Featured The Abomination of Usury and Interest, and the Slavery of Debt

Let us discuss what is said here. Let's not direct someone to another site. Post your views here and there will be a discussion.

 

But we can't discuss what is not posted. Please post your view here on the site and then we can talk about it.

 

So you are against Christians owning their own homes? How about cars? Education? Are you against all of it?

 

Oh oh. Don't get me going on the amount of money spent on such things. A simple pole barn will keep the rain out. The money spent on buildings and property is sinful! Sell it all and send the money to missions. Build a brush arbor.

Case in point. A man I knew 30 years ago was a career Marine officer. He received orders for Adak Alaska, an island in the Aleutians. The island was home to Adak Naval Air Station (now closed) and about 1500 sailors manning the station, and about the same number of native people.

His wife and three kids went with him and lived in government housing. But there was no church. There was a Chaplain but he was Roman Catholic.

On Sunday morning they all got up, got dressed in their Sunday clothes, but didn't have anywhere to go. The middle child, Charles (who was 6), grabbed his dad's bible, laid it in his dad's lap, and said, "Daddy, I guess you will have to do it." They sang a few kid's songs. He read a passage of scripture and made comments from their daily devotional booklet.

The next Sunday they were gathered again in the living room, but Charles was gone! They waited a few minutes and he showed up with 11 kids from the neighborhood in tow. The next week some of the kids brought their parents.

When his three year tour of duty was over there were 150 people meeting in the garage and sitting under the car port and listening through the garage windows. They all brought their own folding chairs.

When he got back to the US he resigned his commission (after 16 years) and has been pastoring ever since. When the church grows out of the simple pole barn where they meet they don't have a building program. They call for volunteers to go across town and become the core group of a new church plant. The last time I talked to him they had done that 9 times. 3 times in their own town and 6 times in neighboring towns. And not a fancy building to be found.

 

How do you pay for a $260,000 house with an $80,000 per year salary without borrowing.

Aren't you aware that most people buy homes, cars, and education on credit?

 

Actually, our church has done this and is heading into doing this again with cash. We had busses and got rid of them because the repairs are more than just renting busses when we need them but they were bought with cash and we donated them to another church that requested them. But we have done 2 expansions on the building with no debt and plan to renovate our sanctuary and update many of our systems (heat, AC, sprinklers, alarms, etc.) with only cash. Our plan was to get started in August but we realized we won't have the money by then so the plan is now January. We currently have about 1/3 in the bank and have pledges for more (we will know this week what the pledges are). Our practice at our church is that if we don't have the cash to do something, we don't do it. I'm sure they mortgaged the church initially but we've been in the current location for many years and the mortgage is long paid off.

 

So, again, you dodged the question. You don't believe Christians should own their own homes, buy cars, or get a good education?

 

So every Christian who pays his mortgage faithfully to give his wife and children a home to live and grow in is, according to you, evil?