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According to Mary Hunt, who says her Debt-Proof Living website attracts more than 8 million monthly hits, multitudes of Christians have curtailed church giving because of overspending.

"People can't believe it when I tell them they need to tithe and save even if they are deeply in debt," says Hunt. "Most of them think, I'll do that when I pay all my bills off."

"A whole bunch of us got all this stuff we really didn't want with money we really didn't have to impress people we really didn't like," Ramsey says.

Unlike a lot of parachurch ministries that emphasize budgeting and debt elimination immediately, Willow Creek Association's Good Sense takes several weeks to review foundational Scriptures in an effort to impact a heart change first.

"We are essentially trying to deprogram what many people believe is normal," says Dave Briggs, director of the South Barrington, Illinois, megachurch program that has been adopted by almost 3,000 other congregations. "Many people have bought into the teachings of the culture: the idea that debt is good, that everybody is in debt, that debt is an opportunity to get things you couldn't otherwise afford, that debt really isn't a big deal. But the more you buy into the message of the culture, the more you get into the whirlpool of debt."

Three decades ago, Larry Burkett served as the pioneer of the Christian financial counseling movement. Before he died in 2003, Burkett's Christian Financial Concepts merged with Howard Dayton's Crown Ministries to become Crown Financial Ministries. Last year, through seminars and Dayton's daily radio programs "Money Matters" and "How to Manage Your Money," around 1 million people heard Crown Financial's lessons.

"If people have been taught anything about handling money from God's perspective, it's usually been limited to giving 10 percent," Dayton says. "By default, people have adopted our culture's perspective, not the Lord's perspective."

Household wealth in this country has increased from $13 trillion in 1990 to $50 trillion today. During the same time, according to Ron Blue, chairman of Crown Financial's board, the number of financial service advisers has increased tenfold, to 1 million. In the past three years, the Atlanta-based Blue has trained 1,000 advisers through Christian Financial Professionals Network, which teaches clients how to be good stewards of their assets.

Some of the most popular stewardship advisers have made crossover inroads into the mainstream market, because of credibility gained through failing to get a grip on their finances and then recovering from it. Hunt, who took 13 years to repay creditors, now is a Woman's Day columnist and aol money coach.

Most Christian financial leaders acknowledge that debt isn't called sin in the Bible, but they believe that Scripture discourages debt. They concede that debt is a reality of modern life and even drives the economy, but warn against a lifelong pattern of debt.

"We can't make a blanket statement that all debt is wrong," says Blue, author of Master Your Money, now in its 32nd printing. "But it doesn't make sense to borrow your way to prosperity."

Christian ministries usually take a hard line on debt the borrower can't eradicate quickly. For instance, mortgage debt and car loans have safety valves, because the property can be sold. But student loans and credit card debts can't be easily liquidated.

Hunt disagrees with counselors who see college loans as secured debt, based on the assumption that the graduate will earn a good living. "I know way too many people who thought they were going to be a doctor, and it didn't work out," she says.

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May 2006, Vol. 50, No. 5