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Imagine that an enemy of the United States -- say, George Soros, or an extraterrestrial alien race -- invents an energy beam like Star Trek and dematerializes the U.S. Armed Forces. No human beings are killed, but every tank, bomb, gun, jet, and military base around the world vanishes. As a public relations distraction, Soros offers to fly all military personnel back to the U.S. at his expense.
The U.S. is now completely disarmed.
Equally implausibly, a dedicated Theonomist is made President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States.
What should he do? What can he do if he wants to obey Biblical Law perfectly?
The word "Theonomy" comes from two Greek words meaning "God's Law."
"Theonomists" believe that the Bible -- including the Old Testament -- constitutes a "blueprint" for social organization in our day.
Conservative think-tanks like the Hoover Institution and the Heritage Foundation will strenuously denounce Theonomists as "unrealistic," "impractical," and maybe "pacifist nut-jobs" if conservatives ever realize what Biblical Law actually requires.
In fact, only a minority of Christian Reconstructionists realize the implications of Biblical Law.
Elsewhere I have argued that Biblical Law requires us to be pacifists. The Bible commands "Thou shalt not kill." The exposition of this commandment in the Westminster Larger Catechism is a veritable "Pacifist Manifesto." However, the three exceptions to the commandment offered by the catechism (war, capital punishment, and self-defense) end up swallowing up everything else the Catechism says about non-violence. Violence becomes the norm, not the exception. This is because those exceptions are not based on Biblical Law, but on "natural law" or Roman law. The whole lump becomes leavened.
Virtually every Christian Reconstructionist admits that "Thou shalt not kill" precludes offensive, first-strike wars. No Godly nation has God's permission to initiate military force in order to accumulate more geographical territory or natural resources.
But what about defensive wars? Most Christian Reconstructionists contend that defensive wars are permitted, if not mandatory.
I maintain that God Ordains the Sword as a covenant curse (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28), and commands people who are the object of His curse to take their punishment on the chin, as pacifists. See Jeremiah 27:8-12; Matthew 5:41. See: Pacifism, Postmillennialism, and National Security When God ordains an invading "sword," He commands us to submit to His "ministers," and forbids us to resist them.
But setting those considerations aside, there's another reason why Theonomists must be pacifists and opponents of the Military-Industrial Complex. Biblical laws on money and taxation make it impossible for a civil government to not be "pacifist."
To take our hypothetical example, a dedicated Theonomist cannot re-create the armed forces which George Soros has annihilated. This forces the nation to repent of past violations of Biblical Law and become self-conscious pacifists. This is, in fact, the only Theonomic path to true "national security."
Rushdoony contends that the only Biblically-prescribed tax is the "Head Tax" of Exodus 30:11-16. The implications of that limited civil revenue source are staggering.
Gary North and Greg Bahnsen disagreed with Rushdoony on this issue. Gary North contends that the Head Tax is part of the "ceremonial law," and does not provide the modern State with a revenue source. Bahnsen criticized "David Chilton’s treatment of the head tax as the province of the civil government." I agree with Bahnsen and North that the "head tax" was "ceremonial," not "judicial" or "civil." Neither Bahnsen nor North (so far as I know) pointed to a specific provision of Biblical law which would permit anyone today to levy a tax, or exactly how much that tax could be. North said the rate could be up to but no be more than 10%. Government today is taking 60% of everything you earn if you're in a taxable income bracket and pay more than one dime in federal personal income tax.
Although Gary North would allow government to tax up to 10%, which might be ten times more than Rushdoony would allow, North is still critical of big government. He writes about the events of 1 Samuel 8:
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The people of Israel were in rebellion against God. They wanted a king. Why? Because the nations around them had kings. Israel had done without a king or anything like one ever since the death of Joshua. Now they told Samuel to anoint a man to serve as king. This displeased Samuel. He prayed to God. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them. According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking Me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.” (vv. 7–9) High taxes and centralized civil government go together. Kingship represented a major move in Israel toward centralization. God told Samuel to warn them what this would mean in terms of taxation. The king would tax them at a rate of 10%, which was equal to the mandatory tithe they paid to the Levites. This threat did not impress the people. They demanded a king. A tax of 10% was half of what the Pharaoh of Egypt collected before (Genesis 41:34) and after (Genesis 47:24–26) the famine. This tax rate was twice as oppressive as the tax that Israel’s king would impose. Yet in terms of taxation in the West during and after World War I (1914–18), the level of taxation in Egypt would be regarded as a major reduction of taxes. The central government of the United States consistently collects about 20% of Gross Domestic Product. State and local governments collect another 15%. In the nations of Western Europe, tax rates are often above 50%. On average, taxes are close to one-third. But this counts government payments as a productive sector of the economy (GDP). If we compare taxes with the private sector, as in Egypt under Pharaoh and Israel under the kings, tax rates are much higher than one-third in Western nations. They would approach 50%. So, the West’s taxpayers have grown accustomed to rates of taxation that are double or triple the onerous taxes of Egypt. Israel under the kings would be regarded as a tax haven. |
Suppose Pharaoh wanted to tax at 50%. As Pharaoh he took 20%. But then he created a number of "district governments," each of which would levy a tax of 10%. In each "district" might be a "ward" that would also tax 10%. Then tax all business in Egypt at 10%, which gets passed on to consumers at the checkstand. When all is said and done, the total tax rate is 50%, five times more than God's tithe, and you have an unBiblical tyranny. Surely Biblical law does not permit this fiscal legerdemain. I would suggest that the Bible says the entire concept of "civil government" -- "federal," "state," "county," "city," -- is not allowed to tax an individual more than 10%, according to North, and "less than forty-five cents per year per taxpayer in pre-1965 silver coins" according to Rushdoony (see below). That means all levels of civil government -- federal, state, county, city, etc. combined -- have to do their jobs on a budget a fraction as large as they have today, according to both North and Chalcedon.
(Digression: Why do we need a "federal government" at all? What value does the national government provide that state governments could not provide? If we abolished the federal government, we would have the same situation that we had on July 5, 1776: a number of independent states, where the relationship between New York and Pennsylvania is the same as the relationship between France and Italy. My own state of Missouri would be the size of Poland, a member-nation of NATO. The Bible does not require Poland to be a member of the European Union any more than the Bible commands Missouri to be a member of the United States. But then, why do we need state governments? Are county governments incapable of cooperating with other county governments? In Missouri, would St. Louis county invade the hillbillies of Taney County? The argument in favor of the United States is the same argument as that favoring a one-world government.
Further Digression: After declaring their independence from Britain, most of the states became the first governments in history to abolish slavery, beginning with Vermont in 1777. [Previously, whenever the states had set about to abolish slavery, Britain forbad it, concerned that the abolition of slavery might reduce colonial productivity and hence reduce royal tax revenue. But some states did not abolish slavery even after they weren't prohibited from doing so by Britain. Ten years after the Declaration of Independence, and after the 13 independent states successfully violated Romans 13 and overthrew the British Empire, there began talk about a federal constitution. The states were concerned about defending themselves against another British invasion. They wanted to become "united States." When the Constitution was being framed, it became clear that the slave-owning states would not ratify a constitution which banned slavery. So in order to protect the right to violate Romans 13 and not be pacifists, the abolitionist states offered a constitution which did not ban slavery. "National Security" was given the priority over freedom for slaves. Too bad. The Framers of the Constitution should have abolished slavery and told the slave-owning states, "You're on your own if France or Britain invades us." Maybe this would have forced the slave-owning states to abolish slavery. But if they retained slavery and did not join the union, this would have made the Civil War completely unnecessary; there would have been no need for Lincoln to "preserve the Union." Close to a million American lives would have been saved. Conclusion: centralization is a curse. So is not being a pacifist and claiming the right to overthrow governments by armed revolution.
Application: which government unit is permitted to avail itself of the Head Tax in Exodus 30? Every one of them? Can government units keep dividing, with each division taking its own 10%, until they tax nearly 100% of an individual's income? Since I don't believe Exodus 30 is applicable to civil governments today, nor do I accept Gary North's claim that Caesar has a right to take up to 10%, I haven't worked out an answer to this question. I would say that if a state government absorbs a county government, the state government cannot add additional taxes to those being levied by the county if that would bring the taxes paid by any individual to more than 10%. Similarly, if a state government is absorbed by a national government, the national government cannot levy any additional taxes which would bring the total taxes levied on any individual to more than 10%. This is all completely "unrealistic," "impractical," and "utopian" thinking in the minds of everyone at FoxNews and the Brookings Institution.)
North is also unclear on the concept of multiplying taxes by dividing jurisdictions.
Suppose the king takes 9.99% of your income in taxes. I suppose North would not condemn this rate of taxation, based on his analysis of 1 Samuel 8.
Suppose the king then announces that his kingdom will henceforth be composed of 50 "states." Each state levies a tax on you of 9.99%, which meets North's "ten percent" criterion.
Then the "state" in which you live divides itself into a number of "counties." Your "county" levies a tax on you of 9.99%, which again meets North's "ten percent" criterion.
Then your county creates "cities," which are divided into "boroughs," within which are "townships," "villages," "wards," and "precincts," each of which takes
9.99% of your income, falling under Gary North's "ten percent" limit. Together these nine jurisdictional splits will consume 89.91% of your income.
I assume that at this point Gary North would offer some clarification of his limitation on taxation. If he limits all taxation for all levels of civil government -- federal, state, local, etc. -- to 10%, then the total amount of tax revenue is less than the current military budget, leaving no room for welfare, education, local police, courts, prisons, and everything else government does. And that still means cutting the defense budget by ten percent, which is completely unacceptable to the current ruling secular humanist regime.
On Exodus 30, I agree with North and disagree with Rushdoony, and I've analyzed Exodus 30 here. As an anarcho-pacifist, I reject all taxation. But North is not an anarchist, and does not reject taxation on principle, but has only told us (to my knowledge) that the State may not tax more than God's tithe (10%). I'm unaware of any place that North sets forth his view of which Biblical passages legitimize taxation (since he rules out the "head tax" of Exodus 30), and which verses specify how much (or the rate) the State may tax.
But Chalcedon has done its homework (given its initial assumption about Exodus 30), and the figure is far less than 10%. Let's assume that Rushdoony is correct and North is mistaken. In the September/October 2013 edition of Chalcedon's publication Faith for All of Life, we read this:
By Martin G. Selbrede The proposed federal budget (not including state, county, or city budgets) is currently $3.8 trillion. What our opponents fear is that some alleged American Taliban will arise and seize control of this bloated federal apparatus and steer the massive ship of state in terms of a benighted Christian fundamentalist extremism. This "takeover" will supposedly institute a tyranny of untold horrors—$3.8 trillion dollars worth of oppression. This fear might have merit if Christians operate in terms of Rushdoony's critics, who believe it fairly safe to disregard the law of God when it comes to the limits of civil taxation (whether the critique arises from dispensational rejection of the bulk of God's law or from those Reformed theologians rebutted by Dr. Fugate). But when God's law is applied as written, the picture is radically different. Using this federal budget figure, I compared it with the Bible's total civil tax load to arrive at the comparative size of Biblically based civil government versus the current federal government. Is there indeed room in a Biblical budget for a massive state apparatus to fund massive tyrannical impositions, as many allege? Before we do the math, we need to understand that for the following scenarios to work, the totality of the Bible's fiscal requirements need to be present (e.g., the poor tithe to eradicate poverty, the Levitical tithe to fund education, substitution of full liability laws for limited liability laws to push back regulatory insanity in terms of human responsibility, applied free market privatization strategies, a genuinely Biblical national defense policy, etc.). When we're challenged with questions like "how will you handle roads and freeways under Biblical law?" we find libertarian authors way out in front of us on these issues. Those authors thought it worth their while to work out the implications of their philosophy of limited government and start to develop compelling answers. |
Note the words "a genuinely Biblical national defense policy." Biblical laws on taxation force us to completely re-think our defense policy. This will become shockingly clear in a minute. But we must also completely rethink government welfare ("eradicating poverty"), government schools ("funding education"), and everything else in that list. These things (I would say all things) are to be done by the "private sector," not the "public sector." Secular Libertarians are imagining the provision of government services without the government, because they believe it's immoral to initiate force, which is the heart and soul of "government." Christian Reconstructionists are not providing details like the Libertarians are.
Theonomists only number in the thousands, and among those only a few dozen realize what Selbrede points out. Theonomists are not thinking about all the implications of Biblical Law in the modern world. Selbrede continues:
| Understanding that, now we can look at the numbers.
The total annual tax to cover all civil government expenses is one-half shekel of silver per male citizen twenty years or older. Using the largest value for a half shekel (0.3 ounce), the then-current market price of silver ($22 per ounce), and the current population of the U.S., the mathematical derivation of the annual budget God allows the civil government to spend: $528 million, amounting to less than forty-five cents per year per taxpayer in pre-1965 silver coins (one quarter plus two dimes). This amounts to 0.0139% of the U.S. federal budget for 2013. In other words, the federal government in America spends 7,200 times more than God's law allows it to collect ($3.8 trillion versus $528 million). Therefore, application of God's law would entail a stupendous shrinkage of the coercive sector of society, not its expansion. Because Christian self-government under the law of God has radically shrunk over the last two centuries, the state has expanded in turn, taking on the attributes of God in the process. The Bible pulls the financial plug on all this statist overreaching. I acquired the list of the fifty state budgets that are currently available online (which range between their 2013 and 2015 budget numbers) and totaled all of them up: 1.943 trillion. To fully understand the scope of the reduction of the state under Biblical law, we need to add this amount to the federal budget of $3.8 trillion. Unlike the federal government, the states can't directly implement monetary inflation, so that money will be extracted from you by way of taxation and debt manipulation. We would still remain at the $528 million annual taxation limit under Biblical law, but instead of comparing that amount only against the federal budget of $3.8 trillion, we need to compare God's tax against the combined federal and state budgets, which together total $5.743 trillion. Now we get a better picture of the actual recovery under Christian self-government: God's tax can only support a government that is 0.0092% the size of our current state and federal governments. Our state and local governments combined extract 10,876 times more cash from us than the Bible authorizes for the conduct of civil government. My earlier estimate of a 7,200-fold excess tax burden ignored the contribution of the state governments. The 10,876-fold figure is more accurate-and even this figure doesn't take into account county and municipal tax burdens. Of course, this means that every "Christian" political candidate who speaks about implementing "Biblical morality" in government who fails to adopt these tabulated reductions as his or her ultimate target hasn't the least bit interest in what the Bible says. Many of you will continue to vote such candidates into office. |
Five hundred million dollars to run federal, state, and local governments is insane from the perspective of conservative think-tanks and 40 million people whose paycheck consists of confiscated (tax) revenue. More recent estimates put total government spending at $8 Trillion, with the federal government consuming slightly more than half of the figure. As an amateur part-time political candidate, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single other candidate who runs on an explicitly Theonomic, Theocratic, Christian Reconstructionist platform. Anyone who proposes to run the entire federal government on less than $300 million a year would be laughed off the stage. Since the Defense Dept. budget is 20% of the federal budget, spending more than $900 Billion per year, adhering to Biblical Law means "defending the nation" with only $60 million per year. That's probably not enough to hire a janitorial crew to wash all the windows on every military base and vehicle around the world.
When tossing around figures from government budgets, we tend to forget that one million is one thousand times less than one billion. And a billion is one thousand times less than a trillion. Any politician or political candidate who proposes to cut the military budget by 10% (ten percent) will be called a dangerous pacifist who doesn't realize the dangers of "gutting the military." That's the outrage engendered by a mere ten percent cut. Biblical law requires cutting the military budget by 99.994%. Total government expenditures must be cut by 99.99375% if we're going to implement Biblical law "in exhaustive detail."
In the eyes of secular conservatives, a scrupulously Biblical position is not a respectable position.
Suppose you have $1,000 in your bank account, and you're ready to go into the market to buy goods and services. However, before you head out the door, the government creates "fiat" money and gives it to favored "special interests." These special interests go into the market and buy stuff. This causes prices to rise. The "Consumer Price Index" goes up 5%. That means your $1,000 is now worth only $950 in actual purchasing power. This is a tax. Money (purchasing power) has been taken from you by the government. This makes it very difficult to calculate exactly how much the government is taxing you.
Under Biblical Law, government cannot create money out of thin air. That means government spending over the last few years would have been radically cut had Biblical Law been in force.
It is absolutely impossible to run a government under Biblical laws on money and taxation. At least as we've grown accustomed to think of "government." That's because we think "government" belongs to politicians and bureaucrats. Under Biblical Law, social order (government) is the responsibility of Christians, not politicians; the "private sector," not the "public sector." The concept of a "public sector" is the worst idea human beings have ever come up with. It is a false Savior, Protector, and Provider. It is a false god.
| “Private Sector” | “Public Sector” |
| Non-“Government” Sector | “Government” Sector |
| Competitive Sector | Monopoly Sector |
| Persuasive Sector | Coercive Sector |
| Peaceful Sector | Violent Sector |
| Productive Sector | Parasite Sector |
| Servant Sector | Archist Sector |
| "Economic Man" | "Political Man" |
The Christian family, the Christian business, and the Christian charity are responsible for creating a well-governed society. Not "the government." Selbrede sums up:
| Christians hardly lift a finger to exercise leadership here despite their greater incentive to "bring every thought in captivity to Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5).
We would rather overfeed our civil government nearly 11,000 times more than it should receive, fattening up our false god in the process, rather than to rule ourselves by the light of God's Word. Yet God graciously continues to cast a spark into the hearts of men and women who are willing to roll up their sleeves and exercise leadership over the most massive, the most difficult, the most challenging of all domains: themselves. These are the Christians who wisely reject calls to "take over civil government" but faithfully answer the call to take over the functions of civil government in their spheres of influence. You shrink the state by shrinking demand for it, and this is done from the bottom up, not the top down. |
The entire article is absolute must-reading. Nobody is talking about this issue.
Obeying those laws would force us to radically re-think "national security." Obviously, it forces us to re-think in a pacifist/de-militarist direction.
To repeat, Biblical Law does not allow the government to raise enough tax revenue to exist in its current state. We must begin to think like anarchists and pacifists.
"But if we obey Biblical laws on money and taxation, we will be functional pacifists, and foreign nations will invade us, conquer us, and enslave us."
This may well be true. But it is better to be conquered and enslaved by Caesar than to disobey God, is it not? It is a sin to violate Biblical Law in a vain attempt to defend oneself from the sword which God has ordained to punish you. Probably God is sending the sword against you because you have already made the State your god. Allowing the State to take even more only adds to the curse.
What would be the difference between the $8 trillion Caesar we have created in the U.S. and the Caesar of "Communist" China? China's population is 4x greater than the U.S., but their government's budget is one-quarter the size of ours. If China takes over the U.S., will our taxes go down? (Is China really "communist?" If the government owns everything, how can it tax itself? But China has an income tax.) Suppose government documents were leaked which showed that President Joe Biden had already given complete control of the U.S. federal government to the Chinese Communist Party through Biden's Chinese "business partners?" How would you know whether this actually has happened or not? How do you know we haven't already been conquered?
GARY NORTH'S REMNANT REVIEW - The Danger is Defeat, Not DestructionIf we abolish the United States government, and force Joe Biden to milk cows for a living, does that make it easier or harder for China to conquer 300 million Americans?
If we are obedient to God, will He allow us to be enslaved?
Can we be obedient to God without being willing to be the servants of all?
Discussion continues here.
"OK, You've proven that Biblical Law does not allow a civil government to create a military-industrial complex. But that doesn't prove that we couldn't create a military-industrial complex under a free market. Didn't your article from Chalcedon say that Libertarians are suggesting ways the private sector can deliver services currently being monopolized by the public sector? Your argument about money and taxes doesn't prove pacifism, it just disproves socialism."
This objection has a certain logical validity to it. Just because some project cannot be funded by government taxation and debasement of the currency, does not prove that the project should not be undertaken at all, through "market mechanisms."
But a little thought reveals that no free market could be persuaded to invest money in a military-industrial complex. Nobody would voluntarily donate to the Pentagon or subscribe to a program promising to do what the military-industrial complex actually does.
James 1:27 says pure religion is guarding widows and the fatherless. Not only have we failed to care for widows, the Armed Forces have created millions of them. Then they returned and bombed their houses and water purification plants.
So my answer to this objection is simple: Name one thing the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex does which makes the world a better, safer place, which you would voluntarily pay for. Without threats of violence from "the government," the military would not be funded. Especially if Christians actively and perpetually preach the "gospel of peace" (Romans 10:15; Ephesians 6:15).