quaker apologist, wrote in :
We have suffered much in qur country because we neither ourselves could bear arms, nor send others in our place, nor give our money for the buying of drums, standards, and other military attire.
This was the so-called “Trophy Money,” that could be distinguished as such.
But common or “mixed” taxes could not so readily be dealt with, since most Quakers believed it was their duty to pay taxes, and the part allocated to the military could not be separated out from the whole.
Today, like those earlier Quakers, we find ourselves in the same dilemma.
Law-abiding citizens, we continue to find ourselves troubled by the demand that we pay taxes for purposes we cannot in conscience condone.
We cannot pretend that we accept war as a legitimate function of the civil government which we support, and, just as some of our members have refused to serve in the armed services, many are beginning to question the contribution of our money for purposes we eschew for moral, humane, and religious reasons.
Quakers struggled with all these same questionings in the mid-eighteenth century and the period prior to the American Revolution.
One of the most articulate on the subject of war taxes was Samuel Allinson, a young Friend from Burlington, New Jersey, who in wrote “Reasons against war, and paying taxes for its support.”
The Samuel Allinson essay “Reasons against war, and paying taxes for its support” can be found in the book American Quaker War Tax Resistance.
Thus, in words written , he deals with the question of “a remnant who desire to be clear of a business so dark and destructive, that we should avoid the furtherance of it in any and every form.”
He describes it as a “stumbling block to others, [which] ought carefully to be avoided,” and sees such avoidance as advancing the Kingdom of the Messiah, that “his will be done on earth as it is done on heaven; a state possible, I presume, or he would not have taught us to pray for it.”
Further, says Samuel Allinson,
We have never entered into any contract expressed or implied for the paym[en]t of Taxes for War, nor the performance of any thing contrary to our Relig[ious] duties, and therefore cannot be looked upon as disaffected or Rebellious to any Gov[ernment] for these refusals, if this be our Testimony under all, which many believe it will hereafter be.
And finally, Samuel Allinson points out that even though earlier Friends paid their taxes (including that going to the military), that is no good reason for our continuing to do so.
It is not to be wondered at, or an argument drawn against a reformation in the refusal of Taxes for War at this Day, that our Brethren formerly paid them; knowledge is progressive, every reform[atio]n had its beginning, even the disciples were for some time ignorant of many religious Truths, tho’ they had the Company and precepts of our Savior…
Friends, we find ourselves in the very position of the Friends being addressed by Samuel Allinson two centuries ago.
For myself, I cannot think it is by sheer accident that I have stumbled upon his words now.
Neither is it by accident that a growing “remnant” of Friends are awakening to the ambivalence we feel in what we profess and what we practice regarding our involvement in the awesome “stumbling block” of nuclear warfare in our own age.
Friends in the past responded to the threats of the age in which they lived according to the light they had.
We of our generation have been given even greater light, and we must respond accordingly.
Given our heritage, if we don’t respond, who will?
In the meantime, I ask you to think on these things and, to paraphrase George Fox’s advice to William Penn, “Pay thy tax as long as thou canst.”
In the issue, Keith Tingle told readers that they should know “how easy it is to do” war tax resistance… at least in his experience:
My own experience in military tax resistance has been rewarding thus far.
By claiming a tax credit for conscientious objection to war on my income tax form, I was refunded $260 from my taxes.
Now that the IRS has discovered its mistake, I am resisting through federal tax court the recollection of this money.
My appearance in tax court has been reported favorably in three local newspapers, providing an opportunity to publicize the Quaker peace testimony, the history of war tax resistance, the economic impact of military spending, the pacifist position on the military draft, the concept of the World Peace Tax Fund, and the legal assistance offered by the Center on Law and Pacifism.
This has been accomplished with a total expense of about $30 and about thirty hours of time.
I have enjoyed the dedicated support of the Committee on War Tax Concerns of Friends Peace Committee and the legal guidance of lawyer Bill Durland at the Center on Law and Pacifism…
The issue noted that conscientious objection to military taxation was on the agenda at the Kent General Meeting in Canterbury, England — though from the sound of it, this was mostly in a theoretical way: presenting the argument that such a thing was a logical and practical counterpart of conscientious objection to military service.
That issue also reported on the case of Cornelia Lehn, an employee of the General Conference Mennonite Church who was trying to convince her employer to stop withholding federal income tax from her salary:
There was a “neither yes nor no” vote on this request by the 500 delegates present.
Those who favored a strong tax resistance program did not Nor did those who wanted members to unquestioningly pay taxes as a Christian duty.
There was a feeling, however, that neither side really lost.
Thirty percent of the delegates were ready for the conference to take action in “some sort of civil disobedience and tax resistance” and it was hoped the number will grow.
I’m struck by this last phrase — “it was hoped the number will grow” — which makes a pretty clear editorial statement of sympathy for those who favored corporate resistance by the Conference and antipathy for “those who wanted members to unquestioningly pay taxes as a Christian duty.”
At this time, few if any Quaker Meetings or organizations were willing to go out on that limb, in spite of strong urgings from Quaker war tax resisters that they do so.
But I don’t remember the Journal betraying an editorial bias when it reported on this debate in Quaker institutions.
One case in point is a report on the New England Yearly Meeting in which the lukewarm statement is made that “We approved a minute asking New England Friends to give prayerful consideration to non-payment of war taxes.”
The New York Yearly Meeting went so far as to “discuss” a “minute on Refusal of Taxes for Military Purposes” and to note that it “was to be commended for consideration by all monthly meetings and individuals.”
The issue had a followup in which the General Conference of the Mennonite Church was proposing launching a lawsuit in which it would seek a judicial ruling to legalize conscientious objection to military taxation, while at the same time it would increase its efforts to pass the “World Peace Tax Fund” legislation.
Maurice McCracken had a piece of autobiography in the issue.
Naturally, it touched on his tax resistance:
I had decided that I would never register again for the draft nor would I consent to being conscripted by the government in any other capacity.
In contradiction to this position, each year on April 15 I was letting the government conscript my money.
Thus I was voluntarily helping the government do what I vigorously declared was wrong.…
Realizing this inconsistency, I decided that in good conscience I could no longer make full payment of my federal taxes.
At the same time, I did not want to stop supporting civilian services supported by the government.
So, in my tax returns I continued to pay the small percentage allocated for civilian use.
The amount that I formerly had given for war purposes I hoped now to give to such causes as the American Friends Service Committee and to support other works of mercy and reconciliation which help remove the roots of violence and war.
As time went on I realized, however, that this was not accomplishing what had been my hope; for year after year the IRS ordered my bank to release money from my account to pay the money I had held back.
I then closed my bank account, and at this point it came to me with complete clarity that by so much as filing tax returns I was giving the IRS assistance in the violation of my own conscience, because the very information I was giving on my tax forms was being used in finally making the collection.
There is something else that those who withhold a portion of their tax on conscientious grounds should realize.
The IRS does not practice line budgeting.
All that it collects goes where the government wants it to go, which in ever-increasing proportion goes to finance wars, past, present and future.
I have not filed any tax returns, nor have I paid any federal income tax.
On , on charges growing out of my refusal to pay this tax, I was given a six-month sentence, which I spent at Allenwood, Pennsylvania, which is run by the Lewisburg penitentiary.
Some two years my release from Allenwood, in , the Presbytery of Cincinnati, on charges quite unrelated to the real issues, suspended me as a minister.
In , this action was upheld by the General Assembly, the highest court of the denomination.
In the presbytery declared my ordination to the ministry no longer valid, making a highly questionable presumption that they could cancel out whatever spiritual grace the Holy Spirit had bestowed on me when I was ordained at a meeting of Chicago Presbytery back in .
For nearly eighteen years our congregation has been a member of the National Council of Community Churches.
I have been accepted as a minister in full standing, and whatever validity my ordination had back in , is, for them, still valid.
A note in the issue recognized 86-year-old Pearl Ewald’s persistent activism: “Pearl Ewald continued her activities for peace, civil rights and war tax resistance, despite a recurring heart condition.
She has been arrested and jailed more than once for stubbornly refusing to discontinue her witness.
On one occasion, although desperately in need of medical attention, she refused to be admitted to a hospital, because it was a segregated institution.”
That same issue mentioned the case of Mennonite war tax resister Bruce Chrisman, “who was convicted of failure to file an income tax return in , was sentenced to one year in Mennonite Voluntary Service,” to which I can only think: “Please don’t throw me in the briar patch, Your Honor!”
“I’m amazed,” said Chrisman.
“I feel very good about the sentence.
The alternative service is probably the first sentence of its kind for a tax case.
I think it reflects the testimony in the trial and its influence on the judge.”
Chrisman could have been sentenced to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine.
A letter from Mildred Thierman in the same issue challenged Friends:
Could we now unite this year in sending a flood of personal declarations to President Carter and our government, saying that we can no longer, in conscience, allow part of our taxes to be used for the purchase of annihilating weapons?
Can we back this up by joining together in significant numbers to withhold whatever portion of our income tax fits our circumstances, in order to make our protest noticed?
A review of Conscience in Crisis: Mennonites and Other Peace Churches in America, , Interpretation and Documents in the issue, summarized its version of the history of Quaker war tax resistance this way:
Testimony against participation in the military and refusal to pay Trophy Money — the English tax to raise money for military regalia (arms were, by law, furnished by the individual soldiers) — were traditional Friends’ observances by the beginning of the period covered by Conscience in Crisis.…
…Friends and other Peace Church members were, by and large, loyal subjects.
They paid taxes “for the King’s use” — including the royal decision to make war.
Friends began to question payment of taxes more broadly.
The essential issue, according to the authors, was that “the individual is responsible for the actions of his government in a free society.”
Israel Pemberton, John Pemberton, John Churchman, John Woolman, and nineteen other Friends petitioned the Assembly on the issue of taxes in :
…Yet as the raising Sums of Money, and putting them into the Hands of Committees, who may apply them to Purposes inconsistent with the peaceable Testimony we profess, and have borne to the World, appears to us in its Consequences to be destructive of our religious Liberties, we apprehend many among us will be under the Necessity of suffering rather than consenting thereto by the Payment of a Tax for such Purposes…
By the time of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sessions, Friends decided not to discuss the issue of “mixed” taxes because of a significant lack of consensus.
Yet, Friends were increasingly beginning to question less direct forms of support for war not traditionally inconsistent with the peace testimony.
an illustration from the issue of Friends Journal
In the issue, Alan Eccleston wrote of his calling as a peacemaker, and how that manifested for him.
Excerpts:
For me personally, the witness to peace has led to war tax resistance.
Over the past six years of this witness I have been — and still am — strengthened by others who are not, themselves, war tax resisters.
The witness of war tax resistance is one that raises fear.
We have been conditioned to fear the Internal Revenue Service as something nearly equivalent to a ruthless secret police, in its imagined power to terrorize.
Most of us, unwilling to admit, even to ourselves, that fear alone would block us from a spiritual witness, find other reasons for willingly paying to produce weapons that can annihilate all humankind.
Based on my own experience, I would say fear imagined is greater in most people than fear actually experienced, and that this is by a factor of ten, at least — maybe 100. Fortunately, borrowing from each other’s experience and knowing others will be there to help us, we can find the courage to move ahead.
Then comes the surprise.
With dread and foreboding we make our stand.
Then, gradually, we become aware that a great weight has been lifted from us.
That nagging, cumbersome burden of blocking from consciousness our own complicity with this evil has fallen away.
We are lighter, more open, more truthful.
We are free, at last, to speak truth to power.
When this affirmation is truly clear in our lives, it will be seen and felt by the president and by Congress.
As in , when C.O. status was incorporated in the Selective Service Act, the tax laws will then be amended to create C.O. status for taxpayers and a “World Peace Tax Fund.”
That legislation, approved by the world’s leading arms supplier, will move the world one step closer to peace.
That portion of our population (approximately four percent during the Vietnam War) which is pacifist would then contribute to peace, not war, and these contributions would total in excess of $2.3 billion every single year — year after year.
For the first time in history, peace programs would have a significant budget.
The funds could be used to support: a National Academy of Peace and Conflict Resolution; research to develop and evaluate non-military, nonviolent solutions to international conflict; disarmament; retaining workers displaced by conversion from military production; international exchanges for peaceful purposes; improvement of international health, education and welfare; and education of the public about the above activities.
The Friends General Conference in drafted “A Statement of Conscience by Quakers Concerned” and collected signatures.
The statement said, in part:
We advocate conscientious refusal to register for the draft and wish young men of draft age throughout the United States to know that if, after thoughtfully considering the reasons and consequences, they refuse to register, we will give them practical and moral support in every way we can, even though our willingness to do so may result in our prosecution, fines and possible imprisonment for disobeying a man-made law that leads us in the direction of war.
Mary Bye wrote in response that although she signed the statement, it felt to her to be something “like a hollow gesture.”
[M]aybe we [adults] should make sure about the beam in our adult eyes before we concentrate on the motes in those bright young eyes of the nineteen- and twenty-year-olds.
“[W]hat would be our reaction to young Quakers pointing out that since it takes money as well as men to fight a war, they encourage Friends beyond draft age to refuse war taxes?
Finally, the issue presented the case of Ruth Larson Hatcher.
Excerpt:
Not wishing to contribute tax money for war-making purposes, she managed for years to have an income just sufficient for survival but not large enough to require payment of taxes.
Then in a friend persuaded her to accept the management and bookkeeping of a children’s art center.
Conscientious and religious beliefs caused her to oppose acceptance of insurance benefits under Social Security, as well as the payment of taxes for war.
Her claims for exemption under various sections of the Internal Revenue code of as well as under the First and Fifth Amendments were routinely rejected, until a Supreme Court judge approved her use of Form No. 4361. It seems that this form (and another previously ignored by the authorities) had been used by an Amish sect to avoid the taxes (and payments) of the social security system.
Although the Court of Appeals handed down the opinion that exemptions were enacted to accommodate individuals commanded by their conscience or their religion to oppose acceptance of insurance benefits, it refused to accept that this was the exact status of petitioner Ruth Hatcher.
It’s a little unclear what took place here, but it sounds like this is saying that the courts left an opening for people who were not members of sects that qualified for an exemption from the social security system but who held similar beliefs to gain the same exemption.
Interesting if true.
I was able to find the appeals court decision that ruled against Hatcher, and the earlier Tax Court decision to the same effect, and the District Court decision that affirmed the Tax Court decision.
I was not able to find any record of Supreme Court action on the case, but I did find some other cases that cited the Appeals Court decision as precedent, which seems to suggest that the Supreme Court didn’t overturn it (as the above excerpt implies).
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
War tax resistance remained very much on the agenda at the Friends Journal at the beginning of the Reagan era of aggressive military build-up in .
A letter from Jenny Duskey in the issue read, in part:
I belong to a community of disciples called Publishers of Truth.
Our testimony is that Christ’s disciples can have no part in war or preparation for war, and that this means not joining the military or being drawn into legally designated “alternatives” to conscription even when the law demands, as well as not paying taxes destined for military use when we can refuse them.
“Publishers of Truth” (see also the advertisement pictured in ♇ ) was centered around Larry and Lisa Kuenning, who came to prophesy an emerging paradise on Earth, centered on Farmington, Maine.
I’m tempted to do some further research in this direction, but am afraid of getting lost in some interesting by-ways.
Lisa Kuenning was a collaborator with Timothy Leary, and for a time an important figure in the psychedelic renaissance.
Last I checked, the Kuennings were running Quaker Heritage Press, which specializes in reprints of old Quaker books.
The issue had an in-depth article by Richard K. MacMaster on Christian Obedience in [American] Revolutionary Times, that included a discussion of Quaker responses to war taxes and militia exemption taxes.
Excerpts:
The Pennsylvania Assembly voted on to recommend to conscientious objectors “that they cheerfully assist in proportion to their abilities, such persons as cannot spend both time and substance in the service of their country without great injury to themselves and families.”
This would be a subsidy to poorer Associators, men who could not supply themselves with a musket and bayonet and needed help from their neighbors.
It was a far cry from the kind of nonpolitical relief work that the sects had in mind.
The Continental Congress did not help matters when it decreed in that members of the Peace Churches should “contribute liberally in this time of universal calamity, to the relief of their distressed brethren.”
Were these distressed brethren the poor of Boston or poor families in their own neighborhood or George Washington’s makeshift army camped on the hills overlooking Boston harbor?
The Peace Churches took the Congressional resolve as a last-minute reprieve and insisted that their contributions were for the poor, even though the money would be turned over to the County Committee.
“For we gave it in good faith for the needy,” a Lancaster County Brethren pastor explained, “and the man to whom we gave it gave us a receipt stating that the money would be used for that purpose.”
The Lancaster County experience was repeated in other Pennsylvania counties and in other colonies where Quakers, Brethren, and Mennonites were numerous.
Most communities tried voluntary contributions, but in Frederick County, Maryland, and Berks County, Pennsylvania, the committees levied fines on men of military age who did not drill with the Associators.
The nonresistant sects had fallen into a trap.
No matter how they labeled them, the authorities understood their voluntary contributions as donations to the war chest.
And if contributions failed to come voluntarily, they were already preparing for compulsory payment of money as an equivalent to military service.
Time was running out on the Peace Churches by .
Soon after the elections, military associators began petitioning the Pennsylvania Assembly that
some decisive Plan should be fallen upon to oblige every Inhabitant of the Province either with his Person or Property to contribute towards the general Cause, and that it should not be left, as at present, to the Inclinations of those professing tender Conscience, but that the Proportion they shall contribute, may be certainly fixed and determined.
These petitions asked much more than an increased tax assessment on the conscientious objectors.
The petitions explicitly stated that every member of the community had an obligation to make some contribution to the common cause; the additional tax would be a concession to those who could not meet that obligation on the field of battle.
The Peace Churches rightly put their case on the high ground of religious freedom.
Quakers expressed their “Concern on the Endeavours used to induce you to enter into Measures so manifestly repugnant to the Laws and Charter of this Province, and which, if enforced, must subvert that most essential of all Privileges, Liberty of Conscience.”
They asked the Assembly not to infringe the solemn assurance given them in Penn’s Charter, “that we shall not be obliged ‘to do or suffer any Act or Thing contrary to our religious Persuasion.’ ”
The revolutionary government rose to the challenge.
All sixty-six members of the Philadelphia Committee proceeded in a body to the Assembly chamber to present their response to the Quaker address to the Speaker of the House.
The same day, the Assembly heard petitions from the Officers of the Military Association of the City and Liberties of Philadelphia and from a Committee of Privates.
They first narrowly construed the grant of religious freedom in the Charter and threw out of court the sectarian contention that religion was more than a Sunday worship service.
We cannot alter the Opinion we have ever held with Regard to those parts of the Charier quoted by the Addressors, that they relate only to an Exemption from any Acts of Uniformity in Worship, and from paying towards the Support of other religious Establishments, than those to which the Inhabitants of this Province respectively belong.
The representation from the Committee of Privates went still further.
They insisted that “Those who believe the Scriptures must acknowledge that Civil Government is of divine Institution, and the Support of it enjoined to Christians.”
Quakers ought not to question what governments did, according to this Committee of Privates, but simply obey; God had ordained the powers and thereby gave sanction to every action of the state.
The lines were thus clearly drawn between the sectarian view of supremacy of conscience and the secular view of the primacy of the state.
The Mennonites and Church of the Brethren simply set down the limits of what they could do in good conscience.
Their petition made little difference to the course of events.
The day after the Mennonite and Brethren statement was read the Pennsylvania Assembly voted to require everyone of military age who would not drill with the Associators “to contribute an Equivalent to the time spent by the Associators in acquiring the military Discipline.”
Later in , the Assembly imposed a tax of two pounds and ten shillings on non-Associators, which would be remitted for those who joined a military unit.
Under new pressure from the Associators they raised the tax to three pounds and ten shillings in .
The Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention incorporated the principle of taxing conscientious objectors as an equivalent to military service in the Declaration of Rights they adopted.
It made explicit what most Patriots already believed:
That every Member of Society hath a right to be protected in the Enjoyment of Life, Liberty and property and therefore is bound to Contribute his proportion towards the Expence of that protection and yield his personal Service when necessary or an equivalent… Nor can any Man who is conscientiously scrupulous of bearing Arms be justly compelled thereto if he will pay such equivalent.
Participation in warfare was a universal obligation, in their view, falling equally on every citizen; those who could not fight must pay others to fight in their place.…
The Assembly and the Convention clearly intended to make the Peace Churches pay for war and imposed the tax as an avowed equivalent to military service.… Religious pacifists carried the whole burden of the tax.
But a tax imposed on conscientious objectors as an equivalent to joining the army and intended for the military budget definitely infringed on the religious liberty guaranteed by William Penn’s Charter.
The war tax issue thus arose in a context of freedom of conscience curtailed for those whose Christian faith forbade their “giving, or doing, or assisting in any Thing by which Men’s Lives are destroyed or hurt.”
Maryland and North Carolina followed Pennsylvania’s example in levying a special tax on conscientious objectors; the North Carolina law made payment the grounds for exemption from actual service with the army.
Virginia and several other states required conscientious objectors to hire substitutes to take their place whenever their company of militia was drafted for combat duty.
Special tax assessments for military purposes passed every state legislature as the war dragged on.
And the rapidly depreciating Continental and state paper money that fueled a run-away inflation was itself a war tax.
Wherever Quakers, Mennonites, or Brethren lived, the problem of paying for war soon caught up with them
Could a valid distinction be made between military service and war taxes?
The Reverend John Carmichael, Scottish Presbyterian pastor in Chester County, Pennsylvania, had little sympathy with the nonresistant sects who refused to pay war taxes, but he saw no distinction between fighting and paying the cost of war.
In Rom 13, from the beginning, to the 7th verse, we are instructed at large the duty we owe to civil government, but if it was unlawful and anti-Christian, or anti-scriptural to support war, it would be unlawful to pay taxes; if it is unlawful to go to war, it is unlawful to pay another to do it, or to go do it.
Some Brethren, Mennonites, and Quakers agreed that no real distinction could be made and consequently refused to pay taxes levied for military purposes.
In his sermon, Carmichael spoke of Mennonites “who for the reasons already mentioned will not pay their taxes, and yet let others come and take their money, where they can find it, and be sure they will leave it where they can find it handily.”
They would not resist the tax collector in any way; but they could not cooperate in wrongdoing by voluntarily paying war taxes.
The law took this practice into account and permitted collectors to seize the property of those would not pay their own taxes.
Quakers officially discouraged payment of war taxes and militia fines.
Many Friends went to jail for their refusal and still a larger number allowed the authorities to take horses, cattle, furniture, farm implements and tools to pay their taxes.
They refused to accept any money from the sale of their goods over and above the tax and fine.
In the Shenandoah Valley and in other Quaker communities, their neighbors found rare bargains when the sheriff sold a Quaker farmer’s property for taxes and purposely kept the bidding low.
Virginia Yearly Meeting protested to the authorities about the sale of slaves, freed by their Quaker masters in defiance of the law, who were taken up and sold to pay their former masters’ war taxes.
Refusal to pay taxes for military purposes had a close parallel in Quaker refusal to pay taxes to support an established Church; they accepted the right of civil government to appropriate money for either purpose, but denied that civil government could coerce their consciences, even at the cost of jail sentences.
This was a minority position among English and American Friends, even after John Woolman prodded their conscience on war taxes.
Woolman’s influence can be seen in a circular letter issued by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in , when Braddock’s defeat left Pennsylvania exposed to French and Indian raids and the Assembly ordered new taxes for mounting a fresh campaign.
The tax was a general one, including military appropriations with all the other functions of civil governments, but Friends agreed “as we cannot be concerned in wars and fightings, so neither ought we to contribute thereto by paying the tax directed by the said act, though suffering be the consequence of our refusal.”
The issue in was much clearer: the taxes were levied entirely for military purposes and intended as an equivalent to military service.
With the passage of years, Friends had the meaning of nonresistance in much sharper focus and a much greater number accepted the challenge of faithful discipleship.
Mennonites also responded to the challenge by refusing to pay war taxes.
When the Pennsylvania Assembly passed an act in to require a tax of three pounds and ten shillings from everyone of military age who refused to turn out with the militia, Mennonite opinion was divided.
Christian Funk, bishop in the Franconia congregation, allowed payment of the tax and tried to convince his brother ministers.
But refusal to pay war taxes had taken deep roots in the Mennonite tradition by .
The mere rumor that Funk permitted payment of the tax was enough to bring complaints against him at the time of preparation for the Lord’s Supper in and to lead to his ouster from the ministry.
All of the preachers and a great many other Mennonites in eastern Pennsylvania opposed payment of the tax.
Andrew Ziegler, bishop in the Skippack congregation, spoke for them, when he declared: “I would as soon go into the war, as to pay the three pounds ten shillings if I were not concerned for my life.”
Zeigler and others could see little difference between fighting and paying for war.
In the face of a long-standing tradition of paying taxes without questioning the purpose of the tax, men of faith testified from their own conscience that for them there could be no distinction between refusing to fight and refusing to pay for war.
These Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers willingly accepted the penalty for their conscientious objection to war taxes in imprisonment and loss of property far in excess of the tax.
Their action reminded their brethren of the need for careful discrimination in rendering to Caesar the things that are really Caesar’s. They refused to let a majority vote in the legislature be their conscience and rejected the easy way of confusing Caesar’s will with the will of God.
In the same issue, Bill Durland of the Center on Law and Pacifism reviewed the attempts to get a sympathetic court hearing in the United States for the argument that conscientious objection to military taxation is a Constitutionally-protected right of citizens.
He described the founding of the Center in by himself, Robert Anthony, Bruce & Ruth Graves, Barbara & Howard Lull, Peter Herby, and Richard McSorley, and then described the various avenues of appeal the group was pursuing in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Anthony put his legal argument this way: to be compelled to pay war taxes “would force [him] to accept a creed, and practice a form of worship foreign to his convictions, and to establish as the only normative religious belief and practice, that adhered to by most Christian denominations, i.e., that it is both a Christian and an American duty to fight in just wars and pay for them.”
The Supreme Court wasn’t interested.
The Center tried again with the Graves’ case, asserting that the First Amendment’s assertion that “Congress shall make no law… prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]” means that the governmental interest in having an efficient and uncomplicated tax system is trumped by the citizen’s right to a religious practice that forbids funding war.
Again, the Supreme Court turned up its nose.
The Center then made an attempt with the Lulls & Peter Herby as petitioners.
As the First Amendment arguments had failed to make any headway, this time they made a Hail Mary pass with a Ninth Amendment argument.
“This amendment recognizes that there are certain fundamental, inalienable rights not enumerated in the Constitution which the people possess that are preexisting to any constitution, are inherent in the individual, and are not subject to divestment either partially or completely by the state.
These rights have also been called ‘natural’ and are those held by an individual in a state of absolute liberty.
In contracting to enter into a state of society, the people collectively, and the person individually, only divest themselves of those natural rights which they expressly relinquish by enumeration.”
Nice try, but the Supreme Court yet again denied cert.
The article notes that in addition to First Amendment-based arguments, “each of the three cases raised at the Federal Court level a compelling legal position based on International Law and, in particular, the Nuremberg Principles.”
(Not compelling enough, apparently.)
An article in the same issue, by William Strong, profiles war tax resister Bruce Chrisman.
Excerpts:
[H]e cannot pay that portion of his federal taxes that he knows will be used for preparations for war.
For that, he is serving a criminal sentence that includes one year of humanitarian service without pay, three years of probation, a fine of $2,400 for court costs, and the payment of all back taxes due.
He deems this result a moral victory, however — the sentence could have been up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Over the years Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s minutes have reflected the repeated return of the war tax concern.
In a striking, sensitive minute was approved.
The unity reached at that time calls upon “all Friends to continue to search themselves deeply on their responsibility to separate themselves from preparations for war.”
Where does that searching lead?
“We encourage dialogue between conscientious war tax refusers and other concerned people struggling with the issue of paying war taxes.
We seek to build a community of deeply committed persons.”
Friends offer their real support — spiritual, moral, legal, and material — to that growing community, and close the minute by reaffirming:
Our strength and our security are derived from our belief in the reality of a loving God and the oneness of that of God in all people.
In order to say yes to this belief, we must seriously consider saying no to payment of war taxes.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s “War Tax Concerns Support Committee” works to carry out that minute.
Its mandate is broad, from war tax refusal and resistance, questing for administrative (IRS) and judicial relief, to a spectrum of wholly positive approaches.
The committee seeks “legislative relief” in pursuing the World Peace Tax Fund law that proposes alternative service for war taxes, for conscientious objectors to monetary conscription.
In the war tax concerns section of our Peace Testimony, as in most fields of Quaker endeavor, certain Friends are ’way out front.
They have been going down a committed road for years.
George and Lillian Willoughby, Bob Anthony, Lorraine Cleveland, and Robin Harper in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting come to mind.
“Not to worry” — most of us are beginners, and we don’t need to catch up.
What stride do we take this year — or this quarter — in the Light? We tackle the big issues by taking the next step, getting a bit more involved.
Saying “no” to that small, lingering, now two percent Vietnam War telephone tax, which does indeed produce a billion dollars in direct war taxes, is one such step.
Adjusting our withholding so that we take more control of our tax payments, with more options, is another.
Or do we match what the government requires of us in war taxes with comparable contributions to peace organizations?
Everyone ultimately decides his own next step, but often it comes out of shared, caring discussion with other Friends, “wrestling as I am, with the harder questions of our faith and practice.”
That issue also had a few short notes that mentioned war tax resistance:
“In Japan, COMIT (Conscientious Objection to Military Tax) is planning to sue the government for breach of constitution by taxing for war.”
“In Switzerland, 300 people belonging to the group ‘Pour une Politique de Paix Active’ refused to pay their military tax or some part of the duty levied for national defense.”
“[N]ine members of the Pacific Yearly Meeting Peace Committee testified ‘against rendering unto Caesar that which is God’s’ by declaring their solidarity with those Friends who refuse to cooperate with war taxes and draft registration.
Some seventeen others present at the yearly meeting also signed the statement.”
“A statement from Orange County Meeting asks: ‘If we recognize our involvement in militarism through the payment of taxes used for military purposes but do not act to end such involvement, then are we not hypocritical to tell Friends faced with registration to refuse military service?’ ”
The issue included a mention that the Australian Yearly Meeting was pursuing its own Peace Tax Fund plan “as a method of allowing taxpayers to direct a proportion of their tax to peace purposes instead of military spending.”
The issue noted that a “Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes is preparing a packet of study materials to provide information on the biblical basis of war taxes and the World Peace Tax Fund… together with suggestions for personal and political action.”
Maurice McCracken wrote in to the issue to chide anti-war activists for their timidity.
Excerpts:
Indeed it is a feeble gesture to do what we do not believe in; even though we protest doing it.
The only valid protest is resistance and complete noncooperation with what we believe to be wrong.
[A] law… threatens anyone who advises a young man not to register for the draft with the same penalty as the non-registrant — a possible prison sentence of five years and a possible fine of $5,000. In the draft registration resistance movement I find that considerable time is spent on how to counsel young men about registration so it will not appear that we are actually advising them not to register.
Why this hesitancy and timidity?
I not only advise young men of draft age not to register.
I urge them not to register.
This military juggernaut which threatens to destroy all human life and all animal and plant life on the planet must be stopped.
It must be resisted at the point of not filing a federal income tax return and of not registering for the draft.
A thief-says, “Your money or your life.”
The Pentagon says, “Your money and your life!”
I refuse to give either one!
Won’t you join me?
In the issue, E. Raymond Wilson tried to envision a “Quaker Peace Program” that would be adequate to the challenges of .
He advocated working toward a more powerful U.N., drastic disarmament, global economic/social development with an emphasis on underdeveloped areas, and active reconciliation of global adversaries.
Much of this work would involve lobbying and other pleading with powerful people whose inclinations are largely in the opposite direction; but there was also a nod toward conscientious objection:
an ad in the issue of Friends Journal
Friends should seriously consider the recommendations of the Second New Call to Peacemaking Conference that individuals should withhold all or part of their income tax going to military and war appropriations, now estimated at more than forty-eight percent of the budget controlled by Congress.
War tax resistance came up at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in .
War tax resister John Beer wrote down some questions that people had about resisting, and in a Friends Journal issue , Bill Strong (of the Meeting’s “War Tax Concerns Support Committee”) answered them.
The questions were:
“If we refuse $100 of our federal war taxes and give it to some organization working for peace, what steps will the IRS take?”
“What options do we have in dealing with the IRS actions?”
“Is the initial letter we send with our tax return, stating the reasons for our tax refusal, important in terms of the subsequent legal proceedings?”
“Should we get help from a lawyer or tax refusal group in composing the letter?”
“What kind of advice can you provide which will allow us to profit from the experience of those who are already refusing to pay war taxes?”
“What happens to persons who refuse war taxes year after year?”
Some excerpts from the answers give a window into how war tax resistance was practiced by Quakers and by Meetings:
Both at Celo (NC) Meeting and at Central Philadelphia Meeting members asked others to share their examination or audit with IRS agents.
The first was in the refusers’ home, the latter in a federal office building.…
One Friend has been refusing for 23 years.
His witness continues and collection is still in the future, so much of the obligations of the early years have lapsed.
Another Friend, whose refusal goes back even further, has had the funds due taken at irregular intervals from her checking account.
A report in the issue noted that the Lake Erie Yearly Meeting in had “considered a minute on war tax concerns” based on queries from the New Call to Peacemaking Conference:
“If we believe that fighting war is wrong, does it not follow that paying for war is wrong?
If we urge resistance to the draft, should we not also resist the conscription of our material resources?”
The minute concluded: “We reassert the historic peace witness of the Society of Friends.
We commit ourselves to wrestle with the contradictions between our testimony and our government’s tax regulations.
To continue quiet payment for war preparations is to the conditions for war.”
Each meeting was urged to appoint a representative to the World Peace Tax Fund.
Finally, the issue brought a meditation on “the peaceable kingdom” by Susan Furry.
She believed that the Kingdom of God, the peaceable commonwealth, was “at hand” as Jesus said it was, and that it was the duty of Christians to “begin to live there.”
She reflected on how she came to include war tax resistance in her vision of how to carry this out:
an ad in the issue of Friends Journal
…I felt that I had to begin to look into the question of war tax resistance.
This led to a long period of study and self-examination.
To me, becoming a war tax resister meant making a final commitment to pacifism, and I didn’t do it lightly.
It took a lot of prayer and thought and the help and support of many people in my meeting to bring me to a point of clearness, where I know, solidly and comfortably, that this action is right for me.
Since then I have found myself being led not only to resist war taxes for myself but also to speak about it to others and to offer counsel and support to those who are considering this action.
I have helped prepare a packet called “Quakers and War Taxes” which is on sale at my meeting and have been involved in setting up the New England Friends Peace Tax Fund, an escrow fund for tax resisters under the care of my yearly meeting: I’ve been given a lot of encouragement to continue and to grow in my tax resistance activities through the support of others in my meeting, many of whom are not tax resisters themselves but friends who recognize that it is the right thing for me to do.
I’ve found that obedience to the divine leading I have felt in this matter has brought me closer to God, has given me new courage, and has opened me to further leadings.
In practical terms, war tax resistance seems to be a futile, irrational, and perhaps risky undertaking.
I think by now I’ve probably heard all the possible arguments against it.
The only answer I can really give is, “This is something I must do, to be faithful to my conscience and my understanding of God’s will.”
For it is part of the foolishness of God, which is wiser than human wisdom, as Paul tells us in First Corinthians.
It requires me to acknowledge my dependence on God’s guidance and strength.
I don’t know where my action will lead in practical terms, but I trust God to make use of it; I don’t know what the consequences will be for me personally, but I trust God to help me to face them.
In one way or another, perhaps, peacemaking may bring all of us to that place of acknowledging our dependence on God.
For me it has come through tax resistance.
For another it may come through the old dilemma about Hitler or through an experience of physical violence on the street.
In any case one comes to a place where one has to say, “I don’t know what will happen, but I place my trust in the God of love and accept the consequences.”
In coming to rely on God more, I have begun to learn that God really is dependable.
I have felt God working through the beautiful support I have received from many individuals and from my meeting.
I’ve been to tax court twice and was sustained by a powerful sense of God’s presence.
I’ve faced the certainty of financial loss and found that it doesn’t trouble me as much as I feared it would.
However, I still worry about the future; I haven’t reached the point where I can really leave it all in God’s hands.
Sometimes I even wonder about going to jail.
Right now the government isn’t prosecuting many war tax resisters, but it is always a possibility.
My actions are not very unusual; there are over forty war tax resisters in my meeting alone and many more in New England.
I know many people who have sacrificed more and taken greater risks for peace than I have.
But I have learned that when you follow God one step down the road, God usually asks you to take another step.
Who knows what God may ask of me in the future?
I have friends who have gone to jail for conscience’ sake, and I wonder if I could face that if it came to me.
My action in refusing to voluntarily pay taxes for war is largely symbolic — like the early Christians who refused to put a pinch of incense on Caesar’s altar.
Is it worth the risk to make a symbolic gesture?
Such questions take me back to the Christian roots of my faith.
I know that my way of thinking about these things and the language I use do not work for everybody, but these are the symbols which make sense to me, so I must use them.
This is the twenty-sixth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
I’m going to try to cover 1979.
Preparing for the Minneapolis Conference
In , there was a special
general session of the Mennonite General Conference especially to discuss war
tax resistance, and in particular, to decide whether the Conference would
support its tax-resisting employees by refusing to withhold taxes from their
paychecks.
In our last episode, the heat was
rising, with opinion pieces and study guides and letters to the editor
addressing the issue. Now, with the session approaching and the decision
imminent, things really began to boil.
The issue hosted
a
long letter to the editor from Albert H. Epp (dated
) in which he accused
The Mennonite and the Commission on Home Ministries
of putting their thumbs on the scale in favor of war tax resistance. Excerpts:
Some of us… are part of the “silent majority” that feels inundated by the
tax-resistance mail arriving almost daily.
The Kauffman-Harder profile () stated, “A
member of our churches ought not to pay the proportion of his income taxes
that goes for military purposes.” Only 15 percent of our denomination agreed;
and no more than 8 percent among the Mennonite Brethren and Brethren in
Christ. Even fewer actually withheld tax. Eighty-five percent disagreed!
Now Minneapolis looms ahead. Many of us feel we are being swept helplessly
downstream toward an ill-advised showdown. I was one of the 453 delegates at
Bluffton () who voted “no” on resolution 11.
But it carried. There seems to be a wide gap between delegate-action at
conference and constituency-opinion at home. How did “the few” persuade “the
many” to agree to a February session that will cost about $100,000?
We are witnessing one of the strongest attempts at shaping conference-opinion
in 20 years, and possibly our entire history. Long-held views on civil
responsibility are being challenged by brethren who are crusading for tax
resistance and civil disobedience. Neither Scripture nor history are normative
in the ways they used to be. “We have something new,” we are told, “in the
present nuclear threat.”
Behind this ideological shift stands our Commission on Home Ministries. Three
years ago
CHM
began publishing a war-tax newsletter, God and
Caesar. In the fifth issue they report on a two-day war tax conference
they conducted at Kitchener, Ontario. “The evidence suggests that most
Anabaptists did pay all their taxes willingly…,” the report avers; but
CHM
leaders pledged themselves “to raise consciousness about war tax and
militarism issues…” Highly significant is the fact that two scholars. Miller
and Swartley, emerged at that session as men willing to say that the Scripture
does not give us a clear command to pay taxes used for military purposes.
It is my impression that Mennonite stalwarts of recent decades, H.S. Bender,
Guy F. Hershberger, Erland Waltner, and John C. Wenger, to name just a few,
all taught the full-paying of taxes on scriptural grounds. Their general view
agreed with Paul, who taught the paying of taxes in Romans 13
and was fully aware that Rome had crucified Christ, had subjugated many
nations, and was now ruled by the despot Nero.
H.S. Bender, writing on “Taxation” in ,
claims that “few if any Mennonites” were presently refusing to pay the portion
of income tax calculated to go for military purposes, which he estimated to be
about two-thirds of the total.
Guy F. Hershberger, in his classic on nonresistance, discusses the answer of
Jesus in Matthew 22:
“…the situation here is almost precisely like that in Romans 13.
Jesus’ questioners were not men who would be interested in service
in the Roman army. If anything, they would be interested in a military
rebellion against the Roman authority. There Jesus says, ‘Give to Caesar that
which is Caesar’s.’ That is, do not rebel against him, not even to the extent
of refusing to pay the tax.”
The current tax-resistance movement requires a major shift in biblical
interpretation. This is something new.
It appears to me that today’s tax-resisters are hard put to proof-text their
views. Swartley admitted to Kitchener ()
“…there is no New Testament text which either explicitly or clearly implicitly
tells us not to pay taxes.” Yet some go from text to text progressively
untying the knots of normal interpretation. But the knot of
Romans 13.
will not easily yield.
Donald Kaufman (What Belongs to Caesar, page 48) chides Oscar Cullmann for “his lack of moral discernment” when he insists that disciples of Jesus pay tax, no matter to what government.
John Howard Yoder, well-known for his personal tax-withholding procedure, nevertheless, in his oft-reprinted masterpiece The Politics of Jesus (page 211), approvingly quotes C.E.B. Cranfield, “taxes and revenue, perhaps honor, are due to Caesar, but fear is due to God.”
In sketching the limits of subordination, Yoder stops short of using Romans 13 for tax resistance.
Not so Larry Kehler in The Rule of the Lamb.
Using his stature as editor-writer, Kehler seems to infer that Paul supports our tax resistance.
The truth of the matter is that for every scholar who teaches tax resistance from Romans 13, there might be 50 competent professors who teach otherwise.
A tax protest based on Romans 13 is an exegesis not easy to defend.
The method of promoting the new idea also deserves comment. Basic to good
human relations is the concept that issues are best discussed without the
injection of personalities. When Cornelia Lehn’s speech at the Bluffton
conference was programmed into the civil-disobedience debate by conference
officials, it almost gave the appearance of being a psychological pressure
tactic to sway votes. After all, who can speak against womanhood? Who can deny
that Nellie’s stand is courageous? But someone has to venture the tough
question “Is it fair to ask thousands of Mennonites to approve civil
disobedience because of one person’s convictions?”
Is it possible that
CHM
has moved ahead too quickly on this issue — even out of earshot? Take their
suggestion that the General Board no longer honor tax-withholding laws for
some employees (The
Mennonite, 2 November 1976, page 648). On
the constituents turned back
Resolution 12 (yes — 336, no — 1,190) on this issue. Bluffton delegates later
gave the mandate for a midtriennium conference, but even this decision process
was interlaced with
CHM
influence. The delegates, caught in the euphoria of the moment, unable to
confer with churches at home, approved the surprise resolution. Most
surprising of all, Larry Kehler, as recent as , wrote, “I have not
yet been able to discover any tax resisters in Canada…” Little wonder
CHM’s
promotion is so voluminous.
When churches in the Midwest ask
CHM
for a clarification of issues, men are readily available to give excellent
thought-out defenses for tax resistance and civil disobedience. But no one
seems willing and/ or permitted to present the traditional biblical-Anabaptist
stance and say, “That’s my view.” So we, the silent majority, feel like people
with no representation. While we collect thousands of dollars for conference
coffers, no one pleads our case — the case of the majority.
Any protest, it seems to me, needs keen discernment. Picketing a tax office,
withholding income tax, or balking at withholding laws may all be misdirected
efforts. The Internal Revenue Service is only a collecting agency. Do we
punish the newspaper boy, refusing to pay when we dislike an editorial? No, we
phone the editor. Why not spend our energy on the decision makers?
A hope seems to flicker in some minds that a domino reaction, “me too, me
too,” will bring out an avalanche of Mennonite tax resisters. Then, some aver,
a frustrated government might negotiate. However, worse things may accrue.
Attorney J. Elwin Kraybill says that evading tax is a felony (26
USC 7201) and can
result in a fine (maximum $10,000) and/or prison (maximum 5 years). At the
least most Mennonites would be subjected to the harassment of an annual audit.
At the worst they could be accused of spawning anarchy — a trend already
evidenced in teachers’ strikes and police strikes.
I wonder if tax resistance won’t trap us in a blind alley — in a stance too
negative. Why curse the darkness? Let’s plant a light. In past decades our
conscientious objector position was transformed by creative service in refugee
camps, mental hospitals, and mission schools. Today we again need positive
solutions. Could Mennonite Central Committee possibly establish a research
center with departments like peace, pollution, and world hunger? When our
scholars really tackle these complex problems, our governments will knock at
our door. In retrospect, I was proud when President John F. Kennedy turned to
MCC
for advice on the Peace Corps.
I am a Mennonite, both by birth and by choice. I deeply appreciate our
Anabaptist theology. As a pastor I can affirm with my parish
CHM’s
conviction of (1) the limited nature of Caesar’s power; and (2) the lethal
character of its weaponry. However, we do not feel it biblical or Anabaptist
to rob government of its right to taxation, or even some national defense.
Where government abuses this right we wish to exhaust every legal channel of
protest before we engage in illegal maneuvers.
In my congregation one brother is reducing his income; another has enclosed a
protest letter with his tax return. Many of us have increased contributions to
reduce taxable income. But not one, to my knowledge, is refusing to pay taxes.
As one brother put it, “Can we be harsh on Uncle Sam while our financial
stewardship level is so low in Mennonite circles?”
A final word. I tested this letter with my Board of Deacons. All seven
present, to the man, encouraged me to send it. Editor, thanks for letting us
speak.
Richard K. MacMaster addressed the history of war tax resistance among
American Mennonites in an article that appeared in the
issue:
I read with great interest your articles about the forthcoming discussion of
war taxes at Minneapolis.
I’ve had a great concern to write some few lines on one small aspect of this
large question, but generally put it off as a nit-picking historical footnote.
Observing that “historical perspective” will play a role in the consultation
, I thought I should take
time to clarify what might possibly lead to misunderstanding.
A number of recent discussions on the war tax issue have stated that
Mennonites and Brethren paid their taxes in obedience to the biblical
injunction of “taxes to whom taxes are due.” The reader might reasonably
conclude that, unlike Friends, neither Brethren nor Mennonites were troubled
in conscience about payment of taxes levied for any purpose. The point would
be too insignificant to raise in even some nitpicking scholarly review, if it
did not have consequences for our understanding of our own heritage in regard
to a current issue of great importance.
In Peter Brock published his monumental
Pacifism in the United States from the Colonial Era to the
First World War. The scope of his subject precluded his searching into
every manuscript collection that might bear some relation to it, and he relied
heavily on printed sources. The limited number of published works on Mennonite
history is reflected in his footnotes and bibliography. Walter Klaassen leaned
heavily on Brock for his interpretation of the American scene, since his own
scholarly work has been in the European Anabaptist sources. There is a danger
in this process that, in spite of passing through the hands of two very
distinguished modern scholars, the material is no better than the sources
available to Mennonite historians 50 or 75 years ago.
The danger of allowing this recycled history to determine our understanding of
our own heritage is compounded by the fact that Brock made assumptions that
went beyond his somewhat limited sources in describing the position held by
Mennonites on key issues, notably on the payment of taxes. The first mention
of any Mennonite attitude on this question involved Mennonite settlers in the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in . Brock noted that they “were able to obtain exemption by the
payment of militia fines, against which — unlike the Quakers — they had no
deep-seated scruples of conscience,” but that they petitioned in
(sic) for relief from militia fines,
“not because of any fundamental objection to this alternative to service
(for was it not merely rendering Caesar his due?), but on account of
their poverty as frontiersmen eking out a bare subsistence.” He cited as his
only source Harry A. Brunk’s History of Mennonites in
Virginia, but Brunk does not make any of the statements I have quoted;
he is quite clear in his statement that conscience was involved.
Virginia Mennonites petitioned the authorities in Williamsburg for relief from
militia fines in and again in
. No copy of these petitions is known to be
extant and we know of the contents only from the brief minutes entered in the
Journal of the House of Burgesses. Since the
Virginia lawmakers exempted Quakers from payment of militia fines for the
first time in , it is not surprising that
Mennonites sought the same privilege, which was granted them by the House of
Burgesses in .
Their motives in petitioning for exemption were explained in a Mennonite
petition of , which asked that the earlier
privilege be restored. Militia bills passed during the Revolutionary War had
taken it away and enrolled conscientious objectors in the militia, once again
making them subject to fines. This petition, signed by 73 “members of the
Menonist Church in behalf of themselves and their religious Brethren,”
declared that their forefathers had come “to America to Seek Religious
Liberty; this they have enjoyed, except by the Infliction of penalties for not
bearing Arms which for some time lay heavy on them. But on a representation,
and their situation being made known to the Honorable the Legislature, they
were indulged with an exemption from said penalties until some few years past,
when by a revisal of the Militia Law they were again enrolled and are now
subject to the penalties aforesaid.” (The original petition is in the Virginia
State Library.)
This petition and one offered the previous
year by Rockingham County Mennonites and Brethren did not succeed in changing
the law, and the payment of fines was the subject of occasional petitions from
all three of the peace churches. What is significant about the
Virginia petition is its statement that
payment of militia fines violated the liberty of conscience that Mennonites
otherwise enjoyed and that this was true under the king as well as during and
after the Revolution. It would appear to me impossible to square this
contemporary Mennonite document with the interpretation that Mennonites paid
militia fines as merely rendering Caesar his due!
The conscientious objection to payment of a fine or equivalent to militia duty
in Virginia on the eve of the Revolution might help us in understanding the
position of Pennsylvania Mennonites. There was no compulsory militia law in
Pennsylvania prior to , so no question of
fines or other equivalent would have arisen as early as it did in Virginia.
In Pennsylvania authorities requested
voluntary contributions from those who scrupled against bearing arms and the
Continental Congress itself made a similar appeal. Records of the county
committees entrusted with collecting this money suggest that it had a mixed
reception. Objections were heard very early, however, against levying
contributions from conscientious objectors on a purely voluntary basis. In
the Pennsylvania Assembly debated
imposing a set amount as a special tax on non-associators. They read petitions
from the Quakers and from the Mennonites and some members of the Church of the
Brethren. The meaning of these petitions seems perfectly clear. A well-known
military historian understood them to mean that “not a few Quakers and
Mennonites joined to oppose not only the Association but any tax levied in
lieu thereof.” (Arthur J. Alexander, “Pennsylvania Magazine of History
and Biography, ⅬⅩⅨ, , page 16.)
This would follow logically from the position taken by Virginia Mennonites,
who were closely related to the Pennsylvania congregations.
When a Militia Law was enacted in in
Pennsylvania, no provision was made for the exemption of conscientious
objectors, and a special tax was imposed on them in lieu of military service.
It was this tax that was under discussion among Franconia Mennonites when a
majority of the preachers opposed Christian Funk’s contention that it ought to
be paid. I am well aware that Pennsylvania Mennonites felt uneasy with the new
revolutionary regime and declined sending a formal petition to the legislature
in since it would involve addressing them as
“the representatives of the freemen of Pennsylvania.” Hostility to the new
government may well have colored the attitude of Funk’s opponents, but it does
not explain why they opposed payment of this particular tax and not
of all taxes levied by the new state. There is no hint in any
official document, newspaper, letter, or other contemporary source that any
Mennonite in Pennsylvania refused payment of any other tax. Surely there would
be some notice taken by someone of tax resistance, particularly if it were on
the quasi-political ground that the new government had no legitimate
authority. On the other hand, reluctance to pay a tax levied in lieu of
military service would square with the Virginia documents, the obvious
sense of the petition, and the minutes of
the Church of the Brethren annual meetings that refer to persons with
conscientious objection against paying for substitutes and paying the tax
(singular).
I do not know that this leads us very far on our present quest. But it is
sufficient, I hope, to indicate that Mennonites have expressed “deep-seated
scruples of conscience” and “fundamental objection to this alternative to
military service.”
The edition included this
op-ed from Harold R. Regier:
The sovereign Lord and the sovereign nation will be in tension at Minneapolis
when the General
Conference, in official session, will be “In Search of Christian Civil
Responsibility.”
Will we be ready at Minneapolis to decide issues related to paying those taxes
required of the state used for death-threatening militarism and weapons
building? Much depends on how adequately congregations study and discuss
The Rule of the Sword and The
Rule of the Lamb prior to Minneapolis. Much depends on adequate
congregational representation. And much depends on an openness to hear each
other and the leading of God’s Spirit.
What are specific questions we must answer at Minneapolis?
What is the biblical teaching on civil responsibility and civil
disobedience? Are Christians ever called to civil disobedience?
If civil disobedience may at times be a Christian response to government,
what conditions or principles guide that response? Is the payment of taxes
used for war purposes one such condition?
If “war tax” resistance is a Christian response to a government’s
militarism and to the nuclear arms race, to what extent and in what ways
should that response be encouraged and initiated? Is conscientious
objection to paying for war in today’s context equivalent to conscientious
objection to physical participation in war in the past?
Should General Conference and other Mennonite institutions honor
employees’ requests that the portion of taxes used for military purposes
not be withheld from their paychecks? Should Mennonite employers even go
beyond this and refuse to be “war tax” collectors for the state for any of
its employees?
Is the bottom line for the Minneapolis conference the question of tax
withholding? Not necessarily. Other options for faithfulness and witness may
be discovered. Our search for Christian civil responsibility must be
open-ended rather than locked into the consideration of only one kind of
action. However, the withholding question is a very important one on which we
are committed to making a clear decision.
The withholding question is significant, but not because this is the only
alternative for the employee. There are other ways to have less tax withheld.
Possibilities include refiling a tax form to include allowances for expected
(“war tax”) deductions, forming an alternative employing agency, or
contributing up to 50 percent of salary to charitable causes. The withholding
issue’s greatest significance lies with the questions of corporate
responsibility and the issue of church as an agent of the state.
I would suggest five reasons for the conference to consider honoring requests
from persons asking that their taxes not be withheld. (1) Honoring these
requests would eliminate the discrimination between ordained and nonordained
employees. In the
U.S., ordained
employees are considered “self-employed” by the tax department and are exempt
from withholding regulations. Nonordained persons have to follow a more
difficult procedure to enable resistance. Currently at least four ordained
employees of the General Conference offices are not voluntarily paying the
military portion of their taxes. (2) Honoring nonwithholding requests would
represent a corporate peace witness rather than leaving such witness and
action solely to the individual. (3) A corporate conference voice and action
would make a much stronger witness for peace and justice than lone voices here
and there. (4) Nonwithholding would be one appropriate way to initiate a test
of the constitutionality of requiring church agencies to collect taxes for the
state. (5) This corporate action builds on our Anabaptist theology of peace
and takes seriously the way our financial resources contribute to warmaking.
My hope for Minneapolis is that the General Conference Mennonite Church will
act to do something together about our nations’ militarism. This
could be corporate action regarding withholding “war taxes.” This could be a
commitment to a large-scale symbolic resistance to “war tax” payment
(e.g. “each” Mennonite withholding $10 and
explaining why). As a conference we could send a strong message to our
governments regarding militarism and the taxation which supports it. We could
issue a “war tax” statement to be shared with the larger church (other
denominations) as well as to our governments. We could make a stronger effort
to promote the World Peace Tax Fund Act in the
U.S. and instigate
other alternatives in Canada.
These are only suggestions. Delegates need to think of other options.
Minneapolis will be a failure if we conclude that “everyone do what is right
in their own eyes.” Minneapolis will be a success if we take some large or
small step toward corporate responsibility and action.
He began by noting the paucity of charity by American Mennonites is devoted to “the crucial urgency of tragic situations in the Third World” compared to how much is spent domestically.
“It appears our dedication somehow is absorbed in our words which seem to psychologically liberate us to expand lavishly on the home front.”
While I respect individual conviction, I am cool toward the effectiveness or the witness of withholding taxes.
(In recent months I have been going over old magazines and clipping articles related to war taxes.
There has been a rash of articles on this subject every 6–10 years in the past decades.)
In , the U.S. federal budget increased 48 percent for defense, space, and foreign affairs (probably not even keeping up with inflation).
The human-resources part of the budget jumped 378 percent during the same decade.
Not all these programs are effective, yet they represent an attempt to cope with areas of great need.
When we criticize government expenditures, let us remember that we Mennonites have been increasing our budgets in North American institutional and church developments rather than for that part of the “one in Christ” where poverty is indescribably great.
In short: “Until we have done what we ought we should not say too much to other segments of society.”
Furthermore, Shelly felt that there was an overemphasis on war as a source of violence.
Alcohol, reckless driving, and abortion, were also examples of violence that deserved at least as much attention.
Finally, the way to peace, he felt, was not through civil disobedience or
protest or peace witnessing, but simply through spreading the gospel and
getting more people to adopt Christian values. For example: “during the
massacre in Uganda almost all Christians refused to shoulder guns.” So
Mennonites should stop arguing about taxes and rededicate themselves to
missionary work.
Kenneth G. Bauman penned an op-ed for the edition, from the point of view of
“some of us”.
Bauman thought the Bible offered little or no support for war tax resistance.
Jesus did not counsel it, even when pitched a softball. Paul explicitly
said Christians should pay their taxes to Rome and the Roman Empire wasn’t
exactly peaceful. Those examples of civil disobedience found in the Bible never
touch on war taxes or on conscientious objection to government spending.
Mennonites, he felt, shouldn’t just skip over this on the way to making their
own independent moral judgments about war taxes.
Bauman also challenged the view articulated in Richard K. MacMaster’s essay
that war tax resistance had strong footing in historical Mennonite practice:
A good historical development of this issue is found in Walter Klaassen’s
pamphlet Mennonites and War Taxes. A summary is
found on pages 40–41 in The Rule of the Lamb. The
only groups that refused taxation were the Hutterites and the Franconia
Conference in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. The issue was
probably not “war taxes” but rather who was the legitimate government, the
British or the United States? Recent Mennonite scholars hold the traditional view.
Check the writings of Guy Hershberger in War, Peace, and Nonresistance (page 369),
Harold S. Bender’s “Taxation” in The Mennonite Encyclopedia,
and Robert Kreider’s “Anabaptists and the State” in The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision.
Kreider states, “The Anabaptists agreed unanimously
that the Christian owes obedience to the civil authorities insofar as the
prior claims of God are not violated in those duties. The Christian gives this
obedience freely and not grudgingly. He pays taxes, tithes, interest, and
customs as required by the magistracy. No evidence can be found to
substantiate the frequently made accusation that the Anabaptists refused to
pay these obligations” (page 190).
The new threat of nuclear war, Bauman thought, was not a reason to rethink this
established wisdom. After all, the murder of one person and the obliteration of
millions are both terrible sins: “Is the biblical teaching on the sacredness of
life on a sliding scale or is even one person’s life sacred?”
Some of us respect the individual conscience as we want our conscience to be
respected, but we are not convinced that those who believe in withholding
taxes have seriously considered all the options. Several alternatives are (1)
filing suit against the government to recover taxes, (2) setting up a
subsidiary corporation, and (3) greater efforts toward a World Peace Tax Fund.
We are grieved that in this hour when we need a united witness against
militarism, with selective service a real possibility (which will also include
women), we are divided. We object to our peace position being questioned
because we do not see withholding taxes as being biblical or
Anabaptist-Mennonite.
Some of us are waiting for open dialogue on the tax issue. The other side has
not been formally presented in the General Board, nor was it given adequate
representation at the Consultation on Civil Responsibility at Elkhart, nor has
it been given a fair presentation in The Mennonite.
We question whether the midtriennium conference will change the situation.
Marie J. Janzen, in a letter
to the editor, wrote that she thought Bauman was “attempt[ing] to find a letter of the law that would justify us not to refuse taxes.”
It is true, for instance, that Peter was referring to the Jewish leaders and
not to the state when he said we must obey God rather than men, but the
principle would be the same in either case, wouldn’t it?
It seems to me that the Christian gospel speaks to the needs of each age, and
different things need to be done in different ages. There would have been no
need to warn early Christians to drive carefully lest someone’s life might be
taken in an accident. But today there certainly is. When Jesus said to his
disciples that they would do greater things than he had done, didn’t he imply
that there would be a need for greater things in later ages than there was in
the time of the early church? The common person at that time had no rights, no
influence on government. In a democracy we Christians have responsibilities
the early Christians did not have. I don’t have to pay income tax; I don’t
know whether I would have the courage to refuse if I did. But I certainly
admire the ones who do refuse to pay taxes for conscience’ sake.
…Of course, there may be other alternatives which are more effective than the
refusal to pay taxes. For instance, as my sister suggested, if we would deluge
the government with letters and with telephone calls and insist that this arms
race must stop — or at least that they give us the right to have a peace
tax — that might do more good.
On the other hand, David A. Somner wrote in to praise what he called Bauman’s “clear, biblical, historically accurate” statement.
A
letter from Gary Martin, written on but not published until , thought that the war tax issue was overshadowing the fact
that Mennonites had lost their way and were neglecting some of the foundations
of their faith and practice. This was followed by a letter from Don Kaufman,
in which he related an anecdote from a repentant soldier and thought it “could
be instructive for us too as we wrestle with the implications of the Christian
gospel concerning war taxes.”
A letter from David C. Janzen, dated , published in the
edition, said that “[b]ased on our congregational meeting on the issue, it
would appear that the [war tax] protesters are a small but very vocal
minority.” He thought the conference was a waste of time trying to relitigate
an issue that had been decided by Jesus way back when.
A letter from Eugene Klassen, dated but also not published until , also took the line that the Bible was black-and-white about
taxpaying: “Romans 13
clearly tells us to pay taxes to whom taxes are due. Yet we allow the use of
our conference time, money, and publications to debate both sides of the
issue.”
Drumroll please. The conference was held, and all of these years of kicking the
can down the road and avoiding a decision came to an end as a general assembly
of the Mennonite General Conference, after lengthy study and debate, concluded:
Moved that we request the General Board of our conference to engage in a
serious and vigorous search to use all legal, legislative, and administrative
avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption from the legal
requirements that the General Conference withhold income taxes from the wages
of its employees. If no relief can be found within a three-year period, they
shall again bring the question to the attention of the conference.
So… the can kicked another three years further down the road. Well, what were
you expecting?
Seven hundred persons came to the bitter cold and deep snow of Minneapolis,
, “in search of Christian
civil responsibility.”
…Would our General Conference grant an employee’s request to no longer
withhold from her salary that portion of the income tax which goes toward
military expenditures?
Many predicted a collision course. Minneapolis would be a showdown.
The drama has happened. And the unexpected far outdid the expected.
only a few
hundred people had registered. Polarized positions surfaced in many
congregations. There was talk of maneuvering, boycott, and schism.
The annual Council of Commissions met at Minneapolis on
to do the usual review and
projection of
GC program and
budget. Hardly a session went by without reference of concern about the
midtriennium.
By it became obvious that
God’s Spirit was again among us in unusual ways.
In faith, space had been reserved for 500 people. Over 700 came.
We found the issue is not “yes-no” “either-or” regarding war taxes. It
includes our lifestyle. Do we live in ways that share Christ’s salvation,
love, and justice to all. This is not just for a few brave radicals.
Each of us needs to choose again and again to let our light shine.
We found the issue is not Cornelia Lehn and civil disobedience. It is
obedience to Jesus in today’s world.
We found the issue is of deep concern to our youth. About 100 persons present
were under 25. And they spoke up. Their generation most directly faces the
nuclear shadow. If we want to leave them a heritage of peace we must address
our faith to this global threat.
The main resolution (above) passed 1,218 to 134.
The following issue expanded on that first draft of history. It included the
details that delegates from 176 churches were represented at the midtriennium,
that the 700 attendees included “almost 500 delegates and more than 200
visitors” who at one point broke up into “78 small groups”, and further noted:
Following the… conference the General Board set up a six-person task force to
implement the decision of the delegates. The persons for this committee have
been appointed and upon acceptance their names will be released.
A
later article named them as Delton Franz, Duane Heffelbower, Bob Hull,
Heinz Janzen, Ernie Regehr, and Ben Sprunger, and noted that “[t]he task force
had its first meeting in Columbus,
Ohio.” Later
Stanley Perisho, Chuck Boyer, Winifred Beachy, Janet Reedy, and Gordon Zook
were added to the list.
Though the conference officially started , most people arrived
in time to watch a group
from the Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna, Manitoba, present
The Blowing and the Bending, a musical drama
highlighting the themes of wartime intolerance for conscientious objectors and
Mennonite struggles with the war spirit.
Some of the themes played out in the small groups and by the symposium were
the following:
the gospel is first, pacifism is secondary.
it is important to be legal.
it is better to be faithful.
a witness for peace has to have the integrity of an appropriate
lifestyle.
the government is more willing to accept conscientious objectors than the
church.
there are other social and political issues which need to be spoken
to.
a corporate witness is/is not the route to go.
militarism today is a qualitatively different problem than anything
civilization has had to face before.
the response to militarism is a theological and faith issue.
When one delegate called for a show of hands to indicate who had done some
protest against nuclear proliferation and militarism about 20 percent of the
assembly said they had.
Though most of the delegates who spoke during the afternoon plenary session
admitted they were troubled by worldwide military expenditures over one
billion dollars daily, they nevertheless said the church as a corporate body
should not engage in illegal activities in its witness against war
preparations. Instead speakers urged alternatives.
A sentiment often expressed, however, was that the church, while avoiding
illegal actions, should actively support its members who engage in civil
disobedience on the basis of conscience.
Roy Vogt, economics professor from Winnipeg, Manitoba, berated the assembly
for loading the responsibility for witness upon isolated individuals. “It is
morally reprehensible,” he said, “to give only moral support. We must provide
financial and legal support for those prophets who have arisen from our
middle-class ranks.”
In contrast to the social activists at the conference Dan Dalke, pastor from
Bluffton, Ohio, castigated the social activists for making pacifism a
religion. “We will never create a Utopia,” he said. “Jesus didn’t come to
clean up social issues. Our job is to evangelize the world. A peace witness is
secondary.”
Some of the statements were personal. A businessman confessed that while he
could easily withhold paying military taxes on the basis of conscience, he was
frightened. “I am scared of being different, of being embarrassed, of being
alienated from my community. Unless I get support from the Mennonite church I
will keep on paying taxes.”
Alvin Beachy of Newton, Kansas, said the church seemed to be shifting from a
quest to being faithful to the gospel to being legal before the government.
By the small groups were
into serious wrestling with these open-ended statements: (1) The biblical
teaching on obedience to God and its relation to civil responsibility is… (2)
Civil disobedience may be a faithful Christian response when… (3) With respect
to whether the General Conference should withhold the taxes of employees who
would rather practice war-tax refusal, we urge that… (4) With respect to the
threat of militarism in North America, we feel that the General Conference as
a Christian body should now…
By the groups were supposed to have
their consensus ready for the findings committee. Many of the statements came
later in the evening, and the findings committee of six began to sift through
the material. They spent a good part of the night at it, got up again
, had it typed (three
pages, single spaced), and by 800 copies were being distributed.
Action on the floor did not, however, center on the findings committee
statement. Immediately after the Bible lecture a ballot was distributed to the delegates. It
asked for a “yes” or “no” vote on this question: “Shall the General Conference
Mennonite Church refuse to withhold from salaries and refuse to remit to the
U.S. Internal
Revenue Service a portion of the federal tax due in those cases in which this
is requested by employees on the grounds of conscience, even though such
action on the part of the conference is against the law?”
There was a flurry of action on why the midtriennium conference organizers had
brought this question to the assembly so early in the day. Conference
president Elmer Neufeld replied that the intention was to bring the question
to the delegates in a clear and forthright manner. The General Board executive
committee had decided to present the main question of the midtriennium in
ballot form as a way of helping the decision-making process. After some
discussion on the procedure Kenneth Bauman of Berne, Indiana, moved the
ballot. It was seconded and discussion began.
Shortly after the midmorning break David Habegger of Wichita, Kansas, brought
in a substitute motion. It stated: “Moved that we request, the General Board
of our conference to engage in a serious and vigorous search to use all legal,
legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving conscientious objection
exemption from the
U.S. legal
requirement that the conference withhold income taxes from the wages of its
employees. If no relief can be found within a three-year period they shall
proceed to a constitutional test of the First Amendment by whatever means
appear most appropriate at the time, including the option of honoring
employees’ requests that their tax not be withheld.”
This sparked a miniprocedural debate. Was a substitute motion the same as an
amendment? Checking their judgment against Robert’s Rules
of Order, the three-man procedural committee said it was. There was
some objection to the ruling.
It was a key ruling. From the tenor of discussion, and from the statements
which 75 churches brought to the midtriennium, it was apparent that most
GC
congregations were not willing to vote “yes” on the first motion. If the first
motion had come to a vote the decision would likely have been against those in
favor of not paying war taxes.
Hence the substitute motion was debated first. In short order it was also
amended by Herman Andres of Newton, Kansas. The amendment carried by a vote of
906-to-458. The amendment changed the second sentence to read: “If no relief
can be found within the three-year period they shall again bring the question
to the conference.” The vote was taken just prior to the
break.
Gordon Kaufman, professor at Harvard Divinity School in Boston, probably made
the key speech of the morning, thereby paving the way for delegates to be
sympathetic to the substitute motion.
Kaufman said he was puzzled by all the concern about legality. He commented,
“The early church was illegal. The Anabaptists were illegal. Illegality is not
a Christian question. We talk as if we are concerned about a massive
illegality. We are not asked to sign pledge cards. The question is are we
willing to test the law that asks the church to collect taxes? We need to test
the law of separation of church and state, and freedom of religion. In this
country it is a matter of civil responsibility to test the law.”
After a rushed noon break — “Here they come,” said one restaurateur — the
final session of two hours began. A vote was taken on the substitute motion
and it passed by a plurality of nine-to-one, 1,218-to-134 votes.
A miracle had happened. It was essentially a consensus. Longtime peace
advocate Henry Fast of Newton, Kansas, called it “an historic moment.”
At this point people made editorial comments about the findings statement. As
a summary of what people at the conference thought it attempted to cover the
spectrum of conviction. Most comments were affirmative and on a voice vote the
conference adopted it. It noted that the world is “caught in a tragic system
of threat and counter-threat, violence and counterviolence.”
“We want to be obedient citizens, but even more we want to be obedient to
Jesus Christ… We are convinced that citizens of Christ’s kingdom must choose
ways to speak and act against this suicidal race to universal destruction.”
During the afternoon session various people made capsule comments and appeals.
One of the appeals was to take an offering to assist those who are resisting
the payment of war taxes.…
The offering realized $3,030.
The magazine helpfully tallied the delegates by district.
Curiously, I thought, the Eastern District was the most well-represented, with
81% of their votes represented by either delegates or proxies. I saw some
evidence in our last episode that the
Eastern District might be particularly conservative on this issue. The least
well-represented of the United States districts was the Pacific, with only 46%
of its voters represented. Canada turned up to a greater extent than some had
worried, with 57% of voters from the Conference of Mennonites in Canada voting.
The edition gave a summary
of the report of the findings committee. Excerpts:
Never in our history have so many engaged their energies so extensively in
preparation for a conference decision.
We want to be obedient citizens, but even more we want to be obedient to Jesus
Christ. In this quest we are aware that the Bible and our people’s experience
do not give us fully explicit answers on the tax issue. At this moment,
therefore, these are our best discernments.
As Christians we must speak and act. We hope that Mennonites will support sons
and daughters in their leadings to witness for Christ — even in such acts as
refusing to pay taxes destined for war. This means prayerful, moral, and
financial support. Our tradition has been to be a quiet people. We yearn to
act and to witness in sensitive ways which exhaust every acceptable legal
process available to the constituency.
We encourage the General Board to work at developing alternative possibilities
for the handling of tax withholding and to work in collaboration with other
church bodies and institutions in seeking to extricate itself from the role of
being a tax-collecting agency.
It is easy to call governments and conference offices to faithfulness. Perhaps
the most urgent call proceeding from this conference is a call to each
other — to individual church members, to families, and to congregations — a
call to renewed faithfulness. What are we prepared to do in revising our style
of life as affluent witnessing against the powers of darkness in this world?
How does my life vocation fulfill the claims of Christ for this age?
We yearn for unity in our churches. We want to proceed together in our
pilgrimage of obedience but don’t want to tarry long in fear and indecision.
We want to affirm those individuals whose consciences are sensitive on issues
not fully shared by all.
Reactions continued to reverberate through the letters-to-the-editor column and
op-eds:
Mary Gerber,
on told the Mennonites who
weren’t resisting taxes that they were in the right and shouldn’t feel
guilty about it.
[S]everal of the church statements and many individuals expressed a
feeling of guilt that they were not following in the steps of those
“prophets” who were refusing to pay a portion of their tax. In order to
compensate for their personal unwillingness to break the law they
enthusiastically offered to provide moral and financial support for those
who did.
…[P]aying someone else to perform what is also my moral duty is
blatant hypocrisy.
If we… honestly wish to follow Christ in all, we will respond as he did
in similar circumstances. We will love and correct that brother, not aid
and abet him.
Ralph A. Ewert,
on , suggested that people
(in the U.S.
anyway) who did not want to pay a percentage of their income taxes should
figure out how much they would have to donate to charity in order to reduce
their taxable income enough to eliminate that much tax and then donate
away.
Mark Penner,
on related the temple
tax and render-unto-Caesar episodes from the Bible as slam-dunk reasons to
oppose tax resistance, as though nobody had thought of that before.
Jack L. Mace,
on found that the Bible
suggested a possible new if counterintuitive technique of tax witness:
While I would like to stop warring uses of my taxes by refusing to pay,
and giving instead to peaceful purposes, I know the
IRS
will collect the money — in spades — and my witness will be just to the
collectors and their supervisors. The government will not prosecute such
tax resistance, because that would draw too much public attention.
I want to witness to the policy enactment levels of government. My study
of the issue brought me to the words of Jesus in
Matthew 5:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil, but if anyone
strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if anyone
would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if
anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”
These words speak of positive responses to negative problems, and of a
method to make a tax witness virtually impossible to be ignored by even
the most recalcitrant legislator; a “second mile theology of witness.”
Taking these words seriously led me to decide that with a letter of
protest to the
IRS
I will pay my full taxes. Then I will send an amount hopefully equal to
the “war taxes” to my senators and/or representative in a check made out
to the government along with a letter of witness.
I will try to find a way to give the money so that disposition on the
congressional floors might be expected — if that be possible — but even
if the legislators send the check back they have had to come to grips
with its existence and its accompanying witness. The returned check would
then call for another letter containing the check, which again could not
be ignored.
The letter will contain a brief statement of my conscientious objection
to killing and its implications to the use of my tax dollars for war.
Then it will turn to the disposition of the check. Explaining
respectfully that since they are acting against my will as a provider for
the military machine with my tax dollars, I will ask as diligent action
on my behalf for the use of the money enclosed for the
proliferation of peace. The money is to be used by the government within
the framework of not doing violence to my conscience. I will list some
uses of the money which would violate my conscience, and why — being
careful not to suggest specific uses I would desire. The whole idea is to
get legislators to dialogue with their conscience on this issue.
I will actually split the check, sending at least two letters. Our new
Kansas senator, Nancy Kassebaum, needs to be made aware of our faith
early on. On the other hand, Robert Dole is one of the most recalcitrant
senators at the point of military spending. He had the temerity to come
to our Mid-Kansas
MCC
relief sale in his campaign last year and speak on the “need” for
increased military spending. It may even be advantageous for my
congressman, Dan Glickman, to receive a letter with part of the money. He
is a Democrat, and with Dole and Kassebaum being Republicans he might
just act as political conscience to the others. In each case of a split
check, all recipients will be told that there are others and the total
amount of the checks written.
After sharing this idea on the conference floor, there was sufficient
informal response between sessions that I decided to share more in this
letter and to invite anyone else who wishes to join me in this effort. It
would be desirable to make a coordinated effort so that the letters
arrive within a relatively short time for the greatest impact. It might
even be good to split up the amount into quarterly payments to be sent at
strategic times throughout the congressional year.
If you are interested in dialogue on this idea or if you plan to try it
with me, I would appreciate hearing from you and receiving your input.
Stanley E. Kaufman,
on expressed his disappointment
at the timidity of the “too-reluctant” Minneapolis resolution. He urged
The Mennonite to publish frequent updates on the
work of the task force searching for a “legal alternative” along with
suggestions for how people could help that work, and that people who do
independent outreach to officials keep The
Mennonite informed of their actions. He also said that while the
institutional church dithers, “each of us individuals [should]
consider stronger forms of witness”.
Direct tax resistance should not be forgotten for three years but should
be actively debated in our congregations and experimented with in our
lives. One of the biggest barriers to this is not knowing who and how
many others are currently engaged in tax resistance. I am refusing to pay
voluntarily my telephone tax (being a student, I have no income), but I’m
finding even this relatively simple stance rather difficult because I
feel I’m standing alone. I suggest that The
Mennonite could provide a forum — perhaps through a special
column — in which all those resisting taxes could find each other and
communicate experiences they’ve had, arguments they’ve encountered,
statements of the bases of their actions,
etc.
In our efforts to be faithful to God in this matter — to attempt to
change U.S.
military policy through tax witness — we need to be “wise as serpents and
harmless as doves.” We need to refine our strategies, improve our
communication, and support each other’s involvements.
It appeared that our over-politeness got in our way to deal effectively
with the issue at hand. It appeared as though the issue at hand was put
on the back burner to simmer to give us Mennonites more time. More time
for what? It will give a few people more time to pursue other legal
alternatives to the specific tax issue. It will also give many of us
grass-roots people in the church more time to remain silent and not be
directly faced with a Mennonite stand on the issue. It is those long,
noncommitted silent periods which trouble me… A firm and committed voice
by the Mennonite people needs to be heard in our world now.
Gaynette Friesen,
on , wrote that though “we
still have nearly 2½ years to resolve ourselves, hopefully as a unified
body, to the question of war taxes,” that’s no reason to slack off.
The edition gave another update on
the activities of the “task force”:
Two meetings of the task force on taxes have been held. The task force has
been expanded to include representation from the Church of the Brethren, the
Friends, and the Mennonite Church. This group of 11 is expected by the
participating churches to establish the legal, legislative, and administrative
agenda of a corporate discipleship response to military taxes.
The Minneapolis resolution mandated the task force to seek “all legal,
legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector
exemption” for the GCMC
from the withholding of federal income taxes from its employees. (About 46
percent of U.S.
federal taxes are used for the military.)
At their second meeting () the
task force members rejected administrative avenues. Within the scope of
U.S. Internal
Revenue Service or Revenue Canada regulations this would involve extending
ordination, commissioning, or licensing status to all employees of church
institutions. It was a consensus of the task force that this would be an
administrative loophole. It would not develop a conscientious objector
position in response to military taxes.
However, both the judicial and legislative options will be pursued
simultaneously. Plans for the legislative option are the more developed.
For the legislative route to work, says Delton Franz, director of the
Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section office in Washington,
D.C., the
problem of conscience and taxes will have to be defined carefully. Currently a
paper focusing on the reasons the General Conference has a major problem of
conscience with collecting taxes from its employees is being drafted. After it
has been reviewed and okayed it will be sent along with cover letters by
leaders of the historic peace churches to congresspersons representing major
constituency concentrations and those on key subcommittees. Later on church
members will also be asked to write letters. It is important, says Franz, to
define the problem of conscience in such a way that it will motivate
congresspersons to work vigorously for the bill.
Another follow-up to these initiatives will be a visit to Washington of the
most influential peace church leaders to solicit support from selected members
of Congress and to obtain a sponsor for an exemption bill.
In preparation for the next meeting of the task force in November law firms
are being contacted for advice on optimum judicial procedures should the task
force decide to initiate a case as plaintiff. However, there is doubt that a
judicial process would be productive.
There is a possibility that a parallel task force will emerge in Canada. Ernie
Regehr, director of Project Ploughshares, Waterloo, Ontario, notes the
necessity of defining the question of militarism in Canadian terms for
Canadians. Regehr is attempting to gather a Canadian task force.
This mirrored a growing enthusiasm for the Peace Tax Fund legislation in many
organizations and congregations of the General Conference. This would
ultimately allow Mennonites to pass their well-worn buck all the way to
Washington,
D.C., and let
Congress take the blame for further delays.
New Call to Peacemaking
The New Call to Peacemaking initiative continued in .
Tax resistance was on the agenda at the follow-up meeting for churches in the central United States in .
Bruce Chrisman
In , a hundred participants,
mostly Mennonites, but also Quakers, Brethren “plus several Catholics and a
Presbyterian” came to
the fourth Mid-America New Call to Peacemaking.
“Conscription of Youth and Wealth” was the theme, and tax resistance was
again high on the agenda:
In the workshop on conscription of wealth Bob Hull, secretary for peace
and social concerns of the General Conference, suggested some
alternatives to paying war taxes. Others offered their own suggestions.
It was decided that resisting war taxes is a complicated affair and that
each person should decide according to their conscience. Several
expressed the desire to pay taxes for education, welfare, and other
social services, and wished there was an alternative such as the World
Peace Tax Fund. [Richard] McSorley, who has had contacts on Capitol Hill,
responded by saying that until there is a large grass-roots movement of
tax resistance the
WPTF
doesn’t stand a chance.
The latter half of the workshop included sharing by Bruce Chrisman,
Carbondale, Illinois, who is involved in a federal criminal case, one of
two in the
U.S.
involving tax resistance. His case is significant because it will provide
a precedent either for or against tax refusal on the basis of conscience
and religious convictions.
In Chrisman received draft counseling
from James Dunn, pastor of the Champaign-Urbana (Illinois) Mennonite
Church. He made a covenant with God to only pay taxes for humanitarian
purposes. Since that time he has paid no federal income taxes. It wasn’t
until this year, however, that the government prosecuted him, charging
that he willfully failed to disclose his gross income in
. “Willful” is the key term, because
Chrisman claims he conscientiously chose not to disclose his income. He
feels the government has purposely waited to build its case.
“The government wants to establish a precedent in order to prosecute
other tax resisters.” But Chrisman is confident. “We’re going to win and
establish a precedent the other way,” he said. He believes he has a
strong case. Part of that strength comes from his affiliation with the
General Conference Mennonite Church. He read from a statement from the
triennium which opposes war taxes and
supports those who resist paying them. “That’s a beautiful statement!” he
exclaimed, explaining that it has important legal implications for his
case.
In a moving conclusion to his talk Chrisman said that when he first
appeared in court this year
he was “scared to death.” “Today,” he said, “I have no fear in me. God
has given me an inner peace. I know I’m doing what he wants me to do.” No
one disagreed.
Chrisman would lose his court case.
On he was convicted
of failure to file (he filed, but the government contended the
information on the filing was not sufficient to make it legal).
During the pretrial hearings Judge J. Waldo Ackerman allowed Robert
Hull, secretary for peace and social concerns of the General
Conference, and Peter Ediger, director of Mennonite Voluntary
Service, to testify about Mennonite witness against war and
conscription of persons and money for war purposes. But the
testimony was disallowed at the trial.
Chrisman would ultimately be sentenced
to pay the taxes and court costs, to do a year of Mennonite Voluntary
Service, and to probation. He spun this as a victory of sorts:
“I’m amazed… I feel very good about the sentence. The alternative
service is probably the first sentence of its kind for a tax case. I
think it reflects the testimony in the trial and its influence on
the judge.”
Chrisman’s attorney filed an appeal of the conviction, which
was heard in , with the Mennonite General Conference filing an amicus curiae in Chrisman’s behalf.
Miscellany
A letter to the editor from Jacob T. Friesen described how he withheld a symbolic $13 from his income taxes “to gain attention and create opportunity to ‘dialogue for peace.’ ”
The issue told of the Manitoba Alliance Against Abortion, whose bank accounts had been frozen by the Canadian tax agency to pay for the taxes the organization’s president, Joe Borowski, had been refusing to pay for several years. The organization disputed that the funds belonged to the organization’s president and could thereby be seized, saying that the funds were meant for a legal battle against legal abortion. A letter-writing campaign by supporters of the group was credited for pressuring the government to abandon the seizure.
Chris Dueck, in the edition, called Mennonites out for complaining about Caesar’s war taxes while hoarding Caesar’s currency. “For us to refuse payment of taxes is to say ‘we want to keep the money we get through your military-economic policies, but we don’t want any of the guilt.’ The war tax issue is shedding guilt without shedding the selfish heart.”
In the edition, Gordon Houser looked into the New Creation Fellowship intentional community — which “was born out of the concern of a small group of people about the sad state of our society [and] a common involvement in simple living, war tax resistance, and prison reform.”
In , twenty people “from the General Conference Mennonite Church, the Mennonite Church, the Conservative Conference, and the Beachy Amish” met “to air trends within the Mennonite church and to share concerns.” Among those concerns, as expressed in a jointly-framed statement:
According to the direct command to pay taxes (Romans 13:6,7)
and according to the specific word of Christ on the payment of taxes to
“Caesar” (Matthew 22:15–22)
we believe we are under obligation to pay taxes levied by the law. We
regard taxation as the power of the state to collect monies needed for
its budget and not as voluntary contributions by citizens.
The Minneapolis conference
was given credit
for encouraging peace-minded clergy to come together and discuss the arms
race and peace advocacy.
William Stringfellow addressed the Church of the Brethren Symposium and suggested that the contemporary urban church should renounce its tax-exempt status. “since present tax privileges curtail the church’s freedom to speak out on important matters and keep it from engaging in tax resistance.”
[G]ood citizenship does not imply that we should obey our government
without regard for Christian conscience. Rather, good citizenship leads
us to work as a church and human community towards the establishment of
God’s kingdom on earth… We believe that Christ’s strength is in his
weakness and that the present aggressive stance of the world’s military
powers runs counter to our call to be peacemakers.
In the issue, Ferd Wiens
attacked “what may be called a ‘peace” cult” of
Mennonite flagellants
who, in his view, had turned the doctrine of nonresistance on its head to
make it a doctrine of civil disobedience — calling out promoters of war tax
resistance in particular.
Walter Regier agreed, writing that “[e]mphasis on world peace through demonstrations and nonpayment of taxes simply brings confusion into our ranks” and distracts from “more important issues that we face in our day… like abortion, homosexuality, and divorce”.
The U.S. branch
of
Pax
Christi (a Catholic peace movement) invited some of their Mennonite
counterparts to their annual convention in
.
Mennonites Bob Hull and Don Kaufman of Newton, Kansas, led a workshop on
tax resistance and the World Peace Tax Fund Act. Interest in this was
strong. About 40 persons, including some tax resisters, participated.
Hull is peace and social concerns director for the General Conference;
Kaufman is author of The Tax Dilemma: Praying for Peace, Paying for War.
In a private meeting with Sister Mary Evelyn Jegen, executive secretary
of Pax Christi
USA,
and Gordon Zahn, a Catholic conscientious objector in World War Ⅱ, Hull,
Kaufman, and William Keeney explained the General Conference resolution
on war taxes. Keeney, North Newton, Kansas, is director of the Consortium
on Peace Research, Education, and Development.
Although Pax Christi
USA,
supports the World Peace Tax Fund it has not responded to its members who
engage in war tax withholding and are requesting official support from
Pax Christi.
Albert H. Epp
felt that civil disobedience and other sorts of confrontation with
government “can ensnare a people in activities that make them obnoxious to
the general citizenry. It is ‘good’ deeds that earn respect and give us a
right to speak.” For this reason “It seems improper for Christians to start
at the point of urging illegal tax-resistance rather than first declaring a
church-wide month of prayer for a national crisis.”
In my congregation we took a poll on ideal ways to influence government.
We prefer to exhaust all legal means to achieve peace before we engage in
illegal maneuvers. Only 5 percent approved of refusing to pay one’s tax
as a protest. But in terms of practical, positive solutions, we found
that 65 percent approved the World Peace Tax Fund alternative; 85 percent
approved writing the President and Congress; 85 percent approved using
the ballot box to elect responsive leaders; and 89 percent approved
increased giving to decrease taxes.
But David Graber
responded that in his opinion “the demand to lay down our tax dollars
is a similar call to idolatry” as those that prompted the civil
disobedience of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. “Thank God for
Christians today who refuse to cooperate with our government’s demands
in Jesus’ name. Where is Epp’s recognition of their witness?”
And Mark S. Lawson added that the blessings of government that Epp
felt we should all be humbly grateful for weren’t all that. For
example: “My country forces me to cut my income below the taxable
level so I can obey both the laws of God and man. Religious liberty is
only for those who support the killing in wars financed by their tax
money.” He seconded the idea that only through “widespread tax
refusal” could pacifists pressure Congress into creating an
alternative for conscientious taxpayers.
C.B. Friesen
was more appreciative of Epp’s take. He trotted out the usual
Render Unto Caesar ⇒ Romans 13 ⇒ 1 Peter 2
biblical justification for submission to civil government and said
that those who counsel war tax resistance “mostly benefit their egos”
in service of their “own philosophies and pet theories”.
The Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section (U.S.)
met at . They
“formally supported the passage of the World Peace Tax Fund bill” but
“decided against sponsoring a vigorous campaign to promote Mennonite
participation in a war tax resistance campaign. Section members felt such a
resolution would not reflect the will of their constituent bodies.” So they
instead adopted the kick-the-can routine, passing “a resolution that the
section ‘is prepared to consider at its meeting a decision to promote participation in a war tax
resistance campaign.’ ” There seemed to be some acknowledgment of flaws in
the Peace Tax Fund bill:
The section said in resolution “that it is conscience that the
WPTF
legislation might not in itself force a significant reduction in military
spending, but it recognizes that it would provide funds for peacemaking
efforts and would be a witness against military spending.”
This is the twentieth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal
of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
In , the Mennonite Church had the luxury of
being by-standers as the General Conference Mennonite Church wrestled with the
war tax issue, and in particular about whether to continue to withhold income
taxes from the salaries of their employees who were conscientious objectors to
military taxation (the Mennonite Church would get its own chance to wrestle
with these issues a bit later on), at a special mid-triennium conference on the
issue. Meanwhile, disgruntled conservative Mennonites met at the Smoketown
Consultation, Peace Tax Fund advocates ramped up their campaign, and the New
Call to Peacemaking pushed the Peace Churches to step up their game.
As a result, there was a plethora of war tax resistance-related content in
Gospel Herald that year.
“The federal income tax is the chief link connecting each individual’s daily labor with the tremendous buildup for war,” Donald D. Kaufman observes in his new book, The Tax Dilemma: Praying for Peace, Paying for War (Herald Press: ).
“Preoccupied as some citizens are with paying too much tax, I suggest that the crucial issue has to do with the purpose for which tax monies are used,” Kaufman maintains.
“While a young person can be exempted from personally serving in the Armed
Forces, no one is easily exempted from making contributions to the military
leviathan.” In his book, Kaufman considers issue of the two kingdoms. After a
brief examination of the biblical background, he traces the history of
conscientious objection to war taxes. He discusses a dozen viable options
which concerned Christians can use “to register our faithfulness to Jesus
Christ as Lord and our opposition to corporate war making by the state within
which we live.”
[W]hat words can we say to our brother in his new responsibilities? Lawrence
Burkholder in the consultation on
taxes and war initiated an intriguing discussion on the manager (or the
administrator) and the prophet and corporate responsibility. He observed that
with only a few incidental references, "the Bible is almost solidly against
those who assumed responsibility for institutional life" (a distressing word
for a biblical scholar on his inauguration).
Ray Horst reported that two staff members have said they would want to
consider a personal response on war taxes should Mennonite Board of Missions
seek alternatives to such withholdings. The directors acted to continue
discussions with other Mennonite groups and Mennonite Church agencies on the
war tax question.
There has been much discussion about the appropriateness of paying for war as
we pray for peace. Some have sought ways in which they can refuse to pay
federal income taxes and thus give a concrete witness against the militarism
which plagues the
U.S. and many other
countries of the world — even, alas, poor countries.
The focus on income taxes may obscure the fact that there are many other
federal taxes which are also used to support the national defense
establishment. In fact, in the personal income tax provided only about one half of the
non-trust fund U.S.
federal revenue. The other half came from a variety of sources such as the
corporation income tax, excise taxes (on many items such as telephone service,
air travel, automobile tires, gasoline, and especially alcohol and tobacco),
estate and gift taxes, and customs duties.
Can we avoid paying these taxes? Not completely, but we can reduce the amount
we pay by the simple device of not buying at all the things which are harmful
and by reducing our expenditures for all other items by holding down our
standard of living. The United States tax law is very generous in allowing
deductions for making contributions to churches and charitable institutions.
(The Canadian law is less generous.) Up to 50 percent of income may be
deducted.
These charitable gifts will first of all reduce sharply the amount of federal
income tax we pay — in some cases even avoiding the tax completely. But in the
second place, since the gift to charity will reduce our remaining disposable
income we will have reduced our standard of living and thus will have to pay
less of the hidden taxes which also support the defense establishment. The
corporation income tax, for example, is one third the size of the personal
income tax.
Although the check to pay the corporation income tax is sent to the government
by the corporation, rest assured the corporation will, if they possibly can,
pass on the tax to the consumer in the form of higher prices for the things
the corporation sells. If we don’t buy the product, we aren’t paying this tax.
Reducing our standard of living as a means of avoiding federal taxes has an
important additional benefit. It is a powerful witness that we are disturbed
by the disparities in wealth and income throughout the world. Our lives should
demonstrate that we can get along without buying the multitude of things an
affluent America deems important.
A report on an protest at Titan Ⅱ missile base
noted that “Also scheduled for the same day will be a nonviolent protest at the
Wichita offices of the Internal Revenue Service, designed to draw attention to
tax money being used for military expenditures…” And
a separate report on a protest at Rocky Flats said that
“On ,
tax resisters made statements about their refusal to pay for war in a press
conference outside the
IRS
office.”
The issue brought news of the
Quaker war tax resisters Bruce & Ruth Graves’ court battle:
A Quaker couple from Ypsilanti, Michigan, attempted to claim a “war tax”
credit on federal income tax returns, but has lost an unusual case before the
U.S. Supreme Court,
the Associated Press reports. The court left intact lower court rulings that
Bruce and Ruth Graves, as conscientious objectors, may not claim such a
credit. The couple had sought a refund of the portion of their taxes used for
war materials.
, the Graves have converted the
“foreign tax credit” on their federal tax forms to a “war tax credit” and
entered only 50 percent to the income tax otherwise due. Each year they have
asked a refund but not received it. So after failing to get the couple to sign
corrected tax statements, the government initiated action to collect the
“deficiency” even though it had already collected the correct amount. The
appeal argued that the government’ s action violated the Graves’
constitutional right to freedom of religion.
Catholic priest John M. Garvey also fought the law and the law won, a bit. The
Gospel
Herald had the scoop:
Father John M. Garvey gave up his car for Lent. Actually, the Internal Revenue
Service hauled it away on Ash Wednesday. It now sits amid big, drab army
trucks behind a fence topped with barbed wire 20 miles away in Mobridge,
S.D. It is there
because the Roman Catholic priest has not paid income taxes as a protest
against military spending and the federal government’s treatment of Indian
people.
Without a car on the South Dakota prairie, the priest has been walking more,
hitchhiking, and riding buses. “It’s been inconvenient,” he said, and when he
does he gets some puzzled looks. “But it’s no big dramatic thing. I’m not
standing out there shivering to death.”
John K. Stoner, in the issue,
imagined
the conversation
between a taxpayer and his or her Maker in the aftermath of a nuclear
holocaust:
There was a blinding flash of light, an explosion like the bursting of a
million bombs, and in an instant everything was burning in a huge ball of
fire.
The first time it was the Flood.
But next time the fire… It was the End.
Afterward a prominent evangelical leader was being quizzed by his Maker.
“You say you were taken by surprise. But didn’t you know it might happen?”
“Well, yes, Sir. I guess I did, Sir. But You see, Sir, they…”
“Wasn’t anybody talking about the fantastic risks involved? But not risks
really. It was a certainty. As predictable as death and taxes.”
“Well, Sir, I can see it now. But hindsight is always better…”
“What do you mean, hindsight? Couldn’t you discern the signs of the times?”
“Well, Sir, we were kind of busy…”
“Doing what?”
“Well, Sir, some of us were searching for remnants of Noah’s Ark. We thought
if we found it maybe they would believe in You…”
“But surely you weren’t all hunting Noah’s Ark?”
“Well, Sir, not exactly. But a lot of people who weren’t hunting it were
watching movies about the search. And then we were busy defending the Bible.”
“Why didn’t you know it was going to happen? Surely there were people warning
you. In fact, I had assigned a few Myself to sound the alarm.”
“Well, Sir, You see, Sir, those people… I don’t know quite how to say this…
er… they didn’t believe the way we… er… I mean I…”
“Did you think you could go on building three more bombs a day forever and not
blow things up?
“Well, Sir, You see, I thought You would look after those things. I didn’t
think it would happen unless You wanted.
“Women nursing infant babies? Children swinging on the side porch, playing in
the lawn sprinkler? An old man reading his Bible? Millions of people, burned
up?”
“Well, sir, in retrospect it does look rather overwhelming. I’m not sure it
was really fair. But then, things were getting rather bad, what with
communism, homosexuality, welfare, big government, pollution…”
“And capitalism, national security, the good life, nuclear deterrence.”
“Well, Sir, I hadn’t thought of those things as…”
“Why not?”
“Well, Sir, You see, the people who talked about those things were not… er…
Bible believing. As an example, they talked about resisting war taxes, even
though the Bible says, ‘Render unto Caesar…’. Things like that…”
“You paid your taxes?”
“Well, Sir, yes, Sir, I did.”
“Every penny?”
“I think so, Sir.”
“Are you saying that I am responsible for this fire and your tax dollars were
not?”
“Well, Sir, I… er…”
“Next!”
Allan W. Smith responded in a
letter to the editor,
saying that Christians should beware of inadvertently putting themselves under
an Antichrist who promises worldly peace at the expense of abandoning Biblical
truth:
In Stoner’s depiction of the scene of judgment day, it is to be observed that
Jesus dictum, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” is
contradicted. It is not to be supposed that Jesus and Paul, who both told
people to pay their taxes, were ignorant of the way that Rome got and held its
power. Taxes are, after all, not freewill gifts to the state, and we may well
be grieved with the way the state uses them. However, we must all live by our
Word-enlightened consciences.
A proposed Mennonite Church statement on militarism and conscription,
originally drafted by MBCM
staff members Hubert Schwartzentruber and Gordon Zook in consultation with
several other persons, was presented. The Board gave the statement extensive
discussion and some refinement, and unanimously approved the document for
submission as a recommendation from MBCM
to the General Board for presentation to the
Mennonite Church General Assembly. The statement contains sections on peace
and obedience, use of material resources, Christian service and conscription,
and militarism and taxation.
That article also noted that the Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries
met and approved a “task force to represent the Mennonite Church in cooperation
with the General Conference Mennonite Church committee on conscientious
objection and tax exemption.”
Sensing the radical nature of his comments on the theme, “The Way of Peace,”
Schwartzentruber said that he could be taken to jail if he put into action his
beliefs on such issues as war taxes and conscription. If he had to go to jail,
he said, it would be easier to go with brothers and sisters in the faith.
Peacemaking is the way of Jesus, but it has to be the work of the church and
not of individuals alone, he said.
Representatives of the Mennonite Church gathered in Waterloo,
, and
war tax resistance was on the agenda
but was overshadowed by other concerns about draft registration:
Debate over the proposed statement on militarism and conscription was centered
in two subpoints. One counseled Mennonites not to comply with any military
registration law that might be passed by the
U.S. Congress if
the Department of Defense and not civilians would be responsible for the
registration program. The other point counseled administrators of church
schools not to comply with any legislation which might be passed that would
require them to provide information about their students for purposes of
registration.
Noting that passage of any such registration bill is very much in doubt,
Linden Wenger, Harrisonburg,
Va., told fellow delegates,
“It seems to me we’re being a bit premature in making an issue of these two
items.” Wenger also said that he “will not hinge my decision” on whether to
support compliance with a registration law on whether it is administered by
civilian or military personnel.
Other delegates, including John E. Lapp of Souderton,
Pa., responded that it
was important that the items in question not be deleted.
In the amended statement which was finally approved, the two items were
combined and weakened slightly, but were retained. A subpoint urging “careful
biblical study” on the issue of war tax payment was added. In addition, the
statement was upgraded from “guidelines” to a full statement of position.
The eventual statement on militarism and conscription that came out of the
Waterloo conference on was
reprinted in Gospel Herald. It included the following
section:
We recognize that today’s militarism expresses itself more and more through
expensive and highly technical weaponry and that such equipment is dependent
upon financial resources conscripted from citizens through taxation.
Therefore,
We encourage our members to pursue a lifestyle which minimizes such tax
liability through reduction of taxable income and/or increase of tax
deductible contributions for the advancement of the gospel and the relief
of human suffering.
We endorse efforts in support of legislation which would provide
alternative uses for taxes, paid by conscientious objectors to war, which
would otherwise be devoted to military purposes.
We encourage our congregations to engage in careful biblical study
regarding Christian responsibility to civil authorities including issues
of conscience in relation to payment of taxes.
We recognize as a valid witness the conscientious refusal to pay a portion
of taxes required for war and military efforts. Such refusal, however, may
not be pursued in a spirit of lawlessness nor for personal advantage but
may be an occasion for constructive response to human need.
We encourage our congregations and institutions to seek relief from the
current legal requirement of collecting taxes through the withholding of
income taxes of employees, especially those taxes which may be used for
war purposes. In this effort we endorse cooperation with the General
Conference Mennonite Church in the current search for judicial,
legislative, and administrative alternatives to the collection of
military-related taxes. In the meantime if congregational or institutional
employers are led to noncompliance with the requirement to withhold such
taxes, we pledge our support for those representatives of the church who
may be called to account for such a witness.
On ,
Robert C. Johansen
(“president of the Institute for World Order”) spoke at Goshen College and
boosted war tax resistance:
Johansen encouraged his listeners to become part of a “new breed of
abolitionists,” to take a more active stance, even if this included refusing
to pay war taxes and refusing to be drafted. He reminded his audience that
those in opposition to slavery had also defied the law in order to bring about
change.
Gordon Zook, in the issue,
wrote that the whole economy was distorted towards militarism, and took a
sort of sideways look at tax resistance in that context:
One current issue of obedience is the militaristic mentality which keeps
producing new weapons systems at the expense of basic human needs. So much of
North American “abundance” results from the distorted values and priorities of
our militaristic economy. Many are wondering, how to repent of such
involvements including questions of responsibility for the use of tax
revenues.
In the same issue, John K. Stoner was back to urge
conscientious objection to nuclear deterrence
which necessarily meant action before the nuclear war, not just
options to be held in reserve for after the war started:
Mennonites who believe that the Bible teaches conscientious objection to
military service should also be conscientious objectors to the concept and
practice of nuclear deterrence. We have expressed conscientious objection to
military service by refusing military service, whether by refusing to put on
the military uniform, going to prison, doing alternate service, or emigrating.
We should express our Conscientious objection to the concept and practice of
nuclear deterrence by publicly rejecting the myth of nuclear deterrence,
denouncing the idolatry of nuclear weapons, refusing to pay war taxes, and
identifying with resistance to the nuclear madness.
Mennonites should do this because the concept and practice of nuclear
deterrence is a form of military service in which the entire population has
been conscripted. The concept of nuclear deterrence epitomizes the spirit of
war. The practice of nuclear deterrence is to war what lust is to adultery,
and whoever engages freely in lust should not consider himself innocent of
adultery. As E.I. Watkin has said, it cannot “be morally right to threaten
immoral conduct.” To plan and prepare for the annihilation of millions of
people is a culpable act in the extreme, and whoever does not deliberately and
explicitly repudiate the concept and practice of nuclear deterrence
participates in the act.
The U.S. branch of
the international Roman Catholic peace movement, Pax Christi
USA,
initiated informal contacts with General Conference Mennonite peace
spokespersons .
Rural Benedictine College at Atchison,
Kan., provided the setting for
the sixth annual convention of Pax Christi
USA,
at which Mennonites Bob Hull and Don Kaufman of Newton,
Kan., led a workshop on tax
resistance and the World Peace Tax Fund Act. Interest in this was strong.
About 40 persons, including some tax resisters, participated. In a private
meeting with Sister Man Evelyn Jegen, executive secretary of Pax Christi
USA, and
Gordon Zahn, a Catholic conscientious objector in World War Ⅱ, Hull, Kaufman,
and William Keeney of Bethel College, North Newton,
Kan., explained the General
Conference Mennonite Church resolution on war taxes. Mennonite Central
Committee Peace Section’s Christian Peacemaker Registration form received
active interest at the convention, particularly during a workshop on
“Militarism in Education.” The possible resumption of registration and perhaps
the draft in the
U.S. is stimulating
regional Pax Christi groups to promote conscientious objection to war by
Catholic youth.
Resolutions concerning the
Iranian-U.S. crisis,
SALT
Ⅱ, and the proposed World Peace Tax Fund were passed at the fall meeting of
Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section
(U.S.),
Nov.
30–Dec. 1 at Akron,
Pa.
Section members also agreed to postpone a decision on a resolution to support
war tax resistance campaign until they could have further dialogue with
constituent members…
The World Peace Tax Fund
(WPTF) bill
now before Congress also received an endorsement from the Peace section group.
The bill would provide a legal means for conscientious objectors to channel
the portion of their tax dollar which now goes for the military budget to be
used in a special fund for projects to promote world peace.
The section said in resolution “that it is conscious that the
WPTF
legislation might not in itself force a significant reduction in military
spending, but it recognizes that it would provide funds for peacemaking
efforts and would be a witness against military spending. The section
continues to support other forms of witness against military spending,
including persons who refuse to pay war taxes.”
Although Peace Section has given staff time to the promotion of a better
understanding of
WPTF in its
constituency, it had not before been a formal sponsor of the bill.
Peace Section has also established a bureau of Christian speakers available to
address congregations and other groups concerning
WPTF.
Federal court convicts Mennonite in Illinois war tax resistance case
Bruce Chrisman, 30-year-old General Conference Mennonite, was convicted on
by U.S. District
Court in Springfield, Ill.,
of federal income tax evasion.
Chrisman, who lives in Ava in southern Illinois, was charged with failing to
file a tax return in . Actually Chrisman did
file a return in and other years for which
the government said he failed to file. But the returns did not contain the
financial data the Internal Revenue Service contends constitutes a legal tax
return.
Chrisman attached letters to his returns saying he objected on religious and
moral grounds to paying taxes that support the
U.S. military. His
defense lawyers said the government had to prove that he “willfully” failed to
file a return — that he knew what the statute required and purposefully
decided not to comply.
At a three-day criminal trial Chrisman said, “The returns I filed with the
IRS were
in accordance with the dictates of my conscience and religious beliefs and the
IRS
code.”
He testified that his father never hit him and that “guns, even cap guns, were
never allowed in our home.”
The prosecuting attorney read Romans 13, Luke 20:20–26, and Matthew 17:24–27
and asked Chrisman, “Don’t you believe in the Bible? Doesn’t it state here you
should pay taxes?”
Chrisman said, “The government is not the supreme authority in my life, but
Jesus Christ is.”
In the closing arguments to the jury the prosecution said Chrisman’s “joy” and
“peaceful composure” exposed his lack of deeply held religious beliefs.
James Dunn, Mennonite pastor in Urbana,
Ill., observed the trial. He
said evidence of Chrisman’s character and of his pacifism were not allowed as
testimony by the judge, J. Waldo Ackerman.
During the pretrial hearings, Ackerman allowed Robert Hull, secretary for
peace and social concerns of the General Conference Mennonite Church, and
Peter Ediger, director of Mennonite Voluntary Service, to testify about
Mennonite witness against war and conscription of persons and money for war
purposes. But the testimony was disallowed at the trial.
One of Chrisman’s attorneys, Jeffrey Weiss, in addressing the 12-member jury,
argued that Chrisman’s religious beliefs and his conscientious objector status
during the Vietnam War should exempt him from paying that portion of his
federal income tax that supports the military. “He did not try to hide behind
the shield of religion to rip off the government but honestly believes he is
exercising his constitutional rights to religion.” he said.
Chrisman, married, with a two-year-old daughter, faces up to one year in
prison and a $10,000 fine The verdict will be appealed to the
U.S. Court of
Appeals in Chicago.
A pair of articles advertised seminar on war tax resistance that would be held
at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center in
:
Does Caesar ask for only what belongs to him?
Should there be a Mennonite consensus on paying or not paying war taxes? These
and related questions will be the agenda for a seminar at Laurelville Church
Center, .
The seminar is entitled “War Taxes: to Pay or Not to Pay?” It is jointly
sponsored by the Church Center and Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section.
Persons on both sides of the issue are encouraged to participate. More
information is available from Laurelville Mennonite Church Center…
“War Taxes: To Pay or Not to Pay?”
is the title of a seminar cosponsored by
MCC
Peace Section and Laurelville Mennonite Church Center. Persons on all sides of
the issue are encouraged to participate as such questions will be raised as:
What belongs to Caesar and what to God? What are these taxes buying? What are
the alternatives? More information is available from Laurelville Mennonite
Church Center…
The GCMC Mid-Triennium
This was the first Gospel Herald report from the
General Conference Mennonite Church special mid-triennium conference on war
taxes:
Debate was vigorous and heated as more than 500 delegates from the General
Conference Mennonite Church and some 200 visitors met
to discuss how Christians should respond to the nuclear threat and to massive
expenditures for defense. War tax resistance, or the refusal to pay for the
military portion of the federal budget, was among possible responses discussed
at the meeting, held in Minneapolis.
A few delegates present at the first day of the conference said the church
should not act as tax collector for the state through withholding taxes from
employees’ paychecks. But most of the delegates present the first day said
that while they were troubled by worldwide military expenditures of over one
billion dollars daily, the church as a corporate body should not engage in
illegal activity in its witness against war preparations. Instead, speakers
urged alternatives such as pressuring congressional representatives to reduce
defense expenditures, eliminate the arms trade, and to increase aid and trade
to Third World countries. A few observed that Mennonites contribute to the
disparity in living standards around the world through their affluent
lifestyle.
A sentiment often expressed, however, was that the church, while avoiding
illegal actions, should actively support its members who engage in civil
disobedience on the basis of conscience.
Roy Vogt, economics professor from Winnipeg, Manitoba, berated the assembly
for loading the responsibility for witness upon isolated individuals. “It is
morally reprehensible,” he said, “to give only moral support. We must provide
financial and legal support for those prophets who have arisen from our
middle-class ranks.”
In contrast to the social activists at the conference are Mennonites like Dan
Dalke, pastor from Bluffton, Ohio, who castigated the social activists for
making pacifism a religion. “We will never create a Utopia,” he said. “Jesus
didn’t come to clean up social issues. Our job is to evangelize the world. A
peace witness is secondary.”
Some of the statements were personal. A businessman confessed that while he
could easily withhold paying military taxes on the basis of conscience, he was
frightened. “I am scared of being different, of being embarrassed, of being
alienated from my community. Unless I get support from the Mennonite church, I
will keep paying taxes.”
Alvin Beachy of Newton, Kan.,
said the church seemed to be shifting from a quest to being faithful to the
gospel to being legal before the government. Echoing this view, J.R.
Burkholder of Goshen, Ind.,
said, “The question is not who is most faithful, but what does it mean to be
faithful?”
A follow-up article in the
issue filled in some blanks:
General Conference Mennonites voted
to launch a vigorous campaign to exempt the church from acting as a tax
collector for the state.
Five-hundred delegates, representing 60,000 Mennonites in Canada and the
U.S. passed the
resolution by a nine to one margin. Charged with responsibility to implement
the decision is the highest policy-making body of the General Conference
Mennonite Church, the General Board.
Heinz Janzen, executive secretary for the denomination, said the decision will
increase political activism among Mennonites, a group which has traditionally
kept distant from legislative activities.
Delegates met
in a special conference to discern the will of God for Christians in their
response to militarism and the worldwide arms race.
Some Mennonites are practicing war tax resistance — the refusal to pay the
military portion of federal income tax. This was a central focus of debate
during because one of the
employees of the General Conference has asked the church to stop withholding
war taxes from her wages. In , Cornelia Lehn,
who is director of children’s education, made the request on grounds of
conscience. Her request was refused by the General Board because it would be
illegal for an employer to not act as a tax collector for the Internal Revenue
Service.
Although delegates to this convention affirmed that decision, they instructed
the General Board to vigorously search for legal avenues to exempt the church
from collecting taxes. In that way individuals employed by the church would be
free to follow their own conscience.
The campaign to obtain legal conscientious objection to war taxes will last
three years. If fruitless the question is to be brought back to another
meeting of the church.
Activists in the church were not completely satisfied with the decision. They
would prefer that Cornelia Lehn’s request be granted. These delegates spoke
for an early First Amendment test of the constitutionality of the church being
compelled to act as a tax collector.
Nevertheless, Donovan Smucker, vice-president of the General Conference and
from Kitchener, Ont., said of
the decision, “Something wonderful is happening. We are beginning to bring our
witness to the political order.”
Vernon Lohrenz, a delegate from South Dakota, observed, “We must proceed in
faith, and not in fear. If this is the right thing to do, God will take care
of us.”
From the discussions on taxation, it seemed the issue will not easily be
resolved.
Implementing the decision of the General Conference Mennonite Church “war tax”
conference in Minneapolis has
not been easy.
The Minneapolis resolution mandated a task force on taxes to seek “all legal,
legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector
exemption” for the General Conference Mennonite Church from the withholding of
federal income taxes from its employees. (About 46 percent of
U.S.
federal taxes are used for the military.)
Two meetings of the task force have been held. The task force has been
expanded to include representation from the Church of the Brethren, the
Friends, and the Mennonite Church. This group of 11 is expected by the
participating churches to establish the legal, legislative, and administrative
agenda of a corporate discipleship response to military taxes.
At their second meeting () the
task force members rejected administrative avenues. Within the scope of
U.S. Internal
Revenue Service or Revenue Canada regulations, this would involve extending
ordination, commissioning, or licensing status to all employees of church
institutions. It was a consensus of the task force that this would be an
administrative loophole. It would not develop a conscientious objector
position in response to military taxes.
However, both the judicial and legislative options will be pursued
simultaneously. Plans for the legislative option are the more developed.
For the legislative route to work, says Delton Franz, director of the
Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section office in Washington,
D.C., the
problem of conscience and taxes will have to be defined carefully. Currently a
paper focusing on the reasons the General Conference has a major problem of
conscience with collecting taxes from its employees is being drafted. After it
has been reviewed, it will be sent along with cover letters by leaders of the
historic peace churches to members of Congress who represent major
constituency concentrations or sit on key subcommittees. Later on, church
members will also be asked to write letters. It is important, says Franz, to
define the problem of conscience in such a way that it will motivate Senators
and Representatives to work vigorously for the bill.
Another follow-up to these initiatives will be a visit to Washington of the
most influential peace church leaders to solicit support from selected members
of Congress and to obtain a sponsor for an exemption bill.
There is a possibility that a parallel task force will emerge in Canada. Ernie
Regehr, director of Project Ploughshares, Waterloo,
Ont., notes the necessity of
defining the question of militarism in Canadian terms for Canadians; for
example, arms export revenues. Regehr in attempting to gather a Canadian task
force. Heinz Janzen, general secretary of the General Conference Mennonite
Church, is convener of the war tax expanded task force. Mennonite Church
members are Winifred Beechy, secretary for peace and social concerns under the
Board of Congregational Ministries; Janet Reedy, member of the Mennonite
Church committee on tax concerns; and Gordon Zook, executive secretary of the
Board of Congregational Ministries.
A New Call to Peacemaking
The “New Call to Peacemaking” campaign continued.
Another conference
was announced for :
workshops will deal with conflict
resolution, tax resistance and the World Peace Tax Fund, economic conversion
and the arms race, and resources for peace education.
Campaign organizers assert that interest in the “issue of conscience and war
taxes” has been growing recently. It was given a “high priority” by the New
Call to Peacemaking national conference in Wisconsin.
Results of the conference
(which had apparently been pushed back a few weeks) were reported by Winifred
N. Beechy:
More war-tax opposition
A group of 30 to 40 church people met on , at City Church
of the Brethren, Goshen, Ind.,
to consider the moral dilemma faced by Christians who are opposed to war as a
method of settling disputes but who involuntarily contribute to war by payment
of taxes.
Participants in the one-day seminar came from 12 area congregations and
represented four denominations. The focus of the meeting was on that portion
of the federal income tax which goes to support the military and weapons
production. This group felt that the increasing militarization of our society,
the escalation of the arms race, and production of highly technological
weapons of destruction posed the problem of priorities and stewardship, and
the contradiction of “paying for war while praying for peace.”
Willard Swartley, professor of New Testament at Associated Mennonite Biblical
Seminaries in Elkhart, spoke on “Biblical imperatives,” emphasizing the
Christian’s mandate for responsible use of the earth’s resources. Cliff Kindy
of Goshen then outlined what we pay for war, giving a breakdown of the federal
budget with percentages of expenditures going to current and past military and
war-related items. He computed current military spending as roughly 25 to 30
percent, while a more comprehensive figure, taking into account veterans’
expenses and interest on the war-related portion of the national debt, reaches
as high as 50 percent of the national budget. Kindy also estimated that
members of Mennonite and Church of the Brethren churches in Elkhart County pay
more for war taxes than they contribute to their churches.
A survey of the history of war tax resistance among the historic peace
churches since the Reformation was presented by Leonard Gross, archivist of
the Mennonite Church. Current responses to the problem of war taxes were given
by a number of people. Janet Reedy of Elkhart and Jim Sweigart of Goshen
discussed possible options such as refusal to pay that portion of the income
tax which goes to support war, payment made with an accompanying letter or
protest, or voluntarily limiting income below the level of tax liability.
Following the presentations the group broke up into three workshops for
further discussion. From these emerged a consensus on the need for a
continuing support group such as this. Participants expect to draft a
statement which can be presented to their respective congregations for
consideration.
The seminar was planned by a New Call to Peacemaking Committee made up of
members from six Church of the Brethren and Mennonite Churches in Goshen, with
Virgil Brenneman from The Assembly (Mennonite) serving as chairman.
Bruce Chrisman told a New Call to Peacemaking Workshop of his war tax resistance.
The workshop on national service and voluntary service discussed a proposal by
members of Rainbow Boulevard Mennonite Church, Kansas City,
Kan., regarding a legal tax
alternative which would involve cooperating with a national service plan.
In the workshop on conscription of wealth Bob Hull, secretary for peace and
social concerns of the General Conference Mennonite Church, suggested
alternatives to paying war taxes. Others offered their own suggestions.
Several persons expressed the desire to pay taxes only for nonmilitary
programs, and said they wished there was legal provision for this, such as the
World Peace Tax Fund. McSorley, who has had contacts on Capitol Hill,
responded by saying that until there is a large grass-roots movement of tax
resistance the
WPTF doesn’t
stand a chance.
The latter half of the workshop included sharing by Bruce Chrisman,
Carbondale, Ill., who is
involved in a federal criminal case, one of two in the
U.S. involving tax
resistance. His case is significant because it will provide a precedent either
for or against tax refusal on the basis of conscience and religious
convictions.
In Chrisman received draft counseling from
James Dunn, pastor of the Champaign-Urbana
(Ill.) Mennonite Church. He
made a covenant with God to only pay taxes for humanitarian purposes. Since
that time he has paid no federal income taxes.
It wasn’t until this year, however, that the government prosecuted him,
charging that he willfully failed to disclose his gross income in
. “Willful” is the key term, because Chrisman
claims he conscientiously chose not to disclose his income. He feels the
government has purposely waited to build its case.
In the conclusion to his talk Chrisman said that when he first appeared in
court on
this year he was “scared to death.” “Today,” he said, “I have no fear in me.
God has given me an inner peace. I know I’m doing what He wants me to do.”
The Smoketown Consultation
The Gospel Herald covered
“the Smoketown Consultation”
of , in which conservative
Mennonites organized against innovations like war tax resistance. It noted that
“All 25 persons invited were white males,” but also reproduced the statement
that came out of the conference.
Several letters to the editor reacted to this news:
“I… wondered about the inclusion of the specific war tax issue. Were
individuals who sincerely hold to an alternate point of view asked to take
part in the discussion? Again, I am not questioning the conclusions of the
group so much as to ask whether any ‘by-invitation-only’ meeting can speak
for the church with any more integrity than can existing boards and
commissions of the church.”
“It is very easy to pick a Scripture verse to use to prove or disprove
almost anything. The group at one point (Statement #2) speaks about total
commitment to Jesus Christ but then uses quotations from the Apostle Paul
(Statement #5) to validify payment of all taxes. If Jesus Christ is
central, let’s use His example and specific words to guide us! I can
imagine the Pentagon people jumping for joy upon hearing such a statement
about taxes. I’m sure they are glad for this voluntary assurance (from
‘peace church’ members) that money will continue to roll in so that the
military can increase its nuclear arsenal. Because of the apparent
unquestioning payment of taxes by German Christians, Hitler was able to
annihilate millions of persons. We
(U.S.) will be
able to do it with nuclear weapons Neat, eh?”
“At Smoketown Ⅱ, when we assume the sisters of the church will take the
opportunity to share their thoughts, we suggest that a fuller range of
statements be reported. Issues, the unavoidable places where doctrine
meets practical decisions, should be identified and addressed to give
definition to the positive reaffirmation of the authority of Scripture and
a renewed zeal for personal and church evangelism. And, for the grass
roots, a minority report on the nonpayment of war taxes could be
included.”
Verburg didn’t think much of all this talk about war taxes, saying that
the peace witness was about more than opposition to military, so the war
tax emphasis was sign of an imbalance. “We are not the flower children of
the sixties. We are Jesus people and there is a big difference.”
[Gordon] Zook [executive secretary of the Board of Congregational Ministries]
noted the difference between the Smoketown statement “that we should pay all
taxes” and the statement on peacemaking passed by the General Assembly at
Waterloo. The Waterloo statement recognizes the withholding of war taxes as a
valid option. Which statement represents the church? he asked.
Peace Tax Fund Legislation
The edition included an
article by Dan Slabaugh laying out the case for the World Peace Tax Fund bill.
An editor’s note in that issue mentioned that “The
U.S. copies of the
issue of the
Gospel Herald carried a center insert with cards that
may be used by readers to encourage
U.S. lawmakers to
support the World Peace Tax Fund. The following article provides the author’s
rationale for support of the Fund legislation. Readers who care to are
encouraged to make use of these cards or to write their own leaders on its
behalf.”
Any collection of taxes for military purposes has created problems of
conscience for those committed to the peaceful resolution of conflict. Many
members of the “historic peace churches” have viewed war taxes as a denial of
religious freedom since such payments forced them to engage in personal sin.
The question has been put this way: “How can I, as a follower of the Prince of
Peace, willingly provide the government with money that’s needed to pay for
war?”
The most recent war tax in the United States, aside from the income tax, has
been the federal telephone tax. This levy was initiated originally to support
the Vietnam War, but is still continuing for a few more years. Many people
have refused to pay this tax to the federal government. Instead, they have
been sending the equivalent amount to the [“]Special Fund for Tax Resisters”
of Mennonite Central Committee’s Peace Section, or to similar designated
organizations.
To a smaller percentage of individuals the payment of the federal income tax
(approximately 50 percent of which they know goes to support wars and military
activity) also has been considered a matter of personal sin. They therefore
have informed the government that in good conscience they cannot voluntarily
pay that portion of their tax. In some cases persons have deposited the amount
in a local bank where the Internal Revenue Service comes and “steals” it from
them. By so doing these persons are freeing themselves of personal
responsibility for the money’s eventual use and also providing a visible
protest against the evil.
To most of these law-abiding, peace-loving people continual confrontation with
their own government has been an unhappy prospect. So nearly a decade ago a
small group of Christians at Ann Arbor, Michigan — with considerable faith in
the American legislative process — came to believe that it might be possible
to draft a bill and eventually convince the federal government to legalize
“peace” for those citizens so inclined.
A faculty member and a few graduate students at the University of Michigan’s
Law School drafted such a proposal. It provides, for the individual requesting
it, a setting aside of that percentage of the federal income tax which the
U.S. Attorney
General would determine to be earmarked for military purposes. This amount
would then be placed in a trust fund to be administered by a board of trustees
to fund peaceful activities, as approved by the
U.S. Congress.
This legislation, which has become known as the World Peace Tax Fund bill, was
introduced into the
U.S. House of
Representatives by Ronald Dellums of California in
. In the
National Council for a
WPTF was
invited to present its case in the House Ways and Means Committee. The bill
was introduced into the Senate in by Senator
Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon. In the last Congress it had 25 sponsors in the
House of Representatives and the three in the Senate (The legislation was not
enacted and so must be reintroduced to be considered by the present Congress.)
The World Peace Tax Fund bill is often misunderstood. It does not call for any
tax relief or special favors benefiting anyone financially. The bill, if
passed, probably will not affect the
U.S. government’s
military activities. In all likelihood it will not cut the military budget, or
of itself, stop wars. And it will not diminish the need to continue peace
teaching or peace activities.
But it will allow a citizen to legally refrain from contributing to the cost
of war and violence. It will provide a fund to finance peace programs and
support efforts to eliminate the causes of violent conflict.
The biggest obstacle to getting this bill passed in the
U.S. Congress is
the large number of people who say they are committed to peace, but who
seemingly feel no responsibility regarding the government’s use of their tax
money. As a result, legislators tell us that they can’t see the payment of war
taxes as much of a problem because they get very few letters expressing
concern about the matter.
To a large degree, Congress is “problem-oriented.” An alert young Congressman
told us personally that “this bill probably will not be passed until enough of
you refuse to pay war taxes — even if it means going to jail. In other words,”
he was saying, “create a problem that Congress must deal with.”
I am convinced that the conscientious objector provision of the Selective
Service act of never would have been
included had it not been for the “problem” created by
C.O.’s who
refused induction during World War Ⅰ. As the
U.S. was mobilizing
for World War Ⅱ the government did not want another “problem” on its hands, so
it agreed to make provisions for the C.O.’s — not
necessarily out of concern for religious liberty, but in order to keep the
boat from rocking too much.
We should remember that God’s prophets and even His own Son were seen as
“problems” in terms of natural human tendencies toward power, selfishness and
greed. Few of us like to “cause problems” for others. We like to work at
solving them — and be successful in our efforts. But in matters of conscience,
we haven’t been called to be successful, we have been called to be faithful.
“Conscience and War Taxes” is the title of a slide set produced by the
National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund. A resources packet accompanies
the 78 color slides, 20-minute cassette. “Conscience and War Taxes” can be
obtained from MBCM Audiovisuals…
The first issue the class tackled was the payment of war taxes. In
U.S.
Rep. Edward Mezvinsky
was invited to church for Sunday lunch and a discussion of the war tax issue.
“He sidestepped every issue,” said Jim Yoder. Mezvinsky promised to vote for
the World Peace Tax Fund Act if it ever made it to the floor of the House, but
declined to help the bill out of committee.
“He spent most of his time expounding upon his efforts to kill the
B-1 bomber,” recalled Nyle.
When the Fourth of July rolled around that Bicentennial year, the class
sponsored an alternate celebration for the church. Guy Hershberger was asked
to chair the meeting. He interviewed some of the local
“veterans” — conscientious objectors Henry Miller, Henry Brenneman, and Sol
Ropp — who had been badly mistreated by the
U.S. Army during
World War Ⅱ. He also discussed the war tax issue.
Later in the year the class presented a proposal to the congregation, asking
the church to lend moral support to people who did not pay the portion of
their taxes going for war. After initial misunderstandings and further
discussion, the congregation approved the proposal.
Nyle [Kauffman] and Jim were the only class members making enough to have to
worry about paying any taxes at all in . Both
withheld 33 percent of their estimated tax and sent a check for the amount to
Mennonite Central Committee.
This is the twenty-first in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal
of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
In there was a lot of discussion of war tax
resistance, and a lot of individual Mennonite war tax refusal and redirection,
but Mennonite Church institutions seemed more reluctant than their General
Conference to take corporate stands supporting their war tax refusing
employees.
The issue brought an update
in the case of a Mennonite war tax resister who was fighting his case in court:
Bruce Chrisman of Ava, Ill.,
a General Conference Mennonite who was convicted on
of failure to file an income tax return in ,
was sentenced on
to one year in Mennonite Voluntary Service.
Chrisman is a war-tax resister. He believes conscientious objectors should be
exempt on First Amendment grounds from paying that portion of federal income
tax that supports the military.
Judge J. Waldo Ackerman of the
U.S. District Court
in Springfield,
Ill. ordered the unusual
sentence, giving Mennonite Voluntary Service
(MVS)
staff 30 days to work out a program with Chrisman.
“I’m amazed,” said Chrisman. “I feel very good about the sentence. The
alternative service is probably the first sentence of its kind for a tax case.
I think it reflects the testimony in the trial and its influence on the
judge.” Chrisman could have been sentenced to one year in prison and a $10,000
fine.
Chrisman and his wife, Mary Anne, and two-year-old daughter, Venessa, live on
a small farm near Ava. Plans are for them to join
MVS
as a family. They will remain in their home community and engage in prison
ministries and peace education work along with their farming. Charles Neufeld,
regional
MVS
administrator, is working with the Chrismans and local support committee
headed by Ted Braun, pastor of United Church of Christ in Carbondale,
Ill., to give guidance to
this ministry.
At the trial Bob Hull, Jim Dunn, and
Peter Ediger joined with Chrisman in testifying to Christian conviction
against warfare, including payment of taxes for support of war. When the
prosecution cross-examined Chrisman from the Bible they also called Ediger as
a trial witness. Ediger, who is director of Mennonite Voluntary Service,
articulated Mennonite pacifist beliefs and how the tax code infringes on the
First Amendment rights to religious pacifists.
Dunn, who is pastor of the First Mennonite Church in Champaign-Urbana
(Ill.), was a character
witness. Hull, secretary for peace and social concerns of the General
Conference Mennonite Church, and Ediger testified about Mennonite beliefs
during the earlier pretrial hearing.
An appeal of the case has been filed by Chrisman’s attorney, Jeffrey Weiss,
not to contest the sentence, but to test the court’s rulings denying relevance
of First Amendment rights in this case. Persons interested in helping with
court costs may contact the General Conference Mennonite Church, Commission on
Home Ministries…
The Chrismans are ready to share their faith and concerns for peacemaking in
their community and beyond. Persons or churches interested may write them at
Route 2, Ava, IL 62907.
A prayer for believers who voluntarily pay war taxes: “Father, forgive them,
even though they know very well what they are doing.” ―from Daniel Slabaugh, a
conscientious objector to voluntary payment of war taxes, pastor of the Ann
Arbor (Mich.) Mennonite
Church.
Elam Lantz, currently residing in Washington, spoke on “First Amendment
Religious Freedom.” He spoke at some length on the “free exercise” phrase as
some have tried to apply it to war-tax resistance.
[T]he board responded to an inquiry from James Longacre, Mennonite Church
representative on
MCC
Peace Section
(U.S.). Longacre
sought counsel on whether Peace Section should approve a proposal for advocacy
of “war tax” resistance. The Board acknowledged that there is a lack of
consensus on the subject in the church and counseled caution, urging
sensitivity toward those who hold to different practices.
In a controversial decision, the bishop board reported that “after careful
consideration… we do not support promoting participation in a war tax
resistance campaign.”
Calling on congregations to stand with draft-age young people in a costly
peace witness, meeting participants urged “a stronger stand” in resistance to
the payment of taxes for military purposes and called for “increased
participation in existing and expanded service programs by young and old
alike.”
An commentary by Michael Shank
and Richard Kremer pushed Mennonites to take a stand with their taxes, if only
a small, symbolic one:
During the past year, the Mennonite congregation of Boston has felt a growing
concern about the enormous military expenditures of our government and about
our silence as a church. Events of the past months — Americans increasing
demands for military intervention to “solve” the stalemate in Iran, the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, and President Carter’s requests for sharply increased
military spending, for opening new military bases near the Middle East, for
restoring draft registration — have made us realize, yet again, how close a
nation ostensibly “at peace” can be to war.
, we spent several meetings
discussing militarism and war taxes so that our congregational representative
could speak for us at the General Conference Mennonite Church consultation on
war taxes held in . Since that
time we have been grappling with our responses to the war tax issue, both as
individuals and as a congregation.
Why do we think this issue is so important? First we assume that as Mennonites
our commitment to reconciliation and our refusal to participate in war-related
activities remain fundamental to our understanding of the gospel. In this
respect, we remain in continuity with the conscientious objection to war
voiced by our predecessors, particularly during World War Ⅰ and the wars which
followed.
Although this commitment has not changed in any fundamental way, the world
situation in which we find ourselves is significantly different from that of
our parents and grandparents. Until very recently, manpower appeared to be the
crucial ingredient for war. Since we could not in good conscience participate
in war, we objected to the government’s demands for our military service. This
stance led to the imprisonment of Mennonites and other conscientious objectors
during World War Ⅰ, and later to alternative service legislation during World
War Ⅱ.
During , however, the
character of warfare has changed in drastic ways. The threats to human life
and peace presented by large armies, unfortunately, have been completely
dwarfed by nuclear weapons, which our country did not hesitate to use on an
earlier occasion. These weapons of large-scale and indiscriminate death
presently exist in quantities sufficient to destroy all human life many times
over, and the stockpiles continue to grow.
Under such circumstances, the military branches of our government no longer
need our bodies as badly as they need our money and our silence. Every year
they need new funds:
to research, develop, and test more accurate and efficient means of
carrying bombs to their targets;
to produce, deploy, and maintain these weapons;
to train technicians to use them; and
to attract, recruit, and pay people who presently “volunteer”
for the armed forces.
All of these activities take place without our direct participation (unless,
of course, the draft is cranked up again); none of them could take place
without money. These expenditures are authorized by our representatives and
paid for by the taxes we contribute.
In contrast to the Roman Christians to whom Paul wrote, we have alternatives
beyond silent submission or open revolt. Our government expects its citizens
to voice their concerns. Our constitution and laws have provided channels for
doing so. These include, among others, communications to representatives, and
provisions for challenging bad laws by testing their validity
(e.g., by refusing to comply so that a higher
court will need to examine the law). Under such circumstances, our government
and representatives can be expected to interpret our silence, both as
individuals and as a church, in only two ways: either we approve of their
policies, or we do not care.
Many in our congregation are convinced that the biblical teachings and
arguments which led Mennonites to the conscientious objector position in World
War Ⅰ (when this position was not legal) and in World War Ⅱ (when it was) lead
us also to object to the use of our tax dollars for weapons of mass
destruction. The quiet payment of war taxes today is as inconsistent with the
spirit of Jesus life and teachings as the act of joining the army was earlier
(and indeed still is). The same concern for obedience today demands a response
suited to the new circumstances into which military developments have placed
us.
There is yet another reason why we must voice our concerns. Many of us would
undoubtedly make use of the World Peace Tax Fund, if such an option were
presently open to us. But how will we honestly be able to call ourselves
conscientious objectors to war taxes in the future (if and when such a
possibility becomes legal) if we raise no objections whatsoever now? What
grounds will the government have for believing our sincerity if it has no
record of our past objections either as a church or as individuals?
, a number of our members took the
symbolic step of withholding $10 from their income tax payments and forwarding
this amount to the Mennonite Central Committee. Others included letters with
their tax returns protesting use of their tax monies for military purposes. We
plan to reconsider our tax-paying responsibilities as
approaches once again. We
encourage other Mennonite congregations to join with us in seeking to build
peaceful relations among all peoples and nations and to denounce the tendency
to solve world problems solely through military might.
D.R. Yoder wrote a
letter to the editor
in response, rejecting war tax resistance for lack of scriptural support.
Seminar participants elected workshops, Saturday afternoon on organizing
public peace witness, war tax alternatives, the draft and conscientious
objectors, and the arms race and the economy.
The Mennonite brotherhood stands firmly on the position that Christians should
not serve in the military. The basic reason for this position is that the
military is a force and a power of destruction, and it cannot be brought
together with the role of a servant as we understand the call to commitment in
the New Testament. To avoid military service in various countries and
centuries Mennonites have used different methods. Substitutes have been hired,
men have refused to serve and have been imprisoned and killed. Since the
1940s, Mennonites have been excused from serving and have been allowed to do
alternative service.
The methods of fighting wars and being a power have changed greatly since the
1600s. World War Ⅰ and most of World War Ⅱ were fought with the same methods
as for thousands of years, that method being vast numbers of men and hand
weapons.
World Wars Ⅰ and Ⅱ also brought new ideas and methods to the “act of
war”: the fighter plane and the bomber, that now destroys women, children, and
the old who are not in the military through the bombing of cities; tanks and
rockets and (the thing that ended the war with Japan) the atomic bomb, not by
destroying or defeating the army, but by destroying two cities and killing old
people, women, and children. War and power are not measured today so much by
the number of men carrying a rifle but by the number of atomic bombs, tanks,
bombers, jet fighters, aircraft carriers, submarines, other ocean vessels, and
even computers.
War is fought today not so much with men but with machines. I believe that
this change in war methods also calls for a change in the way we as Christians
respond. We need to refuse to serve, as we have done in the past, but we also
need to refuse to support the war machine with our material resources.
President Carter has recently asked for a large increase in military spending.
Since the peak of the Vietnam War in , the
amount spent on military in the
U.S. has gone from
$77.3 billion to the $142.0 billion projected for
. What is or should be our response as
followers of the Prince of Peace? Do we continue to pay our taxes without
speaking out against or doing something about the insanity of war and the
terrible waste of money and natural resources, to say nothing of the potential
for destruction? What should be a Christian response to the enormous spending
for the military? I will not argue with the right of the state to determine
its own course, but I believe that we as Christians have a responsibility to
decide whether we participate with the state in destructive goals.
My wife and I have attempted since the early 1970s to avoid supporting the war
machine by not paying income taxes. We have not withheld payment from the
government but have used another method that has been taught in our
fellowship. I must say, we have not been 100 percent successful with our
method. In the last six years we have paid small amounts of income tax of
under $100 for two or three years, one year we paid a larger sum and the other
years we paid nothing.
This method is adaptable to just about everyone and is very legal. We
have attempted to reduce our income below taxable levels by giving it to the
work of the church and deducting it from our income taxes as an itemized gift.
This method has two very positive goals; the first, it gives needed money to
the mission and service programs of the Mennonite Church and, second, it
speaks out against our consumeristic society because we have to learn to get
by on less than normal in the line of material possessions, but usually still
more than we actually need.
The second goal is difficult to fulfill. We find out continually how our
society has an influence on our lives. Simple living is not easy to
accomplish, but by reducing our incomes we can speak out forcefully against
the excess consumption and the senseless military spending. I believe that our
money is an extension of ourselves, that is, when we give money to
MCC
or a mission in the Mennonite Church we are in reality there working, where
that money is being used. In the same way when we give money to the government
for taxes and the government buys and builds weapons of destruction, we are
there too, every bit as much as on the mission field. Can you imagine the
force for good and the amount of work that could be done in the world today if
the people in our brotherhood would reduce their income in an attempt to defer
support of war through giving to our church missions and relief organizations?
The decision is yours and mine whether we want to further the kingdom of God
or give our money to the building of a war machine. Let us seek the Lord and
seek broader counsel in our brotherhood for the answer on how to be faithful
today.
A letter to the editor,
from Jon Byler () also promoted
the simple living technique:
Why, when the Lord Jesus spoke so clearly about the dangers of wealth, and
when we have so many people seeking ways to avoid supporting the military
machine, has this been overlooked? If we are willing to reduce our standard of
living to help our brothers, we can speak positively against the consumer
waste, materialism, and disposable society; we can similarly be in complete
obedience to all the laws, and still refuse to support a military machine that
we all believe is wrong. I realize this is easier for myself, being young (25)
and single, but I am happy to say that I have never paid a single
cent that was used to bomb innocent children or to burn their homes, or to
support political torture by our “allies.”
The payment of taxes for military purposes is a growing source of concern for
more and more people. In response to the increasing awareness of the function
of taxation in the world arms race. Peace Section
(U.S.) is
sponsoring an educational effort to aid in the search for a biblical response.
As part of that effort, Paul and Loretta Leatherman were interviewed by Ron
Flickinger for Peace Section. Excerpts from that interview are presented in
the hope that the Leathermans’ convictions and experiences will provide useful
information to those who are considering their own action in the future. Paul
and Loretta began resisting war taxes when they returned from an
MCC
term in Vietnam in . Paul is presently
employed by
MCC
as director of the Self-Help program and Loretta is teaching in the Ephrata
public school system. Their home is in Akron,
Pa.
Question:
What led you to begin resisting war taxes? Did your
experience in Vietnam influence your decision to do so?
Loretta:
We saw the war effort change from manpower to money
power. Men aren’t used as much anymore and, instead, our money was being used
to do intensive bombing. We would not go to war ourselves and so we thought we
should resist having our money being sent to war also.
Paul:
I think serving in Vietnam radicalized us in that sense.
About every night we were there, we went to sleep with the sound of bombing
and we saw bombs exploding from our house. We lived in the middle of the war
and saw what it did to children and families. You recognize that it’s done
through your taxes and you begin to take a pretty serious look at it.
Question:
Do you also see consequences in the future if people do
not start resisting the use of their money in this way?
Paul:
Well, this is supposedly peacetime but I see the military
budget increasing in real dollars. It goes up in addition to inflation while
many other government programs are being trimmed. It doesn’t make much sense
to keep building up and building up the military machinery which is capable of
destroying the world. I think history shows that whatever military equipment
is made is always used, so I think sometime there is going to be a big nuclear
war.
Loretta:
There isn’t much sense in being able to destroy oneself
so many times. It’s a terrible waste.
Question:
Many people who are resisting war taxes have voiced
specific concerns for their families, their children, their grandchildren. I’m
sure this has a part in your thinking, too.
Paul:
Well, I think it does. I don’t know that we’ve specifically
said we’re going to resist taxes because of our own children, but more simply
for the world community. Our children are certainly a part of that.
Question:
Do you feel as Christians that you have something to say
to government? Many people don’t think they are responsible for what the
government does with their money once their taxes are paid.
Paul:
I’m pretty convinced that we have to say something. If
Christians don’t, who will? Where does the conscience come from? How is man
going to see the sin and evil of his ways unless someone speaks up to it? As
we would understand the way of Christ and what He has taught us, we need to be
prophetic in terms of what that means in the world. We can’t be Christians and
be quiet about it. If we are going to be citizens of another kingdom, then we
have to speak out about what it means and live it out as well.
Question:
What kind of reactions do you get from friends and
acquaintances?
Paul:
I think we get a strong resistance from people in the church
who are thoroughly convinced that we must pay all of our taxes and that any
tax resistance is going directly against biblical teaching. Mark 12:17 says,
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s…” and those who don’t pay all
of the taxes Caesar asks for are specifically disobeying the teachings of the
Bible. I don’t know all of their motives behind that sort of conviction, but I
think there is a stronger resistance there than any place. Now, there are also
outside the church the superpatriotic people who believe that anything that
tends to speak against the structure of the
U.S. military is
bad. But there are also a lot of people who are sort of questioning the
direction of things in the world today. They are open to thinking about ideas
and, while they may not agree with all of it, at least they see some of the
reasoning behind it all.
Question:
How do you respond to people who don’t agree with
you?
Paul:
That depends very much on who it is. I don’t think there is
much point in arguing, but if people want to discuss it in a real way, then I
think we can. It’s not a point one can win by arguing and I think we could
probably do more harm than good by doing so. We’re not out waving the flag of
tax resistance every place we go, not at all. Simply when the opportunity
presents itself, we will discuss it. I think we have felt the importance in
doing this as much within our own church as any other place. It’s within our
own church fellowship that we need to help our brothers and sisters understand
what our tax dollars are doing around the world, such as we saw happen in
Vietnam. We want to try to help sharpen consciences on this issue.
Loretta:
You have to think of the saying, “Those who do not stand
up for the powerless are acting against them.”
Paul:
The thing that we’ve been doing on taxes has given us the
chance on numerous occasions to at least talk about it, share it in a way that
has helped us as people in the church understand what it means to live in a
complicated world.
Question:
What has been the
IRS
reaction? Tell us about some of your contacts with
IRS
agents.
Paul:
One of the first years we resisted paying war taxes, we
actually owed a little bit of money at the end of the year. We claimed a war
tax credit and asked for a refund. The
IRS
turned it down and called us in to audit the credit and also our
contributions, which were somewhat above the norm. The inspector took 25
minutes to audit our contributions and concluded that they were exactly right
to the penny. He said that was okay but that he simply could not allow the war
tax credit and there was no use in talking about it.
“Now look,” I said, “you asked us to come in here for an audit and we had to
leave our jobs to come. You’ve taken 25 minutes of my time auditing something
which I knew all along was correct and I’m equally convinced that I’m entitled
to the war tax credit. I’d like at least 25 minutes of your time to discuss
it.” He said okay, let’s talk. We discussed the pros and cons of why we were
opposed to paying war taxes, why we thought it was wrong. He listened and sort
of entered into the discussion and then at the end of 25 minutes, I said,
“Well, you’ve given me 25 minutes now, but there are still many more things we
could talk about. Would you be interested in reading a little more about this?
He said he would, so I gave him Kaufman’s What Belongs to Caesar? and a few other things.
Then I said, “After you have had a chance to read these, why don’t you come over for dinner next Wednesday and we can talk about it some more.”
He accepted the invitation. We weren’t sure if he would come but he showed up
and we had a very good discussion with him for about three hours. He was very
much against the Vietnam war but he thought that our tax resistance was
completely useless and that there was no way to succeed.
One year, we took our case all the way to court. Loretta didn’t take off from
teaching but I took our case all the way through the appeals process. We were
turned down at each place and were finally scheduled to go to the tax court in
Washington,
D.C. At that
point, I decided to take it out of that court and asked to have it tried in
the small tax court in Harrisburg,
Pa. The decision in the
small tax court was not precedent setting nor could it be appealed. If I had
kept the case in the tax court in Washington,
D.C., I
would have been able to appeal that decision all the way to the Supreme Court.
I decided not to do that because the preparation for the case would have had
to be much more careful in order to be heard and not simply dismissed on a
technicality. I wrote my own briefs and presented the case myself. It was
about three to four months before we got the judge’s opinion turning it
down.
Question:
Have you ever felt that you have risked a prison
sentence by refusing to pay?
Paul:
Well, that’s another story I can tell. After the court
trial, an
IRS
agent came to see me at the office. The receptionist called me and told me
there was someone out there to see me but I didn’t recognize his name. Only
when I got out there and he showed me his credentials did I realize who he
was. That was when we had the open office at
MCC
so rather than taking him into a conference room, I brought him in beside my
desk. I wanted to be on my own turf when he questioned me.
He asked me about the bill and I said, “Yes,
IRS
thinks I owe that amount and the judge thinks I owe it. I acknowledge that
from the
IRS
perspective it is a legitimate bill but I don’t have any intention of paying
it.”
He replied that he was here to collect the bill and he didn’t expect to leave
until I paid it.
“Well,” I said, “I already told you that I don’t expect to pay it and since
I’m not expecting to pay it, I think you ought to put me in jail. My wife has
been expecting that you might come around sometime and she said that if I go
to jail, she’d like to know where I’m going so she could write to me. I would
also like to know how soon it would be so that I can make arrangements for
somebody to take my place at this desk.” He looked at me and said he had never
heard anybody talk like that before. He went up to the bank the next day and
issued an order to draw the money out of my bank account.
I must admit that even when I was talking to him I didn’t think I was risking
a jail sentence. I didn’t think the
IRS
would put anyone in jail because they have other ways to collect the money. It
is too hazardous for them to take someone out of the
MCC
office and put them in jail. I don’t think they can risk that.
Question:
What has been your experience with the
IRS
attaching your bank account?
Paul:
Usually they have just issued an order for the money and the
bank notified us that the money was being withdrawn. One time, though, we
didn’t have enough money in the account to cover the bill, so the
IRS
attached the account and nothing could be paid out of it until they got their
money. It took about a month before we got our account cleared again.
Loretta:
Every time we wanted to cash a check they would have to
call Lancaster to find out if the account was clear. It was embarrassing. I
wanted to run in quick to withdraw some cash and it would take all of 45
minutes before I found out I couldn’t get any.
Paul:
Our banking was really skewed. The checks we issued that had
not been cashed all bounced because the
IRS had
withdrawn all the money. The bank stamped on the cheeks that the account had
been attached by the
IRS. One
of the checks we had written was a contribution to the World Peace Tax Fund.
When it bounced we got a note from the
WPTF office
saying, "Good work, brother. Keep it up. We don’t mind losing this kind.” That
was sort of interesting but it was a very marked inconvenience for us. That
was one of the worst experiences we have had in tax resistance.
Loretta:
That was when the people in the bank knew what was going
on.
Paul:
Yes, one of the brothers in the bank is from the Mennonite
Church. The first time my account was attached, he took the money out and I
just got the notice in the mail. I scolded him for that and told him that he
should at least let me know before he took the money out. The next time it
happened, he called me saying he had a notice to attach my account and asked
me to write a check to the
IRS so
he wouldn’t have to attach the account. I said, “No way, brother. Thanks for
calling me, but now it s on your conscience. If you think you can be a tax
collector, then go ahead and do it.” I was kind of mean to him. I won’t think
less of him if he pays the
IRS, but
as least he has to think through what he is doing.
Question:
What keeps you working at this in spite of the
inconveniences and the people that disagree with you?
Paul:
I thing we’re getting a little tired. That’s our mood
actually now, that we re getting a little tired.
Loretta:
It’s kind of a lonely struggle.
Paul:
It’s a question of how much you really ought to share what
you are doing, whether it’s a real sharing of where you are or whether you are
bragging about what you are doing. In the final analysis, when the time comes
to fill out your
IRS
form, you’re not doing it in a support group and the consequences are going to
be yours.
Question:
What suggestions do you have for someone who is thinking
about resisting war taxes?
Paul:
Do it. The first time we did this it was a very difficult,
emotional experience.
Loretta:
And even when the telephone rang. I was just terribly
worried about what it might be.
Paul:
Well, I have a strong feeling that we ought to pay what
is due. I think it’s correct that we ought to render unto Caesar or anybody
else what is their due. We also give unto God what is due and I think that is
the important thing. When these two come in conflict, then my moral, ethical
training is not to pay Caesar. But not to pay becomes a very difficult
struggle whether it’s 34¢ or $34 or $340. The one was about as difficult as
the other when we started, and starting this is not easy. But in starting, you
make a kind of commitment that does something to you.
The other thing is the time and energy to do it. You know it’s easier to do
the status quo thing. Resistance takes a lot more energy and time.
A letter to the editor in response
() from Allen King noted “There
are a number of people in our community who believe the same way but do not
know how to go about it.”
In an
International Mennonite Peace Committee meeting
was held, which allowed for an update from the war tax resisters of Japan,
though this is all that Gospel Herald readers learned
about it:
Michio Ohno of Asia, remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki, demonstrates his
concern about the destruction of nuclear war by his resistance to payment of
taxes used for military purposes. He is president of the Tokyo (Japan)
Mennonite Conference.
A pair of Mennonites went to court to try to gain legal conscientious objector
to military taxation status:
On , a federal circuit court judge
agreed that Janet and Stan Reedy of Elkhart,
Ind., had a case worth hearing
after they had claimed a conscientious objector deduction on their income tax
report.
Supported by members of their church, the South Side Fellowship of Elkhart,
the Reedys presented testimony in opposition to the motion of the Internal
Revenue Service that the petition for a conscientious objector deduction is
“insufficient, immaterial, and frivolous.”
“As the motion to strike points out,” said Janet Reedy, “there is presently no
provision in the
IRS code
which authorized the deduction we are claiming. That is precisely the problem.
The First Amendment to the (Constitution states, ‘Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof…’ I want to argue that the present
IRS law
violates our rights and the rights of all persons who are conscientiously
opposed to war by requiring us to pay for war even though it is contrary to
our religious beliefs. Thus we are denied a right guaranteed to us by the
First Amendment.”
In support of this argument, Janet told of her conviction that killing is
wrong and that paying the tax for killing is no different than killing. She
asserted that “the law should recognize the right to refuse to pay the taxes
that make it possible for others to kill.” She concluded that “the First
Amendment guarantees us rights to the free exercise of our religious beliefs
which are not being honored by the present
IRS
code.”
Stan followed with corroborative testimony, stating that “the United States
government, through its instruments of the
IRS and
the courts can of course force what appears to be obedience… But some day the
hard, inflexible, and brittle mass of the
IRS code
will shatter upon or be dissolved by the soft voice of conscience.”
As reported by Kathy Rohrer, one of the Fellowship members in attendance, when
Stan was seated the judge asked one question: “Do you come to this court with
a new argument?” Janet answered that they had never before claimed the First
Amendment in their arguments. The judge was so impressed by their evidence
that he denied the
IRS
claim that their petition for a hearing was “irrelevant, immaterial,
impertinent, and frivolous” and granted them a hearing in federal court where
the constitutionality of the case will be judged. No date has been set for
this hearing.
Ken Reed: The Mennonite Church has been a beautiful experience for me, but
it’s only been the past several years that I’ve seriously asked myself:
What is the vision of the Anabaptists? and I’ve concluded it says
something about us being both a community of love and a community of
resistance. We’ve emphasized the love side perhaps — MCC,
Voluntary Service, and giving ourselves in service (the towel and the basin).
Perhaps we haven’t emphasized resistance to evil. Then I look at
Luke 4,
where Jesus says: “This is what my mission is all about in coming to the
world” — He talks about a mission of love and a mission of resistance, a
mission of identifying with people and also a mission of saying “no” to the
evil that was around Him. I take His life as a model for my own.
, I was thinking
about taxes and where my tax dollars go. I was looking through a book on
Hiroshima which was produced by a committee of Japanese journalists and it
just struck me that my money is paying for future Hiroshimas. At that moment,
I made a commitment to myself, “I don’t want to be part of that.”
The General Conference Mennonite Church will “initiate a judicial action
seeking exemption from withholding taxes from the income of its employees” and
take its case to the
U.S. Supreme Court
if necessary. It is planned to base the case on the First Amendment of the
U.S. Constitution,
which embodies the separation of church and state. The action was approved by
delegates to the church’s triennial sessions at Estes Park,
Colo., held
.
Duane Heffelbower, a Mennonite attorney from Reedley,
Calif., and member of the
conference’s task force on tax withholding, said that the suit would be aimed
at seeking an injunction against the Internal Revenue Service, which presently
requires the church’s central offices to withhold the income taxes of its
employees. “We hope to move the suit to the district court level within a
year,” he said.
The Estes Park resolution stated further that all General Conference churches
in the U.S. and
Canada support the Task Force on Taxes through special offerings or budget
allocations and that
U.S.
congregations support efforts for the passage of the World Peace Tax Fund.
This proposed fund would allow those who object to paying taxes in support of
military causes to channel their taxes toward peaceful and humanitarian
projects. The church hopes to find some support for its tax collection test
case among its fellow historic peace churches; namely, the Church of the
Brethren, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and the Mennonite
Church.
The newly adopted resolution grew out of a motion passed at a special
conference session in Minneapolis,
Minn., in
which asked the General Board of the
conference “to engage in a serious and vigorous search to use all legal,
legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector
exemption from the legal requirement that the conference withhold income taxes
from the wages of its employees.” Should the GCMC
be successful in gaining the injunction against forced tax collection, the
conference’s employees would receive their wages in full and then follow their
individual consciences in deciding whether to pay or not pay war taxes.
A pair of commentaries from Peter Farrar ( and )
urged Mennonites to “Refuse war taxes! Refuse registration!” without waiting
for the government to grant them special conscientious objector status. Farrar
wrote of the traditional Mennonite “nonresistance” position: “We may choose not
to resist aggression against our persons. We cannot countenance being the means
of aggression against others.”
Pax Christi continued to highlight how taxpaying made citizens complicit in the
arms race, and continued also to encourage war tax resistance as a response
():
A Catholic peace group has called on the
U.S.
bishops to reinstate meatless Fridays as “a penance for and protest against
the arms race.” The statement, issued by Pax Christi
U.S.A.,
at a two-day meeting in Maryknoll,
N.Y., also calls for the
establishment of a National Catholic Peace Week to promote disarmament, and
urges American Catholics to “refrain from the manufacture or use of nuclear
weapons” and to “support those people who refuse to pay for the war machine
with their taxes.” Pax Christi
U.S.A.,
is a branch of the international movement founded in France at the end of
World War Ⅱ. The American unit was begun in .
Spurred by the return of draft registration, a number of Christian groups
have increased their continuing efforts to counter what they see as a growing
tide of militarism in the United States.
Some members of the Society of Friends, disregarding possible penalties of
fines and imprisonment, have advised young men to refuse to register with the
Selective Service System when they come of age. The Church of the Brethren has
affirmed “open, nonevasive withholding of war taxes as a legitimate witness to
our conscientious intention to follow the call of discipleship to Jesus
Christ.”
Going one step further, the General Conference Mennonite Church, meeting at
Estes Park, Colo., in
, committed itself to go to the Supreme
Court, if necessary, to secure release from its current obligation to collect
from its employees income taxes used in large part to support military
programs.
All three bodies work together in the New Call to Peacemaking. This coalition
has invited 400 delegates to a national conference in Green Lake,
Wis.,
,
to devise additional ways for its members to reply to conscription, war taxes,
and what they see as the growing hazards of so-called military security.
Approximately 300 Mennonites, Brethren, and Friends from across the
U.S. have called on
their meetings and congregations to intensify efforts in the search for
alternatives to militarism, conscription, and the payment of war taxes.
The conference’s eight-page findings report was written and revised by a
committee which attempted to integrate the minutes of 27 discussion groups
which met regularly throughout the weekend. The final statement dealt with the
tasks of envisioning peace, nurturing peacemakers, countering militarism,
responding to the conscription of youth and taxes for war, and witnessing to
peace.
With respect to the issue of payment of taxes used for war purposes, the New
Call restated its commitment to urge
Christian peacemakers to “consider withholding from the Internal Revenue
Service all tax monies which contribute to any war effort.”
The statement of findings recommended the following as alternatives to the
payment of war taxes: (1) active work for the adoption of the World Peace Tax
Fund bill which, if passed by the
U.S. Congress,
would serve as a legal alternative to payment of war taxes just as
conscientious objector status is a legal alternative to military service, and
(2) individuals are urged to consider prayerfully all moral ways of reducing
their tax liabilities, including sizable contributions to tax-exempt
organizations and reduction of personal income.
The concern that New Call not issue a declaration more radical than meetings
and congregations would be willing to hear was raised at several points during
the meeting.
The Mennonite Church general board met in
and cautiously decided to
throw its support behind the General Conference Mennonite Church’s legal
challenge to withholding taxes from objecting employees. This was one of the
earliest examples of corporate support for war tax resistance from a Mennonite
Church institution:
One other action of significance had to do with an invitation from the General
Conference Mennonite Church to join in its effort to “initiate a judicial
action seeking exemption for the General Conference Mennonite Church from
withholding taxes from the income of its employees.”
On the basis of action taken at the last Mennonite Assembly in Waterloo,
Ont., which reads: “We
encourage our congregations and institutions to seek relief from the current
legal requirement of collecting taxes through the withholding of income taxes
of employees, especially those taxes which may be used for war purposes. In
this effort we endorse cooperation with the General Conference Mennonite
Church in the current search for judicial, legislative, and administrative
alternatives to the collection of military related taxes.”
The Board acted to: (1) support the judicial action of the General Conference
Mennonite Church to seek exemption of our institutions from withholding taxes
from the income of employees with the understanding that this implies an
invitation to Mennonite members to join in financial support for this judicial
action and (2) we encourage the MBCM
to the task force on taxes to seek to generate a wide support for the World
Peace Tax Fund throughout our constituency by appropriate General Assembly
action and encouragement.
The Board was careful to clarify that this action does not constitute civil
disobedience but rather attempts to work within the domain of the first
amendment in the
U.S. constitution.
In , Brethren continued to resist war taxes, and a new “777 Club” campaign attempted to nudge non-resisters into a small, baby-steps form of war tax resistance.
The issue of Messenger covered the legal battle of war tax resister Bruce Chrisman:
“Our hearts go with our treasure to war when we must pay war taxes,” said Bill Faw of Reba Place Fellowship.
He was speaking at a worship service in support of Bruce Chrisman and his appeal for the right to refuse to pay war taxes.
Chrisman appeared before the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago in .
He was appealing his conviction for failing to file a proper income tax return.
Bruce and his wife, Maryanne, farm near Ava, Ill.
The argument against Chrisman (and others in similar cases) is that he broke the law when he failed to file the proper income tax return.
Chrisman believes that such an argument misses the point — that his freedom of religion is violated by the court’s insistence that he pay even those taxes that go towards war.
Chrisman’s attorney, A. Jeffrey Weiss, argued that the first amendment of the Constitution prohibits laws that interfere with the “free exercise” of religion.
Weiss contended that the US government violates this clause by requiring full payment of taxes from citizens whose faith demands that they not pay for war.
The General Conference Mennonite Church (GCMC) filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in Chrisman’s behalf.
The brief gave historical precedents for withholding war taxes.
It also stated the GCMC officially supports “Christian pacifists who refuse to pay taxes to be used for military purposes.”
Although Chrisman is not a Mennonite, he is closely associated with the GCMC.
After his conviction, Chrisman expected to receive a two-year prison sentence.
But , when he stood before the judge for sentencing, he explained that he didn’t mind paying taxes.
In fact, he said, he would not object to paying more than his share of taxes if those taxes relieved human suffering.
The judge gave him the unusual sentence of one year’s service in Mennonite Voluntary Service.
He spent the year doing peace work and visiting prisons.
He and Maryanne plan to serve another year.
Chrisman does not expect word on his appeal before since a written ruling from the court usually requires between three and six months.
If his conviction is upheld, Chrisman intends to carry his appeal further.
U.S. military support of the government of El Salvador became another reason to refuse taxes, when in the issue Jorge Lara-Braud was quoted addressing Church of the Brethren higher-ups (source):
“To what extent,” he asked, “will we US Christians be used to finance the repression of those who are seeking the Kingdom of God?” He urged tax resistance as one way of resolving the agony of giving the government money to kill other Christians.
That issue also reported on a new “Brethren Discipleship Group” and noted, somewhat vaguely, that “They also refuse to pay ‘willingly those taxes which support war’ ” (source).
The Annual Conference reaffirmed its support for the World Peace Tax Fund legislation (source), but:
An amendment urging refusal to pay military-related taxes was ruled out of order, although recognized as a related issue.
Concern was raised that the WPTF represented an “easier way to be Christian” than direct refusal to pay taxes.
But war tax resistance was still a going concern.
From the issue:
Three General Board staff families have taken a stand against war by withholding part of their federal income taxes.
Chuck and Shirley Boyer, Ralph and Mary Cline Detrick, and Miller and Phyllis Davis protested the use of their tax dollars for defense spending by giving the amount withheld to other organizations.
Miller Davis, director of the New Windsor Service Center, and Phyllis withheld $100, which they sent to the General Board.
Peace consultant Chuck Boyer said that he and his wife, Shirley, had periodically withheld income taxes .
, they and the Detricks, of life cycle ministries, each gave $50 to the local school board to demonstrate their support of public non-military programs.
“We don’t mind paying taxes,” says Mary Detrick.
“That’s why we chose to pay the same amount to a public institution.
It feels like a little bit of leaning toward justice.”
Adds Ralph Detrick: “It’s a symbolic protest of how the government spends our money.
We choose to make a nuisance.”
Like the Detricks, Boyer acknowledges that tax resistance currently is little more than a “nuisance” to the federal government.
But he points out that such a protest could have an impact “if 20,000 or 30,000 Christians did involve themselves.”
Boyer and the Detricks stress that their personal decisions are not intended to tell others what to do.
Rather, they hope to raise questions and to give support to other Brethren families who have chosen to take the same stand.
“It’s not the kind of thing I like to do.
People probably think I’m a real radical,” says Boyer.
“It’s a struggle within me to find what it means to be faithful,” he concludes, “but something has to be done, and this is it for now.”
And there was this attempt to get some more-timid Brethren to take symbolic baby-steps into tax resistance, from :
Jesus does not tell us to give Caesar everything he asks for.
Nor does he specify what is Caesar’s and what is God’s.
The 777 Club is one way to resist war taxes and maintain one’s Christian integrity.
by Karen Zimmerman and Bill Puffenberger
What started out as a sharing experience for a few Sundays at the Eiizabethtown Church of the Brethren expanded into a class lasting 12 weeks.
The Topic? “War Tax Resistance.”
After a brief initial discussion of the topic we began an in-depth study of several key biblical passages.
This led to other experiences — a visit with Paul and Loretta Leatherman (originators of a 777 plan of war tax resistance);
a visit to the Mennonite Central Committee Headquarters to share with a group of Mennonites who have been practicing various types of war tax resistance; the sponsorship of a Sunday morning mini-workshop in the local congregation; and a Sunday morning dialog with our local congressional representative, Robert Walker.
As a result of these experiences, some members of the class have offered to share their time and ideas on this issue with other churches in Atlantic Northeast District.
As newcomers to the field of war resistance, it was rewarding to have the opportunity to talk with the Leathermans — 10-year veterans.
Over the years they have tried various methods to withhold the portion of their taxes that are used for war.
Eventually, the Internal Revenue Service got its money, but it was not an easy process and it provided the Leathermans an opportunity to witness to their local IRS agent, their bank representative, their employers, and others about their opposition to war and their necessity for funding it.
In an effort to have more people join them and hopefully to attract the attention of law-makers in Washington, the Leathermans initiated a 777 plan.
They propose withholding a symbolic amount of $7.77 (or some variable thereof) as a war tax deduction.
Because present US tax laws do not provide for this kind of deduction, many members of the class used the 1040 long form and wrote in the words “War Tax Credit” on line 46.
A brief letter of explanation was then attached to the form.
In addition, more detailed letters explaining our views were sent to our local congress members and to the President.
We recognize that this is indeed a symbolic protest since in most cases the government has already taken the taxes or will take unpaid taxes from our future paychecks.
Even though the taxes will eventually be collected, we think it is a matter of integrity to say by our actions, words, and letters how we feel about this issue.
The number 777 was chosen for its biblical significance and symbolism.
Seven is the biblical symbol for perfection.
Seven is the numerical framework for God’s Creation, especially the Sabbath.
Jesus tells us to forgive “seventy times seven.”
To us Eiizabethtown tax resisters the number had even greater significance — our church address is 777 Mount Joy Street.
We studied in detail two biblical references on taxes: Mark 12:13–17 and Romans 13:1–7.
Our study convinced us that we cannot assume that the law of the land is the sole judge of our moral decisions.
We must see obedience to government in the context of the command to live in peace with all persons.
In light of the increasing militarism of the present administration in Washington it is particularly urgent that Brethren consider the issue of war tax resistance.
Can we be satisfied that conscientious objection by only our 18 to 26-year-old youth is an adequate stance to maintain?
What is to be required of us who are outside this age classification?
In a world that is warring with a technology fueled more by money than by personnel, most of us are relatively unaffected by the draft.
While our bodies are not being used, our dollars are being conscripted for war purposes.
What kind of integrity is this?
How can we conscientiously pray for peace and at the same time pay for war?
We urge Brethren to take another look at Christ’s teachings as well as our denomination’s peace position.
We feel we have a convincing argument that the current military build-up is diametrically opposed to God’s law to love one another.
We are hopeful other Brethren join with us who are taking this symbolic war tax deduction of $7.77 (or $77.77 or $777.77) as a way of maintaining our Christian integrity and at the same time letting our government know that there are some people out there who oppose the current excessive military build-up.
We are not in principle opposed to the payment of taxes (which support many worthwhile endeavors).
We are opposed only to the payment of taxes for war-like means (which we see as destructive and unchristian).
We all have a choice: We can quietly pay our war taxes and support preparations for war or we can noisily refuse to pay (even a symbolic amount) and work untiringly for the cause of peace.
We members of the 777 Club probably cannot arrest the current military build-up, but we will have at least set the record straight that we cannot mouth the words of peace and at the same time willingly pay into an ever-growing war chest.
We seek to avoid a kind of Christian schizophrenia as we refuse to pay for that which is destructively unchristian.
The Bible Monitor never flinched from its strict if somewhat blinkered interpretation of render-unto-Caesar.
From “Serving God and Caesar,” the lead article in the issue:
The Christian’s duty includes paying his taxes.
Even Jesus paid his tribute money.
The money of our land is very clearly marked as the legal tender of the land, therefore it should be rendered back to the government.
Although we may not approve of all uses made of our tax money, we dare not be selective in what we pay.
We do indirectly receive a benefit, at least in the eye of the world, from our taxes.
