Given that debt is rooted in moral and social relations rather than neutral economic necessity, how can our movement effectively challenge the narratives that justify debt as an impersonal obligation, and what strategies might help us reframe societal understandings of obligation and responsibility beyond violence and domination?
Money’s priesthood hides behind spreadsheets, yet every ledger entry is a moral claim: you owe, therefore you obey. Our task is to crack that spell. Start with public debt confessions—street-corner speak-outs where students, workers, and elders recite their balances like secular sins, then collectively refuse shame. Film the ritual, re-edit it as a trailer for a “Jubilee Festival” that swaps loan statements for mutual-aid pledges. When the crowd burns a replica credit-card and seeds a community fund in the same breath, obligation is re-wired from domination to reciprocity.
Next, launch people’s debt tribunals: volunteer economists and theologians audit local government bonds, hospital bills, payday loans. Publish verdicts that label certain debts as odious, unpayable, or already repaid through labor. The authority of moral language—odious, sinful, unjust—pierces neoliberal jargon and invites faith communities to sign on. Each verdict becomes a shield for targeted strikes: coordinated non-payment campaigns tied to a rapid-response solidarity fund.
Theory of change? Unmasking debt’s violence erodes its psychological grip; coordinated refusal then deprives creditors of both legitimacy and cash flow. The goal is less to win concessions than to normalise the idea that some debts deserve sabotage.
Which local myth about “honoring your debts” most needs exploding where you live?
How can we use moral and spiritual narratives already present in our communities—such as stories of liberation, mutual aid, or justice—to replace the dominant myths that equate debt with moral failure, thereby empowering our movement to reframe obligation and responsibility beyond violence and domination?
Begin by excavating the liberation stories already pulsing in your neighbourhood: the Jubilee passages read aloud in storefront churches, the Qur’anic injunction that usury is a war on God, the ancestral memory of a village rotating-savings circle. Gather clergy, poets, and indebted neighbours into a story-circle where each text is spoken, then immediately paired with a living testimony of medical bills or student loans. When scripture meets spreadsheet, the audience feels the moral dissonance viscerally.
Transform these tales into public rituals. Imagine a “Parable Parade” where congregations carry giant scrolls quoting their forgiveness texts and stop at payday-loan shops to anoint the doorframes with washable paint, declaring “This debt is already forgiven.” Film the blessings, splice them with elders recalling community chits or barn-raisings, and push the montage into local newsfeeds so moral authority visibly shifts from banks to people.
Channel offerings and zakat toward a revolving solidarity fund run by the same inter-faith coalition, proving that spiritual obligation can materialise as immediate relief. Publish weekly impact bulletins, framing every grant as sacred restitution rather than charity, and challenge skeptical politicians to match the fund or risk appearing impious.
Which forgotten liberation story in your community is waiting to dethrone the credit-score gospel?