At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord's release has been proclaimed. -Deuteronomy 15:1-2
“If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.” -Exodus 22:25
Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. Leviticus 25:36-37
The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives; Psalm 37:21
There’s been a lot written about the loan forgiveness program recently. Some of it is decent, warranted, experiential, and helpful. Other stuff, not so much. Equating it with atonement theology is fairly abhorrent in my book, but that is mainly because substitutionary atonement makes my theological skin crawl. However, I get the premise of the argument and why it’s so prevalent.
Atonement theology is a big evangelical thing (and sometimes a mainline thing). And, if we can get the evangelicals to understand it (because most of them vote conservative), equate it with their faith propositions, then it only follows they will come to see the light and be more congruent in their faith and life. I seriously doubt it does any good anywhere.
Honestly, nothing logical changes opinions or beliefs quickly. The only sudden belief changes we experience are either through traumas or other significant life-altering events. At those moments, emotions and experiences run so closely together that they shift our worldviews.
That doesn’t mean beliefs can’t change over time. They do, but we can almost always point to a catalyst, and generally memes don’t fall into that category. The biggest (non-traumatic) catalyst for change is relationships and when a meaningful relationship challenges a deeply held belief.
So, post away but don’t expect anything but defensiveness and simple responses in return.
Instead, I want to offer a different perspective and a little meatier faith-based argument. For most people, what I say won’t matter. The cultural American Christian faith is so intertwined with usury (the practice of charging excessive interest), freedom, and capitalism that teasing them apart almost begs for a wider deconstruction of all faith principles.
So, for this instance, I cherry-picked a few of the hundreds of verses in the Bible about money, interest, and debt. There are some clear and some unclear ideas in these verses. For some of us, they’ll even feel offensive. I’ll be working strictly from the Hebrew Bible today and Janel will offer some ideas from the New Testament on Thursday.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know how much I benefit from usury. Usury means lending money at extremely high rates of interest. It is strictly forbidden in the Bible. There are provisions for charging interest, mostly to people outside the Hebrew tradition, but usury is forbidden in all circumstances. When what we lend to someone puts them in bondage to that debt, we have a duty to forgive (if faith in the Christian tradition means anything).
Why, you might ask? Well, usury keeps people in debt and in bondage for much of their life. It’s a form of economic slavery. When the interest charged on loaned money cannot be paid down sufficiently to affect the principle with the wages that are created through work then what is that other than slavery? By my estimation, student debt in recent years has reached this point.
10k for some folx is a lifeline. It’s freedom from bondage and slavery. It’s the last bit of loan they have to pay off after years of paying on their debts. The grumbling from otherwise good people is obnoxious.
My taxes this,
I suffered through that,
I did all this,
Why do they get something I didn’t get,
It’s my tax money,
I deserve,
People get upset, it’s a part of an entitlement culture. And, to be sure, we’re an entitlement culture. We’ve got our heads so far up the ass of individualism we can’t see our way out. Every response to something communal that doesn’t include someone is endless griping and moaning about one’s personal position. It happens regardless of political affiliation. We just can’t be happy unless other people are put down and somehow we’re elevated.
All of that makes it interesting that righteousness and right living is found in generosity, the very opposite of our “mine first” culture. We think somehow we’re owed something, that if we did something right or well or were able to pay off our debts we’re somehow better than others, or we’re owed equity. We’re not happy until we’re special.
It’s crap logic at best.
I don’t deprive my children of the internet or other novel things invented since my childhood just because I didn’t have them. I can be happy without having to compare and compete. When we get into a competition for resources it brings out the worst in all of us.
So, here’s the thing. You can begrudge others and feel like things aren’t fair and make yourself and others miserable.
Or, you can be happy and excited that a single mom; who tried to better herself through education (which is a myth we tell people all the time); who got fleeced by a deregulated for-profit school and is paying off loans with no better prospects for work because most jobs don’t look at degrees or certificates from those kinds of institutions as worth much; finally got some economic relief such that she doesn’t have to work three jobs and can spend more time with her kids.
You want to be mad at something, be mad at predatory lending, be mad at colleges and universities whose costs have risen 1200% in the last 40 years (inflation is up 236%), but a faith-based response cannot be angry at the relief that people who constitute the working poor in our country get some debt relief.
If you look at the Hebrew Bible, every seven years all debts are to be forgiven. We’re overdue if that’s the case. No one should live in economic slavery.
The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives; Psalm 37:21
I pulled our final scripture on purpose. It basically says that if you can’t pay the debt back, don’t borrow it. Generally, I agree. Mainly because of the privilege I have to be able to incur debt by choice and the economic means to pay it off over time. It’s easy to agree with the borrow it, pay it back mentality, when you have the means to do that easily. Taken in a vacuum, the first half of this verse seems to bolster the arguments of the individualist in our culture.
Taken together though these verses tell us that no one should ever have to borrow money to eat or have food on their table. That every seven years all debts are wiped clean, that when we lend money it should be done without interest. Those are conveniently forgotten when we have our biases confirmed by 8 words in the Bible.
We should be responsible for the contracts we sign and the debts we incur. We are even more responsible for setting up an equitable system by which no one is bonded to another person or institution through debt for a majority of their lives. Unfettered capitalism and Christianity don’t work, if you take Christianity and its sacred texts seriously.
A Christian view doesn’t look to substitutionary atonement theology to make their case. We look to grace with gratitude that some people might be lifted out of situations of emotional, physical, and economic bondage. We look with equity and justice at the systems that created this need in the first place and direct a righteous anger at people who profess faith out one side of their mouths while firmly planting their feet on the backs of others with less power and voice.
Be angry, but place your ire at the right system and source. Place it at the feet of people who allowed space for predatory lending, who created terms for loans that ensure they won’t be paid off without egregious amounts of interest paid. Put it in the inboxes of those who deregulated colleges and allowed for-profit institutions to bilk their students as they pumped up the loans they took out.
If you want to speak out, do it on behalf of those who have had years, if not decades of their lives dominated by interest payments that do nothing but keep them shackled to the bottom of our economic system. Stop believing the myths of unfettered capitalism and look at the lives of real people trapped in systems they didn’t create and they can’t fix, no matter how many payments they make.