Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” → Brethren → Phyllis & Stephen Senesi

In 1984, two Brethren-linked groups started war tax resisters’ penalty funds, and the Annual Conference considered two queries on whether or how Brethren churches should refuse to pay the excise tax on their phone bills.

The January issue brought this heartening news (source):

No one in the crowd offered bids for the 1979 Subaru station wagon, which was being auctioned by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS had seized it from Stephen and Phyllis Senesi as partial payment of taxes that the couple has refused to pay. As conscientious objectors to paying taxes that fund the US military, the Senesis have withheld about $6,500 over the past five years. Several area peace groups had organized the nonviolent protest at the auction. When the IRS agent called for bids on the car, the crowd responded first with silence, and then with “We choose life over death.” Phyllis Senesi is a member of Skyridge Church of the Brethren, Kalamazoo, Mich.

A letter-writer in the March issue tried to turn the tables on the tax resisters, saying their refusal to pay “could mean one less defensive hour by a protective policeman. This failure to defend could result in the undefended death of some person. The person who machinated the tax resistance is an indirect killer; category, murder.” (source)

A news brief an that issue (source) read:

The Midland (Mich.) congregation has voted to withhold the federal excise tax on its telephone bill, saying, “We do not believe that paying for war is loving.” The money withheld will be used to buy peace literature for their library. Since the congregation wants its action to be done publicly and submissively, the witness commission will enclose letters with the monthly payment.

And another on the same page:

Chuck Boyer, peace consultant for the denomination, is compiling a list of people willing to be contacted when someone faces grave financial need because of faithful witness to Christ. Such instances include Brethren who suffer loss because of conscientious objection to payment of war taxes. To join the list, write to Chuck Boyer…

Ford Secrist wrote in to the May issue with his “War Tax Dilemma”:

My conscience of recent months has given anguish and now distress, because I do not want to pay the military part of my federal income taxes. I am now a redirector of my war taxes to peace.

My dilemma is that I am treated as a criminal with a lien. I am not a tax dodger or evader. I wish to pay all my taxes for peace. My correct amount has been reported.

The World Peace Tax Fund bill… is one way out of this dilemma. Its goal is a law permitting people morally opposed to war to have the military part of their taxes allocated for peacemaking.…

That issue also brought this news (source):

Two Brethren-related peace organizations have begun tax resister’s penalty funds to support those who conscientiously choose to withhold war taxes. In both cases, the fund reimburses those who have been fined by the Internal Revenue Service, and supporters of the fund share the total cost. The two groups are the North Manchester, Ind., chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Iowa Peace Network. For more information, write…

That issue also brought a preview of coming attractions at the upcoming Annual Conference (source):

The Michigan query points out the use of the federal telephone excise tax to pay for past and present military expenditures and states that Michigan District will withhold the tax, redirecting the amount to a peace tax fund. In commending this witness to Annual Conference for study and prayerful consideration, the district is asking for affirmation of the action.

The General Board query asks for the appointment of a committee to study and recommend how Brethren should respond to the dilemma of paying taxes for war.

Walter Fitzsimons wrote an opinion piece for the May issue that talked all around the issue of war tax resistance, seemed to conclude that such resistance was futile because it would not stop the march of militarism, then took an about-face and said that even if that is true it could be a worthwhile action of persuasion, but then ended on a write-your-congressman note without taking a stand either way (source).

The June issue covered a tax day protest:

Peace group pays taxes with truckload of food

For some Christians, paying the percentage of federal income taxes that goes toward the military is a dilemma. This year, a Harrisonburg, Va., group called Christians for Peace gathered at the regional office of the Internal Revenue Service in Staunton to register their concern. They brought a truckload of food, bought with the money withheld from their 1983 tax payments.

“We seek to follow Jesus’ call to be peacemakers by directing our resources away from the instruments of death and toward life,” explained Wendell Ressler, one of the organizers of the event. “We cannot reconcile Jesus’ call to love our enemies with our government’s call to help pay for our enemies’ destruction.” In a short statement to onlookers, he said, “We gladly pay taxes which are used to enrich the lives of others, but it is immoral for our government to play Russian roulette with the future of our planet.”

IRS officials were cordial, but explained that they could not accept the food. The bags of groceries — including more than 1,000 pounds of canned goods — were presented to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.

Another article on the same page noted that a Portland, Oregon “Peace” congregation had “voted to withhold the federal excise tax on its telephone bill as a way ‘to say no to militarism and yes to life-affirming programs.’ The money will be sent to the Brethren World Peace Academy…”

The pastor of that Peace Church, Rick Ukena, and his wife Twyla Wallace were profiled in the December issue (source). Excerpt:

Just before Rick left the pastorate of Peace Church of the Brethren in Portland, Ore., he and his wife, Twyla Wallace, discussed with me their refusal to pay war taxes. “Refusing to pay that portion of our taxes that goes for military purposes is merely an extension of the decision I made in 1970 [to become a conscientious objector],” Rick says. “Paying taxes for war is no different from providing bodies for military purposes.”

Rick likens their present witness to that of past Brethren: “Historically, the Church of the Brethren youth have been conscientious objectors to military service. Military tax resistance is an equally important statement for peace.”

Since 1977, Rick and Twyla have redirected a portion of their federal taxes as an effort to lift up their opposition to current priorities of the federal budget. With the filing of their 1983 returns, they sent that portion to Health Help, a low-income health clinic in Portland. “Nevertheless,” says Rick, “the IRS, during that time, has seized over $1,000 from our checking account for non-payment of taxes.” A lien was also threatened against the Portland congregation, since the IRS ordered the church to pay Rick and Twyla’s taxes. In a specially called members’ meeting, the IRS demand was turned down by a unanimous vote.

“We were joyed with the support that we received from the congregation as it was placed in a position of choosing between compliance with human laws aimed at destroying life and a higher order that commands us to love one another, even our enemies,” Rick says.

As mentioned above, there were two items concerning war tax resistance on the Annual Conference agenda in 1984. The August issue tells us how they fared (source):

The delegates established a committee to study and recommend how the Brethren should respond to the dilemma of paying taxes for war. Brought by the General Board, the query on taxation for war said that “our government continues to put its faith in weapons that can destroy all human life on our planet.” The query also pointed out that expenses for present and past military efforts currently total about one-half of all federal expenditures.

The concern of the related query, a Michigan District resolution on telephone tax redirection, was adopted by the delegates, and the issue of telephone tax withholding was assigned to the war tax committee. Michigan District voted in 1983 to withhold federal excise taxes on district telephone bills, and to inform the Internal Revenue Service of the action.

It’s hard to believe that at this point there was much more for yet another a committee to say on the issue, so many similar committees had been formed and had issued reports in recent years. This committee would consist of Philip W. Rieman, Arlene E. May, Violet Cox, Richard O. Buckwalter, and Gary Flory.

The hows and whys of war tax resistance continued in the pages of the Messenger in 1986, as Cliff Kindy made the case for voluntarily simplicity and living on an income below the tax line.

In 1985 the Messenger printed an opinion piece by Barry Shutt that had attacked war tax resistance on the grounds that it was ineffective. This somewhat novel argument prompted some rebuttals in the January 1986 issue (source). L. William Yolton (of the National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors) wrote that Shutt’s arguments were of the same sort that conscientious objectors to military service hear — 

“Are there not other evils to be resisted? So don’t resist this one.” “There are differences of opinion among Christians about an issue, so let us wait to do the good until all are agreed.” “If you do not do this evil, then someone else will be drafted in your place to do it, so you must do evil.”

 — and Brethren know by now not to bend to such arguments. David W. Fouts said that his own experience was proof that writing protest letters was a poor form of witness compared to resistance:

For years I enclosed a carefully composed letter with my tax return protesting the use of my tax dollars for military purposes, but I have yet to receive a single reply from an IRS or other administrative official. My actions apparently spoke louder than my words.

However, when I withheld 10 percent of my 1984 income taxes to protest the proportion spent on nuclear weapons, I received repeated attention from the IRS in the form of letters demanding payment and threatening to confiscate my property.

Cliff Kindy wrote in for the March issue to recommend a non-disobedient form of tax refusal (source).

It has been good to see the issue of paying taxes for war highlighted in Messenger. The issue for our family has been “Who is Lord?” Is Caesar Lord, through the channels of IRS? Or is Jesus? Caesar calls for our money and our life, and, yet, Jesus calls for our all. To which will we respond in obedience? (We cannot have two masters.) We fret about the consequences of breaking the law, and yet seem unconcerned about the possibility of falling into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31). Certainly God, who asks us to stand over against the powers of death, will care for us in our obedience. We must venture obedience.

It is too easy to assume that in this instance obedience to God leads directly to disobedience to Caesar. For those who struggle over that concern, there is a possible answer. To limit one’s income to below the taxable level is not illegal, and, although still extravagant by the world’s standards, is moving in the direction of standing with God’s little people. We as a church have not examined seriously the results of living at an income level that does not require missiles, bombers, and Trident submarines to protect it. You might like to try it for a few years.

Several questions for those who pay taxes for war: 1) Do you give more money to the church than you pay to IRS? More than you pay to IRS for the 50-to-70-percent portion of your tax that is military-related? 2) How large would that military-related percentage need to get before you would say “No”? 3) If that percentage of the federal income tax were going to finance houses of prostitution or liquor warehouses, would you pay it? 4) If it would be proper for a Christian to channel monies to the Peace Tax Fund (if such a proposal is ever passed for conscientious objectors), does that not imply that we should feel some urgency even now to pay those dollars toward similar purposes? (Does the law of the land ever define the Law of God?) 5) If we spoke the passages of Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:17, and Luke 20:25 with the same emphasis Jesus probably had, (“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”), might we not also find “…this man… forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar…” (Luke 23:2)?

The following news came from the July issue:

Kalamazoo Christians make tax-day peace witness

Ten Christians in Kalamazoo, Mich., gathered in front of the courthouse to voice their opposition to military funding. Representing the Catholic Church, the Mennonite Church, and the Church of the Brethren, they withheld a total of $6,400, the portion of their income taxes that they claimed would help fund the military budget.

Deanna Brown, pastor of the Skyridge Church of the Brethren, thought twice before joining the peace demonstration, since she didn’t want to be misunderstood by other Christians. “But because of my vocation as a disciple of Christ,” she said, “I feel called to make this witness and to say there is another way — the way of reconciliation, humility, service — and that’s the way of Jesus Christ.”

Added Steve Senesi: “We are not opposed to taxes. The point today is to speak to where those funds go and how they are spent.” The withheld tax money was given to five local social service agencies: Center City Housing, Loaves and Fishes (a clearinghouse for emergency food pantries), Habitat for Humanity, Kalamazoo Diaconal Conference, and Kalamazoo Youth Ministry.

The August/September issue brought news of Brethren who had been arrested in demonstrations opposing U.S. militarized foreign policy (source), including:

Phil Rieman, co-pastor of the Ivester church in Grundy Center, Iowa, was part of an April 14 effort to link the payment of tax dollars and US funding of the contras [Nicaraguan insurgents]. He and 10 others were arrested after refusing to leave the IRS building in Waterloo.

In the subsequent 2-day jury trial all 11 defendants were found “not guilty” by all six jurors on the grounds that the demonstration was justifiable. “Unlike the recent sanctuary trial (in Tuscon, Ariz.), we were allowed to say why we did what we did. And the jury agreed that we were right,” Rieman said. “It was unusual.”

The previous year, the Messenger had hosted a thoughtful theological debate about the possible biblical basis for tax resistance or obedience. Mark Wilhelm wanted to remind people that this wasn’t just a theoretical concern:

Tax resistance is crucial now

A few Brethren have been discussing war tax resistance, trying to attain a New Testament view. The theological complications of this discussion and the possibility of confrontation with the government have resulted in the neglect of the issue by the majority of Brethren, even those who otherwise adhere to the nonviolent teachings of Jesus. Instead of neglect, we Brethren should urgently consider our position on war-tax resistance.

We Brethren are failing to realize that the military is depending more on technology and less on people. It is this growing dependence on technology that makes the war-tax issue vital. The military is always seeking to use fewer personnel with sophisticated weaponry to carry out major operations. The military goal of this latter work is to replace human soldiers in the battlefield with computer-controlled robotics that are capable of making complex human-like decisions.

Greater military dependence upon advanced technology has its drawbacks. It requires expert scientific research, extensive engineering design, skilled manufacturing, and elaborate testing. This extremely costly work must be begun many years in advance of the intended use of the weapons. Therefore the military needs a large amount of money, and it needs it today for the next decade’s weapons.

It is this shift in the military’s dependence from human soldiers to expensive, advanced-planned technology that makes the payment of war taxes a vital issue to Brethren. The military is less in need of Brethren young men, but more in need of the war taxes paid by all Brethren well before the occurrence of a war. War-tax resistance not only withholds the funding that the military relies upon, it also exposes the sin of the quiet, deadly weapons buildup. War-tax resistance is therefore a vital part of a holistic peace witness.

To be conscientiously opposed to war and to pay for the advanced weaponry that is the life blood of the modern military is a difficult discipleship dilemma, the resolution of which is made increasingly urgent by the pace of technology. To wait until global hostilities begin to practice nonviolent resistance is of no use. At that time the weapons systems that we currently fund will be in the hands of those committed to using them.

At this moment our incomes are being taxed to fight future wars. The income of every brother and sister is being conscripted by the military that it might do tremendous violence. The crucial question each of us must face is: “Would Jesus have me resist this evil?”