Every attempt to determine what societal issues are of highest concern to the greatest number of socially conscious investors has ranked the natural environment as the top priority. Many investment products and services are now designed for those who make a conscious choice to put their money to work for a dual purpose -- to provide for a secure retirement, for example, while working for a better, more socially just and environmentally sustainable future for all. In recent years, we have witnessed nearly four decades of progress in various areas of environmental protection being rolled back or reversed. Now, a powerful new force for stewarding our natural environment is emerging, attracting proponents and redirecting the flow of investment capital -- the evangelical movement.
Steve
Creation Care
Christian conservatives and evangelicals are beginning to go for the green. Though wary of mainstream environmental groups, a growing number of Christians view stewardship of the environment as a responsibility mandated by God.
The environment is a values issue," said the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals. "There are significant and compelling theological reasons why it should be a banner issue for the Christian Right."
The association's leaders have adopted an "Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility" that emphasizes every Christian's duty to care for the planet and the role of government in safeguarding a sustainable environment. This statement has been distributed to 50,000 member churches. Some are calling it evidence of the greening of the evangelicals.
"We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part," the statement said. "Because clean air, pure water, and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation."
And it seems that the four hurricanes that battered Florida last year and the melting of the glaciers around the world, have captured the attention of evangelicals and made many more willing to listen to scientific warnings about the dangers of global warming.
Christianity Today, an influential evangelical magazine, has weighed in on global warming, saying that "Christians should make it clear to governments and businesses that we are willing to adapt our lifestyles and support steps towards changes that protect our environment."
A religious alliance that includes a group calling itself the Academy of Evangelical Scientists and Ethicists is behind a new ad campaign featuring the plea, "Don't Let Congress Sink the Endangered Species Act." They see the fight as a religious issue, a call like Noah's to save God's creatures and be "faithful stewards" of the Earth.
"Creation care" has become the commonly used term describing a biblical approach to environmental stewardship. It seems to work for Christian conservatives for whom the word "environmentalism” connotes liberals, secularists and Democrats.
Some established environmental organizations are attempting to make alliances with the Christian Right on specific issues, such as global warming and the presence of mercury and other dangerous toxins in the blood of newborn children.
On the other side, Christian activists such as Jim Ball of the Evangelical Environmental Network (behind the “What Would Jesus Drive” ad campaign against gas-guzzling cars) are trying to show how the most important hot-button issue of the Christian Right -- abortion and the survival of the unborn -- has a green dimension. Ball carried a banner that read "Stop Mercury Poisoning of the Unborn" during an anti-abortion march in Washington. He and the organization’s chief lobbyist handed out carefully footnoted papers that cited federal government studies showing that 1 in 6 babies are born with harmful levels of mercury.
A recent cover story in the Congressional Quarterly reports that activists on the Christian Right are increasingly “using their faith to broaden their political commitments in ways that can’t be neatly predicted -- or controlled.” Those who care about the environment, global trade, hunger and poverty, human rights, AIDS and foreign policy “should be heeding this emerging shift in evangelical sensibilities.”
But there are a number of other trip-wires laying about as environmentalists try to find common ground and support on the Christian Right. According to Jim Ball of the Evangelical Environmental Network, most evangelicals “don’t know many environmentalists, but they have the idea that they are pretty weird -- with strange liberal, pantheist views.”
Indeed, evangelicals’ deep suspicion about environmentalists has theological roots. According to John C. Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, “while evangelicals are open to being good stewards of God’s creation, they believe people should only worship God, not creation.” Apparently, an evangelical stereotype of environmentalists is pagan Druids who worship trees.
One faction of the Christian Right embraces “dispensationalism,” the basis for the
Left Behind series that has sold more than 60 million copies. This group argues that the return of Jesus and the end of the world are near, so it is pointless to fret about environmental degradation.
Haggard, the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, concedes that this thinking "is a problem that I do have to address regularly in talking to the common man on the street. I tell them to live your life as if Jesus is coming back tomorrow, but plan your life as if he is not coming back in your lifetime. I also tell them that the authors of the Left Behind books have life insurance policies."
Which brings us back to investing. The concept of socially and environmentally responsible investing is one that encourages people to bring their values into the investment game. Investment portfolios can be designed to reflect virtually any set of personal, moral, ethical, or religious beliefs.
There are many variables that must be carefully weighed and placed during the process of designing a custom investment portfolio. The objective is to achieve key financial goals within risk parameters that are comfortable for the investor, and while reflecting the values each investor holds dear. But it’s no more difficult to fashion an investment portfolio that connects the dots between a conservative Christian investor and his/her money than it is to serve a deep green liberal.
Fortunately, as discussed above, some of the most important social issues such as clean air and water, and the health of our children are shared commonly by those on both the “left” and the “right.”
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Steven J. Schueth is president and chief marketing officer of First Affirmative Financial Network, LLC. An independent investment advisory firm registered with the SEC, First Affirmative specializes in serving socially conscious individual and institutional investors nationwide. A former director and spokesperson for the Social Investment Forum, Schueth lives in Boulder, Colo.
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