"I Cannot Eat Your Prayers": How Student Debt Changed One Woman's Mind on "Christian Charity"

By Kristin Rawls, Killing the Buddha
Posted on December 19, 2011, Printed on December 23, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153485/%22i_cannot_eat_your_prayers%22%3A_how_student_debt_changed_one_woman%27s_mind_on_%22christian_charity%22

I’m going to tell you a story. It’s the story of a good girl from a quiet town who prayed, studied hard, said no to drugs, and otherwise did everything she was told—and then went on to become Sallie Mae’s bitch and lost just about everything. This story is mine.

I grew up in an evangelical home, and was an earnest “liberal-evangelical” into my early twenties. Now I think that my former religious faith—not unlike my faith in the U.S. higher education system—gave me a warped sense of optimism about the way the world works. I believed in faith-based platitudes, plus a few secular ones. Examples:

1. God has a plan for my life.
2. My whole future is ahead of me.

Until a few days ago, I was too ashamed to talk publicly about what happened to me. That’s when I saw Natalia Antonova’s incredibly brave piece at Alternetdetailing her pending student loan default. This issue is so cloaked in shame and humiliation that many of us stay silent. Check out Natalia’s post-articleblog post if you don’t think stigma and shame are deeply intertwined with defaulting on debt out of necessity: she has been contacted by people who say they hope her lenders drive her to suicide.

Read more here.