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  • Importantly! Each Power Point is accompanied by Garys commentary to incorporate it into the larger picture. To see and/or read those comments, click on the view button and then the notes page drop-down. 1
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  • 2 This seminar was developed for our nations churches, ministries, colleges and seminaries to provide an inexpensive but professional program for adult- education, fundraising, board meetings and so on. It may also be used by individuals and financial professionals, who should quote it without change, even though they are free to disagree with portions. We trust that any individual who uses it for personal study will make a donation of $25 to help cover costs. Non-profits might donate $50, while financial professionals might donate at least $100. Organizations of all natures might inquire about discounts and/or revenue sharing. See our website at www.financialseminary.org for addresses. www.financialseminary.org
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  • 3 Altering perspectives is difficult at best. And there are many slides containing counter-intuitive information for attendees to ponder. The best presenters can hope for is that attendees will reflect on the information during coming days. Presenters might therefore invite attendees to a later private meeting to discuss the concepts. Commentary for each slide should average about thirty seconds. So each of the four sessions should approximate thirty minutes, which should allow plenty of time for discussion if given over four, one-hour sessions.
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  • 4 Finally: This seminar can given three ways: 1) Preferably, in four, one-hour sessions if you have the time. If that is chosen, you might incorporate the four parts of Garys book Faithful Finances 101 (usually available on Amazon or from the John Templeton Foundation Press) for deeper conversation and understanding. 2) As an intense two-hour lecture. Or, 3) as an one-hour, investment-oriented seminar as Part Four largely stands on its own. Simply move slides five through eighteen to the beginning of Part Four and continue. Now, lets begin.
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  • 5 Kindly Note: This presentation is solely intended to be general information that might be beneficial to stewards of all types. Please do not consider it to be counsel that you should act upon without researching in-depth and/or consulting your various financial, legal or spiritual advisors. Affinity marketers, particularly in the religious communities, have too often hurt our faith and investors. We hope to help change that. But be prudent. While the workman is worthy of his wages, be particularly careful if you sense the presenter is more interested in your business than the ethic of the Abrahamic faiths.
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  • 6 Dr. David Miller, former investment banker, author of God at Work and current Director of the Princeton University Faith & Work Initiative reviewed this seminar and wrote: Remember the old brokerage firm ad, When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen? Todays version should be, When Gary Moore talks, concerned Americans should listen. Moores insights into financial planning with ethical and spiritual integrity should be mandatory study in every college, seminary and investment firm.
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  • With gratitude to The Financial Seminary, the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility has used the material presented in a wide variety of member programs and welcomes the opportunity to at long last have the entire presentation to share with their members and friends in congregations throughout the United States. Laura Berry Laura Berry Executive Director Executive Director ICCR ICCR (300 Religious Institutional (300 Religious Institutional Investors Stewarding $100 Billion) Investors Stewarding $100 Billion) 7
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  • 8 This is an advanced seminar that seeks to prompt a deeper, more enriching way of thinking and seeing our world, and then acting upon that perspective, which is largely what religion is when it comes to economics. So we suggest you simply relax and listen to your presenter, take the handouts home to study, and perhaps go online to www.financialseminary.org to review the presentation, including the presenters comments.
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  • 9 Financial Fusion: Re-Integrating Faith & Wealth Management Copyright @ Financial Seminary 2010
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  • 10 This seminar was created by Gary Moore. He has a degree in political science and was a senior vice president of investments with a major Wall Street investment firm during the late 80s before founding The Financial Seminary. He has served on the boards of the John Templeton Foundation, Opportunity International, The Crystal Cathedral, Messiah College and Empower America, as well as his local YMCA, Samaritan Ministries and church. He has been a commentator for UPI. You will immediately notice that he does not teach with authority but as a wounded healer who has learned from others wiser than himself, to whom he is most grateful.
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  • 11 Yet, despite the claims of prosperity theology and name it and claim it religion, nothing Gary has learned the past twenty-five years has challenged the old wisdom regarding wealth and the eye of the needle. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, taught that the thrift and work ethic of the Puritan approach to Christianity would inevitably enrich a nation; but that wealth would likely destroy the morality that created it. The recent experiences of our nation should make us wonder if Wesley might have had a point. So it is Garys hope that this seminar might simply help a few dedicated souls to make a most difficult journey, one that Christ said is impossible for man but possible with God.
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  • 12 Gary grew up in a devout but poor home. As he grew older and prospered, he increasingly experienced the tensions between faith and wealth. He also saw how that was affecting him and his friends, both mentally and spiritually. He thought of attending seminary but discovered they didnt deal with these issues any longer. He also found the church to be of little help. Yet he did find two modern prophets, both now deceased, who were instrumental to any progress he might have made.
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  • 15 Religious views are important to whatever anyone does--investing, writing articles, anything. How you see yourself in relation to others and your Creator, why, its the most important thing that there is because you think most clearly only if youre at peace with yourself and your Creator. Sir John Templeton
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  • 16 This extraordinary man believes that successful investing is a product of a persons overall relationship to life, to the universe. Unlike most of us, Templeton is at peace with himself. He has sorted things out. He believes that God created and is creating the universe. This gives Templeton extra mental energy to make and stand by his decisions. Forbes
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  • 17 The individual needs the return to spiritual virtues, for he can survive in the present human situation by reaffirming that man is not just a biological and psychological being but also a spiritual being, that is creature, and existing for the purposes of his Creator and subject to him. Peter Drucker Landmarks of Tomorrow
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  • 18 Peter Druckers ability to prophesy-- almost always correctly--was uncanny. Steve Forbes The Wall Street Journal
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  • 19 Q#1: Do other thoughtful people and history agree we should, even could, go back to the future?
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  • 20 A#1: Definitely! One cannot understand current political or ethical trends, or properly forecast future economic developments, without understanding the cycles in religious feelings in American history. Robert Fogel, Ph.D. Nobel Laureate in Economics & Religious Skeptic Robert Fogel, Ph.D. Nobel Laureate in Economics & Religious Skeptic The Fourth Great Awakening The Fourth Great Awakening
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  • 21 Rather than denigrating Christianity and religion in general, socially conscious elites ought to be asking what the religious impulse can teach us. Robert L. Bartley Robert L. Bartley Editor Emeritus Editor Emeritus The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal
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  • 22 If we do not manage our affairs both spiritually and socially in a responsible manner, we will inevitably come to regret it later. The Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama
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  • 23 I wish that on every bedside table, next to the Bible, there was an article explaining the nature of investing, because people are still either too confused, intimidated or busy to know what to do. Peter Lynch Former Manager Former Manager Fidelity Magellan Fund Fidelity Magellan Fund
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  • 25 It is embarrassing to live in the most comfortable time in the history of man and not be happy. Auden called his era the age of anxiety. I think what was at the heart of the dread in those days, just a few years into modern times, was that we could tell we were beginning to lose God. And it is a terrible thing when people lose God. Life is difficult and people are afraid, and to be without God is to lose mans great source of consolation and coherence. I dont think it is unconnected to the boomers predicament that as a country we were losing God just as they were being born. Peggy Noonan Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
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  • 26 The people who created this country built a moral structure around money. The Puritan legacy inhibited luxury and self-indulgence. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal. Over the past thirty years, much of that has been shredded The countrys moral guardians are forever looking out for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money. Introduction to Enough by By John Bogle ohn B Founder, The Vanguard Funds
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  • 28 The idea that economic crises, like the current financial and housing crisis, are mainly caused by changing thought patterns goes against standard economic thinking. But the current crisis bears witness to the role of such changes in thinking. It was caused precisely by our changing confidence, temptations, envy, resentment, and illusionsand especially by changing stories about the nature of the economy. Animal Spirits
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  • 29 The Credit Crisis & Great Recession The word credit derives from the Latin credo, meaning I believe. Animal Spirits By Ackerloff & Schiller
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  • 30 A#2: And history suggests we can! The business cycle is a psychological phenomenon. Only when the memory of hard times has dimmed can confidence fully establish itself; only when confidence has led to outrageous excess can it be checked. It was as difficult for Mr. Hoover to stop the psychological pendulum on the downswing as it had been for the Reserve Board to stop it on the upswing. Fredrick Lewis Allen Editor of Harpers Magazine Explaining the Great Depression
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  • 31 The 1929 breakdown was at its roots, a moral breakdown. We were not living right. We had become extravagant. We had become intoxicated by the alluring notion that the royal road to riches did not lie through sweat but speculation. We discarded and scorned old-fashioned virtues. B.C. Forbes B.C. Forbes Founder, Forbes Magazine Founder, Forbes Magazine
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  • 32 The sins of Big Business and High Finance were responsible for the over-whelming voting of the New Deal into power. Therefore, any and every act calculated to bring business into disrepute is infinitely regrettable. Forbes Magazine Forbes Magazine July 1, 1944 July 1, 1944
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  • 33 In the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, Americans are fed up with Washington and convinced by more than 3 to 1 that the nation is heading in the wrong direction. USA Today February 16, 2010
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  • 34 Source: The Economist +13% Miserable
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  • 35 The wealth of a nation is not to be found by asking a statistically significant, random sample of people to have a stab at it. What people think, still less what they say, is not a good guide to the way the world is. People dont know. The Economist
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  • 36 Angry
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  • 37 Source: The Economist
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  • 38 WSJ, September 15, 2010
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  • The problem with the tax debate is not that Democrats and Republicans disagree, but that they mostly agree. Democrats think 98% of Americans should not pay higher taxes; the Republicans say 100% should not. Taxes this year will come to less than 15% of GDP, the lowest share since 1950 Raising taxes on the rich would lift the ratio to only 20%. That is nowhere near enough to pay for federal spending, estimated at 24% of GDP in 2020. The Economist The Economist September 18, 2010 September 18, 2010 39
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  • 40 Source: Perotcharts.com
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  • 41 And Depressed
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  • 43 Its very interesting to me that the spread of communications has increased the misery of peoplewere flooded with bad news. And this bad news is making people depressed at a time when prosperity is at its greatest ever. Sir John M. Templeton
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  • 44 There has always been something in human nature which makes you buy a newspaper which has the most horrible headline. Therefore, to be successful in the publishing or television business, you have to feed the public these catastrophes or the negative viewpoint. Therefore the public is brainwashed. Sir John Templeton Sir John Templeton
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  • 45 The agenda of the world-the issues and items that fill our newspapers and newscasts-is an agenda of fear and power. A huge network of anxious questions surrounds us and begins to guide many, if not most, of our daily decisions. Clearly those who pose these questions which bind us have true power over us. Jesus seldom accepted the questions posed to him. He exposed them as coming from the house of fear. They did not belong in the house of God. Henri Nouwen
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  • 46 Politicians earn much of their living by exploiting anxieties, encouraging people to feel worse than they should about the state of their country. The Economist
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  • 47 The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmedand hence clamorous to be led to safetyby menacing it with an endless series of hobgloblins, all of them imaginary. H.L. Mencken H.L. Mencken
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  • 48 Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. George Washington
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  • 49 Proving some things are indeed eternal, a prominent politician has said: Our government in Washington now is a horrible bureaucratic mess. It is disorganized, wasteful, has no purpose, and its policieswhen they existare incomprehensible or devised by special interest groups with little or no regard for the welfare of the average American citizen. The American people believe that we ought to control our government. On the other hand, weve seen our government controlling us. Governor Jimmy Carter 1976, Dow Jones Apx 800
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  • No matter how serene today may be, tomorrow is always uncertain. Dont let that reality spook you. Throughout my lifetime, politicians and pundits have constantly moaned about terrifying problems facing America. Yet our citizens now live an astonishing six times better than when I was born. The prophets of doom have overlooked the all- important factor that is certain: Human potential is far from exhausted and the American system for unleashing that potential remains alive and effective. Warren Buffett Warren Buffett Letter to shareholders 2011 Letter to shareholders 2011 50
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  • 51 The deficit is not a meaningless figure, only a grossly overrated oneOur politicians have conjured the deficit into a bogeyman with which to scare themselves. In symbolizing the bankruptcy of our political process, the deficit has become a great national myth with enormous power. But behind the political symbol, we need to understand the economic reality, or lack of it. In the advanced economic literature, the big debate is whether deficits matter at all. Robert Bartley Editor The Wall Street Journal Seven Fat Years, 1992
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  • 54 When Americans look at their economy these days, they are horrified by what they see, or think they see. Economic paranoia has become an American habit. America worries as it prospers. The Economist Sam, Sam, The Paranoid Man
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  • 55 Extraordinary Popular Delusions & The Madness of Crowds This time is different are the four most expensive words in the English language. expensive words in the English language. Sir John M. Templeton Sir John M. Templeton
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  • 56 Counting Our Assets, Or Blessings, For A Change www.whitehouse.gov/omb/2010budge t
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  • 57 A B C D
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  • 58 Americas Wealth Americas Wealth $125.5 Trillion Gross (A) -7.2 Trillion Owed (B) -7.2 Trillion Owed (B) =$118.3 Trillion Net (C) =$118.3 Trillion Net (C) Source: OMB, White House
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  • 59 The size of the net foreign debt is relatively small compared with the total stock of U.S. assets (D). In 2007, it amounted to 7% of total assets including education and R&D capital. Office of Management & Budget The Bush White House Budget of the U.S. Government Fiscal Year 2009
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  • 60 Americas Federal Debt to Assets Source: OMB in Bush White House
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  • 62 Every dollar of US international indebtedness is matched by a dollar of assets abroad. Professor Jeremy Siegel The Financial Times October 6, 2009
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  • 63 College Degrees Source: The Economist
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  • 64 Innovation Source: The Economist
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  • 65 Thanks to the liberating forces of globalization and Googlisation, innovation is no longer the preserve of technocratic elites in ivory towers. It is increasingly an open, networked and democratic endeavor. If man really can find a way of harnessing the innovative capacity of 9 billion bright sparks, then the audacious prediction about feeding the much hungrier world of 2110 using less land than today may very well be proven right. After all, mans greatest asset is his ability to harness that one natural resource that remains infinite in quantity: human ingenuity. The Economist May 15, 2010
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  • If the U.S. economys long-term economic growth rate increased to 3.5% from the 3% rate that has prevailed since 1970, wed be able to cover all the spending promises weve made to ourselves without raising any additional funds through higher taxes or increased borrowing. Claremont Review of Books Claremont Review of Books Paul Ryans Roadmap Paul Ryans Roadmap Summer 2010 Summer 2010 66
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  • 67 Yes, the Great Recession hurt, but Source: Federal Reserve
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  • 68 $1 Billion in Stacked $100 Bills
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  • 69 $1 Trillion in Double Stacked $100 Bills
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  • 70 The national debt peaked at 128 percent of GNP in 1946. of GNP in 1946. U.S. Department of Commerce
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  • 72 Source: The Economist NATODefenseSpending
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  • 73 The Economist March 17, 2001
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  • 74 Conclusion? The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income. Simon Kuznets Creator of the GDP in 1932
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  • 75 The biggest threat to America right now is not government spending, huge deficits, foreign ownership of our debt, world terrorism, two wars, potential epidemics or nuts with nukes. The biggest long-term threat is that people are becoming and have become disheartened, that this condition is reaching critical mass. Peggy Noonan The Wall Street Journal November 1, 2009
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  • 76 The economy isnt the only reason for our unease. Theres more to it. People sense something slipping away, a world receding, not only an economic one but a world of old structures, old ways and assumptions. The moment we are living now is a strange one, a disquieting one, a time that seems full of endings. Too bad theres no pill for that. Peggy Noonan Wall Street Journal March 14, 2009
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  • 77 Part Two: Religious Challenges to Our Well- Being
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  • 78 So, if religion is so enriching and most Americans still go to church, how could religion have played a role in the Great Recession?
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  • 79 A # 1: Cultural Religion is More Socially Harmful Than No Religion!
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  • 80 Economics is more than a matter of interest rates and deficits. Morality is more than a matter of stained glass and hymns. Economic success is built on moral foundations. An economy reflects the moral image of its people. Jack Kemp Jack Kemp
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  • 81 I think that what happened in the nineteenth century was that religious leadership in all religions simply abandoned the field of economic morality to the secular world. Religion thus became irrelevant to many people. We helped create a split personality among the business leaders. They could be pious men, they could go to church or to synagogue or to the mosque, but religion made no demands on them in the marketplace. This separation of personality, I think, is a major tragedy for religion and for the businessman. Rabbi Dr. Meir Tamari
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  • 82 Discipline begets abundance, and abundance, unless we take the utmost care, destroys discipline; and discipline in the fall pulls down abundance. The Monastic Cycle
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  • 83 When the Protestant Reformation did away with monasticism, rejecting what it took to be an attempt to gain heaven by works, it also did away with what had long been monasticisms reminder to the entire church of the need for obedience in economic matters. Professor Justo Gonzalez Professor Justo Gonzalez Faith & Wealth Faith & Wealth
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  • 84 The Protestant Reformation released the great surge of individualism that created the modern West, including what we now call capitalism and democracy. But for the first two centuries, this new dynamo operated inside a still generally accepted body of Christian discipline. Then, in the eighteenth century, this sort of discipline began to break down. Humankind was self- sufficient. The Economist The Economist
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  • 85 If, after diligent work, his efforts fail, he who has borrowed money should and may say to him from whom he has borrowed it: This year I owe you nothingIf you want to have a share in winning, you must also have a share in losing. The money lenders who do not want to put up with these terms are as pious as robbers and murderers. Martin Luther
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  • 86 Do we need any admonition to earn all we can? Close reading of Wesley, however, quickly shows that he was not giving theological rationale for an aggressive acquisitiveness that characterizes much of American society. His sermon is actually a polemic against destructive ways of earning. How income is earned is as integral to Christian stewardship as what is done with the earnings. Wesley warns against earning money by hurting oneself or others or Gods creation. Bishop Ken Carder A Wesleyan Perspective on Christian Stewardship
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  • 87 For Christians, lending money at interest was a sin. Usurers, people who lent money at interest, had been excommunicated by the Third Lateran Council in 1179. Even arguing that usury is not a sin had been condemned as heresy by the Council of Vienna in 1311-12. Christian usurers had to make restitution to the Church before they could be buried on hallowed ground. Professor Niall Ferguson The Ascent of Money
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  • 88 There is one bit of advice to us by the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews of the Old Testament and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest; and lending at interestwhat we call investmentis the basis of our whole systemIt does not necessarily follow that we are wrong. That is where we need the Christian economist. But I should not have been honest if I had not told you that three great civilizations had agreed in condemning the very thing on which we have based our whole life. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
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  • 89 In 1639, the elders of the First Church of Boston brought charges against a Puritan merchant named Robert Keayne for dishonoring the name of God. Soon after, he was tried and found guilty by the Commonwealth as well. Writing his memoirs some sixteen years later, he was still stung by the disgrace of the event. His sin was greed. He had sold his wares at a six percent profit, two percent above the maximum allowed. Robert Wuthnow Robert Wuthnow God and Mammon In America
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  • 90 For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little while longer still. John Maynard Keynes
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  • 91 The way stewardship is practiced in North America often has little to do with the Bible. It stems primarily from the most influential American theologian, Andrew Carnegie. The Christian religion, Carnegie maintained, become pertinent only after production has run its course, money has been made and money has been reinvested. In other words, Carnegie said that Christian faith has to do with charity, and charity does not extend to the questions of economics. Professor Doug Meeks Professor Doug Meeks God The Economist God The Economist
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  • 92 The problem of dualism and compartmentalization: This horrible heresy divides reality into the distinct categories of the spiritual verses the physical, the sacred verses the secular, and the eternal verses the temporal. Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this split view of reality the most colossal obstacle to genuine faith. This mega-problem of dualism is the chief cause for the reduced, powerless versions of Christianity that are commonplace in far too many Christian communities today. David K. Naugle, Ph.D.
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  • 93 Idealism is a principle and tradition in metaphysics that maintains that something ideal or nonphysical is the primary realityIdealism underplays the importance of history and historical forces and ignores the way culture is lived and experienced. Further, idealism ignores the way culture is generated, coordinated, and organized. James Davison Hunter To Change The World
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  • 95 Wealth and enterprise have so woven themselves around the message of Jesus that popular models of Christianity appear as nothing more than self and greed at the center, with strands of Christian thought at the periphery. Ravi Zacharias Ravi Zacharias Jesus Among Other Gods Jesus Among Other Gods
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  • 96 I believe in God, family and McDonalds. And in the office, that order is reversedIf any of my competitors were drowning, Id stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water. It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. Ill kill em, and Im going to kill em before they kill me. Youre talking about the American way--the survival of the fittest. Ray Kroc Founder of McDonalds
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  • 97 This framework of separated areas of life is deeply embedded in the Christian Church, in its theology and in the daily life of its people. On Sunday morning or during our devotional or prayer life, we operate in the spiritual realm. The rest of the week, and in our professional lives, we operate in the physical realm and, hence, unwittingly act like functional atheists. Bryant Myers, Ph.D. WorldVision
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  • 98 Fewer than one out of every ten born again Christians possesses a biblical worldview that impacts his/her decisions and behaviorsThe problem with Christianity in America is not the content of the faith, but the failure of its adherents to integrate the principles of the faith into their lifestyles. Sociologist George Barna
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  • 99 Politics Economics PersonalFinances Religion Many leaders, Im afraid, place their religious and moral convictions in separate compartments and do not think of the implications of their faith on their responsibilities. BillyGraham Billy Graham This Is A Post-Modern Brain On Compartmentalization
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  • 100 It is possible to envision a time when evangelicals have the consistent Christian perspective tools they require in this area of life. But it is probably best to expect Christian theology for life under modern high-tech capitalism to come mainly from where it now does--from Jewish, Catholic, Reformed, and Lutheran sources, in which traditions exist for relating doctrines of creation to matters of redemption in a modern economic context. It is possible to envision a time when evangelicals have the consistent Christian perspective tools they require in this area of life. But it is probably best to expect Christian theology for life under modern high-tech capitalism to come mainly from where it now does--from Jewish, Catholic, Reformed, and Lutheran sources, in which traditions exist for relating doctrines of creation to matters of redemption in a modern economic context. Professor John R. Schneider Professor John R. Schneider Calvin College Calvin College
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  • 101 In his recent book, The Great Giveaway, David Fitch addresses the knee-jerk way in which evangelicals admire and copy churches and ministries that garner large followings. He speaks of evangelicalisms culture of numbers and show how it often owes more to free-market capitalisms concern for efficient production than it does to the gospel. Christianity Today
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  • 102 [Americans are gravitating toward] a religion that is easygoing and experiential rather than rigorous and intellectualWe must fight the temptation to treat our faith the way we treat our careers--as a source of entertainment, fulfillment, and happiness. Remember the warning of C.S. Lewis: If youre seeking happiness, dont choose Christianity, choose port wine. Chuck Colson Chuck Colson
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  • 103 Nearly two billion people unblushingly call themselves Christian, happily breaking almost every commandment should the occasion arise, serving Mammon and goodness knows who else. An Obituary For Jesus An Obituary For Jesus The Economist The Economist Easter 1999 Easter 1999
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  • 104 The area known as economics was never isolated by itself in Islamic society. It was always combined with ethics. That is why the very acceptance of economics as an independent domain, not to speak of as the dominating factor in life according to the prevailing paradigms of the modern world, is devastating to the Islamic view of human life. Professor Seyyed Nasr Professor Seyyed Nasr The Heart of Islam The Heart of Islam
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  • 105 Despite, or maybe because of the worlds economic travails, Islamic finance has continued to stride ahead, as investors seek alternatives to products that have let them down in the past. Assets in Islamic finance rose to $822 billion last year, an increase of 29 per cent compared to 2008 Might the inherently prudent principles of Islamic finance have prevented lending to people who were likely to default, for instance? According to sharia law, the selling of loans is not permitted, nor is interest-bearing debt more generallyall factors that contributed to the crisis. The Financial Times June 21, 2010
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  • 106 (Unless Christian economists at major universities) keep their economics and their religion in separate compartments, they are likely to be denied tenure. It is acceptable to be Marxist, feminist, environmentalist, progressive, or other quasi-religious brand of economist, but not a Judeo-Christian economist. Robert Nelson, Ph.D. Forbes
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  • 108 Somewhere in the seventies, or the sixties, we started expecting to be happy. I think we have lost the old knowledge that happiness is over-ratedthat in a way life itself is overrated. We are the first generations of man that actually expected to find happiness here on earth, and our search has caused such unhappiness. The reason: if you do not believe in another, higher world, if you believe only in the flat material world around you, if you believe that this is your only chance at happiness--if that is what you believe, then you are more than disappointed when the world does not give you a good measure of its riches, you are in despair. Peggy Noonan Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
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