Robin Hood

[Douglas]

I have a friend that believes it is ok for our Govt. to take from the rich to give to the poor. We have a Bible study once weekly and we talked about Romans 13 last week. I stated that I felt it was wrong for our Govt. to do that and felt that from what I read in the Bible, it is the role of the Govt. to enforce justice. Anything more is beyond the scope of what God ordained the role of Govt. to do. I told him I believed it was OUR job, the church, to help and provide for the poor, not the Govt.

Here is an email he sent me.

I am still confused by Romans 13! If it says government shouldn't help the poor, then why do so many churches and religious leaders believe that it should?

And for my admission last Wednesday that I have taken help from the government in the way of the child tax credit, the mortgage interest deduction, unemployment insurance, Pell grants, and future Social Security payments and medicare (obamacare?) - I think we all admitted we take some help from the government - why do we begrudge the very poor from getting food stamps or unemployment or welfare until they get on their feet and find work?

I don't really buy the argument that we create a class of people who want to stay poor by lending a hand. Do churches create lazy people who don't want to work when they offer charity? No. Would anyone want to stay poor? Doubtful. As you can see, I am struggling with this particular chapter.

I might be confused about this topic, and any Biblical help someone might be able to provide me to be able to correctly understand and respond to my friend would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Douglas

[Bud]

Hi Douglas,

There's A LOT of material to be read @ this link: http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=4088

Maybe too much material, but it runs along your posts theme.

God bless,

[Douglas]

Thanks,

Funny I found I posted a request for something almost identical back in 2008. lol

Here is the responses that Steve had written that I sent back to my friend.

David, even among the poor saints, some are and some are not to receive the regular support of the church. There are widows "indeed", who, largely due to their life choices, are NOT to be supported by the church, as opposed to those who, because of certain circumstances of their lives, apparently, should be supported with church funds (1 Tim.5:3-13). Likewise, those who refuse to work, are not to be supported (2 Thess.3:10). Even among those who are legitimately poor, and who would be proper recipients of charity, there are priorities. We are to do good to all, but especially those of the household of faith (Gal.6:10). A Christian, given freedom to direct his own charitable giving, can make choices according to biblical stewardship principles. A government agency can not be trusted to follow such guidelines.

The government has the right to provide certain services and to send the bill to the citizens, through taxation. Among theorists, there is a difference of opinion as to which services the government may justly provide and impose taxation for. It is clear that the government has the brute power to exact taxes in any amount by threat of force, even upon citizens who do not use and do not want the services for which they are being charged. There is no limit to the services that a strong-armed government may decide to provide and to charge its citizens for—but there is a limit to how much they may justly do so—that is, without becoming a robber of the taxpayer.

In deciding what the government may or may not include among the services involuntarily imposed upon the citizenry, one must either have information from God as to His thoughts on the matter, or else we must resort to personal sympathies of individuals. Unfortunately, the latter are not unanimous in their thoughts as to which government programs should be provided. The New Testament says that the government is authorized by God to enforce criminal justice, and to be paid for this service by the taxpayer base that is thus protected (Romans 13:1-7/ 1 Pet.2:13-14). This is the total sphere of governmental authority, so far as scripture informs—and it is enough. All citizens should willingly pay taxes for this necessary and divinely-authorized governmental intervention.

However, some citizens may wish to receive more services than the government is authorized to provide (e.g., free education for their children). Such benefits may not be the common desire of all taxpayers, however. Let those citizens find non-governmental (that is non-public) sources for those services, lest they end up robbing their neighbor taxpayers, who have no interest in them, nor any obligation to pay for them for others.

Similarly, some citizens desire to provide for the poor in greater ways than the government is authorized to do. This is fine. Let them do so as much as they wish. There are many non-governmental agencies through which a generous soul may do more to relieve the needy. However, charity is only virtuous if it involves the sacrifice of one's own resources voluntarily. For one man to impose on another the duty to support the charity of the first man's choice is not an act of mercy, but an act of oppression.

Since there is no limit to the amount of taxation the government may unjustly impose upon its citizens (because it controls the police, the courts and the prisons), an unjustified taxation to pay for services that the government has no authorization to provide amounts to robbery of the uncooperative citizenry at gunpoint. If this stolen money is then used to help the poor, this is not an example of mercy, but of injustice.

As I alway wish to point out, my concerns about this matter are strictly disinterested. I am one of those who would qualify to benefit, at no cost to myself, from the adoption of more government programs assisting the poor. I will pay no more taxes for national health care than I currently pay, or ever expect to pay. I have no personal monetary interest in this subject. However, I have no respect for any poor man who desires to receive aid in the form of goods unjustly stolen from others. This is not the system that God has set up for the relief of the poor.

In scripture, the obligation of ordinary people to help the very poor people is often affirmed. However, this assistance is to be discretionary. It is true that, in the Torah, some of the tithes (which were a religious tax), and also the edges of the fields, the gleanings, etc. were devoted to the poor, as was the return of forfeited land of the poor, original owners in the jubilee year. But these laws, which had to do with the disbursement of produce from the land, were examples of God's pressing HIs legitimate claims, based upon His ownership of the land. "'The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me" (Lev.25:23). The parallel today for the Christian is that all that we possess (not just the land we live on) is the Lord's, and He has every right to require us, as individual stewards of His stuff, to give to the poor or to dispense His funds in any way whatsoever He may choose.

It was never the government's prerogative to unjustly seize another man's land, as Ahab learned from Elijah, in the incident of Naboth's vineyard. The land was the Lord's, and He had apportioned it to individuals and families for their discretionary stewardship. The land was not the possession of the kings, to seize at will, in order to fund personal projects.

In a country where the citizenry is (theoretically) its own government, it is important that voting citizens do not seize property from their neighbors in order to support their own pet projects. Such would be the case if I, wishing to provide more health services to the poor than my private donations could fund, used my governmental power (my vote) to steal from my neighbor a portion of his wealth to help underwrite my pet project. My neighbor might have good reasons not to wish to participate in my project. He may have equally virtuous projects to which he would rather devote his discretionary money. He might even object, upon moral principles, to some of the activities he would be forced to fund under my project proposal. It is none of my business to tell him how charitable he must be with the things God has given him—and much less is it any of my business to take his resources from him by force, against his will, in order for me to feel that I am now being sufficiently "merciful" to the poor.

Bringing this back to the justice issue, if I have not enough money to help relieve a poor man, it is not merciful for me to go and rob a bank in order to make up the deficit in what I hope to provide. My moral obligations to help the poor end at the limits of my resources. When I must steal another man's resources to act "mercifully," I have lost sight entirely of the meaning of the word "mercy," and also of that other beautiful word, "justice."

[thrombomodulin]

And for my admission last Wednesday that I have taken help from the government in the way of the child tax credit, the mortgage interest deduction, unemployment insurance, Pell grants, and future Social Security payments and medicare (obamacare?) - I think we all admitted we take some help from the government - why do we begrudge the very poor from getting food stamps or unemployment or welfare until they get on their feet and find work?

This person has raised a very good point - social security is a welfare program. Is ethical for believers to accept social security? why or why not?

[Singalphile]

thrombomodulin wrote:
This person has raised a very good point - social security is a welfare program. Is ethical for believers to accept social security? why or why not?

My dad - who meets the legal definition of a "minister" - opted out of it long ago, as I understand it. So it can be done. I don't know about the rest of us.

[KyleB]

And for my admission last Wednesday that I have taken help from the government in the way of the child tax credit, the mortgage interest deduction, unemployment insurance, Pell grants, and future Social Security payments and medicare (obamacare?) - I think we all admitted we take some help from the government - why do we begrudge the very poor from getting food stamps or unemployment or welfare until they get on their feet and find work?

This person has raised a very good point - social security is a welfare program. Is ethical for believers to accept social security? why or why not?

Isn't social security something that you pay into all your working life, and then receive benefit from once you reach a certain age? Ostensibly, aren't you just receiving back benefit from your own money that was taken from you long ago? I'm not saying the govt. has the right take the money in the first place, but it doesn't seem like it falls into the same category as people receiving benefit from other people's money.

[P.S. I know the govt. may not actually operate SS as I described above, but in theory the way it was set up, they are supposed to I think]

[thrombomodulin]

Isn't social security something that you pay into all your working life, and then receive benefit from once you reach a certain age?

Yes

Ostensibly, aren't you just receiving back benefit from your own money that was taken from you long ago?

No.


Social security is a tax, not a savings account. Government officials have not saved any resources attained through SS taxation, but rather the government has consumed all resources it attained, by spending everything that former taxpayers have placed into the system. Therefore, social security is only sustained right now because present SS tax revenue is approximately equal to current benefits expenditures (it is a hand-to-mouth situation). Considering the decreasing workforce and increasing number of beneficiaries, the situation is unsustainable without imminent tax increases, because there are no accumulated savings to draw upon. Therefore, it my understanding that SS is nothing more or less than a welfare program for the aged. Can the argument in favor of claiming benefits consistent of anything substantially different than "Since I had been plundered when I was young to support those who are old, I must be therefore be entitled to plunder those who are young now that I am old."?

[Singalphile]

KyleB wrote:
Isn't social security something that you pay into all your working life, and then receive benefit from once you reach a certain age? Ostensibly, aren't you just receiving back benefit from your own money that was taken from you long ago? I'm not saying the govt. has the right take the money in the first place, but it doesn't seem like it falls into the same category as people receiving benefit from other people's money.

I would agree with that. Notwithstanding thrombomodulin's answer, it seems to me that if a person has $100,000 taken from him by the gov't with the promise (sort of) that it will be given back later (maybe), and then the gov't does eventually give back, say, $80,000, then that person hasn't been the recipient of any kind of welfare. He just got back his own money. Of course it's not the same money that he put in. Of course the money he put in was never in any savings account. Of course it was spent long ago. But still, he got back less then what was taken. How can that be a welfare program?

But I don't know what the social security program's actual rate of return is to the average person.

[thrombomodulin]

I found the description and chart on this page useful in better understanding government debt and obligations. While not specifically about social security (SS), the basic idea is present when considering that bond holders represent, among others, SS beneficiaries.

Government has no resources of its own to provide, it can only take from "A" to give to "B". Hence, SS deserves the title of being a welfare program. In so doing, those who are beneficiaries at the beginning (e.g. Old Al's) have a very high rate of return and get something for nothing. Those at the end (e.g. "Iris's") suffer significant loss. This is not avoidable due to the fact time preference exists in human nature: present goods are valued more highly than future goods. Given that we are at a late stage of this Ponzi scheme there are, I believe, more Iris's among us than Al's.

[Homer]

Social security is technically an insurance program, not welfare. The government has distorted and abused the program, however. The program is skewed toward those who earned and paid in less. I am not saying this is right or wrong, just how the program is set up. You do not draw social security if you never paid into it. You can get welfare without paying into anything.

Who are the poor, anyway, in biblical terms? Interestingly, in his book "the New Testament World" Bruce Malina says that the word "poor" was not an economic term at all in the New Testament. Malina states that in that peasant society, economically speaking, almost the entire population would be considered to be poor as we understand the term. Malina says the poor were those unable to maintain their status such as the sick, imprisoned, leprous, lame, blind, widowed, etc., people something bad happened to. Day laborers, landless peasants, and beggars born into their situation were not poor persons.

In the "Handbook of Biblical Social Values" Richard Rohrbaugh says that the peasant who owned his own land could use 1/4 his harvest to feed his animals and up to another 1/3 would be need for seed for the next year. Then some of his crop was needed to acquire utensils, equipment, and food that he did not grow. Recent estimates for Roman Palistine for both civil and religious taxes are 35-40 percent of the annual crop. All of this, according to Rohrbaugh, suggest that the peasant landholder had about 10-20% of his annual produce to subsist on. A large family or small amount of land put the family close to the margin of survival. This was the lot of the great majority of the people and yet they were not classed as "poor".

I think I will not complain about how we have it.