His claim seems to be that usury is when interest is charged on loans where the lender has full recourse to the borrower in case of default.
Modern day Christianity strayed from the early teachings. If I'm not mistaken even during Shakespeare's time, money lenders were loathed (because of them charging interest), and it was prohibited then.
Not in the context of Abrahamic religions.
Strange then that so many millions of Christians and Jews worldwide engage in money lending and borrowing.
People also use profanity, work on their rest days, drink alcohol, eat pork and shellfish, covet other people's things, and do lots of other things they're not supposed to according to their religion.
People do lots of things that they acknowledge are against their religion. However I’ve never heard a Christian (or Jew for that matter) tell me that their religion prohibits lending or that it’s a sin. It’s not that they simply do it anyway, but that they aren’t even supposed to avoid it. In this respect it seems that lending isn’t like consuming pork for Jews but like drinking caffeine for Christians.
It could simply be that they are not aware that it's prohibited. If you look up early Christianity, they definitely loathed money lending due to interest.
If you look at modern Christianity, they don’t. You cannot hold a religion to an outdated set of beliefs they do not hold themselves to.
There are Christians today that still uphold the rules in the Old Testament (e.g. not eating pork), as early Christianity still followed Judaic law before straying away from those teachings.
Borrowing if you have no choice, and lending if you know it's wrong (according to your religion) are two different things. Many people participate in the shit system they find themselves, without trying to make the system worse. I'd say this doesn't just apply to interest, but all sorts of things. Climate activists acknowledge that plastic and consumerism are bad for the planet, and yet the vast majority continue to purchase and use products that rely on pollution, single use plastic, and resource waste.
It just means they're not following the teachings of their respective religion.
Or they don’t believe that those are teachings of their religions. You don’t get to define what other religions should hold themselves to, even if they did in the past.
You read their original teachings and see what they said. It's clear that there was deviation from them. This is acknowledged by those who studied the subject well.
You don’t get to define what other religions should hold themselves to, even if they did in the past.
I'm referring to charging money on money, at any rate no matter how small. There is no difference.