ChnMind 2:16 Institutionalised Theft

Household Property and the Ten Commandments

Through most of the previous century up until our day we have witnessed the ignoble spectacle of professing Christians and of various churches choosing to ignore the Ten Commandments. The most common breach occurs with the two commandments which establish and protect the property rights of households and families. These two commandments are: thou shalt not steal (the eighth commandment) and thou shalt not covet what belongs to your neighbour (the tenth commandment).

It is both sad and shameful that many Christians have tried to marry up the commands in Scripture to extend love and welfare to one's neighbours when they are truthfully and genuinely in need, with the socialist policies of governmental redistribution welfare programmes. It is unconscionable that Christians and churches have become caught up in modern humanist political processes they have been found almost universally to endorse the statist welfare system, and called for more of it. It is to our abiding shame that they have done so out of a professed desire to obey the divine commands to take care of the genuinely poor.


This has been a travesty of true discipleship and obedience. It is one of Jerusalem's greatest sins of this generation. All state welfare programmes and policies proceed in violation of the eighth and tenth commandments. It is entirely and completely wrong for Christians and churches to advocate the breaking of these commandments in an attempt to obey God. It is completely wrong to do evil that good may come. The end does not justify the means. God is holy and His law commands both ends and means. Those who seek to do God's work the Devil's way end up dishonouring God. The Living God is not well served by our lies.

The eighth commandment says, Thou shalt not steal. Theft is the forcible seizure, exaction, or destruction of another's property against the will of the owner. Any public policy, political programme, or law which involves taking property from one class or group of citizens via the taxation system, and giving it to another class is a direct violation of the eighth commandment. It is institutionalised theft, but theft nonetheless. It is all the more horrific because it is institutionalised.

Most of the debates within modern Athenian polities are debates over the relative extent of redistribution and welfare. Virtually all modern Athenians agree with this form of theft—they argue only over the extent of the lawbreaking. Some want more, some want less. All agree, however, that to some extent, this form of theft is justified. In principle advocates of such malformed policies could not object to a poor private citizen walking into a wealthy neighbour's house and demanding money at the point of a gun. There is an old saw where a woman is asked whether she would be willing to have sexual relations with a complete stranger for a hundred million dollars, and when the the woman says she would, the conclusion is drawn that the woman is a prostitute in attitude and spirit, and the only variable is the price. In the same way, the advocates of social welfare redistribution are thieves in attitude and spirit—the only debates are over method, extent and administration—that is, over the right “way” to steal, and how much.

Modern western democracies are communities built upon widespread institutionalised theft. The fact that such institutions of theft are now imbedded into national life and the fact that the vast majority of people want it that way, does not in any way make it less a violation of the eighth commandment.

The tenth commandment forbids the coveting of a neighbour's property. Coveting is the attitude (and subsequent actions) of wanting and desiring your neighbour's goods. The covetous appetite can be temporarily satiated in one of two ways: either the neighbour loses his property to someone else, or I outstrip my neighbour in wealth, making him of less concern. Either way, the covetous spirit is satisfied for a time because covetousness believes that the advantage of my neighbour is a threat and a disadvantage to me.

This is why most people feel really good about redistributive taxation. It is not only institutionalised theft, it is also institutionalised covetousness. The “wealthy” are getting their comeuppance, as it were. They are an implicit threat, and need to be taken down a peg or two. Serves them right. It is only “just” that they be made to pay. This explains why people who receive welfare often feel vindicated and justified. They believe they are contributing to the good of society and by taking welfare represent a social good. Serves “them” right; good on me!

The covetous spirit explains that while the vast majority of people would be better off with no redistributive taxation whatsoever they would rather keep the system and participate and support it because it makes them feel better.

This institutionalised theft and covetousness of western societies is a relatively recent phenomenon. It is something which has come into vogue only in the past one hundred and fifty years. Now, it is so entrenched that most people could not conceive of life and society without it. It will only get worse, for covetousness is never ultimately satiated and if you can steal “legally” and get away with it, why would you not. Rational decision making leads one to prefer a system where one can be paid for doing nothing over one which requires work and effort. This is why the West will ultimately fade away into economic decline and lassitude.

This bars of the prison of institutionalised theft and covetousness intrinsic to all policies of state welfare redistribution will not be broken until society returns again to the Ten Commandments as the ground of all law and social policy. And that will not happen until society itself returns to the God who created the heavens and the earth, and whose Law the Ten Commandments are.

But in the meantime, Jerusalem has an urgent duty to call all its citizens to obey faithfully all of the commandments—especially the eighth and the tenth. For if we, the Lord's people, do not fear God and put away theft and covetousness in all our dealings, how will the nations repent. We must decry all attempts to do God's work using the Devil's means. God is not served by our stealing and our coveting.