… and unto God the things that are God’s.
  - Mt.22:21b (Mk.12:17, Lk.20:25)

The Pharisees were trying to trip Jesus up with a controversial question. "Shall we pay taxes to Caesar or not?" was calculated to serve as a "damned if you do, damned if you don’t" dilemna, in which either answer would put the Galilean in hot water. But Jesus turned the tables on them by asking to see the Roman coin used for the tax. As soon as they produce the requested coin, they stood condemned. You see, the coin they carried bore the image of Caesar, a man who claimed to be a god. According to the strict Hasidic code – of which the Pharisees were champions – possessing such an idolatrous graven image amounted to a violation of the First Commandment.

They stood condemned, not by the "render to Caesar" clause, but by the more important command which followed. What, after all, does not belong to God? They stood condemned for not rendering all things to God. Their cowardly compromise with the Roman rule involved a failure to give full allegiance to Him whose claim upon man is absolute and total.

Similarly, the typical conservative Christian in America today seems more devoted to a flag-waving patriotism than to obeying the commandments of a holy God. The "render to Caesar" excuse is invoked and "render to God" all but ignored, in order to justify docile compliance with the state endorsed slaughter of innocents. Signatures are affixed to the 1040, indicating a willing consent, which is qualitatively worse than the unwilling compliance of first-century Jews. With such willing consent, the money which states "In God We Trust" is used in defiance of God’s immutable Law. What belongs to God is rendered to Caesar, with pro-lifers consenting and cooperating willingly.

Well, here we are once again; it’s the time of year when millions of pro-life Americans will implicitly consent to the slaughter of innocents by affixing their signatures to the 1040 and other tax forms.

Your signature is by definition an act of consent, a willing approval of the deed. If your taxes pay for abortion, stem-cell research, etc, they do so with your authorization.

Don’t approve of abortion? Then don’t consent.

Here’s another question for American conservative thinkers: Are you a free citizen of a free country? Can you make decisions on how to live your own life, especially with regard to the practice of your religion, and not have to surrender your conscience to a tyrannical government?

If you answered, “Yes, I am free in American to follow the dictates of my own conscience in matters of faith and morals,” then you stand condemned by your own words. Your claim of religious freedom and freedom of conscience means that you willingly support the publicly funded holocaust. The operative word here is willingly. Your signature on the 1040 is an act of willing consent to how your tax dollars are being used. Consent is the precise point where the moral battle is either won or lost.

But maybe you answered, “No, the taxes are taken from me without my approval. The taxes I pay are, in effect, confiscated from me in a way that is beyond my ability to control.” Are you OK with this admission? Wouldn’t it be a good thing if a number of citizens were to say “Enough!” and rebel against such tyranny?

Either way, the liberty vs. tyranny argument leads to the same conclusion: that a tax strike is morally and scripturally justified.

Here’s a question for American conservative thinkers: Was the American Revolution morally justified? Was it pleasing in God’s eyes for the Patriots to rebel against King George? Or did that rebellion amount to rebellion against a God-ordained authority, and therefore rebellion against God Himself?

If you answered, “Yes, the revolution of 1776 was justified,” then here’s a second question: Why is it not also justifiable to rebel against the current tyranny? I’m not talking about writing letters or signing petitions or even filing lawsuits. I’m talking about the willingness to break from authority when those milder attempts fail. If the Patriots were right to rebel against the unjust tea tax, how much more ought we to reject the abortion tax!

But maybe you answered, “No, the Scriptural mandate is to render taxes and obedience to those in authority, no exceptions. King George was the human authority at the time, and so rebellion against him was immoral and unjustified.” Consider that this amounts to an admission that the result of that unjustified rebellion – the United States – is in essence an outlaw state. It is a make-believe government, based from its beginning upon a criminal act of treason. Why then should there be any moral scruples about disobeying such an unlawful authority?

Either way, the legitimate authority argument leads to the same conclusion: that a tax strike is morally and scripturally justified.

Just stumbled upon this article, nearly a year old. Encouragement can come from unexpected quarters.

The tax form check box idea reminds me of my own blog article entitled "Common ground: citizen allocation" (August 2009), which was a proposal for true common ground between the Pro-life amd Pro-abortion political camps. At any rate, this pro-lifer would consider it a great step forward if I and others of like mind could at least opt out of paying for the holocaust. It is simply a matter of not having immoral values imposed upon us tyrannically. We must be allowed to live according to the dictates of our faith and our consciences which forbid us to pay for the slaughter of innocents.

So, let Congress enact support for abortion, embryonic stem cell research, sterilization programs, end the like. But strip Congress of the authority to allocate a single nickel to these programs. Likewise, let Congress enact pro-life and pro-family programs, but with no allocated funds. Let the individual taxpayer check which programs he wants to fund, and at what level, according to the dictates of his conscience, and not as Congress or the courts dictate. Congress could determine the amount of taxes owed. The citizen would do the actual allocating.

To be truly democratic and truly common ground, the fiscal subsidiarity principle must be allowed to cut both ways.

Of course, the ‘liberal’ article cited above only advocates a taxpayer choice to increase allocation for abortion funding. Such is in keeping with the general ‘pro-choice’ misnomer, which only allows for deadly choices. But, to be truly democratic and truly common ground, the fiscal subsidiarity principle must be allowed to cut both ways. As such, it is an excellent idea.

Three posts ago, I asked for feedback as to whether or not ProLifeStrike.org should stay online, promising to respond in kind by Christmas time, which response I will now attempt.

Two fellow strikers offered their thoughts on the matter. I also tried to contact four pro-life leaders, not PLS signatories, whom I thought might have some advice or interest, and was gratified to hear back from two of the four. The following excerpts represent a summary of the salient points from this feedback.

One fellow striker wrote the following:

I believe that most people need two things to in order to attempt something difficult – a. they need information and a good understanding of why; and b. they need someone to do it first. With something like a pro-life tax resistance, I think most people will not attempt something so difficult or potentially risky without a clear understanding of why (which is why [the prolifestrike.org] site is crucial) and examples of others who have done the same.

One pro-life leader wrote this:

… the organization that would take this on would need to be a 501c4…which allows for political involvements…


… My only thoughts about bringing a tax strike into the realm of 501c3 or 4′s would center on the personality it would take to make this public. Most of the “face” people in the Pro-Life movement have a 501c3 and or a c4…


… Your hearts in the right place Jerry, you are just taking on a subject that’s a bit tricky…but one we all agree with.

and another wrote this:

I think for these two reasons, fear of jail and other trouble from the IRS and the fact that PP is already on the run, most folks would not be interested in withholding taxes related to abortion. And I do not know of any mainstream group that would likely run that effort, for the same reasons.

The clear pattern in these honest comments meshes well with what I had already come to suspect. The above quoted striker thinks that people might join if there were other people already doing it. Both pro-life leaders say that no recognized pro-life leader would want to risk it because of the legal issues with IRS, and they don’t want to lose their tax exempt status. So nobody wants to be first, and nobody but David Little and Jerry DePyper wants to publicly do anything until somebody else does it first: a classic Catch-22.

I could try to argue some of the above points, but it seems more reasonable to accept them as realistic assessments of the current situation, and to respond as well in a reasonable way. What the above seems to point to is that no one with better credentials is likely to take up the pro-life strike banner; it’s this amateur prolifestrike.org or nothing. With still one month to go, I am now inclined to try to renew the website’s hosting and domain name registration for one more year in the spirit of Lk.13:6-9, and to offer the following plea:

As you read this (and other pages and articles herein), you may be hearing the Spirit urging you to join. Please do so. Please don’t wait until more people are doing it. Do it yourself now, so as to purify your pro-life prayers.

To break through the catch-22 barrier, someone has to be willing to be amongst the first.

And, secondly, please use the Sign-up page to add yourself to our counter. None of our contact data is ever given away or sold. By default, your name or other information is not even published online. You may also sign up with a ‘pen name’, so to speak, to further protect your anonymity. A big reason for signing up is to be a catalyst, to encourage others to sign up, and so help propel this thing forward. To break through the catch-22 barrier, someone has to be willing to be amongst the first.

If you are willing for your name and comments to be published, so much the better. As mentioned, the default is not to publish anything unless so directed, so please clearly indicate your willingness to go public if that is your intent.

Outside of actually signing up, if you have further feedback or comments to offer, please do so via the blog comments or the Contact page.

And then let’s see where we are this time next year.

The previous blog article asked the general question, “How does prayer of supplication work?” Now I want to narrow it down a bit, and consider a very specific prayer of supplication: the earnest prayer that our government stop sponsoring the abortion holocaust.

For nearly four decades now, pro-life Christians in the U.S. have been beseeching God to deliver their nation from the legalized slaughter of innocent human babies. I’d really like to give this a positive spin, as so many do. But the plain fact is that these prayers have not yet been answered. In fact, it seems as if the longer we pray, the worse it gets.

Consider where we were 40 years ago. In 1973, the majority of people, voters and politicians alike, were shocked and angered at the Roe v. Wade decision that decriminalized abortion. But in the years following, the shock wore off and people learned to accept it as an established fact. Soon thereafter it was embraced by political ‘liberals’ as a right, and tax monies were allocated to securing this right for poor women. More tax money was allocated for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers and abortion advocacy groups.

This development – the public funding for abortion – has been in many ways more damning than Roe v. Wade, because it has made every U.S. taxpayer complicit in the crime.

To those few of you who have been willing to read this far: please re-read that last sentence, and consider its ramifications – the moral and spiritual ramifications.

Returning to the theme of petitionary prayer: Is the willingness to be moved by one’s own prayer an important factor? Let me frame that as a negative question: If the believer is not moved by his own prayer of supplication, can the prayer itself be very real? Can one honestly expect God to be moved by such prayer? What if the believer is actively participating in an activity that contradicts his own prayer? Let me be specific: If we pray for our government to stop funding the abortion juggernaut, ought we to keep willingly funding it ourselves?

A pro-life tax strike is not primarily about forcing our government to do the right thing. It is first and foremost about doing the right thing ourselves. It is about purifying our prayers.

I have no idea whether a pro-life tax strike would have its desired effect, and reverse Roe v. Wade. But that’s not the main point. This thing is way bigger than any of us, and it will take an act of God to turn it around. That’s where our earnest prayers of petition come in. We must beg God to work a miracle of grace, to do what we cannot do on our own.

God will remain true to His own righteous nature. In order for Him to hear our prayers, those prayers must be earnest and honest, and we must be willing to be affected. At a minimum, we must cease our willing funding of abortion. A pro-life tax strike is not primarily about forcing our culture and our government to do the right thing. It is first and foremost about doing the right thing ourselves. It is about purifying our prayers, allowing the Spirit to move us as we pray, thus unleashing the power of the Spirit to work a miracle of grace, both in us and in our world.

Ref: "Purified efforts"

How does prayer work? Specifically, how does prayer of petition or supplication work? How does it come about that our making a request of God, our placing of a need or desire before God, has an impact upon what God does? And why are some prayers of supplication answered, and others seem not be be heard? Realizing this to be a tough subject, and not pretending to be a qualified authority, I will nonetheless offer a few thoughts…

St. James teaches that the fervent prayer of the righteous saint is powerful before God (Jas.5:16b). But if this means that one has to be sinless in order to pray, we would all be disqualified. Rather than worthiness, it may make more sense to consider the earnestness of the one praying. Which is to say, does the prayer come from the depth of the soul? Is it an honest and earnest cry from your heart to God’s heart? Are you moved by your own prayer? Then I suppose God may be moved as well. But if it is a perfunctory prayer, a mere mouthing of words, if your soul is not touched, then you can hardly expect God to be touched, either.

Please don’t misconstrue this to suggest the quasi-atheistic notion that you must yourself be the answer to your own prayer. We’ve all heard this humanistic approach: that the point of praying is not to move God, but to be moved by your own prayer into doing yourself what needs to be done to bring about the desired end. I call this quasi-atheistic, because it tends to minimize or even obviate faith in the power of our Heavenly Father. No, there are things beyond our ability, things beyond human power, and for those things we need God to move; we are incapable of answering our own prayers.

Nor am I thinking that some kind of spiritual exertion is the key. From time to time, a friend may ask me to pray ‘real hard’ for this or that critical intention. But I don’t know what it means to pray ‘hard’. The mental image that pops into my head is that of the Cowardly Lion, who, having been told that he must have faith, scrunches up his eyes real tight, saying to himself, “I do believe! I do believe! I do, I do, I do believe!” As if it required a concerted effort of mental or spiritual energy in order to conjur up the necessary faith.

Prayer that leaves the pray-er untouched is not a true movement of the Spirit, and is therefore useless.

So then, what does fervent prayer look like? I think it might be a ‘loaves and fishes’ sort of thing (Lk.9:12-17). The apostles really were powerless to feed the multitude, their resources pitifully inadequate. But those inadequate resources were nonetheless required. When they willingly gave what little they had to give, they then saw the power of God work through them and they saw God do what they could not do on their own.

So it is with prayer. The Holy Spirit moves in the human soul, through the Son, to the Father. That’s a real prayer, a prayer that may move mountains. And it is God that does the great work, not the human. But the human soul is the channel or vessel in which the Spirit of God moves. When true prayer happens, the vessel itself will necessarily be moved as well; the soul will be profoundly affected. A prayer that doesn’t have this effect, a prayer that leaves the pray-er untouched, is not a true movement of the Spirit, and is therefore useless.

You might ask what this has to do with a tax strike website. I will attempt to draw that connection in the next blog article.

ProLifeStrike.org’s hosting contract comes due in mid-January 2012. As administrator, I must soon decide whether to renew the subscription or let the website quietly die.

One factor in this decision might be the passage of a bill clearly granting legal personhood to our pre-born brothers and sisters. Some are saying that if such a measure were to pass it would mean a de facto nullification of Roe v. Wade, the defunding of Planned Parenthood, etc. In such a case, there would be no more tax funding of abortion, and therefore no more need for a tax strike.

But I’m not holding my breath. ‘Pro-life’ politicians have historically been all too willing to concede or compromise at the prospect of a bitter political fight. Tragically, the pro-abortion political forces have been more loyal to their wicked principles than the pro-life folks to their righteous ones. It seems highly improbable that a political remedy to the holocaust is imminent, so the remainder of this article is written for the more likely scenario in which taxes continue to fund the slaughter of innocents beyond January 2012.

I am very grateful to those few who have signed up to express their willingness to resist the tyranny of tax-funded abortion. But, to be frank, there have been way too few of you.

After almost three years, I don’t know why this idea has failed to take hold. Whether it is due to my lack of credentials or failure to adequately present the case, or because people are afraid of anything that might disrupt the flow of mammon, or because it is simply a wrongheaded idea. I truly do not know the answer. If the American patriots (a minority at the time) could rebel against the tea tax, why not we against the abortion tax? Human life is certainly more important than tea, and ‘Render to God’ is at least as important as ‘Render to Caesar’. I suppose my decision to flee to Central America last year was a sort of first step in seeing the writing on the wall, and seeking a different personal approach.

My suspicion and my best hope is that I have not had the kind of credentials to carry the idea forward. The number of signatories to the Manhattan Declaration would seem to indicate that the numbers are there. But pro-life leadership has to date been unwilling to do anything so risky (or ‘liberal’?) as tax resistance. If the leadership were there, quite likely the numbers would follow, perhaps quite rapidly. It needn’t be a majority of the population nor even a majority of self-proclaimed Pro-Lifers; a significant minority would do.

This blog post is therefore an appeal for feedback from anyone who cares to respond. Your opinions are wanted, on two questions:

First, can anyone supply me with a reasoned syllogism, based upon sound moral theology, telling me how it is wrong to actively resist the abortion tax? (As noted above, this must not be an argument that the limp-wristed Republicans are on the verge of straightening it all out and that we must be patient. On this point I am an unashamed doubting Thomas – I’ll believe it when it happens; until then I do not believe patience is in this case a virtue.) The syllogism I seek is the moral justification for returning to the U.S. and becoming once again a docile U.S. taxpayer, willing to help fund the large scale holocaust. Tell me how that would be an example of obedience to the Lord of Life, and not a sort of selling out.

Secondly, is anyone willing to take over the management of ProLifeStrike.org, or at least give me some good reasons why it must remain online? If someone with better credentials wants to take over, I would be happy to assist in the transfer of files, revamping the pages, etc. After nearly 3 years, the Google rankings are already there for this domain name. Perhaps under your leadership, things could begin to happen in greater measure.

I look forward to hearing from some of you, and will endeavor to communicate back via this blog. At the least, I will try to have a decision in hand by Christmas time as to whether or not ProLifeStrike.org will remain online.

pax et bonum,

Jerry

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
  - 2 Chron.7:14 [KJV]

Note that this oft-quoted text is a call for God’s people to repent and turn from their wicked ways. It has become routine to hear Pro-life folks pray for the conversion of the murderous abortionists, or for pro-abortion politicians like Nancy Pelosi or Barak Obama, and to urge others to likewise pray. But the damned murderers are not the ones who first need to repent.

It is a major theme of this website that Pro-Lifers need to repent of the willingness to fund abortion, so that our prayers will be genuine. How can God hear our prayers to stop abortion when those praying are willingly funding the holocaust? For God to hear our prayers and heal our land, we must repent, and that means we (WE, not the abortionists) must turn from our wicked ways. We cannot pay for death and then pray for life; such prayers are worthless.