Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 7
The Salcon Mennonites paid taxes and fines, furnished horses and teams, and even occasionally went with drivers, yet still refused the test oath because it felt like “joining our hands to the military service.” Where is the line they are drawing, and what “cooperation” with state power do modern believers justify that earlier nonresistant Christians would likely have treated as crossing a conscience boundary?
Another way to ask: What line were the Salcon Mennonites drawing when they would pay taxes and fines but still refuse the test oath? What kinds of cooperation with government power do Christians today excuse that earlier nonresistant believers might have said crossed the conscience line?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
They drew a line between practical, limited cooperation (taxes, fines, certain services demanded) and anything that signaled moral identification with war—especially the test oath, which they believed tied them to military purposes. The transcript doesn’t list modern parallels directly, but it implies that public loyalty rituals connected to force can cross a conscience boundary even when other civic payments do not.
- The Salcon men had “paid both the taxes and fines for the new government” and had “furnished horses and teams…whenever demanded.”
- They had even “occasionally gone along with the teams of drivers,” showing some outward cooperation.
- Yet “in the test oath, they were yielding as they were in taking up arms. It was contrary to their principle.”
- They said they could not “get over the religious scruple,” because “Taking the test oath appeared to them…like joining our hands to the military service.”
- Officials showed “not the slightest sympathy,” treating the oath as the real dividing line, leading to banishment and confiscation.