Losing Interest

It is a commonplace observation that Anglicans today accept many practices which were the
cause of controversy to earlier generations. Artificial contraception, for example, was the subject
of heated debates even quite recently, yet is almost entirely accepted by Anglicans now.
Another often-quoted example of a formerly controverted practice is that of usury — the lending
of money at interest. The received understanding is that the Church once opposed this, but that
increasing economic pressures forced a change of heart, as a result of which European economies
were released from medieval restraint and enabled to become the prosperous societies we see
today. Thus, we are told, the Church was shown to be as hopeless on the economic front as it was
on the scientific. The persecution of Galileo and the handicapping of Western economics belong
in the same, unenlightened, boat.
Yet we see around us now a world of individuals and societies crippled with debts incurring the
constant repayment of interest. And in the theology of the Middle Ages we find opposition to
usury rooted not in a wooden adherence to the letter of Scripture, but in a deep concern for social
justice. It is therefore, I would suggest, time for us to think again about the ‘wisdom’ of our
denomination’s current stance.
Law
The immediate cause of the Church’s original ban on usury was, of course, the strictures of Old
Testament Law:
You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest
on food, interest on anything that is [customarily] lent for interest. You may
charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the
LORD your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are
entering to take possession of it. (Deut 23:19-20)
Our difficulty, however, is that there are many parts of the Law which we ignore. We wear
clothing woven from different kinds of cloth and eat prawns, for example. Nevertheless, it must
be admitted that there are other parts of the Law which we still uphold as binding. We do not
permit murder or adultery, we do not tolerate sex with animals or incest, and so on.
I have argued elsewhere1 that the key to the Law from a Christian perspective is its fulfilment in
Christ. He has delivered us entirely from the Law, not only in its ceremonial prescriptions but its
moral impact. However, the Law remains effective as Scripture, provided we understand the
implications both of the laws themselves and their fulfilment. Some, such as the laws which
established the division between Jew and Gentile, have been entirely subsumed in Christ. Others
— those on murder or adultery for example — give way to the more demanding ethic of the New
Testament, exemplified in the Sermon on the Mount (eg Matt 5:21-30).
Morality
Sometimes, however, the New Covenant implications for an Old Covenant Law are not entirely
clear. Homosexuality is the current bête noir, but what about usury? Was this simply a ‘boundary
marker’ between Jew and Gentile? The permission to levy interest on a foreigner might suggest
so. But other Old Testament references imply a powerful moral dimension to this issue:
O LORD , who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He ...
who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the
innocent. (Psalm 15)
To the Psalmist, usury and bribery belong together as instances of injustice. Or what about
Ezekiel’s description of the evil son?
... who even eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, oppresses the
poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to
the idols, commits abomination, lends at interest, and takes profit (Ezek 18:11-13)
The NIV here, incidentally, reflects the later assumption that taking interest per se is not the
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issue:
He does detestable things. He lends at usury and takes excessive interest. (vv 12-
13)
But a glance back at Leviticus 25:35-37 confirms the ESV’s rendering:
If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall
support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with
you. ... You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for
profit.
What Ezekiel condemns is taking any interest from the needy or profiting from their misfortune.
After the restoration, Nehemiah also evidently feels this to be a moral issue, hence his fury
against the Jewish nobles and officials who are taking advantage of the poor returnees:
Let us abandon this exacting of interest. Return to them this very day their fields,
their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the percentage of
money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them. (Neh 5:10-11)
In the Old Testament, then, usury is clearly a moral issue, particularly when it applies to the poor.
Jesus
Jesus also takes an oblique swipe at the extracting of interest in the parable of the talents. The
third man, who simply kept his master’s money wrapped in a hanky, justifies it on the grounds
that:
... you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did
not sow. (Lk 19:21)
To which his master replies,
Why then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I might have
collected it with interest? (Lk 19:22-23)
This is often taken as a statement of the minimal effort the servant should have made: if he would
not trade, he could at least invest. But Luke’s ‘bank’ is the money lender’s table — the trapedza2
— and the irony is biting: ‘You know I take out what I haven’t put in and gain where I’ve made
no effort? Then you should have lent my money to the money-lenders. Then I would at least have
had some profit compatible with my character!’
Admittedly the rest of the New Testament is silent on the subject. Yet is this because (as has been
argued about other matters) it was of no importance, or is it not rather more likely (given the
evidence) that it was due to universal agreement? Certainly the early Church Fathers felt the
latter, and thus, until the end of the Middle Ages, usury was regarded as immoral and therefore
illegal under Canon Law.
Luther
Here, I must admit I am not a student of economics, much less the economics of medieval
Europe. However, I have made a theologian’s study of some of the period, and am struck by
Martin Luther’s stance on usury, particularly as it gives us some insights into the various
practices of the time.
Luther was opposed to all forms of usury, especially an arrangement known as zinsskauf — the
purchasing of an asset with a fixed ‘rent’. Significantly, not everyone shared his view. Indeed the
very existence of zinsskauf is testimony to the fact that there were various casuistical ways of
overcoming the legal prohibitions and moral strictures against usury. One could, for example,
arrange to make a ‘gift’ upon the repayment of a debt — not strictly interest, but nevertheless a
real gain to the creditor. Still it was more or less universally agreed that usury was wrong.
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However, whilst there were doubtless some who took this position on the grounds that ‘the Bible
says so’, others, Luther amongst them, regarded the biblical injunctions as reflecting wider
principles consistent with the whole thrust of Scripture. Specifically, the charging of interest
contravened the command to love your neighbour:
Such lenders love themselves alone and seek only their own; they do not love and
look out for their neighbor with the same fidelity as they love and look out for
themselves.3
On the contrary, Luther says, Christ’s command means that,
... we should willingly and gladly lend without charge or zinss. Of this our Lord
Jesus Christ says in Matthew 5, ‘From him who would borrow from you, turn not
away’; that is, do not refuse him.4
But, he continues, most people avoid this obligation:
For all the doctors agree in this, that borrowing and lending shall be free, without
charge or burden; though they do not all agree on the question to whom we ought
to lend. For ... here too there are many who gladly lend to the rich or to good
friends, more to seek their favor or because they are related to them than because
God has commanded it [...]. But there is always trouble and labor about those to
whom God’s command points; to them no one wants to lend [...].5
First and foremost, then, Luther is concerned to defend the poor, and he lays the words of Christ
from the Sermon on the Mount on all Christians as an obligation, specifically rejecting the notion
that they are a ‘counsel of perfection’ applying only to the ‘saintly’ minority.
But Luther is not an unthinking literalist. There is no problem in taking a profit based on a loan,
provided one shares the risk. Even zinss would be acceptable if the seller of zinss shared the risks
of the purchaser who, in a bad year, could turn round and say,
This year I owe you nothing, for I sold you my toil and effort for the production of
income from such and such property; I have not succeeded. The loss is yours, not
mine; for if you want to have an interest in my profits you must also have an
interest in my losses, as the nature of every transaction requires.6
Clearly, therefore, Luther’s theology would not prohibit investment. What he will not brook is
the charging of a fixed return, regardless of the borrower’s circumstances or fortune. This, he
insists, is contrary to justice, contrary to nature and contrary to a true theology. In the real world
there are risks corresponding to the fortunes visited on us by God. But that, Luther observes, is
life. Indeed on the basis of his wider theology, we may infer that the attempt to shield oneself
from risk is, in Luther’s eyes, a self-defeating attempt to avoid encountering the God who tries
our faith through the difficult circumstances of the real world. Who can have faith in a good God
who never experiences loss or hazard? The person who simply rakes in their percentage
regardless is living in a world of delusion whilst fleecing the neighbour they have been
commanded to love.
Of course, Luther recognizes, this makes the lending business less attractive to some:
Perhaps you will say, ‘If it were to be done this way, who would ever contract for
zinss?’ See there! I knew perfectly well that human nature would turn up its nose
at doing what is right. Now it comes out that in this zinss contract nothing is
sought but security, greed, and usury.7
Luther is satisfied provided, in the words of many an advertisement, ‘the value of your
investment can go down as well as up’. Trade and commerce are not prohibited (though Luther
was convinced it was difficult to practice them Christianly), only practices which take advantage
of other people who remain exposed to risk, whilst seeking to protect oneself from any such risks
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in the process of taking their money.

The present
Yet, as is well-known, the Churches of Europe gradually abandoned their opposition to usury,
such that today virtually all Christians have literally ‘bought into’ the present system. And this, it
is frequently alleged, is an example of modern enlightenment overcoming ignorant prejudice.
But what is the real effect of the change? One contemporary advertisement by a credit-card
company depicts the alternative companies as a vampire sucking blood out of the hapless debtor.
‘Change to us,’ is the message, ‘And your problems will be solved.’ Yet the blood will still be
sucked, albeit hopefully in smaller volumes!
Or what about that biggest of all loans, the mortgage? How bizarre is it that the rocketing price of
a basic need, namely shelter, is greeted as a sign of a healthy economy? If the same were
happening regarding food, there would be a revolution. But because a mortgage is seen as
‘normal’ and a house as an ‘investment’, people eagerly saddle themselves with massive debt-
repayments, even if, as is often the case, it means two people in a household working just to
manage.
In fact, of course, the price of houses has not gone up, only the cost of servicing the debt of
money-lenders like the Halifax and Nationwide. And, in itself, a house is no more an investment
than is a pair of shoes. (You can’t sell what you’re using!) But those who can afford it have
swallowed the prosperity myth and in the process force the poorer members of society into
crippling debt or out of the market altogether.
In June this year, individual Britons borrowed £10 billion. This is roughly £2,000 per annum for
every man, woman and child in the country. On a ‘modest’ 15% interest rate, the repayment
figure would be £2,300 — but of course people do not generally repay all the loan. Instead, they
incur interest, and hence interest on the interest itself, so that a £2,000 loan can easily become a
£3,000 repayment, of which £1,000 buys literally nothing. Thus although the credit system is not
always directed at the poor, it certainly impoverishes the borrower.
And this is not to mention loan sharks or Third World Debt, about which latter the Church of
England has been very vocal whilst saying comparatively little about the appalling debt in this
country. Of course some individuals and countries might have been wiser in their borrowing.
There have, no doubt, been cases of greed as well as need. But who, in the long term, is the
greedier — the foolish debtor, or the leech-like creditor who, having been repaid several times
over, still cries ‘Give, give’?
Realism
Of course, many will say it is being unrealistic to challenge the existing financial order. But if it
can be demonstrated that the present system is oppressive to the less-well-off, deceptive to the
financially unwise and damaging to all, then surely it is not wrong to question? The real problem
is how to challenge the present system and how to avoid becoming embroiled in it. Frankly, I
don’t know what to do on the macro-economic scale. That is for the experts to consider. In the
meantime, however, here are some bits of practical advice for consideration by individuals:
• You may need a credit card for some payments, but always pay it off every month.
• Cancel your deposit account at the bank. The money you are making is money the bank is
taking from others.
• Invest by all means, but only where the value can go down as well as up. OK, you may
lose out, but ‘better to be poor with God than rich with the devil’. If in doubt, stick to a
current account.
• If you want to buy a house, use one of the banks currently making special arrangements
for Muslims.
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• Call on the Church of England’s finance officers to look at their investment portfolios.
• Challenge not just Third World Debt but First and Second World lending.
• Remember, however, loans are not the issue. Risk-free, fixed-interest money lending is
the issue.
• Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from
you.

Revd John P Richardson

United Benefice of Henham, Elsenham and Ugley

Notes
1. What God has Made Clean, The Good Book Company, 2003
2. Arndt, Gingrich, Danker, & Bauer, A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and
other early Christian literature, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979)
3. ‘Trade and Usury’, 1524, LW 45, 293
4. Ibid 289
5. Ibid 289-290
6. Ibid 303
7. Ibid 304