I\u2019m a conservative, and a Christian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I cringe at some of the things said in the name of \u201cconservative Christianity\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which I hasten to add, because some of the things I\u2019ve seen from \u201cprogressive Christians\u201c, including some friends and classmates, this past few days have had me cringing even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three things, specifically:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChrist came to earth to forgive mankind\u2018s sins \u2013 so if you oppose loan forgiveness, you\u2019re not a very good Christian\u201c.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not “loan forgiveness”<\/em>. This is transferring the loan to people who didn\u2019t borrow it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Will it benefit some people? Sure, it must be nice to have $10-$20,000 in balance disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this political act has nothing to do with\ufffc Christ\u2019s grace – dying for the sins every individual commits. It\u2019s more like\ufffc rounding up randos off the streets\ufffc because someone else committed a murder. \ufffc<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s predatory lending!”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You can make that case. But unfortunately, the \u201cforgiveness\u201c will do nothing to change that. In fact, it will only accelerate the \u201cpredatory\u201c lending, since everyone applying for those \u201cpredatory loans\u201c is going to figure \u201cthe first $10,000 is going to be free, again, anyway\u2026\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, if the administration had sat down in a room to figure out the worst possible solution to student debt, this would\u2019ve been it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They could\u2019ve made universities, with their hundreds of billions of dollars of endowments, share some of the risk. They could\u2019ve even just cut interest rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But no. Fighting predatory lending by making everyone else pay is like fighting street crime by dumping piles of wallets out on the street and hoping people will stop holding other people up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “New Ministers Go Deep Into Debt – and Don’t Make Much Money”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A couple of (it’s fair to say) “liberal” clergy I know have pointed out that their denominations require a Masters in Divinity (MDiv) to be ordained – which can cost up to $200K, as much as law school or medical school – but their first jobs out of seminary pay something close to minimum wage. And it’s fair to say outside Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar and Pope Frank, nobody goes into the ministry to get rich. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But isn’t that a little odd – an academic discipline (a product and service) that pays badly, and doesn’t necessarily cater to the children of immense <\/em>wealth, costing well into six figures? I mean, if “products and services for people without a lot of money to spend on them” were prone to spontaneously inflating out of reach, the McDonalds cheeseburger would be $25. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At any rate – presenting this as a gesture of Christian grace is cynical, manipulative and profoundly wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m a conservative, and a Christian. And I cringe at some of the things said in the name of \u201cconservative Christianity\u201c. Which I hasten to add, because some of the things I\u2019ve seen from \u201cprogressive Christians\u201c, including some friends and classmates, this past few days have had me cringing even more. Three things, specifically: \u201cChrist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[452,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bride-of-stagflation","category-faiths-and-their-followers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83203,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83202\/revisions\/83203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}