Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Brethren →
The Missionary Visitor
As far as I could tell from what was published by Brethren periodicals during World War Ⅰ, the ostensible pacifism of the Church of the Brethren became a cowardly retreat in the face of public pressure to join the war bond purchase drives.
Today I examine the archives from the post-war period to look for signs of soul-searching in the wake of this capitulation.
The Annual Report of the General Mission Board, as found in The Missionary Visitor (source) crowed that “the war is over” and even went so far as to say that “Possibly the historian of future years will look back and recount, through numberless proofs, that the war was not fought in vain.” The Board compared its own struggle against Satan with the Allies’ victory in Europe, and said Brethren contribute to each: “[W]hile we have contributed our funds for Liberty bonds, and freed the world from autocracy, we must not cease our vigilance.”
In this vein, the magazine decided to market Brethren fundraising efforts as “God’s Liberty Loan”.
It is staggering to think of the amount of money that has been raised to finance the war, reaching the great sum of twenty-three billion dollars.
It is interesting to wonder how much of this large amount has been subscribed by the Church of the Brethren.
“Interesting” but not pauseworthy.
The author goes on to make an estimate, by assuming that the typical member of the church makes a little more than the average national income and that “it would be expected that we contribute our proportionate share” to the war bond drives.
The earliest issue of The Brethren Evangelist that I found in the archives comes from (41 years into its run).
By then, anyway, it seems that they saw no inconsistency in Brethren and Brethren institutions trafficking in war bonds.
The initial issue of that year noted that “The first Liberty Bond given to Kentucky Mission work was received as a Christmas Gift on Christmas morning,” named the donor, and asked that others follow their example to “send Liberty Bonds to be used to further the Home Mission work of the Brethren church” (source).
A later article compared a mission fund drive with the Liberty Loan, saying “We [emphasis mine] raised billions for Liberty Bonds time and again.
Now we are starting another drive.”
The Business Manager of Ashland College (a Brethren institution) wrote in to encourage donations in the form of Liberty Bonds, writing that “[d]uring the past year more than $20,000 in Liberty Bonds have been assigned to Ashland College in this way” (source).
By this amount had risen to more than $50,000 (source).
The Brethren in Falls City “could see that it was only good business to kill two birds with one stone, so they bought those Liberty Loans and gave them to the college” (source).
An accounting of the endowment of that college, in a later issue, indicated that it held $29,800 in Liberty Bonds and $1,256.62 in War Savings Stamps (source).
A note in a issue tried to explain what happened: “Did we buy Liberty Bonds?
We did.
Not because we were especially in favor of war; not because we were investors.
We gave because the spirit of giving and sacrifice was abounding.” (source)
A fundraiser for a Brethren project being pumped in a edition, on the other hand, said that “Liberty Bonds were bought, in a large measure not as an investment but to save the country’s credit” — so why don’t you donate them to us since you don’t really need the money (source).
By issue, a sanctimonious pacifism had returned, as shown by a reprint of a letter from another magazine in response to National Defense Day (source).
The editorial note before the letter said that “[t]he Christian patriot who has a true vision of world peace and of the only way to its attainment will not remain silent and passive and allow national propaganda for militarism to go on unrebuked.” The letter itself told the story of a Belgian family, some members of which had been killed by poison gas in an American bombardment: “American gas shells, made by American girls, paid for by your grandmother’s liberty bonds [emphasis mine], handled by skilled American artillerymen, blessed by American clergy, valiantly gassed this Belgian maiden.”
But aside from this pointed mention, the subject of the Liberty Loan, Liberty Bonds, War Stamps, and things of that nature was for the most part just quietly dropped in the Brethren Evangelist, and writers went on preaching peace as though nothing had happened.
(But Iremember them that are in bonds.)
Meanwhile, what was going on over at the Gospel Messenger?
A article by I.V. Funderburgh on “Our Response” (to the war).
He described the response of Brethren in part this way: “We pledge to the Red Cross; we subscribe for Liberty Bonds; we buy thrift-stamps; we conserve food, clothing, and fuel. Sacrifice! Yes, we do. ¶ But what of the summons, ‘Serve’? Oh, yes, we have served in responding to our country’s demand for money…”
In the issue, D.E. Cripe confronted the theory of war tax resistance more directly than I had seen done to this point (source):
Though we be strangers and pilgrims, while we are in the flesh, we can not avoid living in an earthly kingdom or nation, and therefore we have duties which can not be evaded.
One of these is paying tribute or taxes.
Even Jesus, through Peter, paid tribute, “lest we should offend them,” and he never asked what use would be made of the money.
Paul says we should pay tribute, not only for wrath but for conscience’s sake.
Very likely this tribute was turned into the treasury to support the Roman army, but Paul did not question this.
After the Christian has paid his tribute, he has done his duty, and he is not responsible for the use that the Government makes of it.
In the issue, J.A. Vancil urged Brethren who had purchased war bonds to “put those Liberty Bonds to work for the cause of Jesus Christ?
It was really the Lord’s money that purchased them, anyway.” (source) “If those Liberty Bonds were turned over to the church, there would be sufficient funds, from the accruing interest, to carry on all departments of the work of the church for the next five years.
Then, at the maturity of these Bonds, there would be a vast available amount.”
The General Mission Board, in a fundraising notice in the issue (source), wrote:
Liberty Bonds
A brother writes and asks: “Can you accept Liberty Bonds in the Conference offering?
Some of our brethren can give considerably more, if you can.” Most surely we can accept Liberty Bonds.
Through them you have helped to free the world from autocracy.
Now let us use them to free the world from the autocracy of sin.
Send them in to us!
We will put them to the Lord’s use.
An interesting note in the issue said that the following query had been sent to the Annual Conference (source):
We, the members of the Empire congregation, ask Annual Meeting of through the District Meeting of Northern California, to restate and define the position of the church upon war in all its phases, including the bearing of arms, drilling, buying war bonds, etc.
If the Annual Meeting took up this invitation, I haven’t yet found record of it.
The issue included an article entitled “In the War on War” by George Fulk.
Fulk wrote that “[t]o a very considerable number of highly patriotic Christian citizens, perhaps no question of ethics more difficult of solution ever presented itself than that of the proper relation which they should personally bear toward service in the World War… With [some] it became a question as to the purchasing of liberty bonds, which meant the furnishing of the sinews of war.”
This at least put buying war bonds back on the agenda as a problem and didn’t try to wave away what buying war bonds meant.
Fulk was back in to tell Brethren that they really must take a stand, because by default they were supporting war (source):
It is a stern fact also that persons are volunteering on both sides, and those who fail to volunteer, are being drafted on the side of war.
Circumstances, speaking in very general terms, are doing the drafting.
That is to say, circumstances have always been such, are now such, and promise indefinitely to be such, as to lead unfailingly to war unless counter-forces are brought to oppose.
If we fail to join the counter-forces, we not only offer circumstances a clear road to war, but we contribute directly, through taxes, and other means, which necessarily conform to the present system of war, as a method of settling disputes.
But in general, war taxes were presented as something to be regretted, not resisted.
The Messenger would sometimes allude to estimates that 93% of federal taxes being raised were going to pay for the expenses of the recent war.
But rather than wonder whether anti-war Brethren ought to pay such a bill, this was usually just a lead in to a sales pitch about how Brethren ought to be just as willing to contribute to the latest church fundraising campaign.
A note in a issue concerned Kees and Beatrice Boeke, the European Quaker pacifists who were pushing the limits of nonviolent action.
The note said that the couple “are likely to have their property seized again this year as last, because they can not, as a matter of conscience, pay their military tax.”
The couple’s “unflinching testimony against war, and their fearless preaching of the Gospel of peace and good will to all men” was described in nothing but flattering terms (source).
A lengthy article by L.R. Holsinger on “The Christian’s Duty to the State”, from the issue, attacked war tax resistance more or less directly, which at least suggests that somewhere off the pages of the Messenger that heresy was alive:
The matter of paying taxes has been considered obligatory ever since government has been a realization.
It was true thousands of years before Christ said, “Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.”… We therefore believe that in order to “Render… to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom”…, it becomes necessary to pay over our portion of the necessary funds to facilitate the effective and harmonious administration of the government of which we are a part.
There come times, however, that the government engages in activities such as war which their consciences justly raise a question about, but the experiences of the recent war have been of such a nature as to cause many to feel that the awful cost, not only in money, but in morals, happiness, and life, is the penalty for their neglect and indifference both in religious and civic affairs.
We are persuaded that if the amount of money and zealous effort that was expended each month during the war to promote it, had been expended during the ten years previous to the war to propagate the Gospel and promote the cause of the Prince of Peace, the history of the “world war” would never have been written, and the future generation would have “heroes” to admire and to emulate whose influence would not create a false patriotism which will result in a periodic repetition of a similar or worse upheaval but would hasten the day when “Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”… The fact that we find ourselves a part of a government that engages temporarily in war may be blamed on us as Christians as well as others, and though we may be justified in absolute refusal to take the life willfully of any individual, we cannot find justification in refusal to pay taxes as long as the government functions as such, not only for the purpose of war which is incidental, but “for the people.”
I’ve left out some references to war savings stamps and liberty bonds listed as donations or as parts of the holdings of Brethren institutions.
I saw very few signs that members of the Church of the Brethren — at least those who were represented in the periodicals of the period — had second thoughts about church-members or institutions trafficking in war bonds during World War Ⅰ.
There were many complaints about the continuing arms race, and many of these highlighted the burden placed on the taxpayer, but this was never presented as something that a conscientious taxpayer could or should confront directly.
Today I share the results of my hunt for war tax resistance sentiment in the archives of Brethren periodicals from the 1930s up to the point of the U.S. entry into World War Ⅱ.
A lot happened in this period, which came as a surprise to me after having viewed the vanishing of opposition to personal funding of war during and immediately after World War Ⅰ.
Gandhi’s Indian independence movement was frequently mentioned in columns of Brethren periodicals, and usually in a sympathetic way.
In the edition of The Brethren Evangelist, his tax resistance campaigns got a skeptical look in the light of Brethren teaching (source):
The Word of Christ inculcates obedience to the powers of civil government, the payment of tribute and tax money even to the emperors of Rome, the rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Ghandi [sic] asks his followers not to pay certain taxes and foments a campaign of “civil disobedience.”
As a matter of fact, the “Way of Ghandi” is more like the method used by the English suffragettes of some years ago. And in some respects it is very successful as a political means.
George H.
Jones saw the writing on the wall in a article that began: “That the United States is nearer war now than at any time in the past twenty years, no one doubts” (source).
He urged conscientious objectors to war to prepare for the tough times ahead, and reminded them what had happened in the last war, for example:
The churches in many cases became simply the sponsors for drives to win the war by appeals for cigarettes and socks or chocolate and sweaters or Liberty Bonds to end the War for Democracy.
These were the major needs that sounded to the dome in many Christian churches.
The Gospel Messenger was also publishing at this time, and had absorbed the previously independent Missionary Visitor.
In the issue of The Gospel Messenger, Ben Stoner announced the “20,000 Dunkers for Peace” campaign.
The campaign aimed to get 20,000 Brethren (and other varieties of German Baptist and related sects) to sign a peace pledge.
This brief pledge explicitly mentioned war taxes (source):
I, ⸺, as a part of my program for peace, refuse ever to bear arms or to coöperate, in any way, in armed conflict; and, only under protest to pay taxes for military purposes.
In the accompanying article, Stoner explained that the tax portion pledged the signer “to do all within his power to keep his tax money from being appropriated for purposes which are inconsistent with Christiantiy and the basic laws of our land.” However, this stopped short of tax resistance: “At present perhaps the best way of protesting the use of tax money for military purposes is through petition to Congress when appropriations are being considered.”
The issue printed the following query from one congregation, and noted that it had been passed up for consideration to the Annual Conference (source):
We, the Eglon congregation, petition Annual Conference through District Meeting of the First District of West Virginia to tell us how we can best protest against paying taxes for military purposes.
A report on the conference carried in the issue explained what happened next (source):
The paper protesting military taxes resulted in several speeches before it was decided to make the answer of Standing Committee the answer of Conference.
And this was that the matter be referred to the Board of Christian Education for study and a report in .
This seems a fair disposition of the problem in view of the fact that the question is involved and study needed.
The answer from the Board of Christian Education came (source):
All lawful taxes should be paid. As Christians we differentiate between taxes for constructive and taxes for destructive purposes. Because war is unchristian, taxes for military and naval purposes should be protested.
Not less than 70% out of our taxes paid to the federal government goes directly or indirectly for military and naval purposes. Some of these federal taxes are: income taxes, estate taxes, federal stamp taxes, and the federal tax on gasoline, etc.
Ways of protesting against taxes for military and naval purposes.
Paste a small sticker on your income tax returns and other payments made to the federal government, which reads as follows: “That portion of this tax devoted to armaments and war preparedness is paid under protest.” The Board of Christian Education will furnish these stickers.
Write a letter once a year to your congressmen protesting against the appropriation of funds for military and naval purposes.
Protest personally when paying federal taxes, such as the federal gasoline tax.
Protest through resolutions from local churches, district, and Annual Conferences.
We favor a further study of this problem with the purpose of helping to develop a sound theory of taxation.
A later report on the Annual Conference noted that this “Protesting Against Military Taxes” committee report was adopted by the conference “after a single question… There was no argument.”
A front-page editorial by J.E.M. in the edition, entitled “I Hate War”, touched on personal war funding in a couple of places:
Later in the seventies I saw the war stamps on match boxes, and learned of other stamps and taxes that had to be paid because of the depression caused by the Civil War. My hatred of war increased, for those stamps and taxes in hard times seemed stained with human blood and reeked with human flesh.
I have seen university students being trained for war, trained with money that you and I pay, and I hate war.
I am paying taxes to help pay for past wars and to prepare for the next war, and I hate war.
In a article, Kermit Eby tried to explain that when the war comes, the pacifist position, if taken earnestly, will be see as a threat to the war effort and dealt with accordingly, and that Brethren should prepare themselves with this in mind (source):
The major task in the last war centered in the task of keeping up the will to win; no effort was spared in its achievement.
Most authorities on the “next war” believe that a greater effort will be made to mobilize the national sentiment needed.
If this is true, several significant developments may be expected concerning which members of pacifist churches should be aware.
Membership in the Church of the Brethren means that each member is opposed to the use of war as a means of achieving the policies of his nation; that because of religious, economic, social, and other reasons he is unable to give intellectual assent to the war system.
Having come to this conclusion, he refuses to support his government when to do so goes contrary to his conscience.
The assumption of such a position automatically places one in opposition to the government at war.
It is a situation in which there is no neutrality, no grey, simply white or black.
The mere intellectual assent to a pacifist position amounts to intellectual sabotage, for it implies an unwillingness to go with the group.
…[T]he success of war depends on the intellectual and emotional support given it, as much as on the material.
Hence, the pacifist position is the first step in blocking the successful termination of the war.
Furthermore, the greater the number of those who take the position of opposition, the greater the danger to them as individuals.
A few pacifists could be tolerated as religious fanatics; many pacifists become a stumblingblock to the war machine, and, as such, they must be removed quickly.
Frankly, members of a pacifist church should know that such a position may mean their removal from society, loss of jobs, persecution, and even death.
The only hope in a pacifist move lies in the possibility of it becoming a mass movement of such proportions that no government would dare risk annihilating it entirely.
Membership in the Church of the Brethren is not a passive act.
It puts one on record as an opponent of war.
It classifies one as a public enemy in war time, along with enemy aliens, deserters, labor and professional agitators.
The statement in the resolution concerning the refusal to support war by the payment of taxes adds to the similarity with the left wing labor groups who oppose international war for economic reasons.
The only distinction remains in the mind of the pacifist who ignorantly thinks that refusal to give economic support is non-aggressive in its opposition to the government at war.
It is, in fact, a most dangerous form of obstruction.
Since this is the case, a pacifist should be willing to accept the logic of his position and refuse all economic aid for support of war.
To put the case simply, no Dunker farmer dare ask his son to support the position of the church by risking death in opposition to war when he is guilty of selling his farm produce at a profit.
Wheat is as vital to war as soldiers, and we dare not refuse the former and advance the latter.
Finally, we must face the fact that even relief means support of the war system, for it releases others from the necessity of affording relief, it encourages the soldiers who are in need of relief, it gives support to the war by rehabilitating wounded for further service, it denies simultaneous aid to the enemy — no government would permit relief for its enemy.
Relief supplies are secured by independent funds; thus direct economic aid is given which would otherwise not be supplied.
More seriously than any of the above is the intellectual support which relief gives.
To be consistent, we must intellectually sabotage the entire system even to relief and bravely accept the consequences.
This was such a radical departure from everything I’d read before that at first I wondered whether it had been intended as a sort of Modest Proposal meant to exaggerate the pacifist position to logical conclusions that would be unpalatable to the typical reader.
But I think Eby was sincere.
The Annual Conference reaffirmed “our purpose not to participate in any war, and our protest against the application of such a large proportion of our taxes to military purposes” but did not elaborate (source).
In the Conference Committee on Counsel for Conscientious Objectors made a series of recommendations for that year’s Annual Conference “on the positions that our people should take in the event of war” (source).
These included the following three varieties of “peace testimony to register our convictions and to avoid our participation in war-related activities:”
The refraining from the purchase of such as Liberty Bonds to finance war.
The renunciation of, or the sacrificial use of, profits derived from industry, farming, or invested securities as a result of war; sacrificing always during war periods to build a fund for the furtherance of good will and for the support of families who suffer because of their conscientious objections to war.
The protesting against federal income taxes if used for military purposes.
This is the first explicit renunciation of the Church’s embrace of Liberty Bonds during World War Ⅰ that I have spotted.
A later report on the Annual Conference was difficult for me to interpret, but I think the gist of it was that this set of recommendations passed.
Rufus Bowman was a member of that Conference Committee, and in a later book on The Church of the Brethren and War he says that this was the high point of official Brethren opposition to war, at least up to the book’s publication in .
In the issue, Lorell Weiss predicted the trouble ahead, and how Brethren would be communicating their values to their children by their actions (source):
[T]here is a strong temptation to compromise principles for expediency’s sake.
Furthermore, the choice between principles and expediency must be made not once but often, by both parents and children.
We have not only to decide whether it is right to kill.
Other questions press for an answer.
Shall we buy defense bonds? Shall we assist in aluminum drives or patriotic demonstrations? Shall we remain discreetly silent and let our neighbors assume that we share the general war fever, or shall we boldly testify for what we believe?
A letter to the editor from Homer D. Kimmel (source) printed in the edition read:
This evening we heard a radio announcer advertising the sale of defense savings bonds with these words, “Buy a defense saving bond.
The $18.75 that you spend for a $25 defense savings bond will buy five bayonets.”
What a picture that calls to one’s mind! Five bayonets for five soldiers to tear the entrails out of five fellow men left lying helpless with their life blood flowing out on some ghastly battlefield! Yet all such are fellow men who love life no less than you and I.
Buy a defense saving bond!
Buy some death, some pain and suffering, some heartache, tears, hunger and privation.
An article by James L. Houff in the issue noted how frequently the government was tapping people for war funding (source). Excerpt:
Every time we go to the movies we pay three cents to the government for defense.
When we take a Sunday afternoon motor ride, about six cents out of every twenty goes to the government for tax.
At the post office we are reminded by our postmaster that he has defense bonds for sale.
Children are told they might help protect their country by buying savings stamps with their money instead of candy.
In the Bible Monitor of , B.F.
Masterson tried to put all this talk of protesting war taxes to rest (source).
Masterson advocated a strict distancing of the Christian believer from politics, of a sort that was going out of fashion elsewhere in the church.
Excerpts:
Paul did not suggest to the churches to write letters to Ceaser instructing him how to manage his naval tactics, that is the chief commander of the army’s business.
The church is not supposed, from a New Testament view point, to take part in the transaction of civil government.
The Jews who were under the Roman government, but not on good terms with it, conspired to draw Christ into politics when they asked Him, if it is lawful to pay taxes to Ceasar.
He said, render unto Ceasar the things which are Ceasar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s, He did not suggest to the Jews to make a protest against paying a certain per cent of the taxes.
He knew better than to get His foot in the trap.
[I]t does not pay for the church to enter into a confederacy with the world and for a Christian organization to advise, unsolicited, the commander of an army is beyond its jurisdiction and to protest against taxes that are applied for one[’s] protection is ungrateful to say the least, and would not coincide with the tenor of Christ’s doctrine.
Jesus was entirely free from the spirit of nationalism.
Although a Jew, He never protested against the Roman rule nor incited in His followers the spirit of rebellion.
The Bible Monitor also reproduced an article from the Gospel Herald (a Mennonite publication) in on the proper relationship between the Christian and the government (stand-offish for the most part), that included this section on taxes and Liberty Bonds (source):
Christians have the obligation to pay tribute and custom to and to fear and honor the “powers that be.”… This principle came acutely under test during the World war.
The problem did not arise with reference to the payment of taxes some of the proceeds of which were definitely used to carry on the war, but with reference to the purchase of Liberty Bonds which was voluntary, the proceeds of which directly supported the war program.
Here the nonresistant conscience asserted itself.
The former was clearly within the teaching of scripture, but the latter was voluntary and became a measure of one’s wartime patriotism.
Men who were physically unable on account of the rigors of warfare could render their bit toward the winning of the war by the purchase of bonds.
To sum up: the Church of the Brethren has come a long way since the willful blindness of the World War Ⅰ period, when Dunkers seemed happy to buy up war bonds with abandon.
Now there is explicit precedent for refusal to buy war bonds, and even some hints of emerging tax resistance, or at least tax reluctance.
But it remains to be seen whether this trend will survive Pearl Harbor.
