Debt-Shaming is Anti-Christ-Like
One of the more profound statements Jesus makes, in my opinion, is found within his instructions on how to pray (Matt 6:9–13). Jesus says in verse 12 (NIV):
“Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
Why this particular portion is so profound is due to the simplicity of instruction and reflection. This call, to ask forgiveness of our debts as we have forgiven our debtors, is a mirror for us to see ourselves.
Forgive in the Greek is aphiémi meaning to leave alone or send away. Debt in the Greek is opheiléma meaning that which is owed; the result of having a debt or committing an offense. When we seek God for forgiveness, it is because our sin offense requires a debt to be repaid. Thank God for Jesus, that he paid that sin debt on the cross. But look at what Jesus says in this passage.
He says that when we pray, ask God for forgiveness of our debts but do so according to how we’ve forgiven those in debt to us. The question becomes, what does us being forgiven look like in reference to how we’ve forgiven others? Does how we forgive people mirror what we expect forgiveness to look like for us in light of the agape love God has for us?
That’s a sermon in and of itself.
Fiscally speaking, Jesus was concerned about debt. Jesus told a parable to show how one who owed a debt could or their family members could either be sold into slavery; or one could be imprisoned and tortured (Matt 18:24–35). This parable also is a good explanation of Matthew 6:12 but I digress.
Debt slavery was a real thing in the time of Christ. Peasant farming seems to be the forerunner of sharecropping in the United States. The Roman empire was one built on a system of debts — much like the United States. I am sure that folks back then were humiliated and even shunned for owing a debt; debt-shaming, if you will, was probably commonplace.
Debt-shaming happens today as well.
The United States is a capitalist society built on maintaining debt (paying back in installments) to show one’s credit trustworthiness. it goes that if you own debt that you cannot repay in a timely fashion (or repay at all), it speaks to your trustworthiness. Having debt, which can lead to bad credit, can be an indictment against you in the eyes of business owners, employers, and even voters. That was the hope of Republican governors; that Georgia voters looked at gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams with disdain due to having debt.
Stacey Abrams (Democrat) and her opponent Brian Kemp (Republican) are running for governor of Georgia. They are currently tied in the polls. Stacey Abrams is a Black woman; Kemp, a White man. That matters. To put some space between Abrams and Kemp in favor of the latter, the Republican Governors Association released an ad attacking Abrams for lending money to her own campaign while owing $54,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, describing her as “self-serving” and “fiscally irresponsible.”
This attack is out of the racial dog-whistle politics playbook. The racial dog-whistle is the insidious employing of racially coded buzzword(s) or buzz phrase(s) to communicate an immoral characteristic found in a person of color. In this particular case, the financial problems of the poor or middle class Black person are treated as a moral failure — in contrast, rich Whites, like Kemp, who have financial problems get the benefit of the doubt.
Abrams is not the only political candidate to have their debt used against them. Jumaane Williams, a left-wing New York City councilman, is Cynthia Nixon running mate campaigning for Lieutenant Governor. He was attacked for owing taxes from a failed restaurant venture. Randy Bryce, running for Paul Ryan’s House of Representatives seat, was targeted for a 1999 bankruptcy filing.
Oddly enough, each of the three — Abrams, Williams, and Bryce — have something else in common: they’re all considered progressive candidates. The policies they endorse liberate as oppose to those politicians who pedal Christ for votes; they endorse policies that oppress.
Bryce supports free college, criminal justice reform, and the DACA program. Williams, a Colin Kaepernick supporter, is for legalizing marijuana, marriage equality, criminal justice reform and is against ICE. Abrams is for juvenile justice reform, the decriminalization of poverty, equal pay, expanded sick leave and raising the minimum wage.
All these things scare the heck out of conservatives who worry that America is being overrun by people of color who receive entitlements from the government. So they then seek to scare their base and those on the fence to vote Republican, by painting their opponents as untrustworthy due to their debt. This isn’t the way anyone should solicit voter participation. Debt should not be the primary arbiter of one’s character.
But if we return to the call of Christ: that when we seek forgiveness from God, that he forgive us as we have forgiven… what does debt-shaming say about us as a society? We invoke the name of God to solicit His blessings upon our nation, yet we fail to follow the instructions given to us by his son. If we fail to forgive our debtors, we are in jeopardy of receiving the same fate as the first servant in Matthew 18; whose debt was forgiven but failed to forgive his debtor.
That is a fate worse than losing an election to someone in debt.
