Usury and the Christian prohibition against usury

[Zenaan Harkness]

> > 	what part you don't get? you are constantly spamming right-wing garbage, copy-pasted from zerohedge. Why do you do that.
> 
> How, actually/ practically, do you propose to End The Fed ?
> 
> How might any sitting US president, end the Fed and once again
> restart printing USD greenbacks (and not Federal Reserve Notes) ?
> 
> As in, end the Fed -without- said sitting president being JFKed?


On usury vis a vis Christians, Jews and Muslims:

  When and why did the Christian Church stop viewing usury as a sin?
  https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-1030,00.html

  1.  NO DENOMINATION of the Christian Church has ever condoned
      usury, which we might define as an extortionate charge for the
      use of money or fungible goods, but the charging of interest is
      no longer regarded as usurious in all circumstances. In fact
      there is no direct condemnation of interest-taking in the New
      Testament; it is even tolerated in the Parable of the Talents.
      The Old Testament authority - Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:35,
      and Deuteronomy 20:19 - does not constitute a blanket ban on
      interest-taking, but condemns taking interest from the poor,
      and within the Jewish community. The taking of interest was
      forbidden to clerics from AD 314. It was strictly forbidden for
      laymen in 1179. The beginning of the end as far as the total
      ban on interest was concerned came in the sixteenth century.
      Although Luther and Zwingli still condemned it utterly, Calvin
      and some progressive Catholic thinkers such as Collet and
      Antoine argued that interest-taking did not constitute usury,
      as long as it represented the real difference between the value
      of present and future sums of money, and was not mere
      extortion. The Catholic Church still forbids usury, meaning
      extortionate charges, providing penalties in c2354 of the Code
      of Canon Law, but this does not mean that all interest-taking
      is sinful. The Vatican itself invests in interest-bearing
      schemes, and requires Church administrators to do likewise.
      That all interest was not in itself sinful was finally decided
      in a series of decisions in the institutions of the Catholic
      Church in the nineteenth century.

      Gwen Seabourne, London N4.


  2.  I DON'T think Gwen Seabourne should be allowed to get away with
      her anodyne answer. That the Christian Church banned usury for
      many centuries is not invalidated by reference to the Bible
      (family planning is not disallowed in the Bible). Nor can usury
      be defined as the extortionate charging of interest: usury is
      the charging of any interest. The Vatican ties itself up in
      complex circumlocutions to divert attention from the fact that
      it runs capitalist institutions based on the most blatant
      condoning of usury. The verbal acrobatics testify to the
      contradictory situation it finds itsef in. Usury - all usury -
      is banned by Christian doctrine, as it is by Muslim doctrine.
      In the late Middle Ages the problem of financing the royal
      exchequer and setting up capitalist institutions in the face of
      the Christian ban on usury was resolved by allowing Jews to act
      as bankers. They therefore came to be viewed as pariahs, just
      as cow hide tanners are pariahs in Hindu society. It was in
      this way that the Jewish community was able to accrue vast
      wealth and thereby to bring down on its head the loathing of
      the Christians. Hence Shylock. This enmity is still the
      underlying basis of modern anti-Semitism. The fact that
      (mainly) Jewish bankers did very well out of the collapse of
      free-market economics in Weimar Germany was the determining
      reality in the rise of Hitler and the Nazi movement. Gwen
      Seabourne states that the Catholic Church still forbids usury.
      That's good enough for me.

      Jonathan Morton, London W11.


  3.  "The beginning of the end as far as the total ban on interest
      was concerned came in the sixteenth century." is too vague for
      my liking. Are we talking about a Papal ban? and when exactly
      was it lifted?

      Jack Gee, Grantham UK


  4.  The question is: "When and why did the Christian Church stop
      viewing usury as a sin?" The foundation of the Church ( the
      faithful who believe Yeshua is Lord ) is found in His very
      Word: "And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive
      back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to
      sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do
      good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward
      will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is
      kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as
      your Father also is merciful." - Luke 6:34-36 "Give, and it
      will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken
      together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For
      with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to
      you. - Luke 6:38 It goes so far as not considering a loan to be
      repaid, but to be considered gift!! The Lord teaches His
      faithful to be generous, even to those who are not your brother
      or sister... it is a high bar of living this earthly life He
      has set. Usury / charging of interest heads into the opposite
      direction of His kingdom.

      Edmundo Santiago, Upland, US