Is the Phrase “Taxation is Theft” a Heresy?

Summary – Is the Phrase “Taxation is Theft” a Heresy?

In this episode of the Faith Seeking Freedom Podcast, host Cody Cook explores a question from an anonymous Christian anarchist: “Was the Temple Tax a violation of ‘Taxation is theft’?” Cody delves into the biblical context, explaining Israel’s covenant with God and the distinction between divine commands and human interactions. He argues that while libertarian principles apply to human relationships, God’s unique authority allows Him to command actions, such as the Temple Tax, without contradiction. Tune in to understand how libertarian views on taxation coexist with the biblical mandates given to ancient Israel.

Episode Transcript

Greetings and welcome to the Faith Seeking Freedom Podcast. My name is Cody Cook, and our question for this episode is this: “Was the Temple Tax a violation of “Taxation is theft”?”

An anonymous inquirer writes:

“I’m an anarchist and a Christian and align very strongly with everything coming out of the Christians for Liberty network, which I’ve followed for quite some time (I even bought several copies of Faith Seeking Freedom to hand out to staff at my church). I would appreciate some insight on a question that I’ve been wrestling with recently. Since God instructed the Israelites to pay a Temple Tax, and God cannot be guilty of sin, is the libertarian slogan “Taxation is Theft” heresy?”

Good question, anonymous!

There are perhaps two ways I might answer this question. The first would be to point out that Israel was a covenant community. Its people pledged their loyalty to God when He took them out of Egypt on more than one occasion, and in Deuteronomy 31 God commanded the Law to be read to the people regularly so that they would understand the terms of the covenant. Breaking the covenant meant that God would also fail to uphold his end of the bargain by ceasing to bless the people and their land, and one could always abandon the covenant community if they chose to do so.

Joshua 24 gives one example of this covenant affirmation. In it Joshua speaks to Israel’s tribes and says:
“‘If serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.’ Then the people answered, ‘Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods!… We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”

But perhaps more importantly, libertarianism is essentially a horizontal philosophy–it gives guidelines for how human beings should interact with each other based on natural law principles. But our relationship with God is a vertical one. God as our creator, lawgiver, and judge can bind us to requirements that no other human being can because they aren’t God. On judgment day, when it’s time for God to give us our just deserts, it won’t do for us to point to the non-aggression principle and tell God that He has no right to judge us. As God, He has every right to judge us. It’s our fellow men that must abide by the non-aggression principle and cannot initiate force or violence against us.

So, when God told His covenant people Israel to pay the temple tax, that was His prerogative. God can demand us to do things that our fellow man has no right to.

So, what’s the point?

God commanded ancient Israel to pay tithes to support its religious system and those who were in need. But as libertarians, we affirm that taxation is theft. Is this contradictory? No. Because when we say taxation is theft, we are saying that it’s wrong for humans to steal from one another. But God has a right to command from His creatures anything He thinks is right, and this goes double for Israel since He made a covenant with them and they agreed to its terms. We can say that taxation is theft while still affirming God’s right to command, because our relationship with God is different from our relationship with our fellow human beings.

Thanks for listening. I’m Cody Cook and this has been Faith Seeking Freedom.