Seventh Commandment - For the Rich and Poor

Thou shalt not steal.

Therefore they are also called swivel-chair robbers, land- and highway-robbers, not pick-locks and sneak-thieves who snatch away the ready cash, but who sit on the chair [at home] and are styled great noblemen, and honorable, pious citizens, and yet rob and steal under a good pretext.

Yes, here we might be silent about the trifling individual thieves if we were to attack the great, powerful arch-thieves with whom lords and princes keep company, who daily plunder not only a city or two, but all Germany. Yea, where should we place the head and supreme protector of all thieves, the Holy Chair at Rome with all its retinue, which has grabbed by theft the wealth of all the world, and holds it to this day? (The Ten Commandments, #229f., The Large Catechism, Book of Concord)

Nothing has changed. If a ne'er do well comes to church in his scruffy clothes, he is shunned. If the pastor has invited him, the pillars are outraged. If a rich man has built his fortune with sub-standard houses and breaking the law, the seas part as he enters church with his mistress.

When an even richer man has poisoned 250,000 people with tainted food, while giving a fraction of his wealth away, he is praised into heaven. If he has married the wife of his manager, he is granted a Scriptural divorce. Nevertheless, these robber barons have the worst kind of Midas touch. They want everyone to remember the golden era when they first parted with their riches. Instead, their malignant touch brings bankruptcy to the very church bodies they need to feel grateful to them.