resurrected post: robbing from the poor to give to oneself
There are two quotes that I’d like to put forward as a thought about how the early church approached Jesus’ teachings about how we handle our money. Both of these quotes are from St. Augustine. “Failure to share one’s surplus with the needy is like theft.” “The surplus goods of the rich are the necessities of the poor. When you possess surplus goods, you possess the goods of others.” Both of these quotes from St. Augustine reflect a Christian mindset about money that I don’t really hear from Christians today. Augustine viewed the riches of wealthy individuals as being provided as an opportunity to care for the poor. I cannot think of many examples of preaching today that would put forth this idea, although I do know a number of Christian Financial minded people who talk about how Christians can amass wealth, and I can almost get the impression that we are more willing to talk about the surplus of the rich being used in a way that might someday trickle down to the poor, than we are to speak of wealth as the provision for the poor. It is this mindset that leads me to advocate living simply, because most of us can live more simply than we do currently and have more money with which to be generous. It’s easy for me to launch into criticisms of the rich and how I think it’s tough to remain rich if you take these Christian ideas seriously. I too many times build a false dichotomy between the intentionally poor and the arrogant wealthy who amass their wealth for themselves. It’s easy for me to point out the flaw in that sort of rich, which is about self and earning more and more money for their own purposes. I’m pretty sure that Augustine would say that they are robbing from the poor to give to themselves(to turn the Robin Hood phrase of robbing the rich to give to the poor). But the wealthy person who realizes that their wealth has been given to care for those who are less fortunate, that’s the type of rich I can get behind.
