Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” → Mennonites / Amish → Ray & Wilma Gingerich

Some bits-and-pieces from around the web:

• Susan Balzer writes about Men­non­ite war tax resist­ers for the Men­non­ite Weekly Review. Some of the resisters mentioned: Tim Godshall, Willard and Mary Swart­ley, Ray Gingerich, Harold A. Penner, John and Janet Stoner, Albert and Mary Ellen Meyer, Don Kauf­man, Titus and Linda Gehman Peachey, and Stan Bohn.
• Charles Merrill, who has been resist­ing taxes in protest against the govern­ment’s refusal to give equal legal recog­ni­tion to same-sex mar­riages, is urging others to join him in a national “Tax Tea Party Revolt”:

  A Tax Tea Party Revolt will be the only recourse avail­a­ble in the wake of efforts to not provide equal treat­ment to all cit­i­zens under law … This means gays, lesbians, bi­sex­u­als and trans­gender people will not be filing taxes April 15^th.

• War tax resister NTodd Pritsky at Pax Amer­i­cana takes note of the pros­e­cu­tion of a tax evader and wonders if this is going to be his even­tual fate as well. Pritsky is resist­ing both federal and state taxes (as a war tax resister, he is pro­test­ing state com­plic­ity in the mil­i­tary in­dus­trial com­plex and in the wars via the state na­tional guard). Fight­ing this bat­tle on two fronts takes a lot of energy, and he’s not sure it’s worth it.

I’m back from the Spring 2009 NWTRCC National Gathering in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I’ll share some of my impressions today and go into more detail in the coming days.

I flew into Charlottesville and was picked up by one of our hosts — who’d be shuttling incoming conferencers all weekend and who did a fantastic job of making sure we all got collected, assembled, fed, and then given a comfortable place to lay our heads at the end of the day. We passed the new America tombstone on the way back to Harrisonburg where we were holding the Friday and Saturday sessions of our meeting at the Community Mennonite Church.

Friday

After the administrative committee met on Friday morning and afternoon to grease the wheels for the larger coordinating committee meetings, Friday night was devoted to introductions, a viewing of a video on corrupt and insufficiently-monitored government spending on the Afghanistan War, and reports from local groups about how their Tax Day actions went and what they’ve been up to.

Clare Hanrahan shared some stories from the tour she and Coleman Smith have been conducting through Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina to meet with peace & justice activists in that area, forge alliances between them, and learn about the state of the regional movement. They’ve been blogging their adventures on the War Resisters League Asheville site.

Lots of people reported that their tax day protests had been upstaged by the Tea Party demonstrations this year, though a few groups took the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach and partied along with the rest of them.

One person noted that with more people e-filing their tax returns, the phenomenon of the last-minute post office rush has diminished, and there’s less media attention and less of an audience for leafletting and such.

Ruth Benn reported on how in New York they held a viewing of tax resistance related excerpts from Boston Legal and Stranger Than Fiction as a discussion-prompter.

Robert Randall reported that an attempt to focus messaging around the single issue of opposition to the Iraq War had seemed promising at first, as the war became more unpopular even in his red state of Georgia, but that it hadn’t seemed to lead to any noticeable uptick in interest in war tax resistance or in new resisters.

Many people noted the increasing challenge of developing interest in our message in a time when the anti-war movement is suffering from a post-election tranquilization.

Ray Gingerich reflected on the difficulty he is having in trying to reinvigorate the war tax resistance tradition in the Mennonite church. On tax day, he sends his letter of protest to his church. He also recalled for us that their local war tax resistance group used to be much more active and at one time they had a mutual aid fund that they used to defray the costs of penalties, interest, and frivolous filing fines incurred by individual members.

Saturday morning

After breakfast Saturday morning, we discussed what we thought of a rough cut of an upcoming war tax resistance film project, and talked about what we thought would be the best use of the available footage.

Then Bill Ramsey gave us an update on the War Tax Boycott project, and we discussed options for modifying the campaign going forward. Here are some of the comments from my notes (these are all paraphrased and on-the-fly, so may not represent what these folks actually said or meant to say):

David Waters

I love the palm cards.

Pam Allee

It would be good to keep the campaign going on a low simmer during the sleepy times so that we would be ready to jump in with a flashier campaign when the moment is right.

Bill Ramsey

I recommend a scaled-down campaign in which we keep the website updated but reduce the budget.

Robert Randall

How can we hold on to the new resisters whom we learn about for the first time when they sign up for the boycott?

Ray Gingerich

I’m confused as to whether the boycott is meant only for first-timers or if it’s for everyone; to me it seemed gimmicky and not particularly appealing.

Susan Balzer

Some people might not want to sign on to the boycott because they don’t want to be “on a list” and they might be more comfortable if there’s a way to remain anonymous.

Jim Stockwell

I think maybe “boycott” is a threatening or discouraging word to some people.

Clare Hanrahan

The hard copy boycott sign-on sheets weren’t at all popular when we were tabling.

Daniel Woodham

We should make the palm cards less likely to go stale by removing the year and references to specific wars/issues.

Geov Parrish

The value of the campaign is mainly as a vehicle for publicizing war tax resistance as an option, not so much in getting people to sign on.

Erica Weiland

I wonder if by framing the campaign as a one-year thing we prompt people to make their resistance temporary.

Clare Hanrahan

I do low-income resistance and I redirect unwaged labor, not money. I think the war tax resistance movement should honor that and recognize that option for boycott participants (not assume everyone has a dollar amount to redirect).

Tim Godshall (and others)

We need to have better follow-up with the people who sign on — by phone is better than by email.

Robert Randall

Maybe we could parcel out some of the following-up to people in our network list.

Next came a discussion of our finances and a report from the fundraising committee, and then we broke for lunch.

Saturday afternoon

First thing on Saturday afternoon we had a panel presentation and group discussion about the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act and about NWTRCC’s relationship with the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. This was the most contentious item on the agenda, and I’m going to leave you all in suspense about it by writing it up in a future blog post all its own rather than putting it here.

After this, we broke up into smaller group sessions. In mine, a group of maybe twenty resisters just shared some of their recent experiences with resistance and with the IRS. Sharing our war stories like this is one of the best parts of these meetings, and is also a great way of keeping our fingers on the pulse of how IRS enforcement trends are changing.

I didn’t take notes during that session since it seemed to be a more-intimate sharing of personal information than the general meeting. I did write down one quote though that was too good to miss, from Clare Hanrahan: “I used to say that they could boil me in oil before I’d pay any war taxes, but now that I know that they could actually do that…”

One idea I came away with was that it would be nice to have some tips from war tax resistance veterans about how to deal with “mixed marriages” in which one partner is a resister and the other one is not. There are some tricky questions, especially when finances get tangled up together. I’m hoping, next time I have some free time, to put some time into collecting some of these stories and tips.

The next full-group session was about “organizing strategies and outreach ideas in the Obama era.” I didn’t take notes here either as I was facilitating and had to devote all of my attention to that. What I mostly recall from the discussion is that people were less interested in talking about strategies, techniques, and outreach ideas and more interested in talking about what sort of messaging we should and shouldn’t use.

Before dinner was another set of small-group breakout sessions. I joined the web team, discussing the nitty-gritty of web site maintenance and design, none of which is really worth relating here.

Sunday

Sunday was our business meeting, in which decisions that require consensus approval of the coordinating committee are made, folks are rotated onto and off of the administrative committee (Erica Weiland is joining us this time), we review the budget and priorities and how the coordinator is doing, check in on the progress of ongoing projects, and plan for the next gathering.

The first half of the meeting was largely taken up by Peace Tax Fund-related discussion, which I’m holding off reporting on until a future post. For the second half, I was the facilitator and so took no notes. So you’ll just have to wait until Ruth Benn posts her meeting minutes for a full picture of what took place.

The most contentious item on the agenda at the NWTRCC Spring national gathering was our organization’s relationship with the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act and with the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, a long-time affiliate of NWTRCC, which promotes the act.

This issue had come up at our last meeting in Eugene because the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund had asked us to formally endorse this legislation. We were unable to reach consensus on the endorsement at that meeting and didn’t allot enough time to really discuss the matter in detail, so we planned to readdress the issue and devote more time to discussion this time around.

One of the arguments in favor of us endorsing the bill was that in the NWTRCC “Statement of Purpose” is a section that many people interpreted as a built-in endorsement of the bill. That section reads:

NWTRCC’s goal is to maintain and build a national movement of conscientious objectors to military taxes by supporting, coordinating and publicizing the WTR actions of groups and individuals. These actions include: war tax resistance, protest, and refusal; the redirection of military taxes to meet human needs; support of the US Peace Tax Fund Bill; and adjustment of lifestyle to avoid tax liability.

I’ve heard many perspectives about whether this section endorses the bill or merely indicates that support for it is one of many war tax resistance related activities that our affiliate groups engage in. But in any case, the “US Peace Tax Fund Bill” doesn’t exist as an active piece of legislation anymore. The currently-proposed legislation is substantially different in content and has a new name. So this time around, in addition to debating the endorsement question, we were also trying to come up with a satisfactory way to remove or replace the anachronistic language from our statement of purpose.

On Saturday, we had a panel presentation on the bill followed by an open discussion. Bethany Criss, the executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, presented the case for why we should endorse. Ray Gingerich and I each gave statements opposing the endorsement. Ruth Benn shared some of her insights from being exposed to the variety of international peace tax fund campaigns (some of which are promoting legislation that differs in important ways from the U.S. bill) and also recounted some of the history of the close working relationship of NWTRCC and NCPTF. After these brief remarks from the panel, other attendees addressed the issue.

The following summary is based on notes I was taking at the time, so is only as good as my attention and note-taking were — caveat emptor:

Bethany Criss started out by noting the similarity between legalized conscientious objection to military service and conscientious objection to military taxation. She also tried to assuage concerns that the “Religious Freedom” part of the bill’s title meant that the provisions of the bill would not be available to non-religious objectors. She said that she felt confident that Congress would not raid the peace tax fund to pay for military expenses because the RFPTFA would represent a contract between us and Congress and that we could hold them accountable if they were to violate it. She acknowledged that the bill was imperfect and would not accomplish as much as many people would like, but hoped that we would see it as an initial step in an incremental process.

I went next. Here’s more-or-less the argument I gave against endorsement:

War Tax Resisters and Peace Tax Fund advocates agree that the belligerent militarism of the United States is a grave problem, that individuals must act to oppose it, and that our tax dollars are an important way in which we can move from complicity to opposition. Because of this, we’re natural allies and have much in common.

The RFPTFA currently being pushed by the NCPTF has some significant problems. So much so that although our groups have much in common in our outlook and our interests, I think it would be a mistake for NWTRCC to endorse the RFPTFA. Indeed, the problems with the bill are so significant that if the bill ever looked as though it might pass, we would be wiser to actively oppose the bill than to endorse it.

The main problems with the bill are two: 1) it’s no good, and 2) it’s bad. That is, not only would it not deliver any meaningful benefits, but it would have harmful effects that would be damaging to the war tax resistance movement and dangerous to individual war tax resisters.

The reason why I say the bill is no good is this. If the bill passes, it would give Congress more taxpayer money to spend and would allow Congress to spend as much money as it likes on war and armaments. Every dollar paid into the “Peace Tax Fund” would increase taxpayer spending on the military.

This sounds like exactly the opposite of what the NCPTF intends, which may be true. But sometimes good intentions lead to counterproductive laws and policies. If you read the NCPTF literature, you’ll see that they admit that the bill would increase government revenue without decreasing how much Congress could spend on war:

First, they admit that if the bill were to pass “The government would receive more revenue from increased participation in the payment of income taxes and would spend less on the cost of forced collections.” They also say, of those who pay into the PTF, “nor will their participation in the Peace Tax Fund directly decrease the amount of money spent on war [as] this would violate the Constitutionally given powers of Congress to determine spending priorities.”

So Congress would have more taxpayer money than before and could spend as much as it wants on war. Why on earth would we want this? Well, we’re supposed to want this because at least our money wouldn’t be spent on war. But this is just an illusion.

The basic problem has to do with displacement. If you pay into the Peace Tax Fund and Congress can only spend “your” money on something nice like the National Park Service, Congress can just take some other money that it had been planning to spend on the Park Service and divert it to the Pentagon. So Congress spends just like it always has, with a little more taxpayer money than it would have had otherwise, but the people who pay into the Peace Tax Fund falsely believe that they aren’t responsible for the results of that increased spending.

It would be as though I were to pour a cup of sand into a mug full of hot coffee and then claim that I wasn’t responsible for the spillover since my sand sank to the bottom of the mug and it was only someone else’s coffee that spilled over the top.

So that’s why the RFPTFA isn’t any good. Now here’s why it’s bad.

First: it constructs an illusion through which people can be induced to pay for war and militarism while believing that they are not. The war tax resistance movement should be working hard to tear down illusions like this, not build up new ones.

Second: it would divide the war tax resistance movement between those people who maintain their testimony against paying for war and those who take advantage of the false moral cover of the RFPTFA. This would also give the IRS fewer targets to pursue, and make the remaining war tax resisters more likely to be targeted by enforcement actions. If the war tax resistance movement ever does become a powerful force for social change, you can bet that the government will consider passing such a bill — not as a concession to our movement but as a divide-and-conquer technique against it.

Third: it would give a persuasive rhetorical tool to people who oppose war tax resisters. They would say that war tax resisters should just pay into the Peace Tax Fund like good, law-abiding, conscientious people. Imagine what the IRS would say to resisters: “We gave you the ‘Peace Tax Fund’ you wanted — now you’ve got no more excuses not to pay up.”

Those three things are harmful effects the bill would have if it ever became law. I don’t think this is likely, but there’s a fourth reason not to endorse the bill that doesn’t depend on whether or not it is successful in becoming law: advocacy of such a bill sends the message that the war tax resistance movement is naïve and that our conscientious scruples are superficial. It tells people that war tax resisters:

• are not particularly conscientious at all, but can be easily bought-off by symbolic concessions and simple sleight-of-hand
• are conscientious enough to check a box on a form, but not conscientious enough to follow through on the ramifications of our actions
• are willing enough to fund war if you can give us a way to deny that we’re doing it
• would rather have a certificate from the government recognizing our officially certified conscientiousness than to actually be conscientious

These flaws have been pointed out before, and frequently PTF promoters have responded with an argument along these lines: Sure the RFPTFA won’t reduce military spending and it has at best an ambiguous effect on taxpayer complicity, but it has strong symbolic power: it’s a way to get conscientious objection to military taxation officially recognized, to get a foot in the door, to be able to take a census of conscientious objectors every April 15^th, to propagandize for peace with every 1040 booklet, and so forth.

These benefits are not very convincing to me, for a number of reasons, but even if you were to acknowledge them — are they sufficient to justify putting any more energy into a 38-year-old campaign that has gone nowhere at all, currently in support of a piece of legislation that, even as watered down as it is, hasn’t had as much as a committee hearing in over a decade?

I feel strongly about this, and I have not pulled my punches. Some of you may think I’m being uncharitable and unfair. I’ll end on this note: I think the advocates of the RFPTFA have their hearts in the right place. They are temperamentally our allies and I hope they continue to think of themselves that way. I think that to the extent that we agree, we should continue to work closely and warmly together, and to the extent that we disagree we can agree to disagree.

After me, Ray Gingerich spoke, giving what I interpreted as a Thoreauvian argument against the peace tax fund idea: we shouldn’t wait to act conscientiously until the government gives us its permission to do so. In addition, he feels from his work in trying to reintroduce war tax resistance into the Mennonite churches that the peace tax fund is an obstacle to this — it creates an excuse that people use: they say they’ll resist taxes but only when there’s a peace tax fund that allows them to do it legally.

After these prepared remarks from the panel, and Ruth’s discussion which I mentioned above, we heard from the other attendees.

Before Eugene, I thought of myself as a real outlier in my skepticism about the peace tax fund bill. Most of what I heard about the bill in war tax resistance circles was positive, and the way people spoke about it made it seem like NWTRCC enthusiasm for the peace tax fund was a foregone conclusion if not a tautological one. In Eugene I was pleasantly surprised to see that a few other people shared my misgivings about the bill, though I still felt like we were the minority. In Harrisonburg last Saturday, though, it was clear that the tide had shifted dramatically. Even with the executive director of the NCPTF there to pitch the bill, most people had little praise for it, and even the ones who were peace tax fund supporters in the abstract expressed that we probably shouldn’t endorse this version.

Gary Erb noted that most of those present probably wouldn’t qualify as conscientious objectors under the bill’s restrictive language, and so wouldn’t be able to legally avail themselves of the RFPTFA even if they cared to. He also felt the bill would have a divide-and-conquer effect against the WTR movement, and recommended against endorsement.

Geov Parrish felt that the RFPTFA hadn’t a chance of becoming law, so it should be best seen as an educational vehicle. That being the case, it was a poor idea to have watered it down so much in an attempt to make it palatable enough to pass through Congress. Also, he noted that he feels excluded from the RFPTFA and its promotional materials because he is not a Christian.

Joffre Stewart said that as an anarchist resister, begging the state for exemptions and favors isn’t his style. He thinks that conscientious objection to military service was mostly enacted for the state’s benefit, not for the benefit of the COs, and he thinks the same would be true of legalized conscientious objection to military taxation. From this, he draws the conclusion that the reason we don’t have legal conscientious objection to military taxation is that war tax resisters have not yet become sufficiently inconvenient to the government.

Daniel Woodham thought that though the RFPTFA wasn’t perfect, it might make for a good first step, and once it was enacted we could work to amend it or correct its faults over time.

Bethany Criss said that in her view the “laundry list” of items in the section (§3b) of the bill that defines spending that falls under the “military purpose” category shouldn’t be seen as excluding other spending from that category, but only as examples of spending that fall under that category. In her view, once the bill passes, a next step will be to ensure that the “military purpose” definition is interpreted inclusively so that it covers all the stuff we’re worried about.

Greg Reagle gave us some perspective on the reasoning behind watering down the bill to permit Congress to spend the money in the RFPTF on anything in the budget other than things in the military purpose category (previous incarnations of the bill had specified more precisely where that money would go). He said that potential supporters in Congress had balked at having their spending decisions micromanaged by legislation, and so the changes had been made to mollify them.

Erica Weiland wanted to emphasize the positive working relationship between NWTRCC and NCPTF, though she too was opposed to endorsing the bill. As an anarchist she doesn’t much favor trying to solve problems via legislation, but as an activist she tries to inspire well-intentioned people to be more active in ways that seem most appropriate to them, so she wants to encourage PTF promoters to keep doing their thing.

Robert Randall said he was impressed at the high plane on which the discussion was taking place. He thought that the results of passing the RFPTFA might not be all that important, but that there might be some benefits to be had from the campaign to pass the bill anyway.

Pam Allee felt that the bill would help to emphasize that “we are the government” and so we can take control of the budget and change spending priorities so as to emphasize things like education, seat belt law enforcement, and other liberal priorities. She was concerned that the RFPTFA seemed to lack grassroots support.

Larry Bassett paused to wonder whether it was really appropriate to the mission of a group like NWTRCC to be endorsing legislation or the individual projects of the affiliate groups.

Jim Stockwell felt that there might be a contradiction in that for many WTRs, the fact that tax resistance is illegal civil disobedience is an essential part of their WTR, and so legal conscientious objection would not be helpful to them. He hoped our two groups would continue to work together.

Hiro (whose last name I didn’t catch, and whose first name I may be misspelling) encouraged us to patiently work at incremental approaches and not reject RFPTFA just because it wasn’t everything we wanted. That said, she also worried that the government would spend the “peace” tax fund on things based on its warped definition of peacemaking work. She envisioned Blackwater contractors doing their institution-building mopping-up exercises in Iraq (where she is from) and calling it “peacemaking” activities deserving of RFPTFA funding.

Tim Godshall tried to give us some perspective, noting that WTRs are one of the best arguments for the PTF (that is, the existence of WTRs demonstrates that many citizens have a strong conscientious objection that their government needs to accommodate), and also that although the RFPTFA might not have any effect on the military budget, the same could be said of WTRs. He believes that the RFPTFA is one part of a larger campaign to pressure the government to change its spending priorities.

Peter Smith disagreed with the suggestion that if the RFPTFA were to pass it would divide the WTR movement. He agreed that we should not endorse the legislation, but hoped we would continue to support the PTF campaigners.

Ray Gingerich responded to a comment from Joffre Stewart by insisting that he was not an anarchist and indeed believed that a strong, active government (for example, one capable of implementing single-payer universal health care) was not incompatible with pacifism. He plugged nonviolent conflict resolution strategies of the The Unconquerable World / A Force More Powerful school. He also suggested that Marian Franz (the long-time National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund executive director) had been used by people and institutions who wanted to delay their confrontation with taxpayer complicity by putting it off until some distant future in which conscientious objection to military taxation was a legalized option.

Joffre Stewart noted that the U.S. government had no qualms about raiding the Social Security “trust fund” to pay for its military spending, and that it had stacked its “U.S. Institute of Peace” with CIA folk committed to the government’s violent foreign policy. He therefore sees no reason to trust the government to administer a “peace tax fund.”

Bethany Criss told us that not only is she committed to seeing the RFPTFA enacted into law, but that she is also a war tax resister and has been since 2001. She said that although there is an associated “Peace Tax Foundation” with an educational mission, there should be no doubt that the Campaign’s goal is to get the legislation passed into law. She thinks that the bill will be beneficial to war tax resisters and the war tax resistance movement by making WTR more visible. She says that if the bill were enacted, it would not take away the opportunity to resist or say no; that resisters could continue to resist as before if they wished. The goal is to bring more people in to a war tax resistance mindset. She notes that part of the reason the bill was watered down is that their campaign doesn’t yet have enough supporters to bring enough pressure to bear on the legislators; this is another reason why she’d like our support.

Finally, Bill Ramsey felt that we might be better off not concentrating on the (unlikely) endorsement and instead trying to work on ways the two groups can work better together.

Saturday was an open-ended discussion without any decisions to be made on either the endorsement or the statement of purpose wording; on Sunday, our “business meeting,” we addressed those decisions.

A number of people who could not come to the meeting sent along their opinions about the RFPTFA, and printouts of these were made available to attendees of the business meeting before we took up the issue. These were on the whole much more positive about the Act and more in favor of endorsement than the attendees had been, with one person recommending endorsement, another recommending “NWTRCC continuing its endorsement” of the bill (though we had a hard time determining which if any version of the bill our group had originally endorsed), and another conveying the results of a discussion about the issue held by Sonoma County Taxes for Peace which led to that group deciding to strongly support NWTRCC endorsing the bill.

Predictably, we did not reach consensus at the business meeting on Sunday to endorse the RFPTFA. I counted about a half-dozen people in favor of endorsement, maybe half again as many against it. Unfortunately, although a non-endorsement was pretty clearly the inevitable conclusion, it took a while to get there, and we weren’t able to devote as much time as we needed to the stickier question of the Statement of Purpose and its anachronistic reference to the “US Peace Tax Fund Bill.”

The upshot of that discussion was that there were two replacement phrases with a large amount of support:

• “…support of peace tax fund legislation…”
• “…support of legislation that would legalize conscientious objection to military taxation…”

While there was broad support for both, neither was able to rally a consensus around it. My proposal to simply scrap the old anachronistic wording for now and perhaps come up with a replacement at a later date also failed to attract consensus support — with many people feeling that by rejecting the endorsement and also eliminating mention of the PTF from our Statement of Purpose it would look too much like we’d conducted a wholesale purge of PTF sympathy from the group.

So when it came down to it, the Statement of Purpose ended up the same way it began in this area: it continues to pledge our support for supporters of the long-gone “US Peace Tax Fund Bill.” This is a little ridiculous, but seems mostly harmless.

This is the thirty-fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we enter the late 1980s.

The 25 February 1988 edition again announced the “Taxes for Peace” fund that had been established by the MCC Peace Section (U.S.) to coordinate war tax redirection.

In 1988 the fund would be redirecting taxes to “the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund… [which] seeks to enact the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill… to give those conscientiously opposed to war a way to pay 100 percent of their taxes, with the military percentage going to a separate fund for peace-enhancing programs.”

In 1987 about $4,000 was contributed to the U.S. Peace Section Taxes for Peace fund. Those monies helped support the Lancaster County Peacework Alternatives project. In other years peace-related projects in places such as Laos and Guatemala have received funds.

MCC U.S. Peace Section is also offering an information packet on military tax opposition that contains varying theological positions on the war tax issue, and materials about tax laws and legal concerns for the tax resister.

The 8 March 1988 issue brought this news:

The General Board of Friends United Meeting has adopted a policy of not withholding the federal withholding tax of employees who are conscientious objectors to paying taxes used for military purposes. The General Conference Mennonite Church adopted a similar policy in 1983. On the current staff, said general secretary Steven Main, are three conscientious objectors to paying war taxes. The policy requires employees who want to participate in the witness of military tax refusal to first go through a “clearness process” with their Meeting or church community.

That issue also reprinted excerpts from the letter Ethel S. and Henry A. Fast sent to the IRS:

I was a conscientious objector to war in World War Ⅰ. So I reported this to the military camp office, informing them I could not participate in regular military training. I asked them to assign me to service in a base hospital designed for overseas patients. They respected my claim of conscience and gave me an opportunity to serve face and stomach victims of war. Later… they handed me an “honorable discharge” card. I still have this card.

Can you now extend to me, as a person of 92 years, and to my spouse, the same sensitive respect for our claims of conscience? We love our country and we respect our government. And we do not hesitate to pay taxes for orderly affairs and services of government.

But we have become deeply troubled over the vastly disproportionate part of our federal income tax being allocated to the building up of a military force and arsenal. This is entirely out of proportion to the huge debt and the staggering needs among the poor, the sick, the aged and the unemployed.

Our conscience can no longer endure this. So we have decided to withhold 37 percent of this year’s (1986) federal income tax liability (namely, the 37 percent used in the present military build-up program). We want to send this as a donation to the Commission on Home Ministries… [which reaches out] to the poor, the unemployed, the underprivileged and the many people hurt and adrift by wars…

In World War Ⅰ the government recognized my concern of conscience. Can you grant us this kind of courtesy for our older years?

The 12 April 1988 edition noted:

Six Mennonite pastors who have refused to pay some or all of their military taxes were interviewed in the November 1987 issue of ACTS (Another Church Tries Something), published by the Commission on Home Ministries. Donald Kaufman of Bethel College Church, North Newton, Kan., John Gaeddert of First Church, Halstead, Kan., S. Roy Kaufman of Science Ridge Church, Sterling, Ill., Ronald Krehbiel of Salem Church, Freeman, S.D., Mark Weidner of First Church, Bluffton, Ohio, and Dorothy Nickel Friesen of Manhattan (Kan.) Fellowship told of how they decided to resist war taxes, how they involved church members in the decision and how their action has affected others.

The New Call to Peacemaking initiative and the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns sponsored a gathering of leaders from the traditional peace churches in February 1988 to discuss what to do about the dilemma of such churches withholding taxes for the government from the salaries of their employees who wanted to resist paying war taxes. Paul Schrag wrote up an article on the meeting that was reprinted in the 24 May 1988 edition of The Mennonite. Excerpts:

The question of how church organizations can help their employees follow their consciences — and how to deal with the risks involved for both employees and employers — were the issues that the 36 Mennonites, Brethren and Quakers struggled with.

The church leaders, organizational representatives and lawyers affirmed their support for individual military tax resisters and for efforts to seek a legislative solution by working toward passage of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund bill in Congress.

They agreed to organize a peace church leadership group to go to Washington sometime in the future to support the peace tax bill and to express concerns about tax withholding. They also agreed to help each other by filing friend-of-the-court briefs if tax resisters are prosecuted and by sharing the cost of tax resistance penalties.

“You may think the world will little note nor long remember what has happened here,” said Marian Franz, director of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund. “But I regard it as a historic meeting.

“The decision to end the human race does not belong to Caesar. Therefore, tax dollars that wrestle that decision out of the hands of God do not either.”

Participants in the meeting included both military tax resisters and people who would not engage in tax resistance themselves but support those who do.

People from churches that have policies of breaking the law by not withholding the federal taxes of employees who oppose paying military taxes shared their experiences with people from churches considering adopting such a policy. The General Conference Mennonite Church and two Quaker groups are in the first category. The Mennonite Church is in the second.

MC leaders, including moderator James Lapp and moderator-elect George Brunk Ⅲ, came to the meeting to explore church policy options on military tax withholding. MC general assembly delegates asked the church last July to develop a policy recommendation on the issue for consideration at Normal ’89.

“This roots us in a larger movement,” Lapp said of the meeting. “It gives us ideas and handles about how other people have addressed it. We don’t have to start from ground zero.”

The MC General Board plans to formulate questions about tax withholding for congregations to discuss. It will prepare a recommendation next year based on congregations’ responses.

Robert Hull, GC secretary for peace and justice, said it was frustrating that many members of historic peace churches are not willing to witness against financial participation in preparing for war, although they are opposed to physical participation in war.

Some said it was disappointing that so many people are unwilling to follow their consciences until the government, through the Peace Tax Fund, might allow them to do so legally.

One quoted Gandhi: “We have stooped so low that we fancy it our duty to do whatever the law requires.”

“Do we want our righteousness without a price?” asked Ray Gingerich, a professor at Eastern Mennonite College, Harrisonburg, Va.

When a church or organization decides to honor employees’ requests not to withhold their federal income tax, it assumes serious risks. Any “responsible person” who willfully fails to withhold an employee’s taxes theoretically could be punished with a prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. An organization could be fined $500,000.

But such penalties have never been imposed on legitimate religious organizations, nor are they likely to be, said two lawyers at the meeting. The usual Internal Revenue Service response to war tax resistance is to take the amount of tax owed, plus a 5 percent penalty and interest, from the employee’s bank account.

The IRS has not taken even this action against the four GC employees who are not having their taxes withheld. All GC personnel who could be subject to penalties have agreed to accept the risk.

The Friends World Committee for Consultation, which has had a non-withholding policy since 1982, has had tax money seized, plus interest and penalties, from its resisters’ bank accounts. The Friends United Meeting adopted a non-withholding policy last October. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends will decide in March whether it should have such a policy.

Charles Boyer of the Church of the Brethren said he would use the input from the meeting to work toward helping develop a denominational policy on tax resistance.

An even more basic issue than war tax resistance arose concerning tax-withholding laws. Some compared the church’s tax-collecting role to that of the biblical publicans.

“I have a growing dis-ease that the church is a tax collector for the government, regardless of what the money is used for,” said Vern Preheim, GC general secretary.

Participants made suggestions for improvements on a draft of “A Manual on Military Tax Withholding for Religious Employers,” written by Hull, Linda Coffin of the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns and lawyers Peter Goldberger and J.E. McNeil, who both gave legal advice at the meeting. The manual is expected to be available later this year.

That book’s availability would be announced in the 22 November edition.

Another concern I have with promotion of the Peace Tax Fund law is that in order to tempt legislators to support it, there is a tendency to defang war tax objection and make it less threatening to the government. Take for example this description of Marian Franz’s testimony before a House committee reviewing the tax code: “Franz said that the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill would alleviate a persistent burden on the IRS and permit these citizens [conscientious objectors] to pay their full share of tax without violation of religious conscience.” All we want to do is pay our taxes and not cause any trouble for the IRS — is that really the best way to speak truth to power and challenge militarism?

The 27 September 1988 edition brought this news:

The Internal Revenue Service filed two suits against a Quaker group in Pennsylvania because the organization refused to attach the wages of two employees who have withheld part of their income taxes as a conscientious protest against military spending, Religious News Service reported. The lawsuits against the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends seek $16,836 in connection with federal taxes not paid by William V. Grassie and David A. Falls. The Quakers sent a letter to the IRS saying neither Grassie nor Falls is “a tax evader but a conscientious taxpayer who is conscientiously refusing payment of the military portion of his taxes.”

This is the forty-sixth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we find ourselves in our own decade.

A profile of Martha F. Graber in the February 2011 edition mentioned her family’s tax resistance:

Her father [Gerhard Friesen], she said, “was ahead of his time” in advocating war tax resistance and speaking out at Mennonite conferences against profiteering from the war economy. “His conscience would not let him support the military.”

She said her father would have approved the 1983 action by the General Conference Mennonite Church to honor employee Cornelia Lehn’s request to not have her income taxes withheld from her paychecks.

The Friesens practiced war tax resistance by living simply, giving generously and usually not earning enough to owe income taxes.

Although as a youth she was embarrassed by her father’s outspokenness to audiences unreceptive to his message, Martha embraced her parents’ convictions about Christian discipleship and peacemaking and taught them to her children. She files tax returns but usually has a zero taxable income due to living simply and giving 50 percent of her income to charity. She has also advocated for the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund legislation.

Daniel Riehl, in a letter to the editor printed in the July 2011 edition, invited readers to visit a website where they could learn how much they were contributing to war by entering their taxable income:

If one adds up the taxable income of every Mennonite in the land, how much is the Mennonite church contributing to destroying other countries for the benefit of our corporations? Is this really what we want to do with our wealth, the wealth of “Die Stille im Lande,” the capital of Anabaptists, the sweat of the brow of the meek and the nonviolent peacemakers?

In an interview with Hedwig Maria (Hedy) Sawadsky, published in the March 2012 edition, she reflected on her turn to war tax resistance:

[M]y mind and heart increasingly made connections with the inherent contradiction of praying for peace and paying for war via “war taxes.” How could I, a follower of the Prince of Peace, justify paying for militarism and the building of weapons with my tax dollars? Indeed, these weapons might be used to harm or even kill my friends in the Middle East and people in other places. Increasingly my conscience was bolstered by biblical convictions.

I struggled with others who were also trying to find clarity on this issue. Later I worked in a Mennonite church in Pennsylvania where my role included teaching the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) to ecumenical women’s groups and to young people.

Thus, while living in the state of the Quaker William Penn and delving deeper into the Scriptures as well as the 16^th-century Anabaptist witness, the path became clearer. For me the way to go was to live below the war-taxable level.

After considerable discernment, the church’s education committee proposed to the church leadership that I would continue in my position but would be paid as a person in Mennonite Voluntary Service so as to keep my salary under the taxable level. There was some resistance by the church leadership to my becoming a voluntary service worker. Even though there was strong verbal affirmation for our Anabaptist peace position, it was not acceptable to church leadership for me to take this stance and commit to living more simply while still holding the same position.

My resignation meant that I had six months before my two-year contract was up. I continued wrestling with the question, How can we Mennonites continue being the quiet in the land when the world is full of violence?

The April 2012 edition carried a brief article about the Everence Sharing Fund, which distributed nearly a million dollars in financial assistance to thousands of needy families the previous year. It noted that the fund grew out of the Everence Federal Credit Union, from which, “[b]ecause of the organization’s unique tax status, money that would be paid in federal taxes is instead distributed through mutual aid programs like the Sharing Fund.”

Mennonite World Conference asked a question of Mennonite Church U.S.A. (the U.S. branch of the successor of the merged Mennonite Church and the Mennonite General Conference): “How are we doing as a peace church?” In the July 2012 edition, André Gingerich Stoner (“director of holistic witness for Mennonite Church U.S.A.”) wrote up an answer (“after taking counsel from area conference leaders and testing [his] response with a wider circle of pastors, teachers, denominational leaders, and practitioners and others”). Here’s the part that touched on taxpaying:

For some of our congregations and members, “peace” is still primarily a matter of not going to war. In a time when there is no draft, engagement in peace witness wanes.

Our tax monies are conscripted, and each year our church members pay for cruise missiles, smart bombs, and unmanned drones — with barely the slightest tinge of conscience, let alone a whimper of protest.

The June 2014 edition broke a long fast of significant war tax resistance content by profiling “fourteen individuals from one Mennonite congregation [who] are consciously redirecting their war taxes.” (Excerpts from an article compiled by Carolyn Yoder:)

April 15 is tax day in the United States. But while most people pay their taxes by that date, a group of us at Community Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va., take a different route. Concerned with the high percentage of our federal tax money that goes to the military while we pray for peace, we witness to our Christian faith through how we deal with this dilemma. This often includes redirecting a portion of our military taxes to life-giving causes.

We are not against paying taxes. In fact, some of us would willingly pay higher taxes if they supported education, health, infrastructure, sustainable and clean energy sources, bike paths, or efforts to learn nonviolent ways to address complex domestic and international conflicts. That’s why we prefer a term other than “tax resistance” to describe what we do.

And we don’t think we have necessarily figured out the best way to exercise our constitutional freedom to live by our conscience when it comes to taxes. We’re ordinary people on a journey. We offer here a summary of what we do in the hope that it will encourage others who take similar actions to share their experiences in their congregations and communities. We also hope it will inspire more people to consider this type of witness.

Nathan and Elaine Zook Barge, restorative justice specialist and STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience) director.

How long have you engaged in an act witness through your taxes?

Over 30 years

Why do you do it?

Living and working in a Catholic and Mennonite community in Colorado Springs, Colo., in the early 1980s, we became aware of the dissonance between saying we were conscientious objectors to war while paying for war. Our commitment deepened during the 14 years we worked in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Many friends or their family members had been killed or wounded by U.S. weapons, and many people suffered hunger, homelessness and illness because money was used for weapons rather than for food, health and education.

Ironically, it was on tax day, April 15, 1985, that we experienced too closely the fear and trauma of war. Along with the Salvadorans on the bus, we prayed for safety as guns from 10 U.S. helicopters strafed the area around us. That day, we became tax resisters for life.

How do you do it?

It’s a journey, finding the way that works for our stage of life. Early on, we withheld 50 percent of our taxable income and redirected it to MCC. Then for many years, we lived below the taxable level, first as a couple and then as a family of four. The past number of years, we have withheld a symbolic 10 cents for every $1 billion in the U.S. military budget and redirected that money for life-giving efforts rather than war. We also reduce our taxable income through charitable donations and deductions.

David Jost, ESL Instructor

How long have you lived under the taxable level?

One year

How do you do it?

By making a small reduction in my pay-check to ensure that I owe no federal income tax.

Why do you do it?

Because I want to avoid financially supporting the U.S. military any way I can, and I believe that church institutions (such as Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, to which I contribute by reducing my paycheck) are better stewards of my money than the government.

Ray and Wilma Gingerich, retired peace and justice professor and retired hospice nurse

How long have you redirected a portion of your taxes?

Since 1976

Why do you do it?

We are Mennonites (inheritors of a nonviolent way of life); we are followers of Jesus, who taught us to practice love toward our enemies. This is the explanation we give to the IRS. But our primary reason to resist the payment of military taxes is to witness to our church, to our Mennonite brothers and sisters. We are simply seeking to live lives consistent to the faith we profess. If we, the church, all those who profess Jesus as Lord of our lives, lived more like Jesus, faithfully refusing to pay for war, our country would not go to war. (That is a political fact.) How can we pray for peace while paying for war? On a more personal level, we taught our children (our own sons) not to join the military. Our two youngest sons are nonregistrants. How inconsistent then it would be for us as parents to pay others to prepare for war and to practice violence on our behalf!

How do you do it?

We withhold payment of the military portion of our federal income tax (approximately 47 percent) and send that amount to life-giving organizations (e.g., our local congregation’s compassion fund, Christian Peacemaker Teams and the National War Tax Resisters Coordinating Committee). A letter of explanation is sent to the director of IRS and included with our annual IRS report. Most importantly, copies of our letter to the IRS are sent to key Mennonite Church USA leaders and heads of organizations. With these letters, a handwritten note is included — an encouragement to promote the witness against the payment of military taxes.

Sue Klassen and Johann Zimmermann, public health nurse and structural engineer

How long have you redirected a portion of your taxes?

We have always kept our earnings low, not only for a lifestyle choice but to pay as little tax for military as possible. About eight years ago, when we came back from overseas with MCC and had taxable earnings, we started deducting taxes directly for military reasons.

Why do you do it?

We do it in order to inform our elected officials of our stand for peace. We send a statement to the local paper each year, and it has brought us into conversation with many different people from many walks of life about pacifist beliefs and peace initiatives.

How do you do it?

During the year, we underestimate our tax payments. Then when we have to pay what is due at the end of the year, we withhold a symbolic amount of 10 cents for every $1 billion that is annually spent on military funding, which adds up to approximately $80.

Jennifer and Kent Davis Sensenig, lead pastor at Community Mennonite Church and EMU adjunct professor

How long have you redirected a portion of your taxes or minimized what you owe?

About 15 years

Why do you do it?

It is a small witness for peace, a part of our life of discipleship to Jesus Christ and a way of expressing that we seek a more just, peaceable and sustainable U.S. public policy. Kent’s parents lived in Vietnam for a decade during the U.S. military intervention into that civil war and saw firsthand the destructive consequences U.S. foreign policy can have.

How do you do it?

For some of the early years of our marriage we withheld a symbolic portion of our taxes (less than $100), which provided a reason to send letters to our Congressional representatives, the President, and the IRS, expressing our faith-based resistance to U.S. budgetary priorities vis-a-vis discretionary federal spending.

We’re not always consistent. Some years we have withheld the entire percentage of federal taxes for military expenditures, and some years we have withheld a symbolic portion. Some years we have filed under protest and written letters. For the last five years, we have managed to not owe any federal taxes (beyond Social Security) by maxing out a variety of legal tax-break options, such as charitable giving, IRA investments and mortgage-interest deductions. One of us also only has part-time paid employment, which keeps taxable income lower.

Dorothy Jean Weaver, seminary professor of New Testament

How long have you engaged in an act of witness through your taxes?

Thirty years or so

How do you do it?

I got this idea years ago from an MCC info sheet. I split my tax monies and write two checks: 55 percent to the U.S. Treasury and 45 percent to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I mail both checks to the IRS along with a letter, copied to my legislators, explaining why I am doing this. I also send a symbolic sum of $45 to MCC for their “taxes for peace” fund.

Why do you do it?

In the letter I say that as a follower of Jesus Christ I cannot in conscience pay the portion of my federal taxes that goes to military purposes. I note that I have no intention to avoid paying the money I owe to the federal government. I simply wish to designate that these funds go to a cause that is life-giving, not death-dealing. And I submit these checks as an expression of my freedom of religion, protected by the constitution, the freedom not to have to take an action that is contradictory to my Christian beliefs.

Anna and Ben Wyse, public health nurse and owner of Wyse Cycles, with their children Martha, Desmond, and Sam.

How long have you been living below the taxable income level?

Since we got married, 13 years ago — with the exception of one year when we accidentally made a little too much money.

Why do you do it?

Living below the taxable income level is at some level an act rooted in helping us sleep at night.

One component of American militarism has to do with protecting our consumptive lifestyles. The uneven distribution of wealth and uneven consumption of resources are one factor that drives conflict both in some localized conflicts and some international conflicts. As Americans, we cannot help but participate in and benefit from the violent structures that underpin our economy and society. By living under the taxable level, we at least are attempting to reckon with the dissonance we experience between what we believe and the broken world in which we all live.

We often feel like this is sort of a token act that will never really make a difference. We also know there are still numerous ways that we are complicit in the machinery of violence that our society relies on. Despite all that, this is one of the important choices we have made about how to express faithfulness and a longing for a different kind of world.

How do you do it?

By bringing home one income. When Anna had a job, Ben did a lot of volunteer work, and when he worked for folks he asked them to donate to various nonprofits in lieu of payment for services. Now Anna is a full-time stay-at-home parent, and we live on Ben’s income. We have to be careful with our budget, but we still live a far more abundant lifestyle than many of our neighbors in Harrisonburg and many of our global neighbors.

Rick and Carolyn Yoder, retired business and economics professor/semiretired international health systems consultant and psychotherapist

How long have you redirected a portion of your taxes?

Since we were married 38 years ago

Why do you do it?

Our work has taken us to many countries where we have seen both the positive and negative effects of our tax dollars. Carolyn’s work in psychosocial trauma healing often involves dealing with the fallout of violent conflict. We believe it’s a moral issue that nearly half our taxes go to military spending and that we spend more than the next highest 15 countries combined on the military while cutting domestic spending on programs such as health care, education, and the social safety net. Redirecting a portion of our taxes to life-giving causes helps reduce the gap between our stated values on peace and nonviolence and our actions.

The research on bystanders says that silence in the face of harm or wrongdoing emboldens harmdoers, leading them to assume others support and agree with them. Doing something, even something small, puts them on alert that someone has noticed and doesn’t agree. We’re not under the illusion that our letters and voice will change things, but it does change us. And knowing what we know, how can we be silent bystanders?

How do you do it?

We first take steps to ensure that we owe the IRS on April 15, rather than having a refund due us. Then we redirect a symbolic amount, a couple hundred dollars, from our federal income tax payments to the National Peace Tax Fund and MCC. We enclose a letter with our tax returns, stating what we are doing and why, with copies to the U.S. President, our legislators and our congregation. We also enclose a copy of the formal action taken by Community Mennonite Church to offer its support morally, financially and otherwise to its members.

A question many people have for those of us who redirect our taxes to life-giving causes is about the consequences from the IRS. Sue and John’s experience is typical: “We receive quarterly letters from the IRS each year, informing us that we owe them money. We respond to them with a letter restating our reasons. If in a given year we have prepaid too much tax, the money that we have withheld gets subtracted from our return. We do not really mind that this happens, because we find that we have already achieved the goal of bringing attention to our stance on military spending and war.”

Rick and Carolyn have had a lien placed on their bank account for the amount owed plus interest and a small penalty. They have also had the IRS get the amount due by electronically taking their state tax refund. Ray and Wilma have been audited numerous times, likely due to the high amount of deductions they have for contributions.

H.A. Penner applauded that article in a letter, putting in a word for the “$10.40 For Peace” project along the way. In a later letter (November 2014) he added:

Now, in the interest of peace, must we demand an arms embargo against all armed actors in Iraq and Syria, including the United States?

Paying for war is a form of participation in war…

But here alas, he decided to plug the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund instead of full-throated war tax resistance.

This is the twenty-fourth 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.

By 1983 war tax resistance had become commonplace enough that I frequently saw incidental mention of it in articles about other things. Here, I’ll stick to the mentions with more substance:

The 4 January 1983 issue included an article on World Peace Tax Fund legislation lobbying efforts. Apparently the Mennonite Central Committee’s U.S. Peace Section and D.C. office were both busy lobbying for the bill, and the “historic peace church taskforce on taxes” had hit on a lobbying method they called dunamis which was described as “approach[ing] Congresspersons in a spirit of compassion rather than confrontation.”

Forgive me; maybe I’ve been Mennonizing myself way too much lately and need to back off for a while, but all this reminded me of William S. Burroughs’s cynical description of weaponized Christian love (“Christ and the Museum of Extinct Species”, Conjunctions 1989):

Let love squirt out like a fire hose of molasses. Give him the kiss of life. Stick your tongue down his throat and taste what he has been eating and bless his digestion, ooze down into his intestines and help him along with his food. Let him know that you revere his rectum as part of an ineffable whole. Make him know that you stand in naked awe of his genitals as part of the Master Plan, life in all its rich variety.

Do not falter. Let your love enter in unto him and penetrate him with the Divine Lubricant, makes K-Y and lanolin feel like sandpaper. It’s the most mucilaginous, the slimiest, ooziest lubricant ever was or shall be, amen. It’s known as the Greasy Ghost, will love you all over and inside out.

The Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries met in March 1983:

James Thomas, Lancaster, Pa.; Brent Eash, Middlebury, Ind.; and Edgar Metzler were appointed as Mennonite Church representatives on the New Call to Peacemaking Task Force on Taxes. The board encouraged Edgar to propose ways to respond to current tax issues in the context of Bethlehem 83, especially concerns raised at Bowling Green 81. They also supported Edgar’s suggestions to promote special prayer for peace and ways for congregations to share peace concerns with neighboring churches.

And its board of directors met in June, and “endorsed a proposed statement on conscientious objection to military taxes” among other things:

The board endorsed the resolution proposed for consideration by the Bethlehem 83 General Assembly on “Conscientious Objection to Military Taxes.” Edgar Metzler and MBCM executive secretary Gordon Zook drafted the statement in consultation with the members of the Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy and members of the General Board.

Clair Hochstetler wrote about a Good Friday demonstration that included some creative war tax resistance activity, including some picturesque and media-savvy (if somewhat haphazard) redirection:

Money wasted on Good Friday

“We are here as tax day approaches to announce our resistance to taxes which are used for military purposes… We are here on Good Friday to commemorate the continuing crucifixion of Jesus Christ — he is crucified again whenever individuals or nations inflict violence on each other… We are here on April Fool’s Day as a reminder of the continuing foolishness of humanity — our leaders offer us the illusion of security if we build yet another weapons system… We are offering an alternative…”

Daryl Yoder-Bontrager, member of Community Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, Va., read a press statement to a group assembled in front of the Internal Revenue Service building in Staunton, Va. Approximately 30 “Christians for Peace” gathered for an unusual April Fool’s/Good Friday public witness.

A festive atmosphere prevailed as three clowns danced their way among the people and released five symbolic black helium-filled balloons. During the service, they sporadically snipped the ribbons of other balloons tied to the arms of the worshipers — lofting high into the bright sky, over $300 tied to about 75 multicolored balloons.

Each balloon carried a five or ten dollar bill along with a signed and addressed note from a participant who had withheld the money from his or her federal income taxes. Over 15 members of Christians for Peace from the Harrisonburg area contributed the symbolic cash.

The notes, written by Wendell Ressler, also of Community Mennonite Church, read:

“About 60 percent of your income tax money this year will be used to pay for our government’s military program. Because we are Christians who are trying to follow the peaceful way of Jesus, we cannot support this country’s military build-up. Instead we have chosen to waste our money in a more constructive way.

“On this Good Friday we remember the crucifixion of Jesus Christ each time one nation or individual inflicts violence on another. On this April Fool’s Day we release our money into the wind — it is not as foolish an act as depending on weapons for our security.

“We are confident that you, the finder, will be able to use this money in a better way than the Pentagon would have. Peace be with you![”] Signature and address followed.

The group had gathered earlier in the day to train for appropriate responses in case of hecklers and to ponder the message of both the foolishness and the seriousness of their public act of resistance.

During the service, Ray Gingerich, professor at Eastern Mennonite College, read from Psalm 85:8–13 (the vision of a world without weapons), Amos 5:4–15 (the plea for building a world without weapons), and Matthew 6:24; 5:43–45; 5:3–9 (strategies for building a world without weapons).

The group, which included several children, carried thought-provoking placards as they sang for peace. Statements included, “If you work for peace, why pay for war?” The clowns passed out jelly beans as the balloons rose.

Barry Hart, member of Broad Street Mennonite Church, delivered a spirited oration to the onlookers which included personnel from over a dozen TV and radio stations. Hart reiterated the protest against militarism while emphasizing the spirit of hope and the sanctity of life.

“We are concerned not only for our personal survival, but for the survival of our sisters and brothers everywhere,” he said. “We have so long been caught up in the systematic plotting to destroy other systems that we have missed what Christ has called us to — serving each other.”

Reporters and group members intermingled for over a half hour after the service. Local IRS officials were not available for comment. Several policemen were on hand, however, to ensure the peace and to protect the building. A group of young hecklers had left earlier when the service began.

The idea for the witness was spawned from two Christians for Peace workshops on war tax resistance by Yoder-Bontrager and Ressler earlier in the winter. Nathan and Elaine Zook Barge contributed ideas from an earlier experience with a balloon event in Colorado.

A secular war tax resistance organization, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, formed in 1982. The Center on Law and Pacifism was an important source of information for war tax resisters around that time. From the 21 June 1983 issue:

War resistance pair says new law increases risk to tax withholder

New U.S. tax legislation is making it increasingly risky for people to express their opposition to war by refusing to pay their taxes, but more people are doing so anyway, according to two Colorado “tax resistance” leaders.

William and Eugenia Durland, who run the Center on Law and Pacifism in Colorado Springs, said that since establishing the center in 1978 they have been “in touch” with some 10,000 “war tax resisters” either through their own newsletter or through direct counseling. The couple said there are at least twice that many who are refusing to pay their taxes nationwide.

One indication that the figure is growing, they suggested, is the Internal Revenue Service’s decision about a year ago to create a task force to combat tax resisters. Added to that, they said, are new laws aimed specifically at people who refuse to pay their taxes out of conscience.

The 10 July 1983 issue brought this news of congregational resistance from the United Methodist Church:

Congregation refuses to give tax resister’s salary to IRS

A United Methodist congregation in New Haven, Conn., backing their pastor’s right to refuse paying federal taxes for military use, has declined to turn over his salary to the Internal Revenue Service. Carl Lundborg, pastor of First and Summerfield United Methodist Church, has withheld federal income taxes in both 1981 and 1982, telling the IRS his “obligations as a Christian and as a citizen are no longer reconcilable. The 50 percent of my taxes that support the military I cannot pay.”

After Mr. Lundborg refused to pay IRS the $1,200 said to be owed for 1981, the IRS served a levy on the Methodist congregations as his employer. IRS ordered the church to withhold the pastor’s salary until the amount was paid. But church members voted on July 10 to reject IRS’s demand in support of their pastor.

The General Conference Mennonite Church was still struggling to define its corporate response to legal demands on one side and employees’ conscientious objection to military taxation on the other. The Mennonite Church, and its organ, Gospel Herald, had the luxury of being spectators to the struggle, though they would have to deal with the same issue soon enough.

The 12 July 1983 issue brought a preview of the upcoming Bethlehem triennial:

Of more concern as issues are the less routine and less understandable subjects… ¶ Among these one of the more troubling is the payment of taxes for military purposes. Both the Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy and the Board of Congregational Ministries have given attention to this issue and the chairman of the council has acknowledged that “the Council itself reflected the different viewpoints and could not recommend a single specific direction for the church’s response.”

A follow-up in the 26 July 1983 issue went into more detail:

GC delegates to Bethlehem 83 will consider tax resolution

Among the resolutions for consideration by delegates at the General Conference Mennonite Church Triennial Sessions, to be held Aug. 1–7 in Bethlehem, Pa., is a formal action authorizing conference officers to stop withholding taxes from the salaries of its employees as required by U.S. law. It also encourages Canadian Mennonites to obtain relief from the same requirement by Revenue Canada.

The resolution is the product of more than four years of discussion about the faithfulness and constitutionality of the church’s collecting taxes for the state, especially in light of the use of a large portion of that money by the state for armaments.

In 1979 at a special midtriennium conference in Minneapolis, General Conference delegates voted in favor of urging their General Board 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.” At Estes Park, Colo., in 1980, a judicial test case on the issue was okayed by a vote of 1,156 to 353.

Since 1980, however, all three “avenues” appear to have closed. A meeting with IRS officials in Washington in early 1982 — the administrative avenue — failed to produce any results. The World Peace Tax Fund legislation pending in Congress — the legislative avenue — seems stalled a long way from gaining enough support to get serious attention. The preparation of a legal suit against the IRS, to be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary, was put on hold when it appeared, judging from other high court rulings, that the action would almost surely fail.

The conference’s General Board, therefore, will bring the “Resolution on Faithful Action Toward Tax Withholding” to Bethlehem 83 delegates as their recommendation for resolving the moral dilemma which church officials feel they are facing. If approved, the resolution would take the conference one small but significant step into the sphere of divine obedience/civil disobedience.

The Mennonite Church had its own conference, and its own war tax resistance agenda item to deal with:

On war taxes, Central America, and the tricentennial

More unanimity and like-mindedness prevailed in consideration of three resolutions before the MC General Assembly. In discussing them, reference was repeatedly made once again to “what the other group is doing.”

This was particularly true in working through a resolution on “Conscientious Objection to Military Taxes.” By the time the MC delegates considered the proposal, they were already aware that the General Conference had passed by a 2-1 margin a much more radical statement authorizing conference officers to refuse to serve as tax collectors for the U.S. government in cases where individual employees ask that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages. This move caught the attention of the national media and was being covered by newspapers and television by the time MC delegates considered their resolution.

It calls for continued study and discernment of the issue of war taxes, pledging prayer, study, and caution in relating to the government and its demands. The resolution asks governments to recognize peace tax funds as alternates for conscientious objectors and affirms those “who conscientiously withhold a portion of taxes destined for military use as one way to witness against militarism.” Delegates passed the resolution after sending it back to committee once for reworking.

Discussion of these resolutions was mostly affirmation, with little of the controversy surrounding resolutions to the state characterizing some previous General Assembly sessions. Not all were comfortable, however, with the approach. James Hess, Lancaster, Pa., noted these resolutions had better be done as individuals rather than as a group since for him this action violated the principle of the separation of church and state.

An observer from the General Conference Mennonite Church (Bernie Wiebe) commented on what he saw of the Mennonite Church gathering:

Even though we GCs often speak of “Old” Mennonites, I have tended to view MCs ahead of us in creative theologians and theological discussion/writing; in preaching evangelists; in putting the church’s evangelism statements to work; and in comprehensive programs for total Christian life…

Imagine my surprise when I sensed the caution among MCs about the church giving up its role as a tax collector for the government.

This time we GCs passed good statements on tax withholding and justice. I pray we will implement them among us.

And a Mennonite Church observer (Daniel Hertzler) returned the complement by giving his impressions about how the General Conference did its business:

The most intensive early discussion in these business sessions came with the presentation of an issue which had been on the General Conference burner for several triennials. The problem was precipitated by paid employees of the General Conference in the U.S. who asked that their federal income taxes not be deducted by the conference to allow them to deal directly with the government on taxes for war.

The discussion I heard came at the end of a long process and so I suppose it was less impassioned than earlier in the study. The reason for the delay, I learned, was to provide an opportunity to pursue all possible administrative and legal avenues as solution to the problem. This had now been done with no success and so the general board brought a resolution calling for “the conference officers to test the constitutionality of the withholding requirements in the United States and to assert the higher claim of Christ’s law of love, by refusing to serve as tax collectors in cases where individual employees have asked that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages, in order that they may conscientiously refuse to pay for war preparations.”

Duane Heffelbower, a Mennonite attorney from California, commented on the proposal: “We could scarcely devise a softer ‘velvet glove’ to cast at the feet of the IRS. But it shows in a powerful way our corporate willingness to stand with our people. What might the government do? We don’t know.” But he observed the responses could vary from a simple levy of the bank accounts to putting conference officers in jail.

The resolution was discussed in a vigorous and orderly fashion. The arguments for and against were scarcely new ones. In opposing the resolution John Voth of Oklahoma noted that Jesus called upon us to love our enemy. Today the government has become the enemy. Jesus, he observed, called for going the second mile with a soldier. In support for the resolution, Lois Barrett of Kansas asserted that in the U.S. disobeying the law is a time-honored way of changing the law.

After an hour’s debate, the resolution was brought to a ballot vote and passed by approximately a 70 percent majority.

In the aftermath of the triennial, the General Conference began implementing its war tax resistance resolution. On 22 September 1983 the General Conference stopped withholding taxes from the paychecks of some resisting employees:

Non-withholding tax action begins by GCs

Acting on the basis of a resolution adopted by General Conference delegates at Bethlehem 83, GC treasurer Ted W. Stuckey on Sept. 22 issued the first paychecks on which federal income taxes were not withheld.

Seven employees of the denomination’s central offices made the request that the taxes not be withheld, so that they can remit to the IRS personally the amount of federal taxes their consciences will allow. Several others have indicated that they may be willing to take part in the action at a later date.

Stuckey said that, beginning with the September paychecks, the seven will have state and social security taxes deducted but be treated like self-employed persons as far as federal income taxes are concerned. Under such a classification, they would be required to submit quarterly estimated tax payments to the IRS.

The seven plan to make a portion of those quarterly payments but put the balance — the amount they feel they cannot voluntarily pay because of high U.S. military spending — into a special account at General Conference central offices.

Stuckey and general secretary Vern Preheim informed Commissioner Roscoe L. Egger, Jr., at IRS headquarters in Washington by letter of the conference’s action. “We’re trying to be completely open and above board with them about this matter,” Stuckey said.

The September pay period is the first opportunity for the conference to implement the “Resolution on Faithful Action Toward Tax Withholding” adopted by delegates to a churchwide convention in Bethlehem, Pa., on Aug. 2. There, conferees voted 1,128 to 457 to “authorize the conference officers to test the constitutionality of the withholding requirements in the United States and to assert the higher claim of Christ’s law of love, by refusing to serve as tax collectors in cases where individual employees have asked that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages, in order that they may conscientiously refuse to pay for war preparations.”

The statement concluded with a commitment to “surround with our prayers the General Conference staff and government officials who will be involved in this action and all those individuals who refuse in conscience to pay taxes for war preparations, however costly their witness may be.”

The Bethlehem 83 resolution is the result of nearly eight years of work on the tax issue, and was passed only after all legal attempts to solve the problem had been exhausted, including seeking a simple administrative solution from the IRS.

The Mennonite Church’s own resolutions were more vague, but they began also to be implemented (27 September 1983):

The 1983 Mennonite Church General Assembly resolution on Conscientious Objection to Military Taxes includes six “statements of intention” including praying, rendering to Caesar and to God, obeying God rather than the state where claims conflict, appealing for legal recognition of conscientious objection to paying taxes for the military, affirming both conscientious payment and conscientious nonpayment of taxes for military use, and pleading for constructive use of resources entrusted by God. Copies are available from the Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries…

The 1 November 1983 edition brought the news of a war tax resister fighting back against the IRS’s new “frivolous filing” penalties:

Pacifist sues revenue service, which fined her for “frivolity”

A Roman Catholic pacifist has brought suit against a law under which the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has fined her $500 for what is considered a “frivolous” request. Alice Drefchinski, 53, a registered nurse, filed an income tax return for 1982 under which she was to receive a $720 refund. With her return, she enclosed a letter requesting the IRS to deduct $1,000 from her taxes — roughly the amount that would go for defense purposes — and give that money to humanitarian or peace groups.

Although Ms. Drefchinski did not withhold that amount from her taxes, or ask that the money be refunded to her, the IRS has fined her $500 for what is considered to be a “frivolous” request.

While she would not have to pay the money, it would reduce the total of her refund to $220. The Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed suit on Ms. Drefchinski’s behalf in U.S. District Court in Lafayette, asking the court to strike down the 1982 law under which the penalty is being levied. Martha Kregel, executive director of the organization, said the suit asks for a finding that the law is unconstitutional because it violates due process and does not contain a definition of “frivolous.”

In other cases, the IRS has refunded money directly to taxpayers who made similar requests, and later assessed them a $500 penalty for making “frivolous” requests.

This description of Drefchinski’s action seems misleading. She took a war tax deduction on her tax return which reduced the amount she owed; she didn’t merely append a letter to her return asking the IRS to donate some portion of her taxes to charity. In Drefchinski v. Regan (1984) the court slapped down multiple arguments made by her attorneys against the frivolous filing penalty, but concluded:

Many respected Americans have engaged in civil disobedience as a form of protest against taxation for military spending. Henry David Thoreau, for example, refused to pay taxes that would contribute to the funding of the Mexican-American War. See H. Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). Yet this mode of protest is not without its costs. Thoreau spent a night in the Concord jail. Alice Drefchinski must pay a $500 civil penalty. Perhaps she can find solace in the words written by Thoreau after his confinement: “It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State, than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”

Finally, this note suggests that tax resistance was catching on as an idea in Christian circles as a possible tactic that went beyond war tax resistance:

Evangelicals warn Congress on Social Security reforms

Evangelical Christian leaders have warned of mass tax-resistance by their churches unless Congress amends the new Social Security law which requires religious organizations to pay into the system. The church groups issued the warnings at a Dec. 14 hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, called in response to a storm of protest over the provision in the new Social Security rescue package, which goes into effect Jan. 1. The revised law repeals the exemption on nonprofit groups, including churches, from withholding Social Security taxes for their employees.

Forest D. Montgomery, legal counsel to the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 38,000 churches, called on Congress “to act to forestall an inevitable confrontation between church and state.” He added that many churches will simply “refuse to pay (the tax) on the basis of religious conviction.”

This is the twenty-sixth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal of the (Old) Mennonite Church.

The debate about whether or not to pay war taxes, and about whether Mennonite institutions should be more accommodating of the requests of their employees not to have war taxes deducted from their salaries, continued in 1985, and edged ever closer to the Mennonite Church itself.

Ron Kennel explained his war tax resistance in the 8 January 1985 issue:

For over ten years I have openly withheld a portion of my federal income taxes because I’m a conscientious objector to participation in war. This action has sometimes resulted in face-to-face conversations with Internal Revenue Service representatives. I have on several occasions written to legislators on issues of peace and justice or facilitated similar communication by our congregation.

As I see that Christians have contributed to the injustices, my faith compels me to speak. There are many professing Christians who are in public office who make government policy. There are many professing Christians whose votes helped to put them into office and whose tax dollars by the millions pay for the administration of their policies. Because of this I want to invite my Christian brothers and sisters to let the Prince of Peace train their consciences and to take these trained consciences to work whether in the private or public sector.

The Mennonite Central Committee held its annual meeting in January:

The board discussed a request by several staff members that MCC not withhold their income taxes, to allow them to withhold a portion of their taxes as a protest of the dollars used for military purposes.

They agreed that the executive committee should appoint a task group to consult broadly within the MCC constituency to review historical positions on this matter, to examine alternative responses, and to bring a recommendation to the executive committee and annual meeting on alternative courses of action.

This approach “moves from a simple decision of whether MCC should withhold taxes to stepping back and reflecting on the overall situation before recommending any one solution for the MCC board to accept or reject,” it was said.

Members noted that the Mennonite Church and the Conference of Mennonites in Canada are studying this issue, that the General Conference Mennonite Church has completed such a study, and that efforts will be made to learn from those studies.

The “Conversations on Faith Ⅱ” seminar, “The church’s relationship to the political order”, was held in March 1985, and war tax resistance was one of the topics discussed:

Friday evening — Case Study 3: Conscientious objection to military taxes — a case presentation, by John and Sandra Drescher Lehman and Paul Gingrich.
— A panel— James R. Hess, Stephen Dintaman, and Bob Detweiler.

A report from the conference read in part:

The other case was conscientious objection to military taxes. John and Sandy Drescher Lehman of Richmond, Va., told how they followed their conscience and decided a few years ago to withhold the part of their income taxes that they figure goes for the military.

The complication now, though, is that they have become employees of Mennonite Board of Missions in their role as codirectors of the Richmond Discipleship Voluntary Service program. “What should an institution do when its employees ask that we stop withholding taxes from their paychecks?” asked MBM president Paul Gingrich.

A panel of four attempted to answer the question, including Robert Hull, a soldier-turned-tax-resister who is peace and justice secretary of the General Conference Mennonite Church. He explained how his denomination, with the instruction of its members, is now breaking the law by not withholding taxes from the paychecks of seven of its employees who have requested that.

The tensest moment of the conference came when James Hess, a Lancaster Conference bishop who served on the war taxes panel, was asked whether he would have paid all his taxes in Nazi Germany even though some of it went to kill six million Jews. He hinted that the Jews may have brought judgment on themselves for their crucifixion of Jesus. This caused a minor uproar and led to a public apology the next morning by Hess. He said that his statement was speculative, trying to defend the sovereignty of God, and quoted from Jacques Ellul that everything man does is within the global plan of God.

Energetic war tax resistance foe D.R. Yoder couldn’t stand to see his position dragged through the mud like this, so he responded in a 21 May 1985 letter to the editor:

I would not in any way seek to defend the position reportedly taken by James Hess during the recent Conversations on Faith Ⅱ linking the Jewish Holocaust with Christ’s crucifixion… Such notions are the misguided, though not necessarily unnatural, projections of his fundamentalism.

It is hardly fair, however, that the person who posed what seems the quite irresponsible as well as irrelevant question which provoked Hess’s intemperate response is not also identified in the report. For this questioner should be asked whether he/she paid (or would have paid) taxes to the United States or Canada during World War Ⅱ.

If the questioner would not have paid, given the assumptions of tax resistance theory, would not he/she also have been guilty of contributing to the prolongation of Nazi atrocities against the Jews and others, just as he/she charges a taxpaying German citizen Hess would have been?

If, on the other hand, the questioner would have paid his/her federal taxes, again given the assumptions of tax resistant theory, wouldn’t that be embracing the “just” war position? For how else is the “financing” of one set of military activity, but refusing to “finance” another, to be interpreted?

We Mennonites are already rushing pell-mell along the broad way, having sanctified “just” resistance, “just” legal suits, “just” civil disruption, and even the “just” destruction of public and private property. It doesn’t take a very astute reading of the winds a-blowing to expect conferences in the very near future to consider the inherent “justice” of “defensive” wars and of wars of “liberation.”

War tax resisters Ray and Wilma Gingerich shared their letter to the IRS in the 23 April 1985 issue:

A letter to our IRS officer

Here are excerpts of a letter we sent to our regional Internal Revenue Service officer recently. An ongoing conviction of ours is that our most significant witness in the political-ethical arena is to the church itself. This is a matter of policy in our local “Christians for Peace” organization. Whenever we plan an “action,” we do it deliberately with the church “looking over our shoulders.”

Dear Mr. Smith:

According to your records we now owe the IRS $1491.92 in accumulated taxes, interest, and penalties for the fiscal years of 1981, 1982, and 1983. What you fail to recognize is:

1. That the monies withheld represent the military portion of our income taxes. (We have not withheld veterans’ benefits.)
2. That the amounts withheld have already been paid to church institutions engaged in nonviolent justice-and-peace activities. (We are not seeking to evade carrying our fair share of the public burden for a peaceable and life-giving society.)
3. That we are acting out of our religious convictions fostered in the tradition of the historic peace witness of the Mennonite Church.

You are asking us to do what in good faith we cannot do — to violate our consciences and our understanding of obedience to Jesus Christ by paying for murder.

I, Wilma, am a nurse dedicated to making lives whole, not to destroying them. I find preparation to kill and destroy abhorrent and inconsistent with what my whole life as a mother, as a nurse, as a human being, as a follower of Jesus Christ is about.

I, Ray, am a professor of church history and ethics. In my teaching and in everyday life I seek to underscore that if we are to become persons and create communities of noble character and life-giving quality, we must live lives consistent with our beliefs.

To you as a law-enforcer, and to our congressmen and senators as law-makers, we ask: What is being done to our people and to our nation by enforcing the practice of violence upon those whose conscience and religious convictions are opposed to violence? Why do you insist that pacifist citizens act contrary to their conscience by coercing them to pay for weapons of death? Would it not be a healthier, stronger nation if these people were granted freedom of religion and allowed to practice economic nonviolence by channeling their funds into constructive, nonviolent, humanitarian aid?

To Mennonites war is murder. For Mennonites, and for all Christians who take seriously the lordship of Jesus in their daily living, there is no government that can override the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. For Mennonites, therefore, and for all pacifist Christians, the payment of military taxes has always posed a dilemma. Some, psychically numbed by continued rationalization, comply with the state’s demands for death money. Others choose the way of noncompliance, following the example of Jesus Christ that leads to persecution — military tax penalties, confiscation of property, and imprisonment.

Finally, Mr. Smith, allow us to address you personally. What role will you have in all of this? All of us are in the system. And all of us are morally obligated to say “no” to death and “yes” to life. You undoubtedly have thought about these questions many times. We would count it a privilege to meet with you to discuss these grave matters in a more personal way.

There were some letters to the editor in response to this wave of articles on the topic. Joe Cross wrote that he was generally against war tax resistance, but didn’t say anything particularly notable. Curt Ashburn didn’t care for the put-down of taxpayers in the Gingeriches’ letter (“psychically numbed by continued rationalization”) and felt that they should keep such “witness” in the family rather than dragging IRS agents into it. He also asked if the Gingeriches refused to pay taxes to support state-funded abortion, police violence, capital punishment, and so forth or if they thought war was somehow special?

The 7 May 1985 issue brought this news brief:

Churches increase involvement in question of tax resistance

Exploring new territory in religious opposition to nuclear arms, a number of major religious denominations have begun to contemplate whether they should throw their support behind the growing movement to resist payment of taxes in protest of the arms race. While increasing numbers of individuals within the churches have joined the ranks of “war tax” resisters, only a handful of denominations have encouraged or lent support to such resistance. However, as peace activists within the churches have demanded tougher antiwar stands at the highest church levels, denominations have begun to wrestle with the biblical, theological, and historical questions raised by war tax resistance. The churches are using the examination as a basis for deciding whether to take, as corporate bodies, any of a variety of actions — both legal and illegal — in support of the movement. What is moving churches is the growing realization that they have been “praying for peace while paying for war,” said Marian Franz, a Mennonite who is executive director of the Washington-based National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. “For many people, the arms race has just gone too far. And they’re saying, ‘Oh my God, I’m involved in it.’ ” While several mainline denominations have begun to study the issue, the strongest support for war tax resistance has come from the historic peace churches, particularly Quaker and Mennonite bodies. In an unprecedented move, the 60,000-member General Conference Mennonite Church voted, in August 1983, not to withhold federal taxes from the paychecks of employees who are tax refusers. This is punishable by fines and imprisonment.

The Mennonite Church General Assembly was held, 9–14 August 1985, and war tax resistance was on the agenda:

Seminars on singleness and sexuality, marriage and sexuality, and silent devotions were also well attended, indicating a rising concern among Mennonites for personal growth and self-understanding. On the other hand, seminars on such topics as war taxes, Central America, and church-state relations received relatively less attention.

But apparently it didn’t get much time (at least according to this 17 September 1985 letter to the editor from Don Schrader):

I heard that the conference moderator gave only six minutes of floor time to deal with the question of the church withholding federal income tax from the paychecks of church workers who conscientiously resist war taxes.

Perhaps to some, war tax resistance is more personally uncomfortable than homosexuality! Remember that for any government to exploit and massacre, two things are required from the majority of its citizens — silence and paying taxes.

The cover story of the 1 October 1985 issue — “Paying a Price for Peace” by Jim Bishop — concerned Mennonite responses to the war tax issue:

Praying for peace while paying for war? It’s an irony that Ray and Wilma Gingerich and James and Leanna Rhodes of the Harrisonburg, Virginia, area refuse to accept.

Ray and Wilma are in their early 50s. He teaches theology and ethics at Eastern Mennonite College; she is completing a master’s degree in community health nursing at the University of Virginia and works part time at Virginia Mennonite Home. Their four sons of college age or older no longer live at home. One might think it’s time to slow down, settle in, go with the flow.

Not so. The Gingerichs are wrestling with an issue they believe is increasingly urgent for Christians — how to respond to the fact that over 50 percent of all income tax monies go to pay for past and present wars and to prepare for future wars. As one response, they began in 1977 to withhold the portion of their federal income tax that pays for war.

“We deduct an estimated amount for veterans’ benefits, then send a check for the amount we are withholding to Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section or some other church agency,” Ray explained. “We don’t try to hide anything. The Internal Revenue Service receives a letter that outlines our position along with a photocopy of the check being sent to the church agency.”

For the past three years, the couple has also withheld the federal excise tax from their monthly telephone statement. This tax began during the Vietnam War as a “quick source of revenue” for that conflict, Ray pointed out.

Slightly different tack.

Several miles southwest of Gingerich’s Harrisonburg home, in the rolling countryside of western Rockingham County near Dayton, James and Leanna Rhodes are taking a slightly different tack to the military tax issue.

The couple, in their mid-30s, is making a conscious effort to live at a nontaxable income level. For them, it means trying to raise their family of six children on $12,000–$13,000 a year.

It’s easier said than done, the couple admitted, but several things are in their favor.

The family rents the large frame house where they’re living. They care for dairy heifers and beef cattle for their landlord. The old station wagon they drive is registered in Leanna’s mother’s name so the IRS can’t put a lien on it.

James works for his brother in a new and used farm machinery business. Leanna, a nurse, works on and off for Homecall, a local home health care agency.

The family has no accessible bank account or other personal property that the government could claim to satisfy unpaid military taxes. This leaves the IRS only one option — to go after Rhodeses themselves.

Rhodeses have refused to pay the portion of their federal income tax for military purposes for three years in which they earned slightly over their nontaxable limit. They have been audited and warned of collection procedures, but nothing has come of it.

Like Gingerichs, Rhodeses refuse to pay the federal excise tax portion of their monthly phone bill.

Acquiring peace convictions.

The families didn’t acquire their peace convictions overnight or in isolation. Gingerichs point to a stint of mission work in Luxembourg, 1961–1968, as a time when they were confronted with the realities of war.

“We heard stories and saw photos from Vietnam that never made it into the North American press,” Ray recalled. “We also met people who lived through the experiences of Nazi Germany and realized that much of what happened in World War Ⅱ was largely the result of good people following orders.”

In 1968 Gingerich enrolled at Goshen Biblical Seminary, where he was challenged by the teachings of John Howard Yoder, a tax resister himself. When the family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, for Ray to pursue a doctorate at Vanderbilt University, the couple began attending a United Methodist church that was deeply involved in urban ministry.

“I got my theology at Goshen Seminary but we saw how it could be lived out at that church in Nashville,” Ray said. “Our time there made us realize that peacemaking is a Christian mandate — not just a Mennonite ideology!”

Family peace initiatives have not been restricted to Ray and Wilma. When President Jimmy Carter reinstated the military draft in 1980, sons Andre and Pierre both decided not to register.

“Here’s a case of children and parents teaching each other,” Wilma said. “We had been through a lot of painful and joyful growth experiences together. To them, not to register was the logical way to live out the convictions we shared.

“As the cost for not paying our military taxes increased we could only move ahead. To do otherwise would have been a betrayal of our sons and their convictions.”

More than lip service.

Although James and Leanna had long felt a commitment to blend personal faith and active social concern, their awareness of the need to give more than lip service to their beliefs was heightened during 1975–1979 when they helped to start a Mennonite church in San Francisco.

In that setting James got involved with a number of peace causes and groups, including counseling military personnel who wanted to claim conscientious objector status.

“That was a fantastic experience,” James said of their time in the Bay Area. “I was impressed by the aggressive and committed efforts of many peace activists, even though many may have acted from purely humanitarian motives.”

Both couples are quick to draw on their understanding of Jesus’ teachings and example to support their actions.

“The gospel addresses our relationship to other human beings,” Ray said. “Salvation is a personal response but it is also communal. It means ‘wholemaking.’ War and preparation for war is the epitome of death and destruction.”

“I hold to an evangelical faith that includes the message of peace and nonresistance,” James added. “I believe that Jesus can save us from militarism, hateful attitudes, and a spirit of revenge in the same way he delivers us from other sins.”

“Our church has failed to see the logical progression from the conscientious objector stance and Mennonites’ refusal to buy war bonds in the 1940s to the war tax resistance stance of the 1980s,” Ray stated.

Added Wilma: “Our peace witness dare not be limited to nonconscription. Why put most of the burden on 18-to-20-year-olds to take a CO stand while we middle-aged men and women go on paying for war? At the same time we expect our young people to believe that participation in war is wrong.”

Stance is costly.

Both Gingerichs and Rhodeses have paid a price for their stance.

For the Gingerich family, it has included repeated threats from the Selective Service System and a lien placed on all their personal property.

James Rhodes earned tuition money to attend Eastern Mennonite College and Seminary by working as an artificial inseminator for dairy farms up and down the Shenandoah Valley. He later lost that job as a result of local pressure, but he “feels no animosity” toward those who called for his ouster.

James noted that the harshest criticism has come from other Mennonites at a time when interest in Christian peacemaking and nonresistance is gaining momentum in a number of mainline denominations.

Both couples indicated they have had “valuable and redemptive” talks with IRS officials. According to James, these encounters “allow us to move from systems to individuals and open the door to exchange viewpoints.”

“A certain amount of understanding has developed,” he added. “The IRS people seem to empathize with our position and apparently don’t know what to do with us.”

Gingerichs have journeyed to Charlottesville, Virginia, to meet with IRS officials and have encountered “extremely personable people… there’s a feeling of mutual respect.”

The two families commend each other’s positions, but cited the need for other people who are involved in varied forms of tax resistance to “become more visible.” They are active in a local “Christians for Peace” group that has about a dozen members.

“I often feel like we are pretty much going it alone,” said Wilma. “We long for the day when the focus shifts from our having to defend our position to the real question of how pacifist Mennonite Christians can go on paying for war and claim to be followers of Christ. We need greater accountability to each other in the church.”

“There’s a need to develop an open forum and network for people who are at different places on the war tax issue to get together and learn from and encourage each other,” Ray said. Added Leanna: “I would feel a lot more secure in our position if we knew for certain that a dozen Mennonites in this community would be willing to take a public stand with us if at some point we’d be taken to court.”

The couples emphasized that their methods of war tax resistance are not the only valid approaches, and both expressed a desire for more dialogue and sense of solidarity with the larger Mennonite Church.

Whatever course one pursues for the cause of peace, it is important to do it “with a sense of joy,” Ray noted. “Lose your sense of exuberance and it becomes an overwhelming burden. At that point one must back off to gain fresh perspective.”

Witness will continue. Ray and Wilma expect to continue withholding that percentage of their federal income taxes that goes for direct military purposes and to continue talking and working with individuals and within their professions to keep the issue alive.

James and Leanna, meanwhile, “feel comfortable” with their simple living approach, recognizing that it doesn’t allow them to confront government officials and others as directly as Gingerichs have.

“When our children get older, we’ll need to adjust our strategy,” James said. “For now, our fear of what could happen to us has gone from near paranoia to a real sense of peace and freedom.

“Our response, however small, is at least a symbolic effort to say ‘no,’ to refuse to contribute toward the ultimate destruction of God’s people and his beautiful creation.”

Jep & Joyce Hostetler responded in a 22 October 1985 letter to the editor:

“Paying a Price for Peace”… is one of the most encouraging articles you’ve published recently. It is encouraging to see two families who take their faith in Jesus Christ very seriously. In my mind, they are acting out the very core of the gospel message to love, to be peacemakers, and — above all — to be obedient.

On the other hand the article can cause one to be depressed because of the lack of support and criticisms Rhodeses and Gingerichs have received from fellow Mennonites. Mennonites, of all people, should be cheering these families on, even if they are not in complete agreement with their tax witness.

Joyce and I have also withheld portions of our federal income tax payment, making it necessary for the Internal Revenue Service to put liens on our checking account. It is a lonely feeling. To me, any action that lessens another human being, lessens me. It is sin for me to sit in the safety of a protected home and claim no responsibility for what my money buys. To tell someone we love them and apologize for the fact that nearly half our tax dollar is being spent in preparation to kill them, is the ultimate lie and irony. I cannot love you if I am preparing to kill you.

On the other hand, Harry Shenk wasn’t as thrilled. He started off with the traditional Render-unto-Caesar line that Jesus had never discouraged paying taxes to militaristic Rome, and then ended on this curious note:

Jesus never challenged the state on these practices, nor did he indicate that paying taxes implied responsibility for these heinous crimes.

I don’t think Jesus paid any war tax. I think he probably lived below a taxable level, and I affirm anyone who chooses this path. I also pay no war tax. Our tax checks are not divided into portions by the Internal Revenue Service, but are thrown together into a central fund, against which huge government checks are drawn. I simply decide in my heart which huge government check I want my money to be a part of. For me, it’s food stamps and interstate highways.

This news brief could be found in the 26 November 1985 edition:

Scottish Presbyterian leader calls for peace army and war tax resistance

The former moderator of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), Lord MacLeod of Fuinary, has called for the creation of a peace army committed to withholding the 13 percent of income taxes which the British government spends on defense.

MacLeod hopes such an army will be able to persuade the government to allow people to give an equivalent amount of their taxes to starving countries instead. Even if the government refuses to go along with the idea, he said, taxpayers should still withhold the money and spend it on famine relief.

War, MacLeod said, is no longer “a disciplined conflict between nations”; instead it has become “mutual mass murder of women and children between hemispheres. The church must go radical about war.”

The Mennonite Central Committee held an executive committee meeting in December 1985 and shot down the proposal to stop withholding war taxes from the paychecks of objecting employees:

The committee also heard a report from a task force established after several staff members asked MCC not to withhold their federal income taxes. This was to allow them to keep a portion of their taxes as a protest of taxes used for military purposes.

Committee member Phil Rich reported that the task force had met with leaders from eight Mennonite denominations over the past year to seek counsel on how to respond to the tax-withholding issue. None of the denominations counseled MCC to honor the staff members’ request.

The Executive Committee voted 7-1, with three abstentions, to accept the task force’s recommendation that the staff members’ request be denied. The recommendation will go to the MCC annual meeting for final action.

Staff member H.A. Penner expressed appreciation for MCC’s serious attention to the issue, but asked if the process might be only half done. “Have we listened to persons on the other end of our bombs and our guns? Are we listening to the church in Central America, the Philippines, and South Africa? What would they say?”

This is the twenty-eighth 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.

When I hit 1987 in the archives it seemed to me that I started seeing a lot more mentions of how “our tax dollars” were financing this or that government-sponsored horror, but much less followup from there about how such a thing might lead one to resist paying. Maybe that was seen as an obvious corollary by then, or maybe some people had abandoned the idea of war tax resistance as impractical and had just become resigned to complaining. It’s hard to tell from the record.

That’s not to say there wasn’t war tax resistance content. Plenty of it. The “Taxes for Peace” war tax redirection fund, run by the Mennonite Central Committee’s (U.S.) Peace Section, announced it’s annual drive in the 17 February 1987 issue. The fund would be redirecting money to the Lancaster County (Pa.) Peacework Alternatives Project, and announced that they had redirected $4,600 to a project to aid victims of violence in Guatemala the previous year.

A curious story, “The parable of the taxpayers” by John F. Murray appeared in the 27 March 1987. It was a sort of updating of the “parable of the talents” from the Bible. It included a character who was a war tax resister but the parable chided him for hiding his money away from the tax collector rather than spending it on good churchly stuff. Perhaps this indicates that this was one stereotype of war tax resisters — as miserly sorts — that was prevalent in Mennonite circles.

The emerging war tax resistance movement in Japan took the offensive in 1987, according to this 27 March article:

A Mennonite pastor is among 22 Japanese tax resisters who have sued the government for what they say was an “unconstitutional” collection of their taxes in 1980. The 22 are all members of Conscientious Objection to Military Tax (COMIT), and 12 of them are Christians — including Michio Ohno, a Mennonite pastor in Tokyo. The 1980 government action involved the seizing of the bank accounts of Ohno and two others. The 22 charge that Japan’s so-called Self-Defense Forces is a violation of the post-World War Ⅱ constitution, which forbids the country to have an army, navy, and air force. So, they charge, the collection of taxes for the military is also unconstitutional.

John K. Stoner promoted war tax resistance just before (U.S.) tax day:

To pay or not to pay war taxes

Nine to five

by John K. Stoner

Members of the Mennonite Church in the United States contribute $9 to the federal government for military purposes for every $5 they contribute to the local church for the cause of Christ.

Nine to five is the proportion of military support to local church support. Nine to five is also a traditional eight-hour workday. The fruit of our labor is paying for the arms race.

The nine-to-five calculation is based on 1984 figures from the current Mennonite Yearbook, p. 190. The contributions given by U.S. Mennonite Church members through the congregational treasury in 1984 totaled $57,269,704. This figure does not include individual gifts that were not channeled through the congregation. The estimated military tax paid by the same people in 1984 was $105,800,000.

Stanley Kropf, churchwide agency finance secretary, estimates that the pretax income of Mennonite Church members in 1984 was $1,602,600,000. I have calculated a 12 percent tax rate paid on that income, with 55 percent of the taxes going to past and present military costs, including a portion of interest on the federal debt attributable to inflationary military spending. I believe that these figures are correct within a margin of 5–10 percent.

No great concern?

Maybe it isn’t a matter of great concern. Some say that the government is responsible for what it does with tax monies. We are not accountable.

Bernard Offen, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz, thinks differently. His letter of war-tax protest came across my desk recently, and I share it as a stimulus to reflection on our war taxes in 1987:

The guards at Auschwitz herded my father to the left and me to the right. I was a child. I never saw him again.

He was a good man. He was loyal, obedient, law-abiding. He paid his taxes. He was a Jew. He paid his taxes. He died in the concentration camp. He had paid his taxes.

My father didn’t know he was paying for barbed wire. For tattoo equipment. For concrete. For whips. For dogs. For cattle cars. For Zyklon B gas. For gas ovens. For his destruction. For the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews. For the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews. For the destruction, ultimately, of 50,000,000 people in World War Ⅱ.

In Auschwitz I was tattoo #B‒7815. In the United States I am an American citizen, taxpayer #370‒32‒6858. I am paying for a nuclear arms race. A nuclear arms race that is both homicidal and suicidal. It could end life for 5,000,000,000 people, five billion Jews. For now the whole world is Jewish and nuclear devices are the gas ovens for the planet. There is no longer a selection process such as I experienced at Auschwitz.

We are now one.

I am an American. I am loyal, obedient, law-abiding. I am afraid of the Internal Revenue Service. Who knows what power they have to charge me penalties and interest? To seize my property? To imprison me? After soul-searching and God-wrestling for several years, I have concluded that I am more afraid of what my government may do to me, mine, and the world with the money if I pay it… if I pay it.

I do believe in taxes for health, education, and the welfare of the public. While I do not agree with all the actions of my government, to go along with the nuclear arms race is suicidal. It threatens my life. It threatens the life of my family. It threatens the world.

I remember my father. I have learned from Auschwitz. I will not willingly contribute to the production of nuclear devices. They are more lethal than the gas Zyklon B, the gas that killed my father and countless others.

I am withholding 25 percent of my tax and forwarding it to a peace tax fund.

Offen gives permission to reproduce or publish his letter and says he may be contacted at Sonoma County Taxes for Peace, Box 563, Santa Rosa, CA 95402.

No simple answer. What is the answer to the war-tax dilemma? I offer no simple one. I simply identify a challenge to our faith which will not go away. And I think it is helpful to have some idea of how much money, and in what proportion, we are giving to the death machine.

St. Augustine said, “Hope has two sisters: Anger and courage.” Beautiful women, these, in an age of despair.

That prompted a 5 May 1987 letter to the editor from Lester L. Lind:

Thank you for printing the article by John Stoner, “Nine to Five”… It is good but uncomfortable for us to be reminded of our involvement in military and war-related activity. I wonder how much longer the Mennonite Church can remain so silent and still carry the distinction of being a peace church. In a democracy, silence gives consent. In light of Scripture, our history, and the present reality that Stoner points out, how can we Mennonites give our consent to spending so much for war?

Withholding federal income tax for conscience’ sake is still a lonely and often misunderstood act, even within the church. True, there are individuals and small segments of the Mennonite Church who have taken positions similar to the Stoners. But I long and pray for the time when such actions of civil disobedience will be strongly supported and encouraged by the majority of Mennonites.

A war tax redirection ceremony and tax day protest was covered in the 15 April 1987 issue:

The existence of a mutual aid fund for war tax resisters was made known to readers of the 28 April 1987 issue:

“Even if you are not a war tax resister, you can help those who are,” say a group of Christians who operate the Tax Resisters Penalty Fund. Based in North Manchester, Ind., it helps resisters when they suffer financial loss through the seizure of penalties and interest by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The fund, started in 1982 as a project of the local chapter of Fellowship of Reconciliation, is currently trying to broaden its base of support because of the increasing number of requests for assistance. More information is available from the North Manchester Fellowship of Reconciliation…

While war tax resistance seemed mostly a U.S. phenomenon during the Vietnam War era (and this led to some chagrin when Canadian Mennonites felt like they were being dragged into disputes about it), Canadians were also getting in on the act by this time (19 May 1987):

Canadian war-tax resisters hold first national conference

Conscience Canada, a Victoria, B.C.-based organization objecting to Canadian military taxes, held its first national conference recently. Several participants reported that they sent the military portion of their taxes to Peace Tax Fund — a trust account administered by Conscience Canada which is not approved by the government.

Member of Parliament James Manley told the participants how they could be more effective in lobbying their MPs. Motions favoring peace tax legislation were introduced in the House of Commons by Manley in 1983 and 1985 and by MP Simon De Jong in 1986.

Reporting on war-tax resistance in the United States, Robert Hull, a Mennonite who chairs the Washington, D.C.-based National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, said his group has enlisted 55 representatives and four senators as sponsors of peace tax legislation in the U.S. Congress.

“Conscience Canada is part of a movement in 17 countries, from Finland and Spain to Australia and New Zealand,” said Edith Adamson, the organization’s coordinator.

And the 18 August 1987 issue noted:

Study packet on militarism in Canada from Mennonite Central Committee Canada. It includes pamphlets, articles, and a fact sheet. The packet helps Canadians struggling to discern a faithful Christian response to militarism, including the issue of whether or not to pay war taxes. It is available for a suggested donation of $3 from Information Services at MCC Canada…

David Charles wrote a commentary for the 9 June 1987 issue in which he went on at length about the horror of nuclear war and said “Some have even come to recognize our complicity in the situation through silence and the payment of war taxes.” And: “Our continued silence to a government that is not merely content to collect tax but is mortgaging the entire country to pursue a ridiculous ambition is conveying a message of acceptance.” But his suggested response was hilariously pathetic:

We can write on the bottom of our tax returns that our money is to be used to build peace, not more arms.

In the 30 June 1987 issue, Edgar Metzler wrestled with “Following Christ in a militaristic world” and tried to nudge the Mennonite Church toward a bold decision:

For an increasing number of Christians the conscription of their taxes for military purposes is becoming a problem of conscience as clear as the conscription of their bodies for military service. The question will not fade away. Are the excuses offered by Nazi collaborators or Iran-contra conspirators that someone else is making the decisions that much different than washing our hands of responsibility for how the state uses the resources God has given us?

Challenge and action.

The study suggested by MCC and the militarism resolution — “Growing in Stewardship and Witness in a Militaristic World” — which will be considered by the General Assembly at Purdue 87 arose directly out of the struggle of conscience about war taxes by some members of the church. The proposed resolution is intended to alert us to the broad scope of this challenge and suggest appropriate actions.

The decision, bold or not, would be adopted at the Mennonite Church General Assembly on 9 July 1987: “Growing in stewardship and witness in a militaristic world” Here are some excerpts that concern taxes:

Let us expand our support for proposed Peace Tax Fund legislation in both the United States and Canada, recognizing that legal recognition of conscientious objection to payment of taxes destined for military use will require the same patient persistence which resulted in legal recognition of conscientious objection to military service.

Let us prayerfully examine the practice of church organizations withholding and transmitting income taxes of church employees who themselves are conscientiously unable to pay taxes for military use. As part of that effort, we will participate in a conference planned for February 1988 for Mennonite, Brethren, and Quaker employers to share their experiences relating to tax withholding and conscience and to develop a strategy for relief of this ethical dilemma.

Let us continue to support those whose conscience prevents them from paying taxes destined for military use or from registering with the U.S. Selective Service System.

A report from the conference, carried in the 28 July 1987 issue, carried the ominous quote “Personally, I think the Peace Tax Fund is a way out of this” as a way of excusing why the Mennonite Church seemed to be waffling rather than taking any committed stand:

A statement on “Growing in Stewardship and Witness in a Militaristic World” was approved more quickly. It offers suggestions to congregations for ways to counter the increasingly pervasive “evil” of militarism in North America and around the world.

Ed Metzler, who presented the statement, said one of the best ways Mennonites can oppose militarism today is by supporting the campaign for “Peace Tax Fund” legislation in both the United States and Canada. Metzler, who is peace and social concerns secretary at Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries, said this would permit conscientious objection to war taxes in the same way that Mennonites and others won the right to conscientious objection to war. He called to the podium the executive director of the campaign in the U.S. — Marian Franz, a Mennonite. “Conscience is contagious,” she said, “and peace concerns are spreading far beyond the historic peace churches.”

Approval of the statement did not end the discussion on militarism. Especially after Mennonite Board of Missions president Paul Gingrich reminded the delegates that his agency is still waiting to hear what it is supposed to do about employees who request that taxes not be withheld from their paychecks so that they can resist war taxes. “I wish this body would act on this,” he said.

Metzler agreed, pointing out that the Mennonite Church General Board “ducked the issue” by calling for a general statement on militarism. “We wish the issue would go away,” he said, “but it won’t.” Moderator-Elect Lebold defended General Board inaction, noting that the church is deeply divided on the subject. “Personally, I think the Peace Tax Fund is a way out of this,” he said.

Nondelegate Ray Gingerich, an Eastern Mennonite College professor who is a war tax resister, challenged the notion of having to wait on the government to make legal a matter of conscience. Many delegates seemed to agree, and by majority vote, they instructed General Board to take immediate action on tax withholding and give a clear answer to MBM and other agencies seeking guidance.

The 21 July 1987 issue carried an interview with Thomas L. Shaffer (a Catholic law professor). Excerpt:

Q:

Are you a pacifist?

A:

Well, I think so. It is an odd question for a 53-year-old person because nobody’s asking me to wreak violence on anybody else. We are all very fortunate to have that little dialogue about paying over the coin to Caesar because otherwise we 53-year-olds, if we thought of being pacifists, would have to think of financing nuclear weapons. I guess that little dialogue lets us out, or at least in some people’s minds it does. But I figure that by now the taxes I paid have bought a lot of destructive weaponry, if I am paying my share.

The Church of the Brethren (Anabaptist cousins of the Mennonites) also held their annual conference. The 4 August 1987 issue reported:

An agenda item on “taxation for war” prompted little debate, since a study committee said the church has written enough about war-tax resistance, and that it is time for members to study seriously what has been written.

That issue also carried this news:

Church asks forgiveness of antiwar activist defrocked 25 years ago

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has publicly asked the forgiveness of an 81-year-old Cincinnati minister who was defrocked by a regional church body 25 years ago for his antiwar activism. Maurice McCrackin, pastor of the nondenominational Community Church of Cincinnati, was deposed from the ministry by the Cincinnati Presbytery in 1961 after he refused to pay the portion of his income taxes that would go for military spending. Meeting in Biloxi, Miss., the denomination’s highest governing body, the General Assembly, formally confessed error in removing McCrackin from the ministry and endorsed an action taken in May by the Presbytery of Cincinnati restoring him to clergy status.

The attempts to get the Mennonite Church to take risks on behalf of war tax resisters got the goat of of Elmer S. Yoder, who wrote the following for the 20 October 1987 issue — again suggesting the Peace Tax Fund as a way of sidelining the problem:

Whose conscience is to be respected?

The concluding appeal by a delegate at Purdue 87 to “respect the individual conscience” in regard to church institutions not withholding “war taxes” failed to address a key question. The appeal sounded simple and persuasive, on the surface, but it is much more complex and far-reaching. Whose conscience is to be respected? The conscience of the individual employee of an institution or the collective conscience of a board of directors, or perhaps even General Assembly?

The corporation is a legal entity and owes its continued existence to statutory provisions. The centralized management of the corporation can and does express the collective conscience of the institution. Our major church institutions are incorporated and directed by boards. The directors have been charged with the optimum operation of the institutions. The institutions (corporations) are faced with options different from those of an individual in respect to a refusal to pay the tax in question.

An individual refusing to pay what he considers is the war tax would be confronted by an agency of the government. The result might be the placing of some financial restrictions upon him, or additional legal action, such as seizure of property, or in extreme cases, imprisonment. Noncompliance by a church corporation would almost certainly result in governmental measures amounting to a substantial loss of freedom. This loss could well include its legal base to perform the objectives and purposes included in its charter and given by the Mennonite Church.

An individual Christian respecting the conscience of a war-tax resister suffers no detrimental consequences legally. A trustee of a church institution is in a completely different situation. By consenting with fellow trustees not to withhold the tax in question, he and the trustees are inviting various restrictions on the institution via legal action.

Legal alternatives of not withholding the war tax have been researched thoroughly by the General Conference Mennonite Church, without finding any legal recourse. This means that trustees of church institutions would engage in civil disobedience by not withholding from any employee’s salary the part of the tax he protests, but in addition, would push the institution into a morass of legal restrictions and extended court procedures that would severely hamper the operation of the institution or drain its resources through protracted legal fees.

This is not a plea to act only on the basis of potential consequences. The call to faithfulness supersedes consequences. But faithfulness in great diversity of understanding, such as the war tax issue and the legal consequences, is difficult to achieve. It is not in the interests of brotherhood to create or foster an institutional versus individual conflict, but neither is it proper or ethical to evade the issue of an institutional conscience. In church institutions that conscience is molded by the larger brotherhood and those directly charged for the operation of the institutions — the trustees.

Nearly 100 years ago, the Mennonite Church began forming institutions (corporations) to carry out more effectively its tasks of nurture, education, and evangelism. The institutions have served well and have contributed in many ways to the mission of the Mennonite Church. Shall this servant role of the institutions continue? Trustees of the institutions can, by openly defying the law over an issue on which such a diversity of opinion exists within the Mennonite Church, shackle the institutions, rather than performing as stewards.

Perhaps the time is coming, in the United States, when the church may again need to preach, to teach, and to evangelize without the legal entity of the corporation. Perhaps there again will be the time for the fabled school with the professor on one end of a log and the student on the other. The church corporation, which makes possible educating larger numbers, would be conspicuously absent, because of legal ramifications. But, in my opinion, that time is not yet.

Perhaps, rather than urging a course of action which would eventually eliminate faculty and staff positions in the institutions, the energies and efforts devoted to this should be channeled into making possible a legal alternative, such as the Peace Tax Fund. Devoting one’s energies to making it possible for larger numbers to step out and take advantage of the Peace Tax Fund certainly would be preferred to potentially reducing the church institutions into ineffectiveness.

The “New Call to Peacemaking” initiative was still active, but seemed to be deemphasizing war tax resistance. It is not until the penultimate paragraph of this 20 October 1987 story that war tax issues are mentioned:

Some of New Call’s limited resources do go to renewing the vision within the historic peace churches. In February a conference will be cosponsored with the Quaker War Tax Concerns Committee on the challenge to church organizations from employees requesting their federal taxes not be withheld so they can exercise their conscience in relation to war taxes.

This letter to the editor, from Edgar Metzler, appeared in the 3 November 1987 issue:

Thank you for sharing Ike Glick’s courageous decision of conscience to resign from a company that might be involved in military contracts (Oct. 13). All of us in North America are inextricably involved in an economy addicted to huge military expenditures. Ike’s conscience challenges especially all of us who think that the taxes we pay to build weapons of war are something for which we have no responsibility. Our stewardship teachings tell us it is God’s money. How we use that resource surely must be a matter of conscience as much as the way we use our God-given talents in our occupations.

This is the thirty-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.

General Board Follies

So if you remember from our last episode, the board of the Mennonite Church was dragging its feet about supporting employees who did not want war taxes withheld from their paychecks. Then the whole Church, in its General Assembly, forced their hand by voting to honor the requests of such employees.

But apparently the board still saw that as advisory and not binding, because they kept right on dragging their feet:

General Board tables military tax question

After several years of study and discussion, the Mennonite Church General Board brought the military tax question to a vote — and tabled it. Normal 89 attenders will recall that a majority of General Assembly delegates voted to “support” the efforts of church board employees who do not wish their taxes deducted so that they can deal with the government in regard to military taxes.

The issue came back to the General Board as such issues will and it was given extended attention at the spring meeting which convened at Kalona (Iowa) Mennonite Church, Apr. 5–7. An early straw vote strongly favored going ahead, but when decision time came, a majority voted to table the motion.

As presented, the motion called for agreeing “in principle” to honor requests of employees who ask that their income tax not be withheld. However, such approval was intended to be reviewed in the 1991 session of the board after a congregational study process which is now being initiated. No taxes were to be withheld prior to April 1991.

Motion to table, it was suggested, was related to the pending congregational study process. The board was concerned not to prejudice the case before the study process. Also there was concern that the possible consequences of such withholding be better understood. What action might the government take toward board officers?

Moderator George Brunk Ⅲ and Executive Secretary James Lapp indicated that they were not unhappy about the motion to postpone action. “Some of us thought ‘in principle’ could be helpful in the study process,” said Brunk. “The board position has been in the direction of the proposed motion,” he continued. “But there are different ways to capture this.”

Yet another Military Tax Consultation was held to allow for more jaw-exercise and to cover for the delay:

Mennonite Church General Board is holding a Military Tax Consultation in response to actions taken by General Assembly at Normal 89 last August. It will be held May 11–13 at Goshen College. Mennonite Church conferences are invited to send teams of persons to the event. Since General Assembly called for “continued study of issues raised by taxation for military purposes,” General Board is currently preparing a study guide for use by congregations. It is being prepared under the direction of Robert Hull and will be ready in time for the consultation. The most controversial — and potentially illegal — action taken by General Assembly was its permission to denominational agencies and schools to honor the request of employees who don’t want taxes withheld from their paychecks so they can refuse to pay the portion (about half) that goes to the military. More information about the consultation is available from General Board…

Daniel Hertzler reported on the consultation:

War tax resisters tell their stories at General Board consultation

Some 30 people met at Goshen College, May 11–12, for a “Consultation on Military Tax Withholding.” The military tax question has been on Mennonite Church agenda since 1977, General Board executive secretary James Lapp told the group. But now it has become focused on the issue of “tax withholding” by church agencies for people who wish to deal with the Internal Revenue Service on their own.

Avowed purpose of the consultation was to introduce a study guide, “As Conscience and the Church Shall Lead,” being prepared for use in congregations. To this end Marlene Kropf of Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries led the group in an educational experience.

In the beginning, and alternatively throughout, there was story telling. Military-tax resisters told how they got into it. All referred to a variety of spiritual influences and life-changing experiences. Seven persons told personal stories. Among them was Dan Hunsberger of Hesston College, who worked one summer for a contractor without taxes withheld and got a tax bill for $1,700. “I considered this use of money wrong, not only from a peace standpoint, but also bad business.”

David Weaver, a teacher at Central Christian High School, grew up in a family that eschewed political involvement. But in 1984 he went on a student tour to the Middle East and spent some time on the West Bank of the Jordan River, the home of persecuted Palestinians. Then, in 1986, he wrote a paper on the issue of war taxes and in the same year he went to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace. “I saw the Nicaraguan people and looked into their eyes,” he said. That year he decided to withhold 55 percent of his income taxes.

“At the beginning I felt very heavy about this. In November when they came and took money from my account, it was like a burden was lifted. What really can they do to harm me? We’re in the world for a short life. There are little things we can do. This doesn’t mean my hands are clean. But it is a small action.”

Ray and Wilma Gingerich from Harrisonburg, Va., gave a joint report which recounted a decades-long, growing concern over the issue of war taxes. When they first became aware of the issue, they had no income taxes to pay. But by 1977 they finally had enough income to be taxed and began to withhold 50 to 59 percent. “Our son Andre refused to register under Carter,” they said. “We saw some relation between this and middle-aged people not paying for war. We cannot continue to pay taxes while applauding our young who resist the draft.”

Ray expressed concern that Mennonite Church leaders have not been more forthright about the issue. “We need to try to draw our leaders into the discussion. Leaders generally get their authority from the people, not from the poor or the Bible. In some respects, tax resisters must lead the leaders.”

Among the leaders present was Paul Gingrich, president of Mennonite Board of Missions. He acknowledged that MBM first faced this issue as long ago as 1984, when John and Sandra Drescher-Lehman asked that their taxes not be withheld. The MBM board of directors is divided. Some threaten to resign either way.

But Gingrich concludes that some corporate action needs to be taken as an object lesson, a parable so that younger Mennonites may learn firsthand about resisting militarism. “We have a generation that only hears the stories of those resisting World Wars Ⅰ and Ⅱ and the Korean conflict,” he said. “The institution can become a symbol. In the action is a tremendous teaching moment.”

He continued, “In every generation we need to discover the issue on which we will not compromise. For what will we be ready to die? Is this the place to stand? Is this the way to stand? If an institution takes such an action, it may be that the institution will not survive. But maybe that is not the most important thing.”

No clear-cut answer to Gingrich came out of the consultation. But from small-group settings a cautious consensus emerged. Most groups encouraged church agencies to respect the consciences of persons who do not wish their taxes deducted by the agency, even though such honoring would involve the agency in illegal action.

Several groups pointed out, however, that there are ways for persons to gain access to enough tax money to make a symbolic protest without implicating their agency in illegal action. It was urged that they explore these first.

James Lapp, who called the consultation, and Marlene Kropf, director of the educational experience, both expressed satisfaction with the session. “We need to recognize that there is a complex set of issues here,” said Lapp. “Our goal is to help people to see that there is more than one way to be faithful.”

All this dithering prompted a letter to the editor from Dannie Otto (22 May 1990):

Although I have not been involved in the issue, I believe the issue of military tax deductions of church employees has been around for at least a decade. I am concerned about the continued reluctance of General Board to implement the will of General Assembly to support church board employees who as a matter of conscience do not wish to have their taxes deducted.

As reported in “General Board Tables Military Tax Question”… the eagerness with which the board embraces broad “visions” while avoiding concrete actions is striking. Whatever the possible actions of the government toward board officers if tax withholding is stopped, it would surely be mild in contrast to the price paid by Mennonite leaders during World War Ⅰ who refused to financially support the war effort. “A Pastor Pays a Price for Peace” in the same issue of Gospel Herald is an illustration. [See ♇ 1 September 2018]

Discussion of visions is fine, but no vision is more catching than one demonstrated through faithful action. My sympathies are with the General Board employees who have patiently gone through the lengthy process required to have their concerns embraced by General Assembly, only to have the issue kicked back into a “study process” by General Board.

The board’s apparent relief at being able to postpone action on this issue should be juxtaposed with Moderator George Brunk Ⅲ’s concern stated in his “state of the Mennonite Church” address that “We are not facing conflict as a people of God. The question of our faithfulness calls for eternal vigilance.”

Daniel Hertzler tried to put the whole thing in context with a 29 May 1990 editorial:

Why is it so hard to get to the bottom of the war tax question?

The issue of paying military taxes has been knocking about in the Mennonite Church for close to a generation. At the “Consultation on Military Tax Withholding” (Goshen College, May 11–12) it was reported that John Howard Yoder was writing about this already in the 1950s.

Perhaps these writings were not published. The earliest material on this subject which I could find in the Gospel Herald was “Dare We Pay Taxes for War?” by John Drescher (Oct. 10, 1967). I found this editorial with help from Swartley and Dyck’s Annotated Bibliography of Mennonite Writings on War and Peace: 1930–1980 (Herald Press, 1987). This book has 16 pages on the topic “War Tax Resistance,” so the subject has clearly been one of concern among us. Some of the references go back into the ’50s, but not in the Gospel Herald.

Drescher’s editorial indicates that concern about the issue arose during Mennonite General Conference and that “delegates asked for direction on the matter of paying taxes designated for war purposes.” A resolution was passed calling for “a fresh study of the biblical teaching”! Has anything changed among us in 23 years?

At the Goshen consultation I listened to Willard Swartley declaim on Romans 13:1–7, and I suddenly got a clue as to why this issue keeps grinding on with no resolution in sight. “Pay all of them their dues,” writes Paul, regarding the authorities, “taxes to whom taxes are due…”

So there it is. If Paul wrote to the Romans that they should pay their taxes, why do modern Mennonites sit around debating whether they may pay the military part of their taxes? We are known as people of the Bible. Isn’t the Bible plain enough?

Not so fast. At Goshen, Willard Swartley presented a 12-point outline entitled “Method for Bible Study.” The first three points were entitled “Observation: What does the Bible say?” The second five he captioned “Meaning: What is the text saying?’ The final four he called “Significance: What says the text?” Beyond these I think the most important thing he said was that Romans 13:1–7 should be interpreted as part of a longer unit in the letter (certainly a basic Bible study principle) and that probably there was a local controversy in Rome over the payment of specific taxes. Paul’s counsel to the Romans was to pay these specific taxes and was not intended as a general principle, regarding all taxes in all times and all places.

Willard pointed out that the New Testament has a number of normative texts on this subject. He mentioned the following: Colossians 2:15; Ephesians 1:19–23; 3:10; 1 Peter 3:22; 1 Corinthians 15:24–26; Romans 8:35–39; Ephesians 6:12–20. Romans 13, he said, should be interpreted in dialogue with this longer stream of texts. In the end, said Willard, there is “ambiguity in the biblical tradition over the place of authorities: respect for their responsibility for order versus awareness that they represent evil.” In other words, by simply paying taxes without thinking, we may be selling out.

Two others at Goshen discussed the issue from a theoretical standpoint: ethics professor J.R. Burkholder and Pastor John F. Murray. Murray proposed that the answer to the war tax problem is to be found in generous giving to the church. Since in the U.S. one can contribute up to 50 percent of one’s income, or $50,000, he proposed that reducing our income through contributions is a more effective response than tax resistance. Further, he pointed out, anyone who saves money and puts it in the bank is supporting the military just as much as the person who pays taxes. “When we give only 5 percent of our income as a denomination, we are not faithful.”

Burkholder stressed the reality of ambiguities. “We will have to learn to live with pluralism in the Mennonite Church,” he asserted. “We do not have the same position on war taxes.”

Clearly we do not. And as James Rhodes responded to Burkholder, “There is danger in an emphasis on ambiguity of diluting our basic foundation of biblical obedience.”

So it is important that we not give up just because we come with different perspectives on the issue. It is urgent that those with different points of view listen to each other under God and under the Scriptures. We have no other place to go.

Readers responded:

Robert V. Peters (10 July 1990)

In response to your editorial, “Why is it so Hard to Get to the Bottom of the War-Tax Question?”… and the news article piece on the war-tax consultation in the same issue, let me note the following: Why is it that the Mennonite Church can so easily reach clarity that homosexuality is a sin and ban any dialogue whatsoever with gay members of our community but yet find the war-tax issue “contains a complex set of issues” and that it is “filled with ambiguities”?

Why must we accept pluralism and ambiguity on this issue when we can so easily reach apparent consensus on the gay question? Is this not rather self-serving and hypocritical, for on the one hand our church fathers tell us we must accept differing biblical interpretations, pluralism, and ambiguity on war taxes but somehow the gay issue is crystal clear!

It seems to me that there is no ambiguity, for as you note, Romans 13 is not intended as a general principle that we must pay all taxes to government. Further the whole text seems to make clear that we must clarify our loyalties and choose whom we serve, God or Caesar. Further it seems clear that if we follow the way of peace, we can have no part in allowing our money to pay for killing and war. If there is room for ambiguity I think it is more apparent on the gay question. On war taxes it seems clear.

Perhaps our leaders wish to keep it plural, for only a minority can support our historic peace witness these days, while they know that pluralism is unacceptable for the gay question given the majority in our community who are convinced that homosexuality is sin. Wake up, leaders, and be fair! You can’t have it both ways. Either we seek clear standards and follow them or we become Unitarians or Quakers, where everything is ambiguous.

Robert J. Schultz (10 July 1990)

Schultz started off with the typical Render-unto-Caesar / after all Rome was a militaristic government / Jesus never complained about paying taxes line. Then he finished off with the “silent majority” gambit:

I urge all of those conservative Mennonites who usually remain silent to “send the General Board a message” — mainly, not to be tempted into politicking with the liberal pacifist elements, and to remain within the boundaries of biblical nonresistance. If there are those who want to withhold taxes, let them do it without having the actions of the General Board as a shield.

John M. Eby (21 August 1990)

“Why Is It So Hard to Get to the Bottom of the War Tax Question?”… Maybe because there is no bottom — only a bottomless chasm between two irreconcilable views.

In my own imagination I see the story told in Matthew 22 in modem “dress.” The Pharisee digs through the pockets of his custom-tailored suit. From a jumble of temple contribution receipts and credit cards (Pharisee-controlled banks) he produces a $50 bill.

“Whose portrait is on that bill?”

“General and President Ulysses S. Grant.”

“If you deal in portraits of deceased generals and presidents, you owe a commission to those who occupy their offices today. But don’t forget that you owe even more to God.”

Again, we know that Caesar does not divide his tax collections between two baskets labeled “war” and “peace.” It all goes into one basket, and then is divided out as Caesar wishes. And so, if 50 percent (or whatever) goes for “war,” then 50 percent of anything that an individual deposits into the basket goes for “war.” The persons who pay 50 percent of their taxes are in fact paying half of their “war” tax and half of their “peace” tax.

I admire those who for conscience’ sake voluntarily live at the “poverty” line so that they do not owe the tax that they object to paying. They have adjusted their lifestyle to put their (lack of) money where their “mouth” is. I’m not willing to do that — a character flaw, perhaps, but one that I seem to share with many others. Is it wrong to want to share in at least part of the standard USA lifestyle without paying for Caesar’s expenses in maintaining conditions that promote this lifestyle?

Do we want a “free lunch”? And, of course, Caesar’s money can do God’s work, or so we are told by those responsible for keeping church agencies and institutions in the black. Those who have the spirit of generosity also need something to be generous with. And Caesar pays a part of the gift.

If we deal in portraits of deceased generals and presidents, what do we owe to those who occupy their offices today?

Richard E. Martin (4 September 1990)

Over a number of years I have read articles, pro and con, on the war-tax issue. Your May 29 editorial on the same subject has rekindled my interest. A large percentage of the arguments have been of a theological or theoretical nature. However, I have not seen the following point of view mentioned.

Many of us in the Mennonite Church are no longer independent farmers and/or businessmen or self-employed.

(At age 48 I have witnessed this transition.) Therefore, we have little or no control over the deductions from our pay checks. No company, business, or public institution that I know of would seriously consider a request not to withhold a certain percent of taxes due. Some firms that are operated by Christians may grant us their understanding and be sympathetic in attitude, but simply are not willing to get into the legal and business ramifications of a tax fight with the federal government.

Consequently, the war-tax issue, while perhaps valid, is to many simply a moot point lingering in a gray mist on the edge of our consciousness. Could this be why the 1989 General Assembly vote on the General Board war-tax recommendation went 142 for and 100 against?

For me, if the federal government would institute a special, separate, extra-budget war tax (as done in the American Revolution, for example), that is a horse of a different color. I would try to resist in some way as my ancestors collectively did in Lancaster County, Pa., in the Revolutionary times. Having written my Indiana senators and representative on the war-tax issue, I see no change in federal tax regulations to be soon in coming.

The 30 October 1990 issue announced that if “continued study” was the order of the day, the Mennonite Church General Board was equipped:

Study guide on military tax withholding from Mennonite Publishing House. Prepared at the request of Mennonite Church General Board, it is designed to facilitate discussion of the 1989 General Assembly request for “continued study of issues raised by taxation for military purposes.” It is entitled As Conscience and the Church Shall Lead. A response form is provided so that Sunday school classes, small groups, and individuals may provide feedback.

The Mennonite Church General Board met in mid-November and tried to pretend that the General Assembly hadn’t voted to go ahead with corporate tax resistance:

Question was also raised about the Normal ’89 decision regarding war taxes. Board members noted a lack of clarity on what the decision meant. Slightly more than half the delegates had agreed that churchwide agencies need not withhold the military portion of taxes for employees who request this. Moderator George Brunk Ⅲ noted the decision is valid but that it can be reconsidered following a churchwide study on war taxes currently underway.

They also issued a “Statement to our Mennonite churches on the Persian Gulf situation” that included this:

[T]he Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church General Boards take the following action:

That the General Boards express deep concern about and opposition to the military buildup and the growing threat of war in the Persian Gulf, reaffirm their biblical understanding that the will of God is for humankind to live in peace and harmony and that war and militarism are counter to God’s intentions, and call our congregations to the following:

To confess our own complicity and selfishness in utilizing more than our share of the world’s supply of oil and other resources and for our limited concern for long-standing injustices in the Middle East, and also to confess and reexamine our complicity in paying for the military buildup through our taxes.

The Mennonite Church General Board met again in mid-April 1991 and continued to put off making a firm decision in response to the mandate given them by the General Assembly:

They focused on the question of withholding war taxes for their employees. Two years ago delegates to Mennonite General Assembly had authorized churchwide boards to honor requests of employees not to withhold the military portion of their income taxes; final decision was up to each board. Though it had been previously discussed in several meetings, General Board had made no decision on the issue.

Nor did it come easy this time. Board members raised questions about their financial liability. They acknowledged the burden of leadership: other churchwide boards were awaiting the General Board decision for help with their own.

In the end General Board agreed “to honor the request of an employee who for conscience’ sake requests that the military portion of his or her federal income tax not be withheld.” But they hedged. They made the action subject “to development of acceptable policies for implementation approved by the board.”

Miscellany

There was also plenty of content around this time that wasn’t directly prompted by the Mennonite Church board’s inaction.

For example, there was a series of letters-to-the-editor around the beginning of the year debating war tax resistance. Here are a pair of them, side-by-side:

Adam R. Martin and Ervin Miller also chimed in, largely agreeing with Wengerd.

The “Taxes for Peace” fund gave its annual update in the 13 February 1990 issue:

MCC invites contributions to Taxes for Peace Fund

Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section is inviting contributions for the 1990 Taxes for Peace Fund. The fund, established in 1972, gives people who want to withhold war taxes a way to contribute their money toward peaceful purposes. While contributing to this fund is a symbolic action and not a legal alternative to paying the tax, many people have found it a meaningful way to demonstrate their commitment to peace.

Last year, $5,750 in Taxes for Peace money was divided between the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and Christian Peacemaker Teams. This year’s contributions will be divided the same way.

The National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund seeks to enact the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill, which would give those conscientiously opposed to war a way to pay 100 percent of their taxes by designating the military percentage to a separate fund for peace-enhancing programs. Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative of North American Mennonite and related churches to develop and support more assertive peacemaking.

Since 1977 MCC constituents have contributed more than $75,000 to the Taxes for Peace Fund. Among other projects, the money has funded reconstruction efforts in Indochina, aided victims of violence in Guatemala, and supported the MCC U.S. Peace Section.

The following excerpt is from one of several dozen letters sent to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in 1989 by contributors to the Taxes for Peace Fund: “We will sleep better tonight than if we would be helping to keep the murder machine going for the United States. And hopefully, all the people of the world will sleep better when we can all stop financing their death threats and death squads.” (John and Sandra Drescher-Lehman, Richmond, Va.)

Checks for the Taxes for Peace Fund should be made payable to “MCC, Taxes for Peace.”…

An information packet on military-tax opposition is available for $3 from MCC U.S. Peace Section. It contains varying theological positions on the war-tax issue and materials about tax laws and legal concerns for the tax resister. Updated materials are available for those who purchased earlier editions of the packet.

The 20 February 1990 issue announced a “Standing Up for Peace” contest in which young people (ages 15–23) “are urged to interview someone who has refused to fight in war, pay war taxes, or build weapons and then write an essay or song, produce a video, or create a work of art.” The MCC (U.S.) Peace Section was one of the sponsors.

One Mennonite congregation decided to take the lead and begin resisting the telephone excise tax as a group (6 March 1990):

St. Louis (Mo.) Mennonite Fellowship has decided to stop paying its telephone tax as a form of protest against military spending. Federal phone tax revenues, first collected in 1941, contribute directly to the U.S. Armed Forces. “Though the biblical basis for such action has been debated, we wish to respect the convictions of our members and Anabaptist forebears and foremostly to be disciplined followers of Jesus Christ,” said Scott Neufeld, who coordinates the congregation’s peace witness. The congregation will send its tax money instead to Mennonite Central Committee.

Five European Mennonite theologians are proposing changes in a World Council of Churches statement that is being discussed at WCC’s Convocation on Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation in Seoul, South Korea, Mar. 5–13. One of them, Andrea Lange of West Germany, took the proposed revisions to Seoul as a representative of the Dutch Mennonite Church and the North German Mennonite Church, both of which are WCC members. The Seoul statement grows out of an extended “conciliar” process by WCC member churches. The Mennonite revisions call for the rejection of force and support for conscientious objectors to military service and those who refuse to pay war taxes. The revision also calls for the full use of women’s gifts in the church — and to “admit them to all church offices.”

The 1 May 1990 issue included an article on Mennonite martyrs of the World War Ⅰ period who were persecuted for refusing to buy war bonds (see ♇ 1 September 2018 for that article).

The Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries board of directors met in August 1990, and took their cue from the Mennonite Church board by putting things off for another time:

The issue of military tax withholding for MBCM employees was discussed at length. However, no action was taken. Since no MBCM employees are currently requesting that the military portion of their taxes not be withheld, the board agreed to wait for such a request before responding to the military tax withholding question.

In November J. Lorne Peachey took over from Daniel Hertzler as editor. We haven’t heard from Peachey yet so I don’t know if he took any position in the war tax resistance debates that might influence his editorial positions.

A 11 December 1990 letter to the editor from John F. Murray used the war tax resistance issue as a rhetorical hook in the course of trying to prompt readers into tithing more to the Church.

Another letter, from Jim Leuba, in the 15 January 1991 issue, gave taxpaying Christians a pointed edge:

In reference to your suggestion in your editorial that we spend a day praying for “Peace in the Persian Gulf”…, I feel the following is an appropriate prayer:

“Lord, today I am praying for peace in the Persian Gulf. I pray our armies do not use the weapons I helped pay for with my tax dollars. Never mind. Lord, that I could live at an income level that did not require paying war taxes. And, Lord, a war will only increase the price of oil. I am so addicted to oil that I can’t imagine life without it. Never mind. Lord, that I use at least 10 times more fossil energy than 75 percent of the earth’s human population. Protect me. Lord; I am a North American Christian.”

The following syndicated news brief appeared in the 26 February 1991 issue:

Quaker group must garnish wages of tax-resisting employees

A Philadelphia Quaker organization must garnish the wages of its employees who fail to pay income tax for religious reasons, a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled. But Judge Norma Shapiro also said the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends cannot be penalized for failing to honor the levies imposed by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The case involved the refusal of three Friends employees to pay the full amount of their taxes because part of it would go to the military, and that would violate their religious antiwar beliefs.

In her decision, Shapiro cited the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year in Employment v. Smith, the controversial Oregon peyote case. In denying unemployment benefits to two residents, the high court ruled that since ingestion of peyote was a crime in Oregon, “the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion proscribes (or prescribes).”

Eastern Canada Conference of Mennonites was struggling with the same issue of tax resisting employees that had troubled the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church (Ron Rempel reporting, 19 March 1991):

Canadian conference responds to military tax objectors

Waterloo, Ont. (Mennonite Reporter) — Two Ontario Mennonite leaders have declared their conscientious objection to the payment of military taxes. However, their employers have not yet decided whether or how to cooperate with the request to redirect military taxes for peaceful purposes.

Fred Martin, the student and young adult minister for Eastern Canada Conference, first raised the issue in the fall of 1989. Jean-Jacques Goulet, pastor of Wilmot Mennonite Church, took a similar stand the week that the Persian Gulf War started. His church is waiting to see how the conference will resolve the matter.

Last October, at its fall delegate meeting, the conference gave notice of a recommendation that will be dealt with at the annual meeting next month. That recommendation called on the conference to support Martin not forwarding to Revenue Canada the portion of his income tax used for military purposes.

Since the October meeting, the executive board of the conference has looked more closely at how to proceed if the fall recommendation is accepted. The board has prepared an alternative resolution, calling on the conference: (1) to “withhold no income tax from the salary of any conference employee who requests this on the basis of conscience”; (2) to inform Revenue Canada and members of Parliament of the decision; (3) to ask the government to introduce legislation recognizing conscientious objection to payment of military taxes and to provide peaceful alternatives for use of these tax dollars; and (4) to support other church boards, agencies, and congregations that may adopt similar policies.

“As far as we know, no one in Canada has gone this route,” commented Sam Steiner, secretary of the conference. Others who have asked for the cooperation of employers in not paying military taxes have become “contract employees,” or “self-employed contractors.”

Eastern Canada Conference, however, is proposing to treat military tax objectors as full employees, and to continue all regular benefits and deductions, except for income tax deductions. It would be left to the employee to remit income taxes to Revenue Canada after redirecting the military portion.

This procedure has been used by the General Conference Mennonite Church after that denomination decided in 1983 to support military tax objectors. The Mennonite Church has made a similar commitment in principle, but has not yet decided on a procedure to use.

According to Steiner, the conference would technically be Hable for breaking tax laws by deciding not to collect income taxes for the government.

Reporter Ron Rempel followed up on that report with this:

Eastern Canada Conference rejects proposal on military tax deductions

Baden, Ont. (Mennonite Reporter) — After a vigorous debate, delegates to the annual meeting of Eastern Canada Conference, Apr. 5–7, defeated a proposal calling on the conference not to deduct income tax from employees who want to redirect the military portion for peaceful purposes. They also tabled an alternative resolution.

The conference executive board developed its proposal in response to a request from its student and young adult minister, Fred Martin. He indicated in the fall of 1989 that he objected on the basis of conscience to paying military taxes. He asked the conference — which is required by law to deduct all income taxes and remit them to Revenue Canada — to help him find a way to express his conscience.

In the recent Gulf War, “my body was not being conscripted, but my money was,” commented Martin in a brief presentation before delegates. “How can I pray for peace but pay for war?”

In introducing the proposal, conference secretary Sam Steiner said the executive board had not been unanimous. Some abstained from voting; others were against the proposal. He also said the proposed action could make the conference legally liable for breaking the Income Tax Act.

The legal question dominated the Saturday afternoon discussion by delegates. For example. Ken Musselman said military tax objectors should use other options, like increasing charitable donations or cutting back their overall income to reduce taxes. A number of delegates said that individuals who want to redirect military taxes should assume the legal liability themselves — for example, as contract employees — rather than expect conference to bear it. Others supported the proposal. They cited historical precedents such as World War Ⅰ conscientious objectors choosing jail rather than the military uniform.

A number who lined up at the open mikes said they liked the second part of the executive board’s proposal — to seek legislation recognizing conscientious objections to payment of military taxes — but objected to the first part — asking conference to defy current income tax laws.

The delegates then faced two choices: either table the executive board’s proposal or look at an alternative resolution.

The alternative, presented by Margot Fieguth, began with the second part of the original proposal: an attempt to work through legislative and legal avenues to secure recognition of conscientious objection to payment of military taxes and to provide peaceful alternatives. This resolution also suggested that conference offer Fred Martin a contract position, so that he, rather than conference, would be responsible to make income tax payments.

Delegates decided not to table the original proposal. But before they started debating the alternative, there were voices calling for a vote on the executive board’s proposal.

“I would like to hear the truth of where the conference stands on this issue,” said Jean-Jacques Goulet, pastor of Wilmot (Ont.) Mennonite Church. During the Gulf War he had declared himself a conscientious objector to military taxes. And his congregation was waiting to see how conference would respond to Fred Martin.

In a ballot vote, the executive board’s proposal was defeated 159-48. It was late in the evening. The alternative resolution was on the floor. But someone proposed that it be tabled till the next session of conference. The motion carried.

The “Taxes for Peace” war tax redirection fund gave its annual report in the 16 April 1991 issue:

Taxes for peace.

The Peace Section of Mennonite Central Committee U.S. is inviting contributions for the 1991 “Taxes for Peace” fund. Established in 1972, it gives people who want to withhold war taxes a way to contribute their money to peaceful purposes. Donations last year totaled $3,700, and they were sent to the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and to Christian Peacemaker Teams. More information is available from MCC U.S. Peace Section…

Nathan Zook Barge was quoted in a 30 July 1991 article as saying: “Can we say that we are pacifist when we are still paying taxes in support of war? Unless we are actively stopping that kind of support, I don’t think we are being heard as pacifists in Central America.”

Another General Assembly was held around the beginning of August, and I’m sure the board of directors were on tenterhooks hoping that the Assembly would let them off the hook about implementing the decision they’d made at the previous General Assembly to begin refusing to withhold war taxes from the salaries of objecting employees.

Unfortunately, I see nothing in the Gospel Herald coverage that indicates that issue was addressed at all. Instead, there was a lot of talk about encouraging Mennonites to contribute more to the Peace Tax Fund lobbying effort.

Delegates did look to themselves in reconsidering a 1989 statement on the Peace Tax Fund. The statement had called on individual Mennonites to contribute to this fund. Noting that less than one percent had done so, this time delegates took action to urge conferences and congregations to put the Peace Tax Fund in their budgets.

The Peace Tax Fund would allow conscientious objectors to pay their taxes by diverting the military portion to a special trust fund. Efforts are currently underway to have the Fund be considered by lawmakers in the U.S.; a comparable campaign is also being considered in Canada.

Weldon and Marg Nisly of Cincinnati told how they are refusing to pay the portion of their taxes that goes to the military. The Internal Revenue Service has frozen their bank accounts and life for them has become more inconvenient, but Nisleys said this is one way for them to “say no to the military monster.” Their call for 100,000 other Mennonites to join them was met with applause.

Peace tax fund.

In 1989 Mennonite General Assembly went on record to encourage individuals to contribute to a peace tax fund campaign. Less than one percent of us did. So in Oregon delegates made their action stronger: they are now “urging” district conferences and local congregations to put the peace tax fund into their annual budgets.

So your congregation will need to make a decision about that “urging” some time in the next two years. Will you give expression to your belief in peace by supporting a congregational budget item to contribute to a peace tax fund? The contribution will be used to help sponsor legislation in both Washington and Ottawa to legitimatize a peace tax fund as an option for persons opposed to having their tax money used for military purposes.

The 3 September 1991 issue profiled “Seniors for Peace” and included this detail:

Some Seniors for Peace withhold the military portion of their income taxes and contribute it to a peace fund. Many actively support lobbying for legislation for a peace tax fund to provide alternative service for tax dollars.

And finally, a 29 October 1991 letter to the editor from Tim Nafziger urged Mennonites not to stop, satisfied by redirecting their taxes to a peace tax fund. “The Mennonite Church is called to do more than be morally pure,” he wrote.

While I’ve been delving through the archives of Gospel Herald, links have been backing up in my bookmarks. Here are some that concern war tax resistance in the here-and-now:

• The Trump administration has decided it enjoys provoking trade wars, which perhaps have the blessing of distracting them from getting their jollies by provoking real wars. But the prime mechanism — tariffs — is also a revenue source for the government. Which leads war tax resisters like Lincoln Rice to ask, are these tariffs for war? and if so, what can war tax resisters do about it?
• There’s a new National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee newsletter out, with content including:
  • Thirty-Eight Years of Refusal — Erica Leigh, Georgia Pearson, Larry Bassett, and Bill Ramsey review the history of the recently-closed Conscience and Military Campaign Escrow Account, which was responsible for coordinating tens of thousands of dollars in war tax redirection.
  • Disloyalty to the War Machine — A look back at the “bond slackers” of World War Ⅰ.
  • Counseling Notes — News about government policies towards war tax resisters, including the use of private debt collectors, IRS summonses, passport revocations, and a sharp decline in levies.
  • Colrain After 25 Years — A 25th Anniversary celebration of the actions surrounding the Corner/Kehler house seizure, coinciding with the New England Regional Gathering of War Tax Resisters.
  • War Tax Resistance Ideas and Actions — Including the upcoming Maine War Tax Resistance Gathering, and obituary notices for war tax resisters Ray Gingerich and Naomi Paz Greenberg.
  • NWTRCC News — Including an announcement of the upcoming NWTRCC national gathering in Cleveland.
  • War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund — Shirley Whiteside explains the benefits of this mutual-aid program.
• Adrienne Maree Brown writes about her war tax resistance in the wake of a wage levy, and reflects on the disadvantages of going it alone as opposed to resisting as part of a supportive group. Excerpt:

  i still deeply agree with the politics that led to this action, but i know now that i didn’t do it the right way. i acted as an individual, as if my singular act of rage should be respected, as if it could have meaningful impact on the systems of oppression that lead to the military spending i want to divest from.

  it helped me sleep well at night, but it wasn’t tied into a collective strategy, a system of accountability around whether it was effective. someday i hope to be part of larger direct action efforts around debt and taxes, but from this struggle i have learned in a most personal way the importance of the collective.

• Is there a war tax resistance movement? According to a pseudonymous author in a back issue of Conscience (the newsletter of the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign), “War tax resistance is real, but the war tax resistance movement is fiction.” War tax resistance is a tactic, says the author, whereas movements coalesce around goals, so there will never be a war tax resistance movement, though there may be movements that incorporate war tax resistance.
• Erica Leigh looks back at the Beit Sahour tax strike as it was covered at the time, in a two-part series of excerpts from Conscience (part 1 and part 2). Leigh writes: “The tax resistance in Beit Sahour was due to a high level of community cohesion, organization, education, and solidarity, something that’s missing from our scattered war tax resistance organizing around the United States. Most of our finest moments in US war tax resistance arose from such concentrated and dedicated efforts in a small geographic region, even when the total number of resisters was small. Food for thought!”