What Is Faith-Based Investing?
For many Christians, faith influences the way they live, the choices they make, and how they serve others. But one area often goes overlooked: investing.
We may pray about our families, careers, charitable giving, and major life decisions, yet rarely stop to ask whether our investments reflect the same convictions that guide the rest of our lives.
Faith-based investing begins with that question.
More Than Financial Performance
Investing is often evaluated through familiar measures: return, risk, diversification, and long-term growth. Those considerations matter, but faith-based investing asks us to look beyond financial performance alone.
It invites us to consider why we are investing, where our money is going, and whether our financial decisions reflect the values we profess.
A portfolio can perform well financially and still leave an important question unanswered: Does it align with my faith and convictions?
Five Pillars of Faith-Based Investing
Our approach to faith-based investing is built around five pillars:
Awareness — Understanding what we own and recognizing how our financial decisions reflect our priorities.
Stewardship — Viewing wealth as something entrusted to us and considering how we can manage it responsibly.
Generosity — Recognizing that financial resources can be used not only for ourselves and our families, but also to bless others.
Alignment — Considering whether our investments are consistent with the values we seek to live by.
Wisdom — Seeking thoughtful, prayerful, and informed guidance when making financial decisions.
Together, these principles encourage us to view investing as more than a financial activity. They encourage us to see it as one part of a larger life of faithful stewardship.
A Different Question
Faith-based investing doesn't require every Christian to reach identical conclusions about every company, industry, or investment. Christian traditions may approach certain issues differently, and individual circumstances matter.
Instead, it begins by encouraging better questions.
What has God entrusted to me? How am I managing it? And do my financial decisions reflect what I believe?
Those questions can change the way we think about investing—and perhaps even the purpose behind it.
At ClearView Wealth Management, we believe financial planning is about more than numbers. It is about helping individuals and families thoughtfully connect their financial decisions with what matters most to them.
Faith Driven Investing (FDI) has certain risks based on the fact that the criteria excludes securities of certain issuers for non-financial reasons and, therefore, investors may forgo some market opportunities and the universe of investments available will be smaller.