We Have Got to Talk About Usury (Part I): An Introduction
The following post is the first in a series on usury by the Rev. Vincent Shemwell. Rev. Shemwell serves as pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Johnson City, Tennessee. He graduated from Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne with the M.Div. in 2023, and received his STM from CTSFW in 2024, writing his thesis on Johann Georg Hamann.
Proverbs 1:7: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”
Proverbs 8:10-11: “Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.”
With this counsel in mind, dear reader, let us begin with a few more words from a few more wise men:
“If anyone demands interest on a loan (i.e., usury), he commits robbery and no longer has life, as it is said in Ezekiel."
- St. Ambrose, De bono mortis XII.56
“Whatever is demanded that exceeds the amount borrowed is usury.”
- St. Ambrose, De Tobia, §49
“Nothing is baser than the usury of this world, nothing more cruel.”
- St. John Chrysostom, Homily 5 on Matthew
“If you lend to a man and expect to receive back more than you have given, you are a usurer, and are not deserving of praise but censure…. I would not have you be lenders of money with interest; and I would not have you be such for this reason: because God would not have you…. How detestable, odious, and execrable a thing usury is.”
- St. Augustine, Expositions on the Book of Psalms, On the Third Part of Psalm 37
“To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this inevitably leads to inequality, which is contrary to justice…. Now money, according to The Philosopher, was invented chiefly for the purpose of exchange; and consequently, the proper and principal use of money is its consumption or alienation whereby it is sunk in exchange. Hence it is by its very nature unlawful to take payment for the use of money lent, which payment is known as usury: and just as a man is bound to restore other ill-gotten goods, so is he bound to restore the money which he has taken through usury.”
- St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 78, a. 1
“Where one lends money and demands or takes more or better, that is usury, condemned by all the laws. Therefore, all those who take five, six, or more in the hundred from the loan of money (i.e., interest), they are usurers…. Again, the one who lends and takes something more or better in return is a usurer and sins against God…. God opposes usury and greed, yet no one realizes this because it is not simple murder and robbery. Rather usury is a more diverse, insatiable murder and robbery…. Thus everyone should see to his worldly and spiritual office as commanded to punish the wicked and protect the pious.”
- Luther, Admonition to the Clergy to Preach Against Usury
“He who lends expecting to get back something more or better than he has loaned is clearly a damned usurer, since even those who lend demanding or expecting to get back just what they have lent—and taking no risk of its return—are not acting in a Christian way.”
- Luther, On Trade and Usury
“Usury is a sin of Sodom, and not only is it not concealed, but it is even publicized…. As Isaiah says (3:9): ‘They proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it.’”
- Luther, Lectures on Genesis
“Thesis 13: Usury, understood in the biblical sense, has been condemned as sin not only by all the church fathers and Christian writers and councils, as well as in Roman canon law (jus canonicum), up to and including Martin Chemnitz, but also by pagans such as Aristotle, Cato, Cicero, and others—even by the Quran.”
“Thesis 58: Because usury has pervaded everything and seemingly cannot be eradicated from the world, the preacher must not refrain from preaching against it, so that he has at least done his part and no one can accuse him on the last day because of his silence.”
- C.F.W. Walther, “Theses on Usury,” Lehre und Wehre XII (November/December 1866)
A little background for context here: I grew up in the Roman Catholic church. For much of my youth, I aspired to the Roman Catholic priesthood (and I was altogether serious about it). In my late teens, however, I began to question a great deal of what I had been taught about my faith and my church. Interestingly, this process more or less began with the topic of usury.
I was taught, like most Roman Catholics, that the church’s teaching had never really changed. I believed this wholeheartedly, so much so that I wanted to enter the church’s ministry to teach her doctrine myself. But I began to hear arguments that this claim of the unchangeableness of her teaching was not quite true. When I looked into the matter myself, by some strange chance, the first example I found attempting to disprove this claim dealt with the issue of usury.
As I came to find out, the Roman Catholic church had explicitly condemned usury, understood as the charging of any interest on a loan, for most of her existence, even treating it as an excommunicable offense by at least the twelfth century. Yet obviously, sometime in the nineteenth century, and then solidified in the comprehensive codification of canon law in 1917, the church changed her position. (That is not to mention the church’s condoning of Zinskauf, the purchasing of annuities, already a matter of contention back in the sixteenth century). And the Roman church did this, she subtly changed her position on usury, by redefining it as “excessive” or “exorbitant” interest.
Unsurprisingly, I went on to discover plenty of other changes, inconsistencies, and outright contradictions in Roman teaching (and Cardinal Newman’s unconvincing argument for doctrine’s development was no consolation). But for me, this particular issue, the church’s teaching on usury, was the first to be removed from the house of cards that is Roman doctrine. I soon after began to see the notion that Rome’s teaching is unchanging for what it is: a complete artifice. I mean, how do you turn around and condone what was previously an excommunicable offense? Suffice it to say, the house of cards collapsed before my eyes.
In college, fortunately, I was introduced to Lutheran teaching, and the rest is history, as they say. But for seventeen years now, I have wrestled on and off with this issue of usury. Because it seems to me that not only has Rome drastically changed her position, most of Christendom has. But why? Did Christians alter their view of usury, and redefine the term itself, because of a new and better interpretation of God’s Word? One better than the many previous centuries of interpretation? Or rather, because doing so became convenient—perhaps even lucrative?
I have been offered this opportunity to write a series on usury. What we are addressing here is a sensitive topic, as you, the reader, must realize. And let me be perfectly unambiguous: my only real goal through this series is to begin a broader conversation. We have got to talk about usury again, brothers and sisters. Because every Lutheran deserves a satisfactory answer for why we believe, teach, and practice what we believe, teach, and practice. If a young man discovers that our teaching on usury has changed, then we need to be able to answer him concerning why in a satisfactory way. And if it turns out that our teaching should never have changed in the first place, then all the more reason to be having this conversation right now.
Again, I have personally wrestled with this issue for nearly half my life. But it has become something of a pressing matter for me recently for two reasons. First of all, I have noticed lately a lot of Christians finding themselves incredibly concerned about Wall Street. I understand why. The tariffs this year have introduced a considerable degree of volatility in the market, and naturally, people care about their own investments, many of which are interest-bearing. But should we care about them more than the wellbeing and future of the American worker? And more importantly for the present discussion, from a biblical perspective, is our often extensive and unexamined involvement in a system so profoundly structured around lending at interest at all wise?
Secondly, as many a reader will know, this year we celebrate the seventeen-hundredth anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. We primarily remember this council for the bulk of the creed that it handed down to us. But there was more to Nicaea than the Arian controversy. Curiously enough, in the canons of the council, which is to say, the ecclesiastical decrees and disciplinary rules, usury is addressed. There are only twenty canons in total, but an entire canon (#17) was devoted to this specific subject. So, at Nicaea, the church gave its first unequivocal condemnation of lending with the charging of any interest. Of course, at Nicaea, this prohibition was directed specifically at the clergy, with defrocking prescribed as the penalty for violation. Nevertheless, quickly enough, this prohibition was extended to all Christians, which was the opinion held by many of the church fathers, up through the Middle Ages, and even through the Reformation.
Luther continued the tradition of condemning loaning at interest. Centuries later, Walther ostensibly concurred. However, for whatever reason, that historical view was lost somewhere along the way. Luther devoted an entire work to admonishing the clergy to preach against lending at interest and its rotten fruits. Yet when is the last time you heard a sermon of that nature in a Lutheran congregation?
As Confessional Lutherans, we believe the Bible to be the true, inspired, inerrant Word of God. And many of us know well that when faithless scholars or clergymen wish to twist the Word of God to say what it clearly does not say, or to avoid saying what it clearly does say, they will often resort to redefining terms. This is an age-old tactic used to obscure what is as plain as day in God’s Word.
The question I want to broach through this series is simple: have we ourselves done the same with regard to usury?
I think we all agree that usury is sinful. But what do we mean by that? What do we mean by usury? And why do we define usury the way we define it?
In this series, I will be going through the history of the church’s view on the subject. We will start with the Word of God itself, which addresses the matter several times. (And do not worry, my skeptical reader, we will also talk about the Parable of the Talents.) Then we will look at the early church, thereafter the Medieval church, then the Reformation, through Walther and up to the current age. I believe what we will find together is that the Christian church had a very consistent understanding of usury and its spiritual and earthly dangers for many centuries. While Luther agreed with this consistent view and adamantly defended it, not everyone in the broader Reformation saw things the same way. In the centuries after Luther, differences of opinion arose among our own churchmen. But even up through the time of Walther, we see a consistent message among well-known Confessional Lutherans: that the traditional view of lending at interest is the correct one.
To reiterate: I realize that this is a sensitive issue that affects us all. We live in a world where it is nearly impossible to avoid being a part of moneylending of some kind and in some way. Having said this, I encourage the reader to consider the following hypothetical:
Imagine we wake up tomorrow and discover that, for some unknown and truly bizarre reason, our entire economic system has become predicated on prostitution; so much so that you could hardly live day to day—let alone prepare for the future—without somehow contributing to a system which reinforces prostitution. Were this to happen, what would we Christians do? What should we do?
That would be a tough conversation. Surely a long and difficult conversation. But I think we can all agree that it would be wise to start here: by admitting that prostitution, according to God’s Word, is sinful, and committing ourselves to a serious conversation, a conversation about how we might live more faithfully and cautiously, or at the very least, live in such a manner that we might somehow mitigate the greatest spiritual danger and earthly harm.
Maybe that hypothetical is too far-fetched and provocative for you, the reader, to seriously consider. (Though it is worth noting here that some of the church fathers evidently considered lending at interest an even more egregious sin.) What is more, maybe you have never really wrestled with the issue of usury before.
Well, then, let me close by asking you: were the men I quoted at the beginning of this introduction indeed wise men? If so, should we not hear them out? Should we not at least investigate further what exactly they meant and determine how their counsel might apply to us now?
As King Solomon wisely declares in Proverbs 8, truth and knowledge are more valuable than worldly riches. Truth is more valuable than any monetary gain. This is a sensitive issue, to be sure, even a controversial one. But truth is way more valuable—and thus more important—than any sensitivity or fear of controversy.
Stay tuned.