The Wandering Heretic

I am proposing my final solution for the Payday Lenders. This is not to say what I propose here is the best solution or even the most practical. I am only saying that this will be my final posting on HB 333. I have other topics awaiting my attention.

However, I must say this series has generated the most feedback, links, and comments than any other. This indicates my “practical theology” approach will eventually work. I just want to lay more groundwork before embark on similar topics in the future.

In the course of this series, I have defended the practices and existence of the Payday Lenders against the well-intentioned, but never-the-less dangerous, pulpit promotion by pastors of Ohio HB 333; a law to limit the interest rates charged by the Payday Lenders. You can read my arguments against their polemic here, here, here, here, and here.

However, my efforts in this area should not be taken that I think an interest rate of 391% is a good thing. I do not. I just don’t think the approach of passing legislation in this regard is the correct approach. The goal should not be to use Caesar to put an arbitrary interest limit on the Payday Lenders; the goal should be to make the borrowers more credit worthy.

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In the episode of the television series, M*A*S*H entitled Dear Sigmund, a bomber pilot is in the 4077 for a minor wound. He brags about how easy the war is for him, as he just flies above his targets, drops his load, and goes back to his base. Not one to allow this lack of connection between the man’s work and the destruction he created, Hawkeye takes the dangerously naive pilot into a surgery room where an operation on a small Korean Girl is taking place:

Capt. Hathaway: What happened?
Hawkeye: Somebody dropped a bomb on her from an airplane.
Capt. Hathaway: Who was it?
Hawkeye: He just dropped it. He didn’t autograph it.
Capt. Hathaway: No, I mean, was it one of theirs or one of ours?
Col. Potter: What difference does that make?
Capt. Hathaway: A lot! It makes a lot of difference.
Col. Potter: Not to her.
[Hathaway walks out of the O.R. stunned, Hawkeye goes out to join him.]
Capt. Hathaway: You brought me in there on purpose, didn’t you?
Hawkeye: Yep.
Capt. Hathaway: You’re a real S.O.B., you know that?
Hawkeye: Look, you seem like a decent enough guy, too decent to think that it can be always a clean war.
Capt. Hathaway: Up there it is. . [breaks down into tears] was! That was just a little girl!

As long as the pilot stayed high in the air, separated from the explosive blasts of the bombs he dropped on the ground, he could maintain his illusion of a “clean war.” It was that illusion that made the man so dangerous. He could continue in his illusion of pristine flying while the messes and disasters he created remained almost illusory and unreal. Ground soldiers have no such delusions. They know the messiness, blood, and agony that war entails. They know because it is in their faces each and every day.

This Emmy winning episode reminds me in many ways of the Ohio pastors’ efforts to pass HB 333; a law which will in essence shut down the Payday Lending institution in the State. As this series of posts has noted, by driving out such lenders, the law will not guarantee lower interest loans to the low credit poor. More likely it will ensure that they will have few or no legal lending options at all; thereby making them prey to the illegal ones.

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I have examined the evidence in the Old Covenant relating to interest rates. There I found that Israelites, when making charity loans to poor Israelites, if they were Jewish or otherwise a long term resident in the Land, were restricted to an interest rate of zero. If the lender was not Jewish and the recipient was not a poor long term resident of the Land, then there was no limitation on interest. It could be as high as the market would bear.

That was the Law of God as it applied to interest rates. I therefore concluded that if God did not restrict the interest rate outside the Holy Land, then laws in the United States should not do so either. They should be controlled only by the laws of supply and demand, risk and reward, just like any other commodity.

However, the more discerning reader may be led to contest this view. After all, my case was made on the basis of the Old Covenant Law. Since we are now in the New Covenant, we are held to standards of mercy far and above those written in the Old. Therefore, as an act of mercy for the poor “victims” of the Payday Lenders, we are justified in seeking a limitation on the interest rate so charged.

Such a case would be stronger if a person could find an explicit statement about interest in the New Testament; however no such passage exists. In fact, as I have already noted, the only passages that do mention interest are contained within parables, which makes specific application difficult. Also, to make matters worse for the interest limiters, the parables appear to be favorable toward charging interest, and a lot of it.

So just how do these provisions apply in the New Covenant? Has the Law in its entirety been done away with? Do these provisions only apply to Israelites living in the Land of Israel today? (If so, I have a feeling the national Israel is in for some trouble.) Have they been put on some sort of hiatus from 132 C.E., when the Romans disbanded the Jewish Nation after the Bar Kokhba Revolt, until 1948, when the Jews in Israel declared their independence?

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The issue of Payday Lenders is the latest “social concern” of Ohio area pastors. As I have noted already, they are behind current proposed legislation (HB 333) to limit such lenders to a 36 APR rate on short term loans. My previous essay noted that the Bible does not lend its support to “usury” laws, if such legislation is designated as “limiting the interest rate to a specified ceiling.” Depending on who does the lending and who receives the loaned funds, the allowable interest varies. If an Israelite makes a charity loan to a poor Israelite, no interest is allowed to be charged. None. (Ex 22:25).

However, this is not a universal rule. If the recipient was not a “poor Israelite” then the rules changed markedly. If the loan was made to a “foreigner” then the interest rate could be anything agreed upon by the lender and borrower. There was no rate on what this rate could be. It could be 2%, 36%, 391% or higher. As I noted in my last article, “usury begins at anything above zero if you are an Israelite lending to a poor Israelite and it does not exist at all if you are not.”

So to evaluate the Bible’s instruction regarding interest rates, and therefore the solidity of at least the Christian pastors’ approval of HB 333, we have to answer two questions regarding the Bible’s instructions: 1) how were “foreigners” defined? 2) How do theses provisions relate to the New Covenant situation? I will discuss the first in this post; the second in the one to follow.

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The current, if you excuse the expression, interest in Ohio’s proposed legislation to limit the rates charged by Payday Lenders has been taken up by area pastors. The Payday Lenders reportedly charge up to rates equaling 391% APR in some cases, and the pastors are behind legislation that will limit this rate to 36%. As I have written previously, this legislation will probably drive out the Payday Lenders entirely, who only make an average of 7% profit on the currently “usurious” rates. Once those businesses close, their lack may lead the borrowers in the poor neighborhoods to obtain their funds from more nefarious sources. Be assured, those rates will be even higher than those of the Payday Lenders. The consequences of defaulting on those loans are also much likely to be higher as well. As such, the legislation could have the unintended, but still disastrous effect of putting the poor more at risk of financial and even physical harm then they are now.

However, the issue hinges on the moral nature of interest or at least interest rates. Is charging interest morally allowed? If not, then all banks, not just the Payday Lenders are immoral institutions to be shunned by the Christian Church—actually a historically tenable position. However, if we take interest as being allowed, then to whom are we allowed to charge it? If allowed, when does the interest rate cross over to usury? How high is the rate morally allowed to go and for how long? These questions must be answered before we can judge as to the oppressive nature of the Payday Lenders and start putting caps on the amounts they are allowed to charge for their services. If, as I contend, laws are legislated morality then these moral questions must be answered before HB 333 can be evaluated in terms of Christian approval or disapproval.

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In my last post, I discussed how area pastors are preaching for legislation to limit interest earned by Payday Lending business. Using images of greedy businesses that prey on the poor, the congregations are urged to write their State congressmen to support HB 333, the Responsible Lending Bill. As shown previously, the government’s own research shows that these same lenders, despite getting interest rates of up to 391% are not “racking in the dough” as would be anticipated. The costs of keeping the business open during evenings and securing their locations in the poorer neighborhoods pretty much keep their net income lower than that of a Starbucks chain in the suburbs.

Yet the drive moves on, despite these facts. Again, I do not decry pastors getting involved in political issues. However, I do regret it when they dive in without checking out the full consequences of their actions. As Douglas Wilson has said in another context, “So complexity is not a good reason for inactivity or apathy. But it is a good reason for studying the issue thoroughly, and getting your proposed solutions right before insisting on them in the name of Christ.”

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Now I have hovered around the Reformed camp of believers for some time. For those that know, that wing of Christianity has never really bought the “separation of church and state” idea in its entirety. However recent events have made me reconsider at least one phase of that idea. I think I am going to declare a moratorium on “pastors and politics.” Note I did not say “religion and politics,” “Christians and politics,” or even “church(es) and politics”

It is not that I think religion, and Christianity in particular, has nothing to say about political organization or social relations. In fact, I think quite the opposite. I think precisely that since Christianity proclaims Christ as Lord that Christianity must have everything to do with politics. I think Christians should inform public policy and shape it.

However, to say that Christians must be involved in politics does not automatically mean that pastors should do so. Being qualified to speek on matters of the Bible does not always translate into giving that same level of authority on the specifics of social or political issues. For some reason, pastors—even the best of the best—get a little fuzzy in their reasoning when proclaiming social policy and/or change from the pulpit.

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Michael Spencer has had an interesting blog series on Heaven. Michael does not disbelieve in heaven but he does note the paradox of our modern definition of the Gospel being about “going to heaven when you die” and the absence of this emphasis in the Scriptures themselves. He titles this series “Too Much Heaven” and it (so far) has three parts. You can review them for yourself here, here, and here. I urge everyone to read this series.

In many ways, Spencer’s series expands upon my original posting “Is the Gospel about Heaven?. In that original post I noted the following:

Yet the “you can go to heaven when you die” message is not the gospel as presented by Jesus at all. You want proof? Find this phrase in the Bible anywhere: “Accept Jesus into your heart and then you will go to heaven when you die.” You may be able to find pieces of that statement spread out over several epistles, but nowhere is that single entire phrase found in the Bible. No where. Don’t you find that somewhat confusing? If that statement is the Gospel, why isn’t it repeated many times throughout the Bible? Why is it not on the lips of Peter and Paul over and over again in Acts? Why is it not repeated in Romans and Corinthians and Galatians? Why is it not mentioned in whole cloth even once?

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