Robin Hood Jesus

Rethinking power, justice and the Golden Rule

By Ernie Tai

Robin Hood, the legendary outlaw known for robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, can be seen as a dodgy criminal or a sympathetic hero, depending on your place in the social and economic pecking order.

The good that comes from the Robin Hood character in the stories leaves me, at first, with a sense of completion. Justice is served. The underdog wins, and the oppressor loses. On closer examination, however, my own experiences rarely offer such clean-cut lines.

A wealthy relative once told me, “You know what the golden rule is, Ernie? He who has the gold makes the rules.” That didn’t sit well with me either. For the sake of this discussion, let’s call that Tom’s Golden Rule. At the time, I barely had two nickels to rub together, much less anything 24 karat.

That was both demoralizing and—ironically—stirred hope. Demoralizing, because the rule suggests that those not controlling the levers of our society don’t have a voice. Aspirational, because as long as I believed in the notion of a meritocracy, there was a path—a result of right decisions, actions and alignments—that could one day garner gold and, therefore, a voice of my own.

And so I embraced the belief that everyone had an opportunity to grab the ring of success—gold and the influence that came with it. This seemed like the road worth traveling if we wanted to work for a better world. Or was it?

Application of Tom’s Golden Rule appears to have built empires, nations and systems throughout history. The largest empire on record was the Mongol kingdom under Genghis Khan. At its height, this superpower stretched from the Pacific Ocean to Europe. Through a mix of brutality and brilliance, conquests and alliances, Khan carved out roughly 17% of the earth’s landmass and subjugated an estimated 25% of the world’s population—up to 100 million people out of a global total of about 370 million—with only about two million original followers. Yet in the beginning, his power base was far smaller—just a few hundred warriors and allied families—before decades of conquest swelled his forces into the millions.

Although the spoils of war were distributed among the wealthy ruling class, Khan’s personal fortune is estimated at more than $130 trillion in today’s dollars. That is a lot of gold—and a lot of rule. In the earliest days, one might argue his campaign reflected a kind of Robin Hood impulse: the underdog toppling larger powers. But under Tom’s Golden Rule, such beginnings often evolve. Power begets more power, and soon the aim shifts from righting a perceived imbalance to consolidating wealth and control.

The numbers tell the rest of the story: a small population amassed control of enormous wealth and territory and, in the process, coerced the largest group of cooperators in recorded history. Encyclopedia Britannica estimates that some 40 million people were killed in the name of the Khan empire.

Surely there were those in that world who lived in flourishing wealth. I imagine the keepers of the empire, those who joined in its establishment and those fruitful to its ecosystem were rewarded. No doubt some citizens enjoyed relative peace and prosperity under Mongol rule. This may be a leap of imagination, but I suspect it is part of the historical reality: there were haves and have-nots then too.

A gracious—or perhaps romantic—view of this meteoric rise might acknowledge certain benefits of its systems and powers: sponsoring studies in astronomy, medicine and commercial law; establishing the first known paper currency to make trade more efficient; and creating an advanced postal network with certifications and audits to ensure its health and robustness.

If I were a member of the ruling tribes then, I would likely have a bias toward Tom’s Golden Rule. Imagining what my authority in that time would look like, would I not work to create systems to keep the population fed, “at peace” and orderly? That kind of confirmation bias—the kind I am prone to—might even weave a divine calling into the justification for authority, perhaps to soothe any inner guilt over the murderous fear employed to attain and maintain such order.

And yet, if I were among the lower classes within the Mongol kingdom, I might just as easily feel justified in pushing back against an authoritarian, murderous regime in a Robin Hood fashion—stealing from the rich and powerful to provide for the marginalized and subjugated masses. Is that also not a form of perceived divine mission?

Consider the so-called great empires in history—Israel, Judah, Rome, Great Britain, Persia, Spain, Russia, the various dynastic empires (Han, Qing, Ming), and the United States. An uninhibited look at the record uncovers countless examples of conquest framed as a divine mission—often opposed by adversaries claiming an equally divine mission of their own. Robin Hood underdogs rise to fight the tyranny of so-called evil oppressors, while those oppressors retell the story, redacting inconvenient horrors in service of a “justifiable” conquest in the name of what is right—the right side.

The macroeconomic narrative of these mighty empires often appeals, at least romantically, to the idea that power ultimately serves the good of the good—people like us. Or so it feels to those on our side of the equation. It is the timeless “us-against-them” story.

One of the most enjoyable subjects I’ve studied and practiced is physics—the study of matter, forces and energy. There’s a clean elegance to the way the physical universe works, governed by just a handful of natural laws. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light. Voltage equals resistance times current. I could list more, but that would only confirm my nerd status—which, for now, I’ll let you wonder about. In physics, once you know the rules, you can measure, calculate and predict outcomes with stunning precision.

Business? Empire? Not so much. The levers for “success” are murkier, shifting with markets, moods and whoever happens to be holding the gold. In CEO circles—and especially in Christian CEO circles (my people, by the way)—we look to master-class teachers for principles to live by. Before long, that search for wisdom tends to slide into a search for the formula. And formulas in business aren’t physics—they’re weather forecasts at best.

In the early days of my company, we were less formal. Although hardly anyone uses cash anymore, we kept a petty cash box in a desk with a thousand or two in it, reconciled monthly against receipts for small, last-minute office purchases. Back then, we hardly had reason to lock it up as there wasn’t much to “protect.”

One day, the bookkeeper came to me and said someone had taken exactly $200 from the petty cash box. My first response was surprise; I wouldn’t have expected anyone in our tight little group of entrepreneurs to steal from us. My next response was dread. I hated to think someone among us might be under so much financial strain that they would feel the need to steal just to get by. Was there a Robin Hood in my building? And why?

A friend of mine—a prominent figure in a small Tennessee town—once lamented that the former Black football coach at his hometown university had not gone far enough to invite the establishment, the “village fathers,” to the table to help bridge the racial divide in town. My response at the time was, “I think, as a matter of social protocol, it is people like you and me—those who own the tables—who bear the greatest responsibility to do the inviting.”

As leaders, we own the table. If Tom’s Golden Rule holds any truth, then we are, in large part, the ones making the rules. We hold the capital levers of power, and with them, we have the immediate means to level the playing field for those in our path who have been marginalized.

So here’s the real question: not whether Robin Hood is a hero or a villain but why he exists at all. What’s broken in our world—or in our leadership—that makes someone believe their only choice is to steal? If we look through the lens of Jesus, we see more than the theft. We see the hunger, the injustice, the system that left someone desperate enough to break the law. And harder still: did our own formulas for success help create that pressure—the kind of pressure that would drive a person to take a loaf of bread . . . or petty cash, for that matter?

Let’s also listen with a brave, open heart to what the mirror says back. Does love ask us to do something different—something radical? To rethink how we view our team so that those with less can afford rent, feed a family, send their kids to school with new clothes, pursue advanced degrees or keep a car running?

I know it rubs uncomfortably against the mission to maximize shareholder wealth, but I think it’s the kind of question Jesus would ask Himself every day. After all, He’s the one who said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18).

Surely there are things we can do to ease the strain on those struggling to make ends meet. Of course, it’s not as simple as physics or thermodynamics. There’s uncertainty, competition, the need for a healthy bottom line, unforeseen economic shifts, cash-flow management, force majeure—the list goes on. But if there’s a yacht waiting for us somewhere, a golf club membership, a beach house, a family ski trip, a European vacation, a golden parachute, or a multimillion-dollar stock option, perhaps there’s room to trim the #blessed a little and make space for the lowest-paid person on the team.

Maybe we even decide to forgo some of those luxuries altogether. Who knows? But let’s at least be willing to ask the question in front of the mirror—and listen for what love might be telling us to do for the least in our world. Anything short of “Love your neighbor as yourself” while on the path to success is, arguably, “buffet” Jesus: picking what justifies our agenda and leaving the rest.

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Ernie Tai is an author and speaker on leadership, management and the sacred overlap between work and meaning. In addition to his work in philanthropy, nonprofit work and board directorships, he serves as president and CEO of a global manufacturing company and is a storyteller, teacher and lifelong builder of products, teams and ideas. Ernie holds a patent in microscopy and has helped bring to life everything from molecular biology tech, stem cell tools and diagnostics to motorcycle cup holders. His recent book is Christian Impossible: The Jesus Way to Lead, from which this article is adapted.