Old jewels may get a tad dusty for lack of use, but they always retain their value.

C.S. Lewis’ classic book “Mere Christianity” is one such jewel. Originally given as a series of BBC radio talks during the early 1940’s in England, this book is just as powerful and valuable as the day it was aired.

While I have read the book a few times before, it has been years since I’ve cracked the spine. As such, when I re-discovered a MP3 copy of the book hiding on my bookshelf, I decided to give it a listen…

The one thing that stood out to me this time through was C.S. Lewis’ comments on usury – or the act of charging interest on loans.

Lewis basically called into question the wisdom of building our entire economy on a practice condemned by Moses, Aristotle, and Christians throughout the Middle-Ages. It seems that Lewis saw the hand-writing on the wall as here we are 70 years later in the middle of the worse economy crashes in modern history – all because we as individuals, companies and nations borrowed way too much money.

Perhaps we should listen to our forefathers and change the way we do business…