Religious teachings are full of warnings about money, if not outright suspicion of the ways of commerce. But during economic turmoil, congregations are increasingly showing members how to navigate the choppy economic seas – and they’re finding this new type of aid in big demand.
Although tough economic times are a national and global story, their effects and severity vary regionally, as do the approaches of houses of worship. So this story is pre-eminently local. And it won’t go away quickly. Unemployment rates continue to rise, and economists say many people will be without jobs or underemployed even after the economy rebounds. The housing market also continues to struggle, and few know what to make of the stock market.
As a result, there appears to be a growing need to educate people in the basics of money management and household finances. And congregations are increasingly addressing that need, in a variety of ways.
Background
Story ideas
- Faith-based financial counselors stress the spiritual element of money management, approaching this task as stewardship of resources. Using a variety of counselors and programs, congregations are offering seminars and training on financial education. Check with a spectrum of local congregations about what kinds of financial education they may be offering and what religious principles the programs emphasize.
- State and local assistance agencies across the country are developing programs and partnerships with local congregations to offer assistance. Check with local mortgage lenders and civic organizations that assist the unemployed about any partnerships they have developed. Capitalizing on the influence of clergy in people’s lives, New York City, for example, is training clergy to become a source of financial and consumer education.
- Apart from congregations, local faith-based charities and social service agencies can report not only on local demand for food, shelter or other types of assistance but also on any education programs they may be offering on personal finances, job seeking or home ownership.
- Distinct from ministering to practical and material needs, religions also have a body of teachings on economic ethics and justice. Clergy have been preaching on the subject of economy, offering analysis, rebuke and consolation. What themes have emerged at local congregations?
- In some areas, interfaith groups have taken action because the economic downturn has spared no one on the basis of faith. Also, all religions offer teachings on the wise use of resources, so an interfaith story can explore that context.
News articles and research
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“A third of debt charity’s clients say they were considering suicide before getting help”
Read a July 5, 2013, article on BuryTimes.com about the effect a Christian debt counseling charity has had.
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“Blessed Are the Jobless: How Ministries Aid the Unemployed”
Read a January 13, 2012, essay about how faith ministries aid the unemployed.
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“Why I Left World Vision for Finance”
Read a February 22, 2013, article published on ChristianityToday.com about a non-profit worker’s journey to working in the world of finance.
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“What’s Wrong with Credit Card Debt?”
Read a May 25, 2011, essay about the religious and moral implications of credit card debt.
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“Does God Want You to Be Bankrupt?”
Read a May 1, 2009, column in The New York Times, “Does God Want You to Be Bankrupt?,” about the approaches of different faith traditions to debt.
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“For financial guru Dave Ramsey, sour economy has an upside”
Read an April 24, 2009, Religion News Service story, “For financial guru Dave Ramsey, sour economy has an upside.”
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“Church Aid in Elkhart”
View an April 17, 2009, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly segment about what religious groups are doing in Elkhart, Ind., where unemployment is almost 20 percent.
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“Finance tip: What would Wesley do?”
Read an April 16, 2009, Boston Globe article about a Gordon College professor whose personal-finance presentations on campus and in the community draw from an 18th-century sermon about money by John Wesley, founder of Methodism.
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“Law student research finds ministers struggling to address payday lending”
Jonathan Landon is a law student at the University of Iowa who completed research in May 2009 showing that ministers criticize such practices as predatory lending, but that those practices are often widespread in areas with high concentrations of Christians. Landon also found that churches sponsor educational programs to help congregants get out of debt.
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“Turning to religion – Jim Martin”
Watch a Feb. 23, 2009, Colbert Report episode with the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest with an MBA who is a regular media commentator, discussing God and the economy.
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Personal Finance Articles
Crown Financial Ministries is dedicated to providing support, skills and financial advising with a Christian perspective. They have a page of help articles on their website.
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BeliefNet.com: Financial Inspiration Center
The multifaith Web site Beliefnet.com maintains a Financial Crisis Support Center with prayers, tips, blogs and groups.
National sources
Organizations
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Council for Ethical Leadership
The Council for Ethical Leadership is an association based in Columbus, Ohio of leaders in business, higher education, religion and other professions working together to try to strengthen the ethical fabric of business and economic life.
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Feeding America
Feeding America, the country’s largest charitable hunger-relief organization, distributes food to food banks and works on policy. Vicki B. Escarra is president and CEO of the Chicago-based organization. They list all their local media contacts.
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International Business Ethics Institute
The International Business Ethics Institute is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization founded in 1994 in response to the growing need for transnationalism in the field of business ethics. It is based in Washington, D.C.
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Kingdom Advisors
Kingdom Advisors is a nationwide network of evangelical Christian financial professionals in almost 60 U.S. communities.
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Orthodox Union
The Orthodox Union is the educational and outreach arm of Orthodox Judaism. It is generally considered a Modern Orthodox organization. Among its main concerns is helping Jews keep kosher and strengthening their traditional rituals, practices and holiday observances. It posts a page that allows users to search for Orthodox synagogues by state. Rabbi Steven Weil is senior managing director.
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PICO National Network
PICO National Network is a network of faith-based community organizations. It was one of the leaders of the 40 Days for Health Reform campaign. Gordon Whitman is director of public policy and communications. Contact 866-550-7426 ext. 713.
PICO organized a cross-country bus caravan in March to Washington, D.C., to call attention to victims of home foreclosure.
Individuals
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Nancy Ammerman
Nancy Ammerman is professor of sociology at Boston University and a leading expert on congregational dynamics, especially in mainline Protestantism. She is the author of Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life and Pillars of Faith: American Congregations and Their Partners. She is also an expert on religious movements and has written about the rise of fundamentalism.
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Chuck Bentley
Chuck Bentley is CEO of Crown Financial Ministries, a prominent national Christian financial education ministry with representatives across the country and internationally.
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Ronald Blue
Ron Blue is the founder of Ronald Blue & Co., a financial and investment consulting firm in the Atlanta area. He is a co-author of the 2009 book Surviving Financial Meltdown: Confident Decisions in an Uncertain World and president of Kingdom Advisors, a nationwide network of evangelical Christian financial professionals.
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Charles Clark
Charles Clark is an economics professor at St. John’s University in New York and an expert on Catholic social teaching and economics.
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Daniel Finn
Daniel Finn is a professor of theology and economics St. John’s School of Theology-Seminary in Collegeville, Minn. He is the author of the 2006 book The Moral Ecology of Markets: Assessing Claims About Markets and Justice. He wrote an article in the Sept. 26, 2008, edition of Commonweal magazine, “Libertarian Heresy: The Fundamentalism of Free-Market Theology.”
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James Hudnut-Beumler
James Hudnut-Beumler is a professor of American religious history at the divinity school at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He co-edited the book The Future of Mainline Protestantism. He directed the Material History of American Religion Project, which focused on material objects and economic themes. He is an expert on the church, ethics, philanthropy and general money issues.
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Laurence R. Iannaccone
Laurence R. Iannaccone, (pronounced “YAWN -uh – cone -ee”) director of the Institute for the Study of Religion, Economics and Society and professor of economics at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., is a leading authority internationally on the economics of religion. He heads the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics and Culture and developed the Consortium for the Economic Study of Religion.
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Robert Katz
Robert Katz is a New Orleans-based CPA, minister and author of books on personal finance, including The Solomon Portfolio: How to Invest Like a King.
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Gerry O’Hanlon
The Rev. Gerry O’Hanlon is the author of The Recession and God: Reading the Signs of the Times and is director of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice in Dublin. Contact through the center.
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Deborah Price
Deborah Price is a money coach who writes the blog Your Daily Spiritual Stimulus for the multifaith Web site Beliefnet. She works with a network of 100 “money coaches” who she says are being asked to lead or facilitate programs through local religious groups. Contact her at the Money Coaching Institute in Petaluma, Calif.
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Dave Ramsey
Radio and TV personality Dave Ramsey is the author of The Total Money Makeover, among other books, and founder of Financial Peace University, a financial education program that churches and other groups use. Contact him through media relations.
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Isam Salah
Isam Salah heads Islamic finance and investment at the New York law firm King & Spalding.
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Ibrahim Warde
Ibrahim Warde teaches Islamic banking and finance at Tufts University in Boston.
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Rebecca M. Blank
Rebecca M. Blank is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, specializing in economics and social policy. She is a past dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and former co-director of the National Poverty Center. Blank is co-author of Is the Market Moral?: A Dialogue on Religion, Economics & Justice. Contact through the Brookings communications office.
She chaired the United Church of Christ committee that wrote “Christian Faith: Economic Life and Justice,” a statement adopted by the church’s general synod in 1989, and is a church member. Listen to an interview with her about the role of faith in tough economic times, posted by the Center for American Progress, a think tank.
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Adam Hamilton
The Rev. Adam Hamilton is founder and senior pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan., one of the country’s largest Methodist churches. He is the author of the 2009 book Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity.
The church has developed ReSet Ministries to respond to members most directly affected by the current economy.
Regional sources
In the Northeast
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Albino F. Barrera
The Rev. Albino F. Barrera is a Catholic priest and professor of theology and economics at Providence College in Providence, R.I. He is the author of the 2006 book God and the Evil of Scarcity: Moral Foundations of Economic Agency and the 2005 book Economic Compulsion and Christian Ethics.
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Bruce Webb
Bruce Webb teaches macroeconomics and Christian teaching on economics and the economy at Gordon College in Wenham, Mass.
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Robert Black
Robert Black teaches economics at Houghton College in Houghton, N.Y. He has written about Christian principles in economics.
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Gregory Krohn
Gregory Krohn teaches religion and economics at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa.
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The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization
The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization is a collection of multiple congregations and faith leaders working to overcome divisions of race and social class in Boston. Contact Larry Gordon, the lead organizer.
It has offered the financial education program Moving From Debt to Assets since 2005.
In the South
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Kenneth Elzinga
Kenneth Elzinga is Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia. His past research interests include religion and economics.
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David Mustard
David Mustard is an associate professor of economics at the University of Georgia in Athens, and his economic research is frequently cited in the media. He serves on the executive board of the Association of Christian Economists.
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Marybeth Whalen
Marybeth Whalen, along with her husband Curt, wrote the 2009 book Learning to Live Financially Free, based on their own financial mistakes. Contact the Charlotte, N.C., couple through publicist Leslie Paladino at their Grand Rapids, Mich., publisher, Kregel Publishing.
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M. Kabir Hassan
M. Kabir Hassan is associate professor and associate chair of the department of economics and finance at the University of New Orleans. He spoke at a 2009 conference on Islamic finance and financial resilience.
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Douglas Meeks
Douglas Meeks, Cal Turner Chancellor professor of theology and Wesleyan studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn., has written about the economy and the future of liberation theology in North America.
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Charles McDaniel
Charles McDaniel is a former businessman and now the associate director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He wrote God & Money: The Moral Challenge of Capitalism, and he writes and teaches on “the developmental parallels between Muslim economic thought and Christian economic ideas as they evolved over the course of Western history.”
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Joerg Rieger
Joerg Rieger is a professor of constructive theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He is an expert on mainline Protestant denominations and says some of those churches, while they do not teach a prosperity gospel, share a “prosperity mentality” when they preach that “good things happen to good people.”
In the Midwest
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James Halteman
James Halteman is the Carl R. Hendrickson Professor of Business and Economics at Wheaton College in suburban Chicago. His work emphasizes the dimension of moral reflection in economics.
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Paul Koch
Paul Koch is an economics professor at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Ill. He has written and presented on Christianity and economics.
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Mike Slaughter
Mike Slaughter is lead pastor at Ginghamsburg Church in Tipp City, Ohio, and author of the book Upside Living in a Downside Economy.
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Charles K. Wilber
Charles K. Wilber is an emeritus professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame. His article “Can a Christian Be an Economist?” ran in the spring/fall 2006 edition of the journal Faith & Economics.
In the West
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Edd Noell
Edd Noell is a professor of economics and business at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, where he specializes in the history of economic thought and the relationship between Christianity and economics. He is president of the Association of Christian Economists.
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Deborah Smith Pegues
Deborah Smith Pegues is a businesswoman who was chief financial officer for the megachurch West Angeles Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles. She wrote the 2009 book Financial Survival in Uncertain Times.
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Ed Bacon
The Rev. Ed Bacon is rector of All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., a congregation known for its progressive ideals and missions.
He co-hosted an Oprah’s Soul Series XM radio webcast March 16 on spirituality and the economic crisis.