Instant Gratification, Consumer Debt, and Jesus

Americans owe $1.2 trillion in credit card debt, according to the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Once you are sunk into credit card debt, it is very difficult to get out of it, as almost everyone knows. The more you owe, the higher the interest rate you get charged, which makes it even harder to pay off your debt.

Credit card debt results mostly from instant gratification. Americans want to buy whatever they want right away, and use their credit lines to do so. I carried credit card debt most of my life. I lived frugally. In my case, it was not instant gratification that I was after, so just living frugally, as I tried to do, is not a guarantee of freedom from credit card debt. I finally paid it off, which saved me a lot of money in interest payments.

American banks want to make it easy for you to get a line of credit. They send out pre-approved credit offers to just about everyone. My daughter received one when she was eight years old. We filled out the application just to see what would happen. It was rejected, of course, but why was it pre-approved in the first place? One advertisement showed the family dog getting a pre-approved credit offer, and then said, who but a dog would put up with 18 percent interest? Banks cast a wide net, irrespective of age or even species.

Then I moved to France and found a very different situation. I wanted to live debt-free, and found that I was practically required to live debt-free. My bank debit card is tied only to my checking account. If I were to overspend my checking account, the payment would not necessarily be refused, but I would get a call from my personal banker (Thomas) telling me to get my rear in gear and live within my means. For such reasons, credit card debt is practically unknown in France. A writer for Slate online [https://slate.com/business/2025/01/credit-card-spending-france-debit-payments-budgeting-finances.html] had a similar experience.

Instant gratification is nearly the opposite of the kind of life Jesus taught. I don’t think I need to explain this. America is considered a Christian country, France a secular country, but it is in France that people live closer to the manner of which Jesus would approve, in this way as in many others.

What a Secular Society Looks Like

I have relocated permanently to Strasbourg, France, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. There are numerous small and large differences between life in America and life in France. I am not a tourist here acting like an American, but I am a new resident gradually learning what life in France is like.

Many Americans think of America as a Christian society, specially blessed by God because of their faith. In contrast, they think of France as a secular society which does not obey commandments of the Christian God. But I have found that French people, in general, behave in a much more Christian fashion, without calling it Christian. This is a big subject that could fill a book that I am not qualified to write. But here are some observations.

First, the French are, in general, less selfish than Americans. They take up less personal space, and are therefore able to share public space more smoothly. This is most noticeable on public transportation, which is often very crowded and the seats are very small. I am not a big man, and I could barely fit my butt onto a tram seat. Everyone politely yielded to everyone else, though there is no little channel through which a small French person would hesitate to slip. There are no pickup trucks. All the cars are small. Some of the streets are too narrow for a pickup truck, and these are the two-way streets, not just in the nineteenth-century part of town but even in the new part.

The French are more respectful of shared public space in another way also. There is less than ten percent as much litter (déchets sauvages) in France as in America, based on actual numbers that I have counted. If I said there was no litter in France, you would know I was lying, but the difference is at least ten to one. There are two reasons for this. First, people do not throw litter on the ground as much. Second, for the litter that does accumulate, there are municipal workers who go along on little tricycles and pick up the litter into baskets. This is a public expense for which the French are willing to pay.

Third, the French seem to see health as a public good. Oklahoma has about 30 percent obesity, but (based on my actual counts) in Strasbourg it is less than one percent. They walk more and eat less. The elevators are tiny, with a floor space of about a square meter. Obese people would have a hard time on public transportation. The French have a health care system that covers nearly every possible problem a person might have; but the French do not want to overburden their health care system. I wonder how much of poor American health comes from strife and stress, which I have hardly felt at all since relocating to France. It is as if my previous health problems just vanished.

The French do not have a different human nature than Americans. They have just all grown up in a society that values respect for self, for neighbors, and for the public. I think Jesus would feel more comfortable living in France than in an America where everyone is just a gunshot away from getting into someone’s perceived personal space.