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Wealth Without Guilt is must reading for earnest Christians. Its importance, aside from its instructive and practical value, is that it plows new ground in contemporary Christian thought. This volume will do much to resolve the pervasive ambivalence that is present in Christian circles on the question of money and material possessions.

The Christian Church cannot exist without money and material resources of the realm in which it exists. A two-fold continuing dilemma exists in Christian venues: 1) In what prescribed and reasonable manner shall Christian churches extract from their communicants the resources they need for ministry, and 2) how shall Christian churches inform and educate their communicants, on biblical principles, of appropriate personal attitudes toward money and possessions? This dilemma is real and at many points disconcerting, especially to the African-American community, which remains at the bottom rung of the economic ladder in the United States.

The value of Roland Hill’s study, Wealth Without Guilt, is that it speaks directly to this issue. He has given careful analysis to the ambiguity which prevails in the ranks of Christendom generally and in African-American church life particularly. Unlike many tomes which lift up a problem and support their critiques with substantial analysis, Dr. Hill’s work offers some very concrete and viable solutions. It may not be an exaggeration to say that this book can be a blueprint for the survival of the African-American Church in the 21^st century – and perhaps of the race!

The reader is admonished that this is not a Dick-and-Jane book. It is serious reading and will require some considerable thought and reflection in order to glean the larger harvest of its value and importance. In addition to his main thrust of developing some new foundational principles for the Christian enterprise, the author provides a very careful historical record of precisely how the Christian Church developed this nettlesome ambiguity on the issue of money and possessions. The book is both informative and persuasive in its content – and careful in its scholarship and documentation.

Any Christian – clergy or layperson – will greatly benefit from the investment made in purchasing this volume. It holds the promise of a ten-, twenty-, or hundred-fold return, in establishing in one’s spirit a wholesome and theologically based attitude toward money and possessions.

Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker -- Canaan Baptist Church of Christ – Harlem, New York