The Thursday Round-Up
A few weeks back I conducted a survey of Lutheran Confessions readers. An amazing 51 of you responded! Thank you. The ranking was as follows:
39% of readers want analysis of contemporary events
35% of readers are looking for explorations in biblical theology
18% of readers are interested in the actual Lutheran confessions
6% would listen to a weekly podcast
And 2% voted for book reviews
Well, I think I now know the assignment! You want lots of book reviews!
But more seriously, I appreciate the push to focus on biblical theology. That’s a pleasant field to till. And I think there’s a lot of possibility in discussing current events here at the blog instead of in the minefield that is social media.
A Few Updates From The Week
First of all, my article on playing Pokemon Go was published over at The Christian Citizen and I invite you to take a read! https://christiancitizen.us/on-getting-into-pokemon-go-in-2022/
Second, I’m back in the office after a mini-sabbatical. It feels really good. Great to spend time catching up with staff, out on some lunch meetings with church council members, and taking communion to homebound members.
Third, I’ve noticed that there is big meme energy connecting student loan forgiveness to forgiveness and debt relief in Scripture. My take might be a third way between the two poles. So two radical theses:
The federal government is not Jesus. So any comparison between a president extending debt forgiveness and Christian practices of debt forgiveness centered in the debt-relief of the cross are really a stretch.
The forgiveness of sins accomplished in Christ is not a religious metaphor. It’s real. So any denial of a connection between God’s forgiving and our own practices of forgiveness is a gnostic disconnecting of the gospel from the actual world.
Okay, given those two theses, how should or can we think as Christians about student loan debt relief? Well, I think the better biblical analogies can be found in the jubilee and reparations practices of the Old Testament. There communal practices were established by God in covenant with the Israelites, and many of those communal practices included forms of debt relief that restored people to wholeness and freedom and protected the community from the abject aggregating of wealth to the rich.
So that “dark Brandon” video going around from Joe Biden is very much resonant with the law in the Old Testament and the prophets. When asked by a reporter if he thought it was fair to people who paid their student loans, Biden said: “"Is it fair to people who, in fact, do not own multibillion-dollar businesses if they see one of these guys getting all the tax breaks? Is that fair?" Biden said. "What do you think?" [I’ve included a Youtube link below that begins at the relevant moment in the interview]
Compare that to Isaiah 5:8: “Woe to you who add house to house
and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land.”
Or again Isaiah 3:14: “It is you who have ruined my vineyard;
the plunder from the poor is in your houses.”
However, I’m not entirely convinced that student loan debt relief is like the kind of reparations we hear God desiring in Scripture. God cares for the poor in particular, so closer to a biblical view would be the forgiveness of Pell grant loans in particular, or other kinds of onerous debts that especially focus on relieving poverty.
That being said, it’s awfully difficult for a federal government to especially offer debt relief specifically to, say women of color, and yet Biden’s student loan relief plan will benefit women of color the most, so perhaps even though he has taken a broad brush approach to everyone below a certain income level, and even though it’s only $10,000, nevertheless this strategy really does align somewhat well with the spirit of justice seen in the prophets.
As I said on social media, this is a good start. Now let’s work on UBI and single-payer health insurance for all. Let’s keep going.
In other news, Covid has come to the Marshall Islands and is impacting that community widely. Our Ozark Atolls ministry is currently taking up a collection to send supplies to the islands. If you’d like to contribute, feel free to visit our donation page over at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.
Finally, I’ve got my fall books stack built, and it is pictured below. What are you reading these days?