Does conservative theology hurt your pocketbook?

Lisa Keister has scanned the Bible and found nearly 2,000 verses in the New Testament that touch on the topic of money. It's those very verses that may be keeping many conservative Protestants from building up long-term wealth, she says.

Keister was surprised that when demographic factors -- such as education, age and race -- were held as constant, religion still proved to be an influential factor in wealth accumulation. Conservative beliefs had a larger impact among black Protestants, she found, but also remained significant among whites.

Read it all.

Posted by Jim Naughton on April 3, 2008 4:44 PM | |
Comments (2)

Huh?

Sorry, I'm having a bit of a hard time with this one. Mostly because I'm not sure what "conservative" means in this context. Ms. Keister seems to be drawing a correlation between belief in the inerrancy of Scripture and the financial practices she's talking about, but this isn't an issue like taking the Creation stories literally or missing the cultural particularity of some of the advice in Paul's letters.

The vast bulk of these money teachings in the NT come straight out of the mouth of Jesus! I would hope that taking them seriously doesn't necessarily correlate to any particular position on any liberal/conservative axis someone might care to draw. I know in my experience, I know or know of plenty of "liberal" Christians who do seem to take these teachings seriously, and plenty of "conservatives" who don't (eg. the so-called "prosperity gospel").

Posted by Mike Croghan [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 3, 2008 6:12 PM

So members of the Assemblies of God, Churches of Christ, Nazarene and Pentecostal churches have lower personal net worth than members of others churches?

I know plenty of folks who belong to "conservative" churches--Southern Baptist, Missouri Synod Lutheran, even the above mentioned traditions who have no problem hanging onto or accumulating their wealth.

Is this really about being conservative theologically or is it about other factors, such as the fact that folks from less wealthy rungs on the social ladder often are members of these traditions. I really want to look at this study and her methods more closely before drawing any big brush conclusions.

Andrew Gerns

Posted by ATGerns [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 3, 2008 7:34 PM

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