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Welcome to “Going Broke With Jesus Blog”
Welcome back!
by Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.
What does the Bible really say about money?
 Time Magazine ran a cover story with the provocative question: Does God want you to be rich? http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1533448,00.html
The story itself follows the typical journalistic format of consulting experts on either side of what it calls “the Prosperity camp.” At the end of the article, the reader is left with nothing more than opinions.
The fact that a national newsmagazine would even ask such a question on its cover demonstrates that what the Bible says about money is not just a religious matter.
Biblical statements about money affect all of us, whether we are overtly religious or not, or even whether we are aware of it or not.
This blog goes beyond Time’s question: “Does God want you to be rich?” to ask an even more provocative question: “Does Jesus want you to be broke?”
In American society, the question, “Does Jesus want you to be broke?” is profoundly relevant as a financial question. Economists claim that 96% of the population will reach the age of 65 without enough money to be financially independent, and forced to rely on social security and meager savings. Promised pensions are disappearing. The polite way to put it is that more and more people retire with financial challenges. The more accurate way to put it is that most Americans retire broke.
Meanwhile, the middle class is getting squeezed by higher mortgages, rising health costs, and increasing personal debt. Many people depend on equity lines and borrowed money to make ends meet.
A large percentage of people are dependent on government assistance, and never manage to become financially self-sufficient.
The enormous national debt is creating a burden upon generations to come.
Meanwhile, some people are making extraordinary amounts of money. There are more and more millionaires and even some billionaires. In short, a tiny percentage of people make billions while millions either go broke or teeter on the edge.
The question is: Does Jesus have anything to do with creating an economic system in which so many people go broke?
The United States is a pluralistic society, comprising people from every nation on planet Earth. Our population includes people of every religion and no religion. Officially, our constitution requires the separation of church and state, and offers freedom of religion and freedom from religion.
In reality, the Christian roots of the United States are extremely deep and the majority of the population identify themselves as Christian. In addition, many people who no longer identity themselves as Christian grew up Christian and remain deeply influenced by Christian beliefs about money.
And so, in a society shaped by Christian beliefs from the beginning, and still predominantly Christian, most people go broke. Is this a coincidence?
My premise is that there is a direct line between Christian beliefs-particularly the words of Jesus-and a society of people filled with people who teeter on the edge of going broke, or even tumble over the precipice.
The purpose of this blog is to demonstrate a method to get beyond the impasse of laying out Bible verses and leaving it up to you to decide which ones you will accept as relevant to your own financial life. As a biblical scholar who grew up without money, I have learned the hard way that almost everything I learned about money and the Bible was simply wrong. My method is to put Bible verses into context, to discover what they meant, before we can decide what they mean.
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© 2007 Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.
