Columnist Charles Krauthammer took aim at President Obama’s use of scripture to justify his efforts to obtain more revenue from the wealthiest Americans.
At the National Prayer Breakfast last week, seeking theological underpinning for his drive to raise taxes on the rich, President Barack Obama invoked the highest possible authority. He testified “as a Christian” that his policy “coincides with Jesus’ teaching that “for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.”
Now, I’m no theologian, but I’m fairly certain that neither Jesus nor his rabbinic forebears when speaking of giving, meant some obligation to the state. You tithe the priest, not the tax man.
I don’t wish to enter into a political debate here. All I want to do is to clarify the columnist’s fuzzy notion of history and his mishandling of the word tithe.
As a verb, tithe has the following meanings:
To take the tenth of.
To grant or pay one tenth of (one’s goods, earnings, etc.), esp. to the support of the church; to pay tithes on (one’s goods, lands, etc.).
To impose the payment of a tenth upon (a person, etc.); to exact tithe from.
To exact or collect one tenth from (goods or produce) by way of tithe; to take tithe of (goods).
Krauthammer writes:
You tithe the priest, not the tax man.
This statement presents two problems, one linguistic and one historical.
Linguistic error
The columnist has used tithe as a transitive verb, but incorrectly.
When the verb tithe is used transitively (with an object) the object word will name either the person being asked to contribute a tenth of his goods, or the resource from which the tithe is taken.
For example:
1. The church tithes its members.
2. Mr. Jones tithes his salary.
3. Molly the sheep farmer tithes her flocks.
The meaning of these sentences is that:
1. The church levies a tax of 10% on its members.
2. Mr. Jones gives away a tenth of his salary
3. Molly gives away a tenth of her sheep.
Historical error
Krauthammer, desiring to show that Jesus did not mean “some obligation to the state” says “You tithe the priest, not the tax man.”
In the theocratic setting of the Bible, the priest was the tax man. Nobody “tithed the priests.” The tithe was collected from the general population in order to provide an income for the priests.
Finally, I’m not sure exactly what “You tithe the priest, not the tax man” is supposed to mean. I’m guessing something like “You get your tithe money (money intended for good works among the poor) from religious organizations, not taxpayers.” But I’m not sure.
A reader shouldn’t have to work that hard.
Bravo! So glad to see this. Especially since this particular columnist fancies himself to be quite the intellectual. I too, read part of his column – about two sentences beyond the words mentioned above. Writers of his ilk rarely concern themselves with getting things right and his readers won’t be working that hard to try to understand the accuracy or inaccuracy of his statements. They get exactly what they want to hear which in this case is “Jesus didn’t say ‘give your money to the government’ therefore, as a Christian, you should feel no obligation either.”
Here’s what the author should have said. The Pharisees sent a trick question to Jesus that addressed the question directly. It was “…is it right to pay taxes to the Roman government or not? Jesus saw what they were after. You hypocrites! he exclaimed. “Who are you trying to fool with your trick questions? Here, show me a coin.” They handed him a penny. “Whose picture is stamped on it? And whose name is beneath the picture?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. “Well then,” he said, “give it to Caesar if it is his and give God everything that belongs to God.” (punctuation from The Catholic Living Bible)
The analogy to this would be if the Chinese conquered the U.S. how would U.S. citizens feel about paying taxes to communist China? Talk about a TEA party!
Point is, Jesus literally said give it to the government if it belongs to the government and he spoke much both literally and figuratively about helping those less fortunate. I believe the case is clear that Jesus would be for anything that would help those who suffer. (National health care, no wars, efforts toward peace, etc)
Whew! Sorry to take up so much space – guess you struck a chord this morning!
Denton,
Guess I started a political debate after all! I have to admit that I also think that Jesus would not have objected to spending government money to improve the lot of suffering citizens. I can’t help thinking what a transformation in this country could have been possible if all that money we’ve pounded down the rat hole in Iraq and Afghanistan had been used for social and economic improvements in the U.S.