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Larry Burkett freely admits that he has a money problem—a natural tendency to be a bit of a tightwad. He says that in the early years of his marriage he and his wife Judy frequently butted heads over money matters.

One of eight children, Burkett grew up poor, the son of a chronically underemployed electrician on the wrong side of the tracks in the otherwise affluent snowbird haven of Winter Park, Florida. His wife, by contrast, grew up in relatively well-to-do circumstances, with a lumber yard and orange groves among her grandparents' assets. While the ambitious Burkett worked at Cape Canaveral/Kennedy as an electrician during the 1960s while taking a full load of night classes, he constantly badgered his wife, Judy, to turn down the thermostat, turn off lights, and stop standing with the refrigerator door open.

Now that Burkett has long held court, through his organization Christian Financial Concepts (CFC), as evangelicalism's financial answer man on everything from balancing a checkbook to balancing the national budget, it is hard to imagine such simple beginnings. This prolific author's more than 70 books, booklets, workbooks, organizing systems, and even novels were largely responsible for creating "money" and "finance" sections in Christian bookstores. Burkett certainly paved the way for other evangelical financial advisers such as Ron Blue, Austin Pryor, and Dave Ramsey, as well as growing stewardship groups such as the Longwood, Florida-based Crown Ministries. Burkett has been a major figure in evangelical radio since the early 1980s. His daily five-minute feature, How to Manage Your Money, is now heard on over 1,100 stations, while his half-hour weekday call-in show, Your Money Matters, airs on over 300 outlets.

Given the touchy subject with which he deals and the Gantryesque image that has plagued evangelical leaders, Burkett and CFC have cultivated a rather austere image. By all accounts, both he and the organization have conducted themselves in an honest and unpretentious manner. Nonetheless, Burkett is a figure not untouched by controversy about the nature of the advice and opinions he gives his readers and listeners.

So, how did Burkett rise to become evangelical's financial answer man, and what exactly is he telling people?

It began with his conversion. In the 1960s and '70s, Burkett continued to move up the ladder in a variety of electrical-engineering jobs with General Electric, and as vice president of TestLine, a small electronics firm. Her husband's drive to succeed, though, meant that Judy Burkett now lived the life of a "workaholic's widow," caring for their four children and their Titusville, Florida, home. During one of Burkett's typically long workdays in 1970, two Campus Crusade workers came door-to-door through the neighborhood and walked Judy through The Four Spiritual Laws. Undergoing a conversion experience, she soon began attending Titusville's Park Avenue Baptist Church. Through her influence and a Bible study run by a local dentist, her husband also soon accepted Christ.

Like most new converts, Larry enthusiastically jumped into church activities and joined a group of Christian businessmen. Money and the biblical way to handle it were ongoing topics of interest. At one Bible study, Burkett mentioned he had found over 100 verses dealing with financial matters. One of the men disagreed, arguing that God was not interested in the subject. To prove a point, Burkett, armed with a yellow highlighter and his Bible, in the following weeks marked every biblical passage that dealt with finances. He found over 700 verses, which he subsequently organized into his own private "financial concordance." Burkett soon found himself giving advice; as he said in a 1996 article, "By default, I became the financial counselor in my church. When somebody had a question about money, they would call me."

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June 12 2000, Vol. 44, No. 7