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PEACE AND \lIAR induding the one whose passport I carriewhen I went overseas, were making a majcontribution to t he t er ro r which threateall the nations of the world. They were taing th e greatest initiative in poisoning thouter atmosphere of the globe and the imost spr ings of hered ity with nuclear tesStatesmen were making the ir b id s for eletion primari ly on the basis of how "f irmthey were prepared to be in threateninthe other half of the world with nucledestruction.

No t only Christians, bu t even intelligeunbelievers in o ther par ts of the worlasked me what testimony was being givin America by nonresistant Christians, anat the cost of what suffering, in orderproclaim the jud gmen t o f God upon thdevelopment of weapons which can be useonly to b re ak a nd not to defend the peacIt is a gTowing convict ion of many thit is an insufficient answer to say that manyoung men of nonresistant conviction rfuse military service and render somother useful service to society in it s placTh e position of the conscientious objectis r ight for the young man to whom it aplies.But in the wes tern nations where miLary authorities have found a convenieway o f s hunt ing such objectors into i

conspicuous alternative service, the Chritian testimony to t he s ta te r equi re s mothan this i f it is to be an adequat e tesmony against war. Alternative service saclearly that the Christian cannot wawar, an d that he does desire to serve hfellow men in a useful way. It does nsay that the task of t he st at e is to mapeace_ And {or the gTeat bulk of Chritians of nonresistant conviction, conscietious objection and alternative civilian serice involve no suffering and little sacrific

These were my thoughts when I wreminded tha t there is one point at whialmost every citizen, or at least every family, once a year does make a personal catribution to the moral and financial suport o f t he mil it ary monste r. This gestuof support is carried ou t each spring whealmost every wage earner forwards to thFederal government a share of his earings, more than half of which will no tused to keep the peace.Fo r a number of years. I had no chan

to exercise responsibility over this usea share of my income, since my employwithheld the amount involved from mearnings. In the spring of 1962, for thfirst time, it fell to my personal responsbility and initiative to forward to thUnited States government Internal Revnue Service an add it iona l amoun t, goibeyond what ha d been withheld. This aditional amount due was significantly lethan t he p roport ion of my total tax

(Continued on page 92)

nonresistance. I came to understand thisword as pointing no t to a social theory ora set of legal principles, but to one ofthe ways in which pe'sonal fellowship withJesus Chr is t through His Spirit will normally work itself ou t in the l if e o f the believer.Two th ings st ood ou t in this under-

s ta nd ing o f discipleship in nonresistancewhic h c ame from my teachers and grewstronger in my own further study an d experience. First of all, to follow Christ onthis path involved being enough differentfrom the surrounding world to be considered unlikable or undesirable by certainpower fu l peopl e and gTOUp, in the world.As a result of this opposition, the way ofnonresi st ance may be cal led the way of thecross; it involves suffering. The acceptanceof such suffering is the test of the disciple'ssincerity an d faithfulness to Christ.

Secondly this position should be a witness. A witness should show the world thatth e way it operates, th rough an interplayof selfishness against selfishness and vial ence aga in st violence, is sub je ct t o thecondemnation of God an d destined, evenin this age . to ultimate judgment.

One other thing my teache rs told mewas that, according to God's will, the as-s ignmen t o f civil government is to keepthe peace. The Apostle Paul instructsChristians to offer "supplications, prayers,

~ n t e r c e s s i o n s , and thanksgivings ... for allmen, f or kings and all who are in high positions, th a t we may lead a quiet and peaceable life . . ." (I ::-im. 2: I f., RSV). Obviously, we pray for a "quiet an d peaceable life" no t because we wish to be leftalone but in order that the church maycarryon he r mini st ry , so that all menshould find salvation and "come to theknowledge of the truth" (verse 4). Thechurch's task is to bring men to know thetruth; just as c lea rly. the place of thestate in God's purposes is that disorder bekept to a minimum and peace maintained.

Now when I went ou t imo life with theseconvictions, holding them sincerely as I hadbeen taugh t, d eepen ing t hem in my ownstudy an d experience, an d sometimes evenfinding opportunities to share them withother Christians, I was increasingly struckby the fact that there was precious little inmy own experience or t hat of the churchthat I knew to cor re spond to d li s description.The governments under which I lived,

Why I Don't Pay All My IncomeBy John H. Yoder

In A Declarat ion of Christ ian Fai th andComminnent with Respect to Peace, War, andNonresistance, which was adopted by GeneralConference in 1951 as the official statement'of the church on the question, we find thissentence: "Though we recognize fully thatGod has set the state in its place of powerand ministry, we cannot take part in thoseof its functions or respond to any of its demands which involve us in the use of forceor frustrate Christian love; but we acknowl.edge our obligation to witness to the powersthatbe of the righteousness which God requires of all men, even in government, andbeyond this to continue in earnest intercession to God on the ir behalf."The s ta tement on The Christian Witnessto the State adopted by General Conferencein 1961 contains this sentence: "The evils ofwar, particularly in this nuclear age, mustever be pressed upon the consciences ofstatesmen."The article by John H. Yoder which followsis the testimony of a brother who has come

to the conviction that for him a necessarywitness to the st at e is not to pay voluntarilyal l of one's federal income tax (althOugh inno way obstructing its forcible collection bythe s tate), since so much of this" tax goesfor war purposes.Nei ther General Conference nor tbe PeaceProblems Committee have said that the Christian witness against war must include thisprocedure. To some, no dOUbt, it will seemthat the procedUTe taken is contrary to NewTestament teaching. To this position, how-ever, Bro. Yoder has an answer which he believes is righ t.Believing that his answer deserves prayerfUlconsiderat ion by al l who disagree, as well as

by any who might be sympathetic, thePeace Problems Committee is submitting itfor pUblication. Both the author and the com-mittee will welcome furLher discussion of thequestion in the same spi rit with which it ishere presented.The Peace Problems Committee:Guy F. Hershberger, Secretary.

(At the suggestion of the editor of thePeace and War Page, the following state-ment is made in the 101m of a purely per-sonal testimony, such as was presented tothe Peace Pmblems Committee of the Gen-eral Conference of the Mennonite Churchin NovembeL The writer bears no re-sponsibility to repl'esent the MennoniteChurch as an organization or the PeaceProblems Committee in the posi tion he hastaken nor in the report ing of it.)As I grew, in my late teens and earlytwenties, into my ear li es t understandingsof what it means to be a disciple of JesusChrist, on e of the deeply significant, as-pects of this discipleship which I sought tounderstand was what my teachers calledGOSPEL HERALD, JANUARY 22, 1963 8

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ba rr ie rs er ec ted by sin and replaces themwith the fellowship for which we werecreated.

This is no t to say rhat to have Christ ianfellowship we will always need to makeChi"ist the subject of ou r conversation.When two people are in love, they cia notalways tall>. about their love, but they arevery conscious of it and will te ll each otherso quite frequently. As we "walk in thelight," we too will be conscious of, andspeak frequently about, our fellowship inChrist, the fellowship of the Spiri t.

Rocky Ford, Colo.

::::NCOME TAX(Continued (rom page 81)

which I knew were being used [or nonpeaceful purposes.I therefore submitted to the Director ofInternal Revenue a full and conscientiousreport of my income, bu t wrote that Icould no t take. the moral responsibility offonvarding to his govenment funds whichI knew would be used for a purpose cantrary to that which government is supposed to be serving. 1 wId him that 1 hadno intention of profi ting personally f rommy "tax objec tion ." I was the re fo re forwarding ari' equivalent payment to theMennonite Central Committee for use inoverseas war sufferers' relief. '

In the course of time, I received an answer to th is letter in the form of a conversation with a local Internal Revenue Serviceinspector. In a very polite and gentlemanlyway he informed me that he could no t consider this as acceptable in lieu of paymentto the Director of Internal Revenue. Het her efore drew from my bank account theamount which I had no t forwarded in theroutine way.

This much is my story; what remains isto ward off mistaken interpretation of whatI d id and what it meant.

The point is not to keep the govemmentfrom getti'ng the money. Not only woaldthis be legal ly impossible: the New Testament is clear that the Chris tian will respond to any kind of coercion, lega l orillegal, by giving not only his shirt but alsohis coat. Mat t. 5:40. Once it was clear thatthe Internal Revenue Service inspector wasd isposed to take upon himself the responsibil ity for torcefully collecting the funds,as a "second mile" gesture I told him wherehe could find the money with the leastdifficulty.

The idea is not to avoid involvement inthe evils of this fa llen wor ld, to "keep myhands clean" morally. Involvement in oneform or another is avoided by no one. andI would no t be avoiding i t if I had no taXes. to pay. My concern is not to be morallyimmaculate by making absolutely no con.ribution to the war effort, bUl to give a92

testimony to government concerning itsown obl igat ion before God.This is no t tax etlasion. 1 filed at the

proper time a full and conscientiously accurate report on my income, and whenfurther information came to light I amended my report accordingly. There is no intention to defraud and no liability to criminal prosecution.

This is not obstructionism. NumerousChristian and non-ChriStian "pacifists" express their disapproval of militarism bysuch symbolic gestures as illegally enteringa missile base, sailing a boat into a restricted part of the Pacific just before bombtests, or in other ways seeking dramaticallyto catch the attemion of the public or o(government administrators with their objection.

The action I am describing here d i f f ~ r s. from theirs in a number of ways. In thefirst place, 1 made clear, no t only in myletter to the Di rector of Internal Revenue,but also in my conversat ion with the localinspector, that I now have and wish tomaintain a healthy respect for the legiti.mate tunctions of government and for thepersons who carry them out. I do not express my objection by getting in the way ofsome military sentinel or c iv il ian t ruckdriver whom I thus puc in the embarrassing position of either being disobedient tohis superiors or harming me, no r by becoming a problem for some judge who hasno choice but to apply the law.

I wi tness rather by writing and talkingcalmly to responsible civil servants who aremy most d ir ec t contact with the process ofgove rnmen t. (According to what I wastaught in the public schools, the normalcontact of the indiv idual with the government takes p lace through the polls. As amatter of fact, however, the voter never, orpractically never, is given a choice betweentwo alternatives, one of which is that thegovernment should limit itself to keepingthe peace.)

Th e only cost of th is witness was paidin the form of a gif t for relief. The actualamount of tax collected was increased byonly a few cents ' in te rest cover ing the timeelapsed between April 15 and the da te ofcollection. I f the equivalent amount I hadgiven for rel ie f had been accepted by In-ternal Revenue Service in l ieu of tax payment, I would have considered,it as suchin next year's reporting. However. sincethat payment was no t accep ted, I sha ll repor t i t as a deductible contribution.

The way present tax laws opera te , thi&approach would cost the most (in the formof. rel Ie f con tr ibut ions) to those who aremost able to bear it because of their greaterincome. This is signi ficant in contrast tothe fact that the brunt of the sacrifice involved in being a conscientious objector,especially in time of war, is laid upon teenagers who are no t chosen with a view to

their being most qualified to bear it.action something like my own were takeby a significant number of mature Menonite wage earners, this would be the firtime in t he his tory of ou r nation that thtestimony to nonresistance was g iven prmarily through the initiat ive of and atcertain cost to the most mature and responsible people in the church.

One quest ion remains , which both thInternal Revenue Service inspector and mChristian brethren have already askedDoes not the New Testament instruct us tpay OlLr taxes? Certainly it does; and I wanto pay my taxes, and do pay them willinglas far as the funct ion s of the United Stategovernment resemble what Jesus and Pauand Peter were talking about. The lessoof the entire New Testament is that Christians should be sub ject to politkal authority because in the providence of God thfunction of these authorities is to maintain peace. This is what I, in accordancwith the instructions of the New Testament, am asking the American governmento do.I am in fact even wil ling to pay forcermin amount of waste and fraud and incompetence, as well as for "welfare" services going beyond what Jesus and the apostles had in mind. But the one thing I am

not p repa red to suppOrt voluntarily isomething which Jesus and Paul did nohave i n mind because it did not exist in thtime of the New Testament.The government of Rome was no t spending more than hal f o f its resoUrces on prep

arations to destroy the rest of the worldThe authority which Jesus and Paul recognized was an authority within a givenempire, an authority which in spite of itviolence and corruption and the fraudulenprocedures of its tax collectors did effectively maintain peace within the entire knownworld at the time the New Testament wawritten.

We know very l it tle, no r does the NewTestament attempt to inform us, about significant political powers outside the RomanEmpire. But we can say with certainty thathere were no such powers, in any way comparable in importance to Rome itselfwhich Rome was preparing to destroyThere is thus in this teaching of the NewTestament no easy discharge from the dutyto test which of the demands of "Caesarare really "the things that are Caesar's" andwhen what he asks for is no t his r ightfudue.

It is not my purpose at present to "agitate" for others to follow my example.am rather a sking counsel fr om my Christian brethren concerning the way I havebeen led. At the same time I am askingwhether others have found more appropr iate ways to render a worth-while testimonyagainst their nation's trust in the sword.

Elkhart, Ind.

(;OSPEL HERALD, JANUARY 22, 1 9 6 ~