Do Bible Readers Have Less Debt?

[John317]

Devotion to the Bible adds up to less debt -- maybe

Do Bible readers have less debt, donate more to their churches. Maybe but the survey research conflcts.

-- By Stephanie Steinberg, USA TODAY

Read the Bible, and you'll have less debt. Well, maybe. It depends on which survey you read.

A new survey drawn from a select group of 1,020 people who read Christianity Today and are staff or leaders in their churches, found that people who read the Bible every day have less mortgage payments, car payments and unpaid credit card bills, says Brian Kluth, author of 40 Day Journey to a More Generous Life and director of the research.

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His survey also shows that people who read the Bible four to seven days a week are more than twice as likely to give 10% or more of their income to churches.

"It doesn't matter what happens in the economy because if you believe giving is a priority in your life, you just do it," he says. His theory is that Bible readers may be more disciplined and that kind of focus "ultimately leads to discipline in other areas of life."

Still, that's a pretty narrow crowd (and it doesn't explain why other disciplined people, like athletes, aren't necessarily less in debt or more generous in donating to church.)

A Barna Group poll conducted in January 2010 found that only 44% of adults ages 18 and older read their Bibles outside of church. And a 2007 study by Barna found that only 5% of adults tithe, or donate more than 10% of their income.

Researchers discovered that some groups were more likely to tithe than others: 24% of evangelicals, 12% of people who had prayed, read the Bible and attended a church service in the last week and 10% of registered Republicans.

However, during that same year, the average annual church donation was $863.80, according to another Christian research organization, Empty Tomb. The organization also found that from 1968 to 2000, 30%-50% of congregants gave little or nothing to their churches.

Has reading the Bible changed or guided your financial life? Do you think you're generous to your faith and other worthy causes, with or without biblical discipline?

[fccool]

According to the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study, the average American family that gave to charity in 2002 donated $1,917. And contrary to what some might assume, this giving does not all—or even mostly—support houses of worship. The Giving U.S.A. Foundation reports that only about a third of individual gifts go toward religious causes; the rest are earmarked for secular concerns like education and health.

As impressive as these numbers are, there are still about 30 million American families that do not give charitably. Why not? According to Independent Sector's 2001 Giving and Volunteering in the United States survey of 4,000 households, common excuses include not being asked and fear that contributions will be used inefficiently by nonprofits. But the most common explanation for the lack of giving is a perceived deficiency of means: Two-thirds of nondonors say that they simply cannot afford to give. This sounds reasonable. There are plenty of Americans having trouble making ends meet, so why give away what little money they have? Thus we can logically assume that most of the Americans who don't give are poor, right?

Wrong. In fact, Americans at the bottom of the income-distribution pyramid are the country's biggest givers per capita. (View average household donations and the percentage of income donated to charity.) The 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey shows that households with incomes below $20,000 gave a higher percentage of their earnings to charity than did any other income group: 4.6 percent, on average. As income increased, the percentage given away declined: Households earning between $50,000 and $100,000 donated 2.5 percent or less. Only at high income levels did the percentage begin to rise again: For households with incomes over $100,000, the number was 3.1 percent.

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