Kendra and I are soon to participate in "Marriage 101". At school, I was trained as a facilitator, so this will be a new experience -- participating rather than facilitating.
"Marriage 101", for those of you unfamiliar with it, was developed by Greg Vaughn in the late 80s. It features gender-specific workbooks around 8 individual topics needed for newlywed counseling. While Vaughn teaches most of the video segment topics, Dave Ramsey is brought in to discuss newlywed finances.
Over my years as pastor, it didn't take long for me to grow uncomfortable with Ramsey's economic advice. Not because it's bad economics. Don't spend beyond your means is particularly important and sound advice for families. Take manageable baby steps to get out of debt once you're in it. That's just good business sense. There's nothing to oppose about it, but there's nothing really earth-shattering or "biblical" about it either, despite the fact that Ramsey parades out a series of truisms and platitudes from Proverbs.
And there's my problem including Ramsey in a martial counseling program for Christians.
Ramsey goes beyond sound economic advice to advocating the tired Modernist claim that's the basis for a lot of economic thought. It's not bad economics. It's bad theology.
The claim goes like this: Our society and economy are made up of free, autonomous individuals whose socioeconomic circumstances are always the consequences of their own choices rather than powers and principalities. Ramsey's ideology is really a defense of Enlightenment-era individualism against postmodern skepticism.
One of Ramsey's key points for couples goes like this: "You strengthen a marriage when you fix how you individually save and spend money". The kinds of self-reliance that Ramsey advocates in his ideology -- whether it's "Marriage 101" or elsewhere -- is at odds with the Bible.
And when I say "at odds", I mean in complete disagreement. Ramsey may be a good economist -- though that's debatable, too -- but he's a much better disciple of Ayn Rand than Jesus.
"You should act in your own best interest. It's Biblical", he proclaims at one point.
But is it?
There are two key words when it comes to the Bible on economics -- Kingdom and mercy -- and both of those are noticeably absent from Ramsey's talk to couples.
Ramsey assumes we're self-made men and women. He loves to use "self-reliance" and then connects that to "God-reliance" in interesting ways. He's even known for using the anti-Gospel trope: "God helps those who help themselves". From the "Marriage 101" video: "The normative way that God provides for me is through the work ethic and ingenuity that he pours into me. He uses me to provides for me". But notice how that manipulates the words. Our "work ethic" and "ingenuity" are in no way derived from ourselves. We're taught them. Mentors, in a community of people, impart them. If we ignore God's prevenient grace, that comes to us through and in these others, we're not being Christian. I'm not self-reliant. Because I depend on others to live.
Why is this such a big deal? There's a spirituality at work here. True, couples fight and divorce over money. Because money is a power, a principality, in out world. The trouble for most marriages isn't debt. The trouble is in the story of that debt. The trouble is the power of that story. Because, at heart, the spirituality Ramsey promotes is one of ingratitude. When you're grateful for all God has given you, you're more responsible for it. But if it's all you? What's the point in being grateful for that?
When couples view their martial finances as something they've done (and not something God has given them), stress and arguments are never far behind. What Ramsey really promotes is a kind of Christian selfishness for couples. And as CS Lewis knew (see Sheldon Vanauken's Severe Mercy), that kind of selfishness destroys marriages.
In short, what I'm saying, contra Ramsey: The privitization of wealth is what makes spending choices unfaithful.
Instead, those two words from the Bible must be the starting point for couples talking about money.
The gospel is about creating a kingdom. What God has given us is not ours to squander; it belongs to the kingdom and its purpose is to build the kingdom. Individualizing wealth is what makes irresponsible expenditure plausible to us when we see our money as ours and not God's so we can do with it what we damn well please. It's when we understand ourselves to be part of a team -- a marriage in this case (though more generally the church) -- with a real mission to alleviate suffering in the world through our financial resources that we are chastened from frivolous decadence for the right reasons. We let the kingdom down when we're wasteful. But if we don't acknowledge a kingdom other than some world of harps in the clouds where we go after we die, then the only incentive to be frugal here on Earth is greed.
This is why celebrating Communion at our wedding was so important. In the act of sharing bread and serving others, we gave witness that everything we have is God's to share with the world.
The trouble with Ramsey's advice? The kingdom he wants to build is so very different from the kingdom of Jesus.
It's a kingdom antithetical to mercy. Individual responsibility -- even couple responsibility -- when it's not rooted in gratitude is antithetical to mercy (I'm taking care of me so you should be responsible for you; don't come bother me when you waste your money and can't pay your bills). There are a lot of reasons people are poor. It's not just because they're lazy or irresponsible or "don't have a brain" (as I've heard Ramsey say countless times in explaining why poor couples and families fall victim to pay-day loan companies).
When couples show mercy, they share. When couples are grateful, they share without judgment. That sharing is a practice of Christian hope.
Because couples who engage in economic navel-gazing (that's how I characterize Ramsey's advice in "Marriage 101") have yet to be good stewards and trustees. God's gifts are meant to enliven our mutual lives -- not bolster bank accounts.
I think frugality is definitely important. On that, Ramsey and I agree. But for very different reasons. I think we Christians must be frugal so that we can experience the joy of sharing God's bounty with others. But our frugality becomes a tool of Satan the minute it becomes the reason that we can judge others and find them unworthy of our love. We don't deserve anything we have. We earn nothing; our skills, our creativity, our work ethic, and every other faculty we use to make money are themselves gifts from God and a reason to be grateful rather than feel individually responsible.
Ramsey may have great economic advice. But it's hardly Christian. He even goes so far as to advance in lots of places that "wealth is the witness of biblical financial management". And that, my friends, is the bad-news of Gordon Gecko, not the good-news of Jesus. No matter how many quotes from Proverbs you use.
Bottom line here? Gratitude is the foundation of a good Christian marriage. Whatever we do without it, we do to our own damnation. And it's why so many end up divorced over money issues.