| Sociology often relegates religion to the private side of social life, but U.S. churches that apply religious authority to matters of personal finance breach an even more private area of American attitudes and practices. This dissertation examines the content of religious teachings about personal financial management using qualitative micro-analysis of 302 documents published 1995-2004 by 31 U.S. Christian institutions with more than 400,000 members in 2002. The analysis examines teachings about giving, borrowing, and saving money along the intersecting lines of the moral authority these teachings establish and the moral project they espouse, from individual to communal. Findings show that whereas most large U.S. churches issue official public statements about giving and tithing, a smaller set teaches about debt and saving/investing, with the dominant voices in this collective Christian narrative generated by a handful of conservative churches that frame financial management as an individual moral project. Churches that might perceive a broader communal moral project surrounding the complexity of financial management in a context of declining church giving, rapidly increasing debt, and decreasing personal savings do not contribute this perspective to the larger public narrative about faith and finances. |
