Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

I don’t usually expect to write on matters of arts and culture, except when they have something to teach us about the main problems in our world. 

But sometimes cultural happenings and discussions become so popular that you find yourself as an unexpected commenter on something that has blown up almost overnight. And these fresh issues and debates provide new ground for illustrating the problems with different worldviews and systems. 

In this case, a viral song by the just-yesterday-unknown YouTube songwriter, Oliver Anthony, which has seen a rather unprecedented leap into the hands of millions across the world, somehow ascending to the Billboard chart’s number one spot (a record for a previously non-charting artist) and dethroning the false idols of popular music who want you thinking about whiskey and women.

It has generated both positive and critical reception among virtually all the big-name news outlets at this point, all in a matter of a week. (See here, here, here, and here for examples of the widespread attention it has attained)

My interest, however, is not so much in the song as it is in a critical article by Christian Today writer Hannah Anderson, who blasts the song as “not loving its neighbors” (a primary commandment and moral principle of Christianity) over its “disdainful” lyrics regarding tax-funded food programs. 

A handful of articles have already snapped back at this response from Christianity Today, which now seems more or less dead to anyone (see here, here, here, here, here, and here). Things are looking very Babylonian over that way these days. 

But it’s still worthy to comment on the central lie spun in that “Christian” think-piece because it gives us an opportunity to address which system—voluntary charity or state force—is conducive to the ethics of Christianity and actually helping the hungry, so that we can assert whether one or the other is “loving your neighbor” or not. 

Regardless of this artist’s success or the nature of the song, we have a chance to show the fallacious representation of God’s system of welfare by a writer at a major “Christian” outlet. 

The song, however, is generating a real stir, and the benefit-of-doubt guess as to what has happened is that a song has finally gotten out there that terrifies the elites! And, realizing the threat, they’re now scrambling to write long articles picking apart a song recorded by some dude in the woods. 

But, I don’t want to hang this article on the song in question, its quality, or how it exploded on the scene as it has done. This should hopefully stand apart from all that. 

The god-state and its false salvation

We will see that there is everything wrong with Hannah Anderson’s claim that supporting food stamps is the means of loving your neighbor, whether the test is scriptural or economic. 

Though she pretends to be just another compassionate socialist who says state food programs are essential to feeding the poor and to loving your neighbors, it is quickly apparent, once she starts going on about the greatness of government programs in her article, that she is offended not because of a lack of empathy for the poor but because her god—Egypt and its food program—is being attacked in the song. 

As another article already correctly put it, the crime of this anthem-singer is not being unloving to his neighbors, but “failing to worship the welfare state.”

Her article appears as a rush to defend her false God, the State — more specifically here, Pharaoh’s food program. 

What these people don’t like is seeing their false-god system crumbling before their eyes, and men (rightly so) kicking it on its way down and potentially hastening its decline. So the song is criticized as running afoul of basic Christian principles, all while her article is nothing more than a defense of Egypt. 

Against the scriptures, she teaches that it’s Pharaoh, not God, who feeds — that it’s safe to trust in Egypt for food!

God teaches the exact opposite: That trusting in Pharaohs—and chariots, horsemen, and expensive state militaries—for your safety and sustenance is not only against God, but brings judgment upon those who are foolish enough to build up kings in the belief that “law and order” (and food) will come from men. 

“Look now, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him” (II Kings 18:21). 

According to Anderson, though, Pharaoh doesn’t pierce hands when men trust in him; he puts food in them and takes care of his people!

The alleged “greatness” of Egypt

Anderson’s criticism of the viral song is not just that it was too harsh or unpleasant to the poor, in which case she could have stopped there. She is a True Believer in Pharaoh’s food program, reporting to us that it “serves nearly 42 million Americans (13 percent of the population) at risk of food insecurity.” 

She actually thinks Pharaoh’s food program is how men get fed when God says that socialization of society (i.e., Pharaoh taking over food production and distribution) is precisely how you get famines.

As the prophet said,

“All the men who set their mind to go to Egypt to reside there will die by the sword, by famine and by pestilence; and they will have no survivors or refugees from the calamity that I am going to bring on them” (Jeremiah 42:17).

Rather than point out that we’ve all been made insecure and relatively impoverished precisely to fund Egypt, she thinks Pharaoh’s food aid to be “a major line of defense against food insecurity in this country.” 

But she tries to downplay the violence of government by acting like it’s some “bipartisan” issue that everyone should approve of — ‘C’mon, the sword is being used to feed people…don’t you care about hunger? Do you hate poor people?’

As she says, “Though we may differ in our political preferences, we can love our neighbors as we love ourselves.” — ‘Can’t we all just set our differences aside and agree that imposing statist schemes is loving?’

Again, it is not loving your neighbors to take from A and give to B; this is violence against your neighbors. 

She has misrepresented the Lord’s commandment and perverted it into the opposite: ‘Loving your neighbors is using violence against them.’

The distortions

It is worthy to comment on this article because it demonstrates a great trick of the devil. They never abandon the language of God; they do not part with the words of the commandment to “love your neighbor.” But they pervert it into something else. “Love your neighbor” becomes “rob them with Pharaoh’s footmen and give me some of his property.”

What we have here then is a perfect twisting of the truth: The principle of loving your neighbor is made to justify violence, and anyone who isn’t for the state violence is said to not love their neighbor! This is the trick of her article. 

In the classic statist fallacy that assumes we want the poor to perish because we don’t want Pharaoh to care for the people, we are told that opposition to statist welfare is equivalent to opposing the poor.

“You don’t believe in the State providing X, so therefore you don’t believe in anyone having X.”

To oppose the State—forcibly provided goods and services funded through theft from others—is not the same thing as opposing what the State ostensibly does with its monopoly control and governmental programs (e.g., help the poor). 

But there are not many different ways of looking at this issue. Either (1) A helps B himself, as in the society of voluntary charity; or (2) A asks S (the State) to take from C to help B, as in the system of state welfare. 

These are the only two options. And only (1) the former is compatible with the ethics of God and the love of neighbor; introducing (2) violence is not. 

Her political theology is thus entirely backward. Loving your neighbors is not imposing a State upon them, but helping them yourself out of your own free will. 

God says that men sin, not when they call for an end to Pharaoh’s food program, but precisely when they use the sword of the State against their neighbors, i.e., when they impose taxes, arbitrary “laws,” and man-made systems and schemes upon others. It is to trust in kings, as our “Christian” author does, that is addressed as sin in the scriptures.  (“Your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for a king” – I Samuel 12:17).

But she has also confused things for basic economic reasons that such programs don’t actually create new wealth or do anything to help people; they merely (2) take from one and give to another.

She has simply assumed that the poor are helped by the government and that to oppose the government is, therefore, to oppose the poor.

This is the fallacious reasoning of all statists who think that opposing monopoly policing, schooling, etc., means that one believes people should be left without those things. “You’re against government schools? So you just want the kids to be stupid?” 

Hence, she can claim that to bash food stamps is to not love your neighbor.

Hannah has not proven that someone hates their neighbors for opposing violently-provided food, because such a thing neither helps the poor nor can be reconciled by Christian ethics. But she has proven she doesn’t love her neighbor for supporting it, since its means are violence. 

The State is not just “the people” doing things for each other, which would allow someone like Hannah to think that opposing the state is “the people” abandoning their brothers; it is, rather, a gang of rulers robbing some individuals and transferring property to others. 

A little history

To make “love your neighbor” synonymous with “state programs” is a great twisting of scripture and reality, yet it is one that is popular under the “progressivism” that has also invaded “Christian” thought. 

This is different than before. As one theologian, Samuel Gregg, said:

“The early Christians didn’t imagine that lobbying Roman senators to implement welfare programs was the way to love their neighbor. Instead, to the pagan world’s amazement, the early Christians…helped anyone in need in very direct, practical ways….The early Christians went out of their way to personally care for the poor, the incurably-sick, and the disabled…Moreover, the Christians undertook such activities at their own expense, and often put their own lives at risk. When plagues came and everyone else fled, Christians generally stayed behind, refusing to abandon those in distress, regardless of their religion.”

All this has changed today. It is common for people calling themselves Christians to praise the welfare state now (and to get mad when people don’t!). 

As Gregg went on, 

“For the past 80 years, many Christians have simply assumed they should support large welfare states. In Europe, Christian Democrats played a significant role in designing the social security systems that have helped bankrupt countries like Portugal and Greece. Some Christians have also proved remarkably unwilling to acknowledge welfarism’s well-documented social and economic dysfunctionalities.”

Those who call themselves Christians aren’t what they used to be. 

He continues, 

“[For liberal Christians over the past 40 years], the essence of the Gospel has steadily collapsed…into schemes for state-driven wealth redistributions and promoting politically-correct causes.”

This helps to explain how there are all these supposedly “Christian” writers today like Hannah Anderson who use God to defend socialism. 

Our age has gotten away from the real boots-on-the-ground Christianity that knew you had to take care of your brothers on your own, not sit back and trust in Pharaoh to do it for you. 

She has not seen that the conflicts between the two types of welfare—the voluntary, Christian method or the violence of Caesar—have been a conflict that was not insignificant to Christian history. 

As one Brother Gregory said, 

“The Christian conflict with Rome in the first century Church appointed by Christ was because they would not apply to the fathers of the earth for their free bread but instead relied upon a voluntary network providing a daily ministration to the needy of society through Faith, Hope, and Charity by way of freewill offerings of the people, for the people, and by the people through the perfect law of liberty in Free Assemblies.”

Anderson apparently doesn’t see (or distorts) the distinction between voluntary Christian charity and state violence, nor the history of the Christian method vs. others. 

As another source mentions, 

“Poor relief funded by voluntary contributions originated in early Christianity. Roman paganism did not practice poor relief; post‐exilic Judaism practiced poor relief funded by mandatory contributions; early Christianity introduced poor relief on a voluntary basis.”

Today, we have “Christians” like Hannah Anderson telling people to get their bread from Caesar! She doesn’t teach her people that Pharaoh’s food programs are “covetous practices” (2 Peter 2:14), but that they actually feed people. She thinks Pharaoh’s food stamps are the method of Christian charity. 

Covetous socialists like Anderson are never able to discern between voluntary charity and state force, or that opposing the latter does not mean forgoing the former. 

Hannah Anderson is a false prophet

Anyone who tells us to trust in Pharaoh for our food is either one of his court prophets or a fool who believes in the lies. At any rate, they’re wrong. 

The prophets teach something else: That all Egyptian societies get destroyed by God for their own devices. 

Anderson, for instructing her readers (many who will fall for it) in the opposite of what is taught in the scriptures, would seem to be an intentional perverter (Though, sin is strong, and she may just be a fool). 

It is not hating your neighbor to oppose food stamps and other government schemes based on violence, but rather the very support of such programs put on by Pharaoh for nefarious purposes, and which don’t help the poor anyway. 

Like all false prophets, Anderson tries to hide what the scriptures (and also what the song and songster) have pointed out, that we’re indeed being robbed by “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

As the prophets always observed of our statist societies, 

“The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully” (Ezekiel 22:29). 

Ezekiel tells us that it has been robbing the poor that is the problem. Hannah, however, tries to tell another story where our problem is not robbery, but not enough robbery (and people saying mean things about it) to fund the various schemes of Pharaoh. 

But Anderson is over here prophesying lies for Pharaoh’s political programs that he funds through violence. She is leading men away from God and telling them to trust in Pharaoh — just as the word of God tells us ungodly men do.

“They set out to go down to Egypt without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shade” (Isaiah 30:2).

Getting our people off welfare

The Christian response to people on government welfare—contra Anderson who falsely prophesies the wonders of Pharaoh’s program and the need to keep it going—should be to get them off it and to replace violent government “aid” (carried out in the plan for “total control” more than some benevolent desire to help people) with voluntary charity. 

The “principles” on which things like “food stamps” operate open the door for plunder, not for helping people. 

As someone once said,

“When a self-governing people confer upon their government the power to take from some and give to others, the process will not stop until the last bone of the last taxpayer is picked bare.”

Government welfare (as the song she criticized alludes) weakens the poor — and it was intended to do so. It makes them dependent on Egypt, and it gives Pharaoh some new followers (“Christians” like Hannah Anderson among them). 

In defending the need for Pharaoh to feed people, she is only calling for the system of plunder we live under today. 

Rather than speak of a need to put governance back in the hands of the people, which is carried out through voluntary and private charity (the real system of loving your neighbors), Anderson commends Pharaoh’s food program as doing a fine job at caring for our brethren!

Rather than speak of this needed change from state welfare to voluntary Christian charity, which has to occur one day anyway when Pharaoh’s system goes bust, Anderson criticized Anthony for his alleged insensitivity to the poor. 

She doesn’t even point out the main problem: That our people have neglected their duty to feed their neighbors and passed off the responsibility to men hundreds of miles from the social concerns needing to be addressed.

If we don’t feed our people, Pharaoh will be glad to do it — and not because he loves them, but because he gains dependents and supporters for his kingdom.

But Anderson doesn’t just fail to mention that Egyptian bread systems are the opposite of God’s community of private charity; she positively endorses the former system as “loving your neighbor.”

It indeed shows just how much we have all failed in our duty to love our neighbors that “food stamps” are ever a thing in the first place, and that Hannah can think, “I had no choice but to access subsidies.”

According to the word of God, trusting in state systems is one of the most foolish and sinful things a man can do. Mrs. Anderson is foolish to have put her faith in this false god which doesn’t feed. 

“Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and the refuge of Egypt’s shade your disgrace” (Isaiah 30:3)

What we should see instead is that they were caught in one of Caesar’s snares. Pharaoh sets up his trap by putting out some bread, the needy bite it, and they become stuck in Egypt. 

Anderson vs. the Scriptures

It wouldn’t be right to neglect that such a system as defended by our “Christian” author here cannot even pass a check by the Ten Commandments, which surely is precursory to even speaking of its viability or alleged need. 

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17). 

But there are many other scriptures referring to the very acts of state rulers handing out property to buy favors and support from people (which worked on Hannah). 

In scriptural terms, people like Hannah who give into Pharaoh’s food offerings have already slit their own throats, i.e., have sealed their own fate of being destroyed by the sword (and famines, wars, etc) for having chosen the means of violence as one’s way of supplying food to the people. 

As we are wisely warned, 

“When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat” (Proverbs 23:1-3). 

“Diligently” — We ought to have discernment for everything going on before us, and not naive acceptance for everything presented to us as “poor aid.”

“What is before thee” — A bunch of traps. Pharaoh robs people and then gives the men to men who will do his bidding for him (e.g., write propaganda pieces for major so-called “Christian” media organizations). Men need to use their eyes. 

“If thou be given to appetite” — Many men are willing to eat from Pharaoh’s hand easily, without question of what is at stake, i.e., without caring that Pharaoh’s food program is funded through violence and political slavery and that such a system of rule is what’s at stake for choosing this method of feeding people over the free and voluntary method. Behind all those “packs of fudge rounds” is a sword. 

“Be not desirous” — We shouldn’t even want to touch Pharaoh’s bread, much less put it in our mouths. So what could Hannah be talking about anyway? Even without suggesting that it’s a trap, a snare for the righteous, or even based in theft and violence, we could still oppose taking state gifts (which were stolen) on the basic grounds of not being envious of others’ property. 

“Deceitful meat” — But, it is a trap. Pharaoh robs people and hands out food to them (with many other goodies and incomes), and people line up to serve him and live a better life than they think they would if they accepted the Lord’s instruction to be humble, meek, lowly, and trust in God to save us. 

It is not hard to see in the scriptures that there are men in our world who conspire to get everyone to join their plunder collective (i.e., “government) by telling everyone they will be beneficiaries.

“My son, if sinners entice you, do not yield to them. If they say, ‘Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause, let us swallow them alive like Sheol, and whole like those descending into the Pit. We will find all manner of precious goods; we will fill our houses with plunder. Throw in your lot with us; let us all share one purse’— my son, do not walk the road with them or set foot upon their path. For their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed blood. How futile it is to spread the net where any bird can see it! But they lie in wait for their own blood; they ambush their own lives. Such is the fate of all who are greedy, whose unjust gain takes the lives of its possessors” (Proverbs 1:10-19). 

Anderson says, rather, “My son, if Pharaoh tempts thee with bread, take it, even if it requires associating with violent psychopaths who call themselves ‘government,’ for it is good bread, and it feeds people forever.”

She is telling people to fall for the political scheme of making “the people” think they benefit for its hands-outs all while erecting a system of slavery. 

The word of God is clear: Loving your neighbor means, not a social system of legal plunder and political coercion, but the ethics of peace and voluntary cooperation.

As the Apostle Paul said, 

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:13-15). 

Unlike Anderson who tells us of its “greatness,” Paul knew that If you start a system of welfare based on robbery, you will be “consumed by one another.”

Contra Anderson, who tells us that food comes from Pharaohs and their political programs, the scriptures teach that our “basket and kneading bowl will be blessed” (Deut 28:5) when we “obey the voice of the LORD your God” (v. 2).

Abundance comes from God, not Pharaohs…who only plunder production and property. If you want enough wheat to make bread to feed people, you better obey God, i.e., avoid erecting Egyptian social systems that feed people with the sword.

“The LORD will decree a blessing on your barns and on everything to which you put your hand; the LORD your God will bless you in the land He is giving you” (Deuteronomy 28:8).

The blessings of God come upon those who obey His way (i.e., those who forgo the robbery of their neighbors through political false gods and follow the Lord as their God).

“The LORD will make you prosper abundantly—in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land—in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands” (Deuteronomy 28:11-12).

Far from our people not getting fed if it weren’t for Pharaoh’s programs, God sends curses precisely upon those who trust in Pharaohs to feed them, which is to say, those who don’t trust God.

This is how war, famine, slavery, invasion, depressions, corruption, moral decay, degeneracy, shortages, plagues (real or engineered), etc., come upon men.

“Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance, you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you. The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand, a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young. They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish. They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you.” (Deuteronomy 28:47-52).

The real enemy

It already seems as if armies of Pharaoh’s wisemen have come out to distract people and make them look toward “mean right-wingers” who say bad things about Pharaoh’s food programs, instead of the Egyptian captivity. 

But the men who are preying on us to take us for a plunder—the central narrative of the song in question that has elites and their servants triggered—are precisely the political rulers who, through their collectivist propaganda, trick men into supporting statist plunder by claiming that it’s for the benefit of “the people.” 

But Hannah Anderson has turned this all around and tells her readers that Pharaoh’s programs really are beneficial to “the people” — that he’s not a liar, as the scriptures tell us. She has come to say, like everyone else, that Egypt is working just fine.  

Anthony said in his song why people can’t afford to eat.

“‘Cause your dollar ain’t s—, and it’s taxed to no end.” 

But rather than point out that we’ve been made poor due to being forced to fund Egypt through taxes and monetary inflation, and that being robbed of our production and value of our money by Pharaoh and his horsemen has meant to give up meals for chariots and riders, we are told that Pharaoh has done an awesome job in taking care of the poor!

She had done nothing to warn people of the schemes of men, as the word of God spends basically all its time doing.

Pharaoh is begging to feed people

As we have seen in the Proverbs quotes, her view also lacks discernment for what is going on when rulers lay food out on the table and men start lining up for the scraps. 

The State wants to feed and protect because managing such formerly private matters is a way for the rulers to gain importance in society (so much so that even a “Christian” like Hannah will leap to their defense as the indispensable aids to social welfare). 

As Lawrence Reed said in his article, “On the Fall of Rome and Modern Parallels,”

“In Rome, the emperors were buying support with the people’s own money. After all, the government can give only what it first takes. The emperors, in dishing out all these goodies, were in a position to manipulate public opinion.”

The state gets involved in poor aid not because they care about the poor, but because the State is always attempting to substitute itself for the kingdom of God. They want to remove responsibilities from private hands and make them “public.” 

The plunderers use their booty to entice men into joining with them, and Hannah is another person who has been purchased and made merchandise by another scheme of Egypt. 

Pharaoh doesn’t want people feeding themselves, or protecting themselves and saying they don’t need his chariots and horsemen, for then there is no (alleged) need for Pharaohs. 

Rulers realize they can earn supporters (Hannah Anderson among them) when they steal from some people and give to others. They realize that “many will intreat the favor of the prince, and every man [is] a friend to him that giveth gifts” (Proverbs 19:6). 

This is one of the power elites’ traps. Those who choose the sword get entangled in Babylonian systems that consume them. The psalmists would even wish God to take out this enemy. As David said, 

“Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap” (Psalm 69:22). 

Conclusion

We see that the whole picture of loving your neighbor as presented in the Christianity Today article is nothing less than deceitful. It attempts to guilt people for not loving their neighbor and for not giving in to the false gods and violence of the author.

Indeed, the truth is the opposite of what that article teaches: The means of loving your neighbor was always opposing these systems. 

The commandment to care for the poor and love our neighbors is not to be fulfilled through state violence; this is legalized theft that, in fact, violates the commandment. 

We can surely oppose “food stamps” without forsaking our neighbor, then, since ending government control does not amount to ending private aid or ending something that truly helped anyone. 

But we cannot support government programs like food stamps without forsaking our neighbor, since all government is based on force and violence…against our neighbors.

Prayer

Lord, we can’t do without you. Our people think Egypt is Israel and Israel is Egypt. They think their political plunder societies bring “freedom” and that Your kingdom is chaos. They think Pharaoh’s bread is your way of feeding people. It hurts me so bad. Make those with eyes, to see, and those with ears, to hear, and keep working on men in this world and restore. Be with us again. Heal our people. Restore our society. Our people are still trusting in Pharaohs to feed and protect, who have us in great bondage, but we trust in you. “Give us aid against the enemy, for the help of man is worthless” (Psalm 108:12). Amen.