How American Christians View Faith and Money

Robert Withnow headed a three year research project on Religion and Economic Values at Princeton University.  The results reported in the March 3, 1993, Christian Century were:

1.  Verbally, the respondents admitted that "materialism is a serious problem," but the results showed that Americans still live materialistic lives.

2.  Our possessions, things money can buy, have great value to us; we do love money and the things money can buy.

3.  "Although 92 percent believe that the condition of the poor is a serious problem, our hearts fundamentally are with the rich."  We admire the rich [in violation of James 2], especially if they worked hard for their riches.

4.  "Faith makes little difference to the ways in which people actually conduct their financial affairs,"  "People who HIGHLY valued their relationship with God were no less likely to value making a lot of money."  There was no conflict in one's relationship with God and making a lot of money [in violation of Jesus' statement "You cannot serve both God and Money."].

5.  Riches were not a moral problem unless one had gained their riches illegally.  See Isaiah 10:1-2.

6.  Churches are not effective in communicating biblical principles on money to their members.  Noble: based on my 88 years of living in the church, I would agree.

End of Withnow study.  Now some of my historical observations:

1.  The slave trading DeWolf family clan (late 1700s and early 1800s) said the reason they engaged in both the slave trade and slavery was "Money, money, money, money, money. . . . "  Though an exceedingly evil people, the town of Bristol honored the DeWolf's as Great Folks.  And they were church member.

2.  The perceptive Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, (early 1800s), declared that Americans were extraordinarily materialistic; this greed and materialism drove both slavery and the theft of Indian land; all this was justified and rationalized with religious piety.  Americans would stop at nothing to achieve their greedy goal.  They constantly refined and redesigned systems of oppression.

3.  The founding fathers were an evil, rich, white male elite; one-half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were either slave holders or slave traders.

4.  From Cotton and Race in the Making of America by Gene Dattel who was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta.  From his Preface: "America's overwhelming attachment to material progress at what ever the human cost.  Once we begin following the money trail, we realize that it leads to the heart and soul of America."

From a review of Cotton and Race in the Making of America by Richard P. Carion, a proud fifth generation Southerner:  "Just as the masses of the South were not the cause of the war [they were the cannon fodder], nor were the masses of the North the cause of the war [they were the cannon fodder].  Both in the North and the South, it seems from this book, a relatively small number [an elite few] had the production of cotton paramount in their minds and lives.  It was all about MONEY.  No cotton, no money.  No money, no cotton.  No slaves, no cotton.  No slaves, no money."

Conclusion:  Americans have always been hypermaterialistic, greedy and oppressive.  Indirectly or directly, America has always lived and often preached a God-ordained prosperity gospel.