mike wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 8:31 am
In our church, the ministers recently put out a suggestion box for sermon topics.
What are some topics you think should be addressed more often than they are (at your own church or anywhere)?
Economic justice, particularly usury. Usury is a HUGE topic in the OT, and the practice of lending, who to lend to and what to expect back, is addressed by Jesus in Luke 6 as well.
Most of the western world operates on an economic ideology that is fueled by usury. The seeds of this were planted just prior to the Reformation, so it was a hot button topic that was undergoing a shift in the church's understanding of economic morals. Luther's early career included several sermons against usury and other unjust economic practices of his day. The Peasant Revolt obviously took the most extreme position, but when Anabaptists did take a position, they usually emphasized hard work and mutual aid as normative for the Christian life, rejecting the quest for passive income that marked the practice of usury. Some Anabaptists even rejected being a middleman merchant at all, insisting that productive labor should be compensated, but simply buying items at one price and turning around and selling them at a higher price didn't constitute productive labor, and was unjust gain. This is probably less nuanced than it should be, but the debate was still worth having at the time.
In the end, with the seeds of a usury economy planted about 100 years before the Reformation, usury was ultimately a casualty of the "sin cold war" where the protestants and catholics started easing up on considering things "sinful" to win converts in high places. And I'm honestly not sure whatever happened to the Anabaptist critique. I'd like to know, and I'd like to see usury (and a discussion of just economic gain) talked about in churches more often.