On Robin Hood and St. Paul

Recently my wife and I purchased Walt Disney’s ‘Robin Hood’ for our sons. The boys have thoroughly enjoyed watching it, as I did last Saturday. It’s good for the boys to learn something of the history of England, particularly the harsh taxation under Prince John (he of Magna Carta fame), and that Richard the Lionheart was away on the crusades during the alleged time of Robin Hood’s highwayman ways.

But I found myself grappling with a moral issue. In the movie, as in the books, Robin Hood is always presented as an hero. He was standing up for the little guy, redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. But at the end of the day, one can’t get away from the fact that he was a thief.

Against that, we see that Prince John was also a thief. He taxed the people so heavily that they barely had enough money to buy their own food. The difference between Prince John and Robin Hood seems to come down to little more than one of them (John) plundering the population legally (legalised plunder), and one of them (Robin) plundering the population illegally (illegal plunder).

Ironically this seems to feed into the current debate going on outside St. Paul’s Cathedral. Many bankers are well paid – probably over-paid (although the same might be said of civil servants and football players). For them the lesson is ‘You cannot serve both God and Mammon’ and ‘How difficult it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.’

But I have little sympathy for the ‘occupiers’ at St. Paul’s. They need to learn the lesson that ‘you will always have the poor with you, and you can help them whenever you want.’ (Mark 14:7) The communists and socialists who are protesting outside St. Paul’s would have much greater moral authority if they could demonstrate that they are being generous to the poor with their own money. So often people claim to be speaking for the ‘poor’ (whoever they are), and are urging for higher taxes (just like Prince John), so that those who are working hard for what they have can be taxed all the more, while many lazy, fraudulent people are simply living off benefits. It is a tragedy that outside St. Paul’s people are not listening to something the apostle wrote:

2Th. 3:10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”

2Th. 3:11 We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. 12 Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.

Thanks for stopping by.