RENDER UNTO CAESAR

George Offerman

I was on Jason Hommel’s site silverstockreport.com reading one of his latest entries titled “Give to Caesar: Give to God” posted on July 28th and the subsequent reader’s response posted on August 6th. In this particular posting, Mr. Hommel does a fairly detailed Bible study on the question of kings, government, their roles in our lives and what we are morally obliged to do, concerning the subject of whether we are morally obligated to pay taxes or not. (I recommend all the readers check this out for themselves). Mr. Hommel raises many valid points about the role of government in general, and the role of our government in the United States in particular, and what our role as Christians ought to be.

Mr. Hommel seems to answer many of the mainstream churches allegations that as Christians we are ‘obligated’ to submit to authority and the churches identify the authority as our current government. This is based upon the Romans 13 discourse about proper behavior and obligations, but Paul in this particular series of passages, is referring to Godly authority, and is careful to not use the term ‘government’. Paul would not contradict, and has not contradicted any of the scriptures which clearly state that we are to ‘discern’ the nature of the law, and are obligated to disobey man made laws that violate God’s law.

How is it that the churches, who are all exempt from paying taxes with their 501 c 3 status, can preach to us about our need to pay taxes? If the churches are tax exempt because they represent God, then shouldn’t we, by extension be exempt as well? It would seem by the way that most of the churches are acting (including the Catholic Church and the USCCB) they are more in line with the state’s party line than that of God. The Church is highly motivated to not anger the state or to contradict their policies, regardless of how ungodly, due to losing this coveted status. This violated the whole purpose of their existence, which is to preach the unvarnished Gospel to a lost world.

Just because the Church has sold out on its beliefs, does not give the believer the right or obligation to sell out on the beliefs and tenets of the faith. The Church is not taking their proper role of moral leader in any fashion that demonstrates they actually believe in the Gospel message. This makes them no different than the misguided and corrupt state we live in, and they are unwilling and unable to discern truth from the lies, and want to operate in ‘peace and harmony’ with the sate (read tolerance and collusion). If we can choose to forgo tithing to unworthy organizations like the church, we sure have the moral and Biblical authority to deny money to a godless state.

Not paying taxes is one of the most ‘horrendous’ crimes against the state a citizen can commit. Look at the severity of the law, and one can only conclude that killing a legalized child killer is the only thing worse a citizen can do. The consequences for not paying taxes are severe, and the only way this can work as an effective strategy for the pro life movement, is to have large numbers, and have the pro life movement as a whole (outside of the Churches purview) adopt this and support this platform in totality. It is a strategy that should be very seriously considered, and it will take incredible dedication to follow through on this. I do believe it will reap dividends that we cannot even begin to imagine, but courage it will take.

I am not there yet in my courage to do this, but it is an eventual goal of mine. I do fear judgment day, and having the Father tell me that convenience and this life’s desires got in the way of saving his children. We all need to do a gut check and decide what doing little for the children is really worth. The more I see of the destruction of all that is good in this country, the more I believe the price we will pay for doing nothing is greater than even jail. We shall soon see if this is true or not.