Dear Brother Aaron March 9, 1973
I read with interest the article “Let's Pay Our Taxes” ...and would like to ask you a few questions. I believe that your article is well written and covers most every question relating to “Caesar” or the State. However, if your title had been “Let's pay our Tithe” then the same arguments would not support the original thesis.
Please let me know whether you believe that “Christians should pay tithe” into a Church which takes this money and uses it for “revolutionary enterprises”? Possibly this money is used to further an ecumenical scheme on either the local or state level? Possibly it is used to “withstand” the “preaching of the Gospel...the purity of the Church...the purity of doctrine? What is your answer?
Should it be re-channeled into areas where the “Steward” knows that his money is gaining interest in the spiritual sense????
Please advise.
Sincerely yours,
(from Idaho)
Dear ____________
Thank you for your letter of March 9, 1973. The Church and the State are two entirely separate organizations. We are citizens of the State by birth without any choice in the matter. The Church is built entirely on the basis of voluntary response to the call and principles of the Gospel.
In our particular Church setting all giving is also on a voluntary basis. We impose no stipulated amounts to be given by anyone. We announce or list needs of what we believe to be worthy causes for which people should give, but no one is required to give any given amount for any given program. All giving is based on the voluntary response of the giver as it relates to a given cause or the amount to be given. In this way our people never need violate their conscience by giving to a cause they cannot condone.
I am not a part of the organization of the State and am therefore not responsible for how they use the money that God says I owe them, any more than I am responsible for how the automobile dealer uses the money I pay him for the automobile I bought. However, I am a part of the organization of the Church and am therefore responsible to God for how my money is used that is channeled through that organization of which I am a part.
Since the Church and the State are two separate institutions, based and built on altogether different methods and principles, if I were writing on “Let's Pay Our Tithes- I would not in any way use the same arguments that I use for “Let's Pay Our Taxes.” And because Church is built on the basis of voluntary response. I could not conscientiously and knowingly voluntarily support unworthy and corrupt causes in the name of the Church. To would be a denial of, and doubtless result in the forfeiture of, the stewardship to which our has assigned us.
Very sincerely,
– Aaron M. Shank
May 1973