The Problem of Interest for Luther and the Danish Reformers

A heated debate about interest took place in both Germany and Denmark in the sixteenth century, but this was nothing new and came as no surprise to Lutheran reformers. The topic had already been the subject of intensively discussion in the Middle Ages and even if interest charges were unlawful the church itself was frequently engaged in lending out at interest. The debate was a complicated mixture of economics and moral theology and the demarcation between the Catholic Middle Ages and the Lutheran Reformation was fluid and blurred. Luther (and the Danish reformers) did not want to be a politician or an economist; he was a theologian and a spiritual adviser also in this debate and both he and the Danish reformers was profoundly religious.