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Diary of a (Maybe) Retired Pastor

Tag: bible and society

  • Hostile Environment

    mayberetiredpastor

    Hostile Environment

    5 For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.

    2 Peter 1:5-7 New Testament, The Bible

    Recently, BBC News ran an article highlighting the struggles some people have had to prove their British citizenship even though they had lived in the UK all their lives and their parents were British Citizens (1). One man was happily employed in a well-paying job but on applying for his passport for a trip abroad he was suddenly told he was not a citizen and had no right to live and work in the UK. His employer had no choice but to sack him and he spent years in the wilderness having no official status, becoming homeless and severely depressed. It has taken years for his citizenship to be acknowledged and he has been left still traumatised by his experience. Other examples were given. Despite all the fanfare surrounding the “Windrush Generation” and how the Home Office would put right the unfairness suffered by that generation, their children and others still suffer. They suffer because of the “hostile environment” culture put in place at the Home Office by the then Home Secretary, and subsequently Prime Minister, Theresa May. The “hostile environment” means that instead of assisting applicants to determine their status the Home Office makes it as difficult as possible in the hope that people will give-up and leave the UK so “helping” to make the immigration numbers look “better”.

    The Bible passage quoted above would be familiar to most Christians who would generally seek to apply them to their lives as individual human beings. This is good as far as it goes, but the message of the gospel means that virtues such as these are not intended to be confined to a person’s private, religious life. They are intended to spill out of the individual and to shape society. Consequently, Christians seek to shape society so that it exhibits goodness, knowledge, love etc. The Bible is perfectly clear about the treatment of foreigners and immigrants. God defends their cause and we are to love them (Deuteronomy 10:17-19, Old Testament, The Bible).

    Theresa May is well-known as the daughter of a Church of England minister and has publicly stated that she is a Christian (2). It is difficult to understand, then, how she could have thought it was godly and Christian deliberately to develop a culture of hostility in the Home Office. We often bemoan the state of our society and the world in general, but if Christians, particularly those with worldly influence, ignore or refuse to seek to embed the virtues of the Bible into our culture and do the exact opposite we have no right to complain.

    We must not confuse virtues with issues. Issues are the matters of policy – gay marriage, assisted dying, immigration etc. – virtues are about the kind of society we want to be, it’s fundamental culture – goodness, gentleness, mercy, honesty etc. Christians may differ and divide over issues but about virtues we should be of one mind and heart.

    Christians say they desire to see God’s Kingdom come. When we  support or even promote a culture antithetical to biblical virtues we work against the Kingdom and betray our King.

    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa_May
    2. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93lzl1vpeqo

  • The Most Hated Tax

    mayberetiredpastor

    The Most Hated Tax

    25 If anyone of your kin falls into difficulty and sells a piece of property, then the next-of-kin shall come and redeem what the relative has sold ….  28 But if there are not sufficient means to recover it, what was sold shall remain with the purchaser until the year of jubilee; in the jubilee it shall be released, and the property shall be returned.

    Leviticus 25;25-28 The Old Testament

    The most hated tax in the UK is, it seems, inheritance tax (or, estate duty). This is the tax paid on the inheritance passed on by parents to their children. The success of the right wing media in embedding this antipathy amongst the general population is impressive and rests on the narrative that the inheritance we pass on is the result of the hard work of the parents over their working lives. It’s their property. It feels like legalised robbery. What is never emphasised is that the majority of people will not have to pay any inheritance tax because no tax is payable below £325,000 (or £500,000 if you pass your home on to your children). Only those who have more than this when they die will have to pay any tax. The majority of people do not have this kind inheritance to pass on. What is also never said is that inheritance tax is one of the most effective ways in ensuring that extreme wealth is released into the wider economy rather than being hoarded by a small minority. It is the reason why the power and privilege of the aristocracy was broken in the last century thus enabling general living standards to rise and promoting a more equal society.

    The year of the Jubilee (referenced above) is usually treated as an interesting but obscure provision in the Bible for the ancient people of Israel. Every 50 years, any land purchased had to be returned in its entirety to the original owners. Wealth accumulated by the minority could not be held in perpetuity and passed on to their descendants – it had to be redistributed back to the people. It was, in essence, a 100% inheritance tax! The wealth of the land was to be equally shared so that every Israelite had the opportunity to prosper.

    By and large, Christians are just as antipathetic to tax, inheritance tax in particular, as the general population. But the law of the Jubilee challenges that antipathy. If you are a Christian who professes to take the Bible seriously, and believes that its provisions are relevant to today’s society, then the law of the Jubilee should give you pause for thought: Should you reevaluate your antipathy towards inheritance tax?   It is not simply an effective tax it is a divinely ordained tax and its presence as part of our taxation system should be welcomed as an example of kingdom ethics at work in our modern society.

    The Jubilee law is part of the Holiness Code in Leviticus. It begins with the call to be holy because God is holy (1). Christians are called to reflect God’s character not only in their personal lives but also in the society that they build. The UK Chancellor will very shortly present the first budget of the new government. It is widely anticipated that changes to inheritance tax to raise more income to fund essential public services will be included. How will Christians respond? Will we raise our voices in complaint at more taxes and threaten to leave the country, or will we welcome the alignment of public policy with biblical values and the greater reflection of God’s character in society?

    1. Leviticus 19:1-2