Echoes in Eternity

[UPDATE: Wilson adds more to his train of thought here.]

Doug Wilson has an excellent post on the differences between reasonable, morally-defensible taxation and taxation which amounts to theft.

I thought it would be good to set down some basic principles on the subject. This is to prevent the "guiding principle" from becoming a charge of theft for any tax I might find distasteful.

1. The point is not that taxation is theft, but rather that taxation can be theft. Obviously, in Scripture, there is legitimate taxation (Rom. 13:7), which would not be theft, and illegitimate taxation, which is (Matt. 17:25-27). If that is the case, then there is a line that a state must not cross, and it is incumbent upon both rulers and citizens to know where that line is, and why it is there.

2. In biblical law, the fact that the civil rulers can steal is indisputable. Ahab stole Naboth's vineyard (1 Kings 21:7), and it would not alter the facts of the case if it had been done under cover of zoning regulations or land reform.
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3. If a state can steal, then the question becomes "how do we tell?" Anybody who wants to give the authorities an automatic pass because what they did was perfectly legal is a naif who ought to have his drivers licence revoked. Anybody who resents giving any portion of his income for legitimate civic purposes is a scofflaw. So, where is the line?

4. The line will of necessity have to be enforced by the rulers of the people, and this is why one of the first principles is that the rulers of the people are not qualified for their task unless they are men who hate covetousness (Prov. 28:16)
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5. Determining the line between legitimate taxation and illegitimate thieving taxation is not necessarily an easy task. It can be complicated. I acknowledge that it could be a challenging task for men who fear God. And so this is why we must be led by men who fear God. And it is also why I deny that it can be done by our current gaggle of miscreants, buffoons, knaves, poltroons, scoundrels, and then, of course, there's the Democrats.

6. One approach to answering the question would be Samuel's dire warning to the Israelites, when they asked for a king "like the other nations." He said that if they did that, the result would be an unthinkable level of taxation . . . at ten percent. And here we are, looking back longingly at ten percent levels like they were the leeks of Egypt or something. When the state takes more than ten percent, then the state is claiming more than God claims in the tithe. When this happens, if the state has not done something overweening or despotic, then wait ten minutes.

7. While the ten percent ceiling is a good rule of thumb, a better approach would be to measure by what God tells the civil government to do. The state is God's deacon (Rom. 13:4), and God never leaves His deacons without instructions. A deacon is, by definition, under authority. We should measure his appropriations and expenditures over against what he was told to do. When servants use the master's resources for tasks unassigned by him (Luke 12:46-47), what is the result? When the Lord comes back to evaluate His deacons in the Congress, what will He do? He will not be indiscriminate; the punishments will fit the crimes.

8. The assigned task that was given to the civil rulers was to punish the wrongdoers (Rom. 13:4). It most emphatically was not to level the economic playing field. Anybody who can read the New Testament and think that it is the under-deacons role to preemptively make sure that the servant with ten talents is left with only three, and the one who hid his one talent is given two more to hide, is radically out of touch with the spirit of the Bible.

9. The U.S. Constitution is an "express powers" document. With regard to the risks involved in letting sinful men rule over other sinful men, this is a wise and biblical approach. It means that those who rule can only do what was laid down for them beforehand to do. That which is not required of them is prohibited to them. This is in the spirit of the Bible -- civil rulers can rule, and they can tax us for that rule, and in exchange, they need to be able to show us from the Bible how that task they have undertaken is legitimate.
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10. In the Hebraic parallelism cited above (Prov. 28:16), a prince who does not hate covetousness, besides ruining himself, is also oppressing the people. And when it comes to understanding the nature of this oppression, trust the feedback you get from a welder who attends the academically-disreputable tea parties, and not the sycophantic musings of the prince's hired economic brains, who can write learnedly of this and that. Oppression is as oppression does.

My favorite hymn at the moment...

We have lived to see the second death of ancient learning. In our time something which was once the possession of all educated men has shrunk to being the technical accomplishment of a few specialists. ... If one were looking for a man who could not read Virgil though his father could, he might be found more easily in [this] century than in the fifth.
- C.S. Lewis

Doug Wilson had a good post earlier this week on how Christians can and should first address the problem of entitlement politics.

So here is a very practical personal step that every Christian who is concerned about the future of our nation can take. This is something that is within reach. It does not depend upon some political upheaval across the continent, and so there is no need to feel helpless. And if you do not take this step, then you are a companion to the destroyers in Washington. They continue to represent you, and they are representing you well.

Inside your family, have you borrowed money and not returned it? Have you busted things and not made it good? If the thing you busted belonged to anybody outside the family, would you have felt the need to make it good? But not here? Have you frittered away what your mom gave you for other purposes, and consoled yourself with the fact that "it is no transgression"? Have you been sloppy with the property interests of anyone close to you, because they were close to you?

Mark Steyn wrote a discerning column this week on the dwindling amount of years people spend working even as life expectancies continue to increase, and how legislation like Obamacare only serves to further infantilize the populace. In short, Steyn points out that we are rapidly approaching an era where a person will fall into one of two categories. Either you are a child or a retired adult who needs to be quickly euthanized. Either way, everyone is a dependent and a constituent, but no one a citizen. The only people working will be bureaucrats. In such a world, freedom is a foreign concept.

Dalrymple also had a good essay in this month's New English Review on the problem of a culture of dependency, as it has shown itself in England.

Appropriately, I noticed this article today which mentions that nearly half of all Americans don't pay any federal taxes.

Doug Wilson has a helpful critique of something Pastor Tim Keller said recently. Wilson wonders if Keller is presenting the Gospel completely if he ignores an elephant of sin in the room. What is interesting is that by ignoring sexuality, Keller actually sets sin up as unequal, whereas Wilson treats it all equally when he says that it all must be addressed. By not recognizing that people need just as much freedom from enslavement to sexual sins as other sins, Keller unwittingly supports either the idea that people don't need redemption and freedom from those particular sins, or that Jesus is unable (or uninterested) in freeing them in those cases. Either way, it puts sexual sin on a reverse pedestal from the one Scripture puts it on.

But what this does is raise questions about evangelism, faithful witness, and moral courage. It raises questions about the strategic value of an evangelistic and apologetic strategy that is not prepared to confront, directly, some of the central sins of the people you are addressing.

And by "confronting sin," I do not intend to commend the kind of preaching that gets its jollies from calling other people sinners. That is a problem, but it has to be confessed that in this age, this era, it is not our problem. We should want to preach about the central sins because as preachers of the gospel, we have scattered through the dungeons, with our gospel keys. In that circumstance, why wouldn't we want to unlock the biggest and thickest chains?
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If a surgeon wants to do gospel work on the heart, he has to first open the patient up -- and nothing will do for that but the knife of the law. Without that, evangelical preachers are reduced to applying their treatments of the heart through various forms of accupressure.

Relevant gospel ministry, relevant evangelistic ministry, is willing for the rich young ruler to go away saddened. It is willing for riots designed to get you and your message out of town. I have written recently about the utter irrelevance of an undue concern for relevance. Out of all the practicing homosexuals in Manhattan, are there none who want to hear liberty proclaimed to the captives? Out of all the professing Christians who struggle with same-sex temptations, should they not be able to hear clear, biblical instruction about what they should do with their temptations? Would that not be relevant?

Marvin Olasky has an excellent response to the dust-up between Jim Wallis and Glenn Beck over the issue of "social justice."

Let's review the history: Was "social justice" born as a Catholic term? Yes, Jesuit theologian Luigi Taparelli tried to stem a socialist surge in the 1840s by arguing that religious and civic groups could justly improve living conditions without relying on governmental force.

Did Communists and Nazis flip "social justice" into a promotion of government power? Yes. Communist Party USA leaders instructed me in 1972 and 1973 to use those words. I haven't personally researched Nazi usage, but a leading Nazi sympathizer during the 1930s, radio priest Charles Coughlin, established a National Union for Social Justice and published a million-subscriber magazine, Social Justice. His radio audience of 16 million heard him attacking an "international conspiracy of Jewish bankers."

Do those historical wrinkles mean that the term should not be used? No, but it should certainly be defined. We can study the 150 or so times that mishpat in Hebrew and kreesis in Greek—words commonly translated as "justice"—appear in the Bible. Biblically, justice—tied to righteousness—is what promotes faith in God, not faith in government. Prophets criticized not entrepreneurs but those who combined economic and political power to lord it over others, as today's bureaucrats and corporate/government partnerships tend to do.
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Furthermore, modern usage by liberal preachers and journalists is thoroughly unbiblical: Many equate social justice with fighting a free enterprise system that purportedly keeps people poor but in reality is their best economic hope.

How to respond? I'd suggest four possible ways, one of which is a variant of Beck's: Challenge those who speak of "social justice" in a conventionally leftist way. If your local church is committed to what won't help the poor but will empower would-be dictators, pray and work for gospel-centered teaching. If necessary, find another church.

A second: Try to recapture the term by giving it a 19th- (and 21st?) century small-government twist. The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute are trying to do this. I wish them success.

A third way: Accept the left's focus on systemic problems but not its faulty analysis. Learn about the biggest institutional hindrance to economic advance for the poor: the government's monopoly control of taxpayer funds committed to education and welfare. Work for school vouchers and tax credits that will help many poor children to grow both their talents and their knowledge of God.

Fourth and best: Tutor a child. Visit a prisoner. Help the sick. Follow Christ.

Brian McLaren has rightly been excommunicated by Christians for his latest heretical piece of garbage. He responds to the negative reaction to his book with a piece on the Huffington Post. He explains the reaction from Bible-believing Christians this way:

[Christians'] consciences are in conflict with their beloved religious authority figures on several key issues -- ten of which I raise in my book -- but they continue to press the punishment button when instructed to do so.
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I'm a Christian. I love God, Jesus, the Bible, prayer, worship, serving others -- the whole package. But when my conscience tells me that I'm hurting people by complying with religious conventions, I don't keep pressing the button. I start asking questions. That's why I wrote my book, and that's why I'm willing to get into trouble for it.

So, basically Christians who speak out against him are not authentic nor do they actually believe that he's wrong, but they are just listening to their leaders (or are one of those power-hungry leaders themselves) rather than their consciences. He represents the conscience of all Christians, apparently. That's not condescending at all.

He has declared war on the Church, so war it is. Not one faithful Church should allow him inside their doors, not one faithful Christian should waste another breath debating him (not that he ever is willing to debate, since debate is sooo modernistic). As Jesus said, he should be treated as a first century Jew would treat a tax collector or Gentile... avoid him and the idolatry he promotes. It's no coincidence that those idols are the environment, homosexuality, slander, Palestinian terrorism, etc. When God turns you over to a debased mind like Paul speaks of in Romans 1, He usually sends you all the way. He doesn't just confuse your conscience like a magnet does a compass. He takes your moral compass and shatters it. Reject Him and He doesn't just say "ah, okay, have a nice life." He REJECTS you.

Pray for McLaren, but don't eat with him.

If you missed last night's NCAA championship game, you missed one of the best title games ever. If the basket had been located a mere inch in one direction, Butler would have walked away as victors... and DJ with second place in the Book Bracketology contest. Instead, Aaron completed his amazing comeback from last place to snag second while Marshall, having already wrapped up first place, also took home the side pot prize for being the closest guess to the total final score in the championship game. With his Nostradamus-like prognosticating skills, he wins six books and a $40 gift certificate to Amazon (a total value of approximately $120!). Aaron wins two books of his choice from the primary four books. Thanks for playing and come back next March for another chance at bracket glory!

I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
- C.S. Lewis

Marshall Posey takes home first prize! Now to see who gets second, DJ or Aaron...

Picture yourself tied to a tree,
condemned of the sins of eternity.
Then picture a spear, parting the air,
seeking your heart to cut your despair.
Suddenly—a knight, in armor of white,
stands in the gap betwixt you and its flight,
And shedding his 'armor of God' for you—
bears the lance that runs him through.
His heart has been pierced that yours may beat,
and the blood of his corpse washes your feet.
Picture yourself in raiment white,
cleansed by the blood of the lifeless knight.
Never to mourn,
the prince who was downed,
For he is not lost! It is you who are found.

- taken from a B.C. 1996 Palm Sunday comic strip

This is an interesting article by a Jewish man who watched a Passion play and wrote on his experience. The last paragraph is particularly good, and reminded me of this.

I’m not a Christian. I don’t think Christ can save me, in part because I don’t think I need to be saved. But I appreciate that a lot of people... do. They believe that I’m destined to burn in hell for all of eternity if I don’t change my beliefs. So I don’t fault them for trying to change my beliefs, even if they use guilt or fear in their attempts. I’m much more offended by those who believe I’m headed for eternal damnation but don’t do anything about it {emphasis added}.

This is a good sign.

The Science Museum is revising the contents of its new climate science gallery to reflect the wave of scepticism that has engulfed the issue in recent months.

The decision by the 100-year-old London museum reveals how deeply scientific institutions have been shaken by the public’s reaction to revelations of malpractice by climate scientists.

The museum is abandoning its previous practice of trying to persuade visitors of the dangers of global warming. It is instead adopting a neutral position, acknowledging that there are legitimate doubts about the impact of man-made emissions on the climate.

Even the title of the £4 million gallery has been changed to reflect the museum’s more circumspect approach. The museum had intended to call it the Climate Change Gallery, but has decided to change this to Climate Science Gallery to avoid being accused of presuming that emissions would change the temperature.