Debt Forgiveness and the Political Use of Scripture

Recently, President Biden announced plans to cancel up to $10,000 of student loan debt for millions of qualified individuals. This announcement rekindled debate about the massive amount of student loan debt in this country and what to do about it. The cumulative federal student loan debt in America is estimated to be about $1.6 trillion. Wowza.

As usual (unfortunately), many people have weighed in on the debate claiming that their position is supported by Scripture or some theological principle, and that’s what I want to address here. This is not a post about whether this policy is good or bad, as InterChristianity is not a political site. This is about claiming that God, through Scripture or theology, has put his stamp of approval on one’s political opinions, which is almost always presumptuous and based on simplistic biblical interpretations and political philosophy.

My point will be straightforward: Stop doing it. Using such superficial arguments shows neither intellectual vigor nor real virtue and more often than not twists Scripture to try to score political points.

The Typical Arguments

When discussing abortion on the podcast and in a previous article, I even criticized conservative Christians for utilizing this sort of logic:

“The Bible teaches X, therefore X must be made into a law for the country.”

I pointed out that while the Bible teaching X is sufficient for Christians to obey X, that does not mean it is practical or even good to make into a law for everyone because other factors have to be considered such as limits to government power, difficulty of enforcement, cost, and so forth. Further arguments have to be made. For example, the Bible straightforwardly teaches that getting drunk is a sin, but hardly anyone thinks that this means that it should be illegal to get drunk in your own home or at a party. However, we do have laws against drunk driving, as that is dangerous enough to others to warrant some level of enforcement.

When it comes to student debt relief, here are the two most common biblical arguments that are brought up:

1. Christians should support student loan forgiveness because debt forgiveness is what Jesus did on the cross.
2. Christians should support student loan forgiveness because it follows how the ancient Israelites practiced lending: With no interest (Deut. 23:19) and with complete debt forgiveness every seven years (Deut. 15:1). Furthermore, after seven Sabbath rest years (7 x 7 = 49), the 50th year would be a year of Jubilee, when slaves were released, debts were remitted, and property was returned (Lev. 25).

I’ll address each of these in turn.

The first is easy to dismiss quickly. What Jesus did on the cross was how God, who was owed the debt of sin, payed for it himself voluntarily. This is substantially different than the power of government forcing people to subsidize the debt of others, which is essentially what has to happen to make student debt forgiveness work. Again, you might think that is still good policy: After all, even good policy often won’t work for everyone and will be unfair to at least some people. It still might be good policy if it’s good for the country as a whole, so perhaps this is a proper use of government power. Even so, that still has nothing to do with what Jesus did on the cross to pay for the sins of the world.

The second can also be dismissed quickly, but I’ll also talk more about it in detail. I’ll give one version that was easy to refute: One Christian claimed that Christians should support debt forgiveness because, according to the above passages, “that’s how Yahweh nation-builds.” I asked a simple question in response: Well, the OT is clear that “how Yahweh nation-builds” also includes, and more importantly includes, the requirement of Yahweh-worship, so would such a Christian support laws that made other religions illegal in the US? He gave no response because there is none: He was just transparently cherry-picking.

Here’s where I’d like to go into more detail though: I am not saying that how God commanded the Israelites on debt has no application to Christians today. I think it should have huge implications for how Christians treat each other. In fact, if you look at these verses more closely, they are explicitly restricted to fellow Israelites and not the foreigner. For example, if you just keep reading in Deut. 15, it says this verse 3: “From a foreigner you may require [debt], but your hand shall forgive whatever of yours is with your brother.” This is the same for Deut. 23 if you keep going into verse 20: “You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your countrymen you shall not charge interest, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess.” So how would that look like?

Finances, debt, and the community of faith

First, let’s talk basic finance. There is something called the time value of money; essentially, the idea is that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in five years. Why? Because you can theoretically put that dollar to work right now and make a return on it. This is why interest is charged: If you are loaned money, the lender forgoes using that money for some other purpose like investment. Lending with interest is not inherently a bad thing, and for modern economies that utilize banks, it can be in fact a good thing that let’s average people like you and I buy houses, buy cars, or start a business with capital we otherwise wouldn’t have on hand.

These basic financial facts are also why an interest-free loan can be viewed almost like a gift: If you are loaned $10,000 and get to pay that off at $1,000 a year for ten years with zero interest, you come out on top over the course of that loan due to the time value of money (not counting things like inflation for present purposes).

So borrowing money and interest have an important role in the economy that everyone participates in, and it is certainly not obvious that the commands in the Torah apply to it. But what about the Church? Unlike the world, it is not the Church’s job to make money or finance things like houses and businesses. The Church is there to help people in need, particularly the community of faith. This is why God commanded the Israelites in the way that he did and also where the OT commands seem to readily apply. Just as the Israelites were called to look after their own community of faith, so too should Christians now. When Christians help each other or churches hand out loans to struggling members, we should not charge any interest, which makes such loans a mixture of a loan but also a gift (remember the time value of money).

Here’s a great example of this: When I was studying in seminary, I had financial struggles because I was also paying for medical bills from lung surgery. My pastor, who obviously didn’t make a ton because he’s, well, a pastor, gave me a $2,000 loan that I did not ask for. His stipulations were that when I got back on my feet, I could then pay him back, but he only required $1,500 in return. As time went by, I tried to pay him back in smaller installments but he refused, telling me to keep my money until I was really financially solid. When, years later, I was able to pay him back the $1,500, he and his wife had forgotten about it and tried to refuse taking the money. However, my wife and I insisted because that was the agreement, so they relented.

Thus, not only did he charge no interest (again, remember the time value of money), he got even less than the principle in return (which he didn’t even want back). This is exactly how Christians should be applying the lending principles in the Old Testament. Christians should be generous givers, especially to the community of faith, though of course we can also extend that to people outside of the community.

Conclusion

So yes, generous giving and debt forgiveness go hand-in-hand with Scripture and Christianity. However, what I just said is not a political position. It’s instead a position that the Bible commands Christians individually and churches corporately to give freely to brothers and sisters in need, loan without interest, or lessen or wipe away those loans if that is what is best for the person who borrowed. Claiming that these biblical principles entail a public policy about student loans without further argument is cheap political theater.

Now, one can still make arguments for a policy that lessens or even wipes away student loan debt. For instance, one argument I’ve seen is that young adults are having a harder time buying houses and starting families due to student loan debt. To stave off potential population decline problems that we see in countries like Japan, eliminating some debt and freeing up some money per month can go a long way in helping millennials get settled down and build families. This is not an unreasonable political argument and should be interacted with. However, just note that this argument is made with zero appeal to Scripture, which is how it should be done because it turns out appealing to Scripture here ends up distorting it.

The takeaway from all this? Be very careful about claiming that God, Jesus, or the Bible is on your political team. You’re bringing concerns into the text that just aren’t there and trying to drag Jesus into our worldly debates, which muddies the gospel message. The “political team” of Christ is the kingdom of God, currently manifested by the Church and will later be fully implemented by Jesus himself, not by our pet policies.

-Isak