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3.26.2008

There is apparently research on Christian Fundamentalist’s inability to manage their own finances.

This article contributes to the understanding of this relationship by exploring how religious affiliation affects wealth ownership for conservative Protestants (CPs). The results demonstrate that religion affects wealth indirectly through educational attainment, fertility, and female labor force participation. The results also provide evidence of a direct effect of religion on wealth. Low rates of asset accumulation and unique economic values combine to reduce CP wealth beyond the effects of demographics.


Full journal article.

So what is going on? Education is worse than average. Ability to manage finances is worse than average. Is it surprising that they have some fundamental issues with average theology? Of course not! It follows as day follows night.

Perhaps the need for research lies with finding the root cause for the deficits that have been discovered. A chicken and egg issue so to speak.

2 comments:

  1. Hey, the link is actually here! Thanks for pointing out the article.

    Somehow, I miss the part of the article that explains "Christian Fundamentalist's [sic] inability to manage their own finances."

    Rather, I see a different value system exposed where Christian Protestants are not quite as material goods oriented as non Christians. Great observations!

    My findings provide evidence that CPs consider money to belong to God and, as a result, they seek divine guidance in managing money and avoid accumulation. My results also suggest that CPs value sacrificial giving, and they report giving more to religious causes at all levels of income. Although it is possible that self-reports of tithing overestimate true contributions, my findings are consistent with other reports that CPs are relatively generous contributors to churches and related organizations both in terms of percentage of household income and when total congregational receipts are measured (Hoge et al. 1999; Regnerus et al. 1998).

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  2. Sorry about that. I am always leaving the cookie ID in my URIs.

    If being charitable were the only contributor to lower levels of wealth accumulation, you would be right of course. The article cites educational attainment, fertility, and female labor force participation as possible contributors.

    One thing I didn't bring in was an analysis of tithing in preindustrial England. Clarke in Farewell to Alms did a comparison of income between the church and state. Taxes ran about 2% of GDP while tithes actually ran about 4.5%.

    I agree that there is little stress on the mystic influence on Western Christianity where necessity and reality can be pushed aside in people's minds by an ideology.

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