the time of budget announcement in the fall is the only time they talk about money in the pulpit and seriously consider procedures relating to handling financial information of the church with the whole congregation. But the management of the financial information of a church should be a year-round affair, with utmost care given to accuracy and transparency. A one-time release of budget information followed by appeal for pledges is no longer considered as the proper procedure for handling the financial information of a church in this day and age.
Chapter 6 discusses the proper procedures for a pastor to handle the financial information of her church. It highlights the importance of transparency and clarity in the management of church finances. It then shows the pastor how to institute rigorous and comprehensive internal control systems to effectively record and efficiently manage transactions, safeguard the assets of the church, prevent frauds and financial irregularities, make fraud detection easier, and protect the reputation of ministers against unfounded accusations of financial impropriety. For theological reflection, this chapter attempts to develop a pastoral philosophy of internal control within the rubric of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s notions of goods internal and goods external.
The principles of internal control are about stewardship of resources, about what an organization does with them, and what management and staff are to become (honest or fraudulent). It is about preserving and promoting the practices of excellence that serve the goods internal of the organization and its form of activity. The internal goods are those that can be realized only by participating in the virtue-dependent form of processes and procedures as well as judged by the standards of GAAP, organizational goals, and pastoral excellence. When internal goods are realized they belong to the whole community, further improving its practices of excellence. The improvement of excellence in all departments of the church brings with it certain benefits, among which are safeguards against legal and financial liabilities.
Chapter 7 begins with a simple overview of the potential legal and financial liabilities that a church faces due to commissions or omissions of its pastors, trustees, and staff. The goal of the discussions in this chapter is to raise the awareness of clergy so they would seek advice from lawyers, accountants, and qualified members of their churches and also to communicate better with such professionals. The discourse of this chapter is set within the context of compliance with GAAP, tax laws, and governmental rules and regulations that guide the operation of churches in the United States.
The middle part of chapter 7 provides a comparative analysis of compliance in the secular world of legal and financial liabilities and in the religious sphere. This will help the pastor not to see compliance as a burden, but as a way of life crucial for ministerial leadership. Compliance points to the need for scrupulous observance of accounting-tax-managerial “ritual” practices in the leadership of the church. Compliance is an expression of her commitment to the sacred oath of safeguarding the assets and liabilities of the church and ordering relationship between the world of the church, its publics, and God.
This theological discussion of compliance within the dual contexts of accounting/law and religion/ethics opens a path to investigating what kind of personhood is presupposed in the discourse of accounting and money. In order to adequately understand accounting as expressed through compliance and to grasp money we must make a serious attempt to comprehend their underlying ontology of personhood. And to craft a theology of money, we must either side with the accounting-and-market-based ontology of personhood (homo economicus) or develop an alternative vision. The chapter ends with a discussion of a form of theological anthropology (relational personhood) as a premise for fashioning a theology of money in chapter 10, which is the last chapter of this book. It begins a search for theological ideas that can undergird (inform, reshape) the operation of economic and monetary systems. But before we reach there as the culmination of our study of accounting and money, we need to do some bush clearing so that the light of analysis in chapter 10 will shine brighter and its persuasive power enhanced.
First, in chapter 8, we will show that theological ideas have for centuries undergirded the operations of the global monetary and financial systems. This historical perspective is necessary to show that subjecting economic systems to theological critique and crafting theological-ethical principles to inform their operations is not the invention of this study. This writer is only following a tradition well worth preserving.
In chapter 9, I offer an elaborate theological critique of accounting, the fundamental accounting equation of asset = liability. The critique is designed to do two things. First, it will deepen the student’s understanding of the fundamental accounting equation. Second, the subtle analyses of chapter 9 will show that accounting carries a heavy theological-philosophical freight. The equation is not merely a mathematical expression but a neat and discerning summation of a worldview, a perspective of human relations that does not always fit with the biblical view of human sociality. The moral orientation implicit in the accounting equation cannot serve as an effective guide for a theology of money and monetary policy aimed at creating or undergirding an inclusive and embracing economic community.
In chapter 10 we will lay out the kind of monetary policy that can create and maintain an embracing economic community. In this chapter, we will highlight mutuality as the key category for understanding the nature of money, work, and monetary policy. The accent of mutuality is on comprehensive inclusiveness; that is, to include all groups, classes, sectors, and regions to participate fully in the economy so as to create flourishing lives for themselves. The significance of monetary policy is nurturing, fostering the social practices of money to fragmentarily approximate the mutuality of the triune Godhead. An ethical monetary policy, as we will demonstrate in this book, is about the continuous proper ordering and balancing of economic powers (potentialities) in community or communities to sustain harmonious relationships, reduce injustice, and acknowledge the worth of all persons. The ultimate meaning of monetary policy is its capacity to point to the trinitarian communion even as it helps to create a vibrant embracing economic community.
In the introduction and all ten chapters, technical issues of accounting are intertwined with theological-ethical issues of money. Both within the core of the technical accounting discourses and in the heart of “theology in motion,” each chapter examines the thickly social and relational nature of money.1 Each discussion is designed to provide students and pastors with the language and understanding to intervene in issues pertaining to economic injustice that are rooted in national and global monetary systems. Such know-how enables students and pastors to relate to the injustices of the monetary system at the affective and imaginative registers. This understanding will enable them to embody the social-justice teaching of their churches.
The various discussions of the theological aspects of money and accounting are designed not to distract the pastor/student from acquiring competence in the management of church finances. In the same vein, the provision of technical accounting and economic knowledges is also fashioned so as not to distract them from the social and theological context of the church or ministerial leadership. The two perspectives or strands of knowledge are well integrated to provide a vision—not a di-vision—of ministerial leadership. The combination of technical accounting knowledge and theological interpretation as provided in this book provides pastors and seminary students with the necessary understanding of the place and function of money in the ministry and in the wider economies in which they live, move, and hope to develop and strengthen their pastoral commitments to social justice. They will be able to interpret the economic signs of their parishes, effectively communicate them, lead in organizing others to resist injustices in the monetary systems, and embody the ideals necessary for a more just and egalitarian local-global economy. There is plenty in this book pertaining to accounting, money, and ethics to animate ministerial leadership and theological reflection for all those working toward creating a flourishing, inclusive, and embracing community in the United States.
1. The “theology of motion” section is not in chapters 4, 8, 9, and 10, which are more theological in orientation than technical accounting.
