Gene K. Chapman

Lewisville, Texas

 

March 20, 2003

 

Dr. Pat Robertson

CBN Center

 

Dear Dr. Robertson:

 

Thank you for your kind letter of March 6, 2003. It is a good thing to know that your prayers will be bathing the Throne Room of our God and Father, as I begin the Death Fast, now scheduled to begin at about sunrise at the North Gate of the IRS Building in Austin, Texas, on April 15, 2003, just across the street from the Holiday Inn, near the cross streets of Ben White Blvd. and I-35 Service Rd.

 

The IRS has been putting increased pressure on Irwin Schiff, The leader of the Tax Equity Movement in America since I announced my death fast early last January. They are in court now, attempting to place gag orders on him and to shut his office down after all these years of being in business.

 

The IRS has even accelerated my dispute since January. They are now attempting to manipulate me into tax court just one month prior to my announced death fast start date. With their gag orders and other unscrupulous tactics that I have witnessed, I question the sincerity of their offer, as you might imagine. Well, I bet I have two dozen “Intent to Levy” letters over the past 3½ years that they have not acted upon -- just empty threats to now. Well, the fast unto death begins with or without the consent of the IRS manipulations.

 

Fasting, I find from personal experience, causes those around it to sit quietly allowing the seed of truth that resides in every human heart to take root, grow toward the great moral light (God) and sap all the nutrients from untruth. Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhiji) worshipped God as Truth only, he wrote. Like Cornelius, Gandhiji was not a threat to Christianity; rather he was a man seeking God (see: Acts 10). Neither ultimately accepting the substitutionary death of Christ upon the cross for his own sins, nor becoming bathed in Hindu thinking, fasting became his private power within to seek the light.

 

You will see me during the death fast wearing clothing like that seen upon Gandhiji. The loin cloth (dhoti) depicts emptiness of self and destruction of the ego before the face of God. Fasting in this way are ultimate humility (Psalm 35:13, Nehemiah 9:1, II Chronicles 7:14), as we seek to touch the face of God.

 

Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, infact helped me to track down the loin cloth here in Houston where I work. The Indian people who hear of the fast smile very big, and I wonder if they think I am a reincarnation of Gandhiji, as they smile and remember back. I look a lot like him when I’m all dressed up, and I know that Hindu folks believe in such reincarnation ideas.

 

Concerning justification for the fast, I was directed by that still small voice on to Genesis 22. Like Abraham, God called me to lay that which is most precious to me upon the alter, allowing God to choose life in this world or life in the next.

 

In 1776, a new form of human government was born upon the world stage. It was a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” Suddenly, the words of Jesus that we Christians are to ‘render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” turned on Christians to their role as Caesars. We the People are We the Caesars. Therefore, it is the Christian role to ensure that equitable (Psalm 99:4, Proverbs 11:1) laws are imposed upon the people of the land. By forcing the IRS to show me where individuals have a tax liability, we can pull down the house of cards that the tax code has become so that it may be quickly rebuilt in an equitable fashion. The Bible teaches a flat tax (tithe) is God’s tax system, so it must be the equitable tax, in my humble opinion.

 

Also, Dr. Martin King took his jail experience in Birmingham to the US Supreme Court and won, so I expect that no “parade permit” will need to even be discussed with the Austin police. However, it would be nice to have Christian legal voices on site with CBN news cameras, as the death fast begins, just to keep the local powers from flexing and muscle that they might want in violation of Federal law.

 

O Happy Day,

 

/s/ Gene K. Chapman

He who seeks to touch the face of God

Galatians 6:9