Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Brethren →
Dale Aukerman
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?
In , suddenly Brethren couldn’t stop talking about war tax resistance.
By war tax resistance had gone from heresy to something that was considered one possible appropriate Christian response to runaway militarism.
Take, for example, this mention in passing from Ralph E.
Smeltzer’s long essay on “The Church and the World” in the issue of Gospel Messenger:
When the Christian conscience and the demands of the state conflict, as many feel in the case of military service, taxes for military purposes, and defense jobs, the Christian must follow his conscience.
A lengthy war tax resistance letter-to-the-editor on war tax resistance led off that column in the issue (source).
The page scan (here and elsewhere in this volume) is difficult to read in parts, but I’ll try to restore it as best I can:
Taxes for War Purposes
The three of us, two ministers and a layman, have come to the conclusion that we can no longer pay Federal income tax for war.
This may seem an astonishing stand; but much more astonishing is our general Brethren complacency about paying income tax.
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 homes 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.
In the belief that many Brethren are becoming troubled about paying income tax, we submit for fraternal consideration the following statement on income tax refusal.
Because the per capita U.S. military expenditure rose from less than $8 in to $268 in ,
Because approximately 75% of the Federal budget for the past several years has been annually appropriated for military purposes,
Because 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,
Because there is so little national conscience about what nuclear war would mean for man, what it would be under God,
We find ourselves constrained by the love of Christ to refuse paying Federal income tax and instead are giving a corresponding amount, plus no less than 20%, to UN or other peacemaking programs.
We reject, as blasphemy against Christ, the prevailing readiness to exterminate hundreds of millions, or even all mankind, in order to “defend our values, our faith.”
Since modern technological warfare is much more dependent on huge amounts of money than on manpower, we believe that refusal to turn over our bodies is not enough; we can no longer turn over our dollars for the present rush t[o our] mass annihilation. Let West an[d East] really take total disarmament a[s our] goal, and not merely toy with it [under] the pressure of world public o[pinion] as till now.
We do not discount the cons[tructive] aspects of Federal activity, a[nd we] welcome governmental endeavo[rs that] do make for peace. But with t[he best] prospects for disarmament fadi[ng fast] and the population of East and [West] mostly unaware of the imminen[ce of] and the certainty of disaster if [these] policies continue, we are impe[lled to] income tax refusal as a way of [calling] others to hear God’s warning:
[“I have] set before you this day life and [good, and] death and evil. Therefore choo[se life,] that you and your descendant[s may] live, loving the Lord your God, [obey]ing his voice, and cleaving to [Him.”]
Those interested in discussi[ng this] difficult issue should write Dal[e] [Auk]erman, Bechlinghoven bei [?] Glueckstrasse 3, Germany. [Dale] Aukerman, John Forbes, and [Jerry] Royer.
That letter got an enthusiastic reply from Dale Rummel in the issue (source):
Church Should Take a Stand
I read the letter on “Taxes for War Purposes,” by Dale Aukerman, John Forbes, and Jerry Royer in [the] Gospel Messenger for [.
I] feel that they are trying, const[ruc]tively, to reach the answer [to the] problem that has been plaguing Christians since the two world wars.
I would like to see Annual Conference take action along the line[s of] their statement.
Our government can crush individuals when they take a stand which is “illegal.”
But if an organization like our whole Brotherhood took this stand and backed up [the] individuals who carried it out, [there] is much more chance for its [doing] some lasting good. I believe, [also] that if we take this stand [other] denominations will join us in it[.]
This is no time for the Brethren to become fearful and cowardly [and] be afraid to step forward and [go] where we know it is right to [go].
Let us, with God’s guidance, go [for]ward, regardless of the phy[sical] consequences, in what we know [is] right.
A note in the issue (source) said that the Michigan district conference had asked the Annual conference to “study the possibilities of making the pacifist movement a political force in our country” by, among other means:
Attempting to work out a proposal for an alternative tax arrangement, so that the taxes of those who object to war on conscientious grounds may be used for peaceful and constructive goals of government.
In the issue, J.
Robert Boyer encouraged his readers to take more courageous stands for their faith, and not like Peter deny Christ three times before the cock crows.
One example he gives of when one might take a stand: “Will you send your tax money to Cape Canaveral, where missiles are launched to kill the enemy?”
The following letter from Charles E. and Cleda P. Zunkel appeared in the issue (source):
No Tax for War Purposes
In keeping with our pronouncements concerning war, the last of which was made at the Annual Conference at Richmond, Va., we Brethren have encouraged our young men to seek alternative service, in lieu of military service.
Our young men, who have followed our teaching, have borne most of the brunt of this course of action.
Have we, their parents, kept faith with them, as we have continued to pay our income tax money, 75% of which has gone for the support of military preparedness and war? I think we have not.
Some of our young men have challenged us to action, by appealing to us to cease paying the 75% of our income tax which goes to military purposes.
It seems high time that we oldsters make our witness for peace, as we have asked our youth to make theirs.
My wife and I have been spurred to action by this appeal of our youth, and by the recent appeal of our President for $2 billion more to be added to an already staggering sum for military might.
The accompanying letter was sent to the Internal Revenue Service and to our President to clarify our position.
It seems to us that we are called upon to make clear our faith and our action, in keeping with our historic understanding of the life and teachings of our Lord.
Director of Internal Revenue,
Richmond, Virginia.
President John F. Kennedy
White House
Washington, D.C.
Dear Sirs:
Since the late 1920’s we have been conscientious objectors to war, in the settlement of international disputes.
We believe in the historic faith of our church, The Church of the Brethren, that “all war is sin.
We, therefore, cannot encourage, engage in, or willingly profit from armed conflict at home or abroad.
We cannot in the event of war accept military service or support the military machine in any capacity.”
Believing as we have, we have had guilty consciences as we have seen our nation increase its military preparedness.
We have been aware that approximately 75% of all our income tax money has been spent for war, preparation for war, or mainten[ance] of military might. In 1938 the [total] military expenditure was $8 [per] capita; in 1958 it had risen to [$268] per capita.
From time to time, as we [have] filed our income tax returns, we [have] in letters to the government, [pro]tested this use of our money. [We] suggested that there be some [pro]vision whereby these funds now [used] for military expenditures be used [for] peaceful pursuits, such as the fee[ding] of the hungry of the world [and] the aid to underprivileged [people] through technical assistance.
Thus far, our protests have [not] been regarded. On , our local newspaper carried the notice that you, President Kennedy, were asking for $2 [billion] more than the amount already [pro]posed for military defense, ma[king] a total asking of $43,794,300,000[.]
Recently, we learned that two [nu]clear scientists warned the Nat[ional] Education Association in its co[nven]tion that we in the United States already have enough manufact[ured] fissionable material to blot ou[t all] life from the face of the entire [earth] and leave it pock-marked and vo[id like] the face of the moon.
In all good conscience, we ca[n no] longer give 75% of our income [tax] money for the support of mil[itary] might.
We are not opposed to pa[ying] tax, but rather, to paying tax for [that] purpose.
We feel as guilty as if [we] were giving our lives in the pro[gram] of the military method of settling international disputes.
Therefore, we are filing our income tax report as usual, paying [the] full tax for , but paying [only] 25% of the tax due for the first [quarter] of 1961.
The other 75% of our [income] tax will be given in quarterly [install]ments to the church, in addition [to] the 15% or more we already [give.]
We hope the time may [speedily] come when such vast military expenditures may cease, and the [money] so spent may be used to relieve [the] suffering and need in our world.
[We] hope, further, that in the [mean] time some alternative tax plan [may] be worked out whereby conscientious objectors may give their [tax] money to peaceful pursuits, just [as] young men may serve in alternative service in lieu of the military service.
The Gospel Messenger editor, Kenneth Morse, endorsed peace protest in general in his editorial, and war tax resistance as one possible protest: “Consider also the personal decision of the moderator of Annual Conference and his wife with regard to taxation for war purposes… It is always easy to criticize the stand that others take. But please note that some have at least taken a stand.”
A response from Jack Kline, however, in the issue, took issue with tax resistance on the usual render-unto-Cæsar grounds (source): “I think it well to protest the high military expenditure.
But the type of letter that was written to Mr.
Kennedy and to the Internal Revenue Department I think does not show good grace.
I am a bit embarrassed that leaders in our own church would write that type of letter and refuse to pay taxes which our Lord distinctly told the Jews, under a military occupation, they should pay.”
There was another dissent, from John L.
Mohler, in the issue (source).
His objection was more on the grounds of democratic political theory: “[B]y participating on the economic life of our national community and accepting our incomes from it, we obligate ourselves to payment of the tax which, by democratic procedures, a majority of our citizens have imposed upon us.” Mohler felt that if you were going to conscientiously object to the taxes on your income, you should do so by refusing the income in the first place: “It seems to me that, in the case of refusal to pay taxes, the removal [of the dissenter from the democratically-chosen endeavors] should precede and prevent acceptance of the income on which the tax is paid.” But he didn’t think that was such a great idea either.
He felt that the tax resister’s quest to morally isolate himself from the decisions of the democratic polis was futile, and that he should instead accept his share of guilt for those decisions and begin from there.
On the other hand, Virgil Rose, in a letter in the issue (source) “was moved with deep spiritual elation” by the news of Brethren war tax resisters.
Rose tried to contradict some of the arguments against war tax resistance.
For example, the individual contribution to the modern war budget, he says, dwarfs the tiny head tax in Judea that Jesus spoke of, and so they cannot be directly compared; and the idea that he straightforwardly counseled the payment of a tax to Rome contradicts the whole point of the render-unto-Cæsar parable.
Rose also wasn’t impressed with Mohler’s democratic theory, though as I interpret it, it seems they were talking past each other on this point (Mohler responded in the issue).
His conclusion:
Let us not shrug off the pricks of conscience that disturb us as we witness the courageous decisions these Brethren are marking.
What defense have we before God if knowingly and without protest we supply money to buy instruments for the destruction of our fellow men?
Russ Montgomery also chimed in, in the issue (source). “I would like to congratulate [Charles Zunkel] on the courage to take such a stand.
When such bold action is taken by leaders it seems to make them worthy of the name.”
The issue brought an update about Maurice McCrackin (source):
Presbytery Suspends Minister Who Refused to Pay Income Tax
The Rev. Maurice F.
McCrackin, pacifist Presbyterian minister who for some twelve years has refused to pay a major portion of his income taxes, has been suspended indefinitely by the Cincinnati Presbytery from his ministry.
Mr.
McCrackin has been pastor of the West Cincinnati-St. Barnabas church, a racially integrated mission congregation supported jointly by the Cincinnati Presbytery and the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio.
A spokesman for the Presbytery explained that Mr. McCrackin was suspended not for his stand on income taxes but for disobeying the law by ignoring a summons from the Internal Revenue Service, an offense for which he served a six-month prison sentence.
Many of the minister’s parishioners were reported sympathetic with his refusal to pay most of his income taxes on the ground that they were used for military purposes and that war is a sin.
The lead editorial in the issue (Morse again) again promoted conscientious tax resistance:
Just about the time that Valentine Byler, an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania, was ready to start his spring plowing, the Interal Revenue Service seized his three work horses and sold them at auction.
The reason was that Byler, who is conscientiously opposed to Social Security, had refused to pay a self-employment tax for that purpose.
Many members of the Amish sect regard Social Security as a form of insurance, and they are opposed to it. They have consistently refused to accept its benefits and do not take a Social Security number. While agreeing to the normal taxes on their property, they object to paying the Social Security tax required of farmers.
Thus we have another of those ironical situations in which the government finds itself [ba]nishing some of its most thrifty and self-reliant citizens.
Fortunately, as a result of the Byler case, several bills have now been introduced in Congress which would allow persons who are conscientiously opposed to Social Security to be excused from participating either in its support or its benefits.
We hope that some legal provision can be made for the benefit of those independent persons who have such scruples.
Many of us who would argue in favor of Social Security and even urge that it become available to more people still recognize the rights of conscience.
We respect the integrity of citizens who, like the Amish, may have some unique ideas as to how they contribute to the general welfare.
At the same time, is it not just as reasonable for the federal government to give some consideration to the scruples of citizens who are conscientiously opposed to paying taxes for war purposes?
A friend who is employed in the Treasury Department tells us it should not be too difficult for Congress to set up a general fund for nonmilitary purposes to which the tax payments of peace-minded citizens could be directed.
This would not satisfy all the concerns raised by taxprotesters, but it might at least provide an alternative more acceptable than the present arrangement.
A wise government should be able to find some way of conserving the conscientious contributions of citizens who cannot conform to policies they regard as wrong but who still desire to serve in constructive ways.
In the issue, an S.
Mohler (no idea if there’s any relation to the John Mohler referred to above) wrote in (source).
This letter began by saying that “in recent years I have read about a few Brethren suffering imprisonment for refusing to pay income taxes, because of the government’s military use of them.” I think this cannot be factually correct, as there were not very many Brethren war tax resisters at this point, and I don’t know of any who had yet been imprisoned for it.
Be that as it may, Mohler continues by saying that such “imprisonment for nonpayment of income taxes can be honorably and approvedly avoided” by increasing tax-deductible charitable contributions to the point where you do not owe taxes.
Mohler suggests that this is the method he or she has been using for “the past ten or fifteen years.”
Andrew R. Shelly, of the Board of Missions in the General Conference Mennonite Church, wrote in to second that suggestion, in the issue (source).
“Why should we not adjust our lives so that we can give very much more and at the same time materially reduce that which we pay directly to the war effort?”
(See ♇ 5 September and 9 September 2018 for Shelly’s contributions on this theme to the Mennonite Gospel Herald.)
The Brethren Evangelist was much more restrained in its coverage.
They did publish this wire service piece about Maurice McCrackin in the issue (source):
Presbytery Suspends Minister Who Wouldn’t Pay Income Taxes
Cincinnati, O. (EP)—
A pacifist Presbyterian minister who for some 12 years has refused to pay a major portion of his income taxes, has now been suspended indefinitely by the Cincinnati Presbytery.
The move not only halts his ministry but prevents his receiving communion in the church.
The Rev. Maurice F. McCrackin has been pastor of the West Cincinnati-St. Barnabas Church, a racially integrated mission congregation supported jointly by the Cincinnati Presbytery and the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio.
An Episcopal diocese spokesman explained that although the mission is a co-operative project in its religious program, disciplinary jurisdiction rests with the Presbytery since Mr. McCrackin is an ordained Presbyterian clergyman.
A spokesman for the Presbytery said that Mr. McCrackin has appealed this suspension to the Presbyterian Synod of Ohio, but it was reported unofficially that his only hope for reinstatement would be a formal declaration to the Presbytery that he would pay his income taxes in the future.
It was explained that Mr. McCrackin was suspended not for his stand on income taxes, but for disobeying the law by ignoring a summons from the Internal Revenue Service, an offense for which he served a six-month prison sentence.
Presbytery has been studying the case for nearly a year.
I did not notice any mentions of war tax or war bond refusal in The Etownian, The Pilgrim, the Brethren Missionary Herald, or Bible Monitor in .
Today I’ll look at war tax resistance among American Brethren in 1963 by hunting through the archives of Brethren periodicals.
In the issue of the Gospel Messenger, John Forbes introduced the idea of a form of tax resistance as a symbolic protest, rather than as a conscientious imperative (source):
Suggestions for Taxpayers
For the benefit of the readers of the Messenger and all others across the Brotherhood interested in the peace position, I would like to quote three statements and make a suggestion.
“We urge the Brethren Service Commission to continue its efforts to develop an acceptable proposal for an alternative tax arrangement” (Report of GBB to Annual Conference, adopted).
“My feeling has been that the initiative on this has to come from taxpayers around the country rather than from any organized effort here in Washington… that until there is widespread nonpayment of taxes by those opposed to war, there will be no change in government policy” (Edward F. Snyder, Friends Committee on National Legislation, letter to the undersigned ).
“I am as convinced as ever that all those who are opposed to preparations for nuclear extermination and who will owe any federal income tax should refuse some token amount.
I suggest holding back $10, an amount large enough to be noticed but small enough to avoid excessive penalty.
When Internal Revenue took $14.49 from my bank account, the ‘statutary addition’ was only 21 cents.
The year before, when I owed $5.90, it did not bother to collect at all.
“This ‘token ten’ could be given to some constructive project, and IRS so informed in a letter explaining the objection to over half of it being otherwise used for destruction.
Enough pacifists are interested in this, I feel, to make it become a significant force for peace” (Franklin Zahn to editor of the Peacemaker, ).
I think everyone in the Church of the Brethren with a concern for peace should take up this suggestion and apply it when income tax is due in April, if they can.
I am willing to act as coordinator of this project, if one is needed and someone in Elgin doesn’t want the job.
If enough Brethren and others take this action now, we shall surely see action in Congress or in the Treasury Department before long.
In a “Brethren Ministers’ Peace Retreat” was held.
The Church teachings on pacifism and peacemaking were given a thorough going-over.
Dale Aukerman reported on the retreat in the issue (source).
Aukerman had himself come out as a war tax resister (see ♇ 31 May 2020), so he would likely have been attuned to any mention of it, but except for one mention of Civil War-era refusal to hire substitutes for military service (but payment of tax), his article on the Retreat is silent on the issue of taxes.
The issue published a brief dispatch about Quaker war tax resister Arthur Evans (source), but a more in-depth dispatch appeared in the Brethren Evangelist so I’ll save it for that section, below.
The minister of the Unitarian Universalist church in San Anselmo Calif., has declined to pay sixty-one percent of his federal income tax on the grounds that it would go for “carefully planned machinery to kill millions of human beings.”
The Dutch-born pastor, Karel F. Botermans, who was a leader in the Netherlands underground during the Nazi occupation, sent the remaining thirty-nine percent of his tax to the Internal Revenue Service.
In the protest letter he sent to President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense McNamara he asserted the belief that he had international law on his side.
He referred to the Nurnberg trials, “where it was stated by our Allied judges that, in actions of genocide, every person in that society involved in those actions is to be held responsible.”
The pacifist clergyman points out that he would gladly pay the withheld sixty-one percent of his tax if the U.S. pledged to spend the money for other methods of settling international differences.
In the issue, O.E. Gibson raised a series of questions about conscientious objection, suitable for consideration by Brethren.
Several of these concerned war funding, and the others seemed designed to guide the consideration of those (source).
Excerpt:
Is there a difference in principle in supporting one’s government as a soldier and supporting its war plans with money?
Are those persons in the U.S. (some forty or fifty) who are openly refusing to give their money in tax to support the military plans of our government more radical or less realistic than the conscientious objectors who would not submit to the draft in World War Ⅰ?
Allowing that refusal may mean much more than a few months in prison — that it may mean a complete change in one’s way or standard of living as is the case with most of those who are refusing, should we condemn or should we uphold them?
Would history or reason suggest that a law allowing that one might divert his tax money into religious or peace work be passed by our Congress without a comparable amount of suffering as that endured to get our “alternative service” law?
The issue of The Brethren Evangelist printed a wire service article about Quaker war tax resister Arthur Evans:
Colorado Springs, Colo. (EP)—
A Colorado Quaker who long has refused voluntary payment of that portion of his federal taxes earmarked for military spending plans the same course of action .
For 20 years, Dr. Arthur Evans, a Denver physician, has donated the amount of money equal to his tax burden of military spending to a charity and has sent the receipt to the Internal Revenue Service.
Every year the IRS attaches his bank account, collects the amount due and adds a 6 per cent interest charge.
, because the IRS was “using the information I was voluntarily giving for evil purposes,” Dr. Evans did not file any federal return.
To make up for his tax liability, the physician sent the IRS five checks for $200 each — payable to the United Nations, the Peace Corps, and the AID Program.
Dr. Evans contends he is meeting his obligation by contributing to organizations such as the United Nations, which are supported at least in part by the U.S. government.
The IRS, in returning the checks, stated “they have no connection with any tax liability and cannot be accepted by this office.”
The Quaker, who terms military spending as a “Doomsday Machine,” continues to pay his state income taxes because they have no military spending connection.
Again in , only the Messenger (of those Brethren periodicals I reviewed) covered war tax resistance, but they did so often.
In a Brethren church in Indiana hosted a war tax resistance workshop:
A concern for active Christian peacemaking was the motivation for the gathering of over 50 people from at least seven religious traditions .
The event, sponsored by the Peace Action Committee of the Northern Indiana District and held at Prince of Peace Church of the Brethren, was a war tax resistance workshop led by Dale Aukerman of the Brethren Peace Fellowship.
The two main body presentations dealt with “our peacemaking and the end of the world,” and “war tax resistance as seen from the perspective of Matthew 18:15–17.” Participants were called to “claim the sovereignty of God and take our Christian discipleship seriously.
The key to our peace witness is to strive to be faithful to God.”
The workshop is one of a growing number being held throughout Brethren churches, often in conjunction with other denominations.
The groups explore nuts-and-bolts alternatives of withholding taxes and support each other in maintaining the witness under Internal Revenue Service pressure, as well as sharing the vision of peace inherent in faithfulness to God.
“Participants in the war tax resistance workshop led by Dale Aukerman (lower left corner) explore peacemaking theology and alternatives of withholding taxes.”
Kevin Zimmerman shared the thinking that went into his war tax resistance in the issue of Messenger (source).
Excerpt:
Although my body is not being conscripted to support war, my tax money is, and at this point in history which do the military powers need more?
My money!
As Dale Brown notes, “If it becomes possible through automated warfare to kill and destroy with unmanned aircraft and minimal personnel, then the witness of withholding economic support may become an issue of even greater importance to the conscientious Christian peacemaker.”
I am not opposed to supporting my government or paying taxes to my government.
But I believe when our government goes directly against Christ’s teachings we are to follow Christ.
Peter and the apostles found themselves forced to resort to civil disobedience in an attempt to fulfill Christ’s teachings and, when arrested, responded, “We must serve God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
I would like to see Congress pass the bill supporting the World Peace Tax Fund.
That portion of my taxes supporting our military could instead be put into this fund to be used for such peaceful purposes as United Nations activities, research into nonviolent solutions to international conflicts, disarmaments efforts, and international education and welfare.
In this way I can support my government as well as the peaceful lifestyle demonstrated by Christ.
Christianity has never been and will never be a spectator sport.
We are commanded to go out and spread the word by helping our neighbors and sharing their burdens, but also by letting our government know too, by letter or by civil disobedience, when they have broken God’s laws.
By sharing my feelings, I hope others will seriously and prayerfully consider how their tax money is being spent, their role in our military machine, and Christ’s teachings to “love our enemies.”
The issue covered the Supreme Court ruling against Old Order Amish who wanted their conscientious objection to the social security system allowed by law (source).
Excerpt:
When the case reached the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger agreed with the IRS, saying, “The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge tax systems because tax payments were spent in a man-er that violates their religious belief.”
Such an attitude could seriously hamper efforts to establish an alternate peace fund into which conscientious objectors could channel taxes that now fund military budgets.
That issue also announced the formation of a “Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund” (still going strong today as the War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund):
Dave Leiter, of North Manchester, Ind., is heading up a network of people interested in distributing the burden of penalties or interest levied against military tax resisters.
An example of such support would be for 200 people to share a $500 penalty by each contributing $2.50. If interested, write the Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund…
Another article in the same issue, on possible responses to the nuclear arms race (source), recommended war tax resistance as one of the possibilities:
Refuse to pay some of your Federal income taxes as a witness to your faith.
If you’re scared, try a small amount like $7.77. If that’s too scary, at least send a letter describing the difficulty of praying for peace and paying for war.
Mike and Carol Zuercher Stern shared their war tax resistance journey in a letter-to-the-editor in the issue (source):
The way a person spends money is an indicator of one’s personal priorities.
In the past year (perhaps more clearly than any other time in recent history) our country has corporately demonstrated what it considers to be most important by how it spends money.
Top priority is military superiority over all other nations — bigger and better bombs, submarines, missiles, and napalm.
As Christians and conscientious objectors to war, we cannot accept this national priority as though it were our own.
We oppose the building of weapons whose ultimate use means the shedding of human blood.
Each April 15 we are reminded of our personal participation in funding a national priority which we believe stands in direct contradiction to our Christian faith.
Our response each year has been to file all the legally required tax forms while witnessing by a variety of symbolic protests against the use of tax dollars for weapons of war.
This year we felt compelled by conscience to refuse to pay the entire amount of taxes which had not been withheld already from our salaries.
This $438, less than 25 percent of our total tax obligation for the year, will be given instead to charitable organizations.
In doing so, we affirm our commitment to the gospel of love, healing, and reconciliation.
That issue also reported on Ralph Dull’s theatric tax resistance protest:
Ralph Dull, of the Brookville, Ohio, Church of the Brethren, has refused to pay a portion of his income taxes each year as a protest against military spending.
This year he chose a new way to draw attention to the issue.
On he pulled up in front of the Federal Building in downtown Dayton to offer the Internal Revenue Service 325 bushels of corn in lieu of taxes owed.
The action was “to dramatize and emphasize the need for the Federal government to turn its priorities around and support constructive people programs,” Dull said, “rather than use our resources for an arms race that is murderous and suicidal.”
He asked the IRS to sign a statement acknowledging the value of the grain and guaranteeing that its value would be used only for non-military purposes.
When the IRS refused to sign.
Dull sold the corn to a local elevator.
A check for about $777 was made out to Church World Service and given to the National Farmers Organization’s Food for Poland project.
“Apart from the religious aspect of this issue,” said Dull, “what this symbolic action lifts up for consideration is human decency.
It is vulgar to squander material and human resources while there is so much opportunity to relieve existing human misery.”
a classified ad from the issue
An article from the issue, focused on resistance to draft registration, noted in passing that “The United Methodist Church… said [in ], ‘We… support all those who conscienttiously object to preparation in any specific war or all wars; to cooperation with military conscription; or to the payment of taxes for military purposes; and we ask that they be granted legal recognition.”
A report on the Annual Conference in that same issue noted that war tax resistance was a last-minute addition to the agenda:
Brethren war protesters who decide to withhold tax money going to war purposes may find their employers less than enchanted with the idea.
Brethren employers may be sympathetic to the idea but are up against federal regulations to withhold taxes.
So what’s a body (such as Annual Conference) to do?
Acting on a late-breaking query from Northern Indiana District, Annual Conference elected a committee of five to study the problem and report in .
The committee is charged to come up with helpful guidance for church institutions so they can adequately respond to their employees employees who wish to withhold their “war taxes.”
The study was approved, despite at least one speaker grousing that he hadn’t “heard one good thing about the US government this week.”
Chances are he was correct.
The Annual Conference of the Church of the Brethren will not be remembered as an exercise in flag-waving patriotism.
For the majority of the delegates to Wichita, judging by the voting record, patriotism was best evinced in responsibly and prayerfully calling one’s government to account in the areas of justice and peace.
That committee would include Dale W. Brown, William R. Faw, Ramona Smith Moore, Phillip C. Stone, and Marty Smeltzer West.
In the issue, Ingred Rogers reported on a war tax resisters’ alternative fund that her Brethren church established:
The Manchester Church of the Brethren has established a “Fund for Life” as an expression of support for those who feel moved to refuse payment of war taxes.
This was a significant step in a long process of soul-searching and consciousness-raising.
The process began in when several members formed a tax-concerned group.
Driven by the conviction that to contemplate nuclear holocaust is sin against God and humanity, we came together to discuss how to express our conscientious objection to war taxes.
Careful reading of the Bible convinced us that the Scriptures give no single, absolute statement about payment of taxes.
But we are indeed called to obey God above all, and trusting in weapons of mass destruction is clearly idolatrous.
From the beginning, we saw our action as an effort to maintain faithfully the Brethren peace testimony.
It became increasingly important to us to allow the church to make a witness on behalf of tax resisters.
Our denomination as a whole had already committed itself to recognition of war-tax resistance as a form of conscientious objection.
Now it was a matter of asking for support from the local congregation that had nurtured us and had had a vital influence on tiie formation of our peace position.
After the first church board discussion on the issue, the tax group prepared a proposal for a Fund for Life.
The original draft provided that resisters would deposit in the fund the money withheld from taxes.
Money unclaimed by the Internal Revenue Service was to become the property of the Manchester church as a completed gift by the original depositor and used for peace work.
As in an escrow account, money up to the amount deposited could be returned to the individual if the IRS should claim the sum.
The church board raised two objections.
If the money can be returned in full to the original depositor once the IRS demands it, where is the witness, the risk, the sacrifice?
If the church holds money owed to the government, might the whole congregation legally be implicated?
The board decided to bring the proposal to the next council meeting for discussion, and to delay a final vote for another six months to allow the congregation to reflect upon the issue of war-tax resistance.
The resulting education program was thorough and rewarding.
As expected, we met with disagreement and heated debate.
A second draft suggested that the money should be a completed gift from the beginning without strings attached.
Also, money deposited would not necessarily have to be withheld from taxes; anyone could contribute as an expression of support.
The tax group found this second draft more true in some ways to the original intent.
Both drafts were presented in Sunday school classes.
After three more modifications, the group settled on this wording:
The congregation leaves the withholding of war taxes to the individual conscience of each member or friend.
Any member or friend of the Manchester Church of the Brethren may contribute money to the Fund for Life.
The income from said gifts and the gifts themselves shall be used by the church for activities that are expressly peace-making, including the support of those persons mentioned in item four.
None of these gifts or the income from said gifts shall be used for the operating budget of the church.
Upon request, our congregation shall financially assist any member or friend who withholds war taxes if the Internal Revenue Service presses for collection of his/her tax liability.
Such contributions shall come from the fund or from special contributions of individual members of the congregation.
This latest version was adopted by the church in the .
Our need for education and discussion on this subject increases.
Every year we are painfully made aware of the shift in priorities in our national budget; every year more billions are sacrificed for weapons which will destroy God’s creation.
The Fund for Life has been an attempt to seek alternatives to quiet acquiescence.
It is a small but significant step in accordance with the faith we proclaim.
The study of peacemaking has led some Brethren to question the payment of taxes that support the military system.
Southern Ohio has a special committee on the World Peace Tax Fund.
Michigan’s district conference in will act upon a resolution that urges congregations not to pay telephone taxes.
Manchester (Ind.) church has created a Fund for Life (see [above]).
Galen and Wanda Miller, of Oregon/Washington District, divide their Federal tax into two checks — one made out to the Department of Health and Human Services and one to the Internal Revenue Service — and include a letter stating that they don’t object to paying taxes for constructive programs.
One of the best debates I have seen about the biblical basis for tax obedience or tax resistance was found in the Messenger in .
In the issue, the Messenger hosted a debate between Vernard Eller and Dale Aukerman on the biblical basis for war tax resistance or obedient tax payment:
The report to Annual Conference of the Committee on Taxation for War shows a great diversity of opinion within the committee itself.
Accordingly, there is at present no inclination to try for any change of policy.
Rather, the recommendation is for a churchwide study of the Conference statements already on the books.
And because I find myself highly in favor of this proposal, I offer this article as a contribution to the study for which the reports calls.
I address myself solely to the matter of scriptural evidence and interpretation.
Accidentally, as it were, I have been doing major research on the subject — for a book even now in press.
I had no intention of studying tax resistance per se, but was addressing the much broader question of how a Christian should relate to the host of regimes, parties, and ideologies competing with each other in the effort to direct and control society.
My mentors in the matter make up a 150-year-long string of biblically oriented thinkers who constitute the modern theological tradition I feel comes closest to Brethrenism.
These people are Soren Kierkegaard, J.C. and Christoph Blumhardt, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Jacques Ellul.
And as I chased them down on my particular topic, I found them regularly going to the New Testament tax passages.
It became apparent that this was not so much their doing as that of the Bible itself.
The logic of the move is this:
The all-dominating political reality of Palestine during the New Testament period was that of a most evil and vicious Roman regime occupying, oppressing, and eventually destroying the homeland of the Jewish people (and earliest Christians).
Over against this power was pitted that of the Jewish liberationists and freedom fighters commonly known as the Zealots.
Thus, the pattern of political decision forming the context not only of our tax passages but of all New Testament political counsel is one that applies as well to almost any issue, ancient or modern:
One can either (1) legitimize the presently established regime as representing God’s will for the nation, or (2) follow God’s will in supporting the efforts of the revolution against that regime.
“Revolution” here does not necessarily imply terrorism, guerrilla warfare, or other forms of physical brutality, but identifies any bringing to bear of political power in the effort to overthrow an evil regime or to pressure it into becoming good.
By its very nature, of course, the gospel would have as much as prohibited Christians from any desire to legitimize a cruel and pagan Roman Empire.
Yet, also, by its very nature, the gospel would make it very tempting for Christians to align themselves with liberation movements and efforts at just revolution.
Accordingly, on the one hand the New Testament consistently refuses to encourage any legitimizing tendencies — while on the other hand it actively discourages the greater temptation of revolution.
And “tax revolt” — i.e., withholding taxes as a power-play against government evil — becomes the New Testament’s regular signal and symbol of Zealot liberationism in particular and, in general, all forms of revolution.
(It is significant that this symbol has Christianity opposed to revolutionism quite prior to and apart from its physical violence.)
Regarding particularly the exegesis of Mark 12, in addition to the five thinkers named above I consulted four contemporary New Testament specialists: Martin Hengel, Gunther Bomkamm, Leander Keck, and Howard Clark Kee.
All nine scholars are in total agreement, each reading the tax passages in the context of the historical situation described above.
In the process, the scriptures come clear, manifesting their theological consistency as warnings against Christian involvement in political revolutionism.
My researchers are not exhaustive; but I failed to come across even one reputable scholar doing serious biblical exposition who concludes that these passages actually imply a support for (or even a leaving room for) Christian tax resistance.
The crucial New Testament passages are three:
Mark 12 — which is actually Mark 12:13–17 (the fact that both Matthew and Luke later pick up the incident for their own Gospels adds no new meaning but does corroborate the significance it held in the eyes of the early church);
Romans 13 — which is actually Romans 12:14–13:10;
and Matthew 17 — which is actually Matthew 17:24–27.
All of my nine, except the Blumhardts, address the Mark 12 passage — and all agree as to its reading.
The earliest writer, Kierkegaard, says it best.
(Consider that, in the historical context, to make Jesus “king” or to call him “Messiah” politically could mean nothing other than “revolutionary leader against Rome.”)
The small nation to which Jesus belonged was under foreign domination, and naturally all were intent upon the thought of shaking off the foreign yoke.
Hence they would acclaim him king.
But, lo, when they show him a coin and would constrain him against his will to take sides with one party or the other — what then?
Oh, worldly passion of partisanship, even when thou callest thyself holy and patriotic — nay, so far thou canst not stretch as to break through his indifference… No, he posits the infinite yawning difference between God and the Emperor: “Give unto God what is God’s!” For they with worldly wisdom would make it a question of religion, of duty to God, whether or not it was lawful to pay tribute to the Emperor.
Worldliness is so eager to embellish itself as godliness, and in this case God and the Emperor are blended together in the question,… that is to say, the question takes God in vain and secularizes him [by implying that whether the Emperor does or does not get his tax coin is an issue somehow related to or comparable with whether God does or does not get what belongs to him].
But Christ draws the distinction, the infinite distinction, and he does this by treating the question about paying tribute to the Emperor as the most indifferent thing in the world, regarding it as something which one should do without wasting a word or an instant in talking about it — so as to get more time for giving God what belongs to God.
Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Ellul speak a single mind on the Romans 13 passage.
Each finds it to be in complete agreement with Mark 12;
Ellul thinks that Romans 13 even shows that Paul was familiar with the Mark 12 incident.
Yet Barths’s exposition is easily the most extended and insightful of the three:
The revolutionary seeks to be rid of the evil by bestirring himself to battle with it and to overthrow it.
He determines to remove the existing ordinances, in order that he may erect in their place the new right…
The revolutionary must, however, own that, in adopting his plan, he allows himself to be overcome of evil (Rom. 12:21)… What man has the right to propound and represent the “New,” whether it be a new age, or a new world, or a new spirit?…
Overcome evil with good.
What can this mean but the end of the triumph of men, whether this triumph is celebrated in the existing order or by revolution?… There is here no word of approval of the existing order; but there is endless disapproval of every enemy of it.
It is God who wishes to be recognized as He that overcometh the unrighteousness of the existing order…
Even the most radical revolution — and this is so even when it is called a “spiritual” or “peaceful” revolution — can be no more than a revolt; and that is to say, it is in itself simply a justification and confirmation [not of God’s “new” but] of what already exists [namely, one human ideology or another]…
For this cause ye pay tribute also (Rom. 13:6).
Ye are paying taxes to the State.
It is important, however, for you to know what ye are doing.
If I might interpret: If you are paying those taxes as a positive legitimization of the state and its evil activity, you are wrong.
If, on the contrary, you are withholding those taxes as an act of protest and defiance against the evil of the state, you are wrong again.
“But what other option is there?”
Well, if Jesus is correct that Caesar’s image on the coin is proof enough that it belongs to him, then, rather than saying that we do pay him taxes, would it not be more correct to say that we do not try to stop him from taking what is his, do not revolt, do not return evil for evil?
As Barth puts it, “It is important for you to know what you are doing.”
The Matthew 17 incident is not as crucial as the first two; only a couple of our scholars mention it — and that merely in passing.
However, the words Jesus speaks on this occasion are as significant as anything we find on the subject.
In the process of explaining why he pays the tax, Jesus forestalls any idea that a Christian’s payment of taxes is to depend upon the relative righteousness or unrighteousness of the collecting regime.
He says, in effect, that no human regime is righteous enough for the Christian ever to owe it anything.
No, there is only one Father and King of whom Jesus knows himself and his followers to be “sons.”
No one except that “father” can claim anything from these “children.”
So the kings of the earth will have to do their collecting from “others,” not from Jesus and the children of God.
Thus, when Jesus goes on to say that he chooses to pay the tax even though he doesn’t owe it, he is saying that Christian payment never is made as recognition of either the rights or the righteousness of the State.
No, it is made to regimes good, bad, and indifferent — and that sheerly out of obedience to God’s command to love, not revolt, and not cause offense.
It strikes me that the word of God speaks quite clearly on the matter of tax resistance — and that that word is hardly in support of the practice.
I do fully honor the conscientious integrity of those who feel led to withhold some of their taxes; but I cannot confirm that leading as being biblical.
Rendering to Caesar [con]
by Dale Aukerman
If the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb is thought of as the width of a lead pencil, the destructive potential of the current nuclear arsenals is the height of Mount Everest.
If the United States were to explode a bomb each day to destroy a city, the present stockpile would last more than one hundred years.
The Reagan administration plans to build 1,700 additional nuclear bombs a year and press ahead in an arms buildup that is taking us into the war that can destroy God’s earthly creation.
Or to give just one example of the increasing ghastliness of conventional weapons, white phosphorus bombs have a sticky jelly, which adheres to the human body, burns at a temperature of more than 3000° Centigrade for at least 24 hours, and turns victims into agonized human torches.
The United States has been supplying these bombs to a number of countries, including El Salvador and Israel, which used them against civilians in its invasion of Lebanon.
As for the huge sums in federal tax dollars needed to purchase all these weapons and much more.
Brother Vernard Eller seems to say:
No problem; we have the clear command of Jesus to pay up.
After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in , they changed the Temple tax mentioned in the Matthew 17:24–27 story into a tax for the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome.
Some governments have levied taxes so exorbitant as to leave children and others starving.
Certain taxes have been imposed specifically for financing a war.
A government could use half its budget to keep masses of people in concentration camps or to run a network of brothels for the diversion of the male population.
Vernard evidently says: No problem basically;
Christians go by the command of Jesus.
According to the Friends Committee on National Legislation, $350 billion or 55 percent of the 1984 federal budget went to military spending and the cost of past wars.
Figured on a per-capita basis, the fraction of that for the Church of the Brethren membership was $255 million.
All Brethren church-related giving for the year was somewhat over $55 million.
As Vernard sees it, we need not to be troubled that hundreds of millions of Brethren dollars go to finance the arms buildup;
paying is “the most indifferent thing in the world.”
Vernard’s greatest service to us Brethren has come through his insistence that, if we claim to be a New Testament church, we must strive to live by the New Testament.
I stand with him in that insistence.
If Jesus in Mark 12:17 was saying that disciples of his should pay without question every tax levied by whatever government they are under, that, for us, should settle it.
But did Jesus say that?
Vernard failed to find “even one reputable scholar” whose treatment of the passage would leave open the option of Christian tax resistance.
I would call his attention to some.
A.M. Hunter writes: “This was an ad hoc answer, not a fixed and permanent rule for every situation.”
Jean Lasserre gives this interpretation:
“Jesus is not passing any judgment on the lawfulness of the Roman tribute;
He is speaking only of this particular coin.
It represents the things that are Caesar’s, not a foreign tyrant’s right to exact a tribute.
In other words, Jesus recognizes Caesar as having the right to the coin but not to the tribute.
This is what disconcerts His questioners and breaks their trap.”
Francis Wright Beare comments,
“The famous saying leaves untouched the fundamental problem: how are we to draw the line between the legitimate requirements of the society to which we owe allegiance, and the demands of loyalty to God?”
The insight of Paul S. Minear is most helpful:
“By his reply Jesus forced them, as students of the law, to decide for themselves where to draw the line between God’s jurisdiction and Caesar’s…
The riddle remains that each must solve for himself or herself.
Keep in mind that the first audience for this riddle was neither the crowd nor the disciples, but only their adversaries.”
Jacques Ellul, whom Vernard points to as one of the six thinkers decisively supporting the pay-without-question interpretation, states in The Ethics of Freedom that Jesus “refuses to answer the question whether he is for or against Caesar or whether taxes should be paid or not.”
In any case, appealing to the authority of European theologians within other church traditions has not for Brethren been a main way of discovering what faithful discipleship to Christ is.
Those enemies of Jesus thought they had the perfect trap.
If Jesus said, “Don’t pay the tax,” they would denounce him to the Roman authorities.
If he said, “Pay the tax,” they would trumpet that to the common people, who hated the tax as symbolizing Rome’s repressive occupation of their country.
His enemies could spread the word:
“The Messiah is to liberate us from Roman rule, but this fellow supinely tells us to pay the tax.”
The reply, “Don’t pay the tax,” would have pleased Jesus’ adversaries the most, and that they did not get.
According to the interpretation Vernard advocates, they did receive the other answer, “Pay the tax,” and could proceed with their strategy contingent on that reply.
That is, their trap did catch Jesus.
But the close of the story in each Gospel brings out that the trap did not succeed.
“And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him by what he said; but marveling at his answer they were silent” (Luke 20:26).
Jesus had not said, “Pay the tax.”
Jesus’ enemies were intent on exposing him as a collaborator, if not a Zealot revolutionary.
When they produced the detested Roman coin, they — not Jesus — were exposed as the collaborators.
When the Jewish leaders brought Jesus to Pilate, they accused him of “forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar” (Luke 23:2).
They would hardly have used that accusation if Jesus a short time before, in a public context charged with excitement about him, had counseled payment of the tribute.
Usually people quote, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” and omit the rest.
This pernicious misuse of the saying has had immense significance in the history of the West.
Vernard emphasizes that the second part of Jesus’ reply is vastly more important than the first, but he remains within the traditional interpretation by holding that on the matter of taxes we can take the first part and know its meaning for us without the second part.
Brethren historically have held that young men should not simply comply with whatever notice comes from a draft board and that what can rightly be given to the government has to be discerned in relation to giving ourselves totally to God.
Brethren who are deeply concerned about paying money into a monstrously expanding military buildup are not advocating refusal of all taxes, complete noncooperation with government, or trying to overthrow it.
But we believe that we can come to a Christian understanding of taxes that should be handed over to the government only in the light of Jesus’ supremely central command that we give ourselves fully to God.
The crucial issue is whether the first part of Jesus’ reply is taken by itself as a clear, sweeping command or whether it is seen as a riddle calling for the discernment that can come within our striving to love God and follow Jesus.
Jesus, as a Jewish male between the ages of 14 and 65, was subject to the Roman poll tax of one denarius a year.
We have no record that he paid it (his adversaries could have cornered him on that point) — or that he did not pay it.
But in Matthew 17:24–27, the tax in question was for the Temple in Jerusalem.
Jesus told Peter that children of the heavenly King are free from any obligation to pay taxes, but “not to give offense… give the shekel to them for me and for yourself.”
Here too Jesus did not command that all taxes are to be paid regardless.
(Much of what Vernard finds in the passage is not there at all.)
The key consideration is that one not give offense, cause others to fall away from faith.
Had Jesus refused to pay the Temple tax, he would have appeared to reject the Mosaic law (Exodus 30:11–16) and the Temple itself.
But in some circumstances paying a tax can constitute giving offense, impelling others away from God.
When national leaders are stumbling blindly toward slaughtering unimaginable multitudes of those for whom Christ died, casual payment of all the money asked for toward their mad projects amounts to abetting them in their fateful falling away from God.
To resist paying such taxes can provide opportunities for pointing agents of government to Jesus as Lord.
On the Romans 13 passage John Howard Yoder writes:
“Verse 7 says ‘render to each his due’; verse 8 says ‘nothing is due to anyone except love.’
Thus the claims of Caesar are to be measured by whether what he claims is due to him is part of the obligation of love.
Love in turn is defined (verse 10) by the fact that it does no harm.”
Paul was probably restating the teaching of Jesus found in Mark 12:17 and his Master’s call to the most careful discrimination between what under God can be rightly rendered to the ruling authority and what cannot.
Thus we have cogent reasons for concluding that Vernard’s article, the Brethren tradition of paying all taxes without question, and the Annual Conference Statement on Taxation for War (of which Vernard was a principal writer) depend on a mistaken understanding of the words of Jesus.
There is no easy answer— certainly not in four Greek words in Mark 12:17 taken by themselves.
In this issue we need together to seek a fresh discernment of what from us belongs to God.
Bob Gross wrote a letter-to-the-editor in response, in which he made this point (source):
Eller may not realize that for many Brethren who feel led to refuse to pay taxes for war, the primary reason is not the one his article cautions against.
Rather than “an act of protest and defiance against the evil of the state,” our non-payment is a simple, humble attempt to refrain from contributing to that evil.
This is not done in a quest for purity or out of guilt.
It comes from a desire to be more conformed to the will of God and to witness to God’s kingdom.
John Stoner from the Mennonite Central Committee also wrote in to reiterate that “When Jesus was asked, by people wishing entrap him, ‘Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ his answer was not ‘Yes.’ ” (source)
Barry Shutt, on the other hand, took the point of view that war tax resistance was not an effective response, and should be discouraged for that reason (source). Excerpts:
[A] legitimate concern for any witness is the question of effectiveness.
One could seriously question if violating the law is very effective in a society where most people believe it is best to work within the system to initiate change.
And if tax resistance only leads to the tax resister paying more money to the government in fines and penalties, the question of effectiveness becomes an even greater concern.
The point to be made, of course, is, “How do we work effectively to bring about change?” When the system provides adequate means by which one can voice concerns and attempt to change priorities, tax resistance as a means to bring about change becomes even more questionable.
If tax resisters would argue that effectiveness is not the primary concern or objective but simply the witness alone is the objective, then one should ask if simply writing letters of protest to our elected officials is any less of a witness?
If God hears prayers made from the privacy of the prayer closet, God surely takes note of witnesses made through the less conspicuous channels available for us to voice our concerns.
Being fined or arrested may not be necessary, and I would suggest neither is tax resistance.
A further letter in support of resistance, by Dale Hess, did not add much new to the argument, but, in implicit contradiction to Shutt, said of war tax resistance: “The importance of this type of peace witness is hard to overestimate” (source).
The Annual Conference had assembled yet another committee to issue yet another report about war tax resistance, and that committee reported on its work in .
The messenger reported on their recommendations (source):
The assignment from last year’s Annual Conference was two-fold.
In response to a request that the committee study and recommend how Brethren should respond to the dilemma of paying taxes for war, the committee chose not to write a new position paper.
Instead it recommends that Brethren undertake an extensive study of earlier position papers and then determine more specifically what, in addition to the previous papers, is called for in the query.
The committee was also asked to make a recommendation about General Board payment of the federal telephone excise tax.
The committee recommends that the decision be made by the board itself, because of the liability of individual officers.
In action for war growing out of a General Board query of , delegates approved a study committee’s recommendation that the church undertake its own study of previous position papers before deciding whether a new paper on taxation for war is desired.
The General Board is to prepare a study packet and to compile responses from across the denomination.
In an unusual move, the delegates extended the life of the study committee, directing it to recommend to the Cincinnati Conference a process to complete the study.
The same committee, assigned to respond to a Michigan District query about telephone tax redirection, recommended (and Conference approved) that any decision about whether the General Board should withhold the federal telephone excise tax should be made by the Board, since its staff could be held liable.
“A gratified war tax study committee regrouped after finding it had two more years of life.
Clockwise from left:
Chuck Boyer, Gary Flory, Phil Rieman, Dick Buckwalter, Vi Cox.”
A letter in the issue dissented from the war tax resistance craze on the grounds that “many non-Christian people who deeply resent having to support welfare programs” would use the same logic to avoid their taxes (source).
, a group of Brethren showed up at the Lombard, Ill., Internal Revenue Service office and tried to pay part of their taxes with bags of groceries.
The group from Bethany Theological Seminary included about 33 students and faculty member Dale Brown, and they wanted to let the IRS know that they objected to paying taxes for war.
“I believe in paying taxes, but not for defense,” said Brown.
The group took about $160 worth of food to the IRS and contributed about the same amount to peace organizations.
IRS officials refused the groceries, which were then given to local food pantries and soup kitchens.
