Whether or not one feels we are entering into the apocalypse before Christ’s final coming, we can see how the Church, the Bride of Christ, is lured into the beast of the end times. The beast is the system that can usher in the Anti-Christ. The method is exactly that, an incorporation. In this case a tax entity. God can do no wrong and no evil can overwhelm without disobeying God. So God must have the Word that protects against evil. Certainly the unfaithfulness of the shepherds on issues of morality is at the core, but the lure of incorporation and consolidation of the Church into the beast may be related to disobeying another, if not command, then at least, a suggestion Christ directly made to the Apostles. Pay your taxes.
The Church teaches rightly that we should pay our taxes. But why don’t they pay their share? Only the defrauded can recognize the fraud. Tax structures have the potential to create an illusion of a moral code, a self-deluded perception that we are okay. In the code of governments, Al Capone was a tax-evader, not a murderer or illicit business operator. In the code of governments, natural immunity does not exist, only immunity from regular vaccinations
Look carefully at the words of our Lord in the following Matthew passage.
Matthew 17: 23 And when they were come to Capharnaum, they that received the didrachmas, came to Peter and said to him: Doth not your master pay the didrachmas? 24 He said: Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying: What is thy opinion, Simon? The kings of the earth, of whom do they receive tribute or custom? of their own children, or of strangers? 25 And he said: Of strangers. Jesus said to him: Then the children are free.26 But that we may not scandalize them…thou shalt find a stater: take that, and give it to them for me and thee.
Jesus is stating the arbitrary nature of the tax and addressing His bride directly, He says pay it. He is saying that by not paying it, she (His Bride) becomes like the children of the kings of the earth, not of His Kingship.
Does the Church have to go underground for us to realize this? Christ is directly addressing the concept of a tax exemption here. It is time to grow up. If we want history to continue.
Christ the King Icon in Maaloula Syria
Kontakion of Saint Matthew
When you renounced the instruments of a tax-collector, to choose those of justice, you became an excellent merchant, rich in Divine Wisdom. You preached the Word of Truth, and you exhort us to be always ready by your vivid description of the last judgment.
This post attempts to close the circle of understanding from some of the more recent posts, both on economics and a currency, taxes of a nation (1,2), and the current pandemic (3,4,5) (although referencing those prior posts is not necessary to follow this post). As discussed in the last post, I do not subscribe to the philosophy that some things are just too complicated for average people to understand. Rather, if something is supposed to be common ( e.g. money or health), it should be understandable by common people, and using common sense. We make several simple points that any average person can understand, to help us understand what is going on. The points can tie things together for us and the conclusions should be reasonable.
POINT # 1.
There is something that can occur with taxes called the misallocation capital. To use a crazy example, we know that in the winter people need to pay for heat. Suppose a government however imposes a winter tax on people, and uses that tax money to support businesses that build air-conditioners during winter season instead. So the money that could be used to pay heating bills is taken away and used for something contrary to what the people need. The point here is that a government tax can allocate money wrongly. People of course can use money wrongly also, but in this case the damage is limited to the person that makes the wrong decision. Not the whole country. And why would a government ever appropriate money away from what people need? Maybe we can figure that one out.
POINT # 2.
We all hear about how governments are in debt. This means that there must be a lending institution or bank that is loaning money to the government. This lending provides the currency to be used for the exchange of goods and services for that country. Bank loans at different rates defines their business, a commercial enterprise. It should come as no surprise then that taxes people pay could be paying interest. If a country’s currency and liquidity are defined in this way, then the country becomes exactly that: a commercial enterprise. Note that at this point if you are a person or institution that does not pay taxes, such as the apostolic churches in the west, you may not care about this and may even discourage people to read on.
POINT # 3
We now look at a remarkable coincidence (or not) regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The observation centers on the so called overnight repo interest rate. This source describes what this rate is but there are other sources. From the link:
“Overnight repo rate is the interest rate at which different market participants swap treasuries for cash to cover short-term cash needs. The repo rate is helping to ensure banks have the liquidity to meet their daily operational needs and maintain sufficient reserves. The repo rate usually trades in line with the Federal Reserve’s target interest rate.”
The distilled point from this definition for the sake of this article is that the rate provides the means of liquidity (cash) for banks to meet their daily operational needs. So if these means are not met, people’s money would be in jeopardy. The daily commercial lives of people would have to be limited somehow and the banks would have to set a cap on withdrawals. A cap on the exchange of capital. But is there another way to do this? Is there another way to shut down the economy? Look at the figure from the link:
The repo rate behind the pandemic
There is a point in October 2019 when the control over the rate seems to have been lost briefly. Also the inflection where the graph flattens to near zero near the end coincides exactly with start of the COVID-19 pandemic or at least when the attention to the virus started.
One could say this is a coincidence. Or one could say that the rate was adjusted because of the pandemic. The virus is after all real. But if you want to define your country as a commercial enterprise, where its very existence, its very soul, is defined by a loan, then could we not expect at least some manipulation of reality based on interest rates?
POINT # 4.
This last point delves into some speculation but is based on another fact of banks: they are instruments for investments. And since the currencies of nations come into existence by loans, we should expect countries to do what banks ask them to do. It’s nothing personal. Just business. And the way some banks operate today, existing loans are used as “assets” to solicit new loans and business. This could explains how leaders seem empty, almost soul-less, with no personality, and scripted, while knowing exactly “what needs to be done”. They are employees of a new venture. So if a solicitor of business, such as the vaccine industry or other entity, provided the cash for an investment idea, a stimulus may be offered to support the investment. For example: providing billions of dollars to consolidate and even exaggerate the diagnosis and death rates of COVID-19 to hospitals now on the verge of bankruptcy, financing press releases disguised as news, financing studies that downplay alternative treatments, or making state bail-outs conditional on lock-downs. And if the venture includes air-conditioner manufacturers, the government can also include laws that require their purchase in the middle of winter.
There is much literature on the nature of a currency and purpose of money that blames “fiat” currency for our problems. That money comes into existence out of nothing and that those that print money in this way are the problem. These critics say that money should be gold or silver based. But a country still needs liquidity, or some kind of means to adjust the amount of money supply to support the exchange of goods and services of her people. Wouldn’t it be easier to just stop defining countries as commercial enterprises? Just stop defining the currency by a loan. That is what BitCoin is . A currency without a loan price. But BitCoin lacks something. The supply cannot be adjusted according to the needs of the market.[1]
Look again at the curve above. The rate is almost at zero. Why not keep it there for good and let the supply of money continue as needed. Leave interest rates to the realm of commercial banks and borrowers in the free market. The currency supply could be adjusted on the value of gold or silver, or some other resource. How about on the number of families, babies, or small businesses? Just stop basing it on interest, because the loaner will always think that money is really theirs.
Virgin Mother, Pray for Us
Update 6/11/21. Sine the death rate from the COVID vaccines so far exceed norms, the marketed pandemic can not only be about shutting down the economy to continue unsustainable interest-based liquidity, but also to reduce the population for those same reasons.
[1]BitCoin lacks other essential elements of a currency. It can’t be issued in a form you can hide under your pillow. Cash. The hallmark of a public’s trust of a currency. It also cannot be used to pay a tax, the mark of an official currency.
When a family starts, parents immediately start investing in their children. This investment is multifaceted but includes financial investment and is balanced with the cost of maintaining the home. The financial investment for the children is based on the number and each child’s potential. Each child has a potential that the parents gauge and develop and the financial investment is proportional to that potential. This determines the amount of money that becomes available. The child is meant to produce and their “return” on this investment is the honor and love back to the parents. If there is no such return, parents chalk it up. They did their job. If they are stingy with their investment, the child’s development may be stunted. If the financial investment is disproportional to their potential, they run the risk of spoiling the child. Producing a brat. Both parents might then be considered bad parents. What would be worse however would be if the parents put a price on their money. Charging interest. In addition, these bad parents may even demand a return on their money, principal and interest. One would have then to wonder what kind of parents these are and whether they are even worthy of the title. We could call them an “unfamily”.
The family can be considered the fractal of society. A fractal is a unit object, a building block, whose shape resembles the whole it makes up. So then one would expect the larger units to resemble the shape and function of its unit parts. This is how countries are defined. Originally it was the propagation of individual races that kept this shape but there is no reason why countries with multiple races cannot preserve this form and function. To preserve their definition as a country.
Countries, like families, also have the the obligation to provide a currency to maintain themselves and to provide a means for her citizens to exchange goods and services. This is the purpose of money. It is the birthright of nations. If the country cares for her citizens, the currency would be produced and volume gauged for the potential of her resources, citizens, her families, and communities. This determines the amount of money that becomes available. The citizen is meant to produce and the country’s “return” on this investment is the honor and love back to the country. If there is no such return, the county chalks it up. They did their job. If they are stingy with their investment, the country’s development may be stunted. If the financial creation is disproportional to their potential, they run the risk of becoming a country with little productivity. This country might then be considered a bad one to live in. What would be worse however would be if the country put a price on their money. Charging interest. This is different from individuals, companies, and private banks charging interest, which is their choice and the choice of the borrower. We are talking about the country putting a price on its money. Charging interest for money to come into existence. With each baby born. Why do people even care about fiat currency? What about fiat currency with interest? Why do people care about leveraging assets for liquidity when leveraging based on the “asset” of a loan is much worse? If all that has been done in recent history could be done with such a system, couldn’t it be done without charging interest? What exactly is point of charging interest?
In addition, such an odd country may even demand a return on their money, principal and interest, hidden in the form of taxes. This is while they have the power to issue currency to pay for its services and maintenance to begin with and without a tax since they are providing liquidity for their existence anyway. One would have then to wonder what kind of country that is and whether they are even worthy of the title. We could even call that an “uncountry”. And what type of citizenry would warrant such power to decide interest rates for allowing money into existence? This is the key point. If the medium of exchange of a country is based on a loan, then there will always be a perception that the money really belongs to the loaning institution and not the country. It doesn’t. Laws like Glass-Steagal are meant to keep a lid on that perception, but that has not been brought back and the better solution is to issue a currency without interest.
Can a country become more disfigured than this? Yes. There is one more iteration of this degradation. The worst of the bad is if the “uncountry” so disfigured exports its currency to other countries. Or simply persuades other countries to similarly put a price on their currency or by issuing them a loan so that even their taxes go to paying interest. Thereby making them into “uncountries” and exporting all that comes with that disfigurement.
Mother of Sustenance, Pray for Us
Nehemiah 5:7
I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, “You are charging your own people interest!”
This post can be an extension of the a prior, Taxes and the Incarnation of God, where the idea that a tax exemption for a religion as a corrupting element is introduced. Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, paid the tax of His time then to serve as an example for us in our time. However the true story that follows can also be taken at face value about the history of early Christianity and provide insight into the propagation of heresy, and how seeds were sown for times that followed, including our own. The history of the time is well-documented in many references but the particular details come from the reference, The Place of the Patriarchs of Antioch in Church History, by Exarch Elias B. Skaff, 1993, Sophia Press.
With the Edict of Milan in 313, Emperor Constantine ended the official persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In fact the Edict gave freedom to all religions while it ended all ordinances hostile to the Christian religion. Constantine also gave the Church a tax-exemption status.
Meanwhile a disseminating heresy, formalized by Bishop Arius, resisted the idea that Jesus Christ is God as God the Father. This heresy was addressed at the Council of Nicea in 325, where the defense of the co-substantial nature of Jesus with God the father (Greek term: homo-ousios) was championed primarily by Saint Athanasios, a deacon from Alexandria, and Saint Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch. The Arian heresy was important to counter, because anything less than the co-equal Divine Nature of Jesus Christ with God (the Father and Holy Spirit) meant a return to the monotheism of Judaism or monotheistic variants where Jesus was less than God. Jesus is the eternally-begotten Divine Son of God the Divine Father. Eternally begotten also means that there never was a single point in time when He was begotten, before which the Father was alone without Him. He was, is, and by the definition of the word eternal, will always be begotten [1][2].
The condemned Arius was present at the Council of Nicea and his followers were influenced to sign the Nicean Creed at the urging of the sister of Constantine, Constancia. Within a few years, Constancia’s influence on the Emperor resulted in the re-admitting of Arius into the Church. Bishops leading the Arian heresy regained imperial favor which resulted in the replacement of Saint Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch, with an Arian. A persecution of Athanasios began. A slow and labored fracturing at the Church of Antioch was started, whose first Bishop was the Apostle Peter. Antioch is also known as the seat of the famous Bishop and martyr St. Ignatius in the 2nd Century. At one point, the majority of bishops in both eastern and western churches followed the Arian heresy. Even after Arianism waned, divisions among the orthodox prevailed at Antioch and despite the works of Saints Basil and Chrysostom, the center of eastern orthodoxy shifted to Constantinople. Antioch continued in orthodoxy, with the Melkites dividing off to formally recognize the primacy of the Bishop of Rome in the 18th Century.
The sequels of the Arian heresy may not be obvious to the casual observer of history and for our time. Consider however the following quote from the monotheistic religion of Islam:
“He, God, is one! God, the Eternal One! He will not generate, nor was he generated, and none is equal to him!” (Koran, 112, 2,4).
And for the Christian in the current age, are there heresies or unorthodox teachings, such as those for contraception that are related? Consider again the following quote by Saint Athanasios about an Arian Bishop of Antioch, Leontius, who sterilized himself to live with a woman:
“How can sterile and ignorant persons understand the eternal birth of God?”
Note carefully. Baptism imparts the pro-creative Nature of the Trinity on us. Even without us physically procreating. In fact much more so than procreating. Meet the only religion of God, the ONLY religion compatible with our physiology.
Can then the dilution and weakening of Christian teachings then be related to the influence of government or empire? Is one mechanism of influence of empire over the Church that of tax-exemption? Do Christians have to oscillate from persecution and physical martyrdom to heresy of teachings during “official” offers of freedom of religion but with outside influence? Can the worship of “officialdom” in our time explain the lukewarmness and even doublespeak of bishops and shepherds? Note that it only took a a generation for the persecutions of Christians to resume under Constantine’s nephew, Julian the Apostate.
Pantocrator Icon
[1] With the Incarnation of God in the flesh, His eternal begotten nature becomes manifest in the flesh through the Virgin Mother. The Eternal has now entered the physical realm. That is why she is ever-virgin, and mother of the new eternal race.
[2] This understanding of the eternally begotten nature of Christ (past, present, and future) has the potential to solve the Filioque controversy, since the Holy Spirit, with the same eternal nature has to exist (in mystery and outside the constraint of time) in the “was”, “is”, and “will always be” begotten nature of the Son. Only in the “will be begotten” understanding of the Son, can we see how the Holy Spirit can proceed from the Father alone.
There is a peculiar nest for religion in the west that will hopefully not develop with the emergence of the east. This is the concept that religion must be somehow financially sequestered from the people in order to function, a protected shelter by government mandate. In the United States, despite having no mention in it’s founding documents, this takes the form of tax shelter, where the religious institution is exempt from taxes, and the people pay less taxes when they donate to their institution.
There are a number of ways one can make the counter-argument to such a scheme. There is the alarming variety of tax shelters, ranging from those that redefine science and nature, those that use the status to accumulate wealth in stealth, the endless fantasy religions, the corruption of the apostolic churches even to the point of the endorsement of breaking laws, the politicization of doctrine, and many others. How else can the apostolic churches become havens for homosexuals who rarely work and get retirements benefits. Welcome to the land of government-protected cults.
The politicization of doctrine may be the most important feature of the current western frameworks. There are many examples of faithful religious who have resisted the temptation, but how can a tax shelter scheme like this not be viewed as a perpetual bribe by government or others to contain the evangelization initiated by Christ? Does the Holy Spirit really need this kind of help? The spoilers of the gospel most certainly do. Is this not a masonic financial system? A sandbox for contradicting beliefs, without any way out. No need to join a masonic lodge. Religions are all equal, forged in time and history endlessly. God’s Mercy becomes irrelevant. Political correctness rules indefinitely. The only winners, are those with the most power and money. A philosophy or teaching, a guilt or historical division, become convenient means to an end, pulled out like a book from the large library of history.
Would a religion with accumulated wealth in such a legal scheme have the courage to speak up against a bad law or bad policy? The Church is effectively excluded from contributing to discussions on taxes and even reforms of current financial orders using Christ’s teachings so greatly needed. Our taxes pay interest on restructured loans. How can the Church be bothered with such a state of affairs while sequestered in their exempt haven?
Emperor Constantine the Great granted freedom of worship to the Roman Empire to end the Christian persecutions. He also gave the Church tax exemption. Without this, would the Arian heresy that followed have become so dominant, protected by financial governmental sequestration?
Would someone or some institution still give money to the Church Jesus Christ founded for political gain or worse if there was no tax deduction? Would you want an OUTSIDER TO SUPPORT YOUR SPOUSE, THE BRIDE OF CHRIST ?
Creating a tax shelter to combat such a system is obviously not going to work. If this scheme to make religion operate in a tax shelter is fundamentally flawed as proposed, one would think that our Lord has something to say about it. Might He propose a remedy or at least a protection from such an adverse constitution?
He does. He pays it.
Matthew 17, 21 And when they abode together in Galilee, Jesus said to them: The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: 22 And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall rise again. And they were troubled exceedingly. 23 And when they were come to Capharnaum, they that received the didrachmas, came to Peter and said to him: Doth not your master pay the didrachmas? 24 He said: Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying: What is thy opinion, Simon? The kings of the earth, of whom do they receive tribute or custom? of their own children, or of strangers? 25 And he said: Of strangers. Jesus said to him: Then the children are free. 26 But that we may not scandalize them, go to the sea, and cast in a hook: and that fish which shall first come up, take: and when thou hast opened its mouth, thou shalt find a stater: take that, and give it to them for me and thee.
Comment: Notice that this discourse by Matthew (the tax collector) occurs immediately after The Son of Man announces that He will subject Himself to death. While He admits that the case could be made that God’s people should be exempt from the tax, the Head of the Church, the Alpha and Omega of history, King of kings and Conqueror of all evil, nonetheless subjects Himself to it. How else could He take on what we live through?
Matthew 22, 16 And they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying: Master, we know that thou art a true speaker, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou dost not regard the person of men. 17 Tell us therefore what dost thou think, is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? 18 But Jesus knowing their wickedness, said: Why do you tempt me, ye hypocrites? 19 Shew me the coin of the tribute. And they offered him a penny. 20 And Jesus saith to them: Whose image and inscription is this? 21 They say to him: Caesar’s. Then he saith to them: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God, the things that are God’s.
A true leader leads by humility, carrying the same cross as those led. Death and taxes is the contemporary expression of the fate of western man. God Incarnate, the Son of Man, subjected Himself to all things, except sin. Including death. And taxes. But in the west, not so for the Body of Christ in the apostles. Only death here.
The easiest way for the west to allow the apostolic Church to be subjected to the same tax as the citizens may be to institute a universal consumption tax, while eliminating the income tax. The most brilliant theologians of our times can present their counter-argument. But let them exhibit the day in the last 100 years when the apostolic Church shone most brilliantly, and they will still be showing a day when the taxpayer could say “But you are still not one of us.”
He takes on our nature IN ALL THINGS BUT SIN
“Prince, be advised that we shall obey you in worldly matters and we shall pay taxes to you, but in religious affairs we shall only listen to our pastors.”
Saint John of Damascus, advising the Moslem Caliph.
