Whom Would Jesus Tax?

The process whereby I made the transition from authoritarian dupe to enemy of the state was informed, more than anything else, by a parallel transition from misanthropist to Christian devoted to love for my neighbor. Distrust and contempt for my fellow man led me to believe that mankind wanted controlling. This was my fascist period. I would have made a good Republican since I reckoned that folks were basically evil. Over time, as my outlook changed and I began to be more sympathetic, I became more solicitous of my fellow man and considered that mankind was not beyond help. He just needed government programs to educate him and protect him from vice and fraud. This was my progressive phase, and I would have made a good Democrat since I reckoned that folks were basically stupid. Later, thanks to the grace of God, I came to acknowledge the inherent worth of mankind as beloved of God and to love my neighbor enough that I could not condone the use of violence either to control him or to help him. I became a libertarian because I reckoned that most folks were neither inherently evil nor stupid (although individuals might be either or both).

It is my profound conviction that one cannot follow Jesus and support the state. Love of God and one’s neighbor entails a commitment to peace that forecloses any recourse to violence. The state, being predicated on violence, is in opposition to those institutions of civil society, among them the family and the church, predicated on love.

In view of this conviction, you can imagine how I felt when I heard seemingly devout Christians over the last week glorify the state. One man, a Catholic, told me that he went to church mainly in order to set an example for his social inferiors, a position my fascist self understood quite well, and that he reckoned the Catholic Church did not emphasize hell nearly enough to keep folks afraid and in line. While this was not advocacy of the state per se, I know enough of this man’s right wing political leanings to understand that he views the church as an instrument of social control that works hand in hand with the state.

In a different vein, another man decried as evidence of demonic forces at work the failure of 11 out of 16 school districts in the county to approve their budgets. The children need the programs, he argued, but the parents in the community are too selfish to meet the need. In other words, unless you are willing to rob your neighbor to pay for freshman sports and higher salaries for administrators and such like, you are not acting on principles that are “of the Lord”. I am in one of the 5 districts where the forces of coercion achieved victory, and I can look forward to a 10% rise in my school taxes. I do not view this as a loving act by my neighbors in the district.

Another well-intentioned and admirable man complained that a Christian camp at which he volunteers is ineligible for state funding because it includes religion in its programs. Should any Christian institution form such an unholy alliance with the state? Would it be proper to use stolen money to support evangelism? I don’t think so, but I am pretty sure he thinks I am crazy for posing such questions.

Every chance I get, I try to reframe such assertions in demystifying language that exposes the violent nature of the state and its inconsistency with Christianity. This makes me a crackpot, but my co-religionists are obliged at least to pretend to love and tolerate me, and maybe they will begin to question the mythology of the state.

I lay a lot of blame on the reification and abuse of the metaphor of sin and punishment. By the grace of God, Jesus has liberated us from sin. We can’t ever deserve God’s grace; it is gratuitous. Accordingly, striving to be sinless and to stamp out sin in the world is a pointless endeavor. If we focus on sin and guilt and eradicating it and controlling others’ propensity to sin, we deprive ourselves of the freedom that Jesus offers us. It is the transformation of individual human beings thorough the working of the Holy Ghost that makes suitable subjects of the Kingdom. Inasmuch as none of us can do this for ourselves, how arrogant it is to imagine that we can do this for others. And by using ungodly means no less.