Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” → Mennonites / Amish → Barbara & Harold A. Penner

Some bits-and-pieces from around the web:

• Susan Balzer writes about Men­non­ite war tax resist­ers for the Men­non­ite Weekly Review. Some of the resisters mentioned: Tim Godshall, Willard and Mary Swart­ley, Ray Gingerich, Harold A. Penner, John and Janet Stoner, Albert and Mary Ellen Meyer, Don Kauf­man, Titus and Linda Gehman Peachey, and Stan Bohn.
• Charles Merrill, who has been resist­ing taxes in protest against the govern­ment’s refusal to give equal legal recog­ni­tion to same-sex mar­riages, is urging others to join him in a national “Tax Tea Party Revolt”:

  A Tax Tea Party Revolt will be the only recourse avail­a­ble in the wake of efforts to not provide equal treat­ment to all cit­i­zens under law … This means gays, lesbians, bi­sex­u­als and trans­gender people will not be filing taxes April 15^th.

• War tax resister NTodd Pritsky at Pax Amer­i­cana takes note of the pros­e­cu­tion of a tax evader and wonders if this is going to be his even­tual fate as well. Pritsky is resist­ing both federal and state taxes (as a war tax resister, he is pro­test­ing state com­plic­ity in the mil­i­tary in­dus­trial com­plex and in the wars via the state na­tional guard). Fight­ing this bat­tle on two fronts takes a lot of energy, and he’s not sure it’s worth it.

Today is the deadline for filing U.S. federal income tax returns — “Tax Day” — which is also a traditional day of action and publicity for American war tax resisters. Here is an overview of some from this year:

• LancasterOnline covered local war tax resisters Barbara & Harold Penner, Linda & Titus Peachey, Berry & Sharon Friesen, and Janet & John Stoner.
• NWTRCC’s Erica Weiland was interviewed on Peace Buzz (audio).
• teleSUR reported on American war tax resisters: “No More Money for War: US Peace Activists Refuse to Pay Taxes”
• The War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund sent out its Spring Report. The fund distributed $9,988 to war tax resisters last year to reimburse them for any penalties and interest the IRS had managed to seize from them.
• Paul Buckley spoke about the history of Quaker war tax resistance for QuakerSpeak:
• Vice reports “This Is What Happens if You Don’t Pay Your Taxes,” using the experience of war tax resister Ruth Benn as an example.
• War tax resister redmoonsong spoke on the Simple Living Works! podcast.
• David Zarembka wrote for the American Friends Service Committee’s Acting in Faith blog on the theme “God and Caesar: On war tax resistance.”
• NWTRCC’s Ed Hedemann spoke on the radio dispatch show.
• Sue Barnhart explained her war tax resistance in the Eugene Register-Guard.

This is the forty-fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we reach the mid-2000s and the start of the war on Iraq.

Earl and Pat Hostetter Martin wrote of their war tax resistance for the 15 April 2003 issue. Excerpts:

Once again Caesar asks for more money to provide more weapons — this time to launch a war in Iraq. Even the Pope and nearly all the major Christian denominations in the United States, not just those in the historic peace church tradition, have said this is not a just war. We know 25 to 35 percent of our tax money will go to support the machines of war that have taken the lives of our friends. In the current hi-tech war-making, Caesar covets our dollars more than our bodies.

We agonize in our consciences. If a man were to run into our house and demand we give him a knife because he wants to go kill our neighbor, would we give it to him? Of course not.

Is it different if it is Caesar who asks for that knife? What shall we give Caesar? Anything Caesar asks for? Or only what belongs to Caesar? What does belong to Caesar? We try to seek the mind of a compassionate Christ in this dilemma. Within our souls we feel we cannot willfully put that knife into the hands of those who will bring harm and death to friends — known and unknown — around the world.

Once again we fill out our 1040 Tax Form correctly, but again we write a letter to the Internal Revenue Service — and government officials — to explain why we cannot pay some or all the military percentage of our income tax. We explain that we direct our monies instead to our church’s relief and development programs. Such efforts, we believe, build sustainable, peaceful lives for people around the world and probably do more to engender good will and security for Americans than any war. Under biblical principles and under the principles of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals after World War Ⅱ we know we cannot hide behind the inhumane orders of an official or even a government. Each of us is ultimately responsible to God and our fellow human beings for our actions.

The IRS sends us notices of “unpaid taxes.” Eventually they may freeze our wages or bank account in order to seize the money. (Under the “aiding and abetting” considerations, it feels different to us whether the man seizes the knife from our kitchen or we give it to him without protest.) Sometimes the IRS has not followed through. We especially salute our friends who live under the taxable income level as a way of affirming life and walking lightly on the earth.

When our international friends hear there are Christians who withhold even a token amount of the “military tax” as a cry for peace, many of them — including friends of other faiths — have expressed appreciation that Christians here are ready to witness in this way for a God of peace.

Susan Balzer wrote in to note:

The April issue of Mennonite Central Committee’s A Common Place reported that since Sept. 11, 2001, MCC has given more than $4.5 million to Afghanistan relief. According to War Resister’s League, the United States spent $46 million in one hour of the war on Iraq — more than 10 times the amount MCC gave to rehabilitate Afghanistan. If for no other reason than Christian stewardship, we should refuse to pay the 47 percent of federal income, estate or gift taxes that fund the current and past military budget. Redirect them instead to do what Jesus asked of us: Care for the enemy, teach our children, heal the sick, lend to the needy without interest.

I urge all who work and pray for peace to support the passage of the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act, a bill that would provide that the federal tax payments of conscientious objectors to war be used only for nonmilitary purposes. Until that bill is passed, I urge you to use all legal and ethical ways to lower your taxable income and to consider redirecting the military percentage of the tax money you owe. The Mennonite Church needs to become more proactive, prophetic and pastoral as we address the consequences of the draft of war taxes.

The MCC awarded Zachary Kurtz top honors in a “Peace Oratorical Contest” for his speech on war tax resistance, according to the 18 November 2003 edition.

The 6 January 2004 edition noted the ongoing court battle between the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Quakers) and the IRS. “The Internal Revenue Service is threatening PYM with a penalty of more than $20,000 for refusing to garnish the wages of employee and war-tax-resister Priscilla Adams. PYM has decided to challenge the IRS on all possible grounds, including constitutional and statutory religious freedom…”

Timothy Godshall’s article on death & taxes appeared in the 6 April 2004 edition. It pointed out the grotesquely enormous U.S. military budget, and the sacrifices conscientious objectors are forced to make to reduce their complicity with it, and used this as a launching pad to plug the Peace Tax Fund bill.

Rex J. Rempel and Lenae K. Nofziger wrote in to the 4 May 2004 issue to say that because “[r]oughly 53 percent of our current income taxes” will be spent “on soldiers, weapons, and debt from prior wars” they had decided they would be “withholding $53 from our payment due. Obviously this is a symbolic amount, but it is a step toward fully following God’s call for us.”

Incurable letter-to-the-editorialist Don Schrader put in his 2¢:

After World War Ⅱ, a Jewish rabbi in Germany said what shocked him most was not the terror of the Nazis but the silence of the good people in Germany. Today what disturbs me more than the horrendous atrocities of presidents Bush, Clinton and the U.S. Empire for many decades is how most U.S. peace activists, progressives, Quakers, Mennonites and members of Amnesty International pay U.S. federal income tax for these atrocities: to rob, terrorize, blind, cripple, paralyze, make homeless and murder our sisters and brothers worldwide. We get what we pay for.

Nothing in life is more important than refusing to pay federal income tax for war — no matter who is president. The best way to refuse to pay federal income tax for war, with no fines and no threats from the IRS, is to live simply under the taxable level. The federal income taxable level for 2004 for a single person who is under 65 and not blind is $7,950. I lived all of 2003 on $3,390 — less than half the federal income taxable level.

I have no right to pay tax to do to other people what I do not want them to do to me. I have paid no federal income tax for 25 years. I pledge now, at age 58, to live simply, to own no car and to pay no federal income tax for war for the rest of my life. This is nonviolent revolution.

There was a brief write-up about the 10^th International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns that happened in July 2004, in the 17 August edition.

H.A. Penner wrote in to the 16 May 2006 edition to explain his symbolic withholding formula:

To express my conscientious objection to war, I am withholding from my current federal income tax payment an amount equal to one dime for every billion dollars in the 2005 U.S. military budget. I am donating that amount — $78.30 — to the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund to be used in the pursuit of peace.

The 15 August 2006 edition profiled Carol and Sam Bixler. It noted:

For a time the Bixlers withheld the U.S. telephone tax but found that this decision resulted only in confused correspondence. Now their deductions are sufficiently large to cut payment of federal taxes. “When charitable donations go up,” says Sam, “taxes go down.” One time the IRS asked them to show receipts.

This is the forty-fifth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we finish off the first decade of the new millennium.

What belongs to God and what to Caesar? It’s a riddle that has to be puzzled over again and again by Mennonites in the context of war tax resistance. In the 3 April 2007 edition, Titus Peachey took a swing at the pitch: Given all that belongs to God, he asked, “can we who follow Jesus willingly give our tax dollars for war and killing?”

In the 6 November 2007 edition, Scott Key answered Everett J. Thomas’s editorial statement — “There seems to be nothing we can do but write letters and pray that [the war in Iraq] will stop.” — with some more practical ideas, including boycotts of and divestment from military contractors, and war tax resistance.

Susan Miller Balzer wrote in to applaud and supplement this:

Scott Key… lists some important ways to work against war and for peace. In mentioning war tax resistance, he expresses a common misconception that employees cannot prevent their employers from withholding federal taxes from their paychecks.

However, it is possible to limit or stop withholding by increasing withholding allowances on the W-4 Form (or legally writing “Exempt” on the form if you did not owe federal income taxes last year and do not expect to owe in the coming year). See the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee’s “practical” publications on the Web site nwtrcc.org on controlling federal tax withholding and on low income or simple living for helpful information on ways to keep from paying for war. On the same Web site, click on the 2008 War Tax Boycott, Withhold from War/Pay for Peace to find ways to participate in this national effort to defund war.

The “draft” of federal tax money to pay for present, past and future wars is a fundamental issue that our church should address as it works to replace suffering, destruction and injustice with healing and hope. The military draft affected only young men. The current “economic draft” affects young men and women who enter the military to try to get out of poverty. The draft of tax money affects people of all ages as long as they have a taxable income.

If everyone in just one congregation refused to pay for war and redirected their refused taxes to an underfunded social service, imagine the opportunities for witness and change that could occur.

Don Kaufman was back in the 4 March 2008 letters to the editor column:

If enough of us withhold from war and pay for peace, we can stop the harm. War-tax resistance is not a passive or unethical tax avoidance but an act of conscience that everyone can do. The cross of Jesus as nonviolence and compassion is our model for hope and change.

Individuals shoulder great responsibility for warfare and for peace. At times the most effective way to take responsibility is refusal to collaborate, as Franz Jaggerstatter did in Hitler’s Austria in 1943. How can we take a stand against a government that leads its citizens into committing murder? The task is to be reform-minded, to live in an ethical way, and progressively to make unthinkable the coercion of conscience by the majority who put their faith in military or violent solutions.

Like Jeremiah, let us unmask the illusions of power by being servants of hope among the vulnerable and wounded.

Stanley Bohn encouraged people to engage in at least a small symbolic act of war tax redirection, in the 1 April 2008 edition, claiming important benefits from the gesture that go beyond its likely practical results:

Will this action make Congress and the Bush administration change their funding priorities? Unlikely, even if millions took part in this effort. After all, war fuels our economy, is useful in getting national unity and political support, and it focuses on the evil of others, allowing us to raise our self-esteem. As Chris Hedges wrote in his book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, war provides us with purpose and a civil religion.

What happens to us: For some Christians, the motive for participating in tax redirection may start as a protest against refugee making, the slaughter of people as collateral damage, torture of prisoners, creating mentally damaged veterans, ballooning war debt, ruined international relations, and other disastrous consequences. But when we take a stand for our Christian convictions, something else may happen.

We gain an understanding of Jesus’ way of being lumped with criminals when choosing the community-building, caring, enemy-loving life at the heart of the universe. We realize that Jesus did not live or teach a religion guided by what is respectable, safe, stress-free, or that waits for a consensus. Jesus calls us to a life that is unpredictable and vulnerable.

Tax redirection is not a criterion of who is a “real Christian” but is more accepting life as a gift, being what we are here for, living what we see in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. When the IRS makes us pay a small percentage more than our lawful tax, we can experience what we believe is more important than money, and the hold money has on us is reduced.

Living this kind of trust in the Jesus way helps keep serious Christians from attempting to be pure and withdraw from life’s realities. It keeps us engaged in current issues and with those proposing different goals. We are engaged, however, in the kind of peace Christians should expect when choosing an alternative way to conquer evil.

The risk of taking a stand regardless of consequences brings an unexpected peace. It is not a peace that makes us feel protected, free of fears, or satisfied with ourselves. It is a peace from knowing one is on a venture of trusting in the universe-guiding reality we see in Christ. It is an empowering peace given us when we offer ourselves to the one who gave us this life, trusting God for the outcome. It is an empowerment that keeps us open rather than defensive and having to shut out the desperate cries of others. It is an alternative to a consumer-oriented Christianity that brings an unintended transformation that makes us vulnerable and powerful at the same time.

Possibilities after April 15: There is no telling if or how God might use the April 15 tax-redirection event. Consequences may occur that we never thought of, including what powers or gifts might be released in ourselves.

We should not expect the government to inform us how many participated. The media may not be free to report it, even if it knew. If the amount we withheld and diverted is seen by the IRS as worth taking action against us, we will likely receive threatening letters and finally have those funds confiscated along with a penalty.

Yet significant tax redirection can mean some humanitarian agencies will get more financial support, and starving people will be fed. Maybe some legislators will hear the conscience dilemma of many taxpayers and join other co-sponsors of HR 1921, the Freedom of Religion Peace Tax Fund, which would make legal the redirection of taxes by conscientious objectors to war. And maybe a few thousand redirectors will discover we are less bound by the expectations of others and are freer than we thought we could be.

Most important, we may learn that choosing risky ways of living for others, even civil disobedience, can bring spiritual healing. We won’t defund the war, but we can be more confident of the Power that overcomes our fears and by God’s grace enables us to be the humans God intended us to be.

One such redirection idea was announced in the May 2010 edition: “Turning toward peace.” This Mennonite Central Committee (U.S.) initiative allowed Americans to “redirect[] war tax dollars to help children in Afghanistan through MCC’s Global Family education sponsorship program.” Titus Peachey, director of peace education for MCC (U.S.) was quoted:

According to Peachey, most who have chosen to withhold believe, “If we cannot conscientiously participate in war with our bodies, we cannot pay for it either. We need to give our money to causes that build up rather than destroy the presence of God in each person,” he says.

Most inform their governments of their actions. “Given the presence of Western military action in Afghanistan today, the opportunity to contribute to peacemaking there is timely,” says Peachey. “Equally important is the way in which withholding war taxes challenges our own systemic militarism.”

The “Turning toward peace” initiative was still in operation at least as late as 2016.

A joint letter from Susan Balzer, Deb & Wes Bergen, Anita & Stan Bohn, Ron Faust, Don Kaufman, H.A. Penner, Steve Ratzlaff, Mary Swartley, Willard Swartley, and Dan Leatherman appeared in the June 2010 edition. They were responding to an editorial that suggested the Mennonite Church had surrendered as a peace church and had come to be “at peace with war.”

There is a traditional, positive witness opportunity for conscientious objectors to war of all ages. It may seem scary, but many find it almost routine. It involves redirection of income-tax assessments used for killing and refugee-making to ministries meeting human need.…

Our descendants and overseas Christians will wonder how Christians in a superpower, with over 700 military bases around the world, fighting two wars and considering a third with Iran, supporting covert wars in places such as Colombia and Israel, could be so at peace with war.

“The church should consist of communities of loving defiance. Instead, it consists largely of comfortable clubs of conformity,” writes Ron Sider in Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. If we teach it is wrong, why do we support it financially?

Shame is the negative motivation. The positive is that Jesus promised his spirit of truth would abide in us and enable us to live differently from the world’s ways. If we love him, we are empowered to keep his commandments (John 14:15–17).

War tax redirection is “alternative service” for dollars we earn, service that provides hope and new possibilities for suffering people instead of endless war.

The December 2010 issue covered John Stoner’s “$10.40 for Peace” campaign. This was another attempt to get timid people to take baby steps into war tax resistance by resisting a small, token amount of their taxes. The campaign is still going on today but has yet to catch fire.

The article seemed to me to exaggerate the scariness of such resistance even as it tried to assuage the fears of potential resisters. Excerpts:

Stoner says the group hears some concern from individuals about the possible penalties and “heavy hand of the IRS coming down.”

Stoner’s response is threefold. First, “As disciples of Jesus, we shouldn’t have so much fear,” he says. Second, the past experiences of individuals who have withheld taxes for similar reasons have been minimal. Third, the tax withholder can decide later to pay the full amount.

“The most important thing is to make that statement that calls for democratic conversation about how federal money is spent,” Stoner said.

Others say this movement should take more risks and that U.S. war spending remains too large. However, if enough people join, the risks and penalties would increase, Stoner said.

The article noted that Shane Claiborne had signed on as an endorser and would be speaking at an upcoming public meeting on the campaign.

This is the forty-sixth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we find ourselves in our own decade.

A profile of Martha F. Graber in the February 2011 edition mentioned her family’s tax resistance:

Her father [Gerhard Friesen], she said, “was ahead of his time” in advocating war tax resistance and speaking out at Mennonite conferences against profiteering from the war economy. “His conscience would not let him support the military.”

She said her father would have approved the 1983 action by the General Conference Mennonite Church to honor employee Cornelia Lehn’s request to not have her income taxes withheld from her paychecks.

The Friesens practiced war tax resistance by living simply, giving generously and usually not earning enough to owe income taxes.

Although as a youth she was embarrassed by her father’s outspokenness to audiences unreceptive to his message, Martha embraced her parents’ convictions about Christian discipleship and peacemaking and taught them to her children. She files tax returns but usually has a zero taxable income due to living simply and giving 50 percent of her income to charity. She has also advocated for the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund legislation.

Daniel Riehl, in a letter to the editor printed in the July 2011 edition, invited readers to visit a website where they could learn how much they were contributing to war by entering their taxable income:

If one adds up the taxable income of every Mennonite in the land, how much is the Mennonite church contributing to destroying other countries for the benefit of our corporations? Is this really what we want to do with our wealth, the wealth of “Die Stille im Lande,” the capital of Anabaptists, the sweat of the brow of the meek and the nonviolent peacemakers?

In an interview with Hedwig Maria (Hedy) Sawadsky, published in the March 2012 edition, she reflected on her turn to war tax resistance:

[M]y mind and heart increasingly made connections with the inherent contradiction of praying for peace and paying for war via “war taxes.” How could I, a follower of the Prince of Peace, justify paying for militarism and the building of weapons with my tax dollars? Indeed, these weapons might be used to harm or even kill my friends in the Middle East and people in other places. Increasingly my conscience was bolstered by biblical convictions.

I struggled with others who were also trying to find clarity on this issue. Later I worked in a Mennonite church in Pennsylvania where my role included teaching the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) to ecumenical women’s groups and to young people.

Thus, while living in the state of the Quaker William Penn and delving deeper into the Scriptures as well as the 16^th-century Anabaptist witness, the path became clearer. For me the way to go was to live below the war-taxable level.

After considerable discernment, the church’s education committee proposed to the church leadership that I would continue in my position but would be paid as a person in Mennonite Voluntary Service so as to keep my salary under the taxable level. There was some resistance by the church leadership to my becoming a voluntary service worker. Even though there was strong verbal affirmation for our Anabaptist peace position, it was not acceptable to church leadership for me to take this stance and commit to living more simply while still holding the same position.

My resignation meant that I had six months before my two-year contract was up. I continued wrestling with the question, How can we Mennonites continue being the quiet in the land when the world is full of violence?

The April 2012 edition carried a brief article about the Everence Sharing Fund, which distributed nearly a million dollars in financial assistance to thousands of needy families the previous year. It noted that the fund grew out of the Everence Federal Credit Union, from which, “[b]ecause of the organization’s unique tax status, money that would be paid in federal taxes is instead distributed through mutual aid programs like the Sharing Fund.”

Mennonite World Conference asked a question of Mennonite Church U.S.A. (the U.S. branch of the successor of the merged Mennonite Church and the Mennonite General Conference): “How are we doing as a peace church?” In the July 2012 edition, André Gingerich Stoner (“director of holistic witness for Mennonite Church U.S.A.”) wrote up an answer (“after taking counsel from area conference leaders and testing [his] response with a wider circle of pastors, teachers, denominational leaders, and practitioners and others”). Here’s the part that touched on taxpaying:

For some of our congregations and members, “peace” is still primarily a matter of not going to war. In a time when there is no draft, engagement in peace witness wanes.

Our tax monies are conscripted, and each year our church members pay for cruise missiles, smart bombs, and unmanned drones — with barely the slightest tinge of conscience, let alone a whimper of protest.

The June 2014 edition broke a long fast of significant war tax resistance content by profiling “fourteen individuals from one Mennonite congregation [who] are consciously redirecting their war taxes.” (Excerpts from an article compiled by Carolyn Yoder:)

April 15 is tax day in the United States. But while most people pay their taxes by that date, a group of us at Community Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va., take a different route. Concerned with the high percentage of our federal tax money that goes to the military while we pray for peace, we witness to our Christian faith through how we deal with this dilemma. This often includes redirecting a portion of our military taxes to life-giving causes.

We are not against paying taxes. In fact, some of us would willingly pay higher taxes if they supported education, health, infrastructure, sustainable and clean energy sources, bike paths, or efforts to learn nonviolent ways to address complex domestic and international conflicts. That’s why we prefer a term other than “tax resistance” to describe what we do.

And we don’t think we have necessarily figured out the best way to exercise our constitutional freedom to live by our conscience when it comes to taxes. We’re ordinary people on a journey. We offer here a summary of what we do in the hope that it will encourage others who take similar actions to share their experiences in their congregations and communities. We also hope it will inspire more people to consider this type of witness.

Nathan and Elaine Zook Barge, restorative justice specialist and STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience) director.

How long have you engaged in an act witness through your taxes?

Over 30 years

Why do you do it?

Living and working in a Catholic and Mennonite community in Colorado Springs, Colo., in the early 1980s, we became aware of the dissonance between saying we were conscientious objectors to war while paying for war. Our commitment deepened during the 14 years we worked in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Many friends or their family members had been killed or wounded by U.S. weapons, and many people suffered hunger, homelessness and illness because money was used for weapons rather than for food, health and education.

Ironically, it was on tax day, April 15, 1985, that we experienced too closely the fear and trauma of war. Along with the Salvadorans on the bus, we prayed for safety as guns from 10 U.S. helicopters strafed the area around us. That day, we became tax resisters for life.

How do you do it?

It’s a journey, finding the way that works for our stage of life. Early on, we withheld 50 percent of our taxable income and redirected it to MCC. Then for many years, we lived below the taxable level, first as a couple and then as a family of four. The past number of years, we have withheld a symbolic 10 cents for every $1 billion in the U.S. military budget and redirected that money for life-giving efforts rather than war. We also reduce our taxable income through charitable donations and deductions.

David Jost, ESL Instructor

How long have you lived under the taxable level?

One year

How do you do it?

By making a small reduction in my pay-check to ensure that I owe no federal income tax.

Why do you do it?

Because I want to avoid financially supporting the U.S. military any way I can, and I believe that church institutions (such as Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, to which I contribute by reducing my paycheck) are better stewards of my money than the government.

Ray and Wilma Gingerich, retired peace and justice professor and retired hospice nurse

How long have you redirected a portion of your taxes?

Since 1976

Why do you do it?

We are Mennonites (inheritors of a nonviolent way of life); we are followers of Jesus, who taught us to practice love toward our enemies. This is the explanation we give to the IRS. But our primary reason to resist the payment of military taxes is to witness to our church, to our Mennonite brothers and sisters. We are simply seeking to live lives consistent to the faith we profess. If we, the church, all those who profess Jesus as Lord of our lives, lived more like Jesus, faithfully refusing to pay for war, our country would not go to war. (That is a political fact.) How can we pray for peace while paying for war? On a more personal level, we taught our children (our own sons) not to join the military. Our two youngest sons are nonregistrants. How inconsistent then it would be for us as parents to pay others to prepare for war and to practice violence on our behalf!

How do you do it?

We withhold payment of the military portion of our federal income tax (approximately 47 percent) and send that amount to life-giving organizations (e.g., our local congregation’s compassion fund, Christian Peacemaker Teams and the National War Tax Resisters Coordinating Committee). A letter of explanation is sent to the director of IRS and included with our annual IRS report. Most importantly, copies of our letter to the IRS are sent to key Mennonite Church USA leaders and heads of organizations. With these letters, a handwritten note is included — an encouragement to promote the witness against the payment of military taxes.

Sue Klassen and Johann Zimmermann, public health nurse and structural engineer

How long have you redirected a portion of your taxes?

We have always kept our earnings low, not only for a lifestyle choice but to pay as little tax for military as possible. About eight years ago, when we came back from overseas with MCC and had taxable earnings, we started deducting taxes directly for military reasons.

Why do you do it?

We do it in order to inform our elected officials of our stand for peace. We send a statement to the local paper each year, and it has brought us into conversation with many different people from many walks of life about pacifist beliefs and peace initiatives.

How do you do it?

During the year, we underestimate our tax payments. Then when we have to pay what is due at the end of the year, we withhold a symbolic amount of 10 cents for every $1 billion that is annually spent on military funding, which adds up to approximately $80.

Jennifer and Kent Davis Sensenig, lead pastor at Community Mennonite Church and EMU adjunct professor

How long have you redirected a portion of your taxes or minimized what you owe?

About 15 years

Why do you do it?

It is a small witness for peace, a part of our life of discipleship to Jesus Christ and a way of expressing that we seek a more just, peaceable and sustainable U.S. public policy. Kent’s parents lived in Vietnam for a decade during the U.S. military intervention into that civil war and saw firsthand the destructive consequences U.S. foreign policy can have.

How do you do it?

For some of the early years of our marriage we withheld a symbolic portion of our taxes (less than $100), which provided a reason to send letters to our Congressional representatives, the President, and the IRS, expressing our faith-based resistance to U.S. budgetary priorities vis-a-vis discretionary federal spending.

We’re not always consistent. Some years we have withheld the entire percentage of federal taxes for military expenditures, and some years we have withheld a symbolic portion. Some years we have filed under protest and written letters. For the last five years, we have managed to not owe any federal taxes (beyond Social Security) by maxing out a variety of legal tax-break options, such as charitable giving, IRA investments and mortgage-interest deductions. One of us also only has part-time paid employment, which keeps taxable income lower.

Dorothy Jean Weaver, seminary professor of New Testament

How long have you engaged in an act of witness through your taxes?

Thirty years or so

How do you do it?

I got this idea years ago from an MCC info sheet. I split my tax monies and write two checks: 55 percent to the U.S. Treasury and 45 percent to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I mail both checks to the IRS along with a letter, copied to my legislators, explaining why I am doing this. I also send a symbolic sum of $45 to MCC for their “taxes for peace” fund.

Why do you do it?

In the letter I say that as a follower of Jesus Christ I cannot in conscience pay the portion of my federal taxes that goes to military purposes. I note that I have no intention to avoid paying the money I owe to the federal government. I simply wish to designate that these funds go to a cause that is life-giving, not death-dealing. And I submit these checks as an expression of my freedom of religion, protected by the constitution, the freedom not to have to take an action that is contradictory to my Christian beliefs.

Anna and Ben Wyse, public health nurse and owner of Wyse Cycles, with their children Martha, Desmond, and Sam.

How long have you been living below the taxable income level?

Since we got married, 13 years ago — with the exception of one year when we accidentally made a little too much money.

Why do you do it?

Living below the taxable income level is at some level an act rooted in helping us sleep at night.

One component of American militarism has to do with protecting our consumptive lifestyles. The uneven distribution of wealth and uneven consumption of resources are one factor that drives conflict both in some localized conflicts and some international conflicts. As Americans, we cannot help but participate in and benefit from the violent structures that underpin our economy and society. By living under the taxable level, we at least are attempting to reckon with the dissonance we experience between what we believe and the broken world in which we all live.

We often feel like this is sort of a token act that will never really make a difference. We also know there are still numerous ways that we are complicit in the machinery of violence that our society relies on. Despite all that, this is one of the important choices we have made about how to express faithfulness and a longing for a different kind of world.

How do you do it?

By bringing home one income. When Anna had a job, Ben did a lot of volunteer work, and when he worked for folks he asked them to donate to various nonprofits in lieu of payment for services. Now Anna is a full-time stay-at-home parent, and we live on Ben’s income. We have to be careful with our budget, but we still live a far more abundant lifestyle than many of our neighbors in Harrisonburg and many of our global neighbors.

Rick and Carolyn Yoder, retired business and economics professor/semiretired international health systems consultant and psychotherapist

How long have you redirected a portion of your taxes?

Since we were married 38 years ago

Why do you do it?

Our work has taken us to many countries where we have seen both the positive and negative effects of our tax dollars. Carolyn’s work in psychosocial trauma healing often involves dealing with the fallout of violent conflict. We believe it’s a moral issue that nearly half our taxes go to military spending and that we spend more than the next highest 15 countries combined on the military while cutting domestic spending on programs such as health care, education, and the social safety net. Redirecting a portion of our taxes to life-giving causes helps reduce the gap between our stated values on peace and nonviolence and our actions.

The research on bystanders says that silence in the face of harm or wrongdoing emboldens harmdoers, leading them to assume others support and agree with them. Doing something, even something small, puts them on alert that someone has noticed and doesn’t agree. We’re not under the illusion that our letters and voice will change things, but it does change us. And knowing what we know, how can we be silent bystanders?

How do you do it?

We first take steps to ensure that we owe the IRS on April 15, rather than having a refund due us. Then we redirect a symbolic amount, a couple hundred dollars, from our federal income tax payments to the National Peace Tax Fund and MCC. We enclose a letter with our tax returns, stating what we are doing and why, with copies to the U.S. President, our legislators and our congregation. We also enclose a copy of the formal action taken by Community Mennonite Church to offer its support morally, financially and otherwise to its members.

A question many people have for those of us who redirect our taxes to life-giving causes is about the consequences from the IRS. Sue and John’s experience is typical: “We receive quarterly letters from the IRS each year, informing us that we owe them money. We respond to them with a letter restating our reasons. If in a given year we have prepaid too much tax, the money that we have withheld gets subtracted from our return. We do not really mind that this happens, because we find that we have already achieved the goal of bringing attention to our stance on military spending and war.”

Rick and Carolyn have had a lien placed on their bank account for the amount owed plus interest and a small penalty. They have also had the IRS get the amount due by electronically taking their state tax refund. Ray and Wilma have been audited numerous times, likely due to the high amount of deductions they have for contributions.

H.A. Penner applauded that article in a letter, putting in a word for the “$10.40 For Peace” project along the way. In a later letter (November 2014) he added:

Now, in the interest of peace, must we demand an arms embargo against all armed actors in Iraq and Syria, including the United States?

Paying for war is a form of participation in war…

But here alas, he decided to plug the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund instead of full-throated war tax resistance.

This is the forty-seventh in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we finally reach the present day.

The most recent volume of The Mennonite in the Internet Archives collection is 2014, and more recent back issues aren’t on-line as far as I know. There are a couple of individual articles from more recent years at themennonite.org, including:

Turning Toward Peace program redirects war taxes (27 March 2015)

Describes a Mennonite Central Committee program of organized tax redirection, in this case to “New Profile,” a group that helps conscientious objectors to military service in Israel, and to MCC’s “Summer Service” program. In addition, “MCC U.S. submits a ‘letter of anguish’ with each quarterly report of employee income taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. The letter laments that the U.S. government uses the income taxes of MCC U.S. employees to pay for war…”

Conscientious objection to military taxation (17 October 2016)

H.A. Penner describes the “moral injury… we suffer when we pay for war while praying for peace” and describes the evolution of his tax resistance and his work to get a Peace Tax Fund law enacted. He also alerted readers to the option of donating money directly from their retirement accounts to charity in order to take their required minimum distributions without inflicting a tax liability.

The paucity of content so far in this century matches what I found when I did a similar survey of Quaker periodicals. In that case I called it “The Second Forgetting” because of an earlier lapse in Quaker war tax resistance between the Civil War and World War Ⅱ.

In the Mennonite case, though, there was no earlier wave of war tax resistance to forget, at least as far as I could tell from reading The Mennonite (this choice of starting points for my research may turn out to have been an important bias, though — future research will tell, I hope). There was a murmur of war tax resistance that began in the magazine in the late 1940s, went from a murmur to a rumble in the 1960s, then from a rumble to a roar in the 1970s and early 1980s, but thereafter quickly subsided, finally fading to a whisper by the early 1990s, where it has largely remained.

This is the twenty-sixth 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.

The debate about whether or not to pay war taxes, and about whether Mennonite institutions should be more accommodating of the requests of their employees not to have war taxes deducted from their salaries, continued in 1985, and edged ever closer to the Mennonite Church itself.

Ron Kennel explained his war tax resistance in the 8 January 1985 issue:

For over ten years I have openly withheld a portion of my federal income taxes because I’m a conscientious objector to participation in war. This action has sometimes resulted in face-to-face conversations with Internal Revenue Service representatives. I have on several occasions written to legislators on issues of peace and justice or facilitated similar communication by our congregation.

As I see that Christians have contributed to the injustices, my faith compels me to speak. There are many professing Christians who are in public office who make government policy. There are many professing Christians whose votes helped to put them into office and whose tax dollars by the millions pay for the administration of their policies. Because of this I want to invite my Christian brothers and sisters to let the Prince of Peace train their consciences and to take these trained consciences to work whether in the private or public sector.

The Mennonite Central Committee held its annual meeting in January:

The board discussed a request by several staff members that MCC not withhold their income taxes, to allow them to withhold a portion of their taxes as a protest of the dollars used for military purposes.

They agreed that the executive committee should appoint a task group to consult broadly within the MCC constituency to review historical positions on this matter, to examine alternative responses, and to bring a recommendation to the executive committee and annual meeting on alternative courses of action.

This approach “moves from a simple decision of whether MCC should withhold taxes to stepping back and reflecting on the overall situation before recommending any one solution for the MCC board to accept or reject,” it was said.

Members noted that the Mennonite Church and the Conference of Mennonites in Canada are studying this issue, that the General Conference Mennonite Church has completed such a study, and that efforts will be made to learn from those studies.

The “Conversations on Faith Ⅱ” seminar, “The church’s relationship to the political order”, was held in March 1985, and war tax resistance was one of the topics discussed:

Friday evening — Case Study 3: Conscientious objection to military taxes — a case presentation, by John and Sandra Drescher Lehman and Paul Gingrich.
— A panel— James R. Hess, Stephen Dintaman, and Bob Detweiler.

A report from the conference read in part:

The other case was conscientious objection to military taxes. John and Sandy Drescher Lehman of Richmond, Va., told how they followed their conscience and decided a few years ago to withhold the part of their income taxes that they figure goes for the military.

The complication now, though, is that they have become employees of Mennonite Board of Missions in their role as codirectors of the Richmond Discipleship Voluntary Service program. “What should an institution do when its employees ask that we stop withholding taxes from their paychecks?” asked MBM president Paul Gingrich.

A panel of four attempted to answer the question, including Robert Hull, a soldier-turned-tax-resister who is peace and justice secretary of the General Conference Mennonite Church. He explained how his denomination, with the instruction of its members, is now breaking the law by not withholding taxes from the paychecks of seven of its employees who have requested that.

The tensest moment of the conference came when James Hess, a Lancaster Conference bishop who served on the war taxes panel, was asked whether he would have paid all his taxes in Nazi Germany even though some of it went to kill six million Jews. He hinted that the Jews may have brought judgment on themselves for their crucifixion of Jesus. This caused a minor uproar and led to a public apology the next morning by Hess. He said that his statement was speculative, trying to defend the sovereignty of God, and quoted from Jacques Ellul that everything man does is within the global plan of God.

Energetic war tax resistance foe D.R. Yoder couldn’t stand to see his position dragged through the mud like this, so he responded in a 21 May 1985 letter to the editor:

I would not in any way seek to defend the position reportedly taken by James Hess during the recent Conversations on Faith Ⅱ linking the Jewish Holocaust with Christ’s crucifixion… Such notions are the misguided, though not necessarily unnatural, projections of his fundamentalism.

It is hardly fair, however, that the person who posed what seems the quite irresponsible as well as irrelevant question which provoked Hess’s intemperate response is not also identified in the report. For this questioner should be asked whether he/she paid (or would have paid) taxes to the United States or Canada during World War Ⅱ.

If the questioner would not have paid, given the assumptions of tax resistance theory, would not he/she also have been guilty of contributing to the prolongation of Nazi atrocities against the Jews and others, just as he/she charges a taxpaying German citizen Hess would have been?

If, on the other hand, the questioner would have paid his/her federal taxes, again given the assumptions of tax resistant theory, wouldn’t that be embracing the “just” war position? For how else is the “financing” of one set of military activity, but refusing to “finance” another, to be interpreted?

We Mennonites are already rushing pell-mell along the broad way, having sanctified “just” resistance, “just” legal suits, “just” civil disruption, and even the “just” destruction of public and private property. It doesn’t take a very astute reading of the winds a-blowing to expect conferences in the very near future to consider the inherent “justice” of “defensive” wars and of wars of “liberation.”

War tax resisters Ray and Wilma Gingerich shared their letter to the IRS in the 23 April 1985 issue:

A letter to our IRS officer

Here are excerpts of a letter we sent to our regional Internal Revenue Service officer recently. An ongoing conviction of ours is that our most significant witness in the political-ethical arena is to the church itself. This is a matter of policy in our local “Christians for Peace” organization. Whenever we plan an “action,” we do it deliberately with the church “looking over our shoulders.”

Dear Mr. Smith:

According to your records we now owe the IRS $1491.92 in accumulated taxes, interest, and penalties for the fiscal years of 1981, 1982, and 1983. What you fail to recognize is:

1. That the monies withheld represent the military portion of our income taxes. (We have not withheld veterans’ benefits.)
2. That the amounts withheld have already been paid to church institutions engaged in nonviolent justice-and-peace activities. (We are not seeking to evade carrying our fair share of the public burden for a peaceable and life-giving society.)
3. That we are acting out of our religious convictions fostered in the tradition of the historic peace witness of the Mennonite Church.

You are asking us to do what in good faith we cannot do — to violate our consciences and our understanding of obedience to Jesus Christ by paying for murder.

I, Wilma, am a nurse dedicated to making lives whole, not to destroying them. I find preparation to kill and destroy abhorrent and inconsistent with what my whole life as a mother, as a nurse, as a human being, as a follower of Jesus Christ is about.

I, Ray, am a professor of church history and ethics. In my teaching and in everyday life I seek to underscore that if we are to become persons and create communities of noble character and life-giving quality, we must live lives consistent with our beliefs.

To you as a law-enforcer, and to our congressmen and senators as law-makers, we ask: What is being done to our people and to our nation by enforcing the practice of violence upon those whose conscience and religious convictions are opposed to violence? Why do you insist that pacifist citizens act contrary to their conscience by coercing them to pay for weapons of death? Would it not be a healthier, stronger nation if these people were granted freedom of religion and allowed to practice economic nonviolence by channeling their funds into constructive, nonviolent, humanitarian aid?

To Mennonites war is murder. For Mennonites, and for all Christians who take seriously the lordship of Jesus in their daily living, there is no government that can override the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. For Mennonites, therefore, and for all pacifist Christians, the payment of military taxes has always posed a dilemma. Some, psychically numbed by continued rationalization, comply with the state’s demands for death money. Others choose the way of noncompliance, following the example of Jesus Christ that leads to persecution — military tax penalties, confiscation of property, and imprisonment.

Finally, Mr. Smith, allow us to address you personally. What role will you have in all of this? All of us are in the system. And all of us are morally obligated to say “no” to death and “yes” to life. You undoubtedly have thought about these questions many times. We would count it a privilege to meet with you to discuss these grave matters in a more personal way.

There were some letters to the editor in response to this wave of articles on the topic. Joe Cross wrote that he was generally against war tax resistance, but didn’t say anything particularly notable. Curt Ashburn didn’t care for the put-down of taxpayers in the Gingeriches’ letter (“psychically numbed by continued rationalization”) and felt that they should keep such “witness” in the family rather than dragging IRS agents into it. He also asked if the Gingeriches refused to pay taxes to support state-funded abortion, police violence, capital punishment, and so forth or if they thought war was somehow special?

The 7 May 1985 issue brought this news brief:

Churches increase involvement in question of tax resistance

Exploring new territory in religious opposition to nuclear arms, a number of major religious denominations have begun to contemplate whether they should throw their support behind the growing movement to resist payment of taxes in protest of the arms race. While increasing numbers of individuals within the churches have joined the ranks of “war tax” resisters, only a handful of denominations have encouraged or lent support to such resistance. However, as peace activists within the churches have demanded tougher antiwar stands at the highest church levels, denominations have begun to wrestle with the biblical, theological, and historical questions raised by war tax resistance. The churches are using the examination as a basis for deciding whether to take, as corporate bodies, any of a variety of actions — both legal and illegal — in support of the movement. What is moving churches is the growing realization that they have been “praying for peace while paying for war,” said Marian Franz, a Mennonite who is executive director of the Washington-based National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. “For many people, the arms race has just gone too far. And they’re saying, ‘Oh my God, I’m involved in it.’ ” While several mainline denominations have begun to study the issue, the strongest support for war tax resistance has come from the historic peace churches, particularly Quaker and Mennonite bodies. In an unprecedented move, the 60,000-member General Conference Mennonite Church voted, in August 1983, not to withhold federal taxes from the paychecks of employees who are tax refusers. This is punishable by fines and imprisonment.

The Mennonite Church General Assembly was held, 9–14 August 1985, and war tax resistance was on the agenda:

Seminars on singleness and sexuality, marriage and sexuality, and silent devotions were also well attended, indicating a rising concern among Mennonites for personal growth and self-understanding. On the other hand, seminars on such topics as war taxes, Central America, and church-state relations received relatively less attention.

But apparently it didn’t get much time (at least according to this 17 September 1985 letter to the editor from Don Schrader):

I heard that the conference moderator gave only six minutes of floor time to deal with the question of the church withholding federal income tax from the paychecks of church workers who conscientiously resist war taxes.

Perhaps to some, war tax resistance is more personally uncomfortable than homosexuality! Remember that for any government to exploit and massacre, two things are required from the majority of its citizens — silence and paying taxes.

The cover story of the 1 October 1985 issue — “Paying a Price for Peace” by Jim Bishop — concerned Mennonite responses to the war tax issue:

Praying for peace while paying for war? It’s an irony that Ray and Wilma Gingerich and James and Leanna Rhodes of the Harrisonburg, Virginia, area refuse to accept.

Ray and Wilma are in their early 50s. He teaches theology and ethics at Eastern Mennonite College; she is completing a master’s degree in community health nursing at the University of Virginia and works part time at Virginia Mennonite Home. Their four sons of college age or older no longer live at home. One might think it’s time to slow down, settle in, go with the flow.

Not so. The Gingerichs are wrestling with an issue they believe is increasingly urgent for Christians — how to respond to the fact that over 50 percent of all income tax monies go to pay for past and present wars and to prepare for future wars. As one response, they began in 1977 to withhold the portion of their federal income tax that pays for war.

“We deduct an estimated amount for veterans’ benefits, then send a check for the amount we are withholding to Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section or some other church agency,” Ray explained. “We don’t try to hide anything. The Internal Revenue Service receives a letter that outlines our position along with a photocopy of the check being sent to the church agency.”

For the past three years, the couple has also withheld the federal excise tax from their monthly telephone statement. This tax began during the Vietnam War as a “quick source of revenue” for that conflict, Ray pointed out.

Slightly different tack.

Several miles southwest of Gingerich’s Harrisonburg home, in the rolling countryside of western Rockingham County near Dayton, James and Leanna Rhodes are taking a slightly different tack to the military tax issue.

The couple, in their mid-30s, is making a conscious effort to live at a nontaxable income level. For them, it means trying to raise their family of six children on $12,000–$13,000 a year.

It’s easier said than done, the couple admitted, but several things are in their favor.

The family rents the large frame house where they’re living. They care for dairy heifers and beef cattle for their landlord. The old station wagon they drive is registered in Leanna’s mother’s name so the IRS can’t put a lien on it.

James works for his brother in a new and used farm machinery business. Leanna, a nurse, works on and off for Homecall, a local home health care agency.

The family has no accessible bank account or other personal property that the government could claim to satisfy unpaid military taxes. This leaves the IRS only one option — to go after Rhodeses themselves.

Rhodeses have refused to pay the portion of their federal income tax for military purposes for three years in which they earned slightly over their nontaxable limit. They have been audited and warned of collection procedures, but nothing has come of it.

Like Gingerichs, Rhodeses refuse to pay the federal excise tax portion of their monthly phone bill.

Acquiring peace convictions.

The families didn’t acquire their peace convictions overnight or in isolation. Gingerichs point to a stint of mission work in Luxembourg, 1961–1968, as a time when they were confronted with the realities of war.

“We heard stories and saw photos from Vietnam that never made it into the North American press,” Ray recalled. “We also met people who lived through the experiences of Nazi Germany and realized that much of what happened in World War Ⅱ was largely the result of good people following orders.”

In 1968 Gingerich enrolled at Goshen Biblical Seminary, where he was challenged by the teachings of John Howard Yoder, a tax resister himself. When the family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, for Ray to pursue a doctorate at Vanderbilt University, the couple began attending a United Methodist church that was deeply involved in urban ministry.

“I got my theology at Goshen Seminary but we saw how it could be lived out at that church in Nashville,” Ray said. “Our time there made us realize that peacemaking is a Christian mandate — not just a Mennonite ideology!”

Family peace initiatives have not been restricted to Ray and Wilma. When President Jimmy Carter reinstated the military draft in 1980, sons Andre and Pierre both decided not to register.

“Here’s a case of children and parents teaching each other,” Wilma said. “We had been through a lot of painful and joyful growth experiences together. To them, not to register was the logical way to live out the convictions we shared.

“As the cost for not paying our military taxes increased we could only move ahead. To do otherwise would have been a betrayal of our sons and their convictions.”

More than lip service.

Although James and Leanna had long felt a commitment to blend personal faith and active social concern, their awareness of the need to give more than lip service to their beliefs was heightened during 1975–1979 when they helped to start a Mennonite church in San Francisco.

In that setting James got involved with a number of peace causes and groups, including counseling military personnel who wanted to claim conscientious objector status.

“That was a fantastic experience,” James said of their time in the Bay Area. “I was impressed by the aggressive and committed efforts of many peace activists, even though many may have acted from purely humanitarian motives.”

Both couples are quick to draw on their understanding of Jesus’ teachings and example to support their actions.

“The gospel addresses our relationship to other human beings,” Ray said. “Salvation is a personal response but it is also communal. It means ‘wholemaking.’ War and preparation for war is the epitome of death and destruction.”

“I hold to an evangelical faith that includes the message of peace and nonresistance,” James added. “I believe that Jesus can save us from militarism, hateful attitudes, and a spirit of revenge in the same way he delivers us from other sins.”

“Our church has failed to see the logical progression from the conscientious objector stance and Mennonites’ refusal to buy war bonds in the 1940s to the war tax resistance stance of the 1980s,” Ray stated.

Added Wilma: “Our peace witness dare not be limited to nonconscription. Why put most of the burden on 18-to-20-year-olds to take a CO stand while we middle-aged men and women go on paying for war? At the same time we expect our young people to believe that participation in war is wrong.”

Stance is costly.

Both Gingerichs and Rhodeses have paid a price for their stance.

For the Gingerich family, it has included repeated threats from the Selective Service System and a lien placed on all their personal property.

James Rhodes earned tuition money to attend Eastern Mennonite College and Seminary by working as an artificial inseminator for dairy farms up and down the Shenandoah Valley. He later lost that job as a result of local pressure, but he “feels no animosity” toward those who called for his ouster.

James noted that the harshest criticism has come from other Mennonites at a time when interest in Christian peacemaking and nonresistance is gaining momentum in a number of mainline denominations.

Both couples indicated they have had “valuable and redemptive” talks with IRS officials. According to James, these encounters “allow us to move from systems to individuals and open the door to exchange viewpoints.”

“A certain amount of understanding has developed,” he added. “The IRS people seem to empathize with our position and apparently don’t know what to do with us.”

Gingerichs have journeyed to Charlottesville, Virginia, to meet with IRS officials and have encountered “extremely personable people… there’s a feeling of mutual respect.”

The two families commend each other’s positions, but cited the need for other people who are involved in varied forms of tax resistance to “become more visible.” They are active in a local “Christians for Peace” group that has about a dozen members.

“I often feel like we are pretty much going it alone,” said Wilma. “We long for the day when the focus shifts from our having to defend our position to the real question of how pacifist Mennonite Christians can go on paying for war and claim to be followers of Christ. We need greater accountability to each other in the church.”

“There’s a need to develop an open forum and network for people who are at different places on the war tax issue to get together and learn from and encourage each other,” Ray said. Added Leanna: “I would feel a lot more secure in our position if we knew for certain that a dozen Mennonites in this community would be willing to take a public stand with us if at some point we’d be taken to court.”

The couples emphasized that their methods of war tax resistance are not the only valid approaches, and both expressed a desire for more dialogue and sense of solidarity with the larger Mennonite Church.

Whatever course one pursues for the cause of peace, it is important to do it “with a sense of joy,” Ray noted. “Lose your sense of exuberance and it becomes an overwhelming burden. At that point one must back off to gain fresh perspective.”

Witness will continue. Ray and Wilma expect to continue withholding that percentage of their federal income taxes that goes for direct military purposes and to continue talking and working with individuals and within their professions to keep the issue alive.

James and Leanna, meanwhile, “feel comfortable” with their simple living approach, recognizing that it doesn’t allow them to confront government officials and others as directly as Gingerichs have.

“When our children get older, we’ll need to adjust our strategy,” James said. “For now, our fear of what could happen to us has gone from near paranoia to a real sense of peace and freedom.

“Our response, however small, is at least a symbolic effort to say ‘no,’ to refuse to contribute toward the ultimate destruction of God’s people and his beautiful creation.”

Jep & Joyce Hostetler responded in a 22 October 1985 letter to the editor:

“Paying a Price for Peace”… is one of the most encouraging articles you’ve published recently. It is encouraging to see two families who take their faith in Jesus Christ very seriously. In my mind, they are acting out the very core of the gospel message to love, to be peacemakers, and — above all — to be obedient.

On the other hand the article can cause one to be depressed because of the lack of support and criticisms Rhodeses and Gingerichs have received from fellow Mennonites. Mennonites, of all people, should be cheering these families on, even if they are not in complete agreement with their tax witness.

Joyce and I have also withheld portions of our federal income tax payment, making it necessary for the Internal Revenue Service to put liens on our checking account. It is a lonely feeling. To me, any action that lessens another human being, lessens me. It is sin for me to sit in the safety of a protected home and claim no responsibility for what my money buys. To tell someone we love them and apologize for the fact that nearly half our tax dollar is being spent in preparation to kill them, is the ultimate lie and irony. I cannot love you if I am preparing to kill you.

On the other hand, Harry Shenk wasn’t as thrilled. He started off with the traditional Render-unto-Caesar line that Jesus had never discouraged paying taxes to militaristic Rome, and then ended on this curious note:

Jesus never challenged the state on these practices, nor did he indicate that paying taxes implied responsibility for these heinous crimes.

I don’t think Jesus paid any war tax. I think he probably lived below a taxable level, and I affirm anyone who chooses this path. I also pay no war tax. Our tax checks are not divided into portions by the Internal Revenue Service, but are thrown together into a central fund, against which huge government checks are drawn. I simply decide in my heart which huge government check I want my money to be a part of. For me, it’s food stamps and interstate highways.

This news brief could be found in the 26 November 1985 edition:

Scottish Presbyterian leader calls for peace army and war tax resistance

The former moderator of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), Lord MacLeod of Fuinary, has called for the creation of a peace army committed to withholding the 13 percent of income taxes which the British government spends on defense.

MacLeod hopes such an army will be able to persuade the government to allow people to give an equivalent amount of their taxes to starving countries instead. Even if the government refuses to go along with the idea, he said, taxpayers should still withhold the money and spend it on famine relief.

War, MacLeod said, is no longer “a disciplined conflict between nations”; instead it has become “mutual mass murder of women and children between hemispheres. The church must go radical about war.”

The Mennonite Central Committee held an executive committee meeting in December 1985 and shot down the proposal to stop withholding war taxes from the paychecks of objecting employees:

The committee also heard a report from a task force established after several staff members asked MCC not to withhold their federal income taxes. This was to allow them to keep a portion of their taxes as a protest of taxes used for military purposes.

Committee member Phil Rich reported that the task force had met with leaders from eight Mennonite denominations over the past year to seek counsel on how to respond to the tax-withholding issue. None of the denominations counseled MCC to honor the staff members’ request.

The Executive Committee voted 7-1, with three abstentions, to accept the task force’s recommendation that the staff members’ request be denied. The recommendation will go to the MCC annual meeting for final action.

Staff member H.A. Penner expressed appreciation for MCC’s serious attention to the issue, but asked if the process might be only half done. “Have we listened to persons on the other end of our bombs and our guns? Are we listening to the church in Central America, the Philippines, and South Africa? What would they say?”

At #MennoCon19 (the Men­non­ite Church U.S.A. bi­en­nial con­fer­ence) next month, Harold A. Penner and John Stoner hope to launch an al­ter­na­tive fund for Men­non­ite war tax re­sist­ers:

Creating a Church Peace Tax Fund

4:00 - 5:30 p.m. [Thursday, July 4]

Desiring to teach one another the ways that make for peace in our congregations, this seminar proposes the creation of a Church Peace Tax Fund to resist the payment of federal taxes that underwrite killing, war and militarism. This seminar will encourage a faithful witness to the nonviolent life and ministry of Jesus who calls us to love God, the neighbor and the enemy. Churchwide inspiration and support of those who conscientiously object to the payment of war taxes while underwriting opportunities for active peacemaking will attract others to embrace the life-affirming and creation-saving grace of God.

As NWTRCC’s Lincoln Rice explains:

The Mennonite Church U.S.A. had approved a War Tax Alternative Fund in 1983 for employees of the Mennonite Church who wanted to redirect their federal withholding. Though dormant, this fund and policy still exist. Details about adapting this 1983 fund to also accept deposits from any U.S. Mennonite who would like to participate will be discussed at MENNOCON19.

The proposal will have redirected taxes from Mennonite conscientious objectors held in a “Church Peace Tax Fund.” That fund would be invested in socially responsible investments of some sort. Portions of it could also be used for education about / promotion of the fund and of war tax redirection. If the government takes reprisals against any participating resisters, the fund can also be used to compensate them and/or support their families.

You can see the proposed “Memorandum of Understanding” that participants in the fund would be expected to sign here.

The resolution that established the original fund in 1983 is here. It includes a copy of the General Conference resolution that passed earlier that year in which the church decided to commit to civil disobedience by refusing to withhold taxes from resisting employees:

Resolution on Faithful Action Toward Tax Withholding

General Conference Mennonite Church Triennial Sessions
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania — August 1–7, 1983

As Mennonite Christians we seek to be biblically obedient, submitting to such injunctions as Romans 13:7, “Pay taxes to whom taxes are due,” but also Romans 13:8, 10, “Owe no one anything except to love one another… love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” We accept our subordination to government and our obligation to pay taxes. However, we must witness to governments our conviction that war and preparation for war do wrong to our neighbors and are contrary to the will of God as revealed in the teachings of Jesus Christ and his death, resurrection, and ascension to lordship.

Thus we urge our governments to sharply reduce military spending and use our resources for life-affirming purposes. Furthermore, just as conscientious objectors have received exemption from military service, we also seek legislation exempting conscientious objectors from paying taxes for military purposes. Thus we continue to work in the United States for passage for the World Peace Tax Fund Act and in Canada for the Peace Tax Fund, which would allow individuals to designate all of their federal taxes for peaceful purposes.

Both the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and Revenue Canada require the General Conference Mennonite Church to violate the consciences of its employees who are conscientious objectors to paying taxes for military purposes.

In the United States, we have thoroughly explored all legislative, administrative, and judicial avenues for obtaining a conscientious objector exemption to these withholding requirements, as we resolved at the 1979 Minneapolis midtriennium conference. Our explorations have convinced us there is no likelihood of relief in the near future for conscientious objectors to military taxes. The time has come when, like Peter and the apostles, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

In Canada, equally thorough explorations of similar avenues for seeking a conscientious objection from withholding requirements have not yet been accomplished. We commend the “Resolution on Security and Disarmament” of the Canadian Mennonite Conference in 1982 and the work of the Canadian Tax Task Force under the sponsorship of MCC Canada Peace and Social Concerns. We encourage Canadian congregations to continue study of materials made available on the issue of military taxes.

As delegates to the 1983 triennial sessions of the General Conference Mennonite Church, we therefore:

1. 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 a tax collectors in cases where individual employees have asked that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages in order that they may conscientiously refuse to pay for war preparations. These employees will be treated similarly to the way General Conference treats ordained ministers, i.e. as self-employed persons, in that their earnings will be reported to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, but no federal income tax withheld.
2. We request that the Conference of Mennonites in Canada consider means to obtain relief from Revenue Canada withholding requirements as these apply to General Conference Mennonite Church employees.
3. We shall inform the U.S. government of this act of conscientious objection to their withholding requirements. We shall again urge them to provide exemption from these requirements and exemption for people of peacemaking conscience from military use of their tax money.

At this moment of decision we commit ourselves to surround with our prayers the General Conference staff and government officials who will be involved in this action and all those individuals who refuse in conscience to pay taxes for war preparations, however costly their witness may be.

When the Mennonite Church USA met in its biennial conference earlier this month, one of the items on the agenda was a proposal by Mennonite war tax resisters Harold Penner and John Stoner to revitalize and extend a war tax resisters’ alternative fund operated by the Church.

That proposal was approved. The new “Church Peace Tax Fund” will enable Mennonite war tax resisters to redirect their taxes into a fund that will support conscientious objectors, peace education and action, and programs that work for the common good.

Some links from hither and yon:

• A CoinDesk article on cryptocurrency highlights how tax resisters helped popularize bitcoin: “How Tax Protesters Set Off the Bitcoin Revolution”
• The NWTRCC blog has had a couple of recent articles on “symbolic” tax resistance:
  • Symbolic Tax Resistance by Rick & Carolyn Yoder
  • I Am a Symbolic Resister by Shirley Whiteside
• Scrappy ragtag bands of human rebels continue to inflict casualties on the traffic ticket robot hordes, with recent attacks taking out robot cameras in France, Italy, & Germany, Italy & France, and the U.S., France, & Italy in recent weeks.
• Anabaptist World features a letter from Harold A. Penner urging Mennonites to redirect their war taxes to the Mennonite Church USA Peace Tax Fund.

And here is some more news about the ongoing troubles at the IRS.

• This CNN Business story goes in some depth into how a loose coalition of activists forced the IRS into an embarrassing and costly retreat from its plan to use facial recognition technology to verify the identity of taxpayers using its online account portal.
• This note from the National Taxpayer Advocate gives more details about the IRS plan to stop issuing certain enforcement action notices while it tries to deal with the enormous backlog of unprocessed returns and other correspondence. For example: “If a taxpayer’s account has been assigned to one of the IRS’s automated levy programs (ALPs), the IRS is also suspending the levies made by those programs…” The agency will also not be able to pursue many new levies because in order to do so, it must first send the taxpayer a letter informing them of their right to request a Collection Due Process hearing, and they’ve temporarily stopped the automatic sending of those letters.
• The New York Times took a dive into the woes at the IRS: “Decades of Neglect Leave I.R.S. in Tax Season ‘Chaos’.”
• Politico did the same: “ ‘They went down hard’: IRS’ tax season woes rooted in pandemic, long funding slide.” Excerpt:

  Some 53,000 IRS employees are still on remote work — about two-thirds of the agency’s workforce, which an IRS spokesperson characterized as “a maximized telework posture.”

  But privacy rules prevent remote processing of the millions of paper tax returns mailed to the IRS, as well as the examination of returns with discrepancies from IRS records, the issuance of refunds and dealing with other taxpayer mail.

• The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University issued a report showing that the IRS audits the poorest American households at five times the rate as the rest. This seems to be an effect of the agency’s plummeting rate of audits of the well-to-do combined with its increasing use of cheap-and-easy “correspondence audits” against low-income taxpayers who apply for the Earned Income Tax Credit. As the National Taxpayer Advocate puts it:

  The IRS correspondence audit process is structured to expend the least amount of resources to conduct the largest number of examinations — resulting in the lowest level of customer service to taxpayers having the greatest need for assistance.

• Last Summer, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a spending bill that would have boosted the IRS budget. That bill got bogged down in Congress before anything could come of it. A recent appropriations bill resurrected the IRS budget boost, but pared it way back, so now the agency budget will only rise by 6%. These days that’s hardly enough to keep up with inflation. And the appropriations bill restricts how various parts of the increase can be spent, so some parts of the agency budget — tax enforcement for example — will see even smaller increases.