Article is facile and simplistic, and the author needs some work on reading comprehension and logical reasoning. First, the "Bible" isn't one single, consistent behemoth; it is a series of writings over time from a group of people that was selected and codified by another group of people hundreds of years later. Its writers are human, and so whatever they write is going to be interpreted through a very human lens. In short: they are the classic fallible narrators.
Second: the examples given do not support the conclusion, either because of basic reading comprehension issues or question-begging analysis. Example: the Bible does not say money is the root of all evil; it says love of money is. OK. So the author takes this and leaps to, ergo, FIRE adherents are going down the wrong path by amassing money. But that conclusion is based on the assumption that saving for the future = "love of money." That is a false equivalency.* I would argue that people focused on FIRE actually have less "love" of money than the normal consumerist, because for them, money is simply a tool -- it is a way to cut the shackles that require them to devote so much life-energy to supporting their everyday existence, and to instead use that time for more important goals. In the FIRE world, money is not an end in and of itself, nor is it a way to buy fancy things to flaunt social status. FIRE is the opposite of Scrooge McDuck rolling around in his giant pile of cash.
Similarly, the passage about the guy building bigger barns doesn't say it's a bad idea to stash away grain to protect against future lean years -- it says don't grab all you can and use it to spend the rest of your life partying and living high on the hog. IOW, the problem isn't with the stashing, it is with the purpose that stashing is serving.
Finally: the article is built on a strawman that becomes clear only at the end: the comparison is between a FIRE adherent and someone who works just as hard and spends just as little but decides to give away the difference instead of save it. Now, that in and of itself is a questionable moral analysis, as it seriously undervalues the benefit of doing your best to avoid being a burden on society. But the reality is that 99.99% of FIRE opponents are not going to be the next Mother Theresa. They are going to take that extra money and spend it on more personal consumption -- bigger houses, newer cars, nicer clothes, fancier vacations, you name it. That's the "fair" comparison. Yes, we all should give more than we do and think more of others. But between someone who is putting money away for the future vs. someone who is spending the exact same amount of money on living a more lavish lifestyle now, which do you think those biblical authors would approve of more?
I would argue that FIRE is inherently more "Christian" in values than our standard consumer culture. Because FIRE demands that we focus intensively on what is enough. Instead of chasing more/better/bigger/greater, we each have to think very hard about what matters to us and what doesn't, and to evaluate how little we can actually live on intead of how much more we can afford to buy. And the result is that FIRE adherents in fact need to chase less wealth, leave a smaller consumption footprint, and spend less time shackled to the pursuit of the almighty dollar -- leaving far more time to devote to more meaningful pursuits. At heart, it is anti-greed, anti-selfishness, anti-grabiness.
One of the songs that we sing at Passover is "Dayenu."** Dayenu basically means "it would have been enough," and the song is about how if God had only done X, it would have been enough, but God then went on and did Y too. The concept of dayenu has really resonated with me, because it required me to realize how much of what we have been given is completely excessive and far more than we actually need to be happy and safe. Gee, sounds a little like FIRE, eh?
Look, we can all do better (which, btw, strikes me as the fundamental point of the Bible). We can be less selfish. We can give more. We can put more time and energy into figuring out what our fellow humans need. We can focus more on service -- on giving rather than taking. That's one of the reasons I do not jump on people here who choose to continue to tithe instead of following the more standard save now/give later approach. And yes, FIRE can be corrupted into something that is mean and stingy and selfish -- just like "prosperity gospel" can be corrupted into a means to justify a selfish, lavish, consumerist lifestyle. But if you want to look at how Jesus lived and the words that are attributed directly to him, well, is that closer to Pete's daily life and "preachings," or Jerry Falwell Jr's $100M net worth and $1M/yr (former) salary?
*Plus Paul's a giant flaming asshole. IMO.
**I'm Christian, DH is Jewish, so I have a little bit of knowledge of both but do not claim to be an expert in either.
