Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Brethren →
Bible Monitor
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.
The U.S. entry into World War Ⅱ gave the Church of the Brethren another chance to decide whether it would stick to its principles in the face of public pressure to join in the bloodletting.
As we’ll see, the evidence is mixed, but at least this time around the Church avoided the total surrender to war fever that it exhibited in World War Ⅰ.
The earliest mentions of war bonds I saw in the Brethren Evangelist were all of this basic opportunistic form (my paraphrase): “The government wants you to invest 10% of your income in war bonds; can’t you invest at least that much in our Mission Board?” There were also a few off-hand mentions of church institutions either investing some of their money in government bonds or taking government bonds as donations.
This mention was typical of the crass way this magazine saw war bonds largely as unwelcome competition for church fundraising (source):
Why not make your regular offering this year, and then make the added contribution of one of those “War Bonds” you have been buying.
This would help us look to the future in a fine way, if enough of those bonds were given each year so they would mature year by year…
Remember Jesus believed in Benevolence — so must we.
There was not even a hint in the Brethren Evangelist during the war years that there was anything ethically wrong with buying war bonds, unless it interfered too much with your tithing.
Things were a little different over at the Gospel Messenger.
The issue carried a resolution from the Brethren Service Committee that read in part:
Our citizens are being urged to help finance this war by many measures other than by direct taxation; and since [t]he official position of the Church of the Brethren involves nonparticipation in any war either directly or indirectly…
From there it did not counsel for or against anything specifically, but the flavor of the advice was for the reader to redouble his efforts for relief of war suffering and “look for the voice of God in his own Christ-enlightened conscience and obey that voice no matter to how great sacrifice and suffering it may lead.”
An Indiana section of the church held a peace conference on and “one subject of discussion was Shall We Buy Defense Bonds?” (source).
The issue carried “An Appeal for Patriotism” from W. Glenn McFadden, who noted that the defense bonds program had to bribe citizens with lucrative returns in order to get their financial support.
McFadden said that instead he would buy a Brethren Service Certificate and ask nothing in return.
an illustration of a Brethren Service Certificate
One issue noted without further comment that “Life insurance companies are putting well over half of all their funds for investment into United States government bonds.
On the average, each policyholder is owner of $120 in government bonds through his life insurance policy.” I am not certain how to interpret this, but if it’s not just a piece of trivia, it sounds like a veiled warning for conscientious objectors to military funding.
A note in another issue said that an annual “United Pacifist Conference” of some sort had adopted “[a] resolution demanding that Federal tax money collected from religious pacifists be used by the government for nonmilitary purposes only.”
This was only a one-paragraph short, and is the first I’ve heard of this conference or its resolution.
It might have been an A.J. Muste project from around the time when he was beginning to explore war tax resistance.
Some church leaders from the Michigan district approved the following resolution, which seems to allude to the pressure to buy war bonds (source):
In harmony with the historic attitude of the Church of the Brethren, we the representatives of the southern churches of the District of Michigan, declare ourselves to be in favor of all things constructive and opposed to all things destructive; and that when demands are made of us which we cannot conscientiously fulfill, that our attitude should be nonviolent, and that we encourage the churches of Michigan in the purchase of Brethren Service certificates and stamps.
In war life and money are conscripted.
Every nation demands of its citizens what they possess — service from the physically fit and money from everyone.
Taxes
Direct and indirect taxes are assessed against all citizens.
Investment in War Bonds
This is expected from all citizens who have investing power.
To date the government makes such investment a voluntary matter but community pressures are almost equivalent to compulsion.
Many persons with a conscience which prevents them from engaging in physical warfare are also deterred from voluntarily financing war.
a boy shows off his Brethren Service Stamps card
The article went on to talk up Brethren Service Certificates, which helped to fund the Civilian Public Service camps for drafted conscientious objectors who were doing alternative work.
There were also smaller-denomination “Brethren Service Stamps”, which were marketed to children in particular — “Children take their stamp books to school to indicate that, while they are not buying defense stamps, they are buying these stamps” — and also some so-called “peace bonds” and “peace stamps” that were meant as ways Brethren could participate in the bond drive mania without compromising their consciences.
In all of these cases, the amount spent on bonds or stamps was a pure donation — the bonds could not later be redeemed for cash like war bonds could.
“Civilian Bonds”
The article shared a letter from Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau in which he authorized the issue of government bonds “which are not designated by their terms as ‘war issues’ ” — or, as he put it in another place “securities not designated as ‘War Bonds’ ” — so that conscientious objectors could plausibly buy them.
Morgenthau’s language not so subtly indicates that this would be largely a fig leaf.
The bonds would not be “designated” as “war issues” or “war bonds” but there was no suggestion that their proceeds would be spent any differently than any other government bonds.
The accompanying article, however, went further and claimed that this new bond money was “to be used for civilian purposes” and would therefore be “a way to co-operate in government financing without violation of conscience.”
I think that was wishful thinking at best.
The Brethren Service Committee was taking orders for the bonds immediately, via the Provident Trust Company of Philadelphia, who would send the bonds out to purchasers when the government got around to printing them up.
In return for your order you would “without delay receive a reply which you may hold as tangible evidence to your community, if needed, to show that you are co-operating in financing the government.”
If memory serves, the Provident Trust Company ended up using the money to buy ordinary government F- & G-series bonds and then “registered” them as “conscience money” through some sort of hocus-pocus to distinguish them somehow from the bonds other people were buying without such conscientious decoration.
(If you want to delve further, this was also a project that was covered extensively in The Mennonite, and you can see what I found in that magazine starting here.)
A later issue gave further instructions on the program, and included a coupon employees could use, if their employers were withholding money from their paychecks to buy war bonds, to request that they be used for “Civilian Bonds” or “Brethren Service Certificates” instead (source).
The article explained the need for the new bonds:
“For us who hold sacred [pacifist] convictions, it becomes very embarrassing to refuse the purchase of war bonds to meet a community quota.
Our neighbors cannot understand and we are often looked upon as unpatriotic.”
A frequently-asked-questions section followed.
This mostly covered the practical issues of how the bonds worked and how to purchase them, and didn’t include any questions about just how conscientious or civilian the bonds really were.
The article seemed more careful than its predecessor in only implying without stating explicitly that the money raised by the bonds would not go to military spending.
There was, however, this somewhat telling answer:
Question: Does the purchase of a Civilian Bond give credit on the county war bond quota?
Answer: Yes.…
Often, subsequent mentions of the Civilian Bond program were careful to say merely that the bonds were not explicitly designated for war expenses.
But occasionally a stronger (and I believe, baseless) guarantee would be added, like this one from the issue (source):
The government assures us that the funds realized from the sale of these bonds are not used to finance the war.
Or this one, from (source), that you can just barely parse as not an outright lie if you try hard enough:
The historic peace churches through their committee have made arrangements that purchasers of government bonds may designate their money to be used in the civilian phases of our government program. Many citizens desiring to co-operate in the civilian program of the government but whose consciences do not permit them to aid directly and voluntarily in financing the war buy these bonds.
Or this carefully-constructed phrasing, from (source):
The peace churches have arranged with the government that… purchases may be made which constitute a designation that the money should be used in the civilian expenses of the government.
Purchasers of Brethren Service Certificates had more of a legitimately clear conscience, though they may not have found these certificates as useful as bonds in beating back the mobs of war bond enforcers, and of course they were also more expensive, being donations rather than loans.
But here is an example of how one taxpayer used this program to help assuage his guilt for taxpaying:
Enclosed please find a check… representing double the amount of the tax which has been deducted from my salary this month.
It is my conviction that the use to which this tax is being put — destructive alike of human life and of international goodwill — is incompatible with Christian ethics…
Since I can do nothing to prevent the withholding of this tax, I can at least protest the use to which it is put by trying to help counteract the damage it is doing to the cause of Christianity and democracy.
I am therefore sending double the amount of tax to organizations which are maintaining and strengthening the principles of Christianity and of true democracy by constructive work of goodwill.
I intend to continue sending this amount, in addition to my regular contributions, each time I receive a salary check from which this tax has been deducted.
As a receipt, the regular B.S.C. certificate will be ample.
Rufus D. Bowman
For the edition, Rufus D.
Bowman wrote an article titled “Our Brethren Heritage Is Being Threatened”.
One of these threats: “During World War Ⅱ the majority of the members of the Church of the Brethren are supporting the war system.” Bowman reported on the results of a survey he had conducted of Brethren practices that had reached 161 churches, representing about one-sixth of the Church of the Brethren.
In that survey, “forty-six per cent of the churches reported that the members generally were buying war bonds and stamps, while sixteen per cent indicated that a substantial minority were buying them, and seventeen per cent said that a few were purchasing war bonds.”
(Furthermore, more than 80% of Brethren draftees were going into the military without taking any sort of conscientious objector status, either noncombatant or civilian public service work.)
Along with the ministers all adults who have supported the war economically should repent.
War cannot be reconciled with Jesus Christ.
War is unchristian and is inconsistent with the most precious values of this universe.
The kingdom of God is not built through hate, but through love.
It is true that one cannot live without helping the war to some extent.
When the writer takes the train there is a war tax on his ticket.
But there are varying degrees of supporting the war and not supporting it.
Where the individual is free to choose, the spirit and teachings of Jesus and the position of the Church of the Brethren are clear that church members should not support a system that destroys personality.
Adults should repent of their part in this conflict.
In the edition, W.G. Willoughby took this now-that-the-war’s-over-let’s-repent thing and ran with it:
Let us confess to God and to one another that we have all shared in the dropping of bombs.
We have participated in the mass slaughter of God’s children.
Is the bombardier who released the bombs more guilty than the pilot who guided the ship; is he more guilty than the person who built the plane; is he more guilty than the person who bought bonds to pay for the ship, or is he more guilty than we who paid taxes to the government directing the whole operation?
The Etownian (Elizabethtown College student paper) covered a seminar held by Church of the Brethren officials who had been navigating the government’s conscientious objector / Civilian Public Service Camp bureaucracy (source).
A paraphrase of remarks of M.R.
Zigler included this: “The church must decide if it can purchase war bonds which are used to build more instruments of death, or if it should buy Brethren Service Stamps and Bonds which go to relieve suffering regardless of nation, race, or creed.”
The president of the student senate at Elizabethtown apparently decided in favor of bonds, when in a article (source), he wrote matter-of-factly that:
Today when we hear “Back the Attack” we know we must all cooperate by buying and investing in war bonds.
Without this cooperation our Government would be helpless and we might as well learn the “goose step.”
However, we know what we want and we will not let our Government down.
We have pledged to cooperate and we are cooperating.
And a front-page banner in the issue urged that “every alumnus and former student will adopt the slogan, ‘Buy a Bond for Elizabethtown College’ ” (source).
The Brethren Missionary Herald reprinted a statement from the Southern California District Conference on the propriety of non-combatant service, in its issue (source).
It included this:
In the matter of the purchasing of Government Bonds, War Stamps, and working in defense industries, we hold that the line of Christian duty, as well as of Christian privilege, is sometimes a very difficult line to draw; and, in these matters it must be left to the individual soul to deal alone with his God.
A news brief in the edition showed that the West 10th Street Brethren Church of Ashland Ohio didn’t find the line too difficult to draw (source):
Rev. Charles Mayes, pastor, received $10.25 in war stamps in the church offering plates.
Suggestion was made “that any other stamps appearing in the offering will be gladly received.
These can either be converted into a war bond in the name of the church corporation, or turned over to some of our creditors as stamps, probably at face value.
It honors the government to buy stamps even though the stamps may be turned into the church.
The government will not lose and the church will thus gain.
A sidebar noted that “War Bonds Will Be Accepted” in the Thanksgiving Offering of the Home Missions Council, so the line was not apparently very difficult for the Council to draw, either.
“Militarism and hate are sweeping the Church today,” complained the editor in (source).
“The gospel of love and grace has died in thousands of pulpits.
Many church members are complaining that they cannot buy war bonds and support the Church, too.”
I can think of one possible solution to that problem, but the editor had another in mind:
buy war bonds and then turn them over to the church!
When the government instituted an additional “Victory Tax” to be withheld from salaries, the Brethren Conference of Southern California sent a protest to the government about it, after a special meeting held for this purpose on .
Their protest was over the fact that the churches would be responsible for withholding this tax, which apparently they were not required to do for other taxes previously.
This, they evidently found to be an egregious violation of religious liberty, and they insisted that pastors of their district pay the tax themselves without the church doing the withholding.
Some lines were easier for the district to draw than others.
Clarence M.
Stump took an unusually radical stand in the edition of the Bible Monitor, criticizing other Brethren for helping the government establish, fund, and operate Civilian Public Service camps for conscientious objectors. “Some say, going to camp is not fighting, but nevertheless it is a defense program.
Trying to use one’s own power and not relying on God.” He recommended that draftees stand their ground and refuse to serve and take refuge in the Bible verse that says “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake.” So “Let us serve God and not Mammon.
Let us not take offerings to send our young men to camp, but rather let us pray for our boys that they may be faithful to God.” (source)
See “Why Should I Give?” by O.L. Strayer in the issue, on the other hand, for a passionate defense of the camps.
That defense included this admission:
We have paid taxes both direct and hidden for the carrying out of the business of the government.
None of us can be so foolish as to say that we did not know that a portion of those taxes have been going for the upkeep of the fighting forces of the country, and yet we have not scrupled to pay, nay, we have taught from our pulpits that the Christian will pay his taxes faithfully.
One of the arguments for participating in bond drives and for turning a blind eye to war taxes was that everybody was involved in the war somehow, directly or indirectly, so there was no point trying to take a risky personal stand to try to extricate yourself from it.
H.S.
Bender of the Mennonite “Peace Problems Committee” tried to address this in an article reproduced in a issue of the Bible Monitor (source).
Excerpts:
We are sometimes told that it is inconsistent for Mennonites to refuse to take part in the war because our Mennonite farmers are already in the war effort; hence all other forms of participation such as fighting, buying war bonds, working in war industry, must also be approved.
The argument is clear and logical: if farming is taking part in war, then we cannot logically refuse the other things asked of us in military service, in war bonds, or in war work; then we must either quit farming or give up our nonresistant position altogether.
Bender took the position that while the produce of the farmer is used by those engaging in war, this is not the same as manufacturing military materiel, operating under military orders, working in a war industry, or working for the benefit of the war.
While such a farmer does pay taxes, he did so just as much before the war.
In short: farming remains a peaceful industry, even if it is conducted during wartime.
The propaganda arguments used against nonresistant farmers come from chiefly two sources: either from the militarists who do not at all want to strengthen Christian conscience against war but who want to break down this conscience to get more war participation; or from men with weak consciences and convictions, often from some one in war industries or in military service who desires an alibi to justify his own lack of conscientiousness.
The Church of the Brethren decided to divest from U.S. government bonds, and considered engaging in corporate phone tax refusal as well, and in the debate began to spill over into more conservative branches of American Brethren.
Chuch Investment in U.S. Bonds
In , the Church of the Brethren General Board met, and among the items on the agenda was Church investments in the war industry and in U.S. government bonds.
The Messenger covered this in its edition (source).
Excerpt:
Government bond ownership by the church, like the war that bonds are said to support, may be winding down, but not winding up — as some persons are urging.
Replying to the National Youth Conference resolution calling on the church to dispose of all government bonds, the General Board rejected a proposed reply from its investment committee and asked the Administrative Council to bring further options in March for handling fiscal operations without the use of bonds.
Board members also called for the investment committee to consider selling any stocks held with the dozen top corporations supplying war materials.
The rejected proposal would have put the board on record as reconfirming its opposition to war, not purchasing additional bonds as long as the national budget is so heavily military oriented, permitting the sale of bonds held as cash needs arise, and opposing immediate liquidation of the remaining bonds held.
Board views ranged from those who sought to dispose of the $617,933 in bonds held by the church “as a witness to the nation” for peace, to those who saw the bonds supporting many good things of government.
Other arguments against disposal included the cash liquidity on short notice of the bonds, the loss that would be suffered in the sale of the bonds, and the fact that $259,880 of the total is pledged for a Bethany Seminary loan.
One staff member challenged the assumption that the bonds are a means of financing the war, but rather lend stability to the government.
Another indicated that the cash put into a savings account could be invested by the bank in bonds anyway, and that the church owed a fiscal responsibility to donors of the money in not risking a financial loss in any premature sale of the bonds.
“The government bonds in the investment portfolio are not considered war bonds,” noted the board’s investment committee, “but are issues which were put out from time to time for general government operations, including programs that we enthusiastically support.”
Many of the bonds held by the Brethren were purchased in the 1950s, and no further purchases have been made since 1965.
During the past fiscal year the church sold half a million dollars in government bonds.
Likely to come before the Cincinnati Conference next year is a query from Southern Ohio that the church investigate payment of the telephone tax and the holding of U.S. government securities which are believed to support war.
The issue brought more details about where these queries were coming from (source).
Excerpt:
Southern Ohio district is bringing a query to the Conference asking for a study of the payment of the telephone tax and the holding of U.S. government securities by the church’s national offices.
Likewise, the Pacific Southwest Conference, at the initiation of some youth and the Lynnhaven, Phoenix, and Glendale, Ariz., congregations, has requested Annual Conference to “consider the moral question of holding United States Savings Bonds when we as a church are trying to divorce ourselves as far as possible from the military-industrial complex.”
The General Board gave in to the pressure, as reported in the issue (source).
Excerpt:
The Church of the Brethren General Board will sell its stock holdings in corporations directly producing defense or weapons-related products and its governmental securities that are believed to channel funds into military appropriations.
Meeting at Elgin, Ill., in , the board also tightened its investment guidelines, declaring that words and acts should be brought together “so that the clearest possible witness can be given to the inclusive reconciling love of Christ.”
The statement recognized, however, that “at any given moment the commitment can be one of direction only — it cannot be one of absolute achievement.”
The implication is that mergers and company reorganizations sometimes bring into the firm products or ideals inconsistent with the Brethren stance.
Based on market prices the divestment of stocks represents four percent of the general investment portfolio and 6.5 percent of the pension fund portfolio.
US Treasury bonds being sold amount to $248,813.
The board declined, however, to sell the $274,894 in bonds pledged for a loan to Bethany Theological Seminary.
They will be sold only as they are released from escrow.
Board treasurer Robert Greiner estimated a loss of $18,300 instead of an $18,000 gain that would have been realized if the bonds had been held until maturity.
Any possible loss on the stock investments being sold and reinvested was not known.
Last year’s National Youth Conference in a resolution urged the board to sell its
US Treasury bonds.
And in the National Council of Churches’ Corporate Information Center, in which the Brethren participate, divulged the stock-holdings of ten denominations in the top 60 firms in military sales.
The Church of the Brethren had investments in nine such companies, totaling $329,258 in cost value prices.
The church’s pension fund also held $613,303 of common stocks in 13 corporations appearing in the list.
The revised guidelines now declare that the board will not knowingly invest in corporations producing defense or weapons-related products; in companies which fail to practice fair and equal employment opportunities; nor in banks or firms which transact business with governments having apartheid policies.
Similarly prohibited are investments in the tobacco and alcoholic beverage industries and companies making excessive profit.
More positively, the guidelines stipulate the board will invest in companies working to improve the environment, in government agencies that are clearly non-military, and in such industries as food, housing, clothing, utilities, education, and medical supplies.
When the board discovers that it has holdings in a company that does not meet the religious, racial, or social ideals of the church’s official statements, the investment committee may approach the company or speak at stockholders’ meetings.
Failing to effect a change in company policy, the stocks are to be sold.
Producing the sharpest disagreement was the question as to whether government bonds contribute to the Vietnam war effort or simply toward regular government operations.
Still, a strong majority of the board believed that the bonds directly supported the war effort and should be divested.
Such action, some contended, bespeaks a “disengagement from the US government” and fails to recognize that a large part of the federal budget goes toward programs of which Brethren could heartily approve.
On the other hand, a couple speakers noted that even in such nonmilitary programs as agriculture and economic development, government policy can be repressive and manipulative and divergent from Brethren ideals.
Moderator Dale W. Brown of Lombard, Ill., said that the church needs to confess its credibility gap. “I’m calling for an acknowledgment that we haven’t done our best.”
Among a few board members disassociating themselves from the majority action was Jesse H. Ziegler of Dayton, Ohio.
He described the sale of the government bonds as a “divisive act that finally will drive the Church of the Brethren to the point of increasingly making people ask what we’re about.”
He pleaded for the board to take healing and compromising action that would leave room for various views among the membership.
The board’s officers were instructed to estimate any loss of principal or income that may accrue from the divestment of Treasury obligations and issue an appeal for interested members to make special contributions so that the ongoing ministry of the church or the equity of the pension funds will not be curtailed.
The guidelines are also commended to other church agencies and to individuals.
Despite the eight hours over two days of sometimes intense debate, David B. Rittenhouse of Dunmore, W. Va., expressed the feeling of most board members in saying that he voted for divestment of the stocks and bonds not with enthusiasm, but out of genuine humility, struggle, and soul-searching.
The discussion of the issue at the General Conference was covered in the issue (source):
Investments: What is Caesar’s, what is due to God?
⋮
the General Board voted (not unanimously) to divest itself of government bonds and stocks in corporations involved in defense-related contracts.
The action resulted in some loss of income and brought severe criticism from many individuals and from some congregations.
Conference delegates, however, voted to approve the Board’s investment guidelines which state that the Board will not knowingly purchase securities in corporations or industries that are “direct producers of defense or weapons-related products; involved in tobacco and alcoholic beverage produce: involved in unfair employment practices; or involved in excessive profits.”
In reporting to the Conference the Board indicated that it had decided to sell all US Treasury bonds or notes except for those pledged to secure a loan for Bethany Theological Seminary.
Disposing of these prior to their maturity resulted in a loss of more than $20,000.
The church’s holding of US Government bonds was questioned at its last Annual Conference and forcefully opposed by the national conference of Brethren youth.
In commending the Cincinnati conference for its support of the Board’s action, the Rev. Wendell Flory, a delegate from Staunton, Virginia, noted the persistence of youth in their opposition to war and urged them to help make up the financial loss resulting from following the new investment policies.
War Tax Resistance
In addition to the bond investments issue, ordinary war tax resistance was also a topic of discussion.
The inaugural issue of included a profile of Church of the Brethren moderator Dale W. Brown (source) that noted: “He refuses to pay his telephone tax because it was levied specifically for war.”
The issue noted (source): “The La Verne, Calif., church board voted to support the Southern California Telephone War Tax Suite, involving the withholding of the ten-percent federal excise tax.”
The Annual Conference debate over whether the Church of the Brethren should resist the phone tax corporately was covered in the issue (source):
Telephone tax: Delegates decline to counsel tax refusal
…[D]elegates in are not quite ready yet to counsel tax refusal for their Board and its offices.
They were made aware that a growing number of individual Brethren as well as some Brethren institutions have been refusing to pay the telephone excise tax, which they say is specifically designated as a “war tax” helping support the Vietnam war.
The Conference agreed to appoint a committee of five to study “the problem of the Christian’s response to taxation for war.”
But they voted down a proposal directing the General Board to withhold payment of the tax on the telephone service to its Elgin, Ill., headquarters.
Board officers said that the tax, which amounts to about $130 a month, currently is paid under protest.
Earlier conference statements on the payment of war taxes, while deploring the use of tax monies for war purposes and recognizing the right of tax refusal, noted several optional choices and left the decision up to individuals.
General Board member Leon Neher, Quinter, Kan., said in the floor debate that he regarded refusal to pay war taxes as being compatible with a positive attitude toward government.
He said “resistance comes because of our love for our nation.”
Other delegates noted that a study was needed so that members could be aware of the legal implications as well as the moral implications of tax refusal.
(The members selected “[t]o study a response to taxation for war” were Dene E. Denlinger, Galen Detwiler, Vemard Eller, James F. Meyer, and Robert B. Myers.)
The issue brought this news: “In Illinois the York Center congregation has voted to ‘instruct the church treasurer not to pay the federal excise tax on the church telephone as an act of conscience against the Indo-China war, and that the Internal Revenue Service be informed of the decision.’ Pastor Dean Miller noted, ‘We felt we’ve tried all [other] channels open to us.’ ” (source)
All this while I’ve been scanning through issues of the Elizabethtown College student newspaper, The Etownian to see if there has been any mention of tax resistance there.
Finally, in the issue, there’s a mention of “A Tent (‘Freedom’) City” that was being erected on campus and hosting teach-ins (source).
The first one on the agenda: a 45-minute discussion of “tax resistance.”
A later report (source) said that a rainstorm had cut into attendance, but that the teach-ins had gone on:
Ted Landon started the morning by speaking on the background of resistance and its meaning for the individual who practices it.
Bob Blatt enlarged on this as it related to tax resistance.
He pointed out that 61% of the nation’s yearly budget is spent for military matters, and that all other pressing bills must be paid from the remaining 39%.
The stodgy Brethren Evangelist was forced to take note when the General Board of the Church of the Brethren decided to divest from military industries and U.S. government bonds, though they merely reprinted a wire service dispatch about it (source):
Brethren Will Drop Defense Investments
Elgin, Ill. (EP)—
All holdings in corporations directly involved in defense or weapons-related industries will be dropped by the General Board of the Church of the Brethren.
The vote, not unanimous, was seen as an attempt by the denomination to bring its investment practices into line with its peace pronouncements.
The church officials also voted to sell $248,813 in U.S. Treasury bonds and not to purchase new governmental securities that might channel funds into military appropriations.
The board of 25 members also voted to withhold investments from companies failing to practice fair and equal employment opportunities, and from banks or firms which transact business with governments having apartheid policies.
Even the Bible Monitor finally added its voice to the debate.
It included an article on “The Christian’s Relation to the Nation” in the issue that touched on the war tax resistance issue:
The Christian also obediently pays his taxes (Romans 13:6,7; Luke 20:25).
One pacifist used his “fist” against the government by calling upon Christians to withhold some of their taxes (war taxes) by saying that when Christ said, we are to “render… unto Ceasar the things which be Ceasar’s,” He did not say how much.
May we remember that Christ did tell us how much to pay to the state when He said that we should render that which bears his image.
Therefore, when the nation asks for it, we give it to them and it is never our responsibility to tell the government how it may use its money.
If I owe a person some money, I have no right to refuse to pay it on the grounds that he will not use it properly.
Nor can I refuse it unless he promises to use it the way I say he should.
While we find it our duty to pay Ceasar his required tax, it would be contrary to the principle of the Scripture to voluntarily or otherwise invest in war bonds, thereby becoming an investor in the war program.
No non-resistant person would want to make a profit on the war.
As the Cold War sputtered to a close during the Gorbachev era, the urgency went out of the war tax resistance movement — something I’ve also noticed in my recaps of Mennonite and Quaker war tax resistance — as can be seen by the reduced attention given to the subject in Brethren periodicals during this period.
The issue brought the news that the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Quakers) had been sued by the IRS which was trying to force it to turn over taxes that had not been paid by two of its conscientiously objecting employees (source).
Excerpt:
In its countersuit, the Quaker group contends that “for the Meeting to pay over to the IRS, in defiance of an employee’s Quaker beliefs, the amount of taxes which had been refused on grounds of religious conscience by that employee, would violate the most fundamental religious principles of the church.”
Samuel D. Caldwell, general secretary of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, said the military tax refusers are not tax evaders.
“They would gladly pay their full share of taxes — and more — if they had assurances that it would go to peaceful purposes.”
[T]reasury bonds [are] a very safe investment but one which “raises the issue whether one wants to invest in the current priorities of our government where so much money is spent on the military budget”…
IRAs are another way people can reduce their tax contributions to military spending.
Earnings on an IRA are tax-deferred until retirement.
In many cases IRAs are tax-deductible.
It is also possible for employers to set up tax-deferred retirement plans…
The issue introduced readers to tax resistance as a tactic of nonviolent resistance, summarizing the story of the tax resisting town of Beit Sahour in occupied Palestine (source).
A profile of Curtis Dubble (the recently-elected Annual Conference moderator) in the issue included his recollection of the war bonds pressure during World War Ⅱ:
“For me there were a couple of struggles,” he says. “In the shoe factory they put pressure on me to buy war bonds.
I couldn’t stand that pressure, so I bought a few.”
But his conscience wouldn’t allow him to continue to support the war effort in that way, so he cashed them in.
The teller at the Myerstown bank “looked at me like I was crazy,” he recalls.
Later, when asked to sew soles on military shoes, he refused.
A feature on married co-pastors in the issue included this note about Louise and Phil Rieman (source):
[T]heir strong stance on war tax resistance [is] a challenge their congregation has had to wrestle with. “One of our biggest joys in this congregation,” says Phil, “is the support we’ve felt in asking the church to cooperate with us on this conviction.
Perhaps because there are two of us, this has allowed them to be less hesitant, knowing that if one of us is arrested, the pulpit can still be filled.”
Last-minute taxpayers in Iowa City, Iowa, rushing to mail their returns late at night on , were met by demonstrators in front of the post office, protesting tax money being spent for military purposes.
Among the demonstrators was peace activist Marianne Michael, a member of the Panora (Iowa) Church of the Brethren.
Said she to a newspaper reporter, “It’s obscene that the government spends so much on the military when there are so many things here at home that we need to work on.
The US has a poor sense of values when our tax money is spent on things that destroy human life.”
Meanwhile, the Bible Monitor wasn’t budging.
From the issue (source):
…we do not believe a Christian is called to picket abortion clinics, refuse to pay “war taxes,” or take a part in the many popular anti-government demonstrations supported by both “fundamental” and “liberal” wings of christendom. In our opinion, such actions are a part of the fanatic fringe and not being faithful.
By , war tax resistance had almost disappeared from the Church of the Brethren’s Messenger, replaced by vain hopes that the government would pass “Peace Tax Fund” legislation to ease the consciences of troubled taxpayers.
As a supplement to its issue, the Messenger included several-page recap of the first fifty years of the Church of the Brethren General Board, which briefly mentioned the Annual Conference’s vote (754 to 103) to update its peace position in a way that affirmed “tax resistance as a legitimate expression[] of the church’s peace witness” (source).
The April 15 federal tax deadline presents a recurring religious and moral dilemma for me.
The Church of the Brethren has always taught me that “all war is sin,” and that believers should not participate in it.
Although the government no longer wants my body, it still demands my money (about 50 percent of federal income taxes) to pay for wars, past and present.
As a conscientious objector to war, I find my deeply held religious beliefs violated by being forced to pay for military activities.
But rather than say he will not go along with such a violation of his deeply held religious beliefs, the writer’s response to this dilemma is just to say that “the government… should… pass the Peace Tax Fund bill.”
A letter from Don Schrader in the issue promoted below-the-tax-line living as a tax resistance strategy (source). Excerpt:
If someone comes to my door collecting money for a local gang to rob and kill my neighbors, would I donate? Would I donate even a dollar if I knew any of the money collected went to kill my neighbors — no matter if the rest of it went to feed the homeless and to build schools?
I keep my taxable income under the taxable level.
For a sighted, single person under 65, the taxable level for is $6,800.
I lived well in on $5,700.
I am glad to have no car, no big apartment or house, no luxury vacations in order to live under the taxable level.
I prize living the truth as best I see it far more than I value unnecessary things.
In order for the US to plunder and to massacre, two things are required from many citizens — silence and paying taxes.
For 18 years I have paid no federal income tax and I sure as hell am not silent!
An article in the issue, boosting the Peace Tax Fund legislation again, recapped the history of Church of the Brethren with regards to war taxes in the following way (source):
, the Church of the Brethren has openly expressed its opposition to war.
During the Revolutionary War, recorded minutes indicate that Brethren were struggling to define what action to take with regard to government conscription and the payment of “war taxes.”
The recommendation by the Conference body was to examine one’s conscience and to act as a result of Christ’s leading, with support being given to all those who chose to pay or not to pay taxes.
Some Brethren who paid their taxes would designate the money “for the needy,” but would allow the government to decide ultimately how to use those funds.
During the Civil War, the peace churches were successful in convincing the Union to modify its approach to the use of tax revenues.
The government agreed to use monies collected as bounty from conscientious objectors for “the benefit of sick and wounded soldiers” rather than for hiring substitutes.
The Church of the Brethren has recently called for the establishment of a World Peace Tax Fund through several General Board and Annual Conference statements.
By supporting the establishment of a Peace Tax Fund, we can lift up an integral part of our Brethren heritage.
Bible Monitor included an article by Dennis St. John on “The Christian and Political Participation” in its issue.
The article touched on war tax resistance in an unusually sympathetic way, given the general conservativism of that journal.
Excerpts:
What should the Christian’s response be when his convictions conflict with governmental demands? Should Christians use the political process to encourage social betterment? What does the Bible reveal on this issue? How has the Church historically responded to such problems? In the Christian community today there is a great diversity of answers given to these questions.
Historically, there have been several issues in America in which the church has become involved.
Slavery, temperance, the peace movement, abortion, women’s rights and gay rights are examples of issues that have affected society-at-large.
The church became actively involved and in some instances is still involved.
Refusing military service, refusing to pay “war taxes”, and educational issues would be examples of concerns that have more directly involved Christians rather than society as a whole.
Two other issues the Brethren had to deal [at the time of the American Revolution] with were the hiring of substitutes to serve in the rebel militia and the matter of whether to pay taxes that supported the war.
Again, we turn to their written records to discover their response.
Inasmuch as at the great meeting in Conestoga last year, it was unanimously concluded that we should not pay the substitute money; but inasmuch as it has been overlooked here and there and some have not regarded it, therefore we, the assembled brethren, exhort in union all brethren everywhere to hold themselves guiltless and take no part in war or bloodshedding, which might take place if we would voluntarily pay for hiring men, or yet more if we became agents to collect such money.
But concerning the tax, it is considered that on account of the troublesome times and in order to avoid offense, we might follow the example of Christ (Matt. 17:24–27).
Yet, if one does not see it so and thinks perhaps, he for conscience sake could not pay it, but bear with others who pay in patience, we would willingly go along inasmuch as we deem the overruling of conscience to be wrong.
What do we learn from these Brethren?
We note their humility and willingness to be subject to “higher powers”.
We see that they gave their congregations some firm direction as to a course to follow in those troubling times.
We also see their willingness to give some room for individual conscience on the matter of “war taxes”.
For their faith and convictions they faced consequences.
They had to pay heavy fines in some instances, while others had possessions and properties confiscated by the authorities.
There were even some scattered cases of brutality.
In the end, they preserved a clear conscience before their God.
As the millennium came to a close, the chorus of war tax resisters that had sung strongly in the Church of the Brethren through the sixties, seventies, and eighties faded to a handful of crickets, and then, finally, to nearly nothing.
In the on-line archives of the Messenger and Brethren Evangelist give out at Internet Archive.
But maybe that’s just as well.
In there was almost nothing in either magazine touching on war taxes or war bonds.
a Peace Tax Fund advertisement from the Messenger
I was able to find a couple of things in the on-line Messenger archives at brethren.org.
A article profiled David R. Bassett and his war tax resistance and his work with the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund.
The page containing this article also has an audio interview with Bassett.
A article on “The Brethren in World War Ⅰ” noted that “the Sedition Act… criminalized speaking out against purchase of Liberty (war) Bonds, which resulted in charges against Brethren pastors J.A. Robinson of Iowa and David Gerdes of Illinois.”
The Pilgrim recounted this story in its issue (source):
In the Old Brethren had existed as a separate brotherhood for only five years.
One of the elders of the church in Carroll County, Indiana, then was a brother named John Leedy.
He was known as being very firm in his views.
When neighbors came to persuade John to buy war bonds, he refused.
How could he do such a thing when he believed this was so opposite the Gospel of our Lord?
John would not use a gun to take his enemy’s life.
How could he willingly and purposefully finance someone else to do so?
This was not understood by the patriotic neighbors of Brother John.
They could not understand how he could think it was right just to let the enemy go on without resistance.
But we think Brother John would rather have given up all his possessions and been mistreated than to be unfaithful to the Lord Jesus and the example of the small flock of Jesus through the centuries.
We as Christians are called to actually love our enemies.
So not only is this a matter of legalistic obedience.
But how could a Christian want to take part in warmongering or support others to do?
One evening as John and his wife were about to retire for the night, they heard a knock on the door.
John opened the door, and when he saw the men, he prepared to go outdoors.
His wife begged him to stay indoors, but John knew that the men who bid him come outdoors were angry, so he motioned his wife to stay indoors.
He stepped outside and closed the door.
Someone said, “Grab him!” They took John and roughly set him in then midst.
Someone produced scissors, and they cut large pieces of his beard and hair, but left parts of it in a grotesque pattern.
John offered no resistance.
The men prepared to go, and one said to him, “John, you buy bonds or we will return, and you will be handled worse the next time.”
John stood quietly in the doorway.
I imagine his lip trembled as yours or mine would have done.
I imagine he felt sorry for the men, as you and I should feel.
Then he said in his characteristic way, “Well, men, when you return I expect you’ll find the same John.”
The next day John went into the local village.
Respectful businessmen in town were enraged that someone would treat their fellow neighbor in such fashion.
In spite of John’s protests, they put a guard around his house for awhile to protect them.
When I ask some old folks today, “Do you remember John Leedy?” they invariably smile and say, “John was a firm man.”
— From Fred Benedict’s The Same John printed in the , Vindicator.
Christians have the obligation to pay tribute and custom to and to fear and honor the “powers that be.” (Rom. 13:6–7) 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.
![$25 Certificate. Brethren Service Commitee. Church of the Brethren. General Administration Offices, Elgin, Illinois. This certifies that [blank] has contributed the within stated sum to the Church of the Brethren to be used in Civilian Public Service, in relieving suffering, in creating good will, and in making Christ known as Prince of Peace. Contributor’s Statement of Purpose: This contribution, made in addition to my normal giving, is in consideration of tragic world need, of the sacrifice of life and money which many are making in war and of my desire to support constructive service to humanity. This contribution is intended as an alternate service to war, in which my conscience does not permit me to engage. I give it voluntarily, asking neither interest nor return of principal.](brethren-service-certificate.png)
