Seeking the Blessing: April 15<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I received many responses to my recent "musings" about the Blessing of Taxes (coming this Sunday, April 15) and my Christian arguments for progressive\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/2012\/04\/seeking-the-blessing-april-15\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seeking the Blessing: April 15\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I received many responses to my recent "musings" about the Blessing of Taxes (coming this Sunday, April 15) and my Christian arguments for progressive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/2012\/04\/seeking-the-blessing-april-15\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith Forward\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-11T01:14:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim Burklo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jim Burklo\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/2012\/04\/seeking-the-blessing-april-15\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/2012\/04\/seeking-the-blessing-april-15\/\",\"name\":\"Seeking the Blessing: April 15\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-11T01:14:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-04-11T01:14:55+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/#\/schema\/person\/2b75dde76faa862099b5028e450f5ffc\"},\"description\":\"I received many responses to my recent \\\"musings\\\" about the Blessing of Taxes (coming this Sunday, April 15) and my Christian arguments for progressive\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/2012\/04\/seeking-the-blessing-april-15\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/2012\/04\/seeking-the-blessing-april-15\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/2012\/04\/seeking-the-blessing-april-15\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Seeking the Blessing: April 15\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/\",\"name\":\"Faith Forward\",\"description\":\"Voices from the Mainline, Progressive and Emerging Church\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/#\/schema\/person\/2b75dde76faa862099b5028e450f5ffc\",\"name\":\"Jim Burklo\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9a2441e90eaae1f79f92e84518102f6c?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9a2441e90eaae1f79f92e84518102f6c?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jim Burklo\"},\"description\":\"Rev. Jim Burklo is the Associate Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. An ordained United Church of Christ pastor, he is the author of three books in print, OPEN CHRISTIANITY (2000), BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS (2008), and HITCH-HIKING TO ALASKA: THE WAY OF SOULFUL SERVICE (2013). 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{"id":2876,"date":"2012-04-11T01:14:55","date_gmt":"2012-04-11T01:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/?p=2876"},"modified":"2012-04-11T01:14:55","modified_gmt":"2012-04-11T01:14:55","slug":"seeking-the-blessing-april-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithforward\/2012\/04\/seeking-the-blessing-april-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeking the Blessing: April 15"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I received many responses to my recent \u201cmusings\u201d about the Blessing of Taxes<\/a> (coming this Sunday, April 15) and my Christian arguments for progressive taxation<\/a>, most of them critical. Some objected to the sin-focused theology of my argument that taxation is necessary because human greed prevents charity from being adequate in meeting the needs of the poor. Others were so frustrated with the amount of public funds spent on the military that they could not imagine praying a blessing on their taxes. <\/p>\n

I learned two things from this feedback. First, my \u201csound bite\u201d theological argument missed the mark. It did not reflect a truly progressive theology. Second, changing the discourse about taxation in this country is going to be even more challenging than I thought. People have a hard time blessing their taxes when they are deeply upset with how the money currently is being spent. <\/p>\n

Everybody wants to \u201cstarve the beast\u201d. To paraphrase Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader, conservatives want to shrink government social spending down to the point where they can drown it in the bathtub. Progressives feel pain writing checks to the IRS when they see how huge a percentage of the money is wasted on a bloated military-industrial complex. Conservatives take advantage of this widespread frustration so that they can continue to cut taxes on the wealthy, unravel the nation\u2019s social safety net, cripple public education, and dumb-down the American people so that they will be even easier to manipulate.<\/p>\n

A lot of people stopped trusting the government, or believing it could ever be trusted, during the Vietnam War. Nixon lied to us about the US bombing of Cambodia, among other breaches of public trust. Later came Ronald Reagan, who cleverly traded on the Vietnam generation\u2019s oppositional attitude toward government. \u201cGovernment is the enemy\u201d was a rallying cry that attracted both conservatives and liberals. It led to a vicious cycle. Americans elected conservative politicians who governed badly. That just reinforced their message that government is evil. This deepening disillusionment led to millions of good-hearted people dropping out of political life altogether, and focusing their attention on charity that only addresses the downstream problems that resulted from upstream disasters. But only the public sector can have the needed resources to solve those upstream problems.<\/p>\n

Many progressive-minded people have abandoned politics. In doing so they have handed the public sector over to people who are systematically crippling the government\u2019s ability to serve the common good. To put it bluntly: if you don\u2019t vote, you vote Republican. <\/p>\n

The cycle must be broken if the American dream is to have any meaning for 99% of our people. Religion has a responsibility to change the attitudes of Americans about the role of government and the taxes that pay for it. Religion is being used cynically to dismantle America\u2019s vital institutions today. Faithful people need to get to work to rebuild and reform them. And religious language matters in the process.<\/p>\n

To that end, here\u2019s a \u201csound bite\u201d from a \u201cmusings\u201d reader \u2013 I think it\u2019s better than mine: <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you claim to be a Christian, then you are by definition responsible for the dignity of your neighbor. Progressive taxation is the only economically viable way to make this responsibility come to life.\u201d<\/strong> \u2014 Rev. Jason Hubbard, pastor, Bostwick Lake United Church of Christ, Rockford, Michigan.<\/p>\n

I hope that congregations of all faiths will grapple with these matters in worship this coming weekend. Whether or not we feel able to pray a blessing on our taxes, at least we can preach and pray about what kind of government we want, what uses of our taxes we intend to prevail, and how we can put our faith into practice as citizen activists!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"