Josh wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2024 11:39 pm
I’m not responsible for money taken from me by force.
However, there is a sound case to be made that Christians should seek to minimise the amount of tax they owe in order to not fund wars. An obvious way to do this is to simply make less money.
If we are responsible for war money, do we get credit for welfare? I don’t think so, in either case. Assuming welfare, helping people is a good thing, then should we make lots of money in order to pay more taxes, so more people can get welfare?
I think the minute we pay any mandatory taxes, we are neither responsible for the bad, or bless for the good that money is used for.
Same with the private sector. If I earn some money by selling groceries to, say a bank robber, the bank robber does not get to spiritually launder that money just because I used that money for something really good. Any blessing I may receive is mine alone, no credit goes to the bank robber just because he is who I received it from.
And if I honestly work hard, and buy groceries from a farmers market, and that farmer then takes that cash to a strip club, I am in no way culpable for that, simply because I bought veggies from him.
Once money changes hands, that is the end of it. There is no fiduciary pyramid scheme, where every dollars use is fractionally backtracked to everyone who ever spent it.
This idea of being responsible for military expenditure via compulsory taxes, I think, could be traced not to any Biblical principle, but instead to modern peace activists and boycotting mentalities, and ultimately is a watered down version of using force to implement governmental policy change. And as non-resistant Mennonites, protesting the government is not historically our deal.
Key to what I’m saying is the compulsory aspect, I wouldn’t feel right voluntarily buying war bonds.