By the “admin”…aka Savannah Liston
Note: This is an “apology” in the older sense, in that it is a defense of explanation of belief, not the modern meaning of “I want to apologize for what I did. I am sorry, please forgive me.” As you will tell by the end of this, I am not sorry for what I believe, and this essay is the reason why.
I don’t intend this to be an argument for all Christians to agree with me, just covering some issues that are often overlooked. It seems that someone is always quoting “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” to me, or Romans 13:1, and there’s nothing wrong with that, except we need to make sure that we aren’t taking the verses out of context, or interpreting them in a way that is inconsistent with the rest of Scripture. I am not a scholar, I don’t even pretend to be an expert, these are just some of my thoughts on the whole matter, which may be wrong, or may be right, but it is up to the reader to decide.
Firstly, I’d like to point out that the conservative, or even libertarian, movement can only hope to succeed because of God. If there is no God, then we should not even dare dream that tyranny will be overcome, since without God there is nothing higher than man. Many people-including myself—derive their hope and comfort because they know that although we may not succeed in restoring liberty in our country, God will come again, and punish evildoers, the thieves, the oppressors, and the tyrants. If we did not believe in God, it would be irrational to think that liberty could ever be enjoyed again, because there would be no reason for freedom to win out over tyranny, without a God who will judge those who exercise oppression.
Secondly, I want to look at Romans 13. Contrary to what some say, there is a great deal of debate over what Romans 13 means, and it is not entirely clear that it means to always obey the government, never argue with them, unless they command you to do something which God forbids, or prohibits you from doing what God has commanded. Some people argue that Paul is saying only that we should subject ourselves to some government, not necessarily the current government, but some form of government. This would be a prohibition against anarchy. But then, perhaps Paul is saying that you should obey the present government, but not commanding that there always be a government. For instance, if some group of people, non-Christians, rebelled against the government and the government collapsed, some would say that Christians don’t need to set up a new government and could live in anarchy, which may not be so chaotic as is usually suggested. Also, some argue that there’s a different between “state” and “government”—the state being a “leviathan” to use the words of Thomas Hobbes, and a government could be a voluntary institution for the purpose of promoting justice, but an institution which people could opt to not use if they preferred. In other words, there’s a difference between a government and governance. A government takes money, by force, from the citizens so it can protect them. Governance just means an institution which everyone has agreed to use. It could be a council of respected men who judge who is innocent and guilty in criminal cases, and everyone in this area has agreed to obey the decisions of these judges. So it isn’t exactly clear what Paul means by “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.”
And the main reason that I am involved in politics is Romans 13:5, “Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.” (ESV) Paul is saying that people need to subject themselves to the government because of their conscience. I don’t know about you, but if I stood by silently and watched millions of babies murdered, elderly persons killed because they were no longer useful to society, and the rights and dignity of human beings stripped away, my conscience wouldn’t let me rest. It is because of my conscience that I must speak up for those who cannot speak, I must speak up for all of us. I could not stand before God and confess that I was afraid to stand for Him, for His people, and for the liberties that He has granted to all people.
This brings me to my next point. “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” This is not some humanistic idea, the brainchild of the Enlightenment. This is Biblical. Look at the 10 Commandments. “Thou shalt not steal.” Why? Because that property belongs to someone else. People have a right to their own property. This is the institution of private property. “Thou shalt not murder.” Why? Because no one can “own” another person’s body. It is, in a way, a form of private property. To murder someone is to violate the most fundamental premise of private property. And so we see that the idea of individual rights goes all the way back to Exodus. God could take life away, as He gave it, but He forbade people from violating private property. God has a right to a person’s property, as He granted it to them, but He commands other people to not steal property. To deny private property is to deny the gift of God to humanity. To deny the fundamental right to life is to deny God’s authority and power over life, He gives it, and He takes it, not the current tyrant in control. And this “right” to life, and to property, is not a privilege. I think we misunderstand the word “right” often. If I have a right to something, no person can take that right away. The right to life does not mean that the government grants us the right, which would imply that the government could also refuse to grant that right, and if they could refuse to grant it, the right to life wouldn’t be a right. Anything that can be taken away by another person is a privilege, not a right. “Unalienable rights” are inherent rights. They’re with you from the moment of conception to the moment you die, you can’t get rid of your rights even if you try. People can ignore your right to life and kill you, but they cannot take away your right to life. So if I have the right to life, that means I don’t have to ask the government for permission to live. It is a right from God, not from man. And that’s why I cannot stand by silently and watch the world abandon their God-given rights, to deny their right to life is to deny God’s creation of life.
But then there is Matthew 22:21, I suspect the favorite verse of IRS agents. “…Then he said to them, ‘Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’” Apparently the IRS, and governments throughout history, would like us to believe that this means God has commanded us to always pay all the taxes demanded of us. There’s just one slight problem with interpreting this verse. It isn’t entirely clear who determines what is Caesar’s, and what is not. This seems to be a very important question, so let’s try to figure it out. There appear to be three possible solutions to this problem.
1) God determines what we pay to Caesar. Since the Bible doesn’t have a chart of tax brackets for people to look at, in order to decipher how much God wants them to pay, I don’t think we can argue that God tells us how much to pay to the government. This is always changing, according to the culture, government, and period of history. Some may say that God tells people in a dream, or something like that, but I find that highly suspicious and unlikely. And also, the Bible is not about this world much—have you noticed that? God gives the basic instructions for how to live for His glory here and now, but as far as the minutiae of physical human existence on earth, He is silent. So it doesn’t make much sense that He would give us a complex graph or detailed instructions on how to pay our taxes.
2) Caesar determines what we pay to Caesar. This is a fine answer—if you are Caesar. If you’re Caesar, the world is a wonderful place to live. You can demand anything and everything you want, at least until there is no more wealth left in the world. But seriously, let’s examine this. To say that Caesar can decide how much the people must pay him means that they are basically enslaved to him. Maybe he is a generous Caesar and only demands half their money, but he operates under the assumption that he actually deserves all their money. And I am having a hard time seeing how this does not fall under “Thou shalt not steal.” So let’s see what Romans 13 says about it. “Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed…” (Romans 13:7, ESV) To “owe” something is to be “indebted to” someone. So, Romans 13 says we need to pay taxes because we are indebted to the government or person. Then you have to ask “why?” Why are we indebted to the government? What have they done that we need to repay them? Somehow I think that the taxes we pay in America go to much more than what the government provides for us. Take the income tax for instance. Although I don’t have the graphs and records right now to go into detail on this, it is thought that the total revenue from income taxes in America go to paying off the interest on the government’s debt to the Federal Reserve. Some critics might say that yes, if the government can’t pay their debt, we are responsible for it. They should be concerned by this, because the Bible warns against pledging yourself for another person’s debt. Since we never agreed to “pledge” our wealth for our government’s debt, it seems wrong that we should be responsible for the government. In any case, let’s look at this more closely. The government got a loan from the Federal Reserve, and now they have to pay interest on it. Since all the roads and legitimate public services are paid for out of other taxes, it cannot be argued that the money loaned to the government by the Federal Reserve has actually come back to “serve” the people. So since the government has not done anything for us with this money, why should we “owe” them money in return? So let’s say that Caesar demands taxes from the citizens, in order to pay for elaborate parties every night. Romans 13 says we should pay the taxes that we owe. But why do we owe Caesar that money? He hasn’t used it for the people, he hasn’t done anything for us. That leads us to the third possible solution,
3) The taxpayers determine what is Caesar’s. Using the example above, you can see that if it is shown that the income tax is used to pay off the interest on the government’s debt to the Federal Reserve, then it seems that Christians should not have to pay the income tax. Christian taxpayers can use the Bible and their conscience as a guide to how much they should pay. If the Bible says to pay taxes that are owed for services or products given by the government, then we should pay those. But that doesn’t mean Christians are morally obligated to pay all that the government demands. I find it a little eerie to think of the government using the Bible to justify absolute obedience to their regime, as Hitler did in the 30’s. It seems similar to the Roman Catholic Church claiming that the ordinary Christian doesn’t know enough about the Bible to interpret it, but they need a go-between to tell them what “God really meant” by a certain passage.
There’s a lot more that could be said, but for now I think that is enough. I am not bound by any government or institution—but free to glorify God through my life in the way that I think He would want. And isn’t this the true purpose of life?
