A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight. (KJV). Commercial conduct is treated as a moral matter, not a neutral one.
Proverbs 11:1Ownership is not a neutral act
If you own a broad index fund, you own a sliver of several thousand companies, and you have almost certainly never read the list. Biblically responsible investing (BRI, also called faith-based or values-based investing) starts from the claim that what you own is a moral fact and not only a financial one.
Scripture treats commerce as a moral matter throughout. Proverbs 11:1 calls a false balance an abomination and a just weight a delight (KJV wording is in the scripture note above). Amos 8:4-6 pictures merchants shrinking the measure and inflating the price. Proverbs 11:26 says the people curse the one who withholds grain (commonly read as holding it back for a higher price).
What none of those texts is about is a portfolio, because there were no public equity markets to hold one in. BRI is an application of principles about ownership and complicity, and it should be labelled that way. No text commands screening, so someone who does not screen is not thereby breaking a command, and anyone teaching this should say so plainly; some Christians still judge certain holdings to be complicity, which is the question below. See how we read on the difference between a command and an application of one.
How the screens actually work
Three mechanisms, usually combined:
| Mechanism | What it does | Honest limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Negative screening | Excludes companies by revenue exposure to a defined activity, commonly abortion, pornography, gambling, tobacco, predatory lending | Threshold-dependent. A “5% of revenue” screen still keeps a company earning 4% from the thing you object to |
| Positive screening | Actively selects companies judged to do good: healthcare access, clean water, fair employment | “Good” is a contested judgement; two Christian managers produce two different lists |
| Engagement and proxy voting | Keeps the shares and uses shareholder rights to press for change | Needs scale to matter, and you keep owning the thing meanwhile |
Fund families operating in this space include Timothy Plan, Eventide, GuideStone, Praxis, and Inspire. They are listed in the library as a matter of record, not as recommendations; this site does not name a fund to buy, and no one can promise you a return. Whatever you consider, read the prospectus and check the current holdings and expense ratio yourself.
The hard case: an index fund holds everything
This is the strongest practical objection and it is largely true. An index fund, in the SEC’s own description, tries to track an index by holding the securities of the companies in it, which for a total-market fund means thousands of firms, chosen by market weight and nothing else. Even a screened fund holds companies whose supply chains nobody has audited. Complete purity through public equity is not available, and claiming otherwise is marketing.
The honest response is smaller than the claim usually made for it: BRI is not cleanliness, it is knowing and choosing. Some exposures are direct and some are remote, and deliberate ignorance is itself a decision.
Divest or engage: a genuinely two-sided question
Selling a share transfers it to someone with no objection at all, and the company notices nothing. A retained share carries a vote and standing to file a shareholder proposal. Many thoughtful Christians conclude that engagement does more good than exit; others conclude that they simply do not want to own the thing, whatever the mechanism achieves. No verse settles this, because it is a question about mechanism rather than morality. Both answers are defensible, and so is a third: screen lightly, and give away the difference.
What the trade-off costs, in numbers
Screening narrows the pool, which reduces diversification, and screened funds have generally carried higher expense ratios than the cheapest broad index funds. The SEC’s own guidance on fund fees is blunt that small fee differences compound into large return differences over time.
Put a number on it before you decide. Take $10,000 held for 30 years. At 7% a year it grows to about $76,100; at 6.5% (a half-point lower, which is a plausible fee gap), it grows to about $66,100. The half point costs roughly $10,000, about 13% of the ending balance. Over 40 years the same gap costs about 17%. (Those are illustrative rates, not forecasts; run your own with the SEC’s compound interest calculator, and use the actual expense ratios from the two prospectuses, not a guess.)
Some readers will look at that number and pay it without hesitation. Others will conclude the same money given away does more good than the screen does. The second is not a cop-out.
What is not optional
Whatever you decide about screening, three things follow from the passages above:
- Know what you own. Read the top holdings of your funds once. See index funds and diversification.
- Do not run the business Amos describes. How you price, weigh, and pay is nearer to you than any holding in a fund.
- Ownership carries a positive duty. A perfectly screened portfolio held with a closed hand has missed 1 Timothy 6:18 entirely.
A secular video titled “Why Index Funds Aren’t Going to Break the Market” is on the video shelf. It is listed because the title matches an objection this lesson has to answer. It is linked and not embedded, and its argument is not endorsed here.
Before you go
Check yourself
1Faith-based screening runs on three mechanisms. Name them, and the honest limitation of each.
Negative screening excludes companies by revenue exposure to a defined activity (commonly abortion, pornography, gambling, tobacco, predatory lending) and is threshold-dependent: a "5% of revenue" screen still keeps a company earning 4% from the thing you object to. Positive screening actively selects companies judged to do good, and "good" is a contested judgement; two Christian managers produce two different lists. Engagement and proxy voting keeps the shares and uses shareholder rights to press for change, which needs scale to matter and means you keep owning the thing meanwhile.
2Screened funds have generally cost more than the cheapest broad index funds. Put a number on that gap before you decide.
Take $10,000 held for 30 years. At 7% a year it grows to about $76,100; at 6.5% (a half point lower, a plausible fee gap), about $66,100. The half point costs roughly $10,000, about 13% of the ending balance, and about 17% over 40 years. Those are illustrative rates, not forecasts, and the honest version of this exercise uses the actual expense ratios off the two prospectuses rather than a guess. Some readers will look at that number and pay it without hesitation. Others will conclude the same money given away does more good than the screen does, and the lesson says plainly that the second is not a cop-out.
3You move your money into a faith-based screened fund. Is your portfolio now clean?
No, and that is the claim to be most careful with. Screens are threshold-dependent, positive screening is a contested judgement, and even a screened fund holds companies whose supply chains nobody has audited. Complete purity through public equity is not available, and claiming otherwise is marketing. What screening can honestly be is not cleanliness but knowing and choosing: deliberate ignorance is itself a decision. The error also runs the other way: someone who does not screen is not thereby sinning. Proverbs 11:1 and Amos 8:4-6 judge commercial conduct, but none of those texts is about a portfolio, because there were no public equity markets to hold one in; screening is an application of principles about ownership, and should be labelled that way. Divest or engage is genuinely two-sided: selling transfers the share to someone with no objection at all, while a retained share carries a vote and standing to file a proposal, and no verse settles it, because it is a question about mechanism rather than morality.
Do this now
Read the top holdings and the expense ratio of your largest fund, off the fund page or prospectus rather than off memory. Write down one company you did not know you owned, and put that expense ratio beside the cheapest broad index fund you have access to. Decide nothing this week; the lesson's first non-optional is simply to stop being able to say you did not know.