Hills Alive

My writing juices flowed five days ago when I saw a comment on Floyd’s blog post Financial Sector Employees Getting Tasered. I was traveling home from Peoria, Illinois, at the time, and had stopped in a parking lot near Quincy, Illinois where there was good coffee and free wireless at a Panera Bread. The comment from “J” cried out to me for some creative writing, and I was tired of driving. Four enjoyable hours disappeared while I sat in the parking lot and wrote this open rebuke to Gary North.

I am cautious about what I say publicly, so I tabled it and drove on towards Rayville. I wanted to be sure that I should tackle this amongst my other priorities, and wanted to sleep on it as well. Tonight I pulled it out and decided to post it, fully convinced after reviewing it that it needs to be published, with no changes needed.

Dear Mr. North,

Many of us Christians that have benefited so much from your books and teachings continue to shake our heads in wonderment as to your continued stand for commercial usury. I personally have been involved in many conversations and seen commentary from quite a few that sense that there seems to be a “fly in the ointment” (Eccl 10:1) in your righteous stand. Your continued insistence that interest on commercial loans is lawful before our God and King causes us to doubt the wisdom of the rest of your teachings on economics, God’s law and politics, something I’m sure you wouldn’t like to see maintained as well as I, for you have been of great help to thousands of reforming Christians in this once great nation.

In reading your article Usury, Interest, and Loans: A Brief Summary of Biblical Teaching, With Bibliography the first impression I get is of one who has done so much research and writing on biblical economics that he is firmly convinced and is trying to convince others that there is nothing God has left to teach him concerning the subject. This should not be and has not been the position of reformed and reforming Christians who are waking up to the truth of God’s word concerning our wallets. Your insistence that you are qualified to speak authoritatively because you have written 9,000 pages of exegesis on what the bible has to say about economics does not impress me, and many others. Indeed, even if you have written the commentary to end all commentaries, the Word of God still stands as authoritative, and not you. The entire bible can be said to be about economics, as in essence economics is simply the monetary expressions of how we relate to one another and God, and God’s law has the final and authoritative right to speak on this all encompassing subject.

Your statement that “There is not one verse — not one hint — in the Bible that taking excessive interest is wrong” is completely true, but extremely damaging and misleading. That is because in every single verse that touches on the practice of profiting from another’s need the Bible does not ever define what is excessive. It simply talks about the practice as being sinful, even down to the 1% that was being charged in Nehemiah 5:1-13. You have to stretch things a long way to convince us that the interest bearing loans that men were profiting from during that time were not a source of income commercially. By establishing two categories of usury as you have done, you legitimize a practice that God has always condemned. I can hear the arguments being presented by those who profited from the needs of others during that time: “I’ve got a business to run, is that so wrong?” Today you seek to legitimize a sinful practice as long as it is clothed and masked as being “impersonal,” “secular” and “commercial.” The argument is the same one that the Mafia uses to condone the racketeering that their family income is dependent upon.

Those of us that disagree with your stand that the Bible only prohibits interest bearing loans to a poor brother in the faith have these questions for you to ponder:

• In this day and age under the Greater and Everlasting Covenant of our Lord Jesus Christ, who are we to decide who may or may not be a brother?  For example, if it is OK to “invest” in mutual funds, and those funds are lent out to businesses in order to maximize the return for retirement, can you tell me authoritatively that every single person in all of those businesses who works hard for this money at interest is not your brother? You can’t know this just because the usurious loan is “commercial.” We should repent of being willing to enslave others with our money just because it is being lent to a business… as businesses are made up of people, who our Lord came to save.
• How are you going to define poor?  To us that disagree with your stand, any individual or business that needs to borrow money in order to meet vital needs is poor. We have come so far away from realizing that debt is not normative that we have redefined the categories of rich and poor. If you feel forced and compelled to borrow at interest in order to meet your obligations, make a living and support your family, we say: you are poor. Having access to a large credit line does not make us rich. The blessing of the Lord makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it. Years of compounding interest payments are great sorrow, whether individually felt, or impacting a viable commercial business!

Your definition of “non-charity” loans is confusing to those who read Nehemiah 5 and realize the condemnation that God was bringing to bear upon the practice. To quote you and refer to Scripture, those loans were obviously “collateralized by a piece of rural land” (Nehemiah 5:3-5). So were they non-charitable loans, and therefore according to your system of thought acceptable? Obviously not, as God through the prophet threatens to “shake out every man from his house, and from his labour” that refused to stop the sinful practice.

Your system of thought to categorize interest bearing loans as good or bad leaves us without a sound rule to follow in actually making real-life decisions. To slip from one category to another only requires a simple redefinition of terms. If you want to get away with profiting from another’s need, just call it “non-charitable!” This will make it perfectly acceptable to God, right?

This begs the question that really needs to be asked: Is it OK for us or a business to do anything without Charity? I use the biblical definition of Charity here, as Love (1Cor 13). Your definitions assume that some loans, or acts of men in general, can be “non-charitable” and therefore OK. Does Jesus Christ relate to anybody apart from Charity? Are we to relate to anybody or any business apart from Charity? Love and charity are to be the rule for His people in all spheres of life. You can’t characterize a departure from the loving character and attributes of God through secular means as being normative in His people. God forbid!

And finally we come to your “authoritative” statement that “Jesus Authorized Interest.” Contrary to your interpretation, the passages in Luke 19 and Matthew 25 provide the strongest statements in the Bible prohibiting usurious banking that we’ve been given from our loving and charitable Lord. You state that “Those Christian commentators who say that usury is prohibited, meaning all interest on loans, prefer not to mention the existence of this passage, let alone explain it.”

Please allow me and others who disagree with you to state that this simply is not true. We love to mention the existence of this passage and explain it because it thoroughly trashes your argument. Perhaps because you think you already know all that there is to know about biblical economics you don’t bother to read the writings of those “commentators” who love to exposit Luke 19 in order to condemn commercial usury?

Simply and shortly put, Jesus said that if you want to be consistent with thinking that He is “harsh” and “austere” then you should follow through and do the harsh and austere thing…invest your money in the bank at interest. Remember that the loving Master was falsely accused and was dealing with “a wicked servant” and you might begin to exposit this passage correctly. Jesus points out the inconsistency in the wicked servant’s argument, and I point out the same in yours.

So please contemplate these questions, Mr. North:

• Do you think it is too harsh to contemplate that the Lord would prohibit you from making a living by interest bearing “investments?”
• Do you judge the Lord as wrong and choose to characterize Him as austere if it is true that he condemns this practice?
• Do you have unbelief that there is no other way for you to make a living without usury?
• How much do you depend upon usurious banking in order to make a living?
• Is your involvement in this practice the reason for your defense of it?
• Do you think it is too harsh for God to keep you from supporting yourself and your family with this practice?

Please let us know if we are totally off-base here and you don’t make a dime on interest bearing “investments.” We would not wish to continue thinking that maybe this is why you condone acting without Charity as long as it is “just business.”