Faith based credit counseling...

I'd never actually seen this bit before, but the late Jerry Falwell, about whom I've blogged before, once gave some advice on what to do if your finances are all screwed up. On the plus side, he advocated that you work on your budget and see how much money you have coming in compared to how much you're spending on what. This is great advice for anyone, whether they're in financial distress or not. The somewhat weirder part, however, is that he makes it very explicit that if you want to get out of debt, you really need to be giving 10% of your income to the church. Seriously, he calls it "spiritual mathematics":



Falwell, of course, claimed that people would always come back and say that this advice helped. Maybe they did do that, although I have to point out that most people's economic downturns are temporary. So, assuming that tithing helped your finances because after you started tithing your finances improved is a classic example of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Mostly, though, I just think it's a shame that the way Falwell talks about this makes it sound like god is running a protection racket. If he doesn't get his cut, he'll ruin your finances.

Sometimes the way religious professionals talk about god and the devil makes it sound less like theology, and more like a mob war.