Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Quakers →
20th–21st century Quakers →
Arthur & Ursula Windsor
The documentary film Contempt of Conscience is now on-line.
This movie focuses on the war tax resisters in Britain known as the “Peace Tax Seven,” putting their protest in the historical context of the fight for conscientious objection to military service, the growth of mechanized warfare, and the history of conscientious war tax resistance.
The seven resisters featured in this film are Joe Jenkins, Robin Brookes, Brenda Boughton, Birgit Völlm, Simon Heywood, Siân Cwper, and Roy Prockter, and there are shout-outs as well to some other resisters, like Henry David Thoreau and Arthur Windsor.
The tax resistance movement featured in this film is largely focused on winning a legal right to conscientious objection to military taxation — largely by judicial appeal based on human rights standards in Britain and Europe — that is, on gaining a legal mechanism that would allow conscientious objectors to pay their taxes to some sort of government account that is firewalled from military expenditures.
On the Catholic Herald published an article about war tax resistance and the campaign to legalize conscientious objection to military taxation in the U.K.
’s parliamentary moves on the peace tax campaign are just one aspect of the battle to allow people to choose how their fiscal dues are spent according to conscience.
Peter Stanford reports.
Every adult in this country is paying, on average, over £8 a week towards the military budget.
Many — perhaps the majority — would consider this an acceptable financial burden to defend these islands.
However, a small but growing group hold that their taxes should not be used for a purpose they consider immoral, and are prepared to go to prison for their beliefs.
The similarities between the Peace Tax Campaign and the conscientious objectors of 60 years ago are obvious.
PTC describe the 13.6 per cent of our tax burden which goes on defence as “military conscription in financial terms.” They argue that since the right to refuse to fight was recognised in law as long ago as , a similar conscience clause should now apply to taxation.
To that end the PTC was founded in , and it reached another landmark in its campaign to make the majority recognise the rights and beliefs of the minority with the tabling of an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons calling on the Government to establish a peace building fund with money diverted by tax objectors.
Alice Mahon, newly-elected Labour MP for Halifax, is behind this latest move.
Other motions have been placed before parliament in recent years (by Catholic MP Dennis Canavan amongst others), using time-honoured procedural devices to draw attention to the peace tax campaign, but Ms Mahon has gone further than previously in suggesting a use to which the diverted cash could be used.
Rather than stockpile weapons of destruction, she would like to see a fund which would “break down barriers of race and culture.”
Hence the money could be used to promote inter-communal exchanges, east-west visits for ordinary people — “not simply talented sportsmen” but representatives of the community.
Alice Mahon sees the fundamental principle at stake as “giving people a choice on how their money is spent.”
The campaign may still have a long way to go, but she can see an end in sight in terms of stages — perhaps allowing conscientious objection in fiscal terms to nuclear weapons first, and then extending it to all armaments.
She is aware of the argument that would see such a tax concession, allowing people to make a choice on military matters, as the thin end of the wedge.
Would Catholics then be able to divert that part of their taxes that went into NHS coffers to pay for the free distribution of contraceptives to women?
Or pro-lifers that part of their fiscal dues that fund NHS abortions?
For Alice Mahon the military argument is a “much larger issue” than either of these two examples, and hence more fundamental to the sound running of a democracy.
If Ms Mahon and the five other newly-elected Labour MPs who have signed the motion are taking parliamentary action to further their cause, others have been more practical.
The Peace Tax Campaign has long been associated with the Quakers whose pacifist stance first clashed with state financial policy as long ago as the seventeenth century in Pennsylvania.
However, more recent recruits have been the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Bishop Victor Guazzelli, auxiliary in Westminster, the Welsh Presbyterian Church, and political parties — Plaid Cymru and the Greens — as well as individual MPs from all sides of the House of Commons.
Refusing to pay tax on moral grounds is essentially a personal protest.
It is presently only open to those who actually earn a wage large enough to warrant income tax, and in practical terms to those who are self-employed or deal with their own tax matters.
The reason for this latter qualification is that if a group of workers, or even an individual worker employed by a company, wants to stop paying a percentage of his or her taxes, it is the employer — who is responsible for PAYE contributions — that will be punished by the Inland Revenue.
One outstanding case of an individual refusing to pay the estimated 13.6 per cent of his taxes that goes to the military budget was that of Quaker Arthur Windsor.
On he was sent to prison for failing to comply with a court order to pay the sum in tax due.
Since it was a civil crime Mr Windsor was eligible for no remission, and served his full sentence.
On the day of Mr Windsor’s release, Dennis Canavan introduced the PTC’s first parliamentary procedural device.
And Mr Windsor, who is now being forced to pay off his outstanding debt to the revenue by deductions at source from his state pension, was not alone.
To date at least 25 war tax resisters, as they refer to themselves, have been taken to court.
Yet still a legal right has not been established although one case went as far as the European Commission for Human Rights which ruled that fiscal policy lay without its jurisdiction.
And it is not only individuals who have risked financial loss for their beliefs.
Straight Lines Ltd, a jewellery business in Powys in Wales, was taken to Wrexham court in for failing to pay 13.6 per cent of PAYE contributions on its seven employees and 30 outworkers.
Like many other protestors it deducted that amount and sent a separate cheque to the revenue made out to the Overseas Development Administration.
The court ruled against director Martin Philips who described the action as a personal act which he took on behalf of all those who did not wish to put their employers in an embarrassing situation, but who agreed with the PTC.
Two further court actions by the Inland Revenue followed, and finally in the bailiffs came to take assets from Straight Lines to meet the shortfall.
After three visits, a till was forced and the tax man satisfied.
Martin Philips has not gone on with his protest, although he does not rule out the possibility at a later date.
His debts to the Inland Revenue meant that he received bad listings with credit journals and companies, and consequently his business suffered.
He has “no regrets,” but acknowledges that “Straight Lines undoubtedly took a hammering because of it.”
At present there are 3,500 members of the Peace Tax Campaign, but support for it is growing, particularly amongst church bodies and groups.
Alice Mahon’s early day motion may never be debated in the chamber, but supporters like Martin Philips and Arthur Windsor will not give up, just as conscientious objectors had to endure vilification and personal loss before their moral conviction was finally recognised in law.
As I have noted before, the practice of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends has gone through waves.
In some periods it has been fervently adhered to, advocated, and practiced; in others, it has been largely reduced to lip service and its remaining practitioners have stayed in the shadows.
In the United States, Quaker war tax resistance seems to have been strongest between the French & Indian War and the American Civil War, and then again during the Cold War, while it suffered from lulls between the Civil War and the end of World War Ⅱ and again in recent decades.
I am less familiar with the arc of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends in other countries, but here’s a data point.
The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain has recently released the fifth edition of its Quaker Faith and Practice book.
Here’s what it has to say about taxes.
First, in Chapter 20, in a chapter devoted to “Living faithfully today” and a section on “Honesty and integrity: Conducting business” is given this general advice:
From its earliest days our Society has laid great stress on honesty and the payment in full of debts justly incurred.… [For example] When we have received goods or services, we shall be punctual in making payment of the price agreed on, and we shall not attempt to evade our proper obligations to the community by way of taxation.
Chapter 24 — “Our peace testimony” — handles the more specific case of war taxes, by means of quotes from a number of Quaker thinkers, while noting:
As a Society we have been faithful throughout in maintaining a corporate witness against all war and violence.
However, in our personal lives we have continually to wrestle with the difficulty of finding ways to reconcile our faith with practical ways of living it out in the world.
It is not surprising, therefore, that we have not always all reached the same conclusions when dealing with the daunting complexities and moral dilemmas of society and its government.
These are some of the quotes from this chapter that touch on war tax resistance:
One day in Tokyo Local Court, I had an opportunity to make a statement to witness why I felt it necessary to resist tax-payment for military expenditures, saying, “With military power we cannot protect our life nor keep our human dignity.
Even if I should be killed, my way of living or dying to show my sympathy and forgiveness to my opponents, to point to the love of God shown by Jesus Christ on the cross and by his resurrection, will have a better chance to invite others to turn to walk rightly so that we humankind may live together peacefully.”
Susumu Ishitani,
Yet there was in the deeps of my mind a scruple which I never could get over… I all along believed that there were some upright-hearted men who paid such taxes, but could not see that their example was a sufficient reason for me to do so, while I believed that the spirit of Truth required of me as an individual to suffer patiently the distress of goods rather than pay actively.
John Woolman,
The action of withholding the military proportion of our taxes arose for us from our corporately held testimony that “the Spirit of Christ, which leads us into all truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world”.
This testimony may at times lead to resisting the demands of the state, when a higher law (i.e. God’s inner law) makes its first claim on us.
We also need to be conscious that, if we offend against accepted law, we may have to take the consequences of our action.
Arthur and Ursula Windsor,
The Religious Society of Friends has, since its beginnings in the seventeenth century, borne witness against war and armed conflict as contrary to the spirit and teachings of Christ.
We have sought to build institutions and relationships which make for peace and to resist military activity.
The horrific nature of modern armaments makes our witness particularly urgent.
The Gulf War involved the substantial use of expensive modern weapons and technology, demonstrating that today it is the conscription of our money rather than our bodies which makes war possible.
For many years members of the Religious Society of Friends have been exercised about how we might be true to our historic peace testimony while still obeying the laws of our country.
You will know that we have appealed through the courts and ultimately to the European Commission of Human Rights for recognition of the right of conscientious objection to paying taxes for military purposes…
Since losing the appeal we have paid in full the income tax collected from our employees.
In recent months we have considered whether we can continue to do this, but after very careful consideration have decided that for the time being we must do so.
The acceptance of the rule of law is part of our witness, … for a just and peaceful world cannot come about without this.
However we do wish to make it clear that we object to the way in which the PAYE system involves us in a process of collecting money, used in part to pay for military activity and war preparations, which takes away from the individual taxpayer the right to express their own conscientious objection.
This involvement is incompatible with our work for peace.
London Yearly Meeting (letter to Inland Revenue),
On my last appearance in court [for withholding war tax], having already sent in my defence on grounds of conscience, backed by the Genocide Act, Geneva Convention, etc., I felt I wanted to make a more general statement about the fact that we have not used the United Nations as we should to settle disputes, or given sufficient support to it and its … agencies.
So I wrote a statement, gave copies to my faithful supporting Friends and other pacifists and handed a copy to the Judge, asking if I might read it.
He listened attentively to what I read, as his comments afterwards showed, though of course his verdict was the usual refusal.
It seems important to me to get the understanding of judges so that they will give serious consideration to our point of view and might eventually influence a change in the law, though they always say that is not their business.
Joan Hewitt,
Finally, in Chapter 29 — “Leadings” — is the following section:
We are trustees of a long tradition which has sought to bring our religious convictions into the world “and so excite our endeavours to mend it”.
We are trying to live in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars.
Fundamentally, taxation for war purposes is not a political or a fiscal issue.
We are convinced by the Spirit of God to say without any hesitation whatsoever that we must support the right of conscientious objection to paying taxes for war purposes.
We realise that we live in a world where it is impossible to see clearly the final consequences of the actions we might initiate from this Meeting.
Nevertheless we are impelled by our vision of a peaceful and loving society.
We ask Meeting for Sufferings to explore further and with urgency the role our religious society should corporately take in this concern and then to take such action as it sees necessary on our behalf.
We know that this is only one further step in our witness to the Truth, to which we are continually summoned.
We go forward in God’s strength.
London Yearly Meeting,
This is the thirty-third in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we continue through the middle-1980s.
War tax resistance grew to be a front-and-center concern of the General Conference Mennonite Church in the 1970s, but by the mid-1980s interest in the topic began to suddenly decline.
I noticed a similar thing when I looked at how war tax resistance rose and fell in the Society of Friends.
Perhaps the topic had been talked-out and people felt there was little more to add to the arguments that had already been made: everybody had the chance to learn about the issue and take their stand, and there wasn’t much left to talk about.
Or perhaps the topic had left the pages of The Mennonite for other publications — like God and Caesar (a specialty publication for war tax resisters put out by a Mennonite group), or the newsletter of the recently-founded National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.
The energy Mennonites were putting into the fools’ errand of World Peace Tax Fund legislation was certainly a distraction.
Certainly there were Mennonites who would have contemplated conscientious war tax resistance or argued for it, but who were instead content to lobby Congress to give them a box to check.
John R. Dyck wrote in with concern about this lapse of interest:
Thank you for picking up this important issue [military taxes] again (see issue) at a time when many of our people hoped it was a thing of the past.
Must we look to other denominations or people than our own to take a bolder leadership position when it comes to dealing with governments?
We have almost fallen asleep in the quietness and relative peace in our country, and the fairly consistent drop of dollars into our coffers has been an effective tranquilizer.
One of the articles in that issue was Edith Adamson (of Conscience Canada) and Marian Franz (of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund) promoting the Peace Tax Fund law idea.
Such a law, they said “would remove the agonizing dilemma that forces conscientious objectors to either disregard their deepest beliefs or disobey the laws of their country.”
They claimed the proposed law would “rechannel[] some tax dollars away from the military and into human needs programs,” and would raise awareness of “nations’ misplaced priorities.”
The Tax Court of Canada, in a recent 28-page ruling, held that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not permit taxpayers to withhold the “military portion” of their taxes.
Jerilyn Prior, a Vancouver physician of Quaker faith who brought the case, had withheld 10.5 percent of her taxes and sent them instead to a peace fund.
The court concluded, “Even if the assessment were objectively and in reality an infringement upon the appellant’s freedom of conscience and religion… the Canadian tax system… would be a reasonable limit which must be imposed in a free and democratic society…”
taxes for peace fund
Titus and Linda Peachey are directing a Pennsylvania project supported by Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section.
Taxes for Peace is for those wishing to designate a portion of their tax dollars for a peaceful purpose.
The section is also offering a packet of information about military tax opposition.
This year’s Taxes for Peace fund supports the Lancaster County Peacework Alternatives Project, addressing peace and militarism issues in Lancaster County, where 50 companies held prime military contracts worth $150 million with U.S. military agencies in .
The Peacheys hope to raise public awareness of the nature and extent of militarism in the Lancaster area and to work with local churches and groups about the theological and ethical questions of militarism.
They also want to help defense employees deal with the ethical dilemmas posed by defense-related jobs and begin a dialogue with managers of local military-related industries.
Peace Section hopes that this one-year pilot project will serve as a model and inspiration for other peace groups interested in initiating similar projects in their communities.
In more than 40 people contributed $4,645.85 to the Taxes for Peace fund.
This money was forwarded to a project in Guatemala that aided victims of violence.
European Mennonites: “as important as conscription”
Tubingen, West Germany (MCC)—
Green party parliamentarian Petra Kelly called on governments to heed the example of Christian communities and churches during the opening address at the First International Conference of Military Tax Resisters and Peace Tax Campaigns held here .
In particular she lauded the decision of the General Conference Mennonite Church not to force its employees to pay war taxes against their conscience.
Over 80 people representing most Western European countries, Australia, Japan, Canada and the United States attended.
Most of those at the conference were tax resisters.
Some redirect the military part of their income tax to peace-making purposes, others live below a taxable income level, and others symbolically withhold some of their taxes.
In West Germany and the Netherlands, for example, many take a first step by redirecting 5.72 German marks or Dutch guilders as a sign of their opposition to the deployment of the 572 U.S. Pershing and cruise missiles in Western Europe.
They believe that the conscription of their money is as important as the conscription of young men in preparing for and fighting war.
Several participants shared their experiences with tax resistance.
Arthur Windsor, a white-haired and mild-mannered Quaker from Gloucester, England, told how he could not reconcile his faith in Christ with paying tax monies that built nuclear and traditional weapons for oppressive Third World regimes.
He smiled when he remembered the remark of the constable who came to take him to jail, “The law is not the same as justice.”
Work groups met on to discuss “Law and Conscience,” “Symbolic Actions and Publicity” and “International Cooperation.”
Susumu Ishitiani, a Quaker from Japan, preached the final sermon in the Stepahanus Church, which hosted the conference.
Sponsors of the event included the German Mennonite Peace Committee, the German Quaker Peace Committee and the German Branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Mennonite participants included Marian Franz, executive director of the U.S.-based National Campaign for a World Peace Tax fund, Wolfgang Krauss of the German Mennonite Peace Committee and Andre Gingerich of Mennonite Central Committee in West Germany.
In there had been something of a purge of gay Mennonites from leadership positions, after a resolution at the Saskatoon conference unambiguously condemned homosexuality.
Robert Hull wondered why Mennonite institutions were being so selective about which sins they were going to condemn in this manner:
I… pointed out that the GC triennial sessions at Fresno, Calif. in declared that “all war and all that contributes to war is a sin.”
Yet some GC congregations accept as members people who have served in the military and not publicly repented, who work in defense industries, who pay federal taxes.
A new video program on war tax resistance is available for free loan from the Mennonite Central Committee Resource Library… War Tax Resistance Seminar includes a lecture and panel discussion presented in in Lancaster County, Pa.
The General Assembly of the Mennonite Church (confusingly not the General Conference Mennonite Church) took place in .
According to The Mennonite:
“Nearly all 260 delegates representing 22 conferences in the United States and Canada encouraged the church’s governing body to find a way for church institutions to respond to the consciences of employees who object to paying that portion of their taxes destined for military use, even if such action involves civil disobedience.”
Marian Franz wrote in the edition that in her experience war tax resistance and work on peace tax fund lobbying was a good form of outreach for the anti-war message.
Excerpts:
In the national capitals.
When you in the local areas and we in Washington and Ottawa continue to press the issue of conscience, our single acts have widespread reverberations.
Often members of government and their legislative assistants feel compelled to examine their consciences.
In my experience, as we explain why people cannot pay the military portion of their taxes, the member of government or the aide feels compelled to explain why their conscience does not agree with ours (something we did not come there to ask) or to admit that our witness has caused them to listen to their conscience in a new way.
Among religious bodies.
The fact that a sincere expression of conscientious conviction is infectious is demonstrated by the burgeoning examples of conscientious statements among religious bodies.
In North America a new “peace church” is emerging that spans virtually every denomination, confession and constituency.
Most of the major church bodies and bishops’ conferences have made statements, many surprisingly forceful, against nuclear weapons and the spiraling arms race.
At the congregational and parish level, Bible study, prayer and discussion around the nuclear question is occurring across Canada and the United States.
Old distinctions between pacifists and just-war proponents are breaking down.
The threat of nuclear war has raised, for an increasing number of Christians, a crisis of conscience.
At the corporate level.
Until now in our history, conscientious objection was considered only an individual matter.
Conscientious objection to paying taxes for military force was a matter between the individual and God, the individual and conscience, the individual and the courts, the individual and revenue collection agencies.
Now another dimension has been added to the picture.
It is called corporate military tax resistance.
Even in the face of large maximum penalties ($25,000 fine for each person and/or 10 years in prison), religious bodies are beginning to ask if they as corporate entities can any longer in good conscience withhold taxes from the salaries of those employees who ask for reasons of conscience that they not be withheld.
To date such corporate action has been taken only by small groups in historic peace churches (e.g. the General Conference Mennonite Church; Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, a six-state region of Quakers; and the Friends World Committee on Consultation).
But that action is now under consideration by some of the largest denominations.
When we mention such corporate actions and considerations in Congressional offices, new interest is sparked.
Conscientious objection as a matter of individual conscience is one thing, but when it occurs on a corporate level it draws a different quality of attention.
At an international level.
The Canadian and U.S. Peace Tax Fund efforts are a small campaign as lobbies go.
Yet small seeds continue to sprout and blossom.
The exact wording of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill now appears in legislation introduced in the parliaments of several nations.
How could David Bassett, a Quaker physician from Ann Arbor, Mich., who drafted the U.S. peace tax legislation with law faculty, have dreamed that one day he would attend an international conference of peace tax campaigns?
After five years as executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund in the United States, I was thrilled to attend the first international conference of peace tax campaigns and war tax resisters in Tubingen .
One hundred participants from 15 countries gathered for the conference.
They came together at the invitation of five German groups, including the Deutsches Mennonitisches Friedens Komitee (German Mennonite Peace Committee).
In workshops, panel discussions, and plenary sessions many participants expressed openly and in moving ways the Christian basis for their beliefs and actions.
While the religious and political backgrounds of the participants varied, there was little diversity in their conviction of conscience.
All found it a clear violation of conscience to pay the military portion of their taxes.
All saw the connection between the 4 million people who starve each year and swollen military budgets.
All noted that what the world spends in just 10 days for military expenditures could not only feed all the hungry on earth for a year but also provide them with clean water, housing and education.
Even the setting for the conference was a reminder of why we had gathered.
From the Tubingen church where we met, we could see a hospital for brain-damaged people from World War Ⅱ, now under conversion into a training center for the triage method of treating the victims of the next war.
I was struck by how many of the participants had known the trauma of war firsthand.
The majority were Europeans and had lived under bombs and/or had grown up with family members missing because of World War Ⅱ.
Antje Spannenberg was one of the generation of children who had plagued their parents with the question, “How could you have allowed Hitler to come into and remain in power?
Why didn’t you stop him?”
Now Antje’s children are asking her, “How can you allow a world full of weapons so dreadful and dangerous?”
Ursula Windsor, a refugee from Nazi Germany now living in England and married to Britisher Arthur Windsor, admits, “I know if enough of us had resisted we could have stopped Hitler.
For some it would not have been difficult; for others, a great sacrifice.
Whether simple or difficult, there came a time when it was too late.”
Ursula knew that truth from experience.
“I have watched my favorite possessions being taken out of my home as the British Inland Revenue Service claimed them in lieu of taxes we have not paid because we believe that Jesus forbids us to pay for war.”
Her husband, Arthur, went to prison for three weeks.
On the day of Arthur’s release he was met at the prison gate by a member of the British Parliament who escorted him to the British House of Commons.
With Arthur in the gallery, the member of Parliament introduced the British Peace Tax Fund into Parliament.
On that day, for the first time, it received 10 minutes of official debate.
She also briefly profiled conference attendees Wolfgang Krauss of West Germany and Susumu Ishitani of Japan.
Military tax resistance.
Are there conscientious objectors to taxes for military purposes in other countries, and do some refuse to pay the military portion of their taxes to their governments?
Yes.
Some withhold all, some the military portion and some a symbolic portion from their taxes.
For some these actions are a political strategy; for many they are based on religious commitment.
Reports from the various countries echoed a refrain.
In the Netherlands 5.72 guilders is a symbolic amount withheld by many.
In Germany 5.72 Deutsche Marks is a symbolic amount.
The number represents the 572 Pershing Ⅱ and cruise missiles on European soil and expresses abhorrence for the fact that they shorten the nuclear fuse to six minutes.
Legislative efforts.
Has any country succeeded in passing peace tax legislation that would make it legal to have the military portion of their citizens’ taxes go into a separate fund?
Not yet.
Countries working for legislation are the Federal Republic of Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Finland, Australia and the United States.
Switzerland and Spain have no organized effort for legal recognition of conscientious objection to military taxes.
France has a fund in which tax-resisted dollars are collected, as does Italy.
The Peace Tax campaigns of Canada and Japan, rather than promoting peace tax legislation, are challenging their governments in the courts based on constitutional guarantees of freedom of conscience (Canada) and constitutional stipulations that not more than 1 percent of the gross national product be used for military force (Japan).
Other judicial efforts.
Attempts to establish through the courts the legal right to redirect taxes from military purposes have been pursued in many countries.
Except in Italy, these efforts have been without success.
The standard response of governments to non-payment of the military portion of taxes (if they respond at all) includes trials, confiscation of property, fines and interest fees, and — in rare instances — prison.
The standard response of the courts to tax resisters who are brought to trial is that the issues raised present a “political question” that the courts cannot address or that constitutional guarantees of freedom of conscience and/or religion do not outweigh the duty of a citizen to pay taxes.
The greatest success and surprise story was that de facto recognition of conscientious objection to military taxes exists in Italy.
Fifty war tax resisters have been prosecuted in six legal cases and have been acquitted in every case.
They based their case on the fact that freedom of conscience is guaranteed in the Italian constitution.
Participants from Italy reported at Tubingen that four years ago they knew of only 20 who did not pay the military portion of their taxes for reasons of conscience.
That number is now 3,500 and growing.
War tax resisters are no longer prosecuted in Italy.
I listened with anticipation to the featured speaker, Petra Kelly, founder of the Green party, and member of the West German Bundestag (Parliament).
Referring to the Hitler years, she said, “Because we can recall the painful experiences of fascism in this country, especially when it comes to military violence, we cannot retreat into obedience by our citizens in relation to the state.
In the domain of conscience there is a higher duty.
The special status of human conscience and the fundamental right not to kill is set apart from other issues.
Therefore governments should make allowance for tax redirection that they would make in no other cases.”
Then came the surprise.
Kelly said that in searching for signs of some way out of the dark morass of military expenditures, she finds an example in the Mennonites.
She said, “An example for me is the [General Conference] Mennonite Church.
A group of members decided the following:
‘The employees of the church administration are given the power to be true to the high demands of Christ’s Law of Love, in that they can resist withholding taxes from employees that have requested it and therefore open up the possibility to resist for reasons of conscience to pay for the preparation of war.’ ”
She continued, “This example should give us all courage, but it is also a clear signal of that which happens in many Christian churches and can give us hope.”
I thought back to the long struggle of conscience that culminated in the conference decision cited by Kelly.
At the time we were not thinking of what the rest of the world would think of us, but only whether our action was consistent with obedience to Christ.
I certainly did not expect to hear it quoted three years later by a member of a foreign parliament, at a conference of 15 countries.
