Debt is personal

Record figures for debt announced a week or so back -okay that could've been down to infflation and business start-ups or somesuch. But no: it's down to consumers. In the OT usury is disallowed; one of the likley reasons being that it was often in effect an oppresive tool to keep ordinary Israelites 'in their place'. In that soicety the onus was placed on the moneyed to be fair. In our society I suspect that there may be a little more shared responsibility -though credit card debt is surely a concern. In those days someone might end up in debt to try to pay for an emergency [the donkey dies and there's loads of stuff to get to market else the kids don't eat]. And while that may be true in our society, I can't help but feel a lot has been about retail therapy and keeping up with the Jones's and I feel more ambiguus about that.

Retail therapy; so named because it takes place to make people feel good [for about a day until the purchase palls and reality is still as it ever was]. It's a hsame that people's emptiness, lack of self-valuing etc ends up fuelling a buying binge [and I use the analogy deliberately] and the habit of this behaviour does end up bankrupting people. I've seen several cases where this has happened or been a danger.ANd what happens is a curtailment of the liberty of the indebted. Yes, they made the buys but they didn't choose too be in a society that measures worth by 'stuff' owned and tells the lie that 'stuff' will fulfill the human longings.

Cristian discipleship must take seriously the idea that identity is constructed to some extent and that we need to find ways to help people construct an identity which derives from God-in-Christ and is held in place by willed commitment which indeed forecloses some options; some choices. IF anyone would save their life they must lose the consumer-constructed life.