Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Mennonites / Amish →
Andrew Ziegler
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
War tax resistance remained very much on the agenda at the Friends Journal at the beginning of the Reagan era of aggressive military build-up in .
A letter from Jenny Duskey in the issue read, in part:
I belong to a community of disciples called Publishers of Truth.
Our testimony is that Christ’s disciples can have no part in war or preparation for war, and that this means not joining the military or being drawn into legally designated “alternatives” to conscription even when the law demands, as well as not paying taxes destined for military use when we can refuse them.
“Publishers of Truth” (see also the advertisement pictured in ♇ ) was centered around Larry and Lisa Kuenning, who came to prophesy an emerging paradise on Earth, centered on Farmington, Maine.
I’m tempted to do some further research in this direction, but am afraid of getting lost in some interesting by-ways.
Lisa Kuenning was a collaborator with Timothy Leary, and for a time an important figure in the psychedelic renaissance.
Last I checked, the Kuennings were running Quaker Heritage Press, which specializes in reprints of old Quaker books.
The issue had an in-depth article by Richard K. MacMaster on Christian Obedience in [American] Revolutionary Times, that included a discussion of Quaker responses to war taxes and militia exemption taxes.
Excerpts:
The Pennsylvania Assembly voted on to recommend to conscientious objectors “that they cheerfully assist in proportion to their abilities, such persons as cannot spend both time and substance in the service of their country without great injury to themselves and families.”
This would be a subsidy to poorer Associators, men who could not supply themselves with a musket and bayonet and needed help from their neighbors.
It was a far cry from the kind of nonpolitical relief work that the sects had in mind.
The Continental Congress did not help matters when it decreed in that members of the Peace Churches should “contribute liberally in this time of universal calamity, to the relief of their distressed brethren.”
Were these distressed brethren the poor of Boston or poor families in their own neighborhood or George Washington’s makeshift army camped on the hills overlooking Boston harbor?
The Peace Churches took the Congressional resolve as a last-minute reprieve and insisted that their contributions were for the poor, even though the money would be turned over to the County Committee.
“For we gave it in good faith for the needy,” a Lancaster County Brethren pastor explained, “and the man to whom we gave it gave us a receipt stating that the money would be used for that purpose.”
The Lancaster County experience was repeated in other Pennsylvania counties and in other colonies where Quakers, Brethren, and Mennonites were numerous.
Most communities tried voluntary contributions, but in Frederick County, Maryland, and Berks County, Pennsylvania, the committees levied fines on men of military age who did not drill with the Associators.
The nonresistant sects had fallen into a trap.
No matter how they labeled them, the authorities understood their voluntary contributions as donations to the war chest.
And if contributions failed to come voluntarily, they were already preparing for compulsory payment of money as an equivalent to military service.
Time was running out on the Peace Churches by .
Soon after the elections, military associators began petitioning the Pennsylvania Assembly that
some decisive Plan should be fallen upon to oblige every Inhabitant of the Province either with his Person or Property to contribute towards the general Cause, and that it should not be left, as at present, to the Inclinations of those professing tender Conscience, but that the Proportion they shall contribute, may be certainly fixed and determined.
These petitions asked much more than an increased tax assessment on the conscientious objectors.
The petitions explicitly stated that every member of the community had an obligation to make some contribution to the common cause; the additional tax would be a concession to those who could not meet that obligation on the field of battle.
The Peace Churches rightly put their case on the high ground of religious freedom.
Quakers expressed their “Concern on the Endeavours used to induce you to enter into Measures so manifestly repugnant to the Laws and Charter of this Province, and which, if enforced, must subvert that most essential of all Privileges, Liberty of Conscience.”
They asked the Assembly not to infringe the solemn assurance given them in Penn’s Charter, “that we shall not be obliged ‘to do or suffer any Act or Thing contrary to our religious Persuasion.’ ”
The revolutionary government rose to the challenge.
All sixty-six members of the Philadelphia Committee proceeded in a body to the Assembly chamber to present their response to the Quaker address to the Speaker of the House.
The same day, the Assembly heard petitions from the Officers of the Military Association of the City and Liberties of Philadelphia and from a Committee of Privates.
They first narrowly construed the grant of religious freedom in the Charter and threw out of court the sectarian contention that religion was more than a Sunday worship service.
We cannot alter the Opinion we have ever held with Regard to those parts of the Charier quoted by the Addressors, that they relate only to an Exemption from any Acts of Uniformity in Worship, and from paying towards the Support of other religious Establishments, than those to which the Inhabitants of this Province respectively belong.
The representation from the Committee of Privates went still further.
They insisted that “Those who believe the Scriptures must acknowledge that Civil Government is of divine Institution, and the Support of it enjoined to Christians.”
Quakers ought not to question what governments did, according to this Committee of Privates, but simply obey; God had ordained the powers and thereby gave sanction to every action of the state.
The lines were thus clearly drawn between the sectarian view of supremacy of conscience and the secular view of the primacy of the state.
The Mennonites and Church of the Brethren simply set down the limits of what they could do in good conscience.
Their petition made little difference to the course of events.
The day after the Mennonite and Brethren statement was read the Pennsylvania Assembly voted to require everyone of military age who would not drill with the Associators “to contribute an Equivalent to the time spent by the Associators in acquiring the military Discipline.”
Later in , the Assembly imposed a tax of two pounds and ten shillings on non-Associators, which would be remitted for those who joined a military unit.
Under new pressure from the Associators they raised the tax to three pounds and ten shillings in .
The Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention incorporated the principle of taxing conscientious objectors as an equivalent to military service in the Declaration of Rights they adopted.
It made explicit what most Patriots already believed:
That every Member of Society hath a right to be protected in the Enjoyment of Life, Liberty and property and therefore is bound to Contribute his proportion towards the Expence of that protection and yield his personal Service when necessary or an equivalent… Nor can any Man who is conscientiously scrupulous of bearing Arms be justly compelled thereto if he will pay such equivalent.
Participation in warfare was a universal obligation, in their view, falling equally on every citizen; those who could not fight must pay others to fight in their place.…
The Assembly and the Convention clearly intended to make the Peace Churches pay for war and imposed the tax as an avowed equivalent to military service.… Religious pacifists carried the whole burden of the tax.
But a tax imposed on conscientious objectors as an equivalent to joining the army and intended for the military budget definitely infringed on the religious liberty guaranteed by William Penn’s Charter.
The war tax issue thus arose in a context of freedom of conscience curtailed for those whose Christian faith forbade their “giving, or doing, or assisting in any Thing by which Men’s Lives are destroyed or hurt.”
Maryland and North Carolina followed Pennsylvania’s example in levying a special tax on conscientious objectors; the North Carolina law made payment the grounds for exemption from actual service with the army.
Virginia and several other states required conscientious objectors to hire substitutes to take their place whenever their company of militia was drafted for combat duty.
Special tax assessments for military purposes passed every state legislature as the war dragged on.
And the rapidly depreciating Continental and state paper money that fueled a run-away inflation was itself a war tax.
Wherever Quakers, Mennonites, or Brethren lived, the problem of paying for war soon caught up with them
Could a valid distinction be made between military service and war taxes?
The Reverend John Carmichael, Scottish Presbyterian pastor in Chester County, Pennsylvania, had little sympathy with the nonresistant sects who refused to pay war taxes, but he saw no distinction between fighting and paying the cost of war.
In Rom 13, from the beginning, to the 7th verse, we are instructed at large the duty we owe to civil government, but if it was unlawful and anti-Christian, or anti-scriptural to support war, it would be unlawful to pay taxes; if it is unlawful to go to war, it is unlawful to pay another to do it, or to go do it.
Some Brethren, Mennonites, and Quakers agreed that no real distinction could be made and consequently refused to pay taxes levied for military purposes.
In his sermon, Carmichael spoke of Mennonites “who for the reasons already mentioned will not pay their taxes, and yet let others come and take their money, where they can find it, and be sure they will leave it where they can find it handily.”
They would not resist the tax collector in any way; but they could not cooperate in wrongdoing by voluntarily paying war taxes.
The law took this practice into account and permitted collectors to seize the property of those would not pay their own taxes.
Quakers officially discouraged payment of war taxes and militia fines.
Many Friends went to jail for their refusal and still a larger number allowed the authorities to take horses, cattle, furniture, farm implements and tools to pay their taxes.
They refused to accept any money from the sale of their goods over and above the tax and fine.
In the Shenandoah Valley and in other Quaker communities, their neighbors found rare bargains when the sheriff sold a Quaker farmer’s property for taxes and purposely kept the bidding low.
Virginia Yearly Meeting protested to the authorities about the sale of slaves, freed by their Quaker masters in defiance of the law, who were taken up and sold to pay their former masters’ war taxes.
Refusal to pay taxes for military purposes had a close parallel in Quaker refusal to pay taxes to support an established Church; they accepted the right of civil government to appropriate money for either purpose, but denied that civil government could coerce their consciences, even at the cost of jail sentences.
This was a minority position among English and American Friends, even after John Woolman prodded their conscience on war taxes.
Woolman’s influence can be seen in a circular letter issued by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in , when Braddock’s defeat left Pennsylvania exposed to French and Indian raids and the Assembly ordered new taxes for mounting a fresh campaign.
The tax was a general one, including military appropriations with all the other functions of civil governments, but Friends agreed “as we cannot be concerned in wars and fightings, so neither ought we to contribute thereto by paying the tax directed by the said act, though suffering be the consequence of our refusal.”
The issue in was much clearer: the taxes were levied entirely for military purposes and intended as an equivalent to military service.
With the passage of years, Friends had the meaning of nonresistance in much sharper focus and a much greater number accepted the challenge of faithful discipleship.
Mennonites also responded to the challenge by refusing to pay war taxes.
When the Pennsylvania Assembly passed an act in to require a tax of three pounds and ten shillings from everyone of military age who refused to turn out with the militia, Mennonite opinion was divided.
Christian Funk, bishop in the Franconia congregation, allowed payment of the tax and tried to convince his brother ministers.
But refusal to pay war taxes had taken deep roots in the Mennonite tradition by .
The mere rumor that Funk permitted payment of the tax was enough to bring complaints against him at the time of preparation for the Lord’s Supper in and to lead to his ouster from the ministry.
All of the preachers and a great many other Mennonites in eastern Pennsylvania opposed payment of the tax.
Andrew Ziegler, bishop in the Skippack congregation, spoke for them, when he declared: “I would as soon go into the war, as to pay the three pounds ten shillings if I were not concerned for my life.”
Zeigler and others could see little difference between fighting and paying for war.
In the face of a long-standing tradition of paying taxes without questioning the purpose of the tax, men of faith testified from their own conscience that for them there could be no distinction between refusing to fight and refusing to pay for war.
These Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers willingly accepted the penalty for their conscientious objection to war taxes in imprisonment and loss of property far in excess of the tax.
Their action reminded their brethren of the need for careful discrimination in rendering to Caesar the things that are really Caesar’s. They refused to let a majority vote in the legislature be their conscience and rejected the easy way of confusing Caesar’s will with the will of God.
In the same issue, Bill Durland of the Center on Law and Pacifism reviewed the attempts to get a sympathetic court hearing in the United States for the argument that conscientious objection to military taxation is a Constitutionally-protected right of citizens.
He described the founding of the Center in by himself, Robert Anthony, Bruce & Ruth Graves, Barbara & Howard Lull, Peter Herby, and Richard McSorley, and then described the various avenues of appeal the group was pursuing in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Anthony put his legal argument this way: to be compelled to pay war taxes “would force [him] to accept a creed, and practice a form of worship foreign to his convictions, and to establish as the only normative religious belief and practice, that adhered to by most Christian denominations, i.e., that it is both a Christian and an American duty to fight in just wars and pay for them.”
The Supreme Court wasn’t interested.
The Center tried again with the Graves’ case, asserting that the First Amendment’s assertion that “Congress shall make no law… prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]” means that the governmental interest in having an efficient and uncomplicated tax system is trumped by the citizen’s right to a religious practice that forbids funding war.
Again, the Supreme Court turned up its nose.
The Center then made an attempt with the Lulls & Peter Herby as petitioners.
As the First Amendment arguments had failed to make any headway, this time they made a Hail Mary pass with a Ninth Amendment argument.
“This amendment recognizes that there are certain fundamental, inalienable rights not enumerated in the Constitution which the people possess that are preexisting to any constitution, are inherent in the individual, and are not subject to divestment either partially or completely by the state.
These rights have also been called ‘natural’ and are those held by an individual in a state of absolute liberty.
In contracting to enter into a state of society, the people collectively, and the person individually, only divest themselves of those natural rights which they expressly relinquish by enumeration.”
Nice try, but the Supreme Court yet again denied cert.
The article notes that in addition to First Amendment-based arguments, “each of the three cases raised at the Federal Court level a compelling legal position based on International Law and, in particular, the Nuremberg Principles.”
(Not compelling enough, apparently.)
An article in the same issue, by William Strong, profiles war tax resister Bruce Chrisman.
Excerpts:
[H]e cannot pay that portion of his federal taxes that he knows will be used for preparations for war.
For that, he is serving a criminal sentence that includes one year of humanitarian service without pay, three years of probation, a fine of $2,400 for court costs, and the payment of all back taxes due.
He deems this result a moral victory, however — the sentence could have been up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Over the years Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s minutes have reflected the repeated return of the war tax concern.
In a striking, sensitive minute was approved.
The unity reached at that time calls upon “all Friends to continue to search themselves deeply on their responsibility to separate themselves from preparations for war.”
Where does that searching lead?
“We encourage dialogue between conscientious war tax refusers and other concerned people struggling with the issue of paying war taxes.
We seek to build a community of deeply committed persons.”
Friends offer their real support — spiritual, moral, legal, and material — to that growing community, and close the minute by reaffirming:
Our strength and our security are derived from our belief in the reality of a loving God and the oneness of that of God in all people.
In order to say yes to this belief, we must seriously consider saying no to payment of war taxes.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s “War Tax Concerns Support Committee” works to carry out that minute.
Its mandate is broad, from war tax refusal and resistance, questing for administrative (IRS) and judicial relief, to a spectrum of wholly positive approaches.
The committee seeks “legislative relief” in pursuing the World Peace Tax Fund law that proposes alternative service for war taxes, for conscientious objectors to monetary conscription.
In the war tax concerns section of our Peace Testimony, as in most fields of Quaker endeavor, certain Friends are ’way out front.
They have been going down a committed road for years.
George and Lillian Willoughby, Bob Anthony, Lorraine Cleveland, and Robin Harper in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting come to mind.
“Not to worry” — most of us are beginners, and we don’t need to catch up.
What stride do we take this year — or this quarter — in the Light? We tackle the big issues by taking the next step, getting a bit more involved.
Saying “no” to that small, lingering, now two percent Vietnam War telephone tax, which does indeed produce a billion dollars in direct war taxes, is one such step.
Adjusting our withholding so that we take more control of our tax payments, with more options, is another.
Or do we match what the government requires of us in war taxes with comparable contributions to peace organizations?
Everyone ultimately decides his own next step, but often it comes out of shared, caring discussion with other Friends, “wrestling as I am, with the harder questions of our faith and practice.”
That issue also had a few short notes that mentioned war tax resistance:
“In Japan, COMIT (Conscientious Objection to Military Tax) is planning to sue the government for breach of constitution by taxing for war.”
“In Switzerland, 300 people belonging to the group ‘Pour une Politique de Paix Active’ refused to pay their military tax or some part of the duty levied for national defense.”
“[N]ine members of the Pacific Yearly Meeting Peace Committee testified ‘against rendering unto Caesar that which is God’s’ by declaring their solidarity with those Friends who refuse to cooperate with war taxes and draft registration.
Some seventeen others present at the yearly meeting also signed the statement.”
“A statement from Orange County Meeting asks: ‘If we recognize our involvement in militarism through the payment of taxes used for military purposes but do not act to end such involvement, then are we not hypocritical to tell Friends faced with registration to refuse military service?’ ”
The issue included a mention that the Australian Yearly Meeting was pursuing its own Peace Tax Fund plan “as a method of allowing taxpayers to direct a proportion of their tax to peace purposes instead of military spending.”
The issue noted that a “Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes is preparing a packet of study materials to provide information on the biblical basis of war taxes and the World Peace Tax Fund… together with suggestions for personal and political action.”
Maurice McCracken wrote in to the issue to chide anti-war activists for their timidity.
Excerpts:
Indeed it is a feeble gesture to do what we do not believe in; even though we protest doing it.
The only valid protest is resistance and complete noncooperation with what we believe to be wrong.
[A] law… threatens anyone who advises a young man not to register for the draft with the same penalty as the non-registrant — a possible prison sentence of five years and a possible fine of $5,000. In the draft registration resistance movement I find that considerable time is spent on how to counsel young men about registration so it will not appear that we are actually advising them not to register.
Why this hesitancy and timidity?
I not only advise young men of draft age not to register.
I urge them not to register.
This military juggernaut which threatens to destroy all human life and all animal and plant life on the planet must be stopped.
It must be resisted at the point of not filing a federal income tax return and of not registering for the draft.
A thief-says, “Your money or your life.”
The Pentagon says, “Your money and your life!”
I refuse to give either one!
Won’t you join me?
In the issue, E. Raymond Wilson tried to envision a “Quaker Peace Program” that would be adequate to the challenges of .
He advocated working toward a more powerful U.N., drastic disarmament, global economic/social development with an emphasis on underdeveloped areas, and active reconciliation of global adversaries.
Much of this work would involve lobbying and other pleading with powerful people whose inclinations are largely in the opposite direction; but there was also a nod toward conscientious objection:
an ad in the issue of Friends Journal
Friends should seriously consider the recommendations of the Second New Call to Peacemaking Conference that individuals should withhold all or part of their income tax going to military and war appropriations, now estimated at more than forty-eight percent of the budget controlled by Congress.
War tax resistance came up at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in .
War tax resister John Beer wrote down some questions that people had about resisting, and in a Friends Journal issue , Bill Strong (of the Meeting’s “War Tax Concerns Support Committee”) answered them.
The questions were:
“If we refuse $100 of our federal war taxes and give it to some organization working for peace, what steps will the IRS take?”
“What options do we have in dealing with the IRS actions?”
“Is the initial letter we send with our tax return, stating the reasons for our tax refusal, important in terms of the subsequent legal proceedings?”
“Should we get help from a lawyer or tax refusal group in composing the letter?”
“What kind of advice can you provide which will allow us to profit from the experience of those who are already refusing to pay war taxes?”
“What happens to persons who refuse war taxes year after year?”
Some excerpts from the answers give a window into how war tax resistance was practiced by Quakers and by Meetings:
Both at Celo (NC) Meeting and at Central Philadelphia Meeting members asked others to share their examination or audit with IRS agents.
The first was in the refusers’ home, the latter in a federal office building.…
One Friend has been refusing for 23 years.
His witness continues and collection is still in the future, so much of the obligations of the early years have lapsed.
Another Friend, whose refusal goes back even further, has had the funds due taken at irregular intervals from her checking account.
A report in the issue noted that the Lake Erie Yearly Meeting in had “considered a minute on war tax concerns” based on queries from the New Call to Peacemaking Conference:
“If we believe that fighting war is wrong, does it not follow that paying for war is wrong?
If we urge resistance to the draft, should we not also resist the conscription of our material resources?”
The minute concluded: “We reassert the historic peace witness of the Society of Friends.
We commit ourselves to wrestle with the contradictions between our testimony and our government’s tax regulations.
To continue quiet payment for war preparations is to the conditions for war.”
Each meeting was urged to appoint a representative to the World Peace Tax Fund.
Finally, the issue brought a meditation on “the peaceable kingdom” by Susan Furry.
She believed that the Kingdom of God, the peaceable commonwealth, was “at hand” as Jesus said it was, and that it was the duty of Christians to “begin to live there.”
She reflected on how she came to include war tax resistance in her vision of how to carry this out:
an ad in the issue of Friends Journal
…I felt that I had to begin to look into the question of war tax resistance.
This led to a long period of study and self-examination.
To me, becoming a war tax resister meant making a final commitment to pacifism, and I didn’t do it lightly.
It took a lot of prayer and thought and the help and support of many people in my meeting to bring me to a point of clearness, where I know, solidly and comfortably, that this action is right for me.
Since then I have found myself being led not only to resist war taxes for myself but also to speak about it to others and to offer counsel and support to those who are considering this action.
I have helped prepare a packet called “Quakers and War Taxes” which is on sale at my meeting and have been involved in setting up the New England Friends Peace Tax Fund, an escrow fund for tax resisters under the care of my yearly meeting: I’ve been given a lot of encouragement to continue and to grow in my tax resistance activities through the support of others in my meeting, many of whom are not tax resisters themselves but friends who recognize that it is the right thing for me to do.
I’ve found that obedience to the divine leading I have felt in this matter has brought me closer to God, has given me new courage, and has opened me to further leadings.
In practical terms, war tax resistance seems to be a futile, irrational, and perhaps risky undertaking.
I think by now I’ve probably heard all the possible arguments against it.
The only answer I can really give is, “This is something I must do, to be faithful to my conscience and my understanding of God’s will.”
For it is part of the foolishness of God, which is wiser than human wisdom, as Paul tells us in First Corinthians.
It requires me to acknowledge my dependence on God’s guidance and strength.
I don’t know where my action will lead in practical terms, but I trust God to make use of it; I don’t know what the consequences will be for me personally, but I trust God to help me to face them.
In one way or another, perhaps, peacemaking may bring all of us to that place of acknowledging our dependence on God.
For me it has come through tax resistance.
For another it may come through the old dilemma about Hitler or through an experience of physical violence on the street.
In any case one comes to a place where one has to say, “I don’t know what will happen, but I place my trust in the God of love and accept the consequences.”
In coming to rely on God more, I have begun to learn that God really is dependable.
I have felt God working through the beautiful support I have received from many individuals and from my meeting.
I’ve been to tax court twice and was sustained by a powerful sense of God’s presence.
I’ve faced the certainty of financial loss and found that it doesn’t trouble me as much as I feared it would.
However, I still worry about the future; I haven’t reached the point where I can really leave it all in God’s hands.
Sometimes I even wonder about going to jail.
Right now the government isn’t prosecuting many war tax resisters, but it is always a possibility.
My actions are not very unusual; there are over forty war tax resisters in my meeting alone and many more in New England.
I know many people who have sacrificed more and taken greater risks for peace than I have.
But I have learned that when you follow God one step down the road, God usually asks you to take another step.
Who knows what God may ask of me in the future?
I have friends who have gone to jail for conscience’ sake, and I wonder if I could face that if it came to me.
My action in refusing to voluntarily pay taxes for war is largely symbolic — like the early Christians who refused to put a pinch of incense on Caesar’s altar.
Is it worth the risk to make a symbolic gesture?
Such questions take me back to the Christian roots of my faith.
I know that my way of thinking about these things and the language I use do not work for everybody, but these are the symbols which make sense to me, so I must use them.
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 eighth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
find ourselves at the beginning of the Atomic Age.
One of the main arguments for the continued existence of the Mennonite
denomination is its belief in non-resistance. Therefore it was particularly
fitting that the Mennonite World Conference gave so much time at choice places
in the program to emphasize non-resistance.
Dutch Leader for Definite Separation
F[elix]. van der Wissel of Leeuwarden, Holland, surprised his American
brethren by his hesitancy in regard to paying taxes to a state that uses so
much of them for war. Such heart-searching is in place. However, his radical
emphasis upon nonparticipation in government might suggest that Mennonites
should believe that government is of God but that unbelievers should run it.
Personally, I take a more critical attitude toward all state activities than
do most Mennonites, even the American Mennonites, in general. It is
increasingly a matter of fact that not only in war but also in peace
everything in the state is used for the interest of the state. For instance,
education is very often used to stimulate a bad type of patriotism. In these
cases I believe that we should refuse to give our co-operation. In paying
taxes we should also draw a sharper line than we generally do. We should seek
the solution more in the manner of Tolstoy than in that of a quiet Mennonitism
that sometimes pays its taxes only too willingly. I am convinced that it is
tenable, at least theoretically, that we should refuse to pay certain taxes.
However, in reality it happens, as a rule, that the state in that case takes
even more than its part by force, so that, practically speaking, such a
refusal does not have sense. Nevertheless, we must consider which stand we
take in this question. This confirms once more the importance of the refusal
to use force, because it is also by organic force that one can be compelled to
pay taxes. It is my opinion that we do not give enough attention in our
Mennonite life to the idea of non-cooperation and social effects of refusal of
service. This non-co-operation should not be used as a means to some political
goal, as was often the case with Gandhi, but only as a testimony that we
cannot give our co-operation for evil things.
This was perhaps an idea whose time had come. By this time, a nonsectarian
war tax resistance movement was congealing outside of the traditional peace
churches. Ernest Bromley, one of the organizers of this new movement, gave
his thoughts in the issue:
One interesting fact which ought to be of current interest to Mennonites is
their own history in regard to refusing to pay war taxes. Though tax refusal
was a potent witness of earlier Mennonites, today it is little recognized that
such a testimony ever existed.
From Guy Franklin Hershberger’s Mennonite history entitled War, Peace and Non-Resistance () we have the following information, summary:
Two questions arising out of the American Revolution were easily and
definitely answered by the Mennonites. The first was, Shall we take up arms?
The answer to this was a positive “No.” The second question was, Shall we give
aid to the suffering? This time the answer was a positive “Yes”. But there was
also a third question not so easily answered. This was the question of war
taxes. The Mennonites, with little objection, seem to have paid their fines
for not joining military associations, at least in localities where they were
strictly and regularly collected. In addition to the fine the Pennsylvania
Assembly levied a special war tax on all inhabitants. Should a non-resistant
Christian pay this tax?
Hershberger goes on to tell what they did:
The war tax issue became a serious issue in
. Some of the ministers said that they could
not conscientiously pay the tax, but Bishop Christian Funk said it should be
paid. Funk said: “Were Christ here he would say, ‘Give to congress that which
belongs to congress and to God that which belongs to God.’ ” Bishop Andrew
Ziegler, the spokesman for the opposite group, said, “I would as soon go to
war as to pay the three pounds and 10 shillings.”
In regard to what the Mennonites actually did, he said: “It seems that the
Quakers generally refused to pay the tax, then when the government came and
seized their property in payment of the tax they let them take it without
resistance. What the Mennonites did is not so clear. Apparently most of them
objected to the tax and followed the same plan which the Quakers did.”
That Mennonites did refuse is confirmed by Margaret Hurst in her detailed and
accurate history of the Quaker entitled, The Quakers in
Peace and War:
It is true that in Virginia the early draft laws of the war exempted Quakers
and Mennonites. But they endured every distraint and their general refusal to
use Continental paper money or to pay war taxes involved them in great
difficulty.
Some Mennonites are now becoming particularly sensitive to the import of
sending their tax dollars to the
U.S. Treasury when
they know that 75 cents of every dollar is for financing past present and
future wars. They realize that they are directly contributing to the
stockpiling of bacterial and atomic weapons and the rapid growth of militarism
in almost every area of the national life.
Ernest R. Bromley — of Nassau, New York, is active as a member of the
Peacemaker group. He has learned of Mennonite and Hutterite activities and
submits a thought which we Mennonites have shelved, for the most part.
The Selective Service Act of brought back
registration for military conscription. An article in the
issue (in the “Mennonite
Youth” section) urged Mennonites to refuse to register. But:
The question is raised, “Why draw the line at registration? How about taxes,
food for the armed forces,
etc.?” I think it
is essential to distinguish between what is given to Caesar, and entering into
active participation ourselves. Caesar is responsible for how he spends the
money received. Even Christ paid taxes to Rome, which had one of the largest
military machines of ancient history.
However another article on the topic in the same section of the
issue said:
One of the most difficult of the pacifist’s problems is the task of removing
himself from those aspects of his society which tend to destroy the
individual. In this case it is war and warmaking. The consistent pacifist
should refuse war taxes, personal services,
etc.
Walter C. Longstretch [sic], Philadelphia lawyer, said, in
notifying the Internal Revenue Department that he and his wife would refuse to
pay 34.6% of their income tax which “was
used for preparation for war.” “In the Nuremburg trials, the
U.S. maintained the
principle that a citizen of Germany should refuse to obey his government when
his government orders him to do an evil act. The principle is equally valid
for the citizens of the United States including myself.”
We haven’t read what happened to the lawyer and his wife! ―From the Salem
Mennonite Church Bulletin, Freeman, South Dakota
The following filler bit
appeared without attribution or further comment in the
issue:
“Mennonites… generally refused to pay taxes during the Revolutionary War. They
too relaxed, and few of them today realize tax refusal was significant in
their history. The Hutterite confession allowed the payment of no taxes for
‘warfare, destruction of life, and shedding of blood.’ ”
“Tax refusal is in itself… powerful enough to have changed the course of
history many times; for example, the movement led by Wat Tyler in ⅩⅣth Century
England, and the Indian independence movement.”
Clearly there was something in the air.
A board of Associate Editors was appointed to help form the editorial policy
of The Mennonite for the first time in
. One of those editors, Jacob J. Enz, took
over as acting editor in , which is about
when this flurry of tax resistance notices broke the post-war logjam of several
years when the subject was hardly mentioned. Enz wrote a book on
The Christian and Warfare, arguing for pacifism’s
roots in the Old Testament, so he seems to have been especially attracted to
the non-resistance philosophy. Maybe that explains it.
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 seventeenth 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.
In the Mennonite Church and
General Conference Mennonite Church cosponsored a seminar on
“Civil Religion: True and False Patriotism”
According to the Gospel Herald coverage, “[a] number
of special issue groups were formed in which persons struggled with questions
raised during the seminar [such as l]egal implications of nonpayment of war
taxes and other forms of resistance…”
The issue brought news of
Mennonite-inspired war tax resistance sprouting in Japan:
A war tax resistance movement is beginning in Japan.
Started by Michio Ohno, a United Church of Christ in Japan pastor who attended
Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries in Elkhart,
Ind.,
, an organization for “Conscientious
Objection to Military Tax” was formed on in Tokyo. About sixty people attended the first meeting, and a
“general assembly” was planned on
at the Shinanomachi Church in Tokyo.
The objectives of the organization are (1) reduction and eventual abolition of
Japan’s self-defense force (Japan’s constitution prohibits a military) and (2)
encouraging nonpayment of the 6.4 percent of income taxes that support the
self-defense force.
Mr. Ohno, who is now working with Mennonites and Brethren in Christ in the
Tokyo area, started the movement out of his religious convictions. But support
has now grown beyond Mennonites, the Society of Friends, and the Fellowship of
Reconciliation to include other Japanese citizens who question the
constitutionality of the self-defense force.
At the organizational meeting, speakers included Gan Sakakibara, principal of
the Tokyo English Center, "The Historical Development of Conscientious
Objection”; Yasusaburo Hoshino, professor at the Tokyo University of Liberal
Arts, “How to Live Nonviolently — A Theory of Peaceful Tax-Paying”; and Shizuo
Ito, a lawyer who sued the government for having unconstitutional armed
forces, “Struggle for Peace — The World of Zero.”
Mr. Sakakibara told of the history of the Anabaptists and said that nonpayment
of military tax has a long history. Mr. Ito remarked that “the nuclear reactor
of the conscience is being lit today.” Mr. Hoshino compared the cost of food
in social welfare institutions with the cost of the self-defense forces.
Mr. Ohno called Conscientious Objection to Military Tax the first organized
movement of this kind in Japan.
“The time was ripe when we started the campaign,” he said. “We consulted
several scholars of the constitution, and one of the professors said he
himself had wanted to start a movement like this. Somebody else may well have
started a movement like this anyway, even if we did not. We should not just
sit back and wait for the peace to come, but be the peacemakers.”
Mr. Ohno said one of the decisive factors in his becoming involved in
conscientious tax objection in was
an article in The Mennonite last year on the
proposed World Peace Tax Fund legislation in the United States.
Deadline for filing taxes in Japan is in
. “Then we will know how the tax
officials respond to the objection,” Mr. Ohno said.
Another meeting for tax refusers is planned in
, and members of the steering
committee were to itinerate in Kyushu and Okinawa in
.
On ,
Japanese Christians founded a new movement of persons who refuse to pay that
part of their taxes allotted for military purposes. Newspapers have since
reported that an association of lawyers has promised to work with the group.
Susami Ishitani, secretary of the Christian pacifists, wrote: “We have invited
the cooperation of others who share with us the principle of nonviolence.” He
also pointed out that the Japanese constitution contains articles which could
provide the legal base for refusing to see a military or violent solution as
any solution at all. ―Algemeen Doopsgezind Weekblad.
Brother Ohno of Tokyo shared out of his conviction for peace and his current
experience in nonpayment of the military tax portion of his personal income
tax.
Our government’s “permanent war economy” policy should rank high among reasons
peace-making Christians have for (1) finding simpler lifestyles, (2) telling
their congressmen about their continuing opposition to military spending
madness, (3) continuing to reduce their taxable income, (4) finding more ways
to resist the war, (5) allowing the
IRS to
check individual deductions for contributions.
Join the club. If they check my deductions when my Federal tax is over $200,
will they also check me when it falls under $200? They probably will. Time
will tell.
Remember the stability and value of the
U.S. dollar is
related directly to how wisely or stupidly our Federal tax dollars are spent.
Allen R. Mohler, in a piece entitled
“Caesar or God?”
() didn’t have much positive to
say about war tax resistance, and introduced the “why stop at war tax
resistance” line of attack:
If we refuse to pay our portion of taxes that go for military spending, we had
better hold back the “murder tax” (whatever tax money is spent on abortions)
and the immorality tax” (the tax money that is helping unwed persons live
immorally without the responsibility of being parents).
When Jesus was asked the question about paying taxes to the Roman government.
He asked whose image was on the coin? Answer: Caesar’s — and Caesar
represented the political power and leadership of a pagan and militaristic
government. Jesus then said, “Render… to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,
and to God the things that are God’s.” I think we often miss the meaning of
this last part of Jesus’ statement. What has the image of God is God’s — that
is, you and I. The only object or thing created in God’s image is the human
family.
As I understand the teachings of the Bible on taxes, it is to pay — the
governments will ultimately be responsible, whether it is used right or wrong.
To do otherwise is to get our images and rendering all turned around.
The issue having only recently come to life, it was odd to see the following
headline in the issue. I expect
the end of the Vietnam War was probably what was being alluded to.
In connection with his presentations of Mennonite history and principles
throughout the church, Jan Gleysteen has been involved in a lot of study
groups and discussions. He reported that one question which has recently come
up with greater frequency and which has provided the reason for additional
meetings and prayer sessions is the problem of war taxes.
Congregations or fellowships studying Anabaptist heritage this year are
discovering the statements of Grebel, Riedemann, Felbinger, Simons, and others
on this subject and are wondering what a Christian’s contemporary response to
war taxes might be, especially since today’s technological armies need vast
sums of money more than they need men. Individuals and small groups here and
there are actively engaged in studying the issue, but not much help and
information is as yet available from the denominational level. Yet in one
congregation the statement was made: “How to deal with war taxes is an issue
that affects far more of us than the issues of abortion or a study on the role
of women.”
A bit of historical revisionism was at work in a note titled
“Ancestor Worship?”
by Wayne North () that made much
stronger claims for early Mennonite war tax resistance than I have been able to
discern from the record:
If we are glorifying our ancestry… why do some modern-day Mennonites urge the
payment of war taxes and advocate the death penalty when both were condemned
by their early leaders?
Levi Keidel, in the issue,
suggested there was a
“Mennonite Credibility Gap”
that expressed itself in the way Mennonites were approaching the war tax
question:
Now with the proliferation of technological weaponry, the annual
U.S. budget is
dominated by a hydra-headed military appropriation. We Mennonites who have set
our affection upon things of earth, relished the pleasures and conveniences of
affluence, amassed material wealth like everyone else, now say that we will
refuse to pay income tax as our peace witness to government. We are selecting
to apply the principle of nonparticipation in violence, but not of
self-imposed poverty for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.
Is a government official wrong in accusing Mennonites of accepting their
historic principles which concern the state, but rejecting their historic
principles which touch themselves? Is it proper for us to make a corporate
witness to government against payment of income tax when there is little else
which distinguishes us as citizens of another kingdom who give primary
allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ? How can we justify the selective
application of Anabaptist beliefs to our contemporary lives?
Levi Keidel makes a good point against selective discipleship… From what I
observe, however, those who take seriously the idea of nonpayment of war taxes
are often the same Christian disciples who are most conscientious about their
lifestyles. How many affluent Mennonites consider war taxes to be at all
inconsistent with a peace witness? Perhaps the worst “selective” problem we
have is in letting a “select few” be our conscience on both these Anabaptist
concerns. I am grateful for this minority voice which may help others of us to
return to fuller application of the total biblical ethic.
Speakers for an inter-Mennonite and Brethren in Christ conference on war taxes
have been named.
The conference, sponsored by the General Conference Mennonite Church,
Mennonite Church, Brethren in Christ Church, and Mennonite Central Committee
Peace Section, is scheduled for
at First Mennonite Church, Kitchener,
Ont.
Included among the speakers are:
Colonel Edward King
(ret.), director of the
Coalition on National Priorities and Military Policy
(U.S.), and
Major General Fred Carpenter, Canadian armed forces, on “Militarism in
Today’s Society.”
Marlin Miller, president of Goshen Biblical Seminary, Elkhart,
Ind., on “The Christian’s
Relationship to the State and Civil Authority.”
Walter Klaassen, associate professor of religious studies at Conrad Grebel
College, Waterloo, Ont.,
and Donald Kaufman of Newton,
Kan., author of
What Belongs to Caesar? on "Anabaptism and
Church-State Tax Issues.”
Willard Swartley, chairman of the Bible and Philosophy Department, Eastern
Mennonite College, Harrisonburg,
Va., on “The Christian
and Payment of War Taxes.”
Workshops are planned on such topics as “War Taxes and the Bible,” “The
Christian and Civil Disobedience,” “World Peace Tax Fund Act,” "Forms of
Resistance and Legal Consequences,” “Mennonite Institutions and the
Withholding Dilemma, and “Voluntary Service and War Tax Options.”
The conference, intended for “theological and practical discernment on war tax
issues,” is open to all who wish to attend.
Initiative for the conference came from a resolution passed by the triennial
convention of the General Conference Mennonite Church in
in
St. Catherines,
Ont.
Those planning to attend the conference should register by
…
Co-moderators of the conference are Peter Ediger of Arvada,
Colo., and Vernon Leis of
Elmira, Ont.
After the conference, Gospel Herald carried the
following report:
Unlike in some Mennonite peace gatherings of the past decade, the under-thirty
set did not predominate at Kitchener. Laborers, pastors, homemakers, and
teachers shared their concerns. Students from as far as Swift Current Bible
Institute and Eastern Mennonite College made the pilgrimage to First
Mennonite.
Two retired military men gave background for the concern about war taxes at
the first session. Col. Edward
King, U.S. Army
(retired), summarized the ludicrous contradictions between stated
U.S. foreign policy
and actual U.S.
military practice, and tallied up the cost in tens of billions of dollars.
Major-General Fred Carpenter, Canadian Armed Forces (retired), who traces his
martial ancestry to Napoleon, pointed out political and military differences
between the U.S.
and Canada. Stressing the dangers of nationalism, Carpenter called for a view
of land resources which sees them as international property just as the ocean
and the air.
Conference participants were characterized by a keen sense of urgency about
the international arms race and felt some personal accountability for national
policy in their respective countries, the United States and Canada. A basic
cleavage of viewpoint became evident however over the degree of accountability
which Christians have for the nuclear immorality of the governments under
which they live.
The historical record of Anabaptists on war tax issues was reviewed by Walter
Klaassen of Conrad Grebel College and Donald Kaufman of General Conference
Home Ministries Personnel Services. The evidence suggests that most
Anabaptists did pay all their taxes willingly; however, there is the early
case of Hutterite Anabaptists who refused to pay war taxes that were to be
used against the invading Turks.
During the American Revolution some Mennonites did object to paying war taxes;
yet, in a joint statement with the Church of the Brethren (German Baptist
Brethren) they agreed to pay taxes in general to the colonial powers “that we
may not offend them.”
In a biblical/theological paper. Marlin Miller, president of Goshen Biblical
Seminary, defined the relationship of the Christian to civil authorities as
one of subordination rather than obedience or subjection. Subordination, he
said, requires the exercise of discrimination regarding what is due the state
(Rom. 13:7) within a basic
stance that rejects rebellion and violent revolution.
In the second major biblical/theological paper of the conference, Willard
Swartley of Conrad Grebel College examined the New Testament texts on taxes.
“Scripture does not speak a clear word on the subject of paying taxes used for
war. While taxes generally appear to be Caesar’s due, the statements on the
subject contain either ambiguity in meaning
(Mk. 12:17) or qualifications in
the texts that call for discrimination in judgment,” he concluded.
Conference participants felt that the ethical directive as to whether to pay
or not to pay must be found by the community of believers led by the Spirit to
understand the imperative of the total revelation in Christ Jesus.
The summary statement of the conference issues an appeal to the churches and
church institutions to “recognize the extent to which we are subject to the
industrial-military complex” and to “pray for those in authority, that they
will rule justly.” It calls on the church to “awaken a consciousness of the
extent to which our lifestyles are affected by the standards of our consumer
society, and extend a new call to the lordship of Christ in lifestyle issues.”
A response included a call to “bring taxable income below the taxable level by
adjusting standard of living through earning less income, through donating up
to the maximum allowable 50 percent of income to charitable causes, or through
other types of deduction and/or dependent claiming which are legally
allowable.”
Responses recommended for Canadians included to “call upon our government to
legislate against the export of military weapons and systems” and to “affirm
and support individuals who feel led to actions (actual or symbolic) that
focus conscientious objection in particular ways.[”]
Conference planners Harold Regier and Peter Ediger, editors of
God and Caesar, a war tax newsletter from Newton,
Kan., and Ted Koontz of
MCC
Peace Section
(U.S.) indicated
plans to carry on efforts to raise consciousness about war tax and military
issues.
Cassettes of the proceedings at the War Tax Conference held at Kitchener… are
now ready for circulation. The entire set includes six cassettes with
presentations by Col. Edward
King (ret.), Major General
Fred Carpenter of the Canadian Armed Forces, Marlin Miller, Walter Klaassen,
Donald Kaufman, and Willard Swartley. The discussions after the presentations
are also included.…
A couple of history lessons followed. The issue reprinted the petition sent by Mennonites to their
state Assembly in in which they begged
for conscientious objection to military service, noted that they were dutiful
taxpayers, and enclosed a “small gift” as protection money. And the
issue told the story of the
Funkite schism that happened around the same time:
Bicentennial reenactments usually emphasize powdered wigs and antique muskets
to the exclusion of ideas, but a 200-year-old sermon repeated at First
Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, this summer put a current
issue in sharper focus.
Costumes and candlelight could not detract from the timeliness of the Reverend
John Carmichael’s sermon, because the
payment of war taxes is no less a problem for us than it was for 18th-century
Mennonites. The Presbyterian pastor had little sympathy with those who
questioned the morality of war, but his sermon tells us what Mennonites were
doing about war taxes 200 years ago.
“Had our Lord been a Mennonist, He would have refused to pay tribute to
support war, which shows the absurdity of these people’s conduct,” he said.
“In Romans 13, we are instructed the duty we owe to civil government, but if
it was unlawful and anti-Christian and antiscriptural to support war, it would
be unlawful to pay taxes. If it is unlawful to go to war, it is unlawful to
pay another to do it.”
Lancaster County Mennonites refused to pay taxes for military purposes in
, according to the Presbyterian preacher,
forcing the authorities to seize their property.
“What a foolish trick those people put on their consciences who, for the
reasons already mentioned, will not pay their taxes and yet let others come
and take their money.”
When the dispute between England and her American Colonies turned to bloodshed
and farmers and storekeepers began drilling at every crossroads, Mennonites
refused to join their neighbors in these “military associations” or to make
contributions for the purchases of rifles and gunpowder.
Instead of helping the war effort, Quakers set up an elaborate system for
distributing aid to war victims in besieged Boston. Mennonites also donated
money for the relief of the poor of Boston. In the Continental Congress recognized the rights of conscientious
objectors and asked no more of them than voluntary contributions “for their
distressed brethren.”
But the peace churches were not allowed to stand aloof. Patriot leaders wanted
their contributions to be an acknowledged equivalent for military service, not
a free gift to the poor. A letter from a Church of the Brethren pastor in
Lancaster County tells how his congregation required the collector to sign a
receipt that the money was intended “for the needy,” but he was afraid it
would be used for military purposes.
When the Pennsylvania Assembly decided to put a direct tax on everyone who
would not join a military unit, with the money appropriated for defense of the
state, Quakers insisted that the tax violated the liberty of conscience
guaranteed in William Penn’s charter. Mennonites and Brethren explained in
their petition to the Assembly:
“The Advice to those who do not find Freedom of Conscience to take up arms,
that they ought to be helpful to those who are in Need and distressed
Circumstances, we receive with Chearfulness towards all Men of what Station
they may be — it being our Principle to feed the Hungry and give the Thirsty
Drink; — we have dedicated ourselves to serve all Men in every Thing that can
be helpful to the Preservation of Men’s Lives, but we find no Freedom in
giving, or doing, or assisting in any Thing by which Men’s Lives are destroyed
or hurt. We beg the Patience of all those who believe we err in this Point.”
Mennonites of that generation saw no distinction between fighting in war and
paying for the weapons of war. “I would as soon go into the war as pay the 3
pounds, 10 shillings, if I did not fear for my life,” Andrew Ziegler, bishop
in the Skippack congregation, declares in .
Since Mennonites, Quakers, and Brethren objected on conscientious grounds to
paying war taxes, while making it a matter of conscience to pay other state
and township taxes, as many documents make clear, forcing them to pay for war
as an equivalent to military service was as much a violation of religious
freedom as forcible induction into the army would be.
The Pennsylvania Constitution guaranteed the
right of conscientious objectors to refuse military service, provided they
made an equivalent contribution in money. But an equivalent of any kind of
military service made exemption on conscientious grounds a sham. The Mennonite
and Quaker refusal to pay war taxes during the American Revolution was thus an
integral part of their refusal to participate in war. If they could be
exempted from militia duty for this reason, it was illogical and a violation
of liberty of conscience not to exempt them from paying war taxes.
The experience of an earlier generation need not be normative, but we would do
well to ponder the witness of the Mennonite Church in the crisis of the
American Revolution and its meaning for our generation.
In the issue, John E. Lapp
summarized Romans 13
and in so doing showed how much the orthodoxy had shifted. Compare this to his
remarks on the same subject in (see
♇ 7 September 2018)!
Paul… continued in [Romans] chapter 13 to call upon all Christians to be
subject to the powers — not to resist the powers, to be subject for
conscience’ sake, and to pay taxes cheerfully. Here we can see how the
citizens of the other world maintain relationships with the nations of this
world and continue their faithful loyalties to the King of kings. One
parenthesis may be in order. (This does not mean that Christians who belong to
the new order will unquestioningly pay war taxes. They may even determine what
really is Caesar’s rightful portion and may even decide to withhold that
portion which is designated for military purposes!)
