I’ve heard from a number of WORLD readers who refer to [the transfer of wealth through taxation] as theft, which involves the Eighth Commandment. That, I think, goes too far. A thief has no right to take what belongs to someone else. If a government, though, has an inherent right to tax its citizens, who can say at what point such taxation constitutes taking something to which it is not entitled? Jesus told us to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. At which marginal tax rate does Caesar’s right end? A 32 percent tax rate might strike me as destructively high for the national good—but I’m not sure I can call it theft. A Christian in a thoroughly socialist nation is still Biblically obligated to pay his taxes fully and honestly. — Joel Belz, “When Politics Is Cover for Coveting,” WORLD, Oct 9, 2010, republished Feb 10, 2024
Judging from this excerpt, Joel Belz (r.i.p.) believed that governments have the right to take whatever they please from their subjects. No matter what the tax rate, he’s not sure he can call it theft. If a tax rate “destructively high for the national good” is not theft and therefore not sinful, a tax rate “destructively high” for an individual household—that is, by definition, something that makes it impossible for a household full of flesh-and-blood human beings to survive—is not theft and therefore is not sin. Is this really what Jesus is all about?
His argument hinges on an assumption, “a government ... has an inherent right to tax its citizens.” But does it?
Governments are abstractions. Do abstractions have rights? How do we know if a given abstraction, whether government or freedom or poverty, has rights? How do we know that an abstraction’s rights supersede the rights of living beings? The New Testament does attach importance to abstractions: The fruits of the Holy Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, meekness, temperance, goodness, and faith—and the characteristics of the kingdom of God—righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit—are indeed abstractions. But are these abstractions important as abstractions, or do those abstractions gain importance only insofar as they apply to the actions and attitudes of living beings?
If we can assume that abstractions are shorthand for the actions and attitudes of living beings, then Belz’s assumption can be rephrased as “government officials have an inherent right to tax the people under their rule.” Furthermore, because he sees no limit to that right, he sees all taxation as legitimate, no matter the financial harm it does to taxpayers.
Since those who have the power to tax are usually comparatively rich and certainly by definition more powerful than those whom they tax, and since they set the tax rates by doing “what is right in their own eyes,” Belz believes, again by definition, that the richest and most powerful people in a society have the right to take what they deem expedient from those less powerful who cannot resist them. He takes away from the poor and powerless the one earthly defense they have against plunder by the rich and powerful: the words “This is mine. You have no right to take it.”
Isaiah writes, “Learn to do good! Seek justice! Rescue the oppressed! Defend the orphan! Plead for the widow!” (1:17). If a ruinous tax rate is justice, what is there to seek? If it is not oppression, who needs to be rescued? He goes on: “Those who enact unjust policies are as good as dead, those who are always instituting unfair regulations . . . so they can steal what widows own, and loot what belongs to orphans” (10:1–2). If this is not a description of taxing widows and orphans off their land, what is it? Belz is, apparenly, “not sure,” and he is not alone. I have never heard anyone defend the conventional reading of “render unto Caesar” and give the poor and powerless any defense against plunder.
But it gets worse. Not only are the poor and powerless also defenseless, rulers have no way of knowing where, if anywhere, they are to draw the line.
Belz rightly notes that the tax-gathering class and net tax receivers might be motivated by the sin of covetousness, but he is unable to help either know if they are indeed being covetous. How is a Christian politician or public educator to know whether his salary is to be $75,000 per year or $125,000 or only $50,000? Or if he should vote for an appropriation to start a graduate school of microbiology at a university in his district—and how is he to know if his daughter’s plans to become a microbiologist influence his decision? Should he provide retirement benefits that enable recipients to live in beachfront condos and drive new luxury cars? Does his inherent right to tax extend to the conscription of children (1 Sam 8:11–13)? To the confiscation of land (1 Sam 8:14–15)?
Further, do people respond to incentives? What incentive does a zealous “public servant” have to lower taxes and spending rates? If the ideal citizenry needs schools to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, why not also history? Calculus? Chemistry and physics? Anatomy and physiology? Why not hospitals and clinics? Why not sports complexes, theaters, drama and dance troupes? Where does the Bible give guidance on the subject? If nowhere, is it more likely that God doesn’t care where the line is drawn or that the line is drawn at the one measurable mark: No one can rightfully take innocent people’s property?
Belz’s answer is pure pragmatism: “At the end of the day, even if the tax law gets changed so that rich people have to pay 40 percent of their income instead of just 30 percent, the coveters end up with virtually none of that difference. . . . We’ve gotten to the point that it doesn’t matter much anymore how we change things. All the taxpayers together haven’t got enough money now to change the fact that we’ve spent ourselves into oblivion.” That is, the system’s failure is purely pragmatic; the practical failure has no moral basis.
For that matter, who is this “we” he speaks of? Can those who voted against the election winners who assessed the taxes and built up the debt by appropriating the expenditures be held responsible for the descent into oblivion? Or is it rather the powerful who are the “we” who have spent the money and the powerless are the “ourselves” who are bearing the consequences?
Worse, he is no help to net tax payers. How are they supposed to know if they are being covetous for desiring or calling for a 3.2 percent tax rate when they are being assessed ten times that amount? Because he believes that “a government . . . has an inherent right to tax its citizens” and he places no limit on “what is Caesar’s,” he—again—takes from the powerless their one earthly defense: the words “In the name of God, I tell you that you have no right to take this from me.”
Or does God simply regard poverty as an abstraction to be spiritualized to the state of not having asked Christ into one’s heart? Does he not care about the material deprivation brought about by people with a generous view of Caesar’s domain? Do those responsible for tax increases that they and their associates profit from bear no responsibility for the people who lose their homes or livelihoods as a result? Or is God simply a heavenly Donald Trump who sacrifices individuals on the altar of what the powerful call progress?
Has he given no measurable guide to justice that can be used to fulfill the Great Commission?
I think he has: No human beings, not even those called the government, have the right to do as they please with the defenseless.
The one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet,” (and if there is any other commandment) are summed up in this, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:8b–10)
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