Church Sponsored Usury
by Borson M. Hugilhoff
If Church leaders are concerned about the family destroying economics of the day, then why does the Church support usurious institutions (the charging of interest on debt) such as church owned academic, financial and banking institutions that places members of the Church under economic bondage? The Lord has said in plain terms that his people are not to practice usury (Luke 6:35; Ezek. 18:17; Deut. 23:20).
Usury is the archaic term for interest. Interest is money paid in addition to money that is lent to a borrower. Borrowing money is used for exchange. Money earned, which is a measurement of the fruit of one's labor, is also used as a medium of exchange. Without usury money serves its natural function between the buyer and seller in the exchange for goods and services. Selling money at interest over time or at a fee is a usurious practice. A true loan is one in which one demands no more than that which was lent. An unjust loan is providing the amount of the medium of exchange and then asking for more than that amount of exchange in return.
God prohibits the practice of usury because a plethora of evils flow from it. Capitalism and usury should not be misconstrued. Usury is an evil and ailment within capitalism and should be outlawed from practice.
Within the ten commandments that Moses received from God upon Mt. Sinai is the command, "Thou shalt not steal" (Ex. 20:15). That command has to do with how individuals, individually or collectively, are to treat each other in respect to property. A persons property is a manifest fruit of that persons labor - whether intangible or tangible. Thus it is unjust for another person or group to take another persons property without their consent. For in doing so that person is being robbed of their labor, which is made up of their time, talents, means and exertions.
Capitalism is the only economic system which guarantees or protects an individual's and an organization's property. For without property rights or the protection of an individual's or an organization's labor, means and ingenuity then the economic system of capitalism collapses and slavery and misery begin.
As Armen A. Alchian has written: "One of the most fundamental requirements of a capitalist economic system—and one of the most misunderstood concepts—is a strong system of property rights. For decades social critics in the United States and throughout the Western world have complained that “property” rights too often take precedence over “human” rights, with the result that people are treated unequally and have unequal opportunities. Inequality exists in any society. But the purported conflict between property rights and human rights is a mirage. Property rights are human rights."
What are the evils that unnaturally flow from the practice of usury? Usurers live in idleness. Usury is gainful idleness. They seek gain by a trade of sin, even as thieves do. The Psalms testify that usurers will not be allowed to dwell with the Lord in his holy tabernacle.
"Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved." Psalm 15.
Usury demands shabby construction work. No skill or artifice is awarded. All gain in expertise is swallowed up by interest. Usury dries the painters brush. Usury demands stock paintings that shall not endure, but sell quickly. Usury keeps the individual from developing skills. The market place has no gain because of usury. Usury keeps genius from full expression. Usury turns the saints into strangers.
"Charging interest on loans of money to Christians, or for that matter to any neighbor, turns the whole world into a population of strangers, which is what we have in our time; what Thomas Hobbes termed belum omnes contra omnia (the war of all against all). In this market, called "free" (because it has been cut loose from the chief restraint on greed, the ban on usury), we devolve from the Lord's chosen people under the gospel dispensation, to a sub-human species defined mainly by our selfish appetites and acquisitions: we devolve into the "consumer," homo economicus."
Saints are to cherish the spirit of liberty and practice the principles of liberty one towards another. The Lord told the ancient Israelites "proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." Leviticus 25:10 The saints are not to oppress one another. As the apostle Peter has taught "That no man oppress or defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified." 1 Thessalonians 4:6
Similarly in Ezekiel we read " "But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right. ...And hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge...He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man" will be considered a just man. Ezekiel 18:5 & 7-8 And Christ has taught it is the just that shall inherit eternal life.
Usury, the charging of interest on debt, instigated by powerful bankers that rule nation states, is a tool of population control and immorality. Usury is in direct opposition to God's command to "multiply and replenish the earth." It reduces and degrades the individual to an economic unit.
As Ezra Pound has written, usury stays the young mans courting (because of his penury), usury lies between the bride and her bridegroom unnaturally (contraception or birth control) and usury slays the developing child in the womb (abortion). Usury then gives birth to all forms of immorality. Usury causes the masses to engage in acts that are contrary to the natural use that God has ordained for the promulgation, procreation and happiness of his Creations. It leads to sterility in marriage. The ultimate practice demanded by usury of sterility in marriage is same sex relationships. Do we declare ourselves to be saints of God and support the use of usury?
Moses taught that fertility is numbered among the blessings of God. 'There will not be a barren woman among you,' he says (Ex. 23:26). Charles Provan has written: "We do not regard this so highly today. Although we like and desire it in cattle, yet in the human race there are few who regard a woman's fertility as a blessing. Indeed there are many who have an aversion for it and regard sterility as a special blessing. Surely this is also contrary to nature. Much less is it pious and saintly. For this affection has been implanted by God in man's nature, so that it desires its increasing and multiplication. Accordingly, it is inhuman and godless to have a loathing for offspring."
In the Psalms we read "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them." Psalm 127:3-5
Usury is a form of stealing. Bishop John Jewel, who in some respects personified early Anglicanism, sided with Wilson; also John Blaxton in The English Usurer, or Usury condemned by the most learned and famous Divines of the Church of England (1634).
"Stealing did not become lawful, merely because the sums stolen were small. God was no respecter of persons to condone, in those who financed the rich, conduct forbidden to those who lent to the poor. The direct results of a loan at moderate interest to a well-to-do merchant might seem harmless. But the merchant would pass it on in higher prices to the consumer, and in the end the whole commonwealth, including the poor, would suffer."
We are living in the land of America. It is the land of liberty. The land of the free. "The beginning date of the modern monetary system, with it's usurious practices that has metastasized into the family destroying predatory economic system that has filled the world with compounded debt in the form of interest, can be traced back to the founding of the Bank of England in 1694. As we know, the American financial community descends directly from it, via Hamilton's Bank of the United States, which worked on the same usurious principles. William Patterson, the founder of the Bank of England, described its workings by saying, 'the bank...hath benefit of interest on all the monies which it, the bank, creates out of nothing.' This you might say, is the heart of darkness inside usura. The diabolical power of this parody of procreation is, the satanic double of the poetic imagination - that money can breed money out of nothing with no material asset to back it."
The sanctioned use of usury and all the immorality that flows from it is in direct violation of the word of God.
Christ has taught: "But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again." Luke 6:35 To lend, means to borrow, to return what was lent. Then hoping for nothing again.
The Lord in the Old Testament states: "Unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land."
The prophet Joseph Smith taught "the temporal economy of this people should be to establish and encourage manufactures, and not to take usury for their money." Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith pg. 328
Western civilization was profoundly disfigured by the exculpation of the charging of interest on debt. The result has been a pursuit of usurious profit unconstrained by the Standard Works of God, the doctrine of His true Church and the consensus of centuries of Christian Europe.
The rotted fruit of usury manifests itself in all manner of debauchery and immorality, from homosexuality to the destruction of the family unit in society.
Aristotle concerning the unnatural consequence of usury states. "The natural form therefore, of the art of acquisition is always, and in all cases, acquisition from fruits and animals. That art, as we have said, has two forms: one which is connected with retail trade, and another which is connected with the management of the household. Of these two forms, the latter is necessary and laudable; the former is a method of exchange which is justly censured, because the gain in which it results is not naturally made, but is made at the expense of other men. The trade of the petty usurer is hated most, and with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process (i.e., of exchange) which currency was meant to serve. Currency came into existence merely as a means of exchange; usury tries to make it increase (as though it were an end in itself). This is the reason why usury is called by the word we commonly use (the word tokos, which in Greek also means breed or offspring); for as the offspring resembles its parent, so the interest bred by money is like the principal which breeds it and it may be called 'currency the son of currency.' Hence we can understand why, of all modes of acquisition, usury is the most unnatural." Aristotle
It is appropriate to end this article by including Ezra Pound's poem on Usury.
With Usura
With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
With usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall harpes et luz
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,
With usura
seeth no Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
With usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling.
Stonecutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom
With usura
wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the maid's hand
and stoppeth the spinner's cunning.
Pietro Lombardo came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura nor
Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin not by usura
nor was 'La Calunnia' painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St Trophime
Not buy usura Saint Hilaire,
Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man's courting
It hath brought palsey to bed,
lyeth between the young bride and her bridegroom Contra Naturam.
They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet at behest of usura.
Usury is the archaic term for interest. Interest is money paid in addition to money that is lent to a borrower. Borrowing money is used for exchange. Money earned, which is a measurement of the fruit of one's labor, is also used as a medium of exchange. Without usury money serves its natural function between the buyer and seller in the exchange for goods and services. Selling money at interest over time or at a fee is a usurious practice. A true loan is one in which one demands no more than that which was lent. An unjust loan is providing the amount of the medium of exchange and then asking for more than that amount of exchange in return.
God prohibits the practice of usury because a plethora of evils flow from it. Capitalism and usury should not be misconstrued. Usury is an evil and ailment within capitalism and should be outlawed from practice.
Within the ten commandments that Moses received from God upon Mt. Sinai is the command, "Thou shalt not steal" (Ex. 20:15). That command has to do with how individuals, individually or collectively, are to treat each other in respect to property. A persons property is a manifest fruit of that persons labor - whether intangible or tangible. Thus it is unjust for another person or group to take another persons property without their consent. For in doing so that person is being robbed of their labor, which is made up of their time, talents, means and exertions.
Capitalism is the only economic system which guarantees or protects an individual's and an organization's property. For without property rights or the protection of an individual's or an organization's labor, means and ingenuity then the economic system of capitalism collapses and slavery and misery begin.
As Armen A. Alchian has written: "One of the most fundamental requirements of a capitalist economic system—and one of the most misunderstood concepts—is a strong system of property rights. For decades social critics in the United States and throughout the Western world have complained that “property” rights too often take precedence over “human” rights, with the result that people are treated unequally and have unequal opportunities. Inequality exists in any society. But the purported conflict between property rights and human rights is a mirage. Property rights are human rights."
What are the evils that unnaturally flow from the practice of usury? Usurers live in idleness. Usury is gainful idleness. They seek gain by a trade of sin, even as thieves do. The Psalms testify that usurers will not be allowed to dwell with the Lord in his holy tabernacle.
"Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved." Psalm 15.
Usury demands shabby construction work. No skill or artifice is awarded. All gain in expertise is swallowed up by interest. Usury dries the painters brush. Usury demands stock paintings that shall not endure, but sell quickly. Usury keeps the individual from developing skills. The market place has no gain because of usury. Usury keeps genius from full expression. Usury turns the saints into strangers.
"Charging interest on loans of money to Christians, or for that matter to any neighbor, turns the whole world into a population of strangers, which is what we have in our time; what Thomas Hobbes termed belum omnes contra omnia (the war of all against all). In this market, called "free" (because it has been cut loose from the chief restraint on greed, the ban on usury), we devolve from the Lord's chosen people under the gospel dispensation, to a sub-human species defined mainly by our selfish appetites and acquisitions: we devolve into the "consumer," homo economicus."
Saints are to cherish the spirit of liberty and practice the principles of liberty one towards another. The Lord told the ancient Israelites "proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." Leviticus 25:10 The saints are not to oppress one another. As the apostle Peter has taught "That no man oppress or defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified." 1 Thessalonians 4:6
Similarly in Ezekiel we read " "But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right. ...And hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge...He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man" will be considered a just man. Ezekiel 18:5 & 7-8 And Christ has taught it is the just that shall inherit eternal life.
Usury, the charging of interest on debt, instigated by powerful bankers that rule nation states, is a tool of population control and immorality. Usury is in direct opposition to God's command to "multiply and replenish the earth." It reduces and degrades the individual to an economic unit.
As Ezra Pound has written, usury stays the young mans courting (because of his penury), usury lies between the bride and her bridegroom unnaturally (contraception or birth control) and usury slays the developing child in the womb (abortion). Usury then gives birth to all forms of immorality. Usury causes the masses to engage in acts that are contrary to the natural use that God has ordained for the promulgation, procreation and happiness of his Creations. It leads to sterility in marriage. The ultimate practice demanded by usury of sterility in marriage is same sex relationships. Do we declare ourselves to be saints of God and support the use of usury?
Moses taught that fertility is numbered among the blessings of God. 'There will not be a barren woman among you,' he says (Ex. 23:26). Charles Provan has written: "We do not regard this so highly today. Although we like and desire it in cattle, yet in the human race there are few who regard a woman's fertility as a blessing. Indeed there are many who have an aversion for it and regard sterility as a special blessing. Surely this is also contrary to nature. Much less is it pious and saintly. For this affection has been implanted by God in man's nature, so that it desires its increasing and multiplication. Accordingly, it is inhuman and godless to have a loathing for offspring."
In the Psalms we read "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them." Psalm 127:3-5
Usury is a form of stealing. Bishop John Jewel, who in some respects personified early Anglicanism, sided with Wilson; also John Blaxton in The English Usurer, or Usury condemned by the most learned and famous Divines of the Church of England (1634).
"Stealing did not become lawful, merely because the sums stolen were small. God was no respecter of persons to condone, in those who financed the rich, conduct forbidden to those who lent to the poor. The direct results of a loan at moderate interest to a well-to-do merchant might seem harmless. But the merchant would pass it on in higher prices to the consumer, and in the end the whole commonwealth, including the poor, would suffer."
We are living in the land of America. It is the land of liberty. The land of the free. "The beginning date of the modern monetary system, with it's usurious practices that has metastasized into the family destroying predatory economic system that has filled the world with compounded debt in the form of interest, can be traced back to the founding of the Bank of England in 1694. As we know, the American financial community descends directly from it, via Hamilton's Bank of the United States, which worked on the same usurious principles. William Patterson, the founder of the Bank of England, described its workings by saying, 'the bank...hath benefit of interest on all the monies which it, the bank, creates out of nothing.' This you might say, is the heart of darkness inside usura. The diabolical power of this parody of procreation is, the satanic double of the poetic imagination - that money can breed money out of nothing with no material asset to back it."
The sanctioned use of usury and all the immorality that flows from it is in direct violation of the word of God.
Christ has taught: "But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again." Luke 6:35 To lend, means to borrow, to return what was lent. Then hoping for nothing again.
The Lord in the Old Testament states: "Unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land."
The prophet Joseph Smith taught "the temporal economy of this people should be to establish and encourage manufactures, and not to take usury for their money." Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith pg. 328
Western civilization was profoundly disfigured by the exculpation of the charging of interest on debt. The result has been a pursuit of usurious profit unconstrained by the Standard Works of God, the doctrine of His true Church and the consensus of centuries of Christian Europe.
The rotted fruit of usury manifests itself in all manner of debauchery and immorality, from homosexuality to the destruction of the family unit in society.
Aristotle concerning the unnatural consequence of usury states. "The natural form therefore, of the art of acquisition is always, and in all cases, acquisition from fruits and animals. That art, as we have said, has two forms: one which is connected with retail trade, and another which is connected with the management of the household. Of these two forms, the latter is necessary and laudable; the former is a method of exchange which is justly censured, because the gain in which it results is not naturally made, but is made at the expense of other men. The trade of the petty usurer is hated most, and with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process (i.e., of exchange) which currency was meant to serve. Currency came into existence merely as a means of exchange; usury tries to make it increase (as though it were an end in itself). This is the reason why usury is called by the word we commonly use (the word tokos, which in Greek also means breed or offspring); for as the offspring resembles its parent, so the interest bred by money is like the principal which breeds it and it may be called 'currency the son of currency.' Hence we can understand why, of all modes of acquisition, usury is the most unnatural." Aristotle
It is appropriate to end this article by including Ezra Pound's poem on Usury.
With Usura
With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
With usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall harpes et luz
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,
With usura
seeth no Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
With usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling.
Stonecutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom
With usura
wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the maid's hand
and stoppeth the spinner's cunning.
Pietro Lombardo came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura nor
Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin not by usura
nor was 'La Calunnia' painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St Trophime
Not buy usura Saint Hilaire,
Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man's courting
It hath brought palsey to bed,
lyeth between the young bride and her bridegroom Contra Naturam.
They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet at behest of usura.