Christians Going to Bankers for Loans Is a Failure of the Church
by Stuart DiNenno
The fact that Christians have to go to the judenbankers and pay enormous sums of interest (usury) on top of what they borrow in order to obtain money to buy a house, is another failure of the modern-day church. If the people in the churches were acting like the Christians they profess to be, then they would be lending to each other without interest, when their fellow congregants are in need and they have the means to help, especially family members to other family members. Loans could be secured by property, just as for-profit mortgage lenders do, only without interest (usury).
In cases where money-lending is practiced by Christians to provide for the necessities (not the desires) of fellow Christians, then it should be seen as a ministry, not as a business opportunity. Not that anyone in the church should be compelled to lend their money, or shamed if they do not, but it should be something that is encouraged as a part of Christian charity and a fairly common occurrence. Of course, it may be different in cases where money is being provided for investment in a business, in which case, I suppose, an investor has a right to expect something in exchange for his investment.
The men in Christian churches also could get together and build houses for one another, if there is a large enough congregation with more than a few skilled men. The Old Order Amish still do this for one another and they do it very quickly. It is not a tremendously difficult task if there is enough of a physically able and skilled labor pool in the church, everyone is working from a plan, and if the homeowners are content with a simple house that is only large enough to accommodate their needs rather than a palace containing many unnecessary luxury features. If certain skilled tradesman are needed for certain tasks and the congregation does not have such tradesman, then they can be hired for those tasks. It does not have to be a matter of the church doing all the work or doing nothing.
I understand that in very small churches some of these things are unworkable, but the reality is that we do not see them practiced anywhere today in the so-called Reformed world, even where there is sufficient money and manpower to do them.
You may appreciate this excerpt:
“Most people … assume that when they approach a bank for a loan or overdraft … money is transferred from some existing account to that of the borrower, who is called upon to pay interest quite properly for the sacrifice by the lender. This, however, is not the case at all. The bank creates money out of nothing when granting accommodation. And these loans are called “deposits” in the balance sheet of the bank, though they are monetary creations. … Having thus created new money out of nothing, and put it into circulation burdened with an interest charge, which is a real charge on the productive life of the community, the banker has increased the total amount of money in circulation. p. 41. The whole scheme is based … on a big hoax which has survived for many generations. p. 219. It is … not so much the positive characteristics of modern banking which are its strength, as the fact that it is still so little known by most people and that the positive alternatives are therefore so often based on incomplete analysis and mistaken views. … The private banking system has fully usurped the sovereign power of issue of the State, and enriches itself by the use of the public credit which it fully controls to its own advantage.” pp. 220-1.
George Knupffer, ‘The Struggle for World Power’