Debt it is often treated as the neutral arbiter of balance. But it is the way we justify inequality, enslavement, and separation.

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One of the most famous commands people of faith never follow has to do with debt. We are forbidden from charging interest. But we do it anyway. And we can’t even imagine not doing so.

One of the most famous examples of the thinking behind this command has nothing to do with money. We know it as “an eye for an eye.” A teaching that argues that justice be limited to only as much as the original sin.

In other words, you don’t get to take extra because you feel justified in “paying them back” two- or three-fold.

The thing about debt is that we need to conceive of a time when the debt is gone. We can’t keep punishing forever or enslave another person through interest. We can’t destroy others because we think we are owed something more. This is the hallmark of its own sin.