Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” → Quakers → 20th–21st century Quakers → Bill & Genie Durland

Colorado Springs war tax resisters are in the news again, this time in The Gazette. Excerpts:

For the past three decades, retired social worker and lifelong peace activist Esther Kisamore has received threatening phone calls and letters from the Internal Revenue Service because she refuses to pay federal income taxes and federal excise taxes on her telephone bills.

Lawyer Bill Durland and his wife, Genie, have appeared in tax court numerous times since the 1970s and last year had their Social Security checks garnished by the IRS.

Psychologist Donna Johnson had two houses seized and eventually returned.

The Colorado Springs residents were aware of such possible consequences when they deliberately snubbed tax time — not to have extra money in their pockets and not because they don’t believe the government should tax citizens.

They don’t want their taxes used to fund military spending and war efforts.

“It is an individual act of moral conscience,” [Peter] Haney said. “In Colorado Springs close to 50 percent of our primary employment comes from military bases and defense contractors, so we’re so reliant on the federal dole, yet many of us have a frontier mentality to be independent and self-reliant.”

Before Johnson reduced her income to below the taxable rate, she paid half of what she owed in federal income taxes. Her first house was seized by the IRS for nonpayment of the phone excise tax, about $7. She eventually got the house and another one back, and the $200,000 she owed in taxes and liens on her property were released after a statute of limitations ran out.

“You just stand up and say ‘I’m not willing to pay even though you threaten me,’ ” Johnson said.

Yesterday I regretted that Charles Purvis’s petition for a writ of certiorari in his 1981 Supreme Court appeal was not available on-line. It’s a good example of someone trying to get the U.S. government to take seriously what its prosecutor, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, said at the Nuremberg trial of German “war criminals”:

And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law. This trial represents mankind’s desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundations of the world’s peace and to commit aggressions against the rights of their neighbors.

Fat chance, but there’s something to be said for making the effort. Anyway, here, on-line for the first time as far as I can tell, are excerpts from the Purvis writ, as presented by his attorney William Durland (and as found in Durland’s 1982 book People Pay for Peace). Afterwards I’ll share some of my thoughts:

The decision below as it applies to Petitioner, a Quaker, and war tax refuser, causes him to become a party or an accessory to a criminal act in violation of international law, the United States Constitution, the criminal statutes of the United States and his conscience.

To compel the petitioner to pay federal income tax deficiencies and additions as war taxes makes him a party of an accessory to a criminal act in violation of international law and Article Ⅵ of the United States Constitution.

International Law is Applicable to Cases Arising in U.S. Courts

There can be no doubt that international law is relevant and applicable to cases arising in United States Courts. Article Ⅵ , paragraph 2 of the United States Constitution provides that:

All treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or law of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

When a question arises concerning whether international law is relevant to a domestic case, it is the duty of the domestic court to determine (1) whether principles of international law are implicated in the case; if so (2) which principles of international law are applicable and (3) whether application of these principles to the case at bar overrides inferior municipal law thus justifying otherwise allegedly illegal conduct.

In the Paquete Habana, 175 U.S. 677, 700 (1900), the Supreme Court declared that:

International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction as often as questions of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination.

Accord, Hilton v. Guyot. See generally I Whitman International Law Section 11 (1963). International law is applicable to domestic courts. The question is which aspects of international law become “the supreme law” of the land. Treaties made by the President, “and with the advice and consent of the Senate” are obviously included by express provisions of Article Ⅱ, Section 2 of the United States Constitution. The term “treaty”, though not defined in the Constitution, has generally been determined to include “irrespective of their nomenclatures, such international agreements as conventions, pacts, protocols and covenants.” Introduction to U.S. Treaties and Other International Agreements, Cumulative Index, ⅹ (1975) (Hereafter, U.S.T.).

What has been termed “customary international law” is also binding on domestic courts.

Such customary International Law as is universally recognized or has at any rate received the assent of the United States, and further all international conventions ratified by the United States, are binding upon American courts, even if in conflict with previous American statutory law…

Ⅱ Oppenheim, International Law. 101 (6^th ed. 1948). “Offenses against the Law of Nations” have been sustained in federal courts even if there were no statutes defining the offense under Article Ⅰ, Section 8, Clause 10 of the U.S. Constitution. Therefore a substantial body of treaties, international agreements, and offenses against the Law of Nations or customary international law are binding on American courts. See Introduction to U.S.T. Cumulative Index, supra, at ⅺ.

International Law Prohibits Aggressive Policies of “Defense”

There are many bases for determining that American nuclear weapons are in violation of international law. (Petitioner will present his case against nuclear planning here rather than the Vietnam War crimes because (1) the brevity of the writ requires it; (2) the latter has terminated and (3) the former continues to be a basis for the present refusal to pay war taxes for past years. However, much of this argument also applies to the former). Perhaps the most fundamental tenet of all international norms is that a sovereign refrain from use of or threat of force in its relations with other countries. This policy has been consistently expressed in various forms as early as 1899 to the present.

In the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, July 29, 1899, 32 Stat. 1779, 1780, T.S. 392 the parties (including the United States) expressed “a strong desire to concert for the maintenance of the general peace;” to extend “the empire of law,” and to strengthen “the appreciation of international justice…” Accord, Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, October 18, 1907, 37 Stat. 2199, 2201, T.S. 536.

Similarly, Article Ⅰ of the Pan American Anti-war Treaty of Non-aggression and Conciliation, October 10, 1933, 49 Stat. 3363, 3375, T.S. 906, states that the parties “solemnly declare that they condemn wars of aggression in their mutual relations or in those with other states…”

The Charter of the United Nations, June 26, 1945, 59 Stat. 1033, T.S. 993 (hereinafter U.N. Charter) is replete with references to the duty to use peaceful means in international relations. The Preamble expresses a determination “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…”; “to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest…” U.N. Charter, 59 Stat. 1033, 1035. Chapter Ⅰ of the U.N. Charter sets forth the purposes of the United Nations. Because these provisions provide a guiding light in the interpretation of international law, it is important to develop a firm grasp of these basic principles.

Article Ⅰ provides that:

The Purposes of the United Nations are:

1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
3. [E]ncouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all…

U.N. Charter at 1037 (emphasis added).

In Article 2, the members agree to “fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them” in the Charter; to “settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered” to “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force…” or to act “in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.” U.N. Charter at 1037.

International Law Prohibits Specific Planning for and Acts of Aggression

The Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, October 18, 1907, 36 Stat. 2277, T.S. 403 (hereinafter, Hague Conventions), was “inspired by the desire to diminish the evils of war…” 36 Stat. at 2279. The Convention declares that where no specific international regulation addresses a specific course of conduct, that the parties follow “the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience.” 36 Stat. at 2280. Article 22 of the Convention provides that “[t]he right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy are not unlimited.” 36 Stat. at 2301. Most importantly, Article 23 provides:

In addition… it is especially forbidden:

1. To employ poison or poisoned weapons;
2. To kill or wound treacherously…
3. To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering…

36 Stat. at 2301–02.

Article 24 prohibits the bombardment of villages, towns, or cities which are undefended. 36 Stat. at 2302, while Article 27 declares that in sieges or bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare buildings dedicated to religion, the arts, science, or caring for the sick and wounded. 36 Stat. at 2303.

The Charter of the International Military Tribunal August 8, 1945, 59 Stat. 1544, E.A.S. 472 (“London Agreement enunciating the Nuremberg Principles”) (Hereinafter, Nuremberg Charter) outlined violations of international law for which even individual citizens of belligerent nations could be held responsible. Article 6 provides that:

The following acts, or any of them are crimes… for which there shall be individual responsibility:

1. Crimes Against Peace: namely, planning, preparation… of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan… for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing.
2. War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws and customs of war. Such violations shall include but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment… of civilian populations… plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages…
3. Crimes Against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination… and other inhuman acts committed against any civilian population before or during the war or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crimes… whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

Article 7 went on to provide that the “fact that the Defendant acted pursuant to order of his [sic.] Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility.” Charter at 1548.

In 1946 the United States delegation to the United Nations introduced a Resolution before the General Assembly affirming “the Principles of International Law recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal.” G.A. Res. 95(1), U.N. Doc. A/64/Add. 1, at 188 (1947). The Resolution was unanimously adopted by the General Assembly on December 11, 1946. In 1950 the Nuremberg Principles were restated by the International Law Commission. Finally, the United Nations Security Council, by Resolution, condemned acts of “reprisals as incompatible with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations.” G.A. Res. 188, Session ⅩⅨ, 4/1/1964.

U.S. Policies and Development of Nuclear Weapons are Inconsistent with International Law

There can be no doubt that the actual aggressive use of atomic weapons results in almost total destruction of everything within several miles of the site of the explosion. See United States Department of Defense, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (1977). The residual effects caused by radiation and radio-active fall-out create long-term illness and death in a matter analogous to poisoning. See United States Atomic Energy Commission, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (1957), p. 473.

The indiscriminate and “wanton destruction of cities” which results from the use of nuclear weapons is prima facie proof of war crimes, as defined by Principle VI of the Nuremberg Charter, and of crimes against humanity, as defined by Principle VI(c) of the Charter. Likewise, the poisonous effects of nuclear radiation and fall-out are prima facie violations of the United States’ obligations under Article 23(a) of the Hague Conventions prohibiting the use of “poison or poisonous arms.” Additionally, Article 23(a) of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which prohibits the use of “arms, projectiles, or material of a nature of cause superfluous injury”, and the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868, which declares that “the only legitimate object… [of] war is to weaken the military forces of the enemy”, indicate a customary rule of international law prohibiting weapons of indiscriminate destruction such as nuclear weapons.

Moreover, the aggressive use of atomic weapons would directly contradict the express purposes of using best efforts to avoid a nuclear war and negotiate an end to the nuclear arms race. See discussion, infra.. And since the radiation-related after effects of nuclear explosions cannot be controlled, the harm to persons and property in neutral countries would constitute an act of aggression against third states. G.A. Res. 3314, Session ⅩⅩⅨ, 12/14/74.

The real question is whether current policies and weapons are in violation of international law. To answer this question one must look to the history and facts of nuclear weapons development.

On the basis that the “planning” or “preparation” for wars of aggression violates Article 6(a) of the Nuremberg Charter, that “use of threat of force” is in violation of several treaties including the U.N. Charter; that the U.N. Charter condemns “situations which might lead to a breach of the peace,” U.N. Charter Art. 1, 59 Stat. at 1037, and imposes a duty upon members “to practice tolerance and live together in peace,” U.N. Charter, Preamble, at 1035; that the United States has declared an intention “[t]o prevent the use of atomic energy for destructive purposes” and to eliminate nuclear weapons from national arsenals, e.g. Declaration on Atomic Energy, 60 Stat. at 1480. Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, 21 U.S.T. at 484–85; and that the United States has promised to work for international peace and security “with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources” 21 U.S.T. at 486; U.N. Charter Art. 26, 59 Stat. at 1041, the possession of nuclear weapons for future “first strike” use is violative of international law. The “official” nuclear policy of this country is one of deterrence or second-strike capability. This concept is aptly explained by Robert Aldridge who for sixteen years worked in Lockheed Corporation’s engineering department, designing every submarine-launched ballistic missile bought by the Navy. Aldridge explains:

Deterrence is the strategic policy under which most of us believe the Pentagon is still operating. It is presented as a defensive measure, of sorts, because it is based on a second-strike response — massive and unacceptable retaliation — which theoretically deters the Soviet Union from attacking us.

Aldridge, The Counterforce Syndrome (1978) (hereinafter Counterforce)

Aldridge goes on to note that to be an effective deterrent, United States retaliatory forces would have to survive the worst conceivable attack and still wreck havoc in the Soviet Union. To this end, land-based ballistic missiles are stored in underground silos. The fact is that since the late 1960s both the Soviet Union and the United States have possessed this deterrent capability. Counterforce at 2. To maintain this “balance” super-powers agreed in S.A.L.T. Ⅰ (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) to refrain from developing elaborate anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs).

There came a time, however, when actual U.S. policy shifted from deterrence to what Aldridge terms “counterforce”. In9 1973, Aldridge resigned after helping design three generations of Polaris missiles, the multiple individually-targeted reentry vehicles (MIRVs) for Poseidon, and the beginnings of the Trident missile. The cause of Aldridge’s resignation was his sense of a shift in nuclear policies:

At the onset of the Trident program, I discovered the Pentagon’s interest in acquiring a precise “counterforce” weapon capable of destroying “hardened” military emplacements such as missile silos. This was a profound shift from a policy of retaliating only when fired upon, because it does not make sense to attack empty silos (which is all that would be left following an enemy first-strike attack on the United States).

Counterforce at ⅶ.

The S.A.L.T. Ⅰ agreement froze the number of strategic arms, but did not freeze quality improvements — the area of primary U.S. emphasis. Counterforce at 60. The sheer explosive power of these weapons is unimaginable. According to Senator George McGovern, the U.S. presently possesses 8,500 warheads, a combined explosive power of over three billion tons of TNT, which calculates to about 1,500 pounds of explosive for every man, woman and child on the planet. McGovern, “End of the World”, Playboy 124, 126 (February, 1978) (hereinafter, McGovern). But the magnitude of explosive is not as important as the accuracy of the explosion. Moreover, S.A.L.T. Ⅰ did not limit the numbers of strategic warheads (as opposed to strategic missiles) and thus since S.A.L.T. Ⅰ the U.S. has increased its nuclear warhead stockpile from 4,600 to 9,000 while the Soviet Union has increased theirs from 2,000 to 4,000. “The SALT Trap”. The Progressive, p. 9, (December 1978).

Additionally, S.A.L.T. Ⅰ placed no restrictions on production of two weapon systems which have critically affected the arms race: MIRVs and the cruise missile. MIRVing missiles means two to fourteen additional independently targeted warheads to a single missile, giving it the kill potential of many missiles. The cruise missile is a mobile weapon which flies at altitudes below the detective capabilities of radar and which can strike within thirty feet of a target over 2,000 miles distant, according to the Progressive Magazine.

The dangers in such policies are legion. For one thing, these developments make it virtually impossible to verify compliance with an arms limitation agreement. Although satellites can count missiles, submarines or airplanes, they cannot determine how many warheads are on a given missile. McGovern at 196.

The United States has retrofitted accuracy improvement systems and MIRVs to both land and submarine launched missiles. In October 1977 the U.S. retrofitted 550 Minutemen Ⅲ missiles with the NS-20 guidance system which doubled the accuracy of the 1650 MIRV warheads. This gave each warhead an even chance of landing within 600 feet of any Soviet silo with a blast nine times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. McGovern at 196. Each of the 1,650 Minuteman warheads now has over an 80% chance of destroying any Soviet silo at which it is aimed.

Other weapons systems currently in development pose an even greater threat of the risk of outbreak of nuclear war. Lockheed began work in 1968 on a maneuvering re-entry vehicle (MARV) which permits in-flight alterations in navigation increasing ever-more the accuracy of the hit. In 1970, concept studies were initiated for the Mark 500 MARV for possible use on Trident missiles.

In 1974 the ABM Treaty was modified to allow only 100 defensive interceptors for each country, thus making nonsense of the Pentagon rationale that in-flight maneuverability is essential to evade enemy defense systems.

In 1972 the Missile X program was initiated. The actual implementation of the program began in October, 1977. Under this system five to twenty-five mile trenches will be dug in the Western U.S. Each trench will conceal a missile which can be moved back and forth at random, the assumption being that the Soviets would exhaust their ICBMs trying to “find” the missile. The problem is that the Pentagon scenario omits to consider the fact “that a 20-megaton burst, such as that produced by a Soviet SS-9 ICBM, would leave a 75-foot high layer of dirt on the lid if it struck as far as half a mile away. Missile-X would probably be entombed unless it were planned as a first-strike weapon.” Counterforce at 27. Moreover, the trench system once again creates insurmountable verification problems since “there would be no way the Soviets would be certain that there was only one missile in any given trench.” Counterforce at 27.

The Trident submarine launched missile system is a floating vessel of destruction. The 560 foot long Trident carries twenty-four submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLCMs) each with a range of 4,000 nautical miles and each equipped with eight 100-kiloton warheads. The proposed modifications of the Trident submarine, or Trident-2, carries twenty-four Trident-2 missiles, each with a range of 6,000 nautical miles, and each capable of “delivering seventeen super-accurate MARV warheads to within as few feet as many targets. Counterforce at 25, 26. As Aldridge describes it:

One Trident submarine will be able to destroy 408 cities or military targets with a blast five times that which was unleashed over Hiroshima. A fleet of thirty Trident submarines would be able to deliver an unbelievable 12,240 nuclear warheads against an enemy’s territory — or 30 times the number originally thought sufficient for strategic deterrence. Clearly, if Trident attains the accuracies the Navy seeks, it will constitute the ultimate first-strike weapon. Counterstrike at 26.

Once each nation possesses weapons capable of a first-strike, then the risks of a nuclear war escalate in a geometric progression. The dilemma is that (1) since each is capable of a first-strike which would presumably cripple the other’s ability to retaliate, (2) since only 100 ABMs are allowed per side, and (3) since cruise missiles and other systems can penetrate enemy territory undetected by radar, then each side will be vulnerable to a crippling first-strike attack thus tempting each side to devastate the “enemy” before the “enemy” devastates them. This scenario of mutual nuclear insecurity is only years ahead. Although the United States is ahead of the Soviets in developing a first-strike capability, Counterforce at 59, it is only a matter of time before the Soviets possess an effective first-strike capability. Perhaps, in anticipation of that day, President Carter announced a U.S. first nuclear strike doctrine in his address to the General Assembly of the U.N. from the rostrum of the General Assembly on October 4, 1977.

…I hereby declare on behalf of the United States that we will not use nuclear weapons except in self-defense; that is, in circumstances of an actual nuclear or conventional attack on the United States, our territories or armed forces, or such an attack on our allies.

New York Times, Transcript of President Carter’s Address to United Nations General Assembly, Oct. 5, 1977 p. A12.

The doctrine is extremely far-reaching:

1. It announces that the U.S. “will” use nuclear weapons (he did not say, for example, “might” or “reserves the right” or similar words);
2. Nuclear weapons would be used also in case of attack by “conventional” weapons;
3. They would be used also in case of attack by conventional weapons on U.S. forces stationed, flying over, or on the high seas, anywhere in the world — for example, in situations similar to the Pueblo incident.
4. Mr. Carter did not use the language of Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which allows individual or collective self-defense only “if an armed attack occurs”; the formulation “in circumstances of an actual attack” is not used in any pertinent international instrument. Implicit in the phrase is that the U.S. might use nuclear weapons also if no armed attack “has occurred”, so that it could conceivably cover also preventive use of nuclear weapons.
5. Since the doctrine announces first use of nuclear weapons regardless of the results (perhaps a U.S. Air Force plane was shot at, but not hit?) and, in any case, severity, duration, and character of the “actual attack”, is not discussed, the doctrine violates the general principle of proportionality.
6. The doctrine does not explicitly state that the nuclear weapons would be used exclusively against the attacking state. Is that omission deliberate? In other words, is it a revival of Secretary of State Dulles’ doctrine of “massive retaliation of our own choosing”, that is, against a nation which did not attack but which the U.S. would unilaterally hold responsible for the attack?
7. The doctrine does not say that the attack, to which the U.S. would reply with nuclear weapons, was illegal (If a U.S. bomber or a bomber of any U.S. ally would penetrate the territory of another state, the latter would act legally in shooting it down).
8. The doctrine does not refer to the obligation to seek peaceful settlement before taking such enormous steps, which would be in contravention of Article 33 of the U.N. Charter.
9. This coupled with the authority of the President under the 1973 War Powers Act, who is therein allowed to engage in hostilities without declaration of war for a period of 60 to 90 days, violates the Hague Convention No. 3 of 1907.

The American nuclear firepower outlined above provides ample basis for concluding that such systems are violations of international law. (This analysis was formulated by Prof. John H.E. Fried, Former Special Legal Assistant, U.S. War Crimes Tribunal, Nuremberg). Dr. Fried, in a recent paper presented to the Ⅺth Congress, International Association of Democratic Jurists in Malta, concluded that a first nuclear strike is forbidden by existing international law because nuclear war (1) has no rational war aim — its aim is destruction, (2) would prevent obedience to fundamental rules concerning the conduct of hostilities, (3) would prevent the carrying out of post battle obligations of belligerents, (4) would make it impossible to respect the rights of neutral states. The danger of accidental unintended nuclear war is paramount, causing the dictates of public conscience to prohibit a first nuclear strike before it takes place. (See also Art. 18, 1, Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilians in Time of War (1949).)

International Law Imposes a Duty Upon Individual Citizens to Disassociate Themselves from Violations of Such Law

Since the Nuremberg principles have become a part of international law, the notion of individual responsibility for war crimes has achieved wide acknowledgment. (See below). Under the Nuremberg Charter, it is no defense to claim one was merely following orders. Nuremberg Charter, supra, Art. 7. Individual responsibility attaches if “a moral choice was possible”. Ex Parte Quirin 317 U.S. 1 (1942).

Professor Falk has found that case law developing during the War Crimes Trials after World War Ⅱ “established that the zone of individual responsibility for crimes against peace extended well beyond principal policy-making and state leaders.” Falk, “The Nuremberg Defense in the Pentagon Papers Case”, Crimes of War (Falk, Kolko and Liften, eds., 1971) 231. See, e.g. “The Ministries Case,” Ⅻ–ⅩⅣ, Trials of War Criminals (1952). In the Flick Case, which involved prosecutions of German industrialists, the War Crimes Tribunal stated:

[I]t is urged that individuals holding no public offices and not representing the state, do not, and should not come within the class of persons criminally responsible for a breach of international law. It is asserted that international law is a matter wholly outside the work, interest, and knowledge of private individuals. The distinction is unsound. International law, as such, binds every citizen just as does ordinary municipal law… The application of international law to individuals is no novelty.

Quoted in Ⅱ The Law of War: A Documentary History 1283 (L. Friedman ed. 1972) (hereinafter Friedman).

Furthermore, the Tokyo War Crimes Trial Decision, reprinted in Friedman at 1029, suggests that anyone with knowledge of illegal activity and an opportunity to do something about it is a potential criminal under international law unless the person takes affirmative measures to prevent the commission of the crimes. (emphasis added).

Under these considerations an individual American citizen is in violation of international law if he or she consents to cooperate with any government which produces, possesses or uses nuclear weapons. (Part of the material included here is from Graber, “The International Law Defense”, Pacificus Papers, Vol. 2, No. 5, Colorado Springs, Center on Law and Pacifism, 1980).

The Applicability of International Law to Taxpayers is Proven

The payment of war taxes to the United States for the years 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1974 would have constituted complicity in the commission of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes in Vietnam and in nuclear planning. A moral choice to refuse to be in complicity with the commission of such crimes was available to the Petitioner and he exercised that choice and refused to pay a war tax. On the point of the nature and extent of individual responsibility, the Nuremberg Judgment states: “The very essence of the charter is that individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience imposed by the individual state.” F.R.D. 69, 110 (1946).

Fundamental fairness requires that the Petitioner be permitted to rely on any argument arising from his accountability under international law. That such a policy extends to the Nuremberg Principles is confirmed by the former Assistant General Counsel for International Affairs of the Department of Defense, who acknowledged that “from an international criminal law point of view… the Nuremberg norms are part of our municipal law and may be enforced by our courts.” Quoted in Falk, A Global Approach to National Policy, 112 (1974). However, Petitioner has not been given an opportunity to present evidence concerning the questions of fact contained in this Writ before any court.

Individual liability is determined on the basis of knowledge of war crimes coupled with inaction. See “The Tokyo War Crimes Trial Decision,” Ⅱ The Law of War: A Documentary History, 1029 (Friedmann ed. 1972). It follows, then, that anyone with knowledge of war crimes and the opportunity to do something about it is potentially criminally liable unless that person takes steps to prevent further commission of the crimes. Even if these principles do not impose an affirmative duty to act, the imposition of criminal liability on persons having knowledge of war crimes must create a right in persons to act in a prudent manner in an effort to halt what they reasonably believe to be international crimes.

In a due process sense, it is enough that the Petitioner reasonably believed that the domestic law was superseded by international law. Because domestic law must be construed in conformity with international law whenever such a construction is possible, Borchard, “The Relation Between International Law and Municipal Law,” 27 Va. L. Rev., 137 (1940), it violates due process to subject the Petitioner to possible criminal liability for tax deficiency in the face of the contradictory claims on his behavior posed by the domestic and international law. Due process does not permit the imposition of criminal liability for tax deficiency (which is possible under the Internal Revenue Code) for an act intended to terminate complicity in war crimes and its preparation when the act was justified under relevant principles of international law.

In 1946, at Nuremberg, Germany, the United States participated in the prosecutions of persons under principles of international law imposing criminal liability for deference to municipal law when they knew, or should have known that their government was committing violations of international law. It violates the most basic principles of fundamental fairness and due process for the United States, while continuing to participate in the punishment of persons convicted of violating the Nuremberg Principles, to refuse to acknowledge the right of taxpayer to refuse war taxes in violation of municipal law established by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal [sic].

Arguments Invoked Against the Applicability of International Law are Invalid

Usual rebuttals to the international law argument are stated as follows: (1) “International law does not apply to American courts unless it concerns a treaty not superseded by a statute.”

As presented aforesaid, this is not so and moreover in the instant case insofar as the Nuremberg Charter is concerned it has been made part of domestic law by its incorporation in 59 U.S. Stat. 1544. (2) “The provisions of the Nuremberg Charter are strictly limited. Crimes Against Peace only apply to ‘major’ war criminals, and War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity are limited to wartime.” In respect to Crimes Against Peace, Petitioner argues that 18 U.S.C. 960 makes any person within the United States criminally liable. In respect to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, The Report of the International Law Commission (1950) at Principle Ⅵ, paragraph 122 states that “The Tribunal did not, however, exclude the possibility that crimes against humanity might be considered before a war.” Finally, as to all three classes of Nuremberg crimes, the limitation placed upon the jurisdiction of the then court by itself were self-imposed flowing from its discretionary power due to a desire to strictly construe the charges because of the initial use of the Charter, the ex post facto charge against its use, giving the benefit of the doubt to defendants for that reason. The literal words of the Charter do not make such discretion mandatory upon future judges or interpretors as this Court.

International law is progressive. See 2 Mueller, International Criminal Law, (1965) at 263. No such conditions apply 35 years later and individuals such as business men and women, ordinary soldiers or members of war organizations would have been of a sufficient status then and now to be considered an accessory. See Ⅱ Whitman, Digest of International Law 885–87, 1968. The last paragraph of Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter concerns complicity and states that “…accomplices participating in the formulation… of a common plan to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.” See also Mueller at 269. (3) The argument is tirelessly repeated that International Law prohibits only the use and not the possession of nuclear arms. But the aforesaid chronology of applicable international law provisions vitiates that myth. “First Strike” planning puts the lie to that rebuttal forever. If the law must wait on “use” in this type of case there will be no law or people left to adjudicate. (4) Finally, these arguments are usually rebutted, if all else fails, on the basis that they are political in nature and non-justiciable. This rebuttal is spurious on its face for this Petitioner’s plea is a plea much more than political. It is a plea for humanity and against the super-powers of the U.S. and U.S.S.R., lest we find our planet destroyed for want of “legal standing”.

Thus the involvement of the United States in Vietnam war crimes and the formulation of current plans for nuclear war violate international and constitutional law, and will make Petitioner an accessory to both and criminally liable if he is forced to pay war taxes for said plans and preparations. Thus Purvis concludes his argument on international law.

Durland noted that Purvis also made an argument that a domestic statute that said “Whoever within the United States knowingly begins or furnishes the money for any military enterprise to be carried on from thence against a territory or dominion of any foreign state or people with whom the United States is at peace shall be imprisoned,” also applied to his case.

The law of war is so adorable.

I can’t help but shake my head, sigh, and give a bittersweet smile at the well-intentioned ridiculousness of it all. I almost sympathize with the White House torture lawyers who looked at international law and found it “obsolete and quaint.” Apparently the cutting edge international law thinkers a century ago seriously contemplated a scene in which officers would lead their troops to battle with something like, “Okay everybody, to the trenches… but don’t forget that it’s forbidden by law to kill or wound treacherously!”

And after the 20^th century played itself out anyway, we’re apparently still supposed to take the Hague Convention seriously.

But there is still something satisfying in trying to hold the U.S. government to the principles it so pompously crafted as it was collecting scalps after World War Ⅱ — watching those principles dissolve in a reductio ad absurdum where the absurd part is expecting Uncle Sam to agree that what’s good for his own goose is what was good for der Adler.

Durland complains that “The Supreme Court refused to hear Purvis and probably will continue to refuse to recognize the law because the court acts solely out of power when confronted with morality.” While his conclusion may be valid, I think there may be more to it than this.

Durland’s “writ” is strangely writ. It is hard for me to imagine Durland expecting the Supreme Court justices to be impressed by his citations of a Playboy interview with George McGovern or a Progressive magazine estimate of the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Much of the discussion of arms technology and arms control difficulties seems not to have much to do with the legal argument and would be more at home in a for-the-choir think tank article. There’s precious little citation of legal precedents but plenty of quotation of books and essays and law review articles and appeals to “the most basic principles of fundamental fairness” and the like.

Perhaps it wasn’t really intended for the audience to which it was ostensibly delivered, but then why go through such fuss? It seems to me if you’re going to bother to try to take a legal argument up the court system, you ought to try to craft it in a form that will be persuasive to judges. As it is, because Purvis lost his case and was unable to get the courts to take his argument seriously, the legal legacy of Purvis v. Commissioner is as a precedent for the idea that

…the act of paying taxes does not amount to complicity in any war crime committed by the Government. [The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals citing Purvis in its ruling against war tax resisters Robert and Linda Randall in 1984]

The latest issue of More Than a Paycheck, NWTRCC’s newsletter, is now on-line. It’s a special edition, commemorating the 30^th anniversary of the founding of the committee.

Contents include:

• NWTRCC founder Bill Durland tells the story of how the group began.
• a flashback to the early days of the NWTRCC newsletter
• current events in tax resistance including a Pacific Yearly Meeting fund to help tax resisting Quakers, innovations in tax resistance in Spain, and the implications of Mitt Romney’s infamous “47%” comment
• ideas and actions including the Afghan Peace Volunteers group, a recent talk radio broadcast about war tax resistance, an on-line penny poll, and updates on a recent Plowshares action and on the Iran Pledge of Resistance
• upcoming evens like the NWTRCC national gathering next month in Colorado, the New England regional gathering later this month in Massachusetts, the School of the Americas action in November, and next year’s international war tax resistance conference
• Susan Quinlan tells of the Tax Day action she helped to organize with the BAY-Peace Youth Action Team.
• and several pages of congratulatory advertisements on the anniversary occasion

Someone shot video at the recent NWTRCC national conference in Colorado Springs. Some of the highlights include:

Bill Durland recalls the founding and early history of NWTRCC

Ruth Benn compares the work of NWTRCC today with the goals of its founders.

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 1979

War tax resistance was a frequent topic in the issues of Friends Journal in 1979, though there was still no consensus about how to go about it, and there was a lot of hesitance among Quaker institutions about how strongly to endorse it.

The 15 February issue was another special issue devoted to the peace testimony, which might as well have been a special issue on war tax resistance for how frequently it was mentioned. Clearly by this time, there was no talking about peace work without talking about war tax resistance.

Editor Ruth Kilpack opened the issue. She noted:

I see the billions of dollars (including taxes from my own earnings) being poured into the “defense” budget. I hear of vastly increased crime and see the wanton waste everywhere, much of it the direct legacy of our last war; I remember the lives still festering in military hospitals, the suffering from the wounds of war both here and across the world.

But now, there is a handful of people who are beginning to take a new view of war and war-making, realizing that it takes place not only when the bombing and shelling begin, but in the will of the people who make — or allow — it to happen. War-making must be paid for. As it is said elsewhere in this issue, “we pray for peace, but we pay for war.” When we once understand that, great change will come about. And especially, as war becomes more and more impersonal, with computerized strategic commands and weapons, more people are increasingly going to ask, “Who is waging this war? Are we ourselves responsible, since we pay for it?” (As the old saying goes, “Your checkbook shows where your heart is.”)

Take Richard Catlett, for example, a Friend who — as I write at this very moment in early January — is beginning his jail sentence of two months at the Kansas City Municipal Rehabilitation Institute (for first offenders) in Kansas City, Missouri. That will be followed by three years of probation. Richard Catlett has been an antiwar activist since 1947, refusing to file his income tax return since that time. In 1976, his health food store was closed for non-payment of taxes (it is now under his wife’s ownership), and now, at sixty-nine years of age, Richard Catlett is treated as a criminal.

Clearly, he is being held up as an example of what can happen to a trouble-maker who dares to go against the tax law.… Richard Catlett’s age gives added emphasis to the warning to those no longer young and foolhardy. (Besides, the pockets of those in his age bracket are usually better filled, and not to be overlooked by IRS.)

Catlett’s case was covered in more depth later on in the same issue by means of lengthy quotes from a Colombia Missourian article (see “Local war protester leaves for jail term” in ♇ 5 January 2013) and the following section from a Wall Street Journal article:

Tax Report

A protester got loads of publicity that drew criminal charges for nonfiling.

The IRS selects tax protesters for criminal prosecution based on the amount of publicity they get. Usually protesters who don’t seek the spotlight are pursued by civil actions; criminal is reserved for the publicity hound. Richard Ralston Catlett is a notorious war and tax protester. The sixty-eight-year-old Columbia, Missouri, health food store owner argued that criminal charges of failing to file returns should be dropped because the IRS was guilty of “selective prosecution.”

The government is barred from selecting people to prosecute on grounds of race, religion or the exercise of free speech, or other “impermissible grounds.” Catlett claimed that basing a criminal prosecution on publicity isn’t permitted. But an appeals court disagreed. His exercise of free speech wasn’t involved here, the court noted. The IRS seeks criminal prosecution against publicized protesters to promote compliance with tax laws, the court observed.

“The government is entitled to select those cases for prosecution which it believes will promote compliance,” the court declared.

Next, John K. Stoner wrote a strong, challenging essay inspired by William James’s The Moral Equivalent of War titled “The Moral Equivalent of Disarmament.” Excerpts:

For some decades now we have been hearing the Church call on governments to take steps toward disarmament. And it would be difficult to think of a thing more urgent or more appropriate for churches to say to governments. It is hardly necessary here to give another recitation of the monstrous and unconscionable dimensions of the world arms race, culminating in the ever-growing stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the refinement of systems to deliver their carnage. The Church has done part of its duty when it has said that this is wrong.

But the time has come to say that the good words of the Church have not been, and are not, enough. The risks, the disciplines, the sacrifices, and the steps in good faith which the Church has asked of governments in the task of disarmament must now be asked of the Church in the obligation of war tax resistance. It is, at the root, a simple question of integrity. We are praying for peace and paying for war. Setting euphemisms aside, the billions of dollars conscripted by governments for military spending are war taxes, and Christians are paying these taxes. Our bluff has been called.

In all candor it must be suggested that the storm of objection which arises in the Church at this idea borrows its thunder and lightning from the premiers, the presidents, the ambassadors, and the generals who make their arguments against disarmament. War tax resistance will be called irresponsible, anarchist, unrealistic, suicidal, masochistic, naive, futile, negative and crazy. But when the dust has settled, it will stand as the deceptively simple and painfully obvious Christian response to the world arms race. A score or a hundred other good responses may be added to it. We in the Church may rightly be called upon to do more than this, but we should not be expected to do less.

Let the Church take upon itself the risks of war tax resistance. For church councils to take the position that the arms race is wrong for governments and not to commit themselves and call upon their members to cease and desist from paying for the arms race is patently inconsistent. This is probably a fundamental reason why the Church’s pleas for disarmament have met with so little positive response. Not even governments can have high regard for people who say one thing and do another. If governments today are confronted with the question whether they will continue the arms race, churches are confronted with the question whether they will continue to pay for it. As specialists in the matter of stewardship of the Earth’s resources they have contributed precious little to the most urgent stewardship issue of the twentieth century if they go on paying for the arms race. How much longer can the. Church continue quoting to the government its carefully researched figures on military expenditures and social needs and then, apparently without embarrassment, go on serving up the dollars that fund the berserk priorities? The arms race would fall flat on its face tomorrow if all of the Christians who lament it would stop paying for it.

It is not, of course, simple to stop paying for the arms race as a citizen of the United States, or anywhere else for that matter. If you refuse to pay the portion of your income tax attributable to military spending, the government levies your bank account or wages and extracts the money that way. If your income tax is withheld by your employer, you must devise some means to reduce that withholding, such as claiming a war tax deduction or extra dependents. If, as an employer, you do not withhold an employee’s war taxes, you will find yourself in court, as has recently happened to the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. All of these actions are at some point punishable by fines or imprisonment, and none — in the final analysis — actually prevents the government from getting the money. Nevertheless, it must be said that the Church has not tried tax resistance and found it ineffective; it has rather found it difficult and left it untried.

The Church has considered the risk too great. Individuals fear social pressure, business losses, and government reprisals. Congregations, synods, and church agencies equivocate over their role in collecting war taxes. There is the risk of an undesirable response — contributions may drop off, tax-exempt status may be lost, officers may go to jail. To oppose the vast power of the state by a deliberate act of civil disobedience is not a decision to be made lightly (an unnecessary observation, since there are no signs that Christians or the Church in the United States are about to do this lightly).

It would be inaccurate to give the impression that Christians, individually, and the Church, corporately, in the U.S. have done nothing about war tax resistance. There have been notable, even heroic, exceptions to the general manifest lethargy. The war tax resistance case of an individual Quaker was recently appealed on First Amendment grounds to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court refused to consider it. A North American conference of the Mennonite Church is grappling with the question of its role in withholding war taxes from the wages of employees. Among Brethren, Friends and Mennonites — sometimes called the Historic Peace Churches — there is a rising tide of concern about war taxes. The Catholic Worker Movement and other prophetic voices in various denominations have long advocated war tax resistance, but they have truly been voices crying in the wilderness. For all our concern about the arms race, we in the churches have done very little to resist paying for it. That has seemed too risky.

But then, of course, disarmament also involves risks. Could there be a moral equivalent of disarmament that did not involve risk? In this matter of the world arms race, it is not a question of who can guarantee the desired result, but of who will take the risk for peace.

Let the Church take upon itself the discipline of war tax resistance. Discipline is not a popular word today, but it should be amenable to rehabilitation at least among Christians, who call themselves disciples of Jesus. How quickly does the search for a way turn into the search for an easy way! And how readily do we lay upon others those tasks which require a discipline we are not prepared to accept ourselves!

War tax resistance will involve the discipline of interpreting the Scripture and listening to the Spirit. In a day when the Bible is most noteworthy for the extent to which it is ignored in the Church, it is an anomaly to see the pious rush to Scripture and the joining of ranks behind Romans 13, when the question of tax resistance is raised. In a day when the authority of the Church is disobeyed everywhere with impunity, it is a curiosity to see Christians zealous for the authority of the state. In a day when giving to the Church is the last consideration in family budgeting, and impulse rules over law, it is a shock to observe the fanaticism with which Christians insist that Caesar must be given every cent he wants. As the Church has grown in its discernment of what the Bible teaches about slavery and the role of women, so it must grow in its discernment of what the Bible teaches about the place and authority of governments and the payment of taxes.

War tax resistance means accepting the discipline of submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the nitty-gritty of history. Call it civil disobedience if you wish, but recognize that in reality it is divine obedience. It is a matter of yielding to a higher sovereignty. Those who speak for a global world order to promote justice in today’s world invite nations to yield some of their sovereignty to the higher interests of the whole, and those persons know the obstinacy of nations toward that idea. It may be that the greatest service the Church can do the world today is to raise a clear sign to nation-states that they are not sovereign. War tax resistance might just be a cloud the size of a person’s hand announcing to the nations that the reign of God is coming near. It is clear that Christians will not rise to this challenge without accepting difficult and largely unfamiliar disciplines.

But then, of course, disarmament also involves disciplines. The idea that one nation can take initiatives to limit its war-making capacities is shocking. To do so would represent a radical break with conventional wisdom. How is it possible to do that without first convincing all the nations that it is a good idea?

Let the Church take upon itself the sacrifices of war tax resistance. It is never altogether clear to me whether Christians who oppose war tax resistance find it too easy a course of action, or too difficult. It is said that refusing to send the tax to IRS and allowing it to be collected by a bank levy is too easy — a convenient way of deceiving oneself into thinking that one has done something about the arms race. And it is said that to refuse to pay the tax is too difficult. It is to disobey the government and thereby to bring down upon one’s head the whole wrath of the state, society, family, business associates, and probably God as well. Moreover, the same person will say both things. Which does he or she believe? In most cases, I think, the second.

The sacrifices involved in war tax resistance are fairly obvious. They may be as small as accepting the scorn which is heaped upon one for using the term “war tax” when the government doesn’t identify any tax as a war tax, or as great as serving time in prison. It may be the sacrifice of income or another method of removing oneself from income tax liability. It can be said with some certainty that the sacrifices will increase as the number of war tax resisters increases, because the government will make reprisals against those who challenge its rush to Armageddon. Yet, there is the possibility that the government will get the message and change its spending priorities or provide a legislative alternative for war tax objectors, or both. In any case, for the foreseeable future, war tax resistance will be an action that is taken at some cost to the individual or the Church institution, with no assured compensation except the knowledge that it is the right thing to do.

But then, of course, disarmament also involves sacrifices. The temporary loss of jobs, the fear of weakened defenses, and the scorn of the mighty are not easy hurdles to cross. A moral equivalent will have to involve some sacrifices.

Let the Church take upon itself the action of war tax resistance. The call of Christ is a call to action. It is plain enough that the world cannot afford $400 billion per year for military expenditures, even if this were somehow morally defensible. It is plain enough that the dollars which Christians give to the arms race are not available to do Christ’s work of peace and justice. In these circumstances the first step in a positive direction is to withhold money from the military. If we say that we must wait for this until everybody and (and particularly the government) thinks it is a good idea, then we shall wait forever.

Having withheld the money, the Church must apply it to the works of peace. What this means is not altogether obvious at present, but there is reason to believe that a faithful Church can serve as steward for these resources as wisely as generals and presidents. The dynamic interaction between individual Christians and the Church in its local and ecumenical forms will help to guide the use of resources withheld from the arms race.

This is a call to individual Christians and the Church corporately to make war tax resistance the fundamental expression of their condemnation of the world arms race. Neither the individual nor the corporate body dare hide any longer behind the inaction of the other. The stakes are too high and the choice is too clear for that, though we can have no illusions that this call will be readily embraced nor easily implemented by the Church.

But then, of course, we do not think that disarmament will be an easy step for governments to take either. The Church has an obligation to act upon what it advocates, to deliver a moral equivalent of the disarmament it proposes. If effectiveness is the criterion, it is certainly not obvious that talking about the macro accomplishes more than acting upon the micro. A single action taken is worth more than a hundred merely discussed. (When it comes to heating your home in winter, you will get more help from one friend who saws up a log than from a whole school of mathematicians who calculate the BTUs in a forest.) To talk about a worthy goal is no more laudable than to take the first step toward it, and might be less so.

Michael Miller wrote an article for the same issue that noted that the National Guard is a U.S. military combat function that is largely paid for out of state budgets, not the federal budget. He concluded:

I am now more fully aware how the military affects our daily lives and activities. I also realize that not only is the objection to payment of war taxes a federal issue, but it is also a very real state issue. State budgets contain rather large amounts in this respect.

As Friends, we must be constantly aware of the issues involved with our tax dollars. The military has a great influence over our lives and our tax dollars, whether or not we recognize it. We have a responsibility to make ourselves aware of the issues and how they influence our lives.

Alan Eccleston contributed an article on war tax resistance as a method of testifying for peace — aligning ones life with ones values. This, he felt, could be done in a variety of ways:

We do not have to be prepared for jail to be a war tax resister. We do not have to be ready, at this moment, to subject ourselves to harassment by the Internal Revenue Service. We do, however, have to be truthful on our tax returns. We do have to be clear about our belief in the peace testimony and our desire to align our lives with this belief. And that is all!

If you are clear about that, you can withhold some amount of your tax. It can be a token amount, if that is where you are, say five dollars or fifty dollars. Or it can be the same percent of your tax as the military portion of the current budget, currently thirty-six percent excluding past debt and veterans benefits. (An easy way to do this is to insert the amount under “Credits” as a “Quaker Peace Witness,” line forty-six. Alternately, some people declare an extra deduction, but this is more complicated, since the deduction must be substantially larger than the amount you desire to withhold.) It may bother you that three times or even ten times what you have chosen to withhold is going to be spent for war preparations. But far better to take this small step than to turn away from the witness. Write your congresspersons and tell them of your concern. Urge them to pass the World Peace Tax Fund which would acknowledge your constitutional right to practice your religious beliefs without harassment and penalty.

Alternatively, if the government owes you money fill out the (very short) Form #843 “Request for Refund,” asking that they refund the amount you wish for peace witness.

One can also anticipate the withholding problem by filling out a W-4 Form at your place of employment declaring (truthfully) an allowance for expected deductions that includes the amount of your peace witness.

Then what? You can expect a series of computer notices stating that you calculated your tax incorrectly and you owe the amount shown on the notice. This may also include an addition of seven percent annual interest on the amount owed. (Currently IRS seems not to be adding on penalty charges but that is a possibility.)

You have a choice: you can ignore the notice; you can write or call IRS and discuss it; or you can pay the tax. Sooner or later you will receive a printout that says “Final Notice.” If you again fail to pay the amount owed, you will probably receive a call from someone at IRS who will try to convince you that the whole process has gone far enough and that your purpose is better served by paying the government. IRS wants to collect. That is their job; when they have done it, they are through with you. They cannot, by law, be harsh or punitive. There is no debtors’ prison in this country. If you declare the intent of your witness on your tax form and by letter to Congress, you cannot be convicted of fraud; therefore, you are not risking criminal penalties.

In other words, the tax resister controls the process. One can witness to peace so long as it can be done lovingly and, if it is to be a meaningful witness of peace, that is the only way it can be done.

However, if one’s family obligations or other matters are too pressing, or if one’s spiritual resources are being unduly strained, it is time to lay down this particular witness. One can carry on the witness and still bring the process to a conclusion by letting the payment be taken from a bank account or peace escrow fund. Another round of letters to Congress and the president will testify to your continuing concern even after the pressure of collection has been relieved.

In your witness, no matter how small the amount withheld or how short the duration, you will gain strength and courage and insight. This brings new resources to your next witness. It gives you knowledge and resources to share with others, which in turn helps their witness. In sharing, you both are strengthened. Thus, a personal witness becomes a “community of witness,” and the “community of witness” gains strength, courage, and insight in its mutual sharing. This witness and this sharing of Christian love becomes its own witness to the testimony of peace — the testimony of love for God, for ourselves, for humankind.

(A letter from Dorothy Ann Ware in a later issue credited the Eccleston article for spurring her to “make a token Quaker Peace Witness by withholding a very small portion of my income tax. So Step One has been taken…”)

The same issue reprinted a Minute from the March 1978 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting which encouraged Quakers “to give prayerful consideration… to the option of refusal of taxes for military purposes.” Furthermore:

We reaffirm the Minute of the 1970 yearly meeting which states in part that “…Refusal to pay the military portion of taxes is an honorable testimony, fully in keeping with the history and practices of Friends… We warmly approve of people following their conscience, and openly approve civil disobedience in this matter under Divine compulsion. We ask all to consider carefully the implications of paying taxes that relate to war-making… Specifically, we offer encouragement and support to people caught up in the problem of seizure, and of payment against their will.”

We request the Representative Meeting to arrange for the guidance of meetings and their members on the form of military tax resistance suitable for individuals in accordance with that degree of risk appropriate to individual circumstances, for advice on consequences, and for consideration of legal and support facilities that may be organized.

We also request Representative Meeting to provide for an Alternate Fund for sufferings, set up under the yearly meeting to receive tax payments refused, for those tax refusers who may wish to utilize this fund.

We recommend cooperation with the Historic Peace Churches and other religious groups in further consideration of non-payment on religious grounds of military taxes.

Following that, John E. Runnings wrote of his and his wife Louise’s war tax resistance, and decried the injustice of a “society that requires that Quakers, who renounce war and recognize no enemies, must pay as large a contribution to the support of the war machine as those who fully accept the malicious nature of other nationals and who are so frightened of their ill intent that no amount of extermination equipment is enough to assure security.”

The social reforms that we credit to George Fox’s influence did not come about by his waiting on the Spirit but rather by his responding to the Spirit. If just one man could accomplish so much by responding to the Spirit, what would happen if several thousand modern Quakers were to respond to their spiritually-inspired revulsion to assisting in the building of the war machine?

If Quakers could be induced to discard their excuses for their financial support of the arms race and to withhold their Federal taxes, who knows how many thousands of like-minded people might be encouraged to follow suit? And who knows but what this might bring a halt to the mad race to oblivion?

There was a brief update about Robert Anthony’s case. Anthony hoped to use his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination (presumably in response to a government request for financial records or something of the sort). The judge in the case asked if the government would grant Anthony immunity from prosecution for anything he disclosed, which would have cut off the Fifth Amendment avenue of resistance, but the government wasn’t prepared to do that, and that’s where the matter stood.

The 1 May issue included a notice that the Center on Law and Pacifism had “recently published a military tax refusal guide for radical religious pacifists entitled ‘People Pay for Peace’ ” but also noted that “the Center states that it is in ‘urgent and immediate need of operating funds.’ ”

A later issue gave some more information about the Center:

The Center was started after a former Washington constitutional lawyer and theologian, Bill Durland, met a handful of conscientious objectors who were appealing to the U.S. courts for their constitutional rights to deny income tax payments for the military.…

That was in 1978. The Center is now producing regular newsletters and has published a handbook on military tax refusal. It has organized war-tax workshops for pacifists representing constituencies in the Northeast, South and Midwest. One of its projects was the “People Pay for Peace” scheme, under which it was suggested that each individual deduct $2.40 from his/her income tax return to “spend for peace”: that sum being the per capita equivalent of the $193,000,000,000 which will be consumed in fiscal 1979 for war preparation in the United States. This was a protest action against the fifty-three percent of the U.S. budget allocated to military purposes.

The Center on Law and Pacifism is a “do-it-yourself cooperative” which relies on both volunteer professional assistance and individual contributions.

Hmmm… my calculation for 53% of the federal budget in 1979 is more like $214,618,730,000… and per-capita (by U.S. population, anyway) that would be $953.63 per person. If you use the $193 billion value, that’s still $857.57 per person. Even if you use world population, you still get $44.08–$49.02 each. Somebody’s confused… maybe it’s me.

Wendal Bull penned a letter-to-the-editor in the same issue about his experience as a war tax resister twenty years before. Excerpt:

In 1959 I received a lump sum payment of an overdue debt. This increased my income, which I normally keep below the taxable level, to a point quite some above that level. I distributed the unexpected income to various anti-war organizations. I anticipated pressure from IRS officers, so in the autumn, long before the tax would be due, I disposed of all my attachable properties. This action, under the circumstances, I believe to be unlawful. But it seemed to me a mere technicality, far outweighed by the sin of paying for war, or the sin of permitting collection of the tax for that purpose. After disposing of all attachable properties, I wrote to IRS telling them I had taxable income in that year but chose not to calculate the amount of it because I had no intention of paying it. In the same letter I explained my reasons for conscientious non-cooperation with Uncle Sam’s preparations for war in the name of “defense.”

My letter appeared in full or in generous excerpts in at least three daily papers and several other publications and I mailed copies to friends who might be interested. I am not a publicity hound nor a notorious war resister. The publicity did seem to effect a fairly prompt visit from the Revenue Boys. They paid me three or four visits. On one occasion two men came; one talked, the other may have had a concealed tape recorder, or was merely to witness and confirm the conversation. After quizzing me for an hour or more they left courteously, whereupon I said I was sorry to be a bother to them. At that the talker said, “You’re no trouble at all. I brought a warrant for your arrest, but I’m not going to serve it. It’s the guys who hire lawyers to fight us that give us trouble.” If they had caught me in a lie, or giving inconsistent answers to their probing questions, I suspect the summons would have been served. I was fully prepared to go to court and to be declared guilty of contempt for not producing records to show the sources of my income. I had told the men I was in contempt of the entire war machine and all officers of the legal machinery who aimed to penalize citizens for non-cooperation with war preparations.

Later came two visits from a man who attempted to assess my income for that year, and the law required him to try to get my signature to his assessment. I considered that a ridiculous waste of taxpayer’s money. The man agreed with a smile. Still later, there came several bills, one at a time, for the amount of the official assessment, plus interest, plus delinquency fee, plus warnings that the bill should be paid. These I ignored, of course. The head men knew I would not pay; and they knew they had not any intention of trying to force collection.

I have no idea who decided to quit sending me more bills. I think the claim is still valid since the statute of limitations does not apply to federal taxes.

It is inconvenient to have no checking account, to own no real estate, to drive an old jalopy not worth attaching, and so on. Some of us choose this alternative rather than to let the money be collected by distraint.

In the same issue, Keith Tingle shared his letter to the IRS, which he sent along with his tax return and a payment that was 33% short. He stressed that he didn’t mind paying taxes — “a small price for the tremendous privilege of living in the United States with its heritage of freedom, equal protection, and toleration” — but that “I do not wish my labor and my money to finance either war or military preparedness.”

Stephen M. Gulick also wrote in. “Because the military and the corporations need our money more than our bodies, war tax resistance becomes important — in all its forms from outright and total resistance to living on an income below the taxable level,” he wrote. “Fundamentally, war tax resistance must lead us to look not only at warmaking and the preparation for war, but also at the economic, social, and political practices that, with the help of our money, nurture the roots of war.”

Colin Bell attended the May 1979 Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting:

“I think,” Colin said, “that as a Society we are standing at another moment like that, when our forebears took an absolutely unequivocal stance” and we don’t know what to do. Are we looking for something easy, he wondered, suggesting that it probably should be tax resistance. Accepting the title Historic Peace Church, he declared, makes it sound like a worthy option, rather than it being at the entire heart and core of Christendom.

A letter to the editor of the Peacemaker magazine from John Schuchardt is quoted in the 15 June issue:

I have recently received threatening letters from a terrorist group which asks that I contribute money for construction of dangerous weapons. This group makes certain claims which in the past led me to send thousands of dollars to pay for its militaristic programs. The group claimed: 1) It was concerned with peace and freedom; 2) It would provide protection for me and my family; 3) It was my duty to make these payments; and 4) I was free from personal responsibility for how this money was spent in individual cases.

Last year, for the first time, I realized that these claims were fraudulent and I refused to make further payments…

That issue also noted that the Albany, New York, Meeting “joined the growing number of meetings which are calling on their members to ‘seriously consider’ war tax resistance…” That Meeting was also considering establishing its own alternative fund, and was hoping Congress would pass the World Peace Tax Fund bill.

This “seriously consider” language, along with the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s earlier-mentioned call for Quakers “to give prayerful consideration” to war tax resistance, is a far cry from the sort of bold leadership John K. Stoner was calling for. But then again, Quaker Meetings were no longer the sorts of institutions to bandy about Books of Discipline and threaten “disorderly walkers” with disownment, or even to give them “tender dealing and advice in order to their convincement.” Meetings had in general become much more humble about what sort of direction they should provide and what sort of obedience they could expect. It is hard to imagine a Meeting from this period adopting a commandment along the lines of the Ohio Yearly Meeting’s 1819 discipline — “a tax levied for the purchasing of drums, colors, or for other warlike uses, cannot be paid consistently with our Christian testimony.”

The 1 September issue included a review of Donald Kaufman’s The Tax Dilemma: Praying For Peace, Paying for War, a book that defends war tax resistance from a Christian and Biblical perspective. “What is the individual’s responsibility in the face of biblical teachings and the history of tax resistance since the early Christian centuries? Some biblical passages have been used to justify the payment of any and all taxes. But Kaufman warns us to consider these passages in their historical context and in the light of the primary New Testament message: love for God, oneself, one’s neighbor, and one’s enemy.”

That issue also included an obituary notice for Ashton Bryan Jones that noted “[h]is courage in the face of the harsh treatment that he endured in the struggle for social justice and against war taxes…”

The 15 December issue reported on the New England Yearly Meeting, which held a workshop on war tax resistance, and also agreed to establish a “New England Yearly Meeting Peace Tax Fund.”

Recognizing that each of us must find our own way in this matter, the new fund is seen not as a general call to Friends to resist paying war taxes but specifically to help and to hold in the Light those Friends who are moved to do so. The fund will be administered by the Committee on Sufferings, which came into being last year to support Friends who are devoting a major portion of their time and energies to work for peace.

New Call to Peacemaking

The “New Call to Peacemaking” brought together representatives of the Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers in 1976, 1977 and 1978 to try to strengthen their respective churches’ anti-war stands. It continued to ripple through the pages of the Journal in 1979. Barbara Reynolds covered the Green Lake conference that drafted the New Call statement in the 1 January issue. Among her observations:

In my own small group, I saw social action Friends struggling with Biblical language and coming to accept many scriptural passages as valid expressions of their own convictions. And I saw a respected Mennonite, a longtime exponent of total Biblical nonresistance, courageously re-examining his position and corning out strongly in favor of a group statement encouraging non-payment of war taxes.

Elaine J. Crauder gave another report on the project in the 1 November issue. Excerpts:

Quakers, Mennonites and Brethren are known as the Historic Peace Churches. How do they witness against evil and do good? Where does God fit into their witnessing? Are they responding to the urgency of the present-day world situation, or are they truly “historic” peace churches, with no relevance to today’s complex world?

The New Call to Peacemaking (NCP) developed out of exactly these concerns: Where is the relevance and what is the source of our witnessing? The answers were clear. To seek God’s truth and to witness, in a loving way, by doing good (through peace education, cooperation in personal and professional relationships, living simply and investing only in clearly life-enhancing endeavors) and by resisting evil (working for disarmament and peace conversion, resisting war taxes and military conscription).

Crauder says she first started thinking about her support of war through her taxes in 1978:

The 1040 Income Tax form didn’t have a space for war tax resisters. Either I would have to lie about having dependents, or my taxes would be withheld. l didn’t feel that I had a choice. It did not occur to me to claim a dependent and then support that person with the funds that thus wouldn’t go for war. So, I did what was easiest — nothing — and paid my war taxes.

In 1979, she says:

I started to think about my taxes again. Maybe I could lie on my form. It was definitely not right to work for peace and pay for the war machine. I even went to one meeting of the war tax concerns committee. But there were enough meetings that I had to go to, so I managed not to find the time to struggle with my war taxes. Words of John Woolman seemed to fit my condition:

They had little or no share in civil government, and many of them declared they were through the power of God separated from the spirit in which wars were; and being afflicted by the rulers on account of their testimony, there was less likelihood of uniting in spirit with them in things inconsistent with the purity of Truth.

Woolman was referring to the early Quakers when he said it was less likely that they would be influenced by the civil government in questions of the truth. It seemed to me that in Woolman’s time it was also easier to be clear about the truth — we are so much more dependent and tied to the government than they were. Perhaps it is always easier to have a clear witness in hindsight.

I think Crauder has it a little backwards here. Woolman was speaking of early Friends in England, who were being actively repressed by the government and banned from much of any exercise of political power, and contrasting them to the Quakers in Woolman’s own time and place (colonial Pennsylvania), where Quakers held political power, and were by far the dominant party in the colonial Assembly. In Woolman’s time the government and the Society of Friends were as tightly linked as they ever have been.

Historical notes

In the 1 April issue, Walter Ludwig shared an interesting anecdote about Susan B. Anthony’s father, Daniel Anthony:

During the Mexican War he made the quasi tax-resisting gesture of tossing his purse on the table when the collector appeared, remarking, “I shall not voluntarily pay these taxes; if thee wants to rifle my pocketbook thee can do so.”

I hunted around for a source for this anecdote, and found one in Ida Husted Harper’s The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (1898), where she put it this way:

In early life he had steadfastly refused to pay the United States taxes because he would not give tribute to a government which believed in war. When the collector came he would lay down his purse, saying, “I shall not voluntarily pay these taxes; if thee wants to rifle my pocket-book, thee can do so.” But he lived to do all in his power to support the Union in its struggle for the abolition of slavery and, although too old to go to the front himself, his two sons enlisted at the very beginning of the war.

John Woolman was invoked in the 1 December issue as someone who “took as clear a stand on payment of taxes for military ends as he did on slavery.” He was quoted as saying:

I all along believed that there were some upright-hearted men who paid such taxes but could not see that their example was a sufficient reason for me to do so, while I believed that the spirit of Truth required of me as an individual to suffer patiently the distress of goods rather than pay actively.

Bruce & Ruth Graves

The 15 January issue brought an update on the case of Bruce and Ruth Graves, who were pursuing a Supreme Court appeal in the hopes of legally validating their approach of claiming a “war tax credit” on their federal income tax returns. They were trying to get people to write letters to the Supreme Court justices, in the hopes that they would find influential the opinions of laymen on such points as these:

1) petitioners right to First Amendment free exercise of religion and freedom of expression, 2) paramount interests of government not endangered by refusal of petitioners to pay tax, 3) petitioners should be able to re-channel war taxes into peace taxes (via World Peace Tax Fund Act, etc.), 4) IRS regulations should not take precedence over Constitutional rights of individuals, 5) threat of nuclear war must be stopped by exercise of Constitutional rights, 6) other pertinent points at the option of correspondent.

There was a further note on that case in the 15 April issue — largely a plea for support, without any otherwise significant news. Included with this was a message from the Graveses with this plea: “How can Friends maintain the secular impact of the peace testimony expressed through conscientious objection when technology has replaced the soldier’s body with a war machine? Does it not follow that technology then shifts the emphasis of conscientious objection toward reduction of armaments by resisting payment of war taxes?”

The 15 June issue brought the news that the Supreme Court had turned down the Graveses’ appeal. “[W]hen asked whether the frustrations of losing the long court battle had ‘generated any thoughts of quitting,’ Ruth Graves replied, ‘Never. If I were going to let myself be stopped by seemingly hopeless causes, I’d just die right now.”

World Peace Tax Fund

A note in the 1 May issue reported that some people who had “sent in cards or letters expressing support for the [World Peace Tax Fund] bill” had reported that they had “been subjected to IRS audits and other harassment.”

A letter from Judith F. Monroe in the 15 June issue expressed some concern about the World Peace Tax Fund plan. Excerpts:

I fear the World Peace Tax could become a device to appease the consciences of those of us who are not willing to face the consequences of civil disobedience.…

…One important purpose of the tax is to shake the complacent into a realization of the madness of our current armaments race. I don’t believe the casual matter of checking a block on a tax form will ever cause extensive introspection on the part of most people.

How will peace tax funds be handled? Will such a tax require more complex tax laws, IRS investigators, and tax accountants? How can we believe in the government’s ability to use such funds constructively? I can envision the Department of Defense receiving peace grants. After all, they’re the boys who fight for peace. This may be an exaggeration. The point is I do not feel we can trust any large bureaucracy with the task of peacemaking.

If the majority or at least a sizable minority do not opt for the peace tax, all that will happen is a larger percentage of their taxes will go to armaments to compensate for the monies diverted by the few who chose a peace tax. Under such circumstances, the peace tax would accomplish little.

Evidence of some critical appraisal of the “peace tax” idea is also found in a note in the 15 November issue, which summarizes an address by Stanley Keeble to the June General Meeting in Glasgow, Scotland:

If this were permitted, would not government simply raise military estimates to compensate for expected shortfall? Would not people not conscientiously opposed to military “defense,” take advantage of such legislation? Would the procedure be destructive of democracy and majority rule? Should not individuals rather reduce their earnings to a non-taxable level, or would that deprive useful projects of legitimate funds? Other such questions were raised, relating to possible effects on national “defense” policy. For his part, however, Stanley Keeble felt that it was important to “bring a peace decision right to the level of the individual,” and added that of fifteen replies so far received from monthly meetings on the subject of a Peace Tax Fund, only one was completely negative, two uncertain, and “the rest endorsed the proposal whilst acknowledging certain difficulties.”

There were occasional reports on the bill’s status in Congress scattered through the issues of the Journal. One, in the 15 December issue, said:

Endorsed by the national bodies of the Unitarian-Universalist Association, the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of the Brethren, the Mennonites, and the Religious Society of Friends, this bill provides the legal alternative for taxpayers morally opposed to war that the military portion of their taxes would go into the WPTF to be used for a national peace academy, retraining of workers displaced from military production, disarmament efforts, international exchanges and other peace-related purposes; alternatively for non-military government programs.

That issue also quoted the newsletter of the Canadian Friends Service Committee on the legislation, saying: “Thousands of letters and postcards were sent to members and many meetings held across the country as well as slide-tape shows, television and radio programs. Newspaper coverage was also good. The U.S. government is beginning to act in response.”

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 1981

War tax resistance remained very much on the agenda at the Friends Journal at the beginning of the Reagan era of aggressive military build-up in 1981.

A letter from Jenny Duskey in the 1 January issue read, in part:

I belong to a community of disciples called Publishers of Truth. Our testimony is that Christ’s disciples can have no part in war or preparation for war, and that this means not joining the military or being drawn into legally designated “alternatives” to conscription even when the law demands, as well as not paying taxes destined for military use when we can refuse them.

“Publishers of Truth” (see also the advertisement pictured in ♇ 26 July 2013) was centered around Larry and Lisa Kuenning, who came to prophesy an emerging paradise on Earth, centered on Farmington, Maine. I’m tempted to do some further research in this direction, but am afraid of getting lost in some interesting by-ways. Lisa Kuenning was a collaborator with Timothy Leary, and for a time an important figure in the psychedelic renaissance. Last I checked, the Kuennings were running Quaker Heritage Press, which specializes in reprints of old Quaker books.

The 1 February issue had an in-depth article by Richard K. MacMaster on Christian Obedience in [American] Revolutionary Times, that included a discussion of Quaker responses to war taxes and militia exemption taxes. Excerpts:

The Pennsylvania Assembly voted on the last day of June 1775 to recommend to conscientious objectors “that they cheerfully assist in proportion to their abilities, such persons as cannot spend both time and substance in the service of their country without great injury to themselves and families.” This would be a subsidy to poorer Associators, men who could not supply themselves with a musket and bayonet and needed help from their neighbors. It was a far cry from the kind of nonpolitical relief work that the sects had in mind.

The Continental Congress did not help matters when it decreed in July 1775 that members of the Peace Churches should “contribute liberally in this time of universal calamity, to the relief of their distressed brethren.” Were these distressed brethren the poor of Boston or poor families in their own neighborhood or George Washington’s makeshift army camped on the hills overlooking Boston harbor?

The Peace Churches took the Congressional resolve as a last-minute reprieve and insisted that their contributions were for the poor, even though the money would be turned over to the County Committee. “For we gave it in good faith for the needy,” a Lancaster County Brethren pastor explained, “and the man to whom we gave it gave us a receipt stating that the money would be used for that purpose.”

The Lancaster County experience was repeated in other Pennsylvania counties and in other colonies where Quakers, Brethren, and Mennonites were numerous. Most communities tried voluntary contributions, but in Frederick County, Maryland, and Berks County, Pennsylvania, the committees levied fines on men of military age who did not drill with the Associators.

The nonresistant sects had fallen into a trap. No matter how they labeled them, the authorities understood their voluntary contributions as donations to the war chest. And if contributions failed to come voluntarily, they were already preparing for compulsory payment of money as an equivalent to military service.

Time was running out on the Peace Churches by the autumn of 1775. Soon after the October elections, military associators began petitioning the Pennsylvania Assembly that

some decisive Plan should be fallen upon to oblige every Inhabitant of the Province either with his Person or Property to contribute towards the general Cause, and that it should not be left, as at present, to the Inclinations of those professing tender Conscience, but that the Proportion they shall contribute, may be certainly fixed and determined.

These petitions asked much more than an increased tax assessment on the conscientious objectors. The petitions explicitly stated that every member of the community had an obligation to make some contribution to the common cause; the additional tax would be a concession to those who could not meet that obligation on the field of battle.

The Peace Churches rightly put their case on the high ground of religious freedom. Quakers expressed their “Concern on the Endeavours used to induce you to enter into Measures so manifestly repugnant to the Laws and Charter of this Province, and which, if enforced, must subvert that most essential of all Privileges, Liberty of Conscience.” They asked the Assembly not to infringe the solemn assurance given them in Penn’s Charter, “that we shall not be obliged ‘to do or suffer any Act or Thing contrary to our religious Persuasion.’ ”

The revolutionary government rose to the challenge. All sixty-six members of the Philadelphia Committee proceeded in a body to the Assembly chamber to present their response to the Quaker address to the Speaker of the House. The same day, the Assembly heard petitions from the Officers of the Military Association of the City and Liberties of Philadelphia and from a Committee of Privates. They first narrowly construed the grant of religious freedom in the Charter and threw out of court the sectarian contention that religion was more than a Sunday worship service.

We cannot alter the Opinion we have ever held with Regard to those parts of the Charier quoted by the Addressors, that they relate only to an Exemption from any Acts of Uniformity in Worship, and from paying towards the Support of other religious Establishments, than those to which the Inhabitants of this Province respectively belong.

The representation from the Committee of Privates went still further. They insisted that “Those who believe the Scriptures must acknowledge that Civil Government is of divine Institution, and the Support of it enjoined to Christians.” Quakers ought not to question what governments did, according to this Committee of Privates, but simply obey; God had ordained the powers and thereby gave sanction to every action of the state. The lines were thus clearly drawn between the sectarian view of supremacy of conscience and the secular view of the primacy of the state.

The Mennonites and Church of the Brethren simply set down the limits of what they could do in good conscience. Their petition made little difference to the course of events. The day after the Mennonite and Brethren statement was read the Pennsylvania Assembly voted to require everyone of military age who would not drill with the Associators “to contribute an Equivalent to the time spent by the Associators in acquiring the military Discipline.” Later in November 1775, the Assembly imposed a tax of two pounds and ten shillings on non-Associators, which would be remitted for those who joined a military unit. Under new pressure from the Associators they raised the tax to three pounds and ten shillings in April 1776.

The Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention incorporated the principle of taxing conscientious objectors as an equivalent to military service in the Declaration of Rights they adopted. It made explicit what most Patriots already believed:

That every Member of Society hath a right to be protected in the Enjoyment of Life, Liberty and property and therefore is bound to Contribute his proportion towards the Expence of that protection and yield his personal Service when necessary or an equivalent… Nor can any Man who is conscientiously scrupulous of bearing Arms be justly compelled thereto if he will pay such equivalent.

Participation in warfare was a universal obligation, in their view, falling equally on every citizen; those who could not fight must pay others to fight in their place.…

The Assembly and the Convention clearly intended to make the Peace Churches pay for war and imposed the tax as an avowed equivalent to military service.… Religious pacifists carried the whole burden of the tax. But a tax imposed on conscientious objectors as an equivalent to joining the army and intended for the military budget definitely infringed on the religious liberty guaranteed by William Penn’s Charter. The war tax issue thus arose in a context of freedom of conscience curtailed for those whose Christian faith forbade their “giving, or doing, or assisting in any Thing by which Men’s Lives are destroyed or hurt.”

Maryland and North Carolina followed Pennsylvania’s example in levying a special tax on conscientious objectors; the North Carolina law made payment the grounds for exemption from actual service with the army. Virginia and several other states required conscientious objectors to hire substitutes to take their place whenever their company of militia was drafted for combat duty. Special tax assessments for military purposes passed every state legislature as the war dragged on. And the rapidly depreciating Continental and state paper money that fueled a run-away inflation was itself a war tax. Wherever Quakers, Mennonites, or Brethren lived, the problem of paying for war soon caught up with them

Could a valid distinction be made between military service and war taxes? The Reverend John Carmichael, Scottish Presbyterian pastor in Chester County, Pennsylvania, had little sympathy with the nonresistant sects who refused to pay war taxes, but he saw no distinction between fighting and paying the cost of war.

In Rom 13, from the beginning, to the 7^th verse, we are instructed at large the duty we owe to civil government, but if it was unlawful and anti-Christian, or anti-scriptural to support war, it would be unlawful to pay taxes; if it is unlawful to go to war, it is unlawful to pay another to do it, or to go do it.

Some Brethren, Mennonites, and Quakers agreed that no real distinction could be made and consequently refused to pay taxes levied for military purposes. In his 1775 sermon, Carmichael spoke of Mennonites “who for the reasons already mentioned will not pay their taxes, and yet let others come and take their money, where they can find it, and be sure they will leave it where they can find it handily.” They would not resist the tax collector in any way; but they could not cooperate in wrongdoing by voluntarily paying war taxes. The law took this practice into account and permitted collectors to seize the property of those would not pay their own taxes.

Quakers officially discouraged payment of war taxes and militia fines. Many Friends went to jail for their refusal and still a larger number allowed the authorities to take horses, cattle, furniture, farm implements and tools to pay their taxes. They refused to accept any money from the sale of their goods over and above the tax and fine. In the Shenandoah Valley and in other Quaker communities, their neighbors found rare bargains when the sheriff sold a Quaker farmer’s property for taxes and purposely kept the bidding low. Virginia Yearly Meeting protested to the authorities about the sale of slaves, freed by their Quaker masters in defiance of the law, who were taken up and sold to pay their former masters’ war taxes.

Refusal to pay taxes for military purposes had a close parallel in Quaker refusal to pay taxes to support an established Church; they accepted the right of civil government to appropriate money for either purpose, but denied that civil government could coerce their consciences, even at the cost of jail sentences. This was a minority position among English and American Friends, even after John Woolman prodded their conscience on war taxes. Woolman’s influence can be seen in a circular letter issued by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1755, when Braddock’s defeat left Pennsylvania exposed to French and Indian raids and the Assembly ordered new taxes for mounting a fresh campaign. The 1755 tax was a general one, including military appropriations with all the other functions of civil governments, but Friends agreed “as we cannot be concerned in wars and fightings, so neither ought we to contribute thereto by paying the tax directed by the said act, though suffering be the consequence of our refusal.” The issue in 1775 was much clearer: the taxes were levied entirely for military purposes and intended as an equivalent to military service. With the passage of years, Friends had the meaning of nonresistance in much sharper focus and a much greater number accepted the challenge of faithful discipleship.

Mennonites also responded to the challenge by refusing to pay war taxes. When the Pennsylvania Assembly passed an act in 1777 to require a tax of three pounds and ten shillings from everyone of military age who refused to turn out with the militia, Mennonite opinion was divided. Christian Funk, bishop in the Franconia congregation, allowed payment of the tax and tried to convince his brother ministers. But refusal to pay war taxes had taken deep roots in the Mennonite tradition by 1777. The mere rumor that Funk permitted payment of the tax was enough to bring complaints against him at the time of preparation for the Lord’s Supper in the autumn of 1777 and to lead to his ouster from the ministry. All of the preachers and a great many other Mennonites in eastern Pennsylvania opposed payment of the tax. Andrew Ziegler, bishop in the Skippack congregation, spoke for them, when he declared: “I would as soon go into the war, as to pay the three pounds ten shillings if I were not concerned for my life.” Zeigler and others could see little difference between fighting and paying for war.

In the face of a long-standing tradition of paying taxes without questioning the purpose of the tax, men of faith testified from their own conscience that for them there could be no distinction between refusing to fight and refusing to pay for war. These Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers willingly accepted the penalty for their conscientious objection to war taxes in imprisonment and loss of property far in excess of the tax. Their action reminded their brethren of the need for careful discrimination in rendering to Caesar the things that are really Caesar’s. They refused to let a majority vote in the legislature be their conscience and rejected the easy way of confusing Caesar’s will with the will of God.

In the same issue, Bill Durland of the Center on Law and Pacifism reviewed the attempts to get a sympathetic court hearing in the United States for the argument that conscientious objection to military taxation is a Constitutionally-protected right of citizens. He described the founding of the Center in December 1977 by himself, Robert Anthony, Bruce & Ruth Graves, Barbara & Howard Lull, Peter Herby, and Richard McSorley, and then described the various avenues of appeal the group was pursuing in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Anthony put his legal argument this way: to be compelled to pay war taxes “would force [him] to accept a creed, and practice a form of worship foreign to his convictions, and to establish as the only normative religious belief and practice, that adhered to by most Christian denominations, i.e., that it is both a Christian and an American duty to fight in just wars and pay for them.” The Supreme Court wasn’t interested.

The Center tried again with the Graves’ case, asserting that the First Amendment’s assertion that “Congress shall make no law… prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]” means that the governmental interest in having an efficient and uncomplicated tax system is trumped by the citizen’s right to a religious practice that forbids funding war. Again, the Supreme Court turned up its nose.

The Center then made an attempt with the Lulls & Peter Herby as petitioners. As the First Amendment arguments had failed to make any headway, this time they made a Hail Mary pass with a Ninth Amendment argument. “This amendment recognizes that there are certain fundamental, inalienable rights not enumerated in the Constitution which the people possess that are preexisting to any constitution, are inherent in the individual, and are not subject to divestment either partially or completely by the state. These rights have also been called ‘natural’ and are those held by an individual in a state of absolute liberty. In contracting to enter into a state of society, the people collectively, and the person individually, only divest themselves of those natural rights which they expressly relinquish by enumeration.”

Nice try, but the Supreme Court yet again denied cert.

The article notes that in addition to First Amendment-based arguments, “each of the three cases raised at the Federal Court level a compelling legal position based on International Law and, in particular, the Nuremberg Principles.” (Not compelling enough, apparently.)

An article in the same issue, by William Strong, profiles war tax resister Bruce Chrisman. Excerpts:

[H]e cannot pay that portion of his federal taxes that he knows will be used for preparations for war. For that, he is serving a criminal sentence that includes one year of humanitarian service without pay, three years of probation, a fine of $2,400 for court costs, and the payment of all back taxes due. He deems this result a moral victory, however — the sentence could have been up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Over the years Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s minutes have reflected the repeated return of the war tax concern. In 1979 a striking, sensitive minute was approved. The unity reached at that time calls upon “all Friends to continue to search themselves deeply on their responsibility to separate themselves from preparations for war.” Where does that searching lead? “We encourage dialogue between conscientious war tax refusers and other concerned people struggling with the issue of paying war taxes. We seek to build a community of deeply committed persons.” Friends offer their real support — spiritual, moral, legal, and material — to that growing community, and close the minute by reaffirming:

Our strength and our security are derived from our belief in the reality of a loving God and the oneness of that of God in all people. In order to say yes to this belief, we must seriously consider saying no to payment of war taxes.

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s “War Tax Concerns Support Committee” works to carry out that minute. Its mandate is broad, from war tax refusal and resistance, questing for administrative (IRS) and judicial relief, to a spectrum of wholly positive approaches. The committee seeks “legislative relief” in pursuing the World Peace Tax Fund law that proposes alternative service for war taxes, for conscientious objectors to monetary conscription.

In the war tax concerns section of our Peace Testimony, as in most fields of Quaker endeavor, certain Friends are ’way out front. They have been going down a committed road for years. George and Lillian Willoughby, Bob Anthony, Lorraine Cleveland, and Robin Harper in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting come to mind. “Not to worry” — most of us are beginners, and we don’t need to catch up.

What stride do we take this year — or this quarter — in the Light? We tackle the big issues by taking the next step, getting a bit more involved.

Saying “no” to that small, lingering, now two percent Vietnam War telephone tax, which does indeed produce a billion dollars in direct war taxes, is one such step. Adjusting our withholding so that we take more control of our tax payments, with more options, is another. Or do we match what the government requires of us in war taxes with comparable contributions to peace organizations? Everyone ultimately decides his own next step, but often it comes out of shared, caring discussion with other Friends, “wrestling as I am, with the harder questions of our faith and practice.”

That issue also had a few short notes that mentioned war tax resistance:

• “In Japan, COMIT (Conscientious Objection to Military Tax) is planning to sue the government for breach of constitution by taxing for war.”
• “In Switzerland, 300 people belonging to the group ‘Pour une Politique de Paix Active’ refused to pay their military tax or some part of the duty levied for national defense.”
• “[N]ine members of the Pacific Yearly Meeting Peace Committee testified ‘against rendering unto Caesar that which is God’s’ by declaring their solidarity with those Friends who refuse to cooperate with war taxes and draft registration. Some seventeen others present at the yearly meeting also signed the statement.”
• “A statement from Orange County Meeting asks: ‘If we recognize our involvement in militarism through the payment of taxes used for military purposes but do not act to end such involvement, then are we not hypocritical to tell Friends faced with registration to refuse military service?’ ”

The 1 March issue included a mention that the Australian Yearly Meeting was pursuing its own Peace Tax Fund plan “as a method of allowing taxpayers to direct a proportion of their tax to peace purposes instead of military spending.”

The 15 March issue noted that a “Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes is preparing a packet of study materials to provide information on the biblical basis of war taxes and the World Peace Tax Fund… together with suggestions for personal and political action.”

Maurice McCracken wrote in to the 1 April issue to chide anti-war activists for their timidity. Excerpts:

Indeed it is a feeble gesture to do what we do not believe in; even though we protest doing it. The only valid protest is resistance and complete noncooperation with what we believe to be wrong.

[A] law… threatens anyone who advises a young man not to register for the draft with the same penalty as the non-registrant — a possible prison sentence of five years and a possible fine of $5,000. In the draft registration resistance movement I find that considerable time is spent on how to counsel young men about registration so it will not appear that we are actually advising them not to register. Why this hesitancy and timidity?

I not only advise young men of draft age not to register. I urge them not to register.

This military juggernaut which threatens to destroy all human life and all animal and plant life on the planet must be stopped. It must be resisted at the point of not filing a federal income tax return and of not registering for the draft. A thief-says, “Your money or your life.” The Pentagon says, “Your money and your life!” I refuse to give either one! Won’t you join me?

In the 15 April issue, E. Raymond Wilson tried to envision a “Quaker Peace Program” that would be adequate to the challenges of the 1980s. He advocated working toward a more powerful U.N., drastic disarmament, global economic/social development with an emphasis on underdeveloped areas, and active reconciliation of global adversaries. Much of this work would involve lobbying and other pleading with powerful people whose inclinations are largely in the opposite direction; but there was also a nod toward conscientious objection:

Friends should seriously consider the recommendations of the Second New Call to Peacemaking Conference that individuals should withhold all or part of their income tax going to military and war appropriations, now estimated at more than forty-eight percent of the budget controlled by Congress.

War tax resistance came up at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1981. War tax resister John Beer wrote down some questions that people had about resisting, and in a Friends Journal issue the following year, Bill Strong (of the Meeting’s “War Tax Concerns Support Committee”) answered them. The questions were:

• “If we refuse $100 of our federal war taxes and give it to some organization working for peace, what steps will the IRS take?”
• “What options do we have in dealing with the IRS actions?”
• “Is the initial letter we send with our tax return, stating the reasons for our tax refusal, important in terms of the subsequent legal proceedings?”
• “Should we get help from a lawyer or tax refusal group in composing the letter?”
• “What kind of advice can you provide which will allow us to profit from the experience of those who are already refusing to pay war taxes?”
• “What happens to persons who refuse war taxes year after year?”

Some excerpts from the answers give a window into how war tax resistance was practiced by Quakers and by Meetings:

Both at Celo (NC) Meeting and at Central Philadelphia Meeting members asked others to share their examination or audit with IRS agents. The first was in the refusers’ home, the latter in a federal office building.…

One Friend has been refusing for 23 years. His witness continues and collection is still in the future, so much of the obligations of the early years have lapsed. Another Friend, whose refusal goes back even further, has had the funds due taken at irregular intervals from her checking account.

A report in the 1 October issue noted that the Lake Erie Yearly Meeting in June had “considered a minute on war tax concerns” based on queries from the New Call to Peacemaking Conference:

“If we believe that fighting war is wrong, does it not follow that paying for war is wrong? If we urge resistance to the draft, should we not also resist the conscription of our material resources?” The minute concluded: “We reassert the historic peace witness of the Society of Friends. We commit ourselves to wrestle with the contradictions between our testimony and our government’s tax regulations. To continue quiet payment for war preparations is to the conditions for war.” Each meeting was urged to appoint a representative to the World Peace Tax Fund.

Finally, the 1 August issue brought a meditation on “the peaceable kingdom” by Susan Furry. She believed that the Kingdom of God, the peaceable commonwealth, was “at hand” as Jesus said it was, and that it was the duty of Christians to “begin to live there.” She reflected on how she came to include war tax resistance in her vision of how to carry this out:

…I felt that I had to begin to look into the question of war tax resistance. This led to a long period of study and self-examination. To me, becoming a war tax resister meant making a final commitment to pacifism, and I didn’t do it lightly. It took a lot of prayer and thought and the help and support of many people in my meeting to bring me to a point of clearness, where I know, solidly and comfortably, that this action is right for me.

Since then I have found myself being led not only to resist war taxes for myself but also to speak about it to others and to offer counsel and support to those who are considering this action. I have helped prepare a packet called “Quakers and War Taxes” which is on sale at my meeting and have been involved in setting up the New England Friends Peace Tax Fund, an escrow fund for tax resisters under the care of my yearly meeting: I’ve been given a lot of encouragement to continue and to grow in my tax resistance activities through the support of others in my meeting, many of whom are not tax resisters themselves but friends who recognize that it is the right thing for me to do. I’ve found that obedience to the divine leading I have felt in this matter has brought me closer to God, has given me new courage, and has opened me to further leadings.

In practical terms, war tax resistance seems to be a futile, irrational, and perhaps risky undertaking. I think by now I’ve probably heard all the possible arguments against it. The only answer I can really give is, “This is something I must do, to be faithful to my conscience and my understanding of God’s will.” For it is part of the foolishness of God, which is wiser than human wisdom, as Paul tells us in First Corinthians. It requires me to acknowledge my dependence on God’s guidance and strength. I don’t know where my action will lead in practical terms, but I trust God to make use of it; I don’t know what the consequences will be for me personally, but I trust God to help me to face them.

In one way or another, perhaps, peacemaking may bring all of us to that place of acknowledging our dependence on God. For me it has come through tax resistance. For another it may come through the old dilemma about Hitler or through an experience of physical violence on the street. In any case one comes to a place where one has to say, “I don’t know what will happen, but I place my trust in the God of love and accept the consequences.”

In coming to rely on God more, I have begun to learn that God really is dependable. I have felt God working through the beautiful support I have received from many individuals and from my meeting. I’ve been to tax court twice and was sustained by a powerful sense of God’s presence. I’ve faced the certainty of financial loss and found that it doesn’t trouble me as much as I feared it would.

However, I still worry about the future; I haven’t reached the point where I can really leave it all in God’s hands. Sometimes I even wonder about going to jail. Right now the government isn’t prosecuting many war tax resisters, but it is always a possibility. My actions are not very unusual; there are over forty war tax resisters in my meeting alone and many more in New England. I know many people who have sacrificed more and taken greater risks for peace than I have. But I have learned that when you follow God one step down the road, God usually asks you to take another step. Who knows what God may ask of me in the future? I have friends who have gone to jail for conscience’ sake, and I wonder if I could face that if it came to me.

My action in refusing to voluntarily pay taxes for war is largely symbolic — like the early Christians who refused to put a pinch of incense on Caesar’s altar. Is it worth the risk to make a symbolic gesture? Such questions take me back to the Christian roots of my faith. I know that my way of thinking about these things and the language I use do not work for everybody, but these are the symbols which make sense to me, so I must use them.

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 1982

Is the dilemma facing pacifist Quakers who are asked to pay a war tax best resolved by conscientious objection and civil disobedience, or by lawsuits and lobbying? Both approaches could be found in the pages of the Friends Journal in 1982.

On 23 February 1982, the Supreme Court ruled, unanimously, in U.S. v. Lee, that an Amish person who conscientiously objected to the social security system did not thereby have a First Amendment right to opt out of it.

The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge it because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief. Because the broad public interest in maintaining a sound tax system is of such a high order, religious belief in conflict with the payment of taxes affords no basis for resisting the tax.

As a reductio ad absurdum on the losing legal argument, the court noted that if Lee were allowed to assert the right to opt out of social security on conscientious grounds, it would open the door to other similar challenges:

If, for example, a religious adherent believes war is a sin, and if a certain percentage of the federal budget can be identified as devoted to war-related activities, such individuals would have a similarly valid claim to be exempt from paying that percentage of the income tax.

A note in the 1 May issue of the Friends Journal noted that this had also slammed the door on the various First Amendment arguments for conscientious objection to war taxes that people had been pursuing:

In the light of a negative judgment rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court against an Amish employer on February 23, the judicial action committee of the General Conference Mennonite Church has recommended to its General Board that a planned suit against the IRS on the issue of tax withholding “be put on indefinite hold.”

Having been turned away by the judicial branch, they decided to double-down on the legislative:

Rather than take a negatively-shrouded course of action at this time, the General Conference committee urged the General Board to make more money available “to promote the World Peace Tax Fund.”

The 15 March issue reviewed two books on war tax resistance: Affirm Life: Pay for Peace from the Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes, and People Pay for Peace by William Durland. The first of these opened with this challenging statement:

A wedge of contradiction is opening a wide fissure in our peace testimony. While nearly all of us declare ourselves to be conscientiously opposed to war and preparations for war, and while many work tirelessly for its elimination, the overwhelming number of us continue voluntarily to pay for what we openly abhor.

The book, according to the review, covered the “biblical and historical basis for military tax refusal” and presented “a systematic exposition of the proposal for a World Peace Tax Fund.” It also “gives large place to the significance and importance of achieving religious clarity and motivation.” However, “[i]t does not… adequately address the mechanics of military tax refusal.”

That gap was filled by the second of the books, of which the reviewer said: “Most useful, I think, is the section entitled, ‘How to Refuse to Pay the Military Tax.’ ”

The same issue had an obituary for Lois Mae Handsaker which noted: “Before there were any peace marches in the ’60s, she was apprehended during the picketing of the local post office to protest the use of income taxes for war.”

The 1 April issue announced that the Iowa Peace Network would be collecting money withheld from taxes by war tax resisters and using it to buy grain which it would submit to an IRS office in lieu of tactics to “symbolize opposition to taxes for the Pentagon and emphasize the need for funding human services.” The article noted: “In the event that the IRS refuses to accept the grain, it will be donated to local meal programs for the needy.”

Alas, the notice followed-up that news with the silly idea of protesting against war taxes by writing “not for military spending” in the memo field of the check you write to the IRS. “If enough people take this step, a class action suit against the IRS may be filed” — by some sort of magic, one supposes.

At the end of 1981 Canada’s Parliament passed a “Constitution Act” which made it yet more independent of the British government. The act enshrined “freedom of conscience and religion” as a fundamental freedom. The Canadian Peace Tax Fund Committee said it was going to “test” this “by assuming that [our legislators] mean we can divert our defense taxes from killing to peaceful uses, on conscientious grounds.” The notice of this, in the 15 May issue, didn’t give any details as to how this “test” would take place, but pretty quickly shifted to “hopes” that the legislature would enact a Peace Tax Fund in the spirit of the new Constitution Act, so lobbying may have been all the testing they planned to do.

Similarly vague was the report from the July meeting of Carolina Conservative Friends, which decided on “asking ourselves and other American Friends to make some sort of statement against the use of tax money for military purposes, through coordinated activity in filing our returns next April.” A report on the Lake Erie Yearly Meeting also vaguely mentioned “continued explorations within monthly meetings about war-tax resistance.” Another report on the New York Yearly Meeting said that “[s]ome Friends planned to take further individual action supporting nonregistration and tax refusal.” This consistent vagueness makes me suspect that there was some embarrassment and certainly no consensus about war tax resistance in these meetings.

Trudy Knowles brought things more in the brass tacks direction in the “Memoirs of a War Resister,” an article that concentrated mostly on the plight of Vietnam War veterans in the United States, that she shared in the 1 August issue. Her resistance included tax resistance:

I do not pay the federal excise tax on my phone bill which is earmarked for the military. I refuse to pay the 50 percent of my income tax that goes to preparing this country for war. I put this money instead into an escrow account to be held until the government establishes a means by which this money can be used for the peaceful resolution of national and international conflicts — or until they take it by force.

There was a thoughtful overview of the “Holy Experiment” of William Penn’s founding of a colony run on Quaker principles in Pennsylvania by Margaret H. Bacon in the 15 October issue. Toward the conclusion, it discussed war tax resistance as a possible way of advancing the experiment:

Through [John] Woolman we come to the most pressing unfinished business of our Holy Experiment: freeing ourselves from complicity in war. Penn and his colonists hoped to govern without weapons, placing their hopes on “seeing what love can do,” as well as on the establishment sometime in the future of the instruments of arbitration, Penn’s Congress of Nations. Neither the personal practice of nonviolence nor the best efforts of the United Nations have yet worked to rid the world of the threat of war, and now time is running out. Earlier Friends were at least able to separate themselves from complicity in preparations for war by refusing to pay militia taxes as well as refusing to serve in the militia. Today the principle of conscientious objection for the bodies of our young men (and perhaps young women) is well established with us, having been pioneered by a handful during the Civil War, a few hundred during World War Ⅰ, and some thousands in World War Ⅱ. The idea of demanding conscientious objector status for our tax dollars is in its infancy.

In the past years, a few courageous souls have refused to pay the government that portion of their federal income taxes that supports war. Today more and more monthly meetings and yearly meetings are beginning to wrestle with the problem. Is it time for the Society of Friends as a whole to get behind this move? Surely if we did it, and the Mennonites did it, and the Brethren did it, we could make a change in the law. Is there not some simple, single forward step that we could make together in 1983?

Some Friends find this issue complicated, because the graduated income tax supports many good things, and Friends who designate their taxes solely for peace purposes are just making it necessary for others to pay solely for war. The same arguments can be raised against conscientious objection to military service. But is there not a deep and inward side to tax refusal? Do some Friends feel, as Woolman felt, that they cannot pay these taxes and still keep in touch with the living and life-giving Holy Spirit? Let us be tender before we argue with our tax refusers, for they may be pointing our way to new light.

The 15 November issue brought the news that “25 members of the Friends House staff in London” had embarked on war tax resistance. The Meeting for Sufferings of London Yearly Meeting agreed to put 34% of the taxes withheld from the objectors into an escrow account, “the intention being to release it to Inland Revenue after assurances that it would be used for non-military purposes.”

An obituary notice of Roberta Dickinson in the same issue noted that “[s]he supported the peace testimony through organized war tax resistance.”

At the November meeting of the Friends World Committee for Consultation, that group decided to refuse to submit withheld taxes to the government from its war tax resisting employees (according to a Journal report the following year).

Walter Ludwig reflected on contemporary and historical Quaker war tax resistance in an article he wrote for the 1 December issue. Excerpts:

The writings from George Fox, John Woolman, Joshua Evans, Timothy Davis, Moses Brown, and Samuel Allinson that are mentioned in Ludwig’s essay can be found in the book American Quaker War Tax Resistance.

Members of our meeting [Rahway and Plainfield (New Jersey) Monthly Meeting] several years ago began as individuals to withhold a percentage of their income tax in protest of its use for war. No devastating consequences have resulted. Courteous, almost sympathetic Internal Revenue Service agents have visited one member, telling her a red tab has been affixed to her folder in the file. She hopes the IRS will soon run out of red tabs.

Since 1979 I have withheld the military third, sending it the first year to the American Friends Service Committee and since then to the Quaker Peace Tax Fund, custody of Albany (N.Y.) Monthly Meeting. The first response from the IRS came just this year, in May. They want the “underpaid tax,” $939.58 in penalty and interest. My refusal to support mass murder will likely be ignored, as have been my explanatory notes of “conscientious deduction” sent quarterly during the past three years

In my letters of refusal I have mentioned membership in the Religious Society of Friends. Do I thereby leave with the IRS the impression that of course Quakers do not pay military taxes, as they once refused to pay tithes to a state church they could not in conscience support? But has refusal to pay taxes for war been within the main stream of Quakerly testimony and practice? May war-tax-resisting Friends today take aid and comfort from a tradition of military tax refusal?

George Fox was clear on the matter. A restored portrait of Fox presents him as a man of property from a well-to-do family with enough investments to give him private means. He paid his taxes.

If we pay we can plead with Caesar and plead with them who hath our custom and hath our tribute. Refuse to pay and they will say: “How can we defend you against foreign enemies and protect everyone and their estates and keep down thieves and murders?”

And again:

To bear and carry weapons to fight with… the man of peace cannot act… but have paid their tribute [taxes] which they may still do for peace’s sake… In so doing Friends may better claim their liberty.

Sara Fell kept the Fox family account book after George married her mother, Margaret. Her accounts disclose that the family paid the poll tax to carry on England’s war against the Dutch in 1667. When England fought the French, the entry reads: “29 May [1678] by M paid to the Poll Money by father and mother 1 pound 2 shilling.”

Robert Barclay, foremost Quaker theologian, wrote in 1676:

We have suffered much in our country because neither ourselves would bear arms nor send others in our place, nor give our money for the buying of drums, standards, and other military attire.

Such “trophy money,” as these direct taxes were called, many early Friends refused to pay. Most, however, paid the general or “mixed” taxes even in time of war. Their willingness may be found in the advice of the 1656 gathering at Balby encouraging “all who are indebted to the world endeavor to discharge the same.” As Fox put it in 1661, “Keep out of debt; owe to no man anything but love… Pay to Caesar, as to your fellows, what is due.”

[H]omespun-clad John Woolman was given a cool reception by elegant London Friends. They were securely of the propertied class with enterprises in heavy industry and were largely in control of the Atlantic trade. They would not give their persons to the business of war-making, but did they make nice distinctions in how the empire used their tax money in extending colonial rule?

Philadelphia Friends, like London’s, were well placed in government and trade. “The richest,” wrote a visiting London doctor, “talk only about selling of flour and the low price it bore.” Using George Fox as authority, some Quakers tried to persuade others to pay a tax levied for an armed expedition against Canada in 1711. When war with the French and Indians finally came in 1755, John Churchman, Anthony Benezet, John Woolman, and other Friends refused to pay war taxes that were mixed with taxes for civil uses. In extenuation of Fox and early war-tax-paying Quakers in England Woolman said:

To me it appears that there was less danger of their being infected with the spirit of the world than is the case with us now. [They] had had little share in civil government… our minds have been turned to the improvement of our country, to merchandise and the sciences… and a carnal mind is gaining among us.

When ten Quaker members of the Pennsylvania Assembly resigned rather than vote for the War Supply Bill of 1756, the remaining “secular” Friends voted the war taxes and penalties for nonpayment. The abdicating legislators and their supporters in the Society then began close cooperation with Mennonites, Dunkers, and other pacifist groups that carried on through the Revolution.

When military officers appeared in Mount Holly to draft for the French and Indian War, Woolman noted in his Journal, “In this time of commotion some of our young men left these parts and tarried abroad till it was over” (a prelude to Vietnam). Woolman in 1755 had recorded his uneasiness about paying war taxes:

A few years past, money having been made current in our province for carrying on wars… by taxes laid on the inhabitants, my mind was often affected with the thought of paying such taxes… To refuse the active payment of a tax which our Society generally paid was exceedingly disagreeable but to do a thing contrary to my conscience appeared yet more dreadful.

Joshua Evans in 1756 wrote:

I found it best for me to refuse paying taxes on my estate which went to pay the expenses of war, and although my part might appear at best as a drop in the ocean, yet the ocean, I considered, was made up of many drops.

Committees appointed by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting agreed on an “epistle of tender love and caution to Friends in Pennsylvania” signed by those who felt free to do so and forwarded to monthly and quarterly meetings. It was in keeping with William Penn’s earlier statement, made when he refused to send money to England for war against Canada:

No man can be true to God and be false to his own conscience, nor can he extort from it a tribute to carry on any war, much less offensive, nor ought true Christians pay for it.

I’ve tried many times to track down a source for this Penn quote, with no success.

The war was in full swing when queries sent annually by London Yearly Meeting to English Friends were adopted in 1758 by yearly meetings in Virginia, Maryland, Philadelphia, New York, and New England. They asked:

Do you bear a testimony against bearing arms and paying trophy money or being in any manner concerned in privateers letters of mark, or dealing in prize goods as such?

Friends were expected not to pay voluntarily to hire a substitute for military service or voluntarily pay any tax solely and directly for military purposes. Every other tax, even mixed taxes that would be used in part for the military budget, Friends were expected in conscience to pay.

The Revolution shifted the locus of tax-raising authority for Americans from London to state and federal governments. Whereupon Timothy Davis in 1776 circulated his tract titled, “Advice of a Quaker to Pay Tax to American Revolution.” War taxes, especially mixed ones, should be paid, wrote Davis, and he quoted a weighty Friend, Thomas Story, who had declared, “If the officer demand tax from me and tell me ’tis to maintain war, I’ll pay it.” Sandwich (Mass.) Monthly Meeting took a dim view of the Davis publication and disowned its author. Quaker books of discipline of the time counseled disowning members who paid war taxes.

During the Revolution Moses Brown reminded Friends:

Our ancient testimonies were and remain to be supportable of paying tribute and customs for the support of civil and yet refuse to pay trophy money and other expenses solely for war.

He suggested Friends might ask, with the war over, for a separation of taxes into their several budget purposes. “If it should be refused we might be united in refusing even those the greater part of which may be for civil uses.”

The clearest Quaker statement on war taxes during the Revolution came from the pen of Samuel Allinson, a young Friend of Burlington, New Jersey. In 1780 Allinson circulated manuscript copies of his “Reasons against War and paying taxes for its Support.” War is not a defensible function of civil government, reasoned Allinson, and each generation must apply biblical truths to the issues of its own time. Peace committees of monthly meetings might well spend a session with Friend Allinson’s cogent thinking.

Quaker support of withholders of war taxes was recorded in a minute approved by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1970, reaffirmed in 1979, and used as model for a minute approved by New York Yearly Meeting. It reads, in part:

Refusal to pay the military portion of taxes is in keeping with an honorable testimony, fully in keeping with the history and practice of Friends… We warmly approve of people following their consciences and openly approve civil disobedience in this matter under divine compulsion… We ask all to consider carefully the implications of paying taxes that relate to war-making… Specifically we offer encouragement and support to people caught up in the problem of seizure, and of payment against their will.

The same issue noted that a minute passed at the August gathering of the New England Yearly Meeting “supported efforts to establish a World Peace Tax Fund and current forms of war tax refusal.”

Also in that issue was an announcement about the formation of a war tax resisters’ penalty fund:

The Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund is a network designed to distribute the burden of penalties or interest levied against military tax resisters. For example, 200 people would share a $500 penalty at $2.50 each. For information contact TRPF, Box 25, North Manchester, IN 46962.

The fund was still in operation at that address until fairly recently. It has not formally disbanded, though it appears to no longer be operating effectively.

In 1982, Ronald Freund’s book What One Person Can Do To Help Prevent Nuclear War was published by Twenty-Third Publications, a Catholic-oriented publisher. Chapter three was titled “God and Caesar” and concerned taxes as one point of leverage individuals have.

Freund gives a brief overview of the history of conscientious tax resistance that seems to me to understate it, though it’s possible that in 1982 less evidence was easily available.

[I]t was not until the Vietnam War that tax resistance became a significant form of Christian witness against war. One of the early Vietnam-era tax resisters was William Faw, a minister of the Church of the Brethren, one of the historic peace churches.

Faw had not come to my attention before, but Freund tells his story as follows:

William Faw: “Here I Stand; I Cannot Do Other”

William Faw was born in 1941 in Nigeria where his parents were missionaries for the Brethren Church. His father took a post teaching at Bethany Seminary, and the family moved to Chicago where Bill grew up. He went to college in Indiana and then attended the seminary until his graduation in 1964.

While at school Faw was compelled to confront the issue of the draft. “Both my parents were pacifists so I had decided early on that I would either be a resister or a conscientious objector; I could not accept a student or ministerial deferment in good conscience,” explains Faw. Despite his religious background it still required a two-year battle with the draft board to obtain his CO status. By the time he received CO status he had a family and was never required to perform alternative service.

He received his first assignment in 1964 at the Douglas Park Church of the Brethren, a poor, multiracial community on the West Side of Chicago. It was during this period that Bill Faw became a tax resister. Faw explains that decision, saying, “I was a self-employed pastor and my wife was not working so we had control over our tax payments. Since my wife was also a pacifist, we felt that it was necessary to protest the Vietnam War. The question was, ‘How can we do this together?’ We spoke with several other Brethren who had been refusing taxes and listened to political leaders who opposed the war. By early 1967 we decided to refuse to pay our taxes in full knowledge that it could lead to criminal punishment.”

When the time came to file their 1966 income tax return, the Faws sent the IRS a long letter explaining why there was no check enclosed. Other resisters had engaged in resistance by refusing even to file a return, but Faw believed that a religious witness should be made in an open and public manner. The Faws’ letter made clear the personal struggle which accompanied their decision:

We refuse to willingly contribute to a “war machine” which is engaged in the very brutal war in Vietnam… In the past we felt that the ambiguities of tax paying outweighed the war-tax issue. That is, our government’s expenditures for foreign aid, law enforcement, programs in health, education, and welfare, agriculture, urban redevelopment, and poverty fighting are worthy of support… Events have occurred which lead us to reconsider our responsibilities as citizens. We feel we can be true to our national citizenship only if we oppose a so-called “non-war” that has not been constitutionally declared. We feel that we can be true to our international citizenship as spelled out at the Nuremberg Trials only if we disassociate ourselves from and actively protest our unjust, illegal, morally deplorable, aggressive offensive against human beings in Vietnam.

But most basically we feel that we can be true to our Christian discipleship only if we oppose… the seizure of God’s prerogative by the United States in attempting to become the philosophical, theological, executive, legislative, judicial, and policing agency for the entire world; only if we oppose the exploiting of American “racism” by A-bombing, napalming, scatterbombing Asians; only if we oppose the mode of “evangelistic effort” our nation is making in Vietnam to show the Buddhists what being a “Christian” nation means…

Thus we are led to withhold our income tax and to seek constructive alternative ways of sharing our income… In God’s name, and under his judgment, we pray that we might choose the best path to make our witness.

…As a result, they chose to donate the tax money to the Canadian Friends Service Committee for the relief of war victims. They were well aware that some of those victims who would be helped by their money were North Vietnamese and Viet Cong; they believed this action to be consistent with Jesus’ command to “love your enemy.”

The Faws refused to pay their income taxes for the next five years, donating the funds to various international relief agencies. The Internal Revenue Service sent an agent to attempt to obtain the taxes directly. When this failed the IRS placed a levy on the Faws’ bank account and was able to collect the back taxes. The Faws were not threatened with criminal penalties.

Freund says the Faws were also resisting their phone tax, but returned to being taxpayers in the wake of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords. However, as of the writing of the book, they were planning to become resisters again by refusing a percentage of their income tax:

The continuing military buildup, especially nuclear weapons, has led us to resume tax resistance… We are being lulled into accepting more and more. Johnson tried to give us guns and butter, but Reagan’s policy of sacrificing butter for guns represents a barbaric reversal of priorities.

Freund asked about the practical effectiveness of individual tax resistance.

…Faw conceded that it would be far more powerful if institutions were to openly advocate and practice tax resistance. “If one church did it, even a small one like the Brethren, the Mennonites, or the Quakers, it would have a tremendous impact on some of the liberal mainline denominations,” Faw believes. However, even the New Call To Peacemaking, a grassroots movement within the historic peace churches begun in 1976, of which Faw was the local chairman for two years, has failed to adopt a position of total resistance to war taxes. This has been a source of frustration for Bill Faw, but he nevertheless believes in the importance of individual witness, “I would still do it even if no one else did. There comes a point, with Vietnam or the arms race, where you say, ‘I’m not going to participate in that, no matter what the cost.’ It’s kind of like Martin Luther saying, ‘Here I stand; I cannot do other.’ ”

Freund then briefly described “A Simple Methodology” for Christians who were considering war tax resistance, covering the options of 1) paying taxes under protest, 2) voluntary poverty, 3) refusal to pay. He then tried to discern what sort of guidance might be found in the Bible, considering the difficult “Render unto Caesar” and “the powers that be are ordained of God” sections in particular.

Then he returns to the problem of the lack of institutional support for war tax resistance among Christian churches:

War Taxes: Where the Churches Are

Bill Faw and tax attorney William Durland express frustration that the churches, as national institutions, have not taken clear positions in support of tax resistance. Durland, who counsels tax resisters, says, “Some church body will have to declare that it stands by the Gospel and not by the IRS. This could have a chain reaction effect and lead to a coalition of churches to make it work.”

What holds them back? According to Faw, many Brethren have expressed “concern for the biblical ambiguities regarding taxes, concern over the maintenance of a certain respectability, and fear of the consequences.” Durland is somewhat more cynical, “The Pope speaks out against war and then honors the Italian Army.”

What is the position of the churches? The historic peace churches, representing 400,000 members in the United States, have been discussing the issue since 1968. In 1973, the Church of the Brethren recommended that, “Although the Brethren cannot agree as to whether tax withholding is proper, they can all recognize the propriety of using the means of dissent which the social order itself recognizes… We recommend that all who feel concern be encouraged to express their protests through letters accompanying their tax returns, whether accompanied by payment or not.” Many employees of these churches have not been satisfied with this position and have urged church agencies to refuse to withhold their federal taxes, a violation of the law. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), responded by challenging the constitutionality of withholding as an infringement on the right of religious expression. In 1974 the Supreme Court ruled in AFSC v. U.S. that a lower court ruling in favor of the AFSC was invalid and ordered AFSC to continue to withhold. The AFSC has complied with that order since. Pressure from employees of the Mennonite Church to refuse to withhold led to the following resolution adopted in 1979, “We request the General Board to engage in a serious and vigorous search to pursue all legal, legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption from the legal requirement that the conference withhold income taxes from its employees.”

The New Call to Peacemaking (NCP), a more radical caucus within the three peace churches, has gone somewhat further. In 1978 and again in 1980 the NCP called upon members of the historic peace churches “to seriously consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes, as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.” However, attempts to go further and adopt a position which called “paying for war a sin parallel to the sin of fighting war” was rejected. As one pastor at the meeting said, “We are calling my congregation into deep water when they haven’t even gotten their toes wet.”

The mainline Protestant denominations have reacted cautiously or ignored the issue. There is a growing movement within the Unitarian Universalist Association to take a position in favor of tax resistance. One of the leaders of this effort is Rev. Philip Zwerling of the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles. He says, “Nowhere is military madness more manifest than in the nuclear arms race… and on one day of the year — April 15 — we break down and pay for it all… Is it not moral schizophrenia to blithely pick up the tab for the military mania that we speak out against? It’s time to put our money where our mouth is.” However, for all the strength of this statement, the denomination as a whole has not adopted this position.

At the 1980 General Conference of the United Methodist Church a resolution was adopted calling for support of those “who conscientiously object to the payment of taxes for military purposes.” Here, too, the group stopped short of calling on church agencies themselves to engage in tax resistance.

Although large numbers of Roman Catholics are engaged in various forms of tax resistance, the church has taken no official position. According to Father Bryan Hehir, Associate Secretary for International Justice and Peace of the U.S. Catholic Conference, “We have no policy on tax resistance… and I have not adopted a position intellectually on it.” Activist and author Father Daniel Berrigan thinks this position is becoming increasingly untenable, “More and more the question of paying federal taxes is going to become a question of conscience. The government is stealing money and turning it into blood money. We’re going to be pushed into a corner on whether we can recognize… our Christianity.”

Freund then recapped the example of (Catholic) Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen. Excerpts:

Addressing the Pacific Northwest Synod of the Lutheran Church in America… Hunthausen surprised his audience by suggesting what form their action might take, “I would like to share a vision of an action which could be taken: simply this — a sizable number of people in the State of Washington, 5,000, 10,000, a half million people refusing to pay 50 percent of their taxes in nonviolent resistance to nuclear murder and suicide… Form 1040 is the place where the Pentagon enters all of our lives, and asks our unthinking cooperation with the idol of nuclear destruction. I think the teaching of Jesus tells us to render to a nuclear-armed Caesar what that Caesar deserves — tax resistance.”

Reaction in the community was mixed, but leaders of eight other Christian denominations in Seattle announced their general support for the stand of the Archbishop… However, they stopped short of endorsing tax resistance, saying they would “encourage discussion of tax resistance” and offer support to “those who refuse to pay taxes in protest of the arms race.”

At the time of his speech the Archbishop openly stated that he himself had not yet refused to pay taxes, but that it was troubling his conscience. Several months later he acted. In a pastoral letter published in the Seattle archdiocesan newspaper, Hunthausen declared, “After much prayer, thought, and personal struggle, I have decided to withhold 50 percent of my income taxes as a means of protesting our nation’s continuing involvement in the race for nuclear arms supremacy… I am saying by my action that in conscience I cannot support or acquiesce in a nuclear arms buildup which I consider a grave moral evil.”

…However, Pacific Northwest United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert said that “while the city’s ecumenical leadership is supportive of Hunthausen, none has indicated that he or she is prepared to follow suit with similar personal acts of tax resistance.”

Freund ends the chapter with a nod to the World Peace Tax Fund Bill idea, taking it at face value and noting that “[c]hurch support is broad.”

This is the twenty-second in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal of the (Old) Mennonite Church.

1981 was marked by heated debate in the pages of Gospel Herald about war tax resistance, while Mennonite Church institutions continued to struggle with whether or how to take a stand.

The 27 January 1981 issue reported on Mennonite war tax redirection:

Taxes for Peace Fund grows

Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section’s Taxes for Peace Fund experienced a substantial increase in contributions during 1980. The amount of $10,400 was contributed in 1980, compared to $6,200 in 1979.

The Taxes for Peace Fund was established in late 1972. “Persons whose consciences forbid them to yield money on request to the government’s death-by-technology militarism are contributing the military portion of their income tax instead to the life-supporting work of MCC U.S. Peace Section,” says John K. Stoner, executive secretary of the section.

During fiscal year 1980, the U.S. budgeted $138 billion for current military spending. Thirty-two percent of the income tax paid by every American during 1980 contributed to raising this money. An additional 15 percent went to veterans benefits and the portion of the national debt related to past wars. Thus, nearly half of the federal budget, raised almost entirely by individual and corporate income taxes, is military related.

A recent preliminary census taken by U.S. Peace Section found that over 200 Mennonite families and individuals are refusing to pay a portion of their income taxes and are instead contributing that money to organizations working for peace.

Withholding a portion of one’s income tax is only one of many ways to witness against military spending. Some Mennonites are using other methods, such as reducing income below taxable level, increasing charitable contributions, refusing to pay the federal telephone tax, and actively supporting the World Peace Tax Fund.

The Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries was distributing a war tax study packet by this time, according to the 27 January 1981 issue:

A revised and updated War Tax Packet covering a variety of issues related to the question of payment of taxes for military purposes is available. The packet contains articles by Willard Swartley, Marlin Miller, David Schroeder, Donald Kaufman, John Stoner, and William Durland; the stories of some persons’ own experiences; several brochures and other reprints; an issue of God and Caesar newsletter; a list of peace organizations; and a bibliography. Copies of the War Tax Packet are $2.00 and may be requested from MBCM… or MCC…

In the cover story of the 3 February 1981 edition (“Focusing Mennonite missions in the ’80s”), John Driver wrote:

If the church wants to speak to the peace and justice issues of our day with credibility, we will need to live out more radically our status as God’s children. We must really be, in fact, the peacemakers we are called to be. This goes for the church in all parts of the world, but most importantly, it is for all of us who are citizens of a nation which insists on being number one in the world.

After hearing my views on peace, a student leader in Spain asked me what I intended to do about paying taxes to support the armament race. I personally do not see how Christians can proclaim the gospel of peace with integrity while intentionally supporting America’s desire to be the number one military power. This contradiction is compounded when we realize that, in the eyes of the rest of the world, the United States is the great bastion of evangelical Christianity.

Things really began to heat up starting in the 10 February 1981 issue, which featured this commentary (I corrected the numbering of items 5–7, where the numbers were missing from the original, but there was some ambiguity so I might have gotten it wrong):

A testimony regarding the payment of war taxes

by Daniel Slabaugh

Editor’s Note: The question of war taxes has been a subject of discussion among Mennonites for years. It does not appear any nearer solution than before. Should we then cease discussing it? On the contrary, the issue is so important that we should listen to all who have insights, especially those who not only speak, but practice their convictions.

This is a blunt article, but I believe it is written with love. Can we receive it as such? See also the author’s personal note at the end of his article.

Introduction For years I have struggled with the knowledge that there are in our Mennonite Church many pastors, educators, theologians, seminary professors, and writers who have condoned, justified, and rationalized the payment of war taxes, even placating those whose tender consciences were bothering them every April 15.

Many times I have argued with the Spirit when confronted with the request that I witness against this inconsistency. I had good excuses too! Except for a year of junior college Bible at Eastern Mennonite College, my academic training has been in engineering and natural science. I can’t read Greek or Hebrew! How then could a non-seminary, practically illiterate nobody have any influence? These little dialogues were nearly weekly experiences (some more detailed), while driving the car, alone in the field, reading Scripture in sermon preparation, even in silent prayer.

Finally on November 6, 1980, while husking corn, a terrible dread came over me. I stopped the husker right there in the middle of the field and shouted: “Okay God, if You want me to make a fool of myself. I’ll do it, I will, I will.” (No one heard me above the noise of the John Deere, else they might have questioned my sanity.) What a relief and joy I felt! I think I sang all the hymns I knew by heart the rest of the day!

It was my day off at the hospital, but that evening I was just “too tired” to “start anything,” and for two weeks I was just “too busy.” Always when I come home at 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. I fall asleep the minute I get to bed. Then one night I was wide awake! After an hour of tossing I finally got up, picked up my Bible and came down to the kitchen, dropped it on the table rather disgustedly, got a drink of water, and sat down. The Bible had fallen open and the first words I read were Ezekiel 3:20, 21. That did it for me! (Don’t bother to tell me that is not the proper way to read the Bible. I already know that; I’m just telling you what happened to me.)

I thought I should share these experiences with you so that you may know the motivation for this communication.

Come then, my brothers and sisters, let us reason together concerning the payment of war taxes!

1. The United States Internal Revenue Service has stated: “The IRS can only collect income taxes because of the voluntary cooperation of the citizens.” Let no one say that they voluntarily pay income taxes, because they have no choice. That is not true! The payment of war taxes is viewed by the government as voluntary cooperation; the final endorsement of their policies.

   If you choose not to pay voluntarily, and make no other deduction arrangements, then the IRS will eventually try to collect in some other way. We have never paid war taxes and are now giving our entire farm to the church so that we will pay no income tax. It is costing us something. The burden of proof is upon you who approve of war taxes because it costs you nothing.

   Now I know that many of our people are not in a position to do as we are doing, so I have with many others been working for seven or eight years to get the World Peaee Tax Fund passed. The only reason it has not passed and will not pass is because of lack of concern. United States senators and representatives have told us many times that except for the few of you, “There is no evidence that anyone else has any problem paying war taxes; so why are you bothering us with this bill?”

   A highly educated theologian of our denomination said to me, “You can’t hang a guilt trip on me about war taxes, because we aren’t in a war.” Doesn’t everyone understand that this is a “Pay now, go later plan”? I doubt that we will ever again pay for a war during a war. When the atomic destruction comes it will be no consolation for the victims to remember that these atomic bombs were paid for by peace-loving Mennonites, not some terrible heathen Russians! If I should live to see that total destruction (may God spare me that) I will know that my own brothers and sisters in the faith have helped make it possible!

2. It has been pointed out to me that Menno Simons said “we should pay our taxes” as justification for paying war taxes today. Based on Menno’s life and teachings, how can anyone even suggest that he would voluntarily pay our war taxes? I don’t know how it would be possible to dishonor the man more than to hang that on him, when he was hunted like a criminal for things a whole lot less contradictory to Jesus’ life and teaching than voluntarily paying for killing!

3. In Luke 13:10–17, the ruler of the synagogue was correct in calling attention to the laws of the Sabbath. Sabbath observance was a good rule of conduct to obey, but when it interfered with meeting human need, Jesus demonstrated that meeting human need took precedence over Sabbath observance.

   Now, suppose for the sake of comparison, I allow you to take Romans 13:1–7 as universally applicable for today’s world. Now you have the same difference that existed between Jesus and the Pharisees, namely literal observance of the law versus human good and well being. You are opting for the former (as the Pharisees did), but Jesus opted for the latter.

   Even verses 8, 9, 10 of the same chapter make it impossible to obey verse 7 if “their dues” are whatever they ask, because today the payment of war taxes and loving my neighbor as myself are mutually exclusive!

   Certainly Jesus would not view preparation to kill someone as the proper way to express God’s love.

4. Some of you say, “The Bible specifically says, ‘Pay your taxes,’ so that’s what I do and what the government does with it is not my responsibility.” That was the position of the church during Hitler’s extermination of the Jews, a position which some of you have criticized very severely even though to “be faithful” then was much more disastrous than to be so now. Personal responsibility is such a consistent principle throughout the Holy Scriptures that I should not need to belabor the point. Even the worldly legal system has affirmed personal responsibility regardless of government demands!

   If you really behaved in such a simplistic literalism, then you ought to advocate hatred of parents, because Jesus Himself said that if you don’t hate your father and mother you can’t be His disciple. Since this is completely opposite to all His teachings, we know that He said that for comparison, for emphasis. In the same way, I wished to pay all my taxes (and always had) until doing so became completely contrary to the life of Christ!

5. Some of you argue, “The government will get the money anyway,” or “Withholding my war taxes won’t stop the arms race.” The exact same reasoning should put you into a military uniform! I could have reasoned (as many did) that if I didn’t go into the military, they would just get someone else to take my place. The day that I was drafted into Civilian Public Service, I didn’t really notice any lessening of hostilities! I didn’t take conscientious objector position because I thought it would be successful (nor is that why I am writing this). The words I want to hear from my Lord are: “Thou hast been faithful.”

6. Our citizens are told that all our “defense” (?) budget is to protect our life and property. (Even if I were in favor of that, I wouldn’t approve exceeding that by at least 25 times for the personal profit of special interests.) Some years ago a Mennonite bishop wrote in the Gospel Herald, “We shouldn’t criticize our government because they protect our property.” The logical honest extension of that is: “There is nothing more important than our property.” What could be more contrary to the essence of the gospel, or the faith of the Anabaptist martyrs? Didn’t Jesus specifically teach in Luke 9:24 that if your overriding concern is to save your life, then you will lose it? Certainly you can already see the beginning of the financial destruction of our country because of the irresponsible and insane spending of the military! How pathetic that the Mennonite Church, because of our worldview, our concept of discipleship, and our persecution history, could have been in the strength of the Holy Spirit, a powerful mover toward peace and sanity, but instead has become a farce instead of a force! History (if there will be any) will say of us as Jesus said of the Pharisees: “They say, but they do not.”

7. Is it any less a sin to kill someone than to ignore human need? If not, then it seems very appropriate to paraphrase 1 John 3:17 for today. “If any of you have this world’s goods and voluntarily allow some of it to be used to prepare to kill your brothers and sisters and to destroy all that God has made, how is it possible for the love and spirit of the God and Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to dwell in a heart like that?”

   What a horrifying possibility that any one might some day tell Jesus, “Haven’t we held many evangelistic meetings, preached many great sermons, written wonderful books, healed the sick, spoken in tongues, sang your praises with great fervor?” and Jesus will have to say to you, “Depart from me, ye workers of destruction!”

8. Have you ever considered this question: What effect will my being an accomplice to the American military have on our worldwide witness to God’s love and His saving power?

   If I were an unbeliever in some Third World country and knew that “Christian America” is the only country that ever dropped an atomic bomb on a civilian population, and that “Christian America” supports and arms 42 repressive dictatorships in order to maintain the highest standard of living on earth for themselves, and that they sell six times more weapons of violence and destruction than any other country, and that the church justifies all that, I am sure that I would never want to become a Christian or have anything to do with such a God!

I fully expect that you will be able to put me down with theological arguments, or discredit me with a self-righteous application of Scripture taken out of context to justify and rationalize your position; but, at least, ask yourself this pragmatic question: If everyone did as I do, regarding war taxes, what difference would it make? If everyone (or even all so-called pacifists) would respectfully decline to pay for war, what difference would that make?

Why are Mennonites unable to take an official position against paying for war? Is it because we really don’t know what the truth is? Is it because we never had it so good and we don’t want to risk anything? Is it because we have become so acculturated, so affluent that we don’t want martyrs anymore. Do we much prefer millionaires now?

It is my firm conviction that, as far as God is concerned, the day that I pay war taxes I effectively discredit all that I have ever said, written, or given for the cause of peace!

The forces of evil do not care what you say, or how you pray as long as you pay!

A personal note, please: None of us is “off limits” to Satan’s deception! I therefore remind you of your responsibility to tell me if you believe that I have been misled in my search for the path of obedience!

---

Daniel Slabaugh is pastor of Ann Arbor (Mich.) Mennonite Church. He is a laboratory supervisor at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital and has a farm as a hobby.

This prompted many responses, including:

Henry Troyer (3 March 1981)

I have only one point of disagreement with Mr. Slabaugh; that is the matter of paying our war taxes voluntarily. I pay taxes, but not voluntarily. I happily pay the portion of my taxes which go for human services and running the government (even if some is wasted), but I do not happily pay the portion that goes for military support. We have a Quaker friend who once “arranged” not to pay his war taxes and the IRS showed their “appreciation” by “arranging” for him to spend several months in prison. Some years ago, we refused to pay our telephone surcharge tax but later found that our checking account had been debited for that amount, which they claimed we owed. We then refused to pay that tax by having our telephone removed.

I would like to “arrange” not to pay war taxes, but the consequences for exercising that “freedom” would be too harsh for me at this Hme. I, therefore, pay my war taxes “under protest,” and may God have mercy.

Lewis A. Fogg (3 March 1981)

I thought this was a pretty extraordinary example of tying yourself in knots to justify continuing to pay war taxes:

Does a Christian have to pay all of his taxes? I don’t believe that he can be taxed on what he does not have; and I don’t see any compelling reason why a Christian should have to accumulate things just so as to pay more taxes. In fact, a Christian who in his work gathers a great amount of money to himself probably is doing more harm in participating in whatever is bringing him the money than is being done by whatever portion of the money is going to taxes.

But, what happens if we withhold part of the taxes on our incomes? If we do not pay all of the taxes, people who are employed by defense contractors and defense-related industries as well as military personnel may be thrown out of work. Unemployment will be a hardship to these people; it will be suffering caused by the actions of nonresistant Christians.

I should think that the appropriate method to be used by nonresistant Christians to close the defense plants would be to convert such a large part of the population to the discipleship of Christ that there would not be enough people remaining to man the defense plants. The fact that this is not now the case may very well be the fault of Christians, past and present, and not the fault of the defense workers.

Of course, the easy answer is to cause suffering to someone we don’t like so as to alleviate the suffering of someone we do; or to see the problem in terms of things (money and bombs) rather than people. We Christians are not to seek vengeance on the defense workers because of their production of bombs, but it seems easier to overcome evil with evil than to attempt to overcome evil with good. In this evil world we would like to keep just a little evil for our own use, just for self-defense.

We in our human fear forget that man has no more power to destroy himself than he has power, of himself, to draw his next breath. So we abandon the methods of Jesus Christ and allow Satan to win the decisive battle and so rob us of our share in the assured victory of Christ.

Ralph Yoder (10 March 1981)

Took the traditional Render-unto-Caesar / Romans 13 line, asserting that U.S. currency belongs to the U.S. government, which can reclaim from Christians it at will.

Ed Benner (17 March 1981)

I found myself cheering enthusiastically when the article by Pastor Slabaugh on the payment of war taxes appeared… I hope there will be more and more freedom in church papers to deal with this up and coming concern.

Considerations of conscientious war-tax resistance point up some larger problems that we as the Mennonite Church live with but don’t necessarily resolve. These problems have to do not with the ample biblical teaching supportive of noncompliance with war support, but rather, with the lack of practical models as well as awareness of support resources and groups. These facilities would greatly enhance our ability to work out responsible individual witness stances. Several kinds of practical questions seem to emerge.

In the first place, what ranges of governmental receptiveness (especially IRS receptiveness) have been encountered by members of our faith and what constructive follow-up responses have we Mennonites explored after we are categorized as tax-evaders? Second, and more specifically, what kinds of deduction possibilities have been attempted and upon what rationale? Third, how may we relate the quality of committed Anabaptist peace perspectives to the degree we withhold tax dollars? Finally, what types of congregational support models have emerged and what growth has occurred in each process?

I seem to hear the Apostle Peter speaking across a vast expanse of time and firmly addressing not only a failing government but a growing church as well with a burning perspective — “One should obey God more than men” (Acts 5:29). Yes. Now how does it happen within the war-tax arena in practical terms?

Amos J. Miller (17 March 1981)

There is much discussion about the war tax. Maybe we should also give some thought to the balance of our tax money. We can name the education tax, the research tax, welfare tax, road tax, regulatory tax, as a few. We can also identify the abortion tax, tobacco subsidy tax (although maybe this isn’t a concern since we accept the fact that a lot of grain goes to the liquor industry), the waste and fraud tax, and of course the congressman salary tax that pays the people that vote for the war tax. On the local scene we have others, including the state, county, and city police tax. I wonder if paying the tax for local law enforcement could be understood to say that we recognize that the state needs to carry a stick. Is it possible that it’s the church’s responsibility to decide how big that stick should be? All this gets somewhat complicated and confusing. It would be much simpler if taxes were just taxes.

Clarence Y. Fretz (24 March 1981)

I thought Fretz’s commentary was a good demonstration of how much the terms of the debate had shifted, even from the point of view of the pro-taxpaying faction:

Nonresistant Christians pay taxes

Jesus’ kingdom is one of testimony to truth, saving truth, truth that changes lives, truth that builds character. Caesar’s kingdom was one that used the sword to restrain evil and even to crucify the innocent.

And yet Jesus had told inquirers to show Him the coin used for paying taxes to Caesar.

Then He asked them, “Whose portrait is this? and whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Jesus did not discuss what percent of the tax money was spent for soldiers or for war, even though He knew this. There was no implication in His teaching that taxes paid to Caesar should be called “war taxes” or that nonresistant Christians should try to avoid payment of such taxes because they knew they would be used for military purposes.

In reference to payment of specific taxes for support of the military enterprise such as were imposed by the Continental government in the time of the Revolution, one can understand that nonresistant Christians found themselves unable to pay them and especially so since it was revolutionaries who were asking for them — to subsidize their rebellion.

Then, too, one can understand the attitude of the nonresistant Hutterites in Moravia who were asked to pay a special war tax to support the war against the Turks in the 1500s. Peter Riedemann, their leader, said: “For war, killing, and bloodshed (where it is demanded especially for that) we give nothing but not out of wickedness or arbitrariness, but out of the fear of God (1 Tim. 5) that we may not be partakers in strange sins” (“Taxation,” The Mennonite Encyclopedia, p. 688).

I do not agree with Daniel Slabaugh that the federal income tax is a war tax, per se. His entire article is based on calling it that… However, it is a good thing to give one’s farm to the church (and so reduce one’s payment of a tax that is partly used for military purposes). But should such gifts be given to the church only to reduce payment of federal income tax? Would not a more scriptural reason be to help the church in its mission of testifying to the truth?

When I was a young man of 18, I was graciously healed from a critical attack of pneumonia, and I decided to devote my life to full-time service to the Lord, wherever and whenever He would want me to serve. For fifty years I have served in mission work or Christian school teaching on an income basis that took care of my needs (Phil. 4:19), but often exempted me from payment of federal income tax, especially if I was faithful in support of the Lord’s work and diligent to claim other exemptions and deductions.

But I do not call federal income tax a war tax, nor think I should promote nonpayment of it on this basis. Should others want to follow my example of devoting their lives and income to the Lord’s work I would encourage them to do so, not primarily to avoid payment of federal income tax, but in order to build Christ’s church on earth.

Alma Mast (24 March 1981)

I think we need to watch that we don’t lose our salvation in going overboard in some subjects. I do appreciate a country where we have freedom of worship to our God. The best way to show our appreciation is to pay our taxes. To hold some back and refuse to pay, saying, “We don’t want to pay for war” is not the answer. How do you know that the remaining taxes you pay can also be put in the military? The taxes are for the government to use and it is theirs. The responsibility of how and where it is used is theirs also.

Clyde G. Kratz (24 March 1981)

I have become increasingly aware of the fact that the issue of payment of war taxes is dividing the Mennonite Church. I have indeed found myself pulling for both sides at different times and I realize that much study in the Word of God is required.

As far as Daniel Slabaugh’s article… is concerned, he raised some very good questions and made us more aware of our need as a church to come together on this issue. I am not sure that our problems will go away by all of us turning our properties over to the church but I do believe Daniel made an honest response.

I’m not convinced that war taxes is the real issue. Right now this is the issue that is surfacing, but somehow I believe that God is speaking to all of us about how we use His money. We are living in an age where luxuries are now necessities, and giving is done when it is convenient. That doesn’t add up to the teachings in the New Testament at all.

My suggestion would be to try to live a simpler lifestyle. It is very obvious only those that make increasing amounts of money pay taxes. Could we lower our standard of living and give more thereby reducing our taxable income? My suggestion would include taking a look at the Macedonian church as Paul talks about them in 2 Cor. 8:1–7. He tells us that they have given as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. It would be good to learn a lesson from them. Also let’s look at what Paul says to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 9:6–7: “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (NIV).

Peter Farrar (28 April 1981)

Farrar saluted Kratz’s letter, and added: “we must first really tithe all of our incomes… a life of voluntary simplicity… would make all talk or tax resistance superfluous. Indeed, I believe the only radical response to war — that which strikes at the root causes — is voluntary poverty.”

John Otto (24 March 1981)

Shall we tell our Caesar that he is wrong? Peter and Paul both said that we should submit to the authorities and that we should show them honor and respect. Since we live under a democracy instead of a dictatorship I would like to suggest that we show respect and honor to our president by sending him a message. No, not just a letter or a phone call, but a money message. You know, money speaks!

Let all Mennonites and any others that care to join them send their tax monies to the Mennonite General Board to forward to the IRS in one lump payment with the message, "We, the people, request these monies be used for people programs and none be used for military purposes.” That would be democratic and respectful, would it not?

Anna M. Buckwalter (31 March 1981)

Disagreed with war tax resistance on the grounds that Jesus willingly paid taxes to Rome.

Peter Farrar (31 March 1981)

Stop evading responsibility

On the eve of a new decade and of a new federal administration it would be well for the church to reflect on these words of Henry David Thoreau…

“Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so the most serious obstacles to reform.”

The implications of this statement for the Mennonite Church today are enormous. Most Americans, believing what the popular media and the government propaganda tells them, are not really aware of the dangerous path we are walking as we pile up arms and simultaneously arm other nations involved in active wars — both internal and international. Mennonites have been well informed for years about these things but have done far too little, even symbolically, to redress the imbalance. There is no excuse for this. When will the church recoil from the unavoidable fact that our taxes and our greed are destroying our brothers and sisters while we read these lines? When will we give a strong, clear “No” to the government’s growing demand for funds for war?

There remains but one immediate response that will suffice — that of voluntary poverty (living below the federal tax line) and personal service to those we have wronged. The list of places to work is staggering and growing longer: Somalia, Cambodia, Italy, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf, Bangladesh, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Mississippi, the inner city, Appalachia…

Mr. Reagan proposes to cut taxes while increasing the war budget drastically. He knows there is a real economic crisis simmering in the U.S., yet is blind to the fact that our military dominated economy is the single greatest cause of inflation and unemployment. While he officially opposes the draft he wants more sophisticated instruments of mass slaughter, costing enormous amounts of money.

I call the Mennonite Church to stop evading responsibility and challenge her to stand up publicly, and by word and action, witness for peace and justice and a nation more ready to welcome the kingdom of God.

Refuse registration! Refuse war taxes!

Keith Helmuth (2 June 1981)

Helmuth made a long-overdue frontal assault on the traditional interpretation of Romans 13:

Is one government ordained as much as another?

Taxes and the faithful church

Twenty years ago efforts to introduce ideas of war-tax refusal into the Mennonite church met with little response. Times have changed and Daniel Slabaugh’s “Testimony Regarding the Payment of War Taxes”… indicates how deeply we are now being challenged on this issue.

No one who endeavors to live in the spirit of Christ can feel easy while helping to finance the machinery of war. We all want to feel our lives are a consistent witness for the truth of Christ’s love and are, therefore, made increasingly uneasy as the testimony against war taxes gains currency within the church.

The standard method of reasoning, to put at ease those whose conscience has grown tender on this point, is to remind them that the government is ordained of God and that Christians, therefore, are to obey the government. (An exception to this reasoning is made in the case of personal military service. Having allowed this exception we must, it seems to me, allow that growth in moral sensitivity may well lead to further civil disobedience. )

What exactly does it mean to say “the government is ordained of God”? To approach this question we need to distinguish two levels of ordination. First, we hold the church to be ordained of God in a unique way, quite distinctly different in origin, character, and mission from other social institutions. Second, because God is the origin and sustainer of all life, it may be said that, in general, social institutions are ordained of God. Plainly, the idea of government being ordained of God belongs to the second level.

Now, it seems to me, that when someone argues that I must pay my taxes because the government is ordained of God, they are confusing the two levels. They are talking as if the government was as uniquely and as specifically ordained of God as the church. This is plainly not true, and a good many of our ancestors laid down their lives to avoid this confusion.

Government is born out of a human predisposition to organize and control. Slavery, being derived from the same human predisposition, may also be regarded as having once been ordained of God. Slavery evidently gave the apostle Paul no moral pause. He did not foresee that it would become intolerable to Ghristian morality. Nor did he foresee that governments would fall and rise through a wide variety of processes, including representative assemblies, constitutional conventions, force of arms, and subversive manipulation.

To regard all governments as somehow equally ordained of God is to sever the concern for social justice from its biblical mandate. A large talent for political naivety would be required to see the government visited on Uganda by Idi Amin and the government of Switzerland as equally legitimate.

It is possible to argue that one’s own government is “more ordained” than others, but such a self-serving view brings with it the whole baggage of civil religion, and ill befits the world-servant role to which we understand ourselves called. Governments may be ordained of God in some general naturalistic sense, but people who care about social justice and human well-being must judge whether they are legitimate or illegitimate.

Perhaps because Mennonites have a traditional aloofness from politics, the matter of legitimacy in government often seems poorly understood. I have seen it argued recently in the Mennonite press, and supported by biblical proof texts, that opposing the government on the war-tax issue is the same as opposing God.

It is important to understand that the political framework needed to support this argument is something very close to the “divine right of kings.” Why this antique political notion, deriving from ancient and medieval despotisms and seriously confusing church and state, should be used against the testimony of tax refusers in the Mennonite Church is, indeed, a curious matter. Perhaps others, better equipped than I, can delve lovingly into the motivations of this desperate argument.

Life in North America has been so good to our people that it is difficult to imagine Mennonites becoming an outlaw church on the issue of war taxes. Yet the teachings of Jesus and the demands of faithfulness, if taken seriously, plainly move us in that direction. The conviction that the faithful church must, at times, become an outlaw church should not be shocking to those acquainted with Anabaptist origins and history.

If we don’t draw the line at paying for nuclear weapons (or conventional weapons, for that matter), will we draw it at their use? Military planners no longer regard nuclear weapons as of deterrent use only. They are openly talking about a limited use of their offensive first-strike capacity.

What if a nuclear bomb had been dropped on Hanoi in an effort to end the war in Vietnam? What if the American government uses nuclear weapons to maintain access to Middle East oil? Would the church then draw the line and move into a position of active tax refusal? Or will we sit tight, no matter what the government does?

Is there any threshold of violence or oppression which the government might cross that would cause the Mennonite Church to advocate tax refusal?

D.R. Yoder (21 July 1981)

Yoder was having nothing of such scriptural revisionism:

“The teachings of Jesus and the demands of faithfulness, if taken seriously, plainly move us in that direction [of resisting taxes which may be used for military purposes],” writes Keith Helmuth…

Whatever teachings he has in mind, however, he neglects to identify. Of course, that is a common omission among Mennonite writers who advocate tax, draft, and other forms of “resistance” and “civil” disobedience. Bold assertions, sharp reasonings, and generalized allusions to Scripture. But, no direct quotes or citings of passages.

I feel the teachings of Jesus plainly move us in a direction radically different from tax resistance. I find those teachings in such places as Mt. 5:41 where Jesus is quoted as instructing those who would seriously seek the kingdom to, if forced to go a distance, continue on an additional distance.

It is my understanding that this teaching likely referred to the practice of the Roman army to conscript civilians, literally off the street, and force them to carry military supplies for perhaps a mile or so. From that it seems logical for me to conclude that Jesus did not even exclude forced assistance of the military (such as by taxes) from the compensatory love response he prescribed for those who are beaten, stolen from, forced to do things against their will.

Certainly the faithful church will often also face becoming an outlaw church. The Scripture makes that plain. But, search as I may, I can’t find any scriptural evidence that resisting taxes is something our Lord would call us to. Rather, I can only conclude tax resistance to be a symptom of the philosophy of those seeking a political kingdom and a social salvation through the exercise of earthly power.

It seems to me that it is only fair that Mennonite editors ask writers supporting tax resistance to document all supportive references found in Scripture for their points. I think we readers are by now quite familiar with their reasonings and rhetoric. If they have a scriptural basis, let’s hear it.

Keith Helmuth (21 July 1981)

Helmuth responded:

D.R. Yoder is correct. I cannot cite a specific teaching of Jesus on war tax refusal.

The case for war tax refusal, however, rests not on proof texts, but on the fact that Jesus introduced a profound moral vision, with an extraordinary potential for growth, into the stream of human consciousness. When Jesus was asked about the “greatest commandment” He replied: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

Starting from this masterly summation of spiritual life, faithfulness, it seems to me, depends on our growth in moral sensitivity and not on our ability to correctly analyze all the cultural idiosyncrasies to which Jesus was necessarily responding. Should we help finance the defoliation of our neighbor’s rice fields or the massacre of her family just because Jesus never had the occasion to comment on those situations? I think it entirely fair to say the “teachings of Jesus” move us away from such behavior.

It was recognized by the early Anabaptists that personal military service was seriously out of harmony with “the teachings of Jesus.” The refusal of state ordered military service is not a specific injunction of Jesus, but the growth in moral sensitivity which accompanied the Anabaptist movement drew out this inherent aspect of the gospel. The same process, apparently, kept the Anabaptist settlers in the New World from making use of readily available slave labor, though Jesus nowhere condemns the institution of slavery. It is this same growth in moral sensitivity, …which is now focusing the issue.

As for “seeking a political kingdom and a social salvation through the exercise of earthly power,” I doubt that very many who support the witness of war tax refusal have any such aspirations. “Political kingdoms” can only exist on the conscripted lives and resources of our communities and it is exactly this that tax refusal opposes. The concept of “social salvation” has, by now, lost even its nostalgia value. Our dreams are far more modest. We hope to avoid nuclear holocaust and keep the planet habitable. We want the resources now being wasted in military budgets to help feed, house, and clothe the poor of the world. This is not “social salvation.” It is only good sense and common decency.

One final note: The issue of war tax refusal is one that all persons have to weigh in the balance against all the other important factors in their lives. Judge not is the rule here. What makes no sense from the standpoint of a growing family might come to make good sense after 50.

Our lofty discussion is probably beside the point. If we could see the anguish that brings people to the point of tax refusal we would be inundated with images of napalm and herbicides raining down on Vietnam, families massacred in El Salvador, and the chilling vision of the neutron bomb grinning over empty cities.

All our rhetoric, all our proof texts stagger and fall in the face of a dead child and screaming mother with helicopters thundering overhead. The crucifixion of Christ’s flesh is ever before us. Our sins roll across the landscape. We do what we must and pray for strength.

In March 1981 the Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries board of directors met. Among their decisions:

In harmony with the November General Board action to support the General Conference Mennonite Church in their judicial challenge of the collecting of taxes by church agencies, the board acted to encourage staff “to publicize among our congregations the issues involved in the judicial action and the need for funds for this purpose.”

The organizers of the Smoketown Consultation (which was in part a conservative Eastern Mennonite backlash against war tax resistance and other innovations) met again in 30–31 March 1981 in what was called the “Berne consultation.” This time, however, according to Gospel Herald: “Little attention at Berne was given to war taxes, a dominant theme at Smoketown…”

A 2 June 1981 article on the anti-nuclear movement in Netherlands noted:

…neither the Mennonite Church nor the IKV feels comfortable with individual radical action. Example: Dirk Visser, a Dutch Mennonite journalist working for the equivalent of the Associated Press wire services in the Netherlands, called my attention to Willem-Jan Maas, a Mennonite minister serving in Opeland. This minister tried to funnel what he considered the war-taxes portion of his income tax to the Dutch Mennonite Peace Group via the local income tax office.

This effort was fraudulently aborted by the tax officers, but even had it been successful, the minister would not have been applauded by the IKV, according to Visser. The IKV has taken the political action route and with that the churches can cooperate.

In a Peace Tax Fund-boosting article in the 30 June 1981 issue, it was noted that war tax resisters acted as the “bad cop” to the “good cop” of lobbyists: “[David] Bassett and others cited the ‘inconvenience factor’ of current war tax resistance to the IRS as further incentive for change in the tax laws.”

Richerd Lewman, Jr. went back on the offensive with a forceful rebuttal of Christian war tax resistance for the 7 July 1981 issue:

Was Jesus a Hypocrite?

To accept the statements that justify the nonpayment of war taxes is to accept the statement that Jesus was a hypocrite.

After reading much about the war-tax issue and listening to much discussion, both pro and con, I wanted to find out more about the issue, so that I could take a stand consistent with God’s teachings. I read all that I could that justified not paying taxes. Then I read as much as possible justifying the payment of taxes. Both of these included much Bible reading and prayer. I then did a lot more praying and asking God to guide me to what his truth is. He led me to more reading and research.

After all of this, I was led to only one conclusion. If we believe Jesus taught that we should not pay taxes to a government in the process of or planning to slaughter people, then Jesus was a hypocrite because he paid his taxes. If Jesus was a hypocrite, because he taught one thing and did another, then Jesus sinned and he was not the unblemished lamb suitable to die for our sins. So there cannot be salvation through him.

The first point made by those who would condone, even encourage, the nonpayment of war taxes, is that income tax is voluntary, because it requires citizen cooperation and to pay it is to agree with the government’s policies. Using this same line of thinking we could say that all laws are voluntary, and to obey them is to agree with them. I may not agree that I should not drive any faster than 55 miles per hour, but if I decide not to obey the law I will be penalized for it. If I pay my taxes I do not necessarily agree with how my tax money is spent. But I still must pay.

A second point that is made is that the personal responsibility of loving my neighbor comes before the law. I agree. But, I ask this question. What were some of Jesus’ actions and how did they coincide with his teachings? Many instances of civil disobedience and tax evasion have been justified using Jesus’ teachings. I feel that his teachings are removed from their context if they are not in agreement with the example of his perfect life. Do we read in the Bible that Jesus went to Rome to picket in front of the Senate about the atrocities committed against Jerusalem. Do we find Jesus lobbying to have the Roman troops withdrawn from the temple, or for the exemption of the Jews from paying the many taxes levied on them largely for the support of the bloodthirsty Roman army? Or do we find Jesus not paying his war taxes? The answer to each of these questions is a very clear “No!”

But wait, you say it was different back then. Was it?

They say that we must not pay our taxes, in order to make a witness, since we as Mennonites are not drafted anymore. Well, the Jews in Jesus’ time were not drafted either. They say they did not have conscription back then. Wrong. Conscription dates back to the earliest civilization. They say that our government needs our money more than our bodies. Well, the Roman government needed money, because many of the soldiers were professionals and they fought for the money. They say today we have the atom bomb, the most destructive war machine ever devised by man, up to this time. Back then it was the Roman army, the most destructive and bloodthirsty war machine ever devised by man, up to that time.

How do we know that Jesus paid his taxes? The Tribute Coin referred to by Jesus was a coin used to pay the poll tax which had to be paid by every male person, ages 14–65, and by females, ages 12–65. If Jesus had not paid his tax, would not the Pharisees and Sadducees have brought this to the attention of Pilate when Jesus was before him, since they were looking for something to convict him of?

If you say that Jesus’ teachings are that we should not pay our war taxes, I cannot accept this. I believe that Jesus was the perfect example of the Christian life and that his life was consistent with his teachings and that he was not a hypocrite. If Jesus paid taxes to the government of his time, then I can do no less. In fact, I must pay those taxes if I am to be in accordance with Jesus’ life and teachings.

You say that we must follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. I agree, but how do we discern the leading of the Holy Spirit? We must go to the Bible. If the Bible and Jesus’ example contradict what we thought was the leading of the Holy Spirit, then it can’t be the leading of the Holy Spirit. The leading of the Holy Spirit, if it is authentic, will always agree with the life and teachings of Jesus.

You ask. Why doesn’t the Mennonite Church take an official position against payment of war taxes? I ask you. How can we take an official position condemning something that Jesus did? I am in no position to question Jesus’ actions!

If we are to be consistent about not paying our war taxes because we disagree with their purpose, then let’s stop paying that portion of our taxes that goes for abortion and subsidizes the tobacco industry. But then, why not withhold our property taxes if the schools teach evolution or sex education? Once the pattern of nonpayment as protest is begun, there will be no logical place to stop.

Jesus taught us to pay our taxes and his example showed us we must do the same. If I am to be a Christian and desire Jesus to say to me someday, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” then I can do no less than pay my taxes.

A 14 July 1981 letter from Elvin Glick fired just about every arrow from the traditionalist quiver: “there is no such thing as a war tax” — “The government has a right to its armies and police forces.” — “Governments have a right to levy taxes.” — Render unto Caesar, two kingdoms, go the extra mile, Romans 13, Jesus & Paul never resisted their governments, war taxes are different from military service, etc.

In August 1981 the Mennonite Church held its churchwide delegate meeting. Gospel Herald reported:

[One extreme of the feedback:] In 22½ hours of business sessions, 266 delegates who answered the roll call “dragged their feet in giving women equal leadership opportunities in the church, in speaking with a clear voice on nuclear armaments and war taxes, and in preparing a relevant and up-to-date confession of faith.”

In their business sessions delegates… in the longest discussion of the week — struggled with how to realize reconciliation with a delegate who denounced them for continuing to pay war taxes.

Most of the floor discussion centered in the letter to President Reagan… “There’s an unfortunate philosophy behind this letter,” said James Hess, Bethel, Pa. “It’s that because I’m a Christian, I’m qualified to advise the government how to go about its business. That goes against our historic doctrine of the separation of church and state.”

Said Dan Slabaugh, Whitmore, Mich.: “The president will laugh when he reads this letter — if he reads it at all. He’ll laugh because he knows that every payday we disavow what we say when we continue to pay our taxes for war.”

A sidebar to that article read:

A prophetic voice?

How does the assembly process minority viewpoints? That became the focus in an intense discussion engaging assembly delegates for 2½ hours beyond their scheduled closing time in the final business session.

Impetus for the discussion came when Dan Slabaugh, Whitmore Lake, Mich., asked permission to make a four-minute statement on a concern of his. He confronted delegates with their failure to back up their sentiments about peace, as stated in their letter to President Reagan, with their actions. “Why do you continue to pay taxes that go for war purposes?” he asked. “The religious community in America could stop the arms buildup if it wanted to; I can’t understand why this doesn’t excite us.”

Slabaugh reported he had wanted to put two motions on the floor but had been advised by assembly leaders not to. (Later discussion revealed one motion would have called delegates to acknowledge that paying war taxes was sin but that they planned to continue doing so anyway; the other would have called for all Mennonites to stop paying war taxes immediately.) In frustration Slabaugh concluded: “I joined the Mennonite Church because of its stand on peace and nonresistance. I will leave it for the same reason.” He then walked off the assembly floor to participate in a seminar on war taxes.

In subsequent discussion, many delegates voiced concern about the incident and called for reconciliation to be effected between Slabaugh and assembly leaders. There was also discussion on how the assembly can hear a prophetic word and what is the process by which it is determined whether or not a minority opinion is prophetic.

After long discussion, delegates approved a motion which (1) made Slabaugh’s concerns about war taxes a part of the official record of the assembly; (2) asked the Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy to bring proposals to the next assembly for dealing with the war tax issue and for discerning “prophetic voices”; (3) called for immediate steps to be taken to bring about reconciliation between Slabaugh and the assembly.

This led to a letter to the editor from Betty Ann Keener in which she asked: “If the Bible says in three different passages to pay our taxes, why do we even question it?”

The 15 September 1981 issue carried this report:

Number of taxpayers protesting arms race “minuscule,” IRS says

For Suzanne Polen, a part-time research microbiologist in Pittsburgh, President Reagan’s recent decisions to increase arms spending mean that she will no longer pay that portion of her taxes she says would fund national defense. “The government is buying weapons which will eventually kill me,” said the 45-year-old tax protester. Instead of paying her full tax bill to the government, she plans to deposit about 50 percent of the money into the newly created Pittsburgh Fund for Life, which describes itself as a peace and justice ministry.

Since the Vietnam War ended, Wildon Fadely of the Internal Revenue Service said, the number of those who have withheld taxes to protest Pentagon activities has been “minuscule.” The category is so small that no separate records are kept, he added. But he admitted his general impression was the “protests of all kinds are on the rise.”

A conservative Anabaptist conference on “Basic Biblical Beliefs” was held in October 1981. Among its concerns for the church: “There is a growing alignment with ‘leftist elements’ who advocate civil disobedience, demonstrations, and nonpayment of taxes used for military purposes.”

Driving that point home, in the 17 November 1981 readers would see “An open letter to our brothers and sisters within the Mennonite, Mennonite Brethren, Brethren in Christ, and General Conference Mennonite Church(es)” that read in part:

We call for acts of tax resistance to be undertaken since our federal income taxes fuel the arms race. We suggest giving funds denied for use in building nuclear weapons to groups working for peace and disarmament, and to groups meeting human needs.

The Mennonite Central Committee’s Peace Section (U.S.) held its assembly in November 1981.

Jim Longacre, Peace Section chairman, brought a statement of concern to the group for possible adoption. After the document was criticized for not being specific enough, the group moved to add a paragraph on the war tax issue. Although there was some dissent regarding the usefulness of a statement (one person noted: “It’s easier to assent to a piece of paper than to be accountable”), and the initial voting process was confused and had to be repeated, the majority of the participants approved the statement.

That section of the statement read:

We were repeatedly reminded in this Assembly that the conscription of our income supports the nuclear arms race. Moreover, we saw that the government is increasing expenditures for nuclear and other weapons by decreasing expenditures for human services for the poor and oppressed. We encourage people to consider ways to witness against this evil use of the power of taxation, such as refusing to pay the military portion of the federal income tax.

The 1 December 1981 issue brought this news:

Episcopal bishop hits arms race, but doesn’t accept withholding tax

Episcopal Bishop Robert H. Cochrane of Olympia, Wash., while denouncing the worldwide buildup of nuclear arms, stopped short of condoning a tax revolt as did his Roman Catholic counterpart.

“Please know that I shall continue to pay to my government every penny of my income tax, but at the same time every penny that I save under our president’s new tax plan I shall give away to meet the needs of the poor and uncared for,” Bishop Cochrane said in his annual address to the diocesan convention. “I invite you to do the same.”

Bishop Cochrane’s diocese covers western Washington, the same area taken in by the archdiocese of Catholic Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen of Seattle. The archbishop has become a rallying point for a growing anti-nuclear movement among leaders of nearly a dozen denominations in the Pacific Northwest.

Archbishop Hunthausen has said that people would be morally justified in refusing to pay 50 percent of their income taxes in nonviolent resistance to nuclear “murder and suicide.” He also said he favors unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Truman H. Brunk, Jr., snuck a war tax resistance message into his 22 December 1981 article “Disarmed by his peace”:

Neither can Christians hide their eyes from the evil insanity of the arms race. Christ came to signal peace on earth, not preparation for war. Christ’s peace means that we cannot participate in the crime of preparation for nuclear war. The obedience of Christians to their government is not absolute and unconditional. We need the courage to avoid adding even a particle of evil to our broken creation. How long can good Mennonites pray for peace and pay for nuclear readiness with our tax dollars?

And to finish off the year, an article on the Ames Mennonite Fellowship in the 29 December 1981 issue included this news about organized war tax resistance there:

[T]here are three things God is doing in Ames, Iowa… [including] the formulation of guidelines for a war tax alternative fund.

[Ames Mennonite Fellowship] is taking the lead in establishing a war tax alternative fund for persons in the Ames area who are conscientiously opposed to paying taxes for war. In May 1981, AMF took formal action to establish the fund. Since then, some $300 has been contributed to it. On Nov. 10 seven persons gathered and drew up guidelines for participation in the fund.

In brief, the group determined that contributors to the fund need to pay “an equivalent to the amount actually withheld from Internal Revenue Service.” Participants are expected to sign a “statement of purpose and guidelines” at the time of the first deposit. Keith Schrag, Dan Clark, and other AMF participants in the fund welcome questions and counsel from the broader church in this matter.

This is the twenty-fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal of the (Old) Mennonite Church.

By 1983 war tax resistance had become commonplace enough that I frequently saw incidental mention of it in articles about other things. Here, I’ll stick to the mentions with more substance:

The 4 January 1983 issue included an article on World Peace Tax Fund legislation lobbying efforts. Apparently the Mennonite Central Committee’s U.S. Peace Section and D.C. office were both busy lobbying for the bill, and the “historic peace church taskforce on taxes” had hit on a lobbying method they called dunamis which was described as “approach[ing] Congresspersons in a spirit of compassion rather than confrontation.”

Forgive me; maybe I’ve been Mennonizing myself way too much lately and need to back off for a while, but all this reminded me of William S. Burroughs’s cynical description of weaponized Christian love (“Christ and the Museum of Extinct Species”, Conjunctions 1989):

Let love squirt out like a fire hose of molasses. Give him the kiss of life. Stick your tongue down his throat and taste what he has been eating and bless his digestion, ooze down into his intestines and help him along with his food. Let him know that you revere his rectum as part of an ineffable whole. Make him know that you stand in naked awe of his genitals as part of the Master Plan, life in all its rich variety.

Do not falter. Let your love enter in unto him and penetrate him with the Divine Lubricant, makes K-Y and lanolin feel like sandpaper. It’s the most mucilaginous, the slimiest, ooziest lubricant ever was or shall be, amen. It’s known as the Greasy Ghost, will love you all over and inside out.

The Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries met in March 1983:

James Thomas, Lancaster, Pa.; Brent Eash, Middlebury, Ind.; and Edgar Metzler were appointed as Mennonite Church representatives on the New Call to Peacemaking Task Force on Taxes. The board encouraged Edgar to propose ways to respond to current tax issues in the context of Bethlehem 83, especially concerns raised at Bowling Green 81. They also supported Edgar’s suggestions to promote special prayer for peace and ways for congregations to share peace concerns with neighboring churches.

And its board of directors met in June, and “endorsed a proposed statement on conscientious objection to military taxes” among other things:

The board endorsed the resolution proposed for consideration by the Bethlehem 83 General Assembly on “Conscientious Objection to Military Taxes.” Edgar Metzler and MBCM executive secretary Gordon Zook drafted the statement in consultation with the members of the Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy and members of the General Board.

Clair Hochstetler wrote about a Good Friday demonstration that included some creative war tax resistance activity, including some picturesque and media-savvy (if somewhat haphazard) redirection:

Money wasted on Good Friday

“We are here as tax day approaches to announce our resistance to taxes which are used for military purposes… We are here on Good Friday to commemorate the continuing crucifixion of Jesus Christ — he is crucified again whenever individuals or nations inflict violence on each other… We are here on April Fool’s Day as a reminder of the continuing foolishness of humanity — our leaders offer us the illusion of security if we build yet another weapons system… We are offering an alternative…”

Daryl Yoder-Bontrager, member of Community Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, Va., read a press statement to a group assembled in front of the Internal Revenue Service building in Staunton, Va. Approximately 30 “Christians for Peace” gathered for an unusual April Fool’s/Good Friday public witness.

A festive atmosphere prevailed as three clowns danced their way among the people and released five symbolic black helium-filled balloons. During the service, they sporadically snipped the ribbons of other balloons tied to the arms of the worshipers — lofting high into the bright sky, over $300 tied to about 75 multicolored balloons.

Each balloon carried a five or ten dollar bill along with a signed and addressed note from a participant who had withheld the money from his or her federal income taxes. Over 15 members of Christians for Peace from the Harrisonburg area contributed the symbolic cash.

The notes, written by Wendell Ressler, also of Community Mennonite Church, read:

“About 60 percent of your income tax money this year will be used to pay for our government’s military program. Because we are Christians who are trying to follow the peaceful way of Jesus, we cannot support this country’s military build-up. Instead we have chosen to waste our money in a more constructive way.

“On this Good Friday we remember the crucifixion of Jesus Christ each time one nation or individual inflicts violence on another. On this April Fool’s Day we release our money into the wind — it is not as foolish an act as depending on weapons for our security.

“We are confident that you, the finder, will be able to use this money in a better way than the Pentagon would have. Peace be with you![”] Signature and address followed.

The group had gathered earlier in the day to train for appropriate responses in case of hecklers and to ponder the message of both the foolishness and the seriousness of their public act of resistance.

During the service, Ray Gingerich, professor at Eastern Mennonite College, read from Psalm 85:8–13 (the vision of a world without weapons), Amos 5:4–15 (the plea for building a world without weapons), and Matthew 6:24; 5:43–45; 5:3–9 (strategies for building a world without weapons).

The group, which included several children, carried thought-provoking placards as they sang for peace. Statements included, “If you work for peace, why pay for war?” The clowns passed out jelly beans as the balloons rose.

Barry Hart, member of Broad Street Mennonite Church, delivered a spirited oration to the onlookers which included personnel from over a dozen TV and radio stations. Hart reiterated the protest against militarism while emphasizing the spirit of hope and the sanctity of life.

“We are concerned not only for our personal survival, but for the survival of our sisters and brothers everywhere,” he said. “We have so long been caught up in the systematic plotting to destroy other systems that we have missed what Christ has called us to — serving each other.”

Reporters and group members intermingled for over a half hour after the service. Local IRS officials were not available for comment. Several policemen were on hand, however, to ensure the peace and to protect the building. A group of young hecklers had left earlier when the service began.

The idea for the witness was spawned from two Christians for Peace workshops on war tax resistance by Yoder-Bontrager and Ressler earlier in the winter. Nathan and Elaine Zook Barge contributed ideas from an earlier experience with a balloon event in Colorado.

A secular war tax resistance organization, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, formed in 1982. The Center on Law and Pacifism was an important source of information for war tax resisters around that time. From the 21 June 1983 issue:

War resistance pair says new law increases risk to tax withholder

New U.S. tax legislation is making it increasingly risky for people to express their opposition to war by refusing to pay their taxes, but more people are doing so anyway, according to two Colorado “tax resistance” leaders.

William and Eugenia Durland, who run the Center on Law and Pacifism in Colorado Springs, said that since establishing the center in 1978 they have been “in touch” with some 10,000 “war tax resisters” either through their own newsletter or through direct counseling. The couple said there are at least twice that many who are refusing to pay their taxes nationwide.

One indication that the figure is growing, they suggested, is the Internal Revenue Service’s decision about a year ago to create a task force to combat tax resisters. Added to that, they said, are new laws aimed specifically at people who refuse to pay their taxes out of conscience.

The 10 July 1983 issue brought this news of congregational resistance from the United Methodist Church:

Congregation refuses to give tax resister’s salary to IRS

A United Methodist congregation in New Haven, Conn., backing their pastor’s right to refuse paying federal taxes for military use, has declined to turn over his salary to the Internal Revenue Service. Carl Lundborg, pastor of First and Summerfield United Methodist Church, has withheld federal income taxes in both 1981 and 1982, telling the IRS his “obligations as a Christian and as a citizen are no longer reconcilable. The 50 percent of my taxes that support the military I cannot pay.”

After Mr. Lundborg refused to pay IRS the $1,200 said to be owed for 1981, the IRS served a levy on the Methodist congregations as his employer. IRS ordered the church to withhold the pastor’s salary until the amount was paid. But church members voted on July 10 to reject IRS’s demand in support of their pastor.

The General Conference Mennonite Church was still struggling to define its corporate response to legal demands on one side and employees’ conscientious objection to military taxation on the other. The Mennonite Church, and its organ, Gospel Herald, had the luxury of being spectators to the struggle, though they would have to deal with the same issue soon enough.

The 12 July 1983 issue brought a preview of the upcoming Bethlehem triennial:

Of more concern as issues are the less routine and less understandable subjects… ¶ Among these one of the more troubling is the payment of taxes for military purposes. Both the Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy and the Board of Congregational Ministries have given attention to this issue and the chairman of the council has acknowledged that “the Council itself reflected the different viewpoints and could not recommend a single specific direction for the church’s response.”

A follow-up in the 26 July 1983 issue went into more detail:

GC delegates to Bethlehem 83 will consider tax resolution

Among the resolutions for consideration by delegates at the General Conference Mennonite Church Triennial Sessions, to be held Aug. 1–7 in Bethlehem, Pa., is a formal action authorizing conference officers to stop withholding taxes from the salaries of its employees as required by U.S. law. It also encourages Canadian Mennonites to obtain relief from the same requirement by Revenue Canada.

The resolution is the product of more than four years of discussion about the faithfulness and constitutionality of the church’s collecting taxes for the state, especially in light of the use of a large portion of that money by the state for armaments.

In 1979 at a special midtriennium conference in Minneapolis, General Conference delegates voted in favor of urging their General Board to “use all legal, legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption from the legal requirement that the conference withhold income taxes from the wages of its employees.” At Estes Park, Colo., in 1980, a judicial test case on the issue was okayed by a vote of 1,156 to 353.

Since 1980, however, all three “avenues” appear to have closed. A meeting with IRS officials in Washington in early 1982 — the administrative avenue — failed to produce any results. The World Peace Tax Fund legislation pending in Congress — the legislative avenue — seems stalled a long way from gaining enough support to get serious attention. The preparation of a legal suit against the IRS, to be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary, was put on hold when it appeared, judging from other high court rulings, that the action would almost surely fail.

The conference’s General Board, therefore, will bring the “Resolution on Faithful Action Toward Tax Withholding” to Bethlehem 83 delegates as their recommendation for resolving the moral dilemma which church officials feel they are facing. If approved, the resolution would take the conference one small but significant step into the sphere of divine obedience/civil disobedience.

The Mennonite Church had its own conference, and its own war tax resistance agenda item to deal with:

On war taxes, Central America, and the tricentennial

More unanimity and like-mindedness prevailed in consideration of three resolutions before the MC General Assembly. In discussing them, reference was repeatedly made once again to “what the other group is doing.”

This was particularly true in working through a resolution on “Conscientious Objection to Military Taxes.” By the time the MC delegates considered the proposal, they were already aware that the General Conference had passed by a 2-1 margin a much more radical statement authorizing conference officers to refuse to serve as tax collectors for the U.S. government in cases where individual employees ask that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages. This move caught the attention of the national media and was being covered by newspapers and television by the time MC delegates considered their resolution.

It calls for continued study and discernment of the issue of war taxes, pledging prayer, study, and caution in relating to the government and its demands. The resolution asks governments to recognize peace tax funds as alternates for conscientious objectors and affirms those “who conscientiously withhold a portion of taxes destined for military use as one way to witness against militarism.” Delegates passed the resolution after sending it back to committee once for reworking.

Discussion of these resolutions was mostly affirmation, with little of the controversy surrounding resolutions to the state characterizing some previous General Assembly sessions. Not all were comfortable, however, with the approach. James Hess, Lancaster, Pa., noted these resolutions had better be done as individuals rather than as a group since for him this action violated the principle of the separation of church and state.

An observer from the General Conference Mennonite Church (Bernie Wiebe) commented on what he saw of the Mennonite Church gathering:

Even though we GCs often speak of “Old” Mennonites, I have tended to view MCs ahead of us in creative theologians and theological discussion/writing; in preaching evangelists; in putting the church’s evangelism statements to work; and in comprehensive programs for total Christian life…

Imagine my surprise when I sensed the caution among MCs about the church giving up its role as a tax collector for the government.

This time we GCs passed good statements on tax withholding and justice. I pray we will implement them among us.

And a Mennonite Church observer (Daniel Hertzler) returned the complement by giving his impressions about how the General Conference did its business:

The most intensive early discussion in these business sessions came with the presentation of an issue which had been on the General Conference burner for several triennials. The problem was precipitated by paid employees of the General Conference in the U.S. who asked that their federal income taxes not be deducted by the conference to allow them to deal directly with the government on taxes for war.

The discussion I heard came at the end of a long process and so I suppose it was less impassioned than earlier in the study. The reason for the delay, I learned, was to provide an opportunity to pursue all possible administrative and legal avenues as solution to the problem. This had now been done with no success and so the general board brought a resolution calling for “the conference officers to test the constitutionality of the withholding requirements in the United States and to assert the higher claim of Christ’s law of love, by refusing to serve as tax collectors in cases where individual employees have asked that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages, in order that they may conscientiously refuse to pay for war preparations.”

Duane Heffelbower, a Mennonite attorney from California, commented on the proposal: “We could scarcely devise a softer ‘velvet glove’ to cast at the feet of the IRS. But it shows in a powerful way our corporate willingness to stand with our people. What might the government do? We don’t know.” But he observed the responses could vary from a simple levy of the bank accounts to putting conference officers in jail.

The resolution was discussed in a vigorous and orderly fashion. The arguments for and against were scarcely new ones. In opposing the resolution John Voth of Oklahoma noted that Jesus called upon us to love our enemy. Today the government has become the enemy. Jesus, he observed, called for going the second mile with a soldier. In support for the resolution, Lois Barrett of Kansas asserted that in the U.S. disobeying the law is a time-honored way of changing the law.

After an hour’s debate, the resolution was brought to a ballot vote and passed by approximately a 70 percent majority.

In the aftermath of the triennial, the General Conference began implementing its war tax resistance resolution. On 22 September 1983 the General Conference stopped withholding taxes from the paychecks of some resisting employees:

Non-withholding tax action begins by GCs

Acting on the basis of a resolution adopted by General Conference delegates at Bethlehem 83, GC treasurer Ted W. Stuckey on Sept. 22 issued the first paychecks on which federal income taxes were not withheld.

Seven employees of the denomination’s central offices made the request that the taxes not be withheld, so that they can remit to the IRS personally the amount of federal taxes their consciences will allow. Several others have indicated that they may be willing to take part in the action at a later date.

Stuckey said that, beginning with the September paychecks, the seven will have state and social security taxes deducted but be treated like self-employed persons as far as federal income taxes are concerned. Under such a classification, they would be required to submit quarterly estimated tax payments to the IRS.

The seven plan to make a portion of those quarterly payments but put the balance — the amount they feel they cannot voluntarily pay because of high U.S. military spending — into a special account at General Conference central offices.

Stuckey and general secretary Vern Preheim informed Commissioner Roscoe L. Egger, Jr., at IRS headquarters in Washington by letter of the conference’s action. “We’re trying to be completely open and above board with them about this matter,” Stuckey said.

The September pay period is the first opportunity for the conference to implement the “Resolution on Faithful Action Toward Tax Withholding” adopted by delegates to a churchwide convention in Bethlehem, Pa., on Aug. 2. There, conferees voted 1,128 to 457 to “authorize the conference officers to test the constitutionality of the withholding requirements in the United States and to assert the higher claim of Christ’s law of love, by refusing to serve as tax collectors in cases where individual employees have asked that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages, in order that they may conscientiously refuse to pay for war preparations.”

The statement concluded with a commitment to “surround with our prayers the General Conference staff and government officials who will be involved in this action and all those individuals who refuse in conscience to pay taxes for war preparations, however costly their witness may be.”

The Bethlehem 83 resolution is the result of nearly eight years of work on the tax issue, and was passed only after all legal attempts to solve the problem had been exhausted, including seeking a simple administrative solution from the IRS.

The Mennonite Church’s own resolutions were more vague, but they began also to be implemented (27 September 1983):

The 1983 Mennonite Church General Assembly resolution on Conscientious Objection to Military Taxes includes six “statements of intention” including praying, rendering to Caesar and to God, obeying God rather than the state where claims conflict, appealing for legal recognition of conscientious objection to paying taxes for the military, affirming both conscientious payment and conscientious nonpayment of taxes for military use, and pleading for constructive use of resources entrusted by God. Copies are available from the Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries…

The 1 November 1983 edition brought the news of a war tax resister fighting back against the IRS’s new “frivolous filing” penalties:

Pacifist sues revenue service, which fined her for “frivolity”

A Roman Catholic pacifist has brought suit against a law under which the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has fined her $500 for what is considered a “frivolous” request. Alice Drefchinski, 53, a registered nurse, filed an income tax return for 1982 under which she was to receive a $720 refund. With her return, she enclosed a letter requesting the IRS to deduct $1,000 from her taxes — roughly the amount that would go for defense purposes — and give that money to humanitarian or peace groups.

Although Ms. Drefchinski did not withhold that amount from her taxes, or ask that the money be refunded to her, the IRS has fined her $500 for what is considered to be a “frivolous” request.

While she would not have to pay the money, it would reduce the total of her refund to $220. The Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed suit on Ms. Drefchinski’s behalf in U.S. District Court in Lafayette, asking the court to strike down the 1982 law under which the penalty is being levied. Martha Kregel, executive director of the organization, said the suit asks for a finding that the law is unconstitutional because it violates due process and does not contain a definition of “frivolous.”

In other cases, the IRS has refunded money directly to taxpayers who made similar requests, and later assessed them a $500 penalty for making “frivolous” requests.

This description of Drefchinski’s action seems misleading. She took a war tax deduction on her tax return which reduced the amount she owed; she didn’t merely append a letter to her return asking the IRS to donate some portion of her taxes to charity. In Drefchinski v. Regan (1984) the court slapped down multiple arguments made by her attorneys against the frivolous filing penalty, but concluded:

Many respected Americans have engaged in civil disobedience as a form of protest against taxation for military spending. Henry David Thoreau, for example, refused to pay taxes that would contribute to the funding of the Mexican-American War. See H. Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). Yet this mode of protest is not without its costs. Thoreau spent a night in the Concord jail. Alice Drefchinski must pay a $500 civil penalty. Perhaps she can find solace in the words written by Thoreau after his confinement: “It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State, than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”

Finally, this note suggests that tax resistance was catching on as an idea in Christian circles as a possible tactic that went beyond war tax resistance:

Evangelicals warn Congress on Social Security reforms

Evangelical Christian leaders have warned of mass tax-resistance by their churches unless Congress amends the new Social Security law which requires religious organizations to pay into the system. The church groups issued the warnings at a Dec. 14 hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, called in response to a storm of protest over the provision in the new Social Security rescue package, which goes into effect Jan. 1. The revised law repeals the exemption on nonprofit groups, including churches, from withholding Social Security taxes for their employees.

Forest D. Montgomery, legal counsel to the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 38,000 churches, called on Congress “to act to forestall an inevitable confrontation between church and state.” He added that many churches will simply “refuse to pay (the tax) on the basis of religious conviction.”

In 1979 readers of the Messenger learned the legal how-tos of war tax resistance, while even the conservative Brethren Evangelist was willing to publish “New Call to Peacekeeping”’s summons to war tax resistance.

As had become common at this point, discussion of the World Peace Tax Fund bill often overshadowed war tax resistance when war taxes were discussed. The bill was boosted in February (source), July (source), and August (source). Here’s another example mention, from an October profile of Charles Anderson (source):

Charles admits some pangs of conscience over his life-style. His own affluence is difficult for him to reconcile with peacemaking, since he believes that the gap between the prosperous and the poor breeds violence. His payment of tax, more than half of which is used for military purposes, is also stressful. Support of the World Peace Tax Fund is an effort to resolve this personal conflict.

In April the magazine reported that the Mennonites seemed to out in front of the Brethren on the war tax issue (source):

Church as tax collector protested by Mennonites

Delegates attending a special meeting of the General Conference Mennonite Church in Minneapolis in February voted to launch a vigorous campaign to exempt the church from acting as a tax collector for the state. The 500 delegates at the conference, called to discern the Christian response to militarism, passed the resolution by a nine to one margin.

A central focus of discussion was tax resistance already being practiced among Mennonites and the request of one such person, a General Conference employee, that the church stop withholding war taxes from her wages. The General Board denied her request because it is illegal for an employer not to act as a tax collector for the Internal Revenue Service.

Delegates affirmed that decision but instructed the General Board to vigorously search for legal avenues to exempt the church from collecting taxes so individuals employed by the church would be free to follow their own conscience.

The May issue profiled Ralph Dull, and noted that “throughout the past 25 years… the Dulls have withheld from their taxes the portion allotted to the military.” (source)

“Sometimes you get so frustrated, you just have to do something,” Ralph said. For the past two years Ralph and others have taken food to the IRS as a witness that taxes should be used for feeding the hungry instead of supporting the military.

“I’m not sure it does any good, but it raises the issue.”

Phil Rieman wrote in to the July issue, urging Brethren to stick together in order to overcome the fear of government reprisals when considering war tax resistance (source).

The November issue reprinted a lengthy article by William Durland, a lawyer who founded the Center on Law and Pacifism (and later helped found NWTRCC), on the practical and legal aspects of war tax resistance:

Praying for peace: Guidelines on military tax refusal

When President Carter’s military tax budget for fiscal year 1979 was criticized, he replied that he would not apologize for it. While recommending cutbacks in health, education and human needs, he increased the portion of the budget allocated to bombs and bullets.

Many Christians are beginning to realize that they cannot use mammon for murder and expect a welcome at the millennium. So they are looking for advice on ways to refuse complicity with the war machine.

Recently the Center on Law and Pacifism was organized in Philadelphia to serve people who need advice and support in the relationship of their radical religious, pacifist convictions to the laws which attempt to obstruct their conscientious objection to violence. One of the main projects of the Center has been to aid people in their quest for information on how to be military tax refusers. The Center is in the process of publishing such a study and the following is an overview of that report.

People want to know how to withhold their taxes, what happens if they do so and what legal remedies exist for them to witness to their conscientious objection in the courts of this land. Usually people who are in this position are employees. So we will talk about them first, then the employer, the corporation, the income tax refuser and the telephone tax refuser. Employees receive their income in the form of wages which are subject to withholding before they see their check. Employees must fill out a W4 form with their employer. The W4 form determines the amount of money to be withheld from each paycheck. The more allowances you claim the less money is withheld.

You are allowed a number of allowances on your W4 form depending upon how many dependents you have and what your anticipated itemized deductions are. The employer determines how much money to withhold from your weekly paycheck on the basis of your W4 form. Therefore, in order to reduce or eliminate withholding, you can file a new W4 form claiming more allowances. There is nothing fraudulent about this procedure as long as you inform the IRS when you file your income tax return as to why you took the allowances on your W4 form. When it comes time for your income tax, it is important that it be consistent with this claim. This is done by taking a war tax deduction on your income tax form under “miscellaneous deductions.”

This is one of four methods to avoid withholding. The second method is by working in an occupation exempt from the withholding law. A third method is by becoming self-employed as a consultant or independent contractor. Fourth, by earning less than a taxable income you can avoid not only withholding, but also any income tax liability whatsoever.

If you are successful in computing the sufficient number of allowances — which will constitute rendering your withholding to a point where you can take your deduction on your income tax — then no further problem remains until that time for the employee. However, should the employee choose not to use the allowance method, but rather to ask the employer not to withhold any of the withholding tax, then there is a problem for both employer and employee.

The Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as amended, requires employers making payment of wages to deduct and withhold from such wages a tax determined in accordance with IRS tables. The employer is liable for the amount required to be deducted and withheld. Any employer who fails is liable to the IRS for that amount plus a civil penalty equal to the tax amount. There is also a criminal penalty of $10,000 fine and/or five years imprisonment for willful failure to pay or collect the amount due.

Some employers have wanted to protect the right of their employees to exercise their rights of conscience even though the employer does not share the same viewpoint. In this event, employers have refused to withhold and have been taken to court. Eventually they wind up paying and requiring the employee to reimburse them.

But what if the whole corporation becomes a war tax refuser, rather than just one of its employees? In that event the corporation will not withhold any tax at all because they are conscientiously opposed to paying military taxes.

Recently we have seen some organizations which were created on radical religious, pacifist principles beginning to refuse to pay military taxes as a corporation rather than simply to support the conscience of one or more of their employees. They see this as their own witness to the immorality of war taxes. There is a possibility of losing tax-exempt status and other rights, but they are willing to witness in this way and suffer for conscience’s sake.

Everyone who makes a minimum amount of money a year is required by law to file an income tax return. Whether you made your money as an employee, an employer or are self-employed, you must file form 1040 and complete Schedule A (“Itemized Deductions”) in order to take an income tax deduction for war. Those who are self-employed can write in a “war tax credit” instead of a deduction, and simply withhold a percentage of the tax owed and send a letter to the IRS explaining what they are doing.

Another popular way of resisting military taxes has been refusal to pay the tax on the telephone bill. In times past, the IRS took quite a bit of time tracing down telephone tax refusers. Since the end of the Vietnam War, this has not been the case, although we have heard of one case recently where the telephone company closed down the service of a telephone tax refuser.

Whatever category you are in, you must decide how much to refuse and what you are going to do with that money. Many organizations, such as the World Peace Tax Fund and the various chapters of War Resisters League, are equipped to advise you on the breakdown of the national budget. But generally, from year to year, the military portion of the budget is calculated anywhere from 35 percent to 53 percent, depending upon whether current military expenditures for past wars are included.

For those who wish to put their money to good use while it is being withheld, there are various alternative funds which invest in human resources and use your money for that purpose. Many people hope that the World Peace Tax Fund Act — designed to allow the taxpayer to earmark a specific amount of tax money to go into a federal fund to be used only for peaceful purposes — will be approved by Congress soon.

What happens when you take these steps? How do you cope with the IRS? No matter what category of refuser you are, what generally is going to happen to you is something like this: If a tax is owed, a notice of tax will be sent to you. The IRS is required to issue this bill which is a demand for payment. You are then required by law to make payment within 10 days of the date of this bill. If the tax remains unpaid after the 10-day period, a statutory lien is automatically attached to your property. The law also provides for interest and penalty for late payment at this time.

Once this notice of tax lien has been filed at your courthouse, it becomes a matter of public record and may adversely affect your business transactions or other financial interests. It could impair your credit rating; therefore, it is normally filed only after the IRS has sent you a second notice of deficiency and tried to contact you personally, giving you the opportunity to pay.

After the lien has been filed, a levy may be taken. A levy is the taking of property to satisfy tax liability. The tax may be collected by a levy on any property belonging to you. In the case of levies being made on salaries or wages, you will usually be given written notice, in addition to the notice of demand, at least 10 days before the levy is served.

Generally, court authorization is not required before a levy action is taken, unless collection personnel must enter private premises to accomplish their levy action. The only legal requirements are that the taxes are owed and that the notice and demand for payment have been sent to your last known address. In taking a levy action, the IRS first considers levying on such property as wages, salaries and bank accounts. Levying on this type of property is referred to as a seizure.

Willful failure to file or pay income tax can result in a criminal sentence of one year and/or $10,000 fine. However, we know of no cases which have ever resulted in criminal penalties, except where there is a total failure to file any income tax form at all.

When you receive your notice of deficiency from the IRS, you will also be notified that you may elect to appeal your case to the US Tax Court; if you decide to do so within 90 days of that time, the IRS process against you is halted for the duration of the case. Several people have gone to Tax Court following this procedure, although in no case has anyone “won” there.

The Center on Law and Pacifism has advised and supported people filing cases in Tax Court and on the Appellate and US Supreme Court levels also. If you lose your case in Tax Court, you may appeal to higher courts, and ultimately to the Supreme Court. These appeals are based on the First Amendment free exercise of religion and other constitutional provisions.

Many of us are presently refusing 35 to 50 percent or more of our income taxes. For others just beginning to consider war tax refusal, or those reluctant to refuse taxes in those quantities, a new project called People Pay for Peace, under the auspices of the Center on Law and Pacifism, offers an opportunity to participate.

The Center is coordinating this symbolic tax refusal movement by new reformers who withheld from their 1978 tax returns a few dollars, symbolizing their witness against military armament. The amount is so small that it is unlikely the IRS will try to levy it. Multiplied by thousands of people, this small amount will constitute a significant conscientious objection to payment for war.

There is still time to build the kingdom, time to protest armaments, time to create a spiritual community for those who turn from the idols of fear.

If I were to say to you, “I will not kill my neighbor, but I will pay someone else to do it,” would you not hold me accountable? If we refuse to kill our neighbor but allow our government to do it with our money, are we not to be held accountable?

But then we must witness and suffer the consequences of our military tax refusal for conscience’s sake. This is the price some Christians are paying for peace in 1979.

According to another article in that issue, of 200 people who responded to a “Survey on Life-Style Changes” in an earlier issue of the magazine, 20% had taken the step of “keeping income down in order not to pay taxes.” Another 25% wanted nothing to do with such a step. (source)

I was a little surprised to see the fairly conservative Brethren Evangelist devote several pages of its January 1979 issue to reprinting part of the Statement of the Findings Committee of the “New Call to Peacekeeping” conference (source). The Brethren Church was not (as the Church of the Brethren was) a partner to this conference, but they did send an observer.

The magazine was careful in its preface to say: “The printing of this Statement does not mean that either the Peace Coordinator [Doc Shank of the Brethren Church, who attended the conference] or the Brethren Publishing Company endorses it in its entirety. It is our hope that it will be read carefully and with an open mind.” Mention of tax resistance was brief in the published excerpt (“We urge the development of support groups within congregations and meetings for those individuals who are working at peace issues such as war tax resistance, simple lifestyles, and nonviolent action.”) but this makes for a rare positive mention in this usually more stodgy magazine.

In February the magazine followed up with a second excerpt from the Statement (source). This one was more explicit and direct:

1. We call upon members of the Historic Peace Churches to seriously consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes, as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.
2. We challenge ourselves and also our congregations and meetings to uphold war tax resisters with spiritual, emotional, legal, and material support.
3. We call on our church and conference agencies to enter into dialogue with employees who ask, for reasons of moral conviction, that their taxes not be withheld.
4. We suggest that alternative “tax” payments be channeled into a peace fund initiated by the New Call to Peacemaking or into existing peace funds of constituent groups.
5. We call on our denominations, congregations and meetings to give high priority to the study of war tax resistance in our own circles and beyond.

Another element of the statement gave a thumbs-up to the World Peace Tax Fund legislation.

There were a couple of horrified letters to the editor that followed, from Brethren who didn’t want to see their church tangled up with the anti-war movement, but otherwise not much discussion.