Rick Warren on Wealth

Recently, Beliefnet interviewed Rick Warren. I wasn’t going to bother linking the interview, but I came across a quote that stopped me in my tracks:

The other thing is that we’ve had people in previous years who were simply about wealth acquisition without creation of value. A guy who makes two million dollars in a day and doesn’t add anything of value to society – that’s phony money in my opinion. It’s not real wealth. It’s not like a guy who’s created a product or a service and that is really making the world a better place and he should be paid for it....

Rick (Dr. Warren?) was asked if he believed there was a spiritual cause to the hard economic times we appear to be in. That was part of his response. Once again, I’m working on a post that I haven’t finished yet that asks some questions and puts forth my opinion on this issue. I’ve said before that I love listening to Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who says that money has a spiritual component. I have nothing against wealth and I hope to have some one day, but like Rick Warren says, it should add value to society. Apple is making tons of money but their iPhones and other devices do add some value to society. Wealth for the sake of wealth cannot be good for anybody.