End Times Money Management : Protecting Your Resources Without Losing Your Soul - Softcover

Gary Moore

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0310223601 ISBN 13: 9780310223603

Publisher: Zondervan, 1999

Synopsis

Here is a short, easy-to-read guide on how Christians should invest their money in light of the possible imminent return of Christ.

About this title

About the Author

Gary Moore is the founder of Gary Moore and Co: Counsel to Ethical and Religious Investors. Host of a UPI syndicated radio commentary on financial and economic issues, he serves on the board of advisors for the John Templeton Foundation and is the author of The Christian's Guide to Wise Investing. He lives in Sarasota, FL.

From the Back Cover

In the 1980's, countless Christians burned their credit cards and traded stocks for gold in anticipation of an economic earthquake. Then came the Gulf War. Many battened down for Armageddon -- and sailed instead into a time of unprecedented prosperity. Americans have been snapping up stocks by the fistful ever since. Are these extremes really consistent with what the Bible teaches? Are we guided by prudence, or by fear and greed, each in turn? Financial expert Gary Moore insists that, as many Christian leaders warn about the end of the world, Christians need to know how to manage their money without sacrificing either their common sense or their souls. In End-Times Money Management, Moore turns to the Bible to uncover God-honoring principles of investment that challenge some popular -- but unbiblical -- ideas. He discusses specific stocks that Christians can invest in and see a return both in their finances and in the kingdom of God. He includes an appendix of addresses and phone numbers for recommended stocks. And he shows why Christians can and should invest responsibly, if indeed the end is near.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction The Greatest Risk-Reward Calculation of All Time In an age in which investing seems to have transubstantiated into pop religion, high-profile Wall Street soothsayers serve as our spiritual guides. Each day, they tell Main Street why the market soared or swooned, as well as what might happen tomorrow and beyond. And Main Street listens. U.S. News & World Report I grew up on a remote farm in central Kentucky. We were poor. We rarely took a vacation or even a day just to enjoy life. My father was loving but I hardly knew him. He was a stoic type who always seemed to have two or three things going in order to help us achieve that Great American Dream. That meant I got to live a monastic existence from Monday to Saturday as I cared for the family farm. But we always assumed that one day we would make it and begin to live. As I was used to being alone, I didn t really feel the enormous irony when Dad died of cancer just a few months before he was to retire. Sundays always revolved around church. My parents once took me to services for six years without missing a Sunday. But my life quickly began to reflect that old saying that if you think going to church makes you a Christian, sit in a garage and see if you become a car. In 1968 I left the farm and entered the University of Kentucky to study political science. I had an uncle who was a high-ranking official in Washington, and after spending a little time there I had been tempted to save the world through politics. For years I had slept beneath a poster of the Capitol dome. There was a quote on the poster that simply said, Here, sir, the people govern. You may remember that 1968 was the year of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the riots surrounding the Democratic convention in Chicago, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. This idealistic farm boy hardly knew what hit him. I remember watching as they carried candles in the darkness in front of my dormitory. I appeared on front pages around the country when a photographer captured me looking at the torched remains of my ROTC building. And like most of my fellow baby boomers, I grew rather skeptical of that institution we call government. As a conservative, I had always known that Karl Marx had established a secular religion called communism. That is, he worshiped the community at the expense of the individual citizen. But as I took a few political science courses, I was introduced to a philosopher named Ayn Rand. She had created a secular religion called objectivism. That is, she worshiped the objective reasoning of the individual rather than the dictates of government officials. So while Karl Marx and communists put their faith in government, Ayn Rand condemned it, a belief of many Americans we call libertarians. Yet like Marx, Rand also hated Christianity and its Bible. After all, if Christians place less than faith in government, Saint Paul still tells us in the book of Romans to respect government and to pay our taxes, as we have nothing to fear from authority assuming we behave ourselves. And if our own thinking is sufficient, as Rand believed, why do we need the revelations of the Bible? When the Economist magazine recently listed the most influential thinkers in our world, Rand was the only woman it mentioned. Alan Greenspan, the head of the Federal Reserve Board, literally sat at her feet as a disciple during the sixties. When junk-bond king Michael Milken went to prison, he spent his time rereading the gospel of Ayn Rand. Arnold Schwartzeneggar routinely testifies that her thinking changed his life. Her thinking has influenced millions who do not even know that her first name is spelled A-y-n rather than A-n-n. I believe this includes some ministry leaders that I have debated on Christian radio during recent years. Yet Ayn Rand wrote her own scriptures. It is a book entitled Atlas Shrugged. In it she created her own secular savior, whose name was John Galt. In the last sentence of Atlas Shrugged, John Galt casts a new sign over the world. It is a symbol that Rand hoped would replace both the hammer and sickle and the cross. It was the sign of the dollar. In short, Ayn Rand did not believe that the love of money is the root of all evil. In fact, she believed that the love of money rather than the love of God and neighbor as self is the great commandment for organizing life. One of her other books, entitled The Virtue of Selfishness, was a commentary on why Atlas Shrugged contains no story about a Good Samaritan. I noticed that when our nation recently celebrated the president s volunteerism conference in Philadelphia, Rand s disciples protested the event by carrying signs suggesting we read Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand spoke of being buried beneath a six-foot dollar sign, just as Christians are often buried beneath the cross. And she wrote to friends that she hoped to create a new faith for people who no longer truly believed the Old One of Moses and Jesus. As this young farm boy had grown disillusioned with government, Rand s distaste for it seemed rather logical while Vietnam, Watergate, and other events unfolded. And if I couldn t save the world through politics, why not make a few dollars for myself? So after a period as an artillery officer, I entered the world of Wall Street

Edition details

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0310223601
• ISBN 13: 9780310223603
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 174