This Sunday’s lectionary readings relate to a key issue in the headlines – the Christian attitude to wealth and economics.  Centre Director Angus Ritchie reflects on their message for our churches today:

In both the Common Worship and Roman Catholic lectionaries, this Sunday’s Gospel reading is Luke 12.13-21, with verses from Ecclesiastes 1 and 2 offered as the ‘related’ Old Testament passage and Colossians 3.1-11 (or 3.1-5,9-11) as the Epistle.

Our attitudes to wealth and possessions lie at the heart of all three readings. They are likely to be on many of our congregations’ minds – some because of the financial pressures they are living with each day, other because the Church’s teaching on these issues is so much in the headlines – with Archbishop Justin’s attack on exploitative lending contribution, Archbishop Sentamu’s decision to chair a Living Wage Commission and Pope Francis’ emphasis on the needs of the poorest in society.  While many commentators have welcomed these interventions, The Independent has demanded that Church leaders stick to ‘spiritual concerns’ and stay out of these political debates.

After Archbishop Justin’s intervention into the debate last week, CTC Fellow Luke Bretherton blogs on “Scripture, usury and the call for responsible lending.”  An earlier version of this article appeared in CTC’s essay collection Crunch Time: A Call to Action

Luke is Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School, and author of Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness

‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be’?   

Scripture, usury and the call for responsible lending [1]

In response to the recent debate about usury inspired by Archbishop Justin Welby’s ‘war on Wonga’ I set out here the theological rationale for why, historically, the church took a severe stance towards the practice of usury.  This background piece – a kind of briefing note for sermons – gives an overview of the treatment of usury in Scripture and in the Christian tradition more generally.

Usury in Scripture

The Bible has a great deal to say about the power of money.  In particular, it is quite specific about how we should treat debt and lending.  A primary narrative template for understanding salvation is given in the book of Exodus. The central dramatic act of this story is liberation from debt slavery in Egypt.  The Canonical structure of Genesis and Exodus in the ordering of Scripture makes this point.  The book of Genesis closes with the story of Joseph.  At the end of this story, although saved from famine, the Israelites, along with everyone else in Egypt, are reduced to debt slavery.  [2] This is a ‘voluntary’ process entered into in order to receive the grain from Pharaoh’s stores that the people had given to Pharaoh for safe keeping in the first place.  [3]After several rounds of expropriation the people finally come before Joseph and say: ‘There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands. … Buy us and our land in exchange for food. We with our land will become slaves to Pharaoh.’  [4] The first chapter of Exodus opens with a new Pharaoh who takes advantage of the Israelites debt slavery to exploit them.  So the Israelites were not prisoners of war or chattel slaves, they were debt slaves undertaking corvée labour on behalf of the ruling elite.  [5] It is this condition that the Israelites are redeemed from.  As David Baker notes the verb ‘go’ in ancient Hebrew is used for both the exodus and for the seventh-year release of debt slaves.  [6] The linkage between liberation from Egypt and debt slavery is made explicit in Leviticus 25.35-46. In this text the prohibitions against usury and limits placed on debt slavery through the institution of jubilee are grounded in the relationship established between God and the people through the act of liberation from Egypt.