Oct

8

It is a very troubling time for the US economy. This is a recent comment from the “money expert” Suze Orman:

We have built an entire economy on lies and deceit…It’s like building a home or an entire building on a sinkhole. You have a foundation, supposedly. But a little crack, if something goes wrong — a little earthquake, a tremor — and it starts to open, everything starts to fall down and … that is exactly what has happened in the United States of America.

Suze says the current financial downturn started all the way at the top of banks, mortgage companies and brokerage firms.

There was greed at the top — serious greed…When you have stocks, you have individual companies that want to make money. And CEOs want to make more money because the more money they make, the more their compensation is, the more their stock price goes up.

These companies made money by selling investments like mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, Suze says (link to full article)

But is there a relationship between faith and church attendance and losing our homes? It probably depends on where we go to church and also how well we listen when we are there. According to an article on Time there may be some connection:

Has the so-called Prosperity gospel turned its followers into some of the most willing participants — and hence, victims — of the current financial crisis? That’s what a scholar of the fast-growing brand of Pentecostal Christianity believes. While researching a book on black televangelism, says Jonathan Walton, a religion professor at the University of California at Riverside, he realized that Prosperity’s central promise — that God will “make a way” for poor people to enjoy the better things in life — had developed an additional, dangerous expression during the subprime-lending boom. Walton says that this encouraged congregants who got dicey mortgages to believe “God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and blessed me with my first house.” The results, he says, “were disastrous, because they pretty much turned parishioners into prey for greedy brokers.”

I am sure that among Pentecostal and other religious groups not all were “turning parishioners into prey for greedy brokers”, but I am glad that in the Mormon church, Mormon Prophets have always been clear about avoiding debts and living within our means. Those Mormons who did or do otherwise cannot blame their leaders, but only themselves, because this message of frugality has been preached over and over again. However, I believe that most members of the Mormon church have followed the inspired counsels of their leaders and are ready for the troubles. It is a blessing to have leaders that are inspired and that receive revelations for out times.

This is a link to the videos of the last Mormon General Conference


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