Larry Burkett
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Larry Burkett (b. March 3, 1939; d. July 4, 2003) was an American author and radio personality whose work focused on financial counseling from an evangelical Christian point of view.
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[edit] Background
Burkett was born the fifth of eight children. After completing high school in Winter Garden, Florida, he entered the U.S. Air Force where he served in the Strategic Air Command.
Upon completion of his military duties, Burkett and his wife Judy returned to central Florida, where he worked in the space program at Cape Canaveral. He spent the next several years at the Space Center in charge of an experiments test facility that served the Mercury-, Gemini-, and Apollo-manned space programs. While working at the space center, Burkett earned degrees in marketing and finance at Rollins College.
Burkett left the Space Center in 1970 to become Vice President of an electronics manufacturing firm. In 1972, he became an evangelical Christian; an event that had a profound effect on his life. In 1973, he left the electronics company to join the staff of a nonprofit ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ, as a financial counselor where he met Austin Pryor, Ron Blue and other notable financial experts. It was during this time that he began an intense study of what the Bible says about handling money, and he started teaching small groups around the country.
Burkett left the campus ministry in 1976 to form Christian Financial Concepts (CFC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching the biblical principles of handling money. In September 2000, CFC merged with Crown Ministries, creating a new organization, Crown Financial Ministries. Burkett served as Chairman of the Board of Directors until his death in 2003 from heart complications in Gainesville, Georgia.[1]
[edit] Controversy
While Larry Burkett is touted to have been a financial expert, he was an alarmist about the Y2K fiasco near the turn of the century. He warned of recession and economic collapse. In addition, he urged listeners to store 10 days of food supplies and 50 gallons of water. Burkett went as far as to declare that the U.S. Senate was misleading the public on the catastrophe ahead.
[edit] Works
Burkett published more than 70 books, sales of which now exceed 11 million copies and include several national best-sellers. The three radio programs that he began -- “Money Matters,” “How to Manage Your Money,” and “MoneyWatch,” along with a series of short features titled “A Money Minute” -- have been carried on more than 1,100 radio outlets worldwide. (Crown Financial Ministries has since replaced the three longer-form radio broadcasts with shows having different titles and reworked formats.) In May 1996, Southwest Baptist University conferred on Burkett an honorary doctorate in economics. His last book was Nothing to Fear, in which he gave an update on his experiences with cancer and cancer treatments.
Not long before his death, Burkett founded the Larry Burkett Cancer Research Foundation. The foundation was dissolved after successfully funding the operations of Dr. Patrick Sewell for several years.
[edit] Publications
[edit] Non-fiction
- What Ever Happened to the American Dream
- The Coming Economic Earthquake
- Your Finances in Changing Times
- Business by the Book
- The Financial Planning Workbook
- Women Leaving the Workplace
- Investing for the Future
- Financial Parenting
- Debt-Free Living
- Hope When It Hurts
- and Great Is Thy Faithfulness
- Nothing to Fear
- The Complete Financial Guide for Young Couples
[edit] Novels
- The Illuminati
- The THOR Conspiracy
- Solar Flare
- Kingdom Come (with T.Davis Bunn)
