EDMOND—Among the five columnists for theTrumpet.com, Robert Morley is the youngest, the only one who is not a Philadelphia Church of God minister, yet he has become the site’s best-known economy writer to readers inside and outside the Church. In his seven years in the news bureau of the pcg editorial department, Morley has contributed a large body of analysis on economic issues. He finds himself in this unique position not thanks to an economics degree, but because of hard work, humility and developing his talents, beginning in the frigid surroundings of western Canada.

Morley attended Herbert W. Armstrong College for two years as a married student. “When [editorial department head] Stephen Flurry and [chief operating officer Andrew] Locher said they wanted to put him in Editorial, I said I couldn’t use him. It seemed like a really bad fit to me,” department manager Joel Hilliker said. “Shows you what I know! He distinguished himself as a hard worker, very capable. He’s a clear thinker. He’s worked to get better and better at what he’s doing.”

Morley’s life changed in a more permanent way when he was hired full-time at pcg headquarters in 2007. “I remember it distinctly,” he says. “I was in the bathroom at Robbers’ Cave, shaving. Mr. Hilliker came up to me and said, ‘[W]e’ve decided to hire you in Editorial.’”

Since finishing that shave, Morley has written more than 700 articles for the Trumpet.

His average workday consists of several hours watching the news, checking headlines from his go-to sources, monitoring subscriptions and writing for theTrumpet.com and the Trumpet magazine. He also assigns, evaluates and edits article submissions from Trumpet contributors, and coordinates with news bureau manager Brad Macdonald and staff writer Richard Palmer, both in Britain, to cover important stories in Europe.

Over the last year or so, especially after Mr. Macdonald became a regional director and moved to England, Morley has overseen the production of the Trumpet Weekly newsletter. He has worked to make the newsletter more interactive by including hyperlinks and embedding Trumpet Daily and Key of David programs.

“When something’s thrown at me, I’ll go with it,” Morley says. “Hopefully people reading this, my supervisors, agree with that.”

In his columns, Morley is known for his mildly sarcastic wit and effective use of analogies, though he says his wife, Heather, sometimes cautions him to cut back on the literary devices. He credits the Trumpet ’s editing team for transforming his articles from “good” to “actually worth reading.”

Morley says he admires several writers: Mark Steyn, who is “brilliant” and “sees irony and hypocrisy”; Charles Krauthammer, who “can pack so much into 900 words—it’s very powerful”; DailyReckoning.com financial writers, because they are “witty” and have a “solid understanding of history”; and late Trumpet writers Ron Fraser and Tim Thompson.

Morley said his passion for learning about finances and the economy actually began when he was an environmental scientist living in California from 2002 to 2005. He was newly married and had a lot of questions. He asked himself, “How do you get ahead? What do you do to be a good steward with what God has given you?” His wife challenged him to learn the financial field to make wise investments.

The challenge showed him he had no idea how to use money prudently, he says. He started off by printing out finance and economy articles and reading them during his 90-minute train commutes in and out of Los Angeles.

Morley says his lack of formal training in economics turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He avoided a mainstream education that would have engrained the principle of credit and instead learned a different approach.

“It’s one of those fields that’s trying to be a science, but it can’t,” he says. “The more I understand, the less I understand.”

Morley says he was inspired to continue his financial research from conversations with California pcg member Ron Muzzy, who formerly produced an investment newsletter and gained some recognition by correctly forecasting the 1987 Black Monday worldwide stock market crash. Without Muzzy’s influence, Morley emphasizes that he would not be a Trumpet columnist today.

He and his wife were one of just three married couples to ever attend Herbert W. Armstrong College, from 2005 to 2007. He was a student writer during that time, and now he mentors student writers Callum Wood and Anthony Chibarirwe. “I’m basically teaching them to do my job,” Morley says. “The best way to teach is by doing.”

When he comes home from work, he is all about his family. His 5-year-old son, Nathaniel, “likes to know the rules. He’s very trustworthy. He’s a little more reserved and cautious.” In contrast, Gabrielle, his 2-year-old daughter, is a “party looking for a place to go.”

As focused as Morley is on dollars and cents, his interests also range from wrestling to stamp collecting to history. He says he likes reading about the sacrifices of great men and women of history such as British prime ministers Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. Until recently, he was also an avid stamp collector.

“At one point, I could tell you all there is to know about Canadian stamps from 1900 to 1945,” he says. “Some are beautiful; they literally are framed works of art.”

Growing up in Saskatchewan, Morley and his three brothers played lots of sports, including wrestling. Morley first walked onto the mat in kindergarten and continued through high school, where he wrestled two or three times a day in practices and competed in weekday matches, including a gold medal match where he lost the lead due to a twice-dislocated shoulder. (His competitor went on to win gold in the Canadian nationals.) This winter he has used his wrestling experience to teach a Sunday-morning wrestling class to boys in the Edmond congregation.

In the spring of 1994, then-16-year-old Robert and his family left the Worldwide Church of God to attend the pcg. That summer, he went to his only Philadelphia Youth Camp as a camper. “pyc is probably the reason I’m still here,” he says. Ironically, while at camp, he met his future wife, along with Trumpet executive editor Stephen Flurry, managing editor Joel Hilliker and many other people he works closely with today.