Ask most Christians if they steal. Should they deign to answer they’ll say, “Of course not; I know the ten commandments.” But we may have too narrow a definition of what God meant when he said, don’t steal. There are lots of ways to do it.
There is so much stealing going on. In many countries theft has long been commonplace. Iron rods permanently bar the windows; solid metal doors are rolled down at the close of the day to guard store entrances; guards are hired to keep watch all night. In other countries, such as the United States, these precautions against theft have only recently become common. Now computer thefts are increasing. And there aren’t even laws yet against all the ways to steal with and from computers. To “borrow” a library book needed for a class assignment so that others do not have access to it is an increasing crime on campuses. Embezzlement is escalating.
One hopes that Christians do not engage in such blatant stealing. But are there forms of theft to which Christians are vulnerable? If theft is understood as taking something from another so that, if replaceable at all, money and effort is required, then surely it is theft to waste another’s time. If we are careless about keeping appointments or keeping them on time, we are stealing something precious. If we waste time on the job we are taking money under false pretenses. How is that different from selling somebody something and then surreptitiously taking it back?
In the epistle of James we read of God’s wrath on people who withhold just wages from their employees. Christian employers too often let the prevailing standards of whatever society they are in determine their attitude toward just compensation rather than God’s principles of equity. Likewise Christians take advantage of the kindness of their fellow believers when they expect a Christian plumber, for example, to fix leaks for free.
We owe our government taxes, not only because of services rendered and because the law requires it, but because God has said that we are to pay them. There are legal means of reducing one’s taxable income, and Christians should make use of them as good stewards of the funds that God has entrusted to us. But when we claim deductions to which we are not entitled, we are stealing. If we claim a charitable deduction for what is really a tuition payment for our child’s schooling, we steal. If we take our spouse along at company expense on a business trip and don’t count its value as income, we steal—even with the boss’s approval. If we have a company car, but fail to separate business from private use, we steal, if not from the company, then from the government.
Photocopy abuse is widespread. Christians have been particularly guilty of stealing income due to publishers and artists by photocopying music and pirating lyrics. Organizations that solicit funds for one purpose but use them in quite unrelated ways are engaged in a form of stealing. This affects more than sleazy, fly-by-night operations. Probably many prominent denominations and seminaries have received legacies for evangelism or to advance a particular confessional stance but instead have used the money to support modernistic views. With all these possibilities, who can say he has never stolen?
Meanwhile believers cannot look upon the increase of stealing in our society with indifference. Christians concerned with helping to improve society should address this problem. They should press for the speedy arrest, trial, conviction, and punishment of those guilty of stealing in any of its forms. Too often criminals go unpunished because citizens do not cooperate. Many firms prefer to fire an employee found stealing rather than receive negative publicity. The fact that everyone is doing it is no excuse. The Holy Spirit can help us see how guilty we are. By the power he supplies, we can stop. By the grace he mediates, we can be assured of forgiveness as we acknowledge our transgressions.
The Panama Problem
A few weeks ago New Yorker magazine ran a cartoon on the Panama Canal, which went something like this: “A while ago, I didn’t know a thing about the Panama Canal. Now I can’t live without it.” Many of us are in the same situation. What exactly are the facts?
The United States has extraterritorial rights to property located inside another nation. We built the canal (after, in effect, forming the country of Panama) during the years 1904–1914. Today extraterritorial possessions by strong nations is considered imperialistic.
The Panamanian government is a left-wing dictatorship. Opponents of the treaty say that to give up control of the canal is to surrender it to Marxists. But if and when the transfer of power becomes effective, Panama could be a right-wing dictatorship or even a democracy. And the United States, too, might have changed its form of government.
Both support for and opposition to the treaty is bipartisan. Negotiations have been going on under the past four administrations, two Democrat and two Republican. Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger firmly support the treaty. The crucial factor from the American point of view is not who owns the canal, but whether it is kept open so that our ships can use it at reasonable cost. Some aspects of the treaty need clarification, particularly that of our right to intervene should Panama or any other nation try to stop our ships.
Almost everyone agrees that failure to work out a satisfactory treaty would adversely affect our relations with Latin America and perhaps with other Third World nations. Opponents say, “So what?” But Christians concerned with the reception of American missionaries cannot adopt such an attitude.
To approve the treaty without clarification could be imprudent. So would refusal. Perhaps we should bring in the United Nations. Few aspects of international commerce are more global than the fate of the Panama Canal. Since the poorer and more leftist countries have considerable influence in the United Nations, Panama should not object. And the United States would have some recourse other than unilateral intervention were difficulties with Panama to arise. Whatever we decide, we should treat the Panamanians with honesty and fairness.
When Is a Form Too Simple?
Senator Mark Hatfield, a staunch evangelical, has introduced a bill in the Senate (number 1969) to reform and simplify the present personal income tax form. A forty-line calculation would replace the complexities of form 1040, and a single tax credit for adults would replace the endless array of exemptions presently available. He calls his proposal “Simpliform.” The simplification would cut back the present tax rates so that an income above $5,000 would pay 10 per cent and it would gradually increase; a $50,000 income would call for a 30 per cent tax rate.
The Senator is pursuing this draconian course because he believes that “item-by-item reform … is always doomed to failure. Beneficiaries of tax loopholes will continue to bring pressure to bear in order to protect laws that are advantageous to themselves.”
As we know, one man’s loophole is another’s legitimate tax deduction. Loopholes are not just for the rich, but include such items as the deduction for interest on loans, used widely by middle-class homeowners, or the exemptions for dependents that help those people with lots of children, or deductions for charitable giving.
Hatfield correctly asserts that the beneficiaries of loopholes will press their cases for continuing them. We think that deductions for charitable giving are legitimate. Here is the senator’s view.
“The elimination of deductions for contributors to charitable organizations should not be seen as a threat to the many worthy causes benefiting from these deductions. In some cases, such as educational institutions and health agencies, support should be provided by means of the direct and responsible route, that of appropriations. This could be done without seriously increasing the tax burden of the average person. Those organizations which should not be directly subsidized, such as religious groups, would continue to rely on the voluntary contributions of their supporters. Those who deeply believe in the goals and values of such groups will not cease their support because of the loss of the tax deduction. Moreover, the typical taxpayer would have additional funds for such purposes, because of the tax savings under Simpliform.”
Now, our view. Christian schools should not and cannot get general funding from the public purse. To assert that private educational institutions should be financed by government appropriations leaves no provision for those schools that refuse such funding because they think that government support sooner or later means complying with government regulations. One of the pillars of our free society is the availability of diverse educational institutions.
The typical taxpayer might have more to give under Simpliform, but it is the non-typical large donor who has, because of tax advantages, contributed large sums to private schools and charitable organizations. This kind of gift would probably be affected by Hatfield’s proposal. As essential as they are, small gifts could not make up for the loss of big donations. Besides, we know that what was intended to be only a small tax or expense (the original income tax, Social Security, medicare) has a way of rapidly escalating. Upper bracket taxpayers would have less disposable income under Simpliform. But we doubt that middle or lower bracket taxpayers would have more after-tax income.
The present tax system is indeed a hodgepodge. But such sweeping measures as Senator Hatfield proposes would create more problems than they solve. For all of its problems, we think that line-by-line-tax reform is the best approach. Those who feel likewise should not hesitate to let Hatfield and any other backers of Simpliform know their views.
What Seminaries Don’t Believe
One of the “fundamentals of the faith” that has been advocated from apostolic times on is that Jesus rose from the grave with the same body that was placed there. The body was transformed, but to suggest that the resurrection was merely “spiritual,” akin to saying that the spirit of Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, Jr. lives on, has struck most Christians throughout the centuries as preposterous.
How then does one account for a recent story in the Los Angeles Times by a competent religion reporter, John Dart? Under the headline “Did Jesus Rise Bodily? Most Biblical Scholars Say ‘No’,” Dart reports the results of interviews with many scholars as well as with certain pastors. He concluded that “the interviews … revealed the width of an enormous gap between contemporary New Testament studies and the assumptions of the general public, even most churchgoers.”
Among the more interesting findings was a statement to Dart by Edward Hobbs who teaches New Testament at Berkeley’s cluster of nine seminaries known as the Graduate Theological Union. He told the reporter that “he didn’t know of one school there in which a significant part of the faculty would accept statements that Jesus rose physically from the dead or that Jesus was a divine being.” One hopes that Hobbs is wrong and that more of his colleagues believe the Bible than he knows about. But even if Hobbs is mostly wrong the question needs to be asked by church leaders and members: why would anyone who did not believe crucial doctrines of the faith be permitted to teach at a Christian seminary? The stance of one school in Berkeley, Starr King, is readily understandable: it is officially Unitarian. But here are the other schools in the consortium: American Baptist Seminary of the West, Church Divinity School (Episcopal), Pacific Lutheran (LCA and ALC), San Francisco Seminary (United Presbyterian), the interdenominational Pacific School of Religion, and three Roman Catholic schools (Dominican, Franciscan, and Jesuit).
Lest one be so naive as to think that Hobbs must be wrong with respect to the Catholic schools, consider what John Burke, a priest who is the Washington-based executive director of the Word of God Institute, told Dart: he does not know of “any credible biblical scholar who would hold for a bodily Resurrection.” Scholars who are orthodox should introduce themselves to Burke, who will doubtless find them incredible.
We want to know why Roman Catholic bishops, who seem to be so concerned about such practices as clerical celibacy, do not show a little more concern for seeing that the teachers of their future priests believe in the resurrection and deity of the one they profess to serve.
We want to know why certain denominational leaders, pastors, and lay people tolerate the employment of men and women who so teach in their seminaries that Hobbs can say “students come here [to Graduate Theological Union] in the first year, and many of them are shocked and ask why they weren’t told. The only answer is that many of the clergy are afraid, so they keep quiet about the things they learned in seminary.”
The situation in many of the prestigious Protestant and Catholic seminaries is analogous to what it would be if the nation’s medical schools were hirine faculty who believe in the theories of Christian Science.
We believe that Christian Scientists should be allowed to practice their approaches to healing. We believe that Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other deniers of Christ’s deity should have the freedom to proclaim their doctrines. But we do not believe that it is morally right for a Catholic or Protestant seminary to teach what is contrary to the fundamental doctrines of historic orthodoxy.
Whatever the doctrinal shortcomings of the nineteenth-century Unitarians, they were ethical giants compared to the Catholics and Protestants of our time who do not have the common decency to change denominations when they no longer believe such fundamental truths as the bodily resurrection and the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Witnessing Through Answers
Countless attempts have been made to embellish the account of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon (1 Kings 10:1–13). The extra-biblical tales fill many a book. Quite apart from the embellishment, the record itself is worthy of closer study. It suggests a pattern of witness.
The queen’s curiosity started it all. She had certain questions to ask this famous man whose name was linked with “the name of the Lord” (v. 1). There is no indication that the king took any initiative to invite her. She had heard that the Hebrew ruler knew God and had been blessed by him, and she wanted to know more about that. From what is probably now Yemen she took a trip that was for her day, extraordinarily long, hazardous, and expensive—all to get answers (v. 2).
Solomon gave her straightforward answers (v. 3) and allowed her to observe the operation of his official household as well as his worship of God (vv. 4–5). The visitor was overwhelmed. She finally admitted to her host that even though she had heard all the reports about his wisdom and prosperity she had not believed them. But after seeing for herself, she exclaimed, “the half was not told me” (vv. 6–7). Her final recorded comment is an acknowledgement of God and his blessings on those who obey him (vv. 8–9). She expressed her appreciation for the king’s hospitality and responses to her questions by giving him costly gifts.
Solomon’s life was open before his visitor, and she was fascinated. No doubt she asked questions about his faith. The record says he answered all that she asked.
All contemporary Christians do not have the same opportunities that the Hebrew king had, but each of us has unexpected occasions to open our lives to others who want to know “what makes them tick.” Straightforward answers are never out of place. The believer who is too timid to ask questions about another person’s spiritual interest at least must stand ready to answer questions about his own beliefs. God will bless a sincere word of testimony.
