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Religious views on tax resistance
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Religious views on tax resistance have historically been strongly supportive of paying taxes, although there are some religious groups who resist paying taxes. Render unto Caesar :see also: Christianity and politics: Be subject to ruling authorities Some read the phrase “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” as unambiguous at least to the extent that it commands us to respect state authority and to pay the taxes it demands of us. In this interpretation, Jesus asked his interrogators to produce a coin in order to demonstrate to them that by using his coinage they had already admitted the de facto rule of the emperor, and that therefore they should submit to that rule. Law of the land One Mennonite explained why he was not a war tax resister this way: We are against war and do not wish to aid the war effort by conscription or by paying war taxes to the government. Doing so only helps to strengthen and perpetuate the war machine. Matthew 22:21 Jesus said “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” Romans 13:1 “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.” ¶ If the law of the land is that everyone must pay war taxes then that is what we must do. It is the law! We should however, work and pray extremely hard to change the law. The ideal situation would be to have the law abolished. The alternative would be to have a choice of designating our portion of the war tax towards efforts of peacemaking. This route would be a more lawful, constructive and positive effort. Accepting political authorities Luke version of the "render-unto-Caesar" incident dispels the oft-repeated but clearly erroneous suggestion that the question, whether or not to pay Caesar's tax, was designed to get Jesus in trouble however he answered: with Rome (viz.,Pilate) if he said no, or with his fellow Jews, particularly Zealots, if he should say yes. The Gospel of Luke shows conclusively that the singular intent of the question was to elicit the answer, "No, don't pay." No one even contemplated that he would say "yes" until that possibility was introduced by latter-day exegetes. Here is how Luke framed the incident: "And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him; and they feared the people: for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them. And they watched him, and sent forth spies, which should feign themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words, that so they might deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor." (Luke 20:19-20 KJV) Only the answer "no" would get Jesus in trouble with Pilate, the man ultimately responsible for tax collections in Judea. The clearly erroneous suggestion that Jesus would hesitate to endorse Caesar's tax, if he believed it was legal, in order not to anger the Zealots, conveys the preposterous implication that Jesus was a people pleaser. Opposition to riots in Judaea The taxes imposed on Iudaea by Rome had led to riots. New Testament scholar Willard Swartley writes: The tax denoted in the text was a specific tax… It was a poll tax, a tax instituted in A.D. 6. A census taken at that time (cf. Lk. 2:2) to determine the resources of the Jews provoked the wrath of the country. Judas of Galilee led a revolt (Acts 5:37) which was suppressed only with some difficulty. Many scholars date the origin of the Zealot party and movement to this incident. The Jewish Encyclopedia says, of the Zealots: When, in the year 5, Judas of Gamala in Galilee started his organized opposition to Rome, he was joined by one of the leaders of the Pharisees, R. Zadok, a disciple of Shammai and one of the fiery patriots and popular heroes who lived to witness the tragic end of Jerusalem…. The taking of the census by Quirinus, the Roman procurator, for the purpose of taxation was regarded as a sign of Roman enslavement; and the Zealots’ call for stubborn resistance to the oppressor was responded to enthusiastically. Dissent from official teachings Non-instructional, merely adroit Some people consider this parable as not primarily instructional but as an example of Jesus’s skill in thinking on his feet. His questioners tried to trap him between the horns of a dangerous either/or question, and he deftly gave an answer that seemed to meet the question head-on but actually avoided taking a position. In another incident ([http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2021:23-27;&version=31; Matthew 21:23-27], [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2020:1-8;&version=31; Luke 20:1-8], [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2011%20:27-33;&version=31; Mark 11:27-33]), Jesus reverses the roles — putting his critics between the horns of a dilemma when he asks “John’s baptism — was it from heaven, or from men?”: They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet.” So they answered, “We don’t know where it was from.” Perhaps the incident with Caesar’s coin is merely meant to highlight Jesus’s superior debate skills, not what position Jesus had on taxation or on the proper relationship of people to their conquerors. Having this as an additional purpose would not be inconsistent with any of the other purposes proposed. Accusations of tax resistance against Jesus At his trial before Pontius Pilate, Jesus was accused of promoting resistance to Caesar's tax. Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ/Messiah, a king.” () One of the theses of an essay by Ned Netterville entitled, Jesus of Nazareth, Illegal-Tax Protester, is that the principal reason why Pilate crucifed Jesus was for his opposition to Rome's taxes. Evidence of Jesus' guilt could have been presented showing he had interfered with Rome’s collection of taxes by calling Matthew (a.k.a. Levi) away from his tax booth in the midst of his duties (). Pilate may have known or could have been told that Jesus had induced one of his chief tax collectors, Zacchaeus, to repent and resign his leading position in a Roman territory where Pilate was personally responsible for tax collections (). Evidence could have been introduced showing that Jesus spoke disparagingly of tax collectors on several occasions (, ), even likening tax collectors to prostitutes (). Jesus was known to enjoy the company of tax collectors, for instance at dinners in the homes of Matthew and Zacchaeus, so he may have influenced others to quit their profession to follow him. Jesus showed compassion for tax collectors as he did to other notorious sinners, such as prostitutes. The enemies of Jesus had long watched him and knew from their own observance exactly where Jesus stood on the question of taxes: an adamant foe. They also knew from experience that he was fearless in teaching his wisdom, so they knew beyond question that his answers on the legality--according to God's law--of Caesar tax and whether or not it should be paid would be in the negative. They may have known that Jesus had told his disciples that as sons of the King of the earth--God--they were exempt from taxes. When Peter impetuously misspoke and committed Jesus to pay a tax, he chastised Peter, saying, "'What do you think, Simon?' he asked. 'From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own sons or from others?' 'From others,' Peter answered. 'Then the sons are exempt,' Jesus said to him.'" (Matthew 17;25-27 NIV) The scribes and chief priests certainly knew that in his preaching Jesus had held up tax collectors as epitomes of sinfulness. (Matthew 5:46) , Matthew 9:10-12 , Matthew 18:17 , and even likened tax collectors to prostitutes (Matthew 21:32) . They would have had no doubts that on the question of taxes Jesus was implacably opposed. Jesus' render-unto-Caesar answer befuddled his interrogators. To quote Matthew, "When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away." Now it is likely that when these "spies" returned to the chief priests who had sent them and reported what had happened, these learned men who also knew Scripture by heart realized that Jesus' answer was an unequivocal condemnation of Caesar's unholy tax. And so a few days later when his enemies captured him and dragged him before Pilate, as Luke reports, they could honestly say, "We have found this man subverting our nation (viz., Rome). He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar..." (Luke 23:2) Perspectives in the Old Testament On the other hand, Jesus' words can be interpreted as a resounding "No! It is not lawful. Do not give Caesar anything!" in response to the two questions asked of him by men who were sent by the Sanhedrin to "catch him in his words." They asked him, "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give?" (Mark 12:10-15 KJV) His response is in strict accord with Hebrew Scripture, in which Jesus was exceedingly well versed, and which he frequently cited to justify his ministry and support his teaching. Scripture says,"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it..." (Psalms 24:1 NIV) Deuteronomy 10:14 states, "To the LORD your God belong...the earth and everything in it." , Nehemiah 9:6 says, "You alone are the LORD. You made...the earth and all that is on it..." (See also, Exodus 9:29, and 1 Samuel 2:8) Thus, since everything on earth is God's, nothing is left for poor Caesar--not even the coins with his image on them, which in those days just as now were presumed to belong to the bearer, not Caesar. (See, The Theory of Money and Credit, by Ludwig von Mises, I4.25-26 [http://www.econlib.org/library/Mises/msT2.html#firstpage-bar] Furthermore, the Roman tax collectors took property from the Jews by force and/or coercion. Their action would be the crime of extortion but for immunity provided to tax collectors by Roman law. Jesus certainly would condemn a "legal" activity explicitly prohibited by God's Commandment, "Thou shalt not steal." (Exodus 20:15, KJV) Analogy of the coin One interpretation of Jesus’s words was that he was making an analogy — the coin is made on the orders of the emperor and is stamped with the image of the emperor, and the emperor may call on you to give it to him in tribute; by analogy, you were made by God and in God’s image, and you must therefore devote your life in tribute to God, rather than Caesar. Tertullian, in De Idololatria, interprets Jesus as saying to render “the image of Caesar, which is on the coin, to Caesar, and the image of God, which is on man, to God; so as to render to Caesar indeed money, to God yourself. Otherwise, what will be God’s, if all things are Caesar’s?” The inscription on this coin reads “Ti Caesar Divi Avg F Avgvstvs” or “Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus.” Although the events in the parable took place well into the reign of Tiberius, it is also possible that an older coin still in circulation but featuring Augustus would have been used in the circumstances described. Numismatists suggest that denarii were not in common circulation in Judaea during Jesus lifetime and that the coin may have been a provincial rather than an imperial one. It is perhaps significant that Jesus did not have such a coin with him, but that one of his questioners did. Leo Tolstoy wrote: “Not only the complete misunderstanding of Christ’s teaching, but also a complete unwillingness to understand it could have admitted that striking misinterpretation, according to which the words, ‘To Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s,’ signify the necessity of obeying Cæsar. In the first place, there is no mention there of obedience; in the second place, if Christ recognized the obligatoriness of paying tribute, and so of obedience, He would have said directly, ‘Yes, it should be paid;’ but He says, ‘Give to Cæsar what is his, that is, the money, and give your life to God,’ and with these latter words He not only does not encourage any obedience to power, but, on the contrary, points out that in everything which belongs to God it is not right to obey Cæsar.” Benefit of the doubt Mennonite pastor John K. Stoner spoke for those who interpret the parable as permitting or even encouraging tax resistance: “We are war tax resisters because we have discovered some doubt as to what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, and have decided to give the benefit of the doubt to God.” When he said to "give Caesar what belongs to Caesar," Jesus, who was intimately familiar with Scripture, may have had Psalm 24:1 in mind, which says, "The earth and everything on it belong to the LORD. The world and its people belong to him," which obviously leaves nothing at all for Caesar. (Jesus could also have cited Exodus 9:29 , or Deuteronomy 10:14 , or 1 Samuel 2:8 , or Nehemiah 9:6, all of which posit that everything belongs to God.) Highlighting the dangers of cooperating with the state Some see the parable as being Jesus’s warning to people that if they collaborate too closely with godless state authority (for instance, by using its legal tender), they become beholden to it. In Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, he writes: Christ answered the Herodians according to their condition. “Show me the tribute-money,” said he; — and one took a penny out of his pocket; — If you use money which has the image of Caesar on it, and which he has made current and valuable, that is, if you are men of the State, and gladly enjoy the advantages of Caesar’s government, then pay him back some of his own when he demands it; “Render therefore to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God those things which are God’s” — leaving them no wiser than before as to which was which; for they did not wish to know. Mennonite Dale Glass-Hess wrote: It is inconceivable to me that Jesus would teach that some spheres of human activity lie outside the authority of God. Are we to heed Caesar when he says to go to war or support war-making when Jesus says in other places that we shall not kill? No! My perception of this incident is that Jesus does not answer the question about the morality of paying taxes to Caesar, but that he throws it back on the people to decide. When the Jews produce a denarius at Jesus’ request, they demonstrate that they are already doing business with Caesar on Caesar’s terms. I read Jesus’ statement, "Give to Caesar…" as meaning “Have you incurred a debt in regard to Caesar! Then you better pay it off.” The Jews had already compromised themselves. Likewise for us: we may refuse to serve Caesar as soldiers and even try to resist paying for Caesar’s army. But the fact is that by our lifestyles we’ve run up a debt with Caesar, who has felt constrained to defend the interests that support our lifestyles. Now he wants paid back, and it’s a little late to say that we don’t owe anything. We’ve already compromised ourselves. If we’re going to play Caesar’s games, then we should expect to have to pay for the pleasure of their enjoyment. But if we are determined to avoid those games, then we should be able to avoid paying for them. Mohandas K. Gandhi shared this perspective. He wrote: Jesus evaded the direct question put to him because it was a trap. He was in no way bound to answer it. He therefore asked to see the coin for taxes. And then said with withering scorn, “How can you who traffic in Caesar’s coins and thus receive what to you are benefits of Caesar’s rule refuse to pay taxes?” Jesus’s whole preaching and practice point unmistakably to noncooperation, which necessarily includes nonpayment of taxes. American Quaker war tax resisters As American Quaker war tax resistance developed during the 17th through 19th centuries, the resisters had to find a way to reconcile their tax resistance with the "Render unto Caesar" verse and other verses from the New Testament that encourage submission to the government. Here are a few examples: Around 1715, a pseudonymous author, "Philalethes," published a pamphlet entitled Tribute to Cæsar, How paid by the Best Christians... in which he argued that while Christians must pay "general" taxes, a tax that is explicitly for war purposes is the equivalent to an offering on an altar to a pagan god, and this is forbidden. In 1761, Joshua Evans put it this way: Others would term it stubbornness in me, or contrary to the doctrine of Christ, concerning rendering to Caesar his due. But as I endeavored to keep my mind in a state of humble quietude, I was favored to see through such groundless arguments; there being nothing on the subject of war, or favorable to it, to be found in that text. Although I have been willing to pay my money for the use of civil government, when legally called for; yet have I felt restrained by a conscientious motive, from paying towards the expense of killing men, women and children, or laying towns and countries waste. In 1780, Sameul Allinson circulated a letter on the subject of tax resistance in which he insisted that what was due to Caesar was only that which Caesar would not use for antichristian purposes: ...the question put to our Savior on the point was with evil intention to ensnare and render him culpable to one of the great parties or sects then existing, who differed about the payment of taxes, his answer, though conclusive, was so wisely framed that it left them still in doubt, what things belonged to Cæsar and what to God, thus he avoided giving either of them offence which he must inevitably have done by a determination that tribute indefinitely was due to Cæsar. Our first and principle obedience is due to the Almighty, even in contradiction to man, “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Hence, if tribute is demanded for a use that is antichristian, it seems right for every Christian to deny it, for Cæsar can have no title to that which opposes the Lord’s command. In 1862, Joshua Maule wrote that he felt that the "Render unto Caesar" instruction was compatible with war tax resistance, as there was no reason to believe for certain that the tax referred to in that episode had any connection to war: The words of Christ, “Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” have often been brought forward as evidence that He approved of paying all taxes; it being said, in connection, that Cæsar was then engaged in war. The distinction, however, is sufficiently clear: the things that were Cæsar’s were, doubtless, those which appertain to the civil government; the things which belong to God are, surely, a clear and full obedience to His commands and to His laws. We know that all the precepts and commands of Christ which can be applied in reference to this subject are of one tendency, enjoining “peace on earth and good-will to men.” We do not know, after all, however, what was the exact nature and use of the tribute collected in those days, nor what were the situation and circumstances in which Christians or others were then placed in regard to such things. Indifference to wealth This phrase can also be interpreted as Jesus saying that, since the money belongs to the government (the government made the money and thus is the real owner of it), and that the government mandates that one must pay taxes, then one should not resist and simply pay the tax, rather than be upset over having to give it up and coveting the money, since money is nothing but an earthly distraction. Christian anarchist tax resisters The gospels say that when Jesus gave his response, his interrogators “marvelled, and left him, and went their way.” They were unsuccessful in getting Jesus to unambiguously come out either in favor of paying the tribute to Rome or in favor of tax resistance. Advocates for either argument could interpret his words in either way. Time has not resolved this ambiguity, and people continue to interpret this passage to support positions that are poles apart. Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker movement put it this way: “If we rendered unto God all the things that belong to God, there would be nothing left for Caesar.” She also advocated a life of voluntary poverty by saying “the less you have of Caesar’s, the less you have to give to Caesar.” Ammon Hennacy was on trial for civil disobedience and was asked by the judge to reconcile his tax resistance with Jesus’s instructions. “I told him Caesar was getting too much around here and some one had to stand up for God.” Elsewhere, he interpreted the story in this way: Christians who believe the current monetary system is corrupt and is designed only to benefit the few rich and powerful enslaving the common man, consider this phrase to suggest that we ought not covet currencies that are imposed on us by the rich and powerful. This view is believed to be supported by the one violent act of Jesus, turning over the tables of the money changers was asked if He believed in paying taxes to Caesar. In those days different districts had different money and the Jews had to change their money into that of Rome, so Jesus asked, not for a Jewish coin, but for a coin with which tribute was paid, saying “Why tempt me?” Looking at the coin He asked whose image and superscription was there inscribed and was told that it was Caesar’s. Those who tried to trick Him knew that if He said that taxes were to be paid to Caesar He would be attacked by the mobs who hated Caesar, and if He refused to pay taxes there would always be some traitor to turn Him in. His mission was not to fight Caesar as Barabbas had done, but it was to chase the moneychangers out of the Temple and to establish His own Church. Whether He winked as much as to say that any good Jew knew that Caesar did not deserve a thing as He said, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s,” or not, no one knows.
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