October 02, 2012
Discipleship Tax
An interesting
article in the newspaper reported that some European governments are taxing
registered believers and then turning the collected tax over to the church.
Apparently Catholics in Germany who refuse to pay the tax “will be denied sacraments, including weddings, baptisms and funerals”.
I can only imagine the Lord’s reaction to supposed guardians of the faith who
take it upon themselves to put a price on the basic outward expressions of
Christianity. “You were bought at a price;
do not become slaves of men.” (1 Cor 7:23 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Good choice of Scriptural response. If a government was concerned about the churches having sufficient funds for operation, then why would the government not simply require a donation to any church of the citizen’s choice? That would fund the churches even more than the government levying a tax and distributing it, because both the levying process and the distribution process cost money to operate. Granted, the compliance process of simply requiring donations to a church of choice would also cost, but certainly less. The governments have something more at heart than just funding churches.
-----Money almost always has strings attached. The greatest example of no strings attached money are tax revenue and booty. The similarity between the two should not be forgotten. Both are taken from you regardless of your will and used without consideration of your conscience, inclinations, or points of view. The distribution of those taxes will be to churches of the states choice, say maybe to those churches purporting ideologies beneficial to the state’s conscience, inclinations, and view points. Therefore, what the fruits of your labors could do for you are engaged in doing for the state, while survival necessitates you work all the same.
-----Tax revenues engaged in mere facilities, such as waterworks, roadways, and protective forces (fireman, police, and military) do not enslave you. These are necessities of survival which you would have to make yourself if they were not made by the government. But when the state booty is invested into the production and propagation of ideas, its aim is to control you. Ideology is the more basic of your personal belongings. Taking from you the funds you could have invested into ideologies of your own choosing to invest in ideologies of the state’s choosing now definitely makes you a slave.
-----Moreover, the situation of enslavement is the situation of defeat. Power is everything. The more powerful the state, the more free are those who run the state. The only way to become powerful is to conquer, albeit there are two ways to conquer. The sword once served the state fine. Its poor citizen’s did not have a chance. After democratic revolutions rather sheathed the government swords conquering became more smiley-faced. Rules and regulations now go into place that disrupt the individual’s ability to make and hold wealth, to move about freely, and to communicate the ideas of his choice. These all drain him of power while the government smirks behind a mask of ”care" in regulating "the citizens’ good". So its smiley-face conquers people all the same, robbing them of who they are and what they can be.
-----Jesus also spoke of conquering people. The Greek verb “nico” means "to conquer". “Laos” means “people”. Their conjunction, “Nicolaitans”, quite literally means “people conquerors”. “Yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” (Rev 2:6)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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