Here’s the 2nd flyer on theonomy I wrote to pass out at my church.
God’s Law on Taxation and the Implications
I said in my last handout that there were some astonishing implications to theonomy. While picking a topic for this handout I debated between something controversial, or talking about something most of us would agree on. I thought talking about how God’s law would drastically lower taxes and end socialism is something most of us would love to learn more about. It will give us more ammo to fire at Obama after all. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I realized how pervasive socialism is in this country and how we’ve all received our government benefits and no one has room to point fingers. But I’ll start with the good news.
Good News
At one point, Israel rejected God as king and asked for a human king. The Lord painted a bleak picture of how their king would treat them.
1 Samuel 8:15 and 17, speaking of the new king says, “He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants…He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.”
God said that the king is going to enslave the Israelites by, among other things, implementing a 10% income tax. The good news is that the Bible teaches that there ought to be no such thing as civil taxation, and if there are income taxes, they must be lower than 10%.
It is estimated that 50% of Americans’ income goes to the slew of taxes we pay. So, I guess there’s some bad news in the good news. We are all slaves to the US government, and all that “land of the free” talk is just talk by God’s standard. Living in a nation that has rejected His law means we aren’t really free. Neither are we free by the standard of the founding fathers, as this nation was much closer to a theonomic society in their time than today. They seceded for much less than we put up with.
What about property taxes? In Colorado, if you don’t pay your property taxes, after about four years, armed men will remove you from your property kicking and screaming. If that is the law, who really owns your home? In reality, there is no such thing as home ownership in America. We only rent government land.
The Bible has more good news on property taxes. Here’s what Joel McDurmon says about property tax in his book, Restoring American One County at a Time,
A property tax is not only problematic, but is not permitted in Scripture, and should in fact be considered unbiblical. Only God has absolute ownership of property; He delegated this to individuals, and gave us a commandment against property theft in all forms (Ex. 20:15; Lev. 19:11, 13; Deut. 19:14; 27:17). God did not give the civil State any claim of ownership in individuals’ land. It has none, and for it to claim such a right is to defy God. And what is a property tax except a claim of partial ownership in the land?
I won’t go into all the other taxes we pay, but rest assured by the standard of God’s law, they are all theft. But I am in no way advocating not paying these taxes. The slaves face very real consequences for not paying taxes. One of my main jobs in life is to take care of my family—not to take a principled stand from a jail cell.
Bad News
It’s easy to criticize new programs based on socialism, such as Obamacare. It’s not as easy to criticize old programs such as Social Security, Medicare or public school. If we aren’t personally benefitting from such programs, we know someone who is, and we don’t want to offend our friends and family.
Christians in the past didn’t take a bold stand against these programs when they were implemented. Social Security started in the Great Depression to help retirees. The first generation of recipients received government checks without having contributed a penny into the program. They accepted stolen money. The rest of us had money stolen from us and transferred to others under threat of incarceration.
Some argue that they’ve paid into it their whole life, and now they’re getting their money back. The truth is that we are forced to pay whether we like it or not. The money we pay in our working years is distributed to others. The money we will receive is not money we paid in, but is money that will be taken from our children and grandchildren. And it’s also a terrible return, unless you live to a very old age. This system is a Ponzi scheme and is illegal for us slaves (as it ought to be) but isn’t illegal for Uncle Sam.
Helping the poor and elderly is something we are commanded to do as Christians. But it is always voluntary, that is, not enforced by the state. Nowhere does Christ outline a system where the government taxes us and gives money to the poor. That is government usurping the role of the church. We would have more money and opportunities to help the needy if the government wasn’t taxing us to death.
Public school started in the 1800s, and it is blatantly socialist. It is mostly financed by property taxes, or by the feds sending money back to the school district (with strings attached). Under threat of having our property stolen, we all pay our taxes, whether we have kids in school or not, and it is given to others. But God also explains how we should educate our children, and it certainly doesn’t involve money taken by threat of force and redistribution.
Is It a Sin to Accept Government Benefits?
It is my conviction that it is wrong for me to receive funds that are taken by “legalized” government theft. (I.e. legal under man’s law, not God’s law.) That being said, I have no choice but to drive on roads built with stolen money and drink milk produced on farms that receive a government subsidies. I don’t see any way out of this for the time being. But where I have a choice, I can’t accept government money.
One of the reasons that 1 Samuel 8:15-17 teaches that a 10% income tax was slavery is because it was the king setting himself up as a rival to God. A tenth of their income was to go to the temple—not the state. If they followed God’s law, there were provisions to take care of people, and there was no need for civil taxation. All of the socialistic programs we have exist because we have rejected God’s law and His way of doing things.
More Bad News
What about the sweet little old ladies at the courthouse collecting taxes? What about the pencil-neck IRS agent? They’re working in an anti-Christ system. Are they sinning? If the taxes we must pay in this country are theft by God’s standard, then, they are sinning in working for these agencies. The receptionist at the Church of Satan isn’t going to stand before God and say, “I was just trying to earn a living.”
But, there are Christians who work in those places who haven’t thought about these things, and they are sinning out of ignorance. (We all sin out of ignorance, and I am the chief of sinners). But they work in a system that is built on a rejection of God’s law—a false religion serving a false god. What should we do about them? I think we have to start speaking up, resisting and calling people to quit their jobs in this false system.
What Should We Do Now?
If God’s law is the perfect law, then we need to start living by it. Here are a few things we can do:
- Spend less than you make, so that you can:
A. Save money and retire without Social Security and Medicare.
B. Have money to help your family and the needy. - Vote against tax increases, scrutinize local budgets and encourage officials to cut spending and taxes.
- Stop accepting government funds and benefits such as public school.
- If you work for a company or government agency that is inconsistent with God’s law, start devising an exit strategy.
I realize these aren’t easy things to do, and they involve sacrifice. But, how can we begrudge a fellow citizen an Obamacare health insurance plan purchased with government assistance if we’re receiving government money for something else? A lot of Christians are cool with theonomy in theory, but this is where the rubber meets the road, and may actually cost us money.
If American Christians keep doing what we’ve always done, we’ll only get more of what we’ve gotten—cultural defeat. This isn’t what God has meant for us. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church (Matt 16:18). Gates are a defensive position, and this means the church is supposed to be on offense—smashing the defenses of hell—saving souls and taking back our culture by the power of the Holy Spirit and the gospel.