Thank you for “Joining the Resistance” (February). Please follow up with practical ways of war tax resistance. Here’s one example: I’m in my 70s and have been a war tax resister almost my whole life. I’m aware of arguments that say breaking the law here is justified, but the Bible’s teaching on paying taxes is hard for me to dismiss. So I’ve done it legally by keeping my income below the taxable level. This fits the Anabaptist values of ­simplicity, frugality and mutual aid. It involves help­ing one another rather than living the American ideal of independence. 

Jim Foxvog, Tiskilwa, Ill.

The director of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee in the 1990s, Karen Marysdaughter, once said her reply to “What will happen if I don’t pay all my taxes?” was “What happens if you do pay them?” Consequences for war tax resisters are usually minor. They most often have their bank accounts garnished for the unpaid taxes plus interest. 

Compare that with what the money for the military pays for: the slaughter of Palestinians and total destruction of Gaza; the killing and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan; the hardening of hearts of new soldiers so that they can kill fellow human beings; the drastic increase of suicides among remorseful veterans. And then there are all the things that make for peace and well-being that don’t happen because of all the money wasted on war.

Continuing to ask what our peace church should do seems to be our way of postponing decisive action. Seeing war tax resistance as appropriate for certain people but not the norm for congregations or the denomination is sort of like setting apart priests and nuns to follow a higher calling rather than acting on the belief that the church is a priesthood of believers.

I challenge Mennonites to boldly come together in refusing our complicity in war by redirecting our tax money to do good.

Susan Miller, New York