Faith in Financial Services (FiFS) is a group based in New York City focused on how Christian faith relates to work in...
Work brings us many blessings, sometimes even including money. Money can be a taboo topic, which is a shame, because many people...
When we think of banks and Wall Street, perhaps we think of subprime loans, the 1%, and the Great Recession. We very...
Leaving the refugee camp for the boardroom was a complicated decision.
"I developed a renewed sense of calling to live out a faithful life in the banking industry."
True life is to be found, not in riches, not in resentment, but in Jesus Christ, and in living each day for...
...
In one Midwestern city, a group of physicians considers whether or not they can maintain their practice. Auto plants have shut down, factory workers have lost their jobs, and healthcare benefits have long-since...
Finance has a bad rep, but is it unredeemable? Drawing from theology and especially the Bible, this article develops a Christian vision...
Finance is that human activity whereby we allocate or exchange resources with respect to time. For the most part this article concerns external exchange—that is, borrowing, lending and investing—rather than allocation of resources...
Finance has a role in God’s purposes for humanity. Three primary purposes of human work revealed in the Bible are to i) reveal God’s glory, ii) engage in stewardship, and iii) provide for...
In the biblical narrative God creates everything for his glory and honor (Colossians 1:16, Revelation 4:11). The foundations of finance—like all of...
Stewardship is the fulfillment of God’s mandate to fill the earth, subdue (or govern) it, work it, and care for it (Genesis...
Finance makes certain activities of justice and love possible. We are using Wolterstorff’s conception of justice wherein persons are to be treated...
It was God’s choice to make us in a particular way that enables finance. This is not to say that God created...
God created a world with time and where human time is limited. By God’s creation, we have days, seasons, generations and lifetimes (Genesis 1, Psalm 104).[1] Further we need to be aware of...
Human beings are created to be social and to live in community, and we have a desire to be with other people. As God put it, “It is not good that the man...
People are created with a wide variety of skills, needs and desires. In the Bible, we see this in God’s creation in his endowment of people with a wide variety of skills to...
People were created to act on others’ behalf, to be stewards or agents. Prime examples are that God mandates us to steward his creation and steward his grace (1 Peter 4:10). We also...
God is a God of promises and covenants. The biblical narrative is a story of God’s promises kept. Humans are created in his image, and thus we have biblical accounts of humans making...
Humanity does not know everything, and individually each of us knows only a tiny fraction of what can be known. God created each of us with our own unique mind which takes in...
God created risk, in that we do not know what the future holds (Ecclesiastes 8:7). But God created us with an ability...
Faith & Co.: Banking on Hope How does the gospel change a bank’s view of people and how they should be treated, especially those of modest means? Inspired by faith that sees the...
These eight aspects of creation—especially of the creation of human beings—form the foundation of finance. Finance bridges the gaps that would otherwise...
To complete our theological analysis of finance, we need to demonstrate exactly how people can develop financial institutions that bring glory, stewardship, and justice and love from God’s created foundations. By institutions we...
God enabled humans to represent material value in media that are durable, storable and transportable. In his original creation design God made some physical elements, such as gold, to be attractive, small, and...
Intermediaries are institutions that “remanufacture” lenders’ resources into a form that is useful to borrowers. A simple example is when a bank intermediates between several depositors and one business loan borrower. Intermediaries include...
If finance is a means of care and love, doing finance through intermediaries raises a question. Can we love someone we do...
Financial instruments are promises between two or more parties with differing resource needs which are tailored to allow both parties to be prudent risk takers when the future is unknown. As argued above...
Prices in financial markets are expressed as expected rates of return on financial instruments, which in debt instrument are quoted as interest rates.[1] Why exactly would the borrower and saver agree to pay...
The question of prices raised two questions about finance as a form of love. First, can love be expressed in a market...
Another question is whether financial prices—interest in particular—are prohibited by the Bible. For centuries Christians have debated the applicability of the biblical...
To sum up our theology, we have argued that the purposes of finance are to bring glory to God, to enable humans...
Up to this point we have considered finance as God originally intended. But, we know that the Fall of humanity has marred every aspect of creation. Until Christ’s redemption of the world is...
Ideally, market-rate finance is a blessing to both borrowers and lenders. This is similar to all kinds of commerce. Producing and selling...
Financiers have a duty to lend profitably, but they are not to profit from the vulnerability of borrowers. You shall not lend them [people in difficulty] your money at interest taken in advance...
God’s intent is that finance be a form of sharing, over time, among borrowers and lenders. There is only something to share if the loan makes increased productivity possible. So borrowers and lenders...
As these situations show, in a fallen world, there are situations in which market-rate finance does not meet the needs of some...
Fidelity and Banking: An Interview With John Gage (Click Here to Read) In this interview at the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture, banker John Gage discusses how while attending theological seminary...
How does our finance theology inform whether to make a loan to a particular customer and at what interest rate? Several of the foundations of biblical finance come to the fore here. First...
A hedge fund is a mutual fund that invests in specialized financial instruments not usually available to individual savers. Hedge funds are often lightly regulated, highly-leveraged, and can invest in a wider variety...
We have seen that borrowing can be an act of stewardship, justice, and love, enabled by God’s creation. Borrowing can allow people to gain access to resources which are used to help both...
Can biblical principles help us determine how much to borrow or when to borrow? Several of the biblical foundations of finance can help. First, we inhabit God’s time-bound world with social cycles and...
We explore some of the biblical passages about collateral in the section, “Bankruptcy, debt forgiveness and loan modification”. The mainstream Christian view is that using your house as collateral for a loan is...
The created foundations of finance include our creation as social beings who take risk and do not know what the future holds...
Those who provide resources—lenders and savers—have a responsibility to invest their resources for the common, and not only for their own, gain. This perspective is sometimes called “socially responsible investing.” We will explore...
God created the foundations of finance which have led to the development of the financial institutions of currency, intermediaries, instruments, and prices. Ideally, these institutions would make finance work as one of God’s...
Credit is a controversial topic and not just in Christian circles.
More than half of North Americans have a credit card in their wallet or purse.
Ben Franklin once said that it was better to “go to bed supperless than run in debt for breakfast.”
Lord, thank you for those who work in the world of finance. In seasons like these, they face tremendous strain and pressure, as they face not only their own troubles, but also bear...
.jpg)
