Pro-life strike (abortion boycott) mission: To purify our prayers and other pro-life efforts, and to make a concrete difference, we refuse to fund the abortion industry. We boycott corporate abortion funding, and hold back abortion taxes. We pray for life; we will not pay for death!
When confronting the idea of a pro-life tax strike, the initial reaction is usually to quote the Scriptural commands to "render to Caesar..." (Mt.22:21) and to pay "taxes to whom taxes are due" (Rom.13:7). Quite obviously, Christians are not to go about recklessly disregarding human authority, nor acting as if we were above civil law. But consider whether this means that human authority is absolute and whether our obedience must be unquestioning.
The previous post and the section in our manifesto entitled Obey the Law deal with this germane question, so I will not belabor the point. Let it suffice here to say that, if it comes to a choice between obeying God or obeying man, we must obey God. Let me just add a couple thoughts to that...
First off, one does not necessarily have to disobey man in order to obey God in the matter of tax-funded abortion. The conscientious individual or family may curtail tax liability without violating tax laws. Both the "Reduced income" and "Flee" strategies as discussed in the manifesto involve no breach of human law. The difficult choice is in this way avoided, the scruples become moot.
Ask yourself first whether the scruples are genuine. Be honest. Are you just fearful and timid about getting into trouble with the tax authorities? Or are you truly convinced that obeying tax laws is a vital part of your conscientious duty? If the latter, if you have genuine religious or moral reservations, then you ought to have scruples over obeying other basic commandments, too. How can a person be scrupulous over "render to Caesar..." and not be scrupulous over "Thou shalt not kill"? The "Reduced income" and "Flee" and other strategies allow you to keep both sets of scruples, to obey God without disobeying man.
The second point involves a closer look at what it really means to "render to Caesar", especially for American citizens. I will devote the next post to this consideration.
Tomorrow, June 22, is the liturgical feast day of Saints Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher. Both were beheaded in 1535 by order of King Henry VIII over the controversy of his divorce and of authority in the governance of the Church.
As noted on our "Links" page and elsewhere, ProLifeStrike.org is closely associated with The World St. Thomas More Society, which claims these two martyrs as patron saints. This patronage is significant, especially in the case of St. Thomas More.
More was a lawyer, and chancellor to King Henry. He was, so to speak, the King's right hand man as well as a close friend. As such, he was doubly committed to loyal obedience to Henry and to the authority of the Crown. More's natural disposition was to hold the King in high honor, and to obey him as a loyal subject. This spirit of obedience was reflected as well in his devotion to Christ's Kingship, and to divinely established authority in the Church.
Obedience to these various levels of proper authority is a single virtue; there ought never be a conflict. But when it came down to a painful decision, when More could no longer obey both King and God, his choice was clear. His last words were, "I die the King's good servant, but God's first."
The significance for us is this: We pro-lifers have a natural inclination to obey proper authority, and it rends our hearts to make the painful decision to disobey. As discussed in our "Manifesto", in the final analysis pro-life tax resistance is not unlawful. Abortion is always a crime, and to fund it is to breech God's Law. The decision to resist paying taxes that subsidize the criminal abortion industry is prompted, not by an outlaw attitude, but by a love of Law, and by an earnest effort to obey true Law.
St. Thomas, pray for us, that we may cultivate a strong love for true Law, and that we may courageously obey God's Law first.
I have to admit
it: the idea of a pro-life tax strike is not catching on like wildfire.
This is no surprise. 5 months ago, shortly after launchingProLifeStrike
.org, I offered
my opinion that it would be a small but committed few who
would dare to cross such a cultural and legal line. For most folks, it
just sounds too risky, too radical. There's much more company and much
more comfort in the middle of the road.
It has ever
been thus. The Lord of Hosts seems to be OK with this. In fact, He
seems to prefer a ragtag remnant, a small motley collection of
unqualified and poorly equipped fools. See Judges 7:2-7 for just one
example.
Yet I remain puzzled that the idea should be
thought so unusual. All we desire is to refrain from paying for the
abortion holocaust, to abstain from the slaughter of the innocents. We
desire to avoid murdering the helpless with our pocketbooks. This makes
us odd?
In his latest round of mass mailings to raise funds for the Susan B. Anthony List, Senator Rick Santorum opens his appeal letter with a stark, dramatic paragraph-in-a-sentence:
You paid for an abortion today.
To correct the good senator's misunderstanding, I sent the following hand-written reply:
Wed. June 10
Dear Senator Santorum,
You
are wrong; I did not pay for an abortion today. You did. Perhaps you
even cast your vote for the budgets and appropriations which created
such tax tyranny.
I no longer fund abortion, because I
no longer fund the U.S. government. I no longer pay your bloody taxes.
If you are really sincere about your opposition to tax-funded abortion,
you will do the same. If you agree that abortion is murder, then for
God's sake stop buying it!
Visit ProLifeStrike.org and join the tax strike.
Sincerely,
(signed)
Gerald J. DePyper
5492 E. Wilkinson Rd.
S. Range, WI 54874
As noted elsewhere, my "Dogpatch, Ergo Sum" blog was a sort of precursor to ProLifeStrike.org. It is an ideas blog; its descriptive text is "Random rantings on faith, culture, life... ". As opposed to a more pure journal type of web log, in which news and events are reported at regular, timely intervals, the articles in this blog are mostly about ideas, concepts, principles, truths.
As time passed and the blog grew, one idea came to dominate: that of a pro-life strike. So much so that in January 2009, after about two years of blogging, I launched ProLifeStrike.org. Now I'm attaching a blog, based upon that one idea: that pro-life folks ought not be paying for abortion, and therefore ought to seriously consider not paying their taxes.
Please feel free to add your thoughts and comments to any post herein, in the usual Blogger fashion.
