<\/p>\n
This morning, at 9:00 a.m. sharp, I took my tax payment to No, taxes aren’t such a bad deal.\u00a0 <\/span>Nor are they, as might be heard today at the ersatz “tea Writing in 1916, Professor Vida Scudder, a social gospel The hour has come for Christian thought to give Part of the new social ethic was the idea of a Thus, progressive theologians developed a Christian Scudder pointed The force of Sure, the progressive <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This morning, at 9:00 a.m. sharp, I took my tax payment to the local post office.\u00a0 When I handed it to the clerk, she said, “I hate tax day.”\u00a0 I replied, “Not me.\u00a0 I don’t love parting with the money, but I kinda like it.\u00a0 That check is a bargain–roads, schools, medical care, social security,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,14,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christians","category-mainline-protestants","category-religion-in-the-public-square"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nthe local post office.\u00a0 <\/span>When I
\nhanded it to the clerk, she said, “I hate tax day.”\u00a0 <\/span>I replied, “Not me.\u00a0
\n<\/span>I don’t love parting with the money, but I kinda like it.\u00a0 <\/span>That check is a bargain–roads, schools,
\nmedical care, social security, and the freedom of living in the greatest
\ncountry in the world.\u00a0 <\/span>It is
\npatriotism by checkbook.\u00a0 <\/span>Why
\nshould I hate it?”\u00a0 <\/span>She replied,
\n“Why, I’ve never heard anybody say that!\u00a0
\n<\/span>It isn’t such a bad deal when you put it that way.”<\/p>\n
\nparties” around the country, at odds with Christianity.\u00a0 <\/span>Indeed, tax day is a day that
\nprogressives should celebrate–as we participate in one of the greatest social
\nreforms of the twentieth century:\u00a0
\n<\/span>the progressive income tax.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\ntheologian (respected in her day and now largely forgotten) argued that:<\/p>\n
\ndefinite sanction to the new social ethic that has been developing for the last
\nhalf century. The check by common will on private greed, the care for public
\nhealth, the protection of childhood and manhood, the securing of fair leisure
\nfrom the monotonies of modern labor, form a program hardly to be called radical
\nany longer.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\nprogressive income tax, whereby the richer members of society would pay a
\ngreater share to care for those of lesser means.\u00a0 <\/span>The progressive income tax was passed in 1913, but many
\nChristians grossed about it–a bit like today’s conservative Christians holding
\n“tea parties.”<\/p>\n
\nargument for taxation.\u00a0 <\/span>They believed
\nthat a progressive tax would increase the overall morality of society.\u00a0 <\/span>For example, Professor Scudder pointed out that “the Church, like her Master, is
\nin a way more concerned over the spiritual state of the prosperous than over
\nthat of the poor” because the rich “countenance unbrotherly things.”\u00a0 <\/span>In other words, the rich were not
\nlikely to practice Christian holiness.\u00a0
\n<\/span>“It may be good for the soul of Patrick to subsist on a starvation
\nwage,” she says of a hypothetical worker, “but it is very bad for the soul of
\nHenry the mill-owner to pay him that wage.”\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Thus, the
\nspiritual scales needed to somehow be equalized–by Henry surrendering some
\nportion of his wealth in order to better the lot of his brothers and
\nsisters.\u00a0 <\/span>“It is spiritual suicide
\nfor the possessors of privileges to rest,” Scudder argued, “until such
\nprivileges become the common lot. This truth is what the Church should hold
\nrelentlessly before men’s eyes; it is what makes indifference to social
\nreadjustments impossible to her shepherding love.”\u00a0 <\/span>A progressive tax was an expression of Christian love.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\nout that the income tax “does not attack private property, but merely limits it
\nat a point far above what most people reach, and no Christian mind would surely
\nstoop to the meanness of claiming that it would unduly lessen incentive. It
\nwould deliver many men from fearful temptations,–a result for which we are
\ntold to pray.”\u00a0 <\/span>And she went on to
\nremind readers that, “Incidentally, non-Christian moralists are pleading for
\nself-limitation in wealth as the next step in the higher ethics.”\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\nScudder’s pro-tax argument was based in Jesus’ own teaching:\u00a0 <\/span>“Now in view of Christ’s persistent
\nfeeling that it is dangerous to be rich–a feeling that no subtle exegesis has
\never succeeded in explaining away–one might have expected to see His
\ndisciples, His Church, eagerly welcome the plan and press it with enthusiasm.”\u00a0 <\/span>That, Scudder lamented, was not always the
\ncase.\u00a0 <\/span>Although many progressive
\nChristians understood the spiritual dimensions of taxation, other church people
\nlagged behind.\u00a0 <\/span>“Again,” she
\ninsisted, “no Christian can remain indifferent or non-partisan toward movements
\nfor the protection of the weak.” \u00a0<\/span>The church should–and must–be on the frontlines of social justice.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\ntax system hasn’t always delivered on its promises of social equity, people lie
\nand cheat, and the tax codes need to be reformed.\u00a0 <\/span>But I left the post office in a celebratory mood, went to
\nStarbucks, and ordered a cup of tea.\u00a0
\n<\/span>I raised my Earl Grey in salute to Vida Scudder and Uncle Sam.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Happy Progressive Income Tax Day!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n