Is Paying Income Tax a Mortal Sin?

So, I posted something similar on reddit, but I want to pool as many ideas on this topic as possible. If we refer to Romans 13, we get a simple rubric for legitimate princes that we should pay tribute to. However, if a prince does not follow this rubric, then they cease to be a legitimate authority, and it seems as though we are not supposed to support such a government. A legitimate prince can even be rapidly narrowed with one verse:

Romans 13:3 — "For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good: and thou shalt have praise from the same."

So if a prince is a terror to good works, then they are not actual princes, and therefore, have no legitimate authority from God to govern us. Here is where it gets a bit complicated. In Luke 23:2, we are told of the claims against Christ by the Jews: "And they began to accuse him, saying: We have found this man perverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he is Christ the king." This is a triad of accusations that is unique to the Gospel of Luke, and it is strange to find because at least two of the accusations are true. It is true that Christ perverted the nation of Rome from its pagan ways, and it is also true that Christ is our King. So I am left thinking why it also would not be true that they found Jesus forbidding them to give tribute to Caesar.

The concept of the morality of paying income tax to illegitimate princes is made even less clear with Matthew 22:21-22, which is when the Pharisees and Herodians entreat Jesus to hear whether it is lawful to pay tribute to Caesar or not: "They say to him: Caesar's. Then he saith to them: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God, the things that are God's. And hearing this they wondered, and leaving him, went their ways." Why would the Pharisees and Herodians "wonder" at this statement if it should be a clear proof of paying taxes to Caesar? Furthermore, if the Pharisees took this as proof that you should pay income tax, then they would have accused Jesus of idolatry immediately. Jews were not supposed to pay tribute with coins bearing graven images back then. They wouldn't "wonder" and then walk away.

So now we come to modern day income taxation and our governments. I will use the US government for simplicity. If Jesus were to see us paying into a government that spills the innocent blood of babies through subsidies to Planned Parenthood, would He command us to just "render to Caesar"? Or would He call our government illegitimate and forbid us to pay tribute, as is outlined in Luke 23:2?

About two of the four sins that cry to heaven for justice are rendered by the US government through tax payments. Government-sanctioned sodomy through legalized same-sex marriage, and the spilling of the blood of innocents through abortion. I am not sure if our government defrauds labourers, or if it oppresses populations through slavery and marginalization. Anyway, I want some thoughts from you guys on the morality of income taxation in our modern environment.

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Even during the hey-day of the Roman Empire, Jesus still declared render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. And we know from history of the many debauchery the Romans were engaged in during that time. That said, we live in a democratic republic where voting is bestowed upon us, so it is imperative that every Christian vote. Neglecting to vote is a vote for Satan.

The issue you're talking about OP really is the Mark of the Beast which is an unforgivable sin. In the face of Romans 13 when a governmental authority is pushing you to take the Mark of the Beast, what do you do? Romans 13 or Revelations 13?

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No it isn't. If you owe Caesar income tax, pay it. If you legally don't owe Caesar income tax than you legally are under no obligation to do so. It's that simple.

In the US, you could give away enough of your income to churches or Christian charities until you have a low enough income that you are not legally required to pay any tax.

fox news tier milktoast responses

"Render unto caesar" was a classic Jesus moment where he avoiding entrapment by the pharisees, even though the direct answer is "no, you do not have obligation to pay the tax". Read it again.
You only need to carry out this thought experiment to see this: do I have an obligation to pay off the mafia? What's the ethical difference between a non-state gang and the state confiscators?

Read here for a full analysis, it is totally unimpeachable lewrockwell.com/2010/03/jeffrey-f-barr/render-unto-caesar-amostmisunderstood-newtestamentpassage/

OP is asking a question FURTHER to say it may be an evil to even participate, not that it's acceptable to withhold.

And they answer very simply.
If no major theologian or saint recommended fiscal strikes in the past 2k years, no matter how openly Christ-hating the gov have been(and there have been plenty of those), it's not a sin to pay your taxes.

How do you know that it's a novel position in church history?

The way I see it, the money itself is worthless garbage used as a tool of oppression. It doesn't actually do anything, if the government is going to kill babies, it's gonna do it regardless. I mean they already "borrow" billions every year. You not paying means they'll just have to "borrow" more. And anyways, when Jesus said "render unto caeser what is caeser's," he looked at the coin first and saw caeser's face on it. Seems to me like he was making a witty remark about how it's ultimately worthless to us and belongs to the guy who made it.

I would say pay the taxes, but yeah, it is super frigged up that we have to live under these people who do such monstrous things. And just wait until Texas goes blue. Well never have another conservative in the White House or anywhere in the Supreme Court again, not even a modern conservicuck who's really just a liberal thats slightly closer to the center. After that happens mass immigration will be supercharged because there will be no one left to impede it. Then the Senate majority will go completely far left and they will have free reign to make whatever satanic laws they want. Move to New England or the northern Midwest lake states because spics hate the cold. If you live in a blue state that doesn't have the cold weather buffer get the winnie the pooh out of there fast. We'll be lucky to make it out with a Balkan situation, or even a Russian glassing, but if they manage to keep the country from collapsing (probably by military force) then it's the end baby. You can look up videos of the Clinton's and Obama saying that marriage is between a man and a woman, and look how far they've come from that. If you don't think they won't start killing Christians wake up. Grim times are coming, find fellow Catholics who you can rely on, as well as provide for, and live near them and pray the rosary. Our lady of Akita warned us and the boomers DID NOT LISTEN and it's probably too late so just brace yourselves

Anyway I kind off went of there but consider my two cents rendered unto you ;)

Find me a western roman/byzantine/persian/arab/french/etc. scholar that preached tax protests and evasion because the current governor is a iconoclast/jihadi/zoroastrian/anti-cletical/etc. faggot that persecutes the Church.

I'm pretty sure Jesus was the first because of Luke 23:2. The audience at the time understood His manner of teaching, and I don't think the charges were false. He just was not persecuted for the charges because He was ambiguous.

so, no actual historical answer or atleast patristics on the "Render unto Caesar" thing, just your personal verse interpretation?
Marvelous.

historical answer to the tax protest theologian thing.

Again, why should two of the accusations be true, and then not the third? Pontius Pilate expressly wrote "King of the Jews" on the plaque that showed what Jesus was sentenced to crucifixion for. It's not just a personal verse interpretation. These verses all contextualize with each other to give us a fuller understanding of how the Jewish audience saw the teachings of Christ.

You need to prove that you know better than a Jewish audience that actually listened to the teachings of Jesus while He walked the earth.

It was a theme of the radical Reformation, especially among anabaptists

I don't happen to have any references for you, but you're engaging in fallacious argument to say that a position is necessarily incorrect because it hasn't yet been articulated. That's called proof by tradition.

Again, you can present it as self-evident as much as you want, if you can't show historical precedents for it, it's besides the point if it's a novel position or not.

It's not hard, this guy gave one possible answer in a single line.


As a sidenote:
The point isn't that it's untrue just because it's new.
It just raises huge red flags when a bible exegesis that's supposed to be blindingly obvious to everyone is something that has never crossed anyone's mind until now.

The guy you're defending said explicitly that it's untrue just because it's new

Well then you should go back there and stay there. *A-dibbitty-dibitty-DAB*

If you mean the first 2 replies, that's not me.
If you mean the latter responses, the guy im defending and explaining is me.

This post:

You really don't seem like you're a Christian, so I am not sure why you are here. I do not need to cite a history book to tell you that murdering babies is bad. You're being ridiculous, and you're failing to comprehend the plain language of the Bible and give a contrary to the Jewish audience's claims. I believe a group of Jewish people that actually saw and heard Jesus over some random guy on the internet that is incredulous because I won't cite some history book.

Except you aren't believing "a group of jewish people", you are believing the warped interpretation of a random open austrian anarcho-capitalist, that is framing the Biblical narrative into his dumb ideology(Jesus walked on water as a fiscal protest to Roman taxation, and the jews revolved because they believed "taxation is slavery". Seriously, tigga?), telling you what the jews believed in.

While some of his observations are interesting, on how the entire episode employs some Socratic dialogue-like rabbinical rhetorical methods, or how there are subtle jabs at the imperial cults(with some OT precedents, see the 10 Plagues being a stab at the Egyptian Pantheon), read the text again more carefully, he isn't trying to prove that we should refrain from paying un-christian government programs, it's a painfully transparent attempt at trying to inject his obsessive anarcho-capitalist dogma that ALL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION, CHRISTIAN OR NOT, IS IMMORAL, into the Biblical test, wrapped in a vague christian justification that God is more legit or something.

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Who? I have no idea what you're even ranting about.

lewrockwell.com/2010/03/jeffrey-f-barr/render-unto-caesar-amostmisunderstood-newtestamentpassage/


So, yeah, it's the "pure meaning of the" Bible, as seen by ancaps.

That is a patently absurd position to hold because of Romans 13. We can have good princes, and we are ordered to pay tribute to them. It is impossible for every single government to be bad. Otherwise, the monarchical Catholic Church would be bad, which it is not.

I also don't see how you can extract crap like like plagues being a reflection of the Egyptian pantheon or whatever. The miracles of the Bible are hardly able to be understood by anyone. I am talking about hard evidence of a Jewish audience bringing claims against Jesus that would have been a sin against the 8th commandment to falsely testify against. Jewish people not lying is not equivalent to the miracle of Jesus walking on water. You're stretching your argument.

Some things are commonly accepted as Biblical.

You're merely asserting that the anarcho capitalist political view is wrong, and then that this presupposition informs the argument. You need to first argue why mises style libertarianism is wrong biblically, then make the connection to the argument, or you need to argue against the article on it's face.

tl;dr not an argument

And well, I seem to have found a clean-cut case to end this discussion. I was unaware of this paragraph in the CCC (Catechism of the Catholic Church) until now:

2242 The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel. Refusing obedience to civil authorities, when their demands are contrary to those of an upright conscience, finds its justification in the distinction between serving God and serving the political community. "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."48 "We must obey God rather than men"

So now we have to wonder why civil disobedience has be kept quiet among our clergy. Oh well, thanks for your opinions.