Feel Free to Copy and Distribute;
Our Review Requested if Excerpted

“The name ‘Moral Majority’ struck many Americans as arrogant and self-righteous. As Christian activist Ralph Reed once wrote, ‘If you say you’re moral, you’re saying others aren’t.’” —The Wall Street Journal, upon the death of Jerry Falwell

“It is possible to envision a time when evangelicals have the ‘consistent Christian perspective tools’ they require in this area of life. But it is probably best to expect Christian theology for life under modern high-tech capitalism to come mainly from where it now does—from Jewish, Catholic, Reformed and Lutheran sources, in which traditions exist for relating doctrines of creation to matters of redemption in a modern economic context.” —Professor John R. Schneider, Calvin College

Nearly twenty years ago, I wrote a book that Christianity Today called “the first book outlining a comprehensive scriptural basis for an evangelical embrace of ethical investing.” Since that time, socially responsible investing, or SRI, has grown into a very significant movement on Wall Street while corporate social responsibility, or CSR, has grown into the same in corporate America. Yet today, a handful of conservative Christian financial advisors have deemed that SRI is not biblical enough, so they have created a concept they call biblically responsible investing, or BRI. Frankly, I believe the concept is as likely to keep millions wandering in the moral desert of the American political-economy as some of the same people’s thinking did about the federal debt and Y2K.

I’d like to tell you my first book played a significant role in motivating these primarily evangelical financial advisors to take the art of SRI to new spiritual heights, for SRI has always been an art rather than a science. Unfortunately, popular evangelical financial “leaders” actually resisted the SRI movement entirely during the nineties. They often stated the average Christians’ finances are irrelevant in the scheme of things. Yet Peter Drucker once wrote, “If all the super-rich disappeared, the world economy would not even notice. The most important source of capital is the average mutual fund transaction of $10,000.” They also thought it impossibly complicated. Worse, they often implied SRI is a liberal, even new age, movement when in fact it has been one created and developed with the leadership of theologically trained Jews and Christians.

The Pioneer Fund may have launched the modern movement back in the 1930’s by avoiding the so-called “sin stocks” of alcohol, tobacco, and gambling companies upon request by religious investors. My mentor Sir John Templeton, a devout Presbyterian who has graced a poster for a Bible society and chaired the board of a seminary, approximated that ethic beginning in 1954 with his fund, which added the dimension of investing in lesser developed nations. Methodist minister Luther Tyson helped Christians avoid profiting from the Vietnam War by creating the Pax World Fund. And my friend Peter Kinder, another devout Episcopalian, expanded the movement to nearly current levels when he co-authored the book Ethical Investing. His consulting firm helps investors to new levels of ethical investing each and every day. (Funds mentioned, of course, are for illustrative purposes only and should not be construed as a recommendation. Investment decisions should be based on an individual's goals, time horizon, and tolerance for risk.)

Yet the millions of Christians who have come to the faith through the evangelical movement have had little, if any, interest in any form of responsible investing until quite recently. Their leaders’ total lack of interest probably means more of SRI movement’s growth has been due to good old financial self-interest on the part of investors seeking to protect themselves from future scandals like those that occurred at Enron, Worldcom, and Healthsouth, which were led by very visible and conservative Christians. That’s capitalism, not Christianity. (Disclosure: I served on the board of a major ministry with Ken Lay of Enron. While he was a nice fellow and ministers are supposed to say good things about us once we’ve gone to our reward, I was rather embarrassed that some eulogized Ken as having been persecuted as Christ was. Corporate America, and particularly investors, knew that was nonsense; so even Ken’s death likely contributed to the alienation of the affluent from our faith.) That should concern any evangelical. Even John Paul II knew, “If evangelization of society’s leaders is neglected, it should come as no surprise that many who are part of it will be guided by criteria alien to the Gospel and at times openly hostile to it.”

So the first question to be resolved is: “Is either SRI or BRI a legitimate religious endeavor?” Very simply, regardless of your faith, I believe the answer is yes. Christianity Today has said, “For Christians, the integration of faith into all areas of life rests on Christ’s vision for his church and world. Faithful believers may not bracket off from God any part of their world, however resistant it might be to godly influence.” John Paul II said, “The decision to invest in one place rather than another, in one productive sector rather than another, is always a moral and cultural choice.” And Irving Kristol wrote this for The Wall Street Journal: “Religion is not some kind of psychic exercise that occasionally offers a transcendent experience. It either shapes one’s life—all of one’s life—or it vanishes, leaving behind anxious, empty souls that no psychotherapy can reach.” The Guide to Understanding Islamic Investing says, “The Qur’an encourages believers to engage in beneficial trade and to invest. It even uses the language of finance to urge Muslims toward piety.” Even the seemingly ascetic Dalai Lama has said, “If we do not manage our affairs both spiritually and in a responsible manner, we will inevitably come to regret it later.”

This is why mutual fund manager Peter Lynch has said, “I wish that on every bedside table, next to the Bible, there was an article explaining the nature of investing.” I believe that article would essentially put into financial terms St. Paul’s concept of “moderation in all things,” developed in regard to the Law, the Prophets, and the Christ. Extremism in anything but love cannot be a biblical principle.

*

So why are evangelical celebrities who have long been less than encouraging to the SRI movement, which like abolition and civil rights was largely a creation of progressive Christians, now so critical of it they insist on differentiating themselves? After fifteen years of being in the evangelical subculture without being of it, I believe there are five reasons: First, converts are overly-enthusiastic. Second, evangelicals place a lot more faith in markets than government, despite Moses and David being lawmakers and the Bible saying the roots of evil are in the economic realm. Third, evangelical leaders have therefore been rabid about political issues as SRI exploded during the corporate scandals. Fourth, when evangelical leaders did glance at economics and finance, they usually told us they saw economic earthquakes, the melt-down of Y2K, literal Armageddon, and The Prayer of Jabez, which promised all we have to do to prosper is to pray for our stocks to go up. Virtually without exception, evangelical financial books seemed to wonder Whatever Happened to the American Dream?, to cite the title of a book by Larry Burkett, than wondered about the economic health of the Kingdom. Yet those perspectives didn’t impress corporate America and Wall Street, and rightly so. And none, but particularly not the supposed end of our world, encouraged the typical evangelical to think about what SRI advocates call “sustainable development.”

Yet economics and finance must be highly rational; for the Bible teaches the emotions of fear, greed, and impatience lead to a less abundant life, as the economic cycles described in the Bible and endured throughout church history attest. To be honest, I grew up Southern Baptist, which was good for learning something about the Bible; but upon marrying I joined my wife in the Episcopal Church, which was good for learning something about money. So I knew nothing about evangelicalism, and particularly evangelical stewardship. That made me right at home; for I discovered the majority of evangelical leaders know little about stewardship either, usually relying on pure emotion to simply raise money for the building of mega-churches and/or the preaching of the gospel.

During an interview on a major evangelical radio show during the mid-nineties, I discussed how Christians can ethically lend our private money to the poor of America by making deposits in the South Shore Bank, a “community development bank” that is partially owned by religious investors; as well as lend to the destitute of the Third World by giving to “micro-enterprise ministries.” I never mentioned a government program; but when I asked the host the next day about reactions, he replied listeners wanted to know what a “socialist” was doing on a Christian talk show. Not long ago, one of America’s most visible ministers confessed to Christianity Today that it was after writing his mega-seller that he discovered the Bible says God is actually interested in the poor. That was most evident to any reader with a modicum of stewardship consciousness.

All that would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic for our faith and world. Mark Noll was Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College when he wrote, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there isn’t much of an evangelical mind. American evangelicals are not exemplary for their thinking.” Os Guinness, who is anything but an enemy to evangelicalism, has confessed, “Most evangelicals simply don’t think. And it’s always been a sin not to love the Lord our God with our minds as well as our hearts. Evangelicals need to repent and develop the mind of Christ.” And Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, has observed, “We do not have a theology of public life yet. So in the political sphere, we went from unthinking noninvolvement to unthinking involvement . . . We do have public spokespersons like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, but they really haven’t thought these issues through.”

*

If that’s true in politics, and who doubts it, it’s true in spades in economics. That’s terribly important to understand as evangelicalism depoliticizes and attempts to influence broader sectors of society. There is evidence evangelical leaders may cause even more confusion there than they did in politics. For example, Pat Robertson’s book entitled The New Millennium contains a chapter called “The New Economics.” On one page he calls for Christians to get government out of our lives, largely as the federal debt is bankrupting our country; but on the very next page he recommends we never invest in anything other than treasury securities, which he apparently didn’t know are the federal debt, as the federal government will never default on its obligations. That same dualism, so characteristic of the post-modern mind thinking it can serve both God and Mammon, was also evident in best-selling financial books written during the nineties by noted evangelical authors Larry Burkett and Ron Blue. Jesus may have said we can’t serve both God and Mammon; but the sales of their books indicate millions still seek a non-Christian miracle.

Larry’s core financial belief was: “Scripture clearly indicates that borrowing is not normal to God’s plan and was never intended to be used as a routine part of our financial planning.” He wrote that during the nineties for a study guide for a major denomination, which asked me to review it. While that might have helped Larry’s listeners and readers who abused credit cards, I still had to reply that my Bible says Moses actually taught that “God will deem it evil” if we don’t lend to those in need (Dt 15:7–8) and that Jesus taught us to lend to anyone in need, regardless of credit rating (Lk 6:35). Both Jesus and Moses obviously knew someone in need would borrow if we lend.

In numbers 43 and 44 of his 95 Theses, Martin Luther wrote: “Christians should be taught that one who gives to the poor, or lends to the needy, does a better action than if he purchases indulgences [which were financing the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome]. Because by works of love, love grows and a man becomes a better man; whereas by indulgences, he does not become a better man.” But perhaps indicating the urgent need to evangelize the evangelical financial mind before it evangelizes our increasingly market-oriented world, the stewardship officer simply replied, “Yes, but Larry says. . . .” That’s a lot of financial faith to put in a fellow who was educated as an engineer; particularly after he had predicted economic doom all during the eighties as he thought increased borrowing and lending demanded the wrath of God.

The irony is that in his bestseller Master Your Money, Larry’s cohort Ron Blue made the case that all investors need to do to prosper is to invest in money market funds. Of course, they simply lend our money to borrowers. Yet the book (page 227) strongly implies investors can’t be “Godly” without utilizing Christian financial planners. I’ve always shunned that term out of respect for even non-Christian advisors who know Christ’s investment plan was, “sell what you have and give it to the poor,” which isn’t simply the temple or evangel. But I guess investing in money market funds was better than investing in highly-inflated Internet stocks, which many American Christians were when Bruce Wilkinson was writing The Prayer of Jabez, and simply praying for them to go up, as the book recommends. Still, I’ve never met another accountant—which Ron was before trying his hand at investment counseling, despite oddly confessing to knowing little about economics and investments—who has taught a money market fund will provide real returns after taxes and inflation. Yet Larry’s The Coming Economic Earthquake, Ron’s Master Your Money, and Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez may be the “synoptic gospels” that have shaped the popular evangelical financial mind, even if those books are detested by thoughtful evangelical leaders.

You’re probably feeling a little confused right now about what the Bible says Christians might do with a little extra money. That’s why my friend Bruce Howard, who chairs the economics department at Wheaton, wrote in his book, which few evangelicals have read since few evangelical celebrities have recommended it: “If there is one element in the market economy that has caused more confusion in the minds of Christians than anything else, it is the issue of credit . . . It is an enabling force in a modern economy that increases the welfare of society as a whole. While it can be grossly misused, credit at its best is entirely compatible with traditional Christianity.”

So in short, some had asked evangelicals to consider investing in socially responsible American companies during the early nineties when my mentor Sir John Templeton was predicting a great bull market; but the books of Burkett, Robertson, and Blue were discouraging them from investing in anything but government bonds and money market funds. When some asked evangelicals to consider investing in responsible international companies during the late nineties, they were again encouraging investors to bunker down due to Y2K by investing in treasuries and/or praying our stocks would hold up. Meanwhile, the most popular evangelical financial newsletter, ironically entitled Sound Mind Investing, featured an “Earthquake Watch” on its front page during the early nineties and has spent the time since teaching there is no reason for evangelicals to invest in responsible mutual funds when they can trade others. Yet it says it has produced nearly miraculous returns. And it still markets itself using glowing endorsements from Burkett and Blue.

Larry and I were actually good friends before we parted over the political paranoia of the federal debt, which I believe was more due to Newt Gingrich’s faxes than scripture. But while Larry was prophesying an economic earthquake, John, who was a Rhodes Scholar in economics at Oxford and “the dean of global investing,” was saying the odds favored “the twenty most prosperous years in history.” So I had hoped Larry’s untimely passing might allow evangelicals to reconsider his perspective on credit, which so darkened his worldview.

Unfortunately, I spoke at a large Lutheran church’s conference not long ago and followed a regional manager of Larry’s successor ministry. He described how America is “drowning in a sea of red ink.” I simply shared the statistics that both the Federal Reserve and Fair Isaac say under 5 percent of us have serious credit card problems, usually due to medical expenses, and the Bush White House says America’s net worth, after paying all debts to foreigners, is $101 trillion. The manager refused to shake my hand and literally called me “a tool of Satan,” proclaiming, “it’s a shame that you have a platform from which to speak,” a sentiment that evangelical financial leaders did their best to accommodate during the nineties and continue to do today. Worse, the new head of Larry’s ministry did not respond when I wrote him about the division, even antagonism, caused by the ministry’s reading of what the Bible teaches concerning credit. But when I gave the exact same talk to six hundred development officers of the Lutheran Church a few weeks later, I received a standing ovation, complete with whistling. Go figure.

*

After departing the financial planning firm he founded, where he long argued against responsible investing, Ron Blue has apparently seen the light, though skeptics might say he’s just floating with the new wind blowing through Wall Street. He has now formed an organization that is teaching over a thousand Christian brokers and financial planners how to invest in a biblically responsible manner. Yes, one of Jesus’ two big teachings was to love our neighbors as ourselves; but politically conservative Christians have trouble being social, as documented by Phillip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing about Grace? The word social reminds us of socialism, social security, the social gospel, and so on; thus the phrase BRI. I say “us” as I am a politically conservative Evangelical Lutheran even though I’ve fought the religious right’s worldview over debt, Y2K, and SRI. That simply puts this old political science graduate in Billy Graham’s camp. (Most evangelicals are shocked to hear Rev. Graham has long been a Democrat!)

I’ve even just learned that Ron has written the foreword for a new book on BRI. Its author just emailed me a blog posting entitled “Biblically Responsible Investing (BRI) vs. Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) . . . Can you tell the difference?” As I began reading it, I couldn’t help thinking, “Oh God, they’ve started thinking about another current event.” By the time I had finished, I knew they hadn’t started thinking but were just being emotional again. So before millions are again evangelized by the confusion of the evangelical mind and it causes as much division, anger, and even hatred over responsible investing as it did over the federal debt and Y2K, let me tell you why I believe I’m about to spend years reminding Christians of all types the biblical principle to “avoid the yeast [read lust for money and power] of the Pharisees,” and praying “Father forgive them, they know not what they do” before I go to sleep each evening.

First, let me say that I do not question their good intentions, anymore than I did over the debt and Y2K. I sincerely believe most BRI advocates simply want to testify that their financial motivation is biblical. But the heart of man is a devious creation, so we all know where that path paved with good intentions leads. And Peter Drucker taught, “Good intentions are not always socially responsible,” even toward your fellow Christians. For example, I’m sure conservative Christians had good intentions when they coined the phrase “Christian Coalition.” But it also suggested some of us conservatives weren’t Christian if we didn’t dance to their political tune.

Similarly, the phrase “biblically responsible investing” suggests to some of us that we’re not biblical if we continue to practice SRI. Indeed, the blog from the author stated, “A BRI investor is trying to please God by acting as a steward of the assets and make certain that the gains obtained are not coming from a source that would be counter to the teachings of the Bible. A SRI investor is attempting to be pro-active in investing in ways that avoid harming people and the environment. These ideals may sound similar but when you get down to the nitty gritty of implementing each strategy, differences become obvious.”

Frankly, I’ve been doing and teaching both approaches for twenty years and can see no such thing, anymore than I could see what evangelicals saw about the federal debt and Y2K. So it might be less confusing to call it worldview investing, rather than imply they have exclusive access to the Bible. My fellow religious investors agree. When I read the blog about the “differences” in BRI versus SRI—note the perceived conflict—I began a dialogue among a small group of religious investors and theologians in the hopes of heading off yet another embarrassing and diversionary schism in the church.

One leader who’s conducted SRI conferences for religious institutions for years attempted to inform the views of the blogger. She detailed the major religious denominations who were attending her conferences while evangelicals were politicking. She described how those many denominations see SRI as a dimension of Christian stewardship, despite what evangelical financial letters and financial planning firms are still teaching the unwitting. The blogger replied she shouldn’t be offended as BRI advocates simply want to stress their biblical motivation.

That’s fine. Unfortunately, he also wrote that SRI practitioners “are not mentioning the Bible at all in this process.” That came as quite a shock to me, as it did to religious investors from the Mennonite mutual funds to the Assemblies of God, who often attend SRI conferences. One read a draft of this paper and responded “AMEN!” Another investor termed BRI “unfounded divisiveness” on the part of BRI advocates. So the blogger’s worldview is likely due to his never having attended a SRI conference or practiced SRI before he retired as a broker. It was also likely influenced by that teaching that SRI is a liberal, new age movement, despite religious investors birthing, nursing, and raising the movement to relatively mature levels, even if we’re still far, far short of Christ.

*

One of the most interesting things to come out of our recent, and very brief, dialogue was that the author, who I like a great deal, had roots in mainline churches whose leaders would be appalled at what he is now teaching as biblical. That’s just one example of how the mainline churches’ refusal to teach our money culture about the moral and social responsibilities of managing its great wealth has created great opportunities for the propagation of the evangelical financial mind. The irony is that by focusing on institutional survival, the mainline may be giving away our traditions. We might consider selling our buildings instead. Another irony is the author has liked my work over the years. He has even championed my speaking to the BRI crowd. But he told me its leaders have “thought it best to avoid controversy.” Yeah. So staying in his BRI group, he’s had no chance to learn about SRI. And if we sleep with dogs, we’re going to get some fleas.

So accepting the good intentions of some and excusing the ignorance of most regarding SRI, BRI advocates might do well to wonder why they have such a desperate need to attribute their investing to the Bible. The other big idea Jesus taught before Christians could love their neighbors as self was to love God. The Book of Acts tells us that Christians lived together in a most God-honoring and social fashion for decades before the Bible was even written, much less compiled. Having grown up a fundamentalist, I know the temptations to worship the Bible. But having matured a bit spiritually, I also know why Luther stressed the Bible is the “cradle of God,” rather than actually God. That is, the Bible can be a great comfort as it protects and rocks new-born Christians, who are prone to crying and babbling.

But it can lull some asleep. I’m often told there’s no reason to mix faith and finance as the Bible doesn’t say anything about mutual funds. That is similar to how some resisted abolition, using the Bible for their financial purposes. The Bible, as much as I love it, can also be rather cold, wooden, and confining for adults. While the Law of Moses will endure forever, it will never warm us as the loving spirit of Christ, which is like the softest down comforter imaginable. We also need the Spirit to help us faithfully translate stewardship principles written for an agricultural society whose wealth was in sheep and goats. Then we can more clearly understand and teach how the biblical ethic is relevant to our knowledge society whose wealth is in CDs and mutual funds. Before BRI advocates teach and then pursue on the job training, remember Christ said those who teach his sheep to sin would be better with millstones about their necks and thrown into the sea.

And that brings us to the need to understand a crucial tension in contemporary stewardship, which may be the primary factor in the perceived “differences” between SRI and BRI. While in prison, disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker wrote that his problems arose from preaching what some authors had written the Bible says, rather than Jim actually studying what the Bible itself says. In that way, he became an “unwitting false prophet” of prosperity theology. My experiences indicate that’s a major problem in publishing-obsessed evangelicalism. Even Christianity Today has featured a story entitled, “The Greatest Story Never Read.” It detailed the abysmal biblical literacy of modern evangelicals, despite them claiming to be “Bible-believing.”

And one can be Bible-believing and Bible-quoting without being Bible-living. In my seminars, I generally find most Christians believe “neither a borrower nor lender be” is biblical. In fact, it comes from Shakespeare. It is simply reinforced by evangelical financial teachers, which may be why very, very few Christians consider lending to the poor, as Moses and Christ clearly commanded. And when Larry Burkett wrote The Word on Finances, he forgot to include Exodus 21:28, which is undoubtedly the clearest and strongest demand for SRI ever made. It literally says it is a capital offense to manage our wealth in a socially irresponsible fashion. Moses made similar laws about responsible investing in other forms of ancient wealth. Yet like Christ, he had to attribute such teachings to a love of God and neighbor; for the Bible had not yet been written.

Still, both the Bible and post-biblical church history indicate we won’t reform the financial teachings of the church, and therefore the church itself, until our leaders get the basics right. Jesus demonstrated that on the first day of Holy Week by whipping the money changers in the Temple. Knowing both the Law and Prophets, he understood why Professor Rodney Hutton wrote these words in The Prophets: “The priests, according to Hosea, were ‘feeding on the sins of God’s people’ (4:8). This is a very significant statement, though often unnoticed. He is clearly referring to the well-known practice that the priest was compensated for his service by being allowed to eat a portion of the sin offering. But if the priests were rewarded for remedying the people’s sins, why would the priest be interested in encouraging the people to stop sinning? With such a system as this in place, is it likely that the community could ever be moved toward true reformation?”

Luther ran into the same problem. He penned his 95 Theses immediately upon encountering Tetzel, a theologically challenged fundraiser scaring up financing for the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, our first mega-church. Luther was famously hounded the rest of his days as he had “threatened the crown of the pope and the bellies of the monks.” The more things change, the more they stay the same! Luther’s Reformation baptized Christians in the concept of “Sola Scriptura,” or “scripture alone,” in order to mitigate the “man made rules” that served the financial interests of both the Pharisees and the Pope. Unfortunately, some believe that baptism may have unwittingly drowned the Holy Spirit, which Christ said would reveal Truth upon his ascension. So before we join religious zealots in flaming the holy wars afflicting our world today—and The Economist did predict in 1994 that a war between the West and Islam was most likely due to the West’s belief it could separate faith and finance, which so offends Islam—let us call on the Spirit to help us see that there may be little need for Bible-quoting and Bible-living Christians to divide over BRI and SRI. In courtesy to reformed and catholic Christians, let’s add a dash of tradition, reason, and experience to scripture and spirit, as their worldviews typically do.

My twenty years of associating with SRI advocates cause me to believe there is someone within the community who shares each sentiment advocated by BRI advocates. As with faith itself, each investor simply combines differing issues in differing priorities. So if the Bible asks us to be of one mind but let differing parts of the body do their thing, why would a handful of BRI leaders feel the need to sever that body by emphasizing relatively minor differences over relatively mundane matters that pale in relation to developing the holistic mind of Christ and loving one another? Understand that every time we avoid some industry or practice, we imply someone is engaged in a morally questionable endeavor. That is why I suggest we all practice our ethics without talking too much about them. Someone’s ox is always being gored. As pastors know, people have two reactions to being gored. Some humbly accept they might need it. But most go away and associate with those who think they’re great. It takes a lot of spiritual maturity to be in the first group as it can be lonely. Sheep and oxen prefer the security of flocks and herds.  

*

Almost by definition, many evangelicals haven’t been “raised up” in the faith. That often means they have ways of thinking and feeling that require transformation. That requires patience, yet they may not have the required maturity for that. So Professor John Stackhouse wrote these words in Christianity Today: “One of the attitudes that is tearing us evangelical Christians apart is the insistence that everyone else better just agree with me when I give my opinion—and if some refuse to do so, then I’ll write them off and associate exclusively with those who will. We badly need an attitude of Christian humility that affirms we don’t know it all and that we’d like to know more. We badly need an attitude of Christian appreciation, one that recognizes that other people can give us what we do not have ourselves.” We must drink milk before we eat the meat of oxen.

Yet over the years, a lack of patience and humility has combined with insensitivity, probably arrogance, to cause some novice BRI leaders to gore some pretty big oxen in the SRI community. I know of one who irritated the big oxen of a major SRI group during a speech so very badly they literally packed his bags for him and told him to get out. The Mennonite mutual funds, who appreciated this paper, asked me to speak the next year just to prove some Christians love their neighbors, even sinners and enemies, as Christ commanded. More recently, another BRI advocate literally chastised a nun as being non-biblical during their talk at a major university. And now the blog from the author tells me SRI advocates aren’t motivated by biblical principles, despite my most recent book also being about that very topic. That didn’t produce a warm and fuzzy feeling . . . and I’ve almost grown used to the narrow limits of the popular evangelical mind.

So if you’ll forgive the mixing of metaphors, it is human nature to want to be the biggest ox at the dance. Unfortunately, BRI advocates are decades late in coming to the party. So they often lock horns when their egos insist they run the organizing committee and choose the music. And trust me that those economic egos can be as large as evangelical political egos. If they truly believe the biblical principles about humility and patience, they will realize they must first prove they want to serve the cause by dancing with the poor, decorating the environment, and so on before running the party in future years. That’s not unlike what we’ve experienced as engineers, accountants, child psychologists, and so on thought they should run the federal budget and manage our nation’s information technologies. I know many evangelicals believe the Bible assures the “certainty” of their salvation; but it should never provide them with the kind of imagined omniscience that seems to have informed the popular evangelical mind the past couple of decades.  

And that’s the real rub of BRI. As with SRI, BRI means many different things to many different people of faith. As the Bible indicates, we see through the economic and financial glass in a particularly darkened way. Even the financial planner who coined the BRI phrase with a friend joined the dialogue over this paper by commenting, “We wanted to invest in a way in line with Biblical teaching and wanted to be clear about the source of our guidance.” Yet a few paragraphs later, he confessed, “I believe that a really good, comprehensive, Biblically-sound investment theology has not yet been developed.” So one might wonder why other BRI advocates are chastising nuns practicing SRI as being less than biblical and strongly feel the need to emphasize their differences. Even this old fundamentalist has no idea how some of the key concepts of BRI outlined in the blog were inspired by the Bible. While his stated “differences” are quite new to my way of thinking, let me think out loud about a few of them, sharing my biblical perspective.

In my seminars, I teach theologian Jacques Ellul’s admonition that: “If I can let go of my preoccupation with self, my approach to the Bible changes immediately. I cannot continue to construct a theology of personal salvation. What matters is the Other. I must not make use of the Bible for my own ends, but rather take myself out of the picture as much as possible.” That would be a “Christ-centered” approach to the Bible, rather than a self-centered one. So I hope the rest of this article captures the spirit of loving God and neighbor without proof-texting views favorable to only me or my little group, which would be cultish. As Jim Bakker wrote, that is quite rampant enough within evangelicalism these days. And Moses told even legalists that the first Law of God is to avoid creating God in our own image. That’s why political conservatives might consider a term like “Conservative SRI,” or CSRI. But it’s unlikely they’ll change so we should explore whether BRI truly reflects Biblical principles or personal and political preferences.

While my primary concern with BRI is its marginalization of the poor, which was a high priority of Moses, the prophets, and Christ but ignored in the blog, the differences the blogger saw were largely sexual. As sociologist Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote in The De-moralization of Society, “When we now speak of virtue, we no longer think of the classic virtues of wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage, or the Christian ones of faith, hope, and charity. Virtue is now understood in its sexual connotations of chastity and marital fidelity.” So here are the blogger’s points and my thoughts:

“BRI avoids companies that profit from or promote abortions, while SRI has no such restriction.” That will come as a huge shock to all those nuns who’ve been the backbone of the SRI movement for decades. But my view is that as emotional an issue as abortion is, even to me, I don’t remember too many biblical prophets railing about it. My opinion, and it’s only that, therefore is that abortion is more an issue of the universally loving Spirit than a biblical issue. But rationally, are we ready to do without hospitals and pharmaceutical companies by totally refusing to finance them? I doubt it. So I’d suggest this is an area ripe for “shareholder activism” on the part of those concerned about abortion, rather than the simplistic refusal to invest in any company that earns “one red cent,” to use a BRI advocate’s phrase, from issues of concern, like abortion.

“BRI avoids companies that offer same-sex benefits, while SRI invests in them.” Generally true. But while I doubt same-sex couples are the biblical ideal, the Bible also says a worker is worthy of his hire. It does not qualify that by saying “if that worker meets your moral standards.” The Bible also says “there is no male or female in Christ Jesus,” so a loving spirit might extend a fair wage to women who are doing the same work as men. In short, my reading of the Bible makes me wonder if being a same-sex couple is more biblically challenged than being someone who underpays same sex couples, particularly loving same-sex couples committed to a lifetime relationship, which too many Bible-believing Christians aren’t these days, despite Christ’s much clearer guidance on that issue. Rationally, what would happen to corporations who deny partner benefits to greedy employees and define greed by biblical standards?

“BRI invests in companies that are responsible for supporting our military efforts, while SRI often avoids them.” As you read about abortion, you may have remembered that oft-quoted verse about God knowing us before we were formed in the womb. But Moses also told us “the king is not to have a large number of horses for his army” (Dt 17:16). Didn’t Jesus say those who live by the sword die by the sword, or was that just a colorful phrase for the movie The Passion of the Christ? The Mennonites, who live the Bible as devoutly but humbly as any Christians I know, therefore make the avoidance of weapons manufacturers, or defense companies, depending on your worldview, a major priority. Some even avoid treasury securities, as the Quakers have estimated that over 40 percent of all federal spending finances past or current wars. Even this old Distinguished Military Graduate and artillery officer has to believe the Spirit of that guidance from Moses might cause America to question the wisdom of spending approximately as much on defense as the other nations of the world combined. Yet one BRI advocate who strongly advocates the “right to life” actually launched a mutual fund that will only invest in defense companies. As my understanding of the Bible can’t reconcile those two concepts despite my belief in some “just wars,” that extreme measure strikes me as closer to the code of ethics of Ducks Unlimited than a biblical principle. DU, which I supported in my younger years when I enjoyed hunting, births ducks in Canada so hunters in Florida can shoot them once they mature.

“SRI takes active roles in improving corporate governance, while BRI mostly ignores that issue.” How true. While many BRI advocates have actively resisted the paying of benefits to same-sex couples, they have virtually ignored, even envied, CEO compensation, which Drucker told Forbes looked like “pigs at the trough.” Even modern translations of the Bible still say it is the love of money, and not sexual deviancy, which is the root of all evil. Peter Wehner, who I believe is at the White House these days, once wrote, “The New Testament says much more about the dangers riches pose to one’s soul than it does about many well-publicized issues about which many Christians feel so strongly. Yet you would never know this by the agenda advanced by America’s most prominent and politically active Christian organizations, magazines and radio talk shows. In pursuit of wealth and worldly pleasures, Christians have become virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the world. We have bought into non-Christian precepts [emphases mine].” Can you even imagine Pat Robertson, who is quite involved with corporations, preaching a sermon on the root of all evil, the eye of the needle, and other biblical passages about the dangers of riches? Yet BRI advocates often hold meetings at Pat’s conference center.

*

My guess is Peter wasn’t thinking of SRI advocates like the Quakers, Mennonites, and nuns when he wrote that. But I have noticed some very vocal BRI advocates promote the very high returns they achieve for investors. Yet the Bible forbade the charging of any interest. Luther liberalized that teaching but still limited it to 5 percent, with strict moral boundaries. In God and Mammon in America, Professor Robert Wuthnow relates how a businessman named Robert Keayne was brought up on charges in his Boston church in 1639. He was convicted by the church council and then the Commonwealth for the sin and legal offense of earning 6 percent in his business, two percent above the maximum allowed. Today, only earning 6 percent on money might disqualify one for the church council. It would definitely get you excommunicated from the endowment committee!

Yet there are still Old Order Amish in Pennsylvania who seek out special bank accounts that will not pay interest as they have read enough Bible to know it forbids it. They also know modern farm machinery is not biblical, in the literal sense of the word. Yet this old fundamentalist has never bought an indulgence for my dad, a John Deere dealer. I know the average human lived on $400 per year at the time of Christ. They lived on the same a thousand years later. They live on the same in Uganda today. Yet biblical Christianity is exploding in Africa while it is dying in the West. It was the industrial revolution financed by rudimentary banking made possible by Luther’s liberalization that began to produce the prosperity that we Western Christians take for granted. But maybe the horse-riding John Wesley was right to fear that Christianity and affluence cannot co-exist, as Mother Teresa also cautioned her nuns. If so, we “Christian” financial consultants may well be major players in killing the love of God . . . and perhaps our neighbors.

Most Muslims still avoid earning interest; but like early Christians have found creative ways to imitate it. Yet the consciousness it might be immoral to profit at the expense of a neighbor is why Professor Seyyed Nasr, with whom I served on a major board, could write this in The Heart of Islam: “The area known as economics was never isolated by itself in Islamic society. It was always combined with ethics. That is why the very acceptance of economics as an independent domain, not to speak of as the dominating factor in life according to the prevailing paradigms of the modern world [read: the West], is devastating to the Islamic view of human life.” After 9/11, the Los Angeles Times observed, “In our hearts we knew that part of what the jihadists hated about us was what we ought to deplore in ourselves: not ‘freedom’ as the president insisted, but MTV—the trash culture that is part of our most global export. That was a brilliant opportunity for civic renewal. But instead our leaders gave us pep talks advancing the mindless materialism our enemies accuse us of. Don’t stop shopping; don’t stop taking vacations.” Even The Wall Street Journal has recently written, “Most investment bankers don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the religious implications of their work. But if you’re a U.S. banker trying to tap a blossoming market for Islamic financial instruments, you’d better brush up on religious law.”

While no BRI advocate I’ve known has seemed aware of it, the aspiration to achieve market-beating returns is a recent moral development rather than a revelation to the patriarchs of the great faiths of Abraham. This is why Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias has written in Jesus Among Other Gods: “Wealth and enterprise have so woven themselves around the message of Jesus that popular models of Christianity appear as nothing more than self and greed at the center, with strands of Christian thought at the periphery.” In short, BRI advocates may be politically and socially conservative, but they are among the most economically liberal Christians in history. As I’m no longer a biblical fundamentalist, I can live with that, assuming there are limits. But the BRI advocates desire to be “Bible-believing” while earning high returns and/or hoarding money requires the mental gymnastics that cause so very much confusion and tension among Christians. And if they’d only confess taking liberties with biblical economic ethics, they might grow a bit more graceful toward those taking liberties with biblical ethics in other dimensions of life.

And that brings us to my final point. I very much believe there is one characteristic common to all the confusion spread by Bible-believing Christians during the past two decades. In each and every case, the confusing message made money for those preaching it, even if it impoverished those listening to it. The “synoptic gospels” penned by Burkett, Blue, and Wilkinson made them a lot of money, some directly and some indirectly by getting customers to the firm or ministry of the writer who assured he was selling biblically-informed Truth. So it might be most prudent to notice the hundreds of recently converted BRI counselors now coming to the SRI party are at a serious professional disadvantage when competing for investors desiring to be more ethical. One convenient method of compensating for their lack of knowledge and experience is to assure the Word of God is directing you to their place of business/ministry, which are too often confusingly similar today, as they were in the times of Luther and Christ. (Disclaimer and caution to BRI novices: I coined the term “spiritual investing” to emphasize the transcendent—for me, God—over the social, as well as to avoid the political baggage that comes with SRI and BRI. I also gave up the corner office to practice it twenty years ago. I am only now to the level of business I did then.)

And that is precisely why Luther appealed to a Bible that cautioned us that legalistic Pharisees who pray proudly in the front of the Temple also “made fun of Jesus as they loved money.” That biblical reality is indeed eternal, even if we’ve grow more sophisticated, even theological, in denying it. As the old saying goes, “Even Satan can quote scripture for his own purposes.”

If Satan could speak through Saint Peter in the garden during Passion Week in what seemed the righteous defense of Christ, all financial counselors might be humble enough to know Satan can speak through us in financial matters, especially when business is slow. It will do our faith no good to have even more Americans understand that saints without dinners can be the worst of sinners. That is why Christ taught that the world will know true Christians through their loving spirit-filled works for one another rather than their ability to proof-text the Torah. And the Bible itself says we are to be the light of the world, which is seen, rather than the sound of the world, which is heard. To put that final biblical principle into financial terms: talk is cheap, which is why it sells like bad hotcakes at a church fundraiser. But it isn’t The Bread of Heaven and Life on Earth.

This article benefits from editorial support from the Rev. Dr. John Santosuosso, an ordained minister trained in the dangers of religious legalism, professor of political science and history at a Christian college, financial author, and Dean of The Financial Seminary.

Gary Moore was a senior vice-president of investments at Paine Webber before starting his own firm as “counsel to ethical and spiritual investors.” He has been the president of two churches and has served on the board of advisors of the John Templeton Foundation; the board of Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett’s Empower America; the board of Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral, where he chaired the endowment committee; the board of Messiah College, serving on its endowment committee; the board treasurer of Opportunity International, a ministry that makes tiny loans to the poor of the Third World; and the board of his YMCA.

The political, religious and ethical opinions expressed by Gary Moore are not endorsed by National Planning Corporation (NPC).

Opinions voiced are not intended to provide specific investment advice and should not be construed as recommendations for any individual. To determine which investments or investment strategies may be appropriate for you, consult with your financial, tax or legal professional. Please remember that investment decisions should be based on an individual’s objectives, goals, time horizon, and tolerance for risk. Furthermore, any listing of a vendor or product does not constitute an endorsement or warranty of the vendor or product by NPC. NPC is not to be held responsible for and may not be held liable for the adequacy of the information available. The Financial Seminary and NPC are separate and unrelated companies.