PLEASE LEAVE OUR BANK ALONE!
The Nigerian Christian clergy should please fight Rabbi Jacobs for fighting for Halal meat, which is part of the Shari’ah, like Non-Interest Banking. Back in 2008, it was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, who had advocated ‘for Islamic law in Britain’ (timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3328024.ece). In a speech at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, […]
The Nigerian Christian clergy should please fight Rabbi Jacobs for fighting for Halal meat, which is part of the Shari’ah, like Non-Interest Banking.
Back in 2008, it was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, who had advocated ‘for Islamic law in Britain’ (timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3328024.ece). In a speech at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, the Archbishop had concluded: “…it seems that if we are to think intelligently about the relations between Islam and British law, we need a fair amount of ‘deconstruction’ of crude oppositions and mythologies, whether of the nature of sharia or the nature of the Enlightenment.
The Nigerian Christian clergy should please use their ‘crude oppositions and mythologies’ to fight the Archbishop of Canterbury for advocating for Islamic Law in Britain, the economic component of which is Non-Interest Banking.
Not too long ago again, it was the Vatican, no less, that put forward the idea that ‘the principles of Islamic finance may represent a possible cure for ailing markets’, in effect advocating for Islamic Banking, the topic of this week’s discourse. In a report dated March 4, 2009 on Bloomberg (bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aOsOLE8uiNOg&refer=italy) by Lorenzo Totaro, and titled ‘Vatican Says Islamic Finance May Help Western Banks in Crisis’ it was said: “The Vatican said banks should look at the rules of Islamic finance to restore confidence amongst their clients at a time of global economic crisis. ‘The ethical principles on which Islamic finance is based may bring banks closer to their clients and to the true spirit which should mark every financial service,’ the Vatican’s official newspaper Osservatore Romano said in an article in its latest issue late yesterday.’ Pope Benedict XVI in an Oct. 7 speech reflected on crashing financial markets saying that ‘money vanishes, it is nothing’ and concluded that ‘the only solid reality is the word of God.’ The Vatican has been paying attention to the global financial meltdown and ran articles in its official newspaper that criticize the free-market model for having ‘grown too much and badly in the past two decades.’ The Osservatore’s editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, said that ‘the great religions have always had a common attention to the human dimension of the economy.’”
The Nigerian Christian clergy should please fight the Pope for directly advocating Islamic Banking.
Islamic banking services are available in more than 300 institutions spread over 51 countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom (the same UK of Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglicans) and Italy (the same Italy of the Pope, the Vatican and Catholic). In the US, the Michigan-based University Bank (universityislamicfinancial.com) leads others in Islamic banking, as well as an additional 250 mutual funds that comply with Islamic principles. In the UK, there is the appropriately-named Islamic Bank of Britain (islamic-bank.com). Islamic Banking is growing at a rate of nearly 20% per year and with signs of consistent future growth. Islamic banking has almost One Trillion US Dollars under management. The UK’s Financial Services Authority, FSA (fsa.gov.uk) says it “welcomes the innovation that Islamic banking brings and the diversity it facilitates…Having access to Sharia-compliant banking products provides financial services to people whose faith prevents them from using the kind of products that are normally offered by UK financial institutions.”
The Nigerian Christian clergy should please fight the Americans and the British to force them to close down their respective Islamic banks.
In the Bible, the only account of Jesus using physical force in any of the Gospels was against usurers and money-changers in the Temple, as reported in John 2:15: “[Jesus] made a whip out of cords and went around driving everyone out…he scattered the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.” Jesus was fulfilling God’s command where He says, in Exodus 22:25: “If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a money-lender to him; you shall not charge him interest.” And again in Deuteronomy 23:19, God says: “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury.”
Explaining this, Thomas Aquinas, the philosopher and theologian, held that the natural essence of money was as a measure of value or intermediary in exchange. The increase of money through usury violated this essence; a just transaction was one characterized by an equality of exchange, one where each side received exactly his due. Interest on a loan, in excess of the principal, would violate the balance of an exchange between debtor and creditor and was therefore unjust. Similarly, one cannot charge for a piece of cake and for the eating of the piece of cake. Yet this, said Aquinas, is what usury does. Money is exchange-medium. It is used up when it is spent. To charge for the money and for its use (by spending) is to charge for the money twice.
The Nigerian Christian clergy should please fight Thomas Aquinas for explaining what usury is; and Jesus Christ, for using force against usurers and enforcing God’s command; and indeed God Himself, for prohibiting usury and interest. Aye, let them fight God on High!
In fact, long before Jesus, Cato (the Roman statesman who died in 149 BC) had stated in his ‘De Re Rustica’: “And what do you think of usury?” — “What do you think of murder?” More ‘recently’, Dante, in his ’The Divine Comedy’, placed the usurers in the inner ring of the seventh circle of hell. The great poet Ezra Pound, in his Canto LV titled With Usura, had sang:
With usura hath no man a house of good stone each block cut smooth and well fitting that design might cover their face
The Nigerian Christian clergy should please fight Cato, Dante and Ezra Pound for condemning usury and interest.
The Nigerian Christian clergy, if they are Anglican, should first go fight the Archbishop of Canterbury for advocating for Shari’ah and, if they are Catholic, go fight the Pope who advocates Islamic Finance. In fact, let them fight Jesus, who drove usurers out of the Temple; in fact, let them fight God, Who prohibits usury and interest.
The Nigerian Christian clergy should just concentrate on their troubles; on their lives of luxury; on fleecing their congregations; on buying private jets; on paedophilia; on gay bishops; and, closer home, on the daily ‘Pastor-puts-in-family-way’ scandals. After all, according to one of their own (Gary Amirault, www.tentmaker.org) ‘The Church is a Rich Prostitute’. And, it should also be mentioned, the same Gary claims ‘The Tithe is Abolished!’ (hellbusters.8m.com).
Let them leave our Bank, Jesus’ Bank, God’s Bank, alone! Lakum dinukum wa liya din!