A TEA Party Toast: Some Biblical Justification for Demanding Less Taxation

I wanted to respond to some of the comments over at the TG as a result of my TEA Party post. Particularly, I wanted to respond to Illbefinedude, who seems to think that God is more than happy with our current taxation process.

Yes, let us examine the Bible to find the truth!

1. What does the Bible say about the role of the state? It is clearly defined in Romans 13 that the civil magistrate has the power of the sword to be the avenger of God upon the evildoer. That means its role is simply that of executing justice upon those who do wrong and defending those who do right. They may collect taxes for that purpose alone, not for helping the downcast and funding their every pet project.

2. What if a teenage girl gets pregnant and decides not to have an abortion (hallelujah, just for that!)? How about seeking help from her church or another charity where people will willingly give of their time and money to help her? Then maybe she can be taught to repent of her sins and raise her wonderful newborn in the fear of God. That would also help to ensure that her situation isn't repeated in another generation.

Maybe also these outlets could instill the notion that "if you don't work, you don't eat." (2 Thess. 3:10)

You should also be aware that our present system actually helps to promote divorce. A woman who is married to her husband may be having a few difficulties in the marriage. But instead of going through the labor of working out their differences, she walks out on him knowing that she can get a welfare check from the government.

3. How about education? First of all, from a biblical standpoint, this one is easy. Parents are commanded to train their kids in the fear of the Lord. Public schools don't do that, and they are quite open about the fact that they are humanistic in their perspective.

But besides that...Do you know that it currently costs over $6,000 per student at the public school and that it is half that at the private schools? Homeschooling costs even less. If you wanted to spend a ton of money on your kid's education, you could do that. I'm sure someone out there would offer it to you (hey, I'll teach your kid for that much a year if you want me to!)

You make it sound like banishing publicly funded schools means people are not going to educate their kids. Certainly that is not true. Contrary to what you think, there would be an increase in schools if there wasn't any public schools. Decentralizing power always leads to more options. Particularly, it would give people the opportunity to specialize their education (e.g. apprenticeships, special ed., gifted) instead of the one-size-fits-all, education that we currently have.

Plus, getting kids out of the public schools for 8 hours a day would benefit the economy and status of society. Kids who can do their work faster (my kid gets a full day's school work done in less than 3 hours) wouldn't have to sit around so much, but could be out working and developing businesses. Other kids could be put to work so they don't make so much trouble.

Furthermore, Joe, you know they guy down the street who doesn't have any kids, wouldn't have to pay a lot of money for some other person's kid to go to school if he didn't want to. He could concentrate on paying his health care.

4. Is God in favor of "spreading the wealth?" He certainly commands individuals to be generous with their money, but he doesn't give the state that authority. Rather he gives the command to show no partiality. The current tax system, as Sanders clearly shows, is biased against the rich (of whose ranks, btw, I am definitely not a member!).

5. How about a death tax? Is God in favor of that? I find it hard to believe that a God who commands his people to leave an inheritance for their children's children would permit it, let alone a third or more of it being taken by the state.

6. How about social security? The Bible calls people first to plan wisely and invest money for future use. Their greatest investment they have though is their children. 1 Tim. 5 says that children are to take care of their parents in their age and infirmity. (That is a great way to ensure that people will raise their children properly too!) If there are no family members to tend to them, then the church is to be the safety net.

(Just imagine if the church were the place of charity how many more Christians there would be! People would have the gospel preached to them and be trained in a moral lifestyle. But instead they can just go to Uncle Sam and then go home and watch another episode of Sex in the City.)

7. How about the massive debt that our nation has? Over a trillion dollars! Is God in favor of that? I think the Bible is pretty clear about letting no debt remain outstanding and putting our children in the hole like that.

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I could go on, but I think that I have made my point clear. Standing against the rampant taxation our country is experiencing (under both republicans and democrats, Bush and/or Obama) is not only biblically justified, but morally requisite.