ANTHONY BROOKS: Bible does not promote socialism

Mr. Garner claims that the Bible and especially the New Testament promote socialism. He is wrong. All the sharing was done directly by the Christians to fellow Christians who were in need. Nowhere did they hand their possessions over to a government department, which took out 80 percent to cover salaries, benefits and pensions before doling the remainder out to a chosen few, most whom neither deserved nor needed the handout — think farm subsidies, education and food stamps for the idle and illegal aliens.

In Matthew 20: 1-16, the farmer pays each laborer a denarius, despite the fact that they had not all worked the same length of time. How much the owner paid was his decision, not the government’s. No doubt, Mr. Garner would not complain if he was paid the same amount to work eight hours whilst his fellow government-employee worked one hour. I suppose if part-time employees were paid a full-time salary, we would all work half-days and there would be no unemployment. I could become a government consultant with ideas like that!

Any references to the government in the Bible point to it being there to protect the law-abiding, punish villains and protect the nation from invaders. It was not intended to be responsible for redistributing the wealth of workers, nor was it meant to be a massive organization providing employment and benefits to masses of people whose skills (for the most part) would be redundant in the private sector.

Perhaps Mr.Garner could explain why government employees get better salaries and benefits than the taxpayers? Not very socialist, I must say.

ANTHONY BROOKS

Leesburg