Opinion: Bible-believing Republicans, take note: God isn’t a big fan of payday lenders

To the editor: David Lazarus’ commentary on legislation to effectively deregulate payday lenders raises this line of thought for me: I continue to be very confused by conservative lawmakers’ self-characterization of being “Bible-believing.” (“Buried deep within GOP bill: a ‘free pass’ for payday and car-title lenders,” May 30)

Exodus Chapter 22 is quite clear about loaning money: “If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor. You shall not exact interest from them.”

Isn’t it imperative for believers to follow this biblical injunction? One might say they are commanded to do so, as this verse comes straight from God’s covenant given to the Hebrews through Moses on Mt. Sinai (allowing for the literal reading usually insisted on by conservative Christians who so often proclaim their desire to live by God’s laws).

It seems to me that the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is following the spirit of this biblical law and does not go far enough.

Barbara Eurich-Rascoe, Pasadena

The writer is a retired Presbyterian minister.

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To the editor: Lazarus reports the efforts of the House Financial Services Committee to damage the public.

In writing about the sordid underbelly of Victorian England, Charles Dickens created some memorable leeches on the poverty-stricken populace. There was Fagin, who today would be a payday lender, and Uriah Heep, a sniveling sycophant who would do anything for money.

In today’s congressional world, Heep would be renamed Jeb Hensarling.

Rep. Hensarling (R-Texas) claims he is benefiting us by gutting the independence of the CRFB and lifting all restrictions on payday lenders. The fact that he has been lavished with millions in donations by the financial services sector has nothing to do with his actions, he says.

Let him try and sell that to Fagin’s Bill Sikes.

Bruce N. Miller, Playa del Rey

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