Temptations of a
Portfolio
"Money is power."
— Jerry Rubin
At the age of 33, Bill O'Donnell, Jr., had achieved the American dream — success in the corporate world. As vice president of Bally Manufacturing, he drew a $150,000 annual salary and owned an expensive house in Winnetka, Illinois with two Mercedes in the garage.
But he was cheating on his wife and using four grams of cocaine a day. He explained: "I was running through life so fast I didn't see that my role as a husband and father to my three sons was disintegrating, that my business abilities were crumbling" (Goleman 1986:8).
O'Donnell is just one of millions of aspiring executives — both male and female — lured into the fast lane by promises of power, prestige, and the big payoffs that come from a well-padded portfolio. (I am, of course, using the term portfolio here as the sum total of one's financial holdings.) Hollywood, television, and other advertising media try to convince the rest of us baby boomers that this is the great American dream for which to strive.
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"Money Is Power"
In the early years of our generation, we were radically vocal about opposing the trappings of affluence and materialism, but 20 years later, we're busy beating Dad on the country club golf course. In the 1960s our motto was "I want to make a difference!" Today it seems to be, "I want to make a bundle."
There has been a not-so-subtle shift from idealism to materialism and hedonism. Jerry Rubin, one of the most celebrated leaders of the yippie movement of the late '60s, said of his generation then, "We ain't never gonna grow up. We're gonna be adolescents forever!" Today Rubin makes over $50,000 a year as a securities analyst on Wall Street and declares, "Money is power" (Thomas 1986:24).
Isn't it funny how the generation that seemed to care so little about money in the 1960s cares so much about it now? Back then ambition was out, taking life "easy" was in.
In the late 1970s Sarah Davidson, journalist and television producer, wrote Loose Change, a memoir of her journey through the 1960s. In a recent article in the L.A. Times, she wrote that the '60s were a time connected with "feeling young, feeling passionate, feeling good, and having time. Nobody has time these days to spend an entire weekend listening to music, lying on the floor, and hanging out with friends. In the 1960s, ambition was out. It was a dirty word. You had to hide it, but at the same time there was a sense that you mattered; that values and morals mattered. People felt that they could make major changes in the world. That's been sadly missed in our lives" (Emphasis added, Krier 1988:VI; 1).
Alexander W. Austin, a professor in the University of California at Los Angeles School of Education, has been tracking baby-boomer attitudes since 1966. Each year he sends out a survey to 300,000 college freshmen around the country.
Austin asks students to choose from a list of statements
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that express what is most important to each of them. In 1967 just over 40 percent of the students surveyed chose the statement "being well-off financially," but by 1984 the number had climbed to about 70 percent. The number of students who chose "developing a meaningful philosophy of life" dropped from 80 percent in 1967 to 40 percent in 1984 (Makeover 1985:10-17). These statistics give credence to one person's notion that money is the long hair of the 1980s and that the altruistic values of the '60s are all but forgotten today.
The Pursuit of a Portfolio
Today the chase is on for ambitious financial accumulation. Much of the overzealous consumption among boomers today can be traced to greedy financial institutions. For example, just today I heard of a local car dealership that will sell me a shiny, sleek, new Ford (perish the thought that I should ride around in an old car!) for no money down and no payments for one year! Are these folks really just trying to be nice to me? No. If I went for such a deal, I would actually pay twice the original price of the car by the time it was all over. Ford gets their money, the dealership rakes in their share, and the bank gets rich off my interest payments.
In the last month alone, my wife and I have had three new credit cards thrown at us with no questions asked. We are good credit risks, so we can get these cards without even filling out applications. Why are we good credit risks? Because we pay our bills and stay out of debt. If these companies had their way, we would run up a horrendous debit on their cards and quickly become a poor credit risk!
Of course, people of all ages are bombarded by the ad media, but much of the attack is clearly aimed at the boomers who have the most money to spend today. We are the ones being pressured the most to borrow, spend, and accumulate.
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Are All Baby Boomers Wealthy?
For about a decade, from the mid-seventies until the mid-eighties, young, urban, upwardly mobile, professional baby boomers (yuppies) were getting all the attention. They seemed to be the models for the whole generation; everyone that wasn't one wanted to be. But no more. It is a very encouraging sign to see many baby boomers reject the yuppie value system.
The fact is, as I mentioned in chapter 1, many boomers are struggling to stay afloat financially. Though it is hard to convince some people, baby boomers are not as well off as they might appear.
In his book Boom! Talkin' about Our Generation, Joel Makover states:
A very large portion of our generation can't afford to buy homes in the types of neighborhoods in which we were raised. And despite mind-boggling advances in the standards of living of most Americans in several decades of relative prosperity, many of us are worse off than our parents, at least financially (1985:10).
We early baby boomers have not been hit as hard as the late boomers born after 1957. Most of the older brothers and sisters in the boom generation got college degrees and good jobs and bought houses before the economy soured in the 1970s and before the prices of houses soared out of sight. There were just too many of us competing for the same jobs, added to a major recession in the early '70s, the oil crisis, and almost a decade of double-digit inflation until the Reagan years.
Financial times for the baby boomers are not as good as they look to outsiders. Many moderate-income boomers are looking to the 1990s with scaled-down financial expectations. Many of us recall with a certain sense of wonderment our parents' ability to buy a home, enjoy a comfortable
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standard of living, and raise three children all on one income.
Learning to Change Oar Models
We may disdain the yuppie label, but we will still be tempted by the glitz and glamour of the good life that is constantly paraded before our eyes by the secular media. The pressure is on to buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't even know! We must learn to tune out what we see on TV, in magazines, and at the movies. We must focus on other models.
In a Christianity Today article, Chuck Colson offers a sobering word of caution:
We Christians are not immune to the seduction of money, success, power and prominence. Far more often than we would care to remember, the church has girded itself for battle against the world-only to discover that the enemy is within. Evidence abounds today that this pattern is repeating itself, as the church dallies with the false values of an egocentric and materialistic culture. So as we preach to the yuppie let us beware: cross-pollination will only produce our own crop of yuppies — young, urban, pew-sitting professionals whose faith is but a notation on their resumes and whose ornate churches are but a reflection of their social status (1985:20).
Our model for dealing with wealth and a personal portfolio should obviously come from the Scriptures. God must have known that every generation would struggle with wealth because the Bible is full of good advice on money.
We can also learn much from the model of godly people we know who are living out a biblical set of values. When we spend time with people who are making a difference for Christ — or read good books about them — we gather the courage to do the same.
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A portfolio is a place where we gather together all our investments, our net worth; it is a place where we can see the external value of our earthly riches. I have a hunch that God keeps a portfolio on each of us as well, and of course, the contents are quite different. There He stores up a record of the treasures we've laid up in heaven, the good works we have done for His good and His kingdom.
Don't Dream about Winning the Lottery
On the radio yesterday a news broadcaster spoke with envy and excitement about someone here in California who just struck it rich: "Today, California has another millionaire, as So-and-so of Stockton picked all six numbers in the weekly lotto." That kind of news causes millions of Americans to spend their grocery money on the gamble of the state lotteries. It creates a desire to be rich, contrary to the instruction of God's Word: "Those who desire to be rich fall into a trap..." (1 Timothy 6:9).
Being wealthy is not a sin. But the Bible does say that allowing wealth to replace God in our hearts is a sin.
In his 1987 commencement address, Dr. J.I. Packer warned Wheaton College students:
Gazing into my crystal ball, I foresee that when you step outside Wheaton, the pressure will be on you to identify with what we nowadays call "yuppiedom. " You will find it the easiest thing in the world to settle for personal material well-being as the supreme goal of life (Halvorsen 1987).
Maybe many of us boomers are not as well-off as people think we are, or as well-off as we would like to be. But the pressure is on to become that way. The trend is for boomers to become more and more affluent as they approach the peak earning years in the coming two decades.
As Christian baby boomers, we must be on guard against materialism. We must follow a few important biblical principles regarding wealth.
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1. Guard against the apathy of affluence. There are many admonitions in the Scriptures about the curse of wealth. It seems that throughout history, the church has always become the most anemic in times of greatest material prosperity. When Constantine made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman empire in the fourth century, it was the beginning of the end. The wealth and success of the church destroyed it. Conversely, the fires of persecution have purified the church. Jesus warns the affluent believers in the church of Laodicea:
You say, "I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing." But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked (Rev. 3:17).
Why does this happen? Because we seem to think that when all is well on the outside, all is fine on the inside. When we have no material needs, we quit our praying — we cease to depend on God and seek His face. We must be careful not to be lulled to sleep by a false sense of security, the apathy that so often accompanies affluence.
2. Value your relationships above money. No amount of money can replace peace and love in a home. But how much energy in the modern boomer home is put on gaining wealth while the family structure crumbles? How often is Dad out there killing himself trying to get things for his children when all they really want is him. A Gallup poll revealed that 50 percent of divorces are related to financial problems and overextended budgets (Thomas 1987:19). Proverbs 17:1 reminds us: "Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife."
3. Rub shoulders with those less fortunate; the more you've got, the more you need to give. Arrogance is an easy trap of the wealthy. But believers who have money are not to hide in their country clubs and affluent neighborhoods but to go out and help the poor. Most of us are wealthy
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when compared to people in the rest of the world.
The more we have, the more God holds us responsible to give. And in God's way of looking at things, the more we give away our riches, the more we will experience true life! Paul writes:
Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life (1 Tim. 6:18-19).
I'm not a proponent of rich Christians giving all their money away and becoming poor. That is not a biblical concept. But I do believe that believers have a great responsibility to give generously of their wealth and their talents. The answer is a graduated tithe: the more you get, the more you give. John Wesley put it this way: "If those who gain all they can, and save all they can, will likewise give all they can, then the more they gain, the more they will grow in grace, and the more treasures they will lay up in heaven" (Niebuhr 1929:28). This principle is illustrated in the life of a friend of mine named Johann, who struck it rich in Silicon Valley in Northern California. He made millions and had all that money could buy, then he lost it all. It was while at the bottom of his failure that he found Christ and had his life put back together.
At that point, Johann made a promise that few keep: ''Lord, if you help me get back on my feet I'll give you all the glory." But he has kept his promise. In a new job he quickly took an ailing computer corporation into the black in the span of a few short months. When his first of several bonus checks of $10,000 each was given to him by the board of directors, he told them, "This money belongs to Jesus Christ, for it is He who has really made me successful here." Imagine saying something like that in front of all
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those pin-stripers in a stuffy corporation boardroom! The Sunday that I spoke in his church in San Jose, he handed the pastor that $10,000 check as a testimony for all to see. I think his message was much more powerful than mine that day.
4. Dream about winning the ultimate prize. We need to focus not on winning the lottery but on winning God's approval. We should approach life, including our financial affairs, so that we will be welcomed to heaven with the words, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
The New Testament story of the widow and her offering (Luke 21:1-4) speaks to this truth. The story is so close to my heart because of the numerous widows who have sacrificed for the success of our ministry overseas. Just last month I performed the funeral service for such a dear saint whose name was Dorothy. This precious elderly woman gave of her limited income for seven long years to help fund our ministry in Europe. I know that her reward in heaven will be great. Baby boomers, let's learn some lessons of sacrifice from these dear old saints.
5. Focus on the secret of godly contentment. Finally, the clear call of Scripture is to focus on the value of obtaining godliness: "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that" (1 Tim. 6:6-8).
We do not need more money; we need to be more like God. Who is blessed in God's eyes — the wealthy person? No. In God's eyes the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted are the blessed ones. This is God's economy. As Christian baby boomers, the passion of our lives should be God's peace, not the world's vain pursuit of a fattened portfolio.
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Thinking It Through
1. Describe what you feel to be the success model of the boomer generation.
2. How is a biblical model of success different from that which is presented to us via the media?
3. What are you doing to shape your success model more along the lines of Judeo-Christian values?
