Voting Right, Investing Left

[INTRODUCTION] Welcome to “Christian Financial Perspectives”, where you’re invited to gain insight, wisdom and knowledge about how Christians integrate their faith, life and finances with a Biblical Worldview. Here’s your host Christian Investment Advisor, Financial Planner, and Coach, Bob Barber. [EPISODE] Shawn: Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. This is episode 121. Bob, what do you got for us today? Bob: I have something very special today. As the time when this is gonna come out, we’re right about two months from the midterm elections. And that is really big this time. These midterm elections are more important than ever. So I have a program today. The title is gonna be interesting. Voting right, investing left, and hopefully millions of our Christian brothers and sisters will come out and vote for candidates that align with their values, align with Christian principles. Because we need that back in our country. I worry, many times, about our country. I don’t like the worry. I know scripture says not to worry, and I know God’s in ultimate control of it all. So Shawn, I want to ask you a question. Why do you vote? Shawn: That’s a good one. Well, I vote because it is both my privilege and right as a citizen. I vote because I want to elect people who align with my values as a Christian, or when that isn’t an option, because sometimes it’s not, at least someone who isn’t against my Christian values. And I wanna share quick scripture. Matthew 22:37-38. This was right after the Pharisees and whoever else was trying to trick Jesus. They asked him, “Well, Jesus, what is the most important commandment? And Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” And in verse 39, “And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.” Now I say that because our primary focus as Christians could be summarized from those verses as love God and love people. But I don’t think that means we should sit idly by when we have the freedom in this country to vote for elected officials in our government. Our country was founded on the principles of freedom of religion, and since I don’t want to ever see that taken away for myself, my children, or my grandchildren, I always vote according to my Christian values. Bob: Amen. I’m glad that you do that. Shawn: So yeah. Bob, question to you then. Why do you vote? Bob: Well, Shawn, I vote because I love my country. I love the Lord. And I want our country to be run by pro-life, pro family, pro-marriage candidates that have Christian values and believe in freedom. And you know how I love free enterprise. So that belief in free enterprise and limited government. I don’t believe it’s the government’s job to do everything for us. Shawn: There’s a purpose to government. Bob: There’s a purpose. Shawn: But it should be very limited. Bob: And I believe God puts in governments and I believe governments are of God because it creates order. Okay. but limited government, limited taxation. I believe taxation can be a form of thievery if it’s not done correctly, and it’s not done correctly today. I mean, you’re taxed more with the more you make at the percentages, that’s not fair. It’s not a fair gain. Shawn: And it doesn’t provide incentives for people to continue to grow either. Bob: That’s right. That one person would have to give up 40% of their income and another has to give up 5% of their income. That’s not a fair taxation. Shawn: No, it doesn’t make sense. Bob: And I wanna vote for people that that will abide by the US Constitution. I think it’s a great written document and I think they knew what they were doing when they did it. So I really vote, Shawn, because of my values and what I believe in. Shawn: So we vote because of our values and what we believe in. Bob: I do. And what’s interesting, because this is Christian Financial Perspectives, is I think voting carries over in investing, because if we vote for a pro-life, pro family candidate, yet we invest differently, what are we doing? We’re double minded, and so voting with your investments has to do with everything, in my opinion. And I always ask the question and I want to ask this and I want you to think about this question. Would it bother you to know that many of the companies that you do business with and you invest in, or own in your investment portfolio, are supporting many of the liberal agendas and causes that you vote against. Shawn: It should bother you. Bob: Think about this. Do you own companies in your investment portfolio that support things like abortion and the LGBTQIA+ – I know that keeps getting longer – that are involved in pornography and gambling tobacco and the violation of human rights. Companies use shareholder dollars to push liberal social agendas, giving money to candidates promoting these agendas along with alienating customers and investors with alternative viewpoints. Shawn: So for example, would you vote for a candidate that aligns with your values and then give money to their opponent’s political campaign? Well, the answer of course is no, you wouldn’t do that. Bob: No you wouldn’t. Shawn: So the main question of today, Bob? Bob: Does it make sense to vote with your values and invest against your values? Say that one again. Shawn: Does it make any sense to vote with your values and invest against your values? Bob: And I call that voting right and investing left. Literally, Shawn, millions of conservative voters are unknowingly supporting the leftist, liberal agenda by how they invest within their IRAs, their company, retirement plans, government retirement plans, and brokerage accounts. Remember, Shawn, I did say unknowingly. I don’t think anybody would do this knowingly unless profit is more important than principle. Shawn: Well, we run across this all the time. People who found us maybe because they were looking for a Christian financial advisor, and they find us and they’ve never heard of faith-based investing or investing with your values or like what we do here, biblically responsible investing. Bob: That’s correct. Shawn: But for the most part, when Christians are calling us and they hear about it for the first time, the typical response is, “I had no idea.” Bob: No. Exactly. I don’t believe any Christian with a biblical worldview would ever intentionally invest to support the leftist liberal agenda, Shawn. Because they vote against those causes. And so, it doesn’t make sense to be on one side and the other. Why would you vote this way and then invest this way. You’re getting nowhere when you do that. But Shawn, it takes a conscious effort to invest according to your biblical principles. Shawn: So my question to Christian voters for this program today is this. Isn’t it time to align how you vote with how you invest? Bob: Vote right. Invest right. Shawn: That’s right. Bob: I believe the time is right. I believe it’s been right for a long time, as you know. I have been supporting biblically responsible investing for years, but still Shawn, it’s still a new word. People are calling it values based investing. Shawn: Well, to clarify it, at Christian Financial Advisors®, we use a type of values based investing methodology called biblically responsible investing, and biblically responsible investing helps you avoid investing in companies that give money to and support liberal causes that want to take away our basic human rights and freedoms. Bob: Companies that support destructive behaviors and lifestyles. Shawn: Companies that make money on gambling, tobacco, alcohol, pornography, and abortion. Bob: Companies that give their money to, and support, organizations like Planned Parenthood that take away human lives at their most vulnerable state and without educating the mothers on their options. Shawn: Yeah. And companies that are pushing the LGBTQ+ agenda to our youth. Bob: So biblically responsible investing wants to stay away from those companies. While at the same time, let’s find companies that have pro-life values. Shawn: And companies that want to make the world a better place. Bob: Companies that treat their employees with fair pay. Shawn: Companies that offer good insurance benefits, retirement plan, and time off for their families. Bob: Companies that will provide a safe working environment. Shawn: Companies that have good employee training programs. Bob: Companies that are compassionate towards their employees’ needs. Shawn: And finally, companies that care about God’s creation, i.e. the environment. Bob: So we call this values based investing, biblically responsible investing. It’s been around for a long time. As a matter of fact, it’s been around for about 27-28 years now, but still a lot of people have not heard of it. In the beginning, Shawn, we called it morally responsible investing. And the one that that came up with this term was from the Timothy Plan – Art Alley. He’s still alive today. I love this brother. He lost his son a couple years ago to cancer. So Art’s at the head of the Timothy Plan again. But then he changed that term a couple years later because morally responsible investing – he was starting to find morals are defined differently, unfortunately today, because truth has become relative where it’s not. And he changed that term from morally responsible investing to biblically responsible investing because God’s word doesn’t change. Shawn: And that helped kind of set it apart. Morally responsible could mean a lot of different things to different people. Bob: That’s right. Shawn: Many refer to this type of investing as values-based or faith-based investing, but be careful though, as not all values-based or faith-based investing are created equal, be sure both the negative and the positive screens involved before making the decision, like what we just mentioned earlier. Bob: You need to understand a biblically responsible investing, faith-based investing, values-based investing, is not, what do we call it? Shawn: ESG. Bob: ESG investing. Shawn: Environmental social governance. Bob: It is not that type of investing at all. This type of investing has always been about helping Christians with conservative, pro-family, pro-life values align their investments with their beliefs. Shawn: Amen. So Bob, how long have you been involved with values based investing? I know you mentioned earlier in the episode that it’s been around for 27-28 years, but what about you? Bob: For about 29 years? So it started many, many years ago with me. I can go back to the deep history, but that’s a whole other segment that we could do. Shawn: I believe we did an episode on the history of this. Bob: We did, but it really started with my beliefs many years ago when I became a financial advisor and what was I investing in before The Timothy Plan even came about. So, I’ve been there from the beginning. I can name the first four or five people that were involved in biblically responsible investing. I was one of them. But since then, it’s been really fun and encouraging to watch this movement grow from four or five of us to thousands of us now. Shawn: Well, I’m sure the choices had to be a lot more limited when you first started, right? Bob: They were limited to small cap value and a bond fund. That was it. Those two areas. And as you know in investing, there’s so many other sectors. Shawn: But yet now it’s expanded to include nearly every asset class. Bob: Every asset class there is, it’s gone from few thousand dollars to billions and billions of dollars. Many of the biblically responsible mutual funds, ETFs out there have opened up Wall Street and rung the bell. So, that’s exciting to see. Shawn: For sure. Just to see more people getting involved in that, and that means all those billions of dollars, those are dollars that are being invested in a way that align with our values, align with our values as Christians, as believers. Bob: So when you’re voting right. You can invest right, also. I’ve just watched this grow into not just the stocks, but the ETFs, the mutual funds, and it’s really fun to see this grow. And I want you to know that you can vote right and invest right at the same time. You don’t have to vote right and invest left. So there are choices. And we want you to know that we’ll help you with those choices. We have the technology today also to go in and take a look at your present portfolio. And there’s several programs that we use. We can actually show you, from your investments, how much you may be supporting the liberal agenda and not know it. It’ll surprise you. Shawn: And that’s been encouraging, too, not just the investment options that are specifically targeted towards biblically responsible investing, but like you said, the technology was so limited at first. And now the tools that we have available to actually see, like, what’s going on, like what is either positive or negative with these companies? So with all that being said, instead of voting right and investing left, you can now vote right and invest right today, easier than ever before. So, Bob, I guess really the only question left is this. What are you waiting for? To our listeners, what are you waiting for? Bob: If you wanna know how, just give us a call or text us at (830) 609-6986 , or visit us on our website christianfinancialadvisors.com. Shawn: And as always, thank you so much for joining us, whether you were listening or watching us online, and God bless you. [CONCLUSION] That’s all for now. We invite you to listen to all of our past episodes covering many financial topics from a Christian Perspective. To make sure you don’t miss any of Bob’s upcoming episodes you can subscribe to Christian Financial Perspectives on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, or Stitcher. To learn more about integrating your faith with your finances, visit ciswealth.com or call 830-609-6986. [DISCLOSURES] Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors®, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors® believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.