Our brother’s keeper

Sir, In Genesis Cain asks God, “Am I my brothers keeper,” and does not get a reply. But the whole thrust of the Bible is surely to say, “Yes indeed we are our brother’s and sister’s keepers and will be held responsible for what happens to them.”

In the Old Testament we are to “Look after the widow and the orphan and the foreigner,” and to “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

The widow and orphan and foreigners were the poorest people in society and surely loving your neighbour as yourself includes wanting the same good things for your neighbour as you yourself have?

Then in the New Testament John the Baptist tells the crowd that anyone who has two shirts should share with one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.

And Jesus goes much further: He tells the rich young ruler to give all he has to the poor and commends the poor widow who gave all she had.

Now you may think this has nothing to do with tax but Jesus also told the people to give to Caesar what was Caesar’s and shared table fellowship with the hated tax collectors. Jesus believed in Society, and Paul also tells the believers to be good citizens and pay their taxes.

So is asking the wealthy citizens to pay half their earnings so that the poor can be fed and the sick and disabled looked after really daylight robbery as Andrew Carey suggests or is it only fair and just that they should do so?

The Psalmists say that, “The Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,” and so we cannot claim anything of our own. Rather all that we have is given us by God, not for our own selfish use but so we may use it for the good of others.

And if we want to convert England this is what we need to do. It was when St Francis took the gospel seriously and gave away all he had that the church, which at that time was dying, was revived.

Whilst rich and not quite so rich but still pretty well-off Christians hang on to their wealth and accuse the poor and those who care about them of covetousness we will never convert the heathen who often know the Bible quite well and see only too clearly that Christians do not live by the gospel they proclaim.

Jillian Beresford,

Leicestershire