Reflections on Biblical Guidance for how to respond to the Tax Reform of 2017.
Herod the Great
Looking back, we knew it was going to happen.
In Scripture, Herod the Great has been backed into a corner. His Magi were supposed to tell him where the new king (predicted by the Bethlehem star) was born. They went out and never came back. Herod lost his opportunity to assassinate a threat to his throne, and the child lost to the sea of common masses (actually to Egypt, but Herod wouldn’t have known that).
To this failure, Herod reacted badly in Matthew 2 (NRSV):
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’
A despotic king implemented a policy that deliberately targeted the innocents in an attempt to desperately cling to power in his corner of the Roman Empire.
Looking back, that type of violence was all Herod the Great knew how to do. He would never feel the effects of the violence wrought. The common people’s pain would never be felt or known or perhaps even acknowledged by him. It was a policy implemented arbitrarily and calculated to cause the most pain and suffering to people completely unlike him.
The first Christmas led to bloodshed, pain, violence, and class warfare. But all of it was after Christmas (perhaps even 2 years later).
Republicans Triumphant
“When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Looking back, we knew it was going to happen.
This week (perhaps even as this blog is published) the Republican Party in America, whose elected plutocracy holds all three branches of government for its two-year reign, passed a Tax Bill that is brazen in its targeting of those in poverty and in the middle class, and craven in the “extras” that satisfy pet projects.
But we knew this would happen.
The Republican party, ashamed after being unable to remove Obamacare, needed one legislative victory to match the level of demonic interventions happening in the executive branch. They needed to prove to their mega-rich overlords that they could target the vulnerable and benefit the wealthy as easily as their counterparts did New Neutrality.
A calculated final push of their most harmful legislation that would ruin American opportunity for the vulnerable was placed when their waffling members would be the most receptive to desperation.
So a few days before Christmas 2017, Republicans implemented a policy that deliberately targeted the innocents in an attempt to desperately cling to power in the upper rungs of the American Empire. This Christmas 2017 will lead to bloodshed, pain, violence, and class warfare.
But we knew this would happen, didn’t we?
Why didn’t they wait?
The timing is most interesting.
The Republicans didn’t wait for Christmas, for the welcoming of the Christ Child. They didn’t match the readings of the escape to Egypt and the slaughter of the innocents. They didn’t wait.
They didn’t wait because their Savior had already come.
Their Savior had already come on January 20th, 2017. A Savior obsessed with the trappings of Empire: emphasizing crowd size, dispatching common decency, undermining the rule of law, and preaching a gospel of white Christian nationalism. A Savior to prop up the world the powers were afraid was starting to slip away.
And so, with their Savior in hand, they were not afraid of the voting masses and uprisings of the poor like Herod the Great. They were afraid of being defunded by their mega-donors. The American Empire runs because of unlimited involvement by the rich in public policy and unlimited ownership of the common areas of America by the same.
With those megadonors and corporations in hand, who could be against them?
How do people of faith respond?
This Tax Reform is Sin. Sin with a capital “S”, a systemic sin that will affect innocents before they are aware, and long after the perpetrators have retreated to their mansions and islands.
So how do people of faith respond to sin?
In Matthew’s Gospel account, Jesus and his family escape Herod by moving to Egypt. To Egypt! To the land where their ancestors had been slaves. They backtracked across the Red Sea and went back to the land of their people’s captivity in order to escape the Empire.
I take this Gospel wisdom to mean that to fight the Empire, we need to go back to where we are captives. Where we are captives of racism, sexism, homophobia, and the dark sides of capitalism. We must step across the street and see how the Empire affects the marginalized and those very different from whoever “us” is. We must name it, own it, and reform it…and that takes confronting it and going where our captivity began.
It is only when we’ve been in the wilderness of our own creation and our own privilege that we can see sin and uproot it. Jesus’ first sermon a few chapters later is “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The reign of God was near, close as a heartbeat, and the people needed to remove their blockages to experience it.
Only by confronting our captivity and proclaiming emancipation for all people can the Empire be truly and ultimately confronted and defeated.
If we don’t do this work of solidarity and reflection and advocacy, then the cycles of politics will simply rotate back to the other side which hasn’t done the emancipatory work to do Empire any different.
The work can be done in every neighborhood, community, church, and locality. In a world where the money is trickle-down (but really pretty stopped-up), our call is to trickle-up fidelity to the Gospel and solidarity with the marginalized.
Your Turn
Thoughts?
Thanks for reading, commenting, and sharing on social media.
Cannot remember any middle class tax relief being implemented between 2008-2016. From 2008-2010 do not remember anything except a tax increase via a mandate, etc. Where has the left cut taxes for anyone in the middle class actually paying federal income taxes? At no point did the previous administration seek to provide tax relief to middle class fed. income tax payers either when it had or did not have a compliant majority in the house/senate. The current tax bill provides actual tax relief to middle class tax payers if only temporarily. Likely there will be no political will to keep those provisions temporary. Those who raise those taxes will find it hard to face voters.
Since when is allowing wage earners to keep more of the money they earn a sin?
Two parts to my answer:
1. Those that pushed through this tax cut have sold it well if you think the emphasis is allowing wage earners to keep more of their wages. The vast majority of the tax cut benefits those already rich. Already Congressional leaders are saying, gosh, we’ll have this giant addition to the deficit. We can no longer afford the social safety net! Tax cuts for the rich, benefit cuts for the poor. That’s the sin.
2. As a member of a democratic soceity my taxes pay for what we jointly own and jointly value. We jointly own parks and infrastructure. Things we jointly value are education for all, regulation and enforcement to keep us safe, and public safety and defense. This is a sample. The list is long. I consider taxes well spent if it provides things that make society as a whole better. So perhaps it is a sin if a wage earner’s taxes are cut to the point that the things we jointly own are torn apart.
Thank you, Rev. Jeremy for calling this nasty bill the sin that it is.
This tax bill doesn’t help hard work. It mainly rewards investment. It also repeals most taxation of huge inheritance, which is not from the recipients hard work. This tax cut also steals from future generations, since they will now be saddled with additional Federal debt as the result of this tax bill.
This tax bill doesn’t help hard work. It mainly rewards investment. It also repeals most taxation of huge inheritances, which is not from the recipients hard work. This tax cut also steals from future generations, since they will now be saddled with additional Federal debt as the result of this tax bill.
Putting more money in workers pockets is always a good thing. No benefits were cut in this tax bill. Reducing corporate tax rates will boost our economy and create more jobs. As to the investors more than 50 million people in this country have 401K accounts and that makes us all investors. Rising markets will benefit us all. The best way to help poor people is to grow the economy and create more jobs.
I am amazed that a member of the United Methodist Clergy has set himself up as the judge of the Republican party. This is not a discussion of the pros and cons of the tax bill and the Trump administration. Instead it is a declaration as if by God himself that the Republicans are demon posessed and Sinners (with a capital S as he stated). Has Rev. Smith forgotten the scripture that states “judge not, lest ye shall be judged”. This is why the Methodist church is broken. No discussion of facts and points from the left, just name calling.
There are many many Scriptures which state that rich people have a responsibility for the Poor. This article correctly criticizes a bad Bill. AND this bill was NOT debated that much before it was passed. There was no discussion of facts in Congress. There was only a desire to appease rich donors.
Unlike, of course, another bad bill written largely by Big Pharma that “had to be passed in order to find out what was in it.” No major political party is without blame in rigging governmental authority in favor of the well-connected and against the “least of these.” If one party is less so, it’s only by a matter of degree. This is why it’s foolish for the church to become a cheerleader for elected officials.