Your Debt is Infinite, but Your Credit Limit is Not: Christianity and Consumer Capitalism

By:  Dr. Tom James, Union Presbyterian Seminary

Christianity taught us that our indebtedness is infinite, and finance capitalism made it so. Today, we are graduating from college already indebted, well-prepared for living with debt for a lifetime. Debt is the principle means by which we are governed, from cradle to grave. Is there a way out? If Christianity got us into this mess, can it also suggest a route of escape?

Tom James is a pastor in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan and an adjunct professor at Union Presbyterian Seminary. He writes on Christian theology and its interactions with materialist thought, with a special interest in the so-called “new materialism” emerging within recent continental philosophy.