Great article in last weeks Sun-Sentinel...

SPENDING SMART

Some take a faith-based view of finances

By Gregory Karp
Allentown Morning Call

April 23, 2006

Inspiration for handling money smarter stems from a variety of sources. Math and logic might inspire some people, while understanding emotional spending triggers provides an “Aha!’ moment for others.

Many people are turning toward spiritual guidance to get their financial lives on track. Its especially gaining attraction among Christians, who point to some 2,350 references to money in the Bible.

“People know that they’ve got personal struggles, said Howard Dayton, chief executive officer of Crown Financial Ministries and author of the new book “Free and Clear: God’s Road Map to Debt-Free Living” (Moody Publishers, $12.9~).

“People, I think, are really hungry to find answers,’ he said.

Crown Financial Ministries offers Bible-based financial advice at seminars in churches throughout the country. It says its radio programs reach 2 million listeners weekly.

Similarly, radio talk-show host Dave Ramsey, who wrote the best-selling book “The Total Money Makeover,” weaves common-sense personal finance with the Bible on his show, which also claims a weekly audience of 2 million. His class, Financial Peace University, is taught at churches and other organizations throughout the country.


Dayton said he’s aware that some people like to keep money and religion separate.

“Its totally understandable that many people partition handling money from their spiritual life and view it as secular,” he said. “What you see in scripture is there’s no partition at all. It’s, in fact, one of the key pieces in the puzzle in a person growing in their spiritual life.”


Dayton said 15 percent of everything Jesus says in the Bible is about money and possessions.

And how you handle money reflects your values, he said. “Its tangible. If you show me your calendar and your checkbook, I can tell you what’s really important to you,” he said. Christianity isn’t the only faith to acknowledge a link between money and religion.

For example, similar attitudes about overspending and debt are present in Judaism, and Islam forbids the charging or paying of interest.

But Christians celebrated Easter last week and 77 percent of adult Americans identify themselves as Christians, according to the Census Bureau, so here are Biblical notions about money and spending that might inspire you, whether or not you are religious:



-- Debt

“The borrower is servant to the lender’ (Proverbs 22:7). “That’s probably the key passage with respect to the heart of God when it comes to debt,” said Dayton, who said he had to dig his own way out of significant debt during the 1970s.

The Bible doesn’t address which types of debt might be more acceptable than others, but Dayton teaches that debt for a home, education and business are OK, although he does advocate paying off a home mortgage early.

“I can say from my own experience that once we had our own home paid for, we were able to give much more generously, and we were really able to increase our saving and investing significantly,” Dayton said.

The type of borrowing that is hurting many Americans is car loans, he said. “Car debt is, if not the biggest, then one of the biggest, inhibitors keeping people from being financially free,” he said.

Crown’s financial plan advocates keeping a car for at least three years after paying it off, but keep making the monthly payments to your bank account. That way, when you need another car, the trade-in value of your old car plus the saved money should be enough to pay cash for a decent used car.

-- Spending

“A mans life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15).

Keeping up with the Joneses has been a persistent problem. The solution is to find contentment in what you already have. The word contentment appears seven times in the Bible, six of which are references to handling money and possessions, Dayton said.

One example: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret to being content in any and every situation’ (Philippians 4:10-13).

Contentment allowed Dayton, for example, to drive what his kids called the “rotten Chiquita,” an ugly yellow station wagon, while the family was getting out of debt. “It didn’t bother me one bit,” he said.

-- Stewardship

“It is required in stewards that one be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2).

Americans and the American Dream are tied to the concept of ownership. That perhaps makes more difficult an idea that people don’t own anything but are just handling money and possessions for God. “He’s the owner of everything, and we’re merely stewards, managers of what he entrusts to us,” Dayton said.

If nothing else, being God’s money manager “elevates all your financial decisions,” he said. “When you’re handling it for the creator of the universe, you want to do it his way.”

Gregory Karp is a personal finance writer for The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa., a Tribune Co. newspaper. E-mail him at yourmoney@tribune.com. For additional discussion on spending wisely, see the Spending Smart blog at http://blogs.mcall.com/spendingsmart/.

Copyright © 2006, The Morning Call



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