A Facebook Comments Conversation on the Census, God, Tax Resistance, etc.

[as a status update] J.R.B.: Does anyone know if you actually have to fill out the Census (i.e., did you or someone you know get in trouble for not filling it out in 2000)?

[after a couple comments about fines] C.C.: Yes (I Peter 2:13).

X: Constitutionally, they are only allowed to ask you how many are in your household. But the law means nothing to lawless men.

They're training people to go to households that don't respond to all of the questions to ask them in person. They've sent a letter to our church requesting the use of the building to train these "enumerators." If they don't get the answers they want, they'll starting issuing the fines mentioned above. I'm not sure how efficient the process will be (like how many people will actually get visits and/or fines), but that's what the threats are this time around.

Me: I don't know if 1 Peter 2:13 applies to the coerced surrender of information.

I actually applied to work in the Census. I took the application test, which could have been aced by an 8th grader, and then decided that working in a project that empowers a government with information on its citizens would violate my convictions. The job would have been exactly as X describes. I don't know what was going through my head, I was already an anarchist by then. I guess unemployment + student debt does things to people. There are a few things worse than unemployment, and working in the Census would be one of them.

C.C.: Isaiah, considering the context of I Peter (i.e., the apostle is writing to people who have been driven from their homes by a violently hostile government), I think we can fairly say that if they were called to submit to that government, it goes without question that we can answer some inane questions on a form.

I don't believe all of the questions asked are constitutional, so on a civic level I'm appalled by the current census; however, as a Christian, I'm not sinning by answering questions the government has no business asking, so I have no business resisting those whom God has placed over me (cf. Romans 13:1-6).

J.R.B.: I, honestly, don't know what I'm going to do with my form right now. I'll probably just completely fill it out, and turn it in. Not so much in a Romans 13 way; just in a 'I don't want to get hassled way.' I'm pretty sure God likes civil disobedience at times, but I don't think the Census is where I'm going to make my stand. It's just not that important to me.

Me: C.C., that was a good point you raised about the context, which is why I wonder why passages like these were put in the Bible in the first place.

I think the point you were trying to make by bringing up the 1 Peter verse wasn't so much that we're *not* sinning by anwering questions the government has no business asking, but that we *are* sinning *against God* by refusing to answer those questions. That looks like an uncomfortable position for freedom-loving Christians to take, since (a) it conflates morality with obedience, and (b) it draws no line in the sand to show where we may and should stop obeying.

If Romans 13:1-6 and 1 Peter 2:13 mean we have a God-given duty to answer some inane questions on a form, then they also mean we have a God-given duty to pay for abortions, since the Federal government subsidizes those with our tax dollars, and we are to render tribute to whom tribute is due.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding something...

C.C.: Isaiah, I think that even though all of the Bible was written in a certain context that almost always differs from our own, we can still fairly and confidently draw out principles that apply to us. That's why even though we're certainly in a better situation than the people to whom Peter and Paul wrote, it's not unfair or inaccurate to look at the heart of what they're saying and apply it to ourselves. I think we really can look at the very different situation in which the apostles and the early church found themselves and still learn a lot from it.

You do understand what I'm saying about I Peter, but I'm not sure I understand your objections. As to the first one, of course there is a close relationship between the concepts of morality and obedience for Christians; I'm not sure why anybody would want to obey something they consider immoral. If obedience is the commanded "default" reaction of Christians to their government (which I believe these passages assert), then obedience is the moral requirement. Secondly, other passages in the Bible do give us examples where it is the moral imperative to "obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). However, these are certainly the exception to the rule.

Again, looking to the contexts of the passages shows that disobedience is wrong in this case. Romans 13 specifically points out that Christians are required to pay taxes (v. 6), and that was to a government which was actively persecuting and murdering Christians. The tax money they were compelled to pay went toward paying for crosses and keeping wild animals, but they were still compelled to pay them. As detestable as abortion is, it doesn't trump the policies which the early church faced, and they still had to pay.

Me: So if I interpreted those verses correctly, and I think you're saying I did, they mean that Christians have a God-given duty to give money to someone who they know for sure will spend that money on things that are flat out immoral.

C.L.: Depends on the context. If those irresponsible and immoral people are the civil government, and that money is in the form of taxes, yes, that's what I'm saying.

I don't think the Bible forbids civil disobedience in every instance. The fact that our government is a form of democracy means that we as a people have the ability to overthrow the government simply by voting bad leaders out. As I've already pointed out, the government which makes demands of Christians that would be sinful to keep (e.g., worshiping other gods, not gathering together to worship, not praying, not evangelizing, not teaching their children the faith) must not be obeyed in those instance because obedience to the government would be disobedience to God.
At the same time, disobedience and disrespect for the civil authorities (including those appointed by the chief of state) in non-essential matters (e.g., taxes and censuses) are disobedience and disrespect for the God who sovereignly placed them in their position (again, cf. Romans 13:1-7, I Peter 2:13-25). Peter makes it clear that the heart of this command is for Christians to do the right thing (here, showing honor and respect) even if it is to our detriment, just as Christ "did the right[eous] thing" by taking on and paying the debt for sinners who did not and could never deserve it. In fact, he explicitly says that the oppressed Christians of his day were to "honor the emperor" (I Peter 2:17) who was actively trying to wipe every one of them out. As terribly as the authorities may use our tax money, we do not sin by "pay[ing] to all what is owed them" (Romans 13:7).

Me: I don't see how a government mandate to fund murder is much less repugnant than a government mandate to burn incense in front of a statue.

I should be clear that I'm not so much saying that we sin when we pay our taxes as I am saying this: that the payment for an unwarranted abortion is a payment for murder, that informed payment for murder is participation in it, that an enforced mandate to pay for an unwarranted abortion is coercion to participate in murder, that no lover of life would pretend that we have some *moral* obligation to participate in murder, and that the only obligation we have to participate is duty "only for wrath," and not "for conscience sake". Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying it's all your fault if someone forced you to do it or pay for it. But I am saying that it's totally incoherrent to say that it's wrong to do it and then say that we have a God-given duty to pay for it. If it's a sin to do it, then there can't be a moral duty to pay for it.

So no, refusing to pay up to someone who you know is going to spend your money on murder is not disrespectful. I also don't see what's so disrespectful about refusing to answer a list of intrusive questions.

I might update this post if C.C. responds to my last comment, but judging on the way these things go, I think this conversation is pretty much - shall we say - completed.