Everything is Backwards

Bankrate.com has an interesting article about how certain things we deem “needs” more likely belong in the category “wants” or even “entitlements.”

Jay McDonald writes,

A lot of us in wealthy, overspending America are either born or raised with a tremendous sense of entitlement. We say to ourselves, ‘I work hard or, I work at a job I hate — at least I should be able to have a Starbucks coffee every day or eat out for lunch.’ But of course, those are not needs, they’re wants. They’re pleasures.

A more theological treatment can be found here.

Personally, about 10 years ago, I had been buried under a pile of credit card debt that took a lot of discipline to pay for. I wish I had this perspective during those childish years of plastic swiping foolishness.

McDonald lists 12 things many Americans feel entitled to that can be a big drain on your budget.

12. The Daily Latte; this costs about 100 times the price of a home brewed variety.

11. Cable TV. This costs up to $780 per year.

10. Manicure/Pedicure.

9. Botox.

8. Bottled Water. This is one of the funniest scams ever perpetrated on the American public. Honestly, planet earth’s most abundant resource is bottled and sold for more than the cost of a soft drink. Buy a Brita filter.

7. Second Car.

6. Cell Phone. This is a tough one, because certain professions require constant contact. But a teenager? No way.

5. Lawn Service.

4. Clothes (excessive)

3. Private School

2. Childhood parties

1. Pet Grooming.

This is just a start, but most American middle class people could probably find several places to trim the budget and be more frugal. I know I could.

According to this article on CNN.com, Cincinnati is one of the top destinations for recent college graduates looking for work.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. He knows a couple who is about to get married and who has a debt burden from college that exceeds $100,000 between the two of them.

That’s a bad place to start a marriage.

Are these Ivy League graduates or med school students? No. They’re graduating from Cedarville with degrees in education and English. To put it in perspective, my first home in Louisville cost my wife and I less than $100,000 and we mortgaged that amount for 30 years. Our monthly payment was around $850 per month. This makes perfect sense when you’re purchasing an asset that appreciates in value  over time, like a home. But that is a crazy amount to pay for degrees in education and English from a small Bible college.

With this kind of sticker price, is this worth it? Most people go to college because it’s what you do in order to secure a decent job and better lifestyle in the future. College is supposed to do two things. First, it is supposed to educate and train you to contribute to society in a particular field (prepare you for a vocation) and second to indirectly recommend you to potential employers by awarding you a degree.

If employment does not await the graduate with sufficient income to offset the debt burden, then the college education becomes an obscenely expensive venture that will not propel a person’s career.

The Bible says that “the rich rules over the poor and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Prov 22:7). College is supposed to lead to a good career. A good career is supposed to produce freedom and financial independence. This freedom can then, in turn, be used to serve God and the financial affluence given to advance Kingdom causes.

But when colleges are charging $100,000 for degrees that lead to careers that pay in the $30,000 price range, the student has enslaved himself to a life of financial slavery.

CNN.com has a helpful article tracking and attempting to explain how the price of gas went from 90 cents to $4 a gallon in around 9 years.

If every Christian is called to be generous with their resources, how much should we give? To what extent should we sacrifice?

I am reading Tim Keller’s book Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road and he offers a helpful principle. “Be sure that your giving cuts into your own lifestyle so that the burden of the needy falls on you.” He is essentially arguing that if your giving habits do not alter your lifestyle in someway, you aren’t giving enough yet. You should give until you feel pinched.

He also quotes another book by Thomas Gouge, who said that “the poor have a right unto part of thine estate.” God supplies some of us with abundance so that we can steward it properly by giving to meet others needs. Gouge says that the poor man’s bread rots in my cupboard, the poor man’s clothes hangs useless in my closet, and the poor man’s gold rusts in my treasure chest.

What dollar amount out of your monthly income causes you to feel squeezed?

This would need to be determined by each person’s conscience, according to Keller. Are we squeezed when it forces fewer meals out in restaurants? Are we squeezed when we buy a higher mileage used car instead of a new car?

This is convicting for me, because I can force myself to squeeze when OPEC and the Saudi’s want more oil money to waste in Dubai by charging me $4 a gallon for gas, but did I squeeze myself enough for my poor neighbors down the street?

Pop Quiz.

First Question: Who are some of the most beloved figures of American Evangelicalism?

Answer. Consider these names: Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Charles Hodge. Great theologians and preachers all.

Second Question: Even though most African American Christians believe in a generally evangelical theology, why do so few identify with evangelicalism as a broader movement?

Answer. Consider these names: Jonathan Edwards (owned at least 6 slaves), George Whitefield (slave owner, fought for legalization of slavery in Georgie, used slave labor in his orphanage, bought 20+ slaves in his lifetime), Charles Hodge (defender of the slave trade). Also, Charles Finney, D.L. Moody and Billy Graham all preached to segregated audiences even while on some level denouncing the slave trade (source: The American Evangelical Story by Doug Sweeney).

In other words, history shows us that white evangelical heroes of the American past have either outright participated in slavery or at least tacitly supported its through racist ministry practices. While Edwards was writing his brilliant essays on the Religious Affections, maybe he had a few slaves in the backyard working to provide food for him and his family to eat.

This is the evangelical slavery problem. Modern day American Christians benefit theologically from the writings and practices of incredibly influential men who directly supported something as wicked and inherently racist as slavery.

From the perspective of history, it is just short of miraculous that any slaves became Christians at all. The economics of the slave trade so intermingled with Christianity that few preachers were willing to denounce it because so many in their audience were profiting from it. At the same time, they continued to preach the gospel to slaves.

How could you preach some of the backwards verses of the Bible, such as proclaiming “liberty to the captives (Is 61:1),” all the while supporting the very system that enslaves them? Rev. Peter Randolph, a rural Virginia former slave once said that “the gospel was so mixed with slavery, that people could see no beauty in it, and feel no reverence for it.”

The paradox is that these preachers treated them as spiritual equals but as physical inferiors. The hypocrisy in this message is clear.

Many Christians even opposed the preaching of the gospel to slaves because they feared that Christian baptism not only freed slaves from their sins but this also implied freedom from slave owners as well. Some evangelists were so eager to preach to the slaves that they made agreements with slave owners to not preach on the deliverance of Israel from Egypt in order to not incite the slaves to seek their own emancipation.

This well intentioned agreement ended up being a pact with the devil.

Many slaves did indeed accept the gospel, but their “good news” wasn’t as good as the white man’s good news. This baggage has been passed down through the generations.

The question for us in this modern era is this: what can we do to remedy this situation?

My answer is to plant churches in racially diverse neighborhoods that embody the gospel racially, economically, and socially, until it becomes clear that the gospel of Christ is more unifying than our collectively divisive racist past. I will be chronicling my thoughts on this issue in the coming weeks.

Do you think a racially unified church is possible?

Mud Cookie: Dirt, Vegetable Oil, and Salt.

The NY Times has a helpful article about the process leading up to the current financial mess in the housing markets.