Comments on: Thou Shalt Steal After All

By: Blair

Blair — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:09:49 +0000

Evening all,

well, I think I’m with most of you on this one but find myself wondering why Fr Tim didn’t mention Matthew 25:35… or indeed suggest his parishioners offered themselves to the kind of day centres you mentioned, Peter.

Also I think cerebusboy (Ryan?) has a good point about wasted food: I understand that some of the big chains do give surplus food to charities serving the homeless, especially at Christmas, but there’s a wider challenge here to all of us about the amount of food (and packaging) we waste, isn’t there? We take the earth’s abundance for granted then squander it…

in friendship, Blair

By: Peter Ould

Peter Ould — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:14:01 +0000

Thanks for the comments so far folks. Heard an interesting piece this lunchtime on FiveLive saying that most major towns in UK have day centres and soup kitchens, so there is little need for hungry to steal for food. Food (as it were) for thought.

I’m with Dave – I wonder how many people are actually really in that position.

By: Dave Rattigan

Dave Rattigan — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:49:52 +0000

I remember an almost-identical story about 14 years ago. I still have the clipping from the Telegraph somewhere at home in England. It was a C of E vicar reported as saying that it’s okay to shoplift from large supermarkets. He was an elderly looking chap, I seem to remember.

I think it’s only common sense that nabbing some food if you’re starving is justified. You’d be dumb to risk your health and even your life to avoid a far lesser evil.

How many people in the West are really at that point is a different question, though.

By: Saul

Saul — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:23:46 +0000

In my Orthodox faith, sin is sin is sin. We don’t differentiate. We don’t give reasons or excuses.

It makes sense to me. How hungry does one have to be to be justified in stealing food? How desperate for clothing to steal? Was Peter justified in denying Christ out of fear of death – the ultimate desperation?

Everyone has their own particular set of passions and trials. It is a bit condescending and damning to tell another that his trials are unbearable.

Condemnation is another issue altogether. As I understand it, we cannot condemn. Only God can. As for judgement, we can judge actions but not people. I can say ‘that is stealing’. And I can say that as a rich or poor man about what a rich or poor man has done.

By: William

William — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:47:59 +0000

I’m reminded of the following passage from the Dutch Catechism:

“In extreme necessity – such as danger of death by hunger, as has been admitted from the most ancient times – one may take other people’s things without asking permission. The earth is so much the common property of all that all have a fundamental right to have as much of it as they need to continue existing on it. ‘Those who are in extreme necessity have the right to provide for themselves from the riches of others’ (Church in the World, no. 69).”

Also of Oscar Wilde’s remark in “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” that ” it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg.”

By: cerebusboy

cerebusboy — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:08:23 +0000

I always found it curious when people condemned ‘situational morality’ as the logical opposite to the God-Revealed kind. If God (unlike humans) sees all then surely He would see the difference between theft on the basis of greed or materialism, and someone stealing bread to feed their family? Yes, shop-lifting is wrong. Perhaps it would have been better for Fr.Tim to invoke the fregan argument? Is it *more* ‘Christian’ to waste such food than to engage in what is still (technically) shoplifting? Hmm.