Lux Lucet

Over 100 women and girls claimed they were sexually assaulted in the main square of Cologne, Germany during New Year’s Eve festivities.  For the most part, the attackers were reported to have been North African or Middle Eastern in appearance and likely refugees.      

When Jesus rebuked his disciples for arguing about who was the greatest, he made a brilliant contrast between the sort of leadership approved by the world and the sort that finds favor with the world.

All the world, it seems, loves a dictator. As Christ put it, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors’ ” (Luke 22:25). The Greek word translated “benefactors” is euergetes, which just so happened to be a title taken by many kings in antiquity. For example, a third century BC king of Egypt went by the name Ptolemy III Euergetes. Not believing in the Christian principle of doing his good works in private, apparently he wanted everyone to know what a great guy he was.

It seems to me that we have many such individuals in politics today. Not that they take the title “benefactor,” but when you consider their words and their actions, they make it clear that they are eager to be seen in this light.

I was prompted to think about this while considering the mass sexual assaults carried out in Cologne, Germany on New Year’s Eve. Ever eager to play the champions of humanitarianism, German chancellor Angela Merkel and others in her government went out of their way to welcome large numbers of middle-eastern refugees to the country, only to find out that some of them hold a decidedly unchristian view of women

These “benefactors” seem to have boundless compassion on peoples of other nations, all the while holding their own citizens in contempt. For not only have the German people been subjected to the most outrageous sort of criminality, but they are forced to pay for the privilege as well. All those refugees, you see, they come at a cost. And that cost is born by the German taxpayers. As the website of Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior explains,

If the asylum application is accepted, persons granted asylum status and those granted refugee status receive a temporary residence permit and are given the same status as Germans within the social insurance system. They are entitled to social welfare, child benefits, child-raising benefits, integration allowances and language courses as well as other forms of integration assistance.

This sort of thing has the sounds compassionate, but in truth it represents nothing more than the German government stealing money from pockets of its own citizens and giving the loot to foreign refugees, some of whom have utter contempt for the hands that are forced to feed them.

True charity, Christian charity, involves the voluntary giving of one’s own things to another in the name of Christ. Government “charity” means using the power of the state to take one man’s property and transfer it to someone else. It’s what the Bible calls theft. And individuals who hold government office are prohibited from engaging in theft in just the same way as are private citizens.

But hey, running a government “charity’ scam has its upside. After all, if you manage to get really good at it, everyone will call you “benefactor.”