Rob West Every day we make decisions about money, but not every decision is made on purpose. Hi, I'm Rob West. When it comes to generosity, most of us struggle with where to give, how much to give, and whether it really makes a difference. Today, we'll explore why intentional giving isn't just another financial habit; it's an act of discipleship that connects our resources to God's redemptive work in the world. And then it’s on to your calls at 800-525-7000. That’s 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance on AFR…biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.
There are endless needs around us: local churches, global missions, ministries serving the poor, organizations strengthening families, and sharing the gospel. Faced with so many opportunities, it's easy to feel overwhelmed or to default to reactive giving when a need appears in front of us.
But Scripture invites us into something deeper. Ephesians 2:10 reminds us, “...for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” That means generosity isn't random. It's part of the purpose God has written into our lives.
We're not just managing money. We're participating in His mission. Intentional giving begins when we realize that our work and income aren't just about survival or success. They're about joining God in meeting needs and restoring the lives of others, and when we give this way, generosity becomes one of the most exciting things we do with our money.
The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:18 and 19 that believers are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up treasure that leads to that which is truly life.
Generosity connects what we have now to what lasts forever. Every intentional gift, every dollar aligned with God's heart, is a present tense glimpse of His kingdom breaking into this world. So, how do we practice intentional giving?
First, we start with our local church. God designed the church to reach communities, equip believers, and advance the gospel. Supporting it isn't just tradition; it's participation in His ongoing work.
From there, we look for additional opportunities to care for the vulnerable around us. Proverbs 19:17 says, "Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord.” Whether through local outreaches, relief efforts, or helping a neighbor in need, these gifts reflect God's compassion in practical ways.
We can also invest further in spreading the gospel. Romans 10:15 reminds us, “... how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” Every gift that helps someone hear about the hope of Christ carries eternal impact. When we give in this way, generosity becomes a testimony. Our finances begin to tell a story about what we love, what we value, and whom we trust.
And here's what makes intentional giving so powerful: it flows from grace, not guilt. Scripture reminds us that giving isn't something we do to earn God's favor. It's a response to the favor we've already received. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart. For God loves a cheerful giver.
When grace takes root, open hands follow. In other words, we don't give to become generous people. We give because God has already been generous to us. Jesus Himself modeled this. Though rich, He became poor so that we might share in His riches. That's the foundation of all generosity: the gospel.
Intentional giving simply asks, “Where is God inviting me to participate? Who has he placed in my path? What opportunities has he prepared for me in advance?” Because you've been uniquely positioned with your experiences, your relationships, and your resources to make a difference in ways no one else can.
When generosity becomes intentional, it reshapes how we see our money. It's no longer just income or savings, it becomes a tool for kingdom impact. It reminds us of something profound. Giving isn't just about changing someone else's life; it changes ours. It loosens our grip on money, strengthens our trust in God, and aligns our hearts with His purposes.
If you want to grow in that mindset, seeing every dollar as an opportunity to participate in God's work, I'd encourage you to pick up a copy. It's designed to help you align your heart, your habits, and your money with what matters most. You can purchase your copy or place a bulk order for your church or small group at faithfi.com/shop. That's faithfi.com/shop.
We'll be right back.
SEGMENT 2
Rob West Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance here on American Family Radio. I'm Rob West. Well, really looking forward to taking your questions today, those questions you've been thinking about in your financial life. We want to help you process them in light of biblical wisdom. And so the way you get in on the conversation today is 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open today, the team is ready for you. We just need you: 800-525-7000. We can talk about spending, saving, giving, investing, whatever is on your mind today. 800-525-7000.
Coming up in our final segment today, Jerry Bowyer and Walker Wildman stop by. We'll get to Jerry's take on what's moving the markets, stocks opening lower today as US oil tops $100 a barrel again, that's amid escalating Iran tensions. We also have a few announcements about workforce cuts, in particular, American Express out today saying because of AI, they're going to cut 5% of their workforce, Barclays saying something similar. This is a trend that we're seeing; we'll get Jerry's take on that.
We'll also find out what the latest is in corporate engagement on the part of the American Family Association. You know, corporate engagement is this opportunity for us to use our ownership rights as shareholders to express our values, to speak to company leadership, to build relationships, and work with people in organizations to affect change. And it's an incredibly powerful tool that you're afforded as an owner of a company. It can be as simple as voting a proxy, that documentary, that package that comes in the mail that you often just throw in the trash. If you had somebody helping you think about whether or not this is the right director or whether this is the right initiative to support or reject, and to be able to file what are called shareholder proposals, to be able to speak to company leadership, to affect change, and to make sure that religious liberties are being protected on the part of some companies, AFA has been incredibly effective at using their ownership of certain stocks, ownership of companies, to be able to speak to the company leadership. And things like matches to churches: you know, when the company is doing matches on charitable giving, and they're willing to match to the Humane Society, but they're not willing to match to your local church or to the American Family Association, that's not equal treatment across the board. Well, when you engage that company as a shareholder and say, "Can you explain why you're doing this?", oftentimes they might say, "Well, we didn't realize," or "If we did, we should probably change that," and they do. And that's the kind of thing that's being affected through corporate engagement. Well, we'll get an update on some of the latest work of Walker and Jerry in that final segment. Today we're going to be taking your calls and questions as well at 800-525-7000, so you can call right now.
Rob West Before we do that, in the news today, according to a new Federal Trade Commission report, Americans age 60 and older lost approximately $3 billion with a B to fraud in 2025. That's a 25% increase from 2024 and a staggering—you ready for this?—400% increase since 2020, just six years ago. Even more alarming, just 6% of victims reported losses of $100,000 or more, yet those cases accounted for 70% of total reported losses. We're talking about investment scams, government impersonators, fraudulent businesses; those are among the biggest threats. With AI making scams increasingly convincing, criminals are finding new ways to exploit trust and steal life savings. Experts encourage seniors to question unexpected financial requests, verify information independently, and consult trusted family members or advisors before transferring money. Those who fall victim deserve compassion, not shame. It's why when you check out at the grocery store, if you have more than one gift card, the person checking you out is often trained to ask, "Are you buying this because somebody asked you to online?". More commonly, we're seeing scams that involve gift cards, preying on people, especially who are elderly. We need to be on our guard here and we need to be coming alongside those we love who perhaps are not as in tune with this threat. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 10:16 to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. So as Christians, we're called to be loving and trusting hearts, but that doesn't mean we're to be naive. We can extend kindness while exercising discernment. Trust in God, but use the wisdom He gives us to recognize deception, protect our resources, and look out for one another. And we want to find those ways to protect against identity theft and fraud, and we want to come alongside those we love to make sure they are doing the same.
What are the top ways to do that? Well, first, freeze your credit. This is one of the strongest protections against identity theft. It's free, but you need to do it with each bureau: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. That's going to help prevent criminals from opening new credit accounts in your name. Second, use strong passwords and two-factor authentication. That's where the password alone is not enough; they have to send you a text message or, even better, use an authenticator app. But also those strong passwords need to be changed regularly. Third, monitor your bank accounts, financial accounts, and credit reports. Review transactions regularly, turn on bank alerts, and check your credit reports at least quarterly—you can get those free at annualcreditreport.com.
Let me give you three more and then we'll dive into some phone calls today. Number four, be cautious of scams and phishing. This means never provide personal information, passwords, or verification codes to someone who unexpectedly calls, texts, or emails you, despite how convincing they are at representing themselves with a trusted organization, either a government organization or an organization you do business with. They can impersonate those companies very well even on the caller ID. How do you guard against that? Just make it a practice never to provide that information regardless. But if you have to, do so only when you initiate the contact to the company directly using its official phone number or where you navigate to their official website. That one can be a little hard to tell, but just make sure you're initiating that content, not responding to an inbound phone call, text message, or email coming to you because you just have no way of knowing if that's actually legitimate. Number five, protect your Social Security number and personal information. Avoid carrying that Social Security card; I would shred sensitive documents. Don't share personal information unless absolutely necessary. Number six, secure your devices and financial accounts. You're going to want to keep your phone and computer updated, use device locks, and enable transaction notifications. Consider an IRS identity protection PIN to prevent someone from filing a fraudulent tax return using your Social Security number. You can also freeze your kids' credit, and finally, you can opt out of pre-screened credit offers at optoutprescreen.com.
Those are just a few of them. I would say if you asked, "Rob, what are your top recommendations?", freeze your credit, enable that two-factor authentication, and set up bank transaction alerts. Those three steps alone could provide substantial protection and are generally free; you don't need to pay for a service to do this. All right, I know we got real practical there for a second, but I hope that helps. We're going to dive into your phone calls after this break. Call right now at 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance; we'll be right back.
SEGMENT 3
Rob West Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance here on American Family Radio. All right, well, I was sharing some best practices there, Mark was listening, he works at a credit union, and he was like, "I think you're on to some things, but maybe not everything." So Mark, correct me where I went wrong. What are your thoughts?
Rob West Oh, looking for Mark in Virginia. There he is. Go ahead.
Mark Hey, I just wanted to first affirm the advice about not giving information out when someone contacts you. Any legitimate organization has records, and if someone calls you from them—and they sometimes do call—if you say, "I'm going to hang up and call back on a number I know is good," anyone from a legitimate organization will be just fine with that because they have records and they can whatever they're calling about, the next person will have access to as well.
Rob West There you go. Great.
Mark However, I did want to say that changing your password frequently can be its own security threat because if you start having so many passwords that you're trying to remember and keep track of, there's a good chance you'll start writing them down, and that creates a risk as well.
Rob West Mm. Yeah, it's a good thought. I mean, my approach to that, Mark—probaby this may not be what everybody's doing—is to use a password keeper. So I use 1Password, there's LastPass, there's a number of them. They'll not only secure them safely with encrypted data, and then you can auto-fill if it's connected, you know, to your computer or phone once you authenticate, but it will generate these long strings as well. So I totally agree. I would rather these folks not use passwords that they come up with from memory, you know, my anniversary tied to my dog's name, tied to my middle name, you know, those kinds of things. Let's use long, you know, 12 or 16 string passwords, but generated by a password keeper that I can fill in with one click. That was what I was getting at there, but I think you're right. If you're trying to remember it, you're running into risk there, and you certainly don't want to keep that little black book where you write everything down.
Mark I know a lot of people swear by them. I don't like having a single point of failure, personally.
Rob West Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. I mean, it's stored in the cloud, encrypted, but I I totally get it. I mean, for me, it's a best practice, but, you know, you need to find what works for you and I think, you know, your biggest defense is going to be, you know, freezing your credit, it's going to be avoiding giving information unsolicited without, to Mark's point, calling somebody back where you initiate it, using the the trusted contact, phone number, or website. But Mark, I appreciate you weighing in, my friend. Great advice.
Mark Concur.
Rob West All right. God bless you. Let's go to Michigan. Hi Marsha, how can we help?
Marsha Oh, okay. Um, I'm calling about social security benefits. Um, I thought, I thought what they did was they take the highest person, your husband, and that would be how much you would be getting, just his. Well, what they did was they went to my social security, which was only a thousand, and so now they're saying, "We're adding a benefit of six hundred." Well, they're calling it a benefit. Um, so instead of just giving me 1,600 a month, they're saying, "Well, you got that benefit." Is that correct that they can use part of it and call it benefit?
Rob West Yes. What they did there, Marsha, is normal. So when a widow is eligible for both her own benefit, which is what you have, that's the thousand a month, and a survivor benefit based on your deceased husband's record, Social Security often pays the benefits in two parts. Why did they use your benefit and then add something? Well, that's the process they follow. They pay you for your benefit first, based on your work history, then they calculate the survivor benefit you're entitled to based on your husband's record, and then they add a survivor benefit supplement to bring your total payment up to the higher eligible amount. And and it sounds like that's exactly what you're describing here. So as long as you're getting what is equal to what he would have received, then it doesn't really matter whether it comes in one part or two, and actually that two-part approach is the normal practice.
Marsha I see. That then makes sense to me, but thank you for explaining it. Uh, do you have time for one more quick question?
Rob West Of course, yes ma'am. Or not.
Marsha Oh, okay. Um, he had beneficiary insurance that I don't care about letting people know about the amount. Is that okay?
Rob West That's fine, sure.
Marsha 111. That's okay. 111,000 dollars, but he declined, he didn't want it for some reason, I don't know why. So we didn't file in time to get the widow's beneficiary amount, so we contacted through them another insurance company that is going to give us that amount, but we got to go through probate court, which they gave us an appointment in February. My husband died in August, and um, they want his taxes, and they're going to get into that, and he, there isn't any documents on that. I don't, I don't know what happened to them, but anyways, I don't have them. I wondered, what's going to happen?
Rob West Did you say they want the tax return? Is that right?
Marsha Yeah. Yeah.
Rob West Uh, well, first of all, um, you know, I appreciate what you're describing here. Um, so the good news is, you know, you still may be entitled to the 111,000. We need to determine whether this is a life insurance benefit or another type of death benefit. Um, basically the probate court, uh, you know, if there was, uh, if you were a named beneficiary, the proceeds would generally pass directly to you without probate. But if no beneficiary was named, then uh probate is necessary to determine who receives the money. And if the claim was filed late, that doesn't mean you lose the benefit. It just means that, you know, the policy terms and the state law matters. Um, you might want to just ask them why probate is required, uh, and whether it recognizes the insurance company recognizes you as the beneficiary. Um, now not having the tax return shouldn't automatically prevent you from receiving the death benefit. Uh, if they require them, you can request a transcript from the IRS. Um, you can have somebody help you or you can do it yourself, just just put in your search engine "IRS get transcript," uh, or you could contact an accountant or a tax preparer, but you can get that from the IRS through your transcript. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of information here. I know it's an extra step, but, uh, it's obviously going to be worth it for you to get that death benefit. Hang on the line, I want to see if you have any other questions. We'll be right back, much more to come right after this.
SEGMENT 4
Rob West Coming up in the next segment, Jerry Bowyer and Walker Wildman stop by, a lot to talk about with those guys. We'll get an update on the markets, the market's selling off today because oil's back up above $100 a barrel, we're off 800 points on the Dow, about uh that's 1 and a half% off a little more than 1 half of 1% um on the S&P 500, the Nasdaq holding up pretty well as tech stocks have been uh has been doing quite well this week. Um, but we'll get Jerry's take on what's moving the markets and uh American Express and Barclays both announcing that they're going to cut jobs in uh preparing for AI. We'll also get an update uh on the latest in corporate engagement. Let's head back to the phones, we're going to go to Iowa, Randy, how can we help?
Randy Hey, good morning, Rob. Hey, I got a question for you. I'm 55 and plan to retire in January. I'd like to get your thoughts on the management of my 401k and also final financial projections for the future. And maybe just a little bit of background, I'm currently with a friend of mine is an advisor, he's a Christian. I trust him uh and four years ago he recommended that I have part of my 401k be managed by a third party. And uh and I was getting nervous about managing the amount of money that was in there and I didn't want it to delay my retirement uh if the markets went really south, so I did that. But as I've looked at it more recently and looked back even at my notes in the past, I I see that I the funds at that company has put my 401k in has got two and 3% expense ratios. Um and that's on about a 1.4 million that they're managing. Uh and I know other investors will charge like 1% for just generally managing your money and as I go into retirement um that's a lot of money too on a two-lane out portfolio, that's $20,000 a year management. And uh I I know there's other do-it-yourself options like what you mentioned and I just am a little bit I've just been rolling around my mind where to go and feeling a little bit uncertain, I wonder if you could weigh in on that.
Rob West Yeah, and I'd be happy to. I'm sorry to hear you've been disappointed with uh you know what you've been working with. Uh at a you know any size portfolio frankly, but certainly with a $1.4 million uh portfolio, paying anything above 1 and a half% is not customary. And I would say, you know, certainly high, anything above 2%, certainly three, I mean that's um, you know, I I wouldn't um could even consider that. So something is not right there and and you may want to, you know, go back in and question that, or if you've decided it's time to move on, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, people change advisors all the time if you don't feel like you're getting the right service, or you feel like the fees are out of line, which clearly what you're describing, I would put in that category. Um, or you just don't have somebody that, you know, you feel like is connecting with you or, you know, responding to you in terms of how you want to communicate in the period, you know, the uh the um you know periodic check-ins and so forth, it's time to start looking around. Um, now, can you do it yourself? Yes. I wouldn't advise that. I mean, I just think the amount of time that it would take and expertise needed to manage a a really sizable portfolio like that, I mean, yes you could put it in an index strategy or something like that and just let it go, but I think there's a real benefit to you having an advisor who could bring, you know, tax-lost harvesting and tax efficiency to the table, help you think about your giving plans, you know, help you thinking about, you know, even screening your investments to make sure they're aligned with your values if that's a conviction of yours. There's a lot an advisor can bring to the table for a far more reasonable fee, which I would put in the 1 to 1 and a half% range, um where he or she could absolutely justify the cost of the fees based on the value they're adding and even the performance. But at the end of the day, you need to be able to see that demonstrated over time. Um, so I would, you know, certainly you could look at doing it yourself, I'd probably look at, you know, interviewing two or three other advisors and see if you can find one that's the best fit, because I think the planning that they could bring to the table, the efficiencies from a tax standpoint and otherwise, on top of, you know, just having somebody who's, you know, not making emotional decisions, which is often more difficult when we're managing our own money, is certainly worth uh, you know, a reasonable management fee.
Randy What do you think about a uh like a $10,000 annual fee for an advisor that's not percentage-based, but they you would just pay them for the year?
Rob West Yeah, I would just be wonder what you're getting for that. Is it a fiduciary? What is their skill set, you know, what are they bringing to the table? Just because, you know, most advisors are going to charge a fee based on the assets under management, and if you're really trying to carve out and find one that's just going to do a flat fee, typically those flat fees are for financial planning engagements, typically not investment management. So you're just going to shrink the universe of advisors that you're bringing to the table and you may, you know, lose out on some that would really bring a a unique skill set to the table in terms of building and managing portfolios, you know, that you would miss just based on those parameters. But you certainly could start there and and see what you find.
Randy Okay.
Rob West Have you connected with any uh CKAs? Absolutely. Have you connected with any Certified Kingdom Advisors there in Iowa as an option?
Randy No, I haven't.
Rob West Okay. That might be worth looking at. Um I mean that's the designation we trust uh because we know they've met significant experience requirements at least 10 years. They've got an industry designation, pastor and client reference, statement of faith, code of ethics. We kind of put them through the ringer so to speak, but uh uh if you want to find at least the list of CKAs in your area, just go to findacka.com. Randy, I hope that helps. Thanks for your call, my friend. We'll be right back.
SEGMENT 5
Rob West Well, here on a Friday, in our final segment, we always look forward to Jerry Bowyer and Walker Wildman stopping by, and we get up to date on the markets and the latest in corporate engagement through AFA Action. Jerry, let's start with the markets. The Dow Jones, the S&P selling off, although the S&P is off just slightly. But a lot of this as oil back above $100 a barrel. Obviously, Middle East tensions are rising, the president being pretty outspoken about the fact that Iran has their sights set on these midterms, trying to do everything they can to thwart his administration. I don't know whether that's true or not, but nevertheless, the markets are responding, right?
Jerry Bowyer Yeah. Well, the Iranians historically track American politics pretty closely. So sometimes the president has some, you know, some theories that might seem a little paranoid or conspiratorial, but this one actually kind of rings true to me. I think they know that they can help impose a political price on the president by keeping this war going, and by choking off, you know, the choke points in the Strait of Hormuz or by the Houthis, who are sort of allies, you know, attacking other choke points. So that drives up the price of diesel, that help, that hurts the president in farm states. I'm seeing that the president is in trouble, or his favorite candidates are in trouble in a lot of places. So, I mean, I think we, the United States, is kind of winning the war in Iran in, not in the sense of it's all over, but in the sense of we can fly at will over their capital and they cannot fly at will over our capital. So from a military standpoint, we're in a dominant position, but in many ways they're winning politically. The war is unpopular, and the economic effects of the war are unpopular, and I think that's likely to show up in the midterms. The political futures markets show something like a 62-63% probability of a Democratic sweep in the midterms. And so, I think that this war turned out to be a lot tougher than the president thought it would. And I have it on good authority that when you decide to go to war, that it's important that you count the cost and make sure that you have enough soldiers, and enough money, and enough missiles. That's the, you know, the Bowyer paraphrase translation. Um, to see it through, and it's not clear that we really fully counted the cost. Um, of a wide-scale war, as opposed to the issue of hitting their nuclear facility. Um, you know, and basically setting that back whatever, 10, 20 years, or something more, as opposed to something more like regime change. So that means that energy prices are high, and, you know, we haven't had a recession yet based on that, but we definitely had slower growth than we could have. We've had a little bit of what they call a growth recession—low growth, but not negative growth. And I think that has a lot to do with the war, but I also think it has to do with the trade war as well, not so much on the energy side, but on the food side. So because I'm an economist, and a monetary economist, I try to make the point of going shopping with my wife. So we go to, you know, we go to Aldi's or we go to Costco, even though we're engaging with Costco and we don't like everything we're hearing, we still go there. We have a local chain called Giant Eagle, everyone has a local chain, and when I look at beef prices, I'm floored. Um, and, you know, that there are, there are trade war implications to these food prices. So I can see a situation where, um, you know, we've got inflationary pressures and we have, but we also have anti-growth pressures. And so the Fed is stuck with this dual mandate, which is you fight inflation by slowing the economy down. Oh, if the economy's slow, you need to create inflation to speed the economy up. Well, what happens when inflation's high and growth is low? That's stagflation. Which side of the dual mandate do you take? Well, it's impossible to work it out because they're conflicting mandates based on a biblically unsound understanding of what monetary policy should be. Not micromanaging the economy, not overriding all our decisions, not accumulating power in the hands of experts, just keeping the currency honest, getting away from unjust weights and measures. Basically, the market has decided that the current Fed Chairman is likely to go more into the fighting inflation mode, which is I think kind of the only valid mandate—just keep the currency sound. All right, that's great, but what that means is any stimulus effect from easy money is something the market doesn't expect to see, and when that happens, the prices go down, and that's what we're seeing.
Rob West Mm. Yeah. Jerry, one other question and then we'll pivot to corporate engagement. American Express out today saying they're cutting 5% of its workforce to, quote, "prepare for AI." Barclays with a similar announcement today. You know, I know we've seen some of this in the past. Do you think this trend is going to continue?
Jerry Bowyer Well, I think the trend is going to continue. The question is, are they telling the truth? Because if you are just trying to cut payroll, and you're looking for an excuse to cut payroll or something that fits a powerful narrative, saying "AI made me do it" is, you know, pretty good spin. Um, I mean, I would argue that AI makes people more productive, so Bowyer Research leans very heavily into AI, but we're hiring, not firing. Why? Because AI makes our people more productive. Well, if it makes our people more productive, don't we want more people being productive? Um, so if you have to cut your workforce due to AI, it suggests that you have not properly trained your workforce on how to be productive using AI. Or it suggests you've wanted to do layoffs for a long time, but you don't want to come off as cruel. So instead, we get to do the layoffs and say, "Oh, well, it's not that we overhired, it's not that we managed poorly, it's just, hey, we're leaning into AI and we're more efficient." Markets generally like layoffs, um, at least in the short run. Uh, but, but they, but people don't, right? Markets like layoffs, politicians don't. Um, if you tell the AI story, it gives you a little cover. Well, yeah, we're not really laying people off, we're just replacing them with agents, you know. We've got, we've got more workers now. Um, they're just named Claude and, uh, and Fable and, um, Copilot and all the. So I, I do not necessarily buy that these are AI-driven layoffs, um, but I think that's, it's possibly just spin. But I do expect more layoffs. Why? Because I expect the economy to slow down. And at the very least, it, if you've, if you've got a big, giant workforce, and it's really hard to get them to use AI because everything's sort of bureaucratic, then you might have trouble training people on it, and so you might end up replacing some of them with agents. At our scale, I mean, I, you know, I know everyone who's working for me. I see them every day, and I can say, "Hey, let me show you something we just learned. Susan and I just learned something, you know, a new agent or a new function or a new capacity." And so we bring them along in this journey of getting more productive, of mastering the AI rather than being mastered by it, which I think is the calling that I would like to see Christians embrace.
Rob West Yeah. That's well said. Speaking of Christians, uh, embracing things, I know you and the team are embracing corporate engagement. You've been leading in this space for a long time, and so has AFA as they work with you. Walker, give us an update on what you and Jerry and the team have been working on.
Walker Wildman Yeah, one of the focuses this cycle, um, with corporate engagement is, um, these companies using the Southern Poverty Law Center for their corporate matching program. So a lot of these major companies, these publicly traded companies that we own shares in, they have a corporate, um, matching program with their employees, a charitable matching program. And what we've seen in the past is where they've had this program where employees can supposedly give charitable contributions through payroll to various non-profits, but then the company comes in and says, "Well, if they're a Christian non-profit, or if they're American Family Association, or if they're a pro-life group, well, we're not going to match that." So it's somewhat selective, and but at the same time, they'll fund a lot of these left-wing projects and non-profits. And so that's what we're looking into, and it's been proven in the fact that some of these companies have used the SPLC, the Southern Poverty Law Center, as their quote-unquote "vetting" process and tool when it comes to charitable matching. So our, our request with these companies in our conversation is going to go like this: if you're going to have charitable matching, then all eligible, IRS-identified non-profits should be eligible for corporate matching, whether it's, you know, a so-called left-wing non-profit or American Family Association. If you're going to, you know, guarantee charitable matching, then you ought to do it across the board instead of picking and choosing. And so that's our position, and we don't even think companies have to do corporate, uh, charitable matching, but if they're going to, then they ought to offer it across the board, and not, uh, cancel or not allow conservative groups and churches and other non-profits that should be eligible for these programs.
Rob West Yeah, no doubt. And I mean, Jerry, this is just logical. We're just talking about equal treatment here, we're not asking for special treatment, right?
Jerry Bowyer Yeah, and we're also talking about, um, avoiding something that may well be legally, um, discriminatory. Uh, this is something that Andrea Lucas, chair of the EEOC, has talked about, um, that it, that basically, if your in an, in an employee match program, if you're discriminating against giving to a church, are you not inherently discriminating against the person who wants to give to the church or to the synagogue? Um, and if you are, then that is discrimination based on religious viewpoint, which is illegal. And I can tell you, you know, I've met the chair, I know the general counsel, they are going to enforce the law on this, and they're not going to turn a blind eye to discrimination when it's against Christians because that's an, you're allowed to get away with that. They've made clear that they are going to, uh, really enforce, um, the law when it comes to discrimination on the basis of religion, and they have done so aggressively. And I just reminded a company of that yesterday, uh, a bank called Truist, Southern bank, lots of Christian customers. Um, and, you know, they told us, "Well, you know, we don't match to everything, we match if, if you have a secular purpose, so if a church sets up a food bank, sure, but if it's like a religious purpose, then no." Uh, and we said, "Why?" And they said, "Well, because we'll, we might get audited by the IRS if we do that." And I was just flummoxed by that. You know, I'm a recovering tax accountant. I talked to every tax accountant and tax lawyer out there, nobody can find anything, uh, that says that giving to churches is somehow like the IRS doesn't like that and they're going to audit you. So, you know, we were talking yesterday to this particular company, and one of my colleagues said, you know, that the IRS is now aware that there are companies who are making this argument, and they're going to address it to make clear, uh, that you can give to churches the same as you can give to any other 501(c)(3). And I said there with the company on the line, "I disagree only with the plural. It's not companies. We've only heard this argument from one company." There's a whole bunch of other companies, partly due to AFA, that now give to churches. Don't they have tax accountants, too? I think they do.
Rob West Folks, if you want to be a part of this, consider making a gift of stock to the American Family Association at afafoundation.net. Jerry, Walker, thanks.
Jerry Bowyer Thank you.
Walker Wildman Thanks, Rob.
Rob West Folks, we'll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye.
Rob West Every day we make decisions about money, but not every decision is made on purpose. Hi, I'm Rob West. When it comes to generosity, most of us struggle with where to give, how much to give, and whether it really makes a difference. Today, we'll explore why intentional giving isn't just another financial habit; it's an act of discipleship that connects our resources to God's redemptive work in the world. And then it’s on to your calls at 800-525-7000. That’s 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance on AFR…biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.
There are endless needs around us: local churches, global missions, ministries serving the poor, organizations strengthening families, and sharing the gospel. Faced with so many opportunities, it's easy to feel overwhelmed or to default to reactive giving when a need appears in front of us.
But Scripture invites us into something deeper. Ephesians 2:10 reminds us, “...for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” That means generosity isn't random. It's part of the purpose God has written into our lives.
We're not just managing money. We're participating in His mission. Intentional giving begins when we realize that our work and income aren't just about survival or success. They're about joining God in meeting needs and restoring the lives of others, and when we give this way, generosity becomes one of the most exciting things we do with our money.
The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:18 and 19 that believers are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up treasure that leads to that which is truly life.
Generosity connects what we have now to what lasts forever. Every intentional gift, every dollar aligned with God's heart, is a present tense glimpse of His kingdom breaking into this world. So, how do we practice intentional giving?
First, we start with our local church. God designed the church to reach communities, equip believers, and advance the gospel. Supporting it isn't just tradition; it's participation in His ongoing work.
From there, we look for additional opportunities to care for the vulnerable around us. Proverbs 19:17 says, "Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord.” Whether through local outreaches, relief efforts, or helping a neighbor in need, these gifts reflect God's compassion in practical ways.
We can also invest further in spreading the gospel. Romans 10:15 reminds us, “... how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” Every gift that helps someone hear about the hope of Christ carries eternal impact. When we give in this way, generosity becomes a testimony. Our finances begin to tell a story about what we love, what we value, and whom we trust.
And here's what makes intentional giving so powerful: it flows from grace, not guilt. Scripture reminds us that giving isn't something we do to earn God's favor. It's a response to the favor we've already received. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart. For God loves a cheerful giver.
When grace takes root, open hands follow. In other words, we don't give to become generous people. We give because God has already been generous to us. Jesus Himself modeled this. Though rich, He became poor so that we might share in His riches. That's the foundation of all generosity: the gospel.
Intentional giving simply asks, “Where is God inviting me to participate? Who has he placed in my path? What opportunities has he prepared for me in advance?” Because you've been uniquely positioned with your experiences, your relationships, and your resources to make a difference in ways no one else can.
When generosity becomes intentional, it reshapes how we see our money. It's no longer just income or savings, it becomes a tool for kingdom impact. It reminds us of something profound. Giving isn't just about changing someone else's life; it changes ours. It loosens our grip on money, strengthens our trust in God, and aligns our hearts with His purposes.
If you want to grow in that mindset, seeing every dollar as an opportunity to participate in God's work, I'd encourage you to pick up a copy. It's designed to help you align your heart, your habits, and your money with what matters most. You can purchase your copy or place a bulk order for your church or small group at faithfi.com/shop. That's faithfi.com/shop.
We'll be right back.
SEGMENT 2
Rob West Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance here on American Family Radio. I'm Rob West. Well, really looking forward to taking your questions today, those questions you've been thinking about in your financial life. We want to help you process them in light of biblical wisdom. And so the way you get in on the conversation today is 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open today, the team is ready for you. We just need you: 800-525-7000. We can talk about spending, saving, giving, investing, whatever is on your mind today. 800-525-7000.
Coming up in our final segment today, Jerry Bowyer and Walker Wildman stop by. We'll get to Jerry's take on what's moving the markets, stocks opening lower today as US oil tops $100 a barrel again, that's amid escalating Iran tensions. We also have a few announcements about workforce cuts, in particular, American Express out today saying because of AI, they're going to cut 5% of their workforce, Barclays saying something similar. This is a trend that we're seeing; we'll get Jerry's take on that.
We'll also find out what the latest is in corporate engagement on the part of the American Family Association. You know, corporate engagement is this opportunity for us to use our ownership rights as shareholders to express our values, to speak to company leadership, to build relationships, and work with people in organizations to affect change. And it's an incredibly powerful tool that you're afforded as an owner of a company. It can be as simple as voting a proxy, that documentary, that package that comes in the mail that you often just throw in the trash. If you had somebody helping you think about whether or not this is the right director or whether this is the right initiative to support or reject, and to be able to file what are called shareholder proposals, to be able to speak to company leadership, to affect change, and to make sure that religious liberties are being protected on the part of some companies, AFA has been incredibly effective at using their ownership of certain stocks, ownership of companies, to be able to speak to the company leadership. And things like matches to churches: you know, when the company is doing matches on charitable giving, and they're willing to match to the Humane Society, but they're not willing to match to your local church or to the American Family Association, that's not equal treatment across the board. Well, when you engage that company as a shareholder and say, "Can you explain why you're doing this?", oftentimes they might say, "Well, we didn't realize," or "If we did, we should probably change that," and they do. And that's the kind of thing that's being affected through corporate engagement. Well, we'll get an update on some of the latest work of Walker and Jerry in that final segment. Today we're going to be taking your calls and questions as well at 800-525-7000, so you can call right now.
Rob West Before we do that, in the news today, according to a new Federal Trade Commission report, Americans age 60 and older lost approximately $3 billion with a B to fraud in 2025. That's a 25% increase from 2024 and a staggering—you ready for this?—400% increase since 2020, just six years ago. Even more alarming, just 6% of victims reported losses of $100,000 or more, yet those cases accounted for 70% of total reported losses. We're talking about investment scams, government impersonators, fraudulent businesses; those are among the biggest threats. With AI making scams increasingly convincing, criminals are finding new ways to exploit trust and steal life savings. Experts encourage seniors to question unexpected financial requests, verify information independently, and consult trusted family members or advisors before transferring money. Those who fall victim deserve compassion, not shame. It's why when you check out at the grocery store, if you have more than one gift card, the person checking you out is often trained to ask, "Are you buying this because somebody asked you to online?". More commonly, we're seeing scams that involve gift cards, preying on people, especially who are elderly. We need to be on our guard here and we need to be coming alongside those we love who perhaps are not as in tune with this threat. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 10:16 to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. So as Christians, we're called to be loving and trusting hearts, but that doesn't mean we're to be naive. We can extend kindness while exercising discernment. Trust in God, but use the wisdom He gives us to recognize deception, protect our resources, and look out for one another. And we want to find those ways to protect against identity theft and fraud, and we want to come alongside those we love to make sure they are doing the same.
What are the top ways to do that? Well, first, freeze your credit. This is one of the strongest protections against identity theft. It's free, but you need to do it with each bureau: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. That's going to help prevent criminals from opening new credit accounts in your name. Second, use strong passwords and two-factor authentication. That's where the password alone is not enough; they have to send you a text message or, even better, use an authenticator app. But also those strong passwords need to be changed regularly. Third, monitor your bank accounts, financial accounts, and credit reports. Review transactions regularly, turn on bank alerts, and check your credit reports at least quarterly—you can get those free at annualcreditreport.com.
Let me give you three more and then we'll dive into some phone calls today. Number four, be cautious of scams and phishing. This means never provide personal information, passwords, or verification codes to someone who unexpectedly calls, texts, or emails you, despite how convincing they are at representing themselves with a trusted organization, either a government organization or an organization you do business with. They can impersonate those companies very well even on the caller ID. How do you guard against that? Just make it a practice never to provide that information regardless. But if you have to, do so only when you initiate the contact to the company directly using its official phone number or where you navigate to their official website. That one can be a little hard to tell, but just make sure you're initiating that content, not responding to an inbound phone call, text message, or email coming to you because you just have no way of knowing if that's actually legitimate. Number five, protect your Social Security number and personal information. Avoid carrying that Social Security card; I would shred sensitive documents. Don't share personal information unless absolutely necessary. Number six, secure your devices and financial accounts. You're going to want to keep your phone and computer updated, use device locks, and enable transaction notifications. Consider an IRS identity protection PIN to prevent someone from filing a fraudulent tax return using your Social Security number. You can also freeze your kids' credit, and finally, you can opt out of pre-screened credit offers at optoutprescreen.com.
Those are just a few of them. I would say if you asked, "Rob, what are your top recommendations?", freeze your credit, enable that two-factor authentication, and set up bank transaction alerts. Those three steps alone could provide substantial protection and are generally free; you don't need to pay for a service to do this. All right, I know we got real practical there for a second, but I hope that helps. We're going to dive into your phone calls after this break. Call right now at 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance; we'll be right back.
SEGMENT 3
Rob West Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance here on American Family Radio. All right, well, I was sharing some best practices there, Mark was listening, he works at a credit union, and he was like, "I think you're on to some things, but maybe not everything." So Mark, correct me where I went wrong. What are your thoughts?
Rob West Oh, looking for Mark in Virginia. There he is. Go ahead.
Mark Hey, I just wanted to first affirm the advice about not giving information out when someone contacts you. Any legitimate organization has records, and if someone calls you from them—and they sometimes do call—if you say, "I'm going to hang up and call back on a number I know is good," anyone from a legitimate organization will be just fine with that because they have records and they can whatever they're calling about, the next person will have access to as well.
Rob West There you go. Great.
Mark However, I did want to say that changing your password frequently can be its own security threat because if you start having so many passwords that you're trying to remember and keep track of, there's a good chance you'll start writing them down, and that creates a risk as well.
Rob West Mm. Yeah, it's a good thought. I mean, my approach to that, Mark—probaby this may not be what everybody's doing—is to use a password keeper. So I use 1Password, there's LastPass, there's a number of them. They'll not only secure them safely with encrypted data, and then you can auto-fill if it's connected, you know, to your computer or phone once you authenticate, but it will generate these long strings as well. So I totally agree. I would rather these folks not use passwords that they come up with from memory, you know, my anniversary tied to my dog's name, tied to my middle name, you know, those kinds of things. Let's use long, you know, 12 or 16 string passwords, but generated by a password keeper that I can fill in with one click. That was what I was getting at there, but I think you're right. If you're trying to remember it, you're running into risk there, and you certainly don't want to keep that little black book where you write everything down.
Mark I know a lot of people swear by them. I don't like having a single point of failure, personally.
Rob West Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. I mean, it's stored in the cloud, encrypted, but I I totally get it. I mean, for me, it's a best practice, but, you know, you need to find what works for you and I think, you know, your biggest defense is going to be, you know, freezing your credit, it's going to be avoiding giving information unsolicited without, to Mark's point, calling somebody back where you initiate it, using the the trusted contact, phone number, or website. But Mark, I appreciate you weighing in, my friend. Great advice.
Mark Concur.
Rob West All right. God bless you. Let's go to Michigan. Hi Marsha, how can we help?
Marsha Oh, okay. Um, I'm calling about social security benefits. Um, I thought, I thought what they did was they take the highest person, your husband, and that would be how much you would be getting, just his. Well, what they did was they went to my social security, which was only a thousand, and so now they're saying, "We're adding a benefit of six hundred." Well, they're calling it a benefit. Um, so instead of just giving me 1,600 a month, they're saying, "Well, you got that benefit." Is that correct that they can use part of it and call it benefit?
Rob West Yes. What they did there, Marsha, is normal. So when a widow is eligible for both her own benefit, which is what you have, that's the thousand a month, and a survivor benefit based on your deceased husband's record, Social Security often pays the benefits in two parts. Why did they use your benefit and then add something? Well, that's the process they follow. They pay you for your benefit first, based on your work history, then they calculate the survivor benefit you're entitled to based on your husband's record, and then they add a survivor benefit supplement to bring your total payment up to the higher eligible amount. And and it sounds like that's exactly what you're describing here. So as long as you're getting what is equal to what he would have received, then it doesn't really matter whether it comes in one part or two, and actually that two-part approach is the normal practice.
Marsha I see. That then makes sense to me, but thank you for explaining it. Uh, do you have time for one more quick question?
Rob West Of course, yes ma'am. Or not.
Marsha Oh, okay. Um, he had beneficiary insurance that I don't care about letting people know about the amount. Is that okay?
Rob West That's fine, sure.
Marsha 111. That's okay. 111,000 dollars, but he declined, he didn't want it for some reason, I don't know why. So we didn't file in time to get the widow's beneficiary amount, so we contacted through them another insurance company that is going to give us that amount, but we got to go through probate court, which they gave us an appointment in February. My husband died in August, and um, they want his taxes, and they're going to get into that, and he, there isn't any documents on that. I don't, I don't know what happened to them, but anyways, I don't have them. I wondered, what's going to happen?
Rob West Did you say they want the tax return? Is that right?
Marsha Yeah. Yeah.
Rob West Uh, well, first of all, um, you know, I appreciate what you're describing here. Um, so the good news is, you know, you still may be entitled to the 111,000. We need to determine whether this is a life insurance benefit or another type of death benefit. Um, basically the probate court, uh, you know, if there was, uh, if you were a named beneficiary, the proceeds would generally pass directly to you without probate. But if no beneficiary was named, then uh probate is necessary to determine who receives the money. And if the claim was filed late, that doesn't mean you lose the benefit. It just means that, you know, the policy terms and the state law matters. Um, you might want to just ask them why probate is required, uh, and whether it recognizes the insurance company recognizes you as the beneficiary. Um, now not having the tax return shouldn't automatically prevent you from receiving the death benefit. Uh, if they require them, you can request a transcript from the IRS. Um, you can have somebody help you or you can do it yourself, just just put in your search engine "IRS get transcript," uh, or you could contact an accountant or a tax preparer, but you can get that from the IRS through your transcript. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of information here. I know it's an extra step, but, uh, it's obviously going to be worth it for you to get that death benefit. Hang on the line, I want to see if you have any other questions. We'll be right back, much more to come right after this.
SEGMENT 4
Rob West Coming up in the next segment, Jerry Bowyer and Walker Wildman stop by, a lot to talk about with those guys. We'll get an update on the markets, the market's selling off today because oil's back up above $100 a barrel, we're off 800 points on the Dow, about uh that's 1 and a half% off a little more than 1 half of 1% um on the S&P 500, the Nasdaq holding up pretty well as tech stocks have been uh has been doing quite well this week. Um, but we'll get Jerry's take on what's moving the markets and uh American Express and Barclays both announcing that they're going to cut jobs in uh preparing for AI. We'll also get an update uh on the latest in corporate engagement. Let's head back to the phones, we're going to go to Iowa, Randy, how can we help?
Randy Hey, good morning, Rob. Hey, I got a question for you. I'm 55 and plan to retire in January. I'd like to get your thoughts on the management of my 401k and also final financial projections for the future. And maybe just a little bit of background, I'm currently with a friend of mine is an advisor, he's a Christian. I trust him uh and four years ago he recommended that I have part of my 401k be managed by a third party. And uh and I was getting nervous about managing the amount of money that was in there and I didn't want it to delay my retirement uh if the markets went really south, so I did that. But as I've looked at it more recently and looked back even at my notes in the past, I I see that I the funds at that company has put my 401k in has got two and 3% expense ratios. Um and that's on about a 1.4 million that they're managing. Uh and I know other investors will charge like 1% for just generally managing your money and as I go into retirement um that's a lot of money too on a two-lane out portfolio, that's $20,000 a year management. And uh I I know there's other do-it-yourself options like what you mentioned and I just am a little bit I've just been rolling around my mind where to go and feeling a little bit uncertain, I wonder if you could weigh in on that.
Rob West Yeah, and I'd be happy to. I'm sorry to hear you've been disappointed with uh you know what you've been working with. Uh at a you know any size portfolio frankly, but certainly with a $1.4 million uh portfolio, paying anything above 1 and a half% is not customary. And I would say, you know, certainly high, anything above 2%, certainly three, I mean that's um, you know, I I wouldn't um could even consider that. So something is not right there and and you may want to, you know, go back in and question that, or if you've decided it's time to move on, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, people change advisors all the time if you don't feel like you're getting the right service, or you feel like the fees are out of line, which clearly what you're describing, I would put in that category. Um, or you just don't have somebody that, you know, you feel like is connecting with you or, you know, responding to you in terms of how you want to communicate in the period, you know, the uh the um you know periodic check-ins and so forth, it's time to start looking around. Um, now, can you do it yourself? Yes. I wouldn't advise that. I mean, I just think the amount of time that it would take and expertise needed to manage a a really sizable portfolio like that, I mean, yes you could put it in an index strategy or something like that and just let it go, but I think there's a real benefit to you having an advisor who could bring, you know, tax-lost harvesting and tax efficiency to the table, help you think about your giving plans, you know, help you thinking about, you know, even screening your investments to make sure they're aligned with your values if that's a conviction of yours. There's a lot an advisor can bring to the table for a far more reasonable fee, which I would put in the 1 to 1 and a half% range, um where he or she could absolutely justify the cost of the fees based on the value they're adding and even the performance. But at the end of the day, you need to be able to see that demonstrated over time. Um, so I would, you know, certainly you could look at doing it yourself, I'd probably look at, you know, interviewing two or three other advisors and see if you can find one that's the best fit, because I think the planning that they could bring to the table, the efficiencies from a tax standpoint and otherwise, on top of, you know, just having somebody who's, you know, not making emotional decisions, which is often more difficult when we're managing our own money, is certainly worth uh, you know, a reasonable management fee.
Randy What do you think about a uh like a $10,000 annual fee for an advisor that's not percentage-based, but they you would just pay them for the year?
Rob West Yeah, I would just be wonder what you're getting for that. Is it a fiduciary? What is their skill set, you know, what are they bringing to the table? Just because, you know, most advisors are going to charge a fee based on the assets under management, and if you're really trying to carve out and find one that's just going to do a flat fee, typically those flat fees are for financial planning engagements, typically not investment management. So you're just going to shrink the universe of advisors that you're bringing to the table and you may, you know, lose out on some that would really bring a a unique skill set to the table in terms of building and managing portfolios, you know, that you would miss just based on those parameters. But you certainly could start there and and see what you find.
Randy Okay.
Rob West Have you connected with any uh CKAs? Absolutely. Have you connected with any Certified Kingdom Advisors there in Iowa as an option?
Randy No, I haven't.
Rob West Okay. That might be worth looking at. Um I mean that's the designation we trust uh because we know they've met significant experience requirements at least 10 years. They've got an industry designation, pastor and client reference, statement of faith, code of ethics. We kind of put them through the ringer so to speak, but uh uh if you want to find at least the list of CKAs in your area, just go to findacka.com. Randy, I hope that helps. Thanks for your call, my friend. We'll be right back.
SEGMENT 5
Rob West Well, here on a Friday, in our final segment, we always look forward to Jerry Bowyer and Walker Wildman stopping by, and we get up to date on the markets and the latest in corporate engagement through AFA Action. Jerry, let's start with the markets. The Dow Jones, the S&P selling off, although the S&P is off just slightly. But a lot of this as oil back above $100 a barrel. Obviously, Middle East tensions are rising, the president being pretty outspoken about the fact that Iran has their sights set on these midterms, trying to do everything they can to thwart his administration. I don't know whether that's true or not, but nevertheless, the markets are responding, right?
Jerry Bowyer Yeah. Well, the Iranians historically track American politics pretty closely. So sometimes the president has some, you know, some theories that might seem a little paranoid or conspiratorial, but this one actually kind of rings true to me. I think they know that they can help impose a political price on the president by keeping this war going, and by choking off, you know, the choke points in the Strait of Hormuz or by the Houthis, who are sort of allies, you know, attacking other choke points. So that drives up the price of diesel, that help, that hurts the president in farm states. I'm seeing that the president is in trouble, or his favorite candidates are in trouble in a lot of places. So, I mean, I think we, the United States, is kind of winning the war in Iran in, not in the sense of it's all over, but in the sense of we can fly at will over their capital and they cannot fly at will over our capital. So from a military standpoint, we're in a dominant position, but in many ways they're winning politically. The war is unpopular, and the economic effects of the war are unpopular, and I think that's likely to show up in the midterms. The political futures markets show something like a 62-63% probability of a Democratic sweep in the midterms. And so, I think that this war turned out to be a lot tougher than the president thought it would. And I have it on good authority that when you decide to go to war, that it's important that you count the cost and make sure that you have enough soldiers, and enough money, and enough missiles. That's the, you know, the Bowyer paraphrase translation. Um, to see it through, and it's not clear that we really fully counted the cost. Um, of a wide-scale war, as opposed to the issue of hitting their nuclear facility. Um, you know, and basically setting that back whatever, 10, 20 years, or something more, as opposed to something more like regime change. So that means that energy prices are high, and, you know, we haven't had a recession yet based on that, but we definitely had slower growth than we could have. We've had a little bit of what they call a growth recession—low growth, but not negative growth. And I think that has a lot to do with the war, but I also think it has to do with the trade war as well, not so much on the energy side, but on the food side. So because I'm an economist, and a monetary economist, I try to make the point of going shopping with my wife. So we go to, you know, we go to Aldi's or we go to Costco, even though we're engaging with Costco and we don't like everything we're hearing, we still go there. We have a local chain called Giant Eagle, everyone has a local chain, and when I look at beef prices, I'm floored. Um, and, you know, that there are, there are trade war implications to these food prices. So I can see a situation where, um, you know, we've got inflationary pressures and we have, but we also have anti-growth pressures. And so the Fed is stuck with this dual mandate, which is you fight inflation by slowing the economy down. Oh, if the economy's slow, you need to create inflation to speed the economy up. Well, what happens when inflation's high and growth is low? That's stagflation. Which side of the dual mandate do you take? Well, it's impossible to work it out because they're conflicting mandates based on a biblically unsound understanding of what monetary policy should be. Not micromanaging the economy, not overriding all our decisions, not accumulating power in the hands of experts, just keeping the currency honest, getting away from unjust weights and measures. Basically, the market has decided that the current Fed Chairman is likely to go more into the fighting inflation mode, which is I think kind of the only valid mandate—just keep the currency sound. All right, that's great, but what that means is any stimulus effect from easy money is something the market doesn't expect to see, and when that happens, the prices go down, and that's what we're seeing.
Rob West Mm. Yeah. Jerry, one other question and then we'll pivot to corporate engagement. American Express out today saying they're cutting 5% of its workforce to, quote, "prepare for AI." Barclays with a similar announcement today. You know, I know we've seen some of this in the past. Do you think this trend is going to continue?
Jerry Bowyer Well, I think the trend is going to continue. The question is, are they telling the truth? Because if you are just trying to cut payroll, and you're looking for an excuse to cut payroll or something that fits a powerful narrative, saying "AI made me do it" is, you know, pretty good spin. Um, I mean, I would argue that AI makes people more productive, so Bowyer Research leans very heavily into AI, but we're hiring, not firing. Why? Because AI makes our people more productive. Well, if it makes our people more productive, don't we want more people being productive? Um, so if you have to cut your workforce due to AI, it suggests that you have not properly trained your workforce on how to be productive using AI. Or it suggests you've wanted to do layoffs for a long time, but you don't want to come off as cruel. So instead, we get to do the layoffs and say, "Oh, well, it's not that we overhired, it's not that we managed poorly, it's just, hey, we're leaning into AI and we're more efficient." Markets generally like layoffs, um, at least in the short run. Uh, but, but they, but people don't, right? Markets like layoffs, politicians don't. Um, if you tell the AI story, it gives you a little cover. Well, yeah, we're not really laying people off, we're just replacing them with agents, you know. We've got, we've got more workers now. Um, they're just named Claude and, uh, and Fable and, um, Copilot and all the. So I, I do not necessarily buy that these are AI-driven layoffs, um, but I think that's, it's possibly just spin. But I do expect more layoffs. Why? Because I expect the economy to slow down. And at the very least, it, if you've, if you've got a big, giant workforce, and it's really hard to get them to use AI because everything's sort of bureaucratic, then you might have trouble training people on it, and so you might end up replacing some of them with agents. At our scale, I mean, I, you know, I know everyone who's working for me. I see them every day, and I can say, "Hey, let me show you something we just learned. Susan and I just learned something, you know, a new agent or a new function or a new capacity." And so we bring them along in this journey of getting more productive, of mastering the AI rather than being mastered by it, which I think is the calling that I would like to see Christians embrace.
Rob West Yeah. That's well said. Speaking of Christians, uh, embracing things, I know you and the team are embracing corporate engagement. You've been leading in this space for a long time, and so has AFA as they work with you. Walker, give us an update on what you and Jerry and the team have been working on.
Walker Wildman Yeah, one of the focuses this cycle, um, with corporate engagement is, um, these companies using the Southern Poverty Law Center for their corporate matching program. So a lot of these major companies, these publicly traded companies that we own shares in, they have a corporate, um, matching program with their employees, a charitable matching program. And what we've seen in the past is where they've had this program where employees can supposedly give charitable contributions through payroll to various non-profits, but then the company comes in and says, "Well, if they're a Christian non-profit, or if they're American Family Association, or if they're a pro-life group, well, we're not going to match that." So it's somewhat selective, and but at the same time, they'll fund a lot of these left-wing projects and non-profits. And so that's what we're looking into, and it's been proven in the fact that some of these companies have used the SPLC, the Southern Poverty Law Center, as their quote-unquote "vetting" process and tool when it comes to charitable matching. So our, our request with these companies in our conversation is going to go like this: if you're going to have charitable matching, then all eligible, IRS-identified non-profits should be eligible for corporate matching, whether it's, you know, a so-called left-wing non-profit or American Family Association. If you're going to, you know, guarantee charitable matching, then you ought to do it across the board instead of picking and choosing. And so that's our position, and we don't even think companies have to do corporate, uh, charitable matching, but if they're going to, then they ought to offer it across the board, and not, uh, cancel or not allow conservative groups and churches and other non-profits that should be eligible for these programs.
Rob West Yeah, no doubt. And I mean, Jerry, this is just logical. We're just talking about equal treatment here, we're not asking for special treatment, right?
Jerry Bowyer Yeah, and we're also talking about, um, avoiding something that may well be legally, um, discriminatory. Uh, this is something that Andrea Lucas, chair of the EEOC, has talked about, um, that it, that basically, if your in an, in an employee match program, if you're discriminating against giving to a church, are you not inherently discriminating against the person who wants to give to the church or to the synagogue? Um, and if you are, then that is discrimination based on religious viewpoint, which is illegal. And I can tell you, you know, I've met the chair, I know the general counsel, they are going to enforce the law on this, and they're not going to turn a blind eye to discrimination when it's against Christians because that's an, you're allowed to get away with that. They've made clear that they are going to, uh, really enforce, um, the law when it comes to discrimination on the basis of religion, and they have done so aggressively. And I just reminded a company of that yesterday, uh, a bank called Truist, Southern bank, lots of Christian customers. Um, and, you know, they told us, "Well, you know, we don't match to everything, we match if, if you have a secular purpose, so if a church sets up a food bank, sure, but if it's like a religious purpose, then no." Uh, and we said, "Why?" And they said, "Well, because we'll, we might get audited by the IRS if we do that." And I was just flummoxed by that. You know, I'm a recovering tax accountant. I talked to every tax accountant and tax lawyer out there, nobody can find anything, uh, that says that giving to churches is somehow like the IRS doesn't like that and they're going to audit you. So, you know, we were talking yesterday to this particular company, and one of my colleagues said, you know, that the IRS is now aware that there are companies who are making this argument, and they're going to address it to make clear, uh, that you can give to churches the same as you can give to any other 501(c)(3). And I said there with the company on the line, "I disagree only with the plural. It's not companies. We've only heard this argument from one company." There's a whole bunch of other companies, partly due to AFA, that now give to churches. Don't they have tax accountants, too? I think they do.
Rob West Folks, if you want to be a part of this, consider making a gift of stock to the American Family Association at afafoundation.net. Jerry, Walker, thanks.
Jerry Bowyer Thank you.
Walker Wildman Thanks, Rob.
Rob West Folks, we'll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye.
When it comes to generosity, many of us struggle with where to give, how much to give, and whether it really makes a difference. On this Faith & Finance on AFR, Rob West explores why intentional giving isn’t just another financial habit—it’s an act of discipleship that connects our resources to God’s redemptive work in the world. Then, it’s on to calls.
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