Predatory Lending and People of Faith

I am increasingly convinced that predatory lending is a pressing and timely issue for people of faith, especially in the state of Alabama.  The Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church nearly unanimously passed a resolution calling upon the Alabama legislature to reduce interest rate caps from 456% to 36% and provide a system to prevent borrowers from taking out multiple payday and title loans.  My town's local newspaper, the Millbrook Independent, recently published an article I wrote on the subject.  Below is the text of that article:

"Predatory lending is loaning money at exorbitant interest rates.  It’s called predatory lending because those loaning the money intentionally take advantage of people who are unlikely to repay so that they can lock them into slavery to indebtedness.  The goal of these loan sharks is not to get the principal returned while making a reasonable profit.  The goal is to squeeze as much as possible for as long as possible from a person in a desperate situation.

This is not primarily an economic or political issue.  It’s a Christian issue.  The practice of charging high interest in order to take advantage of the poor has a biblical name: usury.  Usury is condemned throughout the Bible, particularly in books of the Law such as Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and wisdom books like Proverbs.  The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and Amos, among others, warn that usury would be a primary cause of God’s judgment against Israel/Judah and would lead them into bondage.  God loves all people, including poor people, and he is outraged when people crush the poor through high interest rates.

Usury is a significant issue in our state right now.  Once upon a time, Alabama’s recognition of the biblical prohibition against usury caused us to limit interest rates through “usury laws.”  For more than fifty years, Alabama capped interest rates at 36%.  

This changed in 2003, when, under pressure from lobbyists, the legislature modified interest rate caps to make an exception for title and payday loans and other quick-cash borrowing schemes.  The current cap for interest rates on these loans in Alabama is 456%!!

None of these crooked institutions existed in our state just over a decade ago, and now we see them up and down our busy streets, even in Millbrook.  They offer the lie of a short term solution to crushing exigency, while they deliver a long-term financial ruin with a business plan of squeezing the little that the poor have from them by taking advantage of their desperation.

Last year, the Alabama legislature considered returning our state’s interest rate cap to 2003 level, 36%.  It also considered setting up a shared online system to limit the number of predatory loans an individual could take out.  Despite broad bi-partisan support (24 sponsors were Republicans, 24 were Democrats) these measures died.

I will not let moneyed interests influence our politics without raising my voice for the victims of these greedy schemes this year.  Jesus told of the punishment of Lazarus, who hard-heartedly stepped over the poor man at his gate.  I will not be that man.  He told of the sheep and the goats, and condemned those who refused to care for the poor as those who never knew him.  Jesus proclaimed good news to the poor, liberty to the oppressed, release for the captives.

I invite every Christian who believes the Bible is true to write our Alabama legislators and ask them to end the unbiblical and heartless practice of predatory lending in our state in the coming year."