Mustard Seed in the Houston Chronicle

For those who are interested, my non-blog debut as an opinion writer occurred today in the Houston Chronicle. Feel free to check it out.

It's on the same bankruptcy bill I addressed earlier, and it argues that, according to the Bible, debt is a moral issue. It also points out that our newest bankruptcy bill is profoundly un-Biblical.

A self critique: How could I forget to mention jubilee in this article. Jubilee was the ancient Hebrew practice, detailed in Leviticus 25, of periodcally declaring a society-wide forgiveness of debt? The practice showed charity and helped level the social playing field in ancient Israel. It was profoundly relevant to my editorial topic. Oops.

Christians of all stripes -- evangelical, Catholic, mainline Protestant -- have also united behind the concept of Jubilee in the very recent past. This broad coalition has already successfully lobbied the governments of affluent nations to forgive some of the foreign debt that cripples many underdeveloped countries. To learn more, click here.

These Christians, from all over the political spectrum, convinced our leaders that caring for the poor was a Christian duty, and that caring for the poor required us to address the problem of debt.

I forgot that. I shouldn't have. It is exactly the sort of broad-based coalition that proves that our unity in Christ can be more than a hollow slogan.