The foremost authority and the most trusted expert on biblically responsible investing, nationally syndicated host Dan Celia, says he has seen a dramatic increase in the past several years in the growth of a niche market of investors who want to honor God with the money He has entrusted to them.
Celia, who leads Financial Issues Stewardship Ministries (FISM, www.financialissues.org) and focuses on important economic news and biblical investing during his daily, three-hour program, “Financial Issues,” says more and more people want information about how they can make sure their dollars are not invested in abortion, pornography, gambling and a host of other demoralizing causes.
“Many investors today, especially the faithful, want to stay away from companies who are supporting a disgusting and offensive agenda,” Celia said. “Evangelical Christians make up a huge percentage of average investors across America, and my goal for the past 28 years has been to educate this segment of investors to take a stand against company executives who are allowing their personal ideology to get in the way of the responsible stewardship of stockholders’ money.”
Celia added that he has had the opportunity over the past 18 months to speak to 14 Fortune-100 companies to encourage them to continue to do whatever they do best—make great automobiles, construct bulldozers, flip hamburgers, sell clothes or explore for oil.
“Whatever it might be, I tell them to just say no to the left and the right, who are encouraging them to support their agenda,” Celia said. “I encourage them just to be about the core business they have been charged with managing. Leave their ideologies to their personal finances and investments, and keep stockholder money out of it.”
Celia also noted that he never talks on the air about the companies he has spoken to or about their feedback.
“I believe if I do, it will close doors and I won’t have the opportunity to get to the other company executives for fear I will use their stance against them for my personal gain,” he said. “This has helped me maintain credibility and allowed me to have an open dialogue with these corporations. I simply add them or remove them from my list of stocks that Financial Issues Stewardship Ministries’ tens of thousands of partners use and trust.”
He shared one conversation with a top 50 U.S. company.
“A large company suggested that its CEO was very committed to a particular cause that made it necessary for me to remove them from my stock list after 30 years,” Celia recalled. “Company leaders indicated they had little choice, and even went as far as accusing me of wanting them to support my cause. I told them this wasn’t true; I wasn’t asking them to support my ministry, but simply imploring them to do, to the best of their ability, what would benefit stockholders.”
Celia also said the growth over the past 28 years in biblically responsible investing has been dramatic, but the progress in the past three years has been tremendous, as more are becoming educated about committing only to those companies who are not participating in activities that are offensive to God—with shareholder money.
Timothy Plan Mutual Funds give testimony to this change and dramatic shift in conscience, as they have seen dramatic inflows from evangelical Christians who are sold out to making sure the money they have been blessed with is not being used to further erode the moral fiber of America. {eoa}
