Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Mennonites / Amish →
The Mennonite
A while back I went through as many back issues of Friends Journal as I could find, to try to tell a story of the recent history of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends (Quakers) in the United States.
I’ve lately been going through back issues of The Mennonite in an attempt to do the same with American Mennonites.
Some preliminary notes:
My searching technique was not very sophisticated:
I relied on the volumes of The Mennonite whose page images have been scanned in at the Internet Archive.
Most of those are text-searchable, but the searchable text is uncorrected optical character recognition output and so probably makes a hash of much of it.
In many volumes, the text close to the spine is difficult or impossible to read in the scans, and the OCR wouldn’t register it correctly.
I usually relied on simple searching for “tax” and “taxes,” occasionally supplementing this with searches for “bonds” and “stamps” (during the World War periods when those were other ways citizens financially supported the military).
This likely missed some relevant discussion.
I couldn’t find a copy of the volume, and I think The Mennonite did not publish in ; in any case I did not find any issues from those years.
In the more recent years there are a lot of mentions of Peace Tax Fund-related activism.
I didn’t bother to keep track of most of these, as I wanted to concentrate on war tax resistance proper.
I will make mention of some of the highlights of this activism, and of where it intersects with (and sometimes undercuts) war tax resistance, but there’s much I’ll omit.
There’s a lot I don’t know about American Mennonites, about which institutions (and magazines) are broadly representative and which only represent certain tendencies or subgroups.
So some of my summaries may be uninformed or missing nuance.
I’ve just completed a first pass through the available volumes, , bookmarking pages that caught my eye.
My first bird’s-eye impression, before trying to synthesize things, is that support for war tax resistance went from being mostly unthinkable in the early issues to being a frequently-discussed majority position by and then quickly faded by .
In the earlier issues I reviewed, I saw very little concern about paying war taxes.
It was usually taken for granted that Mennonites are to Render Unto Caesar and to look the other way when Caesar spends what’s rendered.
A typical example of this comes from Frederick Yeakel’s “The Things Which Are Caesar’s” from the issue.
He begins by describing in general terms the concerns an American citizen might have for his or her country, but then says “the foregoing medley of queries and propositions… are concerning the things which Christ has very succinctly designated as ‘Cæsar’s’ — and the Master’s teaching is that we shall on the whole submit ourselves to the existing order of things.”
Thus we often experience a feeling of relief, tempered with gratitude, though otherwise much annoyed and perplexed, that Christ was so emphatically an upholder of law and government, and so unreserved in his recommendation that men should pay their taxes.
When we remember that Joseph and Mary took a long and arduous journey to Bethlehem merely in order to be taxed, and that by a decree of a Roman Emperor, also that doubtless Christ, from early childhood, had much to hear of Israel in bondage, and under heavy tribute to a hierarchy not that of David or Solomon, so that when his enemies sought to impeach his loyalty to Rome in the matter of tribute money, the Saviour might, to our way of thinking, have replied with perhaps a show of hesitancy, rebuke or in strong disapproval.
But strong, firm and clear comes the answer, “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”
Christians are thus left with little room for doubt or evasion as to their duties toward the government under which they stand at the time.
They may yield with grace to wrongs and injustice imposed by the powers that be without incurring God’s displeasure.
A brief item in the issue showed that Mennonites might even voluntarily tax themselves to support the military:
The Mennonites in Russia met recently to consider the financial support of the wounded soldiers in the present war, and their families.
It was decided that a regular tax of five Kopekes per desjatine of land per month as long as the war lasts be levied.
In the , the Russian Mennonites were mentioned again.
By this time the disastrous Russo-Japanese war had been lost and republican reforms had eroded some of the Czar’s authority.
Russian Mennonites had worked hard to get the Czar to accommodate their conscientious objection to military service and there was some question as to whether the new government would honor this.
In the course of the article on this subject, it was noted that during the Russo-Japanese war “Mennonites paid what was practically an exemption tax” for their privilege of conscientious objection.
I note this because in contrast, Quakers had a long-standing tradition of refusing to pay such exemption taxes.
In the issue, editor Isaac A. Sommer noted that “[t]here are are present about a dozen branches of Mennonites” and wondered if it could be determined from among them, perhaps in some sort of General Conference, “[i]n what fundamentals do the Mennonites agree?”
John Horsch, in Gospel Herald (a magazine which I have not otherwise yet investigated) took up the challenge, but chose rather to note where the different divisions disagreed.
For example, the doctrine of “Nonresistance”:
We hold that this designation loses its meaning where members in good standing are permitted to serve in such worldly offices as policemen, and the like, as is the case in certain bodies of Mennonites.
A follow-up editorial (signed “G.”) in The Mennonite attacked Horsch’s piece from beginning to end with the sort of thorough fisking that only internecine battle really brings out.
Of Horsch’s concern about nonresistance, G. wrote:
If it is wrong to be a policeman it is just as wrong to recognize his authority and accept his protection, or indirectly contribute toward his support by paying taxes for that purpose.
Of course if G. were to apply this same logic to the traditional Mennonite position of conscientious objection to military service, this would mandate tax resistance as well, but I saw no evidence that G. considered this or that anyone else noticed it.
This is more evidence that war tax resistance was not prominent in The Mennonite readership’s consciousness at the time.
Sometimes [the German Mennonites in Pennsylvania] neglected the paying of the taxes levied by the continental government.
e.g. In one of the families of which I know there was a hall clock case from which three separate sets of works had been removed and sold by the officials to satisfy war taxes which the owner refused to pay.…
During the civil war many of the brethren were practically made beggars by the frequent necessity of purchasing substitutes, some having been several times drafted.
That’s the first mention of Mennonite war tax resistance I could find.
It concerned resisters from long ago, and even so it was introduced semi-apologetically, with the author explaining that the resisters during the American Revolution were “German in their sympathies and… taught to respect the king above all things” and so were out of sympathy with the rebel cause — implying that it was this, and not pacifist scruples, that led them to refuse to pay rebel war taxes.
The included a lead editorial by editor Carl van der Smisen on the subject of “Church and State”.
The editorial mostly was a sort of vaguely mournful reflection on the ongoing national election campaign of , and on the balancing act of Mennonites who wanted to consider themselves primarily citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven but who felt obligated to attend to at least some of the nitty-gritty of improving the kingdoms of the earth.
In the course of this, van der Smisen writes:
Are we doing our duty, do we give Caesar what is Caesar’s if we pay taxes irrespective of the use that is made of these taxes?
The question raised, however, remained unanswered.
An article in the issue concerned a war tax bill being drafted by Congress (it’s unclear to me whether this was in anticipation of the imminent World War Ⅰ or to pay for ongoing U.S. interference in the Mexican civil war).
In any case, the article is very much in a just-the-facts mode, describing which commodities would be taxed and how much.
“[T]he following will give you some idea of how each individual would pay a share” the list began.
No hint is given that these taxes might be avoided or refused by pacifist Mennonites.
This concludes part one.
In the next post in this series, I’ll explore how The Mennonite covered war tax resistance during World War Ⅰ.
I started a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I pick up where I left off, at the beginning of World War Ⅰ.
The United States entered the war, officially anyway, in .
I know that some Mennonites resisted the frenzy of pro-war patriotism that followed, but The Mennonite itself clearly did not.
The front page of the edition reproduced an extract from Report of Committee on Citizenship of the Eastern District Conference that, while it reaffirmed “our fundamental principles of peace and non-resistance” also counseled that:
There is abundant historical precedent of patriotic financial assistance given by Mennonite peoples to their governments in times of war in other countries to warrant us in recommending that our people subscribe liberally to government bonds as a means of financial assistance to our country.
We recommend that all our members who are able to do so, invest in government bonds.
An article on war taxes from the issue continued the trend of reporting on what would be taxed and how much without any hint that Mennonites should be troubled by this.
Articles about the “Liberty Bond” drives reported on their “overwhelming success” and made no mention of the people (including many Mennonites, though you wouldn’t know it from reading The Mennonite) who were refusing to buy them for conscientious reasons.
The issue reprinted A Short and Sincere Declaration, which was said to have been delivered on behalf of German Baptists to “The Honorable House of Assembly” in .
The declaration said that “we find no Freedom in giving or doing or assisting in Anything by which Men’s Lives are destroyed or hurt” but:
We are always ready, according to Christ’s command to Peter, to pay the Tribute, that we may offend no man, and so we are willing to pay Taxes and to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the Things that are God’s…
We are also willing to be subject to the higher Powers and to give in the manner Paul directs us:— for he beareth the Sword not in vain, for he is a Minister of God, a Revenger to execute upon him that doeth Evil.
Our small Gift, which we have given, we gave to those who have power over us, that we may not offend them as Christ taught us to pay the Tribute Penny.
This is an amalgam of three bible verses that are often used to excuse taxpaying and other concessions to government authority, and are the typical stumbling blocks for anyone trying to biblically justify tax resistance:
Matthew 17:24–27 — Peter pays the temple tax via a miracle from Jesus
Romans 13 — Paul says that worldly governments are God’s instruments and should be obeyed
Matthew 22:15–22 (et al.) — Jesus answers, “Render unto Caesar…”
In the issue, A.D. Wenger gave a report from Camp Lee, where some 130 conscientious objectors, including Brethren, Quakers, and Mennonites, were being processed.
“[Some] care for horses, work in kitchens, etc.
Some work in hospitals or do clerical work.
Others refuse to do any work that directly supports the war.”
Some were imprisoned, fed on bread and water or not fed at all.
“The lives of some were threatened.”
Parents of some of those imprisoned tried to bring food but were turned away.
Wenger and some others tried to intervene by speaking with a General Cronkhite and Colonel Hunt, who were “severe” at first “but later were more mild and genial as they saw our position more clearly.”
They appeared to be satisfied if our people do not bear arms if they will only help along in some other way.
They say the whole nation is in the war and that all are helping, whether soldiers or not, by special taxes, farm products, etc.
What the government requires of us we must give.
It is our duty to pay our taxes.
“Pay ye tribute also.”
It is not until the issue that I find some evidence that Mennonites (if not The Mennonite) are conflicted about financially supporting the war.
From the lead editorial of that issue:
The launching of the Fourth Liberty Loan has again reminded us that when once war is on its way, peace only comes at a terrible cost in men and means.
Nearly two million of our countrymen are now overseas.
Their return to peaceful vocations depends largely upon the support they get from home not only in munitions, but in the things that sustain life.
A failure to give them the proper support would unquestionably prolong the war and cause greater suffering.
The traditions of our church have been those of a peace sect and the question naturally arises in the minds of some “Can I consistently buy bonds now?”
Buying bonds is supporting a government which is at war, but so is raising wheat or wool, or mining coal, or manufacturing lumber, since the government has decided to just what use these commodities are to be put.
We know of Mennonites who refuse to have anything to do with bond-buying.
Whether they are right or not is a matter we must let between their God and their consciences, but if they believe themselves to be right, we warn them that they must hereafter never touch a bond since their conscience has pronounced it an accursed thing, neither must they have anything to do with an institution that builds up its endowment with Liberty bonds, be it a school, hospital, or other benevolent institution.
It is our opinion that bonds, like money which they represent, are things belonging to the secular government.
It is our duty as good citizens to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.
We claim the protection and demand privileges of our government and are therefore in no position to be lax when it is in need of the use of our money.
Mennonites have plenty of historical precedent in the matter of loaning money to the government in war times.
…[For example,] Mennonites, at the risk of life, sent a considerable sum of money to William of Orange to help him in his great struggle for Protestantism and liberty.
…[And] during the Napoleonic wars, the Mennonites of Prussia rendered financial assistance to their government.
No doubt the assistance given in both Holland and Prussia were important factors in determining the favorable treatment Mennonites were given after that in these countries.
Bearing arms and participating in bloodshed are matters upon which people differ as to their right or their wrong, but concerning the matter of rendering to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, that is, giving to the government that which already belongs to it, is a thing upon which the Master acted long ago.
He showed us what our attitude should be.
Does it become us to try and change or improve upon a course already laid out by our Lord?
The editorial was unsigned; the editor at this time was Silas M. Grubb.
The churches have also taken a very decided stand on the question of the war loan.
There have been two such loans made in Canada and the Mennonites have been approached each time.
The churches in Saskatchewan had a meeting and decided unanimously that they would have nothing to do with the war loan but instead would make a handsome contribution to the Red Cross.
The feeling was the same among the churches in Manitoba, but here the canvassers made some of our people believe that the proceeds from their bonds would be used only for buying grain, and under that impression some subscribed to the loan.
This year the government came to us with a definite promise that the money which came from the Mennonites should be used for relief purposes only, that a separate account would be opened in the treasurer’s books for this purpose, and that it should be stamped on the bonds taken by Mennonites that the money went to the relief account.
Under these conditions the churches all have recommended their members to buy bonds.
It is estimated that about half a million will be subscribed by the Mennonites of western Canada.
This is the third in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I pick up in the period between the World Wars.
[I]n your further argument about supporting the war, you seem to make no distinction between money given with the sole purpose in view of giving it support, and other money given or paid, in the way of taxes, or gain raised for food.
You certainly ought to be able to make a distinction here.
I do not raise grain for the express purpose of supporting the war, but as a necessity of life.
If others misuse this grain for the purpose of destruction, that can not be properly charged to me.
But if I buy a Liberty bond, etc., I am doing it with the impression that it is for the express purpose of supporting the war, because that is the purpose of the aid asked.
It seems to me that you ought to be able to see a vast difference between those two motives.
But in general, The Mennonite and its readers seemed still to be very casual about the use of war bonds.
The first issue of included a report from the Berne, Indiana congregation that included this remark:
On we assembled in our church in large numbers…
Although the expenses were greater in than in any other year in this century, the people contributed for the promotion of God’s kingdom more liberally than usual.
Not only dimes and dollars, but also War Saving stamps and Liberty bonds were offered.
Other casual mentions of war bonds and stamps were scattered through various issues.
For example:
To date we have received $5,040.00 in Liberty bonds and War Saving stamps.
In accord with the expectation of our government, these papers will be held for maturity.
Later, we expect, our missions will find good use for the principal.
The board is always ready to receive such securities for the use of missions.
The issue included an article about the Funkite schism among Mennonites in the Revolutionary-era United States.
Christian Funk was of the opinion that Mennonite colonists like himself should be loyal to the rebel colonial government, while the establishment position was that they should maintain their loyalty to the King.
The article reproduces some of an booklet by Funk, explaining his position.
Excerpts:
A tax of 3£, 10s. was now laid, payable in Congress, paper money.
My fellow ministers were, however, unanimously of opinion that we should not pay this tax to the government, considering it rebellious and hostile to the king.
But I have it as my opinion that we ought to pay it, because we had taken the money issued under the authorities of Congress, and paid our debts with it.…
…Cæsar had not been considered by the Jews, as their legitimate sovereign, and though they owed him no tribute, and that they had tempted Christ to find a cause against him.
But Christ demanded a piece of their money, and asked what image and superscription it bore, to which they answered Cæsar’s; he then replied, ‘Render unto Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s, and unto God that which is God’s’ I remarked further — were Christ here, He would say: ‘Give unto Congress that which belongs to Congress, and to God what is God’s.”
This displeased Andrew Ziegler, and rising said I would as soon go into the war as to pay the 3£ 10s., if I were not concerned for my life, and departed in anger.
In the past war the Mennonites were not as steadfast as they or as any other true Christian should have been.
We bought liberty bonds because, oh, we thought we had to.
Do we realize that perhaps our money was used to make shells to kill some one?
One Mennonite made the remark during the world war, oh it is absurd to be a Mennonite in time of war.
If this be true it is absurd to ever be a Christian!
Let us therefore be steadfast and rely on Christ to stand firm in time of war as well as in time of peace.
We spend 72 per cent of our entire budget on wars past and future.
Such heavy war taxes leave little enthusiasm to grapple with social, educational, and industrial problems.
After studying the teachings and spirit of Jesus as we believe He should be interpreted many earnest disciples are concluding that no Christian can have a share in war.…
Shall we as Christians and as His church to accept the demands of a sub-Christian world or be true to the way of Christ at any material cost and any personal distress?
We believe this moral dilemma is the most important aspect of this problem.
Very true Jesus commanded “Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” but He also spoke, “And to God the things which are God’s.”
The same section of the issue meandered a bit on the topic of the separation of church and state and the possible conflict of God’s laws with man’s laws.
Excerpts:
Separation of church and state has been a cardinal principle of Mennonitism.
The laws of God as revealed in Christ and His Word are superior to man-made laws.…
This well-defined and historic principle, however, has created some curious facts in practice.
We think it proper to pay taxes, but how a corrupt government may use that revenue is none of our concern.…
Is it not time to square ourselves with God and reality?
Whether or not we like it we are a part of a social, economic, and political order.
Living apart from it is impossible.
To find out how to live in it and still do our Christian duty is our major problem.
A “jotting” in the issue returned to the story of the Funkite schism, but this time pointedly told it more from the point of view of the orthodox tax resisting Mennonites, and represented it as a question of paying taxes “for military support” whereas earlier tellings had portrayed the orthodox resisters as having been motivated by stuck-in-the-mud royalism:
During the period of the Revolutionary War in Pennsylvania, Mennonites became divided on the matter of paying taxes imposed for military support.
A small faction in the Skippack District under the leadership of a minister named Funk took a liberal view of the matter and paid the tax.
This party established several churches, the last of which became extinct about .
One of those who refused to pay the tax owned a splendid clock of the “Grandfather” type.
The tax collector seized the works in payment of the levy, but left the case in possession of the owner who promptly furnished it with new works.
When a boy, the editor visited the home of a descendant of the owner of the clock and was permitted to examine it and the works with which it had been refurnished.
It was an excellent time keeper.
A “Sunday School Lesson” meant for and focused on that ever-grovelling Romans 13, insisted, as Paul did, that government officials are instruments of God, even if they don’t realize it, and that therefore we should be obedient, even if some government officials are bad.
There are some exceptions:
“Laws that interfere with one’s conscience, laws that make murderers of men, laws that are aimed at the breakdown of religion are not real laws.
They are counterfeit…”
However:
Special emphasis is placed upon the paying of tribute.
Paul commends it.
So did Jesus when He said, “Render unto God the things that are God’s and unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”
[sic]
It is important that each one who benefits by the law do his part in its support.
That means giving of our possessions toward that end.
Some have taken the position that they are not of this world and so have no obligations to the powers of this world.
Were that so it might mean that disobedience to all law were justified.
In such matters, as in other things, we must take the example of Jesus.
He paid His tax.
There were many things in the government of His time that He could not approve by any means, but that did not prevent Him from meeting the obligations that citizenship imposed.
As citizens let us bear in mind that there are two kinds of citizens, the good and the bad.
Any one who would be like his Master certainly would want to be numbered with the good citizens.
On , George S. Stoneback preached an Armistice Day Sermon, taking as his text Ⅰ Samuel 30:24 — “As is the share of him who goeth down into the battle, even so is his portion who remains with the baggage, they shall share alike.”
He said:
When David said it he was thinking in terms of spoils, but his principle is true in more aspects.
The same can be applied to the responsibility for war.
Nobody wants war — yet the world is full of actual and potential warfare.
Nobody wants war, and yet we are all actively preparing for it.
Who is to blame? Who is responsible? The Japanese war lords? Mussolini? Hitler? France?
To be sure — but they have a lot of company.
They do not bear the responsibility alone; the world is full of baggage watchers who share alike in the responsibility for wars and rumors of war.
Every wage earner in the country is helping to finance America’s newest bid in the armament race.
About a year ago this country launched a cleverly conceived system of wage tax.
One cent on each dollar earned goes into a social security fund.
We thought it would go into a separate fund, but even Senator Norris admits that the money is going in to the general treasury to “balance the budget,” to buy new battle ships, etc.
We thought our money would be put into sound investments.
If a rapidly depreciating battle ship is a sound investment, then we have not been duped.
The United States is now building four new sixty-million dollar battle ships.
It is hard to tell how much of your wage tax will be used to pay for them.
How many people have protested?
Some Mennonites in Lancaster protested, but only against receiving the fund once it comes due, not against paying the levy.
Finally, the Young People’s Committee were at it again in the issue, reinterpreting “Render Unto Caesar” in the other direction.
Instead of trying to say maybe sometimes we should refrain from giving Caesar our denarius, the article argued that perhaps we should be more eager to give Caesar our two cents:
Unto the Jew of that day this [saying] could hardly mean more than the payment of taxes to the Roman Emperor.
Caesar governed.
That system of government did not place upon the Jews the duty to help solve complex problems of state.
Caesar dictated, and the Roman legions marched.
The commandment had a narrow scope.
Today, unto the Mennonites of America, this is a vital and challenging commandment.
In a democracy the people are supposed to govern.
To voice their desires is their duty.
“Render unto Caesar” refers, then, not only to the payment of taxes, but also to the duty of informing our law-makers that the troops of the United States shall not march.
Such action does not interfere with our supreme allegiance to God; it intensifies this allegiance.
Let us step out of the shadow of inactivity and into the sunlight of creative, Christian action for peace — sunlight which will help to dispel the shadows of war.
Either write to your representatives in congress when you consider the time opportune, or get in touch with Public Action, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y.
This agency will inform you when critical measures are before congress and when and to whom you should write.
This same agency issues the excellent Washington Information Letter.
Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.
And here comes World War Ⅱ. Let’s see how The Mennonite copes with the taxes and bonds that will fund it… in our next episode.
This is the fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I pick things up in the early World War Ⅱ period, just before the United States officially enters the war.
[W]e hear a great deal about the obligation of a democracy which must be assumed by its citizens in return for the rights and liberties gained under a system.
May I ask what some of these obligations are?
Must I assume the policy of “My country, right or wrong, but my country”?
Have I no higher allegiance than to my country?
How can I be loyal to God and to my conscience, and at the same time support my country in the anti-Christian and anti-social business of war?…
Do I have an obligation to defend our industrialists’ interests in foreign countries?
On every hand we hear the unanimous answer, “no.”
But, will I be called in to protect loans made by American business to the Allies — made in at their own risk?
What if these business men go bankrupt through a sudden turn in the war’s developments?
Then comes the tremendous clamor for RFC loans to save these industrialists and business men.
Our tax-payers would be compelled to shoulder the burden for credits to belligerents that they had not authorized and in fact had clearly condemned.
The “youth” was Leonard Mather, a student at U.C. Berkeley.
I believe he would later volunteer to serve the military in World War Ⅱ.
The “Render Unto Caesar” episode got another mulling over in the issue.
In this interpretation, the meaning of the episode is this: “[Jesus] said in effect — ‘You use Caesar’s money, you must pay his tax.’ ”
Maridel Harding took another swing at the same dead horse in the issue.
The way she saw it:
In this statement Jesus recognizes the civic responsibility of Christians.
Government stands for that order without which society cannot hold together.
The people who came to Jesus with the matter of paying taxes to Caesar felt toward the ruler as all subjugated people have felt toward their rulers.
Yet the answer of Jesus implies that Caesar, though hated, provided a certain amount of security.
The whole community receives something from government, hence all must share in supporting it.
No man has a right to order his life apart.
That’s reading quite a bit into it, says I. Over the years I’ve read a lot of different interpretations of the “Render Unto Caesar” verses.
I don’t have much skin in the game, not being a Christian, but I have my own favorite interpretation too.
Dead horse might not be the right metaphor; it’s more like the blind men and an elephant from the proverb.
The issue included a piece by R.L. Hartzler in which he anticipated that war was on the way and that “This means that the government must initiate a money-raising campaign the like of which we have never seen in this country.”
Mennonites, he suggested, should anticipate that the government will try to come after their assets and turn them into war materiel, and so they should preemptively devote those assets to beneficial purposes:
How will it be done?
Taxation is, of course, the government’s chief money-raising arm, but it dare not at this time impose a set of exactions sufficient to raise the stupendous amount needed.
To do so would materially “cool off” the war fever which the administration has so adroitly contrived to stimulate and mature.
So other methods must come in for consideration and adoption.
Of these, two are most often proposed by treasury officials, — defense bonds and war savings stamps to be purchased by the people, thus turning their reserves and savings into the promotion of the armament program.
In making public mention of these methods the secretary of the treasury took pains to stipulate that the purchase of such bonds would be voluntary on the part of citizens; and that, while local committees would be appointed to promote the sale of them, persons were not to be subjected to pressure, as was done in many cases in .
Whether or not the administration is particularly averse to the use of such pressure, if it brings money we do not know; but it is at least highly expedient just now to present the matter as a purely voluntary proposition; so far as the individual citizen is concerned.
To do otherwise would bring another reaction which the administration does not want at this time.
But this mild-mannered presentation of the matter may easily be taken too seriously by those who would be expected to purchase such bonds, when the sale of them is in process of promotion.
During the former World War it was not the policy of the administration that local, self-appointed committees of super-patriots (?) should use high-handed measures in dealing with their fellows; but such resorts to pressure methods were not uncommon, nevertheless.
Moreover, the person who tried to appeal for legal recognition and defense of his rights as a citizen only added to his difficulties.
So, while the administration may at this time really intend to make the purchase of the proposed defense bonds optional, the fact in itself does not guarantee that the individual will find himself in a position really to exercise his own pleasure in the matter, as he might now suppose.
Moreover, with the powers which the president now holds, should the sale of such bonds lag and the receipts fall far below what was expected, he may at his discretion precipitate a crisis which will mean the outbreak of hostilities between our armed forces and an enemy (?), and the purchase of defense bonds become thereafter as little a matter of choice as in .
So it all comes around to this, that the time for people who have means that they would rather see invested for the Lord than for war, — the time for them to make such investment is now.
When the government comes along with a “must,” whether declared or undeclared, it will then be too late to be able to say where the money shall go.
Do you have investments in mortgages, stocks, or bonds?
Do you hold certificates of savings or deposits?
Do you have a reserve neatly tucked away in a safety deposit box?
Would you rather see those means go to help save men’s lives in the spirit of Christ, than to destroy them in the carnage of war?
If so, now is the time for you to turn them to some phase of Kingdom service.
If you wait, you may find yourself obliged to give or loan your means for a purpose which your soul abhors, and may then wish with deep feeling that your money could go to a nobler purpose, but find yourself without the privilege of choice in the matter.
The time to make Mammon serve Christ, and not Mars (war) is now.
And let no one presume that he has securely covered the amount of his holdings, for the government has some wonderfully effective ways of finding out.
In view of all this, our church institutions and programs of service should now receive such grants of material resources as they never realized before.
Our hospitals, colleges, missions, and programs of civilian service need financial resources totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The money is now in the hands of our people to meet these needs.
The question is whether the Lord or Mars will get it.
We are certain that eventually one or the other will.
Will those who have means decide that question now, while they have that privilege?
We wonder, and shall anxiously wait to see.
In stating our convictions we establish no new doctrine among us, but merely an age-old faith of the church which has been held precious by our forefathers from the time that the church was founded… and which we have set forth on a number of former occasions since our settlement in America.
[W]e are constrained as followers of Christ to abstain from all military service and all direct means of supporting war.
Specifically…
We feel that we cannot consistently take part in the financing of war operations through the purchase of war bonds, and we are very sensitive to making voluntary contributions to organizations or activities which may indirectly make us supporters of war and the military program.
And then Pearl Harbor.
So that strong statement of principles got in just under the wire.
We’ll see how Mennonite convictions hold out, in the next episode…
This is the fifth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I pick things up as the United States formally enters World War Ⅱ.
Apparently, one of the initiatives of the Mennonite Central Committee — in anticipation of the war bond drives that the United States would engage in when it entered World War Ⅱ, and in fear of a repeat of the situation during World War Ⅰ when Mennonites who refused to buy war bonds were persecuted — was to quickly create something called “Peace Bonds” where Mennonites could send their money so they could tell people that they too were putting their money in service.
An article in the issue explained:
Very probably many of our people have heard something about “Peace Bonds” or Peace Certificates.
In a letter sent to each pastor of our conference by the secretary of the peace committee, information was given as to where these certificates could be procured.
But further inquiry made by some of the pastors revealed that some people do not understand the exact nature of these so-called “Bonds.”
These certificates are unlike the War Savings Bonds and Stamps in this respect, that they are not a financial investment.
They will be outright donations toward our relief work in France, England, and Poland, or wherever war relief is needed.
We do not forbid using them for our Civilian Public Service camps.
But they will carry more weight with people if they are used directly for war relief.
These “Bonds” are made out in various size denominations from five dollars on up.
You may show them to people, who press you to buy War Savings Bonds or Stamps, and explain that this is our method of working during time of war.
We cannot fight or directly support the war with our money, but we can give money to war relief work in the war stricken areas, where homes have been destroyed and where people suffer for want of food and clothing.
We will build up where others have destroyed.
These “Peace Bonds,” as we have entitled them, may now be procured by writing for them to Rev. P.H. Unruh, Goessel, Kansas.
They have been printed by the Mennonite Central Committee.
If you desire them, speak to your pastor, in order that he may procure them for your church.
A front-page article on Our Duties and Privileges as Loyal Christian Citizens by H.S. Bender appeared in the issue.
It urged Mennonites to practice non-resistance (which also meant not actively resisting the war effort in any way) and noted that “[t]o date, no law or regulation has been passed compelling civilians… to participate in any way in the national war effort.
There is no governmental compulsion to buy war or defense bonds or savings stamps… Therefore anyone who participates in the various phases of the war effort does so voluntarily.
Pressures on our people to take part in these things may be strong, but they are no stronger than the pressures on our drafted men to accept service in the army.
As sincere nonresistant people we should not yield to these pressures and thus compromise our faith and our conscience.
We should not be less steadfast at home than those who are drafted to camp.”
A regular column called “What If They Say” provided rejoinders Mennonites could use to common rhetorical attacks on their peculiar beliefs.
The column on page two of the issue, penned by Walter H. Dyck, read:
What if they say, “If you want to be entirely consistent in your scruples against war, must you not refuse to pay your taxes?”
All tangible property is said to have at least three legitimate owners.
(1) “The earth is the Lord’s.” (2) The governments of given nations own sections of the surface and resources of the earth.
(3) Individuals are said to be rightful owners of given amounts of the world’s goods.
Actually, God is the owner, and the other two are stewards.
Either may act selfishly or willfully and, by the law of consequences, lose his stewardship.
God has set governments as guardians over the civil phase of the “life and pursuit of happiness” of its peoples.
Jesus says: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Paul adds: “For this cause pay ye tribute: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.”…
But for the Christian the problem does not resolve itself so easily.
Seeking the Kingdom of God first places demands on revenue one derives from property.
Life represents labor.
Labor represents property.
The Christian is concerned that revenue from his labors be used wisely.
Both God and Caesar have the right to given proportions of it.
A Christian protests against the idea that Caesar’s levies are crowding God out of the picture, especially when Caesar destroys what God has set out to save.
A Christian pays taxes, realizing that the government is responsible for its use, but lamenting the fact that all of it is not being used for “protection through goodwill.”
We are conscious of the fact that the human and material resources of the nation are being marshaled by our government in a total war effort, and that we shall be expected and asked, possibly in some matters commanded, to participate in it… [W]e do not see how we can consistently participate in this national war effort, much as we purpose in all other respects to be obedient, loyal, and productive citizens.
We are deeply grateful for the continued recognition of our religious conscience…” e.g. in alternative service to conscientious objectors to the military draft, “[and] we are confident that in all lesser demands a similar freedom and protection of conscience will be extended.
This, we believe, will apply… to participation in war financing through the purchase of war or defense bonds and savings stamps… We shall continue to plead before our authorities for deference to sincere conscience in the practical application of our nonresistant position in [this] and similar points as need may arise, remembering that as yet… [no] compulsion [has] been exercised or even proposed.
Meanwhile we desire to appeal to our people…
That we do not purchase war and defense bonds and savings stamps, but rather purchase civilian government bonds and savings stamps as they are provided.
Appendix
Inasmuch as the question of the purchase of government bonds and savings stamps is now before many of our people, we suggest the following to meet this situation:
That M.C.C.
certificates of donation for relief and civilian public service, and M.C.C. donation stamps, might serve as alternates to defense bonds and savings stamp purchases, particularly for those with limited means and for children.
That those who are able to purchase government bonds of substantial size might make use of a statement of readiness to purchase civilian bonds when they become available.
The following form might be useful for this purpose:
Statement of Readiness to Purchase Civilian Government Bonds
In consistency with my religious belief and conscientious convictions, I cannot aid or abet war or give voluntary support to the national war effort, and for these reasons cannot purchase government obligations the proceeds of which are used for war purposes.
However, I do wish to support my country with such means as are at my disposal, for constructive ends and particularly in works or relief of human need and suffering, and am accordingly prepared and ready to purchase $⸺ par value of government obligations that may become available for such purposes, when and as they are approved by the Mennonite Central Committee to this end.
I will subsequently make additional purchases as my circumstances and the general situation may warrant.
Signed ⸺
Walter H. Dyck was back again in the issue with another “What If They Say” column on a familiar subject, which suggests that this was a Frequently Asked Question:
What if they say, “Is there any difference between the payment of taxes which go for war purposes and the voluntary financing of war operations?”
A true Christian pays “tribute to whom tribute is due”… A tax is a “charge laid upon a person or property for public use” (Webster).
Refusal to pay taxes brings the eventual and rightful confiscation of property.
In this sense taxes are compulsory.
In general, all other causes appeal to the willingness to contribute, and are supported to the extent that interest is aroused for them.
Appeals for foreign and home missions, war sufferer’s relief, civilian public service, as well as appeals for help in the propagation of the war remain voluntary.
The state is responsible for the use of funds collected by taxes.
But so is the Christian for every other dollar asked of him.
He is willing to render services for his country and contribute financially to causes not contrary to the spirit, life, and teachings of Christ.
He will give so that methods of love may abound.
He will give to those in need, distress, or suffering.
He wishes to sacrifice positively.
To him “Christian liberty” means “permission to do” what others neglect, regard as unimportant, or even scorn as “helpful to the enemy,” such as the feeding of innocent women and children in conquered lands.
This may be the cue to our answer.
If it is a tax, then the state is responsible.
If it is an appeal, then an enlightened Christian conscience will dictate whether we may “lend” a helping hand in the name of Christ.
The Peace Section Secretary, J.W. Hoover, reported in the issue that they were still working on coming up with a satisfactory civilian bond, but that in the meantime, “we encourage the increased use of the Contributor’s Certificate and the Statements of Readiness to Purchase Civilian Government Bonds.
These two expedients have proven effective in the relief pressure to buy Defense Bonds in most cases that have come to our attention where they have been wisely employed.”
In the issue, Hoover gave more details:
Judging from the constant flow of inquiries, there is obviously a rather general misunderstanding concerning the purpose and use of bonds, certificates and stamps.
The Mennonite Central Committee has adopted a certificate for contributions to Relief or Civilian Public Service.
This serves as a form of receipt for contributions to the services administered by the
M.C.C.
for the various cooperating groups.
The minimum contribution for which these certificates were formerly issued was ten dollars.
This has now been changed, so that any gift of five dollars or more will be recognized by a certificate.
For smaller amounts or for those who prefer the stamp-album plan stamps have been provided as a receipt for contributions.
When stamps have been accumulated to the amount of five dollars, a certificate will be issued if desired.
“Possession of… certificates and stamps by individuals who cannot conscientiously participate in the financial side of the military program, indicates their eagerness to support an alternative program of constructive service to their country and their fellowmen.
These certificates and stamps are not officially recognized by the United States Government as alternative to defense bonds and stamps, but they are significant to the extent that they represent genuine sacrifice on the part of the contributors, and support to national service which they can conscientiously give.
“Neither the certificates nor the stamps are redeemable.
Their only dividend is satisfaction in a service of good-will rendered in behalf of human freedom and welfare.”
The certificates and stamps are simply evidence of gifts made to this testimony for peace and good-will, which is the spirit of Christ and is done in His name.
Such evidence of support given to such humanitarian and constructive causes as are sponsored by the
M.C.C.
should have its effect in relieving pressure to contribute or lend to military purposes.
But these are not officially recognized as alternatives to defense bonds.
As a direct answer to growing pressure to buy defense bonds the
M.C.C.
and other interested groups through the National Service Board are seeking to have a special issue of civilian government bonds or notes from the U.S. Treasury Department, which will be ear-marked for civilian services instead of for war.
There is reason to believe that such will eventually be available from the government.
But this is not yet certain.
These bonds are not yet available.
When they are issued, information as to where and how to obtain them will be given.
Meanwhile, the continued and consistent use of the “Statement of Readiness to Purchase Civilian Government Bonds” is encouraged.
These have provided temporary relief of pressure in most cases where wisely applied.
These are simply what the name implies, an indication that the individual is willing to purchase Civilian Government Bonds if and when such are issued.
It is well to read carefully the statement which is carried on these.
It should be self-explanatory.
When new developments come information will be given.
Until then, it should help substantially to relieve pressure if you have evidence of generous contributions to the relief and Civilian Public Service program now being carried on by the Mennonite Central Committee.
Note: General Conference Mennonite churches should get their certificates and stamps from Rev. P.H. Unruh, Goessel, Kansas.
This will acknowledge receipt of your letter… suggesting the issue of bonds for civilian purposes.
Many suggestions similar to the one made by you have been made for the issuance of a special obligation, but such suggestions have not been adopted.
The moneys received by the Treasury from the sale of War Savings bonds, as well as from the sale of all other public debt obligations of the United States, are deposited in the general fund of the Treasury and mingled with all other moneys received by the Treasury from the collection of taxes or from other sources.
All expenditures of the Government are paid from the general fund pursuant to appropriations made by the Congress.
The President, in his Budget Message of , made the following statement:
In a true sense, there are no longer non-defense expenditures.
It is a part of our war effort to maintain civilian services which are essential to the basic needs of human life.
In the same way it is necessary in war time to conserve our natural resources and keep in repair our national plant.
We cannot afford waste or destruction, for we must continue to think of the good of future generations of Americans.
For example, we must maintain fire protection in our forests; and we must maintain control over destructive floods.
In the preparation of the present Budget, expenditures not directly related to the war have been reduced to a minimum or reoriented to the war program.
During the current fiscal year it is estimated that more than six billion dollars will be spent by the Government for other than war purposes, including payments to maintain the agricultural program, general public works, etc. In view of these substantial payments for other than war purposes, persons who desire to purchase War Savings bonds can do so with the knowledge that substantial parts of the Government’s receipts are being devoted to “maintain civilian services which are essential to the basic needs of human life,” as stated by the President in his Budget Message.
The Postal Savings System accepts deposits and funds placed with that System are utilized by the Government.
Also, there are available for purchase the regular issues of Treasury Bonds, Tax Series Notes and other obligations which do not bear any descriptive designations relating to our War activities.
Below this was news from First Mennonite Church, Beatrice, Nebraska: “More than thirty Peace Certificates have been issued to date.
Nearly $1,200 () has been contributed by our congregation for War Sufferer’s Relief and Civilian Public Service .
Ask for your certificates or stamp album today!”
So it looks like a variety of alternative-giving programs had been set up.
The issue reported this news:
Bulletin, First Mennonite Church, Reedley, Calif., “Miss Florence Aurenheimer, who has taught the Week Day Bible School for four weeks, was called to resume the responsibility of Camp Dietitian at Placerville.
This camp (C.P.S.) is to be opened by .”
As kindergarten teacher in the Reedley school system Miss Aurenheimer refused to sell defense stamps to the pupils.
Her resignation was requested, and she tendered it.
Might all Christians be as true to their convictions!
Hunting for some more information about Florence Aurenheimer, I found this article from the California Mennonite Historical Society Bulletin.
After a brief stint at the Camino Civilian Public Service camp, Aurenheimer ended up working for the rest of the war as a teacher at the Tule Lake internment camp for Japanese Americans, where she advocated for better treatment for those confined there.
The cover story in the issue concerned the ways Mennonite congregations were responding to the pressure to participate in war bond drives.
This largely consisted of pledges to purchase civilian bonds when they become available.
In the meantime the National Service Board for Religious Objectors continues to work on plans for a civilian bond.
This week eastern Friends, Brethren, and Mennonite bankers and lawyers are meeting to see what types of bonds other than those used to finance the war might be made available.
Plans… for a civilian bond have not gone through, not because the Treasury Department has been hostile, but because there have been technicalities that have interfered… In Canada, however, civilian bonds have been made available, and the money derived from this source is used for purposes other than war financing.
A note by J. Winfield Fretz in that issue claimed that conscientious objection was in general much stronger among rural than among urban Mennonites.
“The same thing held generally true in the matter of adults buying liberty bonds [in World War Ⅰ] at least if one judges by the records of those who were punished for not buying them.
Will the same situation pertain in the matter of buying defense bonds in the present war?”
Fretz was back to make this claim in the issue.
80% of the boys who opted for civilian public service camps instead of military training came from rural communities rather than cities, he said, and “our town and city people tend to tacitly support the war efforts by buying defense bonds and stamps more readily than do our rural people.”
He speculated on the various pressures that make conscientious objection more difficult for Mennonites in the city: including less economic self-reliance, more interactions with a non-Mennonite majority, and more conformist pressure in general.
It seems some progress was being made on the “civilian bonds” front.
This, from the issue:
Since last week’s press release of Secretary of the Treasury, Henry M. Morgenthau Jr.’s letter of to Paul French, naturally many inquiries have come to
M.C.C.
headquarters as to the necessary next steps in taking advantage of this announced provision for purchase of non-war Bonds.
A committee representative of the several groups most interested in this has held a number of meetings and is in process of completing arrangements with the Provident Trust Company of Philapelphia to serve as intermediary in this matter.
It is expected that the detailed plans to make the arrangement effective will be ready for submission to the responsible agencies in these several groups by .
It is hoped that fully detailed information will be available for any one interested in using this provision before .
Naturally, all who are concerned in this problem are appreciative of the Treasury Department’s attitude.
And this, from the issue:
Civilian government bonds have been approved by Henry Morgenthau.
The lowest denomination will be $50. They will be registered bonds with approximately the same rate of interest and maturity date as the war bonds.
They will be marketable, but not redeemable before maturity date.
If you work on the payroll plan, you will have to tell your office girl about these bonds.
She will accumulate your money and then send it to the Provident Trust Co. of Philadelphia, Pa., and you will be sent a bond within thirty to sixty days.
The moment your deposit reaches the bank, you will be sent a postal receipt.
You pay the face value when you buy, but then you will get your interest semi-annually.
The bank must have a flat rate of $1.50 for each deposit, no matter whether for $50, $100 or up
A “Jotting” from the issue, taken from The Conscientious Objector, noted that “State administrators of the War Bond drives in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have authorized pacifists to contribute to the support of the C.P.S. system or to relief agencies as a substitute for the purchase of war bonds.”
To me, “authorized” seems an odd word to use for something that was still being represented as an ostensibly voluntary bond drive, so coercion of some sort must have become a big factor at this point.
A concern for some such plan was first noted and discussed by the National Service Board for Religious Objectors in , at which time a Committee was appointed to study possibilities.
For many months all contacts with Treasury Department officials seemed fruitless.
, it was agreed that those groups most concerned should address their petitions in writing to secretary of the Treasury Henry Morganthau, and that Paul Comly French of the Committee would then present these letters in person.
Among these was the following prepared under the direction of the Mennonite Central Committee:
In the attached statement of the position of the Mennonite Church on “Peace, War, and Military Service,” adopted at its General Conference at Turner, Oregon, in , you will note… the following: “We can have no part in the financing of war operations through the purchase of war bonds in any form or through voluntary contributions to any of the organizations or activities falling under the category described immediately above, unless such contributions are used for civilian relief or similar purposes.”
… All of the Mennonite bodies cooperating through the agency of this Committee hold substantially this position…
…The purpose of this letter, however, is to bring to your attention the quotation noted above with the request that your office give consideration to some technique by which our members could consistently aid their government with the loan of financial means at their disposal without violating conscience.
…Inasmuch as our constituents in Canada were faced with a similar situation earlier than we, and since the Canadian government arranged to make available to them two special types of investments (a Series B, non-interest-bearing, non-negotiable certificate whose proceeds were designated for reconstruction and relief work; and special stickers for the regular Victory Bond Series, which served to designate such funds for the same purpose), it was our earlier assumption that perhaps similar offerings might be made available to our members in the United States.
Through Mr. French, however, we now learn that your Department has investigated this Canadian provision and has stated that such provisions would be too expensive from the standpoint of administrative cost.
Representatives of the Treasury Department in Ottawa have advised our own leaders in Canada of their satisfaction with the arrangement and of their appreciation of the subscriptions to date.
From the angle of our own position such an arrangement as is provided in Canada would be entirely satisfactory.
In the matter of the cost of administration to the government in making such or similar offerings available to our people here, we believe also that a plan could be worked out to cover this administrative cost by and within our own group.
We have also been advised by Treasury Department representatives that the type of certificate, bond, or evidence of indebtedness which would meet these purposes is not available in the United States and could not be made available except by an act of Congress.
On this point, we of course, recognize that you yourself would be in the best position to know what might be best or could be arranged.
It has occurred to us, however, — inasmuch as our Government does continue to have financial needs along a number of civilian lines as heretofore — that perhaps some form of special, long-term, low-interest-bearing, non-negotiable Treasury Note might be made available… bearing a statement on its face to the effect that the amount of money in question represents aid to the Government in certain of its continuing civilian interests.
We think, for instance, of the budget requirements allowed to Selective Service — Camp Operations Division — by which funds are provided for the “Work of National Importance” technical agencies cooperating with our present Civilian Public Service program… We would be happy to have the proceeds of loans made by our people so indicated on the face of the aforementioned Treasury Note.
The provision of such an arrangement… would also imply that the Treasury would recognize local subscriptions to these on the part of our members as acceptable in lieu of subscriptions to the regularly offered Defense Bond Series; in fact, it would be entirely satisfactory to us to have such subscriptions channeled through the regular local soliciting agencies as is being done in Canada.
A second letter from French to Morgenthau read in part:
…[M]embers of the religious groups represented by the National Service Board for Religious Objectors who feel conscientiously unable to purchase Defense Bonds… understand that there are continuing expenses for the regular functions of the Government, totaling some six billion dollars annually.
Would it be possible for us to purchase regular issues of Treasury bonds and notes and then redistribute them to our people in smaller denominations through a non-profit corporation we are organizing?
Any rate of interest established by the Treasury is agreeable to us, but we would prefer a rate lower than that paid on Defense Bonds.
We are willing to accept notes with any maturity date which seems right to you.
We would handle all subscriptions, and the Treasury would not be required to assume any additional clerical burden on our behalf.
If this plan is satisfactory to you, would it be possible for us to explain to our neighbors that we are aiding in the financing of the Government in ways that our consciences permit and that the United States Treasury has approved our plan?
Morgenthau responded positively, but was careful not to explicitly say that the money invested in these civilian bonds would not go to the war effort.
Instead he noted that the government continues to have a lot of ordinary expenses not directly connected with the war, that the Treasury issues various bills, certificates, notes, and bonds to cover government expenses in general and that these “are not designated by their terms as ‘war issues’ ”, and that “[t]he Treasury would be willing to have the funds to be subscribed by your people invested” in such things.
But during World War Ⅱ the vast majority of federal government spending would be explicitly for the war effort.
It’s not clear to me that even war bonds were being actually earmarked for the war as opposed to put in the general spending budget along with everything else (I believe that they evolved from “defense bonds” which evolved from “baby bonds” and the name changes were for marketing purposes rather than being indicative of how the money was explicitly targeted).
So what this seems to amount to is that there would be two types of bonds and stamps offered to the public.
One set would have the words “war savings bond” printed on the front; and the other wouldn’t; and purchasers of each could imagine their money would be spent accordingly, but really it wouldn’t make much difference.
Be that as it may, the Mennonite Central Committee and several “constituent groups” were reportedly “practically unanimous in favoring the plan.”
The government bond purchases were to be supervised by a committee including one representative from the
M.C.C.,
one from the Brethren Service Committee, and one from the American Friends Service Committee.
The issue reprinted a note from Fellowship reminding readers “that legally the purchase of war bonds is entirely voluntary” and another from The American Friend in which Quakers were urged to buy the new not-explicitly-for-war-bonds:
Friends to whom the use of their money is as much a matter of conscience as the use of their hands, should act immediately… so that this opportunity (Civilian Bonds) now opening to us as Friends is met with an enthusiasm which clearly indicates that we are worthy of the rights granted to us as a very small minority in American life.
On the Conference of Mennonite and Affiliated College Administrators issued A Statement of Position and Proposals for Action concerning “the problems which face our colleges as a result of the war”.
They pledged “[t]o support the sale of Civilian Bonds as made available by the government through the Mennonite Central Committee,” but said they “find ourselves unable to accept… [p]romotion of the sale of war bonds or stamps.”
The Young People’s Organization of the Middle District Conference resolved at its conference: “With other people saving their pennies and investing them in defense stamps, it is imperative that we invest in Civilian Bonds, or better, make generous gifts toward the successful continuance of the program.”
(It’s ambiguous from the context whether “program” means the Civilian Bonds program or the Civilian Public Service Camps.)
The issue mentioned that $108,400 had been subscribed to the not-explicitly-for-war bonds through “M.C.C. constituencies.”
The issue reported that the total number of sales of such bonds as of amounted to $347,250. By , the total had risen to $527,100 (85% from Mennonites).
This brings us to the end of the first year of America’s declared entry into World War Ⅱ.
On the one hand, there is much more awareness in The Mennonite of the theoretical conflict between Mennonite pacifism and the purchase of war bonds than there was during World War Ⅰ.
But on the other hand, this conflict seems to have been resolved by offering Mennonites the fig leaf of not-entirely-for-war-at-least bonds that they were told they could enthusiastically invest in without scruple.
This may have meant that fewer Mennonites would actually resist paying for war this time around.
In future episodes of this series, we’ll see how attitudes evolve as the war continues.
This is the 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 the middle of World War Ⅱ.
The issue included a clip-out form that readers could use to order “Civilian Bonds”:
A callout earlier in the same issue included this curious note on how to use the form:
The donor may specify for what the gift is to be used:
For our Peace Committee for C.P.S. support; or
As the Conference or its Executive Committee may deem best; or
It’s not entirely clear to me what’s going on here.
I think what’s happening is that the reader is being asked to purchase some “Civilian Bonds” (ordinary U.S. Treasury bonds, but without any “war bond” designation on them) but at the same time donate those bonds to the Mennonite General Conference.
The note says that in return for your order you will get “a receipt” (not the bonds themselves), so I think I’m correct at least when it comes to the bonds going to the Conference, not to the donor.
But I find it a little mysterious that the donors are being asked to specify what they want done with the gift.
Is this telling to Conference how they should allocate the interest and eventual return of principle from the bonds once they mature?
Or maybe they could use the bonds as some sort of currency-like instruments and put them directly toward certain goals?
An article in the gave more hints:
In The Mennonite of , it was announced that “Civilian Bonds” might be donated to the General Conference in three different ways.
I [C.E. Krehbiel] am now told that there are almost as many bonds in the treasury, for which the cash has been paid out, as at present can well be used in this way.
Kind donors are therefore requested to continue to make further gifts to the General Conference; but please either leave it to the Conference or its Executive Committee to specify for what they shall be used, or do as one has done, add the words “at maturity,” which makes it possible to accept any amount of bonds, including those you have already bought and want to donate to the Conference by assigning them to it.
Another article in that issue
explained that the Civilian Bond Committee were investing all civilian bond subscriptions in “the new F and G United States Savings Bonds” excusing this by saying that they “are not designated as ‘war issues’ ”.
This verifies my suspicion that both these bonds and “war bonds” had the same practical effect, just with different labels.
$859,400 in such bonds had been subscribed as of , $712,500 of which came from Mennonites.
The issue made note of the confusion caused by war bonds and not-explicitly-war bonds being so similar:
Many of our people are being told they can buy the same bonds locally.
Much confusion has arisen in consequence.
Certain of the Bonds which formerly were War Bonds are no longer in this category.
This is true only of the new issues.
And these new issues were to be released only after the old ones were exhausted.
As a special concession to the Peace Churches, the Treasury released these new issues of non-War Bonds… to be used in our Civilian Bond program.
So far as we know, these new non-War issues are not yet on the general market.
We fear that some conscientious people may have unknowingly subscribed to War Bonds.
The article noted that only by buying these bonds through the Civilian Bond program would the Treasury be kept informed of how many “conscientious” bond purchasers there were out there.
“It is definitely marked as conscience money.
It leaves a witness of our convictions in relation to finances.”
This idea of a “witness of sensitivity” was made more explicit in a note in the issue:
Bonds purchased through the church-approved plan are registered with the United States Treasury as having been bought by persons conscientiously unable to finance war.
A witness of sensitivity is thereby made to the government relative to the problem.
This testimony is lost when the bonds are bought locally since the United States Treasury does not recognize such bonds as having been bought by persons with a conscience against war financing.
The earlier article noted that “the new Bond Drive has seven offerings.
These are rather widely varied.
Some are probably not objectionable in themselves; but the line of distinction, which is already thin enough, diminishes almost to the vanishing point.
If subscribed through the regular War Bond solicitor, there is no witness of conscience against war financing.”
So they recognized how small a fig leaf they were offering, apparently.
The mystery is how they thought they could be effective witnesses for conscience when anyone could tell (certainly anyone in the Treasury) that it was only the names of the bonds that were different, not their effects.
That just serves to make Mennonite “conscience” look like subservience to silly taboos.
A mere “witness of sensitivity” might as well be no witness at all.
We are still striving for a better plan.
We hope eventually to get a bond issued, the proceeds of which will go for relief and reconstruction.
The only way that we can probably convince the Government that such a bond issue will pay is by our liberal response to the available program…
When a better plan is approved, it will be made generally known.
Meanwhile we urge you to cooperate in trying to keep what we have until we get something that is proven better.
Otherwise we may be in jeopardy of losing the advantages thus far gained by much effort.
At this distance it’s hard to know for sure, but is this really how the game is played?
Give the government what it wants (your money, to spend how it likes), and in return it gives you some purely symbolic concession (the words “war” and “defense” don’t appear on the face of the bonds).
Then, having given the government everything it wants without much of a fight, expect the government to make further concessions to you?
Wouldn’t it have been more effective to say to the government “sure we’ll pay, but on our terms; meet us half-way”?
In the French and Indian War he refused to pay war taxes, but he proposed raising a fund to develop friendship with the Indians and relief suffering of plundered settlers.
He vigorously opposed the practice of paying a substitute for war service as was the custom at that time.
To such people he asked: “What is it you are objecting to?
Do you just object to yourself being drafted? or do you object to the whole method of war?
If it is the first you cannot logically claim a religious motive.
If it is the second, you cannot put another man into the ranks in your place.”
The issue made note of the new federal income tax withholding program, and how this would reduce people’s take home pay and therefore the amounts they were likely to tithe.
For this reason, the article urged church officials to make an effort to let their congregations know that, on their year-end tax returns, they could deduct as much as 15% of their income for tax purposes by making voluntary contributions to churches and other such nonprofits, and thus be eligible for a tax refund.
No hint was given that this might be considered a conscientious tax resistance strategy.
While many of our people are finding it very humiliating to stick to their Christian convictions as they face scrap drives and war bond campaigns, the members of Woodland Mennonite Chuch at Warroad, Minnesota, have agreed upon a fine cooperative solution to such problems.
Ten Per cent of Each Cream Check
The church members have agreed to the suggestion of their pastor, Arthur F. Ortmann, that they instruct the local creamery to deduct 10 per cent of every cream check.
The pastor collects this once each month and orders bonds through the Provident Trust Co. Since cream checks here are the main source of income and since members supplement these bond investments with money from other farm projects, the community feels that the Mennonites are helping the government and at the same time witnessing to their Christian convictions.
School Officials Impressed
Instead of collecting scrap iron and rubber the Mennonite school children in Warroad are buying peace stamps from the
M.C.C.
and are collecting clothing for relief.
School officials here are impressed with this Christian testimony.
Of course, here too, there have been expressions of hostility by a minority, but under the leadership of a fearless shepherd, the Mennonite here keep right on working, loving, and worshiping in the name of and for the sake of the Prince of Peace.
A note in the issue about how things were going on the other side of the Canadian border, mentioned “Victory Loan Bonds with a sticker attached (designating the use of the funds for relief work)” so there seems to have been some parallel effort to work around Mennonite scruples there as well.
This is the seventh in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we find ourselves in the closing years of World War Ⅱ.
In the issue comes the first concrete evidence that some Mennonites were not going along with the “Civilian Bonds” alternative to war bonds that was being championed by the Mennonite Central Committee.
Excerpts:
Civilian Bonds are series F and G bonds registered through the Provident Trust Company.
While the same series may be secured through local channels, Provident Trust Company is the only fiscal agent authorized to register them as “conscience money.”
Civilian bond subscriptions are officially reported to county chairmen and there should be no difficulty to buy them in lieu of war bonds.
The provision for civilian bonds is based on the fact that the U.S. Government has an annual budget of over six billion dollars to maintain civilian services.
Civilian bonds enter the U.S. Treasury as do other bonds but differ in that they are registered as investments from conscientious objectors to war.
The civilian bond plan is not entirely satisfactory and negotiations are under way to secure a more satisfactory plan.
Until a better arrangement is secured the plan will remain as before.
To members who feel that they cannot buy civilian bonds, relief certificates and stamps are recommended.
Relief certificates and stamps are, however, donations and not investments.
The negotiations seem to have been fruitless.
After all, the Mennonites had seemingly already largely surrendered to buying ostensibly-not-war bonds, so what was left to negotiate?
From the issue:
The following statement has been prepared by Jesse Hoover, secretary of the Peace Section:
“The Peace Section has been trying for several months to interest the Treasury Department in a special Relief Savings Bond to finance the Congressional appropriation for United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association.
Recently we received what appears to be the final reply from the Treasury officials.
There does not seem to be any prospect of obtaining such an issue.
“With the probability of another Bond Drive in the not too distant future, we will have nothing more to offer our Churches than the plan followed previously.
And while it has not been entirely satisfactory to many of our people, we do want to urge again that if investments are made in government securities, we should leave our testimony of non-support of war by registering such investments through the Provident Trust Company, by the plan which has been in operation.”
Released
M.C.C.
Headquarters, Akron, Pennsylvania
The sixth War Loan Drive began on .
An editorial in the issue urged the people in charge of the “civilian bonds” program to “make clear” to “members of our churches” “what kind of civilian bonds can be purchased and how.”
An essay by Carl J. Landes — “Let Him Take up His Cross” — appeared in the issue.
He appealed to Mennonites not to accept the safe and impotent ways of expressing faith, but to be as challenging and dangerous to the established order as their esteemed predecessors.
One section concerns recent Mennonite experiences with conscientious objection:
The fact that Jesus was crucified, Menno Simons hunted for eighteen years, his followers put to death by the thousands, while most of us today are safely tucked away in C.P.S. camps, on the farm, or in our own homes where we “keep still,” while voicing loyalty to the same doctrines, is evidence that whatever our words, our practice is not the same.
I am certain that when [Jesus] called on authorities — civil and religious — he was not calling upon them to see what the easiest terms of “alternate service” might be, or if he could buy “civilian bonds” to pay the president’s salary so that Mr. Du Pont’s taxes might swell the total of his war bonds, in providing machine guns and tanks.
Mennonites delude themselves when they pay their taxes, and think they have “rendered unto Caesar.”
When part of our money — either in taxes or civilian bonds — is given to government, a part of us is already in government.
That money represents our toil, our sweat, our life, it is a part of our very self.
We can cut off that part of ourselves, and give the responsibility to someone else.
But that doesn’t settle the score with God, Whose stewards we are.
Can you imagine Jesus paying taxes with money He earned in the carpenter shop, and saying, “I have no further responsibility?”
How can we withdraw at the point where the spirit of the Cross is needed most?
Robert Kreider, in the issue, asked “Do We Take a Stand on Nonresistance?”, reflecting on the current state of pacifist practice among Mennonites, and hoped that the upcoming General Conference would reaffirm and bolster the traditional nonresistance position:
Let us now be completely honest one with another.
In regard to Biblical nonresistance, we have not been of one mind.
Our testimony has been varied, perhaps confused.
Thirty-three percent of our young men choose Civilian Public Service.
Fifteen percent choose noncombatant service.
The remaining fifty-two percent choose straight military service.
Many of our folk decline to purchase war bonds on grounds of Christian conscience; but other Mennonites, because of a sense of civic responsibility, participate and even lead in war bond drives.
Some Mennonites work in war plants, while others quit their jobs in plants which turn to the manufacture of military material.
Most ministers wholeheartedly support CPS and the nonresistant position; some ministers are cool if not antagonistic to CPS.
Some preach and teach nonresistance; some give no pastoral instruction on this doctrine.
Amid this diversity, amid this confusion — what is the witness of our General Conference Mennonite group?
We can state clearly the historic position of our Church, but can we declare what our position is now in this hour of war?
Can we say that our brotherhood is unitedly opposed to participation in war?
No, that we cannot say.
Is nonresistance, then, only of incidental importance in the life of the Christian?
Is our position, then, that nonresistance is to be encouraged as a desirable attribute of the Christian life but really of only secondary significance?
Shall we let it be said that our church and church members are so lacking in agreement on this issue that to avoid the criticism of hypocrisy we should abandon our nonresistance?
(Our brethren in Holland, Germany, France, Switzerland have done just that.)
Shall we continue to affirm that nonresistance is the scriptural, the preferred position of the brotherhood, but beyond that permit each member to have complete freedom to pursue his chosen course?
Our fellowship would then frankly embrace Christians of both pacifist and non-pacifist persuasion.
Or shall we strive as a Church toward a new unity of conviction on nonresistance and a new purity of fellowship?
Our Conference reiterated its Peace Resolution at its recent session at North Newton.
In that resolution we read, “We can have no part in carnal warfare… We believe that this means that we cannot bear arms personally nor directly aid those who do so, and… we cannot accept service under the military arm of the government, whether it be combatant or noncombatant.”
In view of the fact that only 27 per cent of our drafted men were classified as Ⅳ‒E, with one district conference having only 6 per cent in C.P.S., does the above resolution sincerely express our belief?
It can hardly be assumed that the percentage of those who refused to purchase war bonds or work in war factories, is larger than the 27 per cent.
We wonder why the Conference reaffirmed the above resolution?
It is sometimes stated the noncombatant takes his position because he wants to be in the war camp with one foot and in the pacifist camp with the other.
May it be that the majority of our conference would like to stand in full support of their government’s wishes with their practical foot, and in obedience to Peter’s suggestion, “We ought to obey God rather than man” with their idealistic foot?
Doesn’t it seem somewhat difficult to serve God and mammon at the same time?
When one of our ministers made a rather forceful talk in defense of full support of our Mennonite peace teachings, rumors were later on heard that this brother is “radical,” the speech was “uncalled for.”
When that sentiment prevails at a Mennonite conference, what justification remains for us to continue as a separate denomination?
Do not other Protestant churches also have peace teachings?
Was our Conference sincere when the above resolution was re-affirmed?
One of our Mennonite young women recently related the following account of her experience as a school teacher.
She had been teaching school until recently in one of the mid-western states in a non-Mennonite community.
In this community she was urged to join the various scrap drives and she was expected to urge her students to do so.
All of the teachers were expected to buy war bonds, and all of them did, but this one Mennonite teacher who because of her refusal to buy prevented the school from being awarded the pennant for being 100 per cent behind the war effort.
Her superintendent while not agreeing with her views on war, nevertheless, very much admired her courage in being loyal to her convictions.
As of , the amount of money subscribed for civilian bonds in the U.S. Treasury was $6,501,627.14. Of this amount, $4,706,026.50 was subscribed by Mennonites.
That brings us to the end of World War Ⅱ.
In the post-war, Cold War, Atomic Age, a new war tax resistance movement will emerge.
In the coming episodes we’ll see how The Mennonite participates.
This is the eighth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
find ourselves at the beginning of the Atomic Age.
One of the main arguments for the continued existence of the Mennonite
denomination is its belief in non-resistance. Therefore it was particularly
fitting that the Mennonite World Conference gave so much time at choice places
in the program to emphasize non-resistance.
Dutch Leader for Definite Separation
F[elix]. van der Wissel of Leeuwarden, Holland, surprised his American
brethren by his hesitancy in regard to paying taxes to a state that uses so
much of them for war. Such heart-searching is in place. However, his radical
emphasis upon nonparticipation in government might suggest that Mennonites
should believe that government is of God but that unbelievers should run it.
Personally, I take a more critical attitude toward all state activities than
do most Mennonites, even the American Mennonites, in general. It is
increasingly a matter of fact that not only in war but also in peace
everything in the state is used for the interest of the state. For instance,
education is very often used to stimulate a bad type of patriotism. In these
cases I believe that we should refuse to give our co-operation. In paying
taxes we should also draw a sharper line than we generally do. We should seek
the solution more in the manner of Tolstoy than in that of a quiet Mennonitism
that sometimes pays its taxes only too willingly. I am convinced that it is
tenable, at least theoretically, that we should refuse to pay certain taxes.
However, in reality it happens, as a rule, that the state in that case takes
even more than its part by force, so that, practically speaking, such a
refusal does not have sense. Nevertheless, we must consider which stand we
take in this question. This confirms once more the importance of the refusal
to use force, because it is also by organic force that one can be compelled to
pay taxes. It is my opinion that we do not give enough attention in our
Mennonite life to the idea of non-cooperation and social effects of refusal of
service. This non-co-operation should not be used as a means to some political
goal, as was often the case with Gandhi, but only as a testimony that we
cannot give our co-operation for evil things.
This was perhaps an idea whose time had come. By this time, a nonsectarian
war tax resistance movement was congealing outside of the traditional peace
churches. Ernest Bromley, one of the organizers of this new movement, gave
his thoughts in the issue:
One interesting fact which ought to be of current interest to Mennonites is
their own history in regard to refusing to pay war taxes. Though tax refusal
was a potent witness of earlier Mennonites, today it is little recognized that
such a testimony ever existed.
From Guy Franklin Hershberger’s Mennonite history entitled War, Peace and Non-Resistance () we have the following information, summary:
Two questions arising out of the American Revolution were easily and
definitely answered by the Mennonites. The first was, Shall we take up arms?
The answer to this was a positive “No.” The second question was, Shall we give
aid to the suffering? This time the answer was a positive “Yes”. But there was
also a third question not so easily answered. This was the question of war
taxes. The Mennonites, with little objection, seem to have paid their fines
for not joining military associations, at least in localities where they were
strictly and regularly collected. In addition to the fine the Pennsylvania
Assembly levied a special war tax on all inhabitants. Should a non-resistant
Christian pay this tax?
Hershberger goes on to tell what they did:
The war tax issue became a serious issue in
. Some of the ministers said that they could
not conscientiously pay the tax, but Bishop Christian Funk said it should be
paid. Funk said: “Were Christ here he would say, ‘Give to congress that which
belongs to congress and to God that which belongs to God.’ ” Bishop Andrew
Ziegler, the spokesman for the opposite group, said, “I would as soon go to
war as to pay the three pounds and 10 shillings.”
In regard to what the Mennonites actually did, he said: “It seems that the
Quakers generally refused to pay the tax, then when the government came and
seized their property in payment of the tax they let them take it without
resistance. What the Mennonites did is not so clear. Apparently most of them
objected to the tax and followed the same plan which the Quakers did.”
That Mennonites did refuse is confirmed by Margaret Hurst in her detailed and
accurate history of the Quaker entitled, The Quakers in
Peace and War:
It is true that in Virginia the early draft laws of the war exempted Quakers
and Mennonites. But they endured every distraint and their general refusal to
use Continental paper money or to pay war taxes involved them in great
difficulty.
Some Mennonites are now becoming particularly sensitive to the import of
sending their tax dollars to the
U.S. Treasury when
they know that 75 cents of every dollar is for financing past present and
future wars. They realize that they are directly contributing to the
stockpiling of bacterial and atomic weapons and the rapid growth of militarism
in almost every area of the national life.
Ernest R. Bromley — of Nassau, New York, is active as a member of the
Peacemaker group. He has learned of Mennonite and Hutterite activities and
submits a thought which we Mennonites have shelved, for the most part.
The Selective Service Act of brought back
registration for military conscription. An article in the
issue (in the “Mennonite
Youth” section) urged Mennonites to refuse to register. But:
The question is raised, “Why draw the line at registration? How about taxes,
food for the armed forces,
etc.?” I think it
is essential to distinguish between what is given to Caesar, and entering into
active participation ourselves. Caesar is responsible for how he spends the
money received. Even Christ paid taxes to Rome, which had one of the largest
military machines of ancient history.
However another article on the topic in the same section of the
issue said:
One of the most difficult of the pacifist’s problems is the task of removing
himself from those aspects of his society which tend to destroy the
individual. In this case it is war and warmaking. The consistent pacifist
should refuse war taxes, personal services,
etc.
Walter C. Longstretch [sic], Philadelphia lawyer, said, in
notifying the Internal Revenue Department that he and his wife would refuse to
pay 34.6% of their income tax which “was
used for preparation for war.” “In the Nuremburg trials, the
U.S. maintained the
principle that a citizen of Germany should refuse to obey his government when
his government orders him to do an evil act. The principle is equally valid
for the citizens of the United States including myself.”
We haven’t read what happened to the lawyer and his wife! ―From the Salem
Mennonite Church Bulletin, Freeman, South Dakota
The following filler bit
appeared without attribution or further comment in the
issue:
“Mennonites… generally refused to pay taxes during the Revolutionary War. They
too relaxed, and few of them today realize tax refusal was significant in
their history. The Hutterite confession allowed the payment of no taxes for
‘warfare, destruction of life, and shedding of blood.’ ”
“Tax refusal is in itself… powerful enough to have changed the course of
history many times; for example, the movement led by Wat Tyler in ⅩⅣth Century
England, and the Indian independence movement.”
Clearly there was something in the air.
A board of Associate Editors was appointed to help form the editorial policy
of The Mennonite for the first time in
. One of those editors, Jacob J. Enz, took
over as acting editor in , which is about
when this flurry of tax resistance notices broke the post-war logjam of several
years when the subject was hardly mentioned. Enz wrote a book on
The Christian and Warfare, arguing for pacifism’s
roots in the Old Testament, so he seems to have been especially attracted to
the non-resistance philosophy. Maybe that explains it.
This is the ninth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we watch as The Mennonite participates in the birth of the modern war tax resistance movement.
In our last episode, I speculated that the arrival of new editor Jacob J. Enz may have been the catalyst for a new interest in war tax resistance at the magazine.
Two brief editorials in the issue seem to confirm my suspicion:
…And speaking about transparent honesty, what about our income tax returns, many of which are in the process of being made out?
The government has gone to considerable trouble to help people to keep their taxes as low as possible within the law.
Yet, how many sell out their souls on a piece of paper on or around March 15!
―JJE
Others who are ready to pay every penny of their tax are asking the question as to whether they may be contributing consciously and directly to the next war when it is known that 60 cents out of every tax dollar goes to military purposes and that the major portion of all government income is from income taxes.
They feel it is a matter of personal responsibility.
Some have actually taken that percentage of their taxes which will be used for defense and have sent it to relief agencies, notifying the government accordingly.
―JJE
Another such editorial
appeared in the issue in which Enz complains that people demand too much conformity from the church to their own opinions before giving the church their support.
Excerpt:
The Reformation emphasis on individualism in the Church brought untold blessing, but where pressed to its logical conclusion it makes people do the completely irrational thing of denying their gifts or their interest and prayers to a part of the body of Christ because of some complaint while at the same time uncritically giving large sums in tax money to earthly organizations of a much more questionable nature.
The support of the Church is much less optional than the support of these other organizations if comparisons are in order.
Yet there are literally thousands of Christians who religiously pay every cent of their taxes knowing that part of it will go for such unquestionably wrong uses as buying whiskey to help the State department entertain foreign diplomats while they draw up agreements that will lead the world straight to war; at the same time they refuse to give to the Church… because some aspects are not quite in line with their own conceptions, and (in this area for some unknown reason) God holds them responsible for every penny.
―JJE
Enz is back with an editorial in the issue.
Excerpts:
The almost dogged determination with which our leaders of state are encouraging an arms-for-Europe program is clear evidence of the moral insanity of our age.
The way in which Britain is egging on this program is indication of the universality of this spirit.
All of this makes it a bit more clear why a number of individuals in this country are putting themselves in awkward positions by refusing to pay income tax, the larger portion of which inevitably goes for war — past, present, and future.
It raises the question anew as to the exact nature of a Christian’s relation to the state.… When governments tend to produce chaos rather than order — the kind of order as revealed in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ and in His teachings — then our subjection as Christians will be one of obeying God rather than man and human governments and accepting the suffering that may come as the result of our higher obedience.
Just how this higher obedience is to express itself raises a number of questions.
In many of our circles non-registration and non-payment of war taxes is questioned as an effective method.
It would seem quite obvious that if enough people used this method this wickedness of war would be seriously hindered.
It would seem however that something much more fundamental is needed…
The darkening picture of world events is calling for radical solutions to the world’s deep problems. Our leaders of state are leading us into policies of foreign entanglements heretofore unknown as their radical answers.
The world again needs an Amos, an Isaiah, and a Jeremiah to stand up and speak to his country concerning the inevitable doom that will come when we trust in man and his reliance upon treaties and covenants with man apart from God.
At this point the idea of “the universal prophethood of believers” ought to come into play.
This will be an extremely costly process as is evidenced by some few who have chosen the method of refusing to pay part or all of their income tax the larger portion of which goes for war.
Most people reject this method, but one inevitably hastens to raise the question as to where and how we should take our stand and say “no further!”
Is it enough to send resolutions and letters to Congress and preach and talk against a system to whose continued operations we contribute.
―JJE
“It is difficult to conceive of a point where a person has the opportunity of a more powerful projection of his beliefs than at this point where he meets the government in the person of the tax collector, and say ‘No!’ ”
“The use of tax money in preparation for war completely overshadows the consideration of the manner in which taxes are obtained.
If one favors paying taxes, no matter for what they are asked… he may just as well favor conscription which is equally democratic in its impressment of men.”
Toledo. In one of the “longest and most spirited meetings in its history,” the Toledo Ministerial Association adopted a set of resolutions supporting the right of Dr. Aleck D. Dodd to follow the dictates of his conscience in refusing to pay a portion of his taxes, and sharply criticized the Toledo Council of Churches for dismissing Dr. Dodd as director of Pastoral Relations.
The Council’s action followed the Internal Revenue Bureau’s garnishee of Dr. Dodd’s salary to collect $150.47, the portion of his taxes comparable to the part of the budget which he feels goes for war purposes.
The statement of the Ministerial Association read in part: “While we have not felt impelled to take the step Mr. Dodd has taken in refusing to pay that part of his income tax which he feels is devoted to furthering the cause of war, yet we are of the opinion that he should follow the dictates of his conscience.”
―Fellowship
“For Lent,” in the issue, Jesse Zigler wrote up “A Heart-Searching Confession” in the form of a confession by the “People” to God, with a minister periodically interjecting a prayer for mercy.
Among the confessions:
We have been participants in war-making society.
We tried to stay out of participation, but thou knowest how far we failed.
We helped to maintain high morale, we paid taxes on income, on railroad fares, and in many other hidden places.
Our hearts sank when we heard of reverses to our armies and we secretly felt hope when our armies were winning.
We had our expenses paid in college or seminary or C.P.S. with profits of war making.
And then we looked at the fellows in the army and thanked thee that we were better than they while closing our eyes to our own participation.
Enz, who as “Acting Editor” had reintroduced debate about war tax resistance to The Mennonite readers, stepped aside as a new Editor, J.N. Smucker, came on board in .
The “Young Peoples Union” met at Freeman, South Dakota, in .
Among the things they did was to ratify a set of recommendations.
Number six on the list was this:
[We recommend] that, in view of the critical and complex problems in the social, economic, and political spheres on both the national and international levels… that a resolution be introduced into the current session of the General Conference calling on the Board of Christian Service to appoint a study group to study the relations and implications of Mennonite principles to such current problems as the Christian position on conscription, registration and cooperation with the draft, payment of war taxes, attitudes toward Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism, church-state relations, etc.
On the basis of present tax laws, in every man, woman, and child in the United States will pay on the average $461 in Federal taxes, of which $267 will be required for military services.
The best estimate of benevolent per capita giving for our entire population for the same period is $23.33. In other words, Caesar gets twenty times as much as God, and ten times as much for military services.
So for every dollar you give to share the Gospel of peace and express your love for your fellow-man, Caesar demands his ten dollars to run his war machine.
Caesar is ahead twenty to one, and Mars, his war-god is ahead ten to one!
Will we be content at this inequality?
Will God be satisfied with us if we are?
The issue included an article about the sorts of questions draft boards ask people who are applying for conscientious objection status as a way of determining whether their objections are sincere enough to pass the legal test.
One of these was: “Do not your taxes indirectly aid the war effort?”
The common people of the world do not want war.
They are rightly alarmed by the tremendous build-up in military power.
They distrust the leaders who seem to think the only way to peace is by preparation for war.
They object to giving their eighteen-year-old sons to be trained as killers.
But what can we do?
People answer this question in various ways.
Some refuse to pay income tax, reasoning that, since much of this money goes for war purposes; this is one way to show our disapproval of war.
Some young men refuse to register, regarding this as a first step into the military way of life.
Some see little hope in continuing the present major political parties, since both seem drifting towards war.
Perhaps our Peace Committee could give us some directive as to how to best make our strength felt for the cause of peace.
We have worked hard to help overthrow Universal Military Training, now let us work even harder for the cause of a Christian peace.
A “Perplexed Reader” wrote in to the issue as follows:
The Mennonite is emphasizing Christian education, relief, and missions, and is advocating tithing to finance these projects.
We agree, that is good.
We think God will look with favor on such a program.
Another thing The Mennonite is stressing is peace; that war cannot be justified with Christianity; war does not settle problems, only create more.
That also, we think is sound reasoning and is in harmony with the spirit and teaching of Christ.
Many of us feel the best contribution we can make to Christianity is to finance these above-named projects.
In order to finance these projects we have to earn money; and if we earn money we have to pay income tax, and very little of that money is used for other than war purposes.
In the writer made contributions to these above-named projects.
He tried to do his part, but after the year was over, mailed his check to the internal revenue collector, he found that he had contributed more to the god of war than to all church contributions combined.
If a couple without dependents and without any other deductions has a net income of $1,325, they use that money for family living.
Many use more.
If they have a net income of 52,325, the tithe would amount to $232.50, and the income tax $184. If they have an income of $4,999, the tithe is $499.90 and the income tax is $669. If the net income increases the tithe is higher also, but the income tax increases faster than the tithe.
Shall we arrange our financial affairs so that our income will be so low that there is no income tax to pay and discontinue all mission.
Christian education, and relief?
Or shall we refuse to pay income tax and have the government confiscate our property?
Or shall we give all of our property to these good causes and go on relief, or if we are old enough, ask for old-age pension?
Or shall we continue to build with one hand and tear down with the other?
What shall we do?
This is the tenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
finish off the 1950s.
In general, except for a brief flurry of mostly noncommittal articles in the
late 1940s, The Mennonite seemed to steer clear of
the topic of war tax resistance thereafter, with a few exceptions.
In the issue, Lloyd L.
Ramseyer wrote of
“The
Sin of Just Being Good” — that is of “people who are content to just be
good without concerning themselves very much with the evil about them.” One way
this might display itself?
Do we sometimes shift the responsibility to others, saying this is no business
of mine? May it be that we sometimes even employ others to do what we think it
is wrong for us to do ourselves, and then seem to feel that it is not our
affair?… If three-fourths of my tax dollar goes for war, can I have a
conscience clear of it?
An article on “Taxes” in the issue gave some very middle-of-the-road advice:
In the classic passage, Matthew 22:17–22,
Jesus states that He expected His followers to pay taxes.
“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the
things that are God’s.”
Very briefly, we want to say four things:
Christians ought to be honest in filing tax returns…
Christians should not pay too much tax…
Christians ought to take advantage of deductions and through contributions…
Christians ought to study best ways to give as to tax…
There was not even a hint of a suggestion that a Christian ought to be
concerned about what use Caesar puts the tax to, or might have to draw a line
somewhere and refuse. The “Render Unto Caesar” episode is portrayed as though
when Jesus was asked whether Jews ought to pay taxes to Caesar or not, he had
simply replied “yes” but in a more wordy way than necessary.
(“When they heard this, they marvelled…”
perhaps this is just a mistranslation for “they yawned and checked their
wristwatches.”)
The time of year has come again when the citizens of our country will have to
pay income tax. The question is sometimes raised, should Christians pay this
tax? A large percentage of the income tax money goes for war purposes. A
Christian obeying the new commandment of Jesus to love his neighbor as himself
cannot possibly be in accord with hatred, strife, and bloodshed resulting from
war. What then shall we do about it? Refuse to pay and come in conflict with
the laws of our country?
Jesus our Lord has given us a very clear teaching on this subject in
Matthew 17:24–27.
The collector of the tribute money asked Peter if Jesus paid tribute. Peter
answered, “yes.” Jesus preventing Peter from telling him the incident, asks
Peter “of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own
children, or of strangers?” Peter said of strangers. Jesus answered, “then are
the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast a
hook, and take the first fish thou catchest, open his mouth and take out the
coin therein and give it to the tribute collector.”
The Roman tribute money was used mostly for military purposes. The Roman
Empire was then ruling the major part of the then known world. It required
large armies to subdue and occupy these many nations. The money consumed for
military purposes was a large sum. Jesus asked Peter to pay for both of them.
Tax was again the subject of an article in the issue, but this time the message is much changed:
Daniel Graber Pastor, Silver Street Church, Goshen, Ind.
Dear Quiet of the Land;
PAX… VOLUNTARY SERVICE… 1‒W… What does it all mean? Yes, it means a positive
witness for peace; but in a vision the other night I heard 1000 angels
shouting, “Awake! Awake! Ye Quiet of the Land!”
And then the angel Gabriel went on to explain: “Ah, yes, you Mennonites are
righteous, peace-loving, law-abiding citizens of your land; but what are you
doing at this time so near the death of your Lord? Does not your Christian
conscience move you at more points than that of nonresistance to war and your
interest in finding a peaceful alternative?
“You who proclaim to the world that you are Christ’s disciples would now also
deny thy Lord! Ah, yes, my Lord did boldly say, ‘Render therefore to Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s’; but are
you living under the Roman Empire where you have no political freedom? No, you
are citizens in a free republic, a land founded with an appreciation for your
conscience. Did you not hear the words of John Milton: ‘The passage “render to
Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” does not say “Give Caesar
thy conscience.”’
“You, the Quiet of the Land, are ordering a huge portion of that which
crucifies your Lord when you pay your federal taxes. Did you
know, fine Mennonites, that you are ordering
H-Bombs which will
destroy cities of a million men, women, and children?… Did you
know you are ordering massive retaliation which will destroy most of
mankind and cause more mass suffering than our world has ever known?…
Did you know you are ordering nuclear bomb tests which poison
the atmosphere for a hundred generations yet unborn?… Did you
know you are ordering the top secret horror weapon, by paying in
advance for it, to be delivered any day now?”
As Gabriel finished, the chorus of angels replied from the background; “No!
Gabriel, No! Most Mennonites did not order these horrible weapons. They were
ordered for them unawares — yet we must admit they did give silent
consent. Most of them didn’t realize that Washington sent all of them a
bill for these macabre instruments of suicide and moral degradation in the
name of democracy.”
That bill for the coming year amounts to $43,300,000,000 for Defense, or 60
per cent of the total estimated expenditures of the national government. Over
half of the total budget is raised from individual income taxes, Mennonites
included.
In 20 per cent of the budget went to the War
and Navy Departments to defray the cost of national security. In
this item went down to 14 per cent of the
budget. Possibly these figures do not mean very much now, but taken in
comparison to the present amount, it is ten times less than the 43 billion
dollars now at our doorstep.
At what point, my dear friends, does one cease to add a pinch of incense and
begin to engage in idolatrous worship, and thus deny our Lord? The cost of the
Federal Government operation in the budget
was $55 per person, even then more than what many people gave to the church.
The budget will cost about $455 per person.
If you wish to put this into the Mennonite picture, here is an up-to-date
report.
In Elkhart County, Indiana, where the population is 84,512
( Census), there are over 8,800 Amish and
Mennonites (Mennonite Encyclopedia). Elkhart County will pay
$43,642,912 as their share of the cost of federal government spending. It is
assumed that Mennonites of Elkhart County will pay at least their share, which
amounts to more than 10.4 per cent, or $4,538,862 plus.
If we could believe that even 40 per cent of the budget would be legitimately
used for democracy, it means that the Mennonites of Elkhart County alone are
putting into preparation for future wars close to three million
dollars a year. That amount of money would be sufficient to operate the
entire
MCC
program for more than a year, or to build several new Mennonite Biblical
Seminaries, or a number of hospitals, old people’s homes, colleges, high
schools, etc.
From the soldiers of the cross we hear these testimonies concerning taxes.
John Woolman, who refused payment in : “To
refuse active payment at such a time might be construed to be an act of
disloyalty, and appeared likely to displease the rulers, not only here but in
England; still there was a scruple so fixed on the minds of many Friends that
nothing moved it.”
Bishop Andrew Ziegler, a Mennonite, in the Revolutionary War period; “I would
as soon go to war as to pay the three pounds and ten shillings.”
A.J. Muste (Secretary Emeritus of the Fellowship of Reconciliation): “The two
decisive powers of government with respect to war are the power to conscript
and the power to tax. In regard to the second I have come to the conviction
that I am at least conscience bound to challenge the right of the government
to tax me for waging war, and in particular for the production of atomic and
bacterial weapons.”
Ernest and Marion Bromley (Sharonville, Ohio): “We regard it as the
prerogative of every individual to refuse to aid this government or any other
government either to prepare for or to engage in war. The time has come when
men ought no longer to depend solely upon their spoken witness against war.
They ought to prepare themselves for outright resistance by a thorough-going
dissociation with the war-making system. No testimony for peace can afford to
become a timid shadow. No matter what one may say against our armaments, if he
is still paying for armaments, it seems to be talking peace and preparing for
war.”
“Awake! Awake! Ye Quiet of the Land!” Think before you begin
paying Defense dollars. Convert them to
Peace and the Church today.
Christians have responded to the challenge of this issue in various ways. A
few have refused to pay the proportion of their tax that is used for military
purposes. Some have voluntarily limited their income to the low level that is
tax-exempt…
The issue included Don and
Eleanor Kaufman’s letter to the
IRS:
As Mennonite Christians filed their income tax returns for
, more than one was disquieted to
realize that tithing Christians were not giving nearly as much to further
God’s kingdom as they were paying for military preparation for war! Two
Mennonites decided to give voice to this concern in the following letter.
U.S. Treasury
Department Internal Revenue Service Washington 25,
D.C.
Gentlemen:
In filing income tax returns for we believe
it is necessary to clarify our concerns. Like others who have been perplexed
by the irresponsible use of tax money for military purposes, we are earnestly
seeking for a constructive way in which to be honest with what we understand
about the issue. Personally, we are unable to acquiesce easily to the present
military expenditures of our government which we believe, are irrelevant to
the problem they are trying to solve. One cannot change ideologies or correct
evil by destroying those in whom these forces reside.
In an effort to reduce our cooperation in a warmaking system to a minimum, we
seriously considered refusing payment of that portion used for military
expenditures (which we understand is about 73 per cent of federal taxes).
Since we object on religious grounds to participation in war and military
preparation in any form, we believe, like Milton Mayer, that we are denied the
free exercise of our religion (guaranteed by the First Amendment to the
Constitution) when forced to pay income taxes used for military purposes.
If money represents a part of a person’s life, as we believe it does, then it
logically follows that a Christian will have ambivalent feelings about
professing peace and good will while at the same time supporting explicitly
destructive forces within a government. As there are provisions for
conscientious objection to military service, there should also be provisions
for conscientious objection to making
H-bombs or paying for
the making of them.
Consequently, in the interests of our government and all people, we are
looking for some alternative whereby it would be possible to channel that
portion of tax money to those causes which contribute to the welfare of
people — those legitimate functions which are constructive and not destructive
of human value.
We hope that the United States government will accept our offer to pay the
equivalent or more of the military tax to some mutually agreeable agency,
organization, or institution, like
CROP,
MCC,
Church World Service, or the United Nations (UNESCO,
Technical and Economic Assistance Program,
etc.), which is
committed to a peaceful program for all men. We feel that a voluntary
arrangement something like Edith Green’s bill
H.R. 12310 is
necessary if we are to make possible the conditions of a lasting and abiding
peace.
(This was the earliest of the “peace tax fund” legislative proposals. It set up
a fund to be used to give aid developing nations, and would have allowed
taxpayers to get up to a 2% deduction on their taxes by donating to the fund.)
As Christians, we are not seeking exemption from the payment of taxes, but we
are searching for a right to determine how those taxes are used, especially
those which we contribute personally. It is clear to us that a Christian has a
responsibility to government, significantly because in a democracy he is a
real part of the government. Because the Christian knows something of the
value and importance of community he will do everything he can to contribute
to the stability and welfare of government on all levels.
Yet if this person realizes the destructive character and devastating results
of all military preparation, he will consider it his patriotic duty to do what
he can to avoid collective disaster. We believe responsible citizenship
implies that there is no blanket endorsement for what a government does. Its
actions must be tested and if they are found to be outside of the purpose of
God they are to be challenged.
We hope you will feel with us the urgent need to recognize the priority which
God always deserves in every human decision. We would appreciate your
thoughtful response to this crucial issue.
Akron– Concern for payment of war taxes has been
expressed by the General Brotherhood Board of the Church of the Brethren.
Board Executive Secretary W. Howard Row writes, “The concern is real and the
problems to implement (an alternative to payment of war taxes) are great.
However, probably no greater than that of securing an alternative to military
service.” In a resolution shared with
MCC
and similar organizations the General Brotherhood Board states: Because there
is a growing interest among Brethren and others in finding a positive
alternative to the payment of that portion of federal income taxes that go for
war preparations, the General Brotherhood Board voted that explorations be
made with the appropriate agencies of government to the end that an acceptable
constructive alternative be provided for all those persons who, by reason of
religious training and belief, conscientiously object to the payment of that
portion of income taxes going for military defense. These explorations might
be made in concert with one or the more of the other organizations with which
we are associated or if necessary by Brethren alone.”
A similar reaction was recently expressed by two Mennonites. Mr. and Mrs. Don
Kaufman (Moundridge, Kan.) who
are under appointment as
MCC
workers in Indonesia [and who] assert in a letter to the
U.S. Treasury
Department: [quote from above letter omitted]
On the
MCC
Executive Committee met, and, according to
a
later article on the meeting, “[r]eferred to Peace Section the invitation
from the Church of the Brethren to study whether there might be a positive
alternative provided by the
U.S. government for
persons conscientiously opposed to paying that portion of income taxes going
for military defense.”
The
Mennonite Central Committee annual report for
included a report from this “Peace
Section.” They noted that “throughout our constituency… [c]oncern is evident in
discussions about possible participation in various protest actions and about
the propriety of paying income taxes that are used so largely for war
purposes…”
Our next episode will pick up as the tumultuous 1960s begin.
This is the eleventh in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we enter the 1960s.
In the late 1940s, the confluence of a sympathetic acting editor and the newly emerging modern war tax resistance movement led to a brief flurry of articles on the subject in The Mennonite.
This died down considerably, and mentions of war tax resistance became more dismissive and infrequent, until the late 1950s when the paper began to again treat the subject in depth and with respect.
Now we’re up to the 1960s, a decade in which war tax resistance became more prominent in the anti-war movement, and that movement itself became more mainstream.
Would Mennonites lead or follow?
Let’s see what clues we can find in The Mennonite.
Stewardship “is a fearfully neglected aspect of the Christian gospel in our time.”
Roy Pearson, dean of Andover Newton Theological School, tells us in the January 1960 issue of Pulpit Digest how his conscience was shaken:
“One day, I read that the national budget proposed for called for expenditures of $71.8 billion and that ‘items related to present and past defense’ composed 80 per cent of it, ‘leaving about $14 billion for all other federal activities from combating floods and narcotic smugglers to minting pennies and keeping up the price of peanuts.’
I thought of a man I know who has an income of $10,000 a year, who pays an income tax of $2000, and who gives $300 to the church and various charities.
Eighty per cent of his income tax presumably is spent for national defense.
That means that $1,600 of his money goes for bombs and bayonets and $300 for preaching and teaching; $1,600 for poison gas and hand grenades and $300 for cancer clinics and mental hospitals; $1,600 for submarines and aircraft carriers and $300 for social workers in the slums and chaplains in the prisons.
And then I asked myself, is this simply ‘too bad’?
Is this just ‘a necessary evil’?
Is this nothing more than another burden which we have to carry because of Russia’s threat to our security?
Or could it be that this is sin against the God who put within the reach of man the iron and the steel which, shaped now into swords and spears, was meant instead for pruning hooks and plowshares?”
The issue included a remarkable exchange of letters between John F. Enns and the U.S. Treasury Department.
Enns pointed out the incompatibility of his Christian conscience and the spending priorities of the government, and begged permission to pay his taxes to some particular, unoffensive branch of government rather than to the Treasury as a whole.
Someone (the writer is not named) from the Treasury Department responds:
I agree with the conclusion reached in your letter… that it is a terrible indictment of mankind that almost two-thirds of our total budget is spent for the preparation of war.
On the other hand, it may be that through the spending of all this money and the ingenuity of the human mind man has produced a device so terrible that any potentate would fear to unleash the forces of the machine, and thus through its inherent horror would prevent the killing of man, which we both abhor.
It may be that through the payment of taxes we are helping to prevent the killing of man.
I know of no provision whereby one’s liability for the payment of taxes may be discharged by the payment of a like amount to any fund other than the treasury of the United States.
May I, therefore, suggest that you pursue the same procedure that all other citizens of the United States follow.
I appreciate the time you have taken to express your views in this matter and join you in the hope that Divine Providence will so guide mankind that the vast sums of money we are now spending in military preparation may, in some way, be diverted to the upbuilding of the human race.
In response to general interest expressed by various individuals and groups, the NSBRO has taken leadership recently in preliminary exploration of possibilities for a meaningful and feasible tax alternative.
There is little precedent for a tax alternative for those opposed to the huge portion of the tax dollar which goes for military purposes and it appears that there would be a great many administrative difficulties which would stand in the way of implementing such a program, even if governmental approval could be obtained.
An article about taxes in the issue covered some banal issues about why you shouldn’t cheat, why it isn’t shameful to take legal tax deductions, and why it’s important to keep good records.
But then it continued:
Thinking Christians are concerned over the large percentage of the government budget which goes for war.
This is a legitimate concern.
While we cannot change the federal government structure, we can begin with our own lives and reduce the amount of tax we pay.
The government encourages citizens to give to private charitable, educational, and religious causes.
To do so is clearly within the framework of the law.
Some have felt we should have the privilege of marking our tax money for certain functions of government.
Here we have a voluntary privilege of earmarking our money for the highest good.
Depending on the size of family, medical expenditures, total income and other factors, many have been able to greatly reduce or actually eliminate the need to pay taxes.
Depending on this blend of circumstances, the “fade out” time comes somewhere between 22% to 30% of our giving.
Obviously this depends on many circumstances.
Through adjustment in living patterns which actually add to the zest of life, many can sharply increase their giving to the work of the Lord and also solve part of the conscience problem involved in military expenditures.
The annual report of the Mennonite Central Committee noted that “Serious discussion on the question of whether the nonresistant Christian can in good conscience pay income taxes which go so heavily for war purposes has continued.”
Recently many Christians as well as non-Christians have become increasingly concerned about the vast sums of money which are being spent throughout the world for armaments.
It is proper and commendable that Mennonites in the United States and Canada should be concerned about the billions of dollars which are being spent by these two countries for national defense.
In view of this vast military expenditure, the dilemma faced by the Christian pacifist with regard to paying federal taxes becomes readily apparent.
It is gratifying to see that a number of very serious-minded people have questioned the implications involved in paying federal taxes and have found them to be at variance with the doctrine of Christian love.
While the concern expressed by these people is gratifying, the solutions which have been proposed are rather disappointing.
The proposals that have been advanced appear to fall into two categories: (1) that an attempt be made to get some sort of legislation passed which would allow the Christian pacifist to pay his federal income tax directly to some non-military agency of the federal government, or (2) that the Christian pacifist be exempted from all or part of his federal income tax and that the money be paid, instead, to some charitable organization.
At best these proposals could only slightly ease the Christian pacifists’ conscience and furthermore they really don’t reach the heart of the problem, i.e., the armaments race.
Let us examine these suggestions a little more closely.
At the present time, except in the case of some taxes which are earmarked for specific purposes, all taxes are paid to the U.S. treasury.
Disbursements are made from the treasury to the various governmental agencies by Congressional action.
Even if a law could be passed allowing the pacifist to make his income tax payments directly to some non-military department of the government, this would simply mean that smaller appropriations from the treasury would need to be made to that particular agency, which would allow the same amount of money to be spent for national defense.
While the pacifist could claim that at least his money wasn’t being spent for armaments, the fact remains that money is a completely homogenous commodity and it matters not one iota whose money is being spent for what purpose.
The proposal that some method of income tax exemption be sought, and that instead the tax money be donated to some nongovernmental charitable organization is certainly commendable to the extent that these organizations could certainly use additional funds.
However, less than half of the federal government’s receipts come from individual income taxes and all of us would continue to contribute to the armaments race in other ways.
Furthermore, the direct net effect as far as the federal government is concerned would be to only very slightly reduce its tax receipts.
Now the federal government can finance its expenditures in a number of ways: (1) taxes, (2) borrowing from private individuals, (3) borrowing from commercial banks, (4) printing money.
A modern method of financing government expenditures, which was used extensively in the United States during and following World War Ⅱ and which is equivalent to printing money, is borrowing through the Federal Reserve Bank.
Thus it can be seen that all federal taxes could be eliminated entirely and all functions of the government, including national defense, could continue as before.
It is true, of course, that in normal times this type of policy would be highly inflationary (but that is another problem).
For these reasons a refusal to pay federal taxes would not solve the Christian’s dilemma, for it matters very little whether 50 per cent of a 80 billion dollar budget or 57 per cent of a 70 billion dollar budget is spent for national defense.
What does matter and what needs to be our real concern is that with a gross national product currently running at 500 billion dollars annually, approximately eight per cent of our nation’s productive effort is being channeled directly into national defense.
Neither can we excuse ourselves by saying that as farmers, teachers, and doctors we do not contribute to the defense effort, because in our present-day economy each industry is related to the various other industries so that the products of one are the inputs of another.
Just as the steel worker contributes to the production of tanks and guns so the schoolteacher contributes to the training of the future nuclear physicist or the germ warfare biologist.
A more positive approach to the problem would be to support those programs of the government which may help to bring about conditions which make disarmament possible.
For instance, during the past several years the Eisenhower administration has requested a small amount of money for research on the problems of disarmament.
However, the appropriation was never made by Congress.
During the past presidential campaign, Senator Kennedy endorsed a similar proposal.
Thus far the Mennonite people have not seen fit to lend their support to this constructive proposal.
In addition, Kennedy has also endorsed the idea of a “Peace Corps” which would allow qualified young people to serve abroad in underdeveloped countries to aid in their economic and cultural development.
Such service would be considered an alternative to military service.
Depending on the particular form such a “Peace Corps” would take, this appears to be one of the most constructive ideas for world peace that has been advanced in recent years.
Because of the peculiar heritage of the Mennonite church and its experience through MCC, it is quite possible that the Mennonites could make a significant contribution in this area.
There are those who believe that the Mennonite church has a mission to perform in this world, in this age.
Recently a research organization, the Institute of Mennonite Studies, has been formed.
In view of the serious nature of the present arms race it might be extremely beneficial if this organization would direct its efforts to the problem of the arms race and the contribution which pacifists can make toward the solution of the problem.
The solution to this problem is neither simple nor will it come quickly.
Nevertheless, if the Christian pacifist is to make a positive contribution which is relevant to the present situation, continued effort must be made toward its solution.
But in so doing, let us not waste our time following paths which end nowhere or lead us further down the path of withdrawal and complacency of thinking that at least directly, we are not to blame for the evils of the world when in fact our very withdrawal has, at least in part, contributed to the evils to which we close our eyes.
This is the twelfth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we continue our trek into the 1960s.
When 60–75% of the national budget and a similar percentage of every tax dollar goes for an armament program there is cause for protest.
Even an outgoing general-president warned about the power of the industrial-military complex in our society.
The amount Christians pay for things they know are absolutely evil is frightening.
In The Christian Evangel estimated (conservatively so) that the 8,800 Amish Mennonites of Elkhart County (Indiana) were annually paying three million dollars toward future wars just by paying taxes!
We have long excused ourselves, saying that we were giving to Caesar what belongs to him.
Really, does all that belong to Caesar?
Does it become his simply by request?
Isn’t Caesar taking more than belongs to him, in fact, taking from that which belongs to God?
We believe in obeying the state, but only when such obedience is not in conflict with our commitment to God.
Likewise we believe in paying taxes, but only when such taxes do not do violence to Christian priorities.
In the days when the state asked primarily for men to go to war, we were conscientious objectors.
But now the primary tool of war is money.
Can we still be conscientious objectors now?
We must protest: 1) individually through our congressional representatives; 2) collectively through our official church channels; 3) by supporting the proposed Civilian Income Tax Act; 4) by refusing to pay the military portion of the tax, directing it for charitable and welfare uses through other channels.
What a wonderful thing it would be for the cause of Christ if folks would be willing to go to jail again for what they believed?
Who will lead the way?
In late the Committee for Nonviolent Action began in a “San Francisco to Moscow” Walk for Peace.
They had reached Pennsylvania by , and The Mennonite gave them some coverage that month.
Among the things they noted:
The walkers ask individuals to oppose militarism and the continuation of the arms race by considering non-cooperation with government policies when they conflict with individual conscience.
They urge concerned persons to seriously consider refusal to work in military (“defense”) industries, serve in the armed forces, and pay taxes which support military programs.
A guest editorial in the issue urged people to maximize their tax-deductible charitable contributions as a way of avoiding paying tax for military purposes.
Along the way, the author explicitly called out the “civilian bonds” dodge Mennonites had used during World War Ⅱ:
During World War Ⅱ the Canadian Government did provide what was called a Sticker Bond.
The conscientious objector, if he desired that his money be used for other than war purposes, could request that a sticker be attached to his bond.
While this may have eased his conscience, it was purely a bookkeeping matter as far as the government was concerned.
James C. Juhnke, then an undergrad at Bethel College (where he’s now a professor), wrote a piece on “Youth & Taxes” that appeared in the .
It starts with this charming bit of sixtiesism:
Maybe I’m wrong.
But sometimes I get to thinking that we young people shouldn’t be so dependent upon our elders to do all the decision-making for our society.
And just between us young people, the reason we ought to do our own thinking is because older people tend to lose their fire.… But we are different.
We are young.
We can afford to do some bold and dangerous thinking.
Here’s the bold and dangerous thinking Juhnke has in mind:
For a starter, I suggest that we lead the way for our older generation with some creative thinking on the issue of paying taxes to the government.
War isn’t what it used to be when our parents were young.
They used to talk quite seriously about winning a war.
And in a gruesome sort of way, I suppose we were on the “winning” side in World Wars Ⅰ and Ⅱ.
But the next global war won’t produce any winners.
Another thing has changed.
Today we are all involved in a fantastic peacetime war effort.
The defense expenditures of our government amount to over fifty billion dollars annually, a sum we can’t even comprehend.
The principle of military conscription in peacetime has been accepted.
Around 75 per cent of the government’s budget goes for military purposes.
Nuclear submarines, atomic-warhead missiles, anti-missile missiles, fallout shelters are becoming accepted parts of the American way of life.
We are living in a military age.
Now what we should consider is that we are going to be paying for all this.
Some of us have earned enough money to pay federal income tax.
The rest of us will be paying in the future.
And our parents have poured thousands of dollars into the government treasury, three-fourths of which is used for military purposes.
We believe that participation in war is wrong, and we refuse to serve in the armed forces because of our conviction.
If participation in war is wrong, what about paying taxes?
Aren’t we participating in war when we pay for it?
As Christians we know that we are responsible to God for our money and possessions.
We have dedicated ourselves and our lives to God.
We are obligated to use our money for constructive, Christian purposes.
Most of our money is used to purchase things we need and want.
We give up ten dollars and get a pair of shoes in return.
We pay 75 cents and receive the privilege of hearing a concert or seeing a play.
Paying taxes is a little like making a purchase.
Only this time for our money we get war preparations.
But not only do we not want war preparations, but we have serious questions about whether a Christian should be a partner in such a transaction.
Let’s not kid ourselves that we are not responsible for our tax money.
No miracle happens as my money travels from my home to Washington, D.C. to transfer responsibility for what I did from myself to the government.
I know that 75 per cent of what I sent in will be used for military purposes.
And I know that it would not have been used in this way if I wouldn’t have sent it.
But didn’t Jesus tell us to “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s”?
Right.
And if we are serious about this question we will turn to the Bible for answers.
However, let’s not expect to find immediate and easy “proof-text” answers there.
In this instance, for example, only the first half of the quotation was given.
We also are to give “to God that which is God’s.”
The problem for us, then, is to decide what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God.
We probably are agreed that Caesar and God are not equals and that God’s claims are the most important for us.
What, then is to be given to Caesar?
Are we ready to say that the government should be given everything it asks of us?
Would we enter military service if the government demanded it of us?
Would we pay a special war tax which went exclusively for military purposes?
(There have been instances in Holland and Prussia where Mennonites did this.)
Or do we pay only when less than 50 per cent is used for military purposes?
Toward I attended the Inter-Collegiate Peace Fellowship Conference of Mennonite Colleges.
We discussed the relationship of so-called “radical” peace action projects to the church.
We talked about peace marches, nuclear testing protests, defense plant pickets, refusal to pay taxes, and similar forms of peace action.
I was amazed by the general agreement that the Mennonite church should seriously study these “radical” peace projects with a view toward possible participation in similar forms of witness to the government.
Here is a good program idea for your youth group.
Why not initiate a study and discussion of the problem of the Christian and taxes?
Find out if anyone in your church or community has done any thinking about this.
Write to the Board of Christian Service and the Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section to see what they have done in this area.
Try to find out exactly what percentage of tax money actually does go for military purposes and what alternatives are available.
Plan a Bible study to learn what the biblical position is with regard to taxes.
Maybe you could set up a program in the form of a debate with two people taking the affirmative (“Paying taxes is a compromise of Christian principles”) and two people on the negative (“Paying taxes is not a compromise of Christian principles”).
At any rate, let’s start thinking about issues like these.
We’ve too often wasted all our enthusiasm on activities and problems that are here today and gone tomorrow.
Answers to the taxes problem won’t come easily.
But we’re not out to tackle easy problems. We want issues that are worth our consideration.
Let’s get busy soon though.
The world, the church, and the older generation, need our contribution.
In a letter published in the issue, Mardy Rich Stone applauded Juhnke’s article.
Excerpts:
I cannot understand why Mennonites, historically outspoken on pacifism, do not take a stand against the payment of military taxes.
Christ said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” Do Mennonites believe we are to give Caesar whatever he asks?
This I cannot accept.
Many people say that one cannot escape paying military taxes.
Military sources for revenue are numerous — gasoline tax, luxury tax, etc. Perhaps one cannot be perfect, but should this stop one from doing the best possible?
I know of only a few individuals who have refused to pay taxes — and they were the subject of criticism by fellow church members.
The least one can do is support them.
Executive secretaries of the General Conference Mennonite Church were asked to write up answers to some of the questions that were asked at that year’s conference.
Leo Driedger of the Board of Christian Service answered this question: “Some years ago a request was made for guidance on the matter of the use of income tax for military purposes.
Has anything been done?”
Driedger’s reply:
Two years of work by the Peace and Social Concerns Committee has resulted in much discussion.
Contracts [sic] with the Friends and Church of the Brethren were made.
We encouraged the Friends’ bill presented to the United States government asking for an alternative.
Gathering of material resulted in a classification of different approaches by our members as follows: being jailed for nonpayment, evasion of payment, adjustment of income so no need to pay, working for an alternative, payment under written protest, evasion of reporting, payment with uneasy conscience, 30 per cent charity contributions to reduce tax, and payment without question.
Articles and reports of some of these positions appeared in conference papers.
We encouraged the Institute of Mennonite Studies, Church and Society Conference, and the Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section to study income taxes.
The Peace Section held a full meeting to discuss the historical, biblical, and present day concern on taxes.
There is no consensus so far.
Individuals are encouraged to act according to their consciences.
This is the thirteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we continue our trek into the 1960s.
The issue included an article by Leo Driedger titled “The Taxes that Go to War”.
We met Driedger in our last episode as he was answering a query about the General Conference Mennonite Church’s guidance regarding war taxes on behalf of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee.
In this new article, Driedger begins by methodically explaining how much of the federal budget is military spending, and how the government gets that money to spend.
Then he explores the options for avoiding complicity:
Some think we should work out some alternative to paying taxes.
In the past some Mennonites paid for other people to go to war in their place.
We thought this was wrong so we sought alternative service.
But we are still paying for war with our taxes.
In order to discuss our taxes intelligently we need to know where we are paying taxes, and how it is spent.
Can we escape paying taxes for military use?
It is hard to be consistent.
To illustrate, let us examine the excise taxes.
Most of us do not buy alcohol and tobacco which eliminates half of the excise tax problem.
The other half we pay on such items as gas and oil, telephone, transportation tickets, and sugar (which we can hardly do without).
Not to pay any excise tax on anything would result in doing without a lot of things we think are necessary.
Furthermore, we might find ourselves spending much time trying to decide when we are or aren’t paying excise taxes.
Would this be good stewardship of time?
The twenty-six per cent that the government receives from corporate income taxes could be largely evaded if we did not buy stocks and bonds in corporations.
Many of our people however invest in stocks, although a large percentage don’t. But we would still be involved in a small way in that our money in savings accounts in banks and loans we make involved the investment of some money in corporations and these pay taxes.
True, our involvement here is small.
Most of the government’s money comes from personal income taxes.
In the United States a single person can earn $600 and a childless couple $1200 per year before they have to pay income tax.
In Canada this is $1000 and $2000 respectively.
We would find it hard to live on so little, although I know of one Mennonite who has done this for years.
Reducing our income that much would leave little for tithes to the church.
Is this good stewardship of our money?
For some a large family solves the problem.
In the United States tax exemptions permit a man to earn at least $6,000 before he has to pay taxes.
Not too many, however, are following that solution.
The Christian also has the positive option of giving thirty per cent of his income to the church and tax-deductible charities.
Many of us should consider this possibility seriously.
I know of some Christians who give that much and more to the church every year.
Each year a number of Mennonites include a letter of protest with their tax returns.
They often ask for an alternative.
Some members of the Society of Friends have actually worked on a bill to present to the government asking for the opportunity to pay their taxes to
UNICEF,
a welfare organ of the United Nations.
Securing an alternative will be difficult.
Quite a few actually refuse to pay, and are imprisoned; others don’t pay and get away with it.
This is a complex problem, for even if we were granted an alternative on personal income tax, there is still the other forty-five per cent corporation and excise taxes which are not covered.
The Gospels (Mark 12:17, Matt. 22:21, Luke 10:25 [sic.]) cite the well-known saying of Christ: “Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.” Did Christ mean we should pay our tax money to the government and ask no further questions?
Although the coin had the inscription of Caesar on it, did Christ not mean that all we have and own is God’s, whose purpose is much greater?
Did he mean that taxes for roads, health, welfare, should be paid to Caesar to administer these, but not money for war because this does not serve mankind and God?
Or did Christ actually mean that His disciples should help pay for Roman conquest and military persecution?
Can we work out a perfect plan that will provide an alternative to military taxation?
That seems nigh impossible if we still want to be a part of society.
But, aware of our involvement, do we confess to it and seek truly to make the best witness we can against this evil use of our tax money?
Without giving any glib answer I leave a few questions for discussion:
Is it wrong to pay our taxes to government even though we know seventy per cent of this goes for the preparation of war?
What does the Bible say about this question of involvement?
Is it really possible to withdraw from any involvement, by either paying our taxes and forgetting about it, or attempting to do without those things that involve payment of taxes?
Is this the best witness we can make?
Is there some way in which we can make a Christian witness against programs of military spending?
How?
Should we invest our time and efforts in working for an alternative to paying taxes as we have done in military service?
A letter from Walter M. Philipp printed in the issue took Driedger to task, saying his article was an example of those “which are poorly written, factually incorrect, and show lack of intelligence.”
For starters, he took issue with Driedger’s account of how bank deposits or the purchase of stocks & bonds make individuals complicit in corporate income taxes.
Would not the purchase of products manufactured by corporations tie in more to one’s responsibility for corporate income tax, inasmuch as sales produce the income that is taxed, and a definable proportion of the sales dollar goes for income tax?
Then he asks, “why did [Driedger] not mention investment in municipal bonds, from which the income is tax exempt?”
Municipal bonds do provide funds for some very peaceful, humane, and worthwhile purposes.
Why did he not mention the tax credit applicable to dividend income, the lower tax rate on capital gains, or the lower tax rate applicable to corporation income?
These are just a few examples that contributed to making a poor article.
But interestingly, the criticism is entirely about the technical details.
I didn’t notice any letters attacking the substance of the idea that Mennonites should examine how their taxes make them complicit in military spending and that they need to do something about it.
John Howard Yoder, the controversial and influential Mennonite theologian, chimed in on the subject in the issue:
As I grew, in my late teens and early twenties, into my earliest understandings of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, one of the deeply significant aspects of this discipleship which I sought to understand was what my teachers called nonresistance.
I came to understand this word as pointing to one of the ways in which personal fellowship with Jesus Christ through His Spirit will normally work itself out in the life of the believer.
Two things stood out in this understanding of discipleship in nonresistance.
First of all, to follow Christ on this path involved being enough different from the surrounding world to be considered unlikable or undesirable by certain powerful people and groups in the world.
As a result of this opposition, the way of nonresistance may be called the way of the cross; it involves suffering.
Secondly this position should be a witness.
A witness should show the world that the way it operates, through an interplay of selfishness against selfishness and violence against violence, is subject to the condemnation of God and destined, even in this age, to ultimate judgment.
One other thing my teachers told me was that, according to God’s will, the assignment of civil government is to keep the peace.
The Apostle Paul instructs Christians to offer “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings… for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life…” (1 Tim. 2:1f., RSV).
Obviously, we pray for a “quiet and peaceable life” not because we wish to be left alone but in order that the church may carry on her ministry, so that all men should find salvation and “come to the knowledge of the truth” (verse 4).
The church’s task is to bring men to know the truth; just as clearly, the place of the state in God’s purposes is that disorder be kept to a minimum and peace maintained.
Now when I went out into life with these convictions I was increasingly struck by the fact that there was precious little in my own experience or that of the church that I knew to correspond to this description.
The governments under which I lived were making a major contribution to the terror which threatens all the nations of the world.
They were taking the greatest initiative in poisoning the outer atmosphere of the globe and the inmost springs of heredity with nuclear tests.
Statesmen were making their bids for election primarily on the basis of how “firm” they were prepared to be in threatening the other half of the world with nuclear destruction.
Not only Christians, but even intelligent unbelievers in other parts of the world, asked me what testimony was being given in America by nonresistant Christians, and at the cost of what suffering, in order to proclaim the judgment of God upon this development of weapons which can be used only to break and not to defend the peace.
It is a growing conviction of many that it is an insufficient answer to say that many young men of nonresistant conviction refuse military service and render some other useful service to society in its place.
The position of the conscientious objector is right for the young man to whom it applies.
But in the western nations where military authorities have found a convenient way of shunting such objectors into inconspicuous alternative service, the Christian testimony to the state requires more than this if it is to be an adequate testimony against war.
Alternative service says clearly that the Christian cannot wage war, and that he does desire to serve his fellow men in a useful way.
It does not say that the task of the state is to make peace.
And for the great bulk of Christians of nonresistant conviction, conscientious objection and alternative civilian service involve no suffering and little sacrifice.
These were my thoughts when I was reminded that there is one point at which almost every citizen, or at least every family, once a year does make a personal contribution to the moral and financial support of the military monster.
This gesture of support is carried out each spring when almost every wage earner forwards to the federal government a share of his earnings, more than half of which will not be used to keep the peace.
For a number of years, I had not chance to exercise responsibility over this use of a share of my income, since my employer withheld the amount involved from my earnings.
In , for the first time, it fell to my personal responsibility and initiative to forward to the United States government’s Internal Revenue Service an additional amount, going beyond what had been withheld.
This additional amount due was significantly less than the proportion of my total taxes which I knew were being used for non-peaceful purposes.
I therefore submitted to the Director of Internal Revenue a full and conscientious report of my income, but wrote that I could not take the moral responsibility of forwarding to the government funds which I knew would be used for a purpose contrary to that which government is supposed to be serving.
I told him that I had no intention of profiting personally from my “tax objection.”
I was therefore forwarding an equivalent payment to the Mennonite Central Committee for use in overseas war sufferers’ relief.
In the course of time, I received an answer to this letter in the form of a conversation with a local Internal Revenue Service inspector.
In a very polite and gentlemanly way he informed me that he could not consider this as acceptable in lieu of payment to the Director of Internal Revenue.
He therefore drew from my bank account the amount which I had not forwarded in the routine way.
This much is my story; what remains is to ward off mistaken interpretation of what I did and what I meant.
The point is not to keep the government from getting the money. Not only would this be legally impossible; the New Testament is clear that the Christian will respond to any kind of coercion, legal or illegal, by giving not only his shirt but also his coat.
(See Matt. 5:40.) Since it was clear that the Internal Revenue Service inspector was disposed to take upon himself the responsibility for forcefully collecting the funds, as a “second mile” gesture I told him where he could find the money with the least difficulty.
The idea is not to avoid involvement in the evils of this fallen world, to “keep my hands clean” morally.
Involvement in one form or another is avoided by no one, and I would not be avoiding it if I had no taxes to pay.
My concern is not to be morally immaculate by making absolutely no contribution to the war effort, but to give a testimony to government concerning its own obligation before God.
This is not tax evasion. I filed at the proper time a full and conscientiously accurate report on my income, and when further information came to light I amended my report accordingly.
There is no intention to defraud and no liability to criminal prosecution.
This is not obstructionism. Numerous Christian and non-Christian pacifists express their disapproval of militarism by such symbolic gestures as illegally entering a missile base, sailing a boat into a restricted part of the Pacific just before bomb tests, or in other ways seeking dramatically to catch the attention of the public or of government administrators with their objection.
The action I am describing here differs from theirs in a number of ways.
In the first place, I made clear, not only in my letter to the Director of Internal Revenue, but also in my conversation with the local inspector, that I now have and wish to maintain a healthy respect for the legitimate functions of government and for the persons who carry them out.
I do not express my objection by getting in the way of some military sentinel or civilian truck driver whom I thus put in the embarrassing position of either being disobedient to his superiors or harming me, nor by becoming a problem for some judge who has no choice but to apply the law.
I witness rather by writing and talking calmly to responsible civil servants who are my most direct contact with the process of government.
The only cost of this witness was paid in the form of a gift for relief. The actual amount of tax collected was increased by only a few cents’ interest covering the time elapsed between and the date of collection.
If the equivalent amount I had given for relief had been accepted by Internal Revenue Service in lieu of tax payment, I would have considered it as such in the next year’s reporting.
However, since that payment was not accepted, I shall report it as a deductible contribution.
The way present tax laws operate, this approach would cost the most (in the form of relief contributions) to those who are most able to bear it because of their greater income.
This is significant in contrast to the fact that the brunt of the sacrifice involved in being a conscientious objector, especially in time of war, is laid upon teenagers who are not chosen with a view to their being most qualified to bear it.
If action something like my own were taken by a significant number of mature Mennonite wage earners, this would be the first time in the history of our nation that the testimony to nonresistance was given primarily through the initiative of and at a certain cost to the most mature and responsible people in the church.
One question remains, which both the Internal Revenue Service inspector and my Christian brethren have already asked:
Does not the New Testament instruct us to pay our taxes? Certainly it does; and I want to pay my taxes, and to pay them willingly as far as the functions of the United States government resemble what Jesus and Paul and Peter were talking about.
The lesson of the entire New Testament is that Christians should be subject to political authority because in the providence of God the function of these authorities is to maintain peace.
This is what I, in accordance with the instruction of the New Testament, am asking the American government to do.
I am in fact even willing to pay for a certain amount of waste and fraud and incompetence, as well as for welfare services going beyond what Jesus and the apostles had in mind.
But the one thing I am not prepared to support voluntarily is something which Jesus and Paul did not have in mind because it did not exist in the time of the New Testament.
The government of Rome was not spending more than half of its resources on preparations to destroy the rest of the world.
The authority which Jesus and Paul recognized was an authority within a given empire, an authority which in spite of its violence and corruption and the fraudulent procedures of its tax collectors did effectively maintain peace within the entire known world at the time the New Testament was written.
We know very little, nor does the New Testament attempt to inform us, about significant political powers outside the Roman Empire.
But we can say with certainly that there were no such powers, in any way comparable in importance to Rome itself, which Rome was preparing to destroy.
There is thus in this teaching of the New Testament no easy discharge from the duty to test which of the demands of “Caesar” are really “the things that are Caesar’s” and when what he asks for is not his rightful due.
It is not my purpose at present to agitate for others to follow my example.
I am rather asking counsel from, my Christian brethren concerning the way I have been led.
At the same time I am asking whether others have found more appropriate ways to render a worthwhile testimony against their nation’s trust in the sword.
A Mrs. M. Wiebe took Yoder up on that challenge, in a letter published in the issue.
She was “appalled at the hypocrisy expressed in [Yoder’s] article.”
Excerpt:
What virtue is there in not paying your income tax willingly instead forcing the Revenue Inspector to collect it himself from the author’s bank account?
… To quote: “I am willing to pay for a certain amount of waste, fraud and incompetence” but not for something that did not exist in the time of the New Testament.
Don’t fraud and corruption lead to war?
He describes Rome as a government that didn’t spend as much on war as our government and that Rome “maintained peace” certainly it maintained peace but how?
With terrible brutality and with the sword.
The Romans had a horrible slave system.
Their birthday parties were illumined with flaming crosses of burning Christians.
It was a totally pagan government.
That’s the kind of a government to which Jesus and Paul paid willing taxes.
They had more important things to do than to picket the government and complain about the taxes.
Don’t we as Mennonites have anything more important to think about than how we can draw attention to ourselves by being very odd so that others might notice how pious we are?
Other than that, I don’t see much evidence that Yoder’s article raised much controversy or discussion.
A letter from Don Kaufman, published in the issue, promoted a new “Civilian Income Tax Act” being drawn up by the Pacific Yearly Meeting of Friends.
This was one of the early attempts at “peace tax fund” legislation.
These plans would frustrate and bedevil the conversation about war tax resistance to the present day, and would eventually almost completely displace discussion of war tax resistance itself.
In this way the peace tax fund plans are similar to the “civilian bonds” of World War Ⅱ — they allow ostensibly conscientious people to continue to pay for war by giving their payments a pleasant name.
This is the fourteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we continue our trek through the 1960s.
A letter to the editor from Don Kaufman in the edition worried that “we have allowed conscientious objection to war to become meaningless by default” in the modern age when war is fought more by machinery than by troops.
He made note of John Howard Yoder’s essay on war tax resistance (see ’s post), and said “it would be interesting to know how many individuals in Mennonite congregations would qualify as authentic C.O.’s if examined on the basis of the U.S. position “which has through its courts held several times that any substantial contribution for war by an individual is legal proof that he is not a genuine objector to war.”
If Christians courageously refused to have their income tax money used for military purposes they would discover that it costs a person something to be a conscientious objector to war, even in the United States of America.
Judging by or record as a Mennonite Church it would appear that we are confused about what it means “to obey God rather than men.”
For example, in our personal life we oppose war (as most Mennonites have throughout their history), but with the money which we earn we support it (as most Mennonites have throughout their history).
Who can honestly say that this is consistent with “the Way of the Cross”?
I suppose the majority of Christians in our day consider it either presumptuous or scandalous when a person refuses to pay war taxes.
And yet if, as Ernest Bromley has observed, the taxpayer now plays the part the soldier used to play, then it becomes imperative that we examine more carefully what it means to pay taxes.
When paying taxes, are we really being faithful citizens of God’s kingdom of love?
A letter in the edition responded that tax resistance, like conscientious objection to military service, probably would have little effect on the government’s ability to wage war.
Further, it is a naive mistake to believe that because a person has not served in the army or paid taxes used for defense, he has not participated in or contributed to what used to be called the war effort.
The maintaining and developing of our defense system is tightly interwoven with our “peaceful” economy.
The company that makes light bulbs also makes jet engines and electronics equipment for the government.
The airplane that takes our Mennonite leaders to meetings and conferences around the world is likely to have been made by the same company that furnishes the Air Force with B‒52’s loaded and ready on the alert pad.
I believe that we support our government indirectly merely by participating in the economy of the country, and that it is now our duty to try to affect policy making, not merely by the indirect methods of “ban the bomb” and alternative service (and perhaps taxes) but by constructive, dynamic participation in government itself.
[D]oes not an ethical decision sometimes involve simply saying “no” to evil as we understand it?
“We mean to do good if possible, but in no case do we intend to do harm” (Milton Mayer).
This seems to be central in the tax refuser’s philosophy, and it may be a lot more realistic and a lot less sentimental than the noble alternative of “dynamic participation in government itself” — whatever that phrase means.
The National Council of Churches convened a conference on church & state issues in .
A Mennonite attendee noted:
In the plenary sessions most discussion centered around the question of civil disobedience.
Can the church ever encourage Christians to refuse payment of income tax?…
The issue reported on the jailing the previous year of Quaker war tax resister Arthur Evans on contempt of court charges for refusing to file an income tax return.
Finally, the edition reprinted “A Call to Income Tax Protest” by four members of the Church of the Brethren: Dale Aukerman, John Forbes, Merle Crouse, and Jerry Royer.
Here is the text of that Call:
The per capita military expenditure of the United States rose from less than $8 in to $268 in .
The Government has been spending less than one million dollars yearly on the problems of disarmament, in contrast to $47 billion on arms, a ratio of one to forty-seven thousand.
C.P. Snow, the eminent British physicist and novelist, has indicated that by some twelve countries, including China, might have nuclear weapons at their disposal.
He warns that, unless much progress is made toward disarmament, “within ten years from now some of those bombs are going off.
We know, with the certainty of statistical proof, that if enough of these weapons are made by enough different states, some of them are going to blow up — through accident, or folly, or madness.”
This letter, primarily to members and friends of the Church of the Brethren, is an appeal that we consider anew as Christians whether we can without protest go on handing over our income tax money when 75 percent of it is used in a way that makes more likely a general destruction of human life on the earth.
Hans de Boer has written, “He who sees a wrong and does not raise an outcry makes himself guilty of the wrong.”
We may feel uneasy about that word outcry.
The effectiveness of protests does not necessarily increase with their loudness.
But to the essential meaning we can perhaps agree: When we see wrong, we should give a strong No.
Our lives should be an agape Yes to God and men and a radical No to evil.
Jesus Christ is God’s Yes to us and His No to sin; and we are called in Him to embody that Yes and No.
American Christianity no longer tends to be a chain of narrow negativisms, but rather a blur of cushiony positives.
This shift has affected American pacifism.
The lament is still often heard that pacifism is understood too negatively.
We might do better to regret that pacifism has become so mildly and acceptably positive.
Alternative service is a highly significant long-range witness.
Its sorry failing is that in America it has so little potency any more as a No.
Draft refusal in France is a jabbing barb in the national conscience.
But America is quite content and even in a way reassured about its moral idealism to have handfuls of 1‒W’s working here and there.
With every lost year thrusting us much closer to the point of no possible disarmament return in the nuclear race it is imperative that we give a far more drastic No to nuclear madness than we have been giving by alternative service.
From Nazareth’s synagogue through the last week in Jerusalem Jesus proclaimed and lived a jolting emphatic No to the folly of His countrymen.
When a building filled with people has caught fire, drastic measures are in order.
Refusal to pay federal income tax for war (matched by a self-imposed alternative tax for peacemaking) has a potency for jarring the public conscience which draft refusal has lost.
For ICBM’s our money is far more necessary than our manpower.
Subservient brainpower is always there.
Along with it the government needs more and more money and can get along with fewer yielded bodies.
When we deprive the government of our tax dollars (even though the amounts and numbers involved be small), we prick the central vital nerve of the military Leviathan, because money — not manpower — is the crucial basis of its present spread.
In earlier periods the draft refusal No of the historic peace churches had considerable impact.
But we in these churches have been slow to see that this No does not at present any more than begin to express the intensity of the No we should be declaring against nuclear war.
It is past time for us to turn from our suburban coziness and discover together new Golden Rules to set forth in.
We should be engaging in more than tax protest but in the deepening crisis, tax protest would seem clearly to join draft refusal as part of the Christian’s minimal No to mass annihilation.
Considerations.
George Macleod of the Iona Community has pointed out, “This is the first age in all Christian history where the majority of Christians have no conscience at all, no principle, nothing to go on, except fear and political consideration.”
And we who can lay claim to having some conscience, haven’t we become pretty insensitive?
Remember the horror you felt in those .
There is little of it left.
Years of living with the ghastly prospects and the all-pervasive deceit of the mass media have lulled us.
The Church of Christ desperately needs horror at what the ultimate nuclear act would mean for man, at what it would be under God.
If we continue right on complacently paying federal income tax, with seventy-five cents out of every dollar going for the Pentagon “answer,” aren’t we lacking in horror, in conscience?
In colonial times and during the Revolutionary War there was much tax refusal by Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren.
An irate critic of the Church of the Brethren charged, “They not only refused to take up arms to repel the savage marauders and prevent the inhuman slaughter of women and children, but they refused in the most positive manner to pay a dollar to support those who were willing to take up arms to defend their home and their firesides, until wrung from them by the stern mandates of the law.
They did the same when the Revolution broke out.
They might at least have furnished money.
But no; not a dollar!”
It is not certain whether this writer referred to taxes or only to the substitutionary sum paid in lieu of the militia draft.
In either case the Brethren then had an alert ethical sensitivity about turning over their money for war.
“But the New Testament says we should pay taxes.”
It does indeed.
But if we hold that, just as it says that we are to obey the state, there are times when we must obey God rather than the state, may there not be times when, lest we go against God, we must not give to Caesar?
Is the exhortation to pay taxes any more an absolute rule than the exhortation to obey the state?
Was it right in the Civil War when conscientious objectors paid the sum the Government demanded of them for the outfitting of substitutes?
Was Thoreau wrong in refusing to pay the special tax levied for fighting the Mexican War?
May there not be at least some situations where tax refusal is justified, and if some, then isn’t the present surely one?
[There were typesetting errors in this paragraph that I have tried to correct, but I’m not confident I got it right.
―♇]
It is true that a portion of national taxes has always gone for war.
Taxes have been a part of the Christian’s involvement in the good and evil of society.
Christians are not to flee from taxes or tainting involvement.
But when the $8 has jumped to $268 and the ratio for arms and for disarmament is forty-seven thousand to one, when preparation for colossal evil has become the central endeavor and expenditure of the state, pressing us further and further along a course leading to the extermination of mankind, isn’t there then for the Christian a freedom and an imperative to say No with all that he is and has?
“But what else can you do?” say most pacifists.
“The Government will get your money anyway.”
That attitude seems suspiciously similar to the one the big majority of people hold about the draft.
Even those whose taxes are withheld can still protest.
No one need be complacent.
To take a stand, in the monetary context, against the nuclear blasphemy is a possibility for us all.
And even if the Government prosecutes (which it usually does not) and takes the tax objector’s money (if he has any), the crucial thing is that the lulled masses hear an incisive Christian No.
“But tax refusal is too extreme.
People just won’t understand.”
Most won’t maybe; but instances of tax refusal will hardly make them blinder about war than they already are.
The prospects are dim for enough people coming to enough common sense to prevent World War Ⅲ.
Yet it is heartening to see how in England the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has been rapidly gaining wide popular and political support.
A great many formerly indifferent people are getting their eyes opened.
This can happen in America too, especially if we reach the phase when the arms race begins to force severe alterations in our opulent pattern of living.
If we can find ways of bringing to people’s attention that the nuclear race is a ghastly dead end, there are many who will listen.
If we bob right along in the whole affluent military-geared rush of society, income taxes and all, can we be expressing a No that will really be noticed?
And if you say for yourself, “Tax refusal is too extreme,” — why?
Are you doing more than indicating an emotional disinclination?
What reasoned Christian case can you make for paying federal income tax in present circumstances?
Possibilities for protest.
Some have changed work so as to get out of the withholding tax setup.
This is nearly out of the question for most in the setup.
Clearly, tax protest is not to be the axis of our lives — nor is peacemaking.
But Jesus Christ, our axis and our peace, can guide us into more forceful witness to His Yes and His No.
Persons of a given area whose taxes are withheld could go together to hand in their returns and protest against the use of their money.
Where such group action is not feasible, the individual can send a letter of protest along with the return and give his protest circulation otherwise.
A person in religious or service work whose tax is being withheld could discuss with his organization what might be done.
Many pacifists keep (or find) their income at a level where they do not need to pay income tax.
This tax avoidance is good in respect to not supporting war; but it usually has little effectiveness as a clear protest.
If a person’s taxes are not automatically withheld (in full), then, whether income be taxable or not, the most forceful stand lies in not filing a return and in making this refusal a focus of one’s broader public No against nuclear war.
Most tax objectors figure that through various indirect taxes they pay their share toward the constructive fraction of governmental activity.
If one pays a fourth of the income tax stipulated, 75 percent of that fourth goes for war.
As a symbol of the Yes that overarches this urgent No
the tax objector will certainly want to give a corresponding voluntary payment, plus no less, say than 20 percent, to some peacemaking program, preferably non-sectarian, like a phase of UN activity or the work of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
This emphasis on giving for peace rather than for war can be crucial in enabling others to see what really is at stake.
The Brethren Service Commission and representatives of the Mennonites and Quakers have begun working for federal legislation allowing an alternative tax.
A Quaker group has drafted “A Proposed Bill” under which it would be national policy in working for enduring peace, and in recognizing freedom of conscience, to provide a proper means by which Federal income taxes of individuals having sincere convictions against military preparations may be designated for the United National International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
(Single copies available free from Peace Committee, Pacific Yearly Meeting of Friends, Box 61, Claremont, California.)
Such legislation will almost certainly not be passed unless there are far more objectors than now.
The present anti-permissive atmosphere does in fact afford better acoustics for the imperative No.
It could be asked, If such a bill becomes law, would you definitely feel that you should take advantage of it and pay the alternative tax?
If so, on what basis can you now decline to take the stand which many must take for such legislation to come?
Isolated tax objectors have at times made a notable witness.
But so much more can be done by groups of Christians acting in concert.
If we are called to act, we are called to act together.
Consider what an impact there might be if twenty — or fifty — Brethren ministers and many others would join in a declaration on why they believe they must refuse lo hand over their money for nuclear war and are giving it for peacemaking.
Might not such a declaration prove to be the most resounding Brethren word against war in a long time?
Irlanda Jerez, merchant from the Mercado Oriental in Managua, Nicaragua, and leader of the tax resistance movement there (see ♇ ), was arrested by masked police .
She had just spoken at a press conference to announce a protest march in the Nicaraguan capital.
Her current whereabouts are unknown.
The Nicaraguan government has been under increasing pressure both from grassroots civil disobedience and from international condemnation of its killings of demonstrators and its use of pro-government paramilitary groups to attack the opposition.
This is the fifteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
continue our trek through the 1960s.
Over the past several years, war tax resistance in The
Mennonite has gone from “of course not — render unto Caesar after all”
to “maybe we should look into this” to “hey everybody, let’s start resisting!”
A backlash was inevitable. Here’s an example
from the edition. It
complained both that war tax resistance is foolish because the American
military and its “defense of the free world” is necessary, and that promoters
of war tax resistance were becoming too pushy. Excerpt:
I refer to the letter in the
issue
[see ’s post]
suggesting that Mennonites and others should refuse to pay income taxes used
for military purposes.… I am afraid that this program amounts to an attempt to
force certain Mennonite beliefs on other people whether they wish to accept
them or not… I am afraid that, having the right to practice our beliefs as we
see fit, we are showing a growing tendency to be pretty insistent that others
be made to do as we see fit also.
Another letter,
in the edition, criticized
tax resistance for providing an illusion of aloofness. Excerpt:
Paying taxes is one vital link the individual has with society and I question
whether we as individuals and Mennonites can afford to sever this link. To do
so I fear would be a giant step backwards toward isolationism and the delusion
inherent in such a philosophy that we are thereby free from responsibility for
what our nation does… If one would refuse to pay taxes as a form of protest
(symbolic) without deluding himself about his guilt and involvement (thus a
protest even against himself) I could see a case for it.
Another letter in the
edition was skeptical about the plans for a peace tax fund law. Excerpt:
It is good to hear an effort is being made to allow us to pay an alternate
tax, but won’t this remove the potency of a resounding “No” just as the law
permitting alternative service did? This points out the necessity of opposing
the evil as a whole, not just opposing a contributing factor. If my taxes are
used 100 percent for peace, my neighbors’ will go 100 percent for war or
defense. The government will get defense funds one way or another. Therefore
we should start at the top, to change the policy of the leaders — we can never
stop this mad arms race by cutting off our little contribution. Of course, if
refusing to pay taxes for defense spending will spotlight the issue enough to
change the policy, we should use it, but only after we have used all legal
methods and resources, such as writing to our congressman and lobbying.
The edition brought this news:
Brewster B. Kneen is apparently an American citizen living in London at 114
Ferme Park Road. In a letter published to the Internal Revenue Service he
indicates that he is withholding the $72.22 balance on his
income tax in protest against the United
States involvement in Vietnam. He also says, “I am sending a check for the
amount of the tax due, $72.22, to the Catholic
Worker [which published the letter], to be used either in its own work
against the war in Vietnam or for the relief of human suffering, or to be sent
by the Catholic Worker to a Catholic relief agency
working in Vietnam. (I am a Protestant, but know of no Protestant church body
calling for an end to the war.)”
This is the earliest mention of the Vietnam War in particular that I found in
discussions of war tax resistance in The Mennonite.
Kneen’s action was also mentioned
in the edition:
Brewster Kneen, a Christian pacifist, used another means of witness. He
refused to pay $72.22 in taxes he owed .
Instead he sent a letter to the Director of Internal Revenue in Brooklyn.
“The war in Vietnam,” he wrote, “is a blatant contradiction of the ideals of
freedom… our country was founded upon… As a Christian and an American, I must
dissociate myself from this criminal behavior… I see no alternative to
withholding my tax due as a form of resistance and protest.” He sent his
$72.22 to a relief group instead.
The issue included an
article by Vincent Harding titled
“Vietnam: What Shall We Do?”
Harding gave a list of eleven suggestions, one of which concerned taxes:
7. Should we not consider refusing to pay income taxes on the grounds of our
Christian convictions concerning war, and our specific concerns about this
war? This money could be sent to relief and peace-making organizations also. I
think the time has come for serious discussion and action on this.
Since modern armies require vast funds to operate, nonpayment of income tax is
a particularly apt form of peace witness in the present situation. I, for one,
would be willing to be imprisoned for nonpayment of taxes (tribute), as were
the early Christians. The Friends, in England and in America, about the time
of the Revolution, refused to pay war taxes, and that is what the income tax
is, in essence, at present. Eighty percent of it goes for war. This we must
protest! Let us instead send at least as much as we “owe” the government to be
used in the work of peace and reconciliation.
“The peace and social concerns committee in consultation with the executive
committee of the General Conference Mennonite Church” prepared
a
“statement for its congregations” which was presented at the Mennonite
World Congress in . It was also
“adopted by the Council of Boards”.
The statement called for a variety of actions aimed at the Vietnam War in
particular, one of which was war tax resistance:
We urge congregations to counsel together about the proposed surcharge of 6
percent on income tax and the already imposed 70 percent of the 10 percent
federal excise tax on telephone use. Since these are clearly levied to support
the war in Vietnam, should not the Christian object to payment of these taxes
on the same grounds as he conscientiously objects to military service?
In view of the gravity of the
U.S. actions in
Vietnam and the kind of witness called for at this time, we urge congregations
and groups within congregations to retest the validity of a law requiring
conscientious objectors to pay a war tax. We urge that this form of witness be
made to communicate as clearly as possible, and that those refusing to pay a
war tax contribute an equivalent amount to peacemaking agencies such as
MCC
and in this way communicate that they seek no personal gain by their
objection.
We also ask congregations to adopt a resolution of willingness to support,
emotionally and financially if jobs and funds are threatened, those whose
conscience leads them to refuse to pay the tax increases for war purposes
because of obedience to Christ.
James Juhnke returned (see
♇ for his earlier piece) in the
issue to discuss
“Our almost unused political power.”
He asked why Mennonites had been successful in their political battles to
obtain and maintain exemptions or civilian-run alternative service for
conscientious objectors in the military draft. He concluded: “the core of
Mennonite power… lay in their threat of civil disobedience. The Mennonites
promised that ‘thousands of conscientious objectors’ would violate the law and
accept imprisonment rather than… induction into the armed services. This threat
was credible.… Mennonites in were reaping
political rewards from the sacrifices of their fathers and grandfathers in
. Because Mennonites in the First World War
had been willing to take the awful step of civil disobedience, their
descendants during the Vietnam war were spared the necessity of proving all
over again to the government their sincerity of conviction.”
Juhnke suggested that Mennonites apply the same sort of pressure to change the
government’s war policy in Vietnam. Excerpt:
If the Mennonite witness in Washington regarding the Vietnam war is to achieve
the same intensity and urgency as the Mennonite witness regarding the draft,
we will need both qualified men and effective instruments of power. A
Washington-based staff of politically-experienced Mennonite leaders should be
charged specifically with the duty of using Mennonite influence for a decision
to deescalate the Vietnam war. And this lobby should be equipped with the kind
of political leverage which our threat of civil disobedience gives us on the
draft issue.
A parallel act would be the declaration by hundreds of Mennonites that they
would refuse to pay the proposed 10 percent surcharge on the income tax, a
measure resulting directly from the war. Armed with such a threat, the
Mennonite lobbyist would have political power far out of proportion to his
small constituency.
This is the sixteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we wrap up the 1960s.
The edition included a questionnaire from the Peace and Social Concerns Committee who noted that “Inquiries about the payment of taxes going largely to war and the payment of the proposed tax increase have been trickling into the peace and social concerns office” and that “would like to know what is happening among our people and to keep in touch with each other.”
Here is the questionnaire:
David S. Meyers was having none of this foolishness, and wrote a letter that appeared in the edition lambasting the Peace and Social Concerns Committee for its “illegal, immoral, unpatriotic, possibly treasonable, and most of all, foolish” ideas.
“No one wants or approves of war,” he wrote, but most of his letter approved vehemently of the U.S. government’s “vital” Vietnam war policy.
Myers also noted that he had recently abandoned the Mennonites for the Methodists.
War tax resister Marion Deckert responded, in a letter that appeared in the edition.
Excerpt:
It means a great deal to me to know that our fellowship is concerned about and interested in those who have felt compelled to make a stand on our financial support of the Vietnam war.
My wife and I have been withholding our telephone tax now for the past year.
This tax refusal on our part can only be symbolic since we have no choice about paying our income tax.
Still, we have felt we cannot voluntarily pay to support the Vietnam war.
The telephone tax was reinstated rather explicitly because of the demands of the war and so we cannot conscientiously pay it.
We are certainly aware of the impracticality, even stupidity, of this act.
We are also aware that it is illegal.
We firmly believe it is not unpatriotic.
As for the immorality of this action, we believe quite the opposite, we believe that we can only approach toward morality along this road.
[T]he conference hastily debated a resolution censuring the General Conference “Council of Boards” for encouraging members of the conference in tax refusal as a protest against the Vietnam war.
With a considerable number opposing the resolution, the motion was adopted.
Said the resolution, in part, “Whereas, we of the Eastern District Conference… confess to the divine inspiration and infallibility of the Bible as the Word of God and as the only trustworthy guide of faith and practice and whereas, the Lord Jesus living under one of the most extensive military systems in history, clearly teaches us in the Gospel According to Matthew that we as His followers should pay the taxes due to the heads of government (Mt. 22:17–22), Resolved, that we recognize as unscriptural the encouragement of the General Conference Council of Boards that constituents of the General Conference Mennonite Churches withhold a portion of their taxes as a means of witnessing against the war in Vietnam.”
The resolution further counseled members to “take full advantage of the 30 percent exemption allowed to us for giving of our income to the work of missions, relief, and service.”
The information on tax refusal had been compiled by the Board of Christian Service and mailed to members of the General Conference earlier this spring.
673 delegates to the General Conference Mennonite Church meeting in were polled about Vietnam-oriented activism.
Should Mennonites offer emergency relief aid to civilian war victims in North Vietnam?
76% said yes, they should.
Did draft resisters who had fled to Canada deserve Mennonite support?
51% agreed.
Then they were asked about war tax resistance:
“Refusal to pay some or all of the taxes for war purposes is an appropriate peace witness.”
Of the total respondents, 27 percent agreed, 22 percent were undecided, and 51 percent disagreed.
The age group under twenty-five favored the statement overwhelmingly (76 percent), while about half of the other age groups disagreed.
An additional survey at the youth congress, polling 220 young people, showed that 59 percent favored aid to draft resisters, 51 percent considered refusal to pay taxes an appropriate witness, 82 percent were in favor of aid to North Vietnam…
The General Conference Mennonite Church adopted a resolution on nationalism that tried to thread the biblical needle on civil disobedience thusly:
The biblical position is that God has ordained the state for various functions (Rom. 13:1) among which is the maintenance of order.
A Christian, therefore, has certain responsibilities to the state.
Those that have been stated by the biblical writers are prayer for the governing authorities, the payment of taxes, the giving of respect, and obedience (1 Tim. 2:1, 2; Rom. 13:6, 7; 1 Pet. 2:17).
Even these responsibilities which a Christian has toward his government arise out of and are subject to the Christian’s obedience to the will of God (Matt. 22:21; Mk. 12:17).
Thus on those occasions when a Christian is confronted by a conflict between what God requires and what the governing authorities require, we must obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29)
The Conference “further exhort the members of the North American brotherhood to discuss together how they can express concretely, in action, their concerns on these current issues… We suggest the following as possible subjects…” One of those subjects:
Search our consciences on the question of paying taxes for military purposes; support generously international mission and service programs; urge churches to support those who, by reason of conscience, refuse to pay the percentage of taxes for military purposes.
There seems to have been something of a shake-up on the General Conference by its meeting.
I don’t know entirely what was going on, but I do notice a big drop-off in war tax resistance content in The Mennonite , so perhaps the backlash had managed to seize control for a time.
An article about the new General Conference had this ambiguous note:
One example [of the new Board’s “desire to improve communication and open up lines of discussion”] is in its approach to a question from the Eastern District Conference about last year’s statement on war taxes and tax refusal.
The board had on its desk a statement answering the charges made and questions raised.
But the statement was left unadopted, in order that conversation on the subject might continue in an atmosphere of freedom.
Representatives from Mennonite, Quaker, and Brethren congregations — the “historic peace churches” — met in New Windsor, Maryland in to figure out what being a peace church was supposed to mean in the less-historic here and now.
Why had the peace churches “missed the boat” when so many people were eager for leadership on the question of peace?
“Spurred on by the youth delegates to the consultation, a group at New Windsor prepared a brief statement calling… for ‘counseling on the draft and nonpayment of war taxes for those who need it.’ ”
Donald R. Klassen wrote a letter to the Internal Revenue Service on explaining his tax “resistance”.
It was excerpted in the edition:
Sirs: Today is the deadline for filing income tax returns for and, since you already have our tax in the form of withholding tax, which I consider confiscation, my only protest this year can be in the form of refusing to sign the returns.
Be it herewith understood that my signature affixed to the end of this letter is a signature of protest as well as affirmation that the returns are correct.
The war-tax protests that you have received from me have, by now, made clear my stance in regard to war taxes being forced from people of pacifist conscience, which I consider to be a violation of the first amendment.
This violation is made clear by the fact that for , the Mennonites of North America (U.S. and Canada) have paid more in defense taxes than the entire budget of the 130 members nations of the UN, according to Mr. U Thant.
Considering that the UN budget was approximately 140 million, according to the world almanac, it is startling to be made aware that the Mennonites of North America paid in over 200 million dollars, computed at the rate of 67 percent and 24 percent of the tax dollar going to defense purposes from the U.S. and Canada, respectively.
Being aware of a number of defense plants and defense stockpiles, for examples; Dow Chemical Company in Michigan, producing napalm; nerve-gas production in Newport, Indiana; stockpiles of nerve gas in Denver, Colorado; biological warfare center of research and stockpiles at Fort Detrick, and chemical warfare center of research and stockpiles at Edgewood Arsenal near Baltimore, Maryland; plus numerous other research centers and defense plants and stockpiles; plus the sixty thousand-plus missiles around the world of which fifteen hundred are located in the U.S. — it is distressing for me to see such an array of defense in addition to the 3.5 million man military force when, at the same time, affirming that “in God we trust.”
It is equally distressing for me to say the flag salute containing the phrase “one nation, under God” while, at the same time, considering such demonic warfare as is now being committed in the name of the U.S.
This protest is not considered to be a means whereby I can wash my hands and consider myself free from the evils being committed around the world with my money; rather it is a memorandum to call attention to the fact that the mass-murder techniques used by this country will be accountable before God, and to call attention to fellow Christians who are supporting these atrocities that these atrocities are being committed by means of their support even though granted conscientious objector exemption from serving in the armed forces.
Reconciliation within a world torn by U.S. tyranny is impossible through military methods.
In spite of the three meetings that the Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam had with the U.S. senators and representatives, plus numerous protests in the past by concerned individuals and groups, war and preparations for war continue.
Truly, the militant leaders of our country cry as did the Old Testament false prophets “peace, peace, when there is no peace.”
For the cause of stopping slaughter, torture, destruction, and intimidation of millions of my fellowmen around the world, I now refuse to sign the enclosed tax form and am willing to suffer the consequences rather than participate in the continuing rape of the world.
I can salve my conscience no longer, henceforth, under the name of Christ and with strength from His Spirit, I refuse the brand of U.S. militarism, as an agent of wrath of global butchers, by my refusal to sell my soul to the devil through cooperation, with the collection agency (IRS) which finances the fire from heaven and hell on earth for the defenseless in brutal slaughter of our poor, weak, naked, and starving fellow human beings around the world “in the name of U.S.” My prayer and purpose is that inconsistently-minded persons may be awakened to the brutalities of war and may turn, instead, their efforts unconditionally to world brotherhood as children of God and of reconciliation in His Name for establishing His Kingdom.
―Donald R. Klassen, 1700 S. Main St., Goshen, Ind. 46526.
“Protest at the offices of COSEP. We call on the business sector to join efforts to organize a tax strike and indefinite general strike. We are not afraid… the struggle is just beginning!”
Irlanda Jerez, leader of the tax strike among merchants in
Nicaragua’s Mercado Oriental, was
seized by masked police officers , held incommunicado, and swiftly given a
three-year sentence on what strike me as trumped-up charges
unrelated to the protests.
Calls for more widespread tax refusal and for a general strike are
growing louder. there
was a protest at the offices of
COSEP
[Supreme Private Business Council], a sort of private sector business union
that represents various industry and chamber of
commerce groups. The group, while nominally opposing
the Ortega/Murillo crackdowns and promoting protests, has been
dragging its heels when it comes to challenging the regime with
stronger action. It is under pressure from citizens who want it to be
bolder.
This is the seventeenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
enter the 1970s.
The edition noted:
“Tentative plans are being made for a professor from Bethel College… to work
with a seminar group for six to ten weeks in a study program for six hours of
college credit. The topic for study is ‘The Draft, Income Tax, and Defense
Spending.’ ” More details
could be found in the edition.
“The seminar will emphasize a total learning experience through study, action,
and group living.” Tax refusal was one of the topics on the agenda.
A
meandering letter from Theodore Janzen dated and published in the edition complained of dancing in public schools, trashy sex talk
in The Mennonite, and “the Mennonite hippie problem”
on the way to having this to say about war tax resistance:
Sure, I am against war and at the same time I pay my taxes. Contradictions!
You bet! I’m not going to fight the great white father in Washington. If I did
nobody would help, and everybody would laugh and tell me, “You never had it so
good!” That’s what happens when I have a crop failure; nobody helps.
But then read the Bible. Give unto Caesar which is Caesar’s, unto God which is
God’s.
Right now, I am more concerned about the dancing than the war…
The edition included a brief
item about the American Friends Service Committee’s lawsuit asking “for the
return of funds which were paid to the government in lieu of federal income
taxes collected from employees conscientiously opposed to war.” (See
♇ 15 July 2013 for more about this
case.)
The purpose of the
MENNO fund
is to help with the following:
Legal costs because of conscientious civil disobedience (tax refusal,
noncooperation with draft, refusal of induction) related to militarism, civil
rights, and religious freedom.
Aid to dependents and families of persons engaging in conscientious civil
disobedience.
Fines and bail for persons engaging in acts of conscientious civil
disobedience.
Grants or loans for personal items (college debts) to persons engaged in
conscientious civil disobedience.
The edition included a long
essay by Phil Kliewer entitled “Did the cat get Menno’s dove?”
that took Mennonites to task for becoming too blasé in their opposition to
violence and war. Some excerpts:
People tell me that the government recognized us by legislating the
alternative service program and respected us for our good use of it.
That is all very fine, except that the recognition and respect has not gone
much further than this. Were we only looking for recognition and respect?
A few of our people are saying no to violence, and sacrificing family
life, wealth, social relations, or personal freedoms. They have refused to
render unto Caesar what belongs to God, in the form of war tax resistance and
draft resistance.
Just a few of these Mennonites are: Dan Clark, who has just recently turned in
his draft card, and is awaiting court procedures; Dennis Koehn, who is
awaiting jail sentence; John Howard Yoder, whose bank account has been frozen
for tax resistance…
What is creative, radical, nonviolent commitment? Can it work? To answer these
two questions, perhaps we can take a look at recent history.
During Franz Josef
of Austria tried to subordinate Hungary. The people of Hungary refused to
recognize Austria, and boycotted Austrian goods. When the Austrian tax
collectors came around, they were treated very kindly, but given no tax money.
Austrian police confiscated property, but could not persuade the Hungarian
auctioneers to sell it. When they brought in their own auctioneers, no one
would bid, and to bring in bidders was not worth the trouble. The Austrian
government then declared boycotting illegal, but the persistent Hungarians
refused to recognize this and soon the jails were overflowing.
Austria then offered partial government, but the Hungarians insisted on full
claims. After trying a compulsory military service, which was destined to fall
flat, Austria gave up. Throughout, the Hungarians remained nonviolent but
unswayed. Their creative, radical, nonviolent commitment was effective.
In , the Bombay provincial government raised
the tax rate to 60 percent, for the people of Bardoli. Vallabhai Patel led a
tax-resistance movement to nonviolently prevent this economic injustice from
actually taking place. This took a lot of planning. Sixteen camps were put up
in the district, where 250 volunteer leaders printed daily bulletins and
trained the eighty-eight thousand peasants to withstand the punishment they
received. The government tried flattery, bribes, fines, flogging,
imprisonment, confiscation, and other means to persuade the peasants to
comply, but the peasants, with their nonviolent methods, eventually persuaded
the government to comply to their wishes. Again, creative, radical, nonviolent
commitment won out.
Government should be God’s servant for man’s good. Its role is to maintain
order and to preserve life. Christians should appreciate and support the
worthy functions which government performs. They should willingly pay generous
proportions of their incomes for taxes which finance education and other
functions which are for man’s good.
But when government is not God’s servant for man’s good, Christians should
seek to be a correcting force. Christians are not called to submit to every
demand of every state. When Paul instructs the Roman Christians
(Rom. 13:7)
to give “tax to whom tax is due, toll to whom toll, respect to whom respect,
and honor to whom honor,” he is saying that we are to discriminate and give to
each only his due, refusing to give to Caesar what belongs to God.
Mennonites throughout history have refused when a government demanded that
they go to war. Our conscientious objectors today carry on this vital
tradition. But how can we, in clear conscience, pay someone else to do for us
that evil which we refuse to do ourselves?
In earlier days men were the primary tools of war. But now the primary tool of
war is money. Military technology needs only a few men. This is making
conscientious objection to military service less and less meaningful.
Conscientious objection to killing will have to take new and different forms
if it is to retain its vital significance.
James Stauffer, missionary to Vietnam under the Eastern Mennonite Board, wrote
recently in the Mennonite Weekly Review: “The time
has come for the peace churches to request a plan whereby our tax dollars
could be channeled directly to some constructive cause. Campus protests,
street demonstrations, draft card burnings have not been effective in stopping
the war. But choking off the funds that feed the military-industrial complex
could bring results.”
Sixty to 70 percent of our income tax dollar is spent in payment for past and
present wars, or in preparation for future wars. The average Western District
congregation of two hundred persons, in ,
paid $65,000 in war taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. Western District
members paid $4,250,000 to buy guns, napalm, and hand grenades. We pay two and
one-half times more in war taxes than we give to our church and its outreach.
What is the meaning of Christmas bundles given to refugees when we bought the
bombs that destroyed their homes?
Let us ponder the words of our late President Eisenhower, who was not a
pacifist: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and not clothed.”
Is paying war taxes responsible Christian stewardship? Ought we not as
brothers of those who are hungry and cold, refuse to give up our resources for
destruction, and give our war tax money to authorities who will use it as
God’s servant for man’s good?
We move that the Western District Conference ask the Peace and Social
Concerns Committee to:
Provide information to local congregations and individuals on the
following ways in which Christians have through word and deed sought to
witness against the destructive functions of government made possible by
war taxes:
Pay the income tax, but include a letter of protest to the Internal
Revenue Service explaining why payment of these taxes makes us violate
the law of love that Christ gave us to follow. The letter can urge the
government to use tax money only for peaceful and constructive purposes
either through the United Sates Government or through the United Nations.
We can send copies of this letter to our Congressmen and our President,
among others.
Refuse to pay that portion of our income tax which goes for war and
contribute the same amount to some constructive service agency, such as
Church World Service or UNICEF
of the United Nations. We will not make obstacle nor withhold any
information which
IRS
might need to collect these taxes.
Refuse to pay the federal telephone tax which was instituted in
to pay for an escalated war in Vietnam.
A brochure is available and titled, “Hang Up On War.”
Reduce or share our incomes so that they will be below the income-tax
level, and, thereby, we will avoid payment of war taxes by legal and
sacrificial means. This method also diminishes the amount of indirect
taxes we pay by a higher level of consumption, and puts us nearer to the
world average standard of living.
Petition appropriate legislatures or in some way seek to create an
alternative peace tax to which conscientious objectors to war (of any age)
could pay the military portion of their income tax. This alternative fund
would be comparable to alternative service and would be used for such
projects as promote world peace by nonmilitary means.
Help Mennonite agencies and employers to investigate alternative
structures of operation so that they will not be required to withhold
income tax from their employees’ pay. John Howard Yoder, president of the
Goshen Biblical Seminary has said: “There is something very questionable
about the willingness with which Mennonite church agencies, by withholding
their employees’ income, serve as arms of the federal government for tax
collection which thereby relieves the individual of any conscious choice
concerning the bulk of his tax money… We would object to the states
collecting taxes to support the church, yet without compunction we let
church agencies collect to support the state (and the military).”
We also ask the Peace and Social Concerns Committee to help employees
whose income tax is already withheld to find appropriate ways of making a
witness against the payment of war taxes.
The above statement was prepared by Ardean L. Goertzen Max Ediger, Howard
Snider, David H. Janzen, Dennis Koehn, Stan Senner; and recommended for
adoption by the Peace and Social Concerns Committee to the Western District
Conference of the General Conference Mennonite Church which adopted it at its
annual meeting at Hillsboro, Kansas, .
Western District takes stand on war taxes
Should Christians pay war taxes?
That’s a hard question. One Mennonite body studied a soft answer to this
question, and made it softer after forty-five minutes of cautious debate.
The Western District Conference meeting in Hillsboro, Kansas, in
, was told that its members “pay two
and one-half times more in war taxes than we give to our church and its
outreach.”
Another question: “What is the meaning of Christmas bundles to refugees when
we bought the bombs that destroyed their homes?”
And Western District members through their war taxes have bought quite a few
bombs, guns, napalm, and grenades. One estimate set the figure at $4,250,000
per year.
“I heartily endorse the idea of protesting taxes,” said Curt Siemens, Buhler,
Kansas, as the topic of nonpayment of war taxes was introduced.
But along with other delegates, he was concerned about the practical
consequences of nonpayment of war taxes since the government could deprive a
family of its livelihood as a penalty. Then, how would the church and the
conference raise the funds to support its missions and schools?
Others saw the demands of Christian obedience as prior to the practical
questions.
“What is the meaning of asking these kinds of practical questions about
raising our budgets and educating our children, yet we make pious speeches
about wanting to be biblical and obedient?” asked Peter Ediger, Arvada,
Colorado. “What is the meaning of seeking first the kingdom of God and all
these things will be added unto you?”
Several persons testified that they had withheld a portion of their taxes as a
protest to war or would do so if given encouragement.
“I can’t see eye to eye with those who don’t want to pay taxes,” said one
delegate. “All I say is, ‘Go ahead. Why don’t you do it?’ ”
“That’s just the point,” replied Wendell Rempel, Newton, Kansas. “What is
going to be our relationship to those who take that step?”
At this point, the Western District Conference waffled.
The resolution presented for adoption said, “We move that the Western District
Conference recognize nonpayment of war taxes as a valid Christian witness” and
thus asked for a program of education and actions based on the assumption that
tax refusal was a “valid Christian witness.”
This was seen by some delegates that “everyone ought to [withhold his war
taxes] as a Christian.”
Said Marvin Zehr, Moundridge, Kansas, “It may give encouragement, but it will
also cast judgment. Even if I do it, I don’t know if I want to cast judgment
on someone else,”
So the conference considered a motion that struck the words “valid Christian
witness” from the resolution’s enabling clause. Delegates voted 93 to 63 to
drop these words. The resolution thus weakened was then quickly passed by a
voice vote.
The resolution thus adopted still calls for a broad program of education and
action. It asks the Western District’s Peace and Social Concerns Committee to
provide information on the ways of tax refusal which have been used by various
individuals. Such methods include the filing of a letter of protest with full
payment of income tax or withholding a portion of income tax and contributing
it to a service agency. Withholding the telephone tax or reducing one’s income
below the taxable level were also methods in which more information was
requested.
The Peace and Social Concerns Committee was further requested to petition
government agencies for an alternative peace tax for conscientious objectors.
And Mennonite agencies and employers may expect to receive counsel about their
role in collecting income taxes.
The resolution quoted John Howard Yoder as saying, “There is something very
questionable about the willingness with which Mennonite church agencies, by
withholding their employees’ income, serve as arms of the federal government
for tax collection which thereby relieves the individual of any conscious
choice concerning the bulk of his tax money.”
The statement saw the tax refusal as a natural extension of the traditional
position of conscientious objection to war.
“Mennonites throughout history have refused when a government demanded that
they go to war,” it said. “Our conscientious objectors today carry on this
vital tradition. But how can we, in clear conscience, pay someone else to do
for us that evil which we refuse to do ourselves?”
James Stauffer, missionary to Vietnam under the Eastern Mennonite Board, was
quoted as saying, “The time has come for peace churches to request a plan
whereby our tax dollars could be channeled directly to some constructive
cause. Campus protests, street demonstrators, draft card burnings have not
been effective in stopping the war. But choking off the funds that feed the
military-industrial complex could bring results.”
The resolution as presented to the Western District Conference was prepared by
six interested individuals: Ardean L. Goertzen, Max Ediger, Howard Snider,
David H. Janzen, Dennis Koehn, and Stan Senner.
The Western District statement adopted on represents the first time that any Mennonite body has taken a public
position on war taxes.
At the annual assembly of the Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section in
another such resolution was tabled,
asking the assembly “to make a declaration to be taken to Vietnam pledging
Mennonite support to end the war through tax refusal, draft resistance, and
other forms of civil disobedience.”
An article
about the assembly framed the debate in a generation-gap way, with younger,
more radical students pushing, and older delegates reluctant to go along. In
any case, “[a]fter the statement was debated with considerable emotion, the
activists changed the document from one representing the Mennonite church as a
group to a statement to be signed by individuals.”
A letter from Wanda (Steven) Schmidt to President Nixon lambasting the Vietnam
War appeared in the edition.
It included these thoughts:
I am against war and will not give you my children. Nor will I pay my federal
income tax as sixty-five cents out of every dollar goes for defense. Nor will
I pay the U.S. tax
on my telephone as it goes entirely for Vietnamese War expenditures.
This is the eighteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we hit 1971.
A dam seems to have burst in , and any reluctance The Mennonite had about covering war tax resistance washed away.
In the concern was front and center, and readers could not help but be confronted by a variety of opinions on the subject.
A letter from John S. Swarr insisted that Jesus “commands us, as His followers, to bring peace and reconciliation in a world of strife and violence by committing our lives to unconditional love for our fellowmen.
Such a discipleship manifests itself in a radically different life style than that of the rest of the world.”
He asked, in this regard, “Can we, as Christians, responsible for all our neighbors, continue to pay taxes for the means of destruction which are used against our distant (only in physical distance) brothers?
This responsibility is our own, not Caesar’s.”
Christian love shown to a brother will not manifest itself in bombs and napalm, paid for with our money and silently allowed to be used.
It will, rather, manifest itself in actions of love, help, and concern.
It may result in our refusal to pay war taxes or cooperate with the draft, but at any rate it will mean avoiding nationalism for “No man can serve two masters.”
(That edition also announced the resignation of the editor.
The announcement was carefully vague, but subsequent letters to the editor hinted that there was something of a rebellion afoot against the “anti-American propaganda… all politics and sociology” that had replaced anodyne bible studies in the magazine’s pages.
The resignation takes effect in .
We’ll see if it makes a difference in the coverage of war tax resistance.)
A hundred people met to discuss war tax resistance at Bethel College Mennonite Church in at a meeting sponsored by the Western District Conference (which had recently passed a resolution in support of war tax resistance) and the Commission on Home Ministries of the General Conference Mennonite Church.
Don Kaufman gave some thoughts about Christian obedience to state authority, and Bob Calvert from the secular “War Tax Resistance” group spoke about the upcoming “spring offensive” anti-war actions.
Here are some excerpts about other parts of the conference from the report on the workshop in The Mennonite:
A Quaker physician from Denver, Arthur Evans, spoke of his experiences with the Internal Revenue Service spanning more than twenty-five years.
During World War Ⅱ, Evans’ conscience stirred him to withhold part of his taxes.
He said, “The trouble we’re now at is because we as a nation tried to overcome evil with the same methods that we decried of Hitler.
The thought occurred to me was that if I were a Jew in Germany, would I have paid taxes to Hitler to pay for my own crematorium?
Am I not a Jew in the United States perhaps paying taxes to create my own crematorium right now?
This is the burning question in my mind.”
Evans was sent to jail for not turning over to IRS some records which pertained to his income taxes.
He felt that doing so “would have been the first step in a crime against humanity.”
He acted partly upon the principle established in the Nuremberg war crimes trials that individuals have to decide what laws of their nation are just and what laws are unjust.
“I maintain that as I tried to follow my conscience this was the only way I could grow and this is the only way human beings can grow — as they are willing to follow conscience.
You deny conscience here, you deny conscience there, you won’t grow in what it means to be a human being.”
While spending ninety days in jail for contempt, he received letters from over a hundred and fifty individuals whom he did not know who supported his actions.
“None of us knows how we strengthen the community by following our own conscience.
I felt a power from the prayers and the loving concern of people who saw me suffering in jail,” he said.
The group discussed methods of withholding or reducing their taxes, but wanted to go beyond simply voicing their beliefs about war.
Participants felt a need to establish a simpler life-style that was a fuller response to the causes of violence.
Discussion centered around setting up voluntary service-type group arrangements and channeling earnings through the church’s voluntary service program.
To strengthen their own witness, participants in the workshop drew up a statement which they all signed.
That statement read:
We the undersigned have agreed together to find ways to end our financial support of America’s military efforts.
We have come from various denominations, occupations, age groups, and parts of the country.
As seekers, we have participated in a Workshop on War Taxes, held at the Bethel College Mennonite Chuch, , sponsored by committees for the Western District and the General Conference Mennonite Church.
Together, our consciences were prodded.
We have heard Christ call us to be peacemakers.
We have examined together the biblical teachings on the matter of paying taxes for war.
We have looked at the historical witness and examples of Anabaptist founders, and men like Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
We have tried to take seriously Christ’s call to love our enemies as He loves all men.
We have seen our guilt in our past payment of blood-money and are now looking for ways to end this involvement.
More vitally, we are seeking ways to make our money serve real human needs.
We realize this may lead to many types of action.
We approve and support all open, conscientious efforts to end war through Christian stewardship.
Specific actions could include any or all of the following: refusal of federal income tax payment, refusal to pay that part which goes for military purposes, refusal of the telephone excise tax, written protest accompanying income-tax returns, witnessing to the consciences of officials and employers who collect and enforce the tax laws, and increasing charitable giving.
We encourage the creation of voluntary-service-style communities which practice a lower level of consumption and present a Christian alternative to the present materialistic and militaristic character of American life.
We plead with the congregations and conferences of which we are members to follow Christ, their consciences, and the needs of their brothers in responding to our concern.
As a witness to our deranged national priorities and how they might be straightened out, I and others will make a public donation during of the money we have withheld from war, and will give it to a local group working for real human needs.
I hope you can see your way to join us.
David Janzen, a pastor and a philosophy instructor at Eastern Mennonite College, wrote an article on the Vietnam War that he’d originally hoped to place in the New York Times.
Instead, The Mennonite picked it up for its edition.
Excerpt:
Our consciences are sorely troubled concerning our tax money, which continues to make this unjust war possible.
The time is ripe for action.
Enough is enough.
Let us not commit violence.
No destruction of property.
No aggression against human beings.
We want to honor our nation.
We can only do so by correcting our mistakes.
The vital point is tax money.
Let us invite a million sensitive Americans to take a stand for conscience’ sake.
Let us tell the government, that unless it starts serious negotiations that lead to peace by , we will withhold our income tax and pay it into a Tax Conscience Fund.
We must organize people with conscience scruples.
I would suggest that concerned groups in universities, churches, and other organizations start registering people for united action.
A federal organization could coordinate the program.
Conscientious individuals would commit themselves to pay their total income tax, or the approximately 80 percent of it that is spent for war, into a tax conscience fund.
The money could be paid into special accounts at local banks.
We would make it available for rehabilitation of the war areas as soon as the war has ended.
A letter to the editor dissented from the recent flood of pro-resistance articles and letters:
Personally, I do not believe that there is such a thing as a war tax in existence.
If there were it would have had to be declared as such by Congress, as they pass all taxes.
This has not been done.
All expenses are paid out of one treasury.
It may be true that there are some Congressmen and politicians who have said that a certain tax is necessary to pay for the war.
This was their excuse for voting for it or working for its passage.
But that does not make it a war tax.
Nor do I believe that there is any individual who with any degree of accuracy can tell us what percent of our taxes goes for war purposes.
Not all the money voted for the Pentagon goes for war… [For instance t]he Coast Guard spends much of its time in saving lives at sea, which has nothing to do with war…
…[I]f I believe war is wrong it becomes my obligation to do what I can to stop it.
My refusing to pay taxes does not stop it, for most people are still paying their tax.
If I disobey a law, especially publicly, I lose my influence over my non-Christian neighbor that I am supposedly trying to win to Christ.
The articles on the war tax workshop and Rensberger’s discussion of loyalty to God vs. country are especially thought-provoking.
Is there interest in having workshops on these subjects in many areas of the conference on the local level?
Would leaders be available from the war tax workshop, the conference, or seminary to help with such workshops where hundreds of lay people could discuss and think together about a united commitment that may make some impact on communities and government?
Another letter in the same issue reported on a silent vigil held before the offices of Bell Telephone Company in Newton Kansas on :
They came to turn over money which they had not been paying on their telephone bill to a community youth organization called Someplace.
They came as concerned Christians to tell others that they were not paying the federal tax portion of their telephone bill because the tax had been levied specifically for war purposes.
Approximately ninety persons accepted a hand-out sheet explaining the federal telephone tax and explaining why many Christians no longer pay that portion.
Seventy-eight dollars was given to Someplace and it is expected that as more Christians hear about this alternative, more money will be turned over to various community organizations.
There is a question of where to get more specific information on war taxes.
Jacob Friesen tells how he is withholding the excise tax on his telephone bill and writing a letter each month to the President with copies going also to his senator and congressional representative.
“I have chosen each month to vote ‘no’ on war.”
Probably, no other living person has spent as much time in Civilian Public Service as I have.
During that time, and since, I associated with many young men who struggled with their conscience.
I argued with some, but only with those who wanted to argue, and usually, it was with some who had conscientiously chosen either noncombatant or full military service.
I also knew quite intimately a few who struggled with an attempt at total separation from all war effort, including nonregistration.
This was at a time when the nation was solidly supporting World War Ⅱ.
Today, the Vietnam war is not popular and the climate for vigorous opposition is utterly different from what it was then.
I deeply respected the convictions of the absolutist then as I do now and have never cared to debate their point of view, even though it did not coincide with mine.
It does seem to me, however, that there has been growing confusion about the payment of taxes during wartime.
There is no doubt a sense in which nonpayment finds it place, in the continuum from all-out participation to suicidal protest.
Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt had some sympathetic appreciation for conscientious objectors.
While visiting one of the camps, she was reported to have remarked that short of living on a desert island, it was impossible to live without being involved in the war to some degree.
Because there is truth in this, it is most difficult to talk about a clearly right or a clearly wrong position.
However, if we believe the way of war is inherently wrong our conscience will push us as far away from participation as possible, consistent with other considerations, human and divine, that we cannot conscientiously ignore.
Just where does nonpayment of taxes belong on this continuum?
We need to distinguish between refusing to participate in war as an immoral act, on the one hand, and the moral compulsion to do what we can to stop an immoral war on the other.
Part of the confusion concerning nonpayment of taxes has to do with failure to distinguish clearly between these two somewhat different moral considerations.
Nonpayment of taxes is not getting much serious consideration from our traditional Mennonite nonresistant believer, because it does not relate with his views on participation as an immoral act.
The “give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” edict of Jesus makes it difficult for him to see a clear immoral act in paying taxes, even though he knows that a large portion is needed for war purposes.
The case becomes clearer for the person whose conscience is also concerned with a moral compulsion to do something about stopping the war.
Today, many of us believe we need to be as much concerned about our moral obligation as citizens of our country to do what we can to stop our country’s immoral war as we are about participation in the immoral act of war.
Is payment of taxes an immoral act? We have already pointed out that, traditionally, Mennonites did not consider payment of taxes immoral, in part, at least, because of Jesus’ edict.
However, when taxes are labeled “war taxes” as the telephone excise tax is, many begin to have second thoughts.
When mustaches were popular among military men, Mennonites shunned mustaches.
Guilt by association becomes a real consideration.
What everyone ought to know is that these taxes all go into the same general treasury.
The “war tax” label on the telephone excise tax has significance only in that it helped ease it through Congress, and none, whatsoever, as to its use.
The use of tax money for war purposes is an entirely separate matter, and is determined by appropriations for this purpose by Congress.
So long as Congress appropriates what the Pentagon asks for with overwhelming majorities, nonpayment of taxes will have absolutely nothing to do with the amount of money available for war purposes.
But, unfortunately, it does have something to do with the availability of funds for less popular but terribly important poverty programs as well as health and education programs. Those who do not pay their taxes must realize that the net effect, if any, is not at all what they have in mind.
Is nonpayment effective politically? Many of those who do not pay taxes are probably more concerned about the political impact this might have, and hope it will help turn our country away from war.
Certainly, this would seem like much more solid ground.
The sheer drama of civil disobedience for the sake of conscience makes an impact that cannot be ignored.
Even though much of the reaction may be negative, this is not necessarily bad.
Jesus’ crucifixion was the result of negative reaction, too.
The point is, let us be clear about what we are doing and why we are doing it.
Apart from the attention-getting quality of nonpayment of taxes, the technique, however, is subject to serious questions.
It is essentially a pitch to the Bureau of Internal Revenue and to the telephone company, neither of which has anything to do with determining policy concerning Vietnam.
Witnessing to Internal Revenue about such matters is about as effective as writing a letter to a computer.
The telephone company has trouble enough giving good telephone service, without being harassed about something for which it has no responsibility and for which it has no competence.
We do all have a direct line to the White House and to Congress.
Here are the people who can do something about it.
If we believe, as literally millions of Americans are now believing, that our presence in Vietnam is a tragic mistake, these are the people to talk to.
I suspect Jesus was more of a tax economist than are some of His spokesmen when He got a bit vague about payment of taxes.
Departing editor Maynard Shelly, in the , reflected on the classic Anabaptist work Martyrs Mirror and on the urge to persecute those who don’t go along with institutions.
He concluded:
I dare you to turn to the Martyrs Mirror and read military service and war taxes where the old book says baptism.
All of a sudden, those words put down on paper in will be more up to date than the news in tomorrow morning’s newspaper.
Raymond Regier wrote a letter in response to Lehman’s article.
Some of his thoughts:
It is extremely difficult to live as we are used to living and not pay taxes, taxes which finance both warfare and many beneficial things.
But just because nonpayment is difficult, because it has not traditionally been done by Mennonites, does not say that the payment of taxes is not an integral part of the waging of modern war.
Modern warfare and especially Vietnamization require sophisticated technology and an enormous sum of money, perhaps even more than it needs drafted manpower.
Is a man any less responsible for the way his money is used than he is for the way his body is used?
The “give unto Caesar” quote, it seems to me, is tragically misused to give the appearance of avoiding complicity in our nation’s war making.
Can anyone seriously imagine that Jesus would be paying taxes to finance our Vietnam war or our nuclear deterrent?
Or that He would be earning enough to pay taxes at all?…
If one is interested in a direct line to the White House and Congress, wouldn’t an announcement by the letter writer that taxes have been withheld lend credibility to the intensity of his feelings and the seriousness with which he regards the matter?
The General Conference considered a statement on “The Way of Peace” at its meeting in Fresno that included a war tax resistance plank.
The version that appeared in the edition of The Mennonite was somewhat mangled, but I found a better version:
The levying of war taxes is another form of conscription which, along with the conscription of manpower, makes war possible.
We are accountable to God for the use of our financial resources and should protest the use of our taxes in the promotion and waging of war.
We stand by those who feel called to resist the payment of that portion of taxes being used for military purposes.
The Conference ratified the statement, with 73.4% of delegates voting in favor of it, though the war tax resistance plank, and another having to do with resistance to the Selective Service system, were the most controversial.
The statement updated previous statements on peace put out by the conference in and .
It was printed up in “a twenty-page illustrated booklet” and distributed to the various churches in the Conference.
The edition included a note about a creative form of tax resistance using a method I haven’t seen before:
In some ways, the government can be involved in redirecting taxes that are withheld in protest of military policies.
An Old Mennonite pastor preferred to use a portion of his taxes for relief work rather than to support the United States military.
His protest took on a positive, creative form.
He wrote two checks to pay his income tax.
One check covered that proportion of his tax dollar which supports government actions that he approves.
This he made out to the federal government.
The portion which would have gone to war was made out to the Mennonite Central Committee.
He sent both checks to the Internal Revenue Service with a letter explaining his actions and requesting that the IRS forward the second check on to MCC headquarters.
A stamped, addressed envelope was enclosed.
The government complied.
Tax Talk, a war-tax-resistance bulletin, commented on the method used: “This action effectively reached three levels.
First, symbolically, it shows nonsupport of war.
Secondly, it personally involves people in the IRS in a protest and in a positive attempt to help those whose lives our tax dollars have helped totally disrupt, while removing tax dollars (at least for the moment) from contributing to that destruction.”
Although the Internal Revenue Service forwarded the check, they soon attached the pastor’s bank account to reclaim that part of the tax which he refused to directly pay.
The Arvada Mennonite Church, Arvada, Colo., has notified Mountain Bell Telephone Company that the congregation has agreed “to cease voluntary payment of the 10 percent federal telephone tax levied against the citizens of this country for the support of the war in Vietnam.”
The money which would have been spent on the federal tax will be contributed to the Mennonite Central Committee for alleviation of suffering in Vietnam.
In its letter to the telephone company, the congregation said, “The decision to refrain from willingly paying a specifically legislated war tax is an expression of the sorrow and protest of the church over the suffering and loss of life in Vietnam, both American and Vietnamese, and the unwillingness of the United States to allow the citizens of that country engaged in civil strife to determine their own destiny and fashion their own future in relation to the world community of nations.”
The letter said the church did not intend “to defraud our nation which we love, or by secret means to deprive it of its claim upon citizens for support in its just and God-given duties.
Rather we openly seek to make this expression a call for justice and peace.”
In such cases, the telephone company does not terminate service or collect the tax, but notifies the Internal Revenue Service.
The Internal Revenue Service eventually takes the required amount plus interest from the bank account of the individual or organization refusing the tax.
This is the nineteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
are up to 1972, a year in which there was an enormous amount of material
about war tax resistance in the magazine.
In a weekend workshop was held
for “people who seriously question the morality of paying all that Caesar
demands.” The General Conference Mennonite Central District Peace and Service
Committee was one of the sponsors. From the edition:
Christian response to war taxes was discussed by about 100 participants in a
workshop in Elkhart,
Indiana.
The weekend was sponsored by the Elkhart Peace Fellowship, the General
Conference Mennonite Central District peace and service committee, and other
regional church peace and service committees.
Michael Friedmann of the Elkhart Peace Fellowship said many of the
participants felt the war tax question involved a shift in life style to
reduce involvement in the military-industrial complex.
Al Meyer, a research physicist at Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana, suggested
to the group that one does not start by changing the laws to provide legal
alternatives, to payment of war taxes, but by refusing to pay taxes. We need
to give a clear witness, he said.
Mr. Meyer did not oppose payment of war taxes because he was opposed to
government as such, but because he did not give his total allegiance to
government. He felt it was his responsibility to refuse to pay the immoral
demands of government.
“No alternative will be provided by the federal government until a significant
number of citizens refuse war taxes,” he said.
Art Gish, author of The new left and Christian radicalism, said
draft resistance led logically to war tax resistance.
“If I won’t give the government my warm body, I shouldn’t give it my cold
cash,” he said.
On , John Howard Yoder, president
of Goshen Biblical Seminary, discussed the purposes of resisting tax payments.
He felt the point is to make a clear moral witness. The goal should not be
absolute resistance in keeping the government from getting the money. He said
he would not give his money voluntarily, but would let the Internal Revenue
Service know where they could find it.
Other participants felt tax refusal could be both witness to war and part of a
larger movement to shift national priorities.
Mr. Gish discussed legal and illegal tax resistance. Goshen attorney Greg
Hartzler emphasized that those who break tax laws should make their religious
motivations clear if they want to avoid a severe sentence.
The workshop also discussed communities which are carrying the spirit of
voluntary service into a total life style and are freer to develop a clear
witness on the tax question.
Another topic was the World Peace Tax Fund, which a group in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, is attempting to establish through a bill which it hopes will be
introduced in Congress in . The bill
would enable those who can demonstrate conscientious objection to war to put
that portion of their taxes which would go to war into the fund. The fund
would be used for such purposes as disarmament efforts, international
exchanges, and international health.
Is there a significant difference between fighting a war as a soldier and
supporting it with taxes? “…why should the pacifist refuse service in the
army if he does not refuse to pay taxes?” (Richard Gregg) Why should any
person, on receipt of the government’s demand for money to kill, hurry as
fast as he can to comply? Why pay voluntarily?
What is the biblical or Christian basis for paying or not paying war
taxes? What responsibility does an individual have for wars which are
fought and financed by a government to which he makes tax payments? To
whom is the Christian really responsible?
When faced with a “war tax” situation, what should Christians do? Should
Christians “…take their obligations toward government more seriously than
their church obligations”? (Milton J. Harder) Unless followers of Jesus
dissent from paying war taxes, how are government leaders to know that
Christians are opposed to making war on other peoples whom God has
created? What are the ways whereby we can keep dear our commitment to God
and his love as revealed in Jesus, the Christ?
Can a Christian obedient to God as the supreme Lord of his life continue
simultaneously to “Pray for peace” and “Pay for war”? “How do you
interpret Christ’s answer about the coin in relation to war tax payment?
(See Mark 12:17.)
Must Christians pay to have persons killed? What is Caesar’s? What is
God’s?” (William Keeney) At what point does a government become satanic or
demonic in that it demands what is God’s?
Should Christians who object to paying war taxes wait with their protest
until the whole Christian community agrees to do so?
For the Christian who is opposed to war taxes, is it enough to simply
refuse voluntarily payment of the money requested by
IRS
or should he put forth serious effort to prevent the government from
obtaining the money?
Isn’t the question of military taxation a reflection of the most
formidable problem which every person or religious group must face in our
time: Nationalism?
Ted Koontz of Harvard Divinity school attended the Mennonite Graduate
Fellowship’s annual winter conference and “presented an analysis of reasons for
war tax refusal for use in dialog with those who believe the war in Indochina
is unjust but continue to pay war taxes.” (According to
an
article in the edition.)
The commission asked William Snyder, executive secretary of the Mennonite
Central Committee, if
MCC
is discussing with other religious groups continuing the pacifist position
beyond current “popular” opinions, and if
MCC
is pressing for an alternative fund for war taxes in light of the changing
nature of warfare with finances as the primary resource.
Meetings to discuss war tax resistance were scheduled at three Mennonite
churches in Kansas and Pennsylvania in
and
, according to
an
announcement in the
edition. One of those meetings was covered as follows in the
edition:
About fifty persons shared ways of protesting the use of their taxes for war
at a meeting in Buhler, Kansas,
sponsored by the Western District peace and social concerns committee.
After watching the slide set, The automated air war, produced by
the American Friends Service Committee, participants discussed ways they are
avoiding contribution to the war: refusing the telephone tax, refusing to pay
income tax, investing in corporations which do not produce war materials,
voluntary service, keeping income below the taxable level, and retirement.
Money and the weapons it buys, not the bodies of draft-age men, have become
the primary resource for waging war, the group agreed. But individuals
differed on the best way to influence government against war.
The Internal Revenue Service will attach bank accounts or auction personal
property to collect delinquent income tax or telephone tax, and some persons
questioned the effectiveness of refusal to pay when the government collects
the money later with interest. Or are we simply called to be faithful? some
asked.
Willard Unruh said, “It’s not the money that’s important; it’s the opportunity
to express my opinion. I sent copies to Senators Dole and Pearson of my letter
to the
IRS.
They both responded.”
Jonah Reimer suggested establishing a fund in Kansas into which persons
refusing federal taxes could put an equivalent amount. “It would be an
excellent way to witness,” he said.
The group also discussed attempts to place before Congress a bill to establish
a government fund into which conscientious objectors to war could place their
tax money, which would not be used for military purposes. Such a fund,
however, would not necessarily reduce the amount of money going to the
military.
Some persons objected to the fund, analogous to legal alternative service for
conscientious objectors, saying that such a legal alternative would give
approval to the evil of the military-industrial complex.
One man said, “Mennonites want special privileges. They want to come out of
the war with a clear conscience. But we should want that clear conscience for
everybody.”
“An increasing number of Mennonites are asking what it means to render to
Caesar what belongs to him and in particular to render to God what belongs to
him,” said Wesley Mast, Philadelphia, convener for the seminars. “Since war is
increasingly becoming a matter of bombs and buttons rather than people, we
need to ask what form Christian obedience takes.”
The other two meetings were covered in the edition. Excerpts:
Wesley Mast, Philadelphia, said, “The degree of openness on an issue as
explosive as war taxes was amazing. We wrestled together first of all with the
message of the Scriptures. Would Paul, for example, admonish us today to pay
taxes, as he did the Roman Christians? Would he do the same to Christians in
World War Ⅱ under Hitler? We noted that the times had already changed in the
early church from the ‘good’ government in Romans 13 to the ‘beastly’
government in Revelation 13.”
The seminars also discussed the nature of the present war. Mr. Mast said the
seminar participants heard that since World War Ⅱ the need for foot soldiers
has declined 50 percent. Present war is becoming automated. “When they no
longer need our bodies, how do we declare our protest?”
Another issue concerned tax dollars. “When over half of our taxes are used for
outright murder, how can we go on sinning by supporting that which God
forbids?”
With regard to brotherhood, “should the few who cannot conscientiously pay for
war wait until others come along? How do we discern the Spirit’s leading in
this and not make decisions on an individualistic basis?”
Howard Charles, Goshen Biblical Seminary, was resource teacher on biblical
passages dealing with taxes. Other input was given by Melvin Gingerich and
Grant Stoltzfus on examples of tax refusal from history. Mr. Mast presented
options in payment and nonpayment of taxes. Walton Hackman broke down the
present use of tax dollars, 75 percent of which go for war-related purposes.
“Mennonite collegians will meet
to rap about the kind of lifestyle they want to adopt,” hiply noted
an
article in the edition.
Among the topics on the agenda: “how to avoid complicity with militarism
through paying taxes.”
The continuation of the war in Southeast Asia calls upon us in the United
States to review again our payment of taxes that go to support the war. In
, the Council of Commissions meeting in
Newton, Kansas, urged churches to consider the non-payment of a portion of
their taxes. One of the district conferences passed a resolution chiding the
council for being unbiblical. This response should have called for a mutual
study of the question and this can still be done. It is the intention of the
writer that this article should be a contribution toward the continuation of
dialog on this topic.
The record of Jesus’ pronouncement on the paying of taxes is recorded in all
three of the Synoptic Gospels
(Matt. 22:15–22;
Mark 12:13–17,
Luke 20:20–26). This indicates the importance of this account to the
early church.
The account tells of Pharisees’ and Herodians’ coming to ask a question of
Jesus. They came the day after the cleansing of the temple. Their purpose was
to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the people. Jesus had shown up the leaders
of the temple and they were anxious to get back at him. This question is one
of several that they used. Here the cooperation between the Pharisees and
Herodians is strange. The Pharisees were opposed to the occupation by the
Roman authorities, while the Herodians were enriching themselves by
cooperating. They united because they both wanted Jesus out of the way.
The question of paying taxes brought different answers from these two groups.
The Pharisees were nationalistic and were against any foreign occupation. They
saw the payment of taxes as a symbol of their subjection to a heathen foreign
power. They also hated using the coins with an imprint of Caesar’s likeness as
it went against their interpretation of the second commandment. The Herodians
were willing to see the taxes paid for they had improved their livelihood by
their cooperation.
Thus the question would appear to be a legitimate one. Who was right? They
recognized that Jesus was impartial to people and that if they could appeal to
his sense of justice they might get him to make a judgment. On the surface
their query seemed innocent enough. But they were laying a trap for Jesus.
The question was two-pronged. Jesus could be caught if he answered either
“yes” or “no.” A “yes” would have disowned the people’s nationalistic hopes
and given approval to the hated tax burden. The total taxes paid amounted to
as much as 35 to 40 percent of their income. A “no” to the question would have
made him liable to the charge of sedition and he could be reported to the
Roman authorities. So either answer was one that was looked upon as a means of
hurting Jesus and either discrediting him or doing away with him. Luke says
clearly that they wanted to deliver Jesus up to the authority and jurisdiction
of the governor (Lk. 20:20).
Mark says at the outset that the intent of the questioners was to entrap
Jesus. We are also told that Jesus was aware of their hypocrisy, their seeming
sincerity in asking a question with a hidden intent to trap him. On the basis
of this information, to expect Jesus to reply with either a yes or a no would
be to assume that Jesus was caught in their trap. The amazement of the
questioners after Jesus’ reply indicates that Jesus did not give the kind of
answer they expected.
Turning to the crucial issue, the Pharisees asked if it was lawful to give
taxes to Caesar. The idiomatic rendering of this is “pay taxes.” Jesus replied
that they should “pay back” to Caesar that which was his. Did Jesus see taxes
as a return for benefits received? He probably did, but without sanctioning
all that Caesar was doing. For it was Caesar who had provided for the making
of the coin. But the paying back to Caesar statement does not stand alone and
we cannot treat it as such. To it is added the phrase that we are to pay back
to God what belongs to God. These two phrases need to be interpreted together.
And there are several ways in which this can be done. What did Jesus mean?
First, some see the realm of Caesar and the realm of God as two side-by-side
but separate and distinct realms, each having its own concerns and existence.
The Christian lives in both realms and has a dualistic ethic. When it comes to
killing, a Christian as a citizen of God’s kingdom will not kill. But as a
citizen of this world he will be obedient to Caesar and take up arms. Many
Christians see no inconsistency in reading the words of Jesus to mean this is
the way they should live.
To some of us it is quite obvious that this is not the way Jesus taught us to
live. We do not see him giving Caesar equal authority with God. Jesus warned
that no man can serve two masters. So we reject the position that would say we
should pay to Caesar regardless of the uses he makes of our money.
A second view is that the Kingdom of God is above the kingdoms of this world.
God’s realm is holy and the worldly realm is sinful. According to this model,
one would seek to live as much as possible within God’s realm. It might be
necessary to be involved in the world to some extent but one would take no
responsibility, such as voting or holding office. One would pay taxes to
Caesar but would not see the money as purchasing any services. This has been
the view of some Mennonites in the past. They asked nothing from the world and
gave what was demanded except where it involved their personal lives. They let
the governing authorities take full responsibility before God for the use of
the taxes they paid. This position we also reject as an inadequate
interpretation.
A third point of view sees the whole creation as belonging to God, with God
acting in and through all men. Within the world are a number of states having
separate existence but not autonomous existence for they are all under the
judgment of God. What the rulers do, they are to do as ministers of God and it
should always be according to God’s purposes. Their authority is a derived
authority. Because the rulers of the states are not autonomous, they
frequently seek to wield more power than given by God and so become demonic.
Thus Caesar is not to be obeyed regardless of what he asks. We see fine
examples of this in both the Old and New Testaments. When Caesar asks for more
than God has set for him, the Christian must definitely refuse to grant it to
him. Then the words, “We must obey God rather than men” are appropriate.
Knowing Jesus’ life of total obedience to the will of his Father, we have no
doubt in saying that Jesus saw governing authorities as ruling under God. He
told Pilate, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you
from above” (John 19:11).
The Christians who received the revelation of Jesus Christ were told that
those who are faithful unto death to their convictions would receive the crown
of life
(Rev. 2:10).
It is to this third model that we look for guidance.
The words, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” does say explicitly
that there is an amount that is due a government. But we also hold that it
says there are limits to what Caesar should ask. Jesus was not being asked
about the payment of all taxes. A variety of taxes were levied by Caesar and
the one Jesus was asked about was the annual poll tax that each male above
fourteen years of age had to pay with the specific coin Jesus called for.
We need to see Jesus’ words as providing a generalization rather than a
universal prescription. In moving from a general statement to a particular
situation, we must always move carefully. Let me illustrate: we are told a
person who is a guest should eat what is set before him
(Luke 10:7).
However, if a person is diabetic, it would not be right for him to eat food
that would be harmful to his system. While we can say that Jesus supported the
payment of taxes, we cannot thereby say that he favored the payment of every
particular tax that a government might levy. We can all think of programs
(such as the destruction of elderly and handicapped persons) which we would
not be willing to support with our taxes. If that is the case, then we need to
look seriously at what our taxes are doing in making war possible.
Living under a government that says it is responsible to the concerns of its
citizens, we have an opportunity to witness by bringing our concerns to the
government. A first step should be to write those who represent us and make
the laws for our country. Stating our position in this manner is being a
faithful witness. If the tax money is being used for purposes that are utterly
contrary to what we understand to be the will of God, then we ought to
consider the act of refusing to pay the tax. The purpose of this action is the
desire to be faithful to the will of God as we know it and to help the rulers
become aware of how they are overstepping the bounds of true ministers of God.
Paul in his letter to the Romans exhorts Christians to be obedient to the
authorities. But he has already stated the principle that Christians should
not be conformed to this world (12:1). Or as Phillips has translated it,
“Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its mold.” This calls for
discernment on the part of the church. Can we as Christians continue to pray
for peace while we pay for war?
The edition profiled two small
Mennonite intentional communities in Kansas: the Fairview Mennonite House and
The Bridge.
The
article noted:
[The Bridge] began forming at a Western District war tax workshop. David and
Joanne Janzen, Randy and Janeal Krehbiel, and Steve and Wanda Schmidt were
ready to stop paying taxes for war and to join into a brotherhood of shared
income “to make our whole lives count for peace.”
Both intentional communities are a part of the voluntary service program of
the General Conference Mennonite Church and follow the same financial pattern
of self-support as the majority of other voluntary service units. All income
is turned over directly to the voluntary service office in Newton, which
reimburses the unit for such items as food, housing, travel, and medical
expenses. Each individual receives $25 a month personal allowance.
Although critics of the intentional communities have accused them of using the
voluntary service program as a tax dodge, members of the communities felt
strong ties with their Anabaptist heritage and wanted to channel their
resources to and through the church. But there are no apologies for not paying
taxes. “We’re witnessing to the fact that the federal government is not using
our money responsibly in its huge military expenditures,” said Ken [Janzen].
A member of the Love, Joy, Peace Community (Washington,
D.C.)
wrote a letter in response
in which he wrote (in part):
The problem of war taxes is one which both Fairview House and The Bridge are
addressing. It’s good to see people more concerned with “rendering to God what
is his” (our whole lives), rather than being obsessed with Caesar and his
temporal demands! We have long been passive, instead of active peacemakers. We
pray for peace while we pay for war.
Dear Editor: As members of the Mennonite congregation of Boston, we are
writing this letter to make public our decision to withhold a portion of our
federal taxes, either income or telephone taxes. This decision came out of
discussions with the entire congregation. We are doing this because our
Christian consciences and our Mennonite backgrounds tell us the war in
Southeast Asia is counter to the teachings of Christ. We have chosen to
withhold our taxes because part of the responsibility for the war resides with
those who willingly support it financially, regardless of what they believe.
Realizing this act will undoubtedly have a very small effect indeed on
governmental policy, we hope it will in some way influence others into taking
concrete actions which will demonstrate Christian love. Our friends and our
families cannot help but react to our decision to withhold taxes.
The desired effect of our actions is not, however, the sole reason why we have
chosen this form of protest. As conscientious objector status has become more
automatic for Mennonites, refusal to pay war taxes has provided an additional
way to demonstrate one’s Christian beliefs. Because we have only rough guesses
as to the effects of our act, we accept as a matter of faith that this act
will at least be a significant event in our Christian lives.
While we know the government will eventually collect our taxes, our intention
to send an equal amount of money to the Mennonite Central Committee for
Vietnam relief is a further Christian witness. It offers our alternative to
war.
Jerry and Janet Friesen Regier, Weldon and Rebecca Pries,
Ted and Gayle Gerber Koontz, Dorothy and Gordon D. Kaufman.
An increasing number of people are sending war tax monies to Mennonite Central
Committee, instead of paying them to the United States Government for military
use, said Calvin Britsch,
MCC
assistant treasurer.
Contributions of tax money are of two kinds, Mr. Britsch said. More people are
refusing to pay the federal tax levied on the use of telephones. This 10
percent tax is seen as a direct source for military expenditures. People who
refuse this tax simply subtract the 10 percent from their telephone bill and
send it instead to
MCC.
We also receive contributions from people who refuse part of their federal
income tax, Mr. Britsch said. Several people, for example, have withheld and
have sent in as a contribution ten or 15 percent of their income tax in a
symbolic protest against the Vietnam war and the whole United States military
machine. Others who have had less than the total tax withheld send that
remainder to
MCC
rather than to the Internal Revenue Service. We often get letters with tax
refusal contributions explaining the individuals belief that, as a Christian,
one cannot voluntarily, or without protest, pay money to be used for the
destruction of human life.
Tax refusal contributions, unless otherwise designated, are usually applied to
the
MCC
Peace Section budget, Mr. Britsch said.
The General Conference had asked the Commission on Home Ministries and the
Commission on Overseas Mission to come up with some sort of repentance action,
focused on the Vietnam War. They settled on a coordinated day of repentance,
with other Mennonite and Brethren churches also joining in with a day of
fasting and prayer. Included with the letter from the commissions announcing
this was
a
confession of complicity, which said in part:
We recognize that though we cannot completely disassociate ourselves from the
destruction and suffering the people of the United States are inflicting upon
others, we continue to seek ways “to perform deeds worthy of (our)
repentance.”…
As a church we have opposed war and worked for peace through programs of
relief and service. Yet we share responsibility for the destruction in this
way through our silence, through our profiting from a military economy,
through our patronage of corporations with substantial defense contracts, and
through our payment of the portion of telephone and
IRS
taxes used for war purposes. Much of this involvement is unintentional and may
even be done without knowledge of the implications.
To pay income tax means to help buy the guns, airplanes, and bombs which
continue daily to kill the men, women and children of Indochina. To pay this
tax means to help build the nuclear weaponry which threatens the possibility
of any joyful human life. To pay this tax is to help retire the mortgage of
the atomic bombs which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So, instead of trusting my money to the federal government, I have directed my
financial resources to organizations and individuals working for peace and
justice.
Claus Felbinger, writing about the Anabaptist church in
, said, “We are gladly and willingly subject
to the government for the Lord’s sake, and in all just matters we will in no
way oppose it. When, however, the government requires of us what is contrary
to our faith and conscience — as swearing oaths and paying hangman’s dues of
taxes for war — then we do not obey its command.” Living in the
Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, I feel that, rather than pay taxes, I must
hear and respond to the cries of those who fall victim to the American
war-making power.
I hope that you people working for the Internal Revenue Service will
understand and accept my decision to follow conscience. I hope that you will
also consider the contribution which your work of collecting war taxes makes
to the suffering of our fellow human beings.
Accompanying this was a maudlin poem by another author, called “Confession”
that began “I killed a man today / Or was it a woman or a child?” and went on
to explain that his taxes paid someone to kill, in spite of all the other
things he did to express his dislike for killing. But he was writing a letter
to the
IRS to
tell them why he wouldn’t be paying “that part of income tax which is used for
killing.”
The “Central District
Reporter,” a sort of supplemental insert in the magazine, reported this from
the district’s Peace and Service Committee:
Parents too have stopped being passive about peace. If son will not register,
father will not pay the tax which keeps the army and any war going. All ages
are learning more and more that there is no one way to give witness to
convictions.
A
letter to the editor
from Jacob and Irene Pauls discussed their decision to redirect 64% of their
federal income tax (“clearly designated for war”) from the government to the
Mennonite Central Committee. They wrote: “The state has chosen an enemy, but we
have no enemy. We do not accept the premise that the state can choose an enemy
for us and force us to help annihilate the state’s enemy.”
From the edition:
War tax resistance means sale of car. David Janzen, Newton, Kansas, at right,
talks with Internal Revenue Service officials in Wichita as they open and
record sealed bids for Mr. Janzen’s station wagon. The automobile was
confiscated in for nonpayment of $31.32
of telephone excise tax which would have been used to carry on the war in
Indochina. The officials read bids for one cent to $501, but refused to read
bids for “one napalmed baby” and other “units of suffering” submitted by other
war tax resisters and supporters. “All we’re interested in is the money,” said
the IRS
officer. “We’re interested in what the money buys,” replied Mr. Janzen. The
intentional community of which he is a member bought back the station wagon.
There are some points at which it is necessary “to make a one-sided emotional
commitment to one value” (our militaristic brethren in the church feel we do
this on the war question — especially when we begin to urge withholding part
of our income tax).
What was billed as a “‘Lamb’s war’ camp meeting”
took place in . Sixty or
seventy mostly youngish people, mostly but not all Mennonites, met to discuss
“a life of sacrifice and aggressive peacemaking” as part of “a nonviolent army
under the direction of God.” War tax resistance was one of the topics
discussed, and the verse “gonna lay down my telephone tax, down by the
riverside” was spliced in to the popular spiritual during an evening
sing-along.
A letter to the editor from Robert W. Guth
on the subject of war taxes again told the story of the excommunication of
Christian Funk for paying taxes to the Continental Congress during the American
revolutionary war, and of Andrew Ziegler’s “I would as soon go to war as pay
the three pounds and ten shillings” response.
Preliminary results from the first Church Member Profile survey were revealed
in a article. Excerpt:
In the United states… only 11 percent were uncertain about their position,
should they be subject to the draft. Seventy-one percent would choose
alternative service, an option acceptable to both the government and the
church’s teaching in recent history.
However, 33 percent were uncertain about refusal to pay that proportion of
their income taxes designated for the military. Fifty-five percent opposed
nonpayment of war taxes.
Bill Londeree, a member of Koinonia Partners, Americus, Georgia, emphasized
the personal response to affluence and militarism.
The Methodist Church, he said, has $40 million in investments in the top
twenty-nine defense contractors — and sends out the antiwar slide
presentation, “The automated air war.” Members of the Mennonite Church paid
$87 million last year in war taxes and call themselves a “peace church.”
“This is schizophrenia of the first order,” Mr. Londeree said. “The greatest
need is for examination of our own lives. Jesus’ first statement to us all is
a call to repentance, to metanoia. This does not mean
feeling sorry, but is a command to change.”
The assembly spent much of its time in small groups discussing the
presentations and related topics, such as life style, the ideology of growth,
war taxes, international economic relations, economic needs of church-related
institutions, strategies for social change, new value orientations, and
investments.
This is the twentieth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
reach 1973.
The Paris Peace Accord is about to be signed, beginning the eventual withdrawal
of U.S. troops from
Vietnam. Will the growing war tax resistance movement in the General Conference
Mennonite Church be able to sustain its momentum as anti-war urgency slackens?
Of all the varieties of tax resistance, the pay-taxes-but-complain method seems
the least likely to satisfy or impress. But some people do seem to like it. For
example, a letter from Sem and Mabel Sutter to the Commissioner of the
IRS,
dated explained that they
were paying “the two-thirds of our federal
income tax which is budgeted for military purposes… under protest.” Because
“the money is already in your hands in the form of withholding tax, we have no
recourse but to pay it, while stating that it violates our conscience to do
so.” The typical complaints about “the wholesale destruction of human life” and
the opportunity costs of military spending followed, along with a patient
explanation of the Mennonite point of view on “resistance to war.” Finally the
letter concluded that “until such time as legislative provision is made for
conscientious objection to war tax, we shall pay our tax under protest.”
The issue included
a
letter from Steven G. Schmidt. Similarly anguished about the Vietnam War,
he suggested something a bit stronger than paying-under-protest:
I would like to suggest one further action to people who follow Christ and to
people who believe in God. Income tax money is due soon. Most of that money
will go to disrupt and destroy lives. Perhaps church people would serve God
best by sending this money to nonmilitary agencies or to local charities or
the church. I, for one, pledge my support to you — and I know others who do,
too. Let me know if we can help you in any way, for it takes courage to follow
conscience.
As Joshua put it (24:15), “Choose ye this day whom you will serve… as for me
and my house, we shall serve the Lord.” We at our house have come to believe
that putting the money that would have gone to
IRS into
life-giving investments is serving the Lord.
A letter from David Janzen, dated , hoped to keep the war tax resistance momentum going as the
anti-war movement’s urgency was being deflated by the withdrawal of the United
States from the Vietnam War:
Dear [The Mennonite editor] Larry [Kehler]: I have
been asked by a number of friends, “Now that the war is over in Vietnam, will
you end your war tax resistance?” Since most of my friends read
The Mennonite, I wanted to share my answer here,
hoping it may be helpful to others.
No, I will not pay the telephone excise tax (now 9 percent); I will do my best
to owe no income tax and will refuse to pay whatever I do owe.
I am glad that the United States has finally agreed to withdraw all troops
from Vietnam and exchange prisoners with Hanoi, but… the war is not over and
U.S. complicity in
it has not ended. Our bombers in Indochina have not been brought home, rather
they are raining destruction on Cambodia and Laos in in unprecedented levels.
The victims of these bombs are not my enemies. Why should they suffer for the
sins of their rulers, or mine?
Furthermore, the President has requested a $4.7 billion increase in the
Pentagon’s budget, and this in supposed peace time. What is the purpose of all
this war spending that consumes 60 cents of every income tax dollar? It is, it
seems to me, getting ready to put down with massive violence, the next threat
to the American empire, or worse, to win the nuclear showdown of World War Ⅲ.
By contributing to this kind of terror politics, I do not demonstrate God’s
nature nor bring his peace. So, for the foreseeable future, I plan to reinvest
my war taxes into works of mercy.
If anyone wants information on how to refuse taxes for war, even if you are in
a withholding situation, write me or War Tax Resistance, 912
E.
31st
St., Kansas City, Missouri
64109.
I haven’t really looked into the question of whether Canadians are doing more
good than evil by paying their taxes. C.J. Hinke of 918 Center
St. South in Whitby, Ontario,
is apparently the only open tax resister in Canada, and would be glad to share
his reasons with inquirers.
Walton Hackman, executive secretary of the Mennonite Central Committee’s “Peace
Section” noted that war tax redirection to support that Section’s work had
increased:
During the past year the
MCC
Peace Section has received $4,000 in contributions made in lieu of tax
payments. This was a new phenomenon. In previous years only several hundred
dollars were contributed in this way. The contributions were unsolicited; they
were made by individuals whose consciences would not allow them to pay taxes
which were used for war purposes.
Since a substantial number of individuals from the
MCC
constituency are looking for an alternative way to use tax monies otherwise
collected for war purposes, the Peace Section took action at its
meeting to establish a
taxes-for-peace fund to which such contributions could be made.
Some of the funds contributed last year were contributions made in lieu of the
10 percent (now 9 percent) telephone excise tax which, according to Wilbur
Mills, chairman of the United States House ways and means committee, is a tax
needed to pay for the Vietnam war. Other funds contributed in lieu of tax
payments came from individuals who withheld part of their federal income tax.
Contrary to what many people hoped, the end of United States military action
in Vietnam does not mean a reduction in military spending. The proposed budget
increase for the Pentagon next year is $4,200,000,000.
Those who have made contributions to the Peace Section in lieu of tax payments
during past years are not, as some might suspect, the young activists, but
include businessmen, medical doctors, teachers, farmers, and administrators
representing a good cross section of the Mennonite brotherhood.
Young people, especially students who are not in earning situations of paying
taxes, contributed very little in lieu of tax payments. Most of the
contributions came from people over thirty.
The taxes-for-peace fund, as it is being called, is being established for
persons whose conscience against war and killings will not allow them to pay
the portion of their taxes that goes for war purposes. It should be
clearly understood, that contributions made to this fund will not satisfy the
Internal Revenue Service. It will, however, provide individuals with a
receipt proving that their intentions were not to defraud, but that their
withholding some portion of their tax monies was a matter of conscientious
objection to war and militarism.
The monies contributed to the fund will be used for the work of the Peace
Section and will be a small effort toward waging peace rather than war.
With the need for manpower in the armed forces greatly reduced and with the
use of more sophisticated remote-controlled technical weapons, it is
increasingly difficult to express one’s conscientious objection to war.
Mennonites have traditionally withheld their bodies as a protest against war.
Now few bodies are needed and many more dollars are needed for the development
and maintenance of expensive war machinery.
Contributions to the taxes-for-peace fund may be one tangible way in which
conscientious objectors can positively express peace through their tax
dollars.
A
letter by Gus Konkel, dated , shows the first sign of backlash for some time. Excerpt:
It seems to me the whole question about war taxes is a prime example of utter
question begging. In the final analysis all the taxes go in and out of the
same pot. Tagging a name to any particular tax doesn’t really mean anything. I
don’t ever expect to live under a government that has no defense system, be it
capitalist or communist. How directly I support that defense system through
the tax dollar doesn’t seem to me to be of any great import one way or the
other.
American Telephone and Telegraph reports that 22,000 people refused to pay the telephone excise tax in protest against the Vietnam War in , up from 17,000 in and 12,000 in .
The Internal Revenue Service wants AT&T to disconnect all those phones, but AT&T says tax problems are IRS’ business.
Apparently IRS wants as little to do with 22,000 prosecutions as AT&T wants to do with the $200,000 a month it would cost to disconnect protesters’ phones.
The edition reported on three
anonymous donors, young people from Goshen, Indiana, “with an average income of
$4,000” had together donated $5,000 to a fund for financially-needy Goshen
College students. “They have decided to give away their earnings,”
the
article reported, “rather than keep them and pay federal taxes, much of
which goes for war.”
The edition gave a second
example of a Mennonite organization practicing war tax resistance corporately
(see ♇ for the first example):
Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has recently voted to
withhold payments of the 9 percent federal excise tax on its telephone bill
“in protest against the Vietnam War and
U.S. militarism.”
The church council had discussed the issue in
and
and had recommended that the tax issue
be brought up at the annual business meeting
. On
, the issue was debated during the
Sunday school hour and voted on at the annual meeting in the afternoon.
“There was not complete consensus in our case,” said Pastor Donald Kaufman.
“But a significant group feels that this is an important Christian witness.”
Congregational moderator Richard Westby drafted a letter to Northwestern Bell
to be sent with each month’s phone payment. The letter reads in part:
“The Faith Church has traditionally opposed war and continues to pay for war
(although tax withholding does not have a long tradition within our history.)
This contradiction between profession and practice within our congregation is
now being changed so that we are more consistent in our faith. We are opposed
to war and do not want our tax payments to support, endorse, or pay for
U.S. war efforts.
“As a church organization, we realize that we have a responsibility to our
country and government for services rendered. We support our government except
when it contradicts Christian morality and conscience… We feel obligated to
challenge our government’s reckless and immoral military deeds. By our small
action we join with many other moral people in strongly urging our government
to change its priorities and reduce its dependence upon the military. Without
money, modern warfare could not be fought…”
The telephone tax, formerly 10 percent, was restored by President Lyndon B.
Johnson in , during the escalation of the
Vietnam War. Beginning this year, it will be decreased 1 percent annually
until it disappears in .
The edition carried
a
brief news item about the the strange
AFSC
lawsuit in which they were trying to have the withholding taxes they had
already paid for their conscientiously-objecting employees refunded to them.
(See ♇ for more about that suit.)
The edition included a
tribute to Mennonite professor Benny Bargen,
who had died . It touched
briefly on his war tax resistance, saying: “His opposition to war had led him
to request that his salary be held at a level that would not require him to pay
taxes.”
This is the twenty-first in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
brings us up to 1974.
brought readers
the
news that “The World Peace Tax Fund Act” had been introduced in Congress.
This early version of the “peace tax fund” idea, according to the
article, would create a federal trust fund separate from the funds in the
general
U.S. treasury,
which would be supervised by a board of trustees (mostly appointed by the
U.S. president). The
fund might be used to support such things as (the language in the bill said
“shall include but not be limited to”) “research and other activities designed
to develop and demonstrate nonviolent methods of resolving international
conflicts.” Registered conscientious objectors to military taxation would have
a portion of their taxes assigned to this fund (a portion equivalent to the
percent of the U.S.
budget spent on military purposes in the previous year) in a way that would
ostensibly give them “rights… comparable to First Amendment rights given to
draftees who are conscientious objectors.”
“The bill,” the article explains with a straight face, “prohibits using the
Peace Fund as a means of reducing regular appropriations for nonmilitary
purposes.” In other words, if the trustees of the peace tax fund decide to
grant the money to the Peace Corps, Congress is not supposed to then cut the
appropriation it gave to the Peace Corps out of the general treasury.
How this was supposed to be enforced is anyone’s guess.
This is the modern version of the phony “Civilian Bonds” from World War Ⅱ (see
♇ 9,
10, &
11 July 2018). It would allow
“conscientious” people to avoid the risks of resistance and to get official
government recognition of how conscientious they are without actually affecting
one whit their complicity in what the government does with their money.
Sadly, one of the stories the archive of The
Mennonite tells is how the drive to pass some sort of “peace tax fund”
legislation like this came to displace actual war tax resistance — even as the
proposed bills themselves became more and more watered down and got further and
further from being taken seriously in Congress
(the current version,
doggedly introduced to each Congress by Representative John Lewis, has no
cosponsors). I won’t be commenting on all of the individual mentions of these
bills as they come up in this and subsequent issues of
The Mennonite, as I consider it tangential to
conscientious tax resistance (at best; antagonistic at worst), but there will
be many such mentions, and by the end of my survey, they will outnumber
mentions of real war tax resistance.
Taking off my rant hat…
The edition reprinted much
of a
letter from James Klassen, who was doing relief work in Vietnam, to his pastor,
Ronald Krehbiel, telling about the torture of prisoners by South Vietnamese
police. Editor Larry Kehler comments at the end of the letter: “The telephone
company in Wichita called our house the other day to ask if we wanted to start
paying our federal excise tax again ‘now that the war is over.’ We declined.”
The edition told of a
triumph in the AFSC’s
suit attempting to retrieve money it had withheld from the paychecks of its
conscientiously objecting employees. A District Court had ordered the Internal
Revenue Service to stop collecting the full taxes for those employees “because
such withholding violates the free exercise of their religion as members of the
Society of Friends” and to refund previously-collected amounts that represent
“overpayment of taxes withheld.”
The triumph would be short-lived. (See ♇
for more about the suit and
how it progressed.) When the Supreme Court voted, with one notable dissent, to
reverse the district court’s decision,
the
news was covered in the
edition.
One possibly beneficial, though indirect, effect of the publicity about the
peace tax fund act, I must admit, was that it seems to have inspired a Japanese
Christian, Michio Ohno, to spark war tax resistance in Japan.
A
letter from Ohno, dated
says that upon reading about the bill, he “at once wrote a letter to the editor
of Asahi shimbun, the most influential daily paper
in Japan, and it was printed in the
issue of the paper.”
In the letter, I stated (1) I do not want to pay my income tax to be used for
military purpose out of money God has entrusted me, (2) I will gladly pay the
tax if nonmilitary use is secured, and (3) I proposed to have an act like the
World Peace Tax Fund Act in the United States.
A few days later, Professor Masahito Ara commented favorably about my letter
in his Newspapers in review on the
NHK Radio.
Dr. Sakakibara, who
energetically writes books about Anabaptism, proposed an “alternative tax”
system in the Anabaptist genealogy of conscientious
objection, which is now at the press.
We are preparing to make a group looking for a possibility of having a law
enabling us to pay tax whose use is restricted to nonmilitary purposes. We
need your prayer and spiritual support.
But while this letter seemed to place all of the emphasis on a “peace tax
fund”-style bill, the movement that Ohno started would instead focus on actual
war tax resistance. Here’s an article that appeared in the
edition:
A war tax resistance movement is beginning in Japan.
Started by Michio Ohno, a pastor of the United Church of Christ in Japan who
attended Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries in Elkhart, Indiana, in
, an organization for “Conscientious
Objection to Military Tax” was formed in Tokyo. About sixty people attended the first meeting, and a
“general assembly” was planned
at the Shinanomachi Church in Tokyo.
The objectives of the organization are (1) reduction and eventual abolition of
Japan’s Self-Defense Force (Japan’s constitution prohibits a military) and (2)
encouraging nonpayment of the 6.4 percent of income taxes that support the
Self-Defense Force.
Mr. Ohno, who is now working with Mennonites and Brethren in the Tokyo area,
started the movement out of his religious convictions. But support has now
grown beyond Mennonites, the Society of Friends, and the Fellowship of
Reconciliation to include other Japanese citizens who question the
constitutionality of the Self-Defense Force.
At the organizational meeting, speakers included Gan Sakakibara, principal of
the Tokyo English Center, on “The historical development of conscientious
objection” Yasusaburo Hoshino, professor at the Tokyo University of Liberal
Arts, on “How to live nonviolently; A theory of peaceful tax paying”; and
Shizuo Ito, a lawyer who sued the government for having unconstitutional armed
forces, on “Struggle for peace.”
Mr. Ohno called Conscientious Objection to Military Tax the first organized
movement of this kind in Japan.
“The time was ripe when we started the campaign,” he said. “We consulted
several scholars of the constitution, and one of the professors said he
himself had wanted to start a movement like this. Somebody else may well have
started a movement like this anyway, even if we did not. We should not just
sit back and wait for the peace to come, but be the peacemakers.”
Mr. Ohno said one of the decisive factors in his becoming involved in
conscientious tax objection in was
an article in The Mennonite last year on the
proposed World Peace Tax Fund legislation in the United States.
The Mennonite General Conference met for its triennial sessions in
, and 1,300 delegates passed
several resolutions. One was:
Be it resolved that we educate ourselves more fully regarding the pervasive
militarism of our society and express ourselves more strongly, advocating a
reordering of priorities toward peacemaking;
That we encourage congregations to study the World Peace Tax Fund Act
(U.S.),
considering the possibility of supporting it;
That we… ask all General Conference members to question prayerfully
whether they want to pay war taxes voluntarily;
That the General Conference offices seriously work at the possibility of
providing each employee with the option of following his/her conscience in
the payment of war taxes; and
That the Commission on Home Ministries give greater priority to this
issue, including the creation of a special fund to be used for education,
for assistance to those conscientiously refusing payment of war taxes, and
for legal expenses, and that each person committed to war tax resistance
pledge a regular contribution to this fund.
I took these brief excerpts from a later report
on the triennial sessions:
“The struggles within the church, both individually and as a people, to relate
to war taxes, amnesty, and serious economic questioning spoke of life to me. I
came away grateful to be part of this people.” ―Dorsy Hill
World poverty and hunger, western affluence, the meaning in the twentieth
century of the Bible’s teaching on the Year of Jubilee, life-style,
ordination, amnesty, war taxes, mission expansion, church planting, and
international relations were among the issues raised.
The meeting [a panel discussion that advocated simple living on
] ended with tears, prayers, and
other verbal responses after Ladon Sheats’ plea for Mennonites to turn away
from wealth and the payment of war taxes.
The service was punctuated
by an unscheduled dramatic presentation, initiated by Ladon Sheats.
Three persons wearing signs saying, “Fear,” “Security,” and “Tradition,” came
to the front of the gymnasium during one of the first hymns and told a “third
world” person, “We cannot help you.” They remained at the front until almost
the end of the service, when they left saying, “Our forefathers said no but we
don’t. We pay over $4 billion in war taxes. We can’t help you. Please forgive
us. May God help you.”
A letter
from Arnold Claasen, dated complained that not enough time was given to discuss the various
resolutions at the triennial. “Specifically with reference to ‘war tax’
resolution, there was considerable discussion, and the chair found it necessary
to terminate the discussion, with good reason.” In his own case, while he did
not care to see so much of his taxes go to the military, and he would not serve
in the military, he felt that this did not relieve him from the responsibility
to pay his taxes. He recommended instead that Mennonites rededicate themselves
to charitable giving, in part as a legal war tax resistance technique.
Generosity and charity and self-sacrifice — “Jubilee living” — were also the
theme of
a
letter from John Swarr dated . Excerpt:
Once again war is brought to mind, now in its new form of refusing food to the
hungry or assistance to the poor and struggling peoples. But the
U.S. Government
continues to send money and give military training and materials to many
repressive governments, and we continue to pay the taxes it uses to finance
this evil, in Brazil, Chile, South Korea, South Vietnam, and on and on.
Stop! Jubilee living proclaims Jesus is Lord! Neither Caesar nor
Uncle Sam is lord, so we must resist this evil and channel money to the
General Conference War Tax Alternative Fund instead. I enclose some refused
tax money for the fund and trust you will see that it gets to the right place.
The Commission on Home Ministries of the General Conference Mennonite Church,
having been given a mandate at the triennial, established a “war tax
alternative fund.” Here’s
how the edition described it:
The fund, to be outside the budget, will be used for education about war tax
resistance, assistance to those who are resisting taxes, and legal expenses of
individuals or agencies involved in tax resistance.
The commission’s peace and social concerns committee took action in
to establish the fund and to invite
persons who have a commitment to war tax resistance to contribute to the fund
on a regular basis.
In addition, persons who have resisted war taxes or who are concerned about
the issue are encouraged to share their experiences with the commission or to
request resources on the war tax issue, according to Harold Regier,
CHM
peace and social concerns secretary.
Peter Ediger, a member of the peace and social concerns committee and pastor
of the Arvada (Colorado) Mennonite Church, will coordinate work on the war tax
issue and possibly edit a war tax newsletter to keep concerned people in touch
with each other.
The Justice Department has brought suit against the Episcopal Diocese of
Pennsylvania to collect $1,006 in federal income taxes withheld by David M.
Gracie.
Mr. Gracie, rector of the Free Church of
St. John in Kensington, a
working-class neighborhood in Philadelphia, withheld 50 percent of his income
tax for the past five years because of the continuing American involvement in
Vietnam. He claims that “another 50,000 will die this year courtesy of the
United States of America.”
In response to the suit, the diocesan council let stand its recent decision
“that each of our employees has the right to exercise his conscience in
respect to the withholding of payment of taxes as a means of protest” and that
the legal council of the diocese will contest the government move to collect
money from the diocese.
From Fellowship magazine.
This is the twenty-second in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
brings us up to 1975.
The Mennonite General Conference’s Commission on Home Ministries was often at
the forefront (or ahead of the forefront) of the Conference’s policies on war
tax resistance. But they seem to have gotten caught flat-footed at their annual
meeting in . Here’s an
excerpt from The Mennonite’s coverage:
The commission devoted most of to the war tax question. The discussion was sharpened by a
request which had come to the General Conference from one of its employees not
to withhold her income tax.
The board members, after lengthy and vigorous debate, could not agree on what
course of action to take. They did agree to the following statement, however:
“We would like to support in spirit the concerns of church employees
requesting nonwithholding of war taxes, but we are not together on what kind
of action we can take.”
It was agreed that further attention needs to be given to this issue, and the
commission decided to call an inter-Mennonite study conference later this year
to look at the theological, political, and historical issues involved in war
tax resistance.
Other participants in the Council of Commissions cautioned the General
Conference to tread softly on this question because it has the potential of
being an explosive issue. Some voiced concern about grass roots reactions. It
was felt that most constituents would not favor the General Conference’s
involvement in this type of activity. The Division of Administration said that
it was fearful that if a move is made not to withhold war taxes from
conference employees’ paychecks, the General Conference might be jeopardizing
its nonprofit status.
A war tax resistance fund has been established and a war tax newsletter
started by CHM.
CHM
is still exploring the legal aspects of not withholding federal income tax
from the paychecks of central office employees who so request. An
inter-Mennonite study conference will be called sometime
to discuss the theological issues
involved.
[W]hen the war in Indochina was building up to its most destructive levels
ever, I felt an urgency to stop paying all war taxes. However, under the
present
IRS
system there is no way to say, “Yes, we are willing to pay the ‘regular’
taxes, but not the portion that goes for military expenses” all tax monies are
channeled into one general treasury. The only way to say no war taxes is to
reduce the amount of federal income tax one pays. So, for
, after listing the usual itemized
deductions, I claimed the amount of the “taxable income” as a “war crimes
deduction.”
Since the
IRS
would not accept that claim, we decided to appeal their decision. With some
“fear and trembling” we prepared our statement for the tax court, not knowing
just what to expect from the representatives of an agency that often seems to
be hostile toward people who oppose the payment of taxes for war purposes. We
are grateful that the Lord did calm our spirits so that we could speak freely.
We were somewhat surprised when the tax court referee expressed a real
openness to hear our prepared statement concerning the bases for opposition to
war taxes. We were also free to share something about the life of our church
community as the context for making ethical decisions. We were so grateful for
the receptive spirit we sensed in the judge, the
IRS’s
counsel, the clerks, and the bailiff.…
We are seeking for other alternatives: one is to work at simplifying our
“needs,” reduce our consumption of material goods, and reduce our taxable
income, thereby making more resources available to the church-community to be
used to extend its mission and outreach. We believe the clearest answer to war
taxes is the gathered community of disciples, seeking together for alternative
forms of economic life that reduce our tax liability.
In our pilgrimage, we have been led to live in close proximity, for some to
work in paying jobs and some in non-remunerative work, and to share all our
resources. We believe this kind of relationship and commitment to one another
is an important aspect of the life of a church-community and is to be
understood as an open-ended time commitment. Some Christian communities, with
a similar emphasis on service, poverty, and sharing of resources, have
obtained legal status as “apostolic orders” and are thus able to devote all
their resources to the witness and service they can offer to people in the
name of Christ, rather than to channel any tax monies through the hands of
Caesar
(IRS).
The cover story of the issue
took the form of a poem, by Peter J. Ediger, called
Christ and Caesar: A ballad of faith.
It beckoned its readers to imagine the history of the Mennonites and the
suffering and martyrdom and struggles the sect go through as they “hear the
call of God / and followed Christ into the Kingdom of Loving Enemies / and
ceased from following Caesar into his Kingdom of Killing Enemies.” But over
time the Mennonites grew soft, while Caesar kept growing and becoming more
powerful and more militaristic.
and there was uneasiness in the revelation that people of the faith
were giving more money for war than for all the causes of the kingdom of the Lord…
And the sons and daughters of the enemy-loving kingdom said what shall we do
and some responding quickly said
we must pay our taxes we must give to Caesar what is Caesar’s
we must be subject to the powers that be
and others said yes we must give to Caesar what is his and to God what is God’s
as for our conscience that belongs to God
and as for earth’s resources, does Caesar really have legitimate claim
or is the earth, and all that in it is, the Lord’s?
Can Caesar command us to use earth’s resources to pay for his killings?
And some sons and daughters of the faith said no
and refused to pay voluntarily that portion of their taxes designated for defense
offering the money for the use of human help instead.
And in America church agencies faced difficult decisions
should they withhold Caesar’s taxes from employees who for conscience’ sake requested noncompliance?
Should they respect the law of Caesar or the conscience of faith?
And some structures and some persons of faith were threatened by such questions sensing many implications
and officers advised that issues should be carefully researched.
And in America’s House of Representatives
legislation called the World Peace Tax Fund Act was introduced
seeking provision for channeling of tax monies into pursuits of peace
and some were hopeful that this might ease their conscience problem
and others questioned whether it would even be enacted
and if it might become
another way for Caesar to still the voices of protest.
And now the sons and daughters of the enemy-loving kingdom
are calling for a conference on the war tax program
and from across America and Canada they will come
to seek the Light, to walk in Love, to discern and do the Truth.
And so forth. A less versified and more skeptical article immediately followed:
“Tax
resistance — A form of protest?” by Carl M. Lehman — one of the best
critiques of modern war tax resistance I have read.
The tragedy of Vietnam and the part played by our country has led some to a
form of protest heretofore little known among our people — resistance to
paying taxes. The fact that the war has been so widely criticized both by
pacifists and nonpacifists has had something to do with this phenomenon. What
a sensitive pacifist felt he could do during World War Ⅱ, when all his friends
and neighbors were deeply involved in the war effort, was usually different
from what he would do during a Vietnam War.
Tax resistance is a form of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience itself is
deeply rooted in the origins of our church, as it is in the beginnings of our
land. But it has traditionally only been used in ultimate tests of loyalty to
God. To use tax resistance under other circumstances is a breakaway from our
Anabaptist tradition. To use it lightly is an affront to government by the
people.
I have a profound respect for those who believe deeply this is the course they
must take. God uses people with courage and conviction, even if he has to
change them a bit. I must admit however that I am perplexed as I try to
understand how some have arrived at their decision not to pay taxes.
The activist I understand. He will use any means he believes right to agitate
and bring about a change. Most will stop short of physical violence, but I
sometimes wonder about that. People can be violated more completely in other
ways.
I understand the absolutist, and I understand the literalist who will not eat
meat offered to idols. I do not find it easy to understand Mennonite tax
resisters who are neither literalists nor agitators.
It is sometimes suggested that modern warfare has made the individual soldier
relatively unimportant. Armament is all-important. Armament costs staggering
amounts of money and today’s conscientious objector is straining at a gnat as
he swallows a camel if he does not refuse to pay taxes.
There is a certain logic to this. Unfortunately it equates money with people.
This is not only bad economics but bad Christianity. Money is a medium of
exchange; people are not. Money does not kill people; people kill people. Only
people make guns and bombs people use to kill people. Maybe Jesus had
this in mind when he looked at the coin and said “Render unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s”?
What is meant by war taxes?
Tax resisters are not opposed to paying taxes as such, only to paying war
taxes. This poses a problem, for we really do not have war taxes. We have a
federal income tax, import duties, and excise taxes on things like liquor,
tobacco, and telephone service. These taxes flow into the general treasury and
are commingled. They are used only as Congress appropriates money out of the
treasury. The Internal Revenue Service has nothing to do with how the money is
spent. The only money segregated is that which goes into special trust funds
such as social security, unemployment compensation, and highway construction.
Some have singled out the telephone excise tax with the notion that the
proceeds are for military purposes in a way not true for other taxes. Our
government does have a long tradition of levying additional excise taxes as it
wages war, both to control inflation and to replenish the treasury.
by far
the most important source of revenue has been the income tax. Excise taxes
were increased, too, but were no longer the major source of revenue. By
they accounted for less than 7 percent with
the telephone tax providing about 1 percent. None of this is used for military
purposes any more than is any other tax. The fact that Congress called it a
“defense tax” when initiated in and
reenacted in has no bearing on its use, only
on its palatability for passage.
What is meant by the term “war taxes” varies with the user. It is usually
someone’s calculation of the percentage of the president’s proposed national
budget which the president suggests be used for military purposes. This
percentage varies. Those who want it to look small include social security
payments as part of the total budget. Presidents now publish budgets showing
it that way.
There is also disagreement as to what is to be included as military
spending. The often-publicized 60 percent is calculated by first removing
social security from the budget. Everything related to wars, past, present,
and future, is then lumped together. Those willing to care for veterans and
who believe the government should pay interest on war debts drop it to 40
percent. Arbitrarily, resisters then figure that 60 percent or 40 percent of
their taxes are “war taxes” and deduct this from the amount they pay.
There is no legal basis for it, just a logic that is easily grasped.
What actually happens?
Much of the discussion about the moral basis for tax resistance has not been
clear. The dominant note is that waging war is evil; our taxes increase the
magnitude of war; if the government does not get our taxes, the evil is
reduced accordingly. It is not clear why, if this is true, we would want to
withhold only 60 percent. Why not withhold 100 percent and further reduce the
evil?
The supposition apparently is that the other 40 percent will go for functions
of government resisters are willing to support. Unfortunately this is not
true, as we will see in a minute.
Federal spending is a function of government not related to collecting taxes.
It is the responsibility of a different group of people. Talking to the
telephone company or to the Internal Revenue Service about the use of your tax
money is as pointless as arguing with the janitor at the Chase Manhattan Bank
about giving you a loan.
The amount the federal government spends for a given purpose is only
indirectly related, if at all, to the amount collected in taxes. If you know
about the federal debt, you know this. Nor is the amount spent determined by
the president’s budget. The budget is a plan the Congress may or may not
follow when it passes appropriation bills.
The amount of tax money collected does have an eventual effect on the amount
spent inasmuch as Congress sets for itself borrowing limits — limits which it
keeps changing. When a tax resister withholds a dollar from the government,
the government can either increase its borrowing by a dollar or decrease its
spending by that amount. What the resister needs to understand is that defense
appropriations are almost always approved by overwhelming majorities. As long
as the Pentagon receives this kind of support, tax resistance will have no
effect at all on the amount of money available for war. What tax resisters
actually do is either force a cut in highly desirable programs such as aid to
education — or increase the national debt. In either case an even larger
percent of the money they pay goes for military purposes.
It would be just as reasonable for a Mennonite farmer to withhold 10 percent
of his wheat from the market because 10 percent of all wheat produced was
found to be used directly or indirectly for military purposes. Soldiers would
still get their bread and so would all but the poorest of Americans.
Can the tax resister play a useful role?
Civil disobedience has been used by the church ever since the day Peter said.
“We must obey God rather than men.” The resister who believes in direct action
as a way to call attention to the terrible evil of a Vietnam War may well have
a role to play. God has many ways of using people. Some of us, however, find
it difficult to reconcile it with the teaching and spirit of Jesus. Harassing
telephone company employees and the Internal Revenue Service is not in keeping
with an invitation to Zacchaeusto come down from the sycamore tree. We may not
mean to harass them, but how do they feel about it?
Why not turn to congressmen? They decide how our money is to be used. This is
where our attention must focus if we are serious about a responsible Christian
witness. We elect them and they need to know what we think. Our letters, our
telephone calls, and our visits are important to them. Because so few write
and so few visit, our voice becomes as the voice of a thousand.
Working thus with Congress has not been without effect. Perhaps a World Peace
Tax Fund bill will not become law, but working for it has been constructive.
Such a provision, too, has its limitations, as do all alternative service
programs. Let us not delude ourselves about any imagined effect on military
spending. It would be tragic if such an enactment were to assuage our
conscience and we were to reduce our pressure on Congress to keep military
spending down.
(I sent a link to the above article to wtr-s — a mailing list for people interested in war tax resistance — and asked how they would respond to Lehman’s arguments.
Click here to see the responses.)
Following this came
the
news that the Commission on Home Ministries had come up with a proposed
solution to the problem of employees of General Conference Mennonite Church
institutions who wanted not to have war taxes withheld from their paychecks.
The proposal was “based on the research and recommendations of Ruth C.
Stoltzfus, a Boston law student who spent the summer on a special war tax
research assignment for CHM.”
The proposal recommended that the
church agency ceases withholding from the employee who is conscientiously
opposed to this. At the next interval when withheld funds are paid over to the
government, submit a statement along with the withheld non-war percentage of
taxes explaining that this action is based on your claim under the First
Amendment and on the AFSC
case which was reversed on other grounds.
According to Stoltzfus,
criminal prosecution of the church agency would be “extremely unlikely, both
in view of the lack of ‘evil motive’ and the reasonable cause to have acted on
the basis of a district court case.”
The district court decision had already been overturned by this time, but the
Commission felt they could still rely on it because:
The U.S. Supreme
Court later overturned the district court decision, but only on the basis that
such an injunction [the
AFSC’s,
demanding the return of already paid withholding taxes] could not be served
against the Internal Revenue Service. The court did not address the religious
claim.
The recommendation to the General Conference would bypass the injunction
difficulty, since it would not require the conference to sue for a refund.
Thus if the government brought suit against the conference, conscientious
refusal to withhold war taxes could be tested in court on its own merits.
Some 115 persons gathered at First Mennonite Church in Kitchener, Ontario,
to seek
theological and practical discernment on war tax issues. Their concern grew
out of the Mennonite and Brethren in Christ heritage of the way of peace and
the growing menace of the world arms race.
Unlike some Mennonite peace gatherings of the past decade, the under-thirty
set did not predominate at Kitchener. Laborers, pastors, homemakers, and
teachers shared their concerns. Students from as far as Swift Current Bible
Institute and Eastern Mennnonite College came to Kitchener.
A response recommended specifically for
U.S. citizens
suggested refusal “to pay federal tax, or a percentage thereof, since such a
large part is used for military purposes, and… willingness to accept the legal
consequences of such a conscientious objection to supporting war,
acknowledging the illegal aspect of the act and inviting the opportunities to
witness at various levels which it brings.”
It included a call to “bring taxable income below the taxable level by
adjusting standard of living through earning less income, through donating up
to the maximum allowable 50 percent of income to charitable causes or through
other types of deduction and/or dependent claiming which are legally
allowable.”
Responses recommended for Canadians included to “call upon our government to
legislate against the export of military weapons and systems” and to “affirm
and support individuals who feel led to actions (actual or symbolic) that
focus conscientious objection in particular ways:
Tax withholding, a withholding of that portion to taxes going for defense
as a symbolic act
Tax overpayment, an overpayment of that portion of the
GNP
that derives from defense export.”
Other action recommendations affirmed “that Mennonite institutions make
allowance for individual expression of conscience concerning tax refusal and
withholding,” “that the Meetinghouse format deal with the war tax
issue as soon as possible,” and “that a study guide and packet of resource
material on the war tax issue be made available to congregations for further
discernment on the matter.”
Conference planners Harold Regier and Peter Ediger, editors of “God and
Caesar,” a war tax newsletter from Newton, Kansas, and Ted Koontz of
MCC
Peace Section
(U.S.) indicated
plans to carry on efforts to raise consciousness about war tax and militarism
issues, while the world waits for Armageddon.
This is the twenty-third in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
brings us up to 1976.
The question of whether the Mennonite General Conference should stop
withholding taxes from the paychecks of conscientiously objecting employees
continued to bedevil the Conference and its various committees and commissions
in . After the American Friends Service
Committee won a District Court ruling about withholding from its objecting
employees, the General Conference was pressed to adopt such a policy. But that
ruling was swiftly overturned by the Supreme Court, and so the Conference
seemed to lose its nerve.
In the executive committee of
the General Conference’s Commission
on Home Ministries decided to put on its agenda for their full-commission
meeting in a “recommendation
that the General Conference not withhold the military portion of income taxes
from the paychecks of those employees who do not wish to pay war taxes
voluntarily. This would mean that such employees, rather than the conference,
could be responsible for the decision of whether to pay war taxes to the
government.”
That proposed recommendation
was
approved at the meeting, “but referred for further study by the Division of
Administration and the General Board.”
A article covered the slow
progress of the proposal through the Conference bureaucracy:
Should General Conference employees have the right not to have war taxes
withheld by the conference from their paychecks?
For the time being, the answer is still no, pending further study and the
securing of more legal counsel.
The peace and social concerns reference council of the Commission on Home
Ministries raised the issue of war-tax withholding by the conference. The
reference council recommended that the General Conference central offices
allow persons the right not to have taxes withheld (in line with research done
last summer by a law student), that other Mennonite institutions be invited to
participate in similar action, and that congregations and individuals be
invited to consider war tax resistance.
“Freedom of religion includes freedom from the church forced by the state to
act as a tax collection agent, particularly when taxes are used for purposes
which are in conflict with the kingdom,” said the reference council statement.
“The Anabaptist concept of separation of church and state would also suggest
that the church not perform this kind of state function.”
The Commission on Home Ministries, in its annual session in
, approved the recommendation
with some reservations. The Division of Administration had even more
reservations about the recommendation.
DA
members questioned the legal findings of last summer and asked for further
consultation with a tax attorney with more experience in this area.
Specifically they wanted to know the cost of possible litigation, whether a
revenue ruling should be requested from the Internal Revenue Service, possible
civil and criminal sanctions against the General Conference, the effect on the
conference’s tax-exempt status, and the chances of success in the event of
litigation.
“Conscience is a personal thing, and we’re not together on what we want to do
with this,” said
DA
chairman Howard Baumgartner of Berne, Indiana. “CHM
is asking that the business manager be put on the spot. What if his conscience
doesn’t permit him to break this law? My conscience tells me to pay my tax.”
In the closing minutes of its sessions, the General Board, acting on the
recommendation of the
DA,
asked the
DA to
do further study on the legal aspects of failure to withhold taxes and to
bring back some information at the General Board’s
meeting.
“I’m not willing to face the legal consequences until we’re fairly united on
this,” said conference president Elmer Neufeld of Bluffton, Ohio.
At present, the General Conference central offices withhold all state and
federal income taxes from the paychecks of nonordained employees. Such persons
cannot choose whether to pay or not to pay any war taxes they owe because the
government already has the money, or most of it.
Editor Larry Kehler, in the
issue called this a “red flag”:
Although some leaders from other denominations may be beginning to notice and
listen to the Anabaptist-Mennonite point of view as an attractive option, the
Mennonites may be losing their testimony as a peace church. One committee at
the Council of Commissions stated, for example, in its opinion there was no
“corporate conscience” within the General Conference against the payment of
war taxes.
And Peter J. Ediger summed things up in his prose-poem fashion:
It came to pass that an employee of the General Conference Mennonite Church
requested that taxes for the military not be withheld from her paycheck.
And officers of the conference said, “What shall we do?”
And the Commission on Home Ministries was asked to study the matter
and make a recommendation.
And the commission hired a student of law to research the options;
and the commission joined with other Mennonite groups in calling for a study conference on war tax questions.
And from the research and the conference came a clear recommendation
that the General Conference allow persons the right
not to have war taxes withheld.
And when this recommendation was brought to the Commission on Home Ministries
there was a consensus of support and agreement to recommend its adoption to the General Board.
And the recommendation was brought to the Division of Administration.
And lo, their response was as follows:
“Motion that the request of CHM for right not to have taxes withheld
from salaries of employees who submit such request be refused…”
and listing six recommendations asking for more legal counsel.
And so the conflicting recommendations were brought to the General Board.
And the General Board was occupied with many weighty matters.
The agenda was long and the time for discernment was short
and war taxes was the last item on the agenda
and five minutes was left for this item
and no action was taken.
And the conference goes on with business as usual
continuing collection of money for making of war
seeking its guidance more from the law of the land
and less from the law of the Lord.
Do we really want the laws and lawyers of our society
to define the perimeters of our discipleship?
The
General Board executive committee met in
and “allotted two hours at the
full board session in … for discussion of
whether the conference should honor an employee’s request that federal income
taxes not be deducted from her paycheck. Theological input on the payment of
war taxes was also requested.”
The way this was put in
an
announcement just before the board meeting was: “The Division of
Administration… wants to continue its policy of not honoring employees’
requests that the portion of their federal taxes which goes for war not be
taking out of their paychecks.”
The board met and… kicked the can further down the road.
After almost three hours of discussion by the General Board of the General
Conference, a decision is still pending on whether the conference should honor
an employee’s request that the portion of her income taxes that goes for war
not be taken out of her pay.
The board had set aside two hours at the end of its midyear meeting
in Washington, Illinois, to
consider the issue of war tax withholding. Marlin Miller of Goshen Biblical
Seminary had been invited to give biblical input, and Division of
Administration members Howard Baumgartner and Elvin Souder, both attorneys, to
give legal recommendations.
The issue was whether the General Conference business office should violate
U.S. law by
refusing to take from an employee’s paycheck the portion (almost half) of her
federal income taxes which would go for military purposes. Such action would
allow the employee to refuse to pay such taxes and would make her personally
liable for nonpayment of tax.
The law at present requires employers to withhold income and Social Security
taxes from employees’ salaries — except in the case of ordained employees, who
may legally consider themselves self-employed and are thus personally
responsible for making, or not making, quarterly tax payments. A number of
ordained employees at the General Conference offices are already refusing war
taxes in this manner.
Nonordained employees have no way of refusing war taxes except by falsifying
their tax returns or the number of exemptions they claim.
The General Board did not vote on a normal motion on the war tax matter, but
straw poll showed a slight majority in favor of allowing all employees the
right to refuse war taxes, in spite of the possible consequences to the
conference or its officers for breaking the law. But the board was not willing
to act officially until it reached greater consensus.
“We are facing an issue of our own integrity as a people and as a church,”
said board member Peter Ediger of Arvada, Colorado. “It is a situation not
unlike that of our grandfathers in World War Ⅰ. Because some of them had the
courage to say no, laws were enacted to permit conscientious objection to
military service. And it is an evangelism issue. Our world desperately needs
the good news that there is an alternative to violence and war. We can do this
with the kind of integrity that perhaps no other corporate group in our world
can.”
Some like Irene Dunn of Normal, Illinois, were not ready to decide personally
about payment of war taxes, but wanted to allow General Conference employees
freedom of conscience concerning war taxes.
Others wanted to postpone the issue. “It’s my feeling we should take a
recommendation to the triennial conference,” said board president Elmer
Neufeld of Bluffton, Ohio.
In the end the decision was postponed — probably until the
board session.
Marlin Miller, himself a tax refuser for seven years, told the board that the
legality of refusing war taxes was not the highest morality. “If we are clear
on the moral principles, we will find a way to deal with the legal matters,”
he said.
His biblical study focused on Mark 12:13–17
(in which Jesus tells those who are trying to trick him, “Render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”) and
Romans 13.
There is no unambiguous word in the New Testament on whether the Christian
should pay all taxes he said. But likewise, there is no clear statement in the
New Testament on not going to military service. “Taxes are due to the
governing authorities, but there is still a need for moral discrimination,”
Mr. Miller said.
Howard Baumgartner told the board that, if it decided to allow an employee not
to pay her war taxes, it might want to test the constitutionality of the
withholding law in the
U.S. courts. An
earlier similar case from the American Friends Service Committee had been
thrown out on technical grounds without testing the tax law itself.
Elmer Neufeld, president of the General Conference, sent
a
letter to all General Conference pastors on the subject:
Should the conference withhold taxes for war?
Some time ago I reviewed a number of the court-martial records of the
Mennonite men in the United States in World War Ⅰ who were tried for refusing
to participate in military service. These were our fathers and fathers’
fathers who had committed their lives to the way of the cross and who held
with the saints of all ages that there is a law of God which stands above the
human laws of the nation.
There was no legal provision for conscientious objection to military service
and war, so they simply took their stand in humble obedience to Christ and
accepted the consequences. Gerhard M. Baergen… guilty. Abraham Goertz… guilty.
Russell A. Lantz… guilty. John T. Neufeld… guilty. Carl A. Schmidt… guilty.
Walter Sprunger… guilty. And so on.
It is through the sacrifice of these sturdy men of conscience that the United
States came to provide a legal alternative to military service and war for
those with scruples against participation. It is through their sacrifice that
many of us were able to use this legal alternative in World War Ⅱ and again in
the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Now we face a new situation. For the first time
, except for a brief lull
following World War Ⅱ, our churches in the United States no longer face the
conscription of young men for military service. For this many have worked and
for this we are grateful. However, it is clear that conscription for military
service was not terminated because the United States has come to rely less on
military power. In fact, the United States has come to be militarily the most
powerful nation in the world and is exporting more armaments than any other
nation in the world. All of this is possible with well-paid volunteer armed
forces and a heavily financed industrial military complex. The military
complex is able to get along without our young men as draftees, but it insists
on having our finances to support its multibillion dollar operation.
More and more there are those among us whose consciences no longer allow them
freely to support this military machine. Though they realize that Christians
have usually paid their taxes through the centuries, even to strongly
militaristic governments, they believe that the vast sums required today are
too much, that it is once more time to withstand the military powers that
threaten to destroy all of humankind, that Caesar is demanding not only what
belongs to Caesar, but also what belongs to God.
I was deeply impressed as we went about the circle of General Board members
and staff [at the meeting] that
almost all had struggled with this issue of conscience and that most had in
some way protested the vast sums being required for military purposes. Though
it is appropriate for us as a people to counsel together whether it is right
in the sight of God to keep paying these war taxes, this is also an issue on
which individuals and families will make their own decisions — and we will not
all make the same decisions.
However, as a conference we face a more complex question. Not only must our
individual members and families decide what to do about war taxes, but the
conference as an employer must collect taxes, including taxes for war, for the
government. We are collecting taxes not only from those who are willing to pay
the whole amount to the government, but also from those who have Christian
convictions against supporting the military in this way. Cornelia Lehn is one
such person. (See below.) A number of ordained ministers working for the
conference are self-employed for tax purposes and thus can make their protest
in whatever way seems appropriate. But for others this is not possible.
So the issue before the General Board in
was whether the General
Conference as an employer should continue to withhold federal income tax
money, even from those employees who have conscientious objection to this, and
send that money to the government.
The Commission on Home Ministries recommends that the conference should no
longer withhold taxes from those employees who have convictions against such
payments. On the other hand, the Division of Administration has serious
concerns about the consequences for the conference in violating the laws of
the land.
The General Board in its meeting
had a long and intensive discussion, with representatives of the Commission on
Home Ministries and the Division of Administration and with counsel on
biblical principles from Marlin Miller, president of Goshen Biblical Seminary,
as well as Erland Waltner, president of Mennonite Biblical Seminary.
A larger and larger majority of General Board members have serious
reservations about serving as a tax collector from those employees who have
Christian convictions against the payment of such taxes. At the same time we
were sensitive that we were being called to make a decision not only for
ourselves but for the whole conference and that we have not yet had adequate
dialog with our congregations about this issue.
What is the will of God for the General Conference in this issue? What is your
counsel for the General Board? We did not act because it was clear that we had
not come to consensus, but the issue will continue to face us and we will
continue to struggle for the right decision.
One possible course of action is for the General Board in its
meeting to formulate a recommendation
to be sent to the congregations for study and for corporate consideration at
the triennial sessions of the General Conference in
.
I want to touch on a related question: Is this one of those conference issues
which is of concern only to the United States and not to Canada? Will our
brothers and sisters in Canada feel like washing their hands of this issue? Or
is this one of those cases when one part of the body is in trouble and the
whole body struggles together? May it in fact be possible that the Canadians
can help those of us in the American churches see ourselves a bit more
objectively?
Can we possibly come to the place, in the words of the Acts of the Apostles,
that it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us together that we should
decide this issue in a certain way? Surely if we search together in openness
and honesty and in a spirit of prayer, God will not forsake his people.
A letter from Conference employee Cornelia Lehn was also enclosed in Neufeld’s
letter:
I work for the General Conference Mennonite Church at 722 Main
St., Newton, Kansas. Each month
a certain percentage of my salary is deducted for income tax purposes before I
receive it. The business office is legally requested to do so for all
employees except for those who have been ordained to the ministry.
We are told that approximately 50 percent of the income tax deducted goes to
buy armaments. When I first started working here, this did not bother me too
much, even though I believed strongly in nonresistance. After all, did not
Jesus himself pay taxes
(Mt. 17:24-27)?
Why then should I refuse to do so?
The whole question of personal responsibility began to tear at my heart and
mind, however. We held the people condemned at Nuremberg responsible for their
deeds, although they had just “obeyed the government.” We held Captain Calley
responsible for his deeds at My Lai, though he, too, thought he had obeyed the
government. Why should I not be held responsible to obeying the government
when it was asking me to do an evil thing? Though Jesus paid taxes, the spirit
of his teachings is to do good, not evil, to our fellow human beings. I became
convinced that allowing my money to be used for armaments could not be God’s
will and that if it was used in that way I must bear at least part of the
responsibility.
The big question then was how to get out of being involved in this crime. I
could not refuse to pay a portion of my tax, since the whole tax was already
withheld. I asked our conference office not to withhold from my paycheck that
portion of the income tax that goes for war, but they could not grant that
request. I considered the options, such as reducing my paycheck to the point
where I would not need to pay any taxes or reducing it to the point where I
would need to pay only half the taxes I do now.
Finally I decided to give half of my income to relief and other church work
and thus force the Internal Revenue Service to return that portion of my tax
which they had already slated for military purposes.
I realize, of course, that this is not the perfect answer. Of the 50 percent
that IRS
still has of my income tax, half will again be used to meet the military
budget. It is, however, the best answer I know at this time. Finally I could
no longer acquiesce and be a part of something so diabolical as war. I had to
take a stand against it.
I wish that my church, which believes in the way of peace, would as a body no
longer gather money to help the government make war. I wish all the members of
our church would stand up in horror and refuse to allow it to happen. Then the
conference officers would be in a position to say to the government, “We will
not give you our sons and daughters, and we will not give you our money to
kill others. Allow us to serve our country in the way of peace.”
Don
Kaufman wrote in to the magazine on to praise Neufeld’s letter and to say that the dialogue about the
issue had been beneficial to the community, but also to criticize the church
for its timidity in the face of the law:
[A]s Christians we seem to be far more accountable to the government than we
are to the church. I have sometimes wondered why it is that we are more
willing to allow the secular authorities to shape us and to “keep us in line”
than we are to receive guidance from our brothers and sisters in Christ. The
major exceptions to this in the General Conference Mennonite Church appear to
be the intentional communities of faith like Fairview Mennonite House and the
New Creation Fellowship, where economic discernment is more obviously a part
of the Christin commitment.
This is the twenty-fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today brings us up to 1977.
In our last episode we watched various executive committees and commissions and boards in the Mennonite General Conference pass the buck back and forth as the Conference impatiently waited to learn whether they would or would not continue to withhold taxes from the paychecks of their conscientiously objecting employees.
The board [General Board, I think ―♇] was sharply divided on whether to grant the employee’s request and thus risk violating tax regulations.
Board members also could not agree on whether the issue should be decided by the board or wait for action by the entire conference at the triennial sessions in .
Cornelia Lehn, the employee bringing the request, met with the board for the first time and told them, “It was also a very difficult decision for me over a long period of years.
Finally I gave up seeing through the difficulties; for me, I simply had to obey God and leave the consequences up to him.”
The resolution reviews the history of General Conference discussion of the war tax issues from a sentence in the statement “The Way of Peace” [see ♇ 22 July 2018] to General Board deliberations on an employee’s request that war taxes not be taken out of her paycheck.
The resolution asks that congregations and regional conferences “commit ourselves to a serious study of civil disobedience during , that the Commission on Home Ministries help facilitate such a study… and that a midtriennium miniconference be convened for congregations to report on their study and to recommend actions related to civil disobedience and war tax resistance, including the question of Mennonite institutions serving as war tax collectors for the state by withholding these taxes from employees.”
In three separate votes, the delegates first turned down, 1,190 to 336, an amendment which would have adopted an interim policy for eighteen months “instructing the conference to honor the requests of those employees who ask not to have withheld from their salaries that portion of federal income tax they believe helps the government prepare for war.”
The next evening, delegates adopted, 1,178½ to 453½, the main motion.
Its effect is to delay any action on the request of conference employee Cornelia Lehn that federal income taxes that would go for war not be taken out of her paycheck.
It also calls for a midtriennium official delegate conference to recommend actions related to civil disobedience and war tax resistance, including the question of Mennonite institutions serving as war tax collectors for the state by withholding these taxes from employees.
A second resolution that evening gave General Conference endorsement to the World Peace Tax Fund Act in the U.S. Congress and encouraged similar legislation in Canada, if appropriate.
The act would allow conscientious objectors to war to designate the military portion of their taxes into the peace fund.
The resolution also “continue(s) to support individuals who feel compelled by Chrisian conscience to adopt other methods of witness against payment of war taxes such as voluntary reduction of income or nonpayment of war taxes.”
Cornelia Lehn tells of her struggle with war taxes.
Discussion of the war tax withholding issue began with a testimony by Ms. Lehn, who writes and edits children’s curriculum for the Commission on Education, who first came to the conference business manager two years ago with a request that she be allowed to resist payment of war taxes.
Presently the business office is following federal regulations that estimated taxes be withheld from each employee’s paycheck.
The regulations do not apply, however, to ordained persons employed by the conference, some of whom are resisting voluntary payment of war taxes without implicating the conference as a whole.
“It is a long journey from the little Mennonite village in the Ukraine, where I was born, to Newton, Kansas,” she began.
“It was a long pilgrimage until I came to the conviction to resist war taxes and was able to act on it.”
Ms. Lehn told of her struggle with the command to pay taxes, on the one hand, and the knowledge that her tax dollars were being used for killing.
“I can’t extricate myself from the system, but I finally have to take a stand against a demonic armaments race,” she said.
“I do not know where this will lead, but… for my part, I must obey the Spirit of God as I understand it to be revealed in the Bible and leave the consequences to God.”
Delegates kept coming to the microphones to speak to the resolution until debate was cut off.
“As a pastor, I could not advocate civil disobedience,” said Dan Dalke of Bluffton.
“The taxes Jesus said to pay were to the Roman Government,” said a former IRS employee.
“I have proper respect for laws, but I also recognize that if Felix Manz, Conrad Grebel, and Menno Simons had had greater fear for the law than for God, we would probably not be here today,” commented Lauren Friesen, pastor from Seattle.
“This morning we passed a resolution supporting missionaries for acting faithfully in oppressive situations abroad,” said Steve Linscheid of Goessel, Kansas.
“We should not expect more from our missionaries than we are willing to do ourselves.”
“Many people are concerned about our tax dollar, but we should work much harder trying to come to a common mind with other Mennonite groups,” said Henry A. Fast of North Newton, Kansas.
“We should keep on pushing the World Peace Tax Fund Act.”
Donovan Smucker of Kitchener, Ontario, cited many Christians throughout the ages who have obeyed God rather than man and said, “The problem is, When do you stop the democratic process that is pushing you into something that is evil?”
“It’s best to work through the system and use the privileges we already have,” said Art Waltner.
“Our right to conscientious objection to military service did not come through petition in Washington,” Ted Koontz of Boston reminded the delegates.
“It came because our forefathers spent years in prison in World War Ⅰ.”
The World Peace Tax Fund resolution, which supports legislation to allow people to resist war taxes without breaking the law, passed later in the evening by voice vote without audible opposition.
Most of the U.S. district conferences had already adopted resolutions supporting the proposed legislation.
In a way, this was more of a triumph than a defeat for the promoters of war tax resistance.
If the triennium had voted the other way, one employee, and maybe a handful more, would have benefited somewhat from the new policy.
But by voting this way, the triennium prompted discussions in every Mennonite congregation about whether or not war tax resistance was the right thing to do.
There was… lengthy deliberation about the midtriennium civil disobedience conference called for by a Bluffton resolution.
One of the main concerns was whether Canadian churches would see the issue of civil disobedience and war tax as relevant to them.
Would they send delegates?
Another worry was whether delegates would carry a large number of proxy votes.
The constitution of the General Conference allows for a quorum with 50 percent representation, and since one delegate can carry up to twenty-five votes by proxy, it would be possible for forty persons to make a decision affecting the whole conference.
About 1,000 votes are needed for a quorum.
The hope was expressed that the study process being initiated would create good interest and also broadly based, informed representation.
Beginning in an attitudinal survey on civil disobedience is scheduled.
A study guide is to be ready by for use in Sunday school sessions and other study groups.
A definite place and time for the midtriennium conference will be decided later, though is a strong possibility.
Already the executive committee is faced with a question of civil disobedience.
Only a few days prior to the meeting the Newton office received notice from the Internal Revenue Service of the United States to pay personal income taxes owed by Heinz Janzen (general secretary) and his wife, Dorothea Janzen.
Since Heinz is ordained, it is legal for him to categorize himself as self-employed, and hence, his salary check from the General Conference has no income tax deductions.
he has been refusing to pay the military portion of his income tax, placing it in a bank account, and informing the IRS of his reasons.
Until this levy arrived the IRS has simply confiscated the bank accounts of such persons and withdrawn the unpaid portion from the accounts.
Now the IRS has demanded that the General Conference employer be responsible for paying Heinz’s unpaid tax out of Heinz’s salary check.
The executive committee decided to delay a decision on the IRS levy until the meeting of the General Board.
They were concerned that any action in the current case is not to be seen as a predetermination of the issues which by Bluffton conference resolution are to come before the midtriennial conference.
They did, however, see the levy as different from the request of General Conference employee Cornelia Lehn to have the military portion of her tax not withheld from her salary check by the General Conference.
The Janzen case is seen as civil disobedience by individuals and not by the incorporated body, the General Conference.
This is the twenty-fifth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I’m going to try to cover 1978.
I say “try” because there was a frenzy of war tax resistance activity reported in The Mennonite .
Maybe I can try to sort it thematically…
A New Call to Peacemaking
“A New Call to Peacemaking” was an initiative coordinated by Mennonite, Quaker, and Brethren activists that began in and would eventually culminate in a statement urging people, Christians in particular, to refuse to pay taxes for war.
The Mennonite General Conference’s Peace Section,
U.S. division, met
and its executive secretary, John K. Stoner, reported that the Call
“has
gained widespread support.”
Invited to the meeting are 300 persons — Brethren, Friends, and Mennonites.
Named the New Call to Peacemaking, this coalition of historic peace churches
believes that “the time has come for all Christians and people of all faiths
to renounce war on religious and moral grounds.”
During the last year twenty-six regional New Call to Peacemaking meetings, involving more than 1500 persons, took a new look at the teachings of their churches.
They gave special attention to war and violence which they continue to see as denials of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Not surprisingly the groups agreed to urge upon all governments “effective
steps toward international disarmament.” However, none of the regional
meetings expressed the hope that politicians, soldiers, and diplomats would
put an end to war. Rather, the thought was that people at the grass-roots
level must demand a change in the system. Further, the idea was often
expressed that tax resistance and civil disobedience are necessary tactics in
convincing governments that a new order can bring security in place of the
present insecurity.
A New Call to Peacemaking conference which convened at Old Chatham, New York, last April, asked itself rhetorically, “Are we going to pray for peace, and pay for war?” A similar conference in Wichita, Kansas, gave its encouragement to “individuals who feel called to resist the payment of the military portion of their federal taxes.”
When the national conference convenes in Green Lake it will be receiving
requests from the regional meetings for a strong position on tax resistance
proposals. It will also be asked to give guidance to individuals and church
organizations on approaches to tax resistance. Theological, economic, and
social justice issues are also on the agenda.
“Citizens should organize themselves and act without waiting for government, especially the major powers, to take positive action,” says Robert Johansen in a paper being studied by the Green Lake delegates.
In another document prepared for the Green Lake meeting, Lois Barrett, a
Mennonite journalist from Wichita, Kansas, notes that the peace churches have
long “recognized refusal to pay war taxes as one of many valid witnesses
against war.”
In the Church of the Brethren recommended “that all who feel the concern be encouraged to express their protest and testimonies through letters accompanying their tax returns, whether accompanied by payment or not.” In the General Conference Mennonite Church said, “We stand by those who feel called to resist the payment of that portion of taxes being used for military purposes.”
The number of persons within the peace churches actually withholding a portion
of their taxes is still thought to be small, but it is growing. The Internal
Revenue Service will not release figures on the number of tax resisters in the
United States.
Members of the Green Lake planning group include John K. Stoner, Mennonite Central Committee, Akron, Pennsylvania; Lorton Heusel, Friends United Meeting, Richmond, Indiana; and Chuck Boyer, Church of the Brethren, Elgin, Illinois.
Coordinator for the New Call to Peacemaking is Robert J. Rumsey, Plainfield, Indiana.
After the gathering, The Mennonite seemed surprised at how tame and nonconfrontational it ended up being (they titled their article “Peacemakers shy away from shocking anyone”).
Excerpts:
The Green Lake conference is part of a cooperative effort by the historic peace groups to do five things — stir up rededication to the Christian peace witness, clarify the biblical basis for it, extend a call to the larger church to see peacemaking as a gospel imperative, propose actions the U.S. Government can take for peacemaking, and determine contemporary positive strategy for peace and justice.
Planning for the consultation began in and has included 26 regional meetings in 16 different areas of the United States.
Over 1500 people were involved in these meetings.
[Church of the Brethren theologian and professor Dale] Brown said one new way of expressing a peace witness was to protest the country’s military expenditures by withholding income taxes.
Tax resistance, he reflected, is an important symbol because it involves our pocketbooks and enlarges the peace witness beyond what 17- and 18-year-old youth do in response to conscription.
[T]he findings committee created a final document satisfying the diverse peaceniks.
For the conservative the final statement was too radical; for the activists it was too limp.
There are two main thrusts to the document — actions that are directed inward
among the peace churches to enhance the integrity of the peace witness, and
actions that are directed outward to enlarge the visibility of the peace
witness.
At the end of the national New Call to Peacemaking conference delegates urged all Friends (Quakers), Mennonites, and Brethren to firmly oppose militarism and to become personally involved in the struggle for justice for the oppressed.
Included in the final paper approved is a call to the 400,000 members of the three peace church
traditions “to seriously consider refusal to pay the military portion of their
federal taxes as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.” This
statement is as strong as the 300 delegates could jointly affirm.
Other parts of the war tax statement are equally muted.
In the first draft of the paper, church and conference agencies were asked to “honor” the requests of employees who do not want the military portion of their taxes remitted to the government.
In the final draft, however, “honor” is changed to “enter into dialogue with.” Several evangelical Quakers were especially antagonistic to even including a reference to war tax resistance in the final document.
Yet tax resistance received new encouragement from the conference.
About 60 persons attended a Saturday afternoon workshop which detailed tax resistance strategies.
Studying the War Tax Issue and Christian Civil Responsibility
The Mennonite General Conference had been asked to stop withholding taxes from the paycheck of one of its conscientiously objecting employees.
This led to a long debate over the advisability of such a policy that caused arguments about war tax resistance to echo throughout the Conference in .
A special General Conference delegate session was scheduled to convene in just to respond to this single issue.
In preparation for that session, congregations had been encouraged to put some
serious effort into understanding the subject, and some studies were written up
to help guide these investigations.
A Christian’s response to civil authority will be given concentrated emphasis by the General Conference during .
The study is an outcome of a resolution at the triennial conference in Bluffton, Ohio, .
That resolution called for a thorough study of civil disobedience which is intended to state an official position of the General Conference with respect to that portion of income taxes which are used for funding military expenditures, and in general, to research the whole question of obedience-disobedience to civil authority.
Responsibility for the study has been given to the peace and social concerns
committee of the Commission on Home Ministries. They, however, requested that
a special obedience-civil disobedience committee be formed to give general
direction and leadership. This latter group consists of Palmer Becker, Ted
Stuckey, John Gaeddert, Harold Regier, Perry Yoder, and Heinz Janzen.
To date three major aspects of the study have been planned — an attitudinal survey, an invitational consultation in , and a study guide to be ready by .
Included in the survey are twenty-eight questions with responses varying from
“strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” chosen to provide an inventory of
congregational attitudes towards the authority of the church, and of the
state. It will also indicate attitudes to particular issues such as abortion,
capital punishment, and payment of taxes for military purposes. A copy of the
questionnaire will be sent to every congregation to be duplicated locally.
A second major happening is scheduled for at Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana.
An invitational consultation will bring together about thirty participants, including persons not committed to civil disobedience.
The gathering will include administrative personnel from the General Conference, lawyers, biblical scholars, as well as representatives from Mennonite Central Committee and the Mennonite Church.
It is expected that the study guide will evolve from the proceedings of the
consultation. Five of the thirteen lessons in the guide will focus on
peacemaking in a technological society. What sort of peacemaking should
Mennonites be about in an age of nuclear warfare and worldwide arms shipments?
The remaining eight lessons will center about the meaning of civil
disobedience. Was it practiced in the Bible? Is nonpayment of taxes a case in
point?
The study process will culminate in the special midtriennium conference scheduled for .
That gathering will be an official decision-making conference to which congregational delegates will come.
At that point a decision on the meaning and practice of civil disobedience will be made.
After the conference the questionnaire
will again be used to determine whether the churchwide discussion on
obedience-civil disobedience has generated any changes in attitudes.
A few more details came after the Commission on Home Ministries met in , and, according to The Mennonite:
Perry Yoder, part-time CHM staff member, outlined the process planned for dealing with the war tax or civil responsibility issue raised at the Bluffton conference.
Because of this issue’s “divisive and emotional potential in the conference,” a survey instrument has been designed to get congregational input; a consultation at the seminary will work toward a study guide, and congregations will be encouraged to use the study in preparation for a special General Conference delegate session at Minneapolis, called solely for the purpose of responding to the Bluffton resolution on tax withholding.
Another article said this study guide would be “available [and] will look at present militarism in North America, previous acts of dissent by Mennonites, and biblical texts on dissent, payment of taxes, and corporate action.”
During the first session on , board members locked onto the planning for the midtriennium conference on war taxes and civil responsibility.
Uneasiness about the process erupted quickly.
The structure of the invitational consultation on the issue was strongly faulted, as was the conference itself.
Board member Ken Bauman, pastor of First Mennonite Church in Berne, Indiana,
galvanized his colleagues with his allegations. “The consultation is not
structured for dialogue — it is monologue. The way it has been set up upsets
me deeply.” Later he declared that the Commission on Home Ministries should
not serve as the launching pad for the study and the planning leading to the
conference in . “Why ask
CHM?
The image of
CHM
is stacked. It should be the responsibility of the General Board.”
His assessment was the beginning of a fruitful debate which occupied several more sessions of the General Board, one session of CHM and hallway discussions.
The debate crystallized about several key questions. What is wrong with the
study process initiated by the obedience-civil disobedience committee of
CHM?
Is the issue of war taxes so divisive that a schism in the General Conference
is inevitable? Is the delegate
conference viable?
By , perhaps symbolically, the hard-hitting process of charge and countercharge had evolved into understanding and affirmation of the original plans.
On paper, little had changed, but in the minds of those who spoke for the “unheard,” — the “conservatives,” the “common person,” and the Canadians — there was a restoration of confidence in the process.
Tenseness was dissipated.
The mood became one of working together.
The consultation will meet at Mennonite
Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana. About twenty-five persons are invited.
These include theologians and biblical scholars, attorneys, administrative
staff of the General Conference, several
MCC
staff, and representatives from the Mennonite Church and the Mennonite
Brethren Church. The proceedings of the consultation are to serve as the basis
for a study guide on civil disobedience.
The committee planning the consultation and the midtriennium conference was called in to justify its ideas.
One member, Perry Yoder, observed, “Getting people to participate is very difficult.
People are very tense about this.”
“We thought the trust level would be quite high,” said another member, Harold
Regier. “Requests for speakers were made on the basis of scholarship and the
purpose is biblical. It is not a matter of pro or con.”
“We don’t know where the scholars will come out,” declared Don Steelberg, chairperson of CHM. (A complete list of scholars invited is not yet available — some are still considering the invitation.)
It was noted that since the concern on abortion had been handled insensitively
at the Bluffton conference, there was fear that the same thing would happen
with the issue of war taxes. So why should those who oppose withholding war
taxes bother to participate? They won’t be heard anyway.
Another fear was that the Canadians would also stay away. “My gut reaction is that it is a U.S. issue,” said board member Loretta Fast.
She was challenged on that.
“Don’t Canadians also pay military taxes?” queried Ben Sprunger.
“Yes,” replied another Canadian board member, Jake Klassen, “but we have not gone through the trauma and frustrations of the Vietnam War."
Hence, if both the Canadians and those opposed to withholding war taxes stayed
away from the delegate
conference, the gathering would be a farce. The conference would not be viable
if large blocs of delegates simply weren’t there.
For a brief time the board lost nerve.
Should the conference be canceled?
However, chairman Elmer Neufeld injected reality by reflecting, “The issue is not going to go away.
So, what is the next step?"
Over the board
recovered confidence in itself, in the planning already done, in the
possibility of bringing the dissenters into dialogue, despite differences in
theology and nationality, and in the voice of the discerning church. “I came
to the Mennonite church because of discerning congregations. If we cannot
discern in a process like this, then we have missed the boat,” reflected Don
Steelberg.
That was the next step.
They reminded themselves that the Anabaptist movement grew out of several
forms of civil disobedience.
They decided to adjust some of the personnel for the consultation.
They decided to promote serious study of the civil responsibility issue among congregations so that delegates would be conversant with it.
They decided to book the Leamington Hotel in Minneapolis as the place for the midtriennium conference.
The General Board also affirmed the action of its executive committee when they refused to pay a tax levy from the Internal Revenue Service.
The personal income taxes are owed by Heinz Janzen (general secretary) and his wife, Dorothea Janzen.
Under U.S. tax laws an ordained minister is self-employed, is not subject to normal payroll deductions, and hence, Heinz has refused to pay the military portion of his income tax.
Normally the
IRS
simply confiscates the amount owed from the bank account of the person
protesting. But with the levy the
IRS is
attempting to collect directly from the General Conference as employer. The
General Board agreed with the executive committee that the Janzen case is
civil disobedience by individuals, and not by an incorporated body, the
General Conference.
Editor Bernie Wiebe, himself based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, wrote an editorial for the edition expressing his unease about the direction Canada was taking, at how blasé his fellow-Canadian Mennonites were about it, and at how comparatively little concern there seemed to be there about the war tax issue that was roiling the Conference:
I am uneasy because I don’t hear my brothers and sisters protest against Ottawa.
Somehow we manage to wash our hands and keep pointing at the Pentagon…
At Bluffton, the majority voted for a midtriennium conference on the war-tax
issue. Every discussion I have since heard on this subject turns to the fear
that the Canadian third of the General Conference may refuse to participate;
after all, that’s a
U.S. question.
The conference was meant to bring in experts on the question who could help better inform the upcoming debate.
Participants in the General Conference Mennonite Church invitational consultation on civil responsibility have been named and the schedule outlined.
The consultation will convene
at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Elkhart, Indiana.
Beginning , Ted Stuckey and Reg Toews, representing the business administration arms of the General Conference and Mennonite Central Committee respectively, will present information on the administrative dimensions of the war tax question.
The question, Is there a biblical case for civil disobedience? will be the
focus of scholarly input Friday morning. Millard Lind, professor at AMBS,
will speak from an Old Testament perspective; confirmation from the scholar
asked to provide a New Testament analysis is still pending.
A more specific look at the issue of war taxes is scheduled for .
Is civil disobedience called for in this specific case?
David Schroeder, professor at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Winnipeg, and Kenneth Bauman, pastor of First Mennonite Church in Berne, Indiana, will speak to the question.
Erland Waltner, president of Mennonite Biblical Seminary, will respond.
Corporate action and individual conscience is the theme for
. Speaking to this are J.
Lawrence Burkholder, president of Goshen (Indiana) College, and William
Keeney, professor at Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas. Another person has
yet to confirm acceptance. Peter Ediger, pastor of the Arvada Mennonite
Church, will respond.
Elvin Kraybill, legal counsel for Mennonite Central Committee, will talk about legal questions related to civil disobedience.
Responding to his presentation are Duane Heffelbower, a member of the Division of Administration of the General Conference, and Ruth Stoltzfus, an attorney living in Linville, Virginia.
In addition to the formal input, various church leaders and administrative
staff will contribute to the consultation. These people are Heinz Janzen,
general secretary of the General Conference; Harold Regier and Perry Yoder,
cosecretaries of peace and social concerns of the General Conference; John
Gaeddert, executive secretary of the Commission on Education; William Snyder,
executive secretary of
MCC;
Urbane Peachey, executive secretary for
MCC
Peace Section; Hubert Schwartzentruber, secretary for peace and social
concerns of the Mennonite Church; Ed Enns, executive secretary of the
Congregational Resources Board of the Canadian Conference; Peter Janzen,
pastor, representing the Canadian Conference.
Six persons will form the findings committee.
They are John Sprunger, pastor, Indian Valley Mennonite Church, Harleysville, Pennsylvania; Palmer Becker, executive secretary of the Commission on Home Ministries; Elmer Neufeld, president of the General Conference; Hugo Jantz, chairperson of MCC (Canada); John Stoner, executive secretary for MCC Peace Section (U.S.); and Larry Kehler, pastor of the Charleswood Mennonite Church, Winnipeg.
Kehler is also the writer for the study guide which is to be published by fall.
[T]he issue was how Mennonite institutions should respond to those employees who request that the military portion of their income taxes not be withheld by the employer.
Several Mennonite organizations are facing the issue. The General Conference
is seeking the will of its 60,000 members in answering such a request from one
of its employees, Cornelia Lehn. The consultation in Elkhart was one part of
the discerning process leading to a delegate assembly, and a decision in
.
Bible scholars, theologians, pastors, administrators, attorneys — twenty-nine persons in all — presented papers, exchanged insights, and probed the issue.
Much of their analysis will be incorporated into a study guide to be published by .
There was general agreement that militarism and the nuclear arms buildup are a
massive threat to human existence. “We are in pre-Holocaust days,” asserted
John Stoner, director of Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section.
How does one change the direction of society?
How does one influence government policy so that it is prohuman?
Some individuals claim that the witness of taxes withheld from the military could do much to change American priorities.
Is civil disobedience biblical?
Is there a biblical case for civil disobedience?
Seminary professor and Old Testament scholar Millard Lind said the question was wrong.
He declared the question assumes that the government provides the norm for the person of faith, and asks whether there may be a religious basis for sometimes disobeying it.
On the contrary, he counseled, the biblical accounts emphasize the absolute
sovereignty of the God of Israel. Biblical thought challenges the sovereignty
of the civil authorities, calling it rebellion. Not only individuals, but
above all, the state, with its self-interest and empire building, are against
the rule and order of Yahweh.
Is civil disobedience called for in the specific instance of taxes spent for military purposes?
Two papers were presented on this question, one by David Schroeder of Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the second by Kenneth Bauman, pastor of First Mennonite Church in Berne, Indiana.
“It is clear,” said Schroeder, “that the New Testament speaks for civil
disobedience, but it is difficult to determine the form.” Interpreting the
will of God must be done in the community of believers. The Scripture must not
only be searched to know the will of God, but also to bind ourselves to doing
it.
He observed that the issue of taxes for military purposes is often seen in isolation from other options.
He counseled that the church needs to look at all avenues which would lead to peace, and then choose those options which would be effective at the individual and corporate levels.
A noticeable reaction of surprise was evident after Schroeder indicated that
as a Canadian member of the General Conference he would abstain from voting at
the mid-triennium conference in .
“Those (Americans) who must take the consequences of tax withholding must take the responsibility,” he opined.
When questioned on this Schroeder said he held the position because he would not, as a Canadian national, be able to effectively support an American practicing tax resistance.
Later in the conference, however, he appeared to modify his position.
Bauman’s paper was a careful overview of the tax situation in the time of
Christ, of Jesus’ stance relative to the authorities, and of Anabaptist
practice.
He indicated that Jesus’ political stance was not with the ecclesiastical nor with the social establishment.
Nor did Jesus identify himself as a radical social revolutionary.
Rather, Christ was a representative of the kingdom of God with a prophetic call to repentance, faith, and righteous living which transforms society through the transformation of the individual.
“It is amazing,” he reflected, “to see the early church and the Apostles show
such respect and subordination to a political system that crucified their Lord
and killed their leaders.”
When asked at what point he would practice civil disobedience, Bauman said, “For me it would be more than taxation; it would be when government becomes an object of worship.”
Mennonite practice he noted has been to pay taxes. Only the Hutterites have a
consistent pattern of resisting taxes.
Kings and prophets
In a humorous manner, J. Lawrence Burkholder, president of Goshen College, illuminated the tension between individual conscience and management responsibility.
“The Bible is stacked against managers,” he remarked. The managers (kings)
were always getting critiques from the prophets. Burkholder confessed that
before becoming a college president (a “king”) he had often been prophetic in
his utterances.
But now as a manager he values continuity, order, and making life possible.
Decisions often have ambiguity built into them.
Further, although individuals are free to order their lives as they wish, a corporation incarnates the many wills of its supporters into a limited function.
Is it right to expect a corporation to respond in the same way as an individual?
Burkholder did conclude though that a corporation must be willing to die for
the sake of principle. For a Mennonite school he suggested such a case would
be required ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps).
In his paper on the same topic, William Keeney of Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas, warned that biblical and Anabaptist history illustrate that the voice of the majority is not necessarily the voice of God.
He also noted that for many people there is a double ethical standard, one for the Christian, and one for the state.
Keeney said Christians should have a bias in favor of loyalty to the prophets, and to the way of the cross and costly discipleship.
From this he concluded that corporate action needs to respect the individual conscience.
In his response to the above papers, Peter Ediger, pastor of the Arvada
(Colorado) Mennonite Church, cried out, “I would hope that management could be
prophetic. Can leadership in institutions not give evidence of faithfulness to
God? Why do we see this question (tax withholding) as a threat to our
institutions? We need more faith in the powers of resurrection. Do we foster
fear or faith? Spread the rumor that the Lord is going to do wonderful
things.”
The attorneys present provided a legal framework, as distinct from a biblical rationale, for approaching the issue of not withholding taxes used for military purposes.
The General Conference could, if it wished, simply stop remitting taxes and wait for the government to take action.
A long process of litigation might ensue in which the church could argue that
using the corporate body to collect taxes violates the conscience of tax
objectors, and also violates the principle of separation of church and state
because the church is held hostage by the state, under penalty of fines or
imprisonment of its officers. The attorneys also observed that the
IRS
(Internal Revenue Service) could decide to avoid litigation and its attendant
publicity, and simply go to the individual to collect.
In essence the attorneys said there were ways of working on the issue through legal, legislative, and administrative channels.
Findings
A findings committee — Palmer Becker, Hugo Jantz, Elmer Neufeld, John Stoner, Larry Kehler — drafted a statement.
After hours of discussion and subsequent changes the persons at the consultation agreed that the statement fairly represented their thinking.
Some excerpts:
“Our Christian obedience has to find new and creative responses to the
proliferation of military weaponry and technology…
“Christians respect the governing authorities… which leads to a broad
range of activities in support of the public good. Nevertheless, at times
our call of prior obedience to God’s sovereignty leads us to disobey the
claims of the state…
“We… have differing convictions about refusing to pay taxes for the
military.
“Let us be open to the possibility that the Spirit of God may lead some of
us in a direction that is both prophetic and full of risks.
“We agree that a way should be sought which will facilitate the expression
of the convictions of conference employees who request that their taxes
not be withheld.
“We need to seek the counsel of and work with other Mennnonite groups and
denominations, particularly the historic peace churches, in developing the
most appropriate response to this issue.”
Two multi-part articles and two additional stand-alone articles stretched
across multiple issues of The Mennonite and also
served to summarize some of the points of debate:
“The North American military” by Harold Fransen (part 1 and part 2)
These articles begin with an unflattering look at U.S. military personnel, suggesting that even if you put the violence of war off to one side, the drunkenness, ignorance, and sexual immorality found among those in uniform is enough not to recommend the institution to Mennonites.
The first part ends: “If we have come to the realization that we can not go to war, maybe the time has come to… say that no one can go to war on our behalf either.
As we fill out out income tax forms this year, so that the military can do the job which we refuse to do, let us remember what effect it has on the lives that are bound up in its powerful grip, and be in prayer as we move toward the General Conference’s midtriennium session to deal with this issue.”
Part two looked at this issue from the Canadian perspective, noting that
Canada was deeply involved in the international arms trade and was boosting its
own military spending. “Can we any longer brush off war taxes as a
U.S. issue?”
“Is this our modern pilgrims’ progress”
This article summarized the recent history of the General Conference in grappling with the issue that would come to a head at the session:
If the conference delegates decide that nonpayment of military taxes is justified the decision is binding on the administrators of the General Conference.
Impetus for such an assembly began in when employee Cornelia Lehn requested the General Conference
business office not to remit the military tax portion of her paycheck to the
IRS.
Prior to 1974 the issue of “war taxes” had been discussed, and as early as
, delegates at the triennial sessions in
Fresno, California, passed a statement protesting the use of tax monies for
war purposes. The delegates also said, “We stand by those who feel called to
resist the payment of that portion of taxes being used for military purposes.”
However, the General Board did not think that directive from the delegates
authorized them to stop remitting Lehn’s military taxes. Her request was
refused.
Three years later… [at] the next conference… delegates called for education regarding militarism, reaffirmed the 1971 statement, and agreed that serious work be done on the possibility of allowing General Conference employees to follow their consciences on payment or nonpayment of military taxes.
Educational materials have included the periodical God and
Caesar and two study guides, The Rule of the
Sword and The Rule of the Lamb. In addition
to these efforts two major consultations were convened in
and in
. At these consultations scholarly
papers were presented on militarism, biblical considerations for payment or
nonpayment of military taxes, and Anabaptist history and theology related to
war tax concerns.
Despite the protracted input the General Board could not reach a consensus on the issue.
Consequently the problem was brought to delegates at the triennial… [where] the delegate body committed itself to serious congregational study of civil disobedience and war tax resistance during .
The delegates also decided to discuss the issue in detail at a midtriennium conference in .
In an effort to implement the Bluffton
resolution an eight-member civil responsibility committee was formed. Several
actions were taken by it to encourage serious study.
an attitude survey on church
and government was conducted. Approximately 2,500 responses were received,
including 463 from a select sampling in 31 churches. A scholarly consultation
was held in . One of the key ideas
which came out of this consultation was whether those who feel strongly about
not paying military taxes should be encouraged to form a separate corporation
within the General Conference. To assist churches in their study of the issue
two study guides were published. The Rule of the
Sword deals primarily with facts and concerns related to militarism.
The Rule of the Lamb centers about the sovereignty
of God and biblical texts on taxes and civil authority.
Each of the more than 300 congregations in the General Conference is being encouraged to prepare a statement to bring to the conference.
It is evident from the sale of the study guides that a minority of congregations are actually making an effort to study the issue, although all congregations have received sample copies of the guides.
Many Canadian churches feel the issue is strictly an American problem, and there is a considerable diversity of conviction and thought among American congregations.
Some congregations do not intend to send delegates.
What this means for the Minneapolis conference is difficult to assess, except
for one feature. There will be a lot of stirring debate. After
will there be some
resolution of the withholding question? No one is predicting the outcome.
“Countdown to Minneapolis”
This article tried to put the debate into a larger context of what it meant for the congregations in the General Conference to be deliberating together in this way.
It also seemed to be trying to drum up more attendance; there seemed to be some worry that Canadian Mennonites, and more conservative congregations, might just not turn up.
“Our Christian civil responsibility”
This article, by Larry Kehler (author of The Rule of the Lamb), attempted to put all of the pieces together for readers ahead of the conference.
Excerpts:
General Conference churches have the opportunity of either growing through the process of working on the war-tax question or of stagnating and splintering.
I am somewhat more confident now than I was even six months ago that we will mature through this experience, and in the process perhaps reassert some of our Conference’s flagging leadership in the field of peace.
Perhaps it is only because I have been talking to more optimistic persons.
But I do have the impression that General Conference people are more ready now to participate in the struggle for an answer than they were even as late as last winter.
The easy answer of letting this debate be the occasion for some congregations to sever their ties with the General Conference seems to be more of a “cop-out” than a reasonable response to a difficult question.
Will your congregation have delegates at the midtriennium sessions in Minneapolis?
If it won’t, both the conference and the congregation will be the poorer for it.
You see, the question is not only how we will respond to the issue of tax-withholding as a witness against war, but how we go about dealing with questions on which we have not yet achieved clarity or unanimity.
The process we go through may well be much more vital to us than the answer we finally come up with, and that is not to diminish the seriousness of the problem of militarism.
Coming to Minneapolis without advance preparation, however, could be almost as
destructive as not coming at all. Each congregation should do some serious
struggling within its own setting on the various dimensions which this issue
is raising for us.
The war-tax issue offers the General Conference one of its best opportunities in many years to work seriously at Bible interpretation on a question about which we have widely differing views.
How do we make decisions when we disagree?
The tax texts
What does the New Testament say about taxes?
Here are the four primary passages:
Mark 12:13–17
is a description of the Pharisees and Herodians trying to entrap Jesus with
the question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus responds by
taking a coin and showing them Caesar’s image on it and saying, “Render to
Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”
Luke 23:1–5 recalls the accusations made against Jesus before Pilate.
Among them is the charge that he has forbidden his people “to give tribute to Caesar.” In response to Pilate’s question about his kingship over the Jews, Jesus replies ambiguously, “You have said so.”
Matthew 17:24–27
talks about the temple tax. Some Bible interpreters feel that the tax question
is a secondary issue in this passage. The writer’s main purpose in telling
this incident, some scholars say, is to underscore Jesus’ sonship.
Romans 13:6–7 urges followers of Christ to be subject to the governing authorities and to pay taxes where they are due.
A straightforward reading of these passages has led many persons to conclude
that taxes are to be paid regardless of the use to which they might be put.
“How can you argue against such clear, simple statements?” they ask people who
suggest that there may be more to these comments than can be seen on the
surface.
It is the tension between these two approaches to the Bible which lies at the heart of the problem which the General Conference is now facing in its attempt to come up with a biblical response to the “war tax issue.” How do we interpret and understand the Bible?
Is the easiest reading of a biblical passage always to be taken as the most likely intention of the writer?
Some Bible scholars say that it is sometimes quite deceiving to accept the easiest reading.
Others wonder if that sort of remark doesn’t simply underscore the Bible’s assertion that some truths will confound the wise and yet be very clear to more down-to-earth and average persons.
Well, maybe.
But doesn’t it cheapen the Bible if we think that a book which has come to us from another millennium and a decidedly different culture can be read on the surface — much like one reads a twentieth-century pop-psychology book — and applied to situations in our day without adaptation?
Can any statement in the Bible be taken by itself without first testing it
against the background from which it came and against related statements
elsewhere in the Bible?
Modern, easy-to-read paraphrases of the Scriptures and our general attitude toward the Bible have led us to believe that “hermeneutics” (the interpretation of the Bible’s message) is not a difficult task.
In some cases it isn’t, but in others it is.
In places the Bible is so inscrutable that we can seemingly never be quite sure about its full intention.
So we have to launch out in faith on some questions, hoping that more clarity will come as we proceed.
We may discover as we go that we have started off in the wrong direction.
Then we need the humility to admit our error and change our direction.
The major agenda item at the midtriennium sessions in Minneapolis may turn out
not to be “war taxes” at all. This issue may be God’s way of prodding us into
becoming more of a “hermeneutic community”…
The tax texts need to be studied intensely at the congregational level, each participant bringing an open mind and heart to the discussion.
If clarity and unanimity do not come immediately let us not be discouraged.
Other groups have had similar difficulties before us.
That is all the more reason why we should continue to struggle with this question.
The summary statement prepared by the people who attended the
war tax conference contained this paragraph:
“After considering the New Testament texts which speak about the Christian’s
payment of taxes, most of us are agreed that we do not have a clear word on
the subject of paying taxes used for war. The New Testament statements on
paying taxes (Mark 12:17 and Romans 13:6–7)
contain either ambiguity in meaning or qualifications on the texts that call
the discerning community to decide in light of the life and teachings of
Jesus.”
For Canadians too
The war tax issue is a U.S. issue and should be decided by them.
Right?
Wrong! It’s an issue for the entire General Conference.
But Canadians wouldn’t be taking any of the risks if the U.S. Government should bear down and hand out some jail sentences or fines for the Conference’s not withholding its employees’ income taxes.
Too much emphasis has been put on the possibility of fines or jail terms.
These consequences might come, but they’re not likely. The fear of a
confrontation with the law has taken the focus off the main point of this
whole exercise. The purpose is to give a firm, clear, and prophetic witness
against the diabolic buildup of the machines of war, which is occurring at an
ever-increasing pace in the United States and in many other nations. Are we
going to sit back and allow this escalation to continue without at least
giving our governments some sort of message that we cannot any longer go along
with this race toward self-destruction?
The arms race and the manufacture of war goods is very much part of the Canadian scene too… I have not yet been able to discover any tax resisters in Canada, but this does not mean that militarism is not a front-burner issue in Canada.
It is, and it should be.
I don’t know why there aren’t tax resisters in Canada. There are certainly
other forms of objection to the military buildup. “Project Ploughshares” is an
interchurch witness against militarism. Mennonites are actively involved in
its program of research and information-sharing. Thus, even though tax
resistance isn’t part of the Canadian experience now, Canadian Mennonites
shouldn’t withdraw from the General Conference discussion. They can
legitimately be fully involved on the basis of principle.
If the General Conference is going to say, “Yes,” to those of its employees who don’t want their income tax withheld, that should be the decision of the entire Conference, not just a portion of it.
The decision, whichever way it goes, will carry much more weight, I believe, if all the congregations in the Conference have participated in it.
Canadian involvement is important.
Some have indicated that the present set of options offered to the
delegates — that is to vote either yes or no on the withholding question — is
not sufficient. Other alternatives must be developed. If not, the Conference
may become polarized, and it might even split.
The question therefore is: How can the General Conference, as an international body, make a clear-cut witness against militarism without splintering the Conference?
Some U.S. Mennonites have stated that Canadian participation is crucial to the process.
After the conference in Bluffton in it
appeared that there would be minimal Canadian involvement at Minneapolis.
There is still no guarantee that participation from Canada will be adequate,
but good efforts are being made to encourage Canadian churches to send
delegates.
The General Board of the Conference of Mennonites in Canada at its last meeting went on record urging Canadian participation.
It will communicate this concern to the churches.
Several congregations are making special efforts to prepare for the convention.
Bethel Mennonite Church, Winnipeg, Manitoba, held a weekend seminar on this topic.
Grace Mennonite Church, Regina, Saskatchewan, arranged a similar event.
The Winnipeg meeting was covered in a later issue.
About fifty people met and came up with a set of recommendations as they prepared to select their delegates to the conference.
Sharon Sawatzky of the Canadian Conference staff in Winnipeg prepared a Canadian supplement for the study booklet The Rule of the Sword by Charlie Lord.
Copies of the supplement have been sent to all Canadian congregations who have ordered the five-lesson study booklet on militarism.
Faith and Life Press, Newton, reports that to date (I write this on
) more orders for the study
materials (The Rule of the Sword and
The Rule of the Lamb) have been received from Canada
than from the United States.
The prophets and the managers
The tension created by the war tax question in the General Conference is heightened by people’s disparate understandings of what it means to be good stewards of our church-related institutions.
Some have seen it as a tension between the “prophets” and the “managers.”
Who shapes the direction and philosophies of our churches and their agencies?
Is it the people who have a “prophetic” vision of biblical responsibility? Is
it the administrators who have been charged with “managing” these
organizations and creating as few waves as possible? Both? Partially? Neither?
Questions related to this apparent tension are included in the study guide The Rule of the Lamb…
J. Lawrence Burkholder, who is himself the “manager” of a major Mennonite
institution (Goshen College), has frankly described the predicament in which
leaders of institutions find themselves.
Here is a summary of his observations…
An efficient and well-trained corps of managers has emerged to run the
Mennonites’ growing number of institutions. The “constituency” of each of
these institutions insists that it is to be run in a businesslike, fiscally
responsible, and basically conservative way. Actions which might jeopardize
the welfare of an institution are not likely to be looked upon with much
favor.
The war tax issue, said Burkholder, is a problem of personal ethics as opposed to corporate ethics.
Our way of understanding the Bible is based on a one-to-one decision-making process, where the individual can respond quickly and simply to a situation.
A corporation’s response to an ethical question, on the other hand, involves
many wills. A number of “publics” make demands on the institution to decide
the issue their way. This does not mean, the Goshen College president
emphasized, that moral demands cannot be made of corporations. Nor should it
be said that all institutions are alike.
Corporations tend toward the status quo.
They emphasize different values than “prophetic” Christians.
Corporations tend to take a positive view of the broader culture in which they operate, they recognize the ambiguity of the situations in which they are making their decisions, and they look less judgmentally on people than do the “prophets.”
On the other hand, prophets have the luxury, according to Burkholder, of being
able to speak abstractly, of idealizing certain things from the past, and of
talking about perfection and ideals in an imperfect society.
Managers of church-related institutions have a clear line of accountability to their constituency, he said, “but who holds the prophets responsible?” Prophets are usually judged to be true or false in retrospect.
A prophet, therefore, doesn’t have to take responsibility for actions, words, and decisions in the same way that a manager does. “Sometimes,” said Burkholder, “present-day prophets come off ‘cheap.’ ”
He emphasized that Mennonites should continue to identify with the prophetic
tradition. They should be aware, though, that this means they will have to be
willing to remain somewhat on the edge of society.
“We will also need to develop a theology of corporate life,” he added. “We already have a theology of fellowship, but we don’t have a theology of the institution.”
Debate in the Letters Column
There was plenty of debate about the propriety of war tax resistance itself in the letters-to-the-editor column, sometimes explicitly prompted by the debate over withholding and the upcoming conference, other times more general.
John K. Stoner said that if the Conference were to fail to endorse war tax
resistance, “I would like to be able to have the confidence that they made
their decision in full awareness and with truly informed knowledge of the
dimensions of the nuclear abyss into which we are staring. At this point I
do not find it possible to have that confidence.” In short, they seemed to
be unaware of just how bad things had gotten.
I do not wish to imply that tax resistance or some other form of civil disobedience is the only kind of response which faithful Christians should be making to the unprecedented evil of the nuclear arms race. (It is my judgment that the situation confronts us with more than adequate grounds for civil disobedience.) However, I do wish to imply that those who counsel against tax refusal and civil disobedience would be much more convincing if they were leading out in other visible kinds of response to the nuclear crisis.
Carl M. Lehman wrote in to again remind readers that there was no such
thing as a “war tax” and that such nomenclature comes from “a less than
completely honest persistence in using labels to create a straw man to
attack.”
Money is only a convenient medium of exchange and not a real necessity to conduct war…
I have no quarrel with the person who simply wants to refuse to pay
taxes as a protest technique. As an attention-calling device it may very
well be effective. It is not exactly the kind of role I would feel led
to play, but I would not want to condemn anyone who felt they must use
such a tactic. I would, however, strongly protest any attempt to make
such a tactic mandatory for all Mennonites, and this is exactly what is
being attempted. Not mandatory, of course, in the sense that it would be
a test of membership, but mandatory in the sense of a normal commitment
expectation for a nonresistant Christian.
I maintain that tax resistance is a deviation from our heritage of faith.
The fact that it is a deviation in no sense makes it wrong and certainly does not mean that we pay no heed.
It does, however, very much suggest that the burden of proof is on the deviant, and that the deviant ought not to equate obedience to God with conformity by others.
John Swarr called on Mennonites to repent for war and in true repentance
to “change our ways.” He disagreed with Lehman’s dismissal of the moral
import of money. “Money is indeed a medium of exchange, but as Christian
stewards of God’s gifts we must be concerned about the things for which
that money is invested, donated, or paid.” He also disagreed that war tax
resistance was a deviation from Mennonite tradition, pointing to examples
from history in which Anabaptists took the issue seriously and came down
on both sides.
Karl Detrich took a hard Romans 13
line on the question, saying that the question of whether Christians
should or should not pay taxes had long ago been closed by that chapter.
While the New Testament also contains examples of civil disobedience, “in
each case these men were following the dictates of a higher law, namely,
that we should have no other gods besides our Lord.”
Jesus tells us that in the last days there will be, among other tribulations, wars and rumors of war.
Rather than going against the teaching of God’s word in a vain effort to forestall the inevitable, should we not give our time and energies to the worship of God and the proclamation of his gospel, so that we can do our part to hasten the day of his coming?
Paul W. Andreas saw simple living as a key to avoiding war taxes, and
resisting war taxes as a key to avoiding despair:
The submission to evil (no government has been free of it) produces despair.
I believe that love of my fellow humans is fundamental to not only
Mennonite faith but to Christ’s message. If I am compelled to violate
that message by hiring killers and providing weapons, I despair. For me,
no charitable contribution undoes the evil I unleash by paying taxes
that are used for such ends. Fortunately the practitioner of the simple
life can reduce his wage and thus avoid the income tax used for evil.
James Newcomer, in the course of taking Mennonites to task for the
“red-baiting” he’d found in their midst, took some time out to praise war
tax resistance:
I am deeply moved… by the witness of Peter Ediger at Rocky Flats, Colorado, and by many others who through war tax resistance and protest are trying to focus their own understanding of the modern Christian experience at the risk of losing middle-class luxuries and future security.
Miscellany
And if that weren’t enough, there were several other news items that discussed war tax resistance without relating directly to the upcoming conference or the specific debate to be dealt with there.
For example:
“A weekend seminar on war tax resistance” organized by Philadelphia Mennonites at which “[s]pecific strategies for implementing war tax resistance were discussed,” and the usual biblical verses were hashed out.
A four-point resolution on peacemaking called the Eastern District to: (1) serious Bible study on peace and a General Conference resolution on “The Way of Peace” (2) involvement in disapproval (through congressional representatives) of national actions promoting war, poverty, and terror; (3) support of those who feel led to withhold portions of their taxes; and (4) a midyear assembly to promote peacemaking.
After vigorous discussion, point three was stricken from the resolution
and point two was amended to include encouragement for righteous actions.
The amended resolution was adopted.
The Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section (U.S.) met. But in spite of all that was going on around them, it merely “reaffirmed its recommendation to Mennonite institutions ‘to study the conflict between Christian obligations and legal obligations in the collection of federal taxes…’ ” When they would meet again “a resolution on militarism, the future of New Call to Peacemaking, and the question of alternatives to the payment of taxes for military purposes” would be on the agenda. At that meeting, they took a stronger stand:
We support those who resist the payment of taxes for military purposes and call upon all members of the church to seriously consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes.
While Mennonite church institutions continue to struggle with an administrative response to the issue of “war tax” withholding, individual Mennonites are voicing their convictions through refusing to pay the portion of their taxes designated for military use.
About $4,000 has been received by the Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section’s “Taxes
for Peace” fund, contributed by Mennonite war tax refusers.
Nonpayment of taxes violates national laws, but tax refusers are convinced that paying taxes is disobedience to God when slightly over half of that tax money is allocated for the past, present, and future military expenditures of the United States.
Most of these tax refusers paid only 47 to 50 percent of taxes owed to
the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS),
forwarding the remaining amount to
MCC
and other Mennonite agencies. Statements to
IRS
clarified that the withheld tax money was not for personal profit but
rather for meeting human needs, promoting peace and reconciliation, and
supporting life instead of death.
James Klassen, Newton, Kansas, who claimed a Nuremburg Principle tax deduction in an amount sufficient to result in a 50 percent refund of the amount of taxes due, recently received the refund in full and forwarded the check to MCC. (The Nuremburg Principles, unanimously affirmed by the United Nations after World War Ⅱ, specify that crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity are crimes under national law.)
“This is the first time we have deliberately broken the law of our
country,” say tax refusers James and Anna Juhnke, North Newton, Kansas.
“It is not an easy decision. We love our land and we respect the
authority of the government. We want to show our respect by making our
civil disobedience a public act and by accepting the penalties which may
result from our action.”
“As a Christian who accepts the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament as normative for life and ethics, I am a ‘conscientious objector’ to participation in war and to the resolution of human conflict by violence,” concludes Marlin Miller of Goshen, Indiana. “It is my conviction that the financial support of war and military expenditures cannot be reconciled with this stance any more than actual military service itself.”
They and other Christians feel that Christ’s calling to a life of love,
nonviolence and reconciliation supersedes demands of the state.
Thirty-three persons and families thus far have identified themselves as “war tax resisters” after God and Caesar in its issue provided the opportunity for people to do so.
The respondents represent eleven denominations as well as those with no church affiliation.
One recent case of a non-ordained employee at a Mennonite institution
hoping to resist paying war taxes involved Esther Lanting, a teacher at
Western Mennonite School
(WMS),
Salem, Oregon, who on
wrote a letter to the
WMS
board requesting that her income tax not be withheld from her check.
On , Lanting was invited to meet with the board to explain her reasons.
The board decided to seek the counsel of the conference executive committee, and secure study papers on the tax issue.
Finally, on , after
extended study, the peace and social concerns committee of the conference
recommended that the
WMS
board grant Lanting’s request and discontinue withholding her taxes.
On , the WMS board considered the committee’s recommendation.
By a vote of six to two they decided not to follow the recommendation, but to continue withholding all tax as legally required.
At this same board meeting three other WMS teachers or staff members acted as follows: Ray Nussbaum submitted a letter requesting that the board stop withholding his tax; Floyd Schrock made a verbal request that his tax not be withheld; and Cindy Mullet asked that the board decrease her salary to the level where she will owe no tax.
The board granted Cindy Mullet’s request for a reduction in salary. The
board is willing to reconsider the issue if more faculty members should
make the same request to have the board refrain from withholding taxes.
MCC has taken no official position on the refusal to pay taxes for military use, but MCC Peace Section (U.S.) adopted a statement in which in part recommended “that Mennonite and Brethren in Christ continue to work toward reduction of military spending, not resting content with special provisions exempting us from payment of taxes for military purposes.” It affirms “those in our midst who feel compelled by Christian conscience to refuse payment of all or some federal tax because of the large percentage of such taxes used for military purposes.”
In concluding his war tax talk Yoder said church members are generally more ready to disregard what the church has to say than what the government says.
Issuing a direct challenge to those who believe war tax resistance is wrong he counseled, “It would be more credible if those who are in favor of paying all their taxes would show through some other action what they are doing to love our national enemies.”
This is the twenty-sixth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
I’m going to try to cover 1979.
Preparing for the Minneapolis Conference
In , there was a special
general session of the Mennonite General Conference especially to discuss war
tax resistance, and in particular, to decide whether the Conference would
support its tax-resisting employees by refusing to withhold taxes from their
paychecks.
In our last episode, the heat was
rising, with opinion pieces and study guides and letters to the editor
addressing the issue. Now, with the session approaching and the decision
imminent, things really began to boil.
The issue hosted
a
long letter to the editor from Albert H. Epp (dated
) in which he accused
The Mennonite and the Commission on Home Ministries
of putting their thumbs on the scale in favor of war tax resistance. Excerpts:
Some of us… are part of the “silent majority” that feels inundated by the
tax-resistance mail arriving almost daily.
The Kauffman-Harder profile () stated, “A
member of our churches ought not to pay the proportion of his income taxes
that goes for military purposes.” Only 15 percent of our denomination agreed;
and no more than 8 percent among the Mennonite Brethren and Brethren in
Christ. Even fewer actually withheld tax. Eighty-five percent disagreed!
Now Minneapolis looms ahead. Many of us feel we are being swept helplessly
downstream toward an ill-advised showdown. I was one of the 453 delegates at
Bluffton () who voted “no” on resolution 11.
But it carried. There seems to be a wide gap between delegate-action at
conference and constituency-opinion at home. How did “the few” persuade “the
many” to agree to a February session that will cost about $100,000?
We are witnessing one of the strongest attempts at shaping conference-opinion
in 20 years, and possibly our entire history. Long-held views on civil
responsibility are being challenged by brethren who are crusading for tax
resistance and civil disobedience. Neither Scripture nor history are normative
in the ways they used to be. “We have something new,” we are told, “in the
present nuclear threat.”
Behind this ideological shift stands our Commission on Home Ministries. Three
years ago
CHM
began publishing a war-tax newsletter, God and
Caesar. In the fifth issue they report on a two-day war tax conference
they conducted at Kitchener, Ontario. “The evidence suggests that most
Anabaptists did pay all their taxes willingly…,” the report avers; but
CHM
leaders pledged themselves “to raise consciousness about war tax and
militarism issues…” Highly significant is the fact that two scholars. Miller
and Swartley, emerged at that session as men willing to say that the Scripture
does not give us a clear command to pay taxes used for military purposes.
It is my impression that Mennonite stalwarts of recent decades, H.S. Bender,
Guy F. Hershberger, Erland Waltner, and John C. Wenger, to name just a few,
all taught the full-paying of taxes on scriptural grounds. Their general view
agreed with Paul, who taught the paying of taxes in Romans 13
and was fully aware that Rome had crucified Christ, had subjugated many
nations, and was now ruled by the despot Nero.
H.S. Bender, writing on “Taxation” in ,
claims that “few if any Mennonites” were presently refusing to pay the portion
of income tax calculated to go for military purposes, which he estimated to be
about two-thirds of the total.
Guy F. Hershberger, in his classic on nonresistance, discusses the answer of
Jesus in Matthew 22:
“…the situation here is almost precisely like that in Romans 13.
Jesus’ questioners were not men who would be interested in service
in the Roman army. If anything, they would be interested in a military
rebellion against the Roman authority. There Jesus says, ‘Give to Caesar that
which is Caesar’s.’ That is, do not rebel against him, not even to the extent
of refusing to pay the tax.”
The current tax-resistance movement requires a major shift in biblical
interpretation. This is something new.
It appears to me that today’s tax-resisters are hard put to proof-text their
views. Swartley admitted to Kitchener ()
“…there is no New Testament text which either explicitly or clearly implicitly
tells us not to pay taxes.” Yet some go from text to text progressively
untying the knots of normal interpretation. But the knot of
Romans 13.
will not easily yield.
Donald Kaufman (What Belongs to Caesar, page 48) chides Oscar Cullmann for “his lack of moral discernment” when he insists that disciples of Jesus pay tax, no matter to what government.
John Howard Yoder, well-known for his personal tax-withholding procedure, nevertheless, in his oft-reprinted masterpiece The Politics of Jesus (page 211), approvingly quotes C.E.B. Cranfield, “taxes and revenue, perhaps honor, are due to Caesar, but fear is due to God.”
In sketching the limits of subordination, Yoder stops short of using Romans 13 for tax resistance.
Not so Larry Kehler in The Rule of the Lamb.
Using his stature as editor-writer, Kehler seems to infer that Paul supports our tax resistance.
The truth of the matter is that for every scholar who teaches tax resistance from Romans 13, there might be 50 competent professors who teach otherwise.
A tax protest based on Romans 13 is an exegesis not easy to defend.
The method of promoting the new idea also deserves comment. Basic to good
human relations is the concept that issues are best discussed without the
injection of personalities. When Cornelia Lehn’s speech at the Bluffton
conference was programmed into the civil-disobedience debate by conference
officials, it almost gave the appearance of being a psychological pressure
tactic to sway votes. After all, who can speak against womanhood? Who can deny
that Nellie’s stand is courageous? But someone has to venture the tough
question “Is it fair to ask thousands of Mennonites to approve civil
disobedience because of one person’s convictions?”
Is it possible that
CHM
has moved ahead too quickly on this issue — even out of earshot? Take their
suggestion that the General Board no longer honor tax-withholding laws for
some employees (The
Mennonite, 2 November 1976, page 648). On
the constituents turned back
Resolution 12 (yes — 336, no — 1,190) on this issue. Bluffton delegates later
gave the mandate for a midtriennium conference, but even this decision process
was interlaced with
CHM
influence. The delegates, caught in the euphoria of the moment, unable to
confer with churches at home, approved the surprise resolution. Most
surprising of all, Larry Kehler, as recent as , wrote, “I have not
yet been able to discover any tax resisters in Canada…” Little wonder
CHM’s
promotion is so voluminous.
When churches in the Midwest ask
CHM
for a clarification of issues, men are readily available to give excellent
thought-out defenses for tax resistance and civil disobedience. But no one
seems willing and/ or permitted to present the traditional biblical-Anabaptist
stance and say, “That’s my view.” So we, the silent majority, feel like people
with no representation. While we collect thousands of dollars for conference
coffers, no one pleads our case — the case of the majority.
Any protest, it seems to me, needs keen discernment. Picketing a tax office,
withholding income tax, or balking at withholding laws may all be misdirected
efforts. The Internal Revenue Service is only a collecting agency. Do we
punish the newspaper boy, refusing to pay when we dislike an editorial? No, we
phone the editor. Why not spend our energy on the decision makers?
A hope seems to flicker in some minds that a domino reaction, “me too, me
too,” will bring out an avalanche of Mennonite tax resisters. Then, some aver,
a frustrated government might negotiate. However, worse things may accrue.
Attorney J. Elwin Kraybill says that evading tax is a felony (26
USC 7201) and can
result in a fine (maximum $10,000) and/or prison (maximum 5 years). At the
least most Mennonites would be subjected to the harassment of an annual audit.
At the worst they could be accused of spawning anarchy — a trend already
evidenced in teachers’ strikes and police strikes.
I wonder if tax resistance won’t trap us in a blind alley — in a stance too
negative. Why curse the darkness? Let’s plant a light. In past decades our
conscientious objector position was transformed by creative service in refugee
camps, mental hospitals, and mission schools. Today we again need positive
solutions. Could Mennonite Central Committee possibly establish a research
center with departments like peace, pollution, and world hunger? When our
scholars really tackle these complex problems, our governments will knock at
our door. In retrospect, I was proud when President John F. Kennedy turned to
MCC
for advice on the Peace Corps.
I am a Mennonite, both by birth and by choice. I deeply appreciate our
Anabaptist theology. As a pastor I can affirm with my parish
CHM’s
conviction of (1) the limited nature of Caesar’s power; and (2) the lethal
character of its weaponry. However, we do not feel it biblical or Anabaptist
to rob government of its right to taxation, or even some national defense.
Where government abuses this right we wish to exhaust every legal channel of
protest before we engage in illegal maneuvers.
In my congregation one brother is reducing his income; another has enclosed a
protest letter with his tax return. Many of us have increased contributions to
reduce taxable income. But not one, to my knowledge, is refusing to pay taxes.
As one brother put it, “Can we be harsh on Uncle Sam while our financial
stewardship level is so low in Mennonite circles?”
A final word. I tested this letter with my Board of Deacons. All seven
present, to the man, encouraged me to send it. Editor, thanks for letting us
speak.
Richard K. MacMaster addressed the history of war tax resistance among
American Mennonites in an article that appeared in the
issue:
I read with great interest your articles about the forthcoming discussion of
war taxes at Minneapolis.
I’ve had a great concern to write some few lines on one small aspect of this
large question, but generally put it off as a nit-picking historical footnote.
Observing that “historical perspective” will play a role in the consultation
, I thought I should take
time to clarify what might possibly lead to misunderstanding.
A number of recent discussions on the war tax issue have stated that
Mennonites and Brethren paid their taxes in obedience to the biblical
injunction of “taxes to whom taxes are due.” The reader might reasonably
conclude that, unlike Friends, neither Brethren nor Mennonites were troubled
in conscience about payment of taxes levied for any purpose. The point would
be too insignificant to raise in even some nitpicking scholarly review, if it
did not have consequences for our understanding of our own heritage in regard
to a current issue of great importance.
In Peter Brock published his monumental
Pacifism in the United States from the Colonial Era to the
First World War. The scope of his subject precluded his searching into
every manuscript collection that might bear some relation to it, and he relied
heavily on printed sources. The limited number of published works on Mennonite
history is reflected in his footnotes and bibliography. Walter Klaassen leaned
heavily on Brock for his interpretation of the American scene, since his own
scholarly work has been in the European Anabaptist sources. There is a danger
in this process that, in spite of passing through the hands of two very
distinguished modern scholars, the material is no better than the sources
available to Mennonite historians 50 or 75 years ago.
The danger of allowing this recycled history to determine our understanding of
our own heritage is compounded by the fact that Brock made assumptions that
went beyond his somewhat limited sources in describing the position held by
Mennonites on key issues, notably on the payment of taxes. The first mention
of any Mennonite attitude on this question involved Mennonite settlers in the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in . Brock noted that they “were able to obtain exemption by the
payment of militia fines, against which — unlike the Quakers — they had no
deep-seated scruples of conscience,” but that they petitioned in
(sic) for relief from militia fines,
“not because of any fundamental objection to this alternative to service
(for was it not merely rendering Caesar his due?), but on account of
their poverty as frontiersmen eking out a bare subsistence.” He cited as his
only source Harry A. Brunk’s History of Mennonites in
Virginia, but Brunk does not make any of the statements I have quoted;
he is quite clear in his statement that conscience was involved.
Virginia Mennonites petitioned the authorities in Williamsburg for relief from
militia fines in and again in
. No copy of these petitions is known to be
extant and we know of the contents only from the brief minutes entered in the
Journal of the House of Burgesses. Since the
Virginia lawmakers exempted Quakers from payment of militia fines for the
first time in , it is not surprising that
Mennonites sought the same privilege, which was granted them by the House of
Burgesses in .
Their motives in petitioning for exemption were explained in a Mennonite
petition of , which asked that the earlier
privilege be restored. Militia bills passed during the Revolutionary War had
taken it away and enrolled conscientious objectors in the militia, once again
making them subject to fines. This petition, signed by 73 “members of the
Menonist Church in behalf of themselves and their religious Brethren,”
declared that their forefathers had come “to America to Seek Religious
Liberty; this they have enjoyed, except by the Infliction of penalties for not
bearing Arms which for some time lay heavy on them. But on a representation,
and their situation being made known to the Honorable the Legislature, they
were indulged with an exemption from said penalties until some few years past,
when by a revisal of the Militia Law they were again enrolled and are now
subject to the penalties aforesaid.” (The original petition is in the Virginia
State Library.)
This petition and one offered the previous
year by Rockingham County Mennonites and Brethren did not succeed in changing
the law, and the payment of fines was the subject of occasional petitions from
all three of the peace churches. What is significant about the
Virginia petition is its statement that
payment of militia fines violated the liberty of conscience that Mennonites
otherwise enjoyed and that this was true under the king as well as during and
after the Revolution. It would appear to me impossible to square this
contemporary Mennonite document with the interpretation that Mennonites paid
militia fines as merely rendering Caesar his due!
The conscientious objection to payment of a fine or equivalent to militia duty
in Virginia on the eve of the Revolution might help us in understanding the
position of Pennsylvania Mennonites. There was no compulsory militia law in
Pennsylvania prior to , so no question of
fines or other equivalent would have arisen as early as it did in Virginia.
In Pennsylvania authorities requested
voluntary contributions from those who scrupled against bearing arms and the
Continental Congress itself made a similar appeal. Records of the county
committees entrusted with collecting this money suggest that it had a mixed
reception. Objections were heard very early, however, against levying
contributions from conscientious objectors on a purely voluntary basis. In
the Pennsylvania Assembly debated
imposing a set amount as a special tax on non-associators. They read petitions
from the Quakers and from the Mennonites and some members of the Church of the
Brethren. The meaning of these petitions seems perfectly clear. A well-known
military historian understood them to mean that “not a few Quakers and
Mennonites joined to oppose not only the Association but any tax levied in
lieu thereof.” (Arthur J. Alexander, “Pennsylvania Magazine of History
and Biography, ⅬⅩⅨ, , page 16.)
This would follow logically from the position taken by Virginia Mennonites,
who were closely related to the Pennsylvania congregations.
When a Militia Law was enacted in in
Pennsylvania, no provision was made for the exemption of conscientious
objectors, and a special tax was imposed on them in lieu of military service.
It was this tax that was under discussion among Franconia Mennonites when a
majority of the preachers opposed Christian Funk’s contention that it ought to
be paid. I am well aware that Pennsylvania Mennonites felt uneasy with the new
revolutionary regime and declined sending a formal petition to the legislature
in since it would involve addressing them as
“the representatives of the freemen of Pennsylvania.” Hostility to the new
government may well have colored the attitude of Funk’s opponents, but it does
not explain why they opposed payment of this particular tax and not
of all taxes levied by the new state. There is no hint in any
official document, newspaper, letter, or other contemporary source that any
Mennonite in Pennsylvania refused payment of any other tax. Surely there would
be some notice taken by someone of tax resistance, particularly if it were on
the quasi-political ground that the new government had no legitimate
authority. On the other hand, reluctance to pay a tax levied in lieu of
military service would square with the Virginia documents, the obvious
sense of the petition, and the minutes of
the Church of the Brethren annual meetings that refer to persons with
conscientious objection against paying for substitutes and paying the tax
(singular).
I do not know that this leads us very far on our present quest. But it is
sufficient, I hope, to indicate that Mennonites have expressed “deep-seated
scruples of conscience” and “fundamental objection to this alternative to
military service.”
The edition included this
op-ed from Harold R. Regier:
The sovereign Lord and the sovereign nation will be in tension at Minneapolis
when the General
Conference, in official session, will be “In Search of Christian Civil
Responsibility.”
Will we be ready at Minneapolis to decide issues related to paying those taxes
required of the state used for death-threatening militarism and weapons
building? Much depends on how adequately congregations study and discuss
The Rule of the Sword and The
Rule of the Lamb prior to Minneapolis. Much depends on adequate
congregational representation. And much depends on an openness to hear each
other and the leading of God’s Spirit.
What are specific questions we must answer at Minneapolis?
What is the biblical teaching on civil responsibility and civil
disobedience? Are Christians ever called to civil disobedience?
If civil disobedience may at times be a Christian response to government,
what conditions or principles guide that response? Is the payment of taxes
used for war purposes one such condition?
If “war tax” resistance is a Christian response to a government’s
militarism and to the nuclear arms race, to what extent and in what ways
should that response be encouraged and initiated? Is conscientious
objection to paying for war in today’s context equivalent to conscientious
objection to physical participation in war in the past?
Should General Conference and other Mennonite institutions honor
employees’ requests that the portion of taxes used for military purposes
not be withheld from their paychecks? Should Mennonite employers even go
beyond this and refuse to be “war tax” collectors for the state for any of
its employees?
Is the bottom line for the Minneapolis conference the question of tax
withholding? Not necessarily. Other options for faithfulness and witness may
be discovered. Our search for Christian civil responsibility must be
open-ended rather than locked into the consideration of only one kind of
action. However, the withholding question is a very important one on which we
are committed to making a clear decision.
The withholding question is significant, but not because this is the only
alternative for the employee. There are other ways to have less tax withheld.
Possibilities include refiling a tax form to include allowances for expected
(“war tax”) deductions, forming an alternative employing agency, or
contributing up to 50 percent of salary to charitable causes. The withholding
issue’s greatest significance lies with the questions of corporate
responsibility and the issue of church as an agent of the state.
I would suggest five reasons for the conference to consider honoring requests
from persons asking that their taxes not be withheld. (1) Honoring these
requests would eliminate the discrimination between ordained and nonordained
employees. In the
U.S., ordained
employees are considered “self-employed” by the tax department and are exempt
from withholding regulations. Nonordained persons have to follow a more
difficult procedure to enable resistance. Currently at least four ordained
employees of the General Conference offices are not voluntarily paying the
military portion of their taxes. (2) Honoring nonwithholding requests would
represent a corporate peace witness rather than leaving such witness and
action solely to the individual. (3) A corporate conference voice and action
would make a much stronger witness for peace and justice than lone voices here
and there. (4) Nonwithholding would be one appropriate way to initiate a test
of the constitutionality of requiring church agencies to collect taxes for the
state. (5) This corporate action builds on our Anabaptist theology of peace
and takes seriously the way our financial resources contribute to warmaking.
My hope for Minneapolis is that the General Conference Mennonite Church will
act to do something together about our nations’ militarism. This
could be corporate action regarding withholding “war taxes.” This could be a
commitment to a large-scale symbolic resistance to “war tax” payment
(e.g. “each” Mennonite withholding $10 and
explaining why). As a conference we could send a strong message to our
governments regarding militarism and the taxation which supports it. We could
issue a “war tax” statement to be shared with the larger church (other
denominations) as well as to our governments. We could make a stronger effort
to promote the World Peace Tax Fund Act in the
U.S. and instigate
other alternatives in Canada.
These are only suggestions. Delegates need to think of other options.
Minneapolis will be a failure if we conclude that “everyone do what is right
in their own eyes.” Minneapolis will be a success if we take some large or
small step toward corporate responsibility and action.
He began by noting the paucity of charity by American Mennonites is devoted to “the crucial urgency of tragic situations in the Third World” compared to how much is spent domestically.
“It appears our dedication somehow is absorbed in our words which seem to psychologically liberate us to expand lavishly on the home front.”
While I respect individual conviction, I am cool toward the effectiveness or the witness of withholding taxes.
(In recent months I have been going over old magazines and clipping articles related to war taxes.
There has been a rash of articles on this subject every 6–10 years in the past decades.)
In , the U.S. federal budget increased 48 percent for defense, space, and foreign affairs (probably not even keeping up with inflation).
The human-resources part of the budget jumped 378 percent during the same decade.
Not all these programs are effective, yet they represent an attempt to cope with areas of great need.
When we criticize government expenditures, let us remember that we Mennonites have been increasing our budgets in North American institutional and church developments rather than for that part of the “one in Christ” where poverty is indescribably great.
In short: “Until we have done what we ought we should not say too much to other segments of society.”
Furthermore, Shelly felt that there was an overemphasis on war as a source of violence.
Alcohol, reckless driving, and abortion, were also examples of violence that deserved at least as much attention.
Finally, the way to peace, he felt, was not through civil disobedience or
protest or peace witnessing, but simply through spreading the gospel and
getting more people to adopt Christian values. For example: “during the
massacre in Uganda almost all Christians refused to shoulder guns.” So
Mennonites should stop arguing about taxes and rededicate themselves to
missionary work.
Kenneth G. Bauman penned an op-ed for the edition, from the point of view of
“some of us”.
Bauman thought the Bible offered little or no support for war tax resistance.
Jesus did not counsel it, even when pitched a softball. Paul explicitly
said Christians should pay their taxes to Rome and the Roman Empire wasn’t
exactly peaceful. Those examples of civil disobedience found in the Bible never
touch on war taxes or on conscientious objection to government spending.
Mennonites, he felt, shouldn’t just skip over this on the way to making their
own independent moral judgments about war taxes.
Bauman also challenged the view articulated in Richard K. MacMaster’s essay
that war tax resistance had strong footing in historical Mennonite practice:
A good historical development of this issue is found in Walter Klaassen’s
pamphlet Mennonites and War Taxes. A summary is
found on pages 40–41 in The Rule of the Lamb. The
only groups that refused taxation were the Hutterites and the Franconia
Conference in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. The issue was
probably not “war taxes” but rather who was the legitimate government, the
British or the United States? Recent Mennonite scholars hold the traditional view.
Check the writings of Guy Hershberger in War, Peace, and Nonresistance (page 369),
Harold S. Bender’s “Taxation” in The Mennonite Encyclopedia,
and Robert Kreider’s “Anabaptists and the State” in The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision.
Kreider states, “The Anabaptists agreed unanimously
that the Christian owes obedience to the civil authorities insofar as the
prior claims of God are not violated in those duties. The Christian gives this
obedience freely and not grudgingly. He pays taxes, tithes, interest, and
customs as required by the magistracy. No evidence can be found to
substantiate the frequently made accusation that the Anabaptists refused to
pay these obligations” (page 190).
The new threat of nuclear war, Bauman thought, was not a reason to rethink this
established wisdom. After all, the murder of one person and the obliteration of
millions are both terrible sins: “Is the biblical teaching on the sacredness of
life on a sliding scale or is even one person’s life sacred?”
Some of us respect the individual conscience as we want our conscience to be
respected, but we are not convinced that those who believe in withholding
taxes have seriously considered all the options. Several alternatives are (1)
filing suit against the government to recover taxes, (2) setting up a
subsidiary corporation, and (3) greater efforts toward a World Peace Tax Fund.
We are grieved that in this hour when we need a united witness against
militarism, with selective service a real possibility (which will also include
women), we are divided. We object to our peace position being questioned
because we do not see withholding taxes as being biblical or
Anabaptist-Mennonite.
Some of us are waiting for open dialogue on the tax issue. The other side has
not been formally presented in the General Board, nor was it given adequate
representation at the Consultation on Civil Responsibility at Elkhart, nor has
it been given a fair presentation in The Mennonite.
We question whether the midtriennium conference will change the situation.
Marie J. Janzen, in a letter
to the editor, wrote that she thought Bauman was “attempt[ing] to find a letter of the law that would justify us not to refuse taxes.”
It is true, for instance, that Peter was referring to the Jewish leaders and
not to the state when he said we must obey God rather than men, but the
principle would be the same in either case, wouldn’t it?
It seems to me that the Christian gospel speaks to the needs of each age, and
different things need to be done in different ages. There would have been no
need to warn early Christians to drive carefully lest someone’s life might be
taken in an accident. But today there certainly is. When Jesus said to his
disciples that they would do greater things than he had done, didn’t he imply
that there would be a need for greater things in later ages than there was in
the time of the early church? The common person at that time had no rights, no
influence on government. In a democracy we Christians have responsibilities
the early Christians did not have. I don’t have to pay income tax; I don’t
know whether I would have the courage to refuse if I did. But I certainly
admire the ones who do refuse to pay taxes for conscience’ sake.
…Of course, there may be other alternatives which are more effective than the
refusal to pay taxes. For instance, as my sister suggested, if we would deluge
the government with letters and with telephone calls and insist that this arms
race must stop — or at least that they give us the right to have a peace
tax — that might do more good.
On the other hand, David A. Somner wrote in to praise what he called Bauman’s “clear, biblical, historically accurate” statement.
A
letter from Gary Martin, written on but not published until , thought that the war tax issue was overshadowing the fact
that Mennonites had lost their way and were neglecting some of the foundations
of their faith and practice. This was followed by a letter from Don Kaufman,
in which he related an anecdote from a repentant soldier and thought it “could
be instructive for us too as we wrestle with the implications of the Christian
gospel concerning war taxes.”
A letter from David C. Janzen, dated , published in the
edition, said that “[b]ased on our congregational meeting on the issue, it
would appear that the [war tax] protesters are a small but very vocal
minority.” He thought the conference was a waste of time trying to relitigate
an issue that had been decided by Jesus way back when.
A letter from Eugene Klassen, dated but also not published until , also took the line that the Bible was black-and-white about
taxpaying: “Romans 13
clearly tells us to pay taxes to whom taxes are due. Yet we allow the use of
our conference time, money, and publications to debate both sides of the
issue.”
Drumroll please. The conference was held, and all of these years of kicking the
can down the road and avoiding a decision came to an end as a general assembly
of the Mennonite General Conference, after lengthy study and debate, concluded:
Moved that we request the General Board of our conference to engage in a
serious and vigorous search to use all legal, legislative, and administrative
avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption from the legal
requirements that the General Conference withhold income taxes from the wages
of its employees. If no relief can be found within a three-year period, they
shall again bring the question to the attention of the conference.
So… the can kicked another three years further down the road. Well, what were
you expecting?
Seven hundred persons came to the bitter cold and deep snow of Minneapolis,
, “in search of Christian
civil responsibility.”
…Would our General Conference grant an employee’s request to no longer
withhold from her salary that portion of the income tax which goes toward
military expenditures?
Many predicted a collision course. Minneapolis would be a showdown.
The drama has happened. And the unexpected far outdid the expected.
only a few
hundred people had registered. Polarized positions surfaced in many
congregations. There was talk of maneuvering, boycott, and schism.
The annual Council of Commissions met at Minneapolis on
to do the usual review and
projection of
GC program and
budget. Hardly a session went by without reference of concern about the
midtriennium.
By it became obvious that
God’s Spirit was again among us in unusual ways.
In faith, space had been reserved for 500 people. Over 700 came.
We found the issue is not “yes-no” “either-or” regarding war taxes. It
includes our lifestyle. Do we live in ways that share Christ’s salvation,
love, and justice to all. This is not just for a few brave radicals.
Each of us needs to choose again and again to let our light shine.
We found the issue is not Cornelia Lehn and civil disobedience. It is
obedience to Jesus in today’s world.
We found the issue is of deep concern to our youth. About 100 persons present
were under 25. And they spoke up. Their generation most directly faces the
nuclear shadow. If we want to leave them a heritage of peace we must address
our faith to this global threat.
The main resolution (above) passed 1,218 to 134.
The following issue expanded on that first draft of history. It included the
details that delegates from 176 churches were represented at the midtriennium,
that the 700 attendees included “almost 500 delegates and more than 200
visitors” who at one point broke up into “78 small groups”, and further noted:
Following the… conference the General Board set up a six-person task force to
implement the decision of the delegates. The persons for this committee have
been appointed and upon acceptance their names will be released.
A
later article named them as Delton Franz, Duane Heffelbower, Bob Hull,
Heinz Janzen, Ernie Regehr, and Ben Sprunger, and noted that “[t]he task force
had its first meeting in Columbus,
Ohio.” Later
Stanley Perisho, Chuck Boyer, Winifred Beachy, Janet Reedy, and Gordon Zook
were added to the list.
Though the conference officially started , most people arrived
in time to watch a group
from the Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna, Manitoba, present
The Blowing and the Bending, a musical drama
highlighting the themes of wartime intolerance for conscientious objectors and
Mennonite struggles with the war spirit.
Some of the themes played out in the small groups and by the symposium were
the following:
the gospel is first, pacifism is secondary.
it is important to be legal.
it is better to be faithful.
a witness for peace has to have the integrity of an appropriate
lifestyle.
the government is more willing to accept conscientious objectors than the
church.
there are other social and political issues which need to be spoken
to.
a corporate witness is/is not the route to go.
militarism today is a qualitatively different problem than anything
civilization has had to face before.
the response to militarism is a theological and faith issue.
When one delegate called for a show of hands to indicate who had done some
protest against nuclear proliferation and militarism about 20 percent of the
assembly said they had.
Though most of the delegates who spoke during the afternoon plenary session
admitted they were troubled by worldwide military expenditures over one
billion dollars daily, they nevertheless said the church as a corporate body
should not engage in illegal activities in its witness against war
preparations. Instead speakers urged alternatives.
A sentiment often expressed, however, was that the church, while avoiding
illegal actions, should actively support its members who engage in civil
disobedience on the basis of conscience.
Roy Vogt, economics professor from Winnipeg, Manitoba, berated the assembly
for loading the responsibility for witness upon isolated individuals. “It is
morally reprehensible,” he said, “to give only moral support. We must provide
financial and legal support for those prophets who have arisen from our
middle-class ranks.”
In contrast to the social activists at the conference Dan Dalke, pastor from
Bluffton, Ohio, castigated the social activists for making pacifism a
religion. “We will never create a Utopia,” he said. “Jesus didn’t come to
clean up social issues. Our job is to evangelize the world. A peace witness is
secondary.”
Some of the statements were personal. A businessman confessed that while he
could easily withhold paying military taxes on the basis of conscience, he was
frightened. “I am scared of being different, of being embarrassed, of being
alienated from my community. Unless I get support from the Mennonite church I
will keep on paying taxes.”
Alvin Beachy of Newton, Kansas, said the church seemed to be shifting from a
quest to being faithful to the gospel to being legal before the government.
By the small groups were
into serious wrestling with these open-ended statements: (1) The biblical
teaching on obedience to God and its relation to civil responsibility is… (2)
Civil disobedience may be a faithful Christian response when… (3) With respect
to whether the General Conference should withhold the taxes of employees who
would rather practice war-tax refusal, we urge that… (4) With respect to the
threat of militarism in North America, we feel that the General Conference as
a Christian body should now…
By the groups were supposed to have
their consensus ready for the findings committee. Many of the statements came
later in the evening, and the findings committee of six began to sift through
the material. They spent a good part of the night at it, got up again
, had it typed (three
pages, single spaced), and by 800 copies were being distributed.
Action on the floor did not, however, center on the findings committee
statement. Immediately after the Bible lecture a ballot was distributed to the delegates. It
asked for a “yes” or “no” vote on this question: “Shall the General Conference
Mennonite Church refuse to withhold from salaries and refuse to remit to the
U.S. Internal
Revenue Service a portion of the federal tax due in those cases in which this
is requested by employees on the grounds of conscience, even though such
action on the part of the conference is against the law?”
There was a flurry of action on why the midtriennium conference organizers had
brought this question to the assembly so early in the day. Conference
president Elmer Neufeld replied that the intention was to bring the question
to the delegates in a clear and forthright manner. The General Board executive
committee had decided to present the main question of the midtriennium in
ballot form as a way of helping the decision-making process. After some
discussion on the procedure Kenneth Bauman of Berne, Indiana, moved the
ballot. It was seconded and discussion began.
Shortly after the midmorning break David Habegger of Wichita, Kansas, brought
in a substitute motion. It stated: “Moved that we request, the General Board
of our conference to engage in a serious and vigorous search to use all legal,
legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving conscientious objection
exemption from the
U.S. legal
requirement that the conference withhold income taxes from the wages of its
employees. If no relief can be found within a three-year period they shall
proceed to a constitutional test of the First Amendment by whatever means
appear most appropriate at the time, including the option of honoring
employees’ requests that their tax not be withheld.”
This sparked a miniprocedural debate. Was a substitute motion the same as an
amendment? Checking their judgment against Robert’s Rules
of Order, the three-man procedural committee said it was. There was
some objection to the ruling.
It was a key ruling. From the tenor of discussion, and from the statements
which 75 churches brought to the midtriennium, it was apparent that most
GC
congregations were not willing to vote “yes” on the first motion. If the first
motion had come to a vote the decision would likely have been against those in
favor of not paying war taxes.
Hence the substitute motion was debated first. In short order it was also
amended by Herman Andres of Newton, Kansas. The amendment carried by a vote of
906-to-458. The amendment changed the second sentence to read: “If no relief
can be found within the three-year period they shall again bring the question
to the conference.” The vote was taken just prior to the
break.
Gordon Kaufman, professor at Harvard Divinity School in Boston, probably made
the key speech of the morning, thereby paving the way for delegates to be
sympathetic to the substitute motion.
Kaufman said he was puzzled by all the concern about legality. He commented,
“The early church was illegal. The Anabaptists were illegal. Illegality is not
a Christian question. We talk as if we are concerned about a massive
illegality. We are not asked to sign pledge cards. The question is are we
willing to test the law that asks the church to collect taxes? We need to test
the law of separation of church and state, and freedom of religion. In this
country it is a matter of civil responsibility to test the law.”
After a rushed noon break — “Here they come,” said one restaurateur — the
final session of two hours began. A vote was taken on the substitute motion
and it passed by a plurality of nine-to-one, 1,218-to-134 votes.
A miracle had happened. It was essentially a consensus. Longtime peace
advocate Henry Fast of Newton, Kansas, called it “an historic moment.”
At this point people made editorial comments about the findings statement. As
a summary of what people at the conference thought it attempted to cover the
spectrum of conviction. Most comments were affirmative and on a voice vote the
conference adopted it. It noted that the world is “caught in a tragic system
of threat and counter-threat, violence and counterviolence.”
“We want to be obedient citizens, but even more we want to be obedient to
Jesus Christ… We are convinced that citizens of Christ’s kingdom must choose
ways to speak and act against this suicidal race to universal destruction.”
During the afternoon session various people made capsule comments and appeals.
One of the appeals was to take an offering to assist those who are resisting
the payment of war taxes.…
The offering realized $3,030.
The magazine helpfully tallied the delegates by district.
Curiously, I thought, the Eastern District was the most well-represented, with
81% of their votes represented by either delegates or proxies. I saw some
evidence in our last episode that the
Eastern District might be particularly conservative on this issue. The least
well-represented of the United States districts was the Pacific, with only 46%
of its voters represented. Canada turned up to a greater extent than some had
worried, with 57% of voters from the Conference of Mennonites in Canada voting.
The edition gave a summary
of the report of the findings committee. Excerpts:
Never in our history have so many engaged their energies so extensively in
preparation for a conference decision.
We want to be obedient citizens, but even more we want to be obedient to Jesus
Christ. In this quest we are aware that the Bible and our people’s experience
do not give us fully explicit answers on the tax issue. At this moment,
therefore, these are our best discernments.
As Christians we must speak and act. We hope that Mennonites will support sons
and daughters in their leadings to witness for Christ — even in such acts as
refusing to pay taxes destined for war. This means prayerful, moral, and
financial support. Our tradition has been to be a quiet people. We yearn to
act and to witness in sensitive ways which exhaust every acceptable legal
process available to the constituency.
We encourage the General Board to work at developing alternative possibilities
for the handling of tax withholding and to work in collaboration with other
church bodies and institutions in seeking to extricate itself from the role of
being a tax-collecting agency.
It is easy to call governments and conference offices to faithfulness. Perhaps
the most urgent call proceeding from this conference is a call to each
other — to individual church members, to families, and to congregations — a
call to renewed faithfulness. What are we prepared to do in revising our style
of life as affluent witnessing against the powers of darkness in this world?
How does my life vocation fulfill the claims of Christ for this age?
We yearn for unity in our churches. We want to proceed together in our
pilgrimage of obedience but don’t want to tarry long in fear and indecision.
We want to affirm those individuals whose consciences are sensitive on issues
not fully shared by all.
Reactions continued to reverberate through the letters-to-the-editor column and
op-eds:
Mary Gerber,
on told the Mennonites who
weren’t resisting taxes that they were in the right and shouldn’t feel
guilty about it.
[S]everal of the church statements and many individuals expressed a
feeling of guilt that they were not following in the steps of those
“prophets” who were refusing to pay a portion of their tax. In order to
compensate for their personal unwillingness to break the law they
enthusiastically offered to provide moral and financial support for those
who did.
…[P]aying someone else to perform what is also my moral duty is
blatant hypocrisy.
If we… honestly wish to follow Christ in all, we will respond as he did
in similar circumstances. We will love and correct that brother, not aid
and abet him.
Ralph A. Ewert,
on , suggested that people
(in the U.S.
anyway) who did not want to pay a percentage of their income taxes should
figure out how much they would have to donate to charity in order to reduce
their taxable income enough to eliminate that much tax and then donate
away.
Mark Penner,
on related the temple
tax and render-unto-Caesar episodes from the Bible as slam-dunk reasons to
oppose tax resistance, as though nobody had thought of that before.
Jack L. Mace,
on found that the Bible
suggested a possible new if counterintuitive technique of tax witness:
While I would like to stop warring uses of my taxes by refusing to pay,
and giving instead to peaceful purposes, I know the
IRS
will collect the money — in spades — and my witness will be just to the
collectors and their supervisors. The government will not prosecute such
tax resistance, because that would draw too much public attention.
I want to witness to the policy enactment levels of government. My study
of the issue brought me to the words of Jesus in
Matthew 5:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil, but if anyone
strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if anyone
would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if
anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”
These words speak of positive responses to negative problems, and of a
method to make a tax witness virtually impossible to be ignored by even
the most recalcitrant legislator; a “second mile theology of witness.”
Taking these words seriously led me to decide that with a letter of
protest to the
IRS
I will pay my full taxes. Then I will send an amount hopefully equal to
the “war taxes” to my senators and/or representative in a check made out
to the government along with a letter of witness.
I will try to find a way to give the money so that disposition on the
congressional floors might be expected — if that be possible — but even
if the legislators send the check back they have had to come to grips
with its existence and its accompanying witness. The returned check would
then call for another letter containing the check, which again could not
be ignored.
The letter will contain a brief statement of my conscientious objection
to killing and its implications to the use of my tax dollars for war.
Then it will turn to the disposition of the check. Explaining
respectfully that since they are acting against my will as a provider for
the military machine with my tax dollars, I will ask as diligent action
on my behalf for the use of the money enclosed for the
proliferation of peace. The money is to be used by the government within
the framework of not doing violence to my conscience. I will list some
uses of the money which would violate my conscience, and why — being
careful not to suggest specific uses I would desire. The whole idea is to
get legislators to dialogue with their conscience on this issue.
I will actually split the check, sending at least two letters. Our new
Kansas senator, Nancy Kassebaum, needs to be made aware of our faith
early on. On the other hand, Robert Dole is one of the most recalcitrant
senators at the point of military spending. He had the temerity to come
to our Mid-Kansas
MCC
relief sale in his campaign last year and speak on the “need” for
increased military spending. It may even be advantageous for my
congressman, Dan Glickman, to receive a letter with part of the money. He
is a Democrat, and with Dole and Kassebaum being Republicans he might
just act as political conscience to the others. In each case of a split
check, all recipients will be told that there are others and the total
amount of the checks written.
After sharing this idea on the conference floor, there was sufficient
informal response between sessions that I decided to share more in this
letter and to invite anyone else who wishes to join me in this effort. It
would be desirable to make a coordinated effort so that the letters
arrive within a relatively short time for the greatest impact. It might
even be good to split up the amount into quarterly payments to be sent at
strategic times throughout the congressional year.
If you are interested in dialogue on this idea or if you plan to try it
with me, I would appreciate hearing from you and receiving your input.
Stanley E. Kaufman,
on expressed his disappointment
at the timidity of the “too-reluctant” Minneapolis resolution. He urged
The Mennonite to publish frequent updates on the
work of the task force searching for a “legal alternative” along with
suggestions for how people could help that work, and that people who do
independent outreach to officials keep The
Mennonite informed of their actions. He also said that while the
institutional church dithers, “each of us individuals [should]
consider stronger forms of witness”.
Direct tax resistance should not be forgotten for three years but should
be actively debated in our congregations and experimented with in our
lives. One of the biggest barriers to this is not knowing who and how
many others are currently engaged in tax resistance. I am refusing to pay
voluntarily my telephone tax (being a student, I have no income), but I’m
finding even this relatively simple stance rather difficult because I
feel I’m standing alone. I suggest that The
Mennonite could provide a forum — perhaps through a special
column — in which all those resisting taxes could find each other and
communicate experiences they’ve had, arguments they’ve encountered,
statements of the bases of their actions,
etc.
In our efforts to be faithful to God in this matter — to attempt to
change U.S.
military policy through tax witness — we need to be “wise as serpents and
harmless as doves.” We need to refine our strategies, improve our
communication, and support each other’s involvements.
It appeared that our over-politeness got in our way to deal effectively
with the issue at hand. It appeared as though the issue at hand was put
on the back burner to simmer to give us Mennonites more time. More time
for what? It will give a few people more time to pursue other legal
alternatives to the specific tax issue. It will also give many of us
grass-roots people in the church more time to remain silent and not be
directly faced with a Mennonite stand on the issue. It is those long,
noncommitted silent periods which trouble me… A firm and committed voice
by the Mennonite people needs to be heard in our world now.
Gaynette Friesen,
on , wrote that though “we
still have nearly 2½ years to resolve ourselves, hopefully as a unified
body, to the question of war taxes,” that’s no reason to slack off.
The edition gave another update on
the activities of the “task force”:
Two meetings of the task force on taxes have been held. The task force has
been expanded to include representation from the Church of the Brethren, the
Friends, and the Mennonite Church. This group of 11 is expected by the
participating churches to establish the legal, legislative, and administrative
agenda of a corporate discipleship response to military taxes.
The Minneapolis resolution mandated the task force to seek “all legal,
legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector
exemption” for the GCMC
from the withholding of federal income taxes from its employees. (About 46
percent of U.S.
federal taxes are used for the military.)
At their second meeting () the
task force members rejected administrative avenues. Within the scope of
U.S. Internal
Revenue Service or Revenue Canada regulations this would involve extending
ordination, commissioning, or licensing status to all employees of church
institutions. It was a consensus of the task force that this would be an
administrative loophole. It would not develop a conscientious objector
position in response to military taxes.
However, both the judicial and legislative options will be pursued
simultaneously. Plans for the legislative option are the more developed.
For the legislative route to work, says Delton Franz, director of the
Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section office in Washington,
D.C., the
problem of conscience and taxes will have to be defined carefully. Currently a
paper focusing on the reasons the General Conference has a major problem of
conscience with collecting taxes from its employees is being drafted. After it
has been reviewed and okayed it will be sent along with cover letters by
leaders of the historic peace churches to congresspersons representing major
constituency concentrations and those on key subcommittees. Later on church
members will also be asked to write letters. It is important, says Franz, to
define the problem of conscience in such a way that it will motivate
congresspersons to work vigorously for the bill.
Another follow-up to these initiatives will be a visit to Washington of the
most influential peace church leaders to solicit support from selected members
of Congress and to obtain a sponsor for an exemption bill.
In preparation for the next meeting of the task force in November law firms
are being contacted for advice on optimum judicial procedures should the task
force decide to initiate a case as plaintiff. However, there is doubt that a
judicial process would be productive.
There is a possibility that a parallel task force will emerge in Canada. Ernie
Regehr, director of Project Ploughshares, Waterloo, Ontario, notes the
necessity of defining the question of militarism in Canadian terms for
Canadians. Regehr is attempting to gather a Canadian task force.
This mirrored a growing enthusiasm for the Peace Tax Fund legislation in many
organizations and congregations of the General Conference. This would
ultimately allow Mennonites to pass their well-worn buck all the way to
Washington,
D.C., and let
Congress take the blame for further delays.
New Call to Peacemaking
The New Call to Peacemaking initiative continued in .
Tax resistance was on the agenda at the follow-up meeting for churches in the central United States in .
Bruce Chrisman
In , a hundred participants,
mostly Mennonites, but also Quakers, Brethren “plus several Catholics and a
Presbyterian” came to
the fourth Mid-America New Call to Peacemaking.
“Conscription of Youth and Wealth” was the theme, and tax resistance was
again high on the agenda:
In the workshop on conscription of wealth Bob Hull, secretary for peace
and social concerns of the General Conference, suggested some
alternatives to paying war taxes. Others offered their own suggestions.
It was decided that resisting war taxes is a complicated affair and that
each person should decide according to their conscience. Several
expressed the desire to pay taxes for education, welfare, and other
social services, and wished there was an alternative such as the World
Peace Tax Fund. [Richard] McSorley, who has had contacts on Capitol Hill,
responded by saying that until there is a large grass-roots movement of
tax resistance the
WPTF
doesn’t stand a chance.
The latter half of the workshop included sharing by Bruce Chrisman,
Carbondale, Illinois, who is involved in a federal criminal case, one of
two in the
U.S.
involving tax resistance. His case is significant because it will provide
a precedent either for or against tax refusal on the basis of conscience
and religious convictions.
In Chrisman received draft counseling
from James Dunn, pastor of the Champaign-Urbana (Illinois) Mennonite
Church. He made a covenant with God to only pay taxes for humanitarian
purposes. Since that time he has paid no federal income taxes. It wasn’t
until this year, however, that the government prosecuted him, charging
that he willfully failed to disclose his gross income in
. “Willful” is the key term, because
Chrisman claims he conscientiously chose not to disclose his income. He
feels the government has purposely waited to build its case.
“The government wants to establish a precedent in order to prosecute
other tax resisters.” But Chrisman is confident. “We’re going to win and
establish a precedent the other way,” he said. He believes he has a
strong case. Part of that strength comes from his affiliation with the
General Conference Mennonite Church. He read from a statement from the
triennium which opposes war taxes and
supports those who resist paying them. “That’s a beautiful statement!” he
exclaimed, explaining that it has important legal implications for his
case.
In a moving conclusion to his talk Chrisman said that when he first
appeared in court this year
he was “scared to death.” “Today,” he said, “I have no fear in me. God
has given me an inner peace. I know I’m doing what he wants me to do.” No
one disagreed.
Chrisman would lose his court case.
On he was convicted
of failure to file (he filed, but the government contended the
information on the filing was not sufficient to make it legal).
During the pretrial hearings Judge J. Waldo Ackerman allowed Robert
Hull, secretary for peace and social concerns of the General
Conference, and Peter Ediger, director of Mennonite Voluntary
Service, to testify about Mennonite witness against war and
conscription of persons and money for war purposes. But the
testimony was disallowed at the trial.
Chrisman would ultimately be sentenced
to pay the taxes and court costs, to do a year of Mennonite Voluntary
Service, and to probation. He spun this as a victory of sorts:
“I’m amazed… I feel very good about the sentence. The alternative
service is probably the first sentence of its kind for a tax case. I
think it reflects the testimony in the trial and its influence on
the judge.”
Chrisman’s attorney filed an appeal of the conviction, which
was heard in , with the Mennonite General Conference filing an amicus curiae in Chrisman’s behalf.
Miscellany
A letter to the editor from Jacob T. Friesen described how he withheld a symbolic $13 from his income taxes “to gain attention and create opportunity to ‘dialogue for peace.’ ”
The issue told of the Manitoba Alliance Against Abortion, whose bank accounts had been frozen by the Canadian tax agency to pay for the taxes the organization’s president, Joe Borowski, had been refusing to pay for several years. The organization disputed that the funds belonged to the organization’s president and could thereby be seized, saying that the funds were meant for a legal battle against legal abortion. A letter-writing campaign by supporters of the group was credited for pressuring the government to abandon the seizure.
Chris Dueck, in the edition, called Mennonites out for complaining about Caesar’s war taxes while hoarding Caesar’s currency. “For us to refuse payment of taxes is to say ‘we want to keep the money we get through your military-economic policies, but we don’t want any of the guilt.’ The war tax issue is shedding guilt without shedding the selfish heart.”
In the edition, Gordon Houser looked into the New Creation Fellowship intentional community — which “was born out of the concern of a small group of people about the sad state of our society [and] a common involvement in simple living, war tax resistance, and prison reform.”
In , twenty people “from the General Conference Mennonite Church, the Mennonite Church, the Conservative Conference, and the Beachy Amish” met “to air trends within the Mennonite church and to share concerns.” Among those concerns, as expressed in a jointly-framed statement:
According to the direct command to pay taxes (Romans 13:6,7)
and according to the specific word of Christ on the payment of taxes to
“Caesar” (Matthew 22:15–22)
we believe we are under obligation to pay taxes levied by the law. We
regard taxation as the power of the state to collect monies needed for
its budget and not as voluntary contributions by citizens.
The Minneapolis conference
was given credit
for encouraging peace-minded clergy to come together and discuss the arms
race and peace advocacy.
William Stringfellow addressed the Church of the Brethren Symposium and suggested that the contemporary urban church should renounce its tax-exempt status. “since present tax privileges curtail the church’s freedom to speak out on important matters and keep it from engaging in tax resistance.”
[G]ood citizenship does not imply that we should obey our government
without regard for Christian conscience. Rather, good citizenship leads
us to work as a church and human community towards the establishment of
God’s kingdom on earth… We believe that Christ’s strength is in his
weakness and that the present aggressive stance of the world’s military
powers runs counter to our call to be peacemakers.
In the issue, Ferd Wiens
attacked “what may be called a ‘peace” cult” of
Mennonite flagellants
who, in his view, had turned the doctrine of nonresistance on its head to
make it a doctrine of civil disobedience — calling out promoters of war tax
resistance in particular.
Walter Regier agreed, writing that “[e]mphasis on world peace through demonstrations and nonpayment of taxes simply brings confusion into our ranks” and distracts from “more important issues that we face in our day… like abortion, homosexuality, and divorce”.
The U.S. branch
of
Pax
Christi (a Catholic peace movement) invited some of their Mennonite
counterparts to their annual convention in
.
Mennonites Bob Hull and Don Kaufman of Newton, Kansas, led a workshop on
tax resistance and the World Peace Tax Fund Act. Interest in this was
strong. About 40 persons, including some tax resisters, participated.
Hull is peace and social concerns director for the General Conference;
Kaufman is author of The Tax Dilemma: Praying for Peace, Paying for War.
In a private meeting with Sister Mary Evelyn Jegen, executive secretary
of Pax Christi
USA,
and Gordon Zahn, a Catholic conscientious objector in World War Ⅱ, Hull,
Kaufman, and William Keeney explained the General Conference resolution
on war taxes. Keeney, North Newton, Kansas, is director of the Consortium
on Peace Research, Education, and Development.
Although Pax Christi
USA,
supports the World Peace Tax Fund it has not responded to its members who
engage in war tax withholding and are requesting official support from
Pax Christi.
Albert H. Epp
felt that civil disobedience and other sorts of confrontation with
government “can ensnare a people in activities that make them obnoxious to
the general citizenry. It is ‘good’ deeds that earn respect and give us a
right to speak.” For this reason “It seems improper for Christians to start
at the point of urging illegal tax-resistance rather than first declaring a
church-wide month of prayer for a national crisis.”
In my congregation we took a poll on ideal ways to influence government.
We prefer to exhaust all legal means to achieve peace before we engage in
illegal maneuvers. Only 5 percent approved of refusing to pay one’s tax
as a protest. But in terms of practical, positive solutions, we found
that 65 percent approved the World Peace Tax Fund alternative; 85 percent
approved writing the President and Congress; 85 percent approved using
the ballot box to elect responsive leaders; and 89 percent approved
increased giving to decrease taxes.
But David Graber
responded that in his opinion “the demand to lay down our tax dollars
is a similar call to idolatry” as those that prompted the civil
disobedience of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. “Thank God for
Christians today who refuse to cooperate with our government’s demands
in Jesus’ name. Where is Epp’s recognition of their witness?”
And Mark S. Lawson added that the blessings of government that Epp
felt we should all be humbly grateful for weren’t all that. For
example: “My country forces me to cut my income below the taxable
level so I can obey both the laws of God and man. Religious liberty is
only for those who support the killing in wars financed by their tax
money.” He seconded the idea that only through “widespread tax
refusal” could pacifists pressure Congress into creating an
alternative for conscientious taxpayers.
C.B. Friesen
was more appreciative of Epp’s take. He trotted out the usual
Render Unto Caesar ⇒ Romans 13 ⇒ 1 Peter 2
biblical justification for submission to civil government and said
that those who counsel war tax resistance “mostly benefit their egos”
in service of their “own philosophies and pet theories”.
The Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section (U.S.)
met at . They
“formally supported the passage of the World Peace Tax Fund bill” but
“decided against sponsoring a vigorous campaign to promote Mennonite
participation in a war tax resistance campaign. Section members felt such a
resolution would not reflect the will of their constituent bodies.” So they
instead adopted the kick-the-can routine, passing “a resolution that the
section ‘is prepared to consider at its meeting a decision to promote participation in a war tax
resistance campaign.’ ” There seemed to be some acknowledgment of flaws in
the Peace Tax Fund bill:
The section said in resolution “that it is conscience that the
WPTF
legislation might not in itself force a significant reduction in military
spending, but it recognizes that it would provide funds for peacemaking
efforts and would be a witness against military spending.”
This is the twenty-seventh in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we enter the 1980s.
During the first and second world wars the Mennonite “presence” to the world was the shock of refusal to bear arms. That’s not an issue now; most military service is voluntary.
What are we refusing now?
Not many are doing it, but some Mennonites in the U.S. are refusing to pay the portion of their income tax which will be used for military expenditures.
For instance, Cornelia Lehn, director of children’s education for the General Conference, has shared this witness: “Finally I decided to give half of my income to relief and other church work and thus force the Internal Revenue Service to return that portion of my tax which they had already slated for military purposes…
“I realize that this is not the perfect answer… It is, however, the best answer I know at this time.
Finally I could no longer acquiesce and be part of something so diabolical as war.
I had to take a stand against it…
“I wish that my church, which believes in the way of peace, would as a body no longer gather money to help the government make war.
I wish all the members of our church would stand up in horror and refuse to allow it to happen.
Then the conference officers would be in a position to say to the government: ‘We will not give you our sons and daughters and we will not give you our money to kill others.
Allow us to serve our country in the way of peace.’ ”
Is Cornelia Lehn speaking as a prophet?
Does she have a word from the Lord to help us respond in a meaningful way to demonic forces?
Peter Ediger writes with prophetic urgency about what people like Cornelia Lehn are doing: “Do we know that there are hundreds and thousands of people out there waiting for a word from the church, waiting for some action from the church?
Have we some sense of the explosive evangelistic potential of this kind of action?
Do you know that the day of the police state is not only coming but that it is here in its roots, and the issue will not go away?”
Whether we follow Cornelia Lehn’s example or not, we would do well to have her sense of urgency about our own allegiance to the Prince of Peace and ask God for help in making our own faith relevant to our times.
The Commission on Home Ministries met in . Military conscription was prominent on the agenda (President Carter had recently revived military draft registration), but war tax resistance seems to have been pushed aside except for a brief mention:
Chairperson Don Steelberg asked, “How can we who are older support those facing this decision?”
[Robert] Hull replied, “If we counsel them to say no to registration then we should say no to paying war taxes.”
This was part of a “council of commissions” gathering.
Another report on that gathering mentioned the “Smoketown Consultation” rebellion of conservative Mennonites .
Three of these dissenters were at the council, and one, Albert Epp, reportedly “said the preparatory materials for the war tax conference in Minneapolis were slanted in favor of war tax resistance.”
The West Coast Mennonite Central Committee and the Fellowship of Reconciliation co-sponsored a “first annual” workshop on war tax resistance.
Local tax resisters told their stories.
Gray-haired Helen, a Friend, donates the amount of her military tax to organizations working on justice.
Diane works at a state institution for the mentally retarded and realized that military taxes take money away from human needs.
All hope for a mass movement by citizens but stressed the consistent commitment necessary.
They write letters of explanation to the Internal Revenue Service, editors of newspapers, their churches, members of Congress, the President.
They educate employers and bank officials of the possibility of their wages being garnisheed or a lien put on an account.
The IRS is sensitive to “principled tax refusal,” said Irwin Hagenauer [sic], retired social worker who now serves as volunteer resource person to those who would refuse war tax.
He gives advice on every method, from W-4 exemptions to war-crime deductions.
The edition carried an article by Weldon Schloneger on Biblical Authority that discussed the difficulty of interpreting even straightforward-sounding biblical passages in context, and urged charity toward other Christians with differing interpretations.
Among those verses he describes are Matthew 5:44 (“Love your enemies”) and Matthew 22:21 (“Render unto Caesar”) and he mentions how war tax resisters and their opponents each accept the authority of these verses, but interpret them differently.
The edition included another poem trying to drive home the point about taxpaying and complicity: “I fueled the fire / Pumped gas in the the furnaces at Buchenwald / Its flames have lingered within us, smoldering / Today I paid my taxes, that’s all” and so forth.
The edition included the article “Tax form for pacifists” by Colman McCarthy.
It started by pointing out taxpayer complicity with military spending, and “the hollowness of denouncing increases in the defense budget and ‘the wicked Pentagon’ [when c]itizens pay for both.”
The article took a detour into wishful thinking about the World Peace Tax Fund bill before finally returning home:
Without this kind of legislative relief conscientious objectors are left with three options: violate their moral values by financing the military, violate the tax laws by not paying, or earn so little income that it is not taxable.
Traditionally courts have had little patience with tax resisters.
Often judges mistakenly see those citizens as evaders, when actually they are pacifists who want to put their money where their convictions are.
According to William Samuel of the [National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund], cases of conscientious tax resistance have not only been increasing in recent years, but they have also been going on to higher courts of appeal.
In at Richmond the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments from three citizens claiming First and Ninth amendment rights not to pay taxes for military spending.
While Congress and the courts mull over the issue a few individuals are acting on their own.
Only blocks from the White House, Collective Impressions Printshop has been refusing for the past two years to send its federal withholding tax to the IRS.
Instead this corporation submits the money to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
The defiance of these pacifists unloosens only the smallest of screws in the U.S.’s vast military machine.
The arms-control agency politely returns the checks and eventually the IRS seizes the group’s bank account.
But it doesn’t seize its moral integrity or squash the option for dissent that is so crucial.
That issue also included an interview with Harold R. Regier and Hubert Schwartzentruber, until recently the peace and social concerns secretaries for the Mennonite General Conference and the Mennonite Church respectively.
The former, when asked what the highlights of his term had been, mentioned the General Conference resolution that had announced church support for war tax resisters, and also God and Caesar:
This little newsletter of information and dialogue about war taxes brought together a community of people struggling with the question of supporting with our money what we could not participate in personally.
We discovered increasing numbers of people responsive to the dilemma of being Christian peacemakers and their support of war with tax monies.
Working on the war tax issue as a new frontier for Anabaptist discipleship was perhaps the single most exciting highlight of my as PSC secretary.
A special Commission on Home Ministries supplement, dated , listed “some ideas we are testing” which included this one:
Just as our forefathers clarified important church-state issues in objecting to war participation, we may be able to make a significant contribution for freedom of religion and against state religion in the area of paying taxes to support war.
An outside-our-conference-budget fund could finance test cases in the U.S. and Canada to clarify the church-state issues involved in paying taxes used for war.
A creative proposal could be tested with legislators, such as one just surfacing: persons contributing “sabbatical service,” a VS term every seventh year to work for the good of others, should be allowed to designate their taxes for constructive purposes.
This idea apparently came out of a discussion between Robert Hull of the CHM Peace and Social Concerns group and a young conscientious objector facing a trial on tax charges.
The task force that had been assigned to try to find some legal avenue for the General Conference to stop withholding taxes from its conscientious objecting employees seems to have come up with its first concrete action plan:
A resolution seeking approval to initiate a judicial action to exempt the General Conference from withholding taxes from the income of its employees will be presented to delegates attending the denomination’s triennial meeting in Estes Park, Colorado, .
At a special meeting of church delegates in Minneapolis in the highest governing board of the church was instructed to vigorously search for “all legal, legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption” from withholding taxes.
Implicit in the initiative is the view that if it is wrong for pacifists to countenance the drafting of their bodies, it is also wrong to agree to the drafting of that portion of income taxes which go to the military.
The judicial action would be based on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects the church from laws causing it to violate its principles.
The estimated cost of a judicial action is $75,000 to $130,000. It would likely require several years to reach a final decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Delegates will be asked to authorize an annual church offering to fund this action and also a stepped-up drive to gain congressional support for the World Peace Tax Fund act.
The Church of the Brethren has affirmed “open, nonevasive withholding of war taxes as a legitimate witness to our conscientious intention to follow the call of discipleship to Jesus Christ.”
With respect to the payment of taxes used for war purposes, the New Call restated its commitment to urge Christian peacemakers to “consider withholding from the Internal Revenue Service all tax monies which contribute to any war effort.”
The statement of findings recommended the following as alternatives to the payment of war taxes: (1) active work for the adoption of the World Peace Tax Fund bill which, if passed by the U.S. Congress, would serve as a legal alternative to payment of war taxes just as conscientious objector status is a legal alternative to military service, and (2) individuals are urged to consider prayerfully all moral ways of reducing their tax liabilities, including sizable contributions to tax-exempt organizations, reduction of personal income, and simplification of lifestyles.
In the edition, Peter Farrar shared a letter he wrote to his senator saying that he was going beyond draft resistance “to sever all personal connection with the federal government of the United States”:
I will no longer vote in federal elections, pay federal taxes, nor use federal services, and I will do everything in my power, privately and in the press, to influence others to join me.
Ed Pearson gave an update on an “escrow fund” originated in , to which people can send the part of their taxes they refuse to pay… The government is notified that the money will be released when the World Peace Tax Fund Bill, pending in congress, is passed.
Similar efforts are under way in Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Holland, Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr. addressed the World Conference on Religion for Peace (Canada) in .
In The Mennonite’s description of his remarks is this note:
Finally, “The Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes” met again in .
The Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes will undertake a major effort to inform and educate members of its congregations and meetings on the implications of the payment of taxes used for military purposes.
The committee has commissioned the preparation of a packet of study materials on the biblical basis of war taxes, the World Peace Tax Fund (WPTF) bill currently pending in the U.S. Congress, and suggestions for personal and political action.
Meeting at the General Conference Mennonite Church (GCMC) headquarters here on , the task force also heard a report that William Ball, noted constitutional law attorney from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has indicated interest in representing the GCMC in its proposed judicial action on the withholding of taxes from its employees.
Among other attorneys being considered to carry the case are Alan Hunt of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; William Rich of Topeka, Kansas; and Harrop Freeman of Ithaca, New York.
The selection of a legal representative will be finalized .
Preparation of the tax study materials will be coordinated by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Peace Section in Akron, Pennsylvania, in consultation with the National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund in Washington, D.C., and representatives of the historic peace churches.
These groups include the General Conference Mennonite Church, Mennonite Church, Mennonite Brethren Church, Brethren in Christ, Church of the Brethren, Friends General Conference, Friends United Meeting, and Evangelical Friends Alliance.
Several members of the task force voiced concerns over the lack of understanding on the part of lay people within these congregations and meetings of the magnitude of the nuclear and military threat, of which the U.S. is a major participant.
The decision to prepare study materials came in response to the need for greater awareness of the sizable contribution which each taxpayer makes to the “morally bankrupt” process of gigantic military expenditures.
“Our congregations need to be educated to understand the issues and the policies of our [U.S.] administration,” said Alan Eccleston of the National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund.
Eccleston noted that the WPTF bill has entered a critical phase; during the elections, 5 of its 35 sponsors were lost.
Efforts to see the legislation through Congress must be redoubled, or the bill will soon have to be abandoned and energies channeled in other directions, he said.
Regarding the legal action to seek an injunction against the Internal Revenue Service concerning the collection of taxes from General Conference employees, Vern Preheim, general secretary of the GCMC, indicated that other historic peace churches have been invited to join in in the suit in some way.
Responses from other church groups however, are still in process.
The General Board of the GCMC was empowered to undertake the court challenge at the triennial meeting of conference delegates at Estes Park, Colorado .
At the meetings, task force members seemed to differ significantly in terms of their interests in war tax issues.
Committee members such as Eccleston and Robert Hull, secretary for peace and justice for GCMC, were concerned about the future of the peace witness in comprehensive terms, and specifically as it related to the war tax issue.
Others, such as Duane Heffelbower, an attorney from Reedley, California, were interested in the tax question in more professionally restricted terms. Heffelbower stated that he could face disbarment if he became an active tax resister; therefore, the passage of the WPTF is an attractive option because it involves no risk to his profession.
Other task force participants included Heinz Janzen, Hillsboro, Kansas (chairperson); Delton Franz, North Newton, Kansas; Paul Gingrich, Elkhart, Indiana; Janet Reedy, Elkhart, Indiana; John Stoner and Ron Flickinger of Akron, Pennsylvania; and James Thomas, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The entire task force will meet again on in Chicago.
This is the twenty-eighth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we hit 1981.
In our last episode, a proposal was briefly floated in which people would be allowed to become legal conscientious objectors to military taxation in exchange for donating their labor, one year out of every seven, in a “sabbatical service” program.
Robert Hull, who developed this idea along with a young conscientious objector he was counseling, expanded on this idea in two articles for The Mennonite in :
Can it be that this misplaced respecting of institutions and laws rather than persons has come about because we have put the burden of Christian witness on 18-to-20-year-olds, who are perhaps least prepared through experience to detect the difference?
Can it be that because of the risks to ourselves and our security, we who are older have failed to acknowledge that conscientious objection to military participation and conscientious objection to war taxation are Siamese twins?
Just because we may have become too old to be liable to the draft does not mean our contribution to warfare is ended.
We continue to serve the military through conscription of our taxes.
In fact, governmental draft boards could, for reasons of administrative efficiency, take the position that everyone who is nonconformist enough to request a conscientious objector classification should be granted it, so long as he or she continues to work and pay taxes.
So our rush to prepare our sons and daughters as Christian peacemakers to face the draft board and seek alternative service may be leading them only to “men-pleasing eyeservice” if we do not wrestle with our command to “make known the wisdom of God to the principalities and powers.”
The difficulty which faces us in is that those among us who have recognized this danger have so far been given no option but noncooperation with conscription, and jail or emigration.
(And let us recognize in due honesty the Christian service and witness that has frequently been given in these situations.)
What we are called upon to propose in is a new option, a new model for Christian service in the midst of the demands of militaristic societies.
Our proposal must be directed first to the church, and secondarily to the U.S. and Canadian governments.
It must strike a new stance in the political arena where the demands of the state and the call of God overlap and frequently conflict.
The congregational ministry of sabbatical service as outlined in part one would seem to be such an option.
It would involve the whole congregation, including people at every stage of life, and would remove the particular burden of responding to militarism now largely borne by 18-to-20-year-old males.
By acknowledging that we as Mennonites ought to face together the Siamese twins of military conscription and war taxation, which spring from the parent, militarism, we can unify the generational differences in our congregations.
How can this be accomplished?
Currently the World Peace Tax Fund bill is pending in the U.S. Congress, and efforts are being made to introduce a similar measure into the Canadian Parliament.
By diverting from military to peacemaking uses an amount (equivalent to the military proportion of the annual federal budget) from each “eligible” taxpayer’s income and estate taxes, the peacemaker’s burden of conscience with regard to paying for war would be satisfied.
(This does not answer the political problem of swollen military budgets themselves, of course, but only whether peacemakers shall contribute to them.)
So the Peace Tax Fund bills speak effectively to the war taxation twin.
They speak to the military conscription twin as well by defining as “eligible” taxpayers those classified as conscientious objectors.
If it is true, as General Lewis Hershey and numerous U.S. Selective Service documents have claimed, that the CO provisions of were a good accommodation strategy for the U.S. government (by avoiding a direct confrontation with the peace churches as in World War Ⅰ), then one wonders why the U.S. legislators and Canadian MPs have not rushed to establish Peace Tax Funds and thereby avoid confrontations with the war tax objectors.
Certainly one part of the answer is that our governments know that the peace churches are not unified on this issue, and they can continue to deal with individual objectors quietly and piecemeal in Internal Revenue Service and Revenue Canada offices.
But perhaps the stronger reason is that taxation is more important for a high-technology military establishment than manpower.
Peace Tax Fund bills allow the taxpayers some choice in directing the spending of their taxes.
This could, as the minds of many legislators conceive, “open the floodgates” to a deluge of what they look upon as “special interest legislation.”
Most of such tax legislation, or “loopholes,” is written to financially benefit individuals, groups, or corporations.
One answer to this mindset of legislators is to point out the distinct history of conscientious objection and its recognition in both legislative acts and judicial decisions.
This argument is usually helpful but not sufficient.
Many legislators and MPs still see little distinction between CO alternative service and “draft dodgers,” despite its legal status.
It seems to them a special interest provision, the “easy way out.”
If a young person were to covenant as a sabbatical servant, pledging to perform subsistence-level VS periodically throughout his or her working life, and willing to undergo repeated financial sacrifice for this purpose, would this help change the mindset that “these COs are parasites on the U.S. (and Canadian) economic system”?
For this reason, a “Sabbatical Service Act” may have considerable appeal in the U.S. Congress or Canadian Parliament where the Peace Tax Fund bills alone have not.
How can one consider that a people who are willing to accept seven years of service spread throughout their working lives, and thus accept substantial limits on their income growth, are seeking “special interest legislation”?
Are such a peculiar people unpatriotic, who are willing to reduce the benefits they receive from North American economic systems in return for recognition of their conscientious objection to military service and military-purposes taxation?
How could this be done?
A “Sabbatical Service Act” could be introduced into the U.S. Congress and the Canadian Parliament which would provide legal recognition for persons who covenant with their congregations (or agencies established for the purpose of receiving such sabbatical service covenants from conscientious objectors).
In other words, a form such as the Christian Peacemaker Registration, which has become familiar among U.S. Mennonites in recent years, would then be the registration.
Congregations or conferences would then simply report those who so covenant to the appropriate government, and they would then be omitted from military conscription rather than registered, and their beliefs classified by the governments.
The “Sabbatical Service Act” would further incorporate the Peace Tax Fund provisions (which may differ in Canada and the U.S.).
When a sabbatical servant performed his or her periodic VS, their income would be below taxable levels.
During the six intervening years, when their income would be taxable, the Peace Tax Fund mechanism would operate to divert the military-equivalent proportion of their taxes to peacemaking efforts (such as National Peace Academy, funding an Ambassador for Disarmament, conflict resolution research, economic conversion plans for military installations, etc.).
The concept of sabbatical service thus envisions a response to militarism (represented by military conscription and war taxation) which is voluntary in the sense of being self-chosen by peacemakers, yet structured into enabling legislation by governments.
It is a proposal which could be both faithful and legal, with the potential for generating a Jubilee of enthusiasm for service in the name of Christ.
Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section’s “Taxes for Peace” fund experienced an increase in contributions during .
The fund was established in late .
“Persons whose consciences forbid them to yield money on request to the government’s death-by-technology militarism are contributing the military portion of their income tax instead to the life-supporting work of MCC U.S. Peace Section,” says John K. Stoner, executive secretary of the section.
“They see it as a way of fulfilling the scriptural command to owe no one anything, except to love one another.”
Paul Leatherman explained why he and his wife Joan had started to dip their toes into tax resistance, in the issue.
Excerpts:
A willingness to allow the ongoing conscription of our tax dollars for war purposes — without witness against it — is surely a tacit support of the arms race.
This reality is crucial to Mennonite witness today.
The fuel that supports military madness is tax dollars, not the conscription of our youth.
Previous conscientious objection (CO) patterns — expressed mainly in alternative service by our youth — are inadequate.
We must find new ways to show our personal CO witness.
Several options have some validity.
(1) Leave the country and find a place not given to the madness of war.
Our forefathers have done this more than once.
(2) Decrease our earnings so we have no tax obligation.
(3) Increase our giving to the church; that which otherwise goes for the arms race.
(4) Do not file an income tax return.
(5) Withhold payment of that portion of income taxes used for military purposes.
(6) Symbolic withholding of income tax.
(7) Pay taxes under protest.
(8) Do nothing at all.
We personally have tried various ways to withhold a portion of our income taxes we considered to be used for military purposes.
This has opened unique opportunities for witness.
But in the end the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) took the money.
What next step might a larger group of Mennonites take?
Many have done nothing; some have written letters of protest.
A lot of them feel quite uneasy.
This year we withheld $7.77. There is no place on U.S. tax form 1040 — nor is there legal provision to take such a deduction; just as there was no legal provision for our youth to register as COs. But Mennonite churches encouraged those who registered to do so as COs. To us, it seems that a symbolic $7.77 war tax deduction helps us to be counted as COs. We used line 46 on page 2 of the form and wrote in the words “war tax credit — see letter.”
An attached letter explained the deduction.
Our proposal of a $7.77 deduction may be as little as one can do and still be counted.
It is not more radical or illegal than asking our youth to register as COs when there was no legal provision.
Why $7.77?
Seven is the perfect number in the Bible.
Jesus tells us to forgive 70 times 7. While any amount might do, $7.77 has special meaning to us.
If you withhold $7.77, it is necessary to explain to IRS.
Seven dollars and seventy-seven cents becomes a frustration to IRS.
It is too small and too costly to collect.
Much discussion can follow.
We are proposing — to our elected officials — passage of the World Peace Tax Fund (WPTF) so we can designate taxes for peaceful purposes.
We sent our $7.77 to the national council of the WPTF in support of its efforts.
If nobody joins us in this symbolic withholding, IRS will be glad for one less war-tax resister to deal with.
In the past they came to take from us what we withheld.
This year they may ignore us.
But if 1,000 or 10,000 or perchance 100,000 would join us in this symbolic action, it could not be ignored.
Provision would be made to accommodate these COs.
We know symbolic withholding of $7.77 is timid.
But by this act we can be counted as COs. It is our attempt to follow Christ’s teaching to be peacemakers.
The midtriennial in Minneapolis where the war tax resistance idea came to a head in the General Conference seems to have planted some seeds in the local faith-based peace community.
From the edition:
An interdenominational clergy and lay group in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area has sent a statement of protest against the world arms race and the taxes levied to support it to U.S. senators, representatives, and President Reagan.
The group, called the “People of Faith Peacemakers,” sponsored a public meeting on the arms race and war tax resistance recently at University Lutheran Church of Hope in Minneapolis.
The statement, entitled “Covenant of Witness and Mutual Support,” grew out of the meeting and was attached to a list of 50 supporters, with signatures and addresses.
The statement reads as follows: “We, people of faith in God as our sustainer and source of peace, hereby register our protest against the world arms race and against taxes levied to support that race.
As stewards of life we are compelled by conscience to oppose the use of our money for the infliction of suffering and destruction of humanity.
“We therefore support each other as we select various means, such as the following, to protest this payment for war, recognizing our responsibility as American citizens and members of the larger global community: (1) Deliberately choosing to earn less than a taxable income; (2) Payment of taxes accompanied by a letter of protest against their use to sustain the arms race; (3) Withholding a token amount of taxes as a symbol of opposition to the use of any funds dedicated to military purposes; (4) Refusal to pay the entire portion of taxes used for military purposes; and (5) Refusal to pay the telephone tax which is levied for military purposes.”
The last three measures were coupled with a clause whereby the withheld amount could be donated to an escrow account for the World Peace Tax Fund, the Minnesota Alternative Fund, or some other peaceful purpose.
The interdenominational group took shape shortly after the General Conference Mennonite Church held a special midtriennium session in the Twin Cities on the theme of Christian civil responsibility in .
Myron Schrag, pastor of Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis, is one of the coordinators of the interfaith body.
A conservative backlash to changes in the Mennonite General Conference, including but not limited to the emergence of war tax resistance, resulted in the “Smoketown Consultation.”
A “Consultation on Continuing Concerns” grew out of that, and held another meeting in .
An article on the meeting included this section on taxes:
[Myron] Ausburger said we are unfair when we expect the state to operate at a Christian level.
It is a people’s franchise.
The church is Jesus[’] franchise.
We need to relate to the state as we do to the world — in loving responsibility first to God but also to our fellow persons.
Augsburger also presented his tax-proposal: (1) Get giving high as possible, so taxes are low as possible; (2) pay taxes; (3) calculate amount used for defense and give an equivalent amount to a peacemaking fund.
Dean Denner wrote to the IRS to explain his tax resistance, and portions of the letter were reproduced in the edition:
Of the United States income tax collected, approximately 50 percent is used for the military.
Such use is in violation of my constitutional rights and responsibility.
The First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law… prohibiting the free exercise (of religion)…”; i.e. my religious beliefs preclude my paying for the genocide or mass suicide… The Ninth Amendment: “The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”; i.e. I maintain the right not to participate in (by paying for) governmental mass murder… International law as ratified in Congress and signed by the President is U.S. law; e.g. the Nuremburg Principles state each individual is responsible for not being complicit in crimes against peace, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.
Therefore, it is my responsibility as a United States citizen not to be complicit in such crimes by paying for U.S. first-strike nuclear war preparations.
Therefore, I have used Schedules A and B for a war tax deduction which results in the necessary 50 percent adjustment in my income tax… For further clarification please contact me at…
The edition brought the news that the war tax resistance bug had reached the Netherlands:
[N]either the Mennonite church nor the IKV [Interchurch Peace Council] feels comfortable with individual radical action.
Dirk Visser, a Dutch Mennonite journalist working for the equivalent of the Associated Press wire services in the Netherlands, called my attention to Willem-Jan Maas, a Mennonite minister serving in Opeland.
This minister tried to funnel what he considered the war tax portion of his income tax to the Dutch Mennonite Peace Group via the local income tax office.
This effort was halted by the tax officers, but even had it been successful, the minister would not have been applauded by the IKV, according to Visser.
The IKV has taken the political action route, and with that the churches can cooperate.
I think war tax resistance is a viable means for Christians to express their opposition to a system that is requiring unchristian behavior.
The Anabaptist tradition calls us to noncooperation if the state asks us to support something that we believe is contrary to the will of God.
The edition brought the news that the General Conference Mennonite Church was going to federal court to ask a judge to order the IRS to stop requiring the Conference to withhold taxes from the income of conscientiously objecting employees.
Mennonites have traditionally eschewed lawsuits for biblical reasons, for example:
“…I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.”
Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?
…
But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers!
Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another.
Why do you not rather accept wrong?
Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?
No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren!
So the General Conference had to explain why this lawsuit was different.
First off, it wasn’t a case of brother going to law against brother, but an institution asking a judge for a ruling on a constitutional interpretation.
Secondly, if the Conference did not initiate such a suit, the only way to get such an interpretation would be for it to break the law, be brought into court by the government, and then defend itself, but “the majority does not want to break the law in order to test whether the law violates the constitution [so] the only alternative is for us to take the initiative”.
That didn’t completely settle the debate.
In particular, the Deacon board of the Eicher Emmanuel Mennonite Church wrote in to say they wanted nothing to do with the suit.
Their objections “in the order of their importance” (my summaries):
Christians are under Biblical obligation to pay taxes.
Lawsuits fly in the face of Mennonite nonresistance.
The ostensible separation of church and state Constitutional issue in the lawsuit disingenuously masks the real purpose of the suit, which is to defend conscientious objection to military spending.
The lawsuit is doomed to failure and will only have the effect of enriching lawyers to the detriment of other church functions.
Even if it were won, the underlying issue would remain unresolved.
Member congregations should not be compelled to support a position like this that they don’t agree with.
The MCC Peace Section (U.S.) met in , and a majority resolution on the nuclear arms race from the 225 members there included this statement:
We were repeatedly reminded in this assembly that the conscription of our income supports the nuclear arms race.
Moreover, we saw that the government is increasing expenditures for nuclear and other weapons by decreasing expenditures for human services for the poor and oppressed.
We encourage people to consider ways to witness against this evil use of the power of taxation, such as refusing to pay the military portion of the federal income tax.
An accompanying article said that the original draft of this statement “was criticized for not being specific enough, [so] the group moved to add a paragraph on the war tax issue.”
This is the twenty-ninth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we continue to work through the early 1980s.
Representatives of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Internal Revenue Service failed to reach an 11th-hour compromise at a meeting in Washington on which would have averted a suit by the 63,000-member denomination against the government agency.
IRS
officials at the meeting denied that there was any administrative solution to the conference’s complaint that it must withhold the income taxes of its employees, thereby acting as a tax collector for the state.
The denomination has argued, and will argue in a forthcoming judicial action, that the IRS requirement violates the concept of separation of church and state as embodied in the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.
“The 45-minute meeting was cordial, but unproductive,” said Vern Preheim, general secretary for the conference.
“We outlined our concerns about the withholding issue as a historic peace church and described the problem which the IRS requirement poses for us.”
William Ball, the conference’s attorney in the matter, then formally asked members of the IRS’s special working group on withholding issues whether there was any way to exempt the General Conference from the problematic requirement.
Nancy Schuhmann, who chairs the special group, stated that the IRS must abide by its codes of operation and would not be able to offer an exemption on tax withholding to the conference.
IRS officials Susan Cunningham and Gail Libin were also present.
In light of the results of the meeting, attorney Ball will complete the preparation of the conference’s complaint and submit the brief to a U.S. district court after one last check to make sure all administrative possibilities have been exhausted is complete.
The General Conference’s General Board was authorized to initiate a judicial action on the tax withholding question at an international gathering of the conference membership at Estes Park, Colo., in .
More than a year earlier, on , delegates to a special midtriennium conference session instructed the GB to “use all legal, legislative and administrative avenues for achieving conscientious objector exemption” to the tax withholding requirement.
GB also heard a brief report by its general secretary, Vern Preheim, on the progress of the judicial action on the tax withholding issue.
Progress seems to be slow, as witnesses and a co-plaintiff have to be found.
Employees of the conference who are taking action of their own on the war tax issue were assured of adequate and appropriate conference support.
But by the issue, everything had come to a screeching halt:
In the light of a negative judgment rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court against an Amish employer on , the General Conference’s judicial action committee has recommended to the denomination’s General Board that a planned suit against the IRS on the issue of tax withholding “be put on indefinite hold."
The committee’s decision came at the end of a conference call with William Ball, who has been preparing the case on behalf of the church group over the past year.
During the telephone meeting.
Ball indicated that, considering the Supreme Court ruling in the case U.S. vs. Lee, the General Conference would almost certainly lose its case.
In the Amish case, employer Edwin Lee argued that his withholding of Social Security taxes was against both his own and his employees’ consciences.
In the unanimous decision of the court on the Amish question, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote, “The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge tax systems because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief."
Rather than pursue a negatively shrouded course of action at this time, the General Conference committee also urged the General Board to make more money available “for additional efforts to promote the World Peace Tax Fund.”
In his letter to General Board members, general secretary Vern Preheim concluded: “With closure of the ‘administrative avenue’ during my meeting with IRS, and now closure of the ‘judicial avenue’ via U.S. vs. Lee, we are left with the ‘legislative avenue’ as our only conceivable legal avenue prior to our triennial sessions.
“If no significant progress is made in terms of additional congressional sponsorship of the WPTF legislation, we will have to report a totally negative outcome to the efforts resolved at Minneapolis in .
This will again bring us to the threshold of divine obedience/civil disobedience.”
In coming to that decision, the group weighed the importance of a number of concerns, including the timing of the GC action, the witness value of the suit if it were pushed forward, the fact that a loss in court might set a negative precedent which would eclipse favorable decisions in related cases, and whether proceeding with the action when defeat seems certain would be good stewardship.
Preheim hopes to gather together preliminary response of the General Board to the committee recommendations in the next few weeks.
A full discussion will take place at a fall meeting of the board.
The decision of the board was covered in the edition:
Realizing they had reached a critical juncture in their church’s ongoing struggle against the payment of taxes used for war, members of the General Conference’s General Board decided on to stall its impending suit against the IRS and let delegates to ’s triennial sessions decide on what course of action to take.
A resolution to proceed with the judicial action, which would have tested the constitutionality of laws forcing the church to collect taxes on behalf of the state, was turned down by a vote of six to two, with seven abstentions.
The move to put the suit on indefinite hold was based on recommendations from the church’s judicial action committee and the denomination’s attorney in the matter, William B. Ball of Harrisburg, Pa.
In a letter to general secretary Vern Preheim dated , Ball had been pessimistic about the chances of the judicial action’s success in the light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case Wisconsin vs. Yoder [sic].
As part of its ruling in that case, the court had stated, “The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge the tax system because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief.”
“We regard that language as most threatening to [the General Conference’s] position, if not foreclosing it completely,” wrote Ball.
Rather than scuttle the proposed litigation completely, GB members agreed at the recent meetings to consider the suit again, “if and when more favorable conditions prevail and depending upon the response at Bethlehem, Pa.” (the location of ’s triennial sessions).
Delegates to the General Conference’s triennial sessions in Estes Park, Colo., empowered the General Board to initiate a judicial action as a follow-up to a special session on the theme of Christian civil responsibility in Minneapolis .
At that meeting, delegates resolved 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.”
Part of the General Board’s discussions focused on interpretation of that resolution; namely, at what point each of those “avenues” would be considered to have been exhausted.
Some members felt that Ball’s advice closed the legal avenue; others said that the judicial route would not be blocked until a court ruled against a suit brought before it by the conference.
Many agreed that a legal test would be an important public witness and is, for that reason alone, worth considering further.
The administrative avenue to a solution was eliminated after a meeting between GC officials and representatives of the IRS on
, when IRS declined to make any exceptions to rules requiring the conference to withhold taxes from the salaries of its employees.
The World Peace Tax Fund legislation, currently in committee in the U.S. Congress, represents the legislative avenue.
Board members will ask the GC delegate body to answer some of these questions at Bethlehem , and to make a decision about whether or not the conference’s business office should simply go ahead and stop withholding taxes from the salaries of those employees who wish it, thereby breaking IRS regulations.
In such a case, the general secretary and business manager would be immediately responsible, Preheim reported.
The conference’s judicial action committee will prepare appropriate background materials and resolutions for presentation at Bethlehem and present these to the General Board at its meeting for review.
Level one — tax protest. Why is it that those who feel uncomfortable with tax resistance spend more time protesting civil disobedience than war taxes?
Persons filing and paying taxes each April 15 should attach a protest letter, outlining one’s opposition to how 50 percent of the tax money will be spent.
Most importantly, copies of this letter should go to your representative, senators, newspaper editor and should be posted in the church.
Openness is critical.
The IRS is fearful of those who publicize their tax protest — even if it is merely a letter — because it encourages others.
For those who feel exceptionally penitent, file back letters of protest and ask that they be attached to your previous returns.
Level two — tax resistance. This is a clear call to civil disobedience — organized tax resistance with acceptance of penalties.
Having a support group to guide you in this decision is important.
Hopefully, congregational affirmation of such a decision would be forthcoming.
One should be prepared for the IRS to use its unchecked power to collect any income or other tax owed.
Level three — tax avoidance. Legal tax avoidance — keeping one’s income below taxable levels — is certainly in line with living more with less.
Perhaps we ought to have our MCC overseas workers explain to us how half the world can live in poverty on $100 a year, when we with abundance and waste all around us cannot seem to live on less than $10,000.
Legal tax avoidance has the additional blessing of insuring that no income tax is used for war.
Minimum U.S. income levels for 1981 are $3,300 for single people and $5,400 for married couples.
Level four — tax counseling. This level incorporates any of the three levels above, but commits one to a study into the IRS, military budget and federal tax policy.
Just as draft counselors sprang up during the draft years, we need more tax counselors to aid us in responding to the draft on our money.
According to Sen. Pryor, D-Ark., the Pentagon spends more on military bands — close to $90 million — than we spend on arms control — about $20 million.
When will we hear the music?
Perhaps there is no single right answer for everyone, but surely silence is not an acceptable response.
The edition reviewed Affirm Life: Pay for Peace, a small handbook put out by the Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes, designed in a loose-leaf form so it could be updated, and meant to help classes and discussion groups explore their response to war taxes.
(There was another review of the book in the edition.)
James W. Nikl, in an letter to the editor, encouraged readers to consider cutting their income to cut their taxes.
“What
would happen if we all cut our incomes in half?” he asked.
“How would it affect the military budget?”
He did the math for a dual-income couple in the 49% tax bracket and found that they would significantly lower their taxes and gain a lot of valuable free time in the bargain.
He concluded:
We have a choice.
We can race our motors all our lives, and the government will take most of what we produce.
Or we can take time to smell the flowers along the way.
In response to a critic who thought Nikl’s tax advice was too materialistic and coldly practical, he responded:
I agree with what [the critic] said about our attitude toward material possessions.
We should put a strong emphasis on the gospel of peace which embraces the needs of those in our community who are without.
I believe, however, that Mennonites should and would prefer to use their own wealth as they see fit and would be much better stewards of God’s bounty than the U.S. government.
I doubt that willfully giving of our tax money so that a small portion will go for human resources is really attractive to many Mennonites.
I would also question whether the good effects of the human resources portion of our tax even comes close to offsetting the bad effects of the military part.
A testimony of an “outsider” in attests that Mennonites were still people of conscience at the end of their first century in North America: “It is well known that the Quakers and Mennonists were formerly some of the best farmers in Pennsylvania.
These people, from having their cattle, horses, farming utensils, etc., so often taken from them for taxes, have sensibly declined as farmers.
Many of them have sold their farms and gone to other states, whilst others of them do not raise 20 bushels of grain, where they once raised 100.”
MCC
has spent over $10,000 to purchase and ship about 1,200 shovels to Laos.
$4,000 of that amount was allocated from MCC’s “Taxes for Peace” fund [which] was established in to receive contributions from church members who had voluntarily withheld portions of their taxes as a symbolic protest against the government’s excessive spending for military purposes.
The Lutheran Peace Fellowship recently issued “A Call to Tax Resistance for Lutherans” statement committing members to tax resistance as a moral stand against the nuclear arms race.
According to Dennis Jacobsen, fellowship coordinator, 23 Lutherans from 11 states endorsed the statement, which said, “We will no longer pay for war while praying for peace.”
The St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Indianapolis made a public decision to withhold payment of the excise tax on its phone bill.
This was done, said the congregation, “in response to the gospel call to be peacemakers and to church teachings that we, as Christians, must devote ourselves to the cause of peace — and, in particular, disarmament.”
In the same edition, James W. Nikl gave some advice on seeking tax shelters and deferrals.
Most of this was fairly dry tax advice, but the article ended with a section that began thusly:
Role of our churches. Recently the Boulder, Colo., Friends Meeting proposed a position of peace secretary for the congregation.
That person would become an authority on taxes and related items and keep the rest of the congregation informed as to how to legally divert their tax dollars from military uses.
We could perhaps create a position on our various church boards and work toward this same goal.
Two members of the Methodist Federation for Social Action have found an innocent way to protest U.S. budget priorities.
John and Pat Schweibert concluded that about 41 percent of their income tax was going for armaments.
So they withheld that amount from what they owed, then handed out a $5 bill to each of 200 unemployed people they found in line at a state employment office.
The distribution, timed for , received coverage in the local paper.
Seattle Catholics gave significantly more to the annual archdiocesan funds appeal after their spiritual leader, Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, took a strong stand against nuclear war, reports the lay-edited National Catholic Reporter.
“We thought the archbishop’s stand would have some adverse effect on the appeal,” said Paul LeBlanc, archdiocese assistant director of development.
“We didn’t think (the funds) would be this large… The letters to the diocese are running eight to one in favor of the archbishop.”
Hunthausen has attracted nationwide notice for withholding the portion of his federal income taxes used for the military.
A petition with 14,000 names of Old Order Amish in Lawrence County, Pa., was presented to Rep. Eugene V. Atkinson, a Democrat whose district includes Lawrence County.
The Amish are seeking a legislative remedy to having to deduct Social Security taxes from employees’ salaries.
A bill by Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.), and cosponsored by Atkinson, would exempt members of religious faiths opposed to the program from paying Social Security taxes.
Hanno Klassen sent the Internal Revenue Service two checks this year — each for half the amount he owed.
One was made out to IRS; the other (to cover the military share of his taxes) was made out to the American Friends Service Committee.
Klassen explained his action in a letter to IRS: “The check made out to AFSC is to show that I want to pay what I owe.
But I cannot let my life or my substance be used for killing.
You see, I was a member of Hitler’s destructive forces in World War Ⅱ.
I was used once; I will not be used again.”
This is the thirtieth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we continue to work through the early 1980s.
War tax resisters’ hour comes round at last in Bethlehem
On the ongoing issue of tax withholding, GB agreed to submit a resolution to delegates at Bethlehem to “authorize the officers [of the conference] to test the constitutionality of [the tax withholding] requirement… 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.”
The church which seeks to save her security by following only “legal, legislative and judicial avenues” to salve its war tax conscience will lose her life; the church willing to lose her security in supporting non-registrants for the sake of Christ will find life.
At the triennial sessions, the conference authorized the General Board to initiate a judicial action seeking exemption for the General Conference Mennonite Church from withholding taxes from the income of its employees.
James Gingerich, Duane Heffelbower, Larry Voth, Robert Hull, and Vern Preheim were appointed as a judicial action committee to implement the resolution.
William Ball was engaged as legal counsel.
In , Ball advised the conference that the general climate in the United States, the attitude of the present government administration, and the attitude of the Supreme Court as evidenced by some recent decisions dealing with religious conviction or conscience and taxes were such that the likelihood of the General Conference accomplishing its objectives through a judicial action was virtually nil.
The committee recommended and the General Board concurred to put the judicial action on hold and to bring the matter once again to the conference for further discernment and decision.
A more detailed report and a recommendation from the General Board to the conference that we honor the requests of employees to not withhold taxes on their wages will be sent to the congregations in advance of the triennial sessions.
Throughout , while pursuing judicial action, we also continued to encourage the enactment of World Peace Tax Fund legislation.
An editorial in the edition described the upcoming decision thusly:
At a special midtriennium conference in Minneapolis in , GC delegates voted 1,218 to 134 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.”
If no solution could be found within three years, the GB was to bring the matter back for further action.
At Estes Park in , a judicial test case on the issue was okayed by a vote of 1,156 to 353.
Bethlehem will bring GC delegates face to face with the fact that all three avenues, at present, look like dead ends.
As a result, the GB is proposing that the conference stop withholding taxes from salaries of employees who request such action in order to “assert the higher claim of Christ’s law of love.”
If approved, the resolution would take the conference one small but significant step into the sphere of divine obedience/civil disobedience.
It could become the most formidable — and challenging — business item for GCs, despite the fact that several other organizations have already taken the same action.
In advance of the Bethlehem gathering, the text of the proposed resolution was released in the pages of The Mennonite:
Among the resolutions for consideration by delegates at the General Conference Mennonite Church Triennial Sessions… 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 conference’s General Board… will bring the "Resolution on Faithful Action Toward Tax Withholding" to Bethlehem delegates as their recommendation for resolving the moral dilemma which church officials feel they are facing.
If approved, the resolution could take the conference into divine obedience/civil disobedience.
Thus we urge our governments to sharply reduce military spending and use our resources for life-affirming purposes.
Furthermore, just as conscientious objectors have received exemption from military service, we also seek legislation exempting conscientious objectors from paying taxes for military purposes.
Thus we continue to work in the United States for passage for the World Peace Tax Fund Act and in Canada for the Peace Tax Fund, which would allow individuals to designate all of their federal taxes for peaceful purposes.
Both the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and Revenue Canada require the General Conference Mennonite Church to violate the consciences of its employees who are conscientious objectors to paying taxes for military purposes.
In the United States, we have thoroughly explored all legislative, administrative and judicial avenues for obtaining a conscientious objector exemption to these withholding requirements, as we resolved at the Minneapolis midtriennium conference.
Our explorations have convinced us there is no likelihood of relief in the near future for conscientious objectors to military taxes.
The time has come when, like Peter and the apostles, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
In Canada, equally thorough explorations of similar avenues for seeking a conscientious objection from withholding requirements have not yet been accomplished.
We commend the “Resolution on Security and Disarmament” of the Canadian Mennonite Conference in and the work of the Canadian Tax Task Force under the sponsorship of MCC Canada Peace and Social Concerns.
We encourage Canadian congregations to continue study of materials made available on the issue of military taxes.
As delegates to the triennial sessions of the General Conference Mennonite Church, we therefore:
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.
These employees will be treated similarly to the way General Conference treats ordained ministers, i.e. as self-employed persons, in that their earnings will be reported to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, but no federal income tax withheld.
We request that the Conference of Mennonites in Canada consider means to obtain relief from Revenue Canada withholding requirements as these apply to General Conference Mennonite Church employees.
We shall inform the U.S. government of this act of conscientious objection to their withholding requirements.
We shall again urge them to provide exemption from these requirements and exemption for people of peacemaking conscience from military use of their tax money.
At this moment of decision we commit ourselves 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.
Jim Gingerich of Moundridge, Kan., chairperson of the conference’s judicial action committee, reported that the suit against the IRS approved at Estes Park was, in the opinion of constitutional lawyer William Ball, almost certain to fail.
Little progress was being made on the legislative or administrative fronts either.
In light of this, the General Board was recommending that the conference honor the consciences of its employees who request that their full salaries be paid to them, allowing the employees themselves to remit to the IRS what their consciences would allow.
After Robert Hull, secretary for peace and justice, had reviewed the experiences of other groups which had attempted similar actions, Duane Heffelbower of Reedley, Calif., outlined the points of the resolution in detail and spoke of their possible ramifications.
“We could scarcely devise a softer velvet glove to cast at the feet of the IRS,” he said.
“But the action does show our corporate willingness to stand beside our employees.
What will the government do?
We don’t know.”
What followed was probably the most vigorous interchange of viewpoints by GC delegates of the entire week.
Nearly two dozen speakers took their turns at the mikes before the vote was called for.
Viewpoints on the resolution ran the gamut from disassociation with it to praising God for it.
“We believe that the Bible says we ought to pay our taxes.
We want to be separated from and not have any part of this action,” said Paul Goossen, Wayland, Iowa.
“This resolution is creating an impossible situation for our government,” added John Voth of Meno, Okla. “We have emphasized that we love our enemy.
I wonder whether the government has become our enemy.
Have we adopted the same big-stick approach that we so often have criticized?”
Others, however, urged the conference to push ahead with the proposed action.
“Mennonites took a stand against slavery even though it was unpopular,” said Mark Winslow, Allentown, Pa.
“Today, the nuclear arms race is the primary social sin of our day.
We should take a stand regardless of the fact that it may be unpopular.”
Lois Barrett, Wichita, Kan., observed that “in the U.S., disobeying the law is the time-honored way of changing the law,” noting that the cause of civil rights in was advanced primarily through civil disobedience.
H.A. Fast of North Newton, Kan., prompted the only round of applause during the lengthy discussion.
“We refuse our selves in service, but we say nothing about our taxes,” Fast said.
“I have said to the government, ‘You can’t take my body to fight a war.’ I have said, ‘You can’t take my son.’ And now I am saying, ‘You can’t take my money, either.’ ”
When it was over and the ballots counted, the resolution passed by a 70 percent majority. [1,128 to 457]
One of the characteristic features of the discussion on tax withholding, as well as other debates during the week, was the sensitivity and willingness to listen with which delegates approached the microphones.
Several told of how they had come to the convention ready to vote one way, but were now moved to vote another.
Phrases such as “I want to respect your point of view…” or “I’m willing to learn more…” preceded many of the speeches.
And the tough debates of Bethlehem, during which emotions ran high and convictions deep, never seemed to overshadow the determination by participants to celebrate their common identity, their peoplehood, their unity.
After the convention, many attributed that prevailing unity to the moving of the Spirit.
Delegates at the conference were treated to a performance of The Plow and the Sword, a musical about American Mennonites during the Revolutionary War who disputed whether or not it was proper to pay taxes to the rebellious Continental Congress.
“The play’s content was powerfully pertinent to the delegates meeting at Bethlehem who discussed present-day responses to war taxes.”
Acting on the basis of a resolution adopted by General Conference delegates at Bethlehem , conference treasurer Ted W. Stuckey on 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, given the U.S. government’s high rate of military spending.
Those making the request were Robert Hull, secretary for peace and justice; Lynn Keenan, Mennonite Voluntary Service associate director; Paula Diller Lehman, secretary for youth education; Fred Loganbill, assistant for peace and justice; John Sommer, overseas personnel secretary; Meribeth Sprunger, secretary for mission communications; and Elizabeth Yoder, general editor.
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 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, the motivation of employees for requesting the procedure, the reasons for the church’s granting the requests, the identities of the seven employees and the location of the account to which the IRS may initiate collection procedures.
“We’re trying to be completely open and above board with them about this matter,” he said.
Copies of the letter were also sent to IRS offices in Wichita, Kan., and Austin, Texas, as well as to state and federal legislators.
The 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 .
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.[”]
Miscellany
A note in the edition mentioned that the Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes had decided to go all-in on the World Peace Tax Fund bill, promoting “dunamis groups which approach congresspersons in a spirit of compassion rather than confrontation… to obtain a dozen more co-sponsors for the WPTF bill in the coming year.”
The edition noted that “MCC U.S. Peace Section has put together a War Tax Packet, designed to equip individuals and groups with a variety of resources for study on the question of paying taxes for war.
Cost is $2.”
The edition included a profile of Cornelia “Nellie” Lehn, whose war tax resistance became the focus for much of the debate that overtook the General Conference Mennonite Church.
It summarized this as follows:
Nellie was… dealing personally with the perplexing issue of war taxes.
She liked to read Bible verses that say to pay your taxes, but began to wonder why she did not concentrate equally on those saying to love your enemies and put your sword away.
Finally she felt she could not pay that part of her taxes going to war purposes and asked the General Conference office not to withhold any of her salary for taxes.
“The time comes when you have to cut through all the complexity and be obedient,” she says, reminiscent of her stand earlier in life.
At the triennium she stated her views.
The conference continues to work on this issue even today.
I’m surprised I haven’t come across this amusing example of war tax resistance outreach before:
Mennonites in Harrisonburg, Va., gathered on to attach over $300 to about 75 helium-filled balloons.
Each balloon, in addition to a five- or ten-dollar bill, carried a note from a participant explaining why he or she had withheld the money from current income taxes.
“Because we are Christians who are trying to follow the peaceful way of Jesus, we cannot support this country’s military build-up,” said many of the notes.
“Instead, we have chosen to ‘waste’ our money in a more constructive way.”
Participants read Scripture, sang, danced, prayed, confessed their sins, and clowns passed out jelly beans as the balloons rose.
The shift of focus to “Peace Tax Fund” legislation would aggravate a decline in interest in real war tax resistance in the General Conference Mennonite Church that continues to the present day.
Clearly, some Mennonites perceived this danger, as Robert Hull wrote an article to defend the push for such a law:
An argument by some war tax resisters is that any peace tax fund is a means for conscientious objectors to salve their conscience with regard to diverting their own taxes, and that this provision then will encourage such COs to be quiet and passively accept the warmaking of governments which will continue more efficiently without their dissent.
When I have explored this argument, I almost invariably discover that the war tax resister speaking is drawing upon an analogy made with the 20th-century U.S./Canadian history of conscientious objection to military service.
The Civilian Public Service camps of World War Ⅱ by and large had this “quietistic” effect.
However, it should be noted that the provision for COs in World War Ⅱ came about because the government remembered the difficulties it had encountered with historic peace church resisters in World War Ⅰ.
Similar spokespersons on the eve of World War Ⅱ stated their convictions to “draw the line” again if acceptable provisions were not made.
But even during World War Ⅱ, the legal criteria for CO classification in the United States were broadened by the Supreme Court to include all religious objectors, then during the Vietnam War to include people holding a belief equivalent to that in a Supreme Being (Seeger, ), and later to all people morally, ethically or religiously opposed to all war (Welsh, ).
In the draft registration debate in , projections by the Selective Service of future CO claimants extended to 40 percent of all registrants.
It seems reasonable to conclude that at least one cause for this large increase in the potential CO population is a result of the public visibility of thousands of young men performing alternative service during the Vietnam War.
The recent response of the U.S. Selective Service to its own projections has been to develop plans for CO alternative service which seek to once more “contain” the CO visibility by centralizing the program under direct Selective Service administration in order to meet military mobilization priorities.
This policy is in turn quite likely to produce non-cooperators who will have registered but then find that such an alternative service program is unacceptable to their conscience.
A significant number of such non-cooperators would increase the already more than 500,000 draft-eligible young men who have not registered.
Twentieth-century CO history has lodged anomalous laws within the government structures.
That is, if these laws are interpreted by relatively tolerant regulations, the CO population may grow uncontrollably large; if the laws are interpreted by repressive regulations, the number of non-cooperators may grow uncontrollably.
Now let’s pursue this analogy with regard to peace tax legislation and war tax resistance.
I am convinced that Parliament or Congress will never enact peace tax legislation until the war tax resistance movement grows so large that such laws come to be viewed as an expedient accommodation, as Civilian Public Service was viewed on the eve of World War Ⅱ.
But several differences between the two are significant.
Bear in mind that peace tax legislation provides for the taxpayer to claim he or she is a CO and that the burden of the challenge and rebuttal lies upon the government.
Additionally, peace tax legislation’s provision for income tax forms and information materials to describe the military proportion of the federal budget in some detail will ensure that a far greater percentage of the taxpayers become aware of the peace tax alternative than the percentage of draft-age men who were made aware by the government of the CO alternative from World War Ⅱ through Vietnam.
Finally, the peace tax legislation provides for the diversion of CO taxpayers’ “military taxes” into a trust fund.
This is intended to result in a direct drain out of the general treasury available for war preparations.
Thus the peace tax legislation further raises people’s consciousness.
If peace trust funds in the United States and Canada are administered as the legislation intends, many millions of people will choose to support peacemaking alternatives to conflict rather than supporting warmaking preparations, and a “democracy of defense” may develop: those who rely on military weapons can pay for them without coercing the contributions of those who place their reliance upon other alternatives.
If the CO eligibility criteria are interpreted too restrictively, or inaccurate portrayals of the military proportion of the federal budget are published, or CO taxpayers’ funds are demonstrably rechanneled into the warmaking treasury, then increased numbers of informed citizens may respond with direct tax resistance.
The government will thus have on its hands another significant anomalous law, one by which millions of citizens can measure the government’s tendency to override their democratic rights in its clearing of the path toward war.
This then is the educational strategy behind the peace tax effort as I see it.
The legislation will reach millions of people with the message that there are alternatives to paying for the war system.
It will provide a step which millions of citizens can take, and whose aggregate pressure for peacemaking will be enormous, without overwhelming risk to the individual taxpayer.
After all, it is at least in part the risk involved in war tax refusal which keeps it an infinitesimally small protest movement in the total population.
I hope that thousands of active peacemakers will heed the call to war tax refusal and that the pressure for peace upon the warmaking tendencies of government will grow.
As it does, I believe it will prove disastrous if the peacemaking community has no legislative proposal to put forward which will secure as much of the “democracy of defense” goal as possible, and to which the government can turn as an accommodation.
The Church of the Brethren has long supported members who conscientiously object to the payment of war taxes.
Some members wish to refuse to pay taxes but are unable to because the taxes are withheld by their employers.
The delegates approved a paper that gives guidance to church institutions whose employees request, for reason of conscience, that their taxes not be withheld.
The annual conference recommended that all legal possibilities be explored first but affirmed civil disobedience for both individuals and institutions when it is a matter of conscience.
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 Lundbord [sic], pastor of First and Summerfield United Methodist Church, has withheld federal income taxes in both and , 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.” IRS ordered the church to withhold the pastor’s salary until the amount was paid.
But church members voted on to reject IRS’s demand.
Our ancestors migrated to the United States so that they would not be forced to participate in European wars.
Eventually this government respected their deeply held beliefs about peacemaking and granted them the right to register as conscientious objectors.
Today we find ourselves in a technological age in which our money is more useful to the military than our bodies.
So we are being forced by law to participate financially in the preparation for war, which violates the biblical command to love our neighbors as ourselves.
When Caesar’s demands conflict with God’s, we cannot blindly obey our government.
These words from John S. and Sara L. Wengerd’s letter to the Internal Revenue Service echo the convictions of nearly 60 individuals and families who chose to contribute to Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section in lieu of paying a portion of their income taxes that would have been used for military purposes.
For some, the contribution was a symbolic amount, such as $7.77.
For others, it equaled the 36 to 54 percent of their tax dollars that would have financed military activity.
That portion is commonly referred to as a “military tax” or a “war tax.”
In another case, a couple’s taxes had already been withheld by the Internal Revenue Service, so they donated an amount equal to their military taxes, which they had already paid.
In all cases, these individuals felt that silent compliance with the tax collection process would be a violation of their consciences and religious convictions against killing and participating in war in any way.
Many noted that their dilemma of conscience could be ameliorated by passage of the World Peace Tax Fund (WPTF) Act…
Meanwhile, the federal government is attempting to crack down on various types of tax protests.
People who object to paying taxes for military purposes may face stiff penalties designed to deter those trying to evade tax collection or destroy the tax system.
The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of instituted an automatic $500 penalty for individuals filing “frivolous” tax returns.
The penalty can apply to people who take unallowable deductions, credits or exemptions or give incomplete information on their tax returns.
Those taking “war tax” deductions or credits or claiming an excessive number of exemptions to reduce their tax liability could be subject to the new fine.
Several conscientious military tax resisters have received notices from the Internal Revenue Service that the penalty has been imposed, according to the May–June issue of Center Peace, the news journal of the Center on Law and Pacifism.
Robert Hull, peace and justice secretary for the General Conference Mennonite Church, suggests that conscientious objectors to military taxation take steps to distinguish their non-payment of military taxes from secular tax protests and evasion schemes.
If taxpayers correctly compute and report the amount owed and indicate in an attached letter that they cannot with a clear conscience pay the military-related portion, their tax returns will go directly to the Internal Revenue Service Collection Division instead of to the overloaded Audit Division.
Hull suggests that this action be accompanied with letters to legislators to communicate the religious and moral grounds for such action, and to demonstrate the need for remedial legislation such as the World Peace Tax Fund.
Bill Samuel, member of the WPTF steering committee, suggests that taxpayers write a contract on the back of their check to IRS stating that deposit of the check constitutes a legally binding agreement (contract) that the money will not be used for military purposes.
Courts have held that contractual checks involving private parties are legally binding, but it is uncertain whether or not IRS would abide by the contract.
John R. Dyck
A article profiled Canadian war tax resister John R. Dyck.
Excerpts:
All his life, John R. Dyck of Rosthern, Sask., has been a law-abiding citizen.
He’s never been to court.
But he expects that to change when Revenue Canada catches up with him for non-payment of taxes.
Dyck is one of a small but growing band of Canadians who are refusing to pay the portion of their income taxes they feel is designated for the military.
Instead, they are calling for an alternative “peace tax fund” which would use their tax money for peaceful purposes.
Since that alternative does not exist and Dyck withheld 10.5 percent of his taxes for and for , he expects a court order to arrive eventually.
John R. Dyck is not a young radical defying authority.
Officially he is retired (though not willingly or inactively) and has given the better part of the past two decades to service with the Mennonite Central Committee, Mennonite Foundation and the MCC Food Bank.
A sudden stroke forced him to slow down over a year ago, but he has recovered and calls it “a real miracle.”
Now he can go on serving, and he places military tax resistance in that category.
The decision did not come easily or hastily.
“I don’t know where it (a conviction) began,” he commented during an interview at this year’s annual meeting of MCC Canada in Saskatoon.
He had come to listen to the discussion and spend time with his brother and fellow peace-seeker, Peter J.
He remembers that “Cornelia Lehn made us sit up and think” in .
John began with his tax return, filed while the Dycks were in Jordan under MCC and able to observe firsthand the effects of military exploitation.
He sent two checks to Revenue Canada, asking that the smaller one be used only for peaceful development work.
He heard nothing further and assumed that both checks flowed into government coffers.
Along with his tax return he sent only a letter of concern.
But with his return he again enclosed two checks, one for Revenue Canada and a second made out to the Peace Tax Fund.
Revenue Canada replied that such a fund did not exist (legally) and demanded payment in full.
Dyck then sent the check to the Victoria, B.C.-based Peace Tax Fund and began correspondence with government officials to explain why.
“I want to do things correctly and openly,” he says.
Now Dyck is expecting a day in court.
It is bound to come, since Revenue Canada wants his money and must obtain a court order before garnisheeing his account at the Rosthern Credit Union.
The sooner the better, he adds, since it may help establish a right of conscience that would allow other people to divert their hard-earned tax money from bombs to working for peace.
He also hopes to find a sympathetic lawyer to handle the case.
“I think a lot of people would rather not talk to me about it,” he says, summing up the reaction to his protest.
So far, any criticism has been muted, though one friend told him, “I admire you for it, but you’re wrong.”
Paula, his wife, is supportive, but most fellow members at Rosthern Mennonite Church are either uninformed or indifferent.
John R. Dyck firmly believes, “We don’t need the military.”
The threat of nuclear war hanging over the world means Christians must resist militarism with renewed vigor.
“I see this (nuclear holocaust) coming and we’re accountable.
The handwriting is on the wall.”
Dyck adds that there is a growing network of people asking about the peace tax fund, though the actual number withholding taxes is still small.
(Ernie Hildebrand, a teacher at the Swift Current (Sask.) Bible Institute, is another Mennonite who is doing so.)
“But people must think this through carefully,” Dyck concludes.
“You can’t legislate a thing like this… I’m glad the Lord led us to this position.”
As the General Conference pushed ahead with its support of war tax resisting employees, with the blessing of the majority of conferees, the U.S. “Peace Section” seemed more reluctant to take a stand, at its meeting. From the edition:
While agreeing that the church has an important role to play in saying no to preparations for [nuclear war], the members struggled with the place of military tax resistance as a method of saying no.
Several members observed that the constituency is “not of one mind on this matter,” while Darrel Brubaker of Philadelphia, Brethren in Christ representative, urged that “here is one place we need to be leaders more than representatives.”
After the matter was tabled overnight for further reflection, the group affirmed a recommendation commending the General Conference for the serious attention it has given the issue and urging churches to work more diligently at the process of prayerful discernment of their response to this issue.
The resolution also strongly encouraged constituents to initiate further action in support of the World Peace Tax Fund bill, which would provide a legal alternative to the payment of taxes for military purposes.
War tax resister Don Schrader wrote in on to insist that Mennonites can best criticize revolutionary and other violence if they are careful not to support violence with their taxes:
Until our nonviolence becomes revolutionary, revolutions will be violent.
[A]s long as well-fed U.S. pacifists pay war taxes to support the imminent nuclear terror and mass murder of our planet and the dictatorial repression of Central America, what integrity do we have in questioning or condemning those peasants’ use of violence for survival.
To be peacemakers in this perilous age, we must refuse to pay war taxes, we must renounce all materialism which breeds militarism, and we must denounce foreign policy regardless of the risks for our community standing and employment.
Over four years ago I confronted the question “How can I speak for peace and pay for war,” and I became a war tax resister.
This is the thirty-first in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we reach 1984.
The magazine helpfully summed up the current state of war tax resistance, particularly among American Christians, in its edition:
“Were you able in 1983 to find the resources to support religious, charitable and peace efforts equal to the taxes you were required to pay for the military establishment?”
The Friends Committee on National Legislation uses this question to encourage people to examine the consistency of their peace witness while filling out income tax forms.
In current military expenditures consumed 33 percent of federal appropriations, or 46 percent if the cost of past wars (interest on the national debt and veterans programs) is included, reports Delton Franz of Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section Washington Office.
During each Monthly Meeting (similar to an individual congregation) in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (similar to a conference body) was asked to examine this question:
Is the voluntary payment of war taxes consistent with the Quaker peace testimony?
When the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting convenes its annual session in , this question will be on the agenda.
Concern about “war taxes” is reaching beyond the traditional peace churches.
The United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church have adopted statements of support for members who conscientiously oppose payment of taxes for military purposes.
The United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. has initiated a churchwide study on war tax resistance.
While the religious community in the United States has moved toward greater support for conscientious objection to paying taxes for military purposes, the Internal Revenue Service has beefed up its efforts to penalize tax “protests” of all kinds.
An estimated 4,700 taxpayers were fined $500 each during for expressing their religious, moral or political views on their income tax forms.
Congress enacted this automatic $500 fine as a provision of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of .
The Internal Revenue Service began enforcing the penalty soon after its passage by Congress.
At least 30 people, including those of Mennonite, Quaker, Catholic and other religious backgrounds, are challenging the constitutionality of this regulation in court.
Lawyers believe that the penalty violates freedom of speech and that the expression of religious convictions on income tax forms is not “frivolous.”
Courts are expected to issue summary judgments (decision made by a judge only, no jury) in a number of cases in the coming year.
Internal Revenue Service officials invited Mennonite representatives to meet with them in to discuss the application of the penalty for “frivolous” returns.
IRS officials told U.S. Peace Section staff that the penalty is a processing penalty, designed to protect the efficiency of processing millions of tax returns.
People who have filled their tax forms out correctly and have simply not paid the full amount of taxes owed are not subject to this penalty.
However, taking a “war tax” credit or deduction or writing other comments on the tax form itself can result in a penalty.
The IRS officials agreed that the World Peace Tax Fund bill would be a solution if it were enacted.
Abatement of the penalties already imposed is highly unlikely, but senators who helped formulate the legislation remain concerned about its application against Mennonites and Quakers in particular.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation group in North Manchester, Ind., has organized a Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund to ease the financial burden on conscientious tax resisters.
People can submit a request for financial assistance to cover interest and penalty charges resulting from not paying military tax.
If the request is approved, an appeal letter is sent to all people who have expressed interest in contributing to the fund.
In this way, the cost of a $500 penalty could be distributed among 200 people if each paid only $2.50.
In , 250 people were on the Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund mailing list.
In MCC U.S. Peace Section approved guidelines for a “War Tax Witness Relief Fund.”
This fund was established to provide financial assistance to people within the MCC constituency who face hardship from court cases resulting from a war tax witness.
People in financial straits because they contributed the military portion of their taxes to a charitable organization and then had to face an IRS levy, property seizure, or garnishment of wages would also be eligible for assistance.
To date, no money has been budgeted for the U.S. Peace Section War Tax Witness Relief Fund and the existence of the fund has not been publicized.
U.S. Peace Section, however, will consider aiding those who are unable to acquire assistance from their congregation or conference.
U.S. Peace Section continues to accept contributions of redirected telephone and federal income tax money to its “Taxes for Peace” fund.
Donations to this fund have supported special projects and the ongoing work of U.S. Peace Section.
“The payment of taxes in the service of our common life is a necessary and a good thing.
It is therefore unusual and inappropriate to refuse tax payment,” begins a declaration printed in several national daily newspapers in the Netherlands on and signed by 69 Amsterdam area ministers, including at least seven Mennonites.
The statement, pointing out the Dutch government’s agreement to place nuclear weapons in the Netherlands, goes on to say, “In this critical phase we consider tax objection as a necessary means of protest.
We wish tax monies no longer to be misused to continue along this dead-end road.”
The edition brought readers up to date on the story of John Dyck, a Canadian war tax resister whose story had been introduced :
Like the rest of us, John R. Dyck of Rosthern, Sask., files his tax return.
But unlike most of us, he sends Revenue Canada a check for only 90 percent of his unpaid taxes.
And he includes a letter informing the Canadian government that, for reasons of conscience, a check for the balance has been sent to the Peace Tax Fund in Victoria, B.C.
The second check represents the estimated portion of Canadian taxes designated for the military.
This is in that John and Paula Dyck quietly insisted on not having their taxes spent on bombs and guns.
They believe that Christian non-resistance means more than simply refusing to fight in a war.
It also means not paying others to arm and fight for you.
A small but growing number of Canadians are sending a portion of their taxes to be held in trust by the Peace Tax Fund.
They are hoping that the Canadian government will recognize their conscientious objection to military taxes and provide an alternative.
As a retired pensioner, Dyck must calculate the taxes he owes and forward that amount with his income tax return.
Every year he checks with Ernie Regehr at Project Ploughshares (a peace research group) on the exact percentage of Canada’s budget that goes to the Department of National Defense.
Last year it was 10.5 percent.
He subtracts the military percentage and encloses a letter informing Revenue Canada of his actions, his reasons and the number of his account at the Rosthern Credit Union.
“I tell them, ‘If you want it, take it.’ But I won’t send it myself.”
Consequences.
Last year Dyck found out the hard way what happens when the government wants to collect unpaid taxes.
He says he was prepared to accept the consequences of his actions, but not for the ruthless, impersonal way Revenue Canada operates.
One day the Credit Union manager showed him an official letter that had arrived that morning garnisheeing his account.
His personal notice of the action did not arrive until a week later.
And even though the credit union account held sufficient funds, a second bank account in Saskatoon was also garnisheed.
Then, without notice, his two pension checks stopped coming.
The government ended up with $360 more than was due and Dyck has not heard from them since.
Presumably his “credit” at Revenue Canada will be used to cover the taxes he won’t pay for .
When Dyck visited the Revenue Canada office in Saskatoon to ask why he had not received a notice about the diversion of his pension checks, he was treated rudely.
“The man used some pretty rough language.
He gave me the impression that he would walk over anyone to get the money.”
Although he can recall the money in the Peace Tax Fund trust account if he wishes, he would prefer to have that money used in a hoped-for court challenge, based on the new Canadian Charter of Rights.
“On principle, I don’t mind paying twice,” he says.
The Conscience Canada organization, an outgrowth of the Peace Tax Fund Committee, expects such a challenge to cost at least $50,000.
Dyck himself is not inclined to get involved in a court case.
He has had trouble finding a lawyer who is sympathetic.
Besides, “the court route should be taken by some organization that has enough money and can do it right.”
What is Caesar due?
John R. Dyck is not a man to get up on a soapbox and trumpet his cause.
But the word gets around.
There are Mennonites in his hometown who don’t agree with him and others who ignore him.
His pastor chooses his words carefully when talking about the subject.
“I don’t suppose he has a great deal of support in the church; people feel we should obey the government.”
Dyck is now 70 years old.
When asked why he has taken such a stand when others rest in quiet retirement, he begins to talk about a lifetime spent in church-related service, of the example of his parents, about the books he has read and the years spent overseas with Mennonite Central Committee in Paraguay, India, Korea and Jordan, where he observed the effect of Western militarism.
“They all left their mark on me.”
He is committed to a vigorous, active faith based on a personal experience of God’s salvation and presence.
John doesn’t mind if people disagree with his stand.
“I don’t have any corner on the truth.
I know what it is for me at this moment.
A person should stay true to one’s convictions.”
About his critics he adds, “People say, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
I know that.
I have no illusions that anyone in Ottawa is listening — at the moment.
It has to start small, and I want to support this movement.”
But aren’t we supposed to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s?
“Sure. But does Caesar deserve all he asks for?”
A letter to Revenue Canada from Annie Janzen of Victoria, B.C., indicated that she was joining John Dyck in his protest.
“I object on conscientious grounds to my taxes being used for war purposes…
I have sent 12.2 percent (of income tax owed to Revenue Canada) of the net federal tax payable to Conscience Canada.”
“Form 1040 is the place where the Pentagon enters all our lives and asks unthinking cooperation with the idol of nuclear destruction.
I think the teaching of Jesus tells us to render to a nuclear-armed Caesar what that Caesar deserves: tax resistance.”
These are the words of Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen (right), who two years ago decided to withhold half of his federal income tax and thereby helped launch a religious “war tax” resistance movement that is growing rapidly.
According to the Internal Revenue Service, war tax resistance has increased nearly fivefold in the last three years.
War tax resistance groups say that actual numbers are higher, that IRS tabulations miss many people, including those who simply don’t file or who don’t specify reasons for underpaying.
In the edition, Donald E. Martin wrote about “sponsoring” children from war-torn areas, and noted that doing so “helped to cut down the amount of money we spent on ourselves and the amount of taxes we paid toward paying for war.”
There were also several passing mentions of war tax resistance here and there that I didn’t think were worth excerpting here.
This is the thirty-second in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we reach the middle-1980s.
A conference held in and sponsored by the Mennonite Church General Board (I think this is distinct from the General Conference Mennonite Church’s General Board, but it gets confusing) concerned “The Church’s Relationship to the Political Order.”
War tax resistance was among the topics discussed:
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 military spending.
Now they have become employees of Mennonite Board of Missions in their role as co-directors of the Richmond Discipleship Voluntary Service program.
“What should an institution do when its employees, following their consciences, 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, 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.
In an editorial in the edition, E. Stanley Bohn wrote that war tax resistance is an example of Christians taking their doctrine seriously and taking risks for it, and that this is useful in missionary work.
Excerpts:
While my wife, Anita, and I were in a language school in Mexico, we stayed with a family that claimed to have a faith but had no relation to any congregation.
They had a good supply of humorous imitations of TV preachers and stories of inconsistencies of church people.
They also had the feeling that churches were exploitive of people and supported the exploitive governments to the north and their manipulation of governments in Latin America.
When I explained one night at the evening meal that in my denomination people often took a different position than the government, they listened politely.
But when I explained there were Christians who took the New Testament so sincerely that they accepted fines and jail terms, they wanted to know more.
Accepting penalties for conscientious objection to war, non-registration, refusing to pay a war tax and offering sanctuary to Central American refugees caused at least the son in that family to reconsider a faith he had earlier ridiculed.
The second incident happened in Japan with a Japanese friend who had lived in our home as an MCC trainee.
Christianity is not sweeping the country in Japan.
Although the door is not closed to Christian missionaries, it may be that a large percentage of the people are closed to a Christ who has been identified with what the West did to Asians in Vietnam, their parents in World War Ⅱ and with the current pressure on Japan to violate its constitution and establish armed forces capable of international war.
Our friend had arranged for a meeting of a group of his student friends, some of them non-Christian.
He asked me to speak while he translated on the topic of peacemaking efforts of Mennonites in the United States.
Topics like draft registration, prayer vigils at missile sites or war taxes — that are controversial for us — were in his eyes exactly what was needed to make credible what the church was teaching and to open the minds of his friends to the Christian faith.
In Canada and the United States we often see the more controversial peace witness and overseas missions as opposite kinds of religious expression, having little to do with each other.
Yet in some overseas situations the unbelievers we met were more open to the gospel if it included a peace witness that was clearly international and repudiated protecting ourselves at the expense of others (not that their governments would be any more receptive to that than ours is).
From their viewpoint it is clear that such witness efforts as those of Christian war tax refusers actually aid the work of overseas missions.
This may put our triennial conference action in a different light.
At the Bethlehem conference our delegates voted that we would not accept the position in which the U.S. laws put us: that the church act as a tax collector, taking taxes for war from those who are conscientiously against war.
That stand may some day require us to pay for legal assistance.
Since our conference was not unanimous in taking this stand, it was agreed that costs should be covered by donations from those who believe this was the right path to take.
Those who contribute to such legal expenses, if and when they come, may feel they are paying a penalty for having a conscience.
However, whether the ruling is favorable or unfavorable, their dollars may help our overseas mission dollars accomplish more.
They may be helping to open some minds closed to national and tribal gods and hungry for the God of all nations who makes a difference in people’s lives.
This news comes from the edition:
About a year ago, Mennonite Central Committee established a task force to study how MCC should respond to employees’ requests that MCC not withhold federal taxes from their paychecks.
This was to enable them to keep that portion of their taxes used for military purposes.
After meeting with leaders from eight conferences, the task force reported in that none of the conference groups was in favor of honoring the employees’ requests.
Even though the General Conference honors such requests by its employees, the executive committee of its General Board did not favor MCC taking similar action.
The former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) has called for the creation of a peace army committed to withholding the 13 percent of income taxes that the British government spends on defense.
Lord MacLeod of Fuinary hopes such an army will be able to persuade the government to allow people to give an equivalent amount of their taxes to relieve world hunger instead.
Even if the government refuses to go along with the idea, he said, taxpayers should still withhold the money and give it to famine relief.
In the edition, Richard McSorley wrote about having taken “a vow of non-violence.”
The Catholic peace group Pax Christi was encouraging people to take such a formal vow annually, and was encouraging the Catholic Church to support such vows by providing a ritual context for them.
In my formulation of the vow I said, “I, before the cross of Jesus Christ, vow perpetual non-violence in fulfillment of the command of your Son, ‘Love your enemies.’ ”
It seems to me beyond doubt that I cannot love a person in the same act in which I kill that person.
The vow means I will not take part in killing anybody.
That means I will not pay taxes for weapons of death and be a part of the preparations to kill done by the military or the hangman or the abortionist.
Neither will I hold, as morally acceptable, the program of killing some to save others.
Discussion about payment of U.S. federal income taxes used for military purposes — or “war taxes” — was prompted by a request from four MCC Akron employees who asked MCC to stop forwarding the portion of their income taxes which go for military spending.
In letters last year to the executive committee, the four cited deployment of missiles in Europe, U.S. funds for war in Central America, MCC’s support of conscientious objection during the Vietnam War and the deaths of friends killed by American-made weapons as basis for the request.
A tax withholding task force reported to the board that, after discussions with eight Mennonite and Brethren in Christ conferences, “no group counseled MCC to honor the requests.”
MCC Canada indicated that payment of military taxes is not an issue among Canadians “at this time.”
The task force recommended that MCC “continue to withhold and forward taxes to the (U.S.) government.”
Possible penalties for not forwarding an employee’s tax include the amount plus interest, a $10,000 fine and/or five years imprisonment.
Board member Phil Rich, who served on the task force, emphasized that conference leaders “agonized” over the decision and observed that “none of the groups said that civil disobedience is absolutely wrong.”
Some of the leaders, he indicated, “are in favor but do not think their people will go along.”
He also noted that most conferences are open to dealing with the issue in the future.
During a lengthy discussion, board members wrestled with the issue.
Ray Brubacher, a Canadian, indicated that his church allows him to withhold the military portion of his income tax.
“I cannot,” he said, “vote against their request if I can [have taxes not withheld] myself.
I don’t want to vote against the constituency, but I cannot vote against my conscience.”
Larry Kehler of the General Conference noted that his denomination had decided in not to forward the tax of individuals who had made such a request.
As a member of that conference, he indicated that he “could not vote for the recommendation.”
Both said that their vote would be made with “much pain.”
Other board members shared their pain but agreed with MCC Canada representative Ross Nigh that “we are bound by the process.
We went to the conferences in good faith, and not one recommended that we withhold taxes.
In the interest of the wider brotherhood, we must vote for it.”
The recommendation passed with four against and two abstentions.
The board also passed recommendations that affirm the four and others who make a similar request and that encourage MCC to find ways for them to resist payment legally.
Staff were also encouraged to increase efforts to educate the churches about the relationship between militarism, hunger, development and refugees.
The task force also suggested that MCC and the conferences hold a study conference on church/state issues.
In a prepared response, Earl Martin read a statement on behalf of the four that expressed appreciation for the process and deliberation but appealed to the conferences to discuss the issue at their next annual conventions.
The four also asked MCC to help facilitate the discussion and invited the conferences to report their findings at the MCC annual meeting.
Martin also pointed out that while U.S. members of MCC’s seven constituent conferences donated $9.4 million to MCC in , they paid an estimated $159 million in military taxes.
Approximagely $880,000 was paid during the course of the meeting.
When the General Board met in , however, they backpedaled from their own participation in this decision:
[The board] passed a motion brought by CHM U.S. that GB reverse its recommendation to the Mennonite Central Committee that it continue to withhold taxes from its employees even when they request otherwise.
Staff member Robert Hull… disagreed with MCC’s decision not to stop withholding taxes of employees.
He said the General Board is partly responsible because it was contacted, along with seven other denominations when the decision was being made.
The committee continued to struggle with the issues posed by MCC employees whose request not to have income taxes withheld was rejected after long debate at the MCC annual meeting in .
It was decided at that time that, despite this decision, MCC should continue to affirm the integrity of those objecting to war taxes and establish a committee that would study and create broader awareness of the impact of militarism on refugees, hunger and development.
But the mandate of that group, which is to begin meeting in , was not clearly defined.
Executive committee chairman Elmer Neufeld said that there seems to be a “strong expectation” from some that the special committee will continue to work specifically on the tax withholding issue.
Others said the committee’s task was to struggle with congregations to find legal ways to express a Christian witness on the issue of militarism.
It was also reported that the General Conference Mennonite Church has had further discussion regarding how to counsel MCC to respond to the request from its staff on income tax withholding.
At MCC’s annual meeting it was reported that MCC representatives had met with constituent conferences and that none had counseled MCC to honor the request of staff.
In the General Conference’s General Board decided to counsel MCC “that they honor requests of their employees to not have their taxes withheld, in line with General Conference policy.”
As authorized by the triennial sessions, the conference is honoring the requests of four employees not to withhold income tax due to the U.S. Government.
Thus far, Internal Revenue Service has not taken action against the conference.
Originally, seven such employees had requested not to have taxes withheld.
This was later reduced to five.
Now it’s four.
I can’t tell whether this is from a general shrinkage of staff or from a flagging of enthusiasm for war tax resistance.
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.
Conscience is contagious.
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 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 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 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 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 .
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.
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 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?
Six Mennonite pastors who have refused to pay some or all of their military taxes were interviewed in the 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 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 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 to develop a policy recommendation on the issue for consideration at Normal .
“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 , has had tax money seized, plus interest and penalties, from its resisters’ bank accounts.
The Friends United Meeting adopted a non-withholding policy .
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends will decide in 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 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 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 thirty-fifth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we finish off the 1980s.
The issue announced that a new poster was available from the MCC:
Seattle Mennonite Church established a Northwest Peace Fund in to receive donations and recoverable deposits from people withholding a portion of their federal income taxes or phone taxes because of the large military buildup in the United States.
Anyone who wishes to may donate to the fund so that the resulting interest can be used for local peace activities.
Interest from the Northwest Peace Fund has been used to support peace-related projects in the Puget Sound area, such as the Emergency Feeding Program and the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP).
While the Seattle Mennonite Church’s Northwest Peace Fund will accept deposits and contributions from outside the Northwest, we strongly encourage each Mennonite congregation to establish its own peace fund.
We approved these seven operating guidelines:
This fund will be called the Northwest Peace Fund.
It will be a non-profit investment fund that will generate income.
This income will be distributed for peace and social concerns projects in the Pacific Northwest.
The peace fund will be administered by three peace fund representatives selected by the peace and social concerns committee of the Seattle Mennonite Church initially for one-, two-, and three-year terms, and for two- year terms thereafter.
Current peace fund representatives are Charles Lord, Bob Hamilton and David Ortman.
Money may be deposited into the fund through a peace fund representative either on a donation or recoverable-deposit basis:
(a) Donations will be retained to generate income for the fund,
(b) Recoverable deposits may be placed in the peace fund for a period of up to five years.
During this time period such funds may be returned to the depositor within 30 days upon written request of the fund’s address, given below.
Recoverable deposits will be used to generate income during the time these funds remain available.
After a period of five years, if not reclaimed, such deposits will revert to the status of donations.
The fund will operate on a fiscal year ending on May 31.
One meeting of the peace fund representatives will be held each April to prepare an annual report, copies of which will be available upon request.
At this meeting the peace fund representatives are also authorized to distribute up to all income generated from the fund to peace and social concern projects in the Pacific Northwest.
Any disbursement must have prior approval of the Seattle Mennonite Church advisory council.
The peace fund is authorized to budget up to 10 percent of any income generated by the fund to cover costs of advertising the fund to attract additional deposits and to provide copies of the annual report.
Any peace fund representative is authorized to withdraw within 30 days any recoverable deposit to a depositor upon a written request by the depositor.
In the event of the dissolution of the peace fund, all funds will be transferred to another peace fund escrow account and the depositors notified.
The mailing address of the fund will be…
Peace Tax Fund campaign director Marian Franz also wrote in with a brief note in which she suggested war tax resisters prompt their Congressional representatives to become Peace Tax Fund law supporters:
Sometimes the sequence goes like this (and I wish it would more often):
Carl Lundberg, a United Methodist pastor from New Haven, Conn., refuses to pay the military portion of his taxes.
The Internal Revenue Service comes to garnishee the wages.
The congregation has a meeting.
The vote is unanimous.
The answer is, No, they will not cooperate with the IRS because they will not be tax collectors, because they will not violate the pastor’s right to his own views of conscience and living by those, etc.
Then in the same year the U.S. Senator from Connecticut, Lowell Weicker, becomes a co-sponsor of the Peace Tax Fund Bill.
Is there a connection?
I think there is and that more will be coming.
That is because I am a person of hope.
Another invitation for war tax resisters to redirect their taxes through the MCC U.S. Peace Section’s “Taxes for Peace” fund appeared in the edition.
This time the funds were to be disbursed to both the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and to the Christian Peacemaker Teams program.
The note said about $4,000 had been donated to the fund .
The Commission on Home Ministries is interested in hearing from Mennonites who have placed some of their resisted military taxes into alternative peace funds.
Information on recent judicial decisions affecting such peace funds is available from the General Conference Peace and Justice office…
Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner’s Colrain, Mass., home is scheduled to go on the auction block any day.
The Internal Revenue Service seized their house for non-payment of $20,000 in taxes and $6,000 in fines and fees.
The couple has been withholding their federal taxes for 12 years, donating the money to a shelter for homeless women and children, a veteran’s outreach center, and a local peace group.
Kehler says they are willing to risk the consequences “because we can’t not do it.”
While the IRS is looking for a buyer, many local realtors will not touch the sale of the house because of strong community sentiment in favor of the couple’s decision.
After 7½ years of litigation, 27 hearings, and with a case file that grew two inches thick, the Tokyo District Court has ruled against a taxpayers’ organization that sought to end the Japanese government’s collection of income taxes for military purposes.
The case had its origin after the bank accounts of Akiteru Nakagawa and Mennonite minister Michio Ohno were attached by the government and the telephone of Yoshinori Tan was seized, in each instance due to their non-payment of taxes.
The Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church voted to combine into a single organization at their joint conference in .
This, I hope, will simplify things for me at least, as it’s been difficult to keep track of the subtle differences in names between the two organizations and their subcommittees.
Also at that conference:
The Mennonite Church narrowly (59 percent) approved a resolution calling for its General Board to take four steps on military tax-withholding.
It will establish a policy of not withholding (U.S.) federal income taxes from wages of any of its employees who make this request because of conscientious objection to war.
The resolution supports “other church boards and agencies that may adopt similar policies,” giving direction, not a mandate.
The General Conference took a similar action in in Bethlehem, Pa., but with a stronger vote, 71 percent.
The edition included an editorial by Muriel T. Stackely that brought readers up to speed on the history of the withholding debate.
Excerpt:
Our conference [the General Conference Mennonite Church] now does not withhold federal tax from those employees requesting this.
“We immediately notified the Internal Revenue Service,” says conference treasurer Ted Stuckey, “explaining our actions, being open, concealing nothing.
That was .
We still have not heard any more from the IRS — after getting its initial response, which told us that this was illegal.
We answered that we knew it was illegal but that it was in response to the action taken by the delegate body.”
Currently three employees of our conference offices in Newton, Kan., are requesting that tax not be withheld.
They are treated as self-employed people.
They say, observes Ted, that they have appreciated the opportunity to witness in this way.
The amounts not paid to IRS have been symbolic rather than comprehensive.
One expression of our commitment to non-violence has been war tax resistance.
Thus we and our friends found that our commitment to practice war tax resistance encouraged our commitment to a simple lifestyle.
We have defined war tax resistance as filing our taxes, but refusing to pay 50 percent of what is owed because that is the portion of U.S. income tax that goes toward military spending.
Fifty percent is a conservative estimate because parts of the U.S. military budget are hidden or secret.
We have learned that if we own a car, even one that is six years old, the IRS will sell it at a public auction to collect back taxes.
It became obvious that consumerism and war tax resistance are incompatible.
As a result several of our friends have made a conscious decision to do job-sharing or half-time employment.
It has worked out that between couples both parents can act equally as care-takers for the children while also having employment, which is psychologically rewarding and complementary to their vision of participating in God’s reign on earth.
Our choice of war tax resistance as a way of reducing our participation in the U.S. war machine has made a simple lifestyle almost mandatory because it has led us to lower our tax liability and lower our material consumption.
Another editorial by Muriel T. Stackely, this one in the edition, complained that “the 7,000 brochures about the Peace Tax Fund distributed at our triennial session in Normal, Ill., among 8,000 Mennonites netted one, one new membership for this campaign that says to the U.S. government, I want my tax dollars to be used to promote life, not death; peace, not war.”
War Resisters League is initiating organizing for major Tax Day demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco on .
Based on the theme “Alternative Revenue Service,” the actions will emphasize the U.S. government’s militaristic spending priorities and will feature a 1040 EZ Peace tax form and the distribution of redirected tax dollars to peace and social justice programs.
WRL is inviting other tax resistance and peace groups to join in planning the actions.
For more information contact Ruth Benn, War Resisters League…
This is the thirty-sixth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we enter the 1990s.
In residents began refusing to pay taxes to the Israeli occupiers.
Tax money should go for roads, health and local services, they said.
But the occupiers were supplying none of these services.
Instead they used taxes to fund the military occupation.
Residents adopted the slogan “No taxation without representation.”
The authorities responded with nightly curfews, mass arrests and a strong troop presence in the town.
But residents still did not pay their taxes.
For six weeks in , Israeli troops sealed off the town.
They seized property and belongings from businessmen and families who had not paid taxes.
Tax officials went from house to house humiliating and beating people, according to a account in the Jerusalem Post.
Israeli tax officials confiscated without trial several million dollars worth of property.
The tax siege has now been lifted, but Beit Sahour residents still refuse to pay taxes.
I recently attended a meeting that focused on the question of paying the military portion (about 50 percent) of our [U.S.] federal income taxes.
I left the meeting troubled, not because there were varying viewpoints but because many people appeared unconcerned about the issue and failed to address what I believe are key questions on the matter.
The question for me is not whether we should honor our government or whether a government has the right to collect taxes.
The crux of the matter is to determine when Caesar’s demands conflict with our obedience to God.
I fear that if I were to give Caesar all that he demands in war taxes, I would fail to honor God in four important ways.
I fear that by paying the military portion of my income taxes I fail to trust God alone for my security.
Throughout history nations have tried to secure their well-being and safety through military solutions.
Again and again in the Bible God asks us to resist such solutions and to trust him instead:
War horses are useless for victory; their great strength cannot save.
The Lord watches over those who have reverence for him, those who trust in his constant love.
He saves them from death… We put our hope in the Lord; he is our protector and our help (Psalm 33:17–20).
If I work several months each year to pay my nation’s military dues, am I not giving legitimacy to the military establishment’s answers for my security?
If I am willing to invest so much of my time and energy in a military solution, can I honestly say that God is my protector?
I fear that by paying my war taxes I fail to give my primary loyalty to Christ’s worldwide church.
My war taxes would purchase planes, bombs, guns and military training to be used in Third World settings.
Although our country is not involved in any declared war, our military might is felt keenly in Central America, the Philippines and the Middle East.
In fact, in recent years the United States has adopted a policy of promoting “low-intensity conflict” in countries that threaten to move out from under our sphere of influence.
This means keeping warfare away from the American public eye and avoiding the involvement of American soldiers in the fighting.
Yet our brothers and sisters in Christ do die in the struggle.
Can I say that my first loyalty is to the worldwide kingdom of God if I comply with structures that do violence to my neighbors around the world?
I fear that by paying my war taxes I fail to follow Christ as he calls me to love all people, even my enemies.
In Matthew 5 Jesus no doubt surprised his listeners by challenging them to love not only their friends but all people, just as God does.
This has not been an easy teaching for the church.
Peter struggled with it when he was called to go to Cornelius, a gentile, and Paul reminded the early church often that the gospel was not only for Jews but also for gentiles.
Ephesians 2:14
points this out: “For Christ himself has brought us peace by making Jews and gentiles one people.
With his own body he broke down the wall that separated them and kept them enemies.”
Do we believe that this can also apply to Americans and Soviets, rich and poor, capitalist and communist?
Can I believe this and at the same time contribute to the forces that are designed to destroy these very people whom Christ called me to love?
I fear that by paying my war taxes I fail to respect God’s creation.
In today’s world, militarism not only threatens people but all of creation as well.
While militarism is not the only way we dishonor God’s creation, it is through nuclear weapons that we dare to threaten all that God has made.
Can I claim to truly honor God if I continue to help pay for such weapons?
I think these questions have special poignancy for us as Mennonites.
We claim to be conscientious objectors to war.
Yet in a low-intensity conflict or in a nuclear war it is almost irrelevant to say that we will not serve in the military.
These kinds of wars do not demand our bodies but our dollars and our consent.
Thus we cannot ignore this issue of war taxes.
I recognize that sincere people differ on this issue.
Some encourage elected leaders to reorder our nation’s priorities.
Some give away more of their income so that they owe less income tax.
Some live in community so that they can live on lower incomes.
Some withhold a symbolic amount of all of their military taxes.
Some support legislative efforts that would allow conscientious objectors to designate the military portion of their federal taxes to a peace tax fund.
What is important is not so much that we all agree but that we agonize together on these questions.
Let us pray for wisdom as we wrestle with what this issue means for our faith in God, our witness as a Christian church, our faithfulness to Christ and our reverence for God’s creation.
This was accompanied by a sidebar invitation for people to redirect their taxes through “the Taxes for Peace fund.”
It added that “In , $5750 in Taxes for Peace funds were divided between the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and Christian Peacemaker Teams; 1990 contributions will be divided the same way.”
Members of St. Louis Mennonite Fellowship recently passed a proposal to faithfully resist payments of the U.S. federal phone tax applied monthly to the fellowship’s phone bill.
The revenues will be redirected to Mennonite Central Committee.
“We wish to respect the convictions of our members and Anabaptist forebears and to be disciplined followers of Jesus Christ,” said Scott Neufeld, coordinator of St. Louis Mennonite Peace Witness.
Federal phone tax revenues, first collected in , contribute directly to the U.S. Armed Forces and other systems of war, Neufeld said.
Looking at our Anabaptist heritage and looking at our Scriptures in light of contemporary political realities, we do not have to be pressed to pray for peace while paying for war.
Our spiritual authority in Jesus Christ, as expressed by apostles and Anabaptist forebears, allows and empowers us to make the difficult decision to withhold war taxes.
Balthasar Hubmaier, writing about taxes paid to an unjust government, states, “…to come to the point, God will excuse us for nothing on the account of unjust superiors…” (Anabaptism in Outline, Klassen, p. 246).
The U.S. government has become unjust, and when a government is unjust, it has forfeited the right to expect my taxes.
As Christians and Anabaptists, we have a rich tradition of conscience.
In some ways we even have a tradition of anarchy.
Anarchy in the eyes of the world, that is, for we may claim a greater authority — God.…
The early Anabaptists — Menno Simons, Balthasar Hubmaier, Jacob Hutter and Peter Rideman — all spoke out on the proper attitude of a Christian toward government, on paying taxes used for war and on the production of weapons of violence.
For Anabaptist Christians the issue to pay or not to pay war taxes has a significant history.
Jacob Hutter wrote, “For how can we be innocent before our God if we do not go to war ourselves but give the money that others may go in our place?
We will not become partakers of the sin of others and dishonor and despise God” (“Plots and Excuses,” Klassen p. 252).
While this may refer to the practice of paying one’s way out of military service by supplying a replacement, it still holds true that aiding the carrying out of violence indirectly indicts the taxpayer as a participant in the violence enacted.
Similarly Peter Rideman asserts that one has a responsibility not only for what one produces but also for how those products are used by others.
Rideman states that Christians cannot build weapons of violence, even if they do not use those products themselves.
The one who produces weapons is responsible for the violence inflicted.
But the issue of our history as Christians and as Anabaptists concerning the issue of war tax resistance is made more difficult because of our reading of the biblical texts relating to government, particularly Matthew 22:21 (and other texts referring to government, e.g. Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:14).
In any discussion of war tax resistance among Christians, the words of Jesus are almost always quoted, “…render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” However, if we look closely at the political and historical context of these biblical texts, we have to ask ourselves how we can apply Jesus’ response in Matthew 22:21 to ourselves in our political and historical situation.
Trick question: Ancient Palestine, in the time of Jesus, was a territory held captive under Roman rule.
Foreign powers hostile to Judaism had occupied Palestine, installed a puppet ruler, King Herod, and sought to form alliances with certain Jewish factions.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, reflected the thoughts and feelings of the majority of the poor and middle-class Jews, feelings of resentment and anger.
The Pharisees, who had been plotting to do away with Jesus on any grounds possible, were seeking to trick Jesus.
On the chance that Jesus might make some incriminating statements, the Pharisees sent their disciples to Jesus along with representatives from Herod.
That way, if Jesus said something self-incriminating to the religious people or to the political regime, he could be arrested.
As it was, neither truth nor justice were being sought by this group when they asked Jesus the question about paying the tax.
It was a trick question, and Jesus responded with a trick answer.
“And Jesus said to them, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were greatly amazed at him” (Mark 12:17).
But what does his answer say to us?
What direction does it give to those who are not asking trick questions but whose motives are truth and justice?
We must take seriously that we do not live in a political situation anything like ancient Palestine.
We live in , has witnessed amazing revolutions of democratization.
Democracies seek to do away with the dichotomy between the government and the people.
In a democracy there is no Caesar.
Since we are not ruled by a monarch, we have no “caesar” over us.
If there is a caesar over us, so to speak, then we are caesar.
The U.S. Constitution begins by naming our caesar, “We the people.”…
We, as responsible citizens, are the political and moral authority of the United States.
If our nation blunders and falls, if it is unjust and violent, if it has misplaced priorities, then the blame is on us and not merely upon those we have elected to represent our concerns.
Living in a democracy, we actually pay taxes to ourselves.
We are responsible for setting the budgets.
We are responsible for policies.
One of our greatest problems is that we have surrendered democratic government to bureaucracy, allowing others to make decisions for us.
We are the caesar to whom we are to render our taxes, not some authority outside ourselves.
As such, it is up to us to decide what we will or will not render.
It is this freedom of conscience that makes democracy both attractive to those who live without it and a headache to those who must operate with it.
For this reason, Plato said, democracy is the best form of a bad government and the worst form of a good one.
A restraint of evil: Those of us who withhold a portion of our taxes are trying to reorient our national spending priorities by saying we will not pay for war or violence.
The portion we do not pay we give away to those who will use it for peace.
While we recognize that we are breaking a law of the people (willing to take responsibility and to be accountable for our actions), we are not breaking a law against caesar.
What we are trying to do is give ourselves what we need to function as a government, that is, to function as a restraint of evil and to be a supporter of good (1 Peter 2:14).
Menno Simons wrote that the task of government is to “do justice… to deliver the oppressed,… without tyranny… without force, violence and blood” (“Foundation of Christian Doctrine,” Complete Writings of Menno Simons, p. 193).
Government ceases to be legitimate when it ceases to be a force for order in both foreign and domestic realms, when it ceases to provide for the needs of all, and when it ceases to be a body of law for carrying out justice without violence and bloodshed.
Would we continue to give our tithes and offerings to a ministry that has been proven to be unethical, caught in scandalous dealings and clearly immoral?
If we held our government up to the same standards as we do televangelists and their ministries, the government would not be able to finance its bureaucracies.
Our government has been caught in one scandal after another, involved in or supporting one war after another.
And because we are caesar, we are responsible for this scandalous behavior.
Even though we have given away our democratic rights to bureaucratic powers, we still will bear God’s judgment.
The majority of our federal budget pays for the operations of the world’s largest military system, which prepares for war with scarce resources.
It finances low-intensity conflicts throughout the world by supplying and sponsoring surrogate armies.
It has yet to finish paying for past wars.
Thus we must come to terms with the reality that we are producing and indirectly using weapons of violence.
Living in a democracy, we are, as citizens, weapons producers by providing through our taxes the capital needed for the production of B1-Bs, MX “Peacekeepers,” Apache attack helicopters, bullets, rifles and on and on.
The Scriptures, which determine the right function of government, the witness of our Anabaptist forebears and our democratic freedoms force us to act in ways that affect the political process.
For many, tax resistance is a way to bring about a change in federal spending priorities.
But much more importantly, it is a way to make one’s life have integrity and to align one’s life with God’s gospel of shalom.
The edition announced a “Standing Up for Peace Contest” with $1,100 in prizes available to “young people ages 15–23” who “interview someone who has refused to fight in war, pay taxes for war, or build weapons for war and share the story through writing an essay or song, producing a video, or creating a work of art.”
The Mennonite Church General Board, after years of study and discussion, brought the military tax question to a vote, then tabled it.
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 may deal with the government in regard to military taxes.
At the General Board meetings in Kalona, Iowa, members tabled a motion to honor requests of employees who ask that their income tax not be withheld.
Gary Jewell, a student at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Elkhart, Ind., handed out about $150 in $1 bills to passers-by in front of the downtown post office in Elkhart to express his opposition to U.S. military spending.
He gave away about half of what he and his wife, Jan Yoder, owe in federal income taxes.
The couple plans to give the rest to a charity like Mennonite Central Committee.
Stapled to each $1 bill was a statement by Jewell that read in part, “Today I choose to give my money away (call it a ‘peace dividend’) rather than to pay the remaining 60 percent of my federal income tax that goes toward present and past military expense.”
(The Elkhart Truth)
The edition included a sidebar with this quote:
“Until membership in the church means that a Christian chooses not to engage in violence for any reason and instead chooses to love, pray for, help and forgive all enemies; until membership in the church means that Christians may not be members of any military…; until membership in the church means that Christians cannot pay taxes for others to kill others; and until the church says these things in a fashion that the simplest soul can understand — until that time humanity can only look forward to more dark nights of slaughter on a scale unknown in history.
Unless the church unswervingly and unambiguously teaches what Jesus teaches on this matter, it will not be the divine leaven in the human dough that it was meant to be.”
―George Zabelka, who served as a Roman Catholic chaplain for those who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on and
The General Boards of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church issued their first joint statement as a merging body in .
It urged the U.S. to stand down from its Iraq war threats.
One of the seven points of the document calls congregations to confess “our own complicity and selfishness in utilizing more than our share of the world’s supply of oil and other resources… limited concern for longstanding injustices in the Middle East and… paying for the military buildup through our taxes.”
A regional report from the noted that in the Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada, “A conference employee has requested that the conference not withhold his war taxes.
This issue will be brought to a future conference session.”
This is the thirty-seventh in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we hit 1991.
The issue brought the news
that the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (of Quakers) had lost its court battle
against the
IRS:
On ,
U.S. District Judge
Norma Shapiro found that
PYM
is not protected by the Constitution. She wrote, however, that “it is ironic
that here in Pennsylvania, the woods to which Penn led the Religious Society
of Friends to enjoy the blessings of religious liberty, neither the
Constitution nor its Bill of Rights protects the policy of the Society not to
coerce or violate the consciences of its employees and members or to act as an
agent for our government in doing so.” The General Conference Mennonite
Church, which agreed in to not withhold
taxes from its employees who requested this, has not heard from the
IRS.
That issue also carried
a
note about the Northwest Peace Fund — an alternative fund for coordinating
war tax redirection sponsored by the Seattle Mennonite Church.
“We can’t stop war, but maybe we can stop paying for war,” says Steve
Ratzlaff, pastor at the church. The taxes that would be paid to the government
are put into the fund, and the interest earned on the money is given to peace
and justice organizations. If the Internal Revenue Service garnishees the
unpaid taxes, investors may draw the money out. The rationale behind the fund,
says Ratzlaff, is that “if enough people do it, it will become an economic
hardship for the government to collect the money.” It also allows people to
direct their money to “constructive rather than destructive programs,” he
says.
The edition again invited
readers to redirect their federal income taxes through the
Taxes for Peace Fund organized by the
MCC
U.S. Peace Section.
The funds collected in would be split among
the Peace Section itself, the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, and
Christian Peacemaker Teams. In ,
$3,700 had been redirected through the fund.
The relatively new Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada
had been quickly confronted by the war tax withholding issue, and tried to
resolve it at its annual sessions. Here’s how The
Mennonite reported it:
Fred Martin: “I see this as a symbolic act that would witness to our hope in
the love of Jesus Christ.”
Next to the budget, the most debated item was the executive board’s
recommendation to “withhold no income tax from the salary of any conference
[MCEC]
employee who requests this on the basis of conscience” as well as to ask the
Canadian government to recognize conscientious objection to payment of
military taxes and to provide peaceful alternatives for use of such tax
dollars.
Fred Martin, who works with students and young adults for the conference, made
the request that led to the board’s recommendation. He said he wants to
motivate people to consider the issue. He called his act a symbolic one “that
would witness to our hope in the love of Jesus Christ.”
Several spoke in favor of the action. Doug Pritchard quoted the famous
Catholic activist Dorothy Day: “If we truly rendered unto God what is God’s,
there would be nothing left for Caesar.”
Sam Steiner said that governments listen more if they see you’re willing to
sacrifice for it. Wilmer Martin added that we need to support our members who
try to be true to their conscience.
Others opposed the idea. Victor Dorsch of Maple View Mennonite Church,
Wellesley, Ont., said that
such an action is not a positive peace witness. “Our tax dollars are also
going for abortions,” he said. Peter Epp of North Leamington
(Ont.) United Mennonite Church
was also against it and called for a secret ballot.
The moderator delayed further discussion until that evening’s session. In the
end, delegates voted down the original recommendation on tax withholding, 159
to 48. Margot Fieguth of Mississauga
(Ont.) Mennonite Fellowship
introduced an alternative resolution, which still called for the conference to
work for legislation to recognize conscientious objection to paying military
taxes and recommended hiring Martin on a contract basis so that the conference
was not liable. After more discussion delegates voted to table discussion
until the next delegate session.
A
followup, after the
MCEC
fall sessions in , read in part:
A new motion, passed almost unanimously, commits the conference “to work with
the federal government to enact legislation that recognizes conscientious
objection to military service and the payment of military taxes and to provide
peaceful alternatives.”
Originally the new motion also included a section offering contracts to
conference employees who want to redirect their taxes. That section was
removed after the conference executive learned that simply placing employees
on a contract basis — without changing job descriptions and
accountability — would not necessarily get the conference “off the hook” for
breaking income tax laws.
Don’t we already have provision for conscientious objection to war? asked
several delegates. Doug Pritchard, a peace worker with the conference, said
that such legislation was in effect during World War Ⅱ but is no longer. David
Janzen suggested that the guarantees of freedom of conscience and religion in
the Canadian Bill of Rights should be sufficient.
A
message from the General Conference’s General Board in reaction to the
Persian Gulf War went out in the
issue. It said, in part: “We repent that through our taxes we have contributed
to death and destruction… We call on Christians not to enter the military
forces and to protest or refuse the use of our taxes for military purposes.”
To avoid federal income taxes.
For 12 years I have paid no federal income taxes because I refuse to finance U.S. mass murder around the world.
How can I speak for peace while I pay for war?
Over 50 percent of every federal income tax dollar goes for war — past, present, or future.
I keep my easily traceable taxable income under the taxable level.
For a sighted, under-65-year-old single person that amount is $5,550 for .
Shrader was taken to task in a later issue by a letter
saying that his example of “[l]iving at basic sufficiency does nothing to help
the poor, many of whom are dependent upon tax dollars for their housing, food,
education, and health care.”
Titus Peachey
An article by Titus Peachey on The Blessing of Tax Resistance — imagining what would happen if war tax resistance were central to Mennonite practice — appeared in the issue:
Imagine the impossible or highly
improbable. Imagine that all Mennonite and
Brethren in Christ people refused to pay taxes for war.
Let’s not worry for the moment how this came about, except
to acknowledge that it grew out of our deep commitment
to Christ and the church.
Furthermore, let’s imagine that we cheerfully supported one another in this
refusal to pay taxes for war, so that no one need be alone in this act of
faith.
What would this do to our church? What would happen to our witness in the
world? How would God change us in the process?
We cannot know. I am convinced, however, that there are parallels to the
blessing that came when our young men chose insult and prison rather than
military service during World War Ⅰ. We still benefit from that witness.
Now it is our turn. How are we going to be faithful? What would we face as a
church if we decided that faithfulness meant the refusal to pay taxes for war?
Simple living: The first option is simple living, the legal approach.
The more-with-less approach to life would be the norm in our churches. Vast
numbers of our people would choose legal means of reducing the amount paid in
taxes for war. We would reduce our personal incomes, and give a higher
percentage of our money to the church. We would reduce our tax liability.
Our churches would encourage simpler housing and shared living arrangements.
We would help our young people avoid large, long-term mortgages. Living in
duplexes or other multiple-unit dwellings would reduce purchase and
maintenance costs and save on heat, utilities, appliances and tools. Many of
us would find inexpensive housing in low-income, multicultural neighborhoods,
maintaining a sense of stewardship so that our presence would not price others
out of the neighborhood.
As more of us moved into lower-cost housing, we would gain new skills at
cross-cultural living and relating. More of our churches would reflect the
diversity of God’s people. We would become a less segregated and exclusive
church. We would learn difficult lessons about conflict resolution, justice
and community.
More of us, in an effort to reduce expenses, would put energy into relating to
our neighbors and the community through the public school system. Alternately,
given our greater interest in tax deductions through charitable contributions,
our church schools could be more highly subsidized, less expensive and thus
more accessible to a broader spectrum of people.
A commitment to not paying taxes for war would increase resources available to
the church. It would be usual for people to give 20–50 percent of their
incomes to the church. Local congregations would have more resources to share
with the community. It would be routine for a congregation to hire one or two
people to work at community needs and concerns.
Our churches would also struggle deeply with the prevalent theology of success
and the god of materialism. The same theology that prevents us from paying
taxes for war would prohibit us from spending so much on ourselves. Our church
building and expansion programs would be reviewed in light of community and
world needs. We would become “economically non-conformed” to this world.
Refusing to pay taxes for war would expand our understanding of conscientious
objection to war. We would understand conscientious objection to include
issues related to employment, investments, taxes, and business relationships
as well as to military registration and conscription.
The U.S. Peace Tax
Fund Bill would receive all the financial support it needed. Congress members
from Mennonite or Brethren in Christ districts would frequently receive mail
and visits on the subject. Conscience against war would receive a better
hearing in the halls of government.
Tax resistance: The second option is tax resistance, the illegal
approach. A significant number of Mennonites would choose the path of tax
resistance by withholding the military portion or a symbolic amount of their
tax dollars from the
(U.S.) Internal
Revenue Service and Revenue Canada. It would be normal to find a group of
families in each congregation who seek counsel and support on this issue.
Mennonite institutions would honor employee requests not to withhold their
income tax dollars. Mennonite leaders would frequently find themselves in
IRS
offices and the courts, witnessing to their faith and conscience and the
convictions of our people.
As the public became aware of this expression of our faith, some would
perceive Mennonites as a threat. We could become the target of harassment and
community pressure. People would make nasty phone calls and vandalize us as a
result of our beliefs, particularly during times of crisis, such as the
Persian Gulf War.
Some of us would end up in jail, being used as examples to deter others from
continuing to practice tax resistance. Small Mennonite fellowships might form
in our prisons as a result of the life and witness of tax resisters.
These experiences would make it easier for us to identify with the image of a
“suffering church” that is found in Scripture, in our Anabaptist heritage and
in many parts of the world today. Our sense of unity and identity with the
worldwide church would become stronger.
We would not have to scratch our heads and wonder how to do peace education
with our youth. They would sense that our concern about Christ’s way of peace
is integral to our life and faith. They would wonder why we are going to court
and to jail, and would ask us many difficult questions over dinner and during
Sunday school.
Conclusion: Tax resistance is not the only path to the many things
mentioned above. Surely we as a church could commit ourselves to simple living
and a 10–20 percent tithe, without the burden (or the blessing) of the war tax
issue. Certainly there are other ways to grow in commitment to racial equality
or justice for the poor.
In my experience, however, war tax resistance remains one of the most relevant
ways to affirm life and peace in a world of militarized economies. For me it
has also served as the best discipline for simple living in a culture of
materialism and consumption.
Implementing this vision in our churches could lead to conflict and division.
It could also lead us to experience anew Christ’s reconciling Spirit among us.
It would not be easy. I am convinced, however, that a great blessing awaits
the church, when we agree to say yes to Christ’s way of peace by refusing to
pay taxes for war. When will it happen? What will become of us if it doesn’t?
Don Kaufman penned a letter for the edition. Excerpts:
Those who do not willingly pay find the costs of dissent high. Internal
Revenue Service penalties and fees total several hundred dollars when citizens
refuse to send their earnings to the Pentagon. This simply adds to the dilemma
of “drafted dollars” that violate conscience. With one hand citizens give
generously to life-building purposes that ease human suffering. With the other
hand they pay military taxes that effectively cancel the good they have done.
They pay to relieve suffering; they pay to increase it. They pray for peace;
they pay for war.
Today’s combat soldier is the taxpayer — the person who provides the money to
produce and deploy the push-button systems for mass annihilation.
He urged people to support a Peace Tax Fund bill.
This is the thirty-eighth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we work through the rest of the early 1990s.
Taxes for Life
The edition brought news of
a symbolic, dip-your-toes-in-first sort of tax resistance being organized by
Christian Peacemaker Teams:
Taxes for Life
encourages church members to divert from their
income tax returns at least $3.03, which
represents a penny per $1 billion of the
U.S. military
budget ($303.5 billion). As a symbolic effort, the project seeks to draw
public attention to the unfulfilled student needs in poor communities for
books and educational materials. Send symbolic tax refusals to
CPT…
These will be gathered at the
CPT
conference in Richmond, Va.
. One-fourth of the total will
be donated publicly to local impoverished schools. The rest will be sent back
with conference participants for similar public donations to their local
school districts.
The edition followed this up
with a brief note about a “Taxes for Life Liturgy and Study Plan,” put out by
CPT,
“which helps encourage symbolic tax resistance to the
U.S. defense
budget”.
John K. Stoner described the program in greater detail in the
edition:
My phone rang. The voice said, “Could I speak to John or Janet Stoner?”
“I’m John Stoner.”
“I’m calling from the Internal Revenue Service about the letter you sent
indicating that you are withholding part of your income tax payment.”
He and I talked for about 10 minutes as I explained why Janet and I had said
“no” to paying the full amount of our income tax. The man could not understand
why anyone would invite the collection pressures of the
IRS by
withholding some taxes. But by the time the conversation was over he was
closer to understanding that this was for us a matter of faith and a question
of the practice of our religion.
It was a
Mark
13:9 kind of experience, being called before the authorities, “before
governors and kings,” because of Jesus, as a testimony to them. By the
sound of Mark
13, Jesus expected this kind of thing to happen regularly to his
followers. Mark 13 is a good text to remember when everybody around you quotes
Romans
13.
War tax keeps coming up and won’t go away because the cry of children abused
and traumatized by war doesn’t go away.
Every discussion about peacemaking must face the question of how taxes are
collected and spent. The taxpayer’s “age of innocence” ended a year ago when
Americans watched their tax dollars at work in Iraq. There our taxes killed
between 100,000 and 200,000 people in one month and left a nation of 17
million people strangled — its water polluted, its hospitals without
electricity, its homes dark, its classrooms cold. Malnutrition, disease and
destitution continue.
Americans, your
IRS 1040
form and mine paid the bill. Our withheld wages and enclosed checks purchased
yesterday’s nightmares and tomorrow’s psychological traumas for these
childhood victims of war. We also paid for the deaths of their fathers and
relatives by the thousands.
Jobs: Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of unemployed, homeless, sick
and impoverished people in the United States are not helped toward health and
self-sufficiency by the federal government, which says that the funds for
education, vaccinations, basic health care, public transportation and jobs are
not available.
Who is responsible for this? We are. It is impossible for us Christian
taxpayers to sidestep our share of the responsibility. But do we have any
choice in the matter? Of course we do.
God calls us to plead for the end of the destructive social institution of war
by refusing to pay for it. We are called to this as clearly as our forebears
were called to abolish slavery.
The Christian Peacemaker Teams organization is promoting symbolic war tax
refusal as a way to make a clear witness in the matter of war taxes. Taxes for
Life is a plan to have taxpayers redirect to education an amount equivalent to
1 penny for every $1 billion in the military budget. For this is $3.03, which can be mailed to
Christian Peacemaker Teams… Listen to your conscience when you pay your taxes
this year. Write a letter of witness to the
IRS with
copies to Congress, your pastor and local newspaper. Redirect some taxes to
education through
CPT.
If the
IRS
calls, tell them that it makes you nervous to break their law and that you do
not enjoy being harassed by the collectors. Then say you are far more
apprehensive, however, about breaking God’s law. Explain that you are afraid
to harden your heart to the cry of the victims.
Then leave the outcome with God.
Miscellaneous
The edition included some
letters concerning war taxes.
Don & Eleanor Kaufman shared their letter to the
IRS
decrying government militarism and begging for a Peace Tax Fund option. And
Charlene Epp and Duncan Smith shared their letter, in which they announced
that they were holding back a symbolic $57 of their taxes in protest.
Ryan Ahlgrim
wrote a piece for the issue
opposing war tax resistance. His main reasons: 1) to the extent resisting
taxes affects agency budgets, it does so erratically and not in a way that
affects military spending in particular; 2) it flies in the face of
representative democracy, in which we agree to permit a majority of
representatives to decide how to spend our taxes; 3) the nation still needs a
military because Jesus hasn’t yet brought peace to the world.
(Stanley Bohn penned a rebuttal for the edition, and Doug Pritchard had another in the edition.)
Beyond networking and sharing strategies, every two years the conference
participants contribute to projects promoting peace. Two years ago they gave
$15,000 to the Innu people to help their fight against low-level military
flights over their hunting lands in central Labrador in Canada. This year they
plan to donate money to Peace Brigades International for their efforts to
de-escalate the conflict in Sri Lanka.
In a MCC supplement, Mike Hofkamp reflected on U.S. support for violent military action in the Philippines, and wrote:
What does “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s mean?” I find comfort in
the interpretation of Peter Rideman, an early Anabaptist. Rideman notes the
passage says “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” not render unto Caesar
whatever and however much Caesar wants. This is a simplistic interpretation
but is truth ever sophisticated? When my government supports war against
civilians… Caesar is asking too much and war tax resistance is a faithful
Christian responsibility.
And yet, I wonder if tax resistance really goes deep enough. During the
Persian Gulf war I attended a peace rally… A loud, angry, pro-war demonstrator
entered our group and shouted at us, “You hypocrites! You chant ‘no blood for
oil’ but how many of you drove cars to get here?” Truth comes from strange
places.
Does our participation in North American economic structures give the military
its reason for being? How long will it be before our government leaders again
declare war to “protect our way of life?”
Perhaps the most authentic war tax resistance is to live below a taxable
income. Doing so would require experimenting with alternative economic
structures based on community, sharing, and conservation. If not, aren’t we
living a lifestyle that at its very core demands the wars we say we oppose?
A
list of peace “commitments” in that
MCC
supplement was very cagey around the subject of war tax resistance, hinting at
it but in a deniable way:
We will strive to show by our lives that war is an unacceptable way to solve
human conflict. This calls us to refuse to support war, or to participate in
military service. When war or war preparations lead to the conscription of
ourselves, our money, or our property, we will seek alternative ways to serve
humanity and our countries in the spirit of Christ. We support ministries of
conciliation which search for peaceful resolution of conflicts. Recognizing
the subtle ways in which our loyalties and resources can be conscripted in
modern industrial states, we will strive to continually examine our complicity
in systems which treat others as enemies.
This is the thirty-ninth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we hit 1994.
War tax resistance mentions have slowed to a trickle. It’s hard to be certain
whether this reflects a waning of interest in Mennonite circles generally, or
just a change in editorial focus, but in any case the contrast is stark
between the passion and the quantity of discussion about war tax resistance
just and as we hit
.
Almost all of the war tax resistance material was crammed into a single tax
day issue that year.
Four Mennonites follow their consciences by telling the Canadian and
U.S. governments
they cannot pay for war with their taxes.
Larry Penner
When the Persian Gulf War broke out in , Ed
Olfert protested. “I needed to have a little bit of voice to say that this is
stupid and has to end,” he says. “This is my tax money at work, killing women
and children.”
Ed had considered tax resistance before. He decided to withhold about 9
percent of his tax payment, a percentage that Conscience Canada, a tax
resisters’ group, suggests to represent the amount of taxes that goes to the
military.
Along with withholding, Ed sent letters to government and Revenue Canada
officials voicing his protest. But in the end the effort brought mostly
frustration.
As a self-employed farmer, the amount he withheld was minimal, under $100.
When Revenue Canada officials contacted him, they didn’t know about his
protest. “I wondered if the letters I sent even arrived,” Ed says.
“There was a fear of what I was doing.” ―Ed Olfert
At his church, Superb Mennonite Church in
Kerrobert,
Sask., Ed found
little sympathy. “There was a fear of what I was
doing,” he says. “There was a drawing away, as if people
wondered, ‘Is this what the Mennonite church is moving
toward, that we all have to do this?’ ”
Actually, Mennonite tax resisters are few
and scattered. More support legislative change
that would allow people of conscience to
designate their tax dollars for
nonmilitary ends. Such legislation has
been proposed in both Canada and the United States.
Those who do resist paying taxes find the need to resist more imperative as
technology moves warfare farther from conscription and closer to the
pocketbook. While the draft in the United States has remained inactive
, 28 percent of the
federal budget went to
current military efforts and another 18.7 percent to payments on past military
efforts, according to the Friends Committee on National Legislation. And
although Canada has not conscripted its citizens since World War Ⅱ,
Conscience Canada reports that $12 billion, or 7.5 percent of the federal
budget, went to military spending in
. The Persian
Gulf War proved that with modern technology, full-scale war can be fought
without conscription, but not without dollars.
“Our constitution guarantees freedom of conscience, but if we’re not allowed
to exercise our conscience, it doesn’t mean much.” ―Menno Klassen
Hypocritical: For resister Menno Klassen of
Winnipeg, resisting warfare through his taxes
has become more imperative as he has grown older.
Excused from war as a conscientious
objector to World War Ⅱ, Menno says it would be
hypocritical now to pay to send someone in his
place. “Our constitution guarantees
freedom of conscience, but if we’re not allowed to
exercise our conscience, it doesn’t mean much,” he says.
Like Ed, Menno has received mixed reactions from his
congregation, Fort Garry Mennonite Fellowship in Winnipeg.
“I must admit I don’t receive much support from the church, even though my
church is one of the more tolerant in Winnipeg,” he says. “People [in the
church] are busy with family and inward looking. It’s a family affair.”
In Ontario, Jane Pritchard has found some support. Like Ed, her conscience
condemned the Gulf War, “the first war fought by my country since I became
politically aware.”
“Once I’d done it I didn’t see how I could convince myself to pay before.”
―Jane Pritchard
A physician, Jane faced a higher tax payment. She withheld just
over $1,000. For her the act was a liberation. “Once I’d
done it I didn’t see how I could convince myself to pay
before.” Jane has found support for her decision in
her Bible study group at Toronto United Mennonite Church.
When Revenue Canada called Jane in, she expected the worst.
She was not disappointed.
She was shown into a stark room with nothing but two chairs, a desk, a light and a computer terminal.
“It was like something out of [the book] 1984,” she says.
The Revenue Canada representative kept saying she owed this portion of her taxes.
He didn’t ask why she didn’t pay but said Revenue Canada had to do something.
He did not say what.
Sympathy: At some point partway through the interview, Jane realized
her interviewer was more nervous than she was. When he did not respond to her
questions of what Revenue Canada would do, she suggested possibilities.
“Garnishee my wages?” He nodded yes. “From where?” He did not know. “Raid my
bank account?” Again he nodded. She left feeling sympathy for her inquisitor,
a sympathetic young man caught in a system.
Don Kaufman of Newton, Kan.,
knows that many Internal Revenue Service officers are sympathetic people
caught in a system. He has resisted military tax for 36 years. He recalls one
IRS
representative who said he hoped the government would make it possible for tax
resisters to resist without breaking the law.
“If there were a provision for conscience in giving money for war as there
is in giving body to war, tax resisters wouldn’t have to feel guilty for
following their conscience.” ―Don Kaufman
Partly because
IRS
officials are bound by regulations, Don’s
protest has shifted its emphasis over the years.
“Initially I wrote more to the
IRS,
now I write more to Congress. The
IRS
is just carrying out Congress’ orders,” Don says. “If
there were a provision for conscience in giving money
for war as there is in giving body to war, tax resisters
wouldn’t have to feel guilty for following their
conscience.”
In his many years of resistance, Don has seen interest
in tax resistance wax and wane. But, he says, it has never died
out. The history of war tax resistance in North America dates to the first
settlers from Europe, many of whom left their home country in part to avoid
paying taxes for war. But when the personal income tax was introduced in both
the United States and Canada, funds raised went to pay for war.
Don believes a change will come. “It may be like women’s suffrage, it may take
60 to 80 years before there is a change, but if people keep working and don’t
give up too easily, there will be a change,” he says.
Until the law changes, Don will continue to resist. “It’s enough of a threat
to who I am as a person that I don’t want to give it up. If I quit, I become
schizophrenic at that point — I’m not being honest with who I am. I want my
life to be integrated.”
A sidebar concerned two other Mennonite tax resisters:
Waiting for the tax collector
Pat and Earl Hostetter Martin have been resisting taxes since they returned
from Mennonite Central Committee work in Vietnam in
. As students in Palo Alto,
Calif., they began by
withholding 10 percent of their telephone tax, a sum that totaled about $10
after three years.
For this, Internal Revenue Service representatives drove down from San
Francisco twice and questioned their landlord while Pat and Earl were at work.
Then they received a notice threatening a lien on their property and ordering
an appearance at the
IRS
office. But before the appearance, the
IRS
found the Martins’ bank account and took the money.
“Honest to our conscience”: Earl and Pat Hostetter Martin with their son
Hans
In the Martins went to Akron,
Pa., to serve as
co-secretaries for East Asia for
MCC.
They withheld about 30 percent of their taxes, a figure
representing the amount of tax money going for
current military expenditures.
“After being in Vietnam and having seen a lot of
friends who had suffered because of
U.S. weapons,
we decided we couldn’t pay,” Pat says.
The couple has resisted paying taxes ever since.
At first the
IRS
froze their personal checking account for a couple of
weeks to collect. Pat called it an odd blessing. “You get caught
with checks out and you have to go back to stores and explain. But that also
gave us an opportunity to explain why we are tax resisters.”
the couple began moving its bank
account frequently to keep the
IRS from
finding the money. They now owe between $2,000 and $3,000.
When the
IRS
tried to garnishee the couple’s wages at
MCC,
MCC’s
response was to ask the
IRS to
reconsider, to try to find the money some other way.
MCC,
like most Mennonite organizations, does withhold income tax from employees’
paychecks for the government. The General Conference Mennonite Church is the
only major Mennonite organization that will grant employees’ requests to not
have federal taxes withheld from their paychecks so that employees may resist
taxes.
Last year the Martins were in Vietnam . While they were gone the
IRS
attached a lien to all their property: house, car, real estate. Anything they
own could now be sold to pay the debt.
The couple is part of a Lancaster group of resisters called “Taxes for Life.”
The group meets monthly to support each other. “Anyone who chooses tax
resistance should have a support group because it can be scary,” says Pat. “We
agree to stand behind each other and keep ourselves honest to our conscience.”
In recent years I have joined with Don Kaufman and 20 others in the Newton,
Kan., area to form a support
group concerned with the military use of our taxes. Our refused tax dollars
and contributions build up a “Heartland Peace Tax Fund,” which in
granted $750 to local human needs
agencies and $150 to the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund in Washington.
In St. Louis, Bill Ramsey
(staffer for the regional American Friends Service Committee office) spent 30
days in jail in for his prophetic witness.
As a condition of probation, he was ordered by the federal judge to pay his
military taxes, due
. Bill has done as ordered, sending
personal checks to seven life-affirming agencies and asking them to certify to
the court that he has done so. It is unlikely that the federal judge will
agree that Bill Ramsey has paid his taxes in this way. Bill is preparing
himself spiritually for more prison time. But his point is made: We Americans
and Canadians are robbing from the human needs so evident in our societies to
build and sell weapons.
The witness of some among us to this truth goes on. Whether they continue to
stand alone depends upon whether more of us come to incarnate the peacemaking
of Jesus Christ in our own witness.
The edition had
a
brief follow-up that noted the Heartland Peace Tax Fund’s grants for
.
This is the fortieth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we finish off the mid-1990s.
He established the Michael and Margarethe Sattler Foundation to distribute his
royalties from Mathematica to people in need. He thus kept his income below
the taxable level in order not to contribute tax money to the military.
Following his deeply-held personal and religious beliefs, Keiper lived in a
very simple manner. He wore simple clothes, ate simple food, and used a
bicycle as his primary means of transportation. He also felt that to be
consistent in not supporting the military, he should avoid paying taxes to the
government. For a while, this meant that he would accept almost no salary. But
in the end he worked out a scheme for donating all but a small percentage of
his salary to charity. In addition, Keiper set up a foundation, which he named
the Michael and Margarethe Sattler Foundation, after two early Mennonite
martyrs. As part of Keiper’s compensation, Wolfram Research then made
donations to this foundation. The foundation solicited proposals, and in turn
supported various colleges, giving them both funds and copies of Mathematica.
Charles Hurst’s and Maria Smith’s letter to the IRS
was reprinted in one issue. The letter announced that they were redirecting
about 40% of their taxes “to groups or projects that bring healing for our
world.”
A supplement designed for the triennial conference noted
that through the Commission on Home Ministries, “[p]eace and justice resources
have been sent to individuals and congregations on such subjects as military
draft registration, alternatives to paying war taxes in the United States and
Canada, and New Call to Peacemaking peace education resources.”
A
profile of attorney Sharon Heath in the edition briefly mentioned that shortly after joining a Mennonite
church “she decided to become a war tax resister by living below the taxable
income level.”
An
editorial by Gordon Houser in the edition urged that “In our daily affairs we must learn to stand
against the idol called Bomb” and then, somewhat vaguely, said “We will want to
ask ourselves how our tax dollars are being spent and how we should respond to
that.”
An
article by John K. Stoner in the same issue echoed this: “What does it mean
for our souls that we have become willing to call down fire from heaven and
have made the capacity to call down fire from heaven the centerpiece of our
national security doctrine? What does this do to every person who consents to
it, pays their taxes for it, and remains silent as generation after generation
of nuclear missiles and weapons are developed?”
These sort of sidewise-glances at war taxes seemed to be becoming common.
A
report on the triennial conference, for example, noted in passing:
“Meanwhile, violence occurs in our homes; people of color experience a
qualified acceptance in our churches; our tax dollars continue to support the
building of nuclear weapons.”
The triennial sessions also seemed to sidestep any official recognition of war
tax resistance, replacing this with support for a Peace Tax Fund law:
GC delegates
also passed a resolution calling one another to support the
(U.S.) Peace Tax
and the (Canadian) Peace Trust campaigns, which work to provide legal
alternatives to paying war taxes. This was the third consecutive
GC triennial
session to affirm a peace-tax resolution.
A
letter from Don Schrader appeared in the issue, in which he expanded on the theme of the hypocrisy
of praying for peace while paying for war, noted his own choice of a life of
voluntary simplicity, and concluded: “For 16 years I have paid no federal
income tax, and I am not silent. I say, Not with my money, not with my silence,
not in my name.”
The Council of Commissions met in . According to
a
report, the Commission on Home Ministries in its meeting “agreed that the
Student Aid Fund for Non-Registrants should also apply to students who cannot
get loans because they are war-tax resisters.”
In
a
editorial about baptism,
Gordon Houser made a point of casting the original theological debate about
infant baptism as in part a tax resistance issue:
Those early believers were called Anabaptists out of derision. At that time
the state church in Europe baptized infants, which not only placed them on
the church’s membership list but on the state’s tax rolls as well.
Refusing to baptize infants and baptizing adults was a political act at that
time, one that threatened the sovereignty of the state government. It served
as a form of tax refusal, since taxpayer lists came from church membership
rolls. It also served as a protest against the state’s authority to conscript
people to fight the Turks.
A
letter to the editor from David E. Ortman, printed in the
issue, explained how the
resistance landscape had changed for telephone tax resisters in the aftermath
of the breakup of the telephone service provider monopoly. It mentioned two
phone companies that had created official ways for resisters to have the
federal excise tax removed from their phone bills. The letter ended: “Now, if
church organizations only had as much courage or political muscle as phone
companies to avoid being tax collectors.”
In the edition,
Titus Peachey reported
on “[a]n informal survey of 17 Mennonite and Brethren in Christ institutions in
North America [that] has found that few have written policies related to war
taxes.”
But some do honor requests from employees not to withhold all of their federal
income taxes or the portion which would otherwise go for military-related
expenditures. Others have policies opposing Internal Revenue Service levies of
accounts of war tax resisters.
Most institutions surveyed had not fielded such requests within
.
The General Conference Mennonite Church has had a tax-withholding policy in
place and has implemented it
several times. The Mennonite Church General Board agreed in
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.”
Mennonite Mutual Aid approved a
policy asking the Internal Revenue Service to lift levies related to war
taxes. “To the extent legally possible,
MMA supports
its members who are protesting the payment of war taxes by initially
requesting that
IRS
collection attempts or levies on MMA-controlled
assets be lifted,” the policy states.
Pennsylvania Mennonite Federal Credit Union in
adopted a similar position.
In a letter responding to an
IRS levy
on an employee’s wages, Mennonite Central Committee wrote: “We do not want to
do anything as an organization that would be an offense to the conscience and
beliefs of such individuals or that would suggest support for the world’s arms
race… We would therefore respectfully request that the levy… be withdrawn.”
Attention war tax resisters: Now you can avoid war taxes without
IRS
harassment. For free information, send SASE to:
Yoder’s Tax Information, 10630 Hiser’s Lane, Broadway,
VA 22815.
Given the Internal Revenue Service’s sullied reputation, this shouldn’t
surprise us, although it probably should offend us: After years of trying to
resolve the issue, Grace Montgomery, a Quaker war-tax resister from Stamford,
Conn., is calling for an
investigation after the
IRS
illegally cashed a photocopy of a check not even made out to the
IRS.
According to the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund newsletter, Montgomery
each year places the military portion of her federal income tax in a Quaker
escrow account. The
IRS then
usually levies her bank account for the amount owed. But in
, the
IRS
cashed a photocopy of Montgomery’s check to the escrow account. Her bank
accepted it even though it was not genuine and was made out to “The Religious
Society of Friends.”
This is the forty-first in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we reach the end of the 1990s.
Peace Tax Fund bill advocate Marian Franz wrote about “The claims of God and Caesar” in the edition.
She began by highlighting how entwined tax issues are with the stories related in the gospels.
She then highlighted the spending priorities of the U.S. government — how much it spends on weapons while crucial needs remain underfunded — and on the related spending priorities of Mennonites:
John Stoner did an analysis that found that for every $9 Mennonites spend on their military taxes they give $5 to charitable causes.
She told of Dan Slabaugh, who in “was plowing his field, and at one point he knelt on the ground and promised God he would never again let a penny of his earned income go for military use.”
Slabaugh wrote his Senator about this, and that Senator, Mark Hatfield, went on to introduce a Peace Tax Fund Bill.
She also told of Claus Felbinger, a Hutterite martyr who had said that “When… the government requires of us what is contrary to our faith and conscience, such as swearing oaths and paying hangman’s dues and taxes for war, then we do not obey its commands.”
And she related (for the first time, I think, in The Mennonite, remarkably) the story of World War Ⅰ-era American Mennonite John Schrag, who was attacked by a mob for refusing to buy war bonds.
She then went on to plug the Peace Tax Fund bill, suggesting it would provide a way for conscientious objectors to pay their taxes and have “the military portion” safely disinfected of its militaristic taint.
She also said she found lobbying for the bill to be a useful way of introducing conscientious objection to military taxation to new audiences, such as religious groups outside of the traditional peace churches, and to politicians and bureaucrats.
The same issue included an article about war tax resistance by Steve Ratzlaff.
He asserted: “It isn’t possibly to pray for peace and pay for war unless you suffer from delusions or a split personality disorder… Yet 99 percent of Mennonites do that very thing.”
The problem lies in our split personality, in the mental gymnastics we use to excuse ourselves from the reality of our actions.
We have separated our actions from our belief by rationalizing that we don’t really have any choice; the government requires us to pay taxes.
That is true.
But the government required that we serve in the army before the Alternative Service Act was passed in .
We refused to serve in the armed forces then.
Once they accommodated us by granting us conscientious objector status, we gladly gave them our money so they could continue to kill in our names.
And they do kill, through aggressive military maneuvers and supporting almost every government in the world through the sale of arms.
We have separated our pocketbooks from our consciences.
Money has become the topic that is nobody’s business but our own.
As a result, we allow no one to hold us accountable for the way we spend it.
That includes our tax money as well.
We take the path of least resistance and pay the military portion of our taxes, even though that may violate our conscience.
We Mennonites are sick.
We are schizophrenic when it comes to taxes that go for war.
And our government is thankful for that.
It was a small price to give us the option of alternative service.
They really are more concerned that we continue to provide them with the cash needed to pay for their wars and military build-ups.
The unconditional support of the military that our government asks of us is obscene.
We have withdrawn support from welfare mothers and aid to dependent children while increasing corporate welfare to the military industry.
As a people of peace we cannot continue to pay for such irresponsibility in good conscience.
It is time for us to listen seriously to our consciences again and to refuse to pay for such atrocities.
We are a conscientious people that have lost our way and fallen ill.
It’s time to address our personality disorder and listen once again to Jesus’ call to be peacemakers, not war supporters.
This prompted several letters which were printed over the next few issues:
John F. Murray wrote
to say that he had determined the best course of action was not to reduce your income below the tax line, nor to withhold taxes due from the government, nor to support a Peace Tax Fund bill, but to donate generously to the church in order to take a large tax deduction.
Until the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill becomes reality, it would appear that the only ways to ensure that one’s tax dollars not go to military usage is to keep income below taxable levels or refuse to pay all taxes.
The government currently will first take taxes for military purposes regardless of whether one pays the military portion or not.
Thus by not paying the military portion, it appears one ultimately cuts money available for social programs rather than the military.
To stay below taxable levels, one may cut actual income below the taxable level or go beyond Ratzlaff’s suggestion that the military portion of income taxes be given to some organization such as Mennonite Central Committee and give all actual income above the taxable level to charitable purposes.
One wonders what our Mennonite agencies could do if the latter practice was followed by the large majority of their constituencies.
Steven J. Olshewsky followed up with a letter in which he pointed out the practical difficulties of using charitable giving as a way of reducing a taxable income to a tax-free income, among other things.
John M. Eby expressed his disappointment
that “[t]here apparently has been no new thinking on the subject of war taxes since the last time this was a burning issue.”
Caesar comes at us like a highwayman, willing and able to come in and take whatever Caesar determines to be his share.
Due to interest and penalties, those who make a show of resisting will end up rendering more than those who do not resist.
This is the first paradox of the war tax issue.
When there is little or no money available, Caesar quickly loses interest.
Those who choose to live on the lower fringe of Caesar’s economy are not expected to render.
However, if we all choose to live on that fringe, there will be no money to support the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund.
No money for Mennonite Central Committee.
Little or no money for the panoply of camps, boards, schools, publications, etc., that are the visible representations of our attempts to do church.
We all recognize, at least in theory, that we cannot serve both God and mammon.
But we have yet to figure out how to serve God without at least some mammon.
I suppose this is the second paradox of the war tax issue.
I would like to register a legal way to avoid paying that I haven’t seen mentioned yet: live and earn your income abroad.
U.S. citizens can exclude up to $72,000 () of foreign earned income (they are taxed on worldwide income) as long as they meet the IRS requirements for the foreign country being their “tax home” or for being “bona fide residents” of the foreign country.
After over eight years of living in Panama, my wife, three children, and I have attained permanent residency status… but are also still U.S. citizens.
In these eight years of dairy farming in Panama, I have been required to pay U.S. self-employment taxes (Social Security) but have not needed to pay any U.S. income tax.
(And with an exclusion of up to $72,000, I do not anticipate needing to pay any.)
I’m liable for Panamanian income tax but, as a dairy farmer, have not yet needed to pay any.
This is the forty-second in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we hit the year 2000.
She put in a plug for the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund bill, the latest in
a series of peace tax fund legislation ideas, and then discussed her own
resistance:
I first became a war tax resister when I connected paying the federal
telephone tax with paying for the Vietnam War. Unlike my male peers, I didn’t
need to fear being physically drafted to fight. However, by voluntarily paying
taxes designated for war, I risked complicity with the military.
When I ask people if their conscientious objection extends to paying for war,
I hear a variety of answers, all based on fear: “I can’t control what the
government does with my tax money. If I resist, the government will just come
and get my money anyway. It will get even more, if I have to pay penalties and
interest. Besides, it’s illegal to not pay my share of taxes. And I don’t want
to go to jail.”
Others say, “What difference can I make? It’s too much of a hassle. I don’t
want to face an audit. I [or my institution or business] may suffer if donors
or customers see us as radicals.” And the clincher: “We don’t want to do
something controversial that might affect our work for peace.”
Karen Marysdaughter, former director of the National War Tax Resistance
Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC),
asks, “Which do you fear most — what will happen to you if you refuse to pay
war taxes, or the effect that paying for war has on people who are dying?”
NWTRCC
publishes information helpful to anyone counting the costs of war tax
resistance. And
NWTRCC
members encourage and support each other at biennial meetings. Our church,
which values community and nonconformity to the world, can learn much from
NWTRCC.
A unique opportunity to do just that happens
. For the first time, an
international conference on war tax issues will be held in the United States.
Mennonite participation with the people and issues at this conference could
set the pace for our peace witness in the 21st century…
A concerted decision to practice conscientious objection to military taxation
will greatly advance our mission to bring Christ’s healing and hope to the
world.
This was accompanied by an info-box with details about the upcoming conference.
John K. and Janet Stoner shared their letter to the
IRS
in the issue in which they
announced their withholding of a token $10 from their taxes “as a witness to
God’s call to preserve human life and not to kill.” They followed this with
talk about the Nuremberg trials and the necessity of disobedience that strikes
me as broadly true, but so bold in its implications that a $10 token act of
resistance looks kind of pathetic next to it. Be that as it may…
An article on the Zacchaeus-the-tax-collector episode in the gospel according to Luke
by Marlin Jeschke, from the
edition, stood out to me because of the matter-of-fact way the article asserts
that “Jesus’ overall position concerning the Roman occupation” included
“rejecting tax resistance.”
Editor J. Lorne Peachey penned
a
middle-of-the-road some say this but others say that editorial that touched
on war tax resistance, insisting that “We must… become more intentional in our
actions,” but never quite intending anything specific himself beyond
“supporting each other in ways we believe the Spirit is leading us.”
Larry Leaman-Miller penned a letter to the editor that appeared in the
issue that (for effect?)
presented the taxpayer complicity dilemma as something new that Mennonites
ought to consider and try to come up with some sort of solution for:
Colombian Mennonite leader Ricardo Esquivia, as quoted in the
issue, said bluntly to American Christians, “Through your tax dollars you are
supporting war” (“Colombian Leader Challenges Churches”). He was referring to
the recently approved $1.3 billion of
U.S. aid to
Colombia, most of it earmarked for the Colombian military.
Esquivia’s comment raises anew questions about our Mennonite peace witness. In
preparation for a recent presentation on nonviolence, I discovered that the
United States spends roughly three times as much annually on its military
budget as Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria
combined — the countries usually pointed to as our greatest potential enemies.
Forty-seven percent of our federal budget in
will go to military needs.
We are spending almost as much defending the nation as we are on the nation we
are defending. Actually, this kind of spending has little to do with defending
and perhaps everything to do with political, corporate and military attempts
to dominate key areas of the world.
And all this occurs without any of us having to face a draft and the specter
of personal involvement. In this age of high-tech weapons, our bodies are no
longer needed; now it’s our dollars. I struggle to know how our peace theology
speaks to this changed situation.
I wonder if people in the future will ask, “How could they have paid so
passively?” Ricardo Esquivia has seen firsthand in Colombia the violent
results of some of our payments. I think we need to ponder his words
seriously.
Could we have chosen alternatives that are legal? Could we give more to
charity, making less tax obligation? Could we instead do educational
witnessing by handing out charts at the post office on April 15 showing that
almost half the national budget goes for past and present military programs?
Could we write legislators who make tax laws rather than to the
IRS,
which merely implements them? Yes. We have also done those kinds of
witnessing.
What were the consequences of diverting part of our income tax payments to
war relief and prevention agencies? Courteous ignoring.
After several months the
IRS may
send a letter ignoring what we said but helpfully suggesting that we can ease
the financial strain by paying in installments. We explain again that poverty
is not the problem but that we are trying to live as Christians. Months later
a reply tells us that if we pay by a certain date we can avoid more interest
and penalty charges. The correspondence continues with us sharing our deepest
convictions and
IRS
sending polite computer-generated notifications.
Finally, notification comes that the money owed will be taken from our bank
account. We are not surprised, since this is what has happened for more than
20 years.
Financially, the cost has been affordable. When penalties and interest are
added, we usually are charged about 20 percent more than what we diverted to
peace and relief groups. We accept this as a cost of witnessing and are glad
we can still afford to do it.
In earlier years,
IRS
correspondence contained warnings of unspecified severe penalties, but now
this happens less often. When
IRS
letters listed 800 numbers for further contact, we called, and staff listened
politely. Once we were allowed an interview. Contacts were courteous — once
with opposing arguments and once with sympathy — but usually patient listening
by people dealing with problem taxpayers.
Is this a worthwhile, valuable witness to the Jesus way? We believe it
is. People from other countries suffering from
U.S. policies are
encouraged when they hear there is this kind of Christianity in the United
States. Maybe our witness reduces resistance to Christian missionaries who are
identified with
U.S. self-interest
and militarism.
Paradoxically, these people also admire a government that allows this kind of
dissent, which is not permitted in their countries.
Christians who find themselves living in a superpower have a special
responsibility. Though this responsibility of ours seems an impossible task,
God has ways to heal the addicted. When people have stopped being
co-dependents and no longer support the habit, addicts have been helped to
recover.
This is the forty-third in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we reach 2002.
The finally did a good job
of telling the story of John Schrag:
Mennonite John Schrag faces a mob during World War Ⅰ
by James C. Juhnke
When World War Ⅰ broke out, Mennonites discovered they were considered
enemies by their neighbors and business associates. Their German origins,
even if generations removed, their German language and culture, and their
pacifism made them suspect. In some communities, patriotic citizen groups
harassed “slackers” by throwing yellow paint on houses and meetinghouses,
committing arson, tarring and feathering pacifists and threatening death by
hanging. In this story, Swiss Volhynian Mennonite John Schrag finds himself
in the hands of such a patriotic mob.
The John Schrag espionage case was the dramatic climax to the dilemma of
Kansas Mennonites in World War Ⅰ. Schrag was chosen to be the symbol and the
bearer of the American community’s mistrust and hatred of German-speaking
pacifists in the tense days of .
Schrag was a believer in those simple and durable virtues that made Mennonites
highly prized citizens on the Kansas frontier. He was 13 years old when his
family emigrated from Volhynia, Russia, to central Kansas in
. In his teens, he helped his father build a
grain mill on the banks of the Little Arkansas River in Harvey County. From
his father he learned the value of hard work, the love of the soil and the
wisdom of careful investment.
From the Mennonite faith and tradition Schrag knew that God generously rewards
his faithful laboring servants. Schrag’s rise as a prosperous farmer with a
large family and extensive landholdings was as natural as the economic and
social success of the Mennonite community in the first decades after arrival
in the new country.
The Mennonite role as outstanding and valuable citizens received an
unforgettable jolt when the United States entered World War Ⅰ in
. It suddenly became a requirement of
acceptable American citizenship to support the war and to hate Germany. The
Mennonites failed on both counts. They could not support the war because their
religious faith taught them nonresistance, a doctrine whose practical
expression included a claim for exemption from military service. They could
not hate Germany because Mennonites themselves were of German background and
loved the German language and culture as preserved in their homes, schools and
churches.
Their sympathies in the European war had been demonstrated in their
collections of money for the German Red Cross. Mennonites could not be
acceptable citizens in America during World War Ⅰ unless they gave up their
German culture and their doctrine of nonresistance.
The war bond drives became the test of loyal citizenship in the local
community. Faced alternatively with persuasion and intimidation by local
Loyalty Leagues, many Mennonites reconciled their nonresistance with the
purchase of the bonds. After all, reasoned Henry Peter Krehbiel, member of the
Western District Committee on Exemptions, a war bond is a kind of tax, and
Jesus told us to pay our taxes. But John Schrag was not convinced. Buying
bonds was supporting the war, and he would not support the war. That was that.
Five carloads of men: On ,
a group of patriotic citizens in Burrton,
Kan., decided that the time
was ripe for a showdown. “We was out to convert these slackers into patriots,”
said one of them later. Five carloads of men drove 11 miles to the Schrag farm
to get him to join the Armistice Day festivities in Burrton. Schrag’s boys,
sensing trouble, refused to say where their father was, but the Burrton men
found him after ransacking the farmstead and forcing their way into the house.
Schrag offered neither argument nor resistance.
He went along in the hope that a measure of cooperation would help avoid
physical violence.
In Burrton, a crowd quickly gathered as the citizens confronted Schrag with
their real reason for bringing him to town. He must buy war bonds now or face
the consequences. Schrag offered to contribute $200 to the Red Cross and the
Salvation Army, but this was not sufficient.
They demanded that he salute the American flag and carry the flag through town
at the head of a parade. But Schrag quietly and firmly refused to cooperate.
The flag thrust into his hand fell to the ground. Someone shouted, “He stepped
on the flag.” The crowd became an enraged mob.
Yellow paint: They sprinkled and poured yellow paint on their victim,
rubbing it into his scalp and beard until he resembled “a big cheese or yellow
squash or pumpkin after the autumnal ripening.” They led him to the city jail.
Someone ran for a rope to hang him, but Tom Roberts, the head of the local
Anti-Horse-Thief Association, courageously stood before the jail door,
brandished a gun and said, “If you take this man out of jail, you take him
over my dead body.” Temporarily frustrated, the indignant citizens made plans
to return that night, force the jail open and hang this so-called traitor.
Meanwhile, Schrag was placed in a chair on a raised platform in the jail, so
passersby could view the humiliated man through the window in the jail door.
One repentant member of the mob later testified to Schrag’s calmness
throughout the ordeal: “If ever a man looked like Christ, he did.”
Schrag was finally rescued from the Burrton crusaders for American democracy
by the Harvey County sheriff, who came that evening to take him to the county
jail in Newton for cleaning and safe-keeping. Before he was released, Schrag
was informed that he was to be tried in court for violation of the Espionage
Act. It was against the law to desecrate the flag of the United States.
Local newspaper accounts of the incident failed to defend the rights of the
victim. The weekly Burrton Graphic on
saw in the event “a pungent and durable reminder that loyalty is a necessary
prerequisite to life in this community. We must all be Americans.”
The Hutchinson News article said that “a petition
is being circulated to have him [Schrag] deported to Germany, his native land.
This country is fast becoming an unhealthy place for ‘slackers’ of any kind.”
The Newton Evening Kansan-Republican suggested that
if a federal court would find Schrag guilty, “it would undoubtedly mean the
confiscation of his property and his deportation.” On the week of his hearing
in Wichita, the editor of the Burrton Graphic
published a list: “Some Things Residents of Burrton Should Be Thankful For.”
In the list was “that we as a people are more tolerant of others’ foibles.”
Desecration of the flag: The case against Schrag was heard in the
Wichita federal courtroom by
U.S. Commissioner
C. Shearman on .
Five Burrton citizens presented 50 typewritten pages of evidence to prove
Schrag’s disloyalty and desecration of the flag. For his defense, Schrag
retained the services of a Jewish lawyer named Schulz. Commissioner Shearman
took the case under advisement and promised that the decision would be made
shortly.
The decision, handed down on ,
was that Schrag was not guilty and should not be bound over for federal trial.
But Commissioner Shearman did say that “Schrag could not have gone closer to a
violation of the Espionage Act if he had had 100 lawyers at his side to advise
him.”
Schrag in fact had not willfully desecrated the flag. Nothing in the Espionage
Act required one to salute the flag. Schrag’s words that supposedly slandered
the flag had been spoken in German, so none of the monolingual plaintiffs
could prove any guilt.
The Newton Evening Kansan-Republican, frustrated by
the acquittal of this “bull-headed” man, suggested that the case “should
certainly make plain to any thinking person the viciousness that exists in the
encouragement of the German language as a means of communication in America…
The melting pot cannot exercise its proper functions when such things are
allowed.”
The Mennonite newspapers in central Kansas, intimidated into silence, did not
come to Schrag’s defense and did not even mention the incident or the hearing
as an item of news. After the commissioner’s decision, however, C.E. Krehbiel,
editor of Der Herold, wrote an editorial,
“Mob Power,” that clearly referred to the Schrag case, although it mentioned
no specific names or events. In cases of mob violence, wrote Krehbiel, either
the mob or the abused person is guilty. If the court of justice decides that
the victim is innocent, the only conclusion is that the mob is guilty. Readers
were to make their own applications.
Schrag’s attorney encouraged him to bring charges against his persecutors, but
Schrag declined. Such an action would have violated the Mennonite principles
of nonresistance.
Nevertheless, in the months after the Schrag affair, the nonresistant
German-Mennonites had no scruples against clamping an economic boycott on the
town of Burrton. The boycott was not organized systematically, but it was
effective in disrupting the trade of Burrton businessmen who were dependent on
the commerce of German-Mennonite farmers. The legacy of tension and hatred
generated by the event would be remembered for decades to come.
American Melting pot: The experience of the Mennonites in World War Ⅰ
hardly had a salutary effect on the processes of the American melting pot. In
the years after the war, the Mennonites were driven to a defensive
retrenchment, to a renewed awareness of their distinctiveness as Mennonites.
Though the Mennonites gradually abandoned their German language and some
German cultural traits, the war experiences forced them to a reconsideration
and reaffirmation of the doctrine of nonresistance. As long as Mennonites held
to that doctrine, they would be a thorn in the flesh of American nationalists.
The witness of John Schrag and of other Mennonites who refused to compromise
their doctrine of nonresistance during wartime can serve as a reminder of the
Anabaptist heritage of steadfastness in the face of persecution.
While reading The Earth Is The Lord’s… John Ruth’s massive history of Lancaster Conference, I discovered that this same question confronted my ancestors during the Civil War.
As their neighbors joined local militias “to preserve the Union,” many Pennsylvania Mennonites were forced to answer questions about their loyalty.
In the end, Congress passed a bill that allowed “the conscientious” to pay a commutation fee of $300 and thereby avoid the military draft.
“Mennonites, who preferred to pay anything called a tax rather than
participating in their government’s military activities, were more content
with this arrangement than were the Quakers, many of whom saw it as a moral
compromise,” writes Ruth.
That solution is the pattern that exists to this day. While we do not fight,
at least half our federal taxes support a vast military machine that no longer
needs our bodies. It needs our money to pay for high-tech weapons and for the
training for those who guide those weapons.
This reality leaves us directly supporting our country’s military with our
dollars and means that in spite of our convictions and beliefs, in practice
Mennonites are not much different from those who loudly support the current
military buildup.
This Memorial Day, we can remember and pray for neighbors who publicly mourn
the loss of a family member. We can also pray for those who were killed by our
country, which for years has used and continues to use our tax dollars to kill
in our name.
Don Schrader penned letters to the editor for the
and
editions
to describe how his simple-living, non-voting lifestyle meets his goal of tax
refusal. Excerpt:
In I lived well on $3,845 for my total
expenses: rent, food, phone, stamps,
etc. I have no
right to more than I need while others have less than they need. I love to
live simply. I write down every penny I spend for everything every day. I
always pay cash; I refuse to buy on credit and to pay interest. I enjoy
learning new ways to stretch dollars, to live healthily and responsibly on
less.
The most radical, nonviolent action that people of conscience can take in this
society is to pledge publicly to live simply, to own no car, and to pay no
federal income tax for war for the rest of their lives.
What would happen if Christians en masse decided to no
longer pay the portion of their taxes that go to war? What if Christians
mounted a mass resistance movement as an expression of our loyalty to Jesus
Christ and his way of peace? Several years ago
PBS
aired a series called A Force More Powerful. This
documentary tracked six nonviolent social-change movements in
,
including the
U.S. civil rights
struggle, the campaign to end apartheid in South Africa and the movement in
India to end British rule.
The common thread in these successful nonviolent movements was masses of
people choosing not to cooperate with forces of evil and oppression.
Oppressive powers depend for survival on the cooperation of the masses. When
that cooperation is withdrawn, these structures eventually crumble.
Ten years ago, when Linda Shelly accepted her first salaried job, she did not
want all the money. What she did made her a recipient of a Journey Award,
given by Mennonite Mutual Aid to highlight good
stewardship.
After working with Mennonite Central Committee
in Bolivia and Honduras, Shelly returned to the United States to be
MCC’s
director of Latin American and Caribbean programs. But her wages
were problematic. Shelly did not want her tax dollars to
support the
U.S. military. She
also wanted to share her money, after years of benefiting from the
generosity of Latin Americans who had so few
resources. So Shelly accepted a lower salary to
reduce her lax liability. She also loaned money to
friends, then instead of receiving taxable interest income,
shared it with people in need, both locally and internationally.
This is the forty-fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we reach the mid-2000s and the start of the war on Iraq.
Once again Caesar asks for more money to provide more weapons — this time to
launch a war in Iraq. Even the Pope and nearly all the major Christian
denominations in the United States, not just those in the historic peace
church tradition, have said this is not a just war. We know 25 to 35 percent
of our tax money will go to support the machines of war that have taken the
lives of our friends. In the current hi-tech war-making, Caesar covets our
dollars more than our bodies.
We agonize in our consciences. If a man were to run into our house and demand
we give him a knife because he wants to go kill our neighbor, would we give it
to him? Of course not.
Is it different if it is Caesar who asks for that knife? What shall we give
Caesar? Anything Caesar asks for? Or only what belongs to Caesar? What does
belong to Caesar? We try to seek the mind of a compassionate Christ in this
dilemma. Within our souls we feel we cannot willfully put that knife into the
hands of those who will bring harm and death to friends — known and
unknown — around the world.
Once again we fill out our 1040 Tax Form correctly, but again we write a
letter to the Internal Revenue Service — and government officials — to explain
why we cannot pay some or all the military percentage of our income tax. We
explain that we direct our monies instead to our church’s relief and
development programs. Such efforts, we believe, build sustainable, peaceful
lives for people around the world and probably do more to engender good will
and security for Americans than any war. Under biblical principles and under
the principles of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals after World War Ⅱ we know
we cannot hide behind the inhumane orders of an official or even a government.
Each of us is ultimately responsible to God and our fellow human beings for
our actions.
The IRS
sends us notices of “unpaid taxes.” Eventually they may freeze our wages or
bank account in order to seize the money. (Under the “aiding and abetting”
considerations, it feels different to us whether the man seizes the knife from
our kitchen or we give it to him without protest.) Sometimes the
IRS has
not followed through. We especially salute our friends who live under the
taxable income level as a way of affirming life and walking lightly on the
earth.
When our international friends hear there are Christians who withhold even a
token amount of the “military tax” as a cry for peace, many of
them — including friends of other faiths — have expressed appreciation that
Christians here are ready to witness in this way for a God of peace.
The April issue of Mennonite Central Committee’s A Common
Place reported that ,
MCC
has given more than $4.5 million to Afghanistan relief. According to War
Resister’s League, the United States spent $46 million in one hour of the war
on Iraq — more than 10 times the amount
MCC
gave to rehabilitate Afghanistan. If for no other reason than Christian
stewardship, we should refuse to pay the 47 percent of federal income, estate
or gift taxes that fund the current and past military budget. Redirect them
instead to do what Jesus asked of us: Care for the enemy, teach our children,
heal the sick, lend to the needy without interest.
I urge all who work and pray for peace to support the passage of the Religious
Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act, a bill that would provide that the federal tax
payments of conscientious objectors to war be used only for nonmilitary
purposes. Until that bill is passed, I urge you to use all legal and ethical
ways to lower your taxable income and to consider redirecting the military
percentage of the tax money you owe. The Mennonite Church needs to become more
proactive, prophetic and pastoral as we address the consequences of the draft
of war taxes.
The
MCC
awarded Zachary Kurtz
top honors in a “Peace Oratorical Contest” for his speech on war tax
resistance, according to the edition.
The edition noted the ongoing
court battle between the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Quakers) and the
IRS.
“The Internal Revenue Service is threatening
PYM
with a penalty of more than $20,000 for refusing to garnish the wages of
employee and war-tax-resister Priscilla Adams.
PYM
has decided to challenge the
IRS on
all possible grounds, including constitutional and statutory religious
freedom…”
Timothy Godshall’s article on death & taxes
appeared in the edition. It
pointed out the grotesquely enormous
U.S. military
budget, and the sacrifices conscientious objectors are forced to make to
reduce their complicity with it, and used this as a launching pad to plug the
Peace Tax Fund bill.
Rex
J. Rempel and Lenae K. Nofziger wrote in to the
issue to say that because
“[r]oughly 53 percent of our current income taxes” will be spent “on soldiers,
weapons, and debt from prior wars” they had decided they would be “withholding
$53 from our payment due. Obviously this is a symbolic amount, but it is a step
toward fully following God’s call for us.”
After World War Ⅱ, a Jewish rabbi in Germany said what shocked him most was
not the terror of the Nazis but the silence of the good people in Germany.
Today what disturbs me more than the horrendous atrocities of presidents Bush,
Clinton and the
U.S. Empire for
many decades is how most
U.S. peace
activists, progressives, Quakers, Mennonites and members of Amnesty
International pay
U.S. federal income
tax for these atrocities: to rob, terrorize, blind, cripple, paralyze, make
homeless and murder our sisters and brothers worldwide. We get what we pay
for.
Nothing in life is more important than refusing to pay federal income tax for
war — no matter who is president. The best way to refuse to pay federal income
tax for war, with no fines and no threats from the
IRS,
is to live simply under the taxable level. The federal income taxable level
for for a single person who is under 65 and
not blind is $7,950. I lived on
$3,390 — less than half the federal income taxable level.
I have no right to pay tax to do to other people what I do not want them to do
to me. I have paid no federal income tax for 25 years. I pledge now, at age
58, to live simply, to own no car and to pay no federal income tax for war for
the rest of my life. This is nonviolent revolution.
There was a brief write-up
about the 10th International Conference on War Tax
Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns that happened in
, in the
edition.
H.A. Penner
wrote in to the edition to
explain his symbolic withholding formula:
To express my conscientious objection to war, I am withholding from my current
federal income tax payment an amount equal to one dime for every billion
dollars in the
U.S. military
budget. I am donating that amount — $78.30 — to the National Campaign for a
Peace Tax Fund to be used in the pursuit of peace.
For a time the Bixlers withheld the
U.S. telephone tax
but found that this decision resulted only in confused correspondence. Now
their deductions are sufficiently large to cut payment of federal taxes. “When
charitable donations go up,” says Sam, “taxes go down.” One time the
IRS
asked them to show receipts.
This is the forty-fifth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we finish off the first decade of the new millennium.
What belongs to God and what to Caesar? It’s a riddle that has to be puzzled
over again and again by Mennonites in the context of war tax resistance. In the
edition,
Titus Peachey took a swing
at the pitch: Given all that belongs to God, he asked, “can we who follow Jesus
willingly give our tax dollars for war and killing?”
In the edition,
Scott Key
answered Everett J. Thomas’s editorial statement — “There seems to be nothing
we can do but write letters and pray that [the war in Iraq] will stop.” — with
some more practical ideas, including boycotts of and divestment from military
contractors, and war tax resistance.
Susan Miller Balzer wrote in to applaud and supplement this:
Scott Key… lists some important ways to work against war and for peace. In
mentioning war tax resistance, he expresses a common misconception that
employees cannot prevent their employers from withholding federal taxes from
their paychecks.
However, it is possible to limit or stop withholding by increasing withholding allowances on the W-4 Form (or legally writing “Exempt” on the form if you did not owe federal income taxes last year and do not expect to owe in the coming year).
See the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee’s “practical” publications on the Web site nwtrcc.org on controlling federal tax withholding and on low income or simple living for helpful information on ways to keep from paying for war.
On the same Web site, click on the War Tax Boycott, Withhold from War/Pay for Peace to find ways to participate in this national effort to defund war.
The “draft” of federal tax money to pay for present, past and future wars is a
fundamental issue that our church should address as it works to replace
suffering, destruction and injustice with healing and hope. The military draft
affected only young men. The current “economic draft” affects young men and
women who enter the military to try to get out of poverty. The draft of tax
money affects people of all ages as long as they have a taxable income.
If everyone in just one congregation refused to pay for war and redirected
their refused taxes to an underfunded social service, imagine the
opportunities for witness and change that could occur.
Don
Kaufman was back in the
letters to the editor column:
If enough of us withhold from war and pay for peace, we can stop the harm.
War-tax resistance is not a passive or unethical tax avoidance but an act of
conscience that everyone can do. The cross of Jesus as nonviolence and
compassion is our model for hope and change.
Individuals shoulder great responsibility for warfare and for peace. At times
the most effective way to take responsibility is refusal to collaborate, as
Franz
Jaggerstatter did in Hitler’s Austria in
. How can we take a stand against a
government that leads its citizens into committing murder? The task is to be
reform-minded, to live in an ethical way, and progressively to make
unthinkable the coercion of conscience by the majority who put their faith in
military or violent solutions.
Like Jeremiah, let us
unmask the illusions of power by being servants of hope among the vulnerable
and wounded.
Stanley Bohn
encouraged people to engage in at least a small symbolic act of war tax
redirection, in the edition,
claiming important benefits from the gesture that go beyond its likely
practical results:
Will this action make Congress and the Bush administration change their funding priorities?
Unlikely, even if millions took part in this effort.
After all, war fuels our economy, is useful in getting national unity and political support, and it focuses on the evil of others, allowing us to raise our self-esteem.
As Chris Hedges wrote in his book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, war provides us with purpose and a civil religion.
What happens to us: For some Christians, the motive for participating
in tax redirection may start as a protest against refugee making, the
slaughter of people as collateral damage, torture of prisoners, creating
mentally damaged veterans, ballooning war debt, ruined international
relations, and other disastrous consequences. But when we take a stand for our
Christian convictions, something else may happen.
We gain an understanding of Jesus’ way of being lumped with criminals when
choosing the community-building, caring, enemy-loving life at the heart of the
universe. We realize that Jesus did not live or teach a religion guided by
what is respectable, safe, stress-free, or that waits for a consensus. Jesus
calls us to a life that is unpredictable and vulnerable.
Tax redirection is not a criterion of who is a “real Christian” but is more
accepting life as a gift, being what we are here for, living what we see in
Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. When the
IRS
makes us pay a small percentage more than our lawful tax, we can experience
what we believe is more important than money, and the hold money has on us is
reduced.
Living this kind of trust in the Jesus way helps keep serious Christians from
attempting to be pure and withdraw from life’s realities. It keeps us engaged
in current issues and with those proposing different goals. We are engaged,
however, in the kind of peace Christians should expect when choosing an
alternative way to conquer evil.
The risk of taking a stand regardless of consequences brings an unexpected
peace. It is not a peace that makes us feel protected, free of fears, or
satisfied with ourselves. It is a peace from knowing one is on a venture of
trusting in the universe-guiding reality we see in Christ. It is an empowering
peace given us when we offer ourselves to the one who gave us this life,
trusting God for the outcome. It is an empowerment that keeps us open rather
than defensive and having to shut out the desperate cries of others. It is an
alternative to a consumer-oriented Christianity that brings an unintended
transformation that makes us vulnerable and powerful at the same time.
Possibilities after April 15: There is no telling if or how God might
use the April 15 tax-redirection event. Consequences may occur that we never
thought of, including what powers or gifts might be released in ourselves.
We should not expect the government to inform us how many participated. The
media may not be free to report it, even if it knew. If the amount we withheld
and diverted is seen by the
IRS as
worth taking action against us, we will likely receive threatening letters and
finally have those funds confiscated along with a penalty.
Yet significant tax redirection can mean some humanitarian agencies will get
more financial support, and starving people will be fed. Maybe some
legislators will hear the conscience dilemma of many taxpayers and join other
co-sponsors of
HR 1921, the
Freedom of Religion Peace Tax Fund, which would make legal the redirection of
taxes by conscientious objectors to war. And maybe a few thousand redirectors
will discover we are less bound by the expectations of others and are freer
than we thought we could be.
Most important, we may learn that choosing risky ways of living for others,
even civil disobedience, can bring spiritual healing. We won’t defund the war,
but we can be more confident of the Power that overcomes our fears and by
God’s grace enables us to be the humans God intended us to be.
One such redirection idea was announced in the edition:
“Turning toward peace.”
This Mennonite Central Committee
(U.S.) initiative
allowed Americans to “redirect[] war tax dollars to help children in
Afghanistan through
MCC’s
Global Family education sponsorship program.” Titus Peachey, director of peace
education for
MCC
(U.S.) was quoted:
According to Peachey, most who have chosen to withhold believe, “If we cannot
conscientiously participate in war with our bodies, we cannot pay for it
either. We need to give our money to causes that build up rather than destroy
the presence of God in each person,” he says.
Most inform their governments of their actions. “Given the presence of Western
military action in Afghanistan today, the opportunity to contribute to
peacemaking there is timely,” says Peachey. “Equally important is the way in
which withholding war taxes challenges our own systemic militarism.”
A joint letter from Susan Balzer, Deb & Wes Bergen, Anita & Stan Bohn, Ron Faust, Don Kaufman, H.A. Penner, Steve Ratzlaff, Mary Swartley, Willard Swartley, and Dan Leatherman appeared in the edition.
They were responding to an editorial that suggested the Mennonite Church had surrendered as a peace church and had come to be “at peace with war.”
There is a traditional, positive witness opportunity for conscientious
objectors to war of all ages. It may seem scary, but many find it almost
routine. It involves redirection of income-tax assessments used for killing
and refugee-making to ministries meeting human need.…
Our descendants and overseas Christians will wonder how Christians in a
superpower, with over 700 military bases around the world, fighting two wars
and considering a third with Iran, supporting covert wars in places such as
Colombia and Israel, could be so at peace with war.
“The church should consist of communities of loving defiance. Instead, it
consists largely of comfortable clubs of conformity,” writes Ron Sider in
Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. If we teach it is wrong, why
do we support it financially?
Shame is the negative motivation. The positive is that Jesus promised his
spirit of truth would abide in us and enable us to live differently from the
world’s ways. If we love him, we are empowered to keep his commandments
(John 14:15–17).
War tax redirection is “alternative service” for dollars we earn, service that
provides hope and new possibilities for suffering people instead of endless
war.
The issue covered
John
Stoner’s “$10.40 for Peace” campaign.
This was another attempt to get timid people to take baby steps into war tax
resistance by resisting a small, token amount of their taxes. The campaign is
still going on today but has yet to
catch fire.
The article seemed to me to exaggerate the scariness of such resistance even as
it tried to assuage the fears of potential resisters. Excerpts:
Stoner says the group hears some concern from individuals about the possible
penalties and “heavy hand of the
IRS
coming down.”
Stoner’s response is threefold. First, “As disciples of Jesus, we shouldn’t
have so much fear,” he says. Second, the past experiences of individuals who
have withheld taxes for similar reasons have been minimal. Third, the tax
withholder can decide later to pay the full amount.
“The most important thing is to make that statement that calls for democratic
conversation about how federal money is spent,” Stoner said.
Others say this movement should take more risks and that
U.S. war spending
remains too large. However, if enough people join, the risks and penalties
would increase, Stoner said.
The article noted that Shane Claiborne had signed on as an endorser and would
be speaking at an upcoming public meeting on the campaign.
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.
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
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
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?
[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
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 edition carried
a
brief article about the Everence Sharing Fund, which distributed nearly a
million dollars in financial assistance to thousands of needy families
. 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 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.
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
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
, 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, , 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
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
Ray and Wilma Gingerich, retired peace and justice professor and retired hospice nurse
How long have you redirected a portion of your taxes?
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 John Zimmerman
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 Sensenig
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
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 and family
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
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 () 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 forty-seventh in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we finally reach the present day.
The most recent volume of The Mennonite in the Internet Archives collection is , and more recent back issues aren’t on-line as far as I know.
There are a couple of individual articles from more recent years at themennonite.org, including:
Describes a Mennonite Central Committee program of organized tax
redirection, in this case to “New Profile,” a group that helps conscientious objectors to military service in Israel, and to
MCC’s
“Summer Service” program.
In addition,
“MCC
U.S. submits a ‘letter of anguish’ with each quarterly report of employee income taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.
The letter laments that the U.S. government uses the income taxes of
MCC
U.S. employees to pay for war…”
H.A. Penner describes the “moral injury… we suffer when we pay for war
while praying for peace” and describes the evolution of his tax resistance and his work to get a Peace Tax Fund law enacted.
He also alerted readers to the option of donating money directly from their retirement accounts to charity in order to take their required minimum distributions without inflicting a tax liability.
The paucity of content matches what I found when I did a similar survey of Quaker periodicals.
In that case I called it “The Second Forgetting” because of an earlier lapse in Quaker war tax resistance between the Civil War and World War Ⅱ.
In the Mennonite case, though, there was no earlier wave of war tax resistance to forget, at least as far as I could tell from reading The Mennonite (this choice of starting points for my research may turn out to have been an important bias, though — future research will tell, I hope).
There was a murmur of war tax resistance that began in the magazine , went from a murmur to a rumble in , then from a rumble to a roar in , but thereafter quickly subsided, finally fading to a whisper by , where it has largely remained.
I’d noted earlier that the volumes of The Mennonite from seemed to be missing.
I assumed the magazine had gone dormant during the Great Depression.
In fact, I later learned, it temporarily merged with Christian Evangel, another Mennonite publication, and those collected issues appeared under a joint title that I had initially missed in my searching.
A more adult-oriented meditation on that chapter, but one that even more frankly shot down war tax resistance as a Biblically-justified option, is found in the .
Should we render taxes to Caesar?
Yes.
Christ as our example paid the tribute money required by the Roman government of His day, “lest he should offend them” (Matt. 17:27).
But some one may protest: “The taxes are too high; they are unjustly apportioned; they are unwisely spent,” etc. We are responsible for the justice or injustice of the apportionment and spending of the money only in so far as we have a voice in such matters.
Christ had no pangs of conscience in paying His tribute money, though He knew the Roman government maintained vast armies.
Arthur R. Franz
came closest to touching on a war tax resistance position in the edition:
Hating war means that we will oppose it as zealously as we are convinced that it is against the spirit of Christ.
Using that as a measure for our sincerity, we might well conclude that we are not Christian.
I know that there are many of us here that are conscientiously convinced that it is wrong to take life.
But is that sufficient?
Am I not guilty of the evils of war if I do not raise a protesting voice against it?
I am guilty of killing, of hating, of destroying, of torturing, as well as the man who goes to the fighting front and shoots another man or stabs him with his bayonet.
I am even more guilty than he, because he is doing it in the belief that he is doing it for the good of mankind.
I am convinced that it is utterly wrong, that it is sin, and yet do nothing about it.
This applies even more directly to the Mennonites because to some extent their principle of non-resistance has become traditional.
It is somewhat easier to escape the pressure of the military machine because our principles are recognized and because of the moral support that a wonderful heritage gives to us in times of distress.
We are guilty, too, of the evils of war when we remain civilians, because we are helping in one way or another to carry on the war; we are raising food, manufacturing directly or indirectly materials that are necessary to carry on war; we buy bonds that help to buy the materials necessary to carry on the destruction of property, lives, and hopes.
If I am not actively opposed to war and gain exemption from service when war comes, I am a coward.
I am hiding behind a creed and it is no wonder that the man who is enveloped by the spirit of war is so bitter toward me.
We are thrilled by the stories of Mennonite Martyrs, but would I undergo what they did?
I also eventually tracked down the missing 1953 volume that for some reason wasn’t showing up in my Internet Archive searches.
An article by Hanno Klassen in the edition described how Christian charity has effects that compound beyond the initial charitable act — he called this a “chain reaction of love.” He concluded his article this way:
Which power do you support?
Do you pay high taxes for atomic research to start the satanic chain reaction, or do you link up with the chain reaction of love where Christ Himself brings everlasting peace?
(Klassen became a war tax resister at some point, see the 1982 volume for instance.)
We are aware that at least three-fourths of our tax money goes for military purposes, and we do not approve the military way of life.
How consistent is it to refuse to serve personally in our armies and navies but yet pay our full share in supporting the war machine?
Of course we may try to convince ourselves that Christ paid His taxes to Rome, even though Rome was a great military power.
In moral distinctions it is sometimes difficult to know where to draw a definite line, and say this far, but no farther.
While we render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, let us be sure we also render unto God that which is God’s.
We cannot in free conscience apply our labor, money, or material resources for the furtherance of military ends.
For example, we cannot remain true to our peace witness if we purchase war bonds or work in defense industries.
This is the forty-eighth and last in a series of posts about war tax resistance
as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I’m going to try to sum up what we’ve seen.
Disclaimers first:
I relied on some naïve text searching through the
optical-character-recognition versions of archived documents that were not
always well-scanned or legible, so I probably missed some things.
I wasn’t able to review complete copies from
.
The Mennonite was published by an arm of the
General Conference Mennonite Church (now Mennonite Church
USA)
and so was biased towards the viewpoint and activities of that branch,
and so these findings should not necessarily be extrapolated to
Mennonites as a whole. (I’m sure you’re looking forward to my upcoming deep
dive in to the Gospel Herald, organ of the
Mennonite Church.)
I ignored a lot of “Peace Tax Fund” legislation boosting. If you consider
that to also be a form of war tax resistance, you shouldn’t be misled by
how little of it I’ve included in my excerpts.
My concentration on war tax resistance can make it seem like the magazine
must have been full of talk of peace, love, and understanding and kind of a
liberal peaceniky sort of place. But Mennonites are by and large a pretty
conservative breed. To get the full flavor of the war tax resistance
conversation in the pages of The Mennonite it may
be useful to imagine the articles I’ve excerpted salted in a context full
of anti-Papism, anti-Masonicism, temperance, rants about gambling and
dancing and the movies, disgust at homosexuality, and fervent anti-abortion
views.
The General Conference Mennonite Church began to coalesce in Iowa in
. It was a mix of
more-or-less assimilated second-or-later generation American Mennonites of
Swiss and South German descent, and more recent Swiss and Russian Mennonite
immigrants, largely from the Midwestern United States, Pennsylvania, Ontario,
and Manitoba. (I’m summarizing a bigger story told in
An Introduction to Mennonite History,
, edited by Cornelius J. Dyck, who also wrote
the chapter on the General Conference Mennonite Church.)
The Mennonite began publishing in
as a publication of the Eastern District of
the Conference, and became the official
paper of the Conference itself (official English language paper, anyway; there
was also a German language one — Der
Bote — which I haven’t reviewed). I found very little evidence in the
early decades of its publication of any scruples about paying war taxes or
buying war bonds. If taxes were scrutinized at all, a quick glance at the
“Render unto Caesar” anecdote was enough to make stillborn any doubts.
(The “Render unto Caesar” verses would get a dead-horse beating throughout the
years of the publication that I read, with little consensus on the riddle’s
real meaning even from within the camps of opponents or proponents of
war tax resistance.)
As World War Ⅰ comes on and war taxes rise along with ostensibly voluntary
contributions to the war in the form of “Liberty Bonds,” there is almost no
push-back to be seen in the pages of The Mennonite,
even as American Mennonites in other branches are indeed suffering for their
refusal to participate in the Bond drives.
Indeed, reports of Liberty Bond sales are reported matter-of-factly or even
enthusiastically in The Mennonite, and Mennonite
institutions unashamedly report that they have accepted donations in the form
of such bonds. The Eastern District went on record both reaffirming its peace
and non-resistance policies and recommending that its members stock up
on bonds.
It isn’t until that I see a mention of
Mennonites refusing to buy war bonds (and that’s in the context of an editorial
mocking such Mennonites for their peculiar scruples).
In the period between the world wars a little more nuanced discussion began to
take place, but still the typical opinion was that Jesus said “Render Unto
Caesar” and that’s all you need to know.
While there was some backwards-looking hand-wringing about the Mennonite
enthusiasm for buying war bonds that had occurred during World War Ⅰ, I saw
little sign that anyone was willing to step boldly out from that foundation and
discourage Mennonites from buying war bonds in the future or from paying war
taxes in the present.
As World War Ⅱ approached, latent Mennonite guilt about war bonds clashed with
Mennonite reluctance to go up against public opinion and actually resist paying
for war. This eventually led to “Civilian Bonds” in the United States and
“Victory Loan Bonds with a sticker attached” (the sticker ostensibly indicated
that the subscribed funds were meant to be spent exclusively on relief work) in
Canada. These fig leaves allowed Mennonites to buy war bonds without buying
“War Bonds” and thus to assuage their consciences somewhat while keeping them
in the good graces of the support-the-troops crowd.
It’s not even the case that Mennonite conscientious objection to military
service was particularly well practiced at this time, though Mennonite
organizations continued to pay lip service to nonresistance and peace. One
report said that only 27% of General Conference Mennonite men who had been
conscripted had been classified as conscientious objectors.
However, this time around there is a lot more evidence to be found in the pages
of The Mennonite that Mennonites were seeking
alternatives to the phony let’s-pretend bonds. Some instead purchased “Peace
Certificates,” “Relief Certificates,” and other methods of supporting
non-military relief work in lieu of bonds. But the orthodox opinion in
The Mennonite was still all in favor of the fig-leaf
war bonds. Readers were meant to understand that purchasing such bonds
represented a sort of “witness of conscience against war financing” even while
they were also, ahem, a source of war financing.
After the war, when it was safer, The Mennonite
permitted outsiders — a Dutch Mennonite, Ernest Bromley and others in the
“Peacemakers” movement — to broach the topic of war tax resistance in its
pages. When Jacob J. Enz took over as acting editor for
he took
the opportunity to strongly hint, frequently, that Mennonites should reconsider
their unconcerned attitude toward taxes. By the issue was finally out in the open enough that actual
General Conference Mennonites were debating it front-and-center.
Continued murmurs about war tax resistance continued through
, and Mennonite and
Brethren institutions responded by considering how they should adopt
corporately to these concerns.
A letter to the
IRS
from Don Kaufman, who would be prominent in discussions of this issue for
decades to come, appeared in a issue, and a
first stab at “Peace Tax Fund” legislation was proposed in order to give
Mennonites a similar fig leaf to the “Civilian Bonds” of World War Ⅱ.
By paying war taxes was seen
as a definite problem that had to be addressed. People reached out to the
government, to various boards and committees, and tried also to come up with
individual solutions — such as income-reduction, charitable contributions, and
refusal to pay some portion of the tax due.
For the first time also, a backlash emerged of people who still held to the old
orthodoxy that one ought to unconcernedly render unto Caesar what Caesar
demands. They at times patiently, and at times with exasperation, tried to talk
Mennonites out of this newfangled foolishness, and their campaign would
continue for the next few decades.
The idea that one could refuse to pay “the military portion” of one’s tax
(usually defined as a portion equivalent to the portion of the national budget
spent on warstuffs) caught on in this period, and became a mostly-unquestioned
article of faith. The anti-resistance skeptics didn’t see any logic to it, but
the resisters largely regarded it as self-evident.
The hope of a Peace Tax Fund law also became a rarely-questioned dogma among
Mennonites who were troubled by paying taxes for war.
If asked why war tax resistance could be such a crucial issue of Mennonite
faith today when Mennonites of the past seemed not to be so troubled, war tax
resisters might respond in two ways: 1) they might find a few exemplars in
Anabaptist history who could be shown to have indeed had sympathy with war tax
resistance or something close to it, or 2) they could assert that the nuclear
age, in which expensive technology was more threatening to the peace than
masses of soldiers, had changed the rules of the game such that the only
meaningful conscientious objection was one that included war tax resistance.
The Mennonite began to put concern about paying taxes
for war at the forefront by , and it became
commonplace to assert that Mennonites should at the least be troubled
by paying taxes that support such a gargantuan military establishment, even if
they didn’t feel they could go all the way to resistance.
Influential Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder came out as a war tax
resister in the pages of a issue. Four
members of the Church of the Brethren issued “A Call to Income Tax Protest”
that appeared in a issue.
The Vietnam War started becoming more of a focal point than the nuclear sword
of Damocles by . In
the Peace and Social Concerns Committee
of the General Conference issued a statement, which was adopted by the
Conference’s Council of Boards and presented at the Mennonite World Conference
and that asked Mennonites to “counsel together” about a new war tax surcharge
and ask if “the Christian [should] object to payment of these taxes on the same
grounds as he conscientiously objects to military service”. It also asked
congregations to support war tax resisters among them.
The first corporate backlash resulted, with the Eastern District Conference
passing a resolution censuring the Council of Boards for suggesting such an
“unscriptural” thing. Still, the same resolution did back-handedly acknowledge
the tension between Mennonite beliefs and taxpaying when it recommended that
Mennonites take full advantage of charitable deductions to lower their tax
bill.
In , 673 delegates to the General Conference
triennial were polled about Vietnam-oriented activism. Only 27% agreed that
war tax resistance was appropriate (51% disagreed). In an additional survey
conducted at the “youth conference,” 51% agreed, so there was some generation
gap stuff at work here too.
In the Mennonite Central Committee’s Peace
Section created a mutual aid fund to help conscientious objectors, and
explicitly listed conscientious objectors to military taxation as among those
who were eligible.
also, the Western District Conference
passed a resolution in favor of war tax resistance, indicating a West/East
split to rival the young/old split.
Phone tax resistance also started to catch on around this time.
A hundred people met to discuss war tax resistance at Bethel College Mennonite
Church in in a conference sponsored by the
Western District Conference and the Commission on Home Ministries (a subgroup
of the General Conference). Mennonite, Quaker, and secular war tax resisters
spoke, and participants signed a joint pledge.
In 73.4% of the delegates to the General
Conference triennial ratified a statement saying that “The levying of war taxes
is another form of conscription… We stand by those who feel called to resist
the payment of that portion of taxes being used for military purposes.”
That year also, a Mennonite church in Arvada, Colorado decided to stop paying
the tax on its phone — the first example I saw of a Mennonite institution
refusing to pay taxes.
There was another 100-person-strong war tax conference in
, this time in the heartland. Another
50-person conference on the subject was held in Kansas. Mennonite intentional
communities began to develop with war tax resistance as an explicit focus.
Mennonite bodies began coordinating war tax redirection efforts.
Nonetheless, results from a Church Member Profile survey showed that 55% of
those Mennonites surveyed opposed war tax resistance.
As the Vietnam War wound down, Mennonite war tax resistance continued. Even
those who weren’t brave enough to resist were eager to stand up and say that at
least they were paying under protest. Redirection of war taxes to
Mennonite institutions and projects increased.
In a second Mennonite church began resisting
its phone tax corporately. “The World Peace Tax Fund Act” was introduced into
Congress, raising hopes that a legislative solution might make the problem go
away for Mennonite taxpayers.
In a Christian war tax resistance group
kindled in Japan for the first time thanks to Mennonite pastor Michio Ohno.
Sixty people would attend its first meeting and for a short while there would be an enthusiastic response in
Japan to the movement, with eighty or more people in Japan refusing to pay war
taxes.
The Mennonite General Conference triennial sessions in
“ask[ed] all General Conference members to
question prayerfully whether they want to pay war taxes voluntarily” and
pledged that the General Conference itself would work to provide its employees
with (vaguely-specified) support in war tax resistance.
In another 100+-person
conference on war tax concerns was held, this time in an Ontario Mennonite
Church.
The Commission on Home Ministries created a war tax redirection fund, and
started a newsletter for war tax resisters, but stopped short of refusing to
withhold taxes from its resisting employees’ paychecks.
That question — whether Mennonite institutions should honor their employees’
requests not to have war taxes withheld from their paychecks and submitted to
the government — began to really bubble in .
An encouraging (but short-lived) court decision gave some hope that such
institutions could legally get away with refusing such withholding, and then
the idea became hard to shake.
Several years’ of bureaucratic pass-the-buck followed:
The Commission on Home Ministries’ Peace and Social Concerns Reference
Council recommended that the General Conference stop withholding such
taxes.
The Commission on Home Ministries’ executive committee put that on its
agenda and approved it “but referred [it] for further study by the Division
of Administration and the General Board.”
The Division of Administration wasn’t enthusiastic, thinking that many
possible consequences hadn’t been fully considered. So the General Board
asked the Division of Administration to come back to them later with their
ideas.
When the General Board met again, they decided to wait to decide until
their next meeting.
At the next meeting, the Council on Commissions asked the Commission on
Home Ministries to prepare a study process in advance of the next triennial
conference so everyone would get a chance to vote on it. And the General
Board agreed that the Conference triennium should decide as a body.
The triennium decided to commit itself to 18 months of “serious study” on
the matter, followed by a special midtriennium conference at which they
would decide once and for all.
Educational materials were prepared and distributed, and an invitational
consultation on civil responsibility was held to help prepare people for
the responsibility that had been put upon them.
The midtriennial conference was held, and they decided “to engage in a
serious and vigorous search to use all legal, legislative, and
administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption
from” withholding, and to come back for another try if they couldn’t figure
anything like that out within three years.
The General Conference established a board to implement this, which later
expanded to be a multi-sectarian task force on war tax issues.
The task force quickly ruled out administrative avenues as being frankly
unavailable and began to explore legislative ones (Peace Tax Fund
schemes).
That seeming just as unlikely, “a resolution seeking approval to initiate a
judicial action to exempt the General Conference from withholding taxes
from the income of its employees” was prepared for the next triennial,
which passed it 1,156:353.
None of this was in the abstract. A General Conference employee named Cornelia
Lehn asked for war taxes not to be withheld from her paycheck, and her request
caused everything to go haywire for a good long while in the General Conference
bureaucracy. On the one hand, not much got accomplished for many years, but on
the other hand, the dust Lehn kicked up rained down as ink that filled several
columns of The Mennonite for many an edition, and the
buck-passing by the Mennonite bureaucracy meant that everybody got a chance to
get their hands dirty trying to figure out their position on the issue. All of
the heat and light at the midtriennium also kindled a nonsectarian Christian
war tax resistance group in the city where it was held. Lehn gets a lot of
credit for keeping war tax resistance at the forefront of Mennonite
deliberation for years, simply by making her request, explaining herself, and
holding firm.
The “A New Call to Peacemaking” initiative began in
and would for several years advance the cause
of war tax resistance particularly in the “traditional peace churches”
(Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers).
Meanwhile more Mennonite institutions were refusing their phone taxes, new
Mennonite intentional communities were forming with tax resistance as part of
their charters, other religious denominations and secular groups were jumping
on the war tax resistance bandwagon, Mennonite conservatives were becoming more
and more frustrated with liberal innovations like war tax resistance, and hopes
for the World Peace Tax Fund legislation continued to drain support from war
tax resistance proper.
Robert Hull began in to circulate plans for
a “Sabbatical Service” program in which conscientious objectors would devote
one year in seven to volunteer service, and in exchange the government would
grant them conscientious objector to military taxation status. This was
elaborated at length, but never seemed to get off of the drawing boards and
into an implementation or a legislative proposal.
Individual Mennonites created a vast variety of symbolic withholding ideas,
choosing particular small amounts to withhold based on numerological symbolism
or on correspondences with the amounts or percentages of federal budget
spending on offensive items. In general it seems that there was very little
consensus about how to resist war taxation among those who had decided
that resistance was appropriate, instead a thousand different techniques
bloomed.
The IRS
began responding to certain varieties of tax protest by issuing “frivolous
filing” penalties. This increased the fear and uncertainty around the decision
of whether or not (or how) to resist. Secular and Mennonite institutions
responded by creating mutual aid insurance funds to help penalized resisters,
such as the “War Tax Witness Relief Fund” established by the
MCC
(U.S.) Peace Section
in .
A conservative backlash to the advance of war tax resistance (and other
innovations), largely in the conservative Eastern District, led to the
“Smoketown Consultation” which would eventually lead to a rupture in which the
Alliance of Mennonite Evangelical Congregations split off from the General
Conference to go on their own. (Today the issue of same-sex marriage is
causing a similar exodus of conservative congregations.)
Having been given the green light by the assembled delegates at its last
triennial, the General Conference prepared to file a lawsuit against the
IRS to
assert its right to stop withholding taxes from the salaries of conscientiously
objecting employees. They began by meeting with the
IRS to
try to work out an 11th-hour administrative
compromise, but had no luck. Then they began to assemble witnesses and
co-plaintiffs with standing. But then the
U.S. Supreme Court
handed down its decision in
U.S. v. Lee — a
case in which a man from the Old Order Amish conscientiously objected to
participation in government social insurance programs. That unanimous ruling
firmly indicated that the Supreme Court had zero tolerance for arguments about
conscientious objection to taxation (“The tax system could not function if
denominations were allowed to challenge the tax system because tax payments
were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief.”). The General
Conference decided to put its suit on the back burner.
Having been blocked in its search for administrative and judicial remedies,
and with the legislative remedy (some sort of Peace Tax Fund law) languishing
in the back-alleys of Congress, the board of the General Conference prepared to
tell its congregations that the ball was back in their court as to how to
proceed: should the Conference throw in the towel and continue to withhold
taxes from objecting employees, or should it refuse in outright civil
disobedience? The Conference would decide, as a body, at the Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania triennial in . A
70% majority of delegates there opted for corporate civil disobedience.
Seven employees registered their objection with the Conference, which on
stopped withholding
federal income taxes from their paychecks. (By the number of such employees had dropped to five; by
, to four; by
, to three.) The
IRS
doesn’t seem to have taken any action against the Conference for this, though
there is some indication that the employees in question paid all but “symbolic”
amounts of the tax themselves.
The Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes narrowed its focus to the
legislative avenue, going all-in to lobby for the World Peace Tax Fund bill.
A small group of Canadian Mennonite war tax resisters began to emerge in the
early 1980s. One, Jerilyn Prior, tried to get a court to grant her the right
to conscientious objection to military taxation, to no avail. There were also
reports of Mennonite war tax resistance from the Netherlands. The First
International Conference of Military Tax Resisters and Peace Tax Campaigns was
held in West Germany in , with
support from Mennonites there.
Meanwhile, the war tax resistance bug was spreading through other Christian
denominations, including those not found under the “traditional peace churches”
banner. This put additional pressure on the Mennonites, who had to ask
themselves if they still qualified as a peace church when other churches seemed
at times more willing to take the lead on such conscientious objection and
activism.
In the Mennonite Central Committee decided
not to follow in the General Conference’s footsteps and stop
withholding taxes from its objecting employees’ paychecks. None of the
individual conferences they consulted with were supportive of them opting for
civil disobedience. This is somewhat surprising, given the 70% support for
civil disobedience at the triennial,
and may suggest that was the high-water mark
for war tax resistance in the General Conference.
The Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church opted to
begin the process of merging in , and
simultaneously the Mennonite Church decided to also adopt the policy of
refusing to withhold taxes from its objecting employees. (The vote though was
narrower than the vote of the General
Conference delegates — 59% in favor this time — and the General Board of the
Church would later stall on implementing the decision.)
The urgency of the war tax resistance question had deflated by the
. Christian Peacemaker Teams tried
to breathe some life back into it through a “Taxes for Life” symbolic
redirection campaign, beginning in .
The years when hardly an issue would come out that didn’t have some
war tax resistance content in it were behind us. Now in some years there might
be a single tax-season issue that profiled some steadfast Mennonite war tax
resisters, and in other years the topic would hardly be mentioned at all, or
would only be mentioned in passing. The
triennial endorsed Peace Tax Fund campaigns but did not issue any shows of
support for war tax resistance.
The Commission on Home Ministries decided in
to extend its Student Aid Fund for Non-Registrants so that it would also cover
students who were denied loans because of their war tax resistance.
An informal study of 17 Mennonite and Brethren in Christ institutions found
that few had official policies concerning war taxes, and that even of those who
did have a policy of honoring requests from employees not to have taxes
withheld from their paychecks — “[m]ost institutions surveyed had not fielded
such requests within the past 10 years.”
Some Mennonite institutions adopted the policy of gently pushing back against
IRS
attempts to levy the salaries of resisting employees, for instance by writing
the agency a letter explaining their reluctance to participate in violating
their employee’s conscientious act.
Mennonites continued to evolve new ways of reducing, refusing, or resisting
paying for war with their taxes as the new millennium dawned. But the new
“Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund” bill got most of the press. Editorial
mentions of war tax resistance became increasingly vague and noncommittal.
The stories of individual Mennonite tax resisters of the past and present were
occasionally told in the pages of The Mennonite in
the early years of the 21st century, but the idea
that this was a subject of fiery debate and collective concern in the Church
was gone. Instead readers learned of individual prophets, protesters, eccentric
heretics, or hopeless idealists (depending on your perspective).
Desperate war tax resistance evangelists increasingly were reduced to begging
people to withhold tiny symbolic amounts from their taxes, such as in the
“$10.40 for Peace” campaign.
Most distressingly, as the War on Iraq raged, Mennonite discussion of war tax
resistance seemed to diminish even further (at least in The
Mennonite). Had the Mennonite Church come to be “at peace with war” as
one editorialist put it? One sober assessment of “How are we doing as a peace
church?” in concluded that “[E]ach 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.”
In the Mennonite Central Committee
(U.S.) announced a
war tax redirection effort — “Turning toward peace” — with a goal of helping
aid programs in Afghanistan, and this program would continue to operate for
several years.
It’s an extraordinary arc. War tax resistance built slowly and steadily until
it had become a frenzy of debate, activity, and corporate commitment, and then
astonishingly rapidly it mostly dissolved.
It’s hard to know quite what to make of this, or of
the similar “forgetting” that took place
in the Society of Friends around the same time. To a cynic, this might just
look like a craze — with war tax resisters being the Cabbage Patch Kids of the
historic peace churches.
Some other possible explanations that occur to me:
The end of the Vietnam War and then the Cold War took the wind out of the
sails of the peace movement in general, dampening the general interest in
war tax resistance that the Mennonite war tax resistance movement was
drafting off of.
The drive to pass “Peace Tax Fund” legislation displaced interest in war
tax resistance among people who shared a concern about taxpayer complicity.
Potential tax resisters or war tax resistance advocates devoted themselves
instead to letter-writing, lobbying, and fundraising for this doomed and
increasingly counterproductive legislative effort.
Those who were sympathetic to the arguments for war tax resistance quickly
converted to some form of resistance by the peak of Mennonite war tax
resistance activity in or so. Once these
low-hanging-fruit had been collected, it was an uphill battle to get anyone
else interested because they did not find the arguments as compelling, and
so outreach and evangelism stalled.
The “Reagan Revolution” of the 1980s was in part inspired by conservative
anger at high taxes and conservative politicians’ promises to lower taxes.
This might have made the more liberal Mennonites, from which war tax
resisters were drawing most of their support, less eager to be associated
with a tax-resisting cause.
Some resisters may have had exaggerated hopes for what war tax resistance
would accomplish, and as those hopes faded with time and experience, so did
enthusiasm for war tax resistance.
