Core of Conviction : My Story (9781101563571) (12 page)

And in that same 1983 speech, Reagan didn't just cite a spiritual source of strength; he cited chapter and verse from the Bible, quoting from Isaiah 40: “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.” Continuing, the president added: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary.” Amen to that.

I love those verses of Isaiah, because while Reagan invoked biblical words to help inspire worldwide opposition to communism, those same hopeful words—“He giveth power to the faint”—also prove useful in helping to heal wounded hearts here at home. And let me tell you, as a married mom out there in the provinces, when I heard the president of the United States saying, “They shall mount up with wings as eagles,” well, my heart soared. God spoke to me in those words, and here on earth, so did Ronald Reagan. Now I knew I had to do something. I thought of the commitment that God made to each of us in Hebrews 13:21, offering to make us fully perfect instruments of His plan. I wanted God to lead me to do what I could, each effort of which “is well pleasing in His sight.”

Meanwhile, as the eighties edged into the nineties, many bulwarks of the American home front were seriously crumbling. Even while Reagan was busy saving the U.S. economy and saving the world, pernicious social forces were causing severe damage to the soul of the nation. Epidemics of crime and drug abuse, of dependency and family dissolution, continued to worsen during this period. A brave new governor in Wisconsin, Republican Tommy Thompson, began a push in the right direction, enacting landmark welfare reform, showing once again that individual states—those “laboratories of democracy,” as Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis once described them—could do a better job of managing social programs than could the federal government. Yet in most of the country, the faltering liberalism of the bureaucratic welfare state remained firmly in place, inflicting its relentless damage on all Americans. It was as if a sad stream of social pathology continued to rise up from the depths, drowning innocent lives and threatening to engulf the nation.

Of course, we remember that the basic human condition itself brings problems. That is, humanity has always known imperfection and iniquity. And it's true that any of us can stumble and fall, and we can't always blame the government for our troubles—nor can we always look to the government for help. As Samuel Johnson wrote, “How small, of all that human hearts endure, / That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.” That is, the problems that are caused by laws or governments—as well as the problems that laws or governments can cure—are perhaps fewer than we think; many problems occur simply within the oft-flawed human heart. So in order for us to find help, and to help others, we must look to ourselves, to our friends and family—and, of course, to God.

And that's yet another reason why I admire Marcus. In his counseling work, he focuses on individuals, or on small groups of people, and then makes an enormous difference in their lives. With God's guidance, Marcus lights one candle in the darkness. And then another, and another.

So as always, Marcus found work—lots of work. He served as an individual counselor and group therapist at an inner-city church in the Twin Cities. It was obvious to all by now that Marcus had developed formidable skills as a counselor. A
counselor from a Christian perspective.

In our troubled world, many varieties of therapy and self-help compete for attention. So why did Marcus choose Christian counseling? What makes it different? Marcus was obviously fully aware of other approaches, but he believed that faith in Jesus Christ is the strongest approach of all. It's that simple. With the power of Christ, he knew he could make a positive difference in people's lives. God works. He delivers. In applying Christian concepts, Marcus could offer clients direction, correction, and hope.

A key concept in Christian counseling is
integration
. That is, the Christian counselor seeks to combine, or integrate, biblical truths with the best of psychology and neurology, thereby imparting new life and new hope. The Bible, of course, is the greatest counselor of all. As Paul tells us in 2 Timothy, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”

We all look to something for guidance in our lives. Should we look at our own hearts for guidance? Often, our shifting whims are what lead us into trouble in the first place. Some say we should look to philosophers. But which ones? Why not look to our Judeo-Christian heritage, to a God who made us and created the heavens and the earth? Surely, if He made us, He should understand the owner's manual!

Moreover, because God is the author of all good things, including science and medicine, it makes sense to use all good things to help others. And that's integration: We start with the Bible and a biblical worldview and then integrate more tools—all the insights we have gained over the centuries—into an effective plan for aiding and counseling. Just as the goal of all Christians is to become one with Christ, so the goal of those who are troubled is to seek oneness with Christ—they just might need more help.

So what would Marcus do in a typical counseling session? How would he put his Bible-based training to work? He would gather a small group of seekers into a circle of seven or eight—seekers of relief from, say, anger or alcohol. Then he would begin the discussion by asking questions: “What's a good response to anger?” or “How do you handle a spouse who is drinking?” And then, for the next half hour or so, Marcus would listen as each individual brought up his or her personal issues.

Marcus knew he had to proceed in his counseling with patience and subtlety. As Paul said to the Corinthians, the goal is not to shame but to instruct, to counsel. These seekers had come to Marcus because they wanted to change their lives—and that wish to change, of course, was truly critical. After all, the Bible tells us that a change of heart must precede any true and lasting change of conduct.

So Marcus might not immediately confront or condemn unacceptable behavior. Instead, he would remind his group that while everyone, at times, feels weakness and temptation, everyone can nevertheless feel strength through Jesus Christ. Indeed, the goal for all Christians is to emulate Christ. If we think of Him and rely on Him, we will gain in strength.

Marcus's innate empathy, his academic training, and his informed sense of Christian ethics told him never to accommodate or validate negative behavior. Instead, with the grace of God, he was there to
change
such behavior. We all have an enormous capacity for renewal in our own lives, but our capacities are microscopic compared with God's. To those he was counseling, Marcus would cite Scripture to bring hope. For example, the 146th Psalm tells us: “The Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous, the Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but He frustrates the ways of the wicked.” That marvelous psalm, in a nutshell, points to some of the major problems that people have always faced, both in King David's time and in our own. In that verse, we see God's concern for those who are suffering from disease or depression, for those who have lost a father or a husband, for those who find themselves as strangers in a strange land. To all of them God offers his love and comfort. Amen!

As Marcus once pointed out to me, the 146th Psalm is also part of Jewish liturgy, included in the prefatory portion of morning prayer. The observant recite the
Pesukei D'zimra
, verses of song or praise. And so we can see that the whole of the Judeo-Christian tradition affects all facets of day-to-day life, imbuing them with sanctity and godliness. And that's what Marcus was doing each and every day, serving God in his dutiful and quiet manner. He was helping care-laden people get over the many hurdles they faced in their daily lives. He was encouraging folks to conduct themselves with sanctity and godliness. That's Christian counseling.

Marcus was doing good work, but it was not well-paying work. We lived in a tough area of St. Paul, an area where the boys couldn't play outside, and also an area where our car, our stroller, and anything else not nailed down was stolen. A nearby biker bar guaranteed plenty of rowdiness and noise; more than once, late at night, drunks would pound on the door wanting to come inside the building or just make trouble. Marcus would have to go down and tell them to go away. If those same drunks had pounded on the door and asked for help, Marcus would have been happy to talk to them—although he would have preferred daytime hours! Meanwhile, we both realized we needed more room, and a backyard, to raise our family.

For my part, during those years I took a job with the IRS, a division of the Treasury Department, working out of the St. Paul district office. I know it might seem strange for me to find such work, as I am now often called an “antitax activist.” My ultimate goal was to change the tax code and help people in their fight to keep more of what they earned. So I chose to learn how to change the system from the inside out, to take a reconnaissance mission inside “enemy” lines. Rule #1: Know the enemy. But the truth is, I am not against taxes
per se
. I agree with the great Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. And so, for example, I believe that everyone should pay at least some tax, at least a symbolic amount. In so doing, we are all reminded that if we are going to preserve our republic—a word coming from the Latin
res publica
, or public thing—we all must be good citizens. That is, we all have a duty to make our union ever more perfect, and so we all need a reminder that the government has no money of its own. It has our money, held in trust. So taxes are necessary. But as the Bachmann corollary to Justice Holmes, if taxes are the price we pay for civilization, then the taxes themselves should be civilized—not confiscatory.

As a Treasury Department employee, I worked on hundreds of civil and criminal cases. Typically, I would represent the government against delinquent taxpayers. Most of the time, my work involved negotiation rather than litigation. I would say, “You owe the government this much,” and the negotiations would then begin; only a few cases ended up in court. And I will admit I enjoyed negotiation; although I revere the absolute nature of the law, I also savor the matching of wits and wills in a legal setting. I've never been a poker player, but I can see the appeal of playing for real stakes in a pressure situation. And the negotiations I engaged in were usually intense—people weren't happy to see me, and quite a few had criminal issues as well—and yet the intensity of the negotiations was sometimes exhilarating. I also found instances where I believed that the government had erred, where an injustice had occurred. And I wasn't afraid, either, to make that argument to my managers.

Yet at the same time, I could see how devastating the U.S. tax code could be, not only to individuals but also to the economy as a whole. The Internal Revenue Code today consists of some 3.8 million words; even the IRS has told me that it doesn't know the exact number of words! Yes, Reagan had cut tax rates during his presidency, but subsequent presidents had lamentably agreed to raise those tax rates again, and so the U.S. tax code was once more ratcheting up to both higher rates
and
greater complexity.

Those millions of words in the tax code—many of them opaque, many even contradictory—contain enough traps and snares to catch just about any taxpayer. So I realized that if IRS auditors wanted to nail someone, they usually could do so. And the people who were targeted usually chose to settle, because they knew they couldn't win—or couldn't afford to win—against the IRS.

In other words, the infernal complexity of the tax code almost always favors the IRS. People often end up paying more than they should just to get relief finally from the tax man. Why was it, I would observe, that the government nearly always won and the people nearly always lost? Yet to us on the side of enforcing the law, the complexity ended up being a demoralizing burden as well. Once I called the IRS office in Washington for help on a particularly puzzling fourteen words in the tax code. It took nineteen calls—no kidding—even though I myself was a Treasury Department employee, before I found the expert who could give me a proper answer. That was my “lightbulb” moment. After the call, I set the phone in the cradle, turned around in my chair, and looked out the window. I thought:
If the government can afford to hire one employee just to interpret 14 words out of 3.8 million, then how do ordinary Americans have a chance against such a well-fortified bureaucracy?

I thought further:
This is a terrible system—and yet it's the system on which the whole federal edifice rests. No wonder we have so much trouble.
My colleagues at the St. Paul IRS office were thorough, consummate professionals, well meaning, and considerate. I didn't find them taking joy in deliberately trying to undermine the taxpayers. They worked hard to do their jobs well, but they, too, were trapped in the same nefarious system. And meanwhile, back in Washington, all the bureaucrats continued to make good careers by writing—and all the lobbyists continued to get rich by rewriting—those monstrous million words of the tax code.

So at that moment, I resolved to do everything I could to bring about a simpler and better tax system. And I still hold to that firm resolve today: We should deep-six the code and move to a simpler system and to lower rates. A tax code is required, of course, to raise the revenue that the government needs, but it should not be a job killer to the American economy. We need to nurture the golden goose of free enterprise, not kill it with 3.8 million pinpricks.