The Archdiocese of Miami announced Sunday that it will close 13 churches in Miami-Dade and Broward counties over the next six weeks. The Miami Herald reports  this is an effort “to slash costs in a recession that has caused the institution to lose tens of millions in investments while subsidizing operations at struggling parishes.”
Seven Catholic [...]

From The Washington Times: mainline Protestant denominations adopt Madison Avenue techniques in effort to stem decades of membership losses and stay afloat.
The United Methodist Church recently released a $20 million rebranding effort aimed at attracting younger members to the large but diminishing Protestant sect. The new ads will appear over the next four years as part of the denomination’s “Rethink [...]

Interesting analogy by a freshman Congressman comparing the “bailout bonanza” to the Crusades:
The entire mess reminds me of the tale of Emperor Alexius I of Byzantine Empire, who called forth the Christian kings of Western Europe to help him hold off the Turks at his gates. “Help us,” he said. “Prevent the heathens from taking [...]

New survey shows Americans turning to churches big and small for financial in addition to spiritual support.
The survey, by LifeWay Research, a Christian polling firm based in Nashville, finds that 40% of pastors say they have church members out of work, and 37% say their church has increased spending to help the needy. (The survey [...]

Jay Michaelson surveys the Bible’s prohibitions against usury and call’s today’s financial regulation “nothing more than an update of the ancient prohibitions on usury, or the unfair charging of interest.”
Today’s derivatives market, for example, is precisely about “making money from money” — but taken to new and ludicrous extremes. The credit default swaps which were largely [...]

The Dallas Morning News’ Religion Blog convened a “Texas Panel” to ruminate over faith and the famous CNBC Rick Santelli monologue. Deal Hudson, director of InsideCatholic.com made this observation:
There is no obligation whatsoever for the government to “bail out” banks, investment firms, or individual homeowners who can’t pay their mortgages. The reason the government has started [...]

The Salt Lake Tribune reports on the religious debate: should responsible taxpayers who took out affordable mortgages bail out those who didn’t?
Is it ethical for others to foot the bill for your bad financial decisions? And is it ethical to say no to those pleas for help?
The article quotes Mu Soeng, a Buddhist studies [...]

Christian Newswire and Christian Today report Christian groups are warning the British Government it “will be capitulating to Islamic religious law if they change the current financial regulations to accommodate Shari’ah Finance and issue sukuk bonds,” as is being proposed. 
The groups — Christian Concern for our Nation and the Christian Legal Centre — warn adopting [...]

In his Washington Post/On Faith column, “Our Brothers’ Keepers, Not their Guarantors,” Rabbi Brad Hirschfield cites the Cain and Abel story to support bailing out even those who behaved irresponsibly, offering a different take than this famous TV clip arguing the government’s subsidy of “losers’ mortgages” promotes bad behavior.
When God asks him where his brother is, Cain [...]

In a column detailing how we piled on debt from 2004-2008, Ralph R. Mabey in the Mormon Times has a good line to help us focus our future priorities:
In Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin’s words, we unwisely based our spending much more on our “yearnings” than our “earnings.”