Some historical and global examples of tax resistance →
religious groups and the religious perspective →
What Would Jesus Do? (render unto Cæsar?)
The Columbia Journalism Review includes an article about the techniques politicians, spin doctors, corporate spokespeople and the like learn to use in order to avoid answering questions posed to them by the press and the public.
This got me to thinking about one of the most famous spin lessons of history:
Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle [Jesus] in talk.
And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, “Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.
Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou?
Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar, or not?”
But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why tempt ye me, hypocrites?
Shew me the tribute money.”
And they brought unto him a penny.
And he saith unto them, “Whose is this image and superscription?”
They say unto him, “Cæsar’s.”
Then saith he unto them, “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”
When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.
Matthew 22:15–22
Pretty slick.
Close your eyes and imagine Donald Rumsfeld playing Jesus
(“If you’re asking whether we ought to give things up to their proper owners, give Cæsar his property, and of course relinquish to God all that which belongs to God, and so forth, well I’d have to say of course we should.
Next question.”).
For the Pharisees and Herodians, taxes were a wedge issue.
If he says “yeah, go ahead and pay your taxes” he’s a collaborator with the Roman occupation, like the Herodians, and this will blunt his rising popularity.
If he says “don’t give ’em one thin dime,” he’s a threat to the empire and can be turned over to Rome to be eliminated.
(In fact, when he was delivered to Pilate before his execution, one of the charges against him was encouraging tax resistance:
“We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that he himself is Christ a King” — Luke 23:2)
So his dodge is pretty slick.
He manages to say “yes” and “no” at the same time.
He explicitly says give to Cæsar the things that belong to him, which pleases the collaborators who believe that the tax money does belong to Cæsar.
But then he adds that we should give to God that which belongs to God — which to the pious Pharisees is a clear vote against taxpaying, since there’s no question that nothing really belongs to Cæsar that doesn’t in a larger sense belong to God.
Both groups can walk away feeling like Jesus has endorsed their viewpoint — which is clever, if not particularly bold, on Jesus’s part.
Classic political spin, really.
And the counterpoint to public figures trying not to say anything too controversial is their opponents trying to twist their quotes and take them out of context.
So I shouldn’t be surprised when I hear Christians justifying tax-paying by saying “after all, the Lord said ‘Render unto Cæsar…’ ”
(Which is a little like justifying the bombing of Baghdad by saying “after all, the Lord said ‘Do unto others…’ ”)
The War Tax Resistance movement in the United States is packed with Christians (and it could be argued that the movement owes its origins and its survival to people who were motivated by their Christian faith) — so don’t take my criticism the wrong way.
But you don’t have to look too hard to find Matthew 22 being explained as though Jesus weren’t being clever at all, but was merely siding with the Herodians and explaining that good Christians should cough up their taxes to Cæsar without complaint.
I think I would be making a mistake of the same sort if I said that Jesus was instead advocating tax resistance.
It sounds to me like he was saying something yet more radical, along the lines of “see this coin, with its graven image of the ‘divine’ emperor?
If you’re carrying these around in your pocket, you should decide for yourself if they’re things of God or things of Cæsar, and be prepared to give them away to one or the other.”
Which seems to be more in line with the rest of the messages he’s preaching in Matthew — many of which encourage his followers to renounce worldly treasures in pursuit of heavenly rewards.
To risk confronting the Powers with such clown-like vulnerability, to affirm at the same time our own humanity and that of those we oppose, to dare to draw the sting of evil by absorbing it — such behavior is unlikely to attract the faint of heart.
But to people dispirited by the enormity of the injustices that crush us and the intractability of those in positions of power, Jesus’ words beam hope across the centuries.
We need not be afraid.
We can assert our human dignity.
We can lay claim to the creative possibilities that are still ours, burlesque the injustice of unfair laws, and force evil out of hiding from behind the facade of legitimacy.
In spite of the renewal movement’s proud claims to miraculous transformation, the polls showed that members of the movement divorced their spouses just as often as their secular neighbors.
They beat their wives as often as their neighbors.
They were almost as materialistic and even more racist than their pagan friends.
The hard-core skeptics smiled in cynical amusement at this blatant hypocrisy.
The general population was puzzled and disgusted.
Many of the renewal movement’s leaders simply stepped up the tempo of their now enormously successful, highly sophisticated promotional programs. Others wept.
¶ This, alas, is roughly the situation of Western or at least American evangelicalism today.…
If Christians do not live what they preach, the whole thing is a farce.
“American Christianity has largely failed ,” Barna concludes, “because Jesus’ modern-day disciples do not act like Jesus.”
This scandalous behavior mocks Christ, undermines evangelism, and destroys Christian credibility.
Seems to me that those of us who don’t believe in gods and divine books and such could use a similar kick in the pants, but who could deliver it and how?
In , Martin Crowe, a Catholic priest, wrote a doctoral dissertation titled The Moral Obligation of Paying Just Taxes.
His dissertation summarized and analyzed 500 years of theological and philosophical debate on this topic, much of which took place in Latin.
Since Crowe’s dissertation, not much has been written on the topic of tax evasion from an ethical perspective, with a few exceptions.
In , a few articles were published on the ethics of tax evasion in the Journal of Accounting, Ethics & Public Policy.
An edited book on this topic was published in .
¶ The present paper summarizes, updates and expands on Crowe’s work.
In , Martin Crowe, a Catholic priest, wrote a doctoral dissertation titled “The Moral Obligation of Paying Just Taxes”.
His dissertation summarized and analyzed 500 years of theological and philosophical debate on this topic, much of which took place in Latin.
Since Crowe’s dissertation, not much has been written on the topic of tax evasion from an ethical perspective, with a few exceptions.
In , a few articles were published on the ethics of tax evasion in the Journal of Accounting, Ethics & Public Policy.
An edited book on this topic was published in .
The present paper summarizes, updates and expands on Crowe’s work and the other more recent work that has been published on this topic.
Three basic views on the ethics of tax evasion have emerged over the centuries.
This article presents and critiques those three views and raises some questions about points that have not yet been explored in the literature.
Other papers of McGee’s available on-line include:
I keep a few little google-birds flying about keeping an eye on the internet and coming back to chirp at me when they overhear from the eaves someone discussing tax resistance.
And so yesterday I dropped in on Mere Discipleship Discussion to listen in on a few people who are trying to be disciples of Christ as they discuss whether taxpaying or tax resistance is more appropriate for such a disciple.
How many laws and taxes are legacies about which citizens have no idea of their motive and use — taxes and laws that may impinge on the moral and ethical beliefs of an individual?
Moreover, when does a disciple render unto Caesar and when does he or she cross over into civil disobedience as part of moral conviction?
[D]oes a disciple who is morally opposed to the war have a valid reason, even an obligation, to participate in the civil disobedience of withholding taxes?
… ¶ One thing that bothers me is that I would love to express my displeasure by participating in not paying the Federal Excise Tax on my phone bill.
However, I do fear reprisal by the IRS.
Am I a moral coward putting my fear ahead of my discipleship?
Commenters wrestled with the question, weighing the legendary (if usually merely legendary) ruthlessness of the IRS, the humble real-world effects of withholding a few dollars from a multi-billion dollar war machine, and what sort of guidance the Bible provides on the issue.
On one hand, one commentator wrote, “Now that we know that this action [war tax resistance] is available to take, can a disciple be justified in not taking it?”
And on the other hand, wrote the same commentator later, Paul (in Romans 13) counsels obedience to government, with the reasoning that the powers-that-be wouldn’t be in power if God didn’t want it that way, and besides, the real king worth worrying about is the King of Kings:
I hate to pay taxes as much as anyone, but if I withhold the telephone tax because it goes to pay for war, then should I begin to withhold other taxes because they pay for other activities that a disciple would consider against the spirit of Christ?
[Lee] Camp* says: “God can and does in his sovereignty use even the rebellious powers, often manifested by emperors and kings and governments, for his purposes” (81).
If we believe this, then when we obey the government (which God put in place), and that government uses our tax money for evil, God’s plan will still be achieved.
If we disagree with a tax or any other law, we can contact our representatives and petition that the law be changed.
It doesn’t get fast results, and it may get no result, but it is legal and it obeys what Jesus and Paul said about it.
This is where I discovered the conversation, and I couldn’t resist putting in my two cents and trying to solve their dilemma (or aggravate it, depending on your perspective): “There is a way to both avoid paying for the war and to avoid risking the wrath of the IRS.
You can live under the tax line.
It’s not that hard; I’ve been doing it .”
This was met by much more enthusiasm than usually meets my attempts to butt in on blogs where I’ve never before made an appearance.
The author of the original post wrote of my suggestion:
That is very radical and very much a disciple response.… ¶ The great thing is this does not have to be a resistance choice, it is what we are called to do anyway.
You avoid greed, materialism, power, supporting corporations whose investments might cause one moral dilemmas, etc.
He then expanded on this at his own blog (Thoughts of Man), but concluded that he did not think he was ready to take such a step yet as it seemed too frightening to him.
I feel a little out of my depth here as a non-believer, but I appreciated the sincerity and depth of concern shown by the people who took up this issue on Mere Discipleship Discussion, and by the honest and personal way they wrestled with it, and so I wanted to bring attention to it here.
* Lee Camp is the author of the book Mere Discipleship, from which the aforementioned blog gets its name.
He is much inspired by the Mennonite theologian and tax resister John Howard Yoder, though Camp himself is from the Church of Christ I believe.
Susan Pace Hamill, a law professor at the University of Alabama, has spent a lot of time trying to persuade people that Jesus (yes, the Jesus) had a strong opinion about tax policy that just happens to coincide for the most part with the sentiments of liberal Democrats.
Seriously.
Check this out:
I… provide a complete theological framework that can be applied to any tax policy structure.… I prove that tax policy structures meeting the moral principles of Judeo-Christian ethics must raise adequate revenues that not only cover the needs of the minimum state but also ensure that all citizens have a reasonable opportunity to reach their potential.
Among other things, reasonable opportunity requires adequate education, healthcare, job training and housing.… I also establish that flat and consumption tax regimes which shift a large part of the burden to the middle classes are immoral.
Consequently, Judeo-Christian based tax policy requires the tax burden to be allocated under a moderately progressive regime.
I discuss the difficulties of defining that precisely and also conclude that confiscatory tax policy approaching a socialistic framework are also immoral.
Inspired perhaps by the mighty guffaw that Hamill’s scholarship gave me, I decided to take another look at what Jesus actually said about tax policy.
I wasn’t able to find the verse where he says “give unto Cæsar what Cæsar needs to provide job training and housing to those of his subjects in Judaea who need an opportunity to reach their potential” but I’m no biblical scholar.
In in Bolivia, a Jehovah’s Witness named Alfredo Díaz Bustos was drafted into the military and attempted to avoid military service as a conscientious objector.
The authorities, recognizing no conscientious objector exemption, granted him an exemption certificate that classified him as unqualified for service, but demanded a special “military tax required of persons declared exempt from military service.”
He asked to be released from this requirement for the same reasons of conscience that did not allow him to serve the military directly.
This was denied.
Bustos then appealed to international law, in this case the American Convention on Human Rights.
Incredibly, it worked! The government of Bolivia backed down and released Bustos from any obligation either to serve in the military or to pay the exemption tax.
Furthermore, the government agreed to formally recognize the right to conscientious objection to military service.
With that in mind, I noted a handful of confrontational real-world protests that seem to be reaching for new tactics and new targets, and which seem worth keeping an eye on:
Huck Gutman notices that the government is Lying about the Ruinous Cost of the War in Iraq:
“In , at the start of the Korean War, supplemental appropriations comprised almost three quarters of all appropriations.
By , supplementals were under 3 percent.
By , supplementals were down to zero.
¶
In , supplemental appropriations were seven times as high as regular appropriations.
, they were roughly equal.
In supplementals were less than a fifth of regular appropriations, and by they were down to zero.”
In contrast, 90% of the cost of today’s wars are being paid for off-budget.
Aaron Russo’s constitutionalist tax protester propaganda film “America: Freedom to Fascism” has picked up a couple of critical reviews from news.com and The New York Times.
You can listen to audio versions of Thoreau’s Walden, Cecile Andrews’s The Circle of Simplicity, and other works from the voluntary simplicity movement at SimpleRadio on simpleliving.net.
On Thomas Bushnell’s LiveJournal blog, I’ve been observing (and engaging in) a discussion he’s started about Christian Anarchism and tax resistance.
This surprised me, since the Christian Anarchists I was familiar with — folks like Ammon Hennacy, Leo Tolstoy, and Russell Kanning — counsel quite the opposite.
Bushnell seems most indignant towards those Christians who are happy to pay Caesar for some things but who draw the line at others.
This he sees as, on the one hand, a selective approval of some of Caesar’s domination, and, on the other hand, an attempt to dominate Caesar or to hitch-hike on Caesar’s dominion by trying to guide it toward one purpose or another.
Donald Kaufman has revised his book on war tax payment and resistance from the perspective of Christian-based ethics.
I haven’t seen the new edition of The Tax Dilemma: Praying for Peace, Paying for War yet, but I own a copy of the edition which is a thorough and engaging discussion of its subject.
Ben Patrick Johnson covers war tax resistance by way of his own tax resisting parents at the BPJ Video Blog.
He interviews his dad, Charles Johnson, about his resistance: the hows and whys and what-happened-nexts.
I had no idea video blogs were this polished.
It looks like some sort of cable news segment.
Prisoner Evangelos Dimitros Soukas testified before Congress a while back about how he stole thousands of dollars from the IRS that the IRS had stolen from taxpayers.
So much for honor among thieves.
When war tax resisters go into rhetorical battle, one of the mythical creatures they often encounter is the other-than-war tax resister.
The argument goes something like this: “If you think you shouldn’t have to pay taxes for the military because you have ethical qualms about war, do you think people with qualms about abortion and contraception should be able to stop paying taxes that might go toward these things?”
The list goes on from here, of course, to include anything that government funds that someone somewhere might have conscientious scruples against.
But it almost always starts with abortion — in part, probably because this is a textbook case of people having a conscientious, ethical, absolute, life-and-death sort of stand of a sort similar to that of the war tax resisters; and in part because (with many exceptions), the anti-war movement in which war tax resistance activists are often found tends to draw from a pro-choice crowd, and so this gives the argument its necessary dissonance.
The argument can go in a few directions from here.
An anarchist or minarchist would respond to the argument simply by agreeing that people in general should not be forced to participate in or pay for things that they find abhorrent.
This deflates the argument by admitting it, opening up a whole new can of worms, since anarchism/minarchism is more or less precisely the reductio ad absurdum the argument was aiming at in the first place.
A pro-life but politically statist war tax resister might agree that people should be able to opt out of paying for abortion, but might get tripped up further down the line: contraception? compulsory public education? social security? surely there’s something where they’ll draw the line.
And then the tax resister has to explain why some programs require the government to overrule individual conscience to force unwilling people to participate, while others must allow the conscience to trump the policy.
And such an argument seems futile at worst, and highly nuanced at best (at least I haven’t heard any good, pithy ones).
But a response I’ve heard that side-steps the argument with some success is this: we don’t really have to worry about this sort of thing, because war tax resistance is a special case.
We know this because there are plenty of war tax resisters right now whose consciences do not allow them to pay war taxes, but there aren’t any “public education tax resisters” or “social security tax resisters” or “abortion tax resisters” out there.
(This ignores the anarchist “all of the above tax resisters,” but they stand outside the argument anyway.)
And I’ve looked to see if there are any “abortion tax resisters” out there — it seemed like there had to be some, somewhere — but without much success.
It turns out I didn’t look hard enough.
In New Brunswick, Canada, a Catholic activist named David Little has refused to pay his federal taxes because taxpayer funds are used to pay for abortions.
He told the judge who heard his tax case (excerpts):
All Canadians are victimized by universally funded abortion murders, even those unaware or unconvinced of it being murder.… When we pay taxes of any kind, even inculpable small children buying a candy bar pay GST, unknowingly in support of abortion.…
I cannot be enticed or coerced by this government to believe that the benefits of worthy and virtuous expenditures to fund acts or legislation of true worthiness and virtue in benefit to all Canadians, can bribe or justify me to forget that a portion of every penny I voluntarily surrender to Revenue Canada is used in an act of pure murder, a true homicide in fact if not in law.
I cannot, must not, do evil to achieve a good end.
I have made it clear publicly for more than 20 years that I would rather suffer imprisonment than voluntarily surrender money to any person or institution who would use even the smallest portion of my money to perpetrate murder on any human being.
My religion as a Roman Catholic and my formed conscience tells me unequivocally that I would be in material and perhaps even formal cooperation with murder and as such would be personally complicit.
A judgment greater than that which men propose and prevail upon men, awaits us all.
I have compromised before on this most vital issue.
I have sent protest notes with my tax return, and still sent my money; I have withheld a token amount, ostensibly to forgo my financial participation in abortion, and still sent the remainder of my money.
Every dollar sent is tainted, first or last.
I have written countless letters to Revenue Canada and to politicians of all status and parties.
I have protested peacefully outside hospitals while abortions were being perpetrated; written countless letters to editors, voted solely for candidates who support human dignity and life; ran for Parliament myself, on a platform rooted in respect for human life and dignity; I have established several crisis pregnancy centres in Canada and the U.S. to help pregnant mothers with an alternative to abortion; yet the murders go on.
Not with my money, no more, no way.
I will go to jail first.
I said that in public more than 20 years ago.
(See attached news item) I am six months from my 60th birthday.
We have a 5-year-old daughter, Sarah, a 21-month-old daughter, Hannah and an infant, Myriam, just 2-months old, and a 13-year-old daughter, Jahradd.
My wife and I have decided that when they are old enough to ask, “did you do anything to stop the killing,” we want to be able to say in truth, “yes, we did all we could.”
The parallels to the reasoning of war tax resisters are striking.
I’m surprised I haven’t come across more cases like this (I did find one other, earlier this year).
Either for some reason tax resistance doesn’t get much traction in the pro life movement, or pro life tax resisters are quieter and don’t show up on my radar.
I learned about Little’s case because he was convicted on three charges of failure to pay taxes .
He has vowed not to pay either the taxes or the fine, and is facing a 66-day jail term.
As I mentioned , a frequent point of contention in debates about conscientious tax resistance is whether (and if so, to what extent) paying taxes makes a taxpayer complicit in the deeds of the government.
Different people have taken positions at either extreme (not at all complicit, absolutely complicit) and at various points in the middle, and have deployed persuasive arguments and metaphors to argue their cases.
I’ll explore some of these arguments today.
I’m going to start off with some discussion of law and legal culpability.
The Nuremberg Principles
One reason a discussion of legal theory is important in what initially seems to be a discussion about moral, not legal, responsibility, is the Nuremberg Principles.
The people who drafted these Principles were trying to articulate what they supposed to be universal, eternal, and self-evident crimes.
(This was meant to solve the problems of jurisdiction and ex post facto law in the trials of Nazi war criminals, and also to formally outlaw such things as aggressive war.)
The Principles state, in part,
“Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity [elsewhere defined] is a crime under international law.”
and
“The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”
A number of war tax resisters have taken these Principles as an inspiration, and some have even adopted the conceit of saying that they are afraid that if they pay taxes they may risk being prosecuted under the theory the Principles articulate.
The United States government is certainly guilty of the crimes listed under that first bullet point, so — leaving aside the practical difficulties involved in holding anyone accountable for complicity with the United States government at this stage of the game — what must one do if one wants to avoid such complicity?
Must one resist paying taxes, for example?
Larry Rosenwald is one war tax resister who believes the answer to that question is an unequivocal “yes”:
To pay war taxes is to acquiesce in building weapons of mass destruction… what international law as derived from the Nuremberg principles arguably defines as a crime…
It is, simply, a wrong act for any pacifist, any adherent of international law, any person fundamentally opposed to American policy; and I do not understand what keeps such people from refusing taxes…
And he’s not alone.
Conspiracy theory
I quoted blogger FSK yesterday as saying, “If you pay taxes, you are as responsible for war as the soldier who kills people.
If you pay taxes, you are directly responsible for every bad thing government does.
Paying taxes is immoral.”
This representation bears some resemblance to the legal concept of conspiracy.
One set of jury instructions about conspiracy put it this way:
[W]here several persons conspire or combine together to commit any unlawful act, each is criminally responsible for the acts of his associates or confederates committed in furtherance of any prosecution of the common design for which they combine.
In contemplation of law, the act of one is the act of all.
Each is responsible for everything done by his confederates, which follows incidentally in the execution of the common design as one of its probable and natural consequences, even though it was not intended as a part of the original design or common plan.
There are a couple of glaring problems with stretching the concept of conspiracy to cover taxpayers.
For starters, it seems hard to take seriously once you consider all of its ramifications.
For instance, I don’t think FSK really believes what he’s saying he believes.
He’s said on other occasions that he has an above-ground job at which taxes are withheld from his paycheck, and that while he’d be willing to take a job in the underground or “agorist” economy in order to avoid these taxes, he wouldn’t be willing to take a pay cut to do so.
Can it really be true that as a taxpayer he feels “directly responsible for every bad thing government does,” — as responsible as the people who directly carry out those bad things, but that he feels so blasé about this that he wouldn’t stop doing it if it cost him any money?
His excuse may be that he has to earn a living, but how is this different from the same excuse given by a soldier, Senator, or bureaucrat — assuming you believe, as FSK says he does, that a taxpayer is just as responsible as they are for their actions?
Secondly, to prove “conspiracy” in the legal sense, you have to show that the parties to the agreement agreed to work together to achieve some common end, and that either the end itself, or the methods they chose to reach that end, were illegal.
This isn’t as hard to prove as it might sound at first.
You don’t necessarily have to prove that the conspirators actually met or signed onto a formal plan.
As one set of jury instructions put it:
[I]t is not necessary to constitute a conspiracy that two or more persons should meet together, and enter into an explicit or formal agreement for an unlawful scheme, or that they should directly, by words or in writing, state what the unlawful scheme was to be, and the detail of the plans or means by which the unlawful combination was to be made effective.
It is sufficient if two or more persons, in any manner, or through any contrivance, positively or tacitly come to a mutual understanding to accomplish a common and unlawful design.
and another:
[A]ll who take part in a conspiracy after it is formed and while it is in execution, and all who, with the knowledge of the facts, concur in the facts originally formed and aid in executing them, are fellow conspirators.
Their concurrence, without proof of an agreement to concur, is conclusive against them.
They commit the offense when they become partners to the transaction or further the original plan.
Do taxpayers meet this sort of qualification?
If you’re putting on your prosecutor’s-hat, you can probably look at these instructions and say, sure, I could make it stick.
But if you’re defending the taxpayer against a charge of conspiracy, you’ve got a good trump card to play:
In short, if my client is accused of illegally conspiring with a government, by paying taxes to it — how can you suggest that there was some sort of “agreement” or “mutual understanding” if the government had to threaten my client to comply?
That doesn’t sound like an agreement to me.
My client isn’t an accomplice, but a victim!
Duress — How much can it excuse?
But just how good of a defense is it to say that you were paying taxes under duress?
Can such an argument always relieve you of all responsibility, or does it only work when certain conditions are met, or only relieve you of a certain amount of responsibility?
How much compulsion must the government use before it absorbs responsibility?
Is there a threshold?
Does it depend on what they’re trying to absorb responsibility for?
It couldn’t be the case (could it?) that the government could “force” you to murder someone by threatening you with a $25 fine for refusing — and that the government could take all of the guilt off your shoulders in this way.
Alas, in the debates about tax resistance, usually government compulsion is seen as an all-or-nothing sort of thing, and questions like these go unanswered.
William Lloyd Garrison said at one point that willingly paying taxes to a government that upholds slavery was wrong, but that to acquit yourself it is sufficient for you to announce that you are not cooperating willingly, and to strike an attitude that is consonant with that declaration:
[A man] may consent peaceably to yield up what is demanded of him, but not without remonstrance, and only as he would give up his purse to a highwayman.
He will not recognize it as a lawful tax — he will not pay it as a tax — but will denounce it as robbery and oppression.
Tolstoy agreed, emphasizing that although it was wrong to voluntarily pay taxes, under the Christian non-resistance principle that he (and Garrison) adhered to, it was also wrong to resist the government in seizing taxes:
A religious man may not resist by force those who take any of the fruits of his labour — whether they be private robbers or robbers that are called “the Government”…
The proper thing to do when the government comes calling, in this school of thought, is to refuse to pay voluntarily but to submit peacefully to distraint of property.
But J.G. James argued against such passive tax resistance, by saying:
It may well be questioned if the payment of rates or taxes is voluntary at all, since the account is presented in the form of a demand, and not a polite request.
Inasmuch as payment is compulsory in any case, is not Passive Resistance merely an awkward, expensive, and an inconvenient mode of payment for all concerned?
It’s easy to confuse these two cases:
in which someone actually forces you to do something (such as forcing you to stay in prison by locking the doors)
in which someone threatens you with unpleasant consequences if you do not do something.
In the first case, you don’t have alternatives to choose from, so you don’t have any blame for what you’re stuck with.
In the second case, though, your options have merely been changed.
You still have a choice to make, and that choice can be praiseworthy or blameworthy.
Hannah Arendt wrote:
…in the words of Mary McCarthy, who first spotted this fallacy:
“If somebody points a gun at you and says, ‘Kill your friend or I will kill you,’ he is tempting you, that is all.”
And while a temptation where one’s life is at stake may be a legal excuse for a crime, it certainly is not a moral justification.
If the tax collector says “give me your money or else,” that isn’t the end of the inquiry, but the time to say “or else what?” and then to weigh the options.
If I believed FSK’s argument that what the tax collector was saying was “be directly responsible for every bad thing government does or else” I’d be asking my “or else what?” with bluff-calling incredulity.
When you eat a Chiquita you’ve done your part
Can you be found legally guilty for payments you made under duress?
You certainly can, under some circumstances anyway.
Look at what happened to Chiquita (you know, the banana company).
Chiquita had been operating in Colombia and, as a cost of doing business there, had to pay taxes to some of the governments that control parts of the country.
Three of those governments were designated as terrorist organizations by the United States government, which has passed a law prohibiting anyone from funding such organizations anywhere.
In addition, there is an international agreement (as of ) that prohibits funding terrorist organizations.
It says:
Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and willfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out:
(a) An act which constitutes an offence within the scope of and as defined in one of the treaties listed in the annex; or
(b) Any other act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.
(On its face, this would seem to prohibit paying taxes to the United States government, but seeing as the government is a signatory to this agreement, and seeing as all of the signatories are governments, I’m sure there’s a loophole.)
In any case, Chiquita pled guilty in a plea bargain and was hit with a $25 million fine.
But I’m not sure if this really is relevant to the topic at hand.
Note that Chiquita was not charged with conspiring with these Colombian terrorist groups — wasn’t charged as a co-conspirator or accessory in their crimes — but was charged with a distinct crime of providing funds to terrorist organizations.
On the other hand, that crime may itself just be a sort of legal shorthand that amounts to essentially the same sort of thing.
I haven’t investigated the legal theory behind it.
It’s Caesar’s fault
J.G. James was a believer in law and government, and so he felt that when taxes or tax expenditures conflicted with conscience, the proper response was to do what could be done within the law to rectify the problem, but to go no further:
[I]t is the duty of a conscientious citizen to pay an unjust charge if he has tried in vain to prevent the measure passing into law, on the ground that he is no longer responsible for the expenditure of public funds, after he has done his utmost to control that expenditure by legalized means
This argument, that once the money is out of your hands you are no longer responsible for how it is spent, comes up frequently in debates about tax resistance — often even from tax resisters themselves, when trying to explain the limits of their resistance.
For instance, John H. Dadmun was a conscientious objector during the American Civil War who, in addition to refusing to serve in the military, refused also to pay someone else to serve as a substitute in his place (which was at the time a legal alternative to service).
This was because, he said, “that is the same as to go myself.”
But he was willing to pay a militia exemption tax (though it would take him some time to raise the money).
Someone chided him about this, noting that “the government can take the money and get a substitute.”
Dadmun responded:
“It might do so, but there is no provision into the law to carry that into effect; and furthermore, the Marshal has told me it had not been so used, but must be paid into government and he could not trace it further…”
Eventually…
[T]he brethren gave me almost a hundred dollars, and others lent me for Christ’s sake, not knowing whether I would be able to pay or not, and thus I was able to purchase my liberty, and satisfying the government, by “rendering Caesar his own,” with image and superscription thereon; and if he makes a bad use of it, he is responsible; as I have no further control of it.
G.W. Gillespe, another Civil War-era conscientious objector, had a nearly identical stand:
[T]he idea of hiring a man to kill for me would implicate me in the crime; so I refused to give even five cents for a substitute.
If I had had three hundred dollars, I could conscientiously have given it to Caesar as a last resort, to get exempt from the bloody field of carnal strife.
Some tried to persuade me that it was just as bad to pay the money as to hire a substitute, as the money was for that purpose.
The difference is great.
The Lord will not hold me accountable for the mischief that money, taken from me by force, would do when employed by others.
Caesar demands taxes of us; we pay them, according to the instruction and example of our Lord.
We render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and Caesar hires a man to shoot his enemies for him; are we to blame?
By no means.
But to hire a man to fight in my place, would be like hiring a thief to steal in my place.
Both guilty.
Rendering unto Caesar
Here we hit one of the big stumbling blocks that Christian tax resisters have run into.
The New Testament is distressingly explicit, in Romans 13:
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.
The authorities that exist have been established by God.
Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.…
[I]t is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.
This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.
Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
If Jesus wanted us to know that we should resist taxes to governments that were going to apply the tax money in sinful ways, he was given every opportunity to make this clear when he was asked: “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
Instead, he responded with the koan “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” which confused everybody at the time, and the meaning of which continues to defy consensus today.
The best the resisters could come up with to justify their position was either a confidently asserted, if somewhat strained reading of the “Give to Caesar” koan (one war tax resister insisted that Jesus delivered his koan during a time of peace in the Roman Empire, so Jesus was by no means countenancing war taxes), or the story from Acts 5 in which the apostles defied the law and continued to preach the gospel according to God’s explicit command.
Asked to explain themselves,
Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men!”
Most Christian tax resisters took the “Give to Caesar” koan and certainly the Romans passage to mean that God does indeed command us to pay taxes, even to unjust governments, but took the Acts “We must obey God rather than men” statement to provide an occasional override:
Essentially “render unto Caesar and submit to the government, unless that means disobeying God.”
T.S. Grimké put it this way:
[If the ruler] require me to pay taxes, although one object of the taxes be the support of idolatry, or the waging of war, I comply, simply because he has a clear right to levy taxes, and the responsibility of applying them is with him, not with me.
He is lawfully possessed of the power on the principle of civil obedience, as taught us in the New Testament; taxes are among the usual and necessary instruments for the administration of government; the use to which he shall apply them, is not my province, but his: he requires nothing unlawful of me, and therefore I comply.
Here then is the distinction.
If he commands what is unlawful, as a means for the attainment of even a lawful end, I refuse obedience.
But if he commands what is lawful, intending when the command has been performed by me, to employ the fruit of my obedience in the accomplishment of unlawful purposes in which I have no hand, I obey, because he requires of me only what is rightful.
I have nothing to do with his motive or his object.
I would illustrate this by the case of a debt.
I am indebted to another.
He demands payment.
I am not at liberty to refuse, because I happen to know, or have reason to believe that he will employ the money, when paid, for unlawful or immoral purposes.
This follows from the principle already stated.
My duty is very clear, to pay the debt: the use of the money, when paid, is at once his right and responsibility.
This may be aptly illustrated by a modification of the case stated.
I am indebted to another; but the debt is not due.
He calls for payment, not having a right to do so, and I happen to know, that his reason for wishing the money then, is to make an improper use of it.
I am bound to refuse; because not being bound to pay then, I am volunteering to grant a favor, knowing that it will be abused.
On the same principle I can conscientiously pay taxes, knowing, that among other objects, the public money will be applied to pay judges and jurors for trying and condemning criminals to capital punishment; to pay the salary of the president of a college, who teaches that public prayer is unchristian, and the clergy a set of impostors; or to pay the expenses of war.
This seems to me the only safe and wise principle, and it furnishes a suitable criterion for civil obedience.
[However, if the] magistrate, instead of a general tax law divides the taxes, and lays on the advocates of Peace the war tax.
They cannot conscientiously pay it; because they are thus made the sole and direct instrument of carrying on the war, and without their compliance, it must be at a stand.…
…Obedience is due to the civil magistrate, not as a duty to society, but as a duty to God.
God only can then lawfully fix the land-marks of that duty.
This was also Edward Swaine’s argument against tax resistance by nonconformist Christians against government support for establishment churches.
And he was unafraid to take his argument to its logical ends:
If Cæsar say “Give me money,” we must give it; for God has nowhere said “Do not give Cæsar money,” or “Do not give Cæsar money without satisfaction that he will properly apply it.”
If Cæsar say “Do not preach,” Paul must refuse obedience, for Christ has said to him “preach!”
If Cæsar say to us, “Go to the North Pole” — or “wear a cocked hat” — we must do so; for God has not claimed our obedience to the contrary.
He has not said, “Do not go to the North Pole” or “go only where you please.”
He has not said, “Do not wear a cocked hat,” or “wear only what you like.”
Those things, then, concerning which God has claimed nothing of us, we must render unto Cæsar.
Swaine draws the line in this way:
God says to us in effect… If [Caesar] should say to you… “I resolve to establish the worship of Baal for the good of the Empire,” and to levy a tax for that purpose, the resources of the State are his, and you are bound to render the tax.
But, if he should say I hold it to be for the good of the land, that every one acknowledge Baal to be God, and therefore require the payment of the tax to be accompanied by a recognition by the payers of the godhead of Baal, you are bound, while you pay the tax, to refuse the recognition, though impaling or burning be the penalty.
Or, if the tax be collected under an enactment that every one who pays shall be considered as offering to Baal, you are bound to refuse the payment, for to pay in such case would be equivalent to worship, and a rendering to Cæsar of that which is God’s.
But I do not justify your refusal of taxes, because they may be levied for a purpose that my law condemns.
He who violates my law must answer, and that is not you who pay the tax, but he who levies it if a bad one.
It is he who misapplies the National Funds, not you who had no rightful command over them to apply or misapply.
You have no responsibility, and violate none of God’s laws, if your tax dollars are spent in sinful ways, according to Swaine, because “the tax-gatherer comes… not for a contribution, or subscription, or aid, but for property no longer the subject’s to give or to withhold, and no longer under his rightful control…”
Taxes for bad objects are to be paid, not because we can be excused for helping evil by any voluntary act, that we are morally free to forbear, nor because the payment of such taxes will not help evil, for it will help evil, just as much as the payment of a debt to one who is going to misapply the money will help the evil, — but because the tax is not the subject’s any more than the debt is the debtor’s to help with or to withhold.
The payment therefore is his duty, for he is not morally free to decline it, although it will help evil.
Is paying a tax like paying a debt?
This comparison of taxes to debts, as used by Grimké and Swaine above, was an important metaphor in the ongoing debate about tax resistance.
If paying taxes to the government is good in and of itself, because God has so decreed it, then taxpaying can’t simply be judged according to its consequences.
A tax payment, in this way of thinking, is not a donation or a subscription or a contribution that is made voluntarily, but is a duty akin to repaying a debt.
You can’t ethically refuse to repay a loan because you think the person you owe money to will spend it unwisely.
Here’s an example of how this metaphor was used by one tax resister:
Joshua Maule was a Quaker advocate of war tax resistance.
When a general tax was increased by a certain percentage in order to pay for war expenses (with the government explicitly saying this was the reason), Maule refused to pay this additional fraction of his taxes, and he insisted that this was the only position consistent with traditional Quaker teaching regarding war.
Maule’s critics asked him why he continued to pay other taxes (like excise fees) or the remaining portion of his general tax — since surely some of these taxes would also go to pay for war.
Nathan Hall compared Maule’s stand to someone trying to avoid drinking intoxicating beverages by, for instance, only drinking 75% of a bottle of 50-proof (25% alcohol) liquor:
We both have a testimony against the use of ardent spirits, but are, being very thirsty, placed in a situation where we can get no water except some that has a small portion of whiskey in it.
Being under the necessity of taking something, thee may, by inquiry and calculation, find what proportion of the objectionable article is contained in it, and leave just that much in thy bowl; while my understanding will be that in partaking I partake of both good and bad, and in refusing refuse both.
So that with me the question is and has been, not what portion I should pay so much as whether any at all.
Maule responded by trying to draw a sharp line between ordinary civil taxes, which like a debt he must pay regardless of how some of it may be used, and explicit war taxes, which fall under a different rule:
The arguments used in reference to what disposition the officers of the law might make of the money collected appeared to me to be valueless.…
I am not accountable for the acts of other men: if I owe a just debt, I must pay it; if the person receiving the money uses it for a bad purpose, the accountability is with him; but if he demand money of me avowedly to be used in any way to the plundering of my neighbor, destroying his property, or taking his life, then if I furnish money thus demanded I become an accomplice in the evil work and accountable for the sin.
I consider our civil taxes a just debt that should be promptly paid, but I am satisfied that no human authority has either a moral or a religious right to demand of me money or means of any kind to aid in destroying the lives and property of my fellow-men.
Samuel Allinson put forward the most forceful attack on the tax-as-debt analogy in .
First off, he denied outright that God has commanded us to give Caesar anything that Caesar plans to put to a sinful purpose: “if tribute is demanded for a use that is antichristian, it seems right for every Christian to deny it, for Cæsar can have no title to that which opposes the Lord’s command.”
Having knocked out the divine pillar upholding taxpaying as a moral duty, he then proceeds to attack the idea that taxation represents some sort of secularly-contracted debt, or part of an implied “social contract.”
Allinson argues that no Christian would agree to the terms of a contract that might require him to do the devil’s work:
Every valid contract is voluntarily entered into, and as it is the duty of every one previously to see that his engagement is innocent, so when his promise is purchased by a consideration given it would be dishonest and deceitful not to perform it, the other party having, as it were, deposited so much effects in his hands, which he is to render back according to agreement and when received the receiver has a right to apply it as he pleases without any account to the payer, but in the case of taxes he who gives has a right to call to such an account and therefore seems himself liable for and privy to the application.
Every man has or has not given his assent to the government he lives under, in the first, he has formally declared his allegiance thereto, in the latter, that allegiance is implied in consideration of his receiving the protection and benefit of it in the safety of his person and the security of his property, in both, it is no more than to be “true and faithful” which can never mean a compliance with every requisition, for we owe a superior allegiance to the King of Kings, and whenever the requisitions of man run counter thereto we “ought to obey God rather than men”
…
We have never entered into any contract, express or implied, for the payment of taxes for war, nor the performance of anything contrary to our religious duties…
Conclusion?
So have we made any progress here?
We’ve at least been able to review the question from several angles and to get some historical perspective on how it has been wrestled with.
I think I’ve demonstrated that both of the extreme positions — that paying taxes makes you a fully-guilty accomplice in whatever the government then does, or that paying taxes because it is involuntary is a decision without ethical import — have serious flaws.
I’ve spent a lot of time on the Christian and the legal viewpoints, but as an atheist and an anarchist, to me those viewpoints are often only tangentially advisory at best and mere curiosities at worst.
For me the question is an ethical one that has to be resolved with my reason and my conscience.
And as best as I can make out:
I am under no original ethical obligation to pay a tax.
Taxpaying is not in and of itself good, and I did not in reality enter into something akin to an agreement or contract that I would be unethically violating by failing to pay.
Given that, I have to evaluate my decision to pay or not to pay a tax by looking at what consequences I expect will result — in other words, by imagining two worlds, one in which I paid the tax and one in which I haven’t — and choosing from them which one I’d prefer to be in.
By doing this, I also imagine two of me, one who paid the tax and one who didn’t, and I choose which one I want to become.
In doing this, as with so many other decisions, some of my considerations are ethicalish (which of these worlds is more just? which of the possible me am I more proud of?) and some are more ordinarily self-interested (in which world am I more satisfied or better-off or esteemed?).
This is, as far as I can tell, how it is and how it should be.
And where this has led me so far is where I’m at.
Resisting some taxes completely (the federal income tax), others not-so completely (federal excise taxes), others hardly at all (the state sales tax), others dysfunctionally (the self-employment tax, which I don’t pay voluntarily, but which I accept will probably be seized).
Along the way, I recalculate my situation and recalibrate my decisions based on my best judgment and my evolving understanding.
And these wanderings through the thoughts of people who have grappled with these conundrums before me don’t hurt.
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump.
I said, “Don’t do it!”
He said, “Nobody loves me.”
I said, “God loves you.
Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.”
I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?”
He said, “A Christian.”
I said, “Me, too!
Protestant or Catholic?”
He said, “Protestant.”
I said, “Me, too!
What franchise?”
He said, “Baptist.”
I said, “Me, too!
Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Baptist.”
I said, “Me, too!
Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”
I said, “Me, too!
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.”
I said, “Me, too!”
“Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!”
And I pushed him over.
In earlier Picket Line entries, I’ve reprinted selections from the journals of Joshua Maule, who wrote extensively about his struggle to convince wavering Friends to stop paying war taxes in the mid-19th century.
He also wrote a pamphlet that touches on this subject, which was published and released by the Ohio General Meeting, and then by the General Meeting of “Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, &c.” The first of these groups was a sub-faction (led by Maule) of the Wilburite faction of a Wilburite/Gurneyite split amongst orthodox (non-Hicksite) Quakers in Ohio.
The second was a closely-allied “primitive”/“Otisite” meeting also known as the “Fallsington General Meeting”
Maule’s group would further subdivide a few years after releasing this pamphlet, first by distancing itself from the Fallsington group, and then, in a dispute over that decision, fracturing — with Maule and his family, according to some accounts, leaving to form their own, lonely, one-family Meeting.
It must have been a tense time to be a Quaker.
This pamphlet, then, is one volley in a large and heated battle to delineate and defend the true, real, orthodox teachings of the Society of Friends against a diverse army of heretics.
Here is an excerpt regarding war taxes:
A Testimony for the Truth, as Always Held and Promulgated by the
Religious Society of Friends; and Against the Departures from the Principles of the Society which Have Appeared of Latter Time
Whatever may be the endeavors of those here, their action is to pay large bounty money and direct war taxes; the sums so demanded being set before tax-payers in a very prominent manner, in the words, “War Tax,” “Bounty Tax,” etc.: they being distinguished and the amounts for these purposes fairly set forth entirely separate from the taxes for other purposes; so that none can claim that they do not know what they pay tax for, unless they willfully close their eyes to the publication of it.
They pay this in direct violation of our Discipline; and abundance of the same kind of reasoning as that which emanates from Philadelphia, has been used here, in meetings for discipline and elsewhere, to balk the testimony of truth and prevent the right exercise of the Discipline in different ways.
And especially in regard to our testimony against war and direct war taxes, they claim the right, as many of the members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting do, to think differently about this testimony from the words of the Discipline, and to understand its precepts in a manner to suit their action.
It is with unfeigned sorrow that we see this defection and these departures, and feel the necessity to review them and testify against them; for if we do not clear ourselves of the reproach which these publications and this course of action bring upon the name of Friends, a measure of it lies upon us.
Some, perhaps many, who thus depart from our Discipline, may be ready to charge us with faultfinding, and a censorious spirit.
But it is not so: we are not the aggressors.
It is in defense we speak; in defense of the precious truth, and in defense of ourselves in supporting it.
We have not sought this engagement, or desired in our own wills to enter into it.
These errors and misrepresentations are urged by others, and brought upon us; and it is incumbent upon us to endeavor to set forth the truth concerning the practice and false reasoning of such as are making a high profession of standing firm for the doctrines and discipline of the Society; and who by the action of their meetings are bringing censure upon Friends who do not unite with them in these violations of our discipline and practical denial of the faith of the Society.
Alas! that any should thus vilely cast away the shield in this cloudy and dark day, when the necessity seems greater than for many years past, in this country, for all who really believe that the spirit of the gospel breathes “peace on earth, good will to men,” to show forth their faith by their works.
The noble institutions of our country, and the liberal form of government under which we live, protect us in the free enjoyment of our religious profession; and we are permitted to worship the Father in the way of his requiring, safe from persecution and suffering, such as was endured by those who first raised the standard and held forth these testimonies.
Yet it is a lamentable truth, that the more we have received from Divine Goodness, of outward blessing and prosperity, and enjoyed freedom from all bodily suffering for his cause, the more as a people we have turned from his covenant and law.
And now, in the first trial of their faith which has come upon the Society for many years in this land, from the laws or requirements of the Government, a great portion of it has flinched and given back, and proved unfaithful to this testimony to the peaceable nature of the Redeemer’s Kingdom, and ungrateful to the hand that has hitherto preserved us, and greatly blessed us in basket and in store; and has now wonderfully disposed the hearts of the rulers and heads of the Government, to show great kindness and leniency to such as have stood and maintained their allegiance to Him.
This we esteem a signal and unmerited favor, for which we desire to express our gratitude to Him from whom all good comes, and our thankfulness to those who administer the Government, and have shown such kindness to us and to our brethren.
We can truly say that it is not from any hostile feeling toward the Government, or to those who manage its affairs, or from sympathy with such as oppose it, that we decline to pay taxes for war, and to, perform military duty.
But it is that we may be found walking in the fear, and fulfilling the law as manifested to us, of Him to whom “every knee shall bow,” “and every tongue shall confess;” and in this feeling we endeavor peaceably and patiently to submit to whatever the laws may do with us or our property.
Thanks to the magic of Google Books, I stumbled on A Plain Commentary on The First Gospel by An Agnostic ().
The author, who remains anonymous (or at least I haven’t figured out who it was), has a pleasantly acerbic take on the “Render Unto Caesar” koan:
15 ¶ Then went the Pharisees, and took council how they might entangle him in his talk.
Our author here gives us a very naive statement.
The Pharisees were so little impressed with what they had heard Jesus say, were so entirely unsuspicious that his wisdom was superhuman, that they had a debate amongst themselves “how they might entangle him in his talk.”
And they decided that they would — evidently believing that they could — thus entangle Jesus.
His previous replies, so far from awing these Pharisees by their manifest supernatural power and wisdom, can hardly have struck them as very astute or profound even, if they thought or hoped that they could entangle or perplex jesus with such a very old-fashioned “difficulty” as the one they took steps to propound to him.
16 And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.
To carry out this purpose the Pharisees sent some of their disciples together with the Herodians to submit to Jesus the “entangling” question given in the next verse.
Who or what these Herodians were is not known.
Though we possess most voluminous and minutely detailed accounts of the Jewish history and of the Jewish affairs of this period in secular history, no mention can be found of Herodians, whose existence is known to these Gospels alone.
Never surely was a nation so distracted with rival sects as “my people Israel.”
And with the Jews these diversities were not simply of a philosophical and merely contemplative kind, such as prevailed in Greece and other ancient nations; they were of such a nature as from their inevitable practical bearings to place men in a position of acute hostility to each other.
The mention of a body so obscure and unknown as the Herodians serves to strongly bring to mind again the conspicuous absence from these Gospels of that great Jewish sect whose existence and whose importance are so shown to us in secular history — the Essenes: one of the chief sects of the Jews.
Their suppression in these Gospels is complete.
Never once do we hear of any of the Essenes waiting upon Jesus, though the resemblance, nay the identity, of many of his own teachings with theirs is complete, often startlingly so.
Jesus, of course, knew all about the Essenes, and so, we do not hesitate to assert, did our author and the authors of the other Gospels.
The non-mention of Essenism in these Gospels is a problem not difficult to solve.
The Essenes had anticipated and already taught too many of the better portions of Jesus’ teachings to be altogether agreeable to his biographers.
When these disciples of the Pharisees and these Herodians reached Jesus they began the object of their errand by paying him a very long and very great compliment.
There was nothing specially deferential in the term teacher, or master, as it is here given, with which these men saluted Jesus; but what they proceeded to add, that Jesus was true and taught the way of God in truth, and that he cared not for any man nor regarded the person of men, was a piece of homage indeed, which, however, the errand of these men shows us must be taken largely, if not entirely, in an ironical sense; as, in short, a piece of raillery.
This salutation is so unlike the usual accostings of Jesus by the Pharisees that we may probably set it down to their Herodian colleagues, of whose principles we have no knowledge.
17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou?
Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar, or not?
Eighteen centuries and a half ago when this conversation took place, Judea was a subjugated country.
The Romans had conquered it, made it part of their Empire, and unquestionably governed it in many respects in a harsh and overbearing manner.
How repugnant, how painful, such a state of things must have been to every patriotic Jew is very evident, and is attested by the many efforts made to throw off the galling Roman yoke.
Is it right to obey a foreign conqueror, or should he be resisted and freedom and self-government restored?
This is a question and a practical problem that has abounded in human annals both before and since the time of Jesus.
And it is a question which the best of men have always answered, and the enlightened portion of the human race would now unanimously answer, to the effect that foreign conquest must be resisted and self-government re-asserted.
Whatever we may think of the immediate purpose with which the question was submitted to Jesus, the question itself was in every respect a most serious and grave one; and in many minds a most active and burning one.
To ask Jesus his decision on this momentous question was in itself a very natural and proper thing.
Indeed, as put to Jesus, the inquiry had a peculiar appropriateness, for was he not King of Jerusalem and son of David?
And it is quite possible some of these interviewers, though unaware of the immaculate conception and of Joseph’s royal lineage, may have heard Jesus accosted as son of David when entering Jerusalem a few days previously.
They therefore ask Jesus, “Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar or not?”
“What thinkest thou?”
18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?
Our author assures us that Jesus “perceived their wickedness.”
That to submit a thorny question to an opponent is wickedness, is evidently a matter of opinion, concerning which we are not able to agree with our author’s view.
That Jesus perceived the purpose with which these men put the question before him is believable enough, for it was as palpable as anything could possibly be.
And the comments and laudations indulged in on this verse by some commentators to the effect that the divine searcher of hearts could read the thoughts and purposes of these enemies are nothing short of ludicrous as applied to something so self-evident.
“Why tempt ye me?”
As we have seen throughout this Gospel, inquiries put to Jesus are habitually denominated temptings.
It is not necessary to inquire what was meant by the term; what degree of guilt or impropriety was considered to exist in questioning Jesus.
For it is evident he was under no obligation to answer the questions put to him.
In the case now before us, for example, any entanglement was altogether voluntary.
Jesus might have refused to answer the inquiry at all, as he did when asked for a sign from heaven, or for his authority in the temple; or he might have returned an answer of an indefinite kind as he so often admittedly did.
“Ye hypocrites.”
Commentators, who are very severe on the falsehood as they term it of the ironical compliment with which these disciples of the Pharisees and these Herodians began this interview, declare this exclamation of Jesus to be a severe castigation thereof, which must have made those men wince.
It is astonishing what a sin a piece of banter can be deemed to be by commentators who themselves own their belief that Jesus himself sometimes spoke in irony, and who are quite certain he so spoke of the “righteous who needed no repentance.”
Besides, the salutation Ye hypocrites! was, as we know, the customary method of accosting his opponents by Jesus; the ascription of any special significance to it in this instance is of highly doubtful validity.
19 Shew me the tribute money.
And they brought unto him a penny.
“Shew me.”
The purpose of this singular request on the part of Jesus is not ascertainable.
The suggestions that have been thrown out upon the point vie with each other in insipidity, and in that only.
As it was not possible to show Jesus anything in the real sense of the word, the problem is to suggest in what way the production and examination of this Roman coin threw any light on the subject at issue to the minds of those present — a problem which still awaits a plausible solution.
20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?
Upon a penny being produced, Jesus asks, “Whose is this image and superscription?”
Jesus, of course, knew quite well whose image and what superscription adorned the coin he was inspecting.
But theologians tell us that Jesus asked questions and sought information in a nominal and verbal verse [sic] only, with the object of leading up to something he wished to say; for omniscience possessed the immense convenience of knowing beforehand the exact reply which would be made to any question asked.
21 They say unto him, Cæsar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.
In reply to this inquiry of Jesus, they say that the image on the coin was Cæsar’s. Most likely it was a portrait of the particular Cæsar who did Judea the distinguished honour of at this time reigning over it; and whose manner of discharging his exalted functions had been for some years past to live on a small island in the Mediterranean, and there carry on orgies that were a reproach to humanity.
After these preliminaries we arrive at last at the famous deliverance, the memorable piece of wisdom given upon this great subject by Jesus, “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” The panegyrics that have been lavished on this saying, more particularly in former times, offer an interesting study.
Amongst other eulogies, it has frequently been declared to be a transparently divine utterance; anything so sage and so profound could never have originated in a mere human mind.
When we remember that this saying of Jesus has received praise as a wise and excellent one from many non-believers also, it is undeniably depressing, Reader, to own, as we have to own, that we have pondered upon and searched this saying in vain for the evidences not only of its superhuman character but of its asserted practical wisdom even.
We are not much concerned at our inability to discern the divine character of this utterance of Jesus.
The gorgeous hues seen by piety in things connected with the object of devotion are admittedly far more subjective than objective in their origin; for they are found in connection with false religions just as with the true one.
Not only, for example, are the homely bits of real wisdom to be found in the Koran resplendent in the eyes of the faithful, but even things therein that are not wise are reverenced as of unsearchable value.
Our incapacity to perceive the practical and intrinsic value of this celebrated saying of Jesus is more discouraging.
And yet we are not alone; for many others have also recorded their inability to perceive any illumination in this saying.
Perhaps, too, we may plead that we live in times when the entire category of adages, maxims, aphorisms, and “wise-sayings” has undergone a very serious but a very proper depreciation in men’s minds generally.
“Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s.” It is evident enough, as indeed is seen from a comparison of one of these Gospels with another, that these Gospel records of the dialogues between Jesus and his opponents are mere fragments of what took place.
The word “therefore” in this phrase may reasonably be supposed to refer to something that had been said but not here recorded.
It is impossible to see any “therefore” in what is given as preceding this saying.
For surely the notion that coins belong to the monarch whose image they bear, or that the circulation of his own coinage in a subjugated country by a conqueror is a valid title to sovereignty may be dismissed as too childish for discussion.
The real question at issue was, What things in Judea were Cæsar’s?
What iota of real right of any kind had a Roman conqueror in Judea at all?
What was there that good and patriotic Jews could recognize as Cæsar’s rights, and therefore “render” to him?
Cæsar was in Judea by means and by virtue of brute force; by the strength of the Roman legions, and by that alone.
It was not pretended that Cæsar was in Judea by the will of the people or by any other moral title.
It is impossible to perceive a shred of anything that could justly be termed “Cæsar’s” at all in reference to or bearing upon the question raised by these Pharisees and Herodians.
The admission of Cæsar’s “rights” in Judea, the acknowledgment of Roman authority in his own native land which is involved in this answer of Jesus, is a spiritless recognition of foreign domination that does Jesus little credit and little honour.
Precisely the same attitude was displayed in the tribute-money impost incident, where “lest we offend them” was the only principle — if such it can be called — assigned for compliance therewith.
“Resist not evil” is the foundation underlying the attitude of Jesus in both cases.
In these days, when the principle that the consent of the governed is the only real and true foundation of government is accepted in all enlighted countries, and towards the triumph of which so many eminent Christians have nobly contributed — thus showing themselves better than their creed, as happily men everywhere so often do — it is no longer necessary even to discuss the supposed right of a governor to rule a nation against its wishes.
It is not a little curious to reflect, Reader, that the Jesus who here preached acquiescence in the foreign conquest of his country was — by hypothesis — the same Jesus who had so often in times past mightily assisted Judea to resist and throw off foreign conquest.
In the days when Jesus was the God of Battles, when the Lord was a man of war, did he not oven stay the Sun and the Moon that Judea might more effectually vanquish her enemies?
Any fixed principles in heaven’s dealings with its favourite people are as untraceable as they are with other peoples.
As a general proposition the saying, “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,” is a mere truism; for it is palpable that Cæsar and God must, like everyone else, be entitled to what is due to them.
In controverted matters between civil and ecclesiastical claims, as in disputes between man and man, nation and nation, and every contested subject whatsoever, to say that we ought to give to each what is due to it is a platitude that does not bring us one iota nearer a solution.
The practical question here raised is, What things in social life appertain to Cæsar, and what to heaven and its supposed representatives; and in cases of dispute how are we to discriminate between the two claims?
On this real issue the sonorous phrase we are now considering is not, and never has been, of the slightest practical use; every disputant using it in his own sense, as its open character made inevitable.
Conflicts between civil and ecclesiastical authorities have filled the pages of history ever since Christianity came into the world; and no better comment on the true value of the dictum of Jesus which, it is professed, lays down the relation of the temporal and spiritual, could be desired.
In the early times of Christianity, indeed for several centuries after its appearance, the civil powers flagrantly oppressed, often quite suppressed, the just spiritual rights and freedom of Christians.
How completely this state of things was afterwards reversed is well known.
How Christian authorities suppressed the rights of non-Christians and even of Christians not of the dominant type, and how they intermeddled in the most purely civil matters, until, in the ages of faith, the ecclesiastical powers tampered with everything, from deposing monarchs down to prying into the minutest matters of the daily life of men, history has put on record.
Recorded also are the happier facts that since the revival of learning, the dawning of science, the disruption of the household of faith, and the dwindling of religious belief which began four centuries ago and have since continued, ecclesiastical authority has waned and been banished from one intrusion after another, until now, in the principal nations of the world, the recognition of any ecclesiastical authority of any kind is entirely voluntary and completely optional.
In some of the older countries some remanets [sic] of ecclesiastical intermeddling still, indeed, remain; and their friction-producing capacities may serve to remind us what the combats of our forefathers over the major spiritual thralls that have now vanished must have been.
In our own country [England, I believe — ♇], for instance, ecclesiastical claims long delayed and obstructed, and in a measure even yet hamper, the education of our children; and little things still tramp from one end of a town to the other to get, along with their geography, what their fathers — or more probably their mothers — happen to deem proper religious instruction.
Around the grim subject of burial, where all human distinctions seem for ever ended; where the same visible fate awaits us all alike, and where bickerings are peculiarly painful, ecclesiastical meddlings obstinately linger; and the singular and odious spectacle is still seen of men of the most varied beliefs who lived in the same street in peace, comfort, and even friendship, strictly assorted at death, and duly placed in carefully and sharply classified portions of a common cemetery.
The closed museums and libraries, whose decorous appearance on a “Sabbath” gives a kind of respectability to the adjoining open taverns; and the concubinage of many excellent people, with the bastardizing of their children, arising from the disputed propriety of marriage with a late wife’s sister, still bear witness to the survival in these islands of some curious scraps of a once imposing ecclesiastical domination.
We may also just remark that in this famous phrase of Jesus there is an inherent feature which is greatly to the disadvantage of Cæsar.
All things whatever — Cæsar’s things included — are, of course, in a final sense God’s. How much this consideration made against Cæsar in contentions matters; how certain the benefit of a doubt was to be given in favour of the rival claimant to whom everything actually and ultimately belonged, is very manifest.
22 When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.
Astonishment proceeds from causes of so widely different a character, that it would have been interesting to have known the nature of the marvelling felt by these listeners.
How far these Herodians and disciples of the Pharisees considered they had been successful in their mission of entangling Jesus cannot be gathered.
Some Christian commentators think they had been entirely baffled and defeated by Jesus’ answer, which these commentators pronounce a masterpiece of defensive adroitness, in addition to its greater virtues.
Other commentators think, on the other hand, that Jesus courageously committed himself to the principle that the de facto government of Cæsar, however distasteful, was to be respected and obeyed.
When we reflect that in the course of a few days, Jesus was about to leave our planet and return to his heavenly throne, the question of entanglement on such a matter seems altogether immaterial.
From what I remember of the Bible, it was pretty common for the Jews to get their asses handed to them in battle by some set of pagan barbarians or other who would then rule over them and treat them miserably for a spell.
And in retrospect, their historians would write this up as a measure of chastening meted out by a just and angry God who was using the pagan barbarians as his rod of chastisement.
So I think our Agnostic underestimates the extent to which a “lie back and enjoy it, render unto Caesar, it’s for your own good” answer by Jesus would have been interpreted as a perfectly reasonable one.
When our Agnostic writes that “It was not pretended that Cæsar was in Judea by the will of the people or by any other moral title” he doesn’t consider that perhaps Caesar was in Judaea as an agent of God’s design.
This strikes me as a likely conclusion for Jews to have drawn at the time.
I suspect that Jesus just didn’t think the question of church and state was all that crucial: Don’t try to rebel against Rome and institute some better earthly kingdom.
The time for that is long past.
Israel is under the thumb of Rome for a good reason, and now the time is come for righteous people to focus exclusively on the eternal kingdom and forget about all this fuss down here entirely.
I’ll be back in a jiffy and I’m going to be sweeping everything clean anyway.
I think our Agnostic is spot on when he says that Jesus was asked a serious and important question and gave an evasive and uninstructive answer.
But I don’t really think Jesus intended to be informing modern debates about political philosophy and the consent of the governed.
He was anticipating the imminent end of the kingdoms of the world and the coming of the kingdom of heaven.
Since that didn’t come to pass, nowadays Christians are trying to shoehorn his teachings into the mundane world, but as it turns out they aren’t too useful down here.
I believe that the statement contains both humorous ridicule and a
meaningless poke at his critics. First, Jesus was clearly ridiculing his
accusers when he led them to assume that the presence of Caesar’s
likeness and inscription on the coin proved that Caesar held a title of
ownership to that coin and that the tax should be paid. One might just
as well claim that the picture of a Quaker wearing a blue hat on every
box of Quaker Oats oatmeal “proves” that the Quaker owns every box of
oatmeal that features his likeness on it. Likewise, the image of George
Washington on a
U.S. quarter
dollar does not mean that George owns every such coin or that we should
pay taxes because of it. It seems obvious that Jesus was making the
same kind of joke with reference to the denarius. I can almost hear the
laughter. Can you?
Further, the statement “Render to Caesar…” is completely circular and
therefore conveys no actionable information whatsoever. If a man named
Tom and a second man named Bill were both claiming ownership of the
same bicycle, would it really help to resolve their dispute if a judge
in a court of law declared that what was Tom’s was Tom’s and what was
Bill’s was Bill’s? I don’t think so. Again, Jesus was clearly playing
games with his opponents — delivering a meaningless poke that
successfully confused them.
The IRS Oversight Board released its annual report on .
I skimmed it and found one factoid I thought was worth marking: According to the report, it costs the IRS an average of $317,100 to win a criminal conviction.
J.M. Henrietta of Charlottesville, Virginia announced her tax resistance to readers of the Charlottesville Daily Progress:
I have decided that I cannot, with good conscience, continue to
contribute to the greed and war-based economy of our country.
I cannot rest any longer, knowing my tax dollars are helping to
contribute to the maiming and killing of innocent people around the
world in wars based on lies from our leaders.
I cannot stand the thought of my hard-earned tax dollars going to line
the pockets of greedy or irresponsible financial executives and
ignorant U.S.
automobile manufacturers who’ve for too long made gas-guzzling
behemoths partly responsible for the oil addiction of this country. I
cannot support outlaw politicians who are free to trample our
Constitution without any consequences.
I have discussed national issues with my family, friends and
acquaintances, written and called my representatives in Congress,
petitioned and marched in protests. Still, I feel like I need to do
more.
Therefore, I am withholding a
part of my federal income tax in protest. Our 75-year-old War Tax
Resister’s League estimates that about 20 percent of your taxes this
year will go to the current war expense and a much larger part toward
paying for previous wars.
In lieu of my payment to the IRS, I will be increasing my support to the local charities, especially our area
food bank, which has been extremely overburdened recently by our poor
state of the war-based economy. God help America!
The author of this article and the editors of this Web site do
not in any way advocate for, endorse, or condone any act of tax
resisting or tax evasion. We recognize that these activities are
potentially illegal and subject to strict fines and penalties, including
possible jail time. For more information on specifics of tax penalties
and tax law, we encourage you to consult with a tax expert, such as a
tax account [sic] or tax attorney. The names of quoted
individuals were changed at the request of the editor.
Some remarks
occasioned by the perusal of John Brown’s
The Law of Christ Respecting Civil Obedience,
Especially in the Payment of Tribute
and its various notes and appendices
concerning a nineteenth century flame war largely over
matters religious but touching on conscientious objection and the duty of refusing certain taxes
in multiple parts
which is to say: don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Part One.
In the mid-1830s, a Scottish nonconformist minister named John Brown (no relation, so far as I know, to the American abolitionist) stopped paying something called the “annuity tax,” the proceeds of which went to support the official Church of Scotland, which competed with Brown’s own, competing Christian franchise, the Presbyterian United Secession Church.
At first he paid the tax under protest, but then decided he couldn’t pay at all: “I have not paid, and, with my present convictions, never will, never can, pay it… I cannot do so without offering violence to a conscientious conviction, not rashly nor hastily arrived at.”
Brown held out, and eventually the government seized some of his property to satisfy the tax.
The episode engendered considerable debate, the residue of which can be found in such books as:
Brown’s own book went into at least three editions, each expanding on the last as he felt the need to pen new rebuttals to the various attacks.
The way Brown puts it, Haldane vigorously pamphletted Edinburgh and much of the rest of Scotland with an accusation that Brown, with his tax refusal, was violating the clear commands of Jesus and willfully misinterpreting the scripture in an attempt to justify his action.
So Brown felt forced to make a rigorous response, which he did in two lectures from the pulpit which he then published and expanded on.
The controversy, as you might guess, largely concerned the interpretation of those familiar passages in the New Testament concerning taxation and submission to civil authority, particularly good old Romans 13.
Brown hoped to demonstrate that in spite of what that verse says, “neither the doctrine nor the law of Christ has any affinity to slavish principles.”
His book has some remarkable and interesting arguments about civil disobedience and tax resistance, but also a lot of doctrinal quibbling and teasing of The Original Greek only of interest to Bible junkies and queer eggs like myself.
The book is dense… it has its own three page table of contents just for “the more important foot notes”!
I made some notes while I was reading it, and will summarize here the parts of his argument that concern civil disobedience and tax resistance, though mostly ignoring the parts of his book that argue for disestablishmentarianism and the separation of church and state without touching on those other two topics.
Romans 13:1–7
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.
For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.
Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good.
But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.
Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.
Much of the book is Brown’s rigorous explanation of how he interprets Romans 13 and why he believes his interpretation is correct.
He avoids the convenient dodges that some interpreters have tried to cast on the passage as a way of ducking out of its pretty clear instruction to Christians to be compliant, obedient subjects of whatever government they happen to be under.
Not that the passage doesn’t have its difficulties, just in trying to make it coherent.
What can you make of Paul’s assertion that “rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil” when he knew very well the opposite was often true?
Brown assumes that “good works” and “evil works” are here just synonyms for “law-abiding” and “law-breaking” behavior.
But then Paul seems to merely be making a ridiculously pedantic point about the law: don’t disobey the law, because you’ll get punished if you do, because rulers punish people who break the law and don’t punish people who obey it.
Did he really need to spell that out to his flock?
It seems much a much more plausible to read this as Paul saying that seeing as how the ruler is, as ruler, “ordained of God” and “the minister of God”, his actions in enforcing the law are extensions of God’s judgment.
You should obey the law “not only for wrath” — that is, fear of punishment — “but also for conscience sake” because the ruler’s laws are God’s laws by proxy.
The problem with this interpretation, for Christians anyway, is that it either makes Paul out to be an idiot, makes God out to be even more capricious than he was in Old Testament times, or makes Romans 13 look suspiciously like it was never intended to be an instruction to Christians so much as it was meant for the eyes of the Imperial authorities as a way of making the Christians out to be just the sort of harmless grovelers every tyrant would love to have for subjects.
In general, Brown seems to waffle between seeing Romans 13 as pragmatic advice to Christians on how to best get along under the current scheme of things without risking getting stepped on by the Imperial boot — which may be a good surmise of the intent of the chapter — and as a more metaphysical discourse on the nature of law and earthly government and its relation to God’s will and Christian duty — which seems to me a more accurate reading of the message of the chapter.
But he’s prevented by his understanding of how Scripture works (it’s not just something someone wrote for some reason, but is “given by inspiration of God… for instruction in righteousness”) from separating the intent and the message in this way, so he tries to hold on to both at once, but tends to just go back and forth between them depending on which suits his argument best at any particular time.
Romans 13 doesn’t itself allow for any exceptions to the general rule of civil obedience.
Brown believes this is because carefully delineating the scope of the obligations of the governed and the governing wasn’t Paul’s agenda when he wrote the chapter — he just wanted the Roman Christians to accept the Roman government as legitimate and not to toy with sedition and agitation or to consider themselves ungovernable as “subjects of the kingdom of heaven” or some such, but to make nice with the pagan overlords for the sake of the survival of the church.
It’s a mistake, Brown feels, to make this passage out to be the be-all and end-all of Christian instruction on political philosophy.
Naturally, Brown alludes to the episodes in which the apostles defied rulers in order to continue their preaching, or refused to offer incense at heathen altars when commanded, to demonstrate that an exception to the general rule of obedience clearly exists when man’s law contradicts God’s law.
Brown also notes that Paul himself defied magistrates on occasions when he believed they were exceeding their legal authority.
So, he infers that there is also an exception here: you don’t need to obey rulers when the rulers are acting on their own whim rather than upholding the law.
It is the authority of the legal office itself that must be obeyed and respected, not the person who happens to occupy it.
In cases that fall under this exception, you may or may not obey the law, depending on what you think is best.
Brown also says that there is a third exception: that only laws and rulings that are legitimately within “the limits of civil authority” must be respected.
More-or-less he means that the Romans had no business regulating Christians in their religious practices “except so far as these might interfere with the peace or good order of civil society.”
This will be crucial to the argument closest to his heart — separation of church and state.
He’s a little vague on this third exception, and doesn’t say where he finds scriptural support for it — he’s more likely to cite European political philosophers like Locke.
One logical argument he alludes to for this position goes something like this: If civil government were permitted to make rules governing religious belief and practice that Christians were obligated to follow, then clearly only those rulers “who know and teach the true religion” could be ordained of God, and Paul clearly wasn’t talking about Christian rulers, ergo… But this seems to prove exception #3 only at the cost of making it redundant to exception #1.
For laws that fall under this third exception, like the second, a Christian can feel free to disregard or obey them as seems best in the circumstances.
Even given these exceptions though, a Christian should be submissive in disobedience — never seeking to overthrow or subvert the government, but just accepting the consequences with no more than a complaint.
Given all this, he then asks to what extent Paul’s instructions to the Roman Christians in should be followed by Scottish Christians in .
For the most part, he says, the instructions are just as good now as they were then.
However, he cautions that just because Paul could write that the powers that were in “are ordained of God” doesn’t necessarily mean that all of the powers that are in get the same seal of approval.
The powers-that-be then-and-there meant Rome and jurisdictions subservient to Rome.
We shouldn’t overgeneralize from that one case:
[C]ivil government in general is of divine appointment… but as to any particular government being God’s ordinance to any particular individual or nation, that is to be inferred from a variety of circumstances.… The Roman Christians were directly informed that the Roman government was God’s ordinance to them.
We have not the same means of judging of any particular government…
In short: you have to decide for yourself whether the government you’re under (or which of the governments contending for your allegiance) is the legitimate one, ordained of God.
Usually, according to Brown, it’s a no-brainer, and the powers-that-be are ordained of God now as they were then.
The same three classes of exceptions to the general rule of obedience also still apply today, and with these also, it’s up to you and your understanding and your conscience to decide where to draw the line in any particular case:
nobody will become surety for the consequences at the last day, of my doing what I thought wrong, because another with great confidence, but, as appeared to me, little argument, pronounced it to be right.… Man is a responsible being.
His creed, his religion, his actions, are his own: he must answer for them, and therefore it is right he should look after them.
And the same instruction applies today: if you disobey, submissively accept the legal consequences.
Brown takes pains to distinguish civil disobedience of this sort from the “anarchy and bloodshed” of ordinary law-breaking.
The ordinary outlaw breaks the law and attempts to evade the consequences; the civil disobedient sees that under the law “obedience has always an alternative” — that is, the law’s penalty for disobedience — and chooses that alternative in an orderly, “legal” fashion.
This in my mind is a bit of a stretch, but he takes pains to quote the “obedience has always an alternative” bit from a commentary in “a Tory literary journal” to make it seem a conservative legal theory, and perhaps he’s right.
In any case, he insists that someone who is practicing civil disobedience has not thereby become an outlaw or a poor citizen:
He who, when he cannot conscientiously actively obey a command of a government, which he yet in his judgment approves of, as, upon the whole, a good civil government, quietly and patiently takes what he cannot help thinking a wrong, is certainly not a bad subject.
He honours the government by submitting to it, when he cannot obey it.
Brown goes further and says that there are circumstances in which a Christian is justified in not just passively disobeying the authorities but actively resisting them.
He approvingly quotes William Paley, who gives this liberal defense of revolution:
So long as the interest of the whole society requires it; that is, so long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will of God (which will universally determines our duty) that the established government be obeyed, and no longer.
This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability and expense of redress on the other.
This, he says, is the clear right of citizens, and Christians are not called upon by God to give up their civil rights.
If that’s all that Christian submission to the powers-that-be comes down to, thinketh I, the powers-that-be had better watch their backs when there are Christians about.
Having painted this picture of the Christian duty of civil obedience, Brown moves on in part two of his book to look at the particular case of taxation.
I’ll save that for tomorrow.
Some remarks
occasioned by the perusal of John Brown’s
The Law of Christ Respecting Civil Obedience, Especially in the Payment of Tribute
and its various notes and appendices
concerning a nineteenth century flame war largely over matters religious but touching on conscientious objection and the duty of refusing certain taxes
in multiple parts
which is to say: don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Part Two.
In part one of my review, I introduced you to John Brown, a nonconformist Scottish minister who was refusing to pay a tax designated for support of the official government church, and to his interpretation of Romans 13 and the Christian duty of civil obedience it mandates.
Brown moves on in part two of his book to look at the particular case of taxation, and I’ll follow suit in part two of my review.
Brown notes that Paul singled out taxation as a specific example of the way Christians ought to submit to the powers-that-be: “for this cause pay ye tribute also… Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom…”
He says there are historical reasons for this: For one thing, Christians needed to distinguish themselves in Roman eyes from the Zealots, particularly from followers of that other notorious Galilean, Judas (no, not that Judas), who had led a violent tax-related rebellion under the theory that Jews ought not to pay tribute to pagan kings — one which was crushed.
He also notes that the “for this cause pay ye tribute also” phrase can also be accurately translated “for this cause ye pay tribute also” — turning a commandment into a mere description, though I’m not sure this really changes much, given its context, and in any case he is unconvinced that this is the correct rendering.
The gist of the passage, says Brown, was that Christians should voluntarily give whatever tribute was asked of them — neither refusing, trying to evade, or attempting to get away with underpayment — as a matter of moral obligation.
He paraphrases the section of Romans as follows:
Pay tribute, as well as yield obedience, from a regard to the divine authority; for not only are the higher officers of the imperial government to be considered by you as God’s ministers to protect the peaceable and to punish the lawless, but those very contemned and hated publicans are God’s ministers also, and the collection of tribute is the work which he, in his providential arrangements, has assigned them.
You cannot refuse compliance with their lawful demands, without disobeying God: you cannot cheat them, without robbing him.
Paul’s instructions about taxes, writes Brown, “are a reply to the question, Are Christians bound to pay tribute to a government administered by heathens?
And that reply is a very strong affirmative.”
Much as he did in part one, having established the strict general principle, Brown goes hunting for the particular loopholes.
He starts by saying that as taxation is just one of the class of duties of obligatory obedience that Christian citizens must honor, the general case of which he treated in part one, it’s likely that the same three exceptions that applied to the general case there apply to this specific case here.
He notes, however, that many Christians have taken Paul’s emphasis on taxation to mean that taxation in particular has a stricter obligation attached to it.
Brown feels that if Paul indeed meant this, he would have said so explicitly.
If taxpaying is obligatory above and beyond the limits of ordinary civil obedience, this is not because the Bible says so, but must be because of something peculiar about taxation.
And this is where it gets most interesting to me, because he addresses this question, which I’ve wrestled with here from time to time:
[T]here are only two conceivable causes… which could give this idiosyncrasy to this particular form of civil obedience: either that the parting with money is not in itself, properly speaking, a moral act — or, that supposing it to be in itself a moral act, if performed voluntarily, the compulsory nature of the exaction strips it of its morality.
The first of these possibilities — that monetary transactions are by their very nature devoid of moral import — he dispatches quickly.
The second one takes some more work.
I prefer the more pithy version he wrote in a letter-to-the-editor when he was responding to Robert Haldane’s criticism of his tax resistance:
To command a person to employ his property in doing that which, in his estimation, is sinful… to a man of plain common sense seems an act of the same kind as to command him to employ his hands in doing that which, in his estimation, is sinful, and I really think “expedients must be resorted to” [paraphrasing Haldane’s criticism of Brown’s arguments — ♇] in order to persuade him that to comply with the first command is right, while to comply with the last command is wrong.
Here’s how he puts it in the body of his book:
[I]t has been said that the compulsory character of tribute strips it of its moral character in one way, and invests it with a moral character in another.
Here is an object to which I could not voluntarily contribute without sin; but God has given another party authority to impose tribute on me, and he has power to compel me to make payment: so that whatever be the object, I have no concern with it, while, from the divine command, it is my duty to make the required payment.
Now, in the first place, we have to remark here, that in taking for granted that God gives to the magistrate the right to impose tribute for whatever purpose he pleases, the premise is made identical with the conclusion to be drawn from it — a convenient, but not a very reputable mode of arguing; and, in the second place, that compulsoriness is not a quality peculiar to tribute-paying — it belongs to all acts of civil obedience; the very principle of civil government being force.
If a Christian was commanded to pay a tax for the support of idol worship, the very same power that was ready to punish him if he did not do it, was equally ready to be put forth against him for refusing to go to the temple and worship; and if the compulsory nature of the requisition is a good reason for complying with the first, it would be difficult to see why it should not be a good excuse for complying with the second.
If actual absolute force were employed in either case, then indeed the moral character of the acts would be lost, obliterated, destroyed; for in that case the man would cease to be an actor and become a sufferer.
It appears, then, that there is nothing in the nature of tribute, to take it out of the general category of forms of civil obedience; — there is nothing to make the limitation of the precept an impossible thing.
But don’t get too carried away: under this principle, Christians are still required to pay taxes for wise, just, right, and efficient government, as well as for unwise, unequal, and oppressive government.
The duty to refuse to pay a tax is, in Brown’s opinion, rare and narrowly-defined.
He considers the explicit Christian obligation to pay taxes cheerfully to be a blessing, because without it, Christians might be obligated to scrutinize all government expenditures to assure that they were in line with Christian principles before paying up.
Wide, however, as was the sphere of the obligation of tribute-paying, we apprehend that it was by no means unbounded; and its limits were, and indeed must have been, materially the same as the limits of the other forms of civil obedience.
There is nothing arbitrary in the divine constitutions.
They all proceed on great general principles, and any thing that claims to be an exception, requires to produce very satisfactory evidence before its pretensions can be admitted.
That tribute-paying has no sound claims to the distinction of being the only duty of civil obedience which has no limits, will appear, we apprehend, very distinctly as we proceed.
If this law have limits at all, there can be but little doubt, that the payment of a tribute, exacted specifically for an immoral or impious purpose, or generally for a purpose conscientiously disapproved of by him from whom it is exacted, falls beyond these limits.
There is something absolutely revolting to those moral perceptions and feelings, which lie at the very bottom, which form the ima fundamina, of our spiritual nature, in maintaining the opposite opinion.
It is monstrous to suppose that, by any mere human arrangement, not only may what was not duty become duty, and what was not sin become sin; but what was sin become duty, and what was duty become sin.
The principle would need to have strong support that warrants such a conclusion as the following:— voluntarily to have contributed money for defraying the expenses of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, on the part of his disciples, would have been guilt, if possible, fouler than that which makes the name Iscariot the type of all that is base and impious; yet had the Roman authorities imposed a tax on them for this most immoral of all purposes, it would have immediately become their duty cheerfully to pay it.
This is the fair result of the principle.
I have heard of men who, on being made to see this, still held by it.
But such men are beyond the reach of argument.
Here he quotes in a footnote from A Hind let loose, or, an historical representation of the testimonies of the Church of Scotland, which has an interesting-looking section on “The Sufferings of many, for Refuſing to pay the wicked Exactions of the Ceſs, Locality, Fynes &c. Vindicated” (or, in the page headings, “Refusing to pay wicked Taxations vindicated”).
The argument therein encourages the reader to imagine paying taxes to the various tyrants who have oppressed righteous people throughout the ages: would you have voluntarily contributed kindling to the oven in which Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were to be roasted if Nebuchadnezar demanded it?
Would you contribute a thread to the noose for hanging a martyr if that were your tax?
Brown concludes “that had the Roman Christians been required directly to contribute to the support of heathen idolatry, it would have been their duty to refuse compliance.”
He looks at the evidence that perhaps the early Christians indeed had been required to pay such a tax (there is evidence that some time later this may have been the case), but sees also evidence that if this indeed was the case, in fact they did refuse to pay it.
Much of the evidence he cites in this regard he does not deign to translate from the Greek and Latin, and much of the rest indirectly addresses the question at best, so I can’t say much for it.
He does quote from William Cave’s Primitive Christianity: or the Religion of the Ancient Christians in the First Ages of the Gospel () in a letter-to-the-editor in response to Haldane, but this too is third-hand and inconclusive (it’s not certain, for instance, in spite of what Cave says so authoritatively, that Tertullian was speaking of “taxes” to maintain the temples as opposed to just donations and fees charged to worshipers):
Tertullian tells them, that although they refused to pay the taxes rated upon them for maintenance of the heathen temples, yet for all other tributes they had cause to give the Christians thanks for so faithfully paying what was due… they would easily find that the Christians’ denial to pay that one tax was abundantly compensated and made up in their honest payment of all the rest.
At this point, as he did in part one, Brown concludes his analysis of what early Christians understood was their duty regarding Roman taxes, and asks how this should guide modern Christians.
Basically, to no great surprise, he concludes that we should pay our taxes honestly and conscientiously.
He agrees that to evade taxes or to deal in black market goods is equivalent to robbing the public purse.
But still he thinks it is possible that the government may levy a tax that Christians are duty-bound not to pay.
He assembles quotes from several authorities to back him up on this, and then proceeds to try to draw the line over which taxes are unpayable.
“[F]irst… on the clearest principles of moral obligation, we are not — we cannot be bound to pay a tax levied for a specific purpose, if that purpose is immoral or impious…” That is to say that if the government raises a specific tax the revenue from which is designated for specifically immoral spending, a Christian cannot voluntarily pay it.
If the government raises a general tax and just happens to spend the very same amount on the same immoral thing just in the course of its general budgeting, however, the Christian is in the clear, and indeed is duty-bound to pay up in full.
This, you may recall, is much the same conclusion that many Quakers came to about war taxes.
Explicit war taxes should be resisted, but general taxes that paid for a general budget that just happened to include a war were okay.
If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake.
But if any man say unto you, this is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake…
He says that this same technique should apply to scruples about taxation: You don’t have to go out of your way to find out whether your taxes are being spent in sinful ways, when it’s ambiguous or when all the spending is mixed together, but if the ruler tells you explicitly that this is what he’s going to do, you have to draw the line:
[L]et the magistrate demand money of me for the general purposes of government, and I will conscientiously give it him; but if he say, Give me money to do what is impious and immoral, I cannot, without sin, give it, though, without sin, I may suffer it to be taken from me.
He put it better, I think, when he first announced his resistance:
If they to whom the management of the public funds is, by the constitution of the Government committed, misemploy them, that, so far as it is a question of moral responsibility, is more their concern than mine.
But it is obviously otherwise with a tax professedly levied for an object, which I consider as not only impolitic, but unjust, — not only unjust but unscriptural.
For me voluntarily to pay such a tax would be to assist in doing what I believe God disapproves, — it would be in inversion of the inspired maxim, “to obey” man “rather than” God.
Back in the main body of the book, he addresses war taxes specifically, and with a vehemence I found surprising:
On this ground all war taxes, i.e. all taxes for the support of a particular war, are objectionable.
In many cases, wars have been obviously unjust.
In the estimation of some of the best and wisest men the world has ever seen, all wars are necessarily unjust.
I cannot see how any man can consistently pay taxes levied avowedly for the support of an unjust war; and I am sure, a very great part of the subjects of any government are ill fitted to form a true judgment with respect to the character of a particular war.
It is far wiser to impose general taxes: for in proportion as men become more intelligent and more conscientious, the difficulty in obtaining payment for such taxes, as are levied for objects respecting the lawfulness of which doubts are entertained, except by means calculated to make a government odious, will increase.
Perhaps, however, the present system of providing for the expense of belligerent operations, by specific taxes, may be permitted to continue, and the growing difficulty of collecting such taxes may be one of the means to be employed by the Prince of Peace, to put an end to war among mankind.
Now, Brown can get to the meat and potatoes of his argument, which is that Christians ought not to pay taxes that are specifically designated for the support of an official church.
He argues several points simultaneously: that people ought to be Christians and particular church adherents through their own voluntary choice, that the civil authorities ought not to meddle in religious and church matters, and that Christians ought not to pay taxes for the support of state churches.
The latter point is the one that interests me, so I’ll concentrate my summary there.
Brown approvingly mentions the Quakers, who had already come to this conclusion, and who refused to pay mandatory tithes and church-rates to establishment churches.
He quotes the Quaker J.J. Gurney:
[W]henever these demands (tithes and other ecclesiastical imposts) are made on the true and consistent Friend, he will not fail to refuse the payment of them.… nor will he venture, by any action of his own, to lay waste his principle, and to weaken the force of truth, with respect to so important a subject.
Such an action, the voluntary payment of tithes must unquestionably be considered.
This conclusion is by no means affected by the consideration that the payment of tithes is imposed on the inhabitants of this country by the law of the land.… Faithful as Friends desire to be to the legal authorities… as Christians, they cannot render to the law an active obedience in any particular which interferes with their religious duty… [A]lthough they refuse to pay tithes, they oppose no resistance to those legal distraints by which tithes are taken from them.
It is surprising that any persons of reflection should form an opinion (not unfrequently expressed), that there is no essential distinction between these practices, and should assert that the suffering of the distraint, in a moral and religious point of view, is tantamount to the voluntary payment.
The two courses are, in point of fact, the respective results of two opposite principles.
The Friend, who voluntarily pays tithes, puts forth his hand to that which he professes to regard as an unclean thing, and actively contributes to the maintenance of a system which is in direct contrariety to his own religious views.
The Friend, who refuses to pay tithes, but who (without involving himself in any secret compromise) quietly suffers a legal distraint for them, is clear of any action which contradicts his own principles.
Gurney also states (and Brown agrees) that refusing to pay such a mandatory tithe to a government church is not just morally obligatory, but is socially valuable, in that it amplifies a justified protest against an ill-advised entanglement of church & state.
Of the present state of things in Scotland, Brown writes:
…I am sure I do not overstate the truth when I say, that in few questions are the minds of conscientious men at present more painfully interested, than how far they are warranted, by the voluntary payment of church taxes, to contribute to the permanence of an order of things, which they are fully persuaded is inconsistent with the mind of God and the law of Christ Jesus.
The question, Brown says, is whether when someone actively pays such a tax (as opposed to passively refusing), this amounts to the same thing as “to sanction and support that which he accounts to be sinful.”
He believes it certainly does.
There’s another, more mundane sticking point.
The annuity tax that Brown was resisting was a tax on a particular class of property in a particular region of Edinburgh.
This tax inevitably had an effect on the market for such property, in that the property was less valuable to the buyer because of this tax liability that was attached to it, and so the seller of the property could expect to get a lower price for it as a result than he could if there were no such tax.
So is it fair, asked Brown’s critics, for Brown — by resisting the tax — to get 100% of the value of his property, after paying for the property at this discount?
Is it fair that he was able to outbid competing buyers for the property for whom the property was inherently less valuable for having the tax (that Brown refuses to pay) wrapped up in it?
I don’t think this is a great argument, but in any case Brown doesn’t meet it head on so much as he notes that even though he doesn’t pay the Annuity Tax voluntarily, he does end up incurring at least as much financial loss through distraint, which makes the argument moot.
I hear a similar argument raised occasionally about proposed free market reforms today.
For example: the abolition of rent control.
I rent an apartment in San Francisco, which has vast regulations governing the residential rental market.
When I entered into a contract with my landlord to pay him rent in return for a place to live, enmeshed with our explicit contract were all of these legal regulations that formed the background of the deal.
The price we agreed to implicitly included the values of these legal protections and liabilities.
So what would happen if the mayor and county board of supervisors were replaced by a bunch of anarchists who set about abolishing these various regulations in the name of a free market?
Well, on the plus side, the government would no longer be interfering with our freedom to enter into contracts of our own choosing.
On the minus side, the government would be abruptly and dramatically changing the terms of the contract we’ve already entered into.
An interesting conundrum.
Another argument for the annuity tax was that it itself was a variety of rent — that the government, which was more-or-less the final arbiter of property rights in the land — had ceded a portion of a certain class of property to the Church of Scotland, and the Church, via the tax, was just claiming its just return on its property.
This wasn’t very convincing.
If the annuity tax amounted to a rent on property, it was a weird sort of property — no title, no right of sale or transfer, and so forth.
And furthermore, if the State did just up and grant a bunch of property to the Church like that, they should not have, and assuming they had the power to do so, they certainly have the power to undo what they did, which they ought to forthwith.
Brown notes, relying on Duncan Maclaren’s History of the Resistance to the Annuity Tax (), that the current establishment church in Scotland was once in dissent against King Charles Ⅱ’s state church — and that they resisted the Annuity Tax at that time — putting up with the “poinding and rouping” of their property, the quartering of soldiers at the homes of tax resisters, and worse — the government was not averse to using torture and execution against religious dissenters — rather than voluntarily paying.
These he deals with briefly.
The first, he insists, does not give Christians the sort of unquestioning duty to pay all taxes whatsoever that some people think it does.
Christians are to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but what is Caesar’s is an open question, and Caesar may indeed ask for things that belong not to him but to God.
The second episode he sees as evidence that while there is a class of taxes Christians are duty-bound to pay, and a set that Christians are duty-bound to resist, there may also be taxes that are in neither category, that Christians may pay or refuse to pay based only on pragmatic considerations — for instance, a tax that was assessed illegally, or one that is not for the support of civil government but for some crony’s private benefit.
Finally, there’s one additional argument that Brown relegates to an appendix, but which strikes me as worthy of more prominence.
Some of his critics wondered why, since the annuity tax only applied to high-rent properties in a particular part of Edinburgh, Brown didn’t just up and move somewhere else when he discovered that there was an odious tax there.
That way, he’d neither offend the civil powers by refusing to pay a tax, nor offend God by offering up a voluntary tithe to a government church.
Brown is dismissive of this argument:
And is it indeed come to this?
… [I]s a Dissenter, in consequence of holding a conscientious opinion, to be obliged, if he choose the metropolis of Scotland for a residence, to dwell in the suburbs?
It would not be discreditable for any man to take up his residence within the royalty of Edinburgh, with the direct intention of yielding a passive and peaceable resistance to an unjust and injurious impost, if he had the hope, in this way, of doing any thing effectual towards its removal…
(Though in his case, he admits he didn’t move into Edinburgh in order to resist the tax, but for more mundane reasons, and just happened to need to resist.)
Brown addresses two other arguments in his preface:
That a tax, like a debt, ought to be paid simply because it is owed, and not conditionally on how the proceeds are to be spent by the recipient
That arguments for refusing to pay a particular tax because the proceeds will be spent sinfully are arguments that would also apply against a general tax, certain portions of which will be spent sinfully
The first of these arguments Brown says begs the question of whether a tax really is like a debt — do we in fact owe a tax if the tax is being levied for a sinful purpose?
The second he thinks is not the reductio ad absurdum it is made out to be — if his valid arguments against a particular tax are indeed valid arguments also against a general tax, so much the worse for the general tax.
He concludes that:
…every attempt to show that the avowal, on the part of the government, of what appears to me the immoral purpose of a tax, does not affect the moral character of my act of paying it, has completely failed, and must for ever completely fail, while there is a difference between parting with property for what I know to be right, and parting with property for what I know to be wrong.
To part with property is a voluntary act, and no power on earth can make it right in me voluntarily to do what I believe to be wrong.
If it is taken from me for such a purpose, that is the exercise of might not right, and in such a transaction I may innocently be a sufferer, but I cannot innocently be an actor.
Disestablishment he thinks is inevitable and imminent, and he sees ominous signs that it could be a violent break.
(See Disruption of for some notes on the impending conflict.
Today, Scotland still has a national church, but it is substantially more independent of the government.)
Given that, he advocates non-violent civil disobedience like his tax resistance as a way of advancing the dissenter cause without risking violence:
Were all, or were even the great body of the Dissenters in this country, quietly, yet resolutely to refuse to yield support to the ecclesiastical institutions, of which they conscientiously disapprove, following in the peaceful and praiseworthy track of the Friends, the attention of the government and the legislature, would be irresistibly drawn to a subject, which has been but little considered, and is not at all understood by them; and the impossibility of long upholding the present system, would glare on them with an evidence which would persuade them, even against their will, that no time was to be lost in preparing for an approaching event, which, if met unprepared, may have consequences from which all sound-minded, right-hearted men, to whatever religious or political party they belong, would start back with alarm.
Were the Dissenters generally to refuse to pay church taxes, no government which could exist in this country, whether Tory, Whig, or Radical, durst continue from year to year the measures which would be necessary, in this case, to support the Establishments.
They would be obliged practically to repeal the law for their maintenance, so far as Dissenters are concerned, and this would be found equivalent to a dissolution of the connexion of Church and State.
It has been justly observed, that “nothing is so invincible as determined non-compliance.
He that resists by force may be overcome by greater force; but nothing can overcome a calm and fixed determination not to obey.”
Here, he’s quoting from the Quaker Jonathan Dymond’s essay on “Civil Obedience” (which also has an interesting section on non-violent tax resistance I need to dig up and post here some day), circa .
So aside from seeing his particular episode of tax resistance as a moral obligation of his Christian faith in its own right, Brown also saw it as a valuable tactic in his struggle for church/state separation.
As such, he was eager to use the “poinding” (distraint) of his property for tax debts as an opportunity for propaganda.
Here’s a letter-to-the-editor he wrote to try to publicly shame the establishment clergy over accepting tax money stolen from members of other churches:
Sir, — As I was going out this morning, I met, in the lobby, three persons, one of whom informed me, that they were come, to distrain, for the Annuity Tax, civilly apologising for coming on so disagreeable an errand, and assigning as the reason, that the Magistrates had informed them, that if they did not do their work, they must leave their service.
He then asked me if there were any articles which I would prefer being taken rather than others.
I declined availing myself of the choice offered to me; and was about to show them into the dining-room, when he said, looking towards a clock standing in the lobby, “This will serve the purpose.”
On this I left them; but found afterwards, that doubting, I suppose, whether an article, the price of which, a few years ago, was £10, would suffice to pay a charge of £3:3:6, they went into a bed-room and poinded a mirror, valued at about £4, leaving an intimation, that if the tax was not paid within eight days, the articles would be removed and sold.
For various reasons, I am desirous that these facts should be recorded in your columns “in perpetuam memoriam rei” — as an illustration of the true character of the Annuity Tax, and of the moderation and wisdom of its exactors.
While I take joyfully this “spoiling of my goods,” I abhor the injustice and despise the meanness of the system, by one of “the beggarly elements” of which, I am legally robbed of my property; and cannot help thinking, that every unprejudiced and reflecting mind must perceive that there is something very far wrong with that system, which can render it necessary and proper, in the estimation of a number of most respectable and amiable Christian ministers, to employ or (which in a moral point of view is the same thing) to sanction the employment of such measures in reference to another Christian minister, who has no ecclesiastical connexion with them — who never received from them any favour, and never did them any injury, — in order to obtain that maintenance to which, according to the laws of Christ, they are entitled from those who choose to avail themselves of their valuable labours — a body so numerous and wealthy, that I do not see how, without disgrace as well as criminality, they can allow their respected pastors to suffer even temporary inconvenience, from any difficulty, originating in the unequal, illegal, persecuting, and odious character of the impost from which, unhappily for all parties, their income at present is chiefly derived.
Sympathetic dissenters packed the auction room where Brown’s goods were sold to pay his tax debts, as a contemporary news account in The Scotsman tells:
On Wednesday forenoon, a great excitement was occasioned in the city by placards being carried through the streets upon poles, intimating that a sale of goods, poinded from individuals who had refused to pay the Annuity Tax, was to take place at the Weigh House.
Some years having elapsed since any sale of the kind had been attempted, considerable curiosity was evinced to see who, or if any one, would have the hardihood to purchase the goods of their fellow-citizens under such peculiar circumstances.
Purchasers, however, were found.
We need hardly state, that the crowd expressed their feelings pretty audibly both in reference to the general nature of the transaction itself, — the rouping of one minister’s goods for the support of other ministers to whom he was under no obligation, and in reference to the unenviable position in which the purchasers chose to place themselves.
It’s difficult to read, with a complex and sometimes bizarre sentence structure, inconsistent and archaic spelling, references to long-forgotten arguments, and lots and lots of Bible stuff.
So I thought I’d try to take some time and distill some of the more interesting spirit out of the mash.
First, a brief note about the context.
The place: Scotland.
The time: .
The monarchies of the British isles have returned to power after the brief post-civil warCommonwealth period, and among the counterrevolutionary pendulum swings are the return of powerful, hierarchical episcopal churches.
Charles Ⅱ converted to Catholicism on his deathbed, and his successor to Scotland’s throne in , James Ⅶ, was an out-and-out Catholic who believed strongly in the divine right of kings and would lecture you on the subject if you gave him half a chance.
The Covenants that had defended protestantism in Scotland had been unilaterally renounced and declared treasonous by the government, which, under the pretext of increasing religious freedom, had at the same time rescinded laws against Catholicism.
Protestant ministers who refused to submit to the official church hierarchy were reduced to holding their services illegally, under threat of death for all involved, in outdoor “conventicles.”
The government combined harsh measures like imprisonment, torture, and “field executions” with attempts to divide the protestants with small compromises and concessions.
The repression led to increased militancy among the protestant radicals, which included tax resistance, and which also served to divide the movement.
By , the combination of brutality and divide-and-conquer seemed to have worked, as the rebellion had died down, but what do you know, King James ran into a similar sort of religious trouble in England and was overthrown by a protestant and lost the throne of Scotland in the bargain.
In , the Presbyterian church was restored and (ironically considering the disestablishmentarian rhetoric of some of the protestant rebels, including one Alexander Shields, who was not pleased by this) made into the official Church of Scotland, which it remains to this day.
Alexander Shields was a nonconformist minister who, in , when he was about 24, was imprisoned for refusing to take an oath of allegiance.
He eventually submitted to a compromise declaration of non-hostility to King James as a way of getting out of jail, and then came to regret his weakness in doing so.
For expressing this regret in a letter that was intercepted by the authorities, he was reimprisoned.
This time he escaped, and joined up with the radical presbyterian wing.
Soon after, he penned his book, A Hind let looſe, as a defense of this radical wing and a call to renounce all obedience to the episcopal and royal power structure, and had it published under the pseudonym “a Lover of true Liberty” in Holland.
A section of this book is devoted to encouraging tax resistance and refuting the various counter-arguments and excuses people gave against tax resistance.
The phrase “a hind let loose” is a fragment from Genesis 49:21.
The remainder of that verse reads “he giveth goodly words.” Boy doeseth he.
He begins by crediting a “Mr.
McWard & Mr.
Broun” — by whom I believe he means Robert McWard and John Brown — for arguments about the “Cess” of which he plans to “give a short Transumpt & Compend of.” That’s a good thing, because McWard’s & Brown’s arguments have too much “length & prolixitie,” he says.
Too long and prolix for Shields; too long and prolix for me, I think.
In any case, I haven’t found these sources anywhere, and for all I know they may no longer exist.
Shields intends to expand these original arguments against the form of tax
known as the “Cess” to apply also to the various other ways in which subjects
are imposed upon to contribute to the finances of the crown: fines for not
going along with the establishment church, jailer-fees that you had to pay
up for the privilege of being imprisoned, militia-money and something called
“locality.” Some of these taxes were fund-raising measures specifically for
conducting anti-presbyterian repression, and were therefore particularly
hated. But by this point of his book, Shields hopes he has established that
the government as a whole is anti-christian and deserving of outright
opposition on that ground, regardless of particular policies or the purpose
of particular taxes.
These anti-christian aims are all ones, he says, that the government could not accomplish “without the subsidiary Contribution of the peoples help,” and the language of the legislation with which it enacted the Cess proves it.
But Shields finds that among his presbyterian peers, many recommended paying the tax, and many others who knew better than to pay it decided to keep their resistance quiet, and thereby encouraged other people to pay who assumed that if there were anything wrong with paying more folks would speak up about it.
That being the case, he commits to setting forth a rigorous argument for
tax resistance, first conceding some points (with caveats), then asking some
pointed questions, and then setting forth his arguments in favor of tax
resistance.
His concessions are a set of acknowledgments of conditions under which Christians and citizens ought to pay taxes:
Like it says in Romans 13, Christians should pay tribute and
custom to those to whom they are due. This includes salaries to ministers,
fines for law-breaking, and jailer-fees, which should be paid like any
legitimate debts. But it certainly does not include “Tyrants Exactions,
enacted & exacted for promoving their wicked designs against Religion
& Liberty; Hirelings Salaries, for encouraging them in their intrusions
upon the Church of God; Arbitrary Impositions of pecuniary punishments for
clear Duties; And extorted hirings, of the subordinate instruments of
Persecuters oppressions.”
You should pay what is assessed “by Law or Contract” even if the recipient
of the money later uses the money for “pernicious ends.” But if the tax is
being raised for specific and express “wicked ends,” that’s another thing
entirely from taxes designed for the public good but then misused. For this
reason, it’s not a good argument to say that we always used to pay our
taxes before, even though we knew that much of the money was misused.
Things are different now that abuse is the very purpose the money is being
raised for.
Even an originally illegal tax can become legitimized by a “dedition or
voluntary engagement legally submitted unto by the true Representatives”
after the fact. But until that happens, it’s not lawful to pay the tax. He
compares the condition of the presbyterians to those of the Israelites
under conquerers, in contrast to the condition of subjects of a
representative government. But here he feels the need to answer critics who
would say that the early Christians paid their taxes cheerfully to the
Tyrant in Rome based on their understanding of Jesus’s teachings, the
answer to which he gives in four parts:
When Jesus gave the “Render unto Caesar” koan, “He left the Title
unstated, and the Claim unresolved, whether it belonged to Cesar or
not, and taught them in the general to give nothing to Cesar with
prejudice to what was Gods; which condemns all the Payments we speak
of, which are all for carrying on the War against God.”
At that time, Caesar was not a tyrant or usurper, because “they”
had already accepted the caesarian governments as legitimate.
When Jesus paid the tribute money, he did so “lest He should offend,”
but today “the offense & scandal lyeth upon the other hand, of
paying the Exaction.”
It’s blasphemous to think that Christ would have paid or permitted
to be paid a tax that was “professedly imposed for levying a War
against Him, or banishing Him and His Disciples out of the Land; Or
to fill the mouths of the greedy Pharisees, devouring widowes houses,
for their pretense of long Prayers; Or that He would have payed or
suffered to pay their Extortions, if any had been exacted of Him, or
His Disciples, for His Preaching, or working Miracles; Or if help or
hire had been demanded, for encouraging those that rose to stone Him
for His good deeds.”
It’s okay to pay some money to government extortioners if that’s the cost
of preserving more of your property, “when it is extorted only by force
& threatenings, and not exacted by Law; when it is a yeelding only to
a lesser suffering, and not a consenting to a Sin to shift suffering.”
He resists the idea that we can analogize taxation and highway robbery
in this way. Although he agrees with the assumption behind the analogy,
“that instead of righteous Rulers, we are under the power, and fallen
into the hand of Robbers,” he says that for the analogy to hold true,
the highway robber would have to not just demand money from you but
demand it for the express purpose of using the money to murder your
family and worse. “Whether then shall I, by giving the Robber that part
which he seeks, enable him to do all these mischiefs? Or by refusing,
expose myself to the hazard of being robbed or slain? Let the Conscience
of any man answer this…”
It’s okay “passively by forcible constraint to submit to” “wicked
Sentences, as impose these burdens” so long as you’re not doing so as
a form of obedience. He uses the analogy of a condemned prisoner choosing
to walk to the gallows rather than be dragged there kicking and screaming.
But then he notes that every presbyterian who attended an illegal
conventicle is under sentence of death, and nobody is suggesting they
go turn themselves in: shall they “fall under the reproach, that being
sentenced to die, they scrupled forsooth, yea refused to go on their oun
legs to the Gibbet”? If it comes down to a walk-to-the-gallows or
be-dragged-kicking-and-screaming situation, “its wholly the Suffering of
a Captive” in either case and doesn’t have much moral import. Shields
grants that it’s fine for a person to “suffer patiently the spoiling of
his goods” if that’s the penalty for tax resistance.
It’s okay if you are on the horns of a dilemma where you have no choice
but to choose between two evils to choose the lesser one. But be careful,
and don’t try to use this as an excuse to avoid suffering by participating
in evil. If you were to use this logic to pay your taxes, saying that’s
better than the consequences, you would be shunning the lesser evil of
suffering, “but the evil done to shun this, is real and active
Concurrence, in manner, measure, & method, enjoyned by Law, in
strengthening the hands of those who have displayed a banner against all
the Lovers of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Be wary, for “the flesh is not
only ready to inculcate that Doctrine, spare thy self, but is…
witty of invention to plead for what will affourd ease.” Indeed, it’s
safer to err on the side of suffering.
“But shunning prolixity,” says Shields, he moves on to a set of suppositions and questions:
Remember that episode when Jesus and his disciples were out on a boat and they all freaked out because it got stormy, and he was like, “chill,” and calmed the waters, and they were like “whoa”?
Well, imagine if Herod or Pilate had been there and said “let’s sink that boat!”
And they raised a tax to pay off the soldiers who were engineering the boat-sinking,
and to pay off the Pharisees who were telling everyone it was the right
thing to do, and to pay the jailers who captured any survivors or tax
refusers, and issued fines to people who wouldn’t help… “In this Case
would, or durst any of the Lovers of Jesus comply with any of these
demands?” Well, gosh darn it, Jesus is in a leaky boat right here in
Scotland, and the government is doing its best to sink that boat, so
what are you going to do about it?
Would Israel have put up with paying a tax to Saul for the express
purpose of paying off Doeg or the Ziphims to hunt down David and the
Lord’s priests? What about you, as a dissenter? What if the government
came to you and demanded money or supplies so that it could go out and
murder some presbyterian minister and his flock? What would you do?
Choose sin rather than affliction? Do evil that some good may come of
it?
Would the godly have paid taxes to support pagan human sacrifice? The
current regime of Scotland is doing nothing worse.
What if Nebuchadnezzar commanded that all Jews submit a handful of
kindling to stoke the fire to burn Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago — would the faithful have done it? What if a faithful ambassador of
Christ was condemned and the law commanded everyone in the nation to
send a thread with which to make a noose to hang him and a farthing
to pay the executioner: “Can any man, without horrour, think of complying
so far as to contribute what is commanded? Or would not a Gracious man,
frighted into an abhorrence at the attrociousness of the wickedness, or
fired into a flame of zeal for God, say without demur, as not daunted,
with fear of what flesh could do unto him, I will rather venture my All
to keep them alive, or be hanged with them, than by doing what is
demanded be brought forth & classed in the cursed & cruel Company
of those who shall be dragged before the Tribunal of Christ, with their
fingers dyed & dropping with the blood of those who are peculiarly
dear to Him?”
The gist of these evocative examples is that in cases like these, you need to look at three things:
The preciousness of what is to be destroyed by what the government is
funding
The extent to which it is our consent and support that makes it possible
to accomplish these evil designs
The obligations that we are under not only to withhold this support, but
to preserve and maintain ourselves in opposition to Satan and his helpers,
to the death if necessary, in order to keep some remnant of good alive for
posterity
With that out of the way, we can finally get to Shields’s arguments in favor of tax resistance:
If you were to pay your taxes, you would be disrespecting the contendings
and sufferings of those who have refused to pay them, both recently and
at similar times throughout Christian history. He cites a number of
authorities and examples on this point. He also cites Calvin on the
question of whether a subsequent property owner can have a just claim
to property that had been previously seized and transferred by the
government unjustly, determining that not only can no such claim be
legitimate but that the new property owner participates in the injustice
to the extent that his pretense of ownership “shall carry the narrative”
that the forfeiture was legitimate.
“[T]o pay is all the consent & Concurrence required of us to entail
slaverie on the posterity.”
If those Exactions be wicked, then Complyance with them must be iniquity: For it justifies the Court that enacts & exacts them, a pacqued Juncto of a prevalent faction, made up of perjured Traitors, in a Course of enmity against God, and the Country, who to prosecute the War against the Almighty, and root out all His people out of the Land, condescend upon these Cesses, Fynes, &c. as a fit & adapted Medium thereunto.
Wherefore, of necessity all that would not oune that Conclusion, as their oun deed, in these Representatives, and oune them as their Representatives in that deed, must bear witness against the same, by a Refusal, to oune the debt, or pay the same.
The express reasons why the government is raising these taxes is to
conduct its war against the true Christianity and its practitioners.
If you comply with the means, you comply with the ends. What of the
argument that some of the taxes may be necessary for other, more
beneficial, expenses, like guarding the nation against foreign invasion?
Bah. The government is as bad as if we had already been conquered by
a foreign invasion, so that excuse won’t do.
The actual nature of tax payments is that they are deliberate compliances
with evil. The argument that they are merely helpless submissions to force
fails — in effect, they are acknowledgments that the existing power is
a legitimate one. Obedience to such unjust laws can no more be justified
than the laws themselves. (Here he tosses out a number of old testament
examples.)
When in fact the government does extort money “only as badges of bondage”
without any pretense of seeking acknowledgment as having legal right to
obedience and legitimacy, then such a case is “more suitable for
lamentation than Censure.” But my answer to people who say that in the
present case “that they are constrained to it, and they do it against
their will” is this:
Don’t try to have it both ways: if you acknowledge the taxing
government as your government, by voluntarily paying up, don’t
then claim that you aren’t responsible because you were forced.
The only voluntariness the law requires is obedience, and the only
involuntariness it recognizes is disobedience. By the law’s own
standard, tax payment is voluntary.
The decision of whether or not to pay involves deliberation and
election, two sufficient components of voluntary action. Try this
analogy on for size: the law in Deuteronomy regarding rape took
pains to distinguish a real rape from the case of a woman who was
falsely claiming rape so as not to get her ass stoned to death for
adultery. So, to prove rape, the woman “must not only be supposed
to strugle & resist the attempt made upon her chastitie &
honour by the villain; but she must cry for assistence in that
resistence, without which she is held in Law willingly to consent to
the committing of that wickedness.” Furthermore, she should
afterwards “complain & cry, and crave Justice against” her
attacker “and be wanting in nothing, that may bring him to condign
punishment.” Shields says the analogy holds. If you really believe
that you have been forced against your will to give up your property
purely because of the threat of violence, then you should act like
someone who has been violated and who is hungry for justice. If you
just go about your business, it looks a lot like you were consenting
all along.
Not only is taxpaying effectively consent, but worse, it is also “a
Concurrence to assist them, and a strengthening their hands in”
wickedness. Taxpayers who contribute to this government are like the
Israelites who gathered their earrings together to melt down to make a
golden calf. “For as they cannot accomplish their cursed ends without
these Exactions, so the payment of them, is all the present, personal,
& publick Concurrence in wageing this war with Heaven, that is
required of the Nation.”
Not only is taxpaying consent, not only is it concurrence, but it is
“a hire & reward for their wicked service.” The “hire” distinction
was lost on me, but seems to have been an important hook on which to hang
a new set of Old Testament episodes and injunctions. The consent,
concurrence, hire progression is making taxpaying seem ever more like
an offensive sin of commission, and less like a simple failure to
recognize and accomplish some difficult act of righteousness.
Not only do we, as I have demonstrated, have a duty not to commit evil
by paying these taxes, but we also have an active duty to do good by
resisting these taxes. We have an obligation to rescue our
brethren, to relieve the oppressed, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to
undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every
yoke. Resisting these taxes is part of fulfilling this duty.
The Covenant that previously governed the nation had a clause that
invited the Curse of God down upon us in case of a breach of the Covenant.
That breach having happened, anyone who concurs with the government that
is currently operating in violation of the Covenant is putting themselves
in terrible danger. If you’re giving your material support to the
usurpers, rather than showing yourself to be willing to sacrifice life
and property to defend the Covenant and the Interest of Christ it
represents, then you’re on the losing team, loser. If on the day you
agreed to the Covenant you had been asked whether you would have been
willing to pay a Cess or other tax to powers determined to destroy it,
what would you have said?
In order not to be guilty of assisting in this evil all around us, I
must give a testimony — not just words, but “at least a plain
& positive Refusing to yeeld obedience to that Law… for I must
either obey and be guilty, or refuse and be innocent.” What about this
testimony?
Can anything less free me of the guilt?
When God gets around to rooting out this wickedness, He’ll ask you
if you’ve got your testimony handy before deciding which pile to
put you in.
There’s no time like the present, as “Christ is openly opposed, and
every one is called either to concur or testifie”.
Shouldn’t such testimony be open and public? “[F]or my Testimony
must make it evident that the Law is not obeyed by me, else it is
no Testimony.”
Shouldn’t it be, in “plainness & boldness” proportionate to
“the prodigiousness of that wickedness testified against?”
It isn’t enough just to state your opposition once, but you must
persist in it so as not to weaken the opposition by a later
acquiescence.
The righteous Judge will pass sentence according to such Testimony.
You should give Testimony now as if you were standing before the
Judge in the hour of judgment.
The only way to Testify against the current wicked order of things is
to refuse to comply. This is a clear duty, and has many advantages to
counteract the supposed disadvantages. It’s a “shameful subterfuge” to
say that by resisting taxes, you’ll end up actually giving more money
to the government in the end (since they’ll seize more to penalize the
refusal). In such a case, you contribute only your suffering, not your
sin, to the cause of wickedness, and in doing so you hurt their cause:
As much as I can, I counteract their design. Besides the great
value of being at peace with my conscience, I enlist myself on
the side of good and assist in good’s eventual triumph.
By my example, I encourage others to stand fast and resist.
“I hereby transmit to Posterity a Pattern for imitation, and so
propagate an opposition to this Course to succeeding
generations.”
I encourage God to come to us to plead his cause and take vengeance
against our foes.
If I comply, it wounds my faith and weakens my confidence and makes
me weaker at other times when I have to wrestle with temptation or
take a strong stand.
If you act for God’s sake, or suffer for God’s sake, even if you
die trying, you’ve struck a powerful blow.
By paying these taxes, you contribute to laying down obstacles that
get in the way of other people who are trying to be righteous.
Potential backsliders among us are looking to our example. Faithful
resisters need to be comforted and strengthened and given confidence
by people who believe they are doing the right thing. Those who come
after us will also look to our examples, and we’d like to be remembered
as a righteous generation worth being used as role models, rather than
forcing them to reach into misty myths to find their heroes. Pity us
if God decides we’d be most useful as an example of what not to do.
Some bits and pieces from here and there:
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee is keeping tabs on upcoming “tax day” () actions around the country. Take a look to see what’s going on in your neck of the woods.
C-SPAN has made its archives available on-line, including this video of the “Day Without The Pentagon” rally in featuring Clare Hanrahan of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee at about the 67:40 mark.
“Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You
overwhelmed me,” wrote Gandhi. “It left an abiding impression on me.”
Ammon Hennacy wrote: “I felt that it must have been written especially for me,
for here was the answer already written out to all the questions that I had
tried to figure out for myself…”
Gandhi went on to read more of Tolstoy’s works on nonviolence, and began to
develop his own implementations of ahimsa (non-harm) and
satyagraha (truth-force) at a place he called “Tolstoy Farm”
in South Africa. Hennacy adopted a life of voluntary poverty and tax
resistance “as I had learned them from Tolstoy and the
Catholic Worker.”
The book is the most influential work of
Christian
anarchism, and would probably be considered the founding work of that
tradition if it didn’t itself claim to merely be pointing out Christian
anarchism as the plain meaning of the gospels.
I added many links so that when Tolstoy mentions events and personalities from
the end of the 19th century that are no longer
common knowledge, or he references Bible verses or quotes from other works,
you can more-easily figure out what he was getting at.
I’ve also made a few changes to Leo Wiener’s translation: modernizing and
Americanizing spelling, putting Tolstoy’s footnotes in-line in bracketed
sections, correcting some unfortunate translation decisions (calling Ivan the
Terrible “John Ⅳ,” overliterally translating Nicene Creed into the Nicene
“Symbol,” referring to icons as “images,” and so forth), and when I could find
the original sources for things in English that Tolstoy quoted but that Wiener
translated back to English from Tolstoy’s Russian translations I have replaced
these with the originals.
You’d rather I summarize it for you?
It is hard to do justice to the book by a quick summary, but I’ll give it a
shot.
Tolstoy argues that Christianity as it currently exists in the form of
doctrines, church institutions and hierarchies, and ritual practices, is
anti-Christian. Not just that it happens to be anti-Christian because these
things have become corrupt (though they have) but because Christ explicitly
told his followers to reject doctrines, church institutions and hierarchies,
and ritual practices, and instead to love truth, to honor God, and to treat
all people as your family and as you would want to be treated.
This intuitive and simple message, which Jesus made explicit in the gospels,
ought to be the lodestone of all of our lives, and indeed the progress of
society throughout human history is leading us in this direction as truth
slowly erodes away falsehood.
An inevitable conclusion of the command to treat all people as your family and
as you would want to be treated is that the current political order is
unsupportable. You cannot participate in the political system, which is based
on the use of violence to enforce the separation of people and the privileging
of some people over others, and at the same time follow the guideline to love
your neighbor.
Everybody ought to work to orient their lives along true Christian lines
immediately (without waiting for the world to be “ready” for it). This means
ending all support of and participation in government, for instance as a
soldier, an office-holder, a juror, or a taxpayer. And it also means
renouncing any privileges that the government implicitly defends by violent
means (such as private property).
What did I think of it?
I am not a Christian. That Jesus said this or the gospels say that, to me does
not constitute an argument for a course of action. Tolstoy’s interpretation of
Jesus’s message is attractive in some ways, but does not convince me as being
so clearly the best and most accurate summation of what Jesus had to say
(though it strikes me as much less preposterous than most of Christianity then
or now). When I read the gospels, Jesus seems to me to be saying something
like:
There is nothing in this world — family, honor, riches, even knowing where
your next meal is coming from — that matters even a little bit compared to
devoting yourself entirely to God, since I will be coming back to earth on
the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory, sending my angels with a
loud trumpet call to gather my elect from the four winds, from one end of the
heavens to the other, and putting an end to everything and ushering in
something entirely new within your lifetime.
This makes questions of worldly ethics a sideshow at best, and may explain why
people have so much difficulty trying to get a consistent worldly ethics,
applicable to our situation today, from the gospels (Jesus never intended to
develop one).
Jesus also didn’t come back on the clouds of the sky,
etc.,
etc., like he said
he would, which to me means that we do need to create a worldly
ethics after all and that Jesus is unlikely to be of much help to us in this
regard.
So while Tolstoy thought of himself as explaining the clear teachings of
Christ to people who wanted to follow those teachings, I think of Tolstoy as
explaining to us what worldly ethics he thinks the wisest person he
can think of would have naturally taught. This is the Gospel of Tolstoy, and
as such it is interesting even to a non-Christian.
The Birds & The Bees
One of my favorite parts of the book is when Tolstoy explains why he thinks
small, individual, conscientious actions are important in creating large-scale
social changes:
In their present condition men are like bees which have just swarmed and are
hanging down a limb in a cluster. The position of the bees on the limb is
temporary, and must inevitably be changed. They must rise and find a new home
for themselves. Every one of the bees knows that and wishes to change its
position and that of the others, but not one is able to do so before the
others are going to do so. They cannot rise all at once, because one hangs
down from the other, keeping it from separating itself from the swarm, and so
all continue to hang. It would seem that the bees could not get out of this
state, just as it seems to worldly men who are entangled in the snare of the
social world-conception. But there would be no way out for the bees, if each
of the bees were not separately a living being, endowed with wings. So there
would also be no way out for men, if each of them were not a separate living
being, endowed with the ability of acquiring the Christian concept of life.
If every bee which can fly did not fly, the rest, too, would not move, and
the swarm would never change its position. And as one bee need but open its
wings, rise up, and fly away, and after it a second, third, tenth, hundredth,
in order that the immovable cluster may become a freely flying swarm of bees,
so one man need but understand life as Christianity teaches him to understand
it, and begin to live accordingly, and a second, third, hundredth, to do so
after him, in order that the magic circle of the social life, from which
there seemed to be no way out, be destroyed.
But people think that the liberation of all men in this manner is too slow,
and that it is necessary to find and use another such a means, so as to free
all at once; something like what the bees would do, if, wishing to rise and
fly away, they should find that it was too long for them to wait for the
whole swarm to rise one after another, and should try to find a way where
every individual bee would not have to unfold its wings and fly away, but the
whole swarm could fly at once wherever it wanted. But that is impossible: so
long as the first, second, third, hundredth bee does not unfold its wings and
fly, the swarm, too, will not fly away or find the new life. So long as every
individual man does not make the Christian life-conception his own, and does
not live in accordance with it, the contradiction of the human life will not
be solved and the new form of life will not be established.
I also found interesting his discussion of the “intoxication of servility” — what happens when, by submitting to the orders of an authority figure, you
become capable of doing things that your conscience would normally not permit
you to do. (Several times before at The Picket Line I
have referred to Hannah Arendt’s ponderings about this temptation and its
consequences and to the Milgram Experiment and its theory of the “agentic
state.”) Tolstoy sees the intoxication of servility as the flip-side of the
intoxication of power — if you feel yourself to be occupying a role that gives
you authority over other people, this has the same intoxicating, morally
enfeebling, and disastrous effects as does feeling yourself to be occupying a
role in which you are obeying and carrying out orders.
To Tolstoy, much of the evil in the world is done by people who have become
blinded by the hierarchical roles they inhabit, and it doesn’t really matter
where in the hierarchy the roles put you. When you feel you are enacting a
role in a hierarchy rather than fulfilling the common responsibilities of an
equal human being, you become willing to do things to other people that you
would never do to them if you saw them as a member of the human family whose
needs were as worthy of respect as anyone else’s.
I always appreciate Tolstoy’s witty mockery of liberal pretensions, and this
book has a particularly good analogy. He spends some time reviewing the
proclamations, propositions, declarations, denunciations, petitions, and
recommendations of various international peace conferences, and says:
When I was a little fellow, I was assured that to catch a bird it was just
necessary to pour some salt on its tail. I went out with the salt to the
birds, and immediately convinced myself that, if I could get near enough to
pour the salt on a bird’s tail, I could catch it, and I understood that they
were making fun of me.
It is the same that must be understood by those who read books and pamphlets
on courts of arbitration and disarmament.
If it is possible to pour salt on a bird’s tail, this means that it does not
fly, and that there is no need of catching it. But if a bird has wings and
does not want to be caught, it does not allow any one to pour salt on its
tail, because it is the property of a bird to fly. Even so the property of a
government does not consist in being subjected, but in subjecting, and a
government is a government only in so far as it is able, not to be subjected,
but to subject, and so it strives to do so, and can never voluntarily
renounce its power; but the power gives it the army, and so it will never
give up the army and its use for purposes of war.
A little clumsy, in translation anyway, but a good analogy. I see a lot
of these salting-the-bird’s-tail proposals from liberal peaceniks today.
Quaker war tax resistance took some time to evolve out of Quaker pacifism.
Here’s an anecdote about Thomas Story dating from around :
“Well,” said [The earl of Carlisle to Thomas Story], “you don’t like our ministers; but after all, I think you want but one thing to make you a very complete people; that is, to bear arms. Pray what would have become of this whole nation t’other day when the Spaniards were coming to invade us, if we had all, or the greatest part, been of your religion?
No doubt we should all have been destroyed or enslaved.”
To this I answered, it was upon this very political consideration that the Jews crucified Christ; for as he had raised Lazarus from the dead, it greatly awakened the people concerning him, and many believed in him; insomuch that the rulers began to fear, that if he continued to preach his doctrines among the people, and work miracles, the body of the people would follow him: and the consequence of that would be, the state would not have soldiers or people enough to defend them against their enemies: For as it was prophesied that, under the new covenant, “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; and that nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more:” So Christ being the Mediator of that covenant, preached doctrines conducing to that end: “Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you; pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.”
And, to take away all suspicion of any disloyalty to Cæsar, or danger of the state from his kingdom (which was their pretense against him), he said to Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world: for if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight…” … Now, Christ laying the foundation of such a kingdom, which is not of the world, though in the world, and declaring his subjects will not fight, it is in this kingdom, which is a kingdom of righteous, truth, and peace, in which the prophecy before mentioned is begun to be fulfilled; and of this kingdom Christ himself, the Prince of righteousness and peace, is only King, Ruler, and Lawgiver; and which no way interferes with the kingdoms of this world: For as Christ himself, being born a Jew, and they, at that time, subject, in some sort, to the Romans, paid tribute to Cæsar, and thereby giving an example to all his disciples, in all countries and states, and in all future ages, as well as that time: so the disciples of Christ, though they may not fight, they pay taxes and tribute to civil states…
…[T]he earl… heard me with great patience and candor, and then replied, “Tis true,” said he, “so long as you behave peaceably, are loyal to the government, and pay your taxes, as you do, I think, when all’s done, there is not an absolute necessity for your personal service in war, since his majesty may always have soldiers enough for money, as he may have occasion.”
True, said I, and there are but few, in comparison of the whole body of the people, that serve personally in war; and without all doubt, volunteers, of all others, are fittest for that service; where no man jeopards his life but by his own consent, choice, and inclination, and has no man to blame but himself in the consequences of it, with respect either to body or soul, since both may be in hazard, as men may be stated in such undertakings.
This is from Nathaniel Richardson’s Conversations, Discussions, and Anecdotes of Thomas Story (), pages 314–18.
Were I a Canadian, I would be embarrassed to find my country’s judges relying on United States court precedents for their cases.
I might also be a little alarmed to find judges conducting bible study from the bench, especially if I caught them truncating Jesus’s “Render unto Caesar…” bit half way through in order to make a rhetorical point.
The Tax Court of Canada has ruled that taxpayers can’t refuse to pay taxes to be used for military purposes.
The ruling by Mr. Justice Guy Tremblay released on means that Dr. Jerilynn C. Prior of Vancouver must pay the federal government the $1,675.58 she refused to pay on her taxes.
Prior, a Quaker, agreed that she owed the government $15,957.87 for that tax year but withheld 10.5 per cent on grounds of conscience.
She said that 10.5 per cent of the federal budget was used for military purposes.
“As a person of conscience who would refuse to fight in a war on moral and religious grounds, I also refuse to pay for war on the same grounds,” she wrote the government.
“My Constitution allows me freedom of conscience.”
She sent the amount instead to the Peace Tax Fund, which was started in by Edith Adamson of Victoria.
Tremblay noted that , 315 taxpayers had deposited $85,000 in the Peace Tax Fund rather than have it used for military purposes.
The judge said that even if Prior’s freedom of conscience was infringed by the way the taxes are used, “it is the court’s opinion that the Canadian tax system, which is required to collect money to provide for the needs of the nation, which include its defence, would be a reasonable limit that must be imposed in a free and democratic society.”
He rooted his decision in a U.S. case in which a member of the Old Amish religion objected to paying social security taxes on grounds his religion forbade him to pay for or accept such benefits.
In that ruling the United States Supreme Court said some religious practices must “yield to the common good” in a cosmopolitan country where almost every conceivable religion is practised.
Tremblay quoted the following passage from the U.S. ruling:
“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.
“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.”
Tremblay agreed with the U.S. court that “religious belief in conflict with the payment of taxes affords no basis for resisting the tax.”
He said he doubts that payment of the military tax is “against the spirit of Christ,” as Prior claimed.
The judge quoted Jesus’s advice to the Pharisees: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.” He quoted St. Paul to the same effect.
“Jesus and Paul, as citizens of Judah, could not ignore that an important part of the Roman Empire’s budget was used for military purposes,” Tremblay said.
Cheryl Vickers, Prior’s lawyer, said in an interview Monday her client has three months to decide whether to appeal the ruling.
And the irony of the judge relying on that particular Supreme Court decision is that the United States government did eventually accommodate the conscientious objection of Mennonites who wanted to remain outside of the Social Security system — thus proving that it was neither impossible nor too daunting for the government to make exceptions for conscientious objectors in the tax code, contra the court’s finding.
He thinks that many of the more extreme and difficult-to-swallow parts of the gospels are meant to be taken seriously: that the rich really should sell what they have and give the money to the poor, that Christians should hold everything in common and treat everyone as a brother or sister, that you should love your enemies, that you can have faith that God will provide for your needs.
He tries to live as though that were all good advice, and has helped to invent a sort of new, urban, service-oriented, community-focused, quasi-monasticism and evangelism, a bit in the Catholic Worker mode.
Pursuing the “give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for life” proverb, he writes:
“We give people fish. We teach them to fish.
We tear down the walls that have been built up around the fish pond.
And we figure out who polluted it.”
The book is very much about what it means, or ought to mean, to be a Christian, and what form the Christian church ought to take.
As a non-believer (to me, Christianity seems pernicious balderdash), I lacked the foundation necessary to appreciate much of this.
That said, if Christianity were as Claiborne describes, it really would be a nice thing to have around, so I wish him luck.
Why does a nonbeliever like me end up poring through the writings of Christian seekers like
Martin Luther King,
Kierkegaard,
Tolstoy,
Ammon Hennacy, Augustine,
Pierre Ceresole, and Shane Claiborne?
At their best, such Christian writers have a desperate urgency to sculpt their lives according to their highest ideals, something that is rare enough in Christian circles but rarer still, it seems, in the secular world.
In this way they can be pathfinding or pathmaking and worth paying close attention to even if you don’t share their faith.
Most Christianity I come across seems to be of two varieties: the church as a
social club and the church as a comfortable validation of the congregation’s
superiority. You go to church because that is where your friends and business
associates and parents of your children’s friends go; or you go there to get
fed the comfortable bullshit that confirms you’re on the right team and have
the divine blessing for the life you wanted to live anyway. But then
occasionally Christians like Hennacy, Ceresole, and Claiborne pop up who don’t
fit in these categories but seem to be genuinely in awe of their God,
challenged and compelled and frightened by the task ahead of them, and eager
to learn how to get right even if taking Jesus at his word is uncomfortable
and unpopular in the pews.
Amongst secular activists the same division seems to hold — but how few people
fall in that small third category! Maybe this is partially because there are
more Christians out there, so the small slice of that bigger pie looks bigger.
But I think also there is more of a tradition of this sort of all-in
transformation in Christianity, and also more structure to nurture it:
Christians who are on a path of radically transforming their lives form
communities of encouragement and mutual criticism and guidance — secular
people on a similar path are usually on their own.
In , a vigorous debate about war tax resistance hit the pages of the Friends’ Intelligencer.
You can find most of this in Volume ⅩⅩ at Google Books… with the exception of the opening article in the debate.
The two pages that contain that article are tantalizingly missing from the on-line volume.
I had to delve into the microfilm in the basement of the Berkeley university library this morning to find it.
First, some context: on , two years into the American Civil War, U.S. President Lincoln signed the Enrollment Act, which organized the first federal military draft in U.S. history.
The Friends’ Intelligencer debate is prompted by this Act, which allowed drafted men to either hire a substitute or to buy themselves out of the draft for $300. The long-standing Friends “discipline” instructed Quakers never to pay such a commutation tax, but, of course, neither could they serve in the military or hire a substitute.
Nathaniel Richardson, who was about 23-years-old at the time, opened the debate (he’s referred to as “N.R.” — “our friend from Byberry”).
The Intelligencer knew they were stirring up a hornets’ nest, and so prefaced Richardson’s piece with an introductory paragraph reading “The subject here brought into view… may be considered as a disputed point, and in giving this essay a place, we of course open our pages to other friends who may feel it right to offer their sentiments.”
I’ll reproduce the whole of Richardson’s argument below (since you can’t find it anywhere else on-line), but I’ll try to briefly summarize it here first:
I acknowledge that there is a Quaker testimony against paying war taxes and commutation money, but this tradition that we have been handed down from our ancestors is unsuited to the present crisis where we are surrounded by difficulties unknown in former times.
Past generations could uphold the testimony against paying war taxes and commutation money without encountering much serious difficulty aside from distraint of property or occasional imprisonment.
Now, though, Quakers who refuse to pay or to fight risk being shot as deserters.
So Quakers ought to closely examine their discipline and make sure it is strictly necessary to uphold their principles.
I think we can abandon this practice without violating our principles.
When the government demands money from us, they are asking for something — property — that is a creation of government.
It is the government’s to bestow or to demand just as surely as the coin with Cæsar’s image on it belonged to Cæsar.
If the government were to ask us to act in violation of our consciences, it would be overstepping its bounds, but not if it merely asks for the return of the property that it superintends.
Some Quakers argue that to pay money in lieu of military service would be a tacit agreement that the government has a right to compel such service (and that such an agreement is itself a violation of our peace testimony).
But this isn’t good reasoning, since, for instance, when somebody settles a lawsuit out of court by paying some portion of the suit’s demand just in order to avoid the expense going to court, nobody insists that this necessarily means that the lawsuit was valid.
Similarly there’s no contradiction between paying the $300 in order to avoid military service and believing that you shouldn’t have to pay to avoid military service.
In the following issue, “W.G.” wrote in to chide the Intelligencer for calling this “a disputed point,” since it was a firmly-settled part of the Quaker discipline that Quakers could not “either openly or by connivance pay any fine, penalty, or tax in lieu of personal service for carrying on war.”
The render-unto-Caesar episode, thinks W.G., doesn’t fit the case, since it did not involve a tax in lieu of personal service or one expressly for funding war.
, “H.S.K.” wrote in to dispute Richardson’s characterization of property as being solely an arbitrary creation of government and therefore the government’s to dispose of as it wills.
H.S.K. argues that since it is easy to come up with examples in which the government enforces property rights justly or unjustly, there must be a law of justice regarding property ownership that precedes and supersedes the arbitrary decisions of government.
Property may be defended (or threatened) by government, but it is not invented by government.
Because of this, Richardson must be wrong when he says that government requests for money are not questionable on grounds of justice.
My money, says H.S.K., “is an instrument of power just as certainly as is my right arm,” and I’m responsible for how I use that instrument.
H.S.K. also disputes Richardson’s lawsuit-settling analogy, saying that settling a lawsuit to avoid the expense of a court battle is a qualitatively different decision than paying a commutation tax to purchase a substitute to fight a war in your place, because avoiding expenses is a morally neutral thing while purchasing a substitute is not.
“What would we think of the moral rectitude of that man who would pay for the support of crime, merely to avoid litigation?”
Meanwhile, the draft proved to be very unpopular.
In mid-July, the New York City draft riots broke out.
One of the frequent complaints about the draft was that the $300 commutation fee allowed rich people to buy themselves out of the war, leaving the poor to fight their battle for them.
Gideon Frost continued the debate in the first issue of the Intelligencer.
He starts by saying that the published discipline of the Society of Friends is explicit and unambiguous about not permitting Friends to pay military exemption taxes.
It’s one thing to say that maybe Quakers ought to reconsider that part of their discipline, but it is improper, says Frost, to do as Richardson did and encourage Quakers to disregard it.
Frost thinks it is extremely unlikely that the U.S. government would actually shoot a Quaker for desertion because he refused to enlist, hire a substitute, or pay a commutation tax, so Richardson’s panic is unwarranted.
Frost also wonders if Richardson suggests Quakers who can afford to do so go ahead and pay the $300, what does he suggest for Quakers who cannot afford it?
Frost also disputes Richardson’s reading of the render-unto-Caesar episode.
He denies that Jesus’s reply suggested that all money belongs to Caesar, or that it has anything to do with a tax in lieu of government service or a tax to pay for war (after all, he suggests, the reign of the Caesar in question was “rather a pacific one”), or that what Jesus had to say about Caesar specifically can necessarily be extrapolated into a teaching about government in general.
“C.O.N.” then writes in, saying, in part, that the property the government seizes from tax resisters by distraint and then sells is just as useful to it in carrying out its war policy as cash money would be, so the practical effect is the same, with the only difference being in the resister’s conscience.
He recalls an episode from his youth when a tax collector came to seize property for such a military tax and, “out of what he professed to be a humane charitable feeling” confiscated money from an unlocked cash drawer instead, so as to cause “the least trouble and distress.”
“W.G.” wrote in again and put the argument this way: Quakers happily render unto Caesar what Caesar is due, but they have determined that Caesar is never due their military service.
Therefore, Caesar cannot be due the monetary equivalent of military service either.
A draftee wrote in next, saying that in spite of his sympathy for the Union cause, he cannot join in the war or pay the commutation money “or even the hundredth part of it” for this “would be bartering my conscience, a gift from heaven… it would be purchasing an ‘indulgence’ for the right of enjoying a divine principle.
It would be giving the means to others to purchase flesh and blood to take my place.
No! the ‘filthy lucre’ proposition on the score of principle is hypocrisy of the worst kind.”
“R.H.” put it this way:
“If Friends cannot themselves fight, it is wholly inconsistent for them to pay a fine or tax in lieu of it, as that would be an acknowledgment that the demand is just, and that liberty of conscience is not our due… Shall we pay our money, to save ourselves, our sons, or our friends, from going to the battle-field to slay, or to be slain, and lay down our testimony against this awful evil, war?”
Nathaniel Richardson then responded to his critics. In his view, when someone asks us for money, he says, the primary moral consideration is always, do you owe the money or not.
If you do owe it, you must pay it, and there is no reason to investigate further and try to decide whether the recipient will spend the money wisely or not before you hand it over.
So when the government asks us to pay a tax, all we should do is ask whether the law requires this tax from us, and if it does, we should pay it without inquiring further.
By doing this we in no way violate the laws of Christianity because “we make no contract, exercise no influence, and are in no respect accountable: we sacrifice no right of conscience.”
That added fresh fuel to the fire.
“Y.T.” replied next, warning that “to allow our money to be made use of to procure substitutes — for that is its meaning — would permit the taunt to be hurled at us that we were too cowardly to fight ourselves, but allowed others to be hired to fight in our places.”
“A.H.L.” noted that the Conscription Act explicitly says that the $300 commutation money is meant “for the procuration of [a] substitute,” and so to pay the money is just an indirect way of hiring a substitute to fight in your place, which everybody agrees is against Quaker principles.
He also disputes Richardson’s argument that the government can create an unquestionable monetary obligation by fiat.
Furthermore, he says there’s something rotten about trying to purchase a conscientious stand — “such a conscience as can be purchased with money and for an advertised price is not worth having.”
He then alludes to a “late decision” that if a conscientious objector refused to fight, hire a substitute, or pay a commutation fine, the amount of the fine would “be made a lien against the Society of which he may be a member.”
That, he says, puts Quakers in quite a spot, and he thinks that either they will stick by their principles, or, by abandoning them to save their meetings they will end up killing “the Society itself, as a true religious body.”
For some time I have been hoping to get my hands on a defense of Quaker war tax resistance that I’ve seen alluded to in some letters.
For instance, in , Anthony Benezet wrote to Moses Brown, saying:
The thoughts on paying taxes of Samuel Allinson is well thought of even by those who yet pay them, and as he has got diverse arguments not in the piece now sent to the clerk of your Meeting for Sufferings, I have suggested to him if Friends with you should agree to the publication of anything, I thought some Friend might, out of them all, make the apology much more complete, which I could wish as done in preference to publishing this now sent.
I was able to track down Allinson’s piece, but the other one eluded me.
Benezet also refers, in another letter that year, to “a packet… containing the thoughts I had collected on the payment of taxes…” The following year, he forwards to Robert Pleasants “some note which we have made on that weighty subject,” asking for help, and saying cautiously that “As it is a step in the reformation that so directly crosses a received testimony in Society more than any other we had need to step carefully and wisely in it.
He that believes makes not haste.”
It seems that Benezet never managed to get his thoughts on paper in a form he thought was suitable for publication.
Either he ceded to what he felt was an adequately-worded statement published by some other author or by the Society, or he gave up on the project, or he died (in 1784) before he could finish it.
But there is a draft that he co-wrote with B[enjamin?]
Mason in 1779 in the archives of the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College.
They sent me a photocopy, which I’ve transcribed below.
It is a little difficult to determine which parts are Mason’s and which parts Benezet’s. They sign the document in a few places, but the handwriting can sometimes switch in the middle of a section.
I’ve tried to make the punctuation more sensible and have corrected some odd spelling decisions (“Cannady” for Canada, “Ceasar” for Caesar, “angle” for angel, “porposes” for purposes, and so on).
I’ve also added quotation marks to direct quotes from which they were missing.
Some Brief remarks offered as Reasons why we ought not to pay Taxes to support War
The design of the following remarks is not to feed the curious or to enter into a field of controversy; but first to demonstrate that our testimony against paying taxes to support war proceeds from & coincides with the gospel spirit, & is consistent with what has been revealed and discovered to the faithful of many generations, being agreeable to scripture & reason.
And secondly that those who may be wavering or in doubt & have not sufficiently attended to the nature & design of our peaceable testimony and principles (which would lead all the families of the earth into the possession of peace) may be strengthened & encouraged hereby, for as we profess to be led & guided by the Spirit of Truth, which leadeth into all truth and out of all error I feel a desire that we may carefully examine whether we have so attended to this infallible guide as to be redeemed from every connection with those impure channels which convey life & vigor to the devouring spirit of war.
In which scrutiny the succeeding sheets may serve as a touchstone.
With respect to the question put to our savior by the Pharisees and Herodians (which those who advocate the payment of taxes for military uses build much upon) it appears from Matthew, Mark, & Luke (who differ very little in stating the case) that their design was to ensnare him; Luke says “that they might take hold of his words, that so they might deliver him unto the power of the governor” &c. But “he perceived their craftiness and said… ‘show me a penny, whose image & superscription hath it?’
They answered, ‘Caesar’s;’… he said unto them, ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesars, & unto God the things which be God’s:’ And they could not take hold of his words.”
Now it appears from the inscription Pilate wrote on the cross, & other passages, that they had conceived an idea that he had a design of usurping the kingdom, & doubtless they thought his views at that time would lead him to forbid paying tribute unto Caesar, which would have been construed as treason; the likeliest accusation to have place with the governor, but if he had said it is lawful to give, they would have represented him to the people as having done despite to the Mosaic Law, so that his answer is much better adapted to defeat their purpose than to determine their question; in that respect it is altogether ambiguous.
He perceived their wickedness, bid them render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s (which they certainly ought to do) but he did not say that money was Caesar’s nor command them to give it to him, neither was it his because it bore his image & superscription, more than if it had the impression &c. of Alexander the Great on it, or more than the money in Europe, which has the image &c. of the reigning princes on it can be said to be theirs.
So that I apprehend that our Lord’s will with respect to that question cannot be understood by his answer, & it is plain that his adversaries did not look upon his answer as decisive, but being frustrated, marveled.
Now to distinguish between what are the things of God & what are Caesar’s: Whatever infringes upon or operates against the law of God written in the heart or commanded through his Son in the New Testament cannot be Caesar’s due.
And since we are commanded not to resist evil, not to love our friends only but our enemies also, if any ruler under the character of Caesar require us to resist evil or to give him money to promote violence or the destruction of enemies (which is a certain token of hatred) he hath invaded God’s prerogative, who is sovereign of the conscience, king of kings & lord of lords whom we are bound by the first & great commandment to love above all, without rival or competitor, which is manifest by obedience; therefore if we contribute one mite, knowingly to promote violence on earth, we shall violate his divine law “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,” shall bring guilt on our consciences & not stand acquitted in the sight of him who will in no wise acquit the guilty.
B[enjamin?].
Mason
With respect to the tribute paid by our savior at Capernaum, Thomas Stackhouse in his History of the Bible, page 1357, says every Jew of twenty years old or upwards was obliged to pay “an Attic dram or half a shekel, about 15 pence our money, for the use of the sanctuary, to pay for sacrifices, &c. and was the tribute which the collectors demanded; and not a tax payable to the Roman Emperor, as some imagine; which appears not only from our Saviour’s argument, viz. that he was the Son of the Heavenly King to whom it was paid & consequently had a right to plead his exemption, but also from the Greek word, which according to Josephus the most noted of the Jewish writers was the proper word for the capitation tax &c.”1 Bishop [Jeremy] Taylor in his life of Christ, page 307, fully confirms the above assertion.
Also Berkit [?], Samuel Smith & Daniel Whitby in their several commentaries on the scriptures.
And Caidence in his concordance declares the same: with relation to the advice given by the apostles to the believers, to submit themselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake as unto them that are set by Him for the punishment of evildoers & for the praise of them that do well, for this cause, says he, pay your tribute, for what cause?
1 Timothy 2 2nd “that we may lead a quiet & peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty.” Now it is plain from the text & the reason of things, that this injunction to the believers only related to that civil authority which was established for the peace of the community, & by no means refer to taxes for the support of wars, so destructive of all order & good government.
And even if it could be supposed that in those early times, under the government of heathen emperors, the believers thought themselves excused in their complience to such requisitions; yet now that the powers under which we live profess with us to be the followers of Christ, in doctrine & practice, it seems very strange that we should freely pay taxes for the prosecution of those bloody wars which have been carried on both in Europe & America, not only in defense of their own territories but for the purposes of crushing those they esteem enemies & of enriching themselves through devastation & destruction in other lands.
Read the history of late times & see what horrible destruction of human beings, many by means of wicked laws, dragged against their wills to slay or be slain; what corruption of manners; what waste of substance has been made by means of the many years war carried on in Germany what expence has occurred in order to get possession of the territories & wealth of the East Indies by every murdering art of war whereby thousands & hundreds of thousands have by sword & famine been brought to an untimely end.
In Africa also a military power, forts &c. is maintained the better to enable the heathen, in conjunction with professed Christians, to make war on & merchandize of their brethren.
And in America, how often during a long course of years, have the Indians been instigated to acts of violence & murder; Christians (so called) against Christians mixed with scalping Indians have stained the earth with human blood for a miserable share in the spoil of a plundered world.
A world, as a late pious author well remarks, [that] should have seen, heard, or felt nothing from the followers of Christ but a divine love which had forced them to visit mangers with the glad tidings of peace and salvation.
Now if we deal truly with ourselves; if we desire to act up to the purity, sincerity, & plainness of our profession; can we with truth assert that taxes for these purposes are such as the Apostle had in view when he required of the believers that they should submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake?
Will they fit us for every good work?
Will they enable us to live a quiet & peaceable life in all godliness & honesty?
Can the use of these taxes be said with truth to be for the punishment of evildoers & for the praise of them that do well?
Are not the uses they are put to in direct opposition to our principles?
Will our pretense of being ignorant of the use excuse us when we know they are put to some of the worst of uses, shall not we be justly reproached as acting in opposition to the plainness & sincerity of our profession?
There has long been a growing concern in the Society with regard to the paying taxes for the purpose of war.
It is now between 60 & 70 years when it first appeared in this City, on occasion of a tax then laid on the people for raising a sum of money for the purpose of war which was carrying on, for the taking of Canada, which some friends refused to pay.
And in the year 1756 the like concern was renewed in the payment of tax for carrying on a war against the Indians when a number of friends remonstrated to the Assembly on that head, as is particularly related in our Friends John Churchman & John Woolman’s journals.
We also find by what is mentioned in our ancient friend John Richardson’s journal, page 119, that there was a growing concern amongst friends in England, when required of him by friends, of their Yearly Meeting in Rhode Island, what Friends of England did in the case of paying taxes for carrying on the war with France &c., he replied that he had heard the matter debated both in inferior & superior meetings in England, that many Friends there were not easy in the payment of these taxes, but did it on account of the difficulty which attended a separation from those taxes for a civil use.
A[nthony]. Benezet
As I have unity with our testimony against military services, as pointed out in the foregoing hints [glints?], & believing there is room to add & that the subject is important, therefore I am free to say that I fully believe we are called to lift up a standard (in the sight of the nations) for the Prince of Peace, more separated from the mixtures than has hitherto been by our Society in an embodied capacity.
And insomuch as we have, in any wise heretofore, complied with military requisitions, we have fell short of the noble profession we have made, and rendered ourselves unable to answer that part of the 6th Query2 with clearness which requires us to bear a faithful testimony in that respect, for how can we faithfully testify against that which we freely support; We cannot consistent with our profession pay any taxes appropriated to support war, or the spirit of strife, or without doing a military service, in so doing we shall deny him before men, who commanded us to love our enemies (and declared he came not to destroy men’s lives but to save them) by supporting these in breaking his commandments, & empowering them to destroy those lives whom he came to save.
In the next place, I shall endeavor to obviate such common objections as may occur, which are advanced to justify the payment of such taxes as are under notice, some of whom are treated of in the preceding pages, but not altogether cleared to my satisfaction.
With respect to the tribute paid by Peter at Capernaum for himself & his master, in order to avert the force of a necessary reason why it may not be a precedent for us (viz.) its being done under the legal dispensation, it is objected that it was paid to a heathen & that no payment was ever directed by the Law of Moses, but it may be answered that the use of the sword was commanded & the manner of a king described by Moses, which could not be supported without tribute or something of a similar nature; and if every thing which our Lord did in his outward appearance be obligatory on us, then we must be circumcised & wash one anothers’ feet (which amounts to a command) and pass through the whole ceremonial train of the Jewish rites; but if he only passed through these these to fulfill the righteousness thereof and if by that one offering, these type of services were abolished, then consequently the outward warfare, as more particularly appears by his command to Peter.
And as he is not the author of confusion, he cannot will that his professed followers shall support what he has forbid them to use; Which the apostle Paul well understood when he said, “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal” &c.
Another objection is advanced to oppose & limit the progress of our testimony in regard to taxes for military uses, by charging those who profess a scruple against compliance therewith with a pretense to new revelation & further discoveries not warranted by scripture, reason, or the practice of the faithful, adding that new revelation requires new guidance.
To which I am free to observe that our Lord said to his disciples, when near to be separated from them, John 16 12th “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” I do not take this to be only applicable to them, but to the church in its infant state, & to His followers in every age, which undeniably contains a promise of further discoveries of His will.
Now although the church increased mightily in the apostles’ days, yet it was soon after eclipsed, with a long night of apostacy, in which she retired into the wilderness, there to abide during her appointed time, & now in these latter ages in the reformation & coming forth of our ancestors, it pleased Infinite Wisdom to call her forth, through the revelation of His will anew to her, in which she made some glorious advances towards the day of Christ, as spoken of by the apostle saying ([2] Thessns 2d 2–3) be “not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand; let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, & that man of sin be revealed” &c. Also in Revelations 10th 7: “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.”“And the seventh angel sounded & there were great voices in heaven saying the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of Our Lord & of his Christ, and He shall reign for ever & ever.” These wonderful predictions represent the church in its greatest splendor; fully come out of the wilderness, by which we may clearly see that the day of Christ there spoken of is only coming; and that she is but yet on the way as it were, leaning on the breast of her beloved, and since revelation is the rock & foundation whereon he promised to build his church & that every degree of true advancement she has made has been on that basis.
Why then do we shrink thereat & marvel that things should be discovered to her that have been hid from ages; that is this dependence on the revelation of the divine will, which is her preservation from the prevalence of the gates of hell.
I fully believe as she attends to her holy head & advances towards this thrice happy day, that many things will be revealed to her that we are not yet able to bear, even that the work & foundation of many generations will be manifested & “the wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth” &c. [2] Thessns 2. 8th.
Yea & things which the faithful in past ages have not seen, which may stand for a reason why we may be led out of some things which our predecessors practiced.
In the days of the apostles the spirit of unbelief was foreseen which hath made its appearance & spread desolation in the Christian churches (viz.) “Where is the promise of His coming, for since the fathers are fell asleep all things remain as they were from the beginning.” And in process of time the existence of revelation was denied, but in the days of our predecessors it was fully believed in & experimentally witnessed, which blessing continues to this day; yet such is the declension amongs us, that some (who believe our forefathers to be influenced thereby) are in effect uttering this language again, since the fathers are fell asleep &c. and ready to scoff at those who believe in immediate revelation.
Nevertheless it is evident from the following prophecies that the testimony of truth will overcome every thing of a military nature.
We do not, neither did our ancestors, refuse to support civil government simply considered, but we cannot countermand the end of Christ’s coming by paying for taking men’s lives, which He came to save; & outward war is no more necessary to support a righteous civil government, than to uphold the church of Christ.
If I see a man going headlong to destruction & premeditating the pain of others, & furnish him with money to bear his expences in his design, I shall certainly cooperate with him in his enterprise & be accessory in part to the consequences; and what sort of a testimony shall I bear against his conduct; it will not alleviate my guilt to say he commanded me to aid him in that way, because I have power to refuse doing it actively; or that I did not wish my quota to be misapplied since I assuredly know what use it is for; yea if I do not warn him of his danger as well as refuse to further his evil design, he may fall in the event & perish in his sins, but his blood will be required at my hands.
The tax demanded to carry on war & the people employed therein, with the consequences, are exactly parallel to the above remark, which is a sufficient reason why we ought not to comply.
Will the name of a tax, because often applied to civil uses, sanctify a military requisition, or any epithet that can be given to it?
Why is a fine more obnoxious to our testimony?
In order to reconcile the payment of taxes therewith it is objected that we cannot pay a fine because it is in lieu of personal service, but I answer, were that service requires to do something in peaceable way [sic.] consistent with a follower of Christ we could not conscientiously refuse; so that our refusal is not because it is personal, but because it is for a purpose that we as Christians cannot own; because it is to destroy those whom Christ commanded us to love.
Seeing then that our testimony is not against personal service, merely because it is personal, or against fines because they are fines, but because of the purpose they are for, how then can we do that by proxy under the character of a tax which we cannot do in person or under the character of a fine?
How can we actively pay men for doing that which we say we cannot do for conscience sake?
Let us take heed that we be not like the foolish woman, pulling down the house with her own hands & thereby adding cause of stumbling to the weak & to the discerning enquirers.
We believe we are called to bear an unsullied testimony against outward war, in every sense of the word; then let us not be willingly blind through fear of suffering, let us not through fear of suffering give our money for the worst of purposes.
Let us be exhorted to try all things, & hold fast that which is good; and labor to be clothed with that invincible armor which will enable us to stand in the evil day with that magnanimity which becomes soldiers of him who overcame through meekness & patient suffering; but if we account ourselves unworthy by withstanding & diverting his cause, we shall be rejected & have the reward of the unfaithful & others who may be comparatively as stones will be raised up & qualified to be faithful standard-bearers, to lift up an ensign to the nations of them that sit in darkness, that they may see & flow together and that the abundance of the sea may be converted unto him who is king over all the earth the increase of whose government & peace there shall be no end.
B[enjamin].
Mason
In the edition of this book that I was able to find, the quote reads: “Every Jew that was twenty years old, was obliged to pay annually two Attic drams, or half a shekel, (about fifteen pence of our money), for the use of the sanctuary, Exod. ⅹⅹⅹ. 13. 16. or to buy sacrifices, and other things necessary for the service of the temple: And that this was the tribute which the collectors here demanded, and not any tax, payable to the Roman emperors, (as some imagine), is evident, not only from our Saviour’s argument, viz. that he was the Son of that heavenly king to whom it was paid, and, consequently, had a right to plead his exemption; but from the word διδραχμα, which, according to Josephus, [Antiq. lib.
18. c. 12.], was the proper word for this capitation-tax that was paid to the temple at Jerusalem; whereas the Cæsarean tribute money was the denarius, a Roman coin, and would have been gathered by the usual officers, the publicans, and not by the persons who are here styled (as by a known title) they that received the διδραχμα; Hammond’s and Whitby’s Annotations.”
This would have been something like: “Do you maintain a faithful testimony against oaths; an hireling ministry; bearing arms, training, and other military services; being concerned in any fraudulent or clandestine trade; buying or vending goods so imported, or prize goods; and against encouraging lotteries of any kind?” (that’s the 1843-era version of the query, anyway).
I’ve many times mentioned Ammon Hennacy’s tax resistance hereabouts, but have only less-frequently commented on his more-well-known Catholic Worker comrade Dorothy Day’s stance.
The site catholicworker.org now has a search engine with which I have been able to recover some of her writings on the subject, which I’ll excerpt here today.
“Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.” Yes, and we have heard too much of that.
Let E.I. Watkin, founder of the Pax movement in England, author of The Catholic Center, Men and Tendencies, and The Bow in the Clouds, answer as he did in his pamphlet, “The Crime of Conscription.”
Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s. This is a favorite text with the hosts of Christian clerics, Protestant and Catholic, who both in the present and in the past, have abused and still abuse religion to enslave men’s consciences to the unjust bondages of a usurping state.
They omit to notice the context.
Our Lord has just asked for a coin, and having obtained the admission that it bear’s Caesar’s image and superscription, bids his questioners render to Caesar what is his.
This is obviously the coin payable in taxation which bears Caesar’s stamp.
The body and soul of man, however, do not bear Caesar’s image.
Whose image they do bear we are told in Holy Scripture.
It is the image of God.
Obviously, therefore, as we are to render to Caesar what bears his image, namely, money, we are to render to God, not to Caesar, what bears not Caesar’s stamp, but God’s; namely, human beings.
Thus the same text which justifies, indeed, imposes the obligation of paying taxes, denies any right of the state to take a toll of man.
All forced labor, for example, is implicitly declared unlawful.
And still more does the principle here enunciated forbid military conscription.
Whether a war be just or unjust, no government may without grave injustice compel me — bearing as I do the divine image which marks me as God’s bondman, but a freeman in respect to my fellows — to slay and be slain in its quarrel unless I freely consent.
If a government unlawfully outsteps its prerogative and imposes conscription, any one who, from whatever motive, refuses to serve, is whether he intend it or not, fighting for human dignity and freedom, as also is anyone who abets and supports his resistance.
But now in these days it would be desirable to go even further, as did Thoreau, to refuse even the taxes which were to be used to pay for the means to kill our fellow man.
In many cases, however, it is all but impossible to separate the tax from the cost of the commodity needed to maintain life.
We believe that social security legislation, now balled as a great victory for the poor and for the worker, is a great defeat for Christianity.
It is an acceptance of the Idea of force and compulsion.
[The people] pay taxes, and it is the city and the state and the federal government that is robbing them and pilfering them, too, They are taxed for every bite they eat, every shoddy rag they put on.
They are taxed on their jobs, there are deductions for this and that, there are the war bonds, eighteen dollars for a twenty-five dollar war bond, paid on the Installment plan.
And they are not only being taxed, but they are being seduced.
Their virtue is being drained from them.
They are made into war profiteers, they are forced into the position of usurers.
The whole nation, every man woman and child, is forced to become a profiteer — hideous word — in this war.
If you cry aloud for land and home and tools and the good natural life for the poor without which a good supernatural life is impossible, then you are either an escapist and an inhabitant of an ivory tower, or you are a Communist in disguise trying to do away with property.
And you are a communist also if you cry out for peace and against increased armaments — against the making of the hydrogen and atom bombs and the paying of federal taxes for the making of those bombs.
We know, who picketed before the tax offices up on 45th street, because we heard these jibes as we walked to and fro with our signs.
We will have more to write about taxes later.
We believe in paying our local taxes but not federal.
Maybe this is quibbling, but the benefits of hospitals, fire department, street cleaning and health department, etc. make us firm in our decision to always pay our local taxes though we will not pay income tax.
I can scarcely list all the people Ammon [Hennacy] introduced me to, all the friends he has made through his constant protest against war and taxes for war, and his distribution of the Catholic Worker.
But I can give a little glimpse of Ammon’s living quarters, in his little three room bungalow on Lin Orme’s place some five miles out of town [Phoenix, Arizona].
Ammon likes to call our Lord the Celestial Bulldozer to indicate that ones way is smoothed for one, the rough ways made plain and the crooked straight.
He arrived in Phoenix broke, he said, as he came further south out of the dairy region to the farming section of the country where he could work by the day and not by the month and so avoid the withholding tax.
He slept all night on an anarchist’s floor (one of the readers of the CW) and got up at daylight to go to the slave market, as the corner is named in every town in every state, Calif., Texas, Florida, New Mexico and Arizona, where immigrant workers are employed.
Some times there are as many as 200 trucks, sometimes only 25. They go as far as seventy miles away for the day’s work.
Mexican trucks take only Mexicans.
He got on the second truck, owned by the Arena brothers, a corporation which owns land in California, Colorado, and Arizona, and specializes in lettuce, melons, cabbage, celery.
This was , the year the withholding tax began.
At the end of his day’s work he asked if there was a shack on the place where he could sleep, and a fellow worker told him of one down the road and he took his sleeping bag and camped out there for the night.
He stayed there for some months and as it was on land rented by Mr. Orme to the company, he became acquainted with that old gentleman who later invited him to occupy the vacant shack on his own land.
There is one room and two porches, rather than three rooms, really, and before Ammon lived there, twelve Mexicans had camped out there.
I sat on the porch one afternoon with Ammon and drank strong black coffee, brewed on a little kitchen stove, stuffed with mesquite which burned fragrantly while we talked.
How does property fit in, people ask.
It was Eric Gill who said that property is proper to man.
And St. Thomas Aquinas said that a certain amount of goods is necessary to lead a good life.
The recent popes wrote at length about justice rather than charity, that should be sought for the worker.
Unions are still fighting for wages and hours, and it is a futile fight with the price of living going up steadily.
They are fighting for partial gains and every strike means sacrifice to make them, and still the situation in the long run is not bettered.
There may be talk of better standards of living, every worker with his car, and owning his own home, but still this comfort depends on a wage, a boss, on War.
Our whole modern economy is based on preparation for war and that is one of the great modern arguments for poverty.
If the comfort one has gained has resulted in the death of thousands in Korea and other parts of the world, then that comfort will be have to be atoned for. the argument now is that there is no civilian population, that all are involved in the war (misnamed defense) effort.
If you work in a textile mill making cloth, or in a factory making dungarees or blankets, it is still tied up with war.
If one raises food or irrigates to raise food, one may be feeding troops or liberating others to serve as troops.
If you ride a bus you are paying taxes.
Whatever you buy is taxed so you are supporting the state in the war which is “the health of the state.”
The argument may go this way, but we still can choose what seems to us the most honorable occupations, which have to do with human needs.
We can choose the kind of work most necessary to do, and if possible where there is no withholding tax for war.
Ammon Hennacy in working by the day, at hard farm labor, has not paid income tax for years.
One can so cut down one’s standard of living that no income tax is required; families with many children pay no income tax.
One can protest in many ways this contribution to the atom and hydrogen bomb.
If one owns property the government then can take a lien on it.
If one has money in the bank, the government can confiscate it.
So truly such protest as this calls for the most profound poverty and a voluntary doing without property.
How obey the laws of a state when they run counter to man’s conscience?
“Thou shalt not kill,” Divine law states.
“A new precept I give unto you that you love your brother as I have loved you.”
St. Peter disobeyed the law of men and stated that he had to obey God rather than man.
Wars today involve total destruction, obliteration bombing, killing of the innocent, the stockpiling of atom and hydrogen bombs.
When one is drafted for such war, when one registers for the draft for such a war, when one pays income tax, eighty per cent of which goes to support such war, or works where armaments are made, one is participating in this war.
We are all involved in war these days.
War means hatred and fear.
Love casts out fear.
St. Augustine in his City of God says that God never intended man to dominate his fellows.
He was to dominate the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, what crawled upon the earth, but men were not to dominate each other.
He preferred shepherds to kings.
It was man himself who insisted on having a worldly king though he was warned what would happen to him.
God allowed the prophets to anoint the kings and once men had accepted their kings they were supposed to show them respect, to obey the authority they had set up.
To obey, that is, in all that did not go against their conscience.
St. Peter was ordered by lawful authority not to preach in the name of Jesus, and he said he had to obey God rather than man, and he left prison to go out again to the market place and preach the Gospel.
Over and over again, men had to disobey lawful authority to follow the voice of their conscience.
This obedience to God and disobedience to the State has over and over again happened through history.
It is time again to cry out against our “leaders,” to question whether or not, since it is not for us to say that they are evil men, they are sane men.
It is all very well to say we must go to the source of all strength, to drink at the living fountain of Christ, but can we go from that fount of Love to a factory where nerve gas and incendiary bombs are manufactured?
When we have talked of a general strike it is of such work and of such evil that we are thinking; when we talk of non-payment of taxes it is of the money which is going to Indo-China in the form of these incendiary bombs and the planes to drop them that we are thinking.
It is not thus that we can love God and our brother; it is not in this way that we can love our enemy.
When it is said that we disturb people too much by the words pacifism and anarchism, I can only think that people need to be disturbed, that their consciences need to be aroused, that they do indeed need to look into their work, and study new techniques of love and poverty and suffering for each other.
Of course the remedies are drastic, but then too the evil is a terrible one and we are all involved, we are all guilty, and most certainly we are all going to suffer.
The fact that we have “the faith,” that we go to the sacraments, is not enough.
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” with napalm, nerve gas, our hydrogen bomb…
Each one of us must make our decisions as to what he should do, each one must examine his conscience and beg God for strength.
Should one register for the draft?
Should one accept conscientious objector status in the army or out of it, taking advantage of the exceptions allowed, but accepting the fact of the draft?
Should one pay tax which supports this gigantic program?
I realize how difficult this is to decide.
If one is unmarried and strong physically, it is easier to make a decision to do only day labor or work without pay.
But there are many whose mental and physical strength is not equal to this decision and there is a withholding tax taken from even the smallest salary.
Sometimes one can only make a gesture of protest.
It is not for any one to judge his fellow man on how far he can go in resisting participation in preparation for war.
In the very works of mercy which we are performing, we at the Catholic Worker are being aided by those who earn what they do only because they pay income tax for war.
Oh yes, the editors of The Catholic Worker know only too well how far we too are involved in the city of this world.
Perhaps Bob Ludlow, who left us much against our will, felt that he was being more honest in permitting a withholding tax to be taken from his meager wage as hospital attendant that working for nothing for the Catholic Worker.
Who knows the heart of another?
The temptation is always there to go out on one’s own, to walk the lone path of a St. Francis rather than the community way of a St. Benedict.
[Ammon Hennacy] has had to abandon his life at hard labor and to replace that discipline of work he is fasting Fridays; during our recent retreat he fasted, and again in August for nine days he will picket and fast in reparation for Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the cruel weapons of destruction which we have made.
All men are responsible, but Ammon by not paying income tax, and by penance, is doing reparation.
And the other trouble?
It was Federal income taxes and investigations for Ammon Hennacy, Charlie McCormick, Carol Perry and me.
Charlie has had no income for all the years he is with The Catholic Worker, but the rest of us could acknowledge having earned money on which we did not pay taxes, and which we refuse to pay because eighty per cent of the money so gathered goes for wars past and present.
The others were treated with great courtesy, but one of the revenue agents made a coldly insulting remark to me based on my past, which was entirely uncalled for.
But perhaps he was only stupid so I acted as though I did not hear it.
I would like to urge upon the bishops the idea of the non-payment of taxes by Catholic parents for school taxes, when they are sending their children to Catholic schools and so are paying double for their education.
Yes, we must set ourselves with all the force we possess, against war, and the making of instruments of war, and our means are prayer and fasting, and the non-payment of federal income tax which goes for war.
The message of The Catholic Worker is that simple one for all the rank and file, for the masses, that we have free will, we can make our choice, that our personal responsibility which we exercise is what matters.
Ammon [Hennacy], in his non-payment of taxes for war, and his civil disobedience, is bringing that message to countless thousands of people.
When we got home from our little tour of the neighborhood and I had explored the view from the eleventh floor, Ammon came for supper and brought us up to date on his journeyings as well as on the news of our own workers in Chicago.
He had no sooner arrived in town on Saturday when he was called on to picket in front of the courthouse for Roseanna Robinson.
They are keeping up a vigil night and day, people joining for a stint of three hours at a time.
I certainly hope to join them sometime these next few days.
Roseanna is a young colored woman who had refused to pay any income tax 85 per cent of which goes for war, or to file any returns.
She had been given an indeterminate sentence and she is now for two weeks on hunger strike.
I suppose they will forcibly feed her.
The newspapers are paying little head to this, so it is necessary to have the picket line, and Karl Meyer has gotten out a leaflet which is signed by The Catholic Worker, 164 West Oak street and the War Resisters League which takes in all those who are not Catholic who wish to participate but might hesitate if it were only under Catholic leadership.
There is much to be done in these small Indian schools throughout the country [the United States South-West], and a peace army could be at work there right now, without waiting to be drafted.
There would be no pay besides a living, and so no bother about income tax, and so no contributing to war in this way.
I could not help but think of Don Milani’s statement in his defense against the charges made against him of advocating resistance to conscription for war.
He said that even those who cooked for troops contributed to war.
How involved we all are, what with the hidden taxes we pay for war, the high standard of living all of us enjoy, even when we refuse to pay income tax, so much of which goes for war, and when we build prisons for draft refusers.
Every summer for a Peacemakers training program has been held at our Tivoli farm for the last two or three weeks of August.
The old mansion and the Peter Maurin house are filled with guests, and campers come and set up their tents on the lawn facing the river.
The organizer of the Peacemakers’ school is Wally Nelson, who has been in the workhouse in Cincinnati for the past two weeks, fasting.
He and several others were arrested during a vigil for DeCourcy Squire, an 18 yr. old Antioch student who had been hospitalized after fasting since her arrest and subsequent sentence of 9 mo. for participating in a peace demonstration.
(DeCourcy has since been released.)
A psychiatric examination was ordered for Wally when he refused to co-operate with his arrest and trial.
Found by court psychiatrists to be “sane,” he was sentenced for “loitering” to ten days in the workhouse, $25 and costs.
Again refusing to co-operate with legalized injustice, he was dragged from the police van by his legs, an action that caused his wife Juanita to follow him, cradling his head in her hands.
When they arrived at Wally’s cell, Nita bent over to kiss him, was arrested for “disorderly conduct” and fined $25 and costs.
This she refused to pay, and was ordered to the workhouse.
Detailed stories of these arrests are given in the February 10th issue of the Peacemaker, (10208 Sylvan Avenue, (Gano) Cincinnati, Ohio 45241).
I hope that many of our readers will subscribe to the Peacemaker, since news of the conscientious objectors who are in prison and much other war-resistance news can be obtained there.
Peacemakers have led in direct action for many years.
Wally and Juanita have both refused to pay income tax for many years, and it is of them particularly I wish to write, with the most heartfelt sympathy for their suffering and the greatest admiration for their dedication.
It is their vocation to realize and to lead others to realize the horror of the times through which we are passing.
Wally has explained that his fasting during the jail sentences he has undergone was the result not of willful refusal but of a total inability to swallow food while imprisoned.
Simone Weil, the French woman whose brilliant writings on man and the state, work and war, were widely published after her death, suffered during the second world war in the same way.
She was literally unable to swallow enough food to keep her alive, in the face of world starvation.
In the stories of the saints, one reads of such sensitivity, such penances undergone, such fastings endured and they are little understood by the secular world.
I am convinced that this vocation, this calling, to give oneself to one’s brother, in loving communion, in loving understanding of the heinous crimes that are being committed today was at the root of Roger La Porte’s immolation in front of the United Nations .
It is as though such men said, “We will suffer with you, since we have no way of stopping the bombing, the burning, the napalm, the defoliation, the destruction of homes and an entire countryside.
There is no act of ours extreme enough, no protest strong enough, to deal with this horror.”
Wally Nelson was in prison for thirty-three months during World War Two and fasted for a hundred and eight days (with forced feeding by tube) as a protest against racial segregation of prisoners.
He had had time to think out his position while in Civilian Public Service camp, as forced labor camps which were set up for conscientious objectors were called.
These very camps were a concession to pacifists, who had been imprisoned and brutally treated during World War One.
But Wally decided to walk out and did so and was arrested and jailed.
His example and that of other absolutists led to further concessions.
In this present undeclared war in Vietnam, to which ten thousand more men were shipped off yesterday, the conscientious objector position is recognized, and paid employment is offered in home hospitals as “alternative service.”
To accept this is still to submit to the draft, hence the continued protests against war, and the drafting of youth to wage this hideous struggle.
[To Hennacy,] Obedience, of course, was a bad word.
Authority was a bad word.
In vain I pointed out to him that when the retired army major for whom he worked in Arizona told him to do a particular job, he did it, and he did it as he was told to.
He admired the army officer because he knew farming.
And he cooperated with Ammon in paying him by the day and thus evading the federal income tax which the tax man was trying to collect from Ammon.
I visited Art Harvey of South Ackworth, New Hampshire who has a mail order book shop handling a great number of books by and about Gandhi.
Art and Ammon Hennacy served six month terms in Sandstone Prison in Minnesota for trespassing on a missile base some years ago.
He carries on a practical application of Karl Meyer’s tax refusal (see article in this issue) by having teams of workers in orchards where they prune trees, harvest apples and later blueberries and work seven months of the year.
They work and live in a style which frees them from the payment of taxes for war.
Perhaps about a hundred are engaged in this way of life, which results usually in some settling in communities of the moshavim variety, each having some small acreage and a house built by themselves.
Considering the New England climate, no small achievement!
It certainly means an emphasis on the ascetic, on sacrifice.
The other young man who visited Russia was Karl Meyer, who at present is serving his sentence of a two-year term (and thousand dollar fine) at Sandstone Federal Prison, for obstructing the income tax system by refusal to pay taxes for war.
He had made the San Francisco-to-Moscow walk some years before, joining the march at Chicago.
The walk ended at Moscow University, where the students, though not agreeing with the American visitors, demanded that the time of their talks be extended.
He also distributed leaflets in Red Square!
The Catholic Worker has received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service stating that we owe them $296,359 in fines, penalties, and unpaid income tax for .
As the matter stands right now, there might be a legal battle with delays and postponements which may remind us of Dickens’ Bleak House.
Or, since we will not set up a defense committee to campaign for funds, it may terminate swiftly in the confiscation of our property and our bank account (never very large).
Our farm at Tivoli and the First Street house could be put up for sale by government agents and our C.W. family evicted.
One of the most costly protests against war, in terms of long-enduring personal sacrifice, is to refuse to pay federal income taxes which go for war.
The late Ammon Hennacy, one of our editors, was a prime example of this.
He earned his living at agricultural labor, always living on a poverty level so as not to be subject to taxes, though he filed returns.
Another of our editors, Karl Meyer, recently spent ten months in jail for what the I.R.S. called fraudulent claims of exemption for dependents.
He ran the C.W. House of Hospitality in Chicago for many years, working to earn the money to support the house and his wife and children.
Erosanna Robinson, a social worker in Chicago, refused to file returns and was sentenced to a year in prison.
While in prison she fasted and was forcibly fed.
It will be seen that tax refusal is a serious protest.
Wars will cease when we refuse to pay for them (to adapt a slogan of the War Resisters International).
The C.W. has never paid salaries.
Everyone gets board, room, and clothes (tuition, recreation included, as the C.W. is in a way a school of living).
So we do not need to pay federal income taxes.
Of course, there are hidden taxes we all pay.
Nothing is ever clear-cut or well defined.
We protest in any way we can, according to our responsibilities and temperaments.
(I remember Ammon, a most consistent, brave, and responsible person, saying to one young man, “For the love of the Lord, get a job and quit worrying about taxes.
You need to learn how to earn your own living.
That is most important for you.”)
We have to accept with humility the fact that we cannot share the destitution of those around us, and that our protests are incomplete.
Perhaps the most complete protest is to be in jail, to accept jail, never to give bail or defend ourselves.
In the fifties, Ammon, Charles McCormack (our business manager at the C.W.), and I were summoned to the offices of the I.R.S. in New York to answer questions (under oath) as to our finances.
I remember I was asked what happened to the royalties from my books, money from speaking engagements, etc. I could only report that such monies received were deposited in the C.W. account.
As for clothes, we wore what came in; my sister was generous to me — shoes, for instance.
Our refusal to apply for exemption status in our practice of the Works of Mercy is part of our protest against war and the present social “order” which brings on wars today.
In the issue of The Catholic Worker I wrote of the crisis The Catholic Worker found itself in when we received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service stating that we owe them $296,359 in fines and penalties and unpaid income tax for .
This was a very impressive bill, and we wondered what it would be if they started figuring out what they thought we owed them !
The New York Times, in a story signed by Max Seigel, with a four column head and a picture of a few of us at lunch in our headquarters at 36 East First Street, brought our situation to the attention of a vaster group of readers, and followed up the story with an editorial [“Imagination, Please” — excerpt: “Surely the IRS must have genuine frauds to investigate.
Surely there must be some worthwhile work this agency could be doing instead of obstructing acts of corporal mercy for the poor.”].
The New York evening Post also editorialized on our situation.
The National Catholic Reporter and the Commonweal editors also registered their protest and other papers followed suit.
Letters come in daily from our friends, reassuring, comforting, indignant at the government, a few of them indignant at us, that we cause them so much worry.
We certainly are grateful and must apologize that we cannot keep up with the mail and get them all answered.
There is not any real news for them at the moment, nor will be until our edition of The Catholic Worker.
I will have to appear before a Federal Judge on to explain why the CW refuses to pay taxes, or to “structure itself” so as to be exempt from taxes.
We are afraid of that word “structure.”
We refuse to become a “corporation.”
We repeat — we do not intend to “incorporate” the Catholic Worker movement.
We intend to continue our emphasis on personal responsibility, an emphasis which we were taught from the beginning by Peter Maurin who used to quote Emmanuel Mounier’s Personalist Manifesto, and his Personal and Communitarian Revolution, Peter was our teacher, and being a Frenchman, a peasant, he emphasized decentralization, manual labor, voluntary poverty.
Voluntary poverty meant that everyone at the CW worked without salary, and contributions came from them, and from our readers, which kept the work going.
Rumblings first came from the Internal Revenue service after many on the CW staff, together with other peace groups, demonstrated against war in the Fifties and Sixties and were jailed for Civil Disobedience.
Writing about jails and courtrooms resulted in much publicity.
But it was Ammon Hennacy and Karl Meyer who wrote most consistently on Tax Refusal, and its importance.
“Wars will cease when men refuse to pay for them.”
…And while you are at it, write to TAX Talk, published by War Tax Resistance, 339 Lafayette St., N.Y., N.Y. 10012 which contains letters from all over the country from individual tax resisters, telling what is happening to them.
Stimulating and invigorating.
Good make up and good format.
First Rate.
While I write, Arthur J. Lacey comes in to hand me my mail and it contains a notice from one of our two lawyers.
“Please be advised that I have been contacted by the Conference Section of the Internal Revenue Service and we have arranged for the hearing on .”
Good news first!
On we received absolution from the U.S. Government in relation to all our tax troubles.
In the Catholic Worker this year we told of the notice we had received — that we owed the government nearly $300,000 in back income taxes which included penalties for “late filing and negligence.”
The examining officer of the Manhattan District had arrived at these figures through the reports we had obediently made to Albany on our appeals for funds, which we send out once or twice a year.
We accept this compromise with our local state because we are decentralists, personalists, anarchists (in addition to being pacifists).
When we first thought about Federal income taxes, most of which go for war or “defense,” we simplistically considered ourselves exempt because we had no income; no salaries are paid at the Catholic Worker, nor ever have been .
I myself have been questioned because of my writings, and lecture fees which were not really fees but offerings made to the work which covered all expenses of travelling and supported the work besides.
A crowd of people living together as we do, in houses of hospitality, has to give something of an account to each other as to how well we are living up to our profession of voluntary poverty.
We are always bound to have healthy guilt feelings about that, and keep trying to do better.
Certainly a number of us do work on the side to provide what we need for books or rent on cheap apartments in the neighborhood, since our house at 36 East First Street is always so crowded.
But with the growing tax resistance throughout the United States, the government has become concerned.
Telephone calls and official visits made us realize that trouble was impending.
And we have been having it and have reported on it in both the and issues of our paper.
Now we are happy to report the outcome.
In a conference in with William T. Hunter, litigation attorney from the Department of Justice, one of the Assistant Attorney Generals of the United States, we reached a verbal settlement couched in more human and satisfactory terms than the notice we later received.
“They” were willing to recognize our undoubtedly religious convictions in our conflict with the state, and were going to drop any proceedings against us.
They had examined and looked into back issues of the Catholic Worker, and they had noted the support we had from the press (the New York Times news story and the editorials of the Times and the New York Post), and had come to this conclusion that ours was a religious conviction.
They had come to the conclusion also that it was not necessary that the Federal Government seek for any other kind of a “conviction” against us.
The conference took place in a law office in Manhattan, 9:30 of a Monday morning.
John Coster, our lawyer, Mr. Hunter and Ed Forand, Walter Kerell, Patrick Jordan, Ruth Collins and I attended.
There were no hostilities expressed.
As peacemakers we must have love and respect for each individual we come in contact with.
Our struggle is with principalities and powers, not with Church or State.
We cannot ever be too complacent about our own uncompromising positions because we know that in our own way we too make compromises.
(For instance, in having a second-class mailing privilege from the government we accept a subsidy, just as Mr. Eastland does in Mississippi!
[This refers to Senator James Eastland, who was a beneficiary of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in federal cotton subsidies, overseen by a Senate committee he sat on.])
It was Jesus who said that the worst enemies were those of our own household, and we are all part of this country, citizens of the United States and share in its guilt.
Yes, we would survive, I thought to myself, even if the paper were eventually suppressed and we had to turn to leafleting, as we are doing now each Monday against the I.B.M. Wall-Street offices, trying to reach the consciences of all those participating by their daily work in the hideous and cowardly war we are waging in Vietnam.
I must not forget the beautiful young ghinkgo tree which we purchased from the city last year, and which we planted in honor of Carmen Mathews, herself a great lover of the countryside (and of drama).
She rescued us from a foreclosure when a first mortgage fell due and so has become part of this house on First Street, and of the bits of greenery back and front of it.
The fact that prisoners on Riker’s Island so I have been told, grow these trees which brighten our streets makes that tree especially dear to me.
When I pass it, I make the sign of the cross on its bark, to encourage it to grow fast and strong.
Maybe we can plant another this year in gratitude to God for saving us from the hands of the tax gatherers.
Fr. McNabb, the French Dominican, said that when Jesus left his apostles, “Peter could go back to his nets, but Matthew could not go back to his tax gatherings.”
Letter from the Internal Revenue Service:
From: District Director, Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury, PO Box 3100, Church St. Station, New York, N.Y., 10008
To: The Catholic Worker Movement, 36 East 1st Street, New York, N.Y. 10003
Gentlemen:
After examining your financial records and reviewing your activities for the above years, we find that you are not required to file annual returns for the years shown, and no further action is necessary regarding the proposals in our letter of .
…of our own conflict with the IRS.
We live in what we can only regard as a temporary truce.
We have not applied for or received tax exemption.
The letter we received (and published) from the N.Y. State Offices of the IRS stated:
After examining your financial records and reviewing your activities for the above years (), we find that you are not required to file annual returns for the years shown, and no further action is necessary regarding the proposals in our letter of .
Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely yours, District Director Internal Revenue Service
The Washington official representative who met with us conveyed to us the respect they held for our religious principles and assured us that the presented bill for almost $300,000 could be ignored.
The matter would be dropped, it was indicated (but, “for the present” was the qualifying clause in my own mind).
Mr. Nixon’s first statement that he would attack the problem of “permissiveness” was a warning note.
The jailing of newspaper reporters, the Ellsberg trial — in fact, any criticisms of government policies or actions was going to meet with repressive measures.
The tax refusal movement all over the country grows.
The conflict between State and people is coming out into the open here in the United States.
The Totalitarian State is not just Germany (Hitler), Italy (Mussolini) and the USSR (Stalin), but is here and now with the “all encroaching State” as our Catholic bishops once called it, involving China and ourselves, as well as Russia.
We assure our readers that we try to get rid of our gifts as fast as they are given to us.
But the threat still hangs over us of prosecution for not paying income tax.
We are not tax-exempt.
On principle we refuse to pay income tax, because so great a portion goes for wars, preparation for wars (defense, it is termed), and providing other countries with billion of dollars to buy our instruments of war and material and plants to make their own.
There is a sizable movement truly the foundation of the peace movement which is based on tax refusal.
(Contact Robert Calvert, War Tax Resistance, 912 E. 31st St., Kansas City, Mo. 64109.)
Our refusal goes deep.
Our motivation is fundamentally religious.
We are told by Jesus Christ to practice the works of mercy, not the works of war.
And we do not see why it is necessary to ask the government for permission to practice the works of mercy which are the opposite of the works of war.
To ask that permission to obey Christ by applying for exemption, a costly and lengthy process, is against our religious principles.
It is an interference of the state which we must call attention to again and again.
A father who educates a young man or woman other than a blood relative is taxed for his generosity.
A poor family who takes in another poor family (as many of them do in time of unemployment or crisis), cannot count that as tax deductible.
Of course the poor suffer from the withholding tax which is taken from their weekly pay.
To understand their rights, they must plough through booklets and forms put out by the government (which I am sure I could not manage to do) before they are able to collect money at the end of the year which is owing to them due to some change of circumstance.
To get the advice of the Internal Revenue Department means standing in lines, paying excessive fares by bus or subway, with generally little redress of their grievances.
(A cheering note for us, with our very large family, which seems to increase day after day, is that when confronted by the government forces not long ago, Washington representatives from the Department of Justice were willing to concede that we were not making profits out of the poor, that we were motivated by religious principles, and that they would so notify the New York offices of the Internal Revenue Dept. which had handed us a awful bill for taxes due, along with penalties and fines, over a space of four or five years.
The New York office then sent us a brief notice concluding that our income did not obligate us to file returns.)
To talk economics to the rich and Jesus to the anarchists gathered in convention [a conference at New York’s Hunter College] these two days (and have to write this column) is a job.
Besides, I did not “talk Jesus” to the anarchists.
There was no time to answer the one great disagreement which was in their minds — how can you reconcile your Faith in the monolithic, authoritarian Church which seems so far from Jesus who “had no place to lay his head,” and who said “sell what you have and give to the poor,” — with your anarchism?
Because I have been behind bars in police stations, houses of detention, jails and prison farms, whatsoever they are called, eleven times, and have refused to pay Federal income taxes and have never voted, they accept me as an anarchist.
And I in turn, can see Christ in them even though they deny Him, because they are giving themselves to working for a better social order for the wretched of the earth.
Proceeded to the Kansas City, Mo. House of Hospitality and War Tax Resistors’ Center in adjoining buildings and run by Bob and Angela Calvert who are gardening every inch of the land in their front and back yards.
It is much to the edification of the city block families and we hope their imitation.
Spent a Sunday afternoon with Karl Meyer and Jean and their three beautiful children, and all happy in the life of voluntary poverty where he receives an income low enough to be untaxable and so will not anticipate any more jail terms. His work is with the retarded in sheltered workshops.
Some of the best all around accounts of this ferment which is going on, among the young especially, is in The Peacemaker, 1255 Paddock Hills Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45229. This small packed newspaper deals extensively and specifically in works for peace, listing all those imprisoned for conscience — refusing conscription; one valiant woman is confined on Terminal Island for refusal to pay taxes (Martha Tranquilli, Terminal Island, San Pedro, Ca. 90731).
All those activities which we Catholics call “works of mercy,” are also performed by many Protestant, Quaker, and other groups in the country.
I remember a young woman who came to help us years ago, who, after her first, early enthusiasm had worn away, used to sigh wearily and say — “What’s it all about?”
I am sure many of our friends and readers also pose, more seriously, the same question.
For instance, what are Ernest and Marion Bromley all about?
Why is this frail, elderly man in jail right now for “disorderly conduct,” that is, for distributing leaflets about the nefarious workings of the Internal Revenue Service and their ways of penalizing people for advocating tax refusal.
Remember, it is the Federal taxes paid by each of us that supply arms that are keeping wars going, I cannot go into the important discussion of Tax Refusal now.
(Subscribe for The Peacemaker, 1225 Paddock Hills Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45229 or write to War Tax Resistance, 339 Lafayette St., New York, N.Y. 10012.)
What I want to bring out is how a pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions.
And each one of our thoughts, words and deeds are like that.
Going to jail, as Ernest Bromley has done, short though his stay may be, causes a ripple of conscience among us all.
And of remembrance too.
Did they search him and list every item contained in every pocket?
Did they strip him and search every nook and cranny of his body, as they did the young women arrested during the protests against air raids drills (psychological warfare) in the 50’s?
As they are doing now to Martin Sostre in Dannemora prison even after every visit from friends or lawyers.
What sadistic impulse is it that causes guards to continue these searches?
Ernest Bromley is sharing, in his (we hope) brief jail encounter, the sufferings of the world.
And we hope, like the apostles, he rejoices in having been accounted “worthy to suffer.”
The Peacemaker, every issue, has a list of those imprisoned for conscientious objection to war.
I was happy to see that Martha Tranquilli was due for release .
The Peacemakers discussed, among other subjects like voluntary poverty, life styles, etc., the kind of demonstrations to show our determination not to pay income tax which goes for building up monstrous implements of war.
Wally Nelson and his wife Juanita were there, both of whom are familiar with arrests and jailings.
I got acquainted with them years ago when Koinonia, in Central Georgia, was literally under fire from the small-towners all around them.
Next issue, I will try to write more about federal income tax which is providing the weapons for war — why we pay local taxes and not the federal income tax.
We recognize the seriousness of this and the risks involved for families.
The Bromley case is an example.
Their house was sold from under them in Cincinnati but they have not yet been evicted.
The price paid was excessively above its value.
It looks like the government is trying to make an example of them.
(It was not bought by friends and given back to them — an erroneous rumor; the Bromleys would not have put up with a connived sale which would mean still more money going to the government for war.)
This is a good and historic case, involving as it does, simple, plain and powerless (?) people.
I’d like to call special attention to a story in this issue of the paper — it is Peggy Scherer’s story, on the front page, of the Peacemaker victory [the IRS surrendered in their attempt to seize and sell Ernest and Marion Bromley’s home].
(It is the completed story of the news box which appeared on page three of the last issue.)
It is a story of gentle persistence, the power of Truth — faith in Truth (remembering that Christ is our Truth).
He is the Way, the Truth, the Life.
Chuck Matthei had told me the story of his interviews with the head of the Internal Revenue Service, the almost daily dialogue that went on between them, and the frank and “manly” admission, made finally by the IRS chief, that a mistake had been made, that the Peacemakers had Truth on their side.
I felt a great sense of joy and thanksgiving, a sense of hope too, that our officials in Washington D.C. could be approached in this way — with dignity and perseverance, with courtesy, with the recognition that we are all, each one of us, whether government official or radical (one who gets to the roots of things), children of God.
We do believe that we are all brothers and sisters.
We believe, too, that we can only show our love for God by our love for our brothers and sisters.
So we share our joy with you, our readers, and hope we all have a sense of renewed strength and energy to continue our opposition to all violence, to all wars.
We point out that one way not to have to pay income tax, so much of which goes to the military, into stockpiling, into sales of weapons to other countries, is to seek more ways of living a life of voluntary poverty, to follow our Lord Jesus and his loveable servant St. Francis.
[Speaking of Pentecostal Christian groups on the Mexican border:] I could tell of other works these groups have done, but there is no space here.
I only wish that the cause of peace, the rejection of war and service in the armed forces, and refusal to pay income tax could be part of their way of life.
Jesus told us to love our enemies and St. Francis’ followers made a rejection of feudal service to the war lords of the time part of their religious commitment.
In the Catholic Worker organization itself was targeted by the IRS for failure to pay income tax.
Eventually the IRS backed down in the face of public ridicule and Catholic Worker resistance.
Some of the Catholic Worker articles about this were written by Dorothy Day and I’ve already excerpted them in an earlier Picket Line post focusing on her writings.
The issue published a couple of reader reactions to the kerfluffle:
Dear Dorothy,
Ho, you are on the right track.
I just read your tax exemption article in the issue.
You are absolutely correct.
I don’t know how you will do it.
But you owe to all those you help, not the money represented, but the faith and steadfast purpose for which you stand — the guiding light.
I pray for you.
I hope some way you can make it — somehow.
Love, Dick Mayer 409 West 11th St. Newton, Kansas 67114
Dear Friends at CW,
I just read the 39th Anniversary issue and am tremendously excited by the article: “If the Present Is Different…”
We are in a bit of a “predicament,” between seizure of our car and auction by the IRS.
The IRS has adjourned the open auction and declared an auction for sealed bids; peace people around here are ready to rise to that challenge also.
We are starting a peace action center in this area.
We’d be interested in literature lists of books and pamphlets written by CW people.
We read that the CW has to appear in court to justify its tax refusal and its refusal to ask for exemption — as if mercy had to ask permission!
We are in a three-family intentional communlty of Mennonite background.
War tax resistance is one of our pillars and we’ve not yet found our way out of tbe maze of incorporation into some status that gives us the kind of freedom we seek.
But our existence together, our resistance and service, are dally victories.
So we keep on.
Peace and Joy be with you, David Jansen of the Bridge
Today, a few more data points about the tax resistance of Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen.
First, a short article by Robert McClory from an issue of In These Times dated .
Seattle Catholic Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen took a leap of faith in a speech before 600 delegates to the Pacific Lutheran convention at Tacoma, Wash.
“I think the teaching of Jesus tells us to render to a nuclear arms Caesar what that Caesar deserves: tax resistance!”
he said.
“We have to refuse to give our incense… to the nuclear idol… I believe one obvious meaning of the cross is unilateral disarmament.”
Within a few days, Hunthausen, a relatively unknown church leader in a relatively obscure section of the country, had become a prominent national figure.
To many it seemed incredible that a Catholic bishop would urge people to disobey the law.
Yet the reaction in letters and newspaper editorials across the land was anything but condemnatory.
He was consistently praised for “saying what had to be said” and for “sticking his neck cut an behalf of the future of the world.”
In fact, Hunthausen, 60, a balding, bespectacled, scholarly looking man, hadn’t meant to stick his neck out too far.
Personally, he was struggling with a decision on whether or not to withhold half his taxes as a protest, he explained to reporters, adding, “I don’t know what I’ll do.”
But as a crescendo of support built up , Hunthausen was emboldened to go all the way.
In a speech at Notre Dame University, he said yes, he intends to withhold his taxes, and yes, he is prepared to go to jail if the Internal Revenue Service decides to move against him.
“Our nuclear war preparations are the global crucifixion of Jesus…” he said.
Hunthausen’s radicalization has been going on for at least .
A native of Anaconda, Mont., he was ordained a priest in and remained a dutiful churchman in the Helena, Mont., diocese until appointed archbishop of Seattle in .
It was near Seattle — on Puget Sound — that the U.S. Navy was constructing a base for Trident submarines, renowned for their first-strike nuclear capability.
The new archbishop became acquainted with Jim Douglass, a young, anti-Trident activist associated with the Ground Zero Center for Non-Violent Action.
In when Douglass was involved in a public fast protesting the Navy base, he asked the archbishop for support.
Hunthausen replied by sending a letter and 50 pages of background material to all his priests, urging them to speak out about the Trident and its significance.
In the following years, he personally joined in demonstrations, praised Douglass and his colleagues and talked openly about the demands of the gospel in a nuclear age.
Yet when he spoke his boldest words , they were directly related to that with which he was most familiar.
“We must take special responsibility for what is in our own backyard,” he said.
“And when crimes are being prepared in our name, we must speak plainly.
I say with a deep consciousness of those words that Trident is the Auschwitz of Puget Sound!”
Hunthausen’s leadership on this issue seems to have pushed other bishops in the United States into adopting a tougher stance on nuclear weapons.
The Catholic Herald (of Britain) in 1983 noted that, on a 238 to 9 vote, a conference of U.S. Bishops released a pastoral letter calling for a halt to nuclear weapons production.
Excerpts from the article:
All American Catholics will be challenged by the US bishops’ war and peace pastoral, and many could be led by it to try changing US defence policies or even to civil resistance, said Auxiliary Bishop Thomas.
He added that some Catholics influenced by the letter may well be led to forms of civil resistance to US policy such as the tax resistance undertaken by Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle.
The letter does not counsel such resistance, he emphasised, but it is an option open to those who find themselves opposed in conscience.
Through successive drafts of the pastoral the Reagan administration showed an unprecedented interest in the outcome of a church document, lobbying persistently through Secretary of Defence Caspar Weinberger and William Clark, national security adviser.
The D.C. Gazette reported in :
A group of religious leaders in Washington state is supporting the proposal of a Washington Roman Catholic Archbishop who urged people to refuse to pay their income taxes to protest US spending on nuclear arms. In , Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle urged US citizens to refuse to pay fifty percent of the federal income tax they owe to protest what he calls the “demonic” nuclear arms race.
Now leaders of the Lutheran, United Methodist and United Presbyterian Churches, as well as officials of the United Church of Christ, have joined Hunthausen and vowed to stand publicly with him.
In a letter endorsing his proposal, the church leaders are urging clergy elsewhere in the nation to give a similarly call to action.
The Internal Revenue Service, in the meantime, says that disputes with government programs on moral and religious grounds do not give people the right to withhold taxes.
Colman McCarthy used Hunthausen’s action as the hook for an op-ed:
Washington — Is the Internal Revenue Service preparing a jail cell for Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle?
He told the IRS that for reasons of conscience (“I think the teaching of Jesus tells us to render to a nuclear-arms Caesar what that Caesar deserves, tax resistance”), he would be passing up the festivities of April 15.
Until , doubts had persisted that Hunthausen would actually follow through on his statement of : that he was tired of praying for peace while paying for war and that he planned to refuse to pay half of his taxes to protest his government’s militarism.
The archbishop’s resistance — which represents courage, enlightenment, and fidelity to the basics of his religion — gives the IRS two choices, both bleak.
If it jails him, the attending publicity assures that Hunthausen’s style of protest would be pushed further to the front of the surging peace movement.
A year ago, the nuclear freeze was seen as the idea of a few fringe radicals.
But then came the New England town meetings and the freeze is now moderation itself.
From behind bars, Hunthausen, a fatherly book-loving man, would lend immeasurable substance to conscientious tax resistance.
The IRS itself would likely be hit with a large levy of public ridicule: It jails a humble clergyman whose stated income is between $9,000 and $10,000 but it can’t track down legions of high-salaried tax cheats who help defraud the government of an estimated $80 billion a year.
The IRS is aware of another economic reality.
The cost of prosecution and jailing would be much greater than the small sum that the bishop owes.
It is known that within the IRS peer pressure exists among the agents to dog cases that promise large payments.
Nailing a near-impoverished churchman, while highrolling white-collar cheats evade the tax laws, is not the way to earn a place in the T-Man Hall of Fame.
The IRS hasn’t forgotten the last time it was scorned and laughed at when taking on a peace bishop in a tax resistance case.
In the late 1970s, agents in Richmond, Va., spent several months pursuing the taxes of a priest working under Bishop Walter Sullivan.
The prelate recalls that the agency eventually spent about $10,000 to get about $9.
Should the IRS ignore Hunthausen, it will give publicity to a fact it would rather keep little known: that few tax resisters are ever jailed.
The growing literature on the subject — from “People Pay for Peace: A Military Tax Refusal Guide” published by the Center on Law and Pacifism in Colorado Springs, Colo., to the newsletters of the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign in Bellport, N.Y. — reports that judges do not look on tax resisters as criminals acting out of greed but as honest and intelligent citizens seeking to demilitarize their government.
Hunthausen bears this out.
He has stated publicly that the money he withholds from the IRS will be given to such groups as the National Peace Academy, a Pro-life chapter and a charitable organization.
While the top minds of the IRS squirm as they choose a proper penance for the archbishop, Hunthausen has been warding off attacks in his hometown.
A reader of the Seattle Times rants.
“What breakdown in Catholic structure, what failure in Catholic leadership, has allowed the archbishop of the great city of Seattle to make such a fool of himself?”
Another mouthed the unofficial motto of the Pentagon: “We just cannot sit back and let the Russians build nuclear warheads and we do nothing.”
The challenge of Hunthausen is to resist being jailed not by the IRS but by the arguments of unreflecting critics like these.
The context of the debate on nuclear weapons can’t be limited to the political.
Nor can it be only a technological debate between hardware experts.
The moral context comes first, Hunthausen is correctly arguing: “I say with deep sorrow that our nuclear war preparations are the global crucifixion of Jesus.”
The supporters of Hunthausen also need to be reflective.
His stance should to be honored as something deeper than mere theological chic.
The truth is that since Hunthausen announced his tax resistance last summer not one bomb has been dismantled and not one dollar diverted from the arms race.
Hunthausen’s protest needs to be seen as a mild startup of moral pressure on the government, not a grand finale.
Washington — Raymond Hunthausen has observed by withholding 50 percent of his income tax and publicly proclaiming it.
He does not care for the way the Reagan administration would spend his money.
Hunthausen is not your run-of-the mill tax rebel, of which there is a growing number in the country, for a number of reasons.
He is the Catholic archbishop of the archdiocese of Seattle.
He suggested to Christians last spring that they withhold 50 percent of their taxes to protest increased spending on the arms race.
None of his flock, which is in the heart of the military-industrial complex, has publicly followed his example.
But His Eminence practiced what he preached and with his Form 1040-ES-1982 he enclosed a check for $125, which is half the amount due.
When asked at a Seattle Press Club meeting if he was ready to go to jail for tax evasion, he said he was.
He observed that the IRS had other ways of getting his money — perhaps confiscating his savings account or garnisheeing his salary, which amounts to $9,000 — a sum that probably wouldn’t cover a day’s supply of paper clips at the Pentagon.
Washington state’s economy is much tied to defense and nuclear enterprises: it has several nuclear power plants, Trident submarine bases and builds Boeing planes.
But since the archbishop made his startling suggestion of civil disobedience, he has received mail that has been predominantly favorable.
Paul Weyrich, a right-wing spokesman, calls Hunthausen “a radical of long standing.”
To the administration, of course, the archbishop represents a political threat that even the support of the extension of tuition tax credits to parochial schools and the support of the church’s stand on abortion do not begin to meet.
“I think the teachings of Jesus tell us to render to a nuclear-arms Caesar what Caesar deserves — tax resistance,” Hunthausen told his congregation.
He is one of many Catholic prelates who have taken a militant stand on the question.
Remembering Vietnam, the White House had expected the solid support of the hierarchy in its anti-Communist crusade.
But on both Central America and the “peace through strength” nuclear buildup, the prelates have proved a disappointment.
Hunthausen sent the other half of the $250 he owes the IRS to an escrow account for the World Peace Tax Fund, something that is not yet in existence but will be if a bill sponsored by Sen Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., is ever passed.
It provides for conscientious military tax objectors to put the “military tax portion” of their returns into the Peace Fund.
But it is not law yet, and His Eminence could go to jail if the IRS decided to make an example of him.
It poses something of a dilemma.
No administration would want to send a red hat to the slammer.
But about 75 percent of the American people share his views about the arms race, and they could, if frustrated, start following his lead.
Prosecution could be as dicey as nabbing the thousands who have failed to register for the draft.
Hunthausen supports the nuclear freeze, Ground Zero Week and the new “no first use” of nuclear weapons initiative.
He is one of the interdenominational group of Seattle clergymen who have engaged in extensive dialogue with members of the Washington state legislature in the hope of persuading it to pass a freeze resolution.
Many Americans share the archbishop’s views, although not his courage.
The fear of the sound of the tax collector’s step on the stair runs deep.
The terror of the IRS audit stays their rebellion.
Some take the coward’s way of dodging taxes, which is to give money to organized charities, some of whose blunt policies they find odious.
For instance, if you contribute to Amnesty International, you know they will turn in oppressive countries and help make the Reagan administration a little self-conscious on the subject of human rights.
Closer to home, if you give to a scholarship, you counter in a small way Reagan’s assault on college student loans.
It’s the wimp’s tax revolt — and deductible, of course.
The income tax forms are voluminous.
But nowhere on them is a place where a person such as Archbishop Hunthausen could specify what he did not want his money used for.
There is no way, for instance, where you could tell the IRS you would rather see a food stamp recipient have a vodka on you than to have your money go to a manufacturer of poison gas.
There’s no “preference” blank where you can write in: “Do not spend one dime finding a home for the MX — take care of orphans.”
Only one small box is set aside for choice.
It asks you if you want $1 to go to a fund for presidential election campaigns.
It is not enough.
The archbishop is using his tax return as a weapon in the battle against nuclear war.
He is telling Ronald Reagan that until he listens to what the country is trying to tell him about nuclear morality, he will get only half his allowance.
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
In mentions of war tax resistance in the Friends Journal were few and far between.
In the issue, Cliff Marrs (a British Quaker) gave his interpretation of the “Render Unto Caesar…” koan from the Bible, and in particular what guidance it offers to those war tax resisters who take advice from scripture.
His point-of-view:
The idea that Jesus was circumscribing a political realm that was Caesar’s domain, and a sacred realm that belonged to God, is anachronistic.
Jesus, and his Jewish listeners, “regarded God as the Creator, and the whole universe as God’s domain — including politics — and would not have distinguished between the political and the religious.”
The tax in question “functioned as a kind of rent that assumed that all land belonged ultimately to the Roman Empire,” while core Jewish scripture makes it clear that Israel belongs to God.
The fact that Jesus had to ask someone else for a coin to use to illustrate his point may be significant — perhaps he did not carry such a coin because its use of a graven image that represented a member of the Roman ruling class as a divinity was idolatrous, or perhaps he had rejected Roman money and so (by the logic of his epigram) its taxes as well.
Maybe he was suggesting that it’s not sufficient to refuse to pay Roman taxes, but you ought to reject Roman money as well: give it back to Caesar and be done with it.
Would Jesus, who cared for the poor, really promote a regressive poll tax?
Paul’s unmistakable pay-your-taxes command in Romans 13 isn’t necessarily an interpretation of Jesus’s instructions, or even good advice in general, but was just a pragmatic, common-sense instruction to Christians living in Rome.
Since Jesus was ultimately charged with promoting resistance to Roman taxes prior to his execution, this seems to indicate that at least some of his listeners interpreted his message that way.
In short, biblically-oriented tax resisters should not be frightened off by the “Render Unto Caesar…” episode, as its interpretation is not so simple as its vulgar usage may suggest.
An obituary notice for Edith Carlton Browne in the same issue noted that “[s]he and [her husband] Gordon became military tax resisters in , and she continued that witness throughout her life.”
Another obituary, for Lorraine Ketchum Cleveland, said that “[i]n she became a war-tax refuser in a case that eventually went to the Supreme Court (Cleveland, Cadwallader, and the AFSC vs. U.S.A.).
Lorraine continued throughout her life to deduct from her federal taxes that portion that would be used for war, and sent it to a worthy cause.”
The issue mentioned the tax resistance of Robert Purvis, who refused to pay his Pennsylvania state taxes in protest against the state’s denial of equal voting rights to black citizens around , and then refused to pay “that portion of his property tax that went to support the schools” in when his children were refused admission to the whites-only classrooms. Purvis wrote:
I have borne this outrage ever since the innovation upon the usual practice of admitting all the children of the township into the public schools, and at considerable expense, have been obliged to obtain the services of private teachers to instruct my children, while my school tax is greater, with a single exception, than that of any other citizen of the township.
It is true, (and the outrage is made but the more glaring and insulting): I was informed by a pious Quaker director, with sanctifying grace, imparting, doubtless, an unctuous glow to his saintly prejudices, that a school in the village of Mechanicsville was appropriated for “thine.”
The miserable shanty, with all its appurtenances, on the very line of the township, to which this benighted follower of George Fox alluded, is, as you know, the most flimsy and ridiculous sham which any tool of a skin-hating aristocracy have resorted to, to cover or protect his servility.
An article in the issue mentioned in passing that “Quakers withdrew almost as a single body from the Pennsylvania legislature in rather than vote taxes for war.”
An obituary notice for Wally Nelson (not, I believe, a Quaker, but the obituary says he “demonstrated the values and commitment of a Friend; by his loving manner and unwavering integrity, he shaped an ideal for Friends to aspire to”) mentions his war tax resistance activities:
In , he cofounded Peacemakers, a national organization dedicated to active nonviolence as a way of life.
In , he and his wife, Juanita Nelson, began their lifelong practice of refusing to pay taxes used for armaments and killing.… During , the couple was among the founders of the Valley Community Land Trust, Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters, and the Greenfield Farmers Market.
He was well known as a regular market vendor in downtown Greenfield and as a participant in the annual war tax protest in front of the Greenfield Post Office on tax day.
The issue noted that the Northern Yearly Meeting had “approved a minute expressing support for the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill and for those who are conscientiously opposed to war taxes.”
At this point, those Quakers who cannot pay for military and weapons are subject to great sacrifice.
Some have refused employment that would result in a taxable level of income.
Others have exposed themselves to confiscation of their homes and other possessions.
We seek a legal mechanism whereby we may pay taxes and be responsible citizens without funding human death and suffering.
We view adoption of [the Bill] as providing religious freedom to many of our Society currently suffering for their faithfulness to their Quaker beliefs.
Add that all up and we get:
one abstract discussion of whether war tax resistance conflicts with Jesus’s teachings
three mentions of American war tax resisters recently deceased
one mention of a tax resister from
one mention of American Quaker war tax resistance from
one contemporary American Quaker Meeting advocating the latest Peace Tax Fund scheme and alluding to the acts of contemporary Quaker war tax resisters
Which is to say: next to nothing about actual real-life American Quakers doing actual, honest-to-goodness war tax resistance in .
Their use of commas in the title ought to give you some idea as to their answer.
But you might also be interested in the 75 comments and questions in the ensuing back-and-forth.
Today I’ll try to catch up on what has been going on with the tax resistance campaign taking place in Hong Kong as part of the “umbrella movement” protests for democratic reforms.
Beijing loyalists had been pushing what they were calling a “universal suffrage” bill, but one which would only allow people to vote for candidates that had been pre-screened by a Beijing-controlled committee.
This bill failed to pass the Hong Kong legislature , which was seen as a victory for pro-democratic forces.
The tax resistance campaign has posted a series of bulletins on inmediahk.net about the campaign and its historical precedents, including:
some of the illustrations accompanying the inmediahk.net series of articles about the tax resistance campaign in Hong Kong
The movement seems to be exploring new tactics.
The last time I checked in, the tactics being discussed seemed to mostly be either underpaying tax by a symbolic amount or paying the complete amount of the tax but in a symbolic fashion (by writing a large number of checks each for a value that is a number with symbolic value for the campaign).
Overpaying the taxes by a symbolic amount so that the government cuts a refund check for that amount.
some of the refund checks received from Hong Kong Inland Revenue
Expanding the underpayment or payment-with-many-checks method to other payments to the government besides taxes, such as student loan repayments, rates at government-run housing, and utility bills.
people brought their checkbooks to an event where they could use rubber stamps to quickly make many $6.89 checks
Donating money to charity so as to reduce the amount of tax owed.
Responding to a notice of assessment with an objection (in the 1cm×18cm space provided for objections) to the effect that the unrepresentative, violent Leung Chun-ying regime has no authority to assess taxes.
fine print fills the space allowed for objections to the tax assessment
In , an audit of IRS hiring practices found that 800 of the 7,000 employees the agency had rehired in had prior conduct or performance issues when working with the agency.
“In response, the agency agreed to fully consider such issues in the hiring process and Congress later enacted a law imposing that as a requirement.”
The agency was recently reaudited, and… “about 200 of the some 2,000 former employees rehired in had such issues.”
Old habits die hard.
Erica Leigh, at NWTRCC’s blog, continues to advocate for the war tax resistance movement expanding its focus.
This time she highlights divestment from the prison system as another good reason to resist taxes.
Mary M. McGlone meditates on the “Render Unto Caesar” koan at the National Catholic Reporter, and determines that “What we owe to God is a blank check.”
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
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 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 .
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 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 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 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 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 , 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 .
In , 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 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 , “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 and again in
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 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.”
In , members of the three historic “peace churches” — Brethren, Mennonites, and Quakers — held a series of regional conferences and then a national one under the “New Call to Peacemaking” banner.
Among the more newsworthy things to come out of the national conference was a call to renew and strengthen the tradition of war tax resistance (though the conferences covered a larger range of issues than this).
The findings of the national conference included these:
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.
We call upon members of the Historic Peace Churches seriously to consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes, as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.
We challenge ourselves and also our congregations and meetings to uphold war tax resisters with spiritual, legal, and material support.
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.
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.
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.
In keeping with our past support of alternative service provisions for conscientious objectors to the draft, we urge support for congressional enactment of a World Peace Tax Fund as an alternative to compulsory financial support of war and preparation for war.
Wealth and violence go together — a root of war often overlooked and often denied.
Wealth depends on the violence of oppression for its earnings.
And once gained, wealth needs the threatened violence of armies to protect its profits.
Since most of us share in the wealth of the western world, we’re caught in this trap.
“Is it right to refuse to go to war or to complain to Congresspersons about the military budget or to refuse to pay the military portion of the income tax,” LeRoy Friesen asked the California New Call to Peacemaking meeting in , “when it is the protection of the standard of living which you and I share which makes such an army necessary?”
[T]he New Call to Peacemaking has called on its members seriously to consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes.
Such action would be a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.
Those responding in this way would soon find that in confronting a powerful government that has widespread support, they need congregations and meetings to uphold them in spiritual, emotional, legal, and material ways.
The Evangelism of Tax Resistance
The call to resist paying taxes that support war and preparations for war remind us that peace and justice go together.
And tax resistance is also an opportunity for evangelism as well as a proclamation that Christ is Lord of all creation.
“It is for this reason that the question of tax resistance has become an important symbol,” says Dale W. Brown.
“For it involves our pocket books, raises questions of support for the church, and defines the peace witness in broader terms than what our seventeen or eighteen year old youth do in response to the coercive power of the state.”
Does tax resistance express love for the poor and oppressed?
Does it make a clear statement about obedience to God?
Is tax resistance a hindrance to evangelism or a support to it?
Stem the Growth of Militarism
One of the current concerns about militarism relates to the large amount of money being spent on military budgets.
Efforts need to be made to redirect the use of these resources into programs that meet human needs.
Tax resistance is one strategy receiving growing support.
“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,” said the New Call to Peacemaking at its national meeting in .
Christians who take tax resistance seriously express condemnation of the world arms race.
“For the foreseeable future,” says John K. Stoner, “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.”
Is tax resistance an expression of servanthood?
Is it a way to identify with the cause of the poor?
How can we demonstrate the urgency of our concern and the dedication of Christian peacemakers to stemming the growth of militarism?
Revolution in the World Peace Tax Fund
Other persons support the World Peace Tax Fund as an alternative to compulsory support of war and preparation for war.
This proposal, yet to be made into law, would allow concerned persons to designate their tax money for peaceful use rather than for war.
Thus, they would register a conscientious objection to the financing of war in much the same way that objectors to the draft register a protest against military service.
The World Peace Tax Fund appeals to those concerned for proper ways to make their concerns known.
If enacted, and if large groups of people voted for peace with their tax money, it could have a revolutionary and radical impact.
What are the prospects of the World Peace Tax Fund being seriously considered by the United States Congress?
Does its passage not wait until a larger proportion of the population has engaged in war tax resistance assuring that they will not be turned back by penalties and even imprisonment?
[W]hat can we do that will have immediate impact?
Tax resistance has important meaning for peacemakers and the powers they confront.
“We call upon members of the historic peace churches seriously to consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes,” said the national meeting of the New Call to Peacemaking in , “as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.”
The Pittsburgh meeting of the New Call to Peacemaking suggested a further step.
“The peace churches should consider refusing to withhold income taxes from their employees for ultimate payment to government.
This should be done in a manner to lay the responsibility upon the churches and not the individual employees.”
Civil Disobedience as Divine Obedience
Tax refusal as one form of protest to militarism is one of a number of ways available to peacemakers to show that their supreme loyalty is to the Risen Lord.
For them, it is also a tool to change the policies of a warmaking government.
“War tax resistance,” says John K. Stoner, “might just be a cloud the size of a man’s hand announcing to the nations that the reign of God is coming near.”
Though even in the peace churches, tax refusal is sometimes viewed with suspicion, it is receiving wider acceptance and understanding.
“As the church has grown in its discernment of what the Bible teaches about slavery and the role of women,” says Stoner, “so it must grow in its discernment of what the Bible teaches about the place and authority of governments and the payment of taxes.”
For through tax refusal, the peacemaker makes a statement of faith.
“War tax resistance means accepting the discipline of submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the nitty-gritty of history,” says Stoner.
“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.”
Is civil disobedience the method of last resort, the action taken when no other ways are open?
Would you advise draft resistance for young men and women facing conscription?
Why?
Or, why not?
We have been inconsistent in praying for peace while continuing to pay for war.
Our contributions to the violence of the world are obvious at many places.
Our complicity with the affluent lifestyle of life all around us is one place of compromise.
Another failure of integrity has been in our willing payment of taxes which support the war-making power of our country.
“It is, at the root, a simple question of integrity,” says John K. Stoner.
“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 those taxes.
Our bluff has been called.”
He notes that the church has not tried tax resistance and found it ineffective.
It has rather found it difficult and left it untried.
If we step back a bit and view ourselves, we will often see how much we are like those we want to change.
The reasons generally given for not taking such radical action as tax resistance are much like those excuses given by German Christians who refused to resist the excesses of Nazism.
“It was always a matter of waiting for some new, more obvious proof that the regime was evil, of believing explanations of what was happening when such explanations were couched in religious or semi-religious language,” says Stoner, “of expecting some person in a position of authority to make the break first and of hoping that right would ultimately prevail without requiring any personal sacrifice beyond the ordinary.”
The lesson from history is not an easy one to learn.
Says Stoner, “We expect more from others than we do of ourselves.”
A while back I went through as many back issues of Friends Journal as I could find, to try to tell a story of the recent history of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends (Quakers) in the United States.
I’ve lately been going through back issues of The Mennonite in an attempt to do the same with American Mennonites.
Some preliminary notes:
My searching technique was not very sophisticated:
I relied on the volumes of The Mennonite whose page images have been scanned in at the Internet Archive.
Most of those are text-searchable, but the searchable text is uncorrected optical character recognition output and so probably makes a hash of much of it.
In many volumes, the text close to the spine is difficult or impossible to read in the scans, and the OCR wouldn’t register it correctly.
I usually relied on simple searching for “tax” and “taxes,” occasionally supplementing this with searches for “bonds” and “stamps” (during the World War periods when those were other ways citizens financially supported the military).
This likely missed some relevant discussion.
I couldn’t find a copy of the volume, and I think The Mennonite did not publish in ; in any case I did not find any issues from those years.
In the more recent years there are a lot of mentions of Peace Tax Fund-related activism.
I didn’t bother to keep track of most of these, as I wanted to concentrate on war tax resistance proper.
I will make mention of some of the highlights of this activism, and of where it intersects with (and sometimes undercuts) war tax resistance, but there’s much I’ll omit.
There’s a lot I don’t know about American Mennonites, about which institutions (and magazines) are broadly representative and which only represent certain tendencies or subgroups.
So some of my summaries may be uninformed or missing nuance.
I’ve just completed a first pass through the available volumes, , bookmarking pages that caught my eye.
My first bird’s-eye impression, before trying to synthesize things, is that support for war tax resistance went from being mostly unthinkable in the early issues to being a frequently-discussed majority position by and then quickly faded by .
In the earlier issues I reviewed, I saw very little concern about paying war taxes.
It was usually taken for granted that Mennonites are to Render Unto Caesar and to look the other way when Caesar spends what’s rendered.
A typical example of this comes from Frederick Yeakel’s “The Things Which Are Caesar’s” from the issue.
He begins by describing in general terms the concerns an American citizen might have for his or her country, but then says “the foregoing medley of queries and propositions… are concerning the things which Christ has very succinctly designated as ‘Cæsar’s’ — and the Master’s teaching is that we shall on the whole submit ourselves to the existing order of things.”
Thus we often experience a feeling of relief, tempered with gratitude, though otherwise much annoyed and perplexed, that Christ was so emphatically an upholder of law and government, and so unreserved in his recommendation that men should pay their taxes.
When we remember that Joseph and Mary took a long and arduous journey to Bethlehem merely in order to be taxed, and that by a decree of a Roman Emperor, also that doubtless Christ, from early childhood, had much to hear of Israel in bondage, and under heavy tribute to a hierarchy not that of David or Solomon, so that when his enemies sought to impeach his loyalty to Rome in the matter of tribute money, the Saviour might, to our way of thinking, have replied with perhaps a show of hesitancy, rebuke or in strong disapproval.
But strong, firm and clear comes the answer, “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”
Christians are thus left with little room for doubt or evasion as to their duties toward the government under which they stand at the time.
They may yield with grace to wrongs and injustice imposed by the powers that be without incurring God’s displeasure.
A brief item in the issue showed that Mennonites might even voluntarily tax themselves to support the military:
The Mennonites in Russia met recently to consider the financial support of the wounded soldiers in the present war, and their families.
It was decided that a regular tax of five Kopekes per desjatine of land per month as long as the war lasts be levied.
In the , the Russian Mennonites were mentioned again.
By this time the disastrous Russo-Japanese war had been lost and republican reforms had eroded some of the Czar’s authority.
Russian Mennonites had worked hard to get the Czar to accommodate their conscientious objection to military service and there was some question as to whether the new government would honor this.
In the course of the article on this subject, it was noted that during the Russo-Japanese war “Mennonites paid what was practically an exemption tax” for their privilege of conscientious objection.
I note this because in contrast, Quakers had a long-standing tradition of refusing to pay such exemption taxes.
In the issue, editor Isaac A. Sommer noted that “[t]here are are present about a dozen branches of Mennonites” and wondered if it could be determined from among them, perhaps in some sort of General Conference, “[i]n what fundamentals do the Mennonites agree?”
John Horsch, in Gospel Herald (a magazine which I have not otherwise yet investigated) took up the challenge, but chose rather to note where the different divisions disagreed.
For example, the doctrine of “Nonresistance”:
We hold that this designation loses its meaning where members in good standing are permitted to serve in such worldly offices as policemen, and the like, as is the case in certain bodies of Mennonites.
A follow-up editorial (signed “G.”) in The Mennonite attacked Horsch’s piece from beginning to end with the sort of thorough fisking that only internecine battle really brings out.
Of Horsch’s concern about nonresistance, G. wrote:
If it is wrong to be a policeman it is just as wrong to recognize his authority and accept his protection, or indirectly contribute toward his support by paying taxes for that purpose.
Of course if G. were to apply this same logic to the traditional Mennonite position of conscientious objection to military service, this would mandate tax resistance as well, but I saw no evidence that G. considered this or that anyone else noticed it.
This is more evidence that war tax resistance was not prominent in The Mennonite readership’s consciousness at the time.
Sometimes [the German Mennonites in Pennsylvania] neglected the paying of the taxes levied by the continental government.
e.g. In one of the families of which I know there was a hall clock case from which three separate sets of works had been removed and sold by the officials to satisfy war taxes which the owner refused to pay.…
During the civil war many of the brethren were practically made beggars by the frequent necessity of purchasing substitutes, some having been several times drafted.
That’s the first mention of Mennonite war tax resistance I could find.
It concerned resisters from long ago, and even so it was introduced semi-apologetically, with the author explaining that the resisters during the American Revolution were “German in their sympathies and… taught to respect the king above all things” and so were out of sympathy with the rebel cause — implying that it was this, and not pacifist scruples, that led them to refuse to pay rebel war taxes.
The included a lead editorial by editor Carl van der Smisen on the subject of “Church and State”.
The editorial mostly was a sort of vaguely mournful reflection on the ongoing national election campaign of , and on the balancing act of Mennonites who wanted to consider themselves primarily citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven but who felt obligated to attend to at least some of the nitty-gritty of improving the kingdoms of the earth.
In the course of this, van der Smisen writes:
Are we doing our duty, do we give Caesar what is Caesar’s if we pay taxes irrespective of the use that is made of these taxes?
The question raised, however, remained unanswered.
An article in the issue concerned a war tax bill being drafted by Congress (it’s unclear to me whether this was in anticipation of the imminent World War Ⅰ or to pay for ongoing U.S. interference in the Mexican civil war).
In any case, the article is very much in a just-the-facts mode, describing which commodities would be taxed and how much.
“[T]he following will give you some idea of how each individual would pay a share” the list began.
No hint is given that these taxes might be avoided or refused by pacifist Mennonites.
This concludes part one.
In the next post in this series, I’ll explore how The Mennonite covered war tax resistance during World War Ⅰ.
I started a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I pick up where I left off, at the beginning of World War Ⅰ.
The United States entered the war, officially anyway, in .
I know that some Mennonites resisted the frenzy of pro-war patriotism that followed, but The Mennonite itself clearly did not.
The front page of the edition reproduced an extract from Report of Committee on Citizenship of the Eastern District Conference that, while it reaffirmed “our fundamental principles of peace and non-resistance” also counseled that:
There is abundant historical precedent of patriotic financial assistance given by Mennonite peoples to their governments in times of war in other countries to warrant us in recommending that our people subscribe liberally to government bonds as a means of financial assistance to our country.
We recommend that all our members who are able to do so, invest in government bonds.
An article on war taxes from the issue continued the trend of reporting on what would be taxed and how much without any hint that Mennonites should be troubled by this.
Articles about the “Liberty Bond” drives reported on their “overwhelming success” and made no mention of the people (including many Mennonites, though you wouldn’t know it from reading The Mennonite) who were refusing to buy them for conscientious reasons.
The issue reprinted A Short and Sincere Declaration, which was said to have been delivered on behalf of German Baptists to “The Honorable House of Assembly” in .
The declaration said that “we find no Freedom in giving or doing or assisting in Anything by which Men’s Lives are destroyed or hurt” but:
We are always ready, according to Christ’s command to Peter, to pay the Tribute, that we may offend no man, and so we are willing to pay Taxes and to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the Things that are God’s…
We are also willing to be subject to the higher Powers and to give in the manner Paul directs us:— for he beareth the Sword not in vain, for he is a Minister of God, a Revenger to execute upon him that doeth Evil.
Our small Gift, which we have given, we gave to those who have power over us, that we may not offend them as Christ taught us to pay the Tribute Penny.
This is an amalgam of three bible verses that are often used to excuse taxpaying and other concessions to government authority, and are the typical stumbling blocks for anyone trying to biblically justify tax resistance:
Matthew 17:24–27 — Peter pays the temple tax via a miracle from Jesus
Romans 13 — Paul says that worldly governments are God’s instruments and should be obeyed
Matthew 22:15–22 (et al.) — Jesus answers, “Render unto Caesar…”
In the issue, A.D. Wenger gave a report from Camp Lee, where some 130 conscientious objectors, including Brethren, Quakers, and Mennonites, were being processed.
“[Some] care for horses, work in kitchens, etc.
Some work in hospitals or do clerical work.
Others refuse to do any work that directly supports the war.”
Some were imprisoned, fed on bread and water or not fed at all.
“The lives of some were threatened.”
Parents of some of those imprisoned tried to bring food but were turned away.
Wenger and some others tried to intervene by speaking with a General Cronkhite and Colonel Hunt, who were “severe” at first “but later were more mild and genial as they saw our position more clearly.”
They appeared to be satisfied if our people do not bear arms if they will only help along in some other way.
They say the whole nation is in the war and that all are helping, whether soldiers or not, by special taxes, farm products, etc.
What the government requires of us we must give.
It is our duty to pay our taxes.
“Pay ye tribute also.”
It is not until the issue that I find some evidence that Mennonites (if not The Mennonite) are conflicted about financially supporting the war.
From the lead editorial of that issue:
The launching of the Fourth Liberty Loan has again reminded us that when once war is on its way, peace only comes at a terrible cost in men and means.
Nearly two million of our countrymen are now overseas.
Their return to peaceful vocations depends largely upon the support they get from home not only in munitions, but in the things that sustain life.
A failure to give them the proper support would unquestionably prolong the war and cause greater suffering.
The traditions of our church have been those of a peace sect and the question naturally arises in the minds of some “Can I consistently buy bonds now?”
Buying bonds is supporting a government which is at war, but so is raising wheat or wool, or mining coal, or manufacturing lumber, since the government has decided to just what use these commodities are to be put.
We know of Mennonites who refuse to have anything to do with bond-buying.
Whether they are right or not is a matter we must let between their God and their consciences, but if they believe themselves to be right, we warn them that they must hereafter never touch a bond since their conscience has pronounced it an accursed thing, neither must they have anything to do with an institution that builds up its endowment with Liberty bonds, be it a school, hospital, or other benevolent institution.
It is our opinion that bonds, like money which they represent, are things belonging to the secular government.
It is our duty as good citizens to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.
We claim the protection and demand privileges of our government and are therefore in no position to be lax when it is in need of the use of our money.
Mennonites have plenty of historical precedent in the matter of loaning money to the government in war times.
…[For example,] Mennonites, at the risk of life, sent a considerable sum of money to William of Orange to help him in his great struggle for Protestantism and liberty.
…[And] during the Napoleonic wars, the Mennonites of Prussia rendered financial assistance to their government.
No doubt the assistance given in both Holland and Prussia were important factors in determining the favorable treatment Mennonites were given after that in these countries.
Bearing arms and participating in bloodshed are matters upon which people differ as to their right or their wrong, but concerning the matter of rendering to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, that is, giving to the government that which already belongs to it, is a thing upon which the Master acted long ago.
He showed us what our attitude should be.
Does it become us to try and change or improve upon a course already laid out by our Lord?
The editorial was unsigned; the editor at this time was Silas M. Grubb.
The churches have also taken a very decided stand on the question of the war loan.
There have been two such loans made in Canada and the Mennonites have been approached each time.
The churches in Saskatchewan had a meeting and decided unanimously that they would have nothing to do with the war loan but instead would make a handsome contribution to the Red Cross.
The feeling was the same among the churches in Manitoba, but here the canvassers made some of our people believe that the proceeds from their bonds would be used only for buying grain, and under that impression some subscribed to the loan.
This year the government came to us with a definite promise that the money which came from the Mennonites should be used for relief purposes only, that a separate account would be opened in the treasurer’s books for this purpose, and that it should be stamped on the bonds taken by Mennonites that the money went to the relief account.
Under these conditions the churches all have recommended their members to buy bonds.
It is estimated that about half a million will be subscribed by the Mennonites of western Canada.
This is the third in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I pick up in the period between the World Wars.
[I]n your further argument about supporting the war, you seem to make no distinction between money given with the sole purpose in view of giving it support, and other money given or paid, in the way of taxes, or gain raised for food.
You certainly ought to be able to make a distinction here.
I do not raise grain for the express purpose of supporting the war, but as a necessity of life.
If others misuse this grain for the purpose of destruction, that can not be properly charged to me.
But if I buy a Liberty bond, etc., I am doing it with the impression that it is for the express purpose of supporting the war, because that is the purpose of the aid asked.
It seems to me that you ought to be able to see a vast difference between those two motives.
But in general, The Mennonite and its readers seemed still to be very casual about the use of war bonds.
The first issue of included a report from the Berne, Indiana congregation that included this remark:
On we assembled in our church in large numbers…
Although the expenses were greater in than in any other year in this century, the people contributed for the promotion of God’s kingdom more liberally than usual.
Not only dimes and dollars, but also War Saving stamps and Liberty bonds were offered.
Other casual mentions of war bonds and stamps were scattered through various issues.
For example:
To date we have received $5,040.00 in Liberty bonds and War Saving stamps.
In accord with the expectation of our government, these papers will be held for maturity.
Later, we expect, our missions will find good use for the principal.
The board is always ready to receive such securities for the use of missions.
The issue included an article about the Funkite schism among Mennonites in the Revolutionary-era United States.
Christian Funk was of the opinion that Mennonite colonists like himself should be loyal to the rebel colonial government, while the establishment position was that they should maintain their loyalty to the King.
The article reproduces some of an booklet by Funk, explaining his position.
Excerpts:
A tax of 3£, 10s. was now laid, payable in Congress, paper money.
My fellow ministers were, however, unanimously of opinion that we should not pay this tax to the government, considering it rebellious and hostile to the king.
But I have it as my opinion that we ought to pay it, because we had taken the money issued under the authorities of Congress, and paid our debts with it.…
…Cæsar had not been considered by the Jews, as their legitimate sovereign, and though they owed him no tribute, and that they had tempted Christ to find a cause against him.
But Christ demanded a piece of their money, and asked what image and superscription it bore, to which they answered Cæsar’s; he then replied, ‘Render unto Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s, and unto God that which is God’s’ I remarked further — were Christ here, He would say: ‘Give unto Congress that which belongs to Congress, and to God what is God’s.”
This displeased Andrew Ziegler, and rising said I would as soon go into the war as to pay the 3£ 10s., if I were not concerned for my life, and departed in anger.
In the past war the Mennonites were not as steadfast as they or as any other true Christian should have been.
We bought liberty bonds because, oh, we thought we had to.
Do we realize that perhaps our money was used to make shells to kill some one?
One Mennonite made the remark during the world war, oh it is absurd to be a Mennonite in time of war.
If this be true it is absurd to ever be a Christian!
Let us therefore be steadfast and rely on Christ to stand firm in time of war as well as in time of peace.
We spend 72 per cent of our entire budget on wars past and future.
Such heavy war taxes leave little enthusiasm to grapple with social, educational, and industrial problems.
After studying the teachings and spirit of Jesus as we believe He should be interpreted many earnest disciples are concluding that no Christian can have a share in war.…
Shall we as Christians and as His church to accept the demands of a sub-Christian world or be true to the way of Christ at any material cost and any personal distress?
We believe this moral dilemma is the most important aspect of this problem.
Very true Jesus commanded “Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” but He also spoke, “And to God the things which are God’s.”
The same section of the issue meandered a bit on the topic of the separation of church and state and the possible conflict of God’s laws with man’s laws.
Excerpts:
Separation of church and state has been a cardinal principle of Mennonitism.
The laws of God as revealed in Christ and His Word are superior to man-made laws.…
This well-defined and historic principle, however, has created some curious facts in practice.
We think it proper to pay taxes, but how a corrupt government may use that revenue is none of our concern.…
Is it not time to square ourselves with God and reality?
Whether or not we like it we are a part of a social, economic, and political order.
Living apart from it is impossible.
To find out how to live in it and still do our Christian duty is our major problem.
A “jotting” in the issue returned to the story of the Funkite schism, but this time pointedly told it more from the point of view of the orthodox tax resisting Mennonites, and represented it as a question of paying taxes “for military support” whereas earlier tellings had portrayed the orthodox resisters as having been motivated by stuck-in-the-mud royalism:
During the period of the Revolutionary War in Pennsylvania, Mennonites became divided on the matter of paying taxes imposed for military support.
A small faction in the Skippack District under the leadership of a minister named Funk took a liberal view of the matter and paid the tax.
This party established several churches, the last of which became extinct about .
One of those who refused to pay the tax owned a splendid clock of the “Grandfather” type.
The tax collector seized the works in payment of the levy, but left the case in possession of the owner who promptly furnished it with new works.
When a boy, the editor visited the home of a descendant of the owner of the clock and was permitted to examine it and the works with which it had been refurnished.
It was an excellent time keeper.
A “Sunday School Lesson” meant for and focused on that ever-grovelling Romans 13, insisted, as Paul did, that government officials are instruments of God, even if they don’t realize it, and that therefore we should be obedient, even if some government officials are bad.
There are some exceptions:
“Laws that interfere with one’s conscience, laws that make murderers of men, laws that are aimed at the breakdown of religion are not real laws.
They are counterfeit…”
However:
Special emphasis is placed upon the paying of tribute.
Paul commends it.
So did Jesus when He said, “Render unto God the things that are God’s and unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”
[sic]
It is important that each one who benefits by the law do his part in its support.
That means giving of our possessions toward that end.
Some have taken the position that they are not of this world and so have no obligations to the powers of this world.
Were that so it might mean that disobedience to all law were justified.
In such matters, as in other things, we must take the example of Jesus.
He paid His tax.
There were many things in the government of His time that He could not approve by any means, but that did not prevent Him from meeting the obligations that citizenship imposed.
As citizens let us bear in mind that there are two kinds of citizens, the good and the bad.
Any one who would be like his Master certainly would want to be numbered with the good citizens.
On , George S. Stoneback preached an Armistice Day Sermon, taking as his text Ⅰ Samuel 30:24 — “As is the share of him who goeth down into the battle, even so is his portion who remains with the baggage, they shall share alike.”
He said:
When David said it he was thinking in terms of spoils, but his principle is true in more aspects.
The same can be applied to the responsibility for war.
Nobody wants war — yet the world is full of actual and potential warfare.
Nobody wants war, and yet we are all actively preparing for it.
Who is to blame? Who is responsible? The Japanese war lords? Mussolini? Hitler? France?
To be sure — but they have a lot of company.
They do not bear the responsibility alone; the world is full of baggage watchers who share alike in the responsibility for wars and rumors of war.
Every wage earner in the country is helping to finance America’s newest bid in the armament race.
About a year ago this country launched a cleverly conceived system of wage tax.
One cent on each dollar earned goes into a social security fund.
We thought it would go into a separate fund, but even Senator Norris admits that the money is going in to the general treasury to “balance the budget,” to buy new battle ships, etc.
We thought our money would be put into sound investments.
If a rapidly depreciating battle ship is a sound investment, then we have not been duped.
The United States is now building four new sixty-million dollar battle ships.
It is hard to tell how much of your wage tax will be used to pay for them.
How many people have protested?
Some Mennonites in Lancaster protested, but only against receiving the fund once it comes due, not against paying the levy.
Finally, the Young People’s Committee were at it again in the issue, reinterpreting “Render Unto Caesar” in the other direction.
Instead of trying to say maybe sometimes we should refrain from giving Caesar our denarius, the article argued that perhaps we should be more eager to give Caesar our two cents:
Unto the Jew of that day this [saying] could hardly mean more than the payment of taxes to the Roman Emperor.
Caesar governed.
That system of government did not place upon the Jews the duty to help solve complex problems of state.
Caesar dictated, and the Roman legions marched.
The commandment had a narrow scope.
Today, unto the Mennonites of America, this is a vital and challenging commandment.
In a democracy the people are supposed to govern.
To voice their desires is their duty.
“Render unto Caesar” refers, then, not only to the payment of taxes, but also to the duty of informing our law-makers that the troops of the United States shall not march.
Such action does not interfere with our supreme allegiance to God; it intensifies this allegiance.
Let us step out of the shadow of inactivity and into the sunlight of creative, Christian action for peace — sunlight which will help to dispel the shadows of war.
Either write to your representatives in congress when you consider the time opportune, or get in touch with Public Action, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y.
This agency will inform you when critical measures are before congress and when and to whom you should write.
This same agency issues the excellent Washington Information Letter.
Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.
And here comes World War Ⅱ. Let’s see how The Mennonite copes with the taxes and bonds that will fund it… in our next episode.
This is the fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I pick things up in the early World War Ⅱ period, just before the United States officially enters the war.
[W]e hear a great deal about the obligation of a democracy which must be assumed by its citizens in return for the rights and liberties gained under a system.
May I ask what some of these obligations are?
Must I assume the policy of “My country, right or wrong, but my country”?
Have I no higher allegiance than to my country?
How can I be loyal to God and to my conscience, and at the same time support my country in the anti-Christian and anti-social business of war?…
Do I have an obligation to defend our industrialists’ interests in foreign countries?
On every hand we hear the unanimous answer, “no.”
But, will I be called in to protect loans made by American business to the Allies — made in at their own risk?
What if these business men go bankrupt through a sudden turn in the war’s developments?
Then comes the tremendous clamor for RFC loans to save these industrialists and business men.
Our tax-payers would be compelled to shoulder the burden for credits to belligerents that they had not authorized and in fact had clearly condemned.
The “youth” was Leonard Mather, a student at U.C. Berkeley.
I believe he would later volunteer to serve the military in World War Ⅱ.
The “Render Unto Caesar” episode got another mulling over in the issue.
In this interpretation, the meaning of the episode is this: “[Jesus] said in effect — ‘You use Caesar’s money, you must pay his tax.’ ”
Maridel Harding took another swing at the same dead horse in the issue.
The way she saw it:
In this statement Jesus recognizes the civic responsibility of Christians.
Government stands for that order without which society cannot hold together.
The people who came to Jesus with the matter of paying taxes to Caesar felt toward the ruler as all subjugated people have felt toward their rulers.
Yet the answer of Jesus implies that Caesar, though hated, provided a certain amount of security.
The whole community receives something from government, hence all must share in supporting it.
No man has a right to order his life apart.
That’s reading quite a bit into it, says I. Over the years I’ve read a lot of different interpretations of the “Render Unto Caesar” verses.
I don’t have much skin in the game, not being a Christian, but I have my own favorite interpretation too.
Dead horse might not be the right metaphor; it’s more like the blind men and an elephant from the proverb.
The issue included a piece by R.L. Hartzler in which he anticipated that war was on the way and that “This means that the government must initiate a money-raising campaign the like of which we have never seen in this country.”
Mennonites, he suggested, should anticipate that the government will try to come after their assets and turn them into war materiel, and so they should preemptively devote those assets to beneficial purposes:
How will it be done?
Taxation is, of course, the government’s chief money-raising arm, but it dare not at this time impose a set of exactions sufficient to raise the stupendous amount needed.
To do so would materially “cool off” the war fever which the administration has so adroitly contrived to stimulate and mature.
So other methods must come in for consideration and adoption.
Of these, two are most often proposed by treasury officials, — defense bonds and war savings stamps to be purchased by the people, thus turning their reserves and savings into the promotion of the armament program.
In making public mention of these methods the secretary of the treasury took pains to stipulate that the purchase of such bonds would be voluntary on the part of citizens; and that, while local committees would be appointed to promote the sale of them, persons were not to be subjected to pressure, as was done in many cases in .
Whether or not the administration is particularly averse to the use of such pressure, if it brings money we do not know; but it is at least highly expedient just now to present the matter as a purely voluntary proposition; so far as the individual citizen is concerned.
To do otherwise would bring another reaction which the administration does not want at this time.
But this mild-mannered presentation of the matter may easily be taken too seriously by those who would be expected to purchase such bonds, when the sale of them is in process of promotion.
During the former World War it was not the policy of the administration that local, self-appointed committees of super-patriots (?) should use high-handed measures in dealing with their fellows; but such resorts to pressure methods were not uncommon, nevertheless.
Moreover, the person who tried to appeal for legal recognition and defense of his rights as a citizen only added to his difficulties.
So, while the administration may at this time really intend to make the purchase of the proposed defense bonds optional, the fact in itself does not guarantee that the individual will find himself in a position really to exercise his own pleasure in the matter, as he might now suppose.
Moreover, with the powers which the president now holds, should the sale of such bonds lag and the receipts fall far below what was expected, he may at his discretion precipitate a crisis which will mean the outbreak of hostilities between our armed forces and an enemy (?), and the purchase of defense bonds become thereafter as little a matter of choice as in .
So it all comes around to this, that the time for people who have means that they would rather see invested for the Lord than for war, — the time for them to make such investment is now.
When the government comes along with a “must,” whether declared or undeclared, it will then be too late to be able to say where the money shall go.
Do you have investments in mortgages, stocks, or bonds?
Do you hold certificates of savings or deposits?
Do you have a reserve neatly tucked away in a safety deposit box?
Would you rather see those means go to help save men’s lives in the spirit of Christ, than to destroy them in the carnage of war?
If so, now is the time for you to turn them to some phase of Kingdom service.
If you wait, you may find yourself obliged to give or loan your means for a purpose which your soul abhors, and may then wish with deep feeling that your money could go to a nobler purpose, but find yourself without the privilege of choice in the matter.
The time to make Mammon serve Christ, and not Mars (war) is now.
And let no one presume that he has securely covered the amount of his holdings, for the government has some wonderfully effective ways of finding out.
In view of all this, our church institutions and programs of service should now receive such grants of material resources as they never realized before.
Our hospitals, colleges, missions, and programs of civilian service need financial resources totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The money is now in the hands of our people to meet these needs.
The question is whether the Lord or Mars will get it.
We are certain that eventually one or the other will.
Will those who have means decide that question now, while they have that privilege?
We wonder, and shall anxiously wait to see.
In stating our convictions we establish no new doctrine among us, but merely an age-old faith of the church which has been held precious by our forefathers from the time that the church was founded… and which we have set forth on a number of former occasions since our settlement in America.
[W]e are constrained as followers of Christ to abstain from all military service and all direct means of supporting war.
Specifically…
We feel that we cannot consistently take part in the financing of war operations through the purchase of war bonds, and we are very sensitive to making voluntary contributions to organizations or activities which may indirectly make us supporters of war and the military program.
And then Pearl Harbor.
So that strong statement of principles got in just under the wire.
We’ll see how Mennonite convictions hold out, in the next episode…
This is the tenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
finish off the 1950s.
In general, except for a brief flurry of mostly noncommittal articles in the
late 1940s, The Mennonite seemed to steer clear of
the topic of war tax resistance thereafter, with a few exceptions.
In the issue, Lloyd L.
Ramseyer wrote of
“The
Sin of Just Being Good” — that is of “people who are content to just be
good without concerning themselves very much with the evil about them.” One way
this might display itself?
Do we sometimes shift the responsibility to others, saying this is no business
of mine? May it be that we sometimes even employ others to do what we think it
is wrong for us to do ourselves, and then seem to feel that it is not our
affair?… If three-fourths of my tax dollar goes for war, can I have a
conscience clear of it?
An article on “Taxes” in the issue gave some very middle-of-the-road advice:
In the classic passage, Matthew 22:17–22,
Jesus states that He expected His followers to pay taxes.
“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the
things that are God’s.”
Very briefly, we want to say four things:
Christians ought to be honest in filing tax returns…
Christians should not pay too much tax…
Christians ought to take advantage of deductions and through contributions…
Christians ought to study best ways to give as to tax…
There was not even a hint of a suggestion that a Christian ought to be
concerned about what use Caesar puts the tax to, or might have to draw a line
somewhere and refuse. The “Render Unto Caesar” episode is portrayed as though
when Jesus was asked whether Jews ought to pay taxes to Caesar or not, he had
simply replied “yes” but in a more wordy way than necessary.
(“When they heard this, they marvelled…”
perhaps this is just a mistranslation for “they yawned and checked their
wristwatches.”)
The time of year has come again when the citizens of our country will have to
pay income tax. The question is sometimes raised, should Christians pay this
tax? A large percentage of the income tax money goes for war purposes. A
Christian obeying the new commandment of Jesus to love his neighbor as himself
cannot possibly be in accord with hatred, strife, and bloodshed resulting from
war. What then shall we do about it? Refuse to pay and come in conflict with
the laws of our country?
Jesus our Lord has given us a very clear teaching on this subject in
Matthew 17:24–27.
The collector of the tribute money asked Peter if Jesus paid tribute. Peter
answered, “yes.” Jesus preventing Peter from telling him the incident, asks
Peter “of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own
children, or of strangers?” Peter said of strangers. Jesus answered, “then are
the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast a
hook, and take the first fish thou catchest, open his mouth and take out the
coin therein and give it to the tribute collector.”
The Roman tribute money was used mostly for military purposes. The Roman
Empire was then ruling the major part of the then known world. It required
large armies to subdue and occupy these many nations. The money consumed for
military purposes was a large sum. Jesus asked Peter to pay for both of them.
Tax was again the subject of an article in the issue, but this time the message is much changed:
Daniel Graber Pastor, Silver Street Church, Goshen, Ind.
Dear Quiet of the Land;
PAX… VOLUNTARY SERVICE… 1‒W… What does it all mean? Yes, it means a positive
witness for peace; but in a vision the other night I heard 1000 angels
shouting, “Awake! Awake! Ye Quiet of the Land!”
And then the angel Gabriel went on to explain: “Ah, yes, you Mennonites are
righteous, peace-loving, law-abiding citizens of your land; but what are you
doing at this time so near the death of your Lord? Does not your Christian
conscience move you at more points than that of nonresistance to war and your
interest in finding a peaceful alternative?
“You who proclaim to the world that you are Christ’s disciples would now also
deny thy Lord! Ah, yes, my Lord did boldly say, ‘Render therefore to Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s’; but are
you living under the Roman Empire where you have no political freedom? No, you
are citizens in a free republic, a land founded with an appreciation for your
conscience. Did you not hear the words of John Milton: ‘The passage “render to
Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” does not say “Give Caesar
thy conscience.”’
“You, the Quiet of the Land, are ordering a huge portion of that which
crucifies your Lord when you pay your federal taxes. Did you
know, fine Mennonites, that you are ordering
H-Bombs which will
destroy cities of a million men, women, and children?… Did you
know you are ordering massive retaliation which will destroy most of
mankind and cause more mass suffering than our world has ever known?…
Did you know you are ordering nuclear bomb tests which poison
the atmosphere for a hundred generations yet unborn?… Did you
know you are ordering the top secret horror weapon, by paying in
advance for it, to be delivered any day now?”
As Gabriel finished, the chorus of angels replied from the background; “No!
Gabriel, No! Most Mennonites did not order these horrible weapons. They were
ordered for them unawares — yet we must admit they did give silent
consent. Most of them didn’t realize that Washington sent all of them a
bill for these macabre instruments of suicide and moral degradation in the
name of democracy.”
That bill for the coming year amounts to $43,300,000,000 for Defense, or 60
per cent of the total estimated expenditures of the national government. Over
half of the total budget is raised from individual income taxes, Mennonites
included.
In 20 per cent of the budget went to the War
and Navy Departments to defray the cost of national security. In
this item went down to 14 per cent of the
budget. Possibly these figures do not mean very much now, but taken in
comparison to the present amount, it is ten times less than the 43 billion
dollars now at our doorstep.
At what point, my dear friends, does one cease to add a pinch of incense and
begin to engage in idolatrous worship, and thus deny our Lord? The cost of the
Federal Government operation in the budget
was $55 per person, even then more than what many people gave to the church.
The budget will cost about $455 per person.
If you wish to put this into the Mennonite picture, here is an up-to-date
report.
In Elkhart County, Indiana, where the population is 84,512
( Census), there are over 8,800 Amish and
Mennonites (Mennonite Encyclopedia). Elkhart County will pay
$43,642,912 as their share of the cost of federal government spending. It is
assumed that Mennonites of Elkhart County will pay at least their share, which
amounts to more than 10.4 per cent, or $4,538,862 plus.
If we could believe that even 40 per cent of the budget would be legitimately
used for democracy, it means that the Mennonites of Elkhart County alone are
putting into preparation for future wars close to three million
dollars a year. That amount of money would be sufficient to operate the
entire
MCC
program for more than a year, or to build several new Mennonite Biblical
Seminaries, or a number of hospitals, old people’s homes, colleges, high
schools, etc.
From the soldiers of the cross we hear these testimonies concerning taxes.
John Woolman, who refused payment in : “To
refuse active payment at such a time might be construed to be an act of
disloyalty, and appeared likely to displease the rulers, not only here but in
England; still there was a scruple so fixed on the minds of many Friends that
nothing moved it.”
Bishop Andrew Ziegler, a Mennonite, in the Revolutionary War period; “I would
as soon go to war as to pay the three pounds and ten shillings.”
A.J. Muste (Secretary Emeritus of the Fellowship of Reconciliation): “The two
decisive powers of government with respect to war are the power to conscript
and the power to tax. In regard to the second I have come to the conviction
that I am at least conscience bound to challenge the right of the government
to tax me for waging war, and in particular for the production of atomic and
bacterial weapons.”
Ernest and Marion Bromley (Sharonville, Ohio): “We regard it as the
prerogative of every individual to refuse to aid this government or any other
government either to prepare for or to engage in war. The time has come when
men ought no longer to depend solely upon their spoken witness against war.
They ought to prepare themselves for outright resistance by a thorough-going
dissociation with the war-making system. No testimony for peace can afford to
become a timid shadow. No matter what one may say against our armaments, if he
is still paying for armaments, it seems to be talking peace and preparing for
war.”
“Awake! Awake! Ye Quiet of the Land!” Think before you begin
paying Defense dollars. Convert them to
Peace and the Church today.
Christians have responded to the challenge of this issue in various ways. A
few have refused to pay the proportion of their tax that is used for military
purposes. Some have voluntarily limited their income to the low level that is
tax-exempt…
The issue included Don and
Eleanor Kaufman’s letter to the
IRS:
As Mennonite Christians filed their income tax returns for
, more than one was disquieted to
realize that tithing Christians were not giving nearly as much to further
God’s kingdom as they were paying for military preparation for war! Two
Mennonites decided to give voice to this concern in the following letter.
U.S. Treasury
Department Internal Revenue Service Washington 25,
D.C.
Gentlemen:
In filing income tax returns for we believe
it is necessary to clarify our concerns. Like others who have been perplexed
by the irresponsible use of tax money for military purposes, we are earnestly
seeking for a constructive way in which to be honest with what we understand
about the issue. Personally, we are unable to acquiesce easily to the present
military expenditures of our government which we believe, are irrelevant to
the problem they are trying to solve. One cannot change ideologies or correct
evil by destroying those in whom these forces reside.
In an effort to reduce our cooperation in a warmaking system to a minimum, we
seriously considered refusing payment of that portion used for military
expenditures (which we understand is about 73 per cent of federal taxes).
Since we object on religious grounds to participation in war and military
preparation in any form, we believe, like Milton Mayer, that we are denied the
free exercise of our religion (guaranteed by the First Amendment to the
Constitution) when forced to pay income taxes used for military purposes.
If money represents a part of a person’s life, as we believe it does, then it
logically follows that a Christian will have ambivalent feelings about
professing peace and good will while at the same time supporting explicitly
destructive forces within a government. As there are provisions for
conscientious objection to military service, there should also be provisions
for conscientious objection to making
H-bombs or paying for
the making of them.
Consequently, in the interests of our government and all people, we are
looking for some alternative whereby it would be possible to channel that
portion of tax money to those causes which contribute to the welfare of
people — those legitimate functions which are constructive and not destructive
of human value.
We hope that the United States government will accept our offer to pay the
equivalent or more of the military tax to some mutually agreeable agency,
organization, or institution, like
CROP,
MCC,
Church World Service, or the United Nations (UNESCO,
Technical and Economic Assistance Program,
etc.), which is
committed to a peaceful program for all men. We feel that a voluntary
arrangement something like Edith Green’s bill
H.R. 12310 is
necessary if we are to make possible the conditions of a lasting and abiding
peace.
(This was the earliest of the “peace tax fund” legislative proposals. It set up
a fund to be used to give aid developing nations, and would have allowed
taxpayers to get up to a 2% deduction on their taxes by donating to the fund.)
As Christians, we are not seeking exemption from the payment of taxes, but we
are searching for a right to determine how those taxes are used, especially
those which we contribute personally. It is clear to us that a Christian has a
responsibility to government, significantly because in a democracy he is a
real part of the government. Because the Christian knows something of the
value and importance of community he will do everything he can to contribute
to the stability and welfare of government on all levels.
Yet if this person realizes the destructive character and devastating results
of all military preparation, he will consider it his patriotic duty to do what
he can to avoid collective disaster. We believe responsible citizenship
implies that there is no blanket endorsement for what a government does. Its
actions must be tested and if they are found to be outside of the purpose of
God they are to be challenged.
We hope you will feel with us the urgent need to recognize the priority which
God always deserves in every human decision. We would appreciate your
thoughtful response to this crucial issue.
Akron– Concern for payment of war taxes has been
expressed by the General Brotherhood Board of the Church of the Brethren.
Board Executive Secretary W. Howard Row writes, “The concern is real and the
problems to implement (an alternative to payment of war taxes) are great.
However, probably no greater than that of securing an alternative to military
service.” In a resolution shared with
MCC
and similar organizations the General Brotherhood Board states: Because there
is a growing interest among Brethren and others in finding a positive
alternative to the payment of that portion of federal income taxes that go for
war preparations, the General Brotherhood Board voted that explorations be
made with the appropriate agencies of government to the end that an acceptable
constructive alternative be provided for all those persons who, by reason of
religious training and belief, conscientiously object to the payment of that
portion of income taxes going for military defense. These explorations might
be made in concert with one or the more of the other organizations with which
we are associated or if necessary by Brethren alone.”
A similar reaction was recently expressed by two Mennonites. Mr. and Mrs. Don
Kaufman (Moundridge, Kan.) who
are under appointment as
MCC
workers in Indonesia [and who] assert in a letter to the
U.S. Treasury
Department: [quote from above letter omitted]
On the
MCC
Executive Committee met, and, according to
a
later article on the meeting, “[r]eferred to Peace Section the invitation
from the Church of the Brethren to study whether there might be a positive
alternative provided by the
U.S. government for
persons conscientiously opposed to paying that portion of income taxes going
for military defense.”
The
Mennonite Central Committee annual report for
included a report from this “Peace
Section.” They noted that “throughout our constituency… [c]oncern is evident in
discussions about possible participation in various protest actions and about
the propriety of paying income taxes that are used so largely for war
purposes…”
Our next episode will pick up as the tumultuous 1960s begin.
This is the thirteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we continue our trek into the 1960s.
The issue included an article by Leo Driedger titled “The Taxes that Go to War”.
We met Driedger in our last episode as he was answering a query about the General Conference Mennonite Church’s guidance regarding war taxes on behalf of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee.
In this new article, Driedger begins by methodically explaining how much of the federal budget is military spending, and how the government gets that money to spend.
Then he explores the options for avoiding complicity:
Some think we should work out some alternative to paying taxes.
In the past some Mennonites paid for other people to go to war in their place.
We thought this was wrong so we sought alternative service.
But we are still paying for war with our taxes.
In order to discuss our taxes intelligently we need to know where we are paying taxes, and how it is spent.
Can we escape paying taxes for military use?
It is hard to be consistent.
To illustrate, let us examine the excise taxes.
Most of us do not buy alcohol and tobacco which eliminates half of the excise tax problem.
The other half we pay on such items as gas and oil, telephone, transportation tickets, and sugar (which we can hardly do without).
Not to pay any excise tax on anything would result in doing without a lot of things we think are necessary.
Furthermore, we might find ourselves spending much time trying to decide when we are or aren’t paying excise taxes.
Would this be good stewardship of time?
The twenty-six per cent that the government receives from corporate income taxes could be largely evaded if we did not buy stocks and bonds in corporations.
Many of our people however invest in stocks, although a large percentage don’t. But we would still be involved in a small way in that our money in savings accounts in banks and loans we make involved the investment of some money in corporations and these pay taxes.
True, our involvement here is small.
Most of the government’s money comes from personal income taxes.
In the United States a single person can earn $600 and a childless couple $1200 per year before they have to pay income tax.
In Canada this is $1000 and $2000 respectively.
We would find it hard to live on so little, although I know of one Mennonite who has done this for years.
Reducing our income that much would leave little for tithes to the church.
Is this good stewardship of our money?
For some a large family solves the problem.
In the United States tax exemptions permit a man to earn at least $6,000 before he has to pay taxes.
Not too many, however, are following that solution.
The Christian also has the positive option of giving thirty per cent of his income to the church and tax-deductible charities.
Many of us should consider this possibility seriously.
I know of some Christians who give that much and more to the church every year.
Each year a number of Mennonites include a letter of protest with their tax returns.
They often ask for an alternative.
Some members of the Society of Friends have actually worked on a bill to present to the government asking for the opportunity to pay their taxes to
UNICEF,
a welfare organ of the United Nations.
Securing an alternative will be difficult.
Quite a few actually refuse to pay, and are imprisoned; others don’t pay and get away with it.
This is a complex problem, for even if we were granted an alternative on personal income tax, there is still the other forty-five per cent corporation and excise taxes which are not covered.
The Gospels (Mark 12:17, Matt. 22:21, Luke 10:25 [sic.]) cite the well-known saying of Christ: “Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.” Did Christ mean we should pay our tax money to the government and ask no further questions?
Although the coin had the inscription of Caesar on it, did Christ not mean that all we have and own is God’s, whose purpose is much greater?
Did he mean that taxes for roads, health, welfare, should be paid to Caesar to administer these, but not money for war because this does not serve mankind and God?
Or did Christ actually mean that His disciples should help pay for Roman conquest and military persecution?
Can we work out a perfect plan that will provide an alternative to military taxation?
That seems nigh impossible if we still want to be a part of society.
But, aware of our involvement, do we confess to it and seek truly to make the best witness we can against this evil use of our tax money?
Without giving any glib answer I leave a few questions for discussion:
Is it wrong to pay our taxes to government even though we know seventy per cent of this goes for the preparation of war?
What does the Bible say about this question of involvement?
Is it really possible to withdraw from any involvement, by either paying our taxes and forgetting about it, or attempting to do without those things that involve payment of taxes?
Is this the best witness we can make?
Is there some way in which we can make a Christian witness against programs of military spending?
How?
Should we invest our time and efforts in working for an alternative to paying taxes as we have done in military service?
A letter from Walter M. Philipp printed in the issue took Driedger to task, saying his article was an example of those “which are poorly written, factually incorrect, and show lack of intelligence.”
For starters, he took issue with Driedger’s account of how bank deposits or the purchase of stocks & bonds make individuals complicit in corporate income taxes.
Would not the purchase of products manufactured by corporations tie in more to one’s responsibility for corporate income tax, inasmuch as sales produce the income that is taxed, and a definable proportion of the sales dollar goes for income tax?
Then he asks, “why did [Driedger] not mention investment in municipal bonds, from which the income is tax exempt?”
Municipal bonds do provide funds for some very peaceful, humane, and worthwhile purposes.
Why did he not mention the tax credit applicable to dividend income, the lower tax rate on capital gains, or the lower tax rate applicable to corporation income?
These are just a few examples that contributed to making a poor article.
But interestingly, the criticism is entirely about the technical details.
I didn’t notice any letters attacking the substance of the idea that Mennonites should examine how their taxes make them complicit in military spending and that they need to do something about it.
John Howard Yoder, the controversial and influential Mennonite theologian, chimed in on the subject in the issue:
As I grew, in my late teens and early twenties, into my earliest understandings of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, one of the deeply significant aspects of this discipleship which I sought to understand was what my teachers called nonresistance.
I came to understand this word as pointing to one of the ways in which personal fellowship with Jesus Christ through His Spirit will normally work itself out in the life of the believer.
Two things stood out in this understanding of discipleship in nonresistance.
First of all, to follow Christ on this path involved being enough different from the surrounding world to be considered unlikable or undesirable by certain powerful people and groups in the world.
As a result of this opposition, the way of nonresistance may be called the way of the cross; it involves suffering.
Secondly this position should be a witness.
A witness should show the world that the way it operates, through an interplay of selfishness against selfishness and violence against violence, is subject to the condemnation of God and destined, even in this age, to ultimate judgment.
One other thing my teachers told me was that, according to God’s will, the assignment of civil government is to keep the peace.
The Apostle Paul instructs Christians to offer “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings… for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life…” (1 Tim. 2:1f., RSV).
Obviously, we pray for a “quiet and peaceable life” not because we wish to be left alone but in order that the church may carry on her ministry, so that all men should find salvation and “come to the knowledge of the truth” (verse 4).
The church’s task is to bring men to know the truth; just as clearly, the place of the state in God’s purposes is that disorder be kept to a minimum and peace maintained.
Now when I went out into life with these convictions I was increasingly struck by the fact that there was precious little in my own experience or that of the church that I knew to correspond to this description.
The governments under which I lived were making a major contribution to the terror which threatens all the nations of the world.
They were taking the greatest initiative in poisoning the outer atmosphere of the globe and the inmost springs of heredity with nuclear tests.
Statesmen were making their bids for election primarily on the basis of how “firm” they were prepared to be in threatening the other half of the world with nuclear destruction.
Not only Christians, but even intelligent unbelievers in other parts of the world, asked me what testimony was being given in America by nonresistant Christians, and at the cost of what suffering, in order to proclaim the judgment of God upon this development of weapons which can be used only to break and not to defend the peace.
It is a growing conviction of many that it is an insufficient answer to say that many young men of nonresistant conviction refuse military service and render some other useful service to society in its place.
The position of the conscientious objector is right for the young man to whom it applies.
But in the western nations where military authorities have found a convenient way of shunting such objectors into inconspicuous alternative service, the Christian testimony to the state requires more than this if it is to be an adequate testimony against war.
Alternative service says clearly that the Christian cannot wage war, and that he does desire to serve his fellow men in a useful way.
It does not say that the task of the state is to make peace.
And for the great bulk of Christians of nonresistant conviction, conscientious objection and alternative civilian service involve no suffering and little sacrifice.
These were my thoughts when I was reminded that there is one point at which almost every citizen, or at least every family, once a year does make a personal contribution to the moral and financial support of the military monster.
This gesture of support is carried out each spring when almost every wage earner forwards to the federal government a share of his earnings, more than half of which will not be used to keep the peace.
For a number of years, I had not chance to exercise responsibility over this use of a share of my income, since my employer withheld the amount involved from my earnings.
In , for the first time, it fell to my personal responsibility and initiative to forward to the United States government’s Internal Revenue Service an additional amount, going beyond what had been withheld.
This additional amount due was significantly less than the proportion of my total taxes which I knew were being used for non-peaceful purposes.
I therefore submitted to the Director of Internal Revenue a full and conscientious report of my income, but wrote that I could not take the moral responsibility of forwarding to the government funds which I knew would be used for a purpose contrary to that which government is supposed to be serving.
I told him that I had no intention of profiting personally from my “tax objection.”
I was therefore forwarding an equivalent payment to the Mennonite Central Committee for use in overseas war sufferers’ relief.
In the course of time, I received an answer to this letter in the form of a conversation with a local Internal Revenue Service inspector.
In a very polite and gentlemanly way he informed me that he could not consider this as acceptable in lieu of payment to the Director of Internal Revenue.
He therefore drew from my bank account the amount which I had not forwarded in the routine way.
This much is my story; what remains is to ward off mistaken interpretation of what I did and what I meant.
The point is not to keep the government from getting the money. Not only would this be legally impossible; the New Testament is clear that the Christian will respond to any kind of coercion, legal or illegal, by giving not only his shirt but also his coat.
(See Matt. 5:40.) Since it was clear that the Internal Revenue Service inspector was disposed to take upon himself the responsibility for forcefully collecting the funds, as a “second mile” gesture I told him where he could find the money with the least difficulty.
The idea is not to avoid involvement in the evils of this fallen world, to “keep my hands clean” morally.
Involvement in one form or another is avoided by no one, and I would not be avoiding it if I had no taxes to pay.
My concern is not to be morally immaculate by making absolutely no contribution to the war effort, but to give a testimony to government concerning its own obligation before God.
This is not tax evasion. I filed at the proper time a full and conscientiously accurate report on my income, and when further information came to light I amended my report accordingly.
There is no intention to defraud and no liability to criminal prosecution.
This is not obstructionism. Numerous Christian and non-Christian pacifists express their disapproval of militarism by such symbolic gestures as illegally entering a missile base, sailing a boat into a restricted part of the Pacific just before bomb tests, or in other ways seeking dramatically to catch the attention of the public or of government administrators with their objection.
The action I am describing here differs from theirs in a number of ways.
In the first place, I made clear, not only in my letter to the Director of Internal Revenue, but also in my conversation with the local inspector, that I now have and wish to maintain a healthy respect for the legitimate functions of government and for the persons who carry them out.
I do not express my objection by getting in the way of some military sentinel or civilian truck driver whom I thus put in the embarrassing position of either being disobedient to his superiors or harming me, nor by becoming a problem for some judge who has no choice but to apply the law.
I witness rather by writing and talking calmly to responsible civil servants who are my most direct contact with the process of government.
The only cost of this witness was paid in the form of a gift for relief. The actual amount of tax collected was increased by only a few cents’ interest covering the time elapsed between and the date of collection.
If the equivalent amount I had given for relief had been accepted by Internal Revenue Service in lieu of tax payment, I would have considered it as such in the next year’s reporting.
However, since that payment was not accepted, I shall report it as a deductible contribution.
The way present tax laws operate, this approach would cost the most (in the form of relief contributions) to those who are most able to bear it because of their greater income.
This is significant in contrast to the fact that the brunt of the sacrifice involved in being a conscientious objector, especially in time of war, is laid upon teenagers who are not chosen with a view to their being most qualified to bear it.
If action something like my own were taken by a significant number of mature Mennonite wage earners, this would be the first time in the history of our nation that the testimony to nonresistance was given primarily through the initiative of and at a certain cost to the most mature and responsible people in the church.
One question remains, which both the Internal Revenue Service inspector and my Christian brethren have already asked:
Does not the New Testament instruct us to pay our taxes? Certainly it does; and I want to pay my taxes, and to pay them willingly as far as the functions of the United States government resemble what Jesus and Paul and Peter were talking about.
The lesson of the entire New Testament is that Christians should be subject to political authority because in the providence of God the function of these authorities is to maintain peace.
This is what I, in accordance with the instruction of the New Testament, am asking the American government to do.
I am in fact even willing to pay for a certain amount of waste and fraud and incompetence, as well as for welfare services going beyond what Jesus and the apostles had in mind.
But the one thing I am not prepared to support voluntarily is something which Jesus and Paul did not have in mind because it did not exist in the time of the New Testament.
The government of Rome was not spending more than half of its resources on preparations to destroy the rest of the world.
The authority which Jesus and Paul recognized was an authority within a given empire, an authority which in spite of its violence and corruption and the fraudulent procedures of its tax collectors did effectively maintain peace within the entire known world at the time the New Testament was written.
We know very little, nor does the New Testament attempt to inform us, about significant political powers outside the Roman Empire.
But we can say with certainly that there were no such powers, in any way comparable in importance to Rome itself, which Rome was preparing to destroy.
There is thus in this teaching of the New Testament no easy discharge from the duty to test which of the demands of “Caesar” are really “the things that are Caesar’s” and when what he asks for is not his rightful due.
It is not my purpose at present to agitate for others to follow my example.
I am rather asking counsel from, my Christian brethren concerning the way I have been led.
At the same time I am asking whether others have found more appropriate ways to render a worthwhile testimony against their nation’s trust in the sword.
A Mrs. M. Wiebe took Yoder up on that challenge, in a letter published in the issue.
She was “appalled at the hypocrisy expressed in [Yoder’s] article.”
Excerpt:
What virtue is there in not paying your income tax willingly instead forcing the Revenue Inspector to collect it himself from the author’s bank account?
… To quote: “I am willing to pay for a certain amount of waste, fraud and incompetence” but not for something that did not exist in the time of the New Testament.
Don’t fraud and corruption lead to war?
He describes Rome as a government that didn’t spend as much on war as our government and that Rome “maintained peace” certainly it maintained peace but how?
With terrible brutality and with the sword.
The Romans had a horrible slave system.
Their birthday parties were illumined with flaming crosses of burning Christians.
It was a totally pagan government.
That’s the kind of a government to which Jesus and Paul paid willing taxes.
They had more important things to do than to picket the government and complain about the taxes.
Don’t we as Mennonites have anything more important to think about than how we can draw attention to ourselves by being very odd so that others might notice how pious we are?
Other than that, I don’t see much evidence that Yoder’s article raised much controversy or discussion.
A letter from Don Kaufman, published in the issue, promoted a new “Civilian Income Tax Act” being drawn up by the Pacific Yearly Meeting of Friends.
This was one of the early attempts at “peace tax fund” legislation.
These plans would frustrate and bedevil the conversation about war tax resistance to the present day, and would eventually almost completely displace discussion of war tax resistance itself.
In this way the peace tax fund plans are similar to the “civilian bonds” of World War Ⅱ — they allow ostensibly conscientious people to continue to pay for war by giving their payments a pleasant name.
This is the nineteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
are up to 1972, a year in which there was an enormous amount of material
about war tax resistance in the magazine.
In a weekend workshop was held
for “people who seriously question the morality of paying all that Caesar
demands.” The General Conference Mennonite Central District Peace and Service
Committee was one of the sponsors. From the edition:
Christian response to war taxes was discussed by about 100 participants in a
workshop in Elkhart,
Indiana.
The weekend was sponsored by the Elkhart Peace Fellowship, the General
Conference Mennonite Central District peace and service committee, and other
regional church peace and service committees.
Michael Friedmann of the Elkhart Peace Fellowship said many of the
participants felt the war tax question involved a shift in life style to
reduce involvement in the military-industrial complex.
Al Meyer, a research physicist at Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana, suggested
to the group that one does not start by changing the laws to provide legal
alternatives, to payment of war taxes, but by refusing to pay taxes. We need
to give a clear witness, he said.
Mr. Meyer did not oppose payment of war taxes because he was opposed to
government as such, but because he did not give his total allegiance to
government. He felt it was his responsibility to refuse to pay the immoral
demands of government.
“No alternative will be provided by the federal government until a significant
number of citizens refuse war taxes,” he said.
Art Gish, author of The new left and Christian radicalism, said
draft resistance led logically to war tax resistance.
“If I won’t give the government my warm body, I shouldn’t give it my cold
cash,” he said.
On , John Howard Yoder, president
of Goshen Biblical Seminary, discussed the purposes of resisting tax payments.
He felt the point is to make a clear moral witness. The goal should not be
absolute resistance in keeping the government from getting the money. He said
he would not give his money voluntarily, but would let the Internal Revenue
Service know where they could find it.
Other participants felt tax refusal could be both witness to war and part of a
larger movement to shift national priorities.
Mr. Gish discussed legal and illegal tax resistance. Goshen attorney Greg
Hartzler emphasized that those who break tax laws should make their religious
motivations clear if they want to avoid a severe sentence.
The workshop also discussed communities which are carrying the spirit of
voluntary service into a total life style and are freer to develop a clear
witness on the tax question.
Another topic was the World Peace Tax Fund, which a group in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, is attempting to establish through a bill which it hopes will be
introduced in Congress in . The bill
would enable those who can demonstrate conscientious objection to war to put
that portion of their taxes which would go to war into the fund. The fund
would be used for such purposes as disarmament efforts, international
exchanges, and international health.
Is there a significant difference between fighting a war as a soldier and
supporting it with taxes? “…why should the pacifist refuse service in the
army if he does not refuse to pay taxes?” (Richard Gregg) Why should any
person, on receipt of the government’s demand for money to kill, hurry as
fast as he can to comply? Why pay voluntarily?
What is the biblical or Christian basis for paying or not paying war
taxes? What responsibility does an individual have for wars which are
fought and financed by a government to which he makes tax payments? To
whom is the Christian really responsible?
When faced with a “war tax” situation, what should Christians do? Should
Christians “…take their obligations toward government more seriously than
their church obligations”? (Milton J. Harder) Unless followers of Jesus
dissent from paying war taxes, how are government leaders to know that
Christians are opposed to making war on other peoples whom God has
created? What are the ways whereby we can keep dear our commitment to God
and his love as revealed in Jesus, the Christ?
Can a Christian obedient to God as the supreme Lord of his life continue
simultaneously to “Pray for peace” and “Pay for war”? “How do you
interpret Christ’s answer about the coin in relation to war tax payment?
(See Mark 12:17.)
Must Christians pay to have persons killed? What is Caesar’s? What is
God’s?” (William Keeney) At what point does a government become satanic or
demonic in that it demands what is God’s?
Should Christians who object to paying war taxes wait with their protest
until the whole Christian community agrees to do so?
For the Christian who is opposed to war taxes, is it enough to simply
refuse voluntarily payment of the money requested by
IRS
or should he put forth serious effort to prevent the government from
obtaining the money?
Isn’t the question of military taxation a reflection of the most
formidable problem which every person or religious group must face in our
time: Nationalism?
Ted Koontz of Harvard Divinity school attended the Mennonite Graduate
Fellowship’s annual winter conference and “presented an analysis of reasons for
war tax refusal for use in dialog with those who believe the war in Indochina
is unjust but continue to pay war taxes.” (According to
an
article in the edition.)
The commission asked William Snyder, executive secretary of the Mennonite
Central Committee, if
MCC
is discussing with other religious groups continuing the pacifist position
beyond current “popular” opinions, and if
MCC
is pressing for an alternative fund for war taxes in light of the changing
nature of warfare with finances as the primary resource.
Meetings to discuss war tax resistance were scheduled at three Mennonite
churches in Kansas and Pennsylvania in
and
, according to
an
announcement in the
edition. One of those meetings was covered as follows in the
edition:
About fifty persons shared ways of protesting the use of their taxes for war
at a meeting in Buhler, Kansas,
sponsored by the Western District peace and social concerns committee.
After watching the slide set, The automated air war, produced by
the American Friends Service Committee, participants discussed ways they are
avoiding contribution to the war: refusing the telephone tax, refusing to pay
income tax, investing in corporations which do not produce war materials,
voluntary service, keeping income below the taxable level, and retirement.
Money and the weapons it buys, not the bodies of draft-age men, have become
the primary resource for waging war, the group agreed. But individuals
differed on the best way to influence government against war.
The Internal Revenue Service will attach bank accounts or auction personal
property to collect delinquent income tax or telephone tax, and some persons
questioned the effectiveness of refusal to pay when the government collects
the money later with interest. Or are we simply called to be faithful? some
asked.
Willard Unruh said, “It’s not the money that’s important; it’s the opportunity
to express my opinion. I sent copies to Senators Dole and Pearson of my letter
to the
IRS.
They both responded.”
Jonah Reimer suggested establishing a fund in Kansas into which persons
refusing federal taxes could put an equivalent amount. “It would be an
excellent way to witness,” he said.
The group also discussed attempts to place before Congress a bill to establish
a government fund into which conscientious objectors to war could place their
tax money, which would not be used for military purposes. Such a fund,
however, would not necessarily reduce the amount of money going to the
military.
Some persons objected to the fund, analogous to legal alternative service for
conscientious objectors, saying that such a legal alternative would give
approval to the evil of the military-industrial complex.
One man said, “Mennonites want special privileges. They want to come out of
the war with a clear conscience. But we should want that clear conscience for
everybody.”
“An increasing number of Mennonites are asking what it means to render to
Caesar what belongs to him and in particular to render to God what belongs to
him,” said Wesley Mast, Philadelphia, convener for the seminars. “Since war is
increasingly becoming a matter of bombs and buttons rather than people, we
need to ask what form Christian obedience takes.”
The other two meetings were covered in the edition. Excerpts:
Wesley Mast, Philadelphia, said, “The degree of openness on an issue as
explosive as war taxes was amazing. We wrestled together first of all with the
message of the Scriptures. Would Paul, for example, admonish us today to pay
taxes, as he did the Roman Christians? Would he do the same to Christians in
World War Ⅱ under Hitler? We noted that the times had already changed in the
early church from the ‘good’ government in Romans 13 to the ‘beastly’
government in Revelation 13.”
The seminars also discussed the nature of the present war. Mr. Mast said the
seminar participants heard that since World War Ⅱ the need for foot soldiers
has declined 50 percent. Present war is becoming automated. “When they no
longer need our bodies, how do we declare our protest?”
Another issue concerned tax dollars. “When over half of our taxes are used for
outright murder, how can we go on sinning by supporting that which God
forbids?”
With regard to brotherhood, “should the few who cannot conscientiously pay for
war wait until others come along? How do we discern the Spirit’s leading in
this and not make decisions on an individualistic basis?”
Howard Charles, Goshen Biblical Seminary, was resource teacher on biblical
passages dealing with taxes. Other input was given by Melvin Gingerich and
Grant Stoltzfus on examples of tax refusal from history. Mr. Mast presented
options in payment and nonpayment of taxes. Walton Hackman broke down the
present use of tax dollars, 75 percent of which go for war-related purposes.
“Mennonite collegians will meet
to rap about the kind of lifestyle they want to adopt,” hiply noted
an
article in the edition.
Among the topics on the agenda: “how to avoid complicity with militarism
through paying taxes.”
The continuation of the war in Southeast Asia calls upon us in the United
States to review again our payment of taxes that go to support the war. In
, the Council of Commissions meeting in
Newton, Kansas, urged churches to consider the non-payment of a portion of
their taxes. One of the district conferences passed a resolution chiding the
council for being unbiblical. This response should have called for a mutual
study of the question and this can still be done. It is the intention of the
writer that this article should be a contribution toward the continuation of
dialog on this topic.
The record of Jesus’ pronouncement on the paying of taxes is recorded in all
three of the Synoptic Gospels
(Matt. 22:15–22;
Mark 12:13–17,
Luke 20:20–26). This indicates the importance of this account to the
early church.
The account tells of Pharisees’ and Herodians’ coming to ask a question of
Jesus. They came the day after the cleansing of the temple. Their purpose was
to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the people. Jesus had shown up the leaders
of the temple and they were anxious to get back at him. This question is one
of several that they used. Here the cooperation between the Pharisees and
Herodians is strange. The Pharisees were opposed to the occupation by the
Roman authorities, while the Herodians were enriching themselves by
cooperating. They united because they both wanted Jesus out of the way.
The question of paying taxes brought different answers from these two groups.
The Pharisees were nationalistic and were against any foreign occupation. They
saw the payment of taxes as a symbol of their subjection to a heathen foreign
power. They also hated using the coins with an imprint of Caesar’s likeness as
it went against their interpretation of the second commandment. The Herodians
were willing to see the taxes paid for they had improved their livelihood by
their cooperation.
Thus the question would appear to be a legitimate one. Who was right? They
recognized that Jesus was impartial to people and that if they could appeal to
his sense of justice they might get him to make a judgment. On the surface
their query seemed innocent enough. But they were laying a trap for Jesus.
The question was two-pronged. Jesus could be caught if he answered either
“yes” or “no.” A “yes” would have disowned the people’s nationalistic hopes
and given approval to the hated tax burden. The total taxes paid amounted to
as much as 35 to 40 percent of their income. A “no” to the question would have
made him liable to the charge of sedition and he could be reported to the
Roman authorities. So either answer was one that was looked upon as a means of
hurting Jesus and either discrediting him or doing away with him. Luke says
clearly that they wanted to deliver Jesus up to the authority and jurisdiction
of the governor (Lk. 20:20).
Mark says at the outset that the intent of the questioners was to entrap
Jesus. We are also told that Jesus was aware of their hypocrisy, their seeming
sincerity in asking a question with a hidden intent to trap him. On the basis
of this information, to expect Jesus to reply with either a yes or a no would
be to assume that Jesus was caught in their trap. The amazement of the
questioners after Jesus’ reply indicates that Jesus did not give the kind of
answer they expected.
Turning to the crucial issue, the Pharisees asked if it was lawful to give
taxes to Caesar. The idiomatic rendering of this is “pay taxes.” Jesus replied
that they should “pay back” to Caesar that which was his. Did Jesus see taxes
as a return for benefits received? He probably did, but without sanctioning
all that Caesar was doing. For it was Caesar who had provided for the making
of the coin. But the paying back to Caesar statement does not stand alone and
we cannot treat it as such. To it is added the phrase that we are to pay back
to God what belongs to God. These two phrases need to be interpreted together.
And there are several ways in which this can be done. What did Jesus mean?
First, some see the realm of Caesar and the realm of God as two side-by-side
but separate and distinct realms, each having its own concerns and existence.
The Christian lives in both realms and has a dualistic ethic. When it comes to
killing, a Christian as a citizen of God’s kingdom will not kill. But as a
citizen of this world he will be obedient to Caesar and take up arms. Many
Christians see no inconsistency in reading the words of Jesus to mean this is
the way they should live.
To some of us it is quite obvious that this is not the way Jesus taught us to
live. We do not see him giving Caesar equal authority with God. Jesus warned
that no man can serve two masters. So we reject the position that would say we
should pay to Caesar regardless of the uses he makes of our money.
A second view is that the Kingdom of God is above the kingdoms of this world.
God’s realm is holy and the worldly realm is sinful. According to this model,
one would seek to live as much as possible within God’s realm. It might be
necessary to be involved in the world to some extent but one would take no
responsibility, such as voting or holding office. One would pay taxes to
Caesar but would not see the money as purchasing any services. This has been
the view of some Mennonites in the past. They asked nothing from the world and
gave what was demanded except where it involved their personal lives. They let
the governing authorities take full responsibility before God for the use of
the taxes they paid. This position we also reject as an inadequate
interpretation.
A third point of view sees the whole creation as belonging to God, with God
acting in and through all men. Within the world are a number of states having
separate existence but not autonomous existence for they are all under the
judgment of God. What the rulers do, they are to do as ministers of God and it
should always be according to God’s purposes. Their authority is a derived
authority. Because the rulers of the states are not autonomous, they
frequently seek to wield more power than given by God and so become demonic.
Thus Caesar is not to be obeyed regardless of what he asks. We see fine
examples of this in both the Old and New Testaments. When Caesar asks for more
than God has set for him, the Christian must definitely refuse to grant it to
him. Then the words, “We must obey God rather than men” are appropriate.
Knowing Jesus’ life of total obedience to the will of his Father, we have no
doubt in saying that Jesus saw governing authorities as ruling under God. He
told Pilate, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you
from above” (John 19:11).
The Christians who received the revelation of Jesus Christ were told that
those who are faithful unto death to their convictions would receive the crown
of life
(Rev. 2:10).
It is to this third model that we look for guidance.
The words, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” does say explicitly
that there is an amount that is due a government. But we also hold that it
says there are limits to what Caesar should ask. Jesus was not being asked
about the payment of all taxes. A variety of taxes were levied by Caesar and
the one Jesus was asked about was the annual poll tax that each male above
fourteen years of age had to pay with the specific coin Jesus called for.
We need to see Jesus’ words as providing a generalization rather than a
universal prescription. In moving from a general statement to a particular
situation, we must always move carefully. Let me illustrate: we are told a
person who is a guest should eat what is set before him
(Luke 10:7).
However, if a person is diabetic, it would not be right for him to eat food
that would be harmful to his system. While we can say that Jesus supported the
payment of taxes, we cannot thereby say that he favored the payment of every
particular tax that a government might levy. We can all think of programs
(such as the destruction of elderly and handicapped persons) which we would
not be willing to support with our taxes. If that is the case, then we need to
look seriously at what our taxes are doing in making war possible.
Living under a government that says it is responsible to the concerns of its
citizens, we have an opportunity to witness by bringing our concerns to the
government. A first step should be to write those who represent us and make
the laws for our country. Stating our position in this manner is being a
faithful witness. If the tax money is being used for purposes that are utterly
contrary to what we understand to be the will of God, then we ought to
consider the act of refusing to pay the tax. The purpose of this action is the
desire to be faithful to the will of God as we know it and to help the rulers
become aware of how they are overstepping the bounds of true ministers of God.
Paul in his letter to the Romans exhorts Christians to be obedient to the
authorities. But he has already stated the principle that Christians should
not be conformed to this world (12:1). Or as Phillips has translated it,
“Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its mold.” This calls for
discernment on the part of the church. Can we as Christians continue to pray
for peace while we pay for war?
The edition profiled two small
Mennonite intentional communities in Kansas: the Fairview Mennonite House and
The Bridge.
The
article noted:
[The Bridge] began forming at a Western District war tax workshop. David and
Joanne Janzen, Randy and Janeal Krehbiel, and Steve and Wanda Schmidt were
ready to stop paying taxes for war and to join into a brotherhood of shared
income “to make our whole lives count for peace.”
Both intentional communities are a part of the voluntary service program of
the General Conference Mennonite Church and follow the same financial pattern
of self-support as the majority of other voluntary service units. All income
is turned over directly to the voluntary service office in Newton, which
reimburses the unit for such items as food, housing, travel, and medical
expenses. Each individual receives $25 a month personal allowance.
Although critics of the intentional communities have accused them of using the
voluntary service program as a tax dodge, members of the communities felt
strong ties with their Anabaptist heritage and wanted to channel their
resources to and through the church. But there are no apologies for not paying
taxes. “We’re witnessing to the fact that the federal government is not using
our money responsibly in its huge military expenditures,” said Ken [Janzen].
A member of the Love, Joy, Peace Community (Washington,
D.C.)
wrote a letter in response
in which he wrote (in part):
The problem of war taxes is one which both Fairview House and The Bridge are
addressing. It’s good to see people more concerned with “rendering to God what
is his” (our whole lives), rather than being obsessed with Caesar and his
temporal demands! We have long been passive, instead of active peacemakers. We
pray for peace while we pay for war.
Dear Editor: As members of the Mennonite congregation of Boston, we are
writing this letter to make public our decision to withhold a portion of our
federal taxes, either income or telephone taxes. This decision came out of
discussions with the entire congregation. We are doing this because our
Christian consciences and our Mennonite backgrounds tell us the war in
Southeast Asia is counter to the teachings of Christ. We have chosen to
withhold our taxes because part of the responsibility for the war resides with
those who willingly support it financially, regardless of what they believe.
Realizing this act will undoubtedly have a very small effect indeed on
governmental policy, we hope it will in some way influence others into taking
concrete actions which will demonstrate Christian love. Our friends and our
families cannot help but react to our decision to withhold taxes.
The desired effect of our actions is not, however, the sole reason why we have
chosen this form of protest. As conscientious objector status has become more
automatic for Mennonites, refusal to pay war taxes has provided an additional
way to demonstrate one’s Christian beliefs. Because we have only rough guesses
as to the effects of our act, we accept as a matter of faith that this act
will at least be a significant event in our Christian lives.
While we know the government will eventually collect our taxes, our intention
to send an equal amount of money to the Mennonite Central Committee for
Vietnam relief is a further Christian witness. It offers our alternative to
war.
Jerry and Janet Friesen Regier, Weldon and Rebecca Pries,
Ted and Gayle Gerber Koontz, Dorothy and Gordon D. Kaufman.
An increasing number of people are sending war tax monies to Mennonite Central
Committee, instead of paying them to the United States Government for military
use, said Calvin Britsch,
MCC
assistant treasurer.
Contributions of tax money are of two kinds, Mr. Britsch said. More people are
refusing to pay the federal tax levied on the use of telephones. This 10
percent tax is seen as a direct source for military expenditures. People who
refuse this tax simply subtract the 10 percent from their telephone bill and
send it instead to
MCC.
We also receive contributions from people who refuse part of their federal
income tax, Mr. Britsch said. Several people, for example, have withheld and
have sent in as a contribution ten or 15 percent of their income tax in a
symbolic protest against the Vietnam war and the whole United States military
machine. Others who have had less than the total tax withheld send that
remainder to
MCC
rather than to the Internal Revenue Service. We often get letters with tax
refusal contributions explaining the individuals belief that, as a Christian,
one cannot voluntarily, or without protest, pay money to be used for the
destruction of human life.
Tax refusal contributions, unless otherwise designated, are usually applied to
the
MCC
Peace Section budget, Mr. Britsch said.
The General Conference had asked the Commission on Home Ministries and the
Commission on Overseas Mission to come up with some sort of repentance action,
focused on the Vietnam War. They settled on a coordinated day of repentance,
with other Mennonite and Brethren churches also joining in with a day of
fasting and prayer. Included with the letter from the commissions announcing
this was
a
confession of complicity, which said in part:
We recognize that though we cannot completely disassociate ourselves from the
destruction and suffering the people of the United States are inflicting upon
others, we continue to seek ways “to perform deeds worthy of (our)
repentance.”…
As a church we have opposed war and worked for peace through programs of
relief and service. Yet we share responsibility for the destruction in this
way through our silence, through our profiting from a military economy,
through our patronage of corporations with substantial defense contracts, and
through our payment of the portion of telephone and
IRS
taxes used for war purposes. Much of this involvement is unintentional and may
even be done without knowledge of the implications.
To pay income tax means to help buy the guns, airplanes, and bombs which
continue daily to kill the men, women and children of Indochina. To pay this
tax means to help build the nuclear weaponry which threatens the possibility
of any joyful human life. To pay this tax is to help retire the mortgage of
the atomic bombs which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So, instead of trusting my money to the federal government, I have directed my
financial resources to organizations and individuals working for peace and
justice.
Claus Felbinger, writing about the Anabaptist church in
, said, “We are gladly and willingly subject
to the government for the Lord’s sake, and in all just matters we will in no
way oppose it. When, however, the government requires of us what is contrary
to our faith and conscience — as swearing oaths and paying hangman’s dues of
taxes for war — then we do not obey its command.” Living in the
Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, I feel that, rather than pay taxes, I must
hear and respond to the cries of those who fall victim to the American
war-making power.
I hope that you people working for the Internal Revenue Service will
understand and accept my decision to follow conscience. I hope that you will
also consider the contribution which your work of collecting war taxes makes
to the suffering of our fellow human beings.
Accompanying this was a maudlin poem by another author, called “Confession”
that began “I killed a man today / Or was it a woman or a child?” and went on
to explain that his taxes paid someone to kill, in spite of all the other
things he did to express his dislike for killing. But he was writing a letter
to the
IRS to
tell them why he wouldn’t be paying “that part of income tax which is used for
killing.”
The “Central District
Reporter,” a sort of supplemental insert in the magazine, reported this from
the district’s Peace and Service Committee:
Parents too have stopped being passive about peace. If son will not register,
father will not pay the tax which keeps the army and any war going. All ages
are learning more and more that there is no one way to give witness to
convictions.
A
letter to the editor
from Jacob and Irene Pauls discussed their decision to redirect 64% of their
federal income tax (“clearly designated for war”) from the government to the
Mennonite Central Committee. They wrote: “The state has chosen an enemy, but we
have no enemy. We do not accept the premise that the state can choose an enemy
for us and force us to help annihilate the state’s enemy.”
From the edition:
War tax resistance means sale of car. David Janzen, Newton, Kansas, at right,
talks with Internal Revenue Service officials in Wichita as they open and
record sealed bids for Mr. Janzen’s station wagon. The automobile was
confiscated in for nonpayment of $31.32
of telephone excise tax which would have been used to carry on the war in
Indochina. The officials read bids for one cent to $501, but refused to read
bids for “one napalmed baby” and other “units of suffering” submitted by other
war tax resisters and supporters. “All we’re interested in is the money,” said
the IRS
officer. “We’re interested in what the money buys,” replied Mr. Janzen. The
intentional community of which he is a member bought back the station wagon.
There are some points at which it is necessary “to make a one-sided emotional
commitment to one value” (our militaristic brethren in the church feel we do
this on the war question — especially when we begin to urge withholding part
of our income tax).
What was billed as a “‘Lamb’s war’ camp meeting”
took place in . Sixty or
seventy mostly youngish people, mostly but not all Mennonites, met to discuss
“a life of sacrifice and aggressive peacemaking” as part of “a nonviolent army
under the direction of God.” War tax resistance was one of the topics
discussed, and the verse “gonna lay down my telephone tax, down by the
riverside” was spliced in to the popular spiritual during an evening
sing-along.
A letter to the editor from Robert W. Guth
on the subject of war taxes again told the story of the excommunication of
Christian Funk for paying taxes to the Continental Congress during the American
revolutionary war, and of Andrew Ziegler’s “I would as soon go to war as pay
the three pounds and ten shillings” response.
Preliminary results from the first Church Member Profile survey were revealed
in a article. Excerpt:
In the United states… only 11 percent were uncertain about their position,
should they be subject to the draft. Seventy-one percent would choose
alternative service, an option acceptable to both the government and the
church’s teaching in recent history.
However, 33 percent were uncertain about refusal to pay that proportion of
their income taxes designated for the military. Fifty-five percent opposed
nonpayment of war taxes.
Bill Londeree, a member of Koinonia Partners, Americus, Georgia, emphasized
the personal response to affluence and militarism.
The Methodist Church, he said, has $40 million in investments in the top
twenty-nine defense contractors — and sends out the antiwar slide
presentation, “The automated air war.” Members of the Mennonite Church paid
$87 million last year in war taxes and call themselves a “peace church.”
“This is schizophrenia of the first order,” Mr. Londeree said. “The greatest
need is for examination of our own lives. Jesus’ first statement to us all is
a call to repentance, to metanoia. This does not mean
feeling sorry, but is a command to change.”
The assembly spent much of its time in small groups discussing the
presentations and related topics, such as life style, the ideology of growth,
war taxes, international economic relations, economic needs of church-related
institutions, strategies for social change, new value orientations, and
investments.
This is the twenty-fifth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today I’m going to try to cover 1978.
I say “try” because there was a frenzy of war tax resistance activity reported in The Mennonite .
Maybe I can try to sort it thematically…
A New Call to Peacemaking
“A New Call to Peacemaking” was an initiative coordinated by Mennonite, Quaker, and Brethren activists that began in and would eventually culminate in a statement urging people, Christians in particular, to refuse to pay taxes for war.
The Mennonite General Conference’s Peace Section,
U.S. division, met
and its executive secretary, John K. Stoner, reported that the Call
“has
gained widespread support.”
Invited to the meeting are 300 persons — Brethren, Friends, and Mennonites.
Named the New Call to Peacemaking, this coalition of historic peace churches
believes that “the time has come for all Christians and people of all faiths
to renounce war on religious and moral grounds.”
During the last year twenty-six regional New Call to Peacemaking meetings, involving more than 1500 persons, took a new look at the teachings of their churches.
They gave special attention to war and violence which they continue to see as denials of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Not surprisingly the groups agreed to urge upon all governments “effective
steps toward international disarmament.” However, none of the regional
meetings expressed the hope that politicians, soldiers, and diplomats would
put an end to war. Rather, the thought was that people at the grass-roots
level must demand a change in the system. Further, the idea was often
expressed that tax resistance and civil disobedience are necessary tactics in
convincing governments that a new order can bring security in place of the
present insecurity.
A New Call to Peacemaking conference which convened at Old Chatham, New York, last April, asked itself rhetorically, “Are we going to pray for peace, and pay for war?” A similar conference in Wichita, Kansas, gave its encouragement to “individuals who feel called to resist the payment of the military portion of their federal taxes.”
When the national conference convenes in Green Lake it will be receiving
requests from the regional meetings for a strong position on tax resistance
proposals. It will also be asked to give guidance to individuals and church
organizations on approaches to tax resistance. Theological, economic, and
social justice issues are also on the agenda.
“Citizens should organize themselves and act without waiting for government, especially the major powers, to take positive action,” says Robert Johansen in a paper being studied by the Green Lake delegates.
In another document prepared for the Green Lake meeting, Lois Barrett, a
Mennonite journalist from Wichita, Kansas, notes that the peace churches have
long “recognized refusal to pay war taxes as one of many valid witnesses
against war.”
In the Church of the Brethren recommended “that all who feel the concern be encouraged to express their protest and testimonies through letters accompanying their tax returns, whether accompanied by payment or not.” In the General Conference Mennonite Church said, “We stand by those who feel called to resist the payment of that portion of taxes being used for military purposes.”
The number of persons within the peace churches actually withholding a portion
of their taxes is still thought to be small, but it is growing. The Internal
Revenue Service will not release figures on the number of tax resisters in the
United States.
Members of the Green Lake planning group include John K. Stoner, Mennonite Central Committee, Akron, Pennsylvania; Lorton Heusel, Friends United Meeting, Richmond, Indiana; and Chuck Boyer, Church of the Brethren, Elgin, Illinois.
Coordinator for the New Call to Peacemaking is Robert J. Rumsey, Plainfield, Indiana.
After the gathering, The Mennonite seemed surprised at how tame and nonconfrontational it ended up being (they titled their article “Peacemakers shy away from shocking anyone”).
Excerpts:
The Green Lake conference is part of a cooperative effort by the historic peace groups to do five things — stir up rededication to the Christian peace witness, clarify the biblical basis for it, extend a call to the larger church to see peacemaking as a gospel imperative, propose actions the U.S. Government can take for peacemaking, and determine contemporary positive strategy for peace and justice.
Planning for the consultation began in and has included 26 regional meetings in 16 different areas of the United States.
Over 1500 people were involved in these meetings.
[Church of the Brethren theologian and professor Dale] Brown said one new way of expressing a peace witness was to protest the country’s military expenditures by withholding income taxes.
Tax resistance, he reflected, is an important symbol because it involves our pocketbooks and enlarges the peace witness beyond what 17- and 18-year-old youth do in response to conscription.
[T]he findings committee created a final document satisfying the diverse peaceniks.
For the conservative the final statement was too radical; for the activists it was too limp.
There are two main thrusts to the document — actions that are directed inward
among the peace churches to enhance the integrity of the peace witness, and
actions that are directed outward to enlarge the visibility of the peace
witness.
At the end of the national New Call to Peacemaking conference delegates urged all Friends (Quakers), Mennonites, and Brethren to firmly oppose militarism and to become personally involved in the struggle for justice for the oppressed.
Included in the final paper approved is a call to the 400,000 members of the three peace church
traditions “to seriously consider refusal to pay the military portion of their
federal taxes as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.” This
statement is as strong as the 300 delegates could jointly affirm.
Other parts of the war tax statement are equally muted.
In the first draft of the paper, church and conference agencies were asked to “honor” the requests of employees who do not want the military portion of their taxes remitted to the government.
In the final draft, however, “honor” is changed to “enter into dialogue with.” Several evangelical Quakers were especially antagonistic to even including a reference to war tax resistance in the final document.
Yet tax resistance received new encouragement from the conference.
About 60 persons attended a Saturday afternoon workshop which detailed tax resistance strategies.
Studying the War Tax Issue and Christian Civil Responsibility
The Mennonite General Conference had been asked to stop withholding taxes from the paycheck of one of its conscientiously objecting employees.
This led to a long debate over the advisability of such a policy that caused arguments about war tax resistance to echo throughout the Conference in .
A special General Conference delegate session was scheduled to convene in just to respond to this single issue.
In preparation for that session, congregations had been encouraged to put some
serious effort into understanding the subject, and some studies were written up
to help guide these investigations.
A Christian’s response to civil authority will be given concentrated emphasis by the General Conference during .
The study is an outcome of a resolution at the triennial conference in Bluffton, Ohio, .
That resolution called for a thorough study of civil disobedience which is intended to state an official position of the General Conference with respect to that portion of income taxes which are used for funding military expenditures, and in general, to research the whole question of obedience-disobedience to civil authority.
Responsibility for the study has been given to the peace and social concerns
committee of the Commission on Home Ministries. They, however, requested that
a special obedience-civil disobedience committee be formed to give general
direction and leadership. This latter group consists of Palmer Becker, Ted
Stuckey, John Gaeddert, Harold Regier, Perry Yoder, and Heinz Janzen.
To date three major aspects of the study have been planned — an attitudinal survey, an invitational consultation in , and a study guide to be ready by .
Included in the survey are twenty-eight questions with responses varying from
“strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” chosen to provide an inventory of
congregational attitudes towards the authority of the church, and of the
state. It will also indicate attitudes to particular issues such as abortion,
capital punishment, and payment of taxes for military purposes. A copy of the
questionnaire will be sent to every congregation to be duplicated locally.
A second major happening is scheduled for at Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana.
An invitational consultation will bring together about thirty participants, including persons not committed to civil disobedience.
The gathering will include administrative personnel from the General Conference, lawyers, biblical scholars, as well as representatives from Mennonite Central Committee and the Mennonite Church.
It is expected that the study guide will evolve from the proceedings of the
consultation. Five of the thirteen lessons in the guide will focus on
peacemaking in a technological society. What sort of peacemaking should
Mennonites be about in an age of nuclear warfare and worldwide arms shipments?
The remaining eight lessons will center about the meaning of civil
disobedience. Was it practiced in the Bible? Is nonpayment of taxes a case in
point?
The study process will culminate in the special midtriennium conference scheduled for .
That gathering will be an official decision-making conference to which congregational delegates will come.
At that point a decision on the meaning and practice of civil disobedience will be made.
After the conference the questionnaire
will again be used to determine whether the churchwide discussion on
obedience-civil disobedience has generated any changes in attitudes.
A few more details came after the Commission on Home Ministries met in , and, according to The Mennonite:
Perry Yoder, part-time CHM staff member, outlined the process planned for dealing with the war tax or civil responsibility issue raised at the Bluffton conference.
Because of this issue’s “divisive and emotional potential in the conference,” a survey instrument has been designed to get congregational input; a consultation at the seminary will work toward a study guide, and congregations will be encouraged to use the study in preparation for a special General Conference delegate session at Minneapolis, called solely for the purpose of responding to the Bluffton resolution on tax withholding.
Another article said this study guide would be “available [and] will look at present militarism in North America, previous acts of dissent by Mennonites, and biblical texts on dissent, payment of taxes, and corporate action.”
During the first session on , board members locked onto the planning for the midtriennium conference on war taxes and civil responsibility.
Uneasiness about the process erupted quickly.
The structure of the invitational consultation on the issue was strongly faulted, as was the conference itself.
Board member Ken Bauman, pastor of First Mennonite Church in Berne, Indiana,
galvanized his colleagues with his allegations. “The consultation is not
structured for dialogue — it is monologue. The way it has been set up upsets
me deeply.” Later he declared that the Commission on Home Ministries should
not serve as the launching pad for the study and the planning leading to the
conference in . “Why ask
CHM?
The image of
CHM
is stacked. It should be the responsibility of the General Board.”
His assessment was the beginning of a fruitful debate which occupied several more sessions of the General Board, one session of CHM and hallway discussions.
The debate crystallized about several key questions. What is wrong with the
study process initiated by the obedience-civil disobedience committee of
CHM?
Is the issue of war taxes so divisive that a schism in the General Conference
is inevitable? Is the delegate
conference viable?
By , perhaps symbolically, the hard-hitting process of charge and countercharge had evolved into understanding and affirmation of the original plans.
On paper, little had changed, but in the minds of those who spoke for the “unheard,” — the “conservatives,” the “common person,” and the Canadians — there was a restoration of confidence in the process.
Tenseness was dissipated.
The mood became one of working together.
The consultation will meet at Mennonite
Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana. About twenty-five persons are invited.
These include theologians and biblical scholars, attorneys, administrative
staff of the General Conference, several
MCC
staff, and representatives from the Mennonite Church and the Mennonite
Brethren Church. The proceedings of the consultation are to serve as the basis
for a study guide on civil disobedience.
The committee planning the consultation and the midtriennium conference was called in to justify its ideas.
One member, Perry Yoder, observed, “Getting people to participate is very difficult.
People are very tense about this.”
“We thought the trust level would be quite high,” said another member, Harold
Regier. “Requests for speakers were made on the basis of scholarship and the
purpose is biblical. It is not a matter of pro or con.”
“We don’t know where the scholars will come out,” declared Don Steelberg, chairperson of CHM. (A complete list of scholars invited is not yet available — some are still considering the invitation.)
It was noted that since the concern on abortion had been handled insensitively
at the Bluffton conference, there was fear that the same thing would happen
with the issue of war taxes. So why should those who oppose withholding war
taxes bother to participate? They won’t be heard anyway.
Another fear was that the Canadians would also stay away. “My gut reaction is that it is a U.S. issue,” said board member Loretta Fast.
She was challenged on that.
“Don’t Canadians also pay military taxes?” queried Ben Sprunger.
“Yes,” replied another Canadian board member, Jake Klassen, “but we have not gone through the trauma and frustrations of the Vietnam War."
Hence, if both the Canadians and those opposed to withholding war taxes stayed
away from the delegate
conference, the gathering would be a farce. The conference would not be viable
if large blocs of delegates simply weren’t there.
For a brief time the board lost nerve.
Should the conference be canceled?
However, chairman Elmer Neufeld injected reality by reflecting, “The issue is not going to go away.
So, what is the next step?"
Over the board
recovered confidence in itself, in the planning already done, in the
possibility of bringing the dissenters into dialogue, despite differences in
theology and nationality, and in the voice of the discerning church. “I came
to the Mennonite church because of discerning congregations. If we cannot
discern in a process like this, then we have missed the boat,” reflected Don
Steelberg.
That was the next step.
They reminded themselves that the Anabaptist movement grew out of several
forms of civil disobedience.
They decided to adjust some of the personnel for the consultation.
They decided to promote serious study of the civil responsibility issue among congregations so that delegates would be conversant with it.
They decided to book the Leamington Hotel in Minneapolis as the place for the midtriennium conference.
The General Board also affirmed the action of its executive committee when they refused to pay a tax levy from the Internal Revenue Service.
The personal income taxes are owed by Heinz Janzen (general secretary) and his wife, Dorothea Janzen.
Under U.S. tax laws an ordained minister is self-employed, is not subject to normal payroll deductions, and hence, Heinz has refused to pay the military portion of his income tax.
Normally the
IRS
simply confiscates the amount owed from the bank account of the person
protesting. But with the levy the
IRS is
attempting to collect directly from the General Conference as employer. The
General Board agreed with the executive committee that the Janzen case is
civil disobedience by individuals, and not by an incorporated body, the
General Conference.
Editor Bernie Wiebe, himself based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, wrote an editorial for the edition expressing his unease about the direction Canada was taking, at how blasé his fellow-Canadian Mennonites were about it, and at how comparatively little concern there seemed to be there about the war tax issue that was roiling the Conference:
I am uneasy because I don’t hear my brothers and sisters protest against Ottawa.
Somehow we manage to wash our hands and keep pointing at the Pentagon…
At Bluffton, the majority voted for a midtriennium conference on the war-tax
issue. Every discussion I have since heard on this subject turns to the fear
that the Canadian third of the General Conference may refuse to participate;
after all, that’s a
U.S. question.
The conference was meant to bring in experts on the question who could help better inform the upcoming debate.
Participants in the General Conference Mennonite Church invitational consultation on civil responsibility have been named and the schedule outlined.
The consultation will convene
at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Elkhart, Indiana.
Beginning , Ted Stuckey and Reg Toews, representing the business administration arms of the General Conference and Mennonite Central Committee respectively, will present information on the administrative dimensions of the war tax question.
The question, Is there a biblical case for civil disobedience? will be the
focus of scholarly input Friday morning. Millard Lind, professor at AMBS,
will speak from an Old Testament perspective; confirmation from the scholar
asked to provide a New Testament analysis is still pending.
A more specific look at the issue of war taxes is scheduled for .
Is civil disobedience called for in this specific case?
David Schroeder, professor at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Winnipeg, and Kenneth Bauman, pastor of First Mennonite Church in Berne, Indiana, will speak to the question.
Erland Waltner, president of Mennonite Biblical Seminary, will respond.
Corporate action and individual conscience is the theme for
. Speaking to this are J.
Lawrence Burkholder, president of Goshen (Indiana) College, and William
Keeney, professor at Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas. Another person has
yet to confirm acceptance. Peter Ediger, pastor of the Arvada Mennonite
Church, will respond.
Elvin Kraybill, legal counsel for Mennonite Central Committee, will talk about legal questions related to civil disobedience.
Responding to his presentation are Duane Heffelbower, a member of the Division of Administration of the General Conference, and Ruth Stoltzfus, an attorney living in Linville, Virginia.
In addition to the formal input, various church leaders and administrative
staff will contribute to the consultation. These people are Heinz Janzen,
general secretary of the General Conference; Harold Regier and Perry Yoder,
cosecretaries of peace and social concerns of the General Conference; John
Gaeddert, executive secretary of the Commission on Education; William Snyder,
executive secretary of
MCC;
Urbane Peachey, executive secretary for
MCC
Peace Section; Hubert Schwartzentruber, secretary for peace and social
concerns of the Mennonite Church; Ed Enns, executive secretary of the
Congregational Resources Board of the Canadian Conference; Peter Janzen,
pastor, representing the Canadian Conference.
Six persons will form the findings committee.
They are John Sprunger, pastor, Indian Valley Mennonite Church, Harleysville, Pennsylvania; Palmer Becker, executive secretary of the Commission on Home Ministries; Elmer Neufeld, president of the General Conference; Hugo Jantz, chairperson of MCC (Canada); John Stoner, executive secretary for MCC Peace Section (U.S.); and Larry Kehler, pastor of the Charleswood Mennonite Church, Winnipeg.
Kehler is also the writer for the study guide which is to be published by fall.
[T]he issue was how Mennonite institutions should respond to those employees who request that the military portion of their income taxes not be withheld by the employer.
Several Mennonite organizations are facing the issue. The General Conference
is seeking the will of its 60,000 members in answering such a request from one
of its employees, Cornelia Lehn. The consultation in Elkhart was one part of
the discerning process leading to a delegate assembly, and a decision in
.
Bible scholars, theologians, pastors, administrators, attorneys — twenty-nine persons in all — presented papers, exchanged insights, and probed the issue.
Much of their analysis will be incorporated into a study guide to be published by .
There was general agreement that militarism and the nuclear arms buildup are a
massive threat to human existence. “We are in pre-Holocaust days,” asserted
John Stoner, director of Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section.
How does one change the direction of society?
How does one influence government policy so that it is prohuman?
Some individuals claim that the witness of taxes withheld from the military could do much to change American priorities.
Is civil disobedience biblical?
Is there a biblical case for civil disobedience?
Seminary professor and Old Testament scholar Millard Lind said the question was wrong.
He declared the question assumes that the government provides the norm for the person of faith, and asks whether there may be a religious basis for sometimes disobeying it.
On the contrary, he counseled, the biblical accounts emphasize the absolute
sovereignty of the God of Israel. Biblical thought challenges the sovereignty
of the civil authorities, calling it rebellion. Not only individuals, but
above all, the state, with its self-interest and empire building, are against
the rule and order of Yahweh.
Is civil disobedience called for in the specific instance of taxes spent for military purposes?
Two papers were presented on this question, one by David Schroeder of Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the second by Kenneth Bauman, pastor of First Mennonite Church in Berne, Indiana.
“It is clear,” said Schroeder, “that the New Testament speaks for civil
disobedience, but it is difficult to determine the form.” Interpreting the
will of God must be done in the community of believers. The Scripture must not
only be searched to know the will of God, but also to bind ourselves to doing
it.
He observed that the issue of taxes for military purposes is often seen in isolation from other options.
He counseled that the church needs to look at all avenues which would lead to peace, and then choose those options which would be effective at the individual and corporate levels.
A noticeable reaction of surprise was evident after Schroeder indicated that
as a Canadian member of the General Conference he would abstain from voting at
the mid-triennium conference in .
“Those (Americans) who must take the consequences of tax withholding must take the responsibility,” he opined.
When questioned on this Schroeder said he held the position because he would not, as a Canadian national, be able to effectively support an American practicing tax resistance.
Later in the conference, however, he appeared to modify his position.
Bauman’s paper was a careful overview of the tax situation in the time of
Christ, of Jesus’ stance relative to the authorities, and of Anabaptist
practice.
He indicated that Jesus’ political stance was not with the ecclesiastical nor with the social establishment.
Nor did Jesus identify himself as a radical social revolutionary.
Rather, Christ was a representative of the kingdom of God with a prophetic call to repentance, faith, and righteous living which transforms society through the transformation of the individual.
“It is amazing,” he reflected, “to see the early church and the Apostles show
such respect and subordination to a political system that crucified their Lord
and killed their leaders.”
When asked at what point he would practice civil disobedience, Bauman said, “For me it would be more than taxation; it would be when government becomes an object of worship.”
Mennonite practice he noted has been to pay taxes. Only the Hutterites have a
consistent pattern of resisting taxes.
Kings and prophets
In a humorous manner, J. Lawrence Burkholder, president of Goshen College, illuminated the tension between individual conscience and management responsibility.
“The Bible is stacked against managers,” he remarked. The managers (kings)
were always getting critiques from the prophets. Burkholder confessed that
before becoming a college president (a “king”) he had often been prophetic in
his utterances.
But now as a manager he values continuity, order, and making life possible.
Decisions often have ambiguity built into them.
Further, although individuals are free to order their lives as they wish, a corporation incarnates the many wills of its supporters into a limited function.
Is it right to expect a corporation to respond in the same way as an individual?
Burkholder did conclude though that a corporation must be willing to die for
the sake of principle. For a Mennonite school he suggested such a case would
be required ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps).
In his paper on the same topic, William Keeney of Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas, warned that biblical and Anabaptist history illustrate that the voice of the majority is not necessarily the voice of God.
He also noted that for many people there is a double ethical standard, one for the Christian, and one for the state.
Keeney said Christians should have a bias in favor of loyalty to the prophets, and to the way of the cross and costly discipleship.
From this he concluded that corporate action needs to respect the individual conscience.
In his response to the above papers, Peter Ediger, pastor of the Arvada
(Colorado) Mennonite Church, cried out, “I would hope that management could be
prophetic. Can leadership in institutions not give evidence of faithfulness to
God? Why do we see this question (tax withholding) as a threat to our
institutions? We need more faith in the powers of resurrection. Do we foster
fear or faith? Spread the rumor that the Lord is going to do wonderful
things.”
The attorneys present provided a legal framework, as distinct from a biblical rationale, for approaching the issue of not withholding taxes used for military purposes.
The General Conference could, if it wished, simply stop remitting taxes and wait for the government to take action.
A long process of litigation might ensue in which the church could argue that
using the corporate body to collect taxes violates the conscience of tax
objectors, and also violates the principle of separation of church and state
because the church is held hostage by the state, under penalty of fines or
imprisonment of its officers. The attorneys also observed that the
IRS
(Internal Revenue Service) could decide to avoid litigation and its attendant
publicity, and simply go to the individual to collect.
In essence the attorneys said there were ways of working on the issue through legal, legislative, and administrative channels.
Findings
A findings committee — Palmer Becker, Hugo Jantz, Elmer Neufeld, John Stoner, Larry Kehler — drafted a statement.
After hours of discussion and subsequent changes the persons at the consultation agreed that the statement fairly represented their thinking.
Some excerpts:
“Our Christian obedience has to find new and creative responses to the
proliferation of military weaponry and technology…
“Christians respect the governing authorities… which leads to a broad
range of activities in support of the public good. Nevertheless, at times
our call of prior obedience to God’s sovereignty leads us to disobey the
claims of the state…
“We… have differing convictions about refusing to pay taxes for the
military.
“Let us be open to the possibility that the Spirit of God may lead some of
us in a direction that is both prophetic and full of risks.
“We agree that a way should be sought which will facilitate the expression
of the convictions of conference employees who request that their taxes
not be withheld.
“We need to seek the counsel of and work with other Mennnonite groups and
denominations, particularly the historic peace churches, in developing the
most appropriate response to this issue.”
Two multi-part articles and two additional stand-alone articles stretched
across multiple issues of The Mennonite and also
served to summarize some of the points of debate:
“The North American military” by Harold Fransen (part 1 and part 2)
These articles begin with an unflattering look at U.S. military personnel, suggesting that even if you put the violence of war off to one side, the drunkenness, ignorance, and sexual immorality found among those in uniform is enough not to recommend the institution to Mennonites.
The first part ends: “If we have come to the realization that we can not go to war, maybe the time has come to… say that no one can go to war on our behalf either.
As we fill out out income tax forms this year, so that the military can do the job which we refuse to do, let us remember what effect it has on the lives that are bound up in its powerful grip, and be in prayer as we move toward the General Conference’s midtriennium session to deal with this issue.”
Part two looked at this issue from the Canadian perspective, noting that
Canada was deeply involved in the international arms trade and was boosting its
own military spending. “Can we any longer brush off war taxes as a
U.S. issue?”
“Is this our modern pilgrims’ progress”
This article summarized the recent history of the General Conference in grappling with the issue that would come to a head at the session:
If the conference delegates decide that nonpayment of military taxes is justified the decision is binding on the administrators of the General Conference.
Impetus for such an assembly began in when employee Cornelia Lehn requested the General Conference
business office not to remit the military tax portion of her paycheck to the
IRS.
Prior to 1974 the issue of “war taxes” had been discussed, and as early as
, delegates at the triennial sessions in
Fresno, California, passed a statement protesting the use of tax monies for
war purposes. The delegates also said, “We stand by those who feel called to
resist the payment of that portion of taxes being used for military purposes.”
However, the General Board did not think that directive from the delegates
authorized them to stop remitting Lehn’s military taxes. Her request was
refused.
Three years later… [at] the next conference… delegates called for education regarding militarism, reaffirmed the 1971 statement, and agreed that serious work be done on the possibility of allowing General Conference employees to follow their consciences on payment or nonpayment of military taxes.
Educational materials have included the periodical God and
Caesar and two study guides, The Rule of the
Sword and The Rule of the Lamb. In addition
to these efforts two major consultations were convened in
and in
. At these consultations scholarly
papers were presented on militarism, biblical considerations for payment or
nonpayment of military taxes, and Anabaptist history and theology related to
war tax concerns.
Despite the protracted input the General Board could not reach a consensus on the issue.
Consequently the problem was brought to delegates at the triennial… [where] the delegate body committed itself to serious congregational study of civil disobedience and war tax resistance during .
The delegates also decided to discuss the issue in detail at a midtriennium conference in .
In an effort to implement the Bluffton
resolution an eight-member civil responsibility committee was formed. Several
actions were taken by it to encourage serious study.
an attitude survey on church
and government was conducted. Approximately 2,500 responses were received,
including 463 from a select sampling in 31 churches. A scholarly consultation
was held in . One of the key ideas
which came out of this consultation was whether those who feel strongly about
not paying military taxes should be encouraged to form a separate corporation
within the General Conference. To assist churches in their study of the issue
two study guides were published. The Rule of the
Sword deals primarily with facts and concerns related to militarism.
The Rule of the Lamb centers about the sovereignty
of God and biblical texts on taxes and civil authority.
Each of the more than 300 congregations in the General Conference is being encouraged to prepare a statement to bring to the conference.
It is evident from the sale of the study guides that a minority of congregations are actually making an effort to study the issue, although all congregations have received sample copies of the guides.
Many Canadian churches feel the issue is strictly an American problem, and there is a considerable diversity of conviction and thought among American congregations.
Some congregations do not intend to send delegates.
What this means for the Minneapolis conference is difficult to assess, except
for one feature. There will be a lot of stirring debate. After
will there be some
resolution of the withholding question? No one is predicting the outcome.
“Countdown to Minneapolis”
This article tried to put the debate into a larger context of what it meant for the congregations in the General Conference to be deliberating together in this way.
It also seemed to be trying to drum up more attendance; there seemed to be some worry that Canadian Mennonites, and more conservative congregations, might just not turn up.
“Our Christian civil responsibility”
This article, by Larry Kehler (author of The Rule of the Lamb), attempted to put all of the pieces together for readers ahead of the conference.
Excerpts:
General Conference churches have the opportunity of either growing through the process of working on the war-tax question or of stagnating and splintering.
I am somewhat more confident now than I was even six months ago that we will mature through this experience, and in the process perhaps reassert some of our Conference’s flagging leadership in the field of peace.
Perhaps it is only because I have been talking to more optimistic persons.
But I do have the impression that General Conference people are more ready now to participate in the struggle for an answer than they were even as late as last winter.
The easy answer of letting this debate be the occasion for some congregations to sever their ties with the General Conference seems to be more of a “cop-out” than a reasonable response to a difficult question.
Will your congregation have delegates at the midtriennium sessions in Minneapolis?
If it won’t, both the conference and the congregation will be the poorer for it.
You see, the question is not only how we will respond to the issue of tax-withholding as a witness against war, but how we go about dealing with questions on which we have not yet achieved clarity or unanimity.
The process we go through may well be much more vital to us than the answer we finally come up with, and that is not to diminish the seriousness of the problem of militarism.
Coming to Minneapolis without advance preparation, however, could be almost as
destructive as not coming at all. Each congregation should do some serious
struggling within its own setting on the various dimensions which this issue
is raising for us.
The war-tax issue offers the General Conference one of its best opportunities in many years to work seriously at Bible interpretation on a question about which we have widely differing views.
How do we make decisions when we disagree?
The tax texts
What does the New Testament say about taxes?
Here are the four primary passages:
Mark 12:13–17
is a description of the Pharisees and Herodians trying to entrap Jesus with
the question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus responds by
taking a coin and showing them Caesar’s image on it and saying, “Render to
Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”
Luke 23:1–5 recalls the accusations made against Jesus before Pilate.
Among them is the charge that he has forbidden his people “to give tribute to Caesar.” In response to Pilate’s question about his kingship over the Jews, Jesus replies ambiguously, “You have said so.”
Matthew 17:24–27
talks about the temple tax. Some Bible interpreters feel that the tax question
is a secondary issue in this passage. The writer’s main purpose in telling
this incident, some scholars say, is to underscore Jesus’ sonship.
Romans 13:6–7 urges followers of Christ to be subject to the governing authorities and to pay taxes where they are due.
A straightforward reading of these passages has led many persons to conclude
that taxes are to be paid regardless of the use to which they might be put.
“How can you argue against such clear, simple statements?” they ask people who
suggest that there may be more to these comments than can be seen on the
surface.
It is the tension between these two approaches to the Bible which lies at the heart of the problem which the General Conference is now facing in its attempt to come up with a biblical response to the “war tax issue.” How do we interpret and understand the Bible?
Is the easiest reading of a biblical passage always to be taken as the most likely intention of the writer?
Some Bible scholars say that it is sometimes quite deceiving to accept the easiest reading.
Others wonder if that sort of remark doesn’t simply underscore the Bible’s assertion that some truths will confound the wise and yet be very clear to more down-to-earth and average persons.
Well, maybe.
But doesn’t it cheapen the Bible if we think that a book which has come to us from another millennium and a decidedly different culture can be read on the surface — much like one reads a twentieth-century pop-psychology book — and applied to situations in our day without adaptation?
Can any statement in the Bible be taken by itself without first testing it
against the background from which it came and against related statements
elsewhere in the Bible?
Modern, easy-to-read paraphrases of the Scriptures and our general attitude toward the Bible have led us to believe that “hermeneutics” (the interpretation of the Bible’s message) is not a difficult task.
In some cases it isn’t, but in others it is.
In places the Bible is so inscrutable that we can seemingly never be quite sure about its full intention.
So we have to launch out in faith on some questions, hoping that more clarity will come as we proceed.
We may discover as we go that we have started off in the wrong direction.
Then we need the humility to admit our error and change our direction.
The major agenda item at the midtriennium sessions in Minneapolis may turn out
not to be “war taxes” at all. This issue may be God’s way of prodding us into
becoming more of a “hermeneutic community”…
The tax texts need to be studied intensely at the congregational level, each participant bringing an open mind and heart to the discussion.
If clarity and unanimity do not come immediately let us not be discouraged.
Other groups have had similar difficulties before us.
That is all the more reason why we should continue to struggle with this question.
The summary statement prepared by the people who attended the
war tax conference contained this paragraph:
“After considering the New Testament texts which speak about the Christian’s
payment of taxes, most of us are agreed that we do not have a clear word on
the subject of paying taxes used for war. The New Testament statements on
paying taxes (Mark 12:17 and Romans 13:6–7)
contain either ambiguity in meaning or qualifications on the texts that call
the discerning community to decide in light of the life and teachings of
Jesus.”
For Canadians too
The war tax issue is a U.S. issue and should be decided by them.
Right?
Wrong! It’s an issue for the entire General Conference.
But Canadians wouldn’t be taking any of the risks if the U.S. Government should bear down and hand out some jail sentences or fines for the Conference’s not withholding its employees’ income taxes.
Too much emphasis has been put on the possibility of fines or jail terms.
These consequences might come, but they’re not likely. The fear of a
confrontation with the law has taken the focus off the main point of this
whole exercise. The purpose is to give a firm, clear, and prophetic witness
against the diabolic buildup of the machines of war, which is occurring at an
ever-increasing pace in the United States and in many other nations. Are we
going to sit back and allow this escalation to continue without at least
giving our governments some sort of message that we cannot any longer go along
with this race toward self-destruction?
The arms race and the manufacture of war goods is very much part of the Canadian scene too… I have not yet been able to discover any tax resisters in Canada, but this does not mean that militarism is not a front-burner issue in Canada.
It is, and it should be.
I don’t know why there aren’t tax resisters in Canada. There are certainly
other forms of objection to the military buildup. “Project Ploughshares” is an
interchurch witness against militarism. Mennonites are actively involved in
its program of research and information-sharing. Thus, even though tax
resistance isn’t part of the Canadian experience now, Canadian Mennonites
shouldn’t withdraw from the General Conference discussion. They can
legitimately be fully involved on the basis of principle.
If the General Conference is going to say, “Yes,” to those of its employees who don’t want their income tax withheld, that should be the decision of the entire Conference, not just a portion of it.
The decision, whichever way it goes, will carry much more weight, I believe, if all the congregations in the Conference have participated in it.
Canadian involvement is important.
Some have indicated that the present set of options offered to the
delegates — that is to vote either yes or no on the withholding question — is
not sufficient. Other alternatives must be developed. If not, the Conference
may become polarized, and it might even split.
The question therefore is: How can the General Conference, as an international body, make a clear-cut witness against militarism without splintering the Conference?
Some U.S. Mennonites have stated that Canadian participation is crucial to the process.
After the conference in Bluffton in it
appeared that there would be minimal Canadian involvement at Minneapolis.
There is still no guarantee that participation from Canada will be adequate,
but good efforts are being made to encourage Canadian churches to send
delegates.
The General Board of the Conference of Mennonites in Canada at its last meeting went on record urging Canadian participation.
It will communicate this concern to the churches.
Several congregations are making special efforts to prepare for the convention.
Bethel Mennonite Church, Winnipeg, Manitoba, held a weekend seminar on this topic.
Grace Mennonite Church, Regina, Saskatchewan, arranged a similar event.
The Winnipeg meeting was covered in a later issue.
About fifty people met and came up with a set of recommendations as they prepared to select their delegates to the conference.
Sharon Sawatzky of the Canadian Conference staff in Winnipeg prepared a Canadian supplement for the study booklet The Rule of the Sword by Charlie Lord.
Copies of the supplement have been sent to all Canadian congregations who have ordered the five-lesson study booklet on militarism.
Faith and Life Press, Newton, reports that to date (I write this on
) more orders for the study
materials (The Rule of the Sword and
The Rule of the Lamb) have been received from Canada
than from the United States.
The prophets and the managers
The tension created by the war tax question in the General Conference is heightened by people’s disparate understandings of what it means to be good stewards of our church-related institutions.
Some have seen it as a tension between the “prophets” and the “managers.”
Who shapes the direction and philosophies of our churches and their agencies?
Is it the people who have a “prophetic” vision of biblical responsibility? Is
it the administrators who have been charged with “managing” these
organizations and creating as few waves as possible? Both? Partially? Neither?
Questions related to this apparent tension are included in the study guide The Rule of the Lamb…
J. Lawrence Burkholder, who is himself the “manager” of a major Mennonite
institution (Goshen College), has frankly described the predicament in which
leaders of institutions find themselves.
Here is a summary of his observations…
An efficient and well-trained corps of managers has emerged to run the
Mennonites’ growing number of institutions. The “constituency” of each of
these institutions insists that it is to be run in a businesslike, fiscally
responsible, and basically conservative way. Actions which might jeopardize
the welfare of an institution are not likely to be looked upon with much
favor.
The war tax issue, said Burkholder, is a problem of personal ethics as opposed to corporate ethics.
Our way of understanding the Bible is based on a one-to-one decision-making process, where the individual can respond quickly and simply to a situation.
A corporation’s response to an ethical question, on the other hand, involves
many wills. A number of “publics” make demands on the institution to decide
the issue their way. This does not mean, the Goshen College president
emphasized, that moral demands cannot be made of corporations. Nor should it
be said that all institutions are alike.
Corporations tend toward the status quo.
They emphasize different values than “prophetic” Christians.
Corporations tend to take a positive view of the broader culture in which they operate, they recognize the ambiguity of the situations in which they are making their decisions, and they look less judgmentally on people than do the “prophets.”
On the other hand, prophets have the luxury, according to Burkholder, of being
able to speak abstractly, of idealizing certain things from the past, and of
talking about perfection and ideals in an imperfect society.
Managers of church-related institutions have a clear line of accountability to their constituency, he said, “but who holds the prophets responsible?” Prophets are usually judged to be true or false in retrospect.
A prophet, therefore, doesn’t have to take responsibility for actions, words, and decisions in the same way that a manager does. “Sometimes,” said Burkholder, “present-day prophets come off ‘cheap.’ ”
He emphasized that Mennonites should continue to identify with the prophetic
tradition. They should be aware, though, that this means they will have to be
willing to remain somewhat on the edge of society.
“We will also need to develop a theology of corporate life,” he added. “We already have a theology of fellowship, but we don’t have a theology of the institution.”
Debate in the Letters Column
There was plenty of debate about the propriety of war tax resistance itself in the letters-to-the-editor column, sometimes explicitly prompted by the debate over withholding and the upcoming conference, other times more general.
John K. Stoner said that if the Conference were to fail to endorse war tax
resistance, “I would like to be able to have the confidence that they made
their decision in full awareness and with truly informed knowledge of the
dimensions of the nuclear abyss into which we are staring. At this point I
do not find it possible to have that confidence.” In short, they seemed to
be unaware of just how bad things had gotten.
I do not wish to imply that tax resistance or some other form of civil disobedience is the only kind of response which faithful Christians should be making to the unprecedented evil of the nuclear arms race. (It is my judgment that the situation confronts us with more than adequate grounds for civil disobedience.) However, I do wish to imply that those who counsel against tax refusal and civil disobedience would be much more convincing if they were leading out in other visible kinds of response to the nuclear crisis.
Carl M. Lehman wrote in to again remind readers that there was no such
thing as a “war tax” and that such nomenclature comes from “a less than
completely honest persistence in using labels to create a straw man to
attack.”
Money is only a convenient medium of exchange and not a real necessity to conduct war…
I have no quarrel with the person who simply wants to refuse to pay
taxes as a protest technique. As an attention-calling device it may very
well be effective. It is not exactly the kind of role I would feel led
to play, but I would not want to condemn anyone who felt they must use
such a tactic. I would, however, strongly protest any attempt to make
such a tactic mandatory for all Mennonites, and this is exactly what is
being attempted. Not mandatory, of course, in the sense that it would be
a test of membership, but mandatory in the sense of a normal commitment
expectation for a nonresistant Christian.
I maintain that tax resistance is a deviation from our heritage of faith.
The fact that it is a deviation in no sense makes it wrong and certainly does not mean that we pay no heed.
It does, however, very much suggest that the burden of proof is on the deviant, and that the deviant ought not to equate obedience to God with conformity by others.
John Swarr called on Mennonites to repent for war and in true repentance
to “change our ways.” He disagreed with Lehman’s dismissal of the moral
import of money. “Money is indeed a medium of exchange, but as Christian
stewards of God’s gifts we must be concerned about the things for which
that money is invested, donated, or paid.” He also disagreed that war tax
resistance was a deviation from Mennonite tradition, pointing to examples
from history in which Anabaptists took the issue seriously and came down
on both sides.
Karl Detrich took a hard Romans 13
line on the question, saying that the question of whether Christians
should or should not pay taxes had long ago been closed by that chapter.
While the New Testament also contains examples of civil disobedience, “in
each case these men were following the dictates of a higher law, namely,
that we should have no other gods besides our Lord.”
Jesus tells us that in the last days there will be, among other tribulations, wars and rumors of war.
Rather than going against the teaching of God’s word in a vain effort to forestall the inevitable, should we not give our time and energies to the worship of God and the proclamation of his gospel, so that we can do our part to hasten the day of his coming?
Paul W. Andreas saw simple living as a key to avoiding war taxes, and
resisting war taxes as a key to avoiding despair:
The submission to evil (no government has been free of it) produces despair.
I believe that love of my fellow humans is fundamental to not only
Mennonite faith but to Christ’s message. If I am compelled to violate
that message by hiring killers and providing weapons, I despair. For me,
no charitable contribution undoes the evil I unleash by paying taxes
that are used for such ends. Fortunately the practitioner of the simple
life can reduce his wage and thus avoid the income tax used for evil.
James Newcomer, in the course of taking Mennonites to task for the
“red-baiting” he’d found in their midst, took some time out to praise war
tax resistance:
I am deeply moved… by the witness of Peter Ediger at Rocky Flats, Colorado, and by many others who through war tax resistance and protest are trying to focus their own understanding of the modern Christian experience at the risk of losing middle-class luxuries and future security.
Miscellany
And if that weren’t enough, there were several other news items that discussed war tax resistance without relating directly to the upcoming conference or the specific debate to be dealt with there.
For example:
“A weekend seminar on war tax resistance” organized by Philadelphia Mennonites at which “[s]pecific strategies for implementing war tax resistance were discussed,” and the usual biblical verses were hashed out.
A four-point resolution on peacemaking called the Eastern District to: (1) serious Bible study on peace and a General Conference resolution on “The Way of Peace” (2) involvement in disapproval (through congressional representatives) of national actions promoting war, poverty, and terror; (3) support of those who feel led to withhold portions of their taxes; and (4) a midyear assembly to promote peacemaking.
After vigorous discussion, point three was stricken from the resolution
and point two was amended to include encouragement for righteous actions.
The amended resolution was adopted.
The Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section (U.S.) met. But in spite of all that was going on around them, it merely “reaffirmed its recommendation to Mennonite institutions ‘to study the conflict between Christian obligations and legal obligations in the collection of federal taxes…’ ” When they would meet again “a resolution on militarism, the future of New Call to Peacemaking, and the question of alternatives to the payment of taxes for military purposes” would be on the agenda. At that meeting, they took a stronger stand:
We support those who resist the payment of taxes for military purposes and call upon all members of the church to seriously consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes.
While Mennonite church institutions continue to struggle with an administrative response to the issue of “war tax” withholding, individual Mennonites are voicing their convictions through refusing to pay the portion of their taxes designated for military use.
About $4,000 has been received by the Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section’s “Taxes
for Peace” fund, contributed by Mennonite war tax refusers.
Nonpayment of taxes violates national laws, but tax refusers are convinced that paying taxes is disobedience to God when slightly over half of that tax money is allocated for the past, present, and future military expenditures of the United States.
Most of these tax refusers paid only 47 to 50 percent of taxes owed to
the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS),
forwarding the remaining amount to
MCC
and other Mennonite agencies. Statements to
IRS
clarified that the withheld tax money was not for personal profit but
rather for meeting human needs, promoting peace and reconciliation, and
supporting life instead of death.
James Klassen, Newton, Kansas, who claimed a Nuremburg Principle tax deduction in an amount sufficient to result in a 50 percent refund of the amount of taxes due, recently received the refund in full and forwarded the check to MCC. (The Nuremburg Principles, unanimously affirmed by the United Nations after World War Ⅱ, specify that crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity are crimes under national law.)
“This is the first time we have deliberately broken the law of our
country,” say tax refusers James and Anna Juhnke, North Newton, Kansas.
“It is not an easy decision. We love our land and we respect the
authority of the government. We want to show our respect by making our
civil disobedience a public act and by accepting the penalties which may
result from our action.”
“As a Christian who accepts the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament as normative for life and ethics, I am a ‘conscientious objector’ to participation in war and to the resolution of human conflict by violence,” concludes Marlin Miller of Goshen, Indiana. “It is my conviction that the financial support of war and military expenditures cannot be reconciled with this stance any more than actual military service itself.”
They and other Christians feel that Christ’s calling to a life of love,
nonviolence and reconciliation supersedes demands of the state.
Thirty-three persons and families thus far have identified themselves as “war tax resisters” after God and Caesar in its issue provided the opportunity for people to do so.
The respondents represent eleven denominations as well as those with no church affiliation.
One recent case of a non-ordained employee at a Mennonite institution
hoping to resist paying war taxes involved Esther Lanting, a teacher at
Western Mennonite School
(WMS),
Salem, Oregon, who on
wrote a letter to the
WMS
board requesting that her income tax not be withheld from her check.
On , Lanting was invited to meet with the board to explain her reasons.
The board decided to seek the counsel of the conference executive committee, and secure study papers on the tax issue.
Finally, on , after
extended study, the peace and social concerns committee of the conference
recommended that the
WMS
board grant Lanting’s request and discontinue withholding her taxes.
On , the WMS board considered the committee’s recommendation.
By a vote of six to two they decided not to follow the recommendation, but to continue withholding all tax as legally required.
At this same board meeting three other WMS teachers or staff members acted as follows: Ray Nussbaum submitted a letter requesting that the board stop withholding his tax; Floyd Schrock made a verbal request that his tax not be withheld; and Cindy Mullet asked that the board decrease her salary to the level where she will owe no tax.
The board granted Cindy Mullet’s request for a reduction in salary. The
board is willing to reconsider the issue if more faculty members should
make the same request to have the board refrain from withholding taxes.
MCC has taken no official position on the refusal to pay taxes for military use, but MCC Peace Section (U.S.) adopted a statement in which in part recommended “that Mennonite and Brethren in Christ continue to work toward reduction of military spending, not resting content with special provisions exempting us from payment of taxes for military purposes.” It affirms “those in our midst who feel compelled by Christian conscience to refuse payment of all or some federal tax because of the large percentage of such taxes used for military purposes.”
In concluding his war tax talk Yoder said church members are generally more ready to disregard what the church has to say than what the government says.
Issuing a direct challenge to those who believe war tax resistance is wrong he counseled, “It would be more credible if those who are in favor of paying all their taxes would show through some other action what they are doing to love our national enemies.”
This is the thirty-sixth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we enter the 1990s.
In residents began refusing to pay taxes to the Israeli occupiers.
Tax money should go for roads, health and local services, they said.
But the occupiers were supplying none of these services.
Instead they used taxes to fund the military occupation.
Residents adopted the slogan “No taxation without representation.”
The authorities responded with nightly curfews, mass arrests and a strong troop presence in the town.
But residents still did not pay their taxes.
For six weeks in , Israeli troops sealed off the town.
They seized property and belongings from businessmen and families who had not paid taxes.
Tax officials went from house to house humiliating and beating people, according to a account in the Jerusalem Post.
Israeli tax officials confiscated without trial several million dollars worth of property.
The tax siege has now been lifted, but Beit Sahour residents still refuse to pay taxes.
I recently attended a meeting that focused on the question of paying the military portion (about 50 percent) of our [U.S.] federal income taxes.
I left the meeting troubled, not because there were varying viewpoints but because many people appeared unconcerned about the issue and failed to address what I believe are key questions on the matter.
The question for me is not whether we should honor our government or whether a government has the right to collect taxes.
The crux of the matter is to determine when Caesar’s demands conflict with our obedience to God.
I fear that if I were to give Caesar all that he demands in war taxes, I would fail to honor God in four important ways.
I fear that by paying the military portion of my income taxes I fail to trust God alone for my security.
Throughout history nations have tried to secure their well-being and safety through military solutions.
Again and again in the Bible God asks us to resist such solutions and to trust him instead:
War horses are useless for victory; their great strength cannot save.
The Lord watches over those who have reverence for him, those who trust in his constant love.
He saves them from death… We put our hope in the Lord; he is our protector and our help (Psalm 33:17–20).
If I work several months each year to pay my nation’s military dues, am I not giving legitimacy to the military establishment’s answers for my security?
If I am willing to invest so much of my time and energy in a military solution, can I honestly say that God is my protector?
I fear that by paying my war taxes I fail to give my primary loyalty to Christ’s worldwide church.
My war taxes would purchase planes, bombs, guns and military training to be used in Third World settings.
Although our country is not involved in any declared war, our military might is felt keenly in Central America, the Philippines and the Middle East.
In fact, in recent years the United States has adopted a policy of promoting “low-intensity conflict” in countries that threaten to move out from under our sphere of influence.
This means keeping warfare away from the American public eye and avoiding the involvement of American soldiers in the fighting.
Yet our brothers and sisters in Christ do die in the struggle.
Can I say that my first loyalty is to the worldwide kingdom of God if I comply with structures that do violence to my neighbors around the world?
I fear that by paying my war taxes I fail to follow Christ as he calls me to love all people, even my enemies.
In Matthew 5 Jesus no doubt surprised his listeners by challenging them to love not only their friends but all people, just as God does.
This has not been an easy teaching for the church.
Peter struggled with it when he was called to go to Cornelius, a gentile, and Paul reminded the early church often that the gospel was not only for Jews but also for gentiles.
Ephesians 2:14
points this out: “For Christ himself has brought us peace by making Jews and gentiles one people.
With his own body he broke down the wall that separated them and kept them enemies.”
Do we believe that this can also apply to Americans and Soviets, rich and poor, capitalist and communist?
Can I believe this and at the same time contribute to the forces that are designed to destroy these very people whom Christ called me to love?
I fear that by paying my war taxes I fail to respect God’s creation.
In today’s world, militarism not only threatens people but all of creation as well.
While militarism is not the only way we dishonor God’s creation, it is through nuclear weapons that we dare to threaten all that God has made.
Can I claim to truly honor God if I continue to help pay for such weapons?
I think these questions have special poignancy for us as Mennonites.
We claim to be conscientious objectors to war.
Yet in a low-intensity conflict or in a nuclear war it is almost irrelevant to say that we will not serve in the military.
These kinds of wars do not demand our bodies but our dollars and our consent.
Thus we cannot ignore this issue of war taxes.
I recognize that sincere people differ on this issue.
Some encourage elected leaders to reorder our nation’s priorities.
Some give away more of their income so that they owe less income tax.
Some live in community so that they can live on lower incomes.
Some withhold a symbolic amount of all of their military taxes.
Some support legislative efforts that would allow conscientious objectors to designate the military portion of their federal taxes to a peace tax fund.
What is important is not so much that we all agree but that we agonize together on these questions.
Let us pray for wisdom as we wrestle with what this issue means for our faith in God, our witness as a Christian church, our faithfulness to Christ and our reverence for God’s creation.
This was accompanied by a sidebar invitation for people to redirect their taxes through “the Taxes for Peace fund.”
It added that “In , $5750 in Taxes for Peace funds were divided between the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and Christian Peacemaker Teams; 1990 contributions will be divided the same way.”
Members of St. Louis Mennonite Fellowship recently passed a proposal to faithfully resist payments of the U.S. federal phone tax applied monthly to the fellowship’s phone bill.
The revenues will be redirected to Mennonite Central Committee.
“We wish to respect the convictions of our members and Anabaptist forebears and to be disciplined followers of Jesus Christ,” said Scott Neufeld, coordinator of St. Louis Mennonite Peace Witness.
Federal phone tax revenues, first collected in , contribute directly to the U.S. Armed Forces and other systems of war, Neufeld said.
Looking at our Anabaptist heritage and looking at our Scriptures in light of contemporary political realities, we do not have to be pressed to pray for peace while paying for war.
Our spiritual authority in Jesus Christ, as expressed by apostles and Anabaptist forebears, allows and empowers us to make the difficult decision to withhold war taxes.
Balthasar Hubmaier, writing about taxes paid to an unjust government, states, “…to come to the point, God will excuse us for nothing on the account of unjust superiors…” (Anabaptism in Outline, Klassen, p. 246).
The U.S. government has become unjust, and when a government is unjust, it has forfeited the right to expect my taxes.
As Christians and Anabaptists, we have a rich tradition of conscience.
In some ways we even have a tradition of anarchy.
Anarchy in the eyes of the world, that is, for we may claim a greater authority — God.…
The early Anabaptists — Menno Simons, Balthasar Hubmaier, Jacob Hutter and Peter Rideman — all spoke out on the proper attitude of a Christian toward government, on paying taxes used for war and on the production of weapons of violence.
For Anabaptist Christians the issue to pay or not to pay war taxes has a significant history.
Jacob Hutter wrote, “For how can we be innocent before our God if we do not go to war ourselves but give the money that others may go in our place?
We will not become partakers of the sin of others and dishonor and despise God” (“Plots and Excuses,” Klassen p. 252).
While this may refer to the practice of paying one’s way out of military service by supplying a replacement, it still holds true that aiding the carrying out of violence indirectly indicts the taxpayer as a participant in the violence enacted.
Similarly Peter Rideman asserts that one has a responsibility not only for what one produces but also for how those products are used by others.
Rideman states that Christians cannot build weapons of violence, even if they do not use those products themselves.
The one who produces weapons is responsible for the violence inflicted.
But the issue of our history as Christians and as Anabaptists concerning the issue of war tax resistance is made more difficult because of our reading of the biblical texts relating to government, particularly Matthew 22:21 (and other texts referring to government, e.g. Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:14).
In any discussion of war tax resistance among Christians, the words of Jesus are almost always quoted, “…render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” However, if we look closely at the political and historical context of these biblical texts, we have to ask ourselves how we can apply Jesus’ response in Matthew 22:21 to ourselves in our political and historical situation.
Trick question: Ancient Palestine, in the time of Jesus, was a territory held captive under Roman rule.
Foreign powers hostile to Judaism had occupied Palestine, installed a puppet ruler, King Herod, and sought to form alliances with certain Jewish factions.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, reflected the thoughts and feelings of the majority of the poor and middle-class Jews, feelings of resentment and anger.
The Pharisees, who had been plotting to do away with Jesus on any grounds possible, were seeking to trick Jesus.
On the chance that Jesus might make some incriminating statements, the Pharisees sent their disciples to Jesus along with representatives from Herod.
That way, if Jesus said something self-incriminating to the religious people or to the political regime, he could be arrested.
As it was, neither truth nor justice were being sought by this group when they asked Jesus the question about paying the tax.
It was a trick question, and Jesus responded with a trick answer.
“And Jesus said to them, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were greatly amazed at him” (Mark 12:17).
But what does his answer say to us?
What direction does it give to those who are not asking trick questions but whose motives are truth and justice?
We must take seriously that we do not live in a political situation anything like ancient Palestine.
We live in , has witnessed amazing revolutions of democratization.
Democracies seek to do away with the dichotomy between the government and the people.
In a democracy there is no Caesar.
Since we are not ruled by a monarch, we have no “caesar” over us.
If there is a caesar over us, so to speak, then we are caesar.
The U.S. Constitution begins by naming our caesar, “We the people.”…
We, as responsible citizens, are the political and moral authority of the United States.
If our nation blunders and falls, if it is unjust and violent, if it has misplaced priorities, then the blame is on us and not merely upon those we have elected to represent our concerns.
Living in a democracy, we actually pay taxes to ourselves.
We are responsible for setting the budgets.
We are responsible for policies.
One of our greatest problems is that we have surrendered democratic government to bureaucracy, allowing others to make decisions for us.
We are the caesar to whom we are to render our taxes, not some authority outside ourselves.
As such, it is up to us to decide what we will or will not render.
It is this freedom of conscience that makes democracy both attractive to those who live without it and a headache to those who must operate with it.
For this reason, Plato said, democracy is the best form of a bad government and the worst form of a good one.
A restraint of evil: Those of us who withhold a portion of our taxes are trying to reorient our national spending priorities by saying we will not pay for war or violence.
The portion we do not pay we give away to those who will use it for peace.
While we recognize that we are breaking a law of the people (willing to take responsibility and to be accountable for our actions), we are not breaking a law against caesar.
What we are trying to do is give ourselves what we need to function as a government, that is, to function as a restraint of evil and to be a supporter of good (1 Peter 2:14).
Menno Simons wrote that the task of government is to “do justice… to deliver the oppressed,… without tyranny… without force, violence and blood” (“Foundation of Christian Doctrine,” Complete Writings of Menno Simons, p. 193).
Government ceases to be legitimate when it ceases to be a force for order in both foreign and domestic realms, when it ceases to provide for the needs of all, and when it ceases to be a body of law for carrying out justice without violence and bloodshed.
Would we continue to give our tithes and offerings to a ministry that has been proven to be unethical, caught in scandalous dealings and clearly immoral?
If we held our government up to the same standards as we do televangelists and their ministries, the government would not be able to finance its bureaucracies.
Our government has been caught in one scandal after another, involved in or supporting one war after another.
And because we are caesar, we are responsible for this scandalous behavior.
Even though we have given away our democratic rights to bureaucratic powers, we still will bear God’s judgment.
The majority of our federal budget pays for the operations of the world’s largest military system, which prepares for war with scarce resources.
It finances low-intensity conflicts throughout the world by supplying and sponsoring surrogate armies.
It has yet to finish paying for past wars.
Thus we must come to terms with the reality that we are producing and indirectly using weapons of violence.
Living in a democracy, we are, as citizens, weapons producers by providing through our taxes the capital needed for the production of B1-Bs, MX “Peacekeepers,” Apache attack helicopters, bullets, rifles and on and on.
The Scriptures, which determine the right function of government, the witness of our Anabaptist forebears and our democratic freedoms force us to act in ways that affect the political process.
For many, tax resistance is a way to bring about a change in federal spending priorities.
But much more importantly, it is a way to make one’s life have integrity and to align one’s life with God’s gospel of shalom.
The edition announced a “Standing Up for Peace Contest” with $1,100 in prizes available to “young people ages 15–23” who “interview someone who has refused to fight in war, pay taxes for war, or build weapons for war and share the story through writing an essay or song, producing a video, or creating a work of art.”
The Mennonite Church General Board, after years of study and discussion, brought the military tax question to a vote, then tabled it.
a majority of General Assembly delegates voted to “support” the efforts of church board employees who do not wish their taxes deducted so that they may deal with the government in regard to military taxes.
At the General Board meetings in Kalona, Iowa, members tabled a motion to honor requests of employees who ask that their income tax not be withheld.
Gary Jewell, a student at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Elkhart, Ind., handed out about $150 in $1 bills to passers-by in front of the downtown post office in Elkhart to express his opposition to U.S. military spending.
He gave away about half of what he and his wife, Jan Yoder, owe in federal income taxes.
The couple plans to give the rest to a charity like Mennonite Central Committee.
Stapled to each $1 bill was a statement by Jewell that read in part, “Today I choose to give my money away (call it a ‘peace dividend’) rather than to pay the remaining 60 percent of my federal income tax that goes toward present and past military expense.”
(The Elkhart Truth)
The edition included a sidebar with this quote:
“Until membership in the church means that a Christian chooses not to engage in violence for any reason and instead chooses to love, pray for, help and forgive all enemies; until membership in the church means that Christians may not be members of any military…; until membership in the church means that Christians cannot pay taxes for others to kill others; and until the church says these things in a fashion that the simplest soul can understand — until that time humanity can only look forward to more dark nights of slaughter on a scale unknown in history.
Unless the church unswervingly and unambiguously teaches what Jesus teaches on this matter, it will not be the divine leaven in the human dough that it was meant to be.”
―George Zabelka, who served as a Roman Catholic chaplain for those who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on and
The General Boards of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church issued their first joint statement as a merging body in .
It urged the U.S. to stand down from its Iraq war threats.
One of the seven points of the document calls congregations to confess “our own complicity and selfishness in utilizing more than our share of the world’s supply of oil and other resources… limited concern for longstanding injustices in the Middle East and… paying for the military buildup through our taxes.”
A regional report from the noted that in the Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada, “A conference employee has requested that the conference not withhold his war taxes.
This issue will be brought to a future conference session.”
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
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 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 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
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
. 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 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 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.”
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 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 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 third 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.
As the new century began, J.K. Zook explained the proper relationship between
church and state in his article
“The Law and
the Gospel”.
In Zook’s reading, which seemed very much in the Mennonite mainstream, the Old
Testament described a theocratic order in which the church and state were
tightly linked. The New Testament, however, broke this bond. Christians should
not expect worldly governments to follow the rules of human behavior set down
in Jesus’s teachings — such governments at best might uphold the “Old Law”
which is meant “to govern the natural man to which all civilized nations at
least are amenable.” The gospel is designed to govern “the spiritual man in the
church of Christ.” So, while Christians must return good for evil, governments
should still be expected to return evil for evil under the old eye-for-an-eye
code, and should not be held to the Christian standard, even by Christians.
Zook then reiterates the lessons from Romans 13:
Therefore let every soul be subject to such as are under control of God’s
appointed ministers to protect the righteous and with the sword to avenge His
wrath, as He has in all past ages upon nations by nations, for their
intolerable wickedness…
…Horrible as war may seem, yet it is the Christian’s positive duty to ask for
them [His ministers who bear the sword] the blessings from heaven, and
cheerfully contribute their allotted temporal portion of tax, custom, and all
dues required whatever to support the government in executing God’s will.
Over several issues of Gospel Witness in
,
C.H. Smith
covered the history of the Anabaptists (of which the Mennonites are one
branch). I found these excerpts about early divisions between tax resisting and
tax paying branches interesting:
Bullinger in his work on the Anabaptists mentions no less than forty sects in
his time under that name. Among the most prominent are… 6. “The Free
Brethren.” They were shunned by most of the others. They made the spiritual
freedom a freedom of the flesh. They owed no tithes, taxes, and opposed
slavery. Entered all sorts of disgraces. Had property and women in common.
They taught that a Christian must hate all that might belong to him, even wife
and child.
Of government there was no need by the Christian. It was a necessity, but only
for the unrighteous. This is the view found in most of the confessions of
faith issued by the large assemblages of the leaders as at Schleithem
. This was the non-resistant attitude, held
by the majority of the Swiss. Government was a necessity, was divinely
ordained to punish the wicked and reward the righteous. A Christian, however,
could not become a magistrate, although he must render obedience and pay his
just taxes. He could not take up the sword to kill even at the call of his
country. He could not take the oath. Christ taught him to say Yea, Yea; Nay,
Nay.
Bullinger includes the attitude of non-resistance in his long list of things
held in common by the large majority of Anabaptists. There were, however, two
other well defined views regarding Civil Government; the one represented by
Hubmeier and the other by John of Leyden. The former believed in government,
paid all taxes, and obeyed all its ordinances that did not interfere with the
free exercise of religion. It was proper to use the sword outside of
persecution. The latter believed in the establishing of Christ’s Kingdom by
the sword at the cost of sedition and revolution.
The refusal to pay tithes and taxes on the part of the more radical, had its
germ in the teaching of the more conservative, many of whom taught that they
really owed nothing to the government, but paid taxes simply to escape
persecution. Stumpf, one of the early founders, and Grebel told Zwingli that
they desired to found a church which should be made up of truly converted
Christians who would live righteously, cling to the Gospel, and who should not
be burdened with taxes or other usury.
J.S. Hartzler’s
“Scriptural Gems for Daily Meditation”, in the
edition, hinted that there
might be some tax resisters in the flock who needed correcting:
Occasionally we find people who are so over-conscientious that they want
nothing to do with the laws of the land and in fact, but little with those who
carry them out, at the same time they question whether it is right for them to
pay taxes under certain circumstances, but they are ready to speak harshly of
their rulers and dwell long and loudly on their corrupting influences. This is
wrong. I have no right to withhold any of the taxes due to my country,
(Rom. 13:6,7)
nor to speak evil of its rulers,
(Acts 23:5)
but to honor them
(1 Pet. 2:17)
and pray for them,
(1 Tim. 2:2).
He who prays as he should will have no evil to say of his rulers.
A typical, though not universal, position among Mennonites was to refrain from
voting in political elections, under the view that Christians belonged rightly
to one of the “two kingdoms,” and politics to the other. Here is an interesting
example of a Mennonite (Benjamin Weaver) trying to undermine this reluctance to vote
(in this case, so that Mennonites could vote for alcohol prohibition):
An article in the
quoted from a Schwenkfelders resolution issued during the American Revolution
to the effect that they pledged to “carry in common and help each other to
carry all fines in money that may be imposed on any of them or of their
children on account of their refusal through conscientious scruples to render
personal service in the war…”
In , representatives of the
Swiss Brethren (immediate ancestors of the American Old Mennonite Church) met
with their counterparts from the Zwinglian church (the state church) to haggle
over theology. The edition of
Gospel Herald reprinted
some of the Brethren’s talking points from that discussion,
including this one:
Of taxes and tribute. The Brethren said, “We have never taught that
interest, tithes, tribute, taxes,
etc., and
whatsoever one owes, should not be paid… If any one among us should be found
disobedient in regard to this duty and the government visited him with
punishment, we could not object. We have willingly rendered to this and other
governments what we owed, and any one of like faith with us, who would not do
so, we would not tolerate it nor let him be unpunished… To refuse taxes to the
government would be against God, and if we would do such things, we were of
the evil one.”
Not much had changed by the early twentieth century. In reporting on an
“Annual Bible Conference” held in , the Gospel Herald summarized one of the
topics — “Christians’ Relation to the Government” — as follows:
Christians should render obedience to, pay taxes to, not speak evil of, and to
pray for, the government. Christians should not go to law nor to war, but
rather appeal to the Church to settle difficulties, using the Word of God as
their weapon.
Finally, a historical note from the edition, which reprinted
a
petition from Pennsylvania
Mennonites to their state House of Assembly, which explained their
conscientious objection to military service, and said in part:
We are always ready according to Christ’s command to Peter to pay tribute that
we may offend no man and so we are willing to pay taxes and render unto Ceasar
[sic] those things that are Ceasar’s, and to God those things
that are God’s although we think ourselves very weak to give God His due
honor, He being a Spirit and Life and we being dust and ashes.
The petition also mentions that it was accompanied by a “small gift which we
have given… to those who have power over us that we may not offend them
as Christ taught us by the tribute penny.”
This is the fifth 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.
Whew.
There was a a lot going on during World War Ⅰ in the pages of Gospel Herald, as writers struggled to refine nonresistant conscientious objection to buying war bonds or otherwise contributing to the war effort.
Even a few hints of war tax resistance started to peek out and look around.
Today I’ll keep it briefer and take us through the period between the world wars when these concerns seemed a bit more distant and abstract.
During the war many of us were glad to give rather large amounts to relief work in lieu of buying bonds or subscribing to other war funds.
This pressure is now no longer brought to bear on us, but let us not therefore grow negligent and slack in our giving.
What sort of a testimony would that bear to the world?
Did we give because we believed in doing good?
Or was it largely because we didn’t have something to which to point which would make our refusal easier?
Let us examine ourselves carefully.
The world is waiting to see what sort of testimony we are bearing along these lines.
In “Church and State” (), David Garber imagined a conversation between a conscientious objector and a government official in which the objector not only explained why he couldn’t buy war bonds but could pay war taxes, but oddly seemed to suggest that the government fund its wars with taxes rather than bonds for that very reason!
Since according to Scripture I cannot conscientiously fight, and kill, you would say I am inconsistent if I should voluntarily buy Liberty Bonds, War Savings Stamps, or support Red Cross war activities, etc., and you would say well, for so it would be; for I would voluntarily be turning one crank of the war machine.
But if the government would lay an equitable tax on all, for this we are commanded to pay to our government, besides this would put an end to this “mob violence” that is practiced.
In the issue, Harold Bender urged Mennonites not to let their guard down in the post-war period — “In Time of Peace Prepare for War” — but was careful to stress that paying taxes was still mandatory:
[N]onresistance is not merely made up of not bearing arms or refusing combatant service, but means a refusal to participate in any way in the war-machine.
It is becoming increasingly clear that war is an effort of the entire nation, and not only of the soldiers on the battlefield.… There is little question among us now that our young men can do nothing else than refuse any service whatsoever which will promote war.
But is it as clear to us that hiring a substitute (as was done in previous wars), or buying war bonds and thus furnishing the financial sinew of war, is just as impossible?
[I]t is clear that the nonresistant people will be allowed to practice their principle in war time only in case the state is disposed to be gracious and bestow the unmerited favor of exemption.
From the human and worldly point of view, nonresistant people have no right to make the claim for such a special and gracious consideration unless they can show an unblamable record of obedient and worthy citizenship in all matters which do not involve the christian conscience.
This means that nonresistant people must pay their taxes, of course…
In “Nonresistance in War-Time” (billed as a pastoral letter written under bishop oversight, and published in the issue), John L. Stauffer again stressed that nonresistance to war doesn’t go as far as refusing to pay war taxes:
We believe that the Bible requires not only the abstinence from the bearing of arms, but also from all other work connected with the prosecution of war and the destruction of life; whether direct through enlistment or by the draft, or indirect through the manufacture of war materials.
We believe that what we do as Christians must glorify God and that therefore we are compelled to draw the line whenever our actions cannot do so.
(1 Cor. 10:31.) As Christians, we cannot accept combatant or noncombatant service, neither can we consistently make investments that help to promote war.
On the other hand, we believe it to be our Christian duty to pay taxes levied upon us by the nation in war-time as well as in peace-time; the responsibility for the use of taxes lies with the officers of administration, and not with the taxpayer.
We believe in “rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” but we cannot consent to surrendering our bodies for military service, because the physical body of the Christian has been bought by our Lord and therefore belongs to Him.
[1 Cor. 6:19–20]
The issue reprinted an article from The Lutheran Witness on “The Separation of Church and State.” It stressed the “two kingdoms” interpretation of the Render Unto Caesar riddle and again emphasized that Christians pay their taxes:
The earliest indication in the New Testament of a distinction between Church and State we find in the words of our Lord: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:21).
The Savior was answering the Pharisees who asked one of their trick questions: “Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not?” meaning: Shall we as members of the Jewish commonwealth pay taxes to the Roman emperor?
When the Jews showed Him a Roman silver coin, the denarius, which bore the head of the ruling emperor, Jesus answered in the words already quoted.
They mean simply that we owe the government one thing, obedience to its demands for taxes; and to God we owe something else.
What that is, the Lord does not say here; but even a Pharisee would know that what we owe to God is obedience to His commands.
The important thing is that here the two powers are distinguished as to the demands which they may make upon us and the duties which we owe to one or the other.
“Bible Teaching on Nonconformity” (Chester K. Lehman, ) mentioned the tension between “the nonresistant conscience” and war bonds, without seeming to want to take a definite stand on the issue:
Christians have the obligation to pay tribute and custom to and to fear and honor the “powers that be” (Rom. 13:6,7).
This principle came acutely under test during the World War.
The problem did not arise with reference to the payment of taxes some of the proceeds of which were definitely used to carry on the war, but with reference to the purchase of Liberty Bonds which was voluntary, the proceeds of which directly supported the war program.
Here the nonresistant conscience asserted itself.
The former was clearly within the teaching of Scripture, but the latter was voluntary and became a measure of one’s wartime patriotism.
Men who were physically unable on account of the rigors of warfare could render their bit toward the winning of the war by the purchase of bonds.
If the man drafted proved he was a member of a religious body which forbade members to take part in warfare and also demonstrated that he had conscientious scruples against doing so, he was excused upon the payment of a fee of three hundred dollars (in the North).
This fee was specified to be used for succoring the sick and wounded in hospitals.
Many Mennonites paid this commutation fee, as it was called.
Its payment seems to have been generally tolerated by the Church, on the ground that it was a form of taxation.
In some instances well-to-do brethren in the congregation, or the congregation as a whole, paid the fee for young brethren who could not meet it themselves.
In this connection it is interesting to notice that the Quakers generally refused to pay such fees, protesting that it was inconsistent with the principle of nonresistance.
There are three things that the Bible plainly tells us to do in regard to our attitude toward civil powers.
We should pay our taxes, pray for them, and honor them.
…We ought to obey the government.
I repeat again, we ought to be subject to the government as far as we possibly can.
If the government expects something of us, we should give them our best.
One illustration: an experience that I have had and I hope none of you will think that I am boasting.
When the war tension became high, so much of certain supplies was to be raised in a township and districts and certain counties.
I remember, I had just been away for about four days.
I came home during the night and in the morning, bright and early, there were the two gentlemen representing our township.
I knew them well, and they knew me well.
They came in and talked very nice.
They said that they were arranging a quota and of course would have to canvass the township.
They would have to give a report of every individual in the township as to what each would give; and if they would not give anything, why they would not give.
I knew these men.
They said, “We do not like to come here, but we have to give a report.”
They were church members, but not Mennonites.
I said, “Conscientiously I can’t do this.”
They said, “Well, what report shall we give back?”
I said, “There is not one of those head men that has not known me for some time.”
I said, “You tell them that conscientiously I cannot do that.
If you as a group think you ought to have a cow or a horse or a lot of wheat, you may take it; I cannot raise my hand.
But I cannot voluntarily give it.”
That afternoon two other men came back.
They talked over the situation in the same manner.
I said, “I am not making any remittance at all.
Whatever you folks think that you ought to take of mine, here, you just come and take it.
There will be no trouble about it, only I cannot give it.
If you think you ought take it, it is yours.”
I told them the same thing.
And I am glad to say, not because of the saving of a horse or cow or wheat or anything else, they never came.
They never took anything.
I suppose, they made their report, but nobody said anything to me about it.
The people were just as nice as before.
I sympathized with those men that came to talk to me.
They hated to talk to me, yet they felt it their duty.
I was glad for their attitude.
Tomorrow, we’ll see how the Mennonite Church held up after the United States entered World War Ⅱ.
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.
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 issue reported on
Mennonite war tax redirection:
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
, compared to $6,200 in
.
The Taxes for Peace Fund was established in late
. “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 , the
U.S. budgeted $138
billion for current military spending. Thirty-two percent of the income tax
paid by every American during 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 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…
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 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):
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 , 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!
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!
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!
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.
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!
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.”
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.”
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!”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.”
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?
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.
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?
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.
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 the Mennonite Board of
Congregational Ministries board of directors met.
Among their decisions:
In harmony with the 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 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…”
…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 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
issue:
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
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.
[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.
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 . 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.”
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.
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.
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 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?
[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 ,
AMF
took formal action to establish the fund. Since then, some $300 has been
contributed to it. On
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.
One of the best debates I have seen about the biblical basis for tax obedience or tax resistance was found in the Messenger in .
In the issue, the Messenger hosted a debate between Vernard Eller and Dale Aukerman on the biblical basis for war tax resistance or obedient tax payment:
The report to Annual Conference of the Committee on Taxation for War shows a great diversity of opinion within the committee itself.
Accordingly, there is at present no inclination to try for any change of policy.
Rather, the recommendation is for a churchwide study of the Conference statements already on the books.
And because I find myself highly in favor of this proposal, I offer this article as a contribution to the study for which the reports calls.
I address myself solely to the matter of scriptural evidence and interpretation.
Accidentally, as it were, I have been doing major research on the subject — for a book even now in press.
I had no intention of studying tax resistance per se, but was addressing the much broader question of how a Christian should relate to the host of regimes, parties, and ideologies competing with each other in the effort to direct and control society.
My mentors in the matter make up a 150-year-long string of biblically oriented thinkers who constitute the modern theological tradition I feel comes closest to Brethrenism.
These people are Soren Kierkegaard, J.C. and Christoph Blumhardt, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Jacques Ellul.
And as I chased them down on my particular topic, I found them regularly going to the New Testament tax passages.
It became apparent that this was not so much their doing as that of the Bible itself.
The logic of the move is this:
The all-dominating political reality of Palestine during the New Testament period was that of a most evil and vicious Roman regime occupying, oppressing, and eventually destroying the homeland of the Jewish people (and earliest Christians).
Over against this power was pitted that of the Jewish liberationists and freedom fighters commonly known as the Zealots.
Thus, the pattern of political decision forming the context not only of our tax passages but of all New Testament political counsel is one that applies as well to almost any issue, ancient or modern:
One can either (1) legitimize the presently established regime as representing God’s will for the nation, or (2) follow God’s will in supporting the efforts of the revolution against that regime.
“Revolution” here does not necessarily imply terrorism, guerrilla warfare, or other forms of physical brutality, but identifies any bringing to bear of political power in the effort to overthrow an evil regime or to pressure it into becoming good.
By its very nature, of course, the gospel would have as much as prohibited Christians from any desire to legitimize a cruel and pagan Roman Empire.
Yet, also, by its very nature, the gospel would make it very tempting for Christians to align themselves with liberation movements and efforts at just revolution.
Accordingly, on the one hand the New Testament consistently refuses to encourage any legitimizing tendencies — while on the other hand it actively discourages the greater temptation of revolution.
And “tax revolt” — i.e., withholding taxes as a power-play against government evil — becomes the New Testament’s regular signal and symbol of Zealot liberationism in particular and, in general, all forms of revolution.
(It is significant that this symbol has Christianity opposed to revolutionism quite prior to and apart from its physical violence.)
Regarding particularly the exegesis of Mark 12, in addition to the five thinkers named above I consulted four contemporary New Testament specialists: Martin Hengel, Gunther Bomkamm, Leander Keck, and Howard Clark Kee.
All nine scholars are in total agreement, each reading the tax passages in the context of the historical situation described above.
In the process, the scriptures come clear, manifesting their theological consistency as warnings against Christian involvement in political revolutionism.
My researchers are not exhaustive; but I failed to come across even one reputable scholar doing serious biblical exposition who concludes that these passages actually imply a support for (or even a leaving room for) Christian tax resistance.
The crucial New Testament passages are three:
Mark 12 — which is actually Mark 12:13–17 (the fact that both Matthew and Luke later pick up the incident for their own Gospels adds no new meaning but does corroborate the significance it held in the eyes of the early church);
Romans 13 — which is actually Romans 12:14–13:10;
and Matthew 17 — which is actually Matthew 17:24–27.
All of my nine, except the Blumhardts, address the Mark 12 passage — and all agree as to its reading.
The earliest writer, Kierkegaard, says it best.
(Consider that, in the historical context, to make Jesus “king” or to call him “Messiah” politically could mean nothing other than “revolutionary leader against Rome.”)
The small nation to which Jesus belonged was under foreign domination, and naturally all were intent upon the thought of shaking off the foreign yoke.
Hence they would acclaim him king.
But, lo, when they show him a coin and would constrain him against his will to take sides with one party or the other — what then?
Oh, worldly passion of partisanship, even when thou callest thyself holy and patriotic — nay, so far thou canst not stretch as to break through his indifference… No, he posits the infinite yawning difference between God and the Emperor: “Give unto God what is God’s!” For they with worldly wisdom would make it a question of religion, of duty to God, whether or not it was lawful to pay tribute to the Emperor.
Worldliness is so eager to embellish itself as godliness, and in this case God and the Emperor are blended together in the question,… that is to say, the question takes God in vain and secularizes him [by implying that whether the Emperor does or does not get his tax coin is an issue somehow related to or comparable with whether God does or does not get what belongs to him].
But Christ draws the distinction, the infinite distinction, and he does this by treating the question about paying tribute to the Emperor as the most indifferent thing in the world, regarding it as something which one should do without wasting a word or an instant in talking about it — so as to get more time for giving God what belongs to God.
Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Ellul speak a single mind on the Romans 13 passage.
Each finds it to be in complete agreement with Mark 12;
Ellul thinks that Romans 13 even shows that Paul was familiar with the Mark 12 incident.
Yet Barths’s exposition is easily the most extended and insightful of the three:
The revolutionary seeks to be rid of the evil by bestirring himself to battle with it and to overthrow it.
He determines to remove the existing ordinances, in order that he may erect in their place the new right…
The revolutionary must, however, own that, in adopting his plan, he allows himself to be overcome of evil (Rom. 12:21)… What man has the right to propound and represent the “New,” whether it be a new age, or a new world, or a new spirit?…
Overcome evil with good.
What can this mean but the end of the triumph of men, whether this triumph is celebrated in the existing order or by revolution?… There is here no word of approval of the existing order; but there is endless disapproval of every enemy of it.
It is God who wishes to be recognized as He that overcometh the unrighteousness of the existing order…
Even the most radical revolution — and this is so even when it is called a “spiritual” or “peaceful” revolution — can be no more than a revolt; and that is to say, it is in itself simply a justification and confirmation [not of God’s “new” but] of what already exists [namely, one human ideology or another]…
For this cause ye pay tribute also (Rom. 13:6).
Ye are paying taxes to the State.
It is important, however, for you to know what ye are doing.
If I might interpret: If you are paying those taxes as a positive legitimization of the state and its evil activity, you are wrong.
If, on the contrary, you are withholding those taxes as an act of protest and defiance against the evil of the state, you are wrong again.
“But what other option is there?”
Well, if Jesus is correct that Caesar’s image on the coin is proof enough that it belongs to him, then, rather than saying that we do pay him taxes, would it not be more correct to say that we do not try to stop him from taking what is his, do not revolt, do not return evil for evil?
As Barth puts it, “It is important for you to know what you are doing.”
The Matthew 17 incident is not as crucial as the first two; only a couple of our scholars mention it — and that merely in passing.
However, the words Jesus speaks on this occasion are as significant as anything we find on the subject.
In the process of explaining why he pays the tax, Jesus forestalls any idea that a Christian’s payment of taxes is to depend upon the relative righteousness or unrighteousness of the collecting regime.
He says, in effect, that no human regime is righteous enough for the Christian ever to owe it anything.
No, there is only one Father and King of whom Jesus knows himself and his followers to be “sons.”
No one except that “father” can claim anything from these “children.”
So the kings of the earth will have to do their collecting from “others,” not from Jesus and the children of God.
Thus, when Jesus goes on to say that he chooses to pay the tax even though he doesn’t owe it, he is saying that Christian payment never is made as recognition of either the rights or the righteousness of the State.
No, it is made to regimes good, bad, and indifferent — and that sheerly out of obedience to God’s command to love, not revolt, and not cause offense.
It strikes me that the word of God speaks quite clearly on the matter of tax resistance — and that that word is hardly in support of the practice.
I do fully honor the conscientious integrity of those who feel led to withhold some of their taxes; but I cannot confirm that leading as being biblical.
Rendering to Caesar [con]
by Dale Aukerman
If the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb is thought of as the width of a lead pencil, the destructive potential of the current nuclear arsenals is the height of Mount Everest.
If the United States were to explode a bomb each day to destroy a city, the present stockpile would last more than one hundred years.
The Reagan administration plans to build 1,700 additional nuclear bombs a year and press ahead in an arms buildup that is taking us into the war that can destroy God’s earthly creation.
Or to give just one example of the increasing ghastliness of conventional weapons, white phosphorus bombs have a sticky jelly, which adheres to the human body, burns at a temperature of more than 3000° Centigrade for at least 24 hours, and turns victims into agonized human torches.
The United States has been supplying these bombs to a number of countries, including El Salvador and Israel, which used them against civilians in its invasion of Lebanon.
As for the huge sums in federal tax dollars needed to purchase all these weapons and much more.
Brother Vernard Eller seems to say:
No problem; we have the clear command of Jesus to pay up.
After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in , they changed the Temple tax mentioned in the Matthew 17:24–27 story into a tax for the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome.
Some governments have levied taxes so exorbitant as to leave children and others starving.
Certain taxes have been imposed specifically for financing a war.
A government could use half its budget to keep masses of people in concentration camps or to run a network of brothels for the diversion of the male population.
Vernard evidently says: No problem basically;
Christians go by the command of Jesus.
According to the Friends Committee on National Legislation, $350 billion or 55 percent of the 1984 federal budget went to military spending and the cost of past wars.
Figured on a per-capita basis, the fraction of that for the Church of the Brethren membership was $255 million.
All Brethren church-related giving for the year was somewhat over $55 million.
As Vernard sees it, we need not to be troubled that hundreds of millions of Brethren dollars go to finance the arms buildup;
paying is “the most indifferent thing in the world.”
Vernard’s greatest service to us Brethren has come through his insistence that, if we claim to be a New Testament church, we must strive to live by the New Testament.
I stand with him in that insistence.
If Jesus in Mark 12:17 was saying that disciples of his should pay without question every tax levied by whatever government they are under, that, for us, should settle it.
But did Jesus say that?
Vernard failed to find “even one reputable scholar” whose treatment of the passage would leave open the option of Christian tax resistance.
I would call his attention to some.
A.M. Hunter writes: “This was an ad hoc answer, not a fixed and permanent rule for every situation.”
Jean Lasserre gives this interpretation:
“Jesus is not passing any judgment on the lawfulness of the Roman tribute;
He is speaking only of this particular coin.
It represents the things that are Caesar’s, not a foreign tyrant’s right to exact a tribute.
In other words, Jesus recognizes Caesar as having the right to the coin but not to the tribute.
This is what disconcerts His questioners and breaks their trap.”
Francis Wright Beare comments,
“The famous saying leaves untouched the fundamental problem: how are we to draw the line between the legitimate requirements of the society to which we owe allegiance, and the demands of loyalty to God?”
The insight of Paul S. Minear is most helpful:
“By his reply Jesus forced them, as students of the law, to decide for themselves where to draw the line between God’s jurisdiction and Caesar’s…
The riddle remains that each must solve for himself or herself.
Keep in mind that the first audience for this riddle was neither the crowd nor the disciples, but only their adversaries.”
Jacques Ellul, whom Vernard points to as one of the six thinkers decisively supporting the pay-without-question interpretation, states in The Ethics of Freedom that Jesus “refuses to answer the question whether he is for or against Caesar or whether taxes should be paid or not.”
In any case, appealing to the authority of European theologians within other church traditions has not for Brethren been a main way of discovering what faithful discipleship to Christ is.
Those enemies of Jesus thought they had the perfect trap.
If Jesus said, “Don’t pay the tax,” they would denounce him to the Roman authorities.
If he said, “Pay the tax,” they would trumpet that to the common people, who hated the tax as symbolizing Rome’s repressive occupation of their country.
His enemies could spread the word:
“The Messiah is to liberate us from Roman rule, but this fellow supinely tells us to pay the tax.”
The reply, “Don’t pay the tax,” would have pleased Jesus’ adversaries the most, and that they did not get.
According to the interpretation Vernard advocates, they did receive the other answer, “Pay the tax,” and could proceed with their strategy contingent on that reply.
That is, their trap did catch Jesus.
But the close of the story in each Gospel brings out that the trap did not succeed.
“And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him by what he said; but marveling at his answer they were silent” (Luke 20:26).
Jesus had not said, “Pay the tax.”
Jesus’ enemies were intent on exposing him as a collaborator, if not a Zealot revolutionary.
When they produced the detested Roman coin, they — not Jesus — were exposed as the collaborators.
When the Jewish leaders brought Jesus to Pilate, they accused him of “forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar” (Luke 23:2).
They would hardly have used that accusation if Jesus a short time before, in a public context charged with excitement about him, had counseled payment of the tribute.
Usually people quote, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” and omit the rest.
This pernicious misuse of the saying has had immense significance in the history of the West.
Vernard emphasizes that the second part of Jesus’ reply is vastly more important than the first, but he remains within the traditional interpretation by holding that on the matter of taxes we can take the first part and know its meaning for us without the second part.
Brethren historically have held that young men should not simply comply with whatever notice comes from a draft board and that what can rightly be given to the government has to be discerned in relation to giving ourselves totally to God.
Brethren who are deeply concerned about paying money into a monstrously expanding military buildup are not advocating refusal of all taxes, complete noncooperation with government, or trying to overthrow it.
But we believe that we can come to a Christian understanding of taxes that should be handed over to the government only in the light of Jesus’ supremely central command that we give ourselves fully to God.
The crucial issue is whether the first part of Jesus’ reply is taken by itself as a clear, sweeping command or whether it is seen as a riddle calling for the discernment that can come within our striving to love God and follow Jesus.
Jesus, as a Jewish male between the ages of 14 and 65, was subject to the Roman poll tax of one denarius a year.
We have no record that he paid it (his adversaries could have cornered him on that point) — or that he did not pay it.
But in Matthew 17:24–27, the tax in question was for the Temple in Jerusalem.
Jesus told Peter that children of the heavenly King are free from any obligation to pay taxes, but “not to give offense… give the shekel to them for me and for yourself.”
Here too Jesus did not command that all taxes are to be paid regardless.
(Much of what Vernard finds in the passage is not there at all.)
The key consideration is that one not give offense, cause others to fall away from faith.
Had Jesus refused to pay the Temple tax, he would have appeared to reject the Mosaic law (Exodus 30:11–16) and the Temple itself.
But in some circumstances paying a tax can constitute giving offense, impelling others away from God.
When national leaders are stumbling blindly toward slaughtering unimaginable multitudes of those for whom Christ died, casual payment of all the money asked for toward their mad projects amounts to abetting them in their fateful falling away from God.
To resist paying such taxes can provide opportunities for pointing agents of government to Jesus as Lord.
On the Romans 13 passage John Howard Yoder writes:
“Verse 7 says ‘render to each his due’; verse 8 says ‘nothing is due to anyone except love.’
Thus the claims of Caesar are to be measured by whether what he claims is due to him is part of the obligation of love.
Love in turn is defined (verse 10) by the fact that it does no harm.”
Paul was probably restating the teaching of Jesus found in Mark 12:17 and his Master’s call to the most careful discrimination between what under God can be rightly rendered to the ruling authority and what cannot.
Thus we have cogent reasons for concluding that Vernard’s article, the Brethren tradition of paying all taxes without question, and the Annual Conference Statement on Taxation for War (of which Vernard was a principal writer) depend on a mistaken understanding of the words of Jesus.
There is no easy answer— certainly not in four Greek words in Mark 12:17 taken by themselves.
In this issue we need together to seek a fresh discernment of what from us belongs to God.
Bob Gross wrote a letter-to-the-editor in response, in which he made this point (source):
Eller may not realize that for many Brethren who feel led to refuse to pay taxes for war, the primary reason is not the one his article cautions against.
Rather than “an act of protest and defiance against the evil of the state,” our non-payment is a simple, humble attempt to refrain from contributing to that evil.
This is not done in a quest for purity or out of guilt.
It comes from a desire to be more conformed to the will of God and to witness to God’s kingdom.
John Stoner from the Mennonite Central Committee also wrote in to reiterate that “When Jesus was asked, by people wishing entrap him, ‘Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ his answer was not ‘Yes.’ ” (source)
Barry Shutt, on the other hand, took the point of view that war tax resistance was not an effective response, and should be discouraged for that reason (source). Excerpts:
[A] legitimate concern for any witness is the question of effectiveness.
One could seriously question if violating the law is very effective in a society where most people believe it is best to work within the system to initiate change.
And if tax resistance only leads to the tax resister paying more money to the government in fines and penalties, the question of effectiveness becomes an even greater concern.
The point to be made, of course, is, “How do we work effectively to bring about change?” When the system provides adequate means by which one can voice concerns and attempt to change priorities, tax resistance as a means to bring about change becomes even more questionable.
If tax resisters would argue that effectiveness is not the primary concern or objective but simply the witness alone is the objective, then one should ask if simply writing letters of protest to our elected officials is any less of a witness?
If God hears prayers made from the privacy of the prayer closet, God surely takes note of witnesses made through the less conspicuous channels available for us to voice our concerns.
Being fined or arrested may not be necessary, and I would suggest neither is tax resistance.
A further letter in support of resistance, by Dale Hess, did not add much new to the argument, but, in implicit contradiction to Shutt, said of war tax resistance: “The importance of this type of peace witness is hard to overestimate” (source).
The Annual Conference had assembled yet another committee to issue yet another report about war tax resistance, and that committee reported on its work in .
The messenger reported on their recommendations (source):
The assignment from last year’s Annual Conference was two-fold.
In response to a request that the committee study and recommend how Brethren should respond to the dilemma of paying taxes for war, the committee chose not to write a new position paper.
Instead it recommends that Brethren undertake an extensive study of earlier position papers and then determine more specifically what, in addition to the previous papers, is called for in the query.
The committee was also asked to make a recommendation about General Board payment of the federal telephone excise tax.
The committee recommends that the decision be made by the board itself, because of the liability of individual officers.
In action for war growing out of a General Board query of , delegates approved a study committee’s recommendation that the church undertake its own study of previous position papers before deciding whether a new paper on taxation for war is desired.
The General Board is to prepare a study packet and to compile responses from across the denomination.
In an unusual move, the delegates extended the life of the study committee, directing it to recommend to the Cincinnati Conference a process to complete the study.
The same committee, assigned to respond to a Michigan District query about telephone tax redirection, recommended (and Conference approved) that any decision about whether the General Board should withhold the federal telephone excise tax should be made by the Board, since its staff could be held liable.
“A gratified war tax study committee regrouped after finding it had two more years of life.
Clockwise from left:
Chuck Boyer, Gary Flory, Phil Rieman, Dick Buckwalter, Vi Cox.”
A letter in the issue dissented from the war tax resistance craze on the grounds that “many non-Christian people who deeply resent having to support welfare programs” would use the same logic to avoid their taxes (source).
, a group of Brethren showed up at the Lombard, Ill., Internal Revenue Service office and tried to pay part of their taxes with bags of groceries.
The group from Bethany Theological Seminary included about 33 students and faculty member Dale Brown, and they wanted to let the IRS know that they objected to paying taxes for war.
“I believe in paying taxes, but not for defense,” said Brown.
The group took about $160 worth of food to the IRS and contributed about the same amount to peace organizations.
IRS officials refused the groceries, which were then given to local food pantries and soup kitchens.
