Usury was outright illegal for over a thousand years throughout Europe, and by illegal I mean that the catholic church didn't allow it. Usury became accepted because of Calvin's teaching, and even then it took a couple of hundred years for non Calvinist protestants to start allowing usury. And even then, what they did was redefine usury to "excess" interest - in excess of 6% usually. The major turning point was the US state of Delaware and credit cards. Idk if Delaware repealed usury laws or never had them, but there's a reason all the credit card companies are HQ'd in Delaware. Most states still have laws that prohibit excess usury, so credit cards can't be based there. Only a few decades ago (sorry for the vagueness - going off memory and it's not fresh) there was a court ruling that used the Commerce clause in the Constitution to say that the other states could not bar credit card companies from their states, thus making a whole swathe of laws moot and destroying the last shred of sovereignty of the states. States no more : provinces, in truth.

And how have Christians missed this entire saga? I have only suspicions... But my main suspicion is that the pastors are too easily corrupted and silenced, and too poorly educated anyways.