What Is Biblically Responsible Investing?
Biblically Responsible Investing (BRI), or Faith-Driven Investing, is a biblical approach to investing where Christians align their investment decisions with their Christian values. BRI considers the investor’s financial return while seeking to glorify God through the investment process.
Is BRI a New Concept?
The idea of selecting investments from a faith-based perspective is not new, and neither is using biblical principals to screen funds or investments. This approach has actually been around longer than one would assume. The term “Biblically Responsible Investing” has actually been around for well over a decade. The terms, Biblically Responsible Investing (BRI), ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), and Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) are just now gaining quite a bit of popularity, but the investment strategies that make up these terms are not new.
What Are Your Investments Supporting?
Many Christians have not thought about what their investment dollars are supporting. They invest in companies that manufacture or distribute items that tend toward addictive behaviors, such as alcohol, gambling, or p*rnography. These companies are donating funds to non-biblical practices, while benefiting from the investor’s dollars.
Thankfully, there is a movement of investors across the globe that are waking up to the fact that they are investing money in services that are not aligned with biblical principles. They are starting to pay more attention to the investments they support and are looking for ethical, responsible, and impactful investing.
Selecting Investments with a Biblical Filter
1 Corinthians 10:31 says “Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
As Christians, we believe that we are stewards of the resources God has given us. This not only includes our money, but also the way we invest that money. It’s important that we think of the money that we invest as God’s money and that He has entrusted us to take care of it. It’s not ours—we’re simply stewards of it.
Ultimately, we want to glorify God with our investment-making decisions. This means we’re investing in biblically-aligned companies. In order for a company to be biblically aligned, it does not necessarily have to be a Christian company. But it does mean that the company’s philosophy and operating practices align with biblical principles.
How Do You Build a Biblically Responsible Investment Portfolio?
So how do you know if your current portfolio is supporting your morals and beliefs? How do you honor God with your investments?
Biblically-responsible investments are the fastest growing subset of the socially responsible investing category. There are a growing number of Christian financial firms that provide faith-based funds that objectively screen these investments to ensure you are not supporting something that goes against your Christian values. These firms will spend countless hours reviewing companies to verify that they align with biblical beliefs, and will regularly monitor the funds assuring their ongoing consistency. Envoy provides the option for screened funds, ETFs, and managed models in our plan menus.
Will Your Financial Returns Suffer?
No, they do not have to! Historically, BRI funds have been expensive and underperforming. More recent studies show that actively managed, screened portfolios–on average and over a long period of time–tend to perform similarly or better than unscreened portfolios. Thus, there is no reason to believe that those who invest in biblically responsible funds will have lower returns than other investors. It’s important to understand that biblically responsible investment managers desire to provide options that not only focus on a fund’s expense and rate of return, but also on its moral value
Still have more BRI questions?
Do you feel like speaking with a certified financial advisor will help clear up additional questions? We are here every weekday. Reach out to us over the phone, email, or by video conference. We cannot wait to help you make the most of our Biblically Responsible Investment options.
A Message from Our CEO and Founder, Bruce Bruinsma:
Video Transcript: This is Bruce Bruinsma and I’m CEO of Envoy Financial. My goal in this short presentation is to simply begin a conversation, begin a dialogue. It’s a dialogue that we’re having with our plan sponsors, with our participants to the retirement plans and with those who we serve, and other investment management ways. And the question that prompts our conversation is this: “is your personal values being reflected in your investments?” So, it’s bringing together our personal values, and then the investments that we make with our money. It’s a conversation that is going to go on for a while because there’s a whole series of different ways that it can be addressed and thought about and discussed. And I’m sure all of those will come up in our conversations. I did want to tell you that Envoy is positioning itself as being the leader in the faith-driven investment movement in the area of retirement plans, and the other investment ways that we deal with our clients. So know that it will be an important part of our conversation. As a matter of fact, we are including a whole section of faith-based and faith-driven investments on our new menus that we will be introducing shortly. So we just invite you into the conversation. Ask you to think ask you to pray about that. As we together search for the answer to the question: “are my personal values being reflected in my investing. Have a great day and seize the day?”
To learn more about Envoy Financial’s Biblically Responsible Funds, reach out to one of our licensed advisors.
More Biblically Responsible Investing Articles
Is Biblically Responsible Investing a New Concept?
How Do You Match Your Values With Your Investing?
Biblically Responsible Investing—for the Average Investor
