The Simple Pastor

By Phil Whittall, church planter, blogger & book reviewer

Archive of "debt" Category

• What about…*updated*

  November 1, 2009 // 1 Comment »

  A while ago I read my friend Dave’s account of the impact of a talk I gave, and he listed the questions I posed that night, I’ve turned those questions into a series of posts which I’ve now finished. Here’s the complete set

  • Questions of life
  • What about the consumer dream?
  • What about the environment?
  • What about consumption?
  • What about the way we label success?
  • What about generosity?
  • What about the desire for ownership?
  • What about sharing?
  • What about the goal of our lives being the accumulation of wealth?
  • What about how we approach debt?
  • What about trade justice?
  • What about the desires of our heart?
  • What about community?
  • What about our security?
  • What about the future?

  Categories:
  debt, Environment, generosity, money, possessions, simplicity, Top Posts

• This should make you mad

  August 14, 2009 // No Comments »

  It made me mad, really mad. Make sure you read the last paragraph which sums up the idiocy of our banks (or in this case US banks but ours are probably worse).

  Come on, somebody find me a capitalist somewhere to justify this. They might be right, but I want to hear a justification because I just can’t for the life of me imagine what it might be that doesn’t boil down to greed.

  (HT: Challies)

  Categories:
  debt, money

• What’s a trillion dollars between friends?

  July 21, 2009 // No Comments »

  Thanks to Mint we now know ho big a number this is and how much trouble the world’s economy is in.

  Categories:
  debt, money

• What about how we approach debt?

  September 17, 2008 // No Comments »

  Now seems like an appropriate time to write a post that deals with the issue of debt. Inflation at it’s highest in ages, recession seems inevitable, banks and financial institutions that once seemed invincible are crashing to the dust, airlines and travel companies going bust, energy prices continue to rise and the price of food and the impact of the credit crunch is far from over. In a connected world the ripples from each splash grow that little bit wider.

  We have built much on the promise to pay later, which is quite a promise to make. It’s a risk every time. It’s a bet and a gamble on the future, at best it is a calculation that everything will continue just fine or even get better at worst it is a denial of responsibility and an open door to slavery to whims and selfish desires. James 4/14 reminds us that our life is not nearly as solid and reliable as we might think and betting on the future is a dangerous game.

  Easy access to debt has had a number of dangers. It has made us impatient and selfish (see this great quote on waiting as the antidote to greed) – we want our desires satisfied now. This in fact lessens our pleasure and shortens the impact because we will soon want some other new thing.
  It has devalued work and made it a prison – what we’ve worked hard for has value for us, what we haven’t yet worked for becomes a weight around a neck – gotta to keep working to pay off those debts. Easy debt breeds discontent and encourages us to see solutions in material things.

  Of course, debt eventually needs repaying – something that we all too often forget. If we don’t pay then it’s either a gift or theft. And debt brings pressure, it breaks up marriages, families, ruins lives, creates depression and as was the case in my own county of Shropshire recently, debts can be utterly destructive.

  So debt should be approached carefully, it should be planned and used sparingly. I’d encourage accountability and openness with your finances. If you can do it with your private thoughts and spiritual life you can do it with your cash. Opening up to someone who earns more than you and someone who earns less than you is a revealing exercise. Debt should also be repaid as quickly as possible.

  Personally, by nature I’m wary of debt – I dislike it when I have it and I’m happier without it. The less of it I have the more money I have to give. Reluctance to take on debt helps me tell the difference between needs and wants. I’m happy with debt being a place of last resort.

  If debt is an issue see check out Community Money Advice or Credit Action
  Other Bloggers who have mentioned this recently:

  • Jeremy has an thought provoking post on the illusion of our economy
  • Matt Hosier on certainty in uncertain times
  • Rob Mason on the credit crunch
  • Mark Heath on checking that money isn’t an idol

  Categories:
  debt, money

• The more evangelicals there are the more debt there is…

  June 13, 2008 // No Comments »

  …according to this study in the US. I hope and pray that the opposite would be true in the UK.

  HT: Tim Challies

  Categories:
  america, debt, money

• A Nation Indebted

  August 25, 2007 // No Comments »

  But I don’t mean thankfulness… head over to Make Wealth History and follow some of the threads form this post on a nation in debt. For a different angle on the debt debate, read this article from the Beeb

  Categories:
  debt

• Reflections on my Car

  July 24, 2007 // No Comments »

  Well I’ve come to a decision and to be honest it’s been agonising. Life would be a lot easier if I wasn’t concerned about consumerism or debt or the environment, it really makes everything a lot more hassle.

  But then I think that’s part of the point isn’t it? We’re so not used to thinking about the ‘should I have it?’ question and given the easy availability of credit we rarely think about the ‘can I afford it?’ question either. If you can afford you can have it and no one should tell you otherwise, not even Jesus. That mentality is sadly in the church as well as outside it. Only very recently has anyone ever thought ‘what about the environment?’ when making major purchases. So going through those processes and weighing it all up is part of a better decision making process, part of not just doing something ‘because I want to’.

  On the flip side as one of my commentators mentioned we can get all hung up over things, become eco-pharisees, take all pleasure out of life. I had to be sure that driving an old car wouldn’t be some weird kind of badge of honour. So while it’s been a nuisance, it’s also been helpful and anyway we’ve decided to keep the old banger. Here are my reasons, see what you think about them

  1.  We weren’t thinking about buying a new car – the pressure came from outside us not from within. So we were content and then the thought of having a new car actually made us less content with how things were. That is I guess how advertising works.
  2.  The old car is actually fine – it needs some new brake pads and stuff, but nothing every car doesn’t need now and then. So actually we don’t need to replace it. The thought of something new made what was older feel like we did
  3. You pay for things to depreciate – the only way out of this one is to keep things till they wear out or buy into a never-ending round of upgrading. My current estimate is that our current car has cost us £250 a year in terms of its purchasing cost and that decreases every year. We’d need the next car for 10 years to match that.
  4. It felt like a pressure, and there wasn’t peace about spending money on something we will need someday but don’t need now. For example my better half isn’t pregnant so if she went and bought lots of things for the ‘nursery’ it wouldn’t be a good use of money right now.

  So, phew, decision made, time will tell whether it was the right one but I’m happy with our reasons

  Categories:
  consumerism, debt, lifestyle

• How to discover inner peace

  February 9, 2007 // No Comments »

  When mail arrives from a credit card company it usually takes the most direct route to the recycling bin but today it caught my eye and made me look inside. Barclaycard were offering me inner peace! There on the envelope was a promise to ‘open up to inner peace’ and to be honest up until today I didn’t realise inner peace was a commodity, but clearly I was wrong. Consumerism has led people into debt and a credit card company presents itself as the solution to ‘bad financial karma’ – borrow more money and relax. It can’t just be me that sees the irony in all this can it?

  So to ‘improve my overall feeling of wellbeing’ all I have to do is call Barclaycard. I don’t need to take stock of my life and examine my heart, I don’t need to change my behaviour (God forbid that I’d actually cut my spending) or my attitude. I don’t need a spiritual counsellor or to connect with God, all I need for wellbeing is another loan. Secured on my house. With freshly cleared credit cards in my pocket.

  So consumerism knows no boundaries, spirituality itself, the depths of the human heart and soul have been colonised by consumerism. Houston, I think we have a problem.

  Categories:
  consumerism, debt

• Indie confused over consumerism

  December 28, 2006 // No Comments »

  I’ve been away for a few days with the better half’s family for a low-key Christmas, which after last year was all we wanted. Anyway took the opportunity on Boxing Day to read a newspaper at my leisure which was a pleasure (apologies for the rhyming). My chosen journal was The Independent and unsurprisingly there was the usual hand wringing over the British publics insatiable appetite for material possessions. What was unusual was the prominence it was given, first of all in the main leader which contained this comment:

  “With fripperies available for a song, sobriety and responsibility have set in: eco-friendly and organic increasingly belong to the mainstream, while value for money has made a comeback.”

  I would have said a silent ‘hurrah’ if I’d actually believed any of that tosh. What I did believe was some of the facts I read in the headlining piece of their Extra section – The Bank of Britain: How did you spend Christmas? We are in so much debt, we don’t know why or what to do.

  And I did believe Bruce Anderson in his op ed piece where he said this:

  “Modern Britain is a contract society. It is also one in which the poor are bombarded by the relentless propaganda of consumerism. Throughout their day, they are constantly reminded about the goods which they would like to possess, but cannot attain.”

  How very sad and very true.

  Categories:
  christmas, consumerism, debt