Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
SDA Statement: “...the Bible says that we are the salt of the earth, it also calls us the light of the
world, but unfortunately many times the world is salting us more than we are salting it. And I'll
give you this illustration: let's pretend like someone who does not believe in the Bible, or doesn't
follow the Bible's guidance in his everyday living, wants to buy or build a house, how's he going
to do it if he doesn't have the money? Well, he'll go to the bank and become qualified and get a
loan. Unless he tells the banker different, the loan will be for 30 years. That's the typical thing in
the US, but let's just say that a Christian, Bible believer, decides he wants to buy or build house,
he doesn't have the cash to pay for it, so he goes to get a loan, what will he do?
Well, the interesting thing is unfortunately the Christian will do almost exactly the thing
that the non-Christian does, and that's get a 30-year mortgage, without a second thought actually,
in spite of the fact that the Bible indicates we should not be in debt longer than...you know, don't
you? 7 years. Deuteronomy 15:1 gives that answer, not longer than 7 years. We're going to be
able to understand more about that. You'd say: "I could never pay a house off in 7 years", well,
when we get the session #8, we're going to talk about the Christian approach to home
ownership.”
Biblical Response: Here, well known SDA author and seminarist, G. Edward Reid, the now
former NAD Stewardship director, frankly really puts the average homeowner on a hopeless guilt
trip by effectively stating that signing up for a mortgage over 7 years goes against the supposed
(specific) teaching of the Bible. First of all, the text that Reid, actually, misquotes and
misapplies, Deut 15:1 does not even begin to say this. It instead says:
“At the end of every seven years you shall grant a remission of debts.”
Self-evidently here, this is not a directive that is given to one who is in debt, but to the
one who made the loan. The following verses clearly point this out as it says:
“This is the manner of remission: every creditor shall release what he has loaned to his
neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother, because the LORD'S remission has
been proclaimed.” (vs. 2)
Then it adds the provision that:
“From a foreigner you may exact it, but your hand shall release whatever of yours is with
your brother.” (Vs. 3)
No surprisingly in this Biblical directive, God’s way makes so much more perfect sense.
Notwithstanding this, let’s suppose that in misusing this text, Ed Reid is seeking to have a
“pretext” to preach that a Christian should not sign up for a mortgage for more than 7 years. As
this website [ http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/real-estate/mortgage7.htm]
says:
“In order to qualify for a mortgage, most lenders require that you have a debt-to-income
ratio of 28/36 (this can vary depending on the down payment and the type of loan you're
getting, however). This means that no more than 28 percent of your total monthly income
(from all sources and before taxes) can go toward housing, and no more than 36 percent
of your monthly income can go toward your total monthly debt (this includes your
mortgage payment).”
Using the current data that the average of the Regional median prices of U.S. homes of
$193,700 (see http://www.realestateabc.com/outlook/overall.htm). To qualify here for a
mortgage to be paid off in this supposed/targeted 7 years, and even if one has no other debts, and
with a minimal 10% down payment, one will need an annual salary/household income of around
$117,300 (5.00% interest rate). This is 2.2X the (2007) U.S. median household income of
$52,300 (cf. -
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/012528.html ]. The
only mathematically possible option here, for e.g., a family with 2 children and having this
median household income of $52,300, and capable of saving 39% (= $508/month) of their 30%
housing affordability (= $1308) would be to, ideally live in a 5½ rental unit costing (hopefully)
around $800/months for 18 years (a little less with accrued savings interest included) until a
down payment total of $111,293 can be saved up to put towards this $193,700 house. However.
by then, i.e., in 18 years, such a home, or a comparable one, will more than likely cost 1.5-2X
more! Otherwise one will need to settle for a 10X30 mobile home.
All this to say that a 7-year mortgage is practically non-feasible and thus nonsensical in a
market-driven, capitalistic economy.
“To the rich, God has given wealth that they may relieve and comfort His suffering
children; but too often they are indifferent to the wants of others. They feel themselves
superior to their poor brethren. They do not put themselves in the poor man’s place. They
do not understand the temptations and struggles of the poor, and mercy dies out of their
hearts. In costly dwellings and splendid churches, the rich shut themselves away from the
poor; the means that God has given to bless the needy is spent in pampering pride
and selfishness.” (DA 639)
In order to avoid to sounding so unChristlike and unBiblical in the future, SDA preachers
will just have to preach the undiluted and non-compromising Biblical Truth on this topic of ‘The
Evil of Capitalism.’ That will be the day!
Weblinks
Ed Reid - ‘7 Year Christian Mortgage’
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360"
src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GCLToxI1EJY" width="640"></iframe><br />
</div>
http://www.sligochurch.org/sermon_library_2008.htm
http://www.sligochurch.org/sermon/2008/Feb/022308-5-ER.mp3
http://www.audioverse.org/sermons/recordings/2085/planning-your-life-for-success.html
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
http://www.njkproject.info/njk/hc_organization/hcsynopsis.html
http://www.audioverse.org/sermons/recordings/1809/session-2-dealing-with-credit-cards-student
-loans-and-other-debts.html
Interlinks
http://njkproject.blogspot.com/2009/10/commentary-ed-reid-7-year-christian.html#DIY
Web Comments
See a commentary on this statement at:
http://njkproject.blogspot.com/2009/10/commentary-ed-reid-7-year-christian.html
See related video response and commentary by user NJKProject on blog (see in profile).
Indeed do see user NJKProject's video response and blog (see in his profile). Very helpful!
Notes
1. [1] At the Advent Hope Sabbath School in Loma Linda, CA which, included a talk,
interestingly enough entitled “Satan’s Plan For Your Money” which, if he looked a little closer,
and through the light of the Bible, the SOP and the Church’s humanitarian mandate, would see
that it actually is to, like a bound-slave, ‘keep on deferentially paying its spurious and whimsical
capitalistic prices.’ (See in Note #3 below)
2. [2] Thanks for the emphasis, but we, at least I, can read. In all logical probability, it may only
have been Ed Reid who has misunderstood that clear, and explicitly stated, stipulation.
3. [3] Indeed to rationalize, as Ed Reid evidently has, that today’s bankers are “smart’ because
‘they do not give 7-year worth loans, with e.g., 4 repayment years left’ is just as fantasaical as
arguing that: ‘because elephants are so big and cumbersome, it would be safe if they were
preventively fitted with helmets when they fly.’ Sure a helmet is a great safety gear... but
elephants don’t fly! In the same non-sequitur, correspondence, today’s bankers are not here
“smart” because they simply do not have, nor use, a 7-year, diminishing, loan repayment period.
In fact, when they are limited by time, such as in 30 or 40 -year mortgage periods, they just
increase one’s monthly payments!
4. [4] Ed Reid evidently seems to find an underlying justification/sanction for his non-critical,
effective, support/endorsement of Capitalism, resorting instead to giving tips and tricks to cope
with/survive in, it, on the fact that he, self-professedly, was effectively, able to achieve the
“American Dream” (college education, own your home, car, etc), including ‘putting his two kids
through college without student loans’, all coming from a “relatively poor” background. That
somehow convinces him that Capitalism is a neutral economic system that needs not to be
condemned and can actually be successfully overcome if one knows these various debt-paying
tips and tricks. Notwithstanding the fact that Capitalism is solely interested in profiting in any
way, on others, and that at any cost, which leads to all of the economic injustices in the world,
and results in what is rightly denounced by people with any shred of an unseared human
conscience as “stupid poverty and senseless suffering and deaths”, one could personally not pay
me enough, to even begin to endorse this utterly godless and morally bankrupt (pun intended)
system. I have personally witnessed 5 out of 6 independent mortgages (i.e., no “2nd mortgages
involved”) over now 33 years for a cumulative total of $255,000 (ca. $410,000 in present dollars
[U.S. BLS calculator]) be completely paid off, and each in less than 7 years (a 5.5 year average);
and with the only non-paid off home/mortgage still providing a substantial equity when sold, -
which provided for 73% of the payment for the “empty-nest”, retirement community condo they
were then seeking, -which in turn, when sold, after my mother was told, in no uncertain
depictions and terms, in a dream to ‘no accept the offer of a prospective, work friend, buyer then,
but instead hold’ and that ‘this home’s proceeds will work like their first home’s’, (=EW 57.1)
which it indeed did go on to do when it later sold for twice that first offer’s price, (and also +3X
its purchase price [-in just 4 years]), and thus provided for 80% of the payment of their (present),
new construction, (relatively) ‘out of the cities’, home. Moreover, all of this was done on a 40%
of potential income over these years (i.e., with one or both household income earners being
unemployed, voluntary ‘stay-at-home-parenting’ and/or in school 60% of this time); and with 3
of these paid-off homes (having a current combined value of over $615,000 in their local
markets), still in full possession, and for nuclear family (2 children) use. [Talk about Reid’s
(rightly understood) “immediate lifetime (at adulthood) inheritance” - [22:35ff] -which was
indeed the ‘subsistence and property share’ inherently involved in God’s Israel (Num 26:2, 52-
56; cf. Pro 13:22a), for owning a mortgage free home is many times, on various levels, much
more valuable than having had your college education paid - i.e., in terms of: monetary
costs/value, facility of loan procurement, repayment terms & interest, involved financial hardship
risks, assured tangible asset, future value, relative peace of mind and freedom, etc.] All this to
say that, if anyone should be defending adamantly Capitalism, it should be me. That is if I was
using the short-sighted, self-centered, and moronic, ‘if I’m okay, then everything is, or can be,
okay’ capitalistic dogma. Indeed, while some people can survive/thrive despite this system, the
vast majority of the world is vitally suffering because this economic scheme is pervasively
enforced by the relative few who can and have greatly gained and profited from it. However it is
the utter whimsical subjectivity and spurious of Capitalism that was actually still seen in this real
estate accomplishment that has instead convinced me otherwise because, true Capitalism actually
had very little to do with it. In this experience, I have concretely seen and understood that the fact
that here that the mortgages on 5 of 6 homes could be entirely paid off at 40% of potential
income, was all solely due to the value of a modest, so called “starter house” (netly) tripling in
less than 10 years by several key home improvement being made to it over this time and with
them either being absolutely free in term of service costs as purely “do-it-yourself” endeavors,
and/or way below market-value prices. Still the value of that home quite disproportionately,
considerably increased with each such free improvement, starting with the one that literally got
this do-it-yourself|home-improvement ball rolling in the getting together, in 1976, of Church
brothers (including the then Speaker/Director of the local It Is Written [French]) one Sunday to
volunteer their manpower and/or architectural knowledge/skills to help build an upstair master
bedroom. A tasks that, by the considerable amount of potent collaboration, was actually
completed in that one day. [See in pages 167, 208-209 & 297 of the referenced PDF document
for this post for pertinent photos (i.e., first 3 houses (and current one), and first house initial
major DIY work.]
Such non-market priced work greatly added to the home’s value, and eventually allowed,
when sold, for a 67% down payment on the second, then 11-year old, now still owned, house
(which has since, long ago more than repaid itself entirely during its first 10 years of 13 as a
rental house or unit), whose remaining mortgage was paid off in 3 years, on one income.
Of all the expense that one can make in their lifetime, the purchase of a home is indeed
the most significant one, for one really cannot afford in any way to be homeless. One can go
without a car, or even a brand new car, especially when living a city, however a home is virtually
indispensable. And it is because of this indispensability that (a) home prices are bought and sold
a such inflated/elevated prices, (i.e., when compared with the actual value of raw materials used
in their construction), and (b) why mortgage lenders arbitrarily impose compounding interest on
their home loan, i.e., simply because you will pay this price. Furthermore, such high home
pricing is entrenched in society because virtually anyone can command these prices at their
personal profit whenever it is that they control such “capital.”
Indeed wherever and whenever Capitalism can corner someone and force them to pay its
prices, it surely will. How anyone, especially an SDA Minister, can not openly and unequivocally
not condemn such a ruthless system, operating under a guise of ‘true freedom’, back to the
Satanic boardroom were it no doubt was drawn up, is beyond me, a system that ultimately
literally kills, though with bloodless hands, for that ever elusive, satisfactory profit.
Ed Reid’s attainment of the “American Dream” by being respectful and obedient to this
system’s rules of the game may have ingrain him to not dare actually oppose it. However my
witnessing and still profiting of also achieving this American Dream, but solely through
socialistic means; means which have a concrete basis in Biblical principles and Godly ideals
have, quite to the contrary, ingrained me to oppose Capitalism and the senseless damage that it
causes/does, at any cost and for however long it will take. (See this major project)
(And it must be added here that Capitalism/(Capitalists) thinks that whatever it does, or
incorporates in now either baptized Capitalism or inherent capitalistic principles. In this vein, the
ability now for one to declare bankruptcy once every seven year (which was actually influenced
by the Biblical law in Deut 15), and have all of their prior debts wiped out while still being able
to maintain a current level of living, is now supposedly pure Capitalism. Well it is not. Such debt
pardoning, and that at the full loss of a creditor, but which is actually still covered in the interest
that was and will be collected from other borrowers who can afford to pay their debt, (i.e., the
creditor, if he makes enough viable loans, would only lose from his overall, interest-incurred
profits and not from his lending principle), is ultimately pure Socialism. Indeed True Capitalism,
i.e., Laissex-faire Capitalism would not exist without having been so diluted, by purely
socialistic principles, into its present form of being a Mixed-Economy. Do take that undisputable
fact into full consideration before you think to sing the any praise to Capitalism.)