You will borrow and not lend

in the Bible debt is a curse. It's a divine punishment. Now it's seen as part of the way the world woke. And that's true. It is part of the way the world works. What's less clear is why it's part of the way the Church works.

When Christian couple gets married, they're expected to already be several hundred thousand dollars in debt or to get that way as soon as possible. Then they're supposed to spend the next few decades paying it back. During that time they're expected to get even more in debt for luxuries they can't afford and most people can't even imagine.

Congregations get millions of dollars in debt for new buildings to draw people in, who will then spend the next several years helping pay them off. Of course, more people means bigger building in an ever-increasing spiral. It's in a pastor's best interest to grow the church as large and as fast as possible.

I'm not accusing pastors of having cynical or mercenary motives. The ones I've met were by and large good men who genuinely cared about the Kingdom of God but did what they were trained to. It's the strategy as a whole that's flawed and has left the country strewn with big churches with even bigger debts.

Both individual and congregational debt have the same effect. Instead of asking what we ahead do, we have to ask what we can afford to do,