Back in 2013, Republican congressman Jeff Duncan
toured a Department of Homeland Security training facility in Maryland and
observed eight or nine IRS agents engaged in target practice with
semi-automatic Colt rifles. It later occurred to him to ask, “Why do IRS law enforcement agents need
standoff capability that you would have with a long rifle or with a weapon
similar to an AR-15?”
Good question, but it goes to the basic nature
of taxation.
Taxation is not “giving”.
The Colbert Christmas Screed
That’s a distinction lost on media
personality Stephen Colbert, whose well-circulated Christmas rant has less to
do with loving the poor and serving the needy than he may think:
“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”
Few of the thousands who retweeted and Facebook-shared Colbert’s
message noted the context in which his remarks were made. Fact is, Colbert was not encouraging Americans to send more
money to World Vision or UNICEF; he was peeved at his fellow citizens for expressing enthusiasm about reduced tax rates. He was singing the praises of confiscatory redistribution.
Render Unto Caesar
I say that in the kindest possible way, and
fully cognizant that we are to “render unto Caesar” what is his. But confiscatory it is; there is nothing remotely voluntary about taxation, the AR-15 in your
friendly neighborhood taxman’s hand being your first clue.
Taxation is not giving. Love is not a
necessary prerequisite. If we don’t pay up in a timely fashion, ultimately the
powers that be will come and take what they may by force, quite literally at
the end of a gun; in this case one with considerable stopping power.
The enthusiasm or hardness of heart of the
citizenry with regard to the percentage of our incomes deducted at source and
redirected to the “poor and needy” doesn’t much factor into policy-making. We
don’t get to decide how much, or to whom, or on what basis. These things are
determined well above our heads.
Synagogues and Streets
But the synagogues and streets are where
hypocrites have always done their giving going back thousands of years. It
should hardly surprise us if our society now accepts without debate the notion
that “giving” is a function of government. It certainly relieves us of any
personal responsibility.
Does that sound right to you? It shouldn’t:
“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
In the words of the Lord Jesus, in the
context of the Sermon on the Mount — and if and only if one does it right — giving to the needy falls into the category of “practicing your righteousness”.
Every one of these words is important.
The Practice of Righteousness
Practicing — The Greek word poieĊ
gets translated as “do”, “make”, “bring forth”, “commit”, “fulfill”, “keep” and
a host of others. In this case the ESV has translated it as “practicing”. The
thing every single one of these words has in common is that they are active
verbs predicated on human choice. You can’t “practice” righteousness passively
by watching others help themselves to the fruit of your labor and spread it
around society as they see fit. That may be how a fair bit of good is done in
the world today — I can’t speak to outcomes — but it’s definitely not
the practice of righteousness.
Your — A little word that simply means “belonging to you”. Taxes
paid at source don’t “belong” to us at any point. The only control we have over
them is to minimize them as best we can by claiming such credits and deductions
as we may be allowed. “Theoretically,” wrote Barack Obama Sr. in a 1965 scholarly paper, “There is nothing that can stop the government
from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from
the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.” But remove the “your” from society, and you
also remove giving. One cannot give what one doesn’t own.
Righteousness — The word used here means literally “acts of mercy” or “acts
of compassion”. No language could be less accurately employed to describe the
most common feelings of the tax base about taxation.
Out with the Trumpets
Thus, if, like Mr. Colbert, we choose
to make a big deal of the moral virtue of our government’s redistribution
policies and our (debatable) part in them, reframing them as an expression of
our love and compassion, we are only doing much the same thing as the hypocrites in
the streets and synagogues in the early first century in Judea: blowing our own
trumpets in order to encourage others to praise us; ironically, for
something we couldn’t possibly NOT have done. In which case we have received our
reward … such as it is.
About the only thing we can really do with
that particular stewardship is mess it up by filing a fraudulent return. It is
only what makes it into our hands that we can possibly be responsible for.
Nothing New Under the Sun
Now, this is not a problem unique to our
society. The first century Jew was in precisely the same boat. He had financial
obligations both to the synagogue and to the
secular government. Neither had anything to do with his obligation to give to the needy,
which came straight from the Law of Moses and found its echo in
the words of the prophets. That was above and beyond, and to be undertaken in the right spirit: “Open wide
your hand to your brother” and “your heart shall not be grudging when you give
to him.”
Here on the Mount the Lord adds one more
thing: keep it confidential. Easy for a Jew in the time of Christ; not so easy
today. But as much as possible, in a day in which everyone and his Big Brother
has access to every single piece of information in existence concerning you and
me, it’s still a very good thought to keep in mind. It is, after all, only the
secret giving we do voluntarily and enthusiastically that really merits eternal
reward.
Given his professed concern for the state of his “Christian nation”, maybe somebody should bring Stephen Colbert up to speed ...
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