September 1, 2026
For Christian investors, much of the conversation around aligning investments with faith centers on a simple decision: Do I own this company, or do I avoid it? That is an important question, but it is not the only one. There is a third option that investors sometimes overlook: engagement.
When you own shares of a company, you are more than someone hoping its stock price goes up. You are a part owner of that business. And ownership can provide opportunities to have a voice in how a company operates. For Christians seeking to steward their investments faithfully, that raises an important question: How can we use that influence well?
Show Notes
From Avoidance to Influence
Scripture gives Christians good reasons to avoid participating in things that are contrary to God's purposes. Ephesians 5:11 tells believers to "take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness." But the verse doesn't end there. Christians are also called to expose those works. That creates an important tension when we think about investing.
There may be businesses whose fundamental activities are so contrary to Christian convictions that avoiding them entirely makes sense. But many companies operate in a much more complicated space. They may produce valuable products or services while simultaneously engaging in practices that concern Christian investors. In those situations, selling your shares isn't necessarily the only possible response.
Ownership can provide an opportunity for influence. Throughout Scripture, God's people are repeatedly called to exercise influence in the world around them. Christians are called to be salt and light—not simply to withdraw from the world, but to faithfully represent Christ within it. That principle can affect how we think about our role as investors as well.
What Is Shareholder Engagement?
One of the most basic forms of shareholder engagement is proxy voting. Public companies regularly ask shareholders to vote on matters such as boards of directors, corporate policies, and shareholder proposals. Those votes provide owners with a voice.
Shareholders can also bring resolutions before companies. Even when a shareholder resolution does not receive enough votes to pass, it can force management to publicly address an issue. That can create opportunities for further dialogue and potentially lead to change over time.
Sometimes engagement occurs much more directly. Large investment funds and institutions may communicate directly with corporate leadership about practices they believe should change. Because these organizations can represent significant amounts of invested capital, companies may be more willing to listen.
For example, shareholder engagement can address concerns such as forced labor, human trafficking, and unethical practices within corporate supply chains. Rather than immediately abandoning an otherwise worthwhile company, an investor or investment manager may first use the influence that comes with ownership to advocate for meaningful change.
The Power of Collective Ownership
Most individual investors aren't going to command the attention of a major corporation by themselves. But that doesn't mean their investments have no influence. An individual investor can choose funds or investment managers that actively engage companies on behalf of their shareholders.
Imagine an investor with $1 million to invest. That amount alone may not carry significant influence with a massive corporation. But when those dollars are invested alongside billions of dollars managed by an organization committed to shareholder engagement, they become part of a much larger voice. This makes due diligence particularly important.
Different Christian or values-oriented investment managers may prioritize different issues. One manager might emphasize forced labor and human trafficking, while another focuses more heavily on other ethical or moral concerns. Investors therefore need to understand not only what companies a fund owns, but also what the fund manager does with the influence that ownership provides.
Engagement Comes With Tradeoffs
There is another reality Christian investors should recognize: deeper engagement can come with financial tradeoffs. A broadly diversified investment strategy might hold thousands of companies. Screening out businesses that violate particular standards reduces that investment universe.
Going further and actively engaging companies requires additional research, personnel, and resources. An investment manager cannot realistically engage thousands of businesses about every potential issue.
The more selective and active an investment strategy becomes, the more its performance may differ from a broad market index. Actively managed funds may also carry higher expenses. That doesn't automatically make these strategies better or worse. But it does mean investors need to understand what they are choosing. And it leads to a deeper stewardship question.
Is Financial Return the Only Return That Matters?
Investors naturally care about financial returns. But for a Christian steward, should maximizing financial return always be the highest objective? Perhaps another kind of return deserves consideration: return on impact.
If God has entrusted resources to us, we can ask not only how those resources might grow, but also what those resources are supporting and what influence they might provide.
That could mean accepting greater differences from market performance or paying more for active management because an investor believes the opportunity for engagement is worth it.
It doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing returns. An actively engaged investment strategy could outperform or underperform a broader market strategy. The larger point is that Christians can evaluate investments according to more than one measurement. Financial performance matters, but stewardship invites us to consider what our money is accomplishing along the way.
Individual Investors Can Still Make a Difference
It's easy to assume meaningful corporate engagement is reserved for investors managing billions of dollars. But change often begins much smaller. Movements can start when someone recognizes a problem, raises the issue, finds others who share the concern, and begins building a collective voice. Sometimes even a conversation can make a difference.
One example involved a conversation with a fund manager about investments connected to Sudan. In a subsequent filing, one of the companies discussed was no longer held by that particular fund. While there was no way to know definitively whether the conversation prompted the change, it illustrates how raising concerns and engaging directly with investment managers may influence investment decisions.
Christian investors don't necessarily need enormous portfolios to participate. They can vote their proxies. They can research the engagement practices of their investment managers. They can invest alongside funds that share their convictions. They can ask questions. And they can encourage others to think more carefully about what responsible ownership looks like.
The goal isn't simply to avoid everything broken in the marketplace. It is to consider how Christians can faithfully use the influence God has entrusted to them.
Questions to Consider
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Episode Transcript
Austin
Most Christian investors think their only two options are to own a company or to avoid it. But there's a third option Scripture seems to commend, and most people have never been told it exists. As a shareholder, you are a part owner of every company in your portfolio with legal rights to speak into how that business is run. Today we're going to unpack how faithful stewards are using their voices as owners directly and through their managers, to push companies toward human flourishing, not just away from harm.
All right. So, Spencer, today we get to talk about what does it actually mean to be an active owner of the companies that we invest in. We've talked a lot in the last few episodes about what does it mean to actually avoid ill gotten gain, but now we're kind of moving into this idea of we can embrace companies that are doing well, but then we can also engage them in how they are operating their business.
As an owner, I get to have a say in how I want the business to be run. So talk us through as from a high level overview, what do we think about when we look at this idea of engagement from a biblical standpoint?
Spencer
Well, we've got some different options here. And one option would certainly be that we just flee. If we flee, then we lose the influence that we have. As we've talked about. So influence is part of the dominion that really God has given us since Genesis one. I mean, he makes Adam and Eve in his image and then his, his charge is for them to go out into the world and to set up shop, so to speak, so that the entire world knows of God via his image bearers.
So there's this influence that they certainly have. And of course, you get into then the naming of the animals and, the reality that, there are different traits and characteristics that humans have than any other animals have. So there's this there's it's influence and it's, you know, it's kind of funny that we're talking about this. Neither one of us, really fashion ourselves as influencers.
You know, out there. Yeah. Kind of running, from from that, like the plague. But, we all are influencers. We're influencing in some way or another. That word has certainly become synonymous with a certain type of influence online. But when we think about it, you look at the Old Testament, at the New Testament, you've got influence that God's leaders have had all along the way.
You think about the prophets, Amos, Micah, Isaiah. You know, one of my, passages of Scripture that I think is just most shocking when you read it. Amos four talks about the cows of Bashan, and he's talking about these rich women that are oppressing the poor and telling their husbands to go get him a drink and bring it, but at the expense of, you know, those who are impoverished and, you know, so you think about these folks that had influence and were speaking, significant truth to people who had power at the time, and they're trying to have, a say in what's going on culturally and kind of the, the norms
of how business is being done. Even back then, now it's a little bit different, you know, using those words, towards, you know, an Israelite king or, a king in Judah, but still that that's been happening all along the way. And then we see Jesus doing the same thing when he's talking about being salt and light in the world.
He's not saying that you need to, completely set yourself apart from the world. But that we are actually in the world and that we have a role in bringing seasoning and preservation, you know, to the world along the way. So it's not to say that we always stay involved there. We're not we're not suggesting that you stay invested in, you know, RCI in Rick's Cabaret.
We don't think that that's you're not going to influence them in any way because their line of business is antithetical to the gospel. But there's so many others that we've talked about, like Apple, you have the, you know, maybe the the platform in the iPhone that is the greatest purveyor of the Bible, you know, in, in readership.
On a day to day basis. But you also have, of course, pornography and other things that are consumed that way. So, if we just leave and all of us say we're not going to own any apple, then that voice of saying, well, we actually want you to continue to offer. You know, the Bible app and all these other things.
We're going to lose, a key piece of that influence.
Austin
Well, and I think coming back to what we talked about very briefly in our last episode from Ephesians five verse 11, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness. So we don't want to participate with these areas of ill gotten gain, just like you were talking about with RCI. I don't want to go to a cabaret that Rick's Cabaret is running that would be taking part in darkness.
It would damage my soul. But the the finishing part of that verse says. But instead expose them. And I think that's the tension that we want to feel is we need to be doing both. We need to both avoid the darkness, but also expose the darkness to the light of Christ can come in. And I think that's what we start to see when we think about how do we engage the marketplace as owners?
How do we engage this broken world? What we have done is completely fled. We have no voice. And so our salt and light are essentially tasteless. Now, obviously, there are certain layers of darkness that we want to just avoid entirely because it will damage our souls. But with all of these other players, what does it look like? What does it mean to enter as those who bear God's image, to bring light into that darkness, that that shine light in the darkness because the darkness cannot overcome the light of Christ.
And when we think about this, it is there are times where we say exiting entirely and removing capital from this company makes the most sense. If we can get enough shareholders to say, I do not want to invest in X, Y or Z company and they start feeling the pain of shareholders leaving. Well, that actually negatively affects the company and that that may be the best path forward.
But with these companies that are maybe a little bit in that gray area. Okay, let's speak truth into the darkness. Let's bear light into the darkness and not just avoid it at all cost. So let's talk about some of those levers of shareholder engagement. And some of these are very easy to do on a shareholder level. To some that you have actually very little access to.
So let's talk through just proxy voting as the baseline engagement. If you hold, let's say shares of Apple. What is a proxy vote. Who can bring a proxy to the table?
Spencer
Well, proxy voting is is basically your first voice that you can influence company policy. Oftentimes, at the annual meeting, you'll have all kinds of different votes. Might be for boards of directors, might be, you know, for resolutions that have been brought forward by, owners. Every company is a little bit different. But oftentimes it would be a holding something like $2,000 in stock value for one year.
Would be the kind of the threshold that you could propose, some kind of resolution to come forward. And those could come in all shapes and sizes. Again, like we talked about oftentimes, you're just looking at voting for board of directors or some, some key decisions there, but it could say, hey, we don't want you to engage with, you know, companies from certain, geographies or areas.
You know, one of the things that, really brought apartheid to its knees, in the 80s was, companies, foundations and different, endowments saying, you know, we don't want to be invested in companies that are dealing with South Africa, because of the apartheid, you know, set up that they had there. So it can have, a significant influence.
But, one of the ways that we see these resolutions come forward is we might see an activist investor, raise this and they might hold the company only so they can bring a proposal forward. So there are different, monasteries and nunneries, that, historically have, bought shares of different companies and bought just enough that they could bring home, bring forward a shareholder proposal, so some kind of a proxy vote, and then they would make their case and they might not win, but they had made their case, and they had tried to at least get the company on record for addressing it, because what typically happens is you have
this proposal that comes forward. There's going to be a vote. And so management is going to have to go on the record to say, this is why we think you should vote yay or nay. Now, the, average voter is just going to vote in line with whatever the management team says. But if they hold a particular line and they say, okay, well, this is why we think you should vote against this, then you have them on record and then the real, engagement can happen because you can, you can do some public shaming, you know, there where he can say, okay, this is what they said, here's reality over here.
And so then you can go to the, the, all kinds of different, you know, media outlets and, you know, make your case and, and build some consensus and then come back maybe the next time and then have a stronger vote and so on and so forth, until management actually responds. So that would be kind of that typical pathway if you're going to go the pathway of proxy voting and you don't have a tremendous amount of shares, you know, this would be if you have a very small level of shares, you get the vote, you know, set up, and then you use some kind of, public relations campaign on the other side of
things. That could be a very low dollar way to go. But there's other ways, you know, that engagement can happen there. What what are some of the other ways.
Austin
Yeah. So we think about some of the there's larger companies, whether it is fund companies or there are direct institutions that will engage with the companies directly. So let's take for example, Eventide Praxis Guidestones some of these biblical responsible investment mutual funds and ETFs. They may come to the company and say, hey, we really want to continue to invest in you.
I think there was a story from Eventide a couple of years ago where they had a solar panel manufacturer, and they recognized that that panel manufacturer had connections in their supply chain to weaker manufacturing in China, where Uighurs were being enslaved in China to create these solar panels. So Eventide raised this issue with them, said, we really like your company.
We like what you're doing, but we don't like your slave labor. And so the company was like, oh yes. They looked at it. They said, okay, we'll need to address this to try to exit that slave labor. Sometimes companies will respond positively. And I think to your point, this is the pre shareholder proxy or shareholder resolution. It is the fund company trying to say hey we want to advocate on behalf of our investors to align with what we have said we will do within this fund.
So that's one avenue. It's that direct dialog that happens behind closed doors.
Spencer
Well, and sometimes there's a it's a both end, you know, here. So you might have a proxy vote that's raised. And then there's dialog because the nuns or whoever brings it forward may say this is going to come every year for the rest of your life or until you retire as CEO. Until you address this issue.
Yeah. And they may, depending on, you know, how painful it is or how much it might cost or, you know, whatever the strategic change would need to be, they may just say, okay, this is kind of the prayer of the persistent widow. You're going to keep coming, you know, forward to the judge until you know, he rules in your favor.
So, I guess we'll we'll make some changes here. So there's all kinds of different ways that, you know, you might have the vote and then engagement thereafter before a second vote or a third vote or whatever it might need to be happens. Right.
Austin
We think about the two ends of that spectrum. You've got the the nun on one end and then you've got the advocacy group on the other. And these are places where we would say there are research organizations like Boyer Research or Bright Light that do a really good job of saying, okay, let's look at the the scope of companies.
Let's engage with Christian, either fund managers or states or folks that have large endowments. And we want to advocate on their behalf, because if you hold $2,000, it's one thing. If you're $2 trillion, it's a very different conversation with those companies. And so bright lights doing a lot in the seafood industry because they're recognizing there's human trafficking going on within seafood suppliers.
So they're engaging companies like Kroger to say, hey, what is your seafood, supply chain policy? And are you actually doing what you say to eliminate human trafficking from the supply chain? So it is in that gray area where a company may have a policy, but institutions like this, they can say, hey, I've got 700, I've got a thousand different institutional investors that are backing me to come to you and say, are you actually doing what you say you will do?
And where we see the difference is one company may give the corporate speak. The other company may actually say, oh, you're right, we need to change this because they may feel that pressure. And so that's how we really start thinking about what does it look like to be an active owner of these companies. So, Spencer, let's dive into what an individual investor can do, because they may not have access to be able to hire bright light or, Boyer Research.
What can an individual investor actually do to start thinking about how they can have an influence on the voting in their accounts?
Spencer
Well, one of the ways is you make an investment via an ETF or a mutual fund with, a manager that is already actively engaging. So, you know, you may have $1 million and you may say, well, that's too little to really get their attention. Well, yes, in one way. But if you pair that million dollars alongside, you know, $10 billion, total assets, you're adding to that incremental voice that, that one manager has.
So there are ways that you can pair your money alongside them. Of course, if you're investing in an ETF or a mutual fund with, all kinds of different, fund firms that are out there, from Eventide to Praxis to guide Stone to inspired, you know, others, there's there's so many that are out there and every one of them is going to look at the world a little bit different.
It's not uniform in terms of the issues. They're going to prioritize. They might, you know, bright light might engage, you know, much more on, you know, slave labor, considerations and, inspire might engage much more on, abortion or some other issue that they're passionate about. So you have to, do your due diligence and say, okay, where are they really engaging if you want that level of of engagement to happen or proxy voting to happen, but that that would be the deepest tier.
And oftentimes those funds, they're a little bit more expensive. There's active management there. There is a level of engagement. But this is not going to be oftentimes an ETF that's just, incredibly inexpensive. That's driven mostly by, just, you know, an index type of construction. They're there even even the best of managers is not going to come anywhere close, though, to engaging every company on every issue.
So they're going to have to choose their battles. And oftentimes the calculus for them will be to say, okay, well, we're going to choose AT&T on this particular issue because we know, if AT&T makes a change that will have all these other telecom, businesses also consider making a change to just to match what's being done over there.
Austin
Right. Well, does I think about it kind of conceptually too. We've talked about this with clients, but the reality is, if you've got 3000 publicly traded companies in the United States, if you do the negative screen and just say, hey, we just want to cut out the worst actors, you're removing about 20%, but your tracking error, we talked about this a little bit in the prior episode is going to be a lot closer to that broad swath of the entirety of the investing landscape, but you've eliminated it with a screen.
We also know that you cannot engage 2000 to 2500 companies on a day to day basis. If you were management team is five people, right? That is very hard. And so when you start going to these places, even tide proxies guide stone that may really want to do shareholder engagement inspire. You might see your investable landscape go from 3000 to 2500 to 300 to 30.
Right. The reality is, the more engaged that you want to be, and that's why those management fees are going to increase. And so and we also recognize that as you go further and further and narrower and narrower, that tracking error is going to be wider and wider from the index. It may be plus 5% down 5%. Those are not actual figures.
But the reality is you're going to have a wider variance to the index because you are actively deciding. This is important to me. I see this as a steward, as a a God given role that I have to invest in companies that are avoiding the ill gotten game and actively promoting human flourishing through their engagement. And so we have to enter this and say, hey, maybe return on my investment is not the end that I am seeking as the highest goal.
Maybe it's return on impact, maybe it is okay. I have these funds that God has placed in my hand as a steward, and I am choosing to make the the biggest impact with my dollars and maybe sacrifice a little bit of return. Now it may be a stronger rate of return, but the reality here is the further we go down this line, we have to be willing to recognize that there's going to be wider variance in what is happening with our investments.
Spencer
And I think one of the things that we do note is that the more funds that are aligned and have a common voice, the more that can get done. You know, the genocide free investment movement, again, from ten and 15 years ago, it it gained steam because you had more and more people say, oh yeah, this makes sense.
Why do I want to have, you know, funds going towards investment that will, ultimately lead to genocide? So you had, enough people that raised their voices. They're coming together, and then you started to see some institutions, like, I think to double AA and American Funds and some of the others that started to come out and say, oh, yeah, this makes sense.
We just need to divest from these companies in that regard. It wasn't a huge move. It was only a handful of companies. It wasn't like they were, you know, getting out of, you know, 3000 companies or something like that. It was only a handful. But it was that common voice together because that was so important because, a lot of these companies, they weren't even really aware of what was happening.
And they became aware, but they said, okay, no one else is talking about this, so I'm not going to do anything about it. And you still had some companies that they just didn't care. Yeah. But I know even from a conversation that I had with one of the fund managers at J.P. Morgan, he was not familiar, you know, with this landscape, wasn't familiar with what was going on with, Petro China and some of the other, companies that were investing in Sudan and using resources to, to buy access to, you know, materials there.
And, so he took it back to his team and that one particular fund, J.P. Morgan as a whole, to my knowledge, did not change their, their policy. But I did notice that on their next filing, Petro China was on the prior one was off that one. Now, they never came out and said, hey, it was because we had this conversation.
It could have been a complete, coincidence. But there's a good chance that just that conversation, you know, led to an exit, you know, there of, you know, several hundred thousand shares, you know, of that company. So that's sometimes the how that happens. And it wasn't like we had, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars or something that we were pushing, you know, in that direction.
But sometimes just even, having enough people that have recognized this, that you're in community with and then you have the one conversation can lead to a change there.
Austin
Too, right? Absolutely. But I think we look at the broad history of how movements are sparked, and it's oftentimes someone sees an issue and then starts talking to people and then the ball gets rolling. That's how slavery was abolished in the West. The reality is there are people that prey that see an ill in the world, see something that is wrong and needs to be righted.
And there are beautiful ways to go about that. On the nonprofit side, we're saying this there is a beautiful way to eliminate some of these scourges on the for profit side as well. And so clients, if you have questions about how do you engage companies with proxy voting or shareholder resolutions or just want to explore what does it look like to be more proactive in that space?
We would love to have a conversation with you. And until next time, take care. If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss the next episode.
Disclosure
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We're in Knoxville, Tennessee, and you can visit our website at www.SecondHalfStewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.
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