What does it mean to submit your finances to the Lordship of Christ? What does that involve on a daily basis? What does it mean to baptize your money and treat tracking your spending as a spiritual discipline? How does your upbringing influence your attitudes toward money? We’ll answer these questions and more with our Crowell School of Business colleague, Shane Enete around his new book, .


Dr. Shane Enete is Associate Professor of Finance at the Crowell School of Business, 51. His research interests include how new developments in Biblically Responsible Investing (BRI) alter investment practice, the theology of financial planning, and how to reconcile the natural tension of a Christ follower between sacrificial giving and shrewd saving. Enete currently holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designations.



Episode Transcript

Scott: What does it mean to submit your finances to the lordship of Christ? What does that involve on a daily basis? What does it mean to baptize your money, and to treat tracking your spending as a spiritual discipline? How does your upbringing influence your attitudes toward money? We’ll answer these questions and more with our Crowell School of Business colleague, Dr. Shane Enete, around his new book, Whole Heart Finances. I'm your host, Scott Rae.

Sean: I'm your co-host, Sean McDowell.

Scott: This is Think Biblically from Talbot School of Theology at 51. Shane, welcome, glad to have you with us. Love your book, super helpful stuff for our listeners. Can't wait to get into it.

Shane: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

Scott: So, you're a finance guy. Of all the areas of finance that you could have been passionate about, why did you pick this one, of personal finance?

Shane: Yeah, you know, I mean, this area captured me at an early age. I always was interested in money. It was probably when I first got my allowance that my parents, they just put down this $5 bill and they said, "This is gonna be a regular allowance." And immediately, all of my brain just started to go in a million different places. And I was like, what do I do? No one's telling me what to do. And it was this question that seems just fascinating, that money—there was no answer about what you should do. You know, you could spend it, you can invest it, you can give it. And savings seemed very attractive. I immediately annuitized this allowance in my mind. You know, as a—

Scott: [laughs] How old were you?

Shane: This was a repeated payment. I was about 10. And so it just, like, it felt like having a money tree, or it felt like being a wizard where this idea of compounding interest captured my heart at an early age. And it was like, this is magic to me. And there's no solution that seems evident. And so now I have to go out on this quest, to try and figure out, what do you do with money? What's the best thing? I don't know. And so it just kinda captured my imagination.

Sean: So, were you raised in a Christian home?

Shane: I was, yeah.

Sean: So right away, that component was at least a piece of how you looked at money.

Shane: Well, it wasn't…well, so yeah, I saw my parents giving.

Sean: Okay.

Shane: And that irritated me.

Sean: [laughs]

Shane: And I loved to save. Saving was magical to me. Giving was annoying, and it seemed legalistic. It seemed bad. And so then, when I was 15—or, actually, 13—I got into this accident where I was impaled on an iron rod fence. And in that hospital room, I could sense the presence of God. And I could sense Jesus, I could sense his smile. Right side of the room. And it changed me. It was this taste of, just, an incredible favor. I didn't earn it. He just loved me. And I felt so honored that the King of the universe was present with me and knew me. I just was so amazed. And so that amazement made it so…that opened the doors for me to think about giving in a different way, but I still loved to save. And I felt this incredible tension, because compounding interests, growing things exponentially over time, seem to be at odds with giving money away. And so that actually started this book project in my heart, was, how do I choose between these two good things? And how do I keep this incredible love of Jesus, this passionate faith, and not lose that when I'm pursuing finance and growing money?

Scott: So, tell us a little bit more why you think people need this book as much as you think they do.

Shane: I know, right? Yeah. I just think if…right now with money, most people kind of create a separation where they think, oh, Jesus is spiritual. The church helps us with spiritual things. Money is very practical, physical. Let's just kind of look to the wisdom of the world to figure out what to do with money. Let's leave Jesus out of it. Let's kind of create a situation where we figure out what we want to do with money, bear full financial responsibility. And that's overwhelming. And so often people will just kind of avoid making money decisions 'cause it seems too overwhelming, or they get a little bit alienated spiritually when they make money decisions. So this book is my attempt to build a bridge between the language of faith and relationship with Jesus and the language of money and practical things that are useful in our day-to-day kind of care.

Sean: How is your approach different from somebody like Dave Ramsey or Ron Blue?

Shane: You know, those two names are interesting to mention because they both were mentored by the same person. So, Larry Burkett.

Sean: Oh yeah, of course.

Shane: He's kind of the father of all Christian financial stewardship. And he did incredible work with Crown Ministries, and he passed kind of suddenly. And two of his people who he was mentoring were Ron Blue and Dave Ramsey. And so I'd say they took on the torch. So, Dave Ramsey's focus is to look at the wisdom of the world, figure out what works, let people know through his, kind of, baby steps what works with money, how to build wealth. And then he adds on…he tries to support his principles with Scripture at the end, is kind of, I would say, his approach. And then, Ronald Blue, his approach is, let's look at the Bible and figure out principles, and extract principles that are from the Bible that are financial. And the second most discussed topic in the Bible is money and possessions. And so then my approach…I wanna take a step back. 'Cause if you say, let's take the principle “God owns it all.” And that's one of the major principles of both Larry Burkett and Ronald Blue. That's powerful for a Christian who is passionate about their relationship with God. But then, for so many people, it becomes a legalistic principle, 'cause they don't actually think about who God is. And so if you tell someone “God owns it all,” and you don't flesh out who God is and who we are in God and in Christ, then God can be kind of a terrifying figure, and we may just actually move into legalism because of that principle, ‘cause we're scared about making God mad, 'cause “He owns it all.” So I wanna look at who…I wanna do theology, look at who God is, who we are in Christ, and then flesh out financial decisions and principles and guidelines that are consistent with who we see God is in the Bible, who we see we are in Christ.

Scott: So is that basically what you mean by the term “whole heart finances?” The title of your book, spell out a little bit more what you mean by that.

Shane: Yeah, so if we do kind of make this separation and we say, you know what, I think… there's a natural presumption amongst the church that if we actually approach Jesus with our bank statement and we say, here, take a look at my finances, would you give me some feedback? Then everyone that I talk to, students and adults, have a natural presumption about Jesus's response. And that's, you know, oh, gross, you got money? Gross. Like, get rid of that, you know, go ahead and sell everything, follow Me. This money stuff is bad for you, kind of like fast food. Or, you know, you gotta eat better, stop having this money. And so then there's this story of the Knights of Charlemagne who, you know…the king was conquering all of Europe and he had soldiers. And at some point he decides to become a Christian nation. He tells the soldiers all across Europe, become Christian and do it now. And so there's this word that comes in to these marching soldiers, and the edict is, become Christian. And so there's a priest, and they get baptized in a nearby river. But one particular soldier group, as they're getting baptized, they leave their hand that held their sword out of the water as they got baptized. And so what they were saying was, we will give you all of us except for this hand that holds the sword, 'cause we can't reconcile a life of soldiering and a life of Jesus. And today we do the same thing. We baptize all of ourselves, but we leave our hand out that holds the bank statement, or that holds our financial decisions. 'Cause we just can't reconcile, what does it look like to be fully sold out with Christ and make money decisions? And so, that's a fractured heart finance. The whole heart is when you baptize all of yourself and you decide to bring Jesus in on all of your money decisions.

Sean: Okay, so flesh that out, 'cause in principle I'm like, okay, Shane, I'm with you. But what does that mean, to actually baptize your money?

Shane: Yeah, so it's this idea that you shine a light real bright on your spending behavior. So one of the first…well, I'd say the first step is to do what's called imprinting money. So it's this idea that when money comes, it's like a new chick that is looking for a master. And so, when a new chick is hatched, it looks and it imprints to its first thing that it sees, whether it's a person, a chicken or a mom. Money's the same way. When money comes to us, it's looking for a master. And so if we just, kind of, accept money, and it gets deposited right to our heart, it actually becomes a part of us. It's this thing called endowment theory. It becomes a part of our endowment. And so then, to make decisions, especially to give it away, is very difficult, 'cause it's like taking part of us out. If we imprint it differently though, if we see it coming and we declare it as alive in Christ and dead to sin, and we present it in such a way, then it actually stays outside of our endowment and it stays in God's endowment. And then, what happens when you do that—you use your identity as alive in Christ and dead to sin, and all of what you touch and own and possess in that way, too—then that's the beginning of whole heart finances, because now you can save everything, you can spend everything, you can give everything, and it's been baptized, it's been sanctified. And so, the decision is now being made as a new person in Christ. And so, the goal is to have that whole heart as you're making the decision. But I think Paul answers the whole heart question really well in 2 Corinthians, where he's like, all right, look at the Macedonians. They were radical givers. Corinthians, you should do that too, but this is not a commandment. I do not command you in this. What I want you to do is excel in the act of grace, of giving. So he calls giving an act of grace. And he's like, this is not a commandment, but it is something that greatly benefits you. And that's the exact language of Paul. And so when we now think about our whole heart, we wanna…he's like, if you wanna love God with your whole heart, and if you wanna do something that is wholehearted, think about giving as something you need to excel in, and then you're really gonna prosper. So when you're thinking about saving, when you're thinking about budgets, do it in such a way where it's sustaining and facilitating a greater generosity than it would have otherwise done before.

Scott: So how did you end up resolving the tension between giving and saving for yourself once you started down this road?

Shane: My first step was to experiment in giving. So, I didn't know what it meant to give. Just a 10% tithe seemed legalistic to me. It didn't seem like something that's in the gospel, really. And so, if being a giver meant you do 10%, that felt like it was just gonna be a rule that was gonna cut me off from relationship with the Lord. And so, in college and in my 20s and 30s, I started just doing all sorts of different kinds of giving and seeing how it connected to my heart. And that was really the first step that helped me see, all right, what works? Chapter three in the book talks about eight different ways you can give, eight different, kind of, giving systems. And so, one thing that really attracted me was a giving system of a giving goal, where I set out cumulative giving goals. So like, I wanna give a certain amount by a certain age, and then celebrate as I make markers towards that goal. And that really motivated me, that really played to my competitive nature. And it was really fun. It made giving a lot more fun than, just, this automatic thing that you don't stop thinking about. And then it also was like a challenge, and I like a challenge, you know. But the experimenting and giving really helped me see the joy in giving responsively to the needs around me. 'Cause when you start looking at needs, you start seeing them. And then you start seeing that you can be used by God to meet the needs of the community around you. And then all of a sudden, you start realizing that giving is so much bigger than just a 10% tithe. And that's captured my imagination. I saw investing in the kingdom as an even greater compounding asset. And so then, that just slowly made it so that giving became predominant. And then I sought to excel in it through using savings. So my ultimate way I decided on that tension was…before, I was saying, all right, I wanna save what's the minimum amount I can give and get away with as a Christian. But then I shifted to, all right, I wanna give, because I'm seeing the beauty of it. I'm seeing how closely it is connected to God's heart. What's the least amount I can save and get away with. So it was a much different shift.

Sean: Okay, so mid 90s, I'm here at 51. There's a chapel, and a speaker you'll recognize the name of, who would be considered more left on social issues, worked with the poor, Tony Campolo.

Shane: Yup.

Sean: Stands up in the gym and talks about the parable, or the story of Jesus and the rich young ruler. And says, "You've been told that this giving everything away is just for the rich young ruler." And as best I can remember, he goes, "No, all of you, give everything away." And I remember sitting there going, I've never heard this before. Is he right? Like, it just threw me. Thinking things, I think in a good way. Now, he's a provocateur, obviously. But should we give everything away? How do you make sense of that passage, and how does it apply to our giving?

Shane: Yeah. My book starts out with the story of my daughter giving everything away. I'd done a bedtime story, and it captured her heart and her imagination about Jesus. And she went to bed, and she'd had some lifetime savings, and she just ran over to my wife and I and dropped it off and said, "This is for Jesus."

Sean: Wow.

Shane: It was incredible.

Scott: Wow, that's great.

Shane: And just like how you felt with Tony, I felt with my daughter, where I'm like, is this what I need to do? This is incredible. But it's also incredibly scary, this idea of selling everything. And kind of my process of thinking through that was to really land on how Paul talks about giving, which is “act of grace.” And I think it's so important to just let giving be grace and not have it be, "You should do this." And then, there's gonna be a strong calling for some to do this type of radical giving. George Mueller being one example. Jonathan Edwards. Even when you look at Rick Warren, he's a reverse tither. And so you get callings, but again, the overarching, kind of, concept is grace. Grace has to be the number one, and then the behavior. But if we focus on the behavior before grace, then we're gonna lose on the relationship and on the heart of the matter.

Scott: I can see where that would be a really dangerous question to have to ask. And I think for most people, that's not a hard one to answer, if we should give everything away. I don't think that's the case. I think the more dangerous question is, could we live on less than we are now and give more away than we currently do? That's the question I think people…that's the one that tugs at my heart the hardest. So, how do you respond to that?

Shane: Yeah. I think Paul in 2 Corinthians, I think he's talking to some richer households, and he's saying, this is something you wanna move towards, and it's an attitude where, let's go ahead and take where you're giving and see, what it does it look like for you to excel in it? And I love that word, 'cause I think it's this challenge. And he's very quick to say, not a commandment. I'm not commanding you to do this, but it's an attitude. And so, for every household, I think spending plans and financial plans facilitate greater levels of giving. And that's one of the purposes of the book, to help you see that these are tools, 'cause an emergency fund helps you avoid debt. Debt is the ultimate anti-giving thing. And so, if you can create some margin, can create some financial resilience through a spending plan and an overall financial plan…so, spending plans just focus on your day-to-day, kind of, income that comes in, expenses that go out. The financial plans focus on every component of your financial life, which includes your investments, your tax, your estate plan, all those kind of things. So those two work together. And I think if you're intentional, if you go into a financial professional, like a CFP, certified financial planner, and you tell them, my intention is to excel in giving, I wanna give to my greatest level, then you can actually construct a plan that helps you do that and uses saving, uses investments, uses budgets to help, kind of, facilitate that without it feeling like, I now have to tighten the belt. Too often people make a mistake when they think about giving, and they just think about spending less, and they do it without any information about how they spend. It's like dieting, where I'm just gonna stop eating. That's not gonna work over a long period of time. That's gonna blow back in your face. Instead, the greatest way to diet is, you start counting your calories. You start by just looking at, how am I eating? And then you start seeing patterns. And so, in the same way, with budgeting, the greatest first step isn't to just stop spending money. It's to start tracking what you're doing with your expenses and using a budgeting app. And the book walks through how you can track. And when you track how you're doing, it's like counting your calories, and you start seeing very clearly what's going on with your spending, fast food, restaurants, streaming services. And so often when my students start tracking, they start seeing and they're surprised. They're like, oh, I didn't realize that $55 was going out to boba every month. It's fine if you prayed through that, if you're intentional. But what if it’s that you're not intentional, you didn't want that? And then you're like, oh, I'm actually more motivated by spending less on boba and more on helping a kid go to camp. And then, all of a sudden, that just awakens your desire to give, and that's kind of how I think you can approach the motivation behind restricting spending.

Scott: So tracking your spending is actually a spiritual discipline.

Shane: I believe so, yeah.

Scott: That just sounds…that's a hard one to wrap my arms around. Tracking your spending sounds excruciatingly boring.

Shane: [laughs]

Scott: How is that a spiritual discipline?

Shane: Robert Frost, I came across a poem where he actually was disgusted at the idea of tracking. He actually has a poem called "Money," and he says, he rhymes himself, saying, "No one should ever know how money is spent or where it goes."

Scott: My kind of guy.

Shane: Yeah, right. [laughs] But nowadays with the apps, they just automatically import. And so, it's just about three minutes a day that I spend. But what I do is I make it liturgical, because the Lord's prayer involves this praying for daily bread. And in our current culture, we never have to pray for daily bread to get daily bread. We never feel that sense of…we never really see how God's providing daily bread. But here, tracking is the moment you get to stop, look, and see how God is providing daily bread. I mean, even something like a utility bill is daily bread in a sense. And if you went out and got new shoes, if you went out and got some In-n-Out, like, all of that. And that's much better than daily bread, right? A good Double-Double.

Sean: There you go.

Shane: But that…when you stop and take a moment, and you track it and you categorize it, that's really quick. To me, when it's through an app, it's actually different than paper. You can still do paper, but taking a moment to just be grateful for how God…even for a DMV fee, you can be grateful for that. You can recognize God providing transportation through that fee. And I actually weave it into my quiet time, 'cause I end up worshiping so much through these trackings. And it's a science. I've done some studies on financial gratitude journals. And gratitude journals have been shown over and over to increase gratitude. And gratitude, it impacts every aspect of wellbeing. And so, a financial gratitude journal does start to really elevate your sense of gratitude and wellbeing, and it hits you really deep if you're thinking about it as God providing. Then, I think, it does become spiritual.

Sean: The idea of being grateful and spiritual for a DMV payment is a new one for me.

Shane: [laughs]

Sean: I'll have to wrestle with that one.

Shane: That's whole heart right there.

Sean: Yeah, I see what you mean by whole heart. That's a practical example of not compartmentalizing. I'd be curious, more personally for you—and if you don't wanna name specifics, that's okay—is there any kind of giving that's just been most rewarding to you? To a certain kind of ministry, to an individual, doesn't have to be the amount at all, but a giving that you look at and you're like, this is just the most rich and meaningful that my wife and I are able to give to, and why?

Shane: Yeah. We support missionaries. We just started supporting a group that's in Slovenia. My wife was a missionary in Slovenia, and so it's neat to connect to that part of her. So, the two places I get so excited about giving to are Jesus Film.

Sean: Oh wow.

Shane: The stories they come up with are just out of Acts. It's just incredible what happens with their translation efforts and with the remote places they show the Jesus Film. And The Chosen is such an amazing group that's producing things, but I feel like it's like for developed nations, kind of developing nations. The 70s Jesus, you know, it's nice and slow.

Sean: The Luke gospel. That’s great.

Shane: It just works, you know, it's so great. And I know that I feel like The Chosen is gonna eventually kind of overtake.

Sean: It could, yeah.

Shane: I'm going into controversial things. But I love giving to Jesus Film, and I love giving to The Chosen. I give to the Come and See Foundation as well, and love working with them. And then the other one I love…so I have this passion for Iran, for whatever reason. And Elam Ministries, they were the original Bible translators in Iran before they got kicked out from the revolution, but they were the first to translate the New Testament in modern Farsi and the Old Testament in modern Farsi, and the work they do is just so fun. I mean, and it's also out-of-Acts kind of work. And they do incredible digital ministries, 'cause that's one good way of getting into Tehran and to Iran. That just, yeah, gets me excited when I give to them.

Scott: Shane, one of the most helpful things, I think, that came out of the book was your discussion of what our money personality is. 'Cause we do an exercise with our students. At the end of every semester—it's our business ethics course—the last couple of weeks are on your own personal moral development. And money is one of those things that we address, and we specifically ask students, how was money treated in your home? And we're on a scale of one to 10, one being Ebenezer Scrooge and 10 being, we'll buy it now and figure out how to pay for it later. Where were your parents on this? 'Cause we try to let people know that where you developed your attitudes toward money is not an accident. You probably picked it up pretty strongly from home. And so, I think that was a really helpful part of the book. What is your money personality, and how does your upbringing impact what kind of money personality you end up developing?

Shane: And there's so many frameworks that are being developed. This is an area of financial psychology and financial counseling that's really exploding recently. So I've been picking up, kind of, the frameworks. And in the book I present two frameworks for mapping your money personality. One is called Money Worlds, and the other one's called Money Dimensions. And they're both developed by PhD academics. For Money Worlds…I love the Money World framework. So it's a two by two, you're either tight with money or loose with money, which means you either enjoy spending or you don't enjoy spending. So, where are you guys at with tight or loose, do you think?

Scott: Tight.

Shane: Tight.

Sean: Probably somewhere in the middle.

Shane: Okay.

Scott: You’re just so well-balanced, aren't you?

Sean & Scott: [laugh]

Sean: I'm just saying.

Shane: Yeah, I hate spending money. Like, I just don't enjoy it. For every dollar spent, it's like a stressful thing for me, and it's natural. And my daughter, just, out of the womb, same way. Like just today or yesterday, she was playing with something. We're like, oh, did you get a new toy? She's like, no, this was from my birthday six months ago. She just, like, conserves. I'm a conserver. I see something, I'm gonna conserve it, I'm gonna save it. And then my son is the opposite, so he loves….and there's nothing moral about being tight or loose. It's just something natural. And then, obviously there's bad ways of being both. The other dimension is, they call it, materialism. It's a dirty word, but it actually just means, how much do you live life through the material world? So you can either have a high degree of materialism, or a low degree. Low means that stuff gets in the way of how you experience life. High means you experience life through stuff. And so, like, a good cup of coffee, a fine piece of machinery of a car, a nice, decorated home, all of that is a part of your quality of life. That's a high materialism. Low materialism is, like, The Sound of Music. She gets off the bus and she's got a guitar, and she doesn't even think about what she's wearing. She's just like, guitar's all I need for life. And so that would be, like, a low materialism. And there's, again, nothing morally wrong or right about…so, within that, you can now have a two by two grid. So you're either a value seeker in that you have a, let's see, you're tight with money, and then you have a high degree of materialism. So you like stuff, but you don't like spending money. That's a value seeker. That's my wife. You're a non-spender if you don't like stuff and you don't like spending. You're an experiencer—this is the really common Gen Z, millennial. This is someone who doesn't like stuff, but loves spending money. So they like experiences. And then there's the big spender. So there's nothing morally wrong with the big spender. They like spending and they like stuff, but fiscally, they're the ones most debt prone. And so, it's a little bit of a dangerous one. But, and I like to challenge in the book, I challenge you, what is Jesus's money world? Where would He lie? And I think that as we learn more and more about who Jesus is, we get looser if we're too tight, and we get tighter if we're too loose. And I think if we are not enjoying the material world enough, we start to enjoy it more, if we're too low and Scrooge-like, if you will. And then if we are not Scrooge enough, we become a little bit more, not quite as materialistic and we see the beauty of the natural world. And so, that's kind of neat. And in the book, I recommend mapping, creating what's called a money genogram, where you show your family tree and then you identify your family members and who you think they are regarding both money worlds and money dimensions. And then that really helps you see what influenced you. And typically you're either gonna go stock, you're gonna be trying to imitate the people that you loved, or you'll try and do the exact opposite of what the people you loved, how they related to money. So you can kind of see, was I reacting to them, or was I just imitating them? And that gives you a lot of good. And that helps you craft what's called a money autobiography. And sharing that with, like, your spouse or with significant others is really helpful.

Scott: Yeah, we also encourage our students to, if you're engaged or dating somebody really seriously, have that conversation with them about it, because often they find themselves at opposite ends of the spectrum. And they're gonna be in for a little bit of a rocky road as they work that out. And what we try to tell people is, you may move toward the middle, but you're probably not gonna become somebody completely different when it comes to money.

Shane: Yeah, the big spender non-spender matching is common. And it's the top reason for divorce, is fighting about money. And I'd really encourage people to see the virtue in every money world. And that's huge, to really help move through the struggles. 'Cause if you can see that big spenders are really good at hospitality, they're really good at hosting, they're really good at treating people well, and making people feel like giving, yeah, just, hospitality is just a great gift to give someone. And so, if you appreciate that and you're not just not like, you're this Great Gatsby, just throwing these big parties, not thinking about the consequences. And then they say, you're just Scrooge, you just don't like anyone, you don't wanna spend any money. If you go at it that way, then that's not gonna be helpful. But if you just said, how great, that you are frugal and that you take care of us well. How great that you are hospitable and you think about how to make things beautiful. It's a much better beginning part of the conversation.

Sean: So Shane, Whole Heart Finances, maybe for somebody who's intrigued and is thinking about picking it up, is it 90% theology, 10% practical, 10% theology, 90% practical? Give people a sense of what they would encounter, and maybe the value they would specifically take away from the book.

Shane: Yeah, the first two chapters are creating the theological foundation. But then after that, the next 13 chapters are about 20% theological and then 80% practical. So, I start each chapter with, let's do theology, let's gaze at Christ, let's gaze at God, see Who He is. And then the rest of the chapter is, let's be consistent with what we just saw. And so, I do stories and discussion on just looking at God and Who He is. And then when you see Who He is, and if you look at all 2,100 verses, what comes across very consistently across all genres of the Bible is that He's very generous. That's just Who He is. And He wants us to share and imitate that, and show that generosity to the world. And so then, how do you think about credit with that? How do you think about 401(k)s? How do you think about overall financial plan, money personalities? How do you think about giving, every aspect, budgeting? If God is who this person is, and we have His image, and we even have that generosity coursing through us, what do you do with a 401(k)? What do you do with a budget? And so, that's the practical side of it.

Sean: So there's real practical steps in this that you're getting to, but you want people to think biblically about it.

Shane: Correct, yeah.

Sean: Now, I got one more question for you before you wrap it up. I've told people, I said, you know, I have co-written a peer-reviewed journal article on financial planning. And they look at me like I've lost my mind, 'cause I'm the last person to write this. And I said, well, that's 'cause my buddy Shane did the heavy lifting, and I just got to help out a little bit. Tell us just briefly how worldview as a whole plays into financial planning and why that matters. Maybe how that would tie to what you're doing in the book.

Shane: Yeah, so the last chapter of the book says, "Let's create a financial plan." Financial plan requires goals. You have to have a goal to create a plan to get to that goal. What goals do you have? What frustrates me about being in the industry is, if someone goes and says, what should my life goals be? There's no normative. They just said, well, how about wealth accumulation? Then once you get wealthy, you could figure out what you want, but that's a very bad goal. And academically, they've shown over and over again that if you're pursuing wealth, then that's extrinsic to your actual psychological health, and you're gonna have lower wellbeing. And so, how do you get intrinsic goals? Well, you gotta think about your values. What do you value? And then I said, well, let's go one step deeper. "How are values determined?" And that's worldviews. And so then, I was like, well, I wanna study the relationship between worldviews, values, and financial wellbeing, but I don't know too much about worldviews. And so I sent an email out to a few Talbot people. I'm like, who are the worldview experts? And then your name kept coming up. So then I reached out to you, and I was like, I would love to work with Sean on this. And so, yeah, so you helped point me to resources, helped oversee the paper's process, really helped make sure that the discussion of worldviews was good, sound. And then I recently…so, we came up with a research agenda for how to connect worldviews to financial wellbeing. And I got a grant to actually look at the data. And so, we did a survey of 600 people, and we found the results consistent with what our theories suggested. So people who have stronger worldview conviction, they develop intrinsic values of relationships, personal growth, community, and that then leads towards higher financial wellbeing. The people who didn't have worldview conviction, who didn't know what they believed, they tended to pursue wealth, fame, and image, which led towards lower financial wellbeing. That's so cool to see that. And I'm wanting to do an intervention next, where I have a financial planner help someone identify their worldview, and then test that against a control group where they don't, and see who has the higher financial wellbeing. So, that's my next step in that research.

Scott: Well, Shane, I suspect that our listeners have a lot of additional questions for you. And you raised a bunch of those just a minute ago, that, what about a 401(k)? What about budgeting? More getting down into the details on this. So I suspect we're gonna have to have him back to address some of these really specific questions that I think are…it's good for our listeners, I think, to recognize that there's a whole lot more to this. And so, this is one of the reasons we commend your book, Whole Heart Finances. If you really wanna get the bottom line view of this and all the details, the book is the place to go. We'll have you back to address some more of these questions in a little bit more detail. But I wonder if nobody really sets out to plan to fail financially. But they do fail to plan.

Shane: Yeah, that's true.

Scott: And the book, I think the book will really help you plan well. And it will help you do it in a way that's theologically sound and financially sound at the same time. So, really grateful, Shane, for the book, all the research and effort that went into it. And even the peer-reviewed article that you guys did together, I think is terrific. I’d be really interested to see how some of the empirical research works out on this. I suspect it'll be more confirming what we already know. So, great stuff. Commend your book, Whole Heart Finances to our listeners. Great to have you with us. And I really appreciate you coming on with us.

Shane: Yeah, thanks so much. It's been a pleasure.

Scott: This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, 51, offering programs in Southern California and online, including those in our Institute for Spiritual Formation. Visit biola.edu/talbot in order to learn more. To submit comments, ask questions—especially if you have further financial questions that you'd like Shane to address—or make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover or guests you'd like us to consider, email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. That's thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you enjoyed today's conversation, give us a rating on your podcast app. Please share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening, and remember, think biblically about everything.