Biblical Perspective of Personal Property and Wealth Redistribution

Although the traditional moral issues are important, I want to give a brief overview of the theology of personal property and wealth redistribution.

Everyone knows that the Bible asserts that good news is for the poor, that God is eager to bestow grace on those of humble means. Unfortunately, Democrats, socialists and communists have seized this point too often in their attempt to promote an agenda which is blatantly non-Christian.

Their agenda is the redistribution of wealth, all in the name of the greater societal good. This is not just a Marxist dogma which causes us to bristle. It is contrary to biblical concepts of personal property rights.

To be sure, everything we have belongs to the Lord. Yet he has made us stewards of our “belongings.” This is contrasted starkly in Old Testament times when kings often wrongly presumed that the kingdom’s personal property was actually part of the king’s property. The king owned your sheep, and it was only his good graces that allowed you to keep one while he took the other nine. The people begged King Rehoboam to ease their tax burden after Solomon’s death, but he presumed—and presumed wrongly—that everything in the kingdom was his for the taking.

While the Bible does urge us to deal kindly with the poor, the Bible nowhere cedes confiscatory rights to the state. Israelite taxes were restricted by law, and divinely fixed taxes were not progressive. Tax revenues could not be used for any and every indiscriminate purpose. Moreover, Christian charity is to be done out of grace, not by government decree.

If you have a dollar, it is immoral for the government to take 90 cents away from you and your heirs to spread the wealth around. If you have $100, it is immoral for the government to take $90 away from you and your heirs to spread the wealth around. Even if you have $100 million, and if you can live comfortably on one million, it is still immoral for the government to take 90 million away from you and your heirs and spend it as if it were their own. It is immoral to steal from the country’s citizenry.

If you have a surplus of funds, it is your responsibility to follow the Spirit’s leading in how you should spend it. Do you have $90 million to spare? I know some pastors in India who could use some financial help in rebuilding their recently destroyed church buildings. But it is not the government’s prerogative to confiscate your money to bail out failed businesses.

To be sure, there are those who have gotten their wealth by abusing their employees or others, or some such. Thugs such as the Hussein family who lived lives of luxury on the broken backs of Iraqis should have their wealth redistributed. However, in contrast to many countries, we live in a society which grants judicial recourse to those who have been wronged. Thus, if your employer really has cheated you of your wages, then sue him! Here in America, chances are, you’ll win. But otherwise, if your employer has gained his wealth by his own hard work or by his parent’s hard work, then don’t steal his money.

Basically, there is one preeminent Christian principle which proves personal property rights and refutes the “spread the wealth around” philosophy: THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.