Debt: The Spiritual Toll--and the Solution

Is overspending a spiritual weakness? Is being in debt a sin? Beliefnet spoke with Kristen Johnson Ingram, author of "Devotions for Debtors," about spiritual approaches to facing debt.

You wrote "Devotions for Debtors" because you, like many Americans, were in debt. How big a problem is it?

Every day the news gives huge figures. And I’m not completely out [of debt] either. I wrote the book, but I haven’t completed the cycle. Because it’s so easy to get in debt and it’s so hard to get out of it. And there’s a mindset that goes with getting out of it like, “if I tear up my credit cards, will I still be able to get the Internet?” People have a lot of unanswered fears about trying to do it.

You're not talking about student loans or mortgages, right? You’re talking about impulse buying.

Sometimes it isn’t even impulse, sometimes it just seems like it’s the only way. That’s the biggest falsehood in America, that there’s no other way. That you’ve got to get in debt to be an American.

Your book offers biblical passages and spiritual support for debtors. Is the implication that being in debt is a spiritual failing? Is being a shopaholic a sin?

I can’t speak for all shopaholics, but for people like me, the major sin is lack of trust in God---that I won’t get what I need, God won’t give me what I need unless I go in debt for it. That’s a real fundamental problem in a lot of other sins. People commit sins because they don’t really believe God is going to help them.

Your book says that when you start facing up to debt, your vision of God changes. In what way?

The minute you start trusting, your relationship with God changes. The more you can relate to God, the more God’s image changes in your mind. It’s one thing to have a judge, and it’s another to have a friend.

I felt that God was with me in the effort to get out of debt, offering me solutions to things and reminding me that I didn’t really need something.

What kind of solutions?

Like having things refinanced. Because of the ["Devotions"] book, we got a much lower interest rate on our home mortgage. We began to feel powerful rather than helpless. There are people who need almost like a 12-step program where they have to admit their helplessness over shopping. That is not my problem, but I sure know a lot of people who have it.

Powerlessness is an American illness right now. We feel powerless over the government and over money. I know lots of people who no longer vote. "Why bother? It’s going to happen the way they want it to happen anyway." And it’s the same thing about money—"I can’t control it." The terror of layoffs and jobs ending may have made people think they have to buy everything now. "I’d rather buy it quick before I lose my job or something."

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