Bible has bounty of financial advice

BOSTON – A Hummer, a 1957 hot rod, a comfortable house in a gated community – if Bob Vigliotti wanted something, he bought it. Cash or credit didn’t matter. As a successful commercial real estate developer from Naples, Fla., he could afford it. Until he couldn’t.

In 2007, the economic downturn claimed one of his major projects. For two years, Vigliotti, 58, battled depression as he bled $1 million cash. But Vigliotti said just when he thought there were no answers, he found them in the Bible: debt reduction, simpler living and, most of all, faith that God would provide what he needed. Vigliotti won’t buy on credit now and is selling his pricey vehicles and is looking to downsize to a condo.

“The angst, anxiety and the depression is gone, and that’s huge,” Vigliotti said. “(The Bible’s words) are alive today, and not just history book words.”

Depending on your view, the Bible is divinely inspired or a collection of tall tales. But many see it as a source of financial wisdom that transcends individual faith and the centuries between when it was written and today’s tough times.

“All sound professional advice, I found, ... has its roots someplace in Scripture,” said Ron Blue, author of “Surviving Financial Meltdown” and founder of the Kingdom Advisors, which trains Christian financial professionals. Blue uses the Bible for guidance on everything from budgeting to long-term investing and handling an inheritance.

But Robert Manning, author of “Credit Card Nation,” said biblically based financial advice isn’t sophisticated enough in a world of rising health care, housing and retirement costs, where people need to learn to take advantage of complicated credit and tax laws.

“If you’re going to go pre-New Deal, 1924 America, that’s basically what this advice is driven by,” Manning said. “It sounds so good and plausible until you actually put it into reality, and it just doesn’t work.”

Purveyors of biblically based financial advice count up to 2,300 verses on money management. Frequently cited verses in the Old Testament book of Proverbs urge careful spending, including “The plans of the diligent lead to profit, as surely as haste leads to poverty.” Another warns debtors that “the borrower is servant to the lender.”

Blue sees advice to diversify stock portfolios in a verse about a man’s “bread” from Ecclesiastes: “Give portions to seven, yes to eight, for you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.”

During an economic downturn, people can be pulled every which way by someone holding up a Bible and handing down their version of financial wisdom, said Matt Bell, Christian author of “Money Strategies for Tough Times..”

“Any time someone is in a point of pain, they’re especially vulnerable,” Bell said. “That’s where they especially need wise counsel.”

Plenty are willing to give it. Financial guru Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University course has enrolled more than 750,000 families. Crown Financial Ministries, based in Gainesville, Ga., says it will give 300 seminars and “coach” 10,000 people this year.

Regional events and workshops are offered by authors such as Bell and Kevin Cross, a Florida accountant whose book “Building Your Financial Fortress in 52 Days” changed Vigliotti’s view of money.

Whatever brand of financial philosophy they offer, Manning sees self-interest in church-based advice on money management because struggling members give less to the church and also take more away in the form of financial aid. He said such ministries can be a way to impose “social control” by convincing churchgoers to use their money only in church-approved ways.