Toronto Archbishop Colin Johnson ate out of a food bank for three days to make a point to the Ontario government. I’m not convinced he made much of a point other than that Archbishops have little better to do than indulge in temporary play-act poverty before returning to the comfort of their Pâté de Foie Gras, Chardonnay and lattes.
The point he wanted to make has nothing to do with Christianity: he thinks it is the government’s responsibility to create a “just” society by redistributing wealth through taxation. He is entitled to his opinions however wrong headed; what he is not entitled to do is dignify them with the stamp of approval of the church – even the Anglican Church.
From here (Page 4):
Foodbanks were created by churches and others to deal with the crisis of people in our province going hungry. That was a quarter of a century ago. It was meant to be a temporary relief, but it has tragically become an expanding social safety net. We should not rely on the generosity of a small percentage of folk to voluntarily provide food and labour, nor on the largesse of a few companies.
Poverty has an impact on the whole community. It is the responsibility of the whole community to deal with poverty through its government’s resources. The government can use its tax base to build a healthy, sustainable strategy to reduce poverty, a strategy where everyone contributes to the solution, not just a motivated few. That’s what a just society is about. In the Old Testament, we read about provisions for leaving the edges of the fields un-harvested so the poor could glean. It wasn’t about encouraging the generosity of an individual farmer; it was a societal injunction that was to govern a society’s responsibilities (Leviticus 19:9; repeated at 23:22; see also Ruth).
The passage from Leviticus is exactly what Johnson claims it isn’t: God’s instruction to individuals on their responsibility to help the poor. It has nothing to do with God giving tax advice to governments.
