Published on 2/23/2022
A quick analysis on popular “Christian” Mutual Funds, ETFs, and Investment Firms.
First a quick blur on some of the bigger players…
Guide Stone Funds – Defensive Market Strategies Fund (GDMZX) has holdings in Medtronic PLC, Roche Holding AG, Verizon Communications and Walmart just to name a few. These top holdings of the Guide Stone Defensive Market Strategies Fund have turned up the following red flags on the C3 screening process; Abortion Donations, Abortion Legislation Support, Multiple LGBT Legislation Supporters, Distribution of Pornographic Content (Verizon), LGBT Philanthropy, Child Labor, and multiple basic freedoms violations (Check out 2nd Vote to learn more). Other major US Funds that Guide Stone manages has holdings in Apple, Microsoft, Google, Tesla, and Meta Platforms.
Ae Maria’s Mutual Funds – “While the holdings in this account are noticeably better than CATH, about 27% of them are still obviously opposed to Catholic Social Doctrine. They too invest in Microsoft with its DRC cobalt mines, its forced labor of Uyghurs in China—and their regular big gifts to Planned Parenthood and the LGBT movement.” ~ New Polity
Knights of Columbus Funds – Funds for the KoC include holdings in Apple, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Google, Adobe, Abbott Labs and, honestly, a bunch of other holdings that are involved with LGBT Legislation, Pornography, Forced Child Labor (Microsoft), Human Trafficking, Abortion and a lot of gambling.
The Timothy Plan – The Timothy Plan has a remarkably diverse set of funds and ETFs, and some are better than others, but a lot still hold stock in companies like BlackRock, PPL Corp, Sysco Corp, Tyson Foods, Aflac, and others that support LGBT causes, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Pornography and Abortion. The timothy Plan is one of the better BRI Firms (Ethically Speaking) out there right now, but they, like all of us, are far from perfect.
Inspire Investments – Inspire is a great firm ethically speaking and they offer one of the best (and FREE) screening tools out there for biblically Responsible Stocks. However, their ETFs (like BIBL & FEVR) are the worst performing ETFs regarding financials on the list.
Second, a table for those analytical types.
- GOLD = Passed the C3 ethical screening process
- PURPLE = NUETRAL Rating from C3
- RED = Failed the C3 ethical screening process
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Lastly, a summary.
When a firm or fund claims to be Christian friendly, you should immediately become skeptical. This is because a lot of people plain out lie and are trying to take financial advantage of the BRI movement. Another reason for skepticism is that the word Christian means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. This is an unfortunate truth about the world we live in. I am sure everyone has driven past the churches that wave Gay Pride Flags and then driven by the local abortion clinic to see Christians praying outside for a stop to the murder that is going on inside. Both groups will claim to be Christian, but their views and values are radically different (I know I am comparing apples to oranges here, but I’m sure you get the point). This differing ideology has spilled over to the BRI movement as well. Some think that ESG investing is synonymous with BRI investing, and some firms go about business in exactly that way.
Other firms and funds simply refuse to give up financial ROI to go full on into the BRI world. They will take out more egregious actors from their investment pools but will leave in perceivably less evil investments to keep their profits competitive. This is understandable, the historic goal of mutual funds, ETFs, and investment firms is to produce a profit and as C3 founder Marc Lozano states in the below video, BRI will NOT produce profits like traditional investing will. If BRI investing produced similar or better profits than traditional investing than major financial organizations would just couple BRI assets with well performing non-BRI assets and produce even greater returns. The simple fact is that BRI investing is exclusionary and traditional investing is not. Sure, both will eliminate assets that don’t return a profit but BRI investing, by its nature, is forced to eliminate some assets even if they are performing well financially. This whole concept is demonstrated plainly in the above table. The best performing investments are also the worst ethical investment options and vice versa. This is of course with one exception, the TPHD by the Timothy Plan. The TPHD managers did a great job at picking assets for this fund, but they still had to overlook certain ethical issues like companies supporting LGBT Legislation.
The Bottom Line…if you fully commit to investing with your Christian Values at the forefront, you will have to sacrifice potential financial profits. This foregoing of financial profits due to our Christian convictions may at some point in the future be lessened if enough Christians get behind the BRI movement and start to really influence the markets. However, the world will always have sinners and sinful investment opportunities so this sacrificing of financial profits due to our Christian convictions will never fully go away, until the return of our Lord.
One ore point to make, before we conclude. C3 believes it to be Good if you are an extremely wealthy person and can buy massive amounts of stock in a sinful company and you do this so you can influence that company to move towards implementing true Christian values. This is just not the case for most, so we never really address it in our content.