What Is Your Credit Score and Is It Right?

Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Romans 13:7

I had gone into a Ford dealership to discuss buying a car. In order to get the best deal, I wanted to look at all the options: leasing, a loan, or cash. The salesperson took all my information and went to the dealership’s business manager. I could tell by the look in his eyes when he came back that something was wrong. He informed me I had a really bad credit score. I asked him why, and he said, “You have twenty-three credit cards!”

At that time, I did.

Anytime we went to a new store, they would offer us a discount if we opened up a credit account. To take advantage of the offer, we would get a credit card. Once the purchase was paid off, we would cut up the card or put it in a safe place. So, I was confused—why did it matter that I had twenty-three credit cards if those cards had no balance?

Well, as it turns out, having too many credit cards is a red flag, regardless if you have no balance. But it opened my eyes to how we get a “FICO” score—your credit rating. It matters if you pay you bills on time, but other factors go into determining your score as well.

Later, in speaking with my friend Les, I discovered more facts. He was complaining that his score was abysmal, and he had no idea why. He paid his bills, owned his house outright, and had only two credit cards. When he looked at his credit report, he noticed he had a good payment history and a good score for that factor. But he didn’t have a mortgage, and that was a big hit downward to his credit score. Also, he only had the two credit cards, and that also lowered his score.

His final dispute

His final hit was a dispute he’d had with a medical service company in which he thought the bill was too high. He had been charged more than his insurance company said was fair, and Les had only paid the amount they believed he owed. The provider didn’t agree and sent his bill to a collection agency, who filed a negative complaint. That was it—just one dispute and his score was lowered.

It turns out the ideal number of credit cards to have is six. And you should have a mortgage or at least one installment loan. Plus, even if you dispute a bill, the credit bureaus side with the one who overbilled!

The Rules

This probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, but these are the rules. What surprised me more was that after I had canceled all but four of our credit cards, my score didn’t really improve. Again, the reason was, I didn’t have enough credit.

For those with no debt or history of debt, its worse! Both of my two youngest daughters had been lectured by us to avoid debt. As such, neither had ever accrued any debt at all. Their credit score was at 300—the lowest possible score. To solve this, they had to apply for credit cards and put a deposit down to cover their limit in case of default.

Even more remarkable is that I get credit card solicitations from my credit scoring company, Experian, that they recommend for me! Huh, when did the credit bureaus get into the business of promoting debt?

Debt is bad in most cases.

Things like paying off your house, limiting what you spend to only what you can pay for, and paying on time are great life lessons and biblically supported. But some credit is necessary, like taking out a mortgage to buy a house, or to lease a car, or in some cases, to buy a business. Personally, I like the points I get for using my credit card instead of paying cash and then paying the balance off at the end of the month.

Credit Rules

Unfortunately, the rules of how the credit score is determined by the FICO corporation don’t make sense. The three credit reporting companies, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax agree. In turn, they recently banded together and have started testing their own credit scoring system, called Vantage. Much of the silliness of the FICO score is addressed, but many lenders still use FICO. However, the Vantage score is becoming more accepted and slowly taking hold.

So, should we have exactly 6 credit cards, a mortgage, and use credit to pay our bills? Yes, if you want to have a good credit score. But don’t forget to pay your bills on time!

The system may eventually work itself out, and some of the inane things you have to do to maintain a good credit or FICO score will change. But in today’s verse, the Apostle Paul gives a simple solution in Romans, where he says: “Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.” It is good advice regardless of whether or not it always helps your credit score. Doing the right thing is always good.

The rules will eventually catch up; they always do.

Dr. Bruce L Hartman, Christian Author and Story Teller. A former Fortune 500 CFO who left the corporate world to engage in a ministry of “Connecting The Lessons of the Gospels to the Modern Life.”  His life mission is “Helping People Walk into a Brighter Future.”

He is the author of Jesus & Co.  and Your Faith Has Made You Well

Visit www.brucelhartman.com

Blessings, until next time,
Bruce L. Hartman

Dr. Bruce L. Hartman is the author of Jesus & Co. and Your Faith Has Made You Well.

Photo by Two Paddles Axe and Leatherwork on Unsplash

Looking Deeper Before We Judge

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

John 8:7

She was an African American born in 1902 who grew up in southern Mississippi. Throughout her youth she endured segregation, learning where she could go and what she could say. It was a tough life that required her to be vigilant so as to not offend the white folks. As she approached her teen years she started to think about her future. She saw the jobs the older African American women had: most were wash maids, servants, or wives of sharecroppers. She saw them struggle to make a life. It was not the kind of life she wanted for herself.

At the age of eighteen, she gathered up what few belongings she had and walked twenty-eight miles north to the town of Natchez. It was bigger than her small, rural town—perhaps here she could fulfill her dream of a better life. She quickly found out that not much was different for an African American woman in Natchez.

The only job she could find that paid well was as a prostitute in a section of town called, “Under the Hill.” It was a tough place filled with brothels and bars and a place where people would sometimes disappear.

It was especially dangerous for a prostitute.

She learned her craft well and squirreled away a large amount of money. She also developed a clientele that included the powerful men of Natchez and the surrounding communities. By the age of twenty-three, she’d saved enough money to buy a house on Rankin street in an upper middle-class part of town.

Here she continued her trade, safe from the dangers of working on the riverfront. Over a few years, many came to the screen door in the back of her house, and she hired other workers of the night.

By 1930 she had a full-blown brothel operating in the heart of town. She would run the brothel for another sixty years.

She was clever in how she ran her business. She kept a black book containing the names of the powerful men who visited her. On Christmas, she delivered expensive liquor to the mayor, police chief, and local sheriff.

All promised to leave her alone.

She would not let black men into her brothel for fear of reprisal. Every day she had southern comfort food for her clients. She sold beer and kept a cheery house. Not only did the locals visit, but soon she became Mississippi’s most famous madam. There was an Army base nearby, and on Saturday nights, the young serviceman would line up for blocks, waiting their turn.

But there was another side to this successful and tough businessperson. She and her girls made food for the local orphanage and delivered it secretly to the back door. She gave generously to the local Catholic church.

She paid for neighborhood improvements. If a neighbor needed money for repairs, she gave it to them.

During the civil rights era, when many local blacks were arrested for peacefully protesting, she used her pull with local officials and had them released.

The FBI would visit her house early in the morning to get information about the Ku Klux Klan. Despite the danger, she told them all that she knew and was instrumental in eliminating the Klan from her community.

She had one rule that she never broke.

After one of her girls was murdered by a drunken client, she refused to serve anyone who’d been drinking. It was a rule that would ultimately cost her her life.

On July 4th of 1990, a young man appeared at her back door, belligerent and drunk. She refused him entry. He left and went to the local gas station where he filled up a canister with gasoline and then went back to her house.

This time, she came to the door with a pistol she kept for protection. The man threw gasoline on her through the screen door and lit a match. Not only did she catch on fire, but her assailant did too.

As he ran away, he looked like a running fireball.

The house caught on fire, and she stumbled to her bedroom where she collapsed with severe burns on 80 percent of her body. A young female firefighter who responded to the scene comforted her while rescue vehicles arrived. Barely alive and breathing heavily, her last moments were lived in agony.

She and her assailant both died the next day. Pastor O’Connor, the priest from the nearby Catholic church offered to arrange her funeral. It was the same church that she had helped many times over the previous sixty years.

During the next week, some of the parishioners complained bitterly about their church being used for a madam’s funeral. Despite this, the following Sunday, Pastor O’Connor delivered a fire and brimstone sermon about judging others. He quoted the above verse from John 8:7. It is the story of a woman who was stoned for leading a life as a prostitute. When Jesus arrived, he asked the crowd to only cast a stone if they had never sinned. As we all know, the crowd disbanded.

The woman’s name was Nellie Jackson, and you won’t find a Wikipedia page about her. But if you google her name, you can read her story from newspaper accounts, and in 2017, a local produced a documentary called Mississippi Madam.

If you watch it, you will discover that she attended many World Series—the last one in 1984 in Detroit. Her tickets were given to her by Bill Harrah—yes, the man who started the Harrah casinos.

Nellie was befriended and beloved by many.

Not because she ran a brothel but because she gave to her community. She was a person who listened to those that needed comfort. Those who worked for her loved her, and so did her clients.

I don’t write this to support brothels or to glamorize prostitution. I write it to tell a story about a woman who did the best she could when society tried to keep her in a box. Could she have become a doctor and saved lives? Could she have become a great stateswoman and fought for democracy? Maybe, but given her background it’s unlikely.

Jesus defended the prostitute because he knew one thing—we all fail. Ours is not to judge but to pray for understanding. Ours is not to hate, but to love. We are all made in the image of God.

Blessings, until next time,
Bruce L. Hartman

Dr. Bruce L. Hartman is the author of Jesus & Co. and Your Faith Has Made You Well.

Photo by Hanson Lu on Unsplash

Wanda: a Story of a Faithfully Lived Life

I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Philippians [3:14]

At our after-church Bible study, I went up to a woman and thanked her for giving us a wonderful testimony of a life lived fully with faith. Each Sunday after church, one hundred or so people gather for this Bible study group. It is definitely the largest I have ever attended. Each Sunday, one person gives a short testimony about their life.

This particular Sunday it was Wanda’s turn.

As I greeted Wanda after the Bible study ended, I noticed how frail she was. She walked with a cane, and her skin told the story of a woman whose earthly body was wearing down. But in her eyes, I saw a humble and joyous woman. Each time I told her that I was amazed at what she had accomplished, she said, “It wasn’t me; it was our Lord working within me.” She took no credit for anything that had happened in her wonderful life.

She had been very nervous speaking to this large group.

Her mouth was still dry as she talked with me, revealing exactly how nervous she had been. She confided that up to the moment she started speaking, she was sure she would fail. With a silent prayer, she started talking and held the audience’s attention throughout her riveting talk. Again, when I told her what a marvelous speaker she was, she said, “It was God and not me.”

When Wanda had first gotten married, she and her husband decided they would devote their lives to helping others and joined a missionary group that served in the States. First, they went to Colorado Springs for one year of training and received their certificates to be missionaries. Their early life was hard, with little in the way of financial resources, yet they continued.

They went to San Diego and worked in a house that harbored the poor. Wanda was a cook, cleaning lady, and baby sitter. Her husband was a general fix-it person. To supplement their income, her husband went to work with General Dynamics.

Later, she heard of a man who also worked as a missionary whose wife had died and left him with three young children. Through prayer, she felt that God was asking her to help this man with his children. She talked with her husband who, coincidently, had the same thing on his heart. So they approached the leaders of their missionary organization and mentioned they were willing to help him. They replied, “Thanks, but he is going to have a nurse help him.”

But Wanda had felt, through prayer, that God wanted her and her husband to help this man. She also felt that God had told her that she and her husband would have a child after they were done. By that time, Wanda and her husband had been married for seven years and had no children.

It looked bleak for them to be able to raise a family.

A couple of weeks later, the mission group called to say that the man could use their help after all. Wanda and her husband moved in at the mission where the widower was staying. For a couple of years, Wanda took care of the children while her husband and the widower worked in the mission.

When her assignment was over, she got a call that a young sixteen-year-old was about to have a baby and wanted to give the child up for adoption. They asked Wanda if she would care for the infant until adoptive parents could be found. She said yes. They took the baby, and her husband went back to work at General Dynamics. She applied to adopt the baby herself, and the mission she had been working for provided the money for legal help. After a few months, she and her husband became the child’s adoptive parents.

Later, another adopted child arrived.

Wanda now had the family she’d always wanted. Her husband got promoted and was transferred to Fort Worth, Texas, where he continued his climb up the corporate ladder. They lived there, raising their two children for thirty-four years.

Their children grew up and had kids of their own. Both ended up in the mountains of western North Carolina. When Wanda’s husband retired, they moved to Asheville to be with her children and grandchildren.

Today, Wanda has been married for sixty-six years and has grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She has never stopped helping others. Through her church, she worked on many missions. Even today, at nearly ninety years old, she stills works for the Lord.

Wanda is frail today and slowing down, but her eyes are still bright. She will only thank God for the wonderful life she has led. While younger versions speed around and build their own lives, Wanda stays in the fortress of the life she built with God.

Blessings, until next time,
Bruce L. Hartman

Dr. Bruce L. Hartman is the author of Jesus & Co. and Your Faith Has Made You Well.

Photo by Nicole Honeywill / Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Thurgood Marshall: an Effective Advocate for Civil Rights

I recently watched the movie, Marshall, and became interested in Thurgood Marshall, so I did some research to discover more about him. The movie portrayed him as a bit of a rabble-rouser, but like all movies that are “based on true events,” it was a bit off the mark. I found him to be a more enlightened individual than the movie portrayed. Skillful in pushing change, he used the Constitution and the word of law to enact his agenda of universal rights for all.

Thurgood knew how to beat a bully

It isn’t through emotional outbursts or loudly spoken demands. Instead, it is by carefully and coolly using the weapons at hand—in this case, the law. And much of what Thurgood accomplished was through making allies and not enemies.

For instance, he didn’t apply to the University of Maryland Law school, his local school. In the early part of the last century, African Americans couldn’t attend the University of Maryland School of Law, which Thurgood knew. Instead, he went to Howard University to get his degree. After some strong mentoring by the new dean of Howard University’s law school, he went into law to protect the oppressed. Once he had his own law practice, he met another young African American who actually had applied to the University of Maryland law school and was denied acceptance. While representing Donald Gaines Murray, Marshall eventually prevailed in getting Murray accepted to the school, winning his case before the State of Maryland Supreme Court. He had won the battle against the school to which he had once known he would be denied attendance only when he had the tools at his disposal to fight.

Fighting for what is right

Thurgood strongly believed in fighting hard for what was right and knew the law would follow. He was one of our country’s strongest constitutional attorneys. Thirty-two times he represented people not getting a fair break in front of the United States Supreme Court. He won all but three of those cases. He won his first case at the Supreme Court at the age of thirty-two.

His most famous case was Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. He successfully argued that “separate was not equal,” setting the stage for other public schools to accept people of all races. This landmark case broke apart the barriers that had prevented African American students from going to the schools of their choice.

Thurgood founded the NAACP legal arm and served in that post for twenty-five years. During that time, he created much of the legal legwork to support the later civil rights movement.

While other civil rights activists worked against J. Edgar Hoover, Marshall found a way to make Hoover an ally. He pushed President Kennedy on civil rights and encouraged him to appoint more African American judges. In turn, he was appointed to the federal appellate court as a judge and later was appointed, by Kennedy, as the country’s Solicitor General.

When Lyndon Johnson became President, he appointed Thurgood as the first African American Supreme Court justice. It was post he filled for twenty-four years. His service as a federal appellate judge had provided him with the necessary training to serve on our nation’s highest court.

Many may not know the deeper history of this wonderful American.

His story isn’t just about what he accomplished, but more about how he accomplished his goals. He was certainly liberal in his views, but not blindly so. He didn’t vote strictly on party lines but on what he believed was right. The most conservative judges respected him because he fought for his causes based on what he believed was right. He didn’t push for change until he had the right tools and information.

Thurgood knew that getting into wars of words with bullies was a dead-end street. He needed facts and the law to support his causes. He avoided celebrity to focus on the truth. As with his battle with the University of Maryland, he didn’t forget; instead, he returned to fight when he was prepared as a lawyer and used the Constitution to win his case.

Jesus tells us to stand up for the weak and to fight for the downtrodden. But Jesus also told us to be wise and kind as doves. This was Thurgood’s approach. In a very Christian manner, he pushed hard but not at the expense of civility.

Finding support

While others will squawk about what’s unfair, they forget to make allies. In their haste to get what they want, they forget about the barriers that angry discourse creates. Thurgood knew that any cause that is just will attract honorable people while name-calling attracts the wrong supporters.

While Martin Luther King felt that civil disobedience without violence was the right way, Thurgood believed it was through the legal system. Despite their difference, King driven by the Bible and Marshall by the law, they respected each other. When Marshall received harsh criticism by the more militant of the civil rights leaders, he stood his ground. He had been toughened up many years earlier in southern courtrooms while fighting for civil rights. He was there when they were young. Their criticism was nowhere near the violence he had faced many years earlier, like the time he’d had shotguns pointed at him on a train platform.

Rights for all

Thurgood Marshall is not the most visibly famous of the advocates for the universal rights for all people. But he is certainly the one who most changed the course of civil rights in America. Martin Luther King knew this, and despite their differences in approach, wrote to both President Kennedy and Johnson asking that Thurgood being made a Justice.

They complied.

Wrong is wrong and always needs to be corrected. There is always a need for immediacy to all change. Importantly, change needs two things: allies and intellect. Thurgood was a model for others to follow in affecting change. Angry rhetoric will not move the angry bear called injustice, calmness will. Power isn’t given up by clanging cymbals together but through genuine intellect. Those who seek to push back injustices while obtaining celebrity will not succeed. Those who seek to remove injustice with compassion in their heart will succeed.

Thurgood Marshall was a great American, and he knew our Constitution well. He may not be the most famous civil rights advocate, but he was certainly one of its most effective.

Dr. Bruce L Hartman, Christian Author and Story Teller. A former Fortune 500 CFO who left the corporate world to engage in a ministry of “Connecting The Lessons of the Gospels to the Modern Life.”  His life mission is “Helping People Walk into a Brighter Future.”

Blessings, until next time,
Bruce L. Hartman

Dr. Bruce L. Hartman is the author of Jesus & Co. and Your Faith Has Made You Well.

Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash

John Wycliffe, the First Protestant Reformer

The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.

Isaiah 40:8

In the summer of 1348, the black plague hit the shores of England. For nearly two years, it ravaged the British Isles, and forty percent of its inhabitants lost their lives, throwing society into upheaval with food shortages and economic disarray. All tried to discern what has caused the death and destruction.

During that time, John Wycliffe was a resident teacher and theologian at the University of Oxford. Prior to the arrival of the Black Death, Wycliffe had observed the rise of what he termed “the Royalty of Clergy.” Wycliffe had long wondered about the contradiction of the existing priests’ lavish lifestyles with the teachings of Christ.

Wycliffe also noticed that the existing clergy had a higher death rate from the plague than the non-clerical population and made the unscientific observation that must have been related to their contradictory lifestyle.

At the same time of the Black Death, the nobility of England had begun to resent papal influence in running their empire. Local nobles saw this conflict as competition for resources from  far away rulers.

As Wycliffe formed his theories and began to go public, he gained political support and encouragement from the noble class. He called the clergy “a pest on society.” The more vocal Wycliffe became, the more support he gained from the nobles who also resented clergy holding political office.

One strong supporter of Wycliffe was John of Gaunt.

He was the third of the five surviving sons of King Edward III. Through his birthright, advantageous marriages, and significant land grants, he was one of England’s richest men.

Initially, Wycliffe benefited from John of Gaunt’s protection. A strange confluence of events had formulated his ideas regarding the Black Death and the rise of English nobility. His early writings and speeches centered around the question: what right does the papacy have to meddle in English affairs?

He was the grandfather of the idea that the Bible and only the Bible was the central authority in spiritual matters. He believed that local populations should be able to hear and read the word of God in their native languages. While Luther would later famously call the pope the Anti-Christ, Wycliffe actually used this phrase almost two centuries earlier.

Wycliffe also believed in the theory of pre-destination. In other words, God selects those who will go to heaven. As such, why was there a need for the existing church to intercede?

All of this coincidently tied in with the rise of the noble class.

While Luther is credited with the first translation of the Bible into the vernacular or native language, it was once again Wycliffe who accomplished this first. He is credited with personally translating sections of the four Gospels and supervising the translation of other parts of the Bible. In fact, 150 completed or partially completed manuscripts still exist today.

In his later years, Wycliff’s writings became directed at all authority and not just the Catholic church. This included English nobility. Though still protected by the noble class in his later years, he faced a period of temporary imprisonment. Though never formally abandoned by his native people, his last years were complicated.

Wycliffe died in 1384 at the age of sixty-four.

He was still attacked posthumously. In the early part of the 1400’s, his body was exhumed and burned at the stake. All likenesses of him were burned as well. The paintings we have of him today are from a much later period.

So, while Luther is often credited as being the originator of the Protestant Reformation, much of what Wycliffe did came first. He is the grandfather of the movement.

But like all periods in history, there is more to the story. Certainly, Wycliffe was sincere in his beliefs. But other factors were necessary for his voice to be heard. This is true of all future reformers like Hus, Luther, and Calvin.

Wycliffe was influenced by the horrible scourge of the black death.

It affected his gloomy view of the clergy and the world. In fact, Wycliffe believed the whole human race would be gone by 1400 AD. He correlated the high death rate amongst clergy with their contrary lifestyle.

Like other parts of the Reformation, the support of nobility was instrumental in creating the strength of the movement. This is not to say that Wycliffe, Hus, Luther, and Calvin were not sincere, but they were greatly aided by an aligned group of native elite who protected them. Protection that they gave quickly to benefit themselves.

I do not believe we should view the Protestant Reformation as a win but as the creation of another way to worship. The early Protestant reformers were external to the Catholic church. Internally, the Catholic church has also had reformers. The confluence of these two types of reformers have led to a strengthened Christianity. The church—both Catholic and Protestant—have many who believe in reformation and improvement.

We should always remember, we are all Christians first!

Blessings, until next time,
Bruce L. Hartman

Dr. Bruce L. Hartman is the author of Jesus & Co. and Your Faith Has Made You Well.

Photo by Piotr Gaertig on Unsplash