Picture the scene. It's morning worship at Glasgow Cathedral.

Picture the scene. It's morning worship at Glasgow Cathedral.

Following a challenging sermon about Christian attitudes to money, a sizeable number of the congregation make a sombre, penitential procession down the central aisle.

When the first of the penitents reaches the front, the minister hands him a pair of scissors. The worshipper takes the credit cards out of his wallet, cuts them up and places the fragments in front of the communion table. Each person in the line-up follows suit. Then the minister pronounces words of absolution, and the worshippers return to their pews.

This will never happen, will it? Well, I wouldn't normally presume to advise the minister of Glasgow Cathedral - currently the Reverend Dr Laurence Whitley, who is a fine, imaginative preacher - but this scenario has already played out in one church in America.

The Rev John K Jenkins, minister of First Baptist Church of Glenarden, Maryland, US, invited members of his congregation to make the solemn walk to the front and place the cut-up credit cards at his feet.

"If we want to have victory," he declared, "we have to come out of financial bondage."

In normal times, apparently, the sermons of Rev Jenkins are more conventional. But these are not normal times. With the western world teetering on the edge of recession, debt is a major issue. Many people are losing their homes. Spiralling fuel costs and rising food bills are pitching even normally cautious families into debt. In an America with a high level of churchgoing, increasing numbers of clergy of all denominations are recognising that pastoral responsibility towards their flock involves counselling about debt.

But this is Scotland. Surely there's no need for a moral panic and dramatic sermons in the northern spiritual home of a demure Presbyterian girl called Prudence?

According to research by the charity Debt Free Direct, personal debt in Scotland now stands at a staggering £14.27bn, with credit-card debt accounting for over a third of this figure. The average Scot in 2006 owed £7848 on credit cards and store cards, compared to the average UK debt of £5993. Many Scottish consumers are no longer just in over their head: they are drowning in debt. Churches in Scotland should be more involved in this issue. Why? Because the way we deal with money at the personal level is as much a moral and spiritual issue as it is an economic one.

There are two levels to this: the pastoral and the prophetic. People are hurting. Marriages are being torn apart over unsustainable debt. Debt-related suicides are on the increase as people lose their homes. The Bible has far more to say about money than it does about sex. Love of money, the scripture says, is the root of all evil. Where your treasure is, there is your heart, says Jesus; in other words, if you want to know who or what your real god is, check your bank statement. Christians are invited to set their life priorities in terms of the doctrine of stewardship - of time, money and the earth itself. Yet specific talk about money is often bodyswerved. It is too personal, too uncomfortable, too close to home.

When the myth of progress meets the consumer society, we're all in trouble. The issue of personal responsibility can't be evaded. The sad truth is that we are all complicit in our own economic servitude. Waving a piece of plastic and plunging into debt to buy things you don't actually need is a form of insanity. Yet it's an insanity fostered by the big banks, and backed by an advertising industry which is unashamedly in the business of selling fantasies.

All this talk about the global market being a neutral mechanism is idolatrous rubbish. It wasn't God who caused the credit crisis: it was avaricious human beings on big salaries and big pensions in the financial institutions. They have loaned huge sums recklessly to people who couldn't pay the money back. This filters right down to the local bank. There was a time when the neighbourhood bank manager knew you and your family, and would do everything possible to keep you out of debt. Nowadays the manager is begging you to take out a loan you haven't even asked for. After all, he has weekly targets to reach, and banks make huge sums of money in interest charges. There is a direct link from this corrosive philosophy of greed - both personal and corporate - to the current threat to our planet.

As you read this, credit card companies are printing more leaflets to send indiscriminately through the mail. Of course plastic is very handy, and indeed useful; but it is also a one-way ticket to bankruptcy, a symbol of a system which is itself morally bankrupt.