by Chad Hamilton

Good financial planners know that effective financial planning is comprehensive in scope and the components are interdependent. Like pieces of a puzzle that fit together in a particular way to form a complete picture, financial decisions are interrelated and contingent on one another. For example, the way investments are allocated impacts the amount of income taxes that are due; taxes due affect cash flow needs from the portfolio, which will, in turn, affect how much one needs to save for retirement, and so on.

Many readers will, no doubt, be familiar with the puzzle analogy. But all too often something is missing from it. In order to best put together the puzzle, you need to see the picture on the top of the box. It’s tempting to jump right in and begin fitting the pieces together. But you’ll have greater success if you understand what it is you are trying to build and confirm it’s something you want to build. Likewise, you cannot make the best financial decisions for your life until you have really articulated and envisioned your ideal future — the “picture on the top of the box.”

The “Picture on the Top” from a Christian Perspective

But there is another reason why the “picture” is so important. Your desired future not only informs decision-making today, but it also provides the incentive to make it a reality. Internal motivation drives external behavior. In other words, it is not primarily head knowledge that dictates the choices we make. It is our dreams and desires. A compelling vision of your desired future will provide the proper motivation for making the right financial decisions today.

For Christians, the need to begin with the end in mind is even more important because our “end” is eternal in nature. That’s why, in the New Testament, many of the references to money are framed in terms of ultimate consequences – from rewards in heaven (Matthew 6:2-4) to being cut off from God forever (Matthew 6:19-24). Therefore, what we believe about our ultimate future profoundly affects how we approach personal financial matters. If we do not fully contemplate or understand the eternal, we become experts in the trivial and novices in the significant.

The Picture Informs Daily Actions

So the central question is: what do we believe about our ultimate future and the future of this world? What is the scope of God’s redemption? Is it purely about saving souls or is it about restoring all things? What we believe about heaven and the Kingdom of God is not merely a speculative exercise or obscure theological debate. It informs our daily actions and decision-making.

If I believe that this earth is ultimately going to burn up and be destroyed and my vision of heaven is an ethereal, purely spiritual existence, what I do here doesn’t matter much. It matters in terms of saving souls, but none of the work I do or monetary investments I make have a lasting impact. In this view, what matters most is not being “left behind.” This results in Christians becoming “too heavenly minded for any earthly good.”

But what we see in Genesis 2:5-15 is that God created us to work. The Garden of Eden is God’s vision for humanity and it will ultimately come about. According to the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:58, this means that what we do on earth is not in vain. When we know what our eternal future will look like, it will infuse our activities here with a whole new level of meaning and significance.

A Meaningful Difference

So how does this all play out on a daily basis in our money relationships? On a practical level, how do these beliefs shape our perspectives and decision-making?

An underdeveloped view of the end of time will lead to a compartmentalized view of personal finances, one that happens to look an awful lot like that of non-believers. In this view:

• I will negotiate the best deal possible, even if it means taking advantage of someone in a tough spot or another person’s naivety.

• I will buy the cheapest products and services without considering the supply chain or labor practices that helped produce it.

• I will invest money solely in pursuit of maximized financial returns, regardless of how the companies I am investing in make their profits.

• I will maximize financial wealth without much thought of the potential dangers money may pose to my own soul.

If, on the other hand, we believe God is in the business of restoring every inch of his Creation, as servants in His Kingdom our bottom line is no longer purely financial but rather about serving the greater good with our time, talent, and money. It means we spend money, invest money, and earn money all in ways that are intended to increase human flourishing. We will aspire to use our resources in ways that are beautiful and transformational.

When Christ says, “Where your treasure is your heart is also,” he wants to set us free (Matthew 6:21). Free from the widespread cultural idolatry of money. In this view:

• I will voluntarily pay more than necessary for some products in order to promote generous labor practices or sustainable agriculture.

• I will integrate my values with my investment decisions, avoiding investments in companies that promote the diminishment or destruction of human life.

• I will lavishly give my money in ways that are shocking and overflowing with grace.

• I will take seriously Jesus’s warning that we cannot serve two masters (God and “mammon”) by being concerned not only with what I am doing with money but also with what money is doing to me.

The Ultimate Hope

Everyone should have a goals-based approach to managing money.  It is the right framework for making good financial decisions.  The difference for followers of Jesus is that our greatest goals and dreams are aligned with God’s plan for eternity.  What we need is a hope-based approach to money.  Not a hope in money that rescues us from uncertainty about the future, but a hope that rests assured in the promises of the one who conquered death.

—

Chad Hamilton is a CFP® and Director of Practice Management with Brown and Company, Inc. in Denver, Colorado. Chad has more than 20 years of experience in the wealth management industry. This article is an excerpt from Chad’s book, Redefining Financial Freedom.

REDEFINING FINANCIAL FREEDOM: A GOSPEL-BASED APPROACH TO MONEY

by Chad S. Hamilton

There is no shortage of books providing financial advice and quite a few of those incorporate a Christian perspective. They all tend to start with existing financial practices and apply Biblical principles to what you are already doing. What makes this book different is that it starts with the gospel and then considers the financial implications. The underlying assumption here is that the gospel is Good News rather than Good Advice. That means it is not primarily about finding the right Bible verses to inform you, but rather about connecting with the Good News of Jesus to transform you. What Chad Hamilton provides in this provocative book is an antidote to the false cultural narratives about money. He shows how so many financial problems are due to a misguided search for freedom and helps paint a picture of “what could be” by weaving in stories of imaginative people helping to redeem a broken world. Redefining Financial Freedom provides an inspiring Biblical framework for understanding money. It will change the way you think about work, investing, and generosity.

by Allen McClinton

In the 1970s, Milton Friedman articulated a myopic mission for corporations to concentrate solely on serving the interest of the investing class. He said that if their interests are served well, all will benefit. Society now bears the results.

American corporation’s strict adherence to this hypothesis has driven a divide in our society where two different cities cohabitate in one nation. The citizens of one of those cities find themselves in tremendous hurt and desperation as they fight to survive. While the other city’s inhabitants economically insulate themselves with an unbreachable moat made from the ownership of assets.

This is America. This is the non-empathetic capitalistic machine we’ve created for ourselves. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is more discriminatory than many care to admit—directing the flow of power and capital to determine how people are valued and viewed. The resulting fragile societal structures are direct fruits of the behaviors incentivized by America’s capitalism.

While the structure of American society makes it easy for Corporations to create perpetual growth and make meaningful impacts in the lives of Americans, we’re also reaping the negative social side effects of what we’ve sown. Now, we find ourselves pondering, when our economy is built on broken societal foundations, should we be surprised when storms threaten to knock it all down?

Slavery is the result of a society that prioritizes financial gain over human dignity. We can say that slavery is “in the past,” but it was this free labor that allowed American capitalism to unlock the wealth of this nation. The racial injustices we see every day are the direct result of an economy that grew from the free labor of the very people it refused to value. Slavery is no longer legal, but if the racism that seems so core to our societal structures tell us anything it’s that laws alone don’t change the ethos of a nation.

Racial injustice is not a problem for government and social programs alone. It’s an economic issue. It’s one that requires the focused efforts of entrepreneurs and investors alike. It’s a problem that requires us to unwind the discriminatory policies that concentrate economic capital  in specific areas and stop allocating capital, calculated and applied at scale, to benefit one group of people to the exclusion of another.

It’s hard to believe that racial injustice can be reduced to economic and financial decisions, but that is exactly what occurs when economic decisions do not consider human equality. Discriminatory asymmetries were exploited in order to concentrate our nation’s resources and wealth in certain locations. Business leaders are just doing their job to maximize their own profits.

This common power struggle surfaced during the creation of America. The Founding Fathers wrestled as they formed the Constitution, knowing that to recognize every man as equal and with unalienated rights was in direct conflict with the a slavery-driven economy. Thus, you find a “compromise” where a black man is considered 3/5ths of a man.

In the 1930s, racial discrimination became a formalized policy called redlining where essential government capital resources and services that seed wealth capacity in a locality were denied to largely black urban areas. Again, a “compromise” was made to concentrate capital in largely white neighborhoods at the cost and decay of black urban areas.

As we see very clearly in our society today, what starts as an objective and non-empathetic financial decision begins to hurt and deteriorate society in personal and intimate ways. Business leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors cannot ignore and be indifferent to the societal problems we face in our society. For how healthy can America’s Corporations be if America’s Society is not healthy?

Our economy claims to support the ideals of equal human dignity and to reward those that work hard to realize the American dream. However, the reality of the experiments we have run so far, fall tremendously short of these ideals. American’s economy is not compassionate and empathetic to human dignity. The decisive decisions that have been made throughout history show that specific human races are sacrificed to benefit and reward the economic gain of other specific human races.

As Christian marketplace leaders, we can’t stay indifferent to this injustice. Even more, we can’t settle, rest, and operate within economic structures that reward greed arbitraged from the intentional subjugation of fellow image-bearers of God. All men and women are equal because they bear the image of our Heavenly Father. We are called to follow the example of Jesus, who stewarded His privilege as a ransom that He might serve humanity.

We must then ask ourselves—how much am I willing to sacrifice to enable and empower those that have experienced forced and discriminatory setbacks? What does this look like for an early-stage investor? Have I taken a hard look at not just the diversity programs, but the actual structures and rewards of the economic systems I am operating in? Are there groups of people who are being intentionally left out of the room?

I am a passionate capitalist who finds great joy in making a profit. I am also a black man who has experienced institutional racism. I am a Christian for whom Jesus Christ died and rose again that I might have life, and I belong to His family. I am His child. And as His child, who is being crafted in His likeness, I can’t suffer being satisfied in blindly operating within an unjust system. I must take action to do justice in the businesses I operate in. I must join hands with my brothers and sisters to find new and redemptive ways to be a compassionate, empathetic and just capitalist.

One of the most amazing things about living in Silicon Valley is to have seen and experienced how capital unlocks and galvanizes productive human potential to create amazing and valuable companies. Like a heat-seeking missile, Sand Hill road capital seeks to fund great teams of people with the outcome of outsized economic returns. However, when their black and brown demographics are cooled by the cold-hearted institutional systems of racism, capital, as a heat-seeking missile, never finds and unlocks this group’s productive potential.

Everyone in America suffers when capital is boxed in to fund only great ideas and teams that look a certain way. When there are demographics in our country whose unlocked productive potential have never been fully capitalized, we all lose. The real and more compelling vision is to end economic racism and unlock the productive potential of Americans that have never been given a chance before.

At the heights of the Civil Rights movement in 1968, the Apollo project put the first human on the moon. 42 years later, as protests over racial injustice broke out yet again across the streets of America, SpaceX executed a successful mission becoming the first private company to launch people into orbit.

Lifting off to space will always capture the world’s imagination. And in very practical terms, the work to build a successful space endeavour unlocks tremendous amounts of innovations that touch and improve people’s everyday lives. From the Apollo project came GPS technology, breakthroughs in material science, and new ways to organize. The external benefits that society reaped were in the trillions of dollars.

Going to space requires men and women to stretch and stress every single building block of science, physics and engineering to complete a launch. As Chamath Palihapitiya shared in an interview about his company Virgin Atlantic, “[space travel] requires you to reimagine all the basic things we have today in a new light.”

These current protests have captured the hearts of Americans to the reality of racial injustice. Similar to the reimagining thought processes and work to launch into space, men and women who hope to launch society beyond the inertia of racial injustice must reimagine and reconsider very basic fundamental structures of our economy.

I am hopeful that we can change the landscape of America to a more just and profitable capitalism. With certain demographics forced to stay put at the starting blocks, we have only experienced a limited version of the might and productivity of American’s Capitalism. But once everyone is running the race, we can finally push the whole competition to new records.

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s Global Event.

by Ben McLain

Often, when I meet someone new and tell them that I work at Impact Foundation, their response is, “Oh, so you’re involved with that ESG stuff.” I usually just smile and reply “Something like that,” but inside, my stomach turns, and I want to explain that I’m actually passionate about impact investing, which is related to, but significantly different from, “that ESG stuff.” ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing is well-intentioned and has positive aspects. However, I believe that despite its benefits, it has serious flaws and has been weaponized in some cases, actually producing far more harm than good. As I have worked in the faith-driven investing space and followed the latest research on investment philosophies and outcomes, my conviction has grown stronger that impact investing, rather than ESG, has the greatest potential to promote human flourishing and accomplish the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Also, as I have continued to study the Scriptures, I believe impact investing surpasses ESG investing in faithfully testifying to the Kingdom of God. So, to answer my new friend who assumes that I am “involved with that ESG stuff,” my honest response would be: ESG investing is good, but I am committed to promoting impact investing as it more effectively testifies to God’s Kingdom by:

• Possessing less risk of greenwashing and fraud

• Providing investors with more direct stewardship over the flow of funds

• Promoting investment dollars be designated to specific and measurable outcomes

• Providing more accountability, transparency, and assessment of UN SDG progress

ESG investing is a philosophy where “investors consider environmental, social and governance criteria alongside traditional financial factors. It represents a more holistic approach to investing that takes into account our impact on the natural world and society, as well as any potential financial gains.” As followers of Jesus, I think we all would agree that this is a good and noble approach to stewarding the resources God has entrusted to us. ESG investing has been extremely successful in shifting the focus of investors and companies away from solely maximizing their financial gains and has expanded their considerations to include the effects their resources and operations have on people and our planet. However, I believe this well-intended philosophy has unintended second and third order effects that may result in negative and even dangerous outcomes.

The greatest challenge with ESG investing is that the standards by which to define and assess the environmental, social, and governance aspects of an organization or investment are extremely subjective and liable to coercive and/or political tactics by the powers that be. As goes public sentiment or the political landscape, so goes the standards for assessing ESG excellence. A current example of this scenario is ExxonMobil. In 2021, under the banner of ESG responsibility, activist investors demanded that ExxonMobil drastically reduce its production of hydrocarbons and rapidly move toward carbon neutrality. When the board adopted this strategy, the company’s stock dropped significantly, but the move was applauded by the broader investment community as a bold and radical step toward improving our environment. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 exposed the fragility of the world’s energy security and demonstrated that ExxonMobil’s ESG policies must include measures to expand energy development and production in parallel with reducing demand for hydrocarbons.

Beyond its subjectivity, the most frightening aspect of the ESG philosophy is its capacity to be weaponized. We see this in the “cancel culture” of our day, where organizations or individuals that are viewed as being outside the permissible boundaries (as defined by those in power) are ostracized or punished. If a company is viewed as not “green enough” or not “diverse enough,” investors are encouraged to divest their assets in the company and align their resources with “more acceptable” organizations. In China, the ESG approach has been applied to individuals, and each citizen is given a “social credit score” based on their level of compliance to the Chinese Communist Party. This practice has led to financial penalties, prison, and even execution for individuals who were deemed threats to the regime. With the development of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CDBCs) combined with social credit scoring, one can imagine almost unchecked powers by the State to restrict individual’s financial freedoms and seize their assets.

While these examples may seem extreme or alarmist, I maintain that it is important to assess the downstream consequences of our beliefs and practices. The desire for intentionality and responsibility in the environmental, social, and governance aspects of an organization is a good thing and can be implemented in beneficial ways. However, I believe the ESG philosophy is inherently flawed and insufficient to produce the holistic and enduring flourishing we desire to see in our organizations and in our world. Impact investing, while not perfect, possesses a greater ability to promote holistic prosperity without the risks associated with ESG investing.

A good definition of impact investing is “investing with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. Impact investments can be made in both emerging and developed markets and target a range of returns from below market to market rate, depending on investors’ strategic goals.” The primary difference between impact and ESG investing, which I believe is key to avoiding ESG’s pitfalls and promoting creation’s flourishing, is that impact investment dollars are designated to achieve specific and measurable outcomes. Rather than directing companies to aspire to the vague and esoteric notion of being deemed “responsible” according to a shifting and fickle set of standards, impact investments align capital with unambiguous goals that can be quantitatively assessed. A fitting analogy is carpet bombing versus laser guided missiles. ESG investing is like carpet bombing, where you may hit some intended targets, but there is significant unintentional collateral damage. Impact investing is like using laser guided missiles, which are extremely precise and produce only their desired effect.

ESG investing focuses on identifying and analyzing specific characteristics of an organization and determining the associated risks and hindrances these factors represent to the maximum financial return on investment. Impact investing emphasizes the specific positive outcomes that the investment will empower the organization to accomplish. These goals are often developed in collaboration between the investor and the organization, so they are not subject to the whims of public opinion or the dictates of a regime. Also, these desired outcomes are precise and have well-defined measures of success mutually agreed upon by the investor and the organization. Companies receiving impact investments are expected to provide regular updates and progress reports, and this data provides accountability and transparency between the companies, investors, and third parties. This reporting practice also reduces greenwashing or the fraudulent use of funds and enables monitoring organizations to measure and assess progress being made toward the achievement of the UN SDGs.

All the positive aspects of ESG investing can be encompassed within impact investing, without assuming ESG’s inherent faults. Impact investments promote environmental care, social flourishing, and excellent governance, and they do so by defining specific criteria to measure and assess the effectiveness of the investment to achieve these goals. ESG is a nebulous philosophy that is vulnerable to perversion and corruption. Impact investing more effectively empowers faith-driven investors to faithfully steward our calling to bear witness to the Kingdom of God because it possesses less risk of greenwashing and fraud, provides investors with more direct stewardship over the flow of funds, promotes investment dollars be designated to specific and measurable outcomes, and provides enhanced accountability, transparency, and assessment of UN SDG progress.

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s Global Event.

by Robert Brooks

The Christian community needs a robust response to the naturalist economic viewpoint. C. S. Lewis observes, “(T)o be ignorant and simple now—not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground—would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”[1]

Warren Brookes, journalist and author of The Economy of Mind published in 1984, asserts, “We are dealing, no less, with the basic conflict between two entirely different concepts of man and his universe, concepts that affect every aspect of our social and economic lives, one determinedly physical and finite and the other profoundly metaphysical and infinite; the one (collective socialism) rooted in fearful concern about visible resources, the other (market capitalism) springing from faith in spiritual reality.”[2] He goes on to further assert, “Since economic thought first became formalized over two centuries ago, there have been essentially two different views about wealth. One view, first defined by Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say, is that wealth is primarily metaphysical, the result of ideas, imagination, innovation, and individual creativity, and is therefore, relatively speaking, unlimited, susceptible to great growth and development. The other, espoused by Thomas Malthus and Karl Marx, contends that wealth is essentially and primarily physical, and therefore ultimately finite. The modern presentation of this view argues that since usable energy is steadily diminishing into entropy, all wealth is really cost to be shared more equitably.”[3]

Because universities play a vital role in transforming economic thought as well as culture, we need to engage those who are permanent university residents— faculty. How far is the nearest institution of higher education from your home?

Do you know personally any Christian faculty or Christian PhD students? Have you ever considered working together with faculty to advance the Kingdom as well as improve your business? As Joseph of Arimathea was able to walk into Pilate’s office seeking the body of Jesus, professors who are Christian are often in influential positions.[4]

Darin joined our church around 1991 as a graduate student in marketing at the University of Alabama. He and his wife were seeking to faithfully follow Jesus but were new to navigating the terrain of PhD programs. Ignoring my advice to be very discrete within the halls of this institution, he became the target of a particular secular professor who sought to have him removed from the program because he was a Christian. By God’s gracious provisions, Darin is now a world renown marketing professor at Samford University having a kingdom impact through a wide array of activities.[5]

At Darin’s suggestion, one of his students entered a PhD program at the University of Alabama. Again, not heeding my advice, Alex faced significant hostility because he was a follower of Jesus Christ. Today, he is a professor at a secular university seeking to use his position to God’s glory.

If universities are one gateway to influencing the world, then faculty are their gatekeepers, and PhD students hold the keys to the future. Further, business innovation often emanates from universities. From product innovation to advanced financial management practices, faculty often have an unbiased and unique perspective. Unfortunately, due in part to the academic culture, we often have challenging personalities. Let’s face it, what kind of person can work for weeks on a particular quantitative solution knowing it will likely end up in the trash? Together, partnering with faculty and PhD students can lead to some interesting opportunities for you, your family, and your business, as well as your local ministries.

Ann and I have been involved in Tuscaloosa’s International Friends for decades. [6] Although TIF is not a Christian organization, many Christians are involved. It is amazing the opportunities that become available simply from sharing a meal with our global guests. We have had too many experiences to enumerate here. Many PhD students arrive here seeking to become world-renowned academics

and leave here disciple-making followers of Jesus, having a Kingdom impact in countries often deeply hostile to Jesus’ Kingdom. They are world-renowned but in a different world.

Future global economic leaders are training in U.S. universities today. The current foundation of academic economic thought is atheist at its core and often Marxist in flavor. In other words, the foundation is sand and in desperate need of a surer foundation. You likely hold the keys to transformation through engagement one-on-one with faculty and potential faculty. Liberty is so clearly one key component of human dignity, and it leads to human flourishing.[7] Core to improving economic thought within universities is addressing the key issue of what it really means to be human.

In the right context, business consulting relationships with faculty can be mutually beneficial. You receive conflict-free assessments, and faculty’s core presuppositions are often changed. Faculty assist you with innovation, and you assist them with their worldview.

Further, the opportunities for you and your local ministries to partner with on campus groups are vast. There are ministries focused on undergraduate students,[8] ministries focused on graduate students,[9] and ministries focused on faculty.[10] As students are transient, these ministries are greatly benefittedby permanent residents, from faculty to area Christians. Although the temptation is to start something new, please consider just partnering with existing groups.

Within each academic area, you will find partnering opportunities. See, for example, Christian Business Faculty Association,[11]Association of Christian Economists,[12] and Christian Finance Faculty Fellowship.[13]

Let us now turn to finance as an illustration. My academic interest for over 30 years is quantitative finance. Based on extensive research and industry consulting, one key to human flourishing is improved financial decision-making. Returning to the previously quoted Warren Brookes, “The primary and essential character of wealth is metaphysical, not physical, and is the direct result of the creativity of mind, not the availability of raw materials—the sum product of individual efforts, not the manipulated static resources of collective nations or governments or lands.”[14] At its core, financial decision-making is metaphysical and rests on our worldview. Thus, I have been wrestling with the essence of the connection between finance and one’s philosophical worldview. [15]

Ideas have consequences. The idea that the Bible addresses personal finance has a direct consequence to those of us who are biblically responsive. But, can we really trust the biblical perspective, or should we turn to naturalism and modern sages?

Remember, not only do ideas have consequences, but ideas also have antecedents. Why should we entrust the weight of our lives to the biblical perspective for the purpose of taking us across life’s harrowing bridge? It has been our experience that if the biblical foundation is firmly established in the heart, then the unique particular financial strategies adopted will withstand the withering pressures of the day. One’s grasp on a particular biblically-based strategy may weaken if it is not firmly gripped with a robust understanding of its deep truthfulness and if one is not journeying together with other Christians. The Christian-based finance perspective is radically different fromalternative approaches, particularly those taught in academic institutions. Thus, we need a robust philosophical foundation for the Christian-based finance approach.

Again, Warren Brookes notes, “Our economic future is not now and never has been tied to the physical assets we now see, but to the vast untapped potential of creative thinking—the metaphysical process which can show us entirely new reserves and new and easier ways of doing things, extending value and increasing wealth without depleting our planet.”[16] As God’s image-bearers, the Christian community should be at the very forefront of economic innovation.

The doctrine of original sin should keep us attentive and cautious. From a biblical perspective, we know that there is objective truth. We also know that humans have a deeply-ingrained capacity to misrepresent the truth. Hence, when analyzing investment opportunities, we need to be ever vigilant to disentangle truth claims out of the mass of financial information.

Many financial industries rely on people not carefully assessing their choices. “Easy payments” just sounds so appealing especially if I can get something now rather than wait and have delayed gratification. Understanding the foundational nature of semantic information as well as what one’s worldview states regarding human nature is one key to successfully navigating the many financial decisions faced every day.

Economic prediction is not the same as economic preparation. Key to quality financial decision-making is understanding the fundamental difference between historical data and the semantic representations of future expectations. Life’s experiences as well as biblical patterns suggest that those things that have never happened in history may in fact happen. We tend to think we can predict the future better than we actually can. The biblical perspective is clear. In the New Testament, James challenges his readers, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.” (ESV, 4:13-14a).

This simple truth may cause a significant pivot in how we manage our investments. With the humble admission that we do not have the capacity to accurately forecast the future, financial planning strategies change. One clear example is retirement planning. Rather than focus solely on how much to save and where to invest, this inability to forecast leads naturally to focusing on the relationship between invested assets and the fair estimate of the present value of retirement needs.

As interest rates have fallen from the mid-1980s to 2020, the present value of retirement needs has significantly risen. Incorporating the fact that retirement needs rise in present value dollar terms when interest rates fall naturally suggests investing in an alternative way. We may not have known that rates would fall, but the relationship between rates and retirement needs is well known. Some estimate the losses within the pension industry exceed several trillion dollars just on this one issue. The simple reorientation toward managing investment portfolios in light of the stochastic behavior of non-investment assets as well as known liabilities would have saved enormous wealth, including trillions within the pension industry. Thus, well-vetted academic insights could have prevented these losses.

We know that business is one gateway to influence culture. I propose that higher education is another gateway often neglected within the Christian community. My hope is to have challenged you to consider your local university as a powerful agency to enhance your business processes as well as extend your reach. Please pray and ask God whether your calling may include engaging people within your university. If you find yourself somehow meeting a young person who is a PhD student or an abrasive adult who is a professor, then perhaps your vocational calling is about to expand. Finally, if you know high school students who are really intelligent as well as spirit-filled followers of Jesus, please encourage them to at least consider the life of a college professor as they are training the world’s future leaders. Although it is a vocation deeply hostile to the Christian viewpoint, the Kingdom opportunities are vast.

[1]C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, p. 58.

[2]Ibid, 24.

[3]Ibid, 12 (italics in original).

[4]See the Gospel According to John, chapter 19, verses 38-42. [5]See https://www.samford.edu/business/directory/White-Darin.

[6]See https://international.ua.edu/programs-activities/tuscaloosas international-friends/.

[7]See Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (ESV)

[8]For example, Cru, Navigators, Intervarsity, Reformed University Fellowship, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Athletes in Action, and various denominational ministries such as Baptist Campus Ministries to just name a few.

[9]For example, Ratio Christi, Grad Resources, and Christian Grads Fellowship. [10]For example, Faculty Commons (https://www.facultycommons.com). [11]See https://www.cbfa.org.

[12]See https://christianeconomists.org.

[13]See https://sites.baylor.edu/shane_underwood/cffa/.

[14]Warren T. Brookes, The Economy in Mind (NY: Universe Books, 1982), p. 12.

[15]Extensive materials are freely available at

https://www.robertebrooks.org/project/christian-apologetics-and-finance/. Any feedback deeply appreciated, even negative in nature.

[16]Brookes, The Economy in Mind, p. 36. ©

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF Global Event.

by David McAlvany

I know a man who loaned out the equivalent of $50,000 to a neighbor. Much to his chagrin, the debt was settled with a single chicken.

I’m familiar with another family that, in similar circumstances, made a choice to diversify their family business geographically. Over the next 30 years, they expanded one company into 4,500 companies and 3,000 manufacturing plants.[i]

How could such similar beginnings yield such different results? They resulted from differing responses to the same monetary occurrence. I’ll explain in a moment.

By the end of this essay, you will have joined not the 1%, but the 10,000th of 1% (.000001). You will be one in a million. How? John Maynard Keynes quipped that inflation is something only one in a million people understands. You will be that one.

Inflation is not a dazzling topic. Most people consider it boring. But it affects your lifestyle, the things you can do, your ability to care for yourself and your family, your ability to do business, your ability to save for retirement, and much, much more. It’s like air: not something you think about very much, but extremely important.

Perhaps being one in a million also sets you apart in another way. Perhaps you are a part of a remnant of individuals who can actually help those closest to them as the ravages of inflation take their toll.

My aim in writing this paper is first to consider the definition and destructive nature of inflation and second to explore a Christian response to inflation in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity—an important principle I’ll review for you shortly.

Inflation is defined here as an increase in the quantity of money that results in the dilution of purchasing power and is evidenced by the increase in cost for goods and services. In layman’s terms, things keep getting more expensive because the number of dollars in use goes up faster than the number of products available to buy them with.

The government is supposed to keep track of inflation, and it has some tools for that. Two such efforts are the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE). These price indices were originally constructed to show whether a family could continue to enjoy a basic lifestyle through time or if cost increases for goods jeopardized a family’s ability to care for itself.

However, the measures have changed through time. The original “basket of goods” (the specific products whose prices are monitored) in CPI has changed. Certain products have been substituted, with each one assigned a unique weighting in the index.[ii] Through the decades, the measures have become less reliable as a gauge of enduring economic security.[iii]

Now that we’ve defined inflation and have seen that it deals with both the quantity and quality of money, let’s define “money.” We don’t think about this one very much because we have dollars and cents in our pockets or our bank accounts, and we can buy things with them—case closed.

But the question is crucial: What is money? It’s especially important in a time when digital code is described as “coin” and its creation referred to as “mining.” Central banks are now aggressively pursuing their own digital currency versions as a substitute for the physical form.

“Specie” is the term given to money in the form of coins or notes (someday soon, these may be forgotten relics of our past that require an explanation, as eight track or vinyl does today). The value of those coins and notes has for millennia been secured by the materials they are made of (usually gold and silver) or were exchangeable for in the case of a paper proxy. Only since 1971 has the world operated on a system where reputation and faith are the only backing for currencies. Since that time, credit has been easier to create and has largely displaced specie as the more important form of money creation.

Currency evolves along a continuum of trust. If trust is ever questioned, the social reversion is to the most secure form of money available. Historically, that is gold and silver.

A significant revolution in money creation occurred in 2020 when governments took control of the distribution of credit. They began delivering money/credit directly to businesses and individuals.[iv] Before that, credit (a form of money) was normally created two ways: by a central bank or by a commercial bank.[v] Following the global pandemic, governments around the globe have rediscovered a powerful third way to create money. By directing credit and credit guarantees towards politically favored recipients, and bypassing the central bank as the primary creator of money, governments are breaking into the domain of bank-created money.

This kind of politically motivated monetary inflation has created many economic disasters throughout history. Governments today seem to be operating according to the very dangerous words: This time is different. The words are dangerous, of course, because that’s what every disaster-creating government throughout history has said to salve its conscience just before inflation ran away with its economy.

Now, back to inflation. Will inflation be transitory? Yes and no.

Inflation is returning in a way it has not been experienced in decades. This bypass of the central banks by governments is in an early stage, and it changes the nature of how both money and inflation will be experienced in the years ahead.

There are, of course, post-pandemic supply-chain bottlenecks that temporarily boost inflation statistics. These appear to be the focus of the central bank community, leading them to conclude that inflation will be transitory. The neglected element that economists appear to have missed is that governments globally are retaking control of credit distribution (therefore money creation) and, like Bernanke’s and Friedman’s “helicopter drops” of money, are now delivering cash and credit guarantees to preferred constituencies (via the Cares Act, PPP, and Mainstreet Lending program, as three examples) with commercial banks assisting in distribution but in no way taking on credit risk themselves. This shift in roles further politicizes access to resources and invites a new era of inflation.

After decades of disinflation and the accrued benefits of declining capital costs, we should now anticipate a reversal of the past. This will include an increase in consumer inflation and, as a downstream consequence, a decrease in real returns across almost all asset classes. A different approach to asset management is required in the years ahead, including a different approach to liquidity management.

As dry as statistics may seem, the reality of inflation and money supply growth is in some contexts a drama, in others a thriller, and, in a few rare cases, a complete horror show. Inflation should enter your mind not as a statistic, but as a human experience. Stories illustrate the pernicious nature of inflation, with extreme stories shining a light on the final stages of currency repudiation and collapse.

When families run out of money before the end of the month, or when retirees are gradually squeezed between rising costs and a fixed income, we witness the minor stresses and strains of inflation. When the later stages of inflation are reached, occasionally an extinction event occurs—extinction for the currency and for the values held dear by that culture. In the end, inflation matters because people matter.

Stefan Zweig narrates his personal inflation experience in The World of Yesterday,

“Prices jumped arbitrarily; a thrifty merchant would raise the price of a book of matches twenty times the amount charged by his upright competitor who was innocently holding to yesterday’s quotation; the reward for his honesty was the sale of his stock within an hour, because the news got around quickly…people wanted goods instead of paper. The most grotesque discrepancy developed with respect to rents, the government having forbidden any rise; thus tenants were protected…property owners the losers…before long, a medium-size apartment in Austria cost its tenant less for a whole year than a single dinner. A man who had been saving for forty years…became a beggar. A man who had debts became free of them. Standards and values disappeared during this melting and evaporation of money; there was but one merit: to be clever, shrewd, unscrupulous, and to mount the racing horse instead of being trampled by it.”[vi]

Today, the divide between rich and poor continues to widen. Some attribute this to an unjust capitalist system. However, a closer look reveals that monetary policy choices (central bank liquidity creation) globally have increased the quantities of money and credit on an unprecedented scale. Therefore, asset prices (stocks, bonds, real estate, art, etc.) have taken on overblown bubble characteristics, with central bank liquidity largely trapped and recirculating within financial markets. This is evidenced by the Forbes’ annual world billionaires tally that lists a record 2,755 billionaires. This year’s crop sports a combined worth of $13.1 trillion, up 64% over the past year to all-time highs. Household Net Worth in the U.S. reached an all-time high of $130 trillion. Net Worth ended Q1 at 606% of GDP, dwarfing previous cycle peaks of 492% in 2007 and 446% in early 2000. Owners of assets have benefitted in the process, while much of the poor and middle class has been left behind. This awkward economic reality is a defining factor in the policies of redistribution likely to be implemented in the years ahead and contributes to existing social and political tensions.

Inflationism is implicit in the current monetary regime. The previous system, known as Bretton Woods after the New Hampshire gathering in the 1940s, was dollar-based and gold-backed. It ended in 1971. Micheal Bordo recounts, “For the first time in history, the world after 1971 adopted a peacetime fiat money regime.”

Now, with no tangible asset backing our currency, limitless money and limitless credit creation are allowable. Political exigency and circumstantial justifications, such as recessions, financial market panic, and, most recently, pandemic, have meant that policymakers “print” whenever necessary and spend on whatever they desire.

This is a part of the devolution of money. Guilio Gallarotti observed, “The monetary orientation of politics has changed over the last century, from one of stable money to one of inflation. With the politization of the budget (through the rise of the welfare state) and the electoral impact of unemployment, inflation has become a fundamental means through which elites gain and maintain office.”[vii]

The emergent phenomenon of inflation will indeed be a challenge to control with government debt surpassing 125% of GDP (see chart). Nial Fergusson comments in The Cash Nexus, “Inflation is easier to start than to stop under conditions of high public indebtedness. A central bank aiming to halt inflation by raising the short-term interest rate would be likely to fail if the government continued to run high deficits.”

With a budget of six trillion dollars proposed for 2022 and expected revenues of $4.16 trillion (which assumes an increase of 670 billion for the year), the deficit is anticipated at $1.84 trillion. This follows 2021’s deficit of $2.3 trillion, 2020 at $3.1 trillion, and 2019 at $984 billion—a four-year total of $8.25 trillion.

Fold in all debts, not just governmental, and the motive to inflate away these burdens becomes even more compelling. Over the past six quarters, total debt securities—Treasuries, agencies, corporates, and municipal bonds—have jumped $8.174 trillion, or 18%, to $53.920 trillion.  There’s been nothing comparable. At 251% of GDP, the total debt securities ratio compares to 200% in 2007; 157% to end the ’90s; 126% to end the ’80s; and 74% to conclude the ’70s. As the debt binge increases, so does the probability of policymakers intentionally ramping up inflation to alleviate the burden of those liabilities.

Jeffrey Frieden in his book Currency Politics states, “The level of the exchange rate can express a government’s position on the trade-off between domestic consumers and domestic producers…. A government’s exchange rate policy tells us a great deal about its priorities, both international and domestic.” Strong currencies serve a purpose, as do weak currencies. The policy choice to interfere with an exchange rate implicitly conveys who is intended to accrue economic benefits in the future. It is a choice of designating winners and losers.

Public policy choices indirectly designate economic winners and losers. When politicians prioritize massive spending initiatives and fund them through ever-larger deficits, the context is set for a follow-on policy choice: inflation.

Step one: Spend beyond your tax revenues; provide discriminatory benefits to select constituencies, creating deficits in the process.

Step two: Pay back your debt with cheaper currency.

Large scale budget deficits and debt monetization (after beginning 2008 at $850 billion, Fed balance sheet assets are on course to surpass $8 trillion in a few months), or literal printing, contribute to asset price distortion and the gradual loss of purchasing power.

Stanley Fischer said in his IMF World Bank paper titled Inflation and the Poor: “The claim that ‘inflation is the cruelest tax of all’ is often interpreted as meaning that inflation hurts the poor relatively more than the rich. It could also mean that the inflation tax is particularly unfair because, the taxing mechanism being little understood, the inflation tax can be imposed by stealth.” [viii] He goes on to quantify that, indeed, the deliberate tax via inflation is felt more by the poor in society.

So, considering current policy choices, the social programs being scripted by global leaders seem necessary to aid the poor even while the net effect of inflation, stemming from deficit spending and money printing, is punitive to them at the same time. There is a tragic irony in the chosen public policy winners also being the concurrent losers. It’s like a grand societal experiment with Stockholm syndrome—policymakers creating a system of abuse for which the people are in turn grateful.

I began this paper with a $50,000 chicken. The value of the chicken never really changed, but the currency devalued to the point where it took that many currency units just to buy the barnyard bird. The debt was a real obligation, fixed in currency units (German Marks), with no escalators or indexing of debt applied. The element of surprise came from the changed value of those currency units. With a fixed currency obligation came great relief to the borrower. The foul consolation for the neighborly lender was like adding insult to injury.

Crisis compresses time. There is no clearer example of this than the Stinnes family in Germany. The family grew a small coal company into a vast multinational conglomerate—in large part due to inflationary crisis dynamics—and a diversified revenue base that enabled them to act boldly when others were cautious. The single greatest investment the family made was in a boat, which allowed for delivery of coal outside of Germany and, thus, brought income in a variety of other currencies. The value of foreign currency revenue in a period of domestic inflation was seen in the Stinnes family’s ability to consolidate distressed assets throughout Germany—from a replenishing store of savings not subject to monetary policy abuse to the dramatic inflationary repercussions experienced between 1919 and 1924, destroying the local currency.  Sidestepping the consequences of inflation, the Stinnes family grew their business interests exponentially in a relatively short period of time. They created an economic buffer against the costs of hyperinflation, turning crisis into opportunity.

As we conclude, the Catholic social theory of subsidiarity is instructive for structuring a response to emergent inflationary trends, inspiring outreach to those in need and taking direct responsibility for neighbor care. Subsidiarity as a principle places power and decision making at the lowest level possible.

“Subsidiarity charts a course between individualism and collectivism by locating the responsibilities and privileges of social life in the smallest unit of organization at which they will function. Larger social bodies, be they the state or otherwise, are permitted and required to intervene only when smaller ones cannot carry out the tasks themselves. Even in this case, the intervention must be temporary and for the purpose of empowering the smaller social body to be able to carry out such functions on its own.”[ix]

Subsidiarity offers both a perspective and prescription for the inflationary consequences ahead. Today, a family’s inability to meet basic needs regularly defaults to governmental resources as a solution, consistent with the migration of welfare and other social safety nets from private charity to the public sector over the last one hundred years. The period ahead provides an opportunity for private sector and community-based initiatives to step forward and perhaps even supersede the role of government in meeting the needs of people, reestablishing neighbor care and meaningful grassroots compassion.

The numbers suggest we are a long way from being able or willing to displace that governmental role.[x] What seems to be missing is a missional and neighborly generosity. We must assume that some economic buffer is maintained through a period of inflation that helps maintain the means by which those resources can be utilized.

Surveying the approach taken in Acts 2:42-47, we find a noble voluntarism and generosity defining the early life of the church. Open hearts translated directly into what we think of as hospitality and open homes. The sharing of resources can take on many forms but begins with understanding where all our resources come from, and, with gratitude of heart and willingness of spirit, making available all that we steward to tangibly express love to our community.

The practice of delegating this awareness of need and deferring to the public sphere of governmental solutions elevates the role of larger social bodies. It also allows for a detrimental distancing from needs and narratives that might well soften our hearts and further transform our lives through inspired compassion and generosity.

The age we are entering is an age where Christ followers must be defined by their deeds as well as what they stand for (not just what they are against). The lives of our families and communities can be greatly enhanced by a depth of sensitivity to the needs around us and a commitment to roll up our sleeves and directly assist those that are most affected by pressures and personal crises—including those wrought by inflation.

 ——

[i] A Genius in Chaotic Times, By Edmund Stinnes

[ii] Shelter is given a 42% weighting in the CPI, and on the latest data was up a mere 1.7%, contributing to an understatement of the inflation figure.

[iii] The Ghost of Arthur Burns by Stephen S. Roach https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/fed-sanguine-inflation-view-recalls-arthur-burns-by-stephen-s-roach-2021-05 “In the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Burns argued that, since this had nothing to do with monetary policy, the Fed should exclude oil and energy-related products… from the consumer price index…we gulped and followed his order to take food – which had a weight of 25% – out of the CPI… He also raised questions about homeownership costs, which accounted for another 16% of the CPI. Take them all out, he insisted! By the time Burns was done, only about 35% of the CPI was left – and it was rising at a double-digit rate!…”

[iv] Russell Napier. https://mcalvanyweeklycommentary.com/the-power-of-politicized-credit-russell-napier/

[v] This is the Keynesian distinction between “state” money and “bank” money dating to the 1930’s. Others make the same distinction but call them “printing press” and “fountain pen” money. The Economic Journal Vol. 41, No. 162 (Jun., 1931), pp. 241-249 (9 pages)

Published By: Oxford University Press

[vi] The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig, pg. 204

[vii] Micheal Bordo and Forest Cappie Monetary Regimes in Transition, pg. 49 quoting Guilio Gallarotti.

[viii] World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 2335 https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/667341468767111866/pdf/multi-page.pdf

[ix] Robert K. Vischer, “Subsidiarity as a Principle of Governance: Beyond Devolution,” Indiana Law Review 35, no. 1 (2001): 119. (Quoting Fred Crosson, “Catholic Social Teaching and American Society,” Principles of Catholic Social Teaching, ed. David A. Boileau (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1998), 170-171).

[x] Joe Carter; https://blog.acton.org/archives/104847-can-private-charity-replace-the-social-safety-net.html