September 15, 2026
For much of the last century, Christian investing has largely focused on playing defense: screening out companies or industries that conflict with Christian convictions and investing in what remains. But there is another question worth asking: What if we intentionally invested in companies that more closely align with our values and contribute to human flourishing? Rather than only asking what we should avoid, this approach asks what we might actively embrace.
Show Notes
Investing Is an Act of Stewardship
From the beginning of Scripture, work and stewardship are part of God's design for humanity. In Genesis, mankind is given the responsibility to tend the garden and exercise wise dominion over creation.
Investing can be viewed through a similar lens. When we invest in a company, we provide capital that helps enable its operations. That gives Christian investors an important question to consider: What kinds of companies do we want our capital helping to flourish?
Some decisions may seem straightforward. There are businesses whose primary sources of revenue may directly conflict with an investor's Christian convictions. But evaluating thousands of other companies becomes much more complicated.
What Does Human Flourishing Look Like?
Evaluating human flourishing requires looking beyond a company's product or service. How does it treat employees and customers? How does it interact with suppliers? How is the company governed? What impact does it have on the communities and environments where it operates?
Looking at these different stakeholders can provide a broader picture of whether a company is contributing positively to the world. This changes the question we ask about our portfolios. Instead of only asking, "How much money did this investment make?" we can also ask, "Who is flourishing because of the capital we've deployed?" As Christians, everything we possess ultimately belongs to the Lord. Our responsibility is to faithfully steward what He has entrusted to us.
Greater Alignment Comes With Tradeoffs
Broad-market investing allows investors to spread their money across hundreds or thousands of companies. When you begin removing companies that don't align with your values and intentionally selecting companies that do, your portfolio will generally become more concentrated.
That makes due diligence increasingly important and means individual investments can have a greater effect on overall performance. A concentrated portfolio may outperform the broader market at times and significantly underperform at others. Christian investors pursuing greater alignment need to understand and prepare for that possibility.
Risk Capacity vs. Risk Tolerance
This leads to an important distinction: risk tolerance and risk capacity are not the same thing. Risk tolerance asks how comfortable you are watching your investments fluctuate. Risk capacity asks whether your financial situation can actually withstand those fluctuations.
You may emotionally tolerate seeing your portfolio decline significantly, but if you're retired and relying on those assets for income, you may not have the financial capacity to accept that degree of volatility. Faithfulness doesn't require recklessness. There can be wisdom in pursuing greater alignment while maintaining enough diversification to meet your financial needs.
Which Companies Promote Human Flourishing?
There isn't necessarily one universal answer. One investor might prioritize companies creating jobs. Another might focus on businesses developing treatments for diseases. Others may care deeply about agriculture, clean technology, employee satisfaction, or companies producing goods and services they believe improve people's lives.
That's why there may not be a single Christian investment strategy that's right for every believer. The goal isn't necessarily finding a perfect investment, but understanding what matters most to you and determining whether greater alignment is worth the additional concentration and potential risk.
Practical Ways to Pursue Values-Aligned Investing
Christian investors have several options. There are biblically responsible ETFs and mutual funds that screen or intentionally select companies according to particular values. Some are relatively broad, while others concentrate on areas such as healthcare or life sciences.
Separately managed accounts and direct indexing can provide even greater customization over which companies are included or excluded. Investors can also research and select individual companies themselves. However, that requires considerable time and effort spent reviewing company filings, 10-Ks, prospectuses, and information through the SEC's EDGAR system. Greater customization and active management can also mean higher costs, which should be considered alongside the benefits of greater values alignment.
Faithfulness Over Perfection
There are limits to how closely any public company will align with an investor's convictions. Companies answer to many shareholders, and leadership and corporate culture can change over time.
That doesn't mean Christians shouldn't think carefully about their investments. Instead, it reminds us that investing is another area requiring wisdom, prayer, discernment, and humility. As you evaluate your portfolio, consider not only what you're avoiding, but what you're helping to flourish.
Questions to Consider
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Episode Transcript
Austin
For most of the last century, Christian investing meant playing defense. Screening out the companies you didn't want to own and hoping the rest of the market wasn't too compromised. But there's an alternative strategy to consider that has significant merit. Investing only in companies that are more strongly aligned with your values. The trade offs are real because a more concentrated portfolio may also be more volatile.
But the greater alignment with one's core values makes this pathway very attractive for some clients.
So, Spencer, today, as we continue our conversation about how do we actually invest as stewards, we think about this along a spectrum. You've got your one side of things that just says, give me the highest risk adjusted return. And we've said maybe that is not the best path for believers to take as we walk with the Lord. We don't want to bring ill gotten gain from these companies that we're investing in into the storehouse of the Lord, and try to just wash it with his blood and say, well, we did it.
We did the best we could. We got the highest return. Take it Lord. And we've seen how that's actually antithetical to how God wants us to be investing. He says in Deuteronomy to not bring the tide of the prostitute into the storehouse. We see examples where Judas, after he portrays Jesus, tries to bring the blood money back into the temple, and the Pharisees are like, no, we don't want that.
And so we move from this idea of, let me just get a whole market, and then I'll give God his tithe to let's actually start avoiding some companies that that profit from ill gotten gain. We've talked about how does it look to actually engage those companies through shareholder proxies, or bringing up resolutions to the board? Today we're going to talk about embracing certain companies in a very specific and concentrated manner that bring about flourishing in the world.
So we're looking at how do we create a portfolio that maybe aligns more closely with our values. So why do we think that this is a good option for some folks to consider?
Spencer
Well, let's back up and say why would this be a viable option at all? One reason would be that we have been created to work. We were given tasks in the Garden of Eden, to tend the garden. To, exercise dominion, you know, over, the beasts of the earth and, to create this, this sense of, flourishing.
And really, we as image bearers would set up God's image, would, would proclaim God's goodness throughout the entirety of the world. So there's a level of stewardship, you know, dominion sometimes is kind of, you know, with the, an idea of, you know, domination. But that's not really, what, Genesis is talking about.
It's it's a wise stewardship there. So I think when we think about clothing companies with capital, again, we invest in companies, and that's really providing capital for their operations, better on the equity or the debt side of things as we do that, we really have to grapple with what companies we want to be involved in. Now, as we've talked about, there are some companies that we say really just the line of revenue that they're in.
It's almost all bad. You know, it might be all bad. You know, if we think about companies that they're deriving their profits from, you know, pornography or gambling or, these enterprises that they profit when people are addicted. We don't like that. There are other enterprises that by their operations, they're engaging with governments that are, perpetrating genocide.
That's also a bad thing. We would say. I think just about all of us could agree, you know, on that. So there are companies that, we would say, really, it's hard to see anything good that's coming. You know, from them they might still pay their utilities. They might still, you know, pay other vendors and suppliers, you know, that are, in business arenas that are not, aligned with theirs, but they still need it.
You know, I mean, the casino needs to pay for, you know, power and utilities and those kinds of things. So they might do that on time. It's not that there's everything they do is terrible, right? They're going to operate within the law, by most of what they're doing. But their, their whole enterprise, is ensnaring people.
So, you know, when we think about that, we can clearly say, well, let's let's try to avoid that based on faith. But as we move, then there's a continuum to say, okay, how much do all these other companies do they really align with this vision of human flourishing? That would be a biblical vision of human flourishing, where, you know, our relationships are in proper order.
You know, our, relationship with the environment, you know, is in, in good standing. Where we are thinking about the products, services, goods, you know, that our companies are bringing forth. So I think we could all agree that there's come every company is somewhere on a continuum here. That would be sometimes hard to evaluate. But as we do that, we can really look at it in more of a multifaceted, you know, way.
And we like the framework that Eventide has come up with in that business 360 in a way, because they're looking at all kinds of different stakeholders. They're looking at, the employees of the institution. They're looking at even how the institutions run, you know, from a board standpoint, they're looking at, suppliers, they're looking at it all their vendor relationships, really.
They're looking at their customers. How are they treating their customers? They're looking at, the surrounding environment, both the people in that environment, but also, the broader ecological, environment and how they relate to that. So it's it's all kinds of different facets that they're really looking at on a biblical continuum there. So that's why, you know, as we, as we kind of think about this big picture, if we're embracing those companies, if we're narrowing down from something like thousands of companies to a much smaller subset, well, now we can be much more tailored in the way that we look at it, and also more holistic in that we're not saying, well, we're
just going to eliminate this small, you know, group of companies, right?
Austin
Absolutely. Well, I think as we look at Scripture and especially how Jesus charges of the in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, I think oftentimes when we look at our cultural milieu, when it comes to investing in particular, we have so bought into the story that the greatest thing that we can do is make as much money as possible.
And even the parable of the talents, where the master gives one person five talents and he brings five more, and the response is well done, good and faithful servant. We often twist that to say it's because of the rate of return. And I think the reality here is we need to look as we're creating portfolios that pursue good in the world.
Are we looking to hear Jesus say, well done, good and faithful servant because of how you deployed it, or because of how much money you made? The reality is, Jesus has all he owns at all. Every dollar is his. He does not need more financial resources in his pockets. He can do everything without us. And so I think as we look at what does it look like to embrace companies, I think because of the Eventide framework of how are we looking at that broad swath of who are these investments impacting?
I think that question that Rob and John poses is who are you allowing to flourish? It's what companies are you deploying capital to that are then flourishing because the adult entertainment industry is rife with slavery, of people being trafficked into this industry. So it's not just a detrimental, antithetical to good, godly vision of sex. It's also antithetical because people get trafficked into it.
So it's like you've got all these layers. But I think that question of who is flourishing, where is the deployment of resources when the Lord looks at me and that day that I return home, is he going to say, well done, good and faithful servant? And I think that's what we really are looking at here is, as I am deploying capital, am I deploying the master's capital to companies that are bringing about goods and services to a broken world?
Where am I bringing about flourishing? And I think as we look at this, we we've talked about this quite a bit and we'll come back to it on a little bit later. But there are risks inherent to this. So let's go ahead and look at why concentration can be both a benefit but also a potential downside. So you want to talk us through kind of as we look at the idea of what does it look like to be invested in an index.
What does that mean.
Spencer
Well, I'm hearing the compliance officer in my, right ear tell me that I need to say that you can't invest directly in an index, but let's just say that you invested across the entirety of a particular market, and then invested in every company. There it becomes an easy and cost effective way to just say, I'm going to invest in every firm that's out there.
And, I'm going to have some that are winners, some that are losers, and I'm going to get some kind of average rate of return. Now, if you look at the studies that have been done out there, oftentimes that average rate of return is a very good rate of return relative to the other options. Because the other options have more friction, there's more trading, there's more expense, there's more all kinds of different things.
And they tend to lag that benchmark. So there is a real power to the idea that we're going to just invest in everything and keep it simple and keep it inexpensive. As we do that, though, we diversify our we spread our investment across hundreds or thousands of companies. So it means that we have much less in each company.
Typically now there's going to still be some companies if you're investing in, say, US stock market index and it's, you know, across the entire stock market, you are going to be investing a lot more in Apple and Nvidia than you are, you know, Pinnacle Financial Partners. You know, a local bank, here. Because those two, technology companies are much bigger, trillions of dollars of market capitalization.
Pinnacle is a smaller, institution than those two, for sure. But when we start to remove the vast majority of those investments, will now, our, investments need to be more concentrated. You know, we might have a small firm that we're investing 5% of our portfolio when, you know, if we invested in them based on the entire market capitalization, it might be 5/100 of 1%.
There. So we're inherently we're picking those companies typically when we're actively managing it and when we're really trying to align our portfolio with our core values, we tend to be more concentrated in the position itself. And we also need to have a higher level of conviction, both from a core value standpoint, that this firm actually is indeed better aligned with our core values, but also really need to do some due diligence to make sure that it's a good investment.
Because there is a level of, concentration there, it matters a whole lot more when it's 5 or 10% of your portfolio than it then when it was 5/100 of 1% of your portfolio. So it can be great in the sense that, you're aligning your core values, with your wealth. It can also be great.
It can it can be a great investment. You know, there are times when those highly concentrated portfolios, you might have 30 or 40 or 50 stocks in one, mutual fund. Let's just say that's actively managed. Sometimes they'll do better than the broad market. Sometimes they'll do worse than the broad market. And we have to be prepared for both of those outcomes.
So, you know, when we put our nerd hat on and talk about tracking here, it's that difference between what the broad market or what the benchmark is doing and what that particular fund is doing. And you can imagine if you say, well, I'm really not comfortable with what's going on with most of the, social media, out there.
A lot of the, I, you know, that's out there, let's just say that you wanted to avoid kind of investments in firms that are central to that push towards AI and social media and these different pieces. Well, you might not have any of The Magnificent Seven, you know, as they're called. Well, if you avoid those and they've done really, really well in the last week, then your portfolio is going to not have done really well, potentially, even in the midst of time that they did.
So you might be looking, on your television screen and say, oh, gosh, I'm seeing that the S&P 500 was up big here the last week, and my portfolio was not, was down. So you need to be prepared for that kind of an outcome because those concentrated portfolios, typically they will diverge, you know, more from the broad market.
And that can be good or bad. But at some point it's going to be bad. And then what do you do. Yeah. You know, are you prepared, from a standpoint of, you know, theologically or you're kind of core beliefs? Are you also prepared from a standpoint of, you know, what you're doing with your pocketbook?
There when you get that statement, can you, can you sleep at night? So those are questions I think, that you really have to sort through before you go in that direction. Right.
Austin
Well, I think we always come back to this idea of risk capacity versus risk tolerance. You may say, yes, I can tolerate my portfolio being down 5%, but do you have the capacity? Do you can you actually handle that if you're trying to live off of these resources. And so I think we want to be as faithful as we can.
We want to be faithful to what the Lord is calling us to, but also recognize that the Lord is not calling all people to do all things exactly the same. And I think we we want to be faithful to wherever the Lord is calling us to. I think the greatest risk of investing oftentimes is being disobedient to the Lord and we want to always place a foot of trust in him first and foremost, and not in our investment portfolios.
But we also don't want to be reckless with how we do it. And so I think there's wisdom and prudence of how do we actually implement this well, but I think we have to come at it very prayerfully to say, Lord, what are you calling me to? Do you want me to concentrate a portfolio in these 30 companies, or are you okay if I go a little bit broader because I need a little bit more stability?
And so I think I just know that there's room for a growth spectrum here, and maybe it's I'm tearing down to where I add a little bit more to concentration over time as I get more comfortable with it. There's a lot of ways that we can go about this, but I think the other piece as we think about concentration is it's not always reckless.
When we think about concentration, you could do what you're saying and say, okay, I think AI is the worst thing in the world. You could also see it on the flip side and think, I think AI is going to do incredible things and save humanity because it's going to solve all the health care problems that we have. So I'm only going to invest in AI, health care companies that are solving rare orphan diseases to bring about the cure for some of these diseases that nobody else wants to touch.
And so you can see there is one side that says AI is terrible. It's going to destroy the world or another that might just as logically argue AI is going to save thousands of lives. Why wouldn't we use it? And so I think in all of this, we come back to you. We want to be faithful to what the Lord is calling us, to be obedient to him.
And there are absolutely ways to create beautiful portfolios that pursue human flourishing and honor the Lord and stay within our capacity to take risk. So what are maybe some of those ways that we could actually pursue companies that are pursuing human flourishing?
Spencer
Well, and this is where I think we have to come back to what is human flourishing. And so, because different investment managers will look at this differently. Some will look at it and say, okay, we think that human flourishing is really providing jobs. And so they're going to be looking at industries that are job creators, or kind of right on the cutting edge there.
They may even look internationally to to companies that are, that are creating jobs. You mentioned that the health care side of things can be one area that certain firms, will really look at because they may say, you know, we're really excited about companies that are developing cures for some of these diseases or, really add value to, the hospital experience, you know, for someone, I think we can all agree that there are firms that are out there, that maybe they are extracting more than they're really contributing in terms of that value spectrum.
I think that, those insurance companies that are out there, the health insurance companies, there's an open question of how much they're really adding versus how much they extract. I think that those are good questions. They're it's it's very difficult sometimes to see how, the health care insurance company is really helping you, you know, in certain circumstances.
But I think this is where that, that wider, that broader view of how a company is operating within its space can be really helpful. And this is where as well, I think there are so many companies that are out there that you say, you know, are they doing an an amazing amount of good? No. Are they pursuing, you know, their own profitability?
Yes. Are they doing, anything that's absolutely terrible? Maybe not. But you know, I would I would put a lot of the fast food, you know, companies kind of in that bucket of like, you know, am I really excited about investing in McDonald's? No, I'm really not. Do I think that they're nearly as as, you know, detrimental to, human flourishing as I might a casino or, you know, other enterprises?
No, I also don't think that either. So they're kind of there's all these companies that are kind of right in there, you know, in the middle, you know, so to speak, that, I think this is where when we can say more certain this is my core value of really where I get really excited about making the world a better place, about contributing to human flourishing, and whether that is, coming up with solutions for disease or for crop production or, clean technology, or any, any kind of, different piece in there.
Or it could be that you're very, very passionate about working with companies that they're they're rated very, very highly in their employee satisfaction. You know, that can be another one that people say, well, this is a good place to work. This is people go there, they thrive. They're able to invest in their families. They're given good health care.
They have all kinds of different options and benefits there. That can be a really great place to invest there in as well. But each one of those might be, pushing you towards a different sector where you have a concentration, you know, there or might be pushing you towards certain types of companies that could be larger or smaller then, the peer group that's out there.
So you really have to if you're going to go down this path and you want to say, I want to have a much more concentrated portfolio, okay. What does that mean to you? What what are you most passionate about? We had, some conversations with the client, a number of years ago. Where it seemed like many things were lining up, where it seemed like Eventide was going to be a good fit.
Even tide historically has taken the position that they're not going to invest into in, defense companies, you know, in companies that have any kind of weapons manufacturing. And, this client said, well, I'm not interested in that because I have a son in the armed forces. And I think that it's, important, to support, you know, that group of individuals.
Well, okay. It wasn't, you know, it was maybe a 90% fit, but it wasn't 100% fit. So they went in a different direction, you know, there. So I think we we have to recognize that there might not be a perfect fit, but there needs to be enough of a fit where you know that the concentration, the added level of, potential risk that you're taking on is worth it.
And that the company is also, looking at other things because you don't want them just to be looking at this from a nonprofit standpoint and say, okay, well, we're only going to invest in these companies because they seem to be doing the best job, even if they're not making any money. No, there's still needs to be a profit motivation there.
And there needs to be, good business practices. So it's a both and it's not just, you know, the best risk adjusted return, but that still is one piece of it. It's part of the scorecard.
Austin
When I think about this too, as we think about actually constructing a portfolio, there are a wide swath. Biblically responsible investing is a growing investment opportunity set. So there are ETFs, mutual funds that are available that are and more are becoming available that maybe have said, hey, we want to be more of an index like approach, but still hold on.
The Eventide framework. Then there's others that say, hey, we want to be really, really focused purely on health care and life sciences. There's others that kind of look at human flourishing in a lot of different ways. So if you're saying, okay, how do I look at this from a public market standpoint? There are providers out there that you can work with that you can look through and say, okay, I like this.
I don't like this, I like this, I don't like this. And construct a portfolio maybe of 3 to 5 of these different funds and say, okay, I can get a lot of opportunities that where I'm investing in companies that are pursuing human flourishing from public, ETFs and mutual funds. The thing that will always say is, as you increase concentration, you're going to increase cost because the managers are going to be doing more and more due diligence on those companies.
And so you just have to know that that is going to be more than a broad fund. That's just investing in every single company in the United States. A vanguard total market fund is going to be significantly cheaper than an even time ETF or mutual fund. And it's just it's part of pursuing concentration. Now, the other piece that we've talked about before is utilizing a separately managed account or a direct index to where you can say, this is what I want, eliminate this, take this, eliminate that, take this.
It's still not going to be perfect. It'll still maybe eliminate some companies that you would have wanted to invest in. The third option is again, continuing to do all the due diligence yourself, which if you really like looking through 10-K’s and prospectuses and researching on the SEC EDGAR’s website what you should be investing in, this could be a path for you, but you have to know that's a lot of time and energy that you're putting in.
And so I think all of us need to wrestle with how much capacity do I have to take on risk here? How much tolerance do I have to see those funds go up and down? And then how much time am I willing to invest to either do the research on my own, or pay somebody else to do the research for me?
So really, as we think about this, there's quite a few ways that we can invest in a way that actually pursues human flourishing. What else would you say to that Spencer?
Spencer
Well, I think that there's also a reality that we can only expect so much from a company that is publicly traded. You're going to have a wide array of investors, lending their voice. And so, that doesn't mean that the company can't do great, wonderful things, contribute to human flourishing. There is going to be some level of investors, though, that are always going to say, give me the best risk adjusted return in the shortest amount of time.
And so I think that is something that's always going to be there. If we, if we're, if we take one more step over and towards the private markets, then we have even more say, and we'll be talking about that in the next few episodes. But the private markets, sometimes we see a pairing of, the direction of a company alongside core values.
That is even a lot, a lot tighter. Yeah. There there are some companies, obviously, that are publicly traded that are a lot better than others in that kind of 360 overview of how they treat all of the stakeholders. And, and it's it's evident, the thing that we would come back to there is there only one CEO away from potentially seeing drastic changes across all of that now, that may be an overstatement because you've got board of directors and you've got a level of accountability and oversight.
But but realistically, they might just be a few years away because investors in that public space can come in so quickly and alter that landscape because the stocks are publicly traded. Whereas with private investments, usually the staying power with, with cultural values is much more significant. Yeah.
Austin
Well, Spencer, thanks for talking us through. What does it look like to actually embrace companies pursue human flourishing clients? If you have questions about this or your portfolio, or want to know how you can pursue human flourishing in a greater way, we would love to have that conversation with you. 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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