Katie McCloskey, far right, is the director of social responsibility for United Church Funds.
Misconceptions about wealth start with a common misquoting of a well-known Bible verse.
“The Bible doesn’t say that money is the root of all evil, but that love of money is the root of all evil,” says the Rev. Dr. Patrick Duggan.
As executive director of United Church of Christ Church Building & Loan Fund, which invests in churches and their community transformation, Duggan understands wealth and its power for good. He also understands how conflicted the church is about money: the church wants it, and the church shrinks from it; clergy dress it up, and they dress it down. Duggan calls this a masquerade.
It all starts, he says, with how money is perceived in America: We love it.
“Wealth has done a great, fantastic job of getting all of us to buy into the idea that wealth is a great thing,” he says. “We all like nice things: beautiful cars, travel, quality stuff. I love it. Everybody loves it. And how could you not?”
But as our capitalist system became the most effective wealth-generating economy in history, that growth came at a cost, he says.
“On the one hand, there’s more wealth in the world than ever before, but in the wealthiest country in the world, the U.S., almost half of the population is poor or low income,” he says.
That reality plays into a political puzzle: Large numbers of middle- and lower-class voters support leaders whose policies perpetuate systemic wealth inequality.
“When wealth can get you to hope, act and organize against your own interest, then that’s the biggest masquerade of all,” he says.
A naïveté around wealth — a progress-hindering lack of understanding as to how the top one-tenth of 1 percent of American households possess as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent — maintains the masquerade, Duggan says.
“We have to be clear about what the mask is," he says. “It doesn’t make wealth bad, and it doesn’t make the accumulation of wealth bad.”
He does take issue, however, with churches that pretend they have no wealth. He urges ministries to take off the mask, embrace their wealth and direct it toward good.
“Churches have to use wealth in a way that transforms communities and transforms lives to end poverty,” Duggan says.
CB&LF models that philosophy by using its own wealth for good, funding projects that combat inequality and foster community.
Such investments include $125,000 in the New York State Workforce Re-Entry Program, $1 million toward Justine PETERSEN/Great Rivers Community Capital Fund and almost $3 million in the United Church Fund’s Beyond Fossil Fuels Fund. Investments through these funds goes to organizations that address social needs — employment for high-risk offenders, freedom from poor credit for low- to moderate-income families, and environmental sustainability.
Every money decision matters, Duggan says.
“Maybe I can’t get 43 million people out of poverty, but how do I get 4,000 or 400 people out of poverty? If I can’t end fossil fuel consumption, how do I reduce the carbon footprint of my neighborhood? My house?”
Katie McCloskey
Katie McCloskey, director of social responsibility for United Church Funds, agrees. She stresses that there is strength in numbers for investments such as the Beyond Fossil Fuels Fund.
“It is important for the continuity of any fund to have a base of investors, and it is important for a fund like the Beyond Fossil Fuels Fund to have a strong investor base,” she says. “It signals to the broader marketplace the desire for investment products to solve social and environmental problems.”
One result is that more people realize they can change things for the better by using their wealth, she says. Or simply put, “Good begets good."
In mobilizing churches to use their money to transform their communities, Duggan reminds people that what he preaches is far from radical. It’s straight from the text. The Bible underscores the smart — but thoughtful — use of money.
“Jesus said we have to be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves,” Duggan says.
And there is much to be gained by treating money the way Jesus did.
“When you talk about an approach to using and managing and investing and spending money in a way that honors God, then you are talking about doing exactly what Jesus asked of us,” Duggan says.
And what did Jesus ask? To clothe, to feed, to reach out to the vulnerable. Duggan says the same can be done by ending the masquerade around wealth and using money in bold, new ways.
“You invest in entrepreneurs that create jobs, that feed people, that clothe people. That works against the criminal prison industrial complex, that reduces and eliminates reliability on fossil fuels," he says. "That’s the way we need to talk about wealth.”