{"id":10069,"date":"2017-04-27T12:28:24","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T16:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/?p=10069"},"modified":"2017-04-27T19:44:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T23:44:40","slug":"why-are-you-stealing-from-the-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/why-are-you-stealing-from-the-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are you stealing from the poor?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Not long ago I was contacted by someone at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research in Collegeville, Minnesota who invited me to become a regular contributor to\u00a0Bearings Online<\/em>, the Institute\u2019s online publication. \"006\"I spent a sabbatical semester at the Institute in the spring of 2009, four months that changed my life in many ways. Contributors are invited to write about \u201csomething that\u2019s caught your attention in American culture; something on the international scene; a development in the church or the theological world; a book or a movie (good, or significantly bad) that you think deserves comment; a person or event we should know about; or simply something that you\u2019ve been thinking about.\u201d Just about anything goes, in other words\u2013exactly my kind of assignment!<\/p>\n

As I considered\u00a0what I might want to contribute first, I immediately thought\u2013as I usually do\u2013about what has been going on in my classrooms recently. All of my courses occur in the atmosphere of lived commitments\u2013how does one take this academic topic and move it into daily life? How, for instance, is a person of faith to live out her commitments in a secular world that frequently does not accommodate them? More specifically, how does (or how should) one\u2019s faith shape one\u2019s thinking and actions about economics, property ownership, and the distribution of scarce resources? In a class with eighteen freshmen, our text was from a medieval monk who asked \u201cIs it lawful to steal through stress of need?\u201d My\u00a0Bearings Online\u00a0<\/em>article, just published today, picks up the discussion. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

The Hungry Person\u2019s Bread<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n