Personal Finance & Spiritual/Practical Wisdom with James Choi

Are Christians called to navigate their finances differently from everyone else? Are the oft-repeated directives ...

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Are Christians called to navigate their finances differently from everyone else? Are the oft-repeated directives to save aggressively and avoid all debt either scriptural or wise? Is it possible that spiritual wisdom and practical wisdom are sometimes one and the same? Join David and Curtis in this excellent discussion with James Choi, Professor of Finance at Yale. As a Christian and a behavioral economist, James brings both spiritual and practical wisdom to the area of personal finance and exposes where some of our most popular financial gurus might be giving us poor advice.

Show Notes:

–Derek Thompson (The Atlantic) – All the Personal-Finance Books Are Wrong

–Greg Rosalsky (Planet Money) – An economist studied popular finance tips. Some might be leading you astray

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  1. Ssmart

    This was probably my favorite episode of Good Faith. By coincidence, I heard Prof. Choi speak at a Stanford Conference just a few days before this episode was released, and I learned a lot from both presentations. One issue that came up during the podcast was how Christians should think about investing. I very much enjoyed James' perspective on this question. I would also add that there is a relative new company that is trying to link investing to conservative values, so if you are curious, look at 2ndvote.com.

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  2. Clint

    I'm guessing this is an artifact of the new website, but I'm not seeing a way to actually listen to the podcast from the webpage (either desktop or mobile, though I'm using Firefox as my browser in both cases).

    I already listened to it since my podcast app downloaded it a few days ago, but I came here to comment and couldn't easily re-listen to parts of it.

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      Godboldwed

      Yeah, me neither.

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    Michael Garrett

    Can you add to the show notes to include the syllabus and course outline of the personal finance class that Professor Choi decided to teach?

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    Ben Connelly

    One wrench I'd throw in to the analysis of when to start investing is the employer benefit: if your employer offers a matching 401k when you’re 22 years old (as was the case for me), the best thing to do is max it out (ie contribute up to the point the employer stops matching). If you don’t, you’re leaving money on the table. A 5% matching employer contribution is in effect a 5% raise.

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    Dave T

    It might just be the section of American Christianity that forms my background, but the one thing missing from the discussion of finance in churches that I attended was the imperative of care for the poor. And I think it connects to what David mentioned about politics, because the reticence to talk about helping the poor -- whenever it was justified -- was justified on the grounds that we didn't want to displace the true gospel with the 'social gospel,' like the liberals theological and social systems had done .

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    PJ

    Content like this makes me question my The Dispatch subscription. If I was interested in this I would go to church. Conservative lack of understanding of the separation of church and state in politics is a very serious problem for me and many others. Nothing wrong with this on a personal level, and used for personal guidance in politics. But NOT APPROPRIATE for general politics.

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      Ben Connelly

      This podcast has been a regular feature of TD for 10 months. Given that there are three other podcasts and a dozen or so newsletters as well as articles, I don’t see how they’re not giving you enough other content. If you don’t want to listen… don’t listen to it.

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      KP

      Does David’s FrenchPress every Sunday irritate you? There’s more than $10 worth of secular/wonky content that comes with a subscription. For instance, I don’t have time for the Book Club, so I don’t partake. Very rarely do I read the articles. I mostly want to support independent conservative media and bounce ideas around in comment sections, like we’re doing now.

      On a slightly different tack, even if you wanted to completely disregard the theological aspects, there is still wisdom in the Christian approach to finances. For instance, studies show that gratitude and generosity (both Christian virtues, though not exclusively so) are predictors of not only long-term financial success but a longer life and wider social circle.

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  7. Daniel

    I think there is an assumption in the idea of consumptive smoothing i.e. being a super saver later in life, which may or may not be true. The assumption is that a person will earn significantly more in the 40's and 50's than at the start of their career, thus allowing them to be a super saver later in life. On average this assumption may be true and in white collar professions it is likely true. I wonder how true this assumption is for blue collar works? I don't have the stats, but does an auto mechanic, welder, HVAC tech, waitress, hairdresser or electrician make all that much more in their 40's and 50's than they did at the beginning of their career? If not, wouldn't saving 10% to 15% all of their working career make more sense? Should the advice be more focused depending on what a person does for a living and how much their income will increase over their career?

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    1. Alex Winkleman

      How comfortable are you in gambling on that? What if the economy changes and you can’t find a job in your field? What if your company asks you to do something unethical and you need to decide whether to do something wrong or be fired immediately?

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      1. Daniel

        Hi Alex, I am not sure I understand the comment, seems to me everything you wrote supports my thoughts about saving early even if it is a hard ship. It seems that what you point out is part of the assumption the guest was making, that those things won't happen and thus you can become a super saver later in life. For example, say that a person is a radiologist and they don't save much in your 20's and 30's thinking that they will be a super saver in their 40's and 50's and then AI comes along and does a better job and reading X-rays, MRIs etc. and they are out of a job and their profession is no more and they have to start over in a new career. (BTW AI can already read mammograms better than humans can). If we lived in an ideal world, I would agree with the economist and the idea of consumptive smoothing. I don't live in an ideal world.

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    Matt Sherman

    Wow, it is incredibly weird to open up a podcast and see your friend talking with Curtis and David. Looking forward to listening to this one because James is a great guy, an excellent academic, and a wonderful and faithful Christian.

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  9. jdporter3

    Really, really great content today. Shared with my 26 year old! Also, as a suggestion, you should invite Carmen LaBerge.

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  10. Madison Wyman

    Hey Dave/Curtis,
    I've had a question floating around in my head that seems to be perfectly calibrated for you two, so I thought I'd toss it out.

    There has been a lot said on the West's individualism in contrast with the more collectivist way of understanding the world that is cultural backdrop for the biblical writers, particularly of the Old Testament. I was hoping you guys could zoom in on one very specific aspect of this contrast: the effect of English Common Law on our understanding of the atonement.

    Since the large focus placed on the individual before God in the penal substitution atonement model during the Reformation, a lack of emphasis on the collective kingdom of God, as seen in Christus Victor models of the atonement, has plagued the protestant church. I am wondering how much this is reflective of the reformations writers understanding of the law in secular terms? John Calvin was a lawyer, and I am sure that other read their own legal context into the legal and penal language in scripture.
    How does this match up with the development of English Common Law? It seems to me (as an outsider to much of this surely) that the English Common Law system is primarily focused on individual rights and individual responsibility. If that is the case, it seems natural for me for a modern westerner to read legal language in the Bible and jump to qualify it as only applying to the individual (see discussions of CRT, the social gospel, personal evangelism, and reparations). Is my understanding of English Common Law too narrow to burden it with the charge of ushering individualism into the Western legal mind? Did this development occur throughout the continent, or would it only have effected English writers? How has the calcified individualism seemingly inherent in the English Common Law tradition distorted a modern reading of scripture, and particularity the theology of the atonement?

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