Faithful Finances 101

From the Poverty of Fear and Greed to the Riches of Spiritual Investing

Gary Moore

Add to cart

US$ 9.99 (+ tax)

Buy multiple copies Give this ebook to a friend Add to my wishlist Author's page Publisher's page

Devices

iPad
Smart phones
PC
e-readers with Adobe Digital Editions installed
Mac

See the full list

This book is available for the following devices:

iPad
Windows
Mac
Sony Reader
Cool-er Reader
Nook
Kobo Reader
iRiver Story
Palm-based devices
Windows Mobile PDAs and phones
Symbian-based (Nokia etc) phones
Blackberry
iLiad
eBookMan
Cybook and other ebook reader devices (excluding Kindle)

File Formats

Download: PDF or MobiPocket.

Permissions
Printing

PDF off (no printing)
MobiPocket off (no printing)
eb20 off (no printing)

Copy/Paste

PDF 5 pages every 1 days
MobiPocket on (90 characters)
eb20 5 pages every 1 days

Read Aloud

PDF off
MobiPocket off
eb20 on

Now in paperback, this challenging and provocative book strips the veneer from the financial advice of some popular evangelical media celebrities and advocates a reintegrating of faith and finances.

Faithful Finances 101 is a first-person narrative by outspoken advocate of faith-based investing. A senior vice president of investments at Paine Webber before founding his own investment firm as "counsel to ethical and spiritual investors," Gary Moore warns that much of the economic advice emanating from some popular and influential evangelical authors and speakers is based on scare tactics and distortions of what the Bible has to say about finances. He draws on fifty years of studying the Bible, politics, and economics, and presents insights for those who want to be faithful in their finances—to use 100 percent of the time, talent, and treasure with which they have been entrusted for the glory of God as well as for the benefit of others and themselves, and not just give 10 percent of their incomes to the church.

"Many financial gurus are ignorant of spiritual matters. Many spiritual leaders are ignorant of financial matters. In a rare blend, Gary Moore brings together proven financial expertise with mature spiritual insights. This book is a must read for those who care about managing their finances faithfully." —David W. Miller, PhD, Yale Center for Faith and Culture, Yale Divinity School

"The book is hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and intellectually challenging, offering a Christian view of macroeconomics rather than a mere how-to guide for personal finance." —Publishers Weekly

Templeton Foundation Press; July 2003
256 pages; ISBN 9781599470030
Download in secure PDF format or MobiPocket

Excerpt

The Wall Street Journal has shared a lot of wisdom during the twenty-five years I have helped people and institutions with their finances. But none of their articles has been as potentially enriching as the Journal’s sentiment that the Bible should not only be the most purchased book in the West but the most read as well.As the last millennium was coming to a close, the paper said: “There are plenty of secular reasons to read the Bible. It may be the most important text in Western history. It’s an essential part of our Western heritage and has inspired more composers, architects and artists—from Michaelangelo to Dali—than any other book. It is also a literary masterpiece,with stories and characters that still resonate today” (“A New Look for the Good Book,” 12/23/99). The Journal didn’t mention it but the Bible is, or should be, just as “essential” a part of our economy as our arts, or even of the politics that have preoccupied many American Christians during the past two decades. Lady Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of Great Britain, has said: “The moral foundations of a society do not extend only to its political system; they must extend to its economic system as well. Capitalism is not an a moral system based on selfishness, greed and exploitation. It is a moral system based on a biblical ethic.” Yet that system does not produce the abundant life that we all desire when the ethic is confined to a lofty “macro” level, on a national or international scale. It must reach down to the “micro” level, to our personal finances, if we are to change the world. As Tony Campolo, professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University in Saint Davids, Pennsylvania, put it in Christianity Today, “The political system does not control what happens in society. The structure of society is more controlled by economic forces than by political forces. If you want to change society, don’t bother getting elected. Go to the stockholders’ meetings” (“The Positive Prophet,” January 2003). That is why the Bible has a lot to say about money—about how we should think about it, how we should earn it, and what we should do with it. The main purpose of this book is to bring those biblical teachings to light so that those who desire to surrender 100 percent of their financial lives to God—and not just give 10 percent of their incomes to the church—can better think about how God wants them to do so. As we enter our new millennium, I believe followers of Christ have not just an ongoing responsibility to be faithful in the area of finances but a historic opportunity to shape a better world. As to our responsibility, the Bible tells us that to whom much is given,much will be required.And the truth is that anyone blessed with the average American income ranks among the top 1 percent of wage earners in human history. Having any excess wealth in an IRA, mutual fund, and so on to steward places such people among the “rich” to whom the Bible refers. That’s a blessing, but a huge responsibility. As to our historic opportunity, it is doubtful that anyone can remember when Americans have been as sensitive as we are today to how religion, however true or false, can influence our finances for better or worse.We must handle this opportunity with great care. Political commentator Cal Thomas’ December 4, 2002 column in the Lexington Herald-Tribune was titled:“Moderates must clean Islam’s house.” I agree that might enrich our world. But this book is essentially a plea for moderation in the West as well. If I had to cite one true danger to your finances in the immediate future it is that very conservative Christian leaders in the West will turn Islam into the giant in the promised land that they imagined the Desert Storm conflict of the early 1990s, the federal debt of the mid 1990s and the Y2K problem of the late 1990s to be. During the early 1970s, I trained as an Army officer to fight an ideologically charged enemy doing the will of a tiny state. They didn’t mind using guerilla tactics on our Army in their land. Even after 9/11, I doubt that most Americans can imagine the horrors of fighting a theologically inspired enemy supposedly doing the will of God; one that doesn’t mind using terrorist tactics on our civilians at home. Please understand that we are not typically going to be discussing the nature of the Deity, Christ,Muhammad, and so on,which can rightly arouse our deepest passions.We will be exploring far more mundane matters, matters that are subject to the apostle Paul’s counsel for “moderation in all things.” Unfortunately, the typical believers in our mainline, Baptist, and Catholic churches have not had much help from leaders in the quest toward spiritual maturity in the area of finances.Worse,much of the most popular economic counsel emanating from the evangelical media has been rather extreme. As will be explored in this book’s early chapters, some media celebrities have promoted a kind of prosperity gospel that justifies for Christians the lowest forms of materialism.Meanwhile, other popular and influential evangelical authors and speakers—based on end-times scare tactics and highly questionable economic advice—have done their share to distort and suppress what the Bible has to say about finances, and divert us from true issues. If you don’t spend much time listening to evangelical broadcasts, you may be unaware of these leader’s teachings and their influence, both direct and indirect. So I will discuss them by name. That has made about one-half of my friends who have reviewed this manuscript uncomfortable. Having worked in the Christian media for over a decade, I know only too well that we live in an age when Christian publications and broadcasts can openly name Christian leaders from President Clinton to Ken Lay, the chairman of Enron, to liberal Episcopal Bishop John Spong, who have fallen short; yet it’s still taboo to discuss how our media leaders might have done so, particularly in the area of money.As we will see, that is most contrary to every biblical ethic this side of “take the log out of your own eye.”As attested by Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple, the first step toward developing a faithful approach to money, indeed the kingdom, is to recognize that we have all fallen short in this challenging area of life. The second step is to put money in its proper place. That is far easier said than done in modern America. I took a step in this direction in 1990 after spending more than a decade on Wall Street, reaching the position of senior vice president of investments with Paine Webber. The tiniest amount of faith—what the Bible calls the size of a mustard seed—made it possible for me to give up my title,my pension, and my corner office. I moved my practice into my home, and in return got to watch my newborn son grow up. That has been more spiritually enriching to me than all the financial bonuses and stock options I discarded upon leaving a major investment firm. I know it was the right decision for me. For when I was thinking of seminary, my denomination’s psychologist told me I could barely see male images in inkblots. Even without knowing anything about my youth, he explained that this meant my father must have been among the ranks of those entrepreneurial absentee fathers so common in America. The psychologist knew his trade. For I can tell that story in a group of ten “successful” businessmen today and nine will typically identify with it, usually by shedding a few tears. I now firmly believe that allocating a generous amount of those assets we call time and talent to your children is one aspect of being “faithful” that can help you to achieve the abundant life. In setting forth my other ideas and perspectives on what it means to be faithful in our finances, broadly defined, I am committed to steering clear of three extremes commonly found in books purporting to offer economic advice. First, I will not fearfully predict a poorer third millennium, believing that such a prediction would only help to create a less abundant future given the biblical principle that “as a man (or a nation) thinketh, so he (or it) will become.” Second, I will not guarantee that in order to grow richer, you need only use a few selected passages of the Bible as your foolproof investment guide.And third, I will not insist that you must don sackcloth and ashes (i.e., impoverish yourself) in order to be a faithful steward. Instead, the soul of this book will help you to visualize the abundant future that our most gracious God has promised to both “the just and the unjust,” and then help you to invest love and care toward the goal of making this abundant life a reality for all.While I believe investing that love may possibly enrich you financially, I also believe that God’s definition of abundance has less to do with material things than even many religious leaders proclaim these days . . . though more than other leaders may believe. This book is also, at heart, a plea for economic and theological humility. Be assured that virtually every study ever done affirms the need for more of that humility.We need to have open minds and hearts as we explore how the biblical ethic that “God is love”must shape our every thought, speech, and act as part of the process of making the economic and financial teachings of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures understandable and relevant, whether we are laity or clergy, believer or nonbeliever. For example, if you’re a typical Westerner, you’re probably already thinking or feeling that the biblical ethic that God is love is an altruistic sentiment that will leave you financially poorer. But the following words from my friend, the legendary mutual fund manager Sir John Templeton, reflect both a more holistic understanding of abundance and a biblical ethic permeated by love: The concept that you have a life in business and a separate life spiritually is false. The two go hand in hand. If you have a spiritual life it should show in your business. The way you work with your colleagues, the way you try to help your customers, the way you treat your competitors. All those things have to be founded on love, have to be founded on giving rather than getting. And if you do that, your business will prosper. So my advice to a school of business management is to teach the business manager to give unlimited love, and he or she will be more successful. In Jeremiah 29:11, God is recorded as saying, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jesus himself said that he came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.With this in mind,my greatest hope in writing this book is that it might create a more genuinely abundant life for you and your neighbors, for the glory of God, by putting money in its proper place and by making your financial affairs more simple, more ethical, and more prudent. If you deem my efforts successful, I invite you to share this book with your friends at your church, ministry, college, or business, perhaps by forming a spiritual investment club or business club. Obviously, I have written this book because I feel I have something to say, something to offer. But let the record show that I make no claims to have any direct access to God’s plan for managing our increasingly complicated world. Unlike some who offer economic advice based on the Bible, I do not consider my views inerrant or infallible. I am not a prophet. I aspire only to be a lifelong student of God’s laws and grace. In more reflective moments, I often wonder if I’m even a decent disciple. And in more spiritual moments, I acknowledge that I am the ultimate “beggar before God.” But I also know with all my heart and soul that I’m loved anyway, and that love compels me to continue my struggle toward God’s perfection. I have studied the Bible, politics, and economics for some fifty years. About all that I’ve concluded is that almost any economy would work pretty well if the hearts, minds, and souls of humanity were simply in love with God and with neighbor as self. As the many quotes in this book attest, I see my vocation as a spiritual financial counselor as simply being a messenger from those possible prophets who may know how such love might manifest itself in what Dr. Peter Drucker refers to in his book of the same title as our new “post-capitalist society.” In other words, after praying for humility—and like most Christians I’m always most proud of my humility—I listen carefully to those who may sit nearer to our Creator on today’s mountaintop. My goal—if what they say sounds like a modern echo of the biblical prophets—is to share their ideas with people who are busy at work in the valley below. Are those ideas guaranteed to put you in the Forbes list of the four hundred richest people in America? No. But I can assure you that while Forbes may never mention my name again, this once anxious soul is slowly becoming the “richest” man on earth.