Prophets of Profit Spread the Gospel: Old and New Testaments Guide Crusade by Christian Planner Group

The National Association of Christian Financial Consultants believes in investing by the book – the Good Book.

The new trade organization for financial advisers goes a step beyond other socially conscious investors, such as the Calvert and Citizens Trust mutual funds, by requiring members to affirm their belief that Jesus Christ is their savior. Applicants must promise to uphold Christian principles and provide two letters of recommendation – including one from a minister or priest.

Its founders, you see, are on a mission from God.

“We want moral values,” explains president Arthur Ally. “Our society is sliding to hell in a handbasket on greased skids.”

Mr. Ally heads the $22 million Timothy Plan mutual fund, which refrains from investing in companies that engage in practices anathema to its conservative managers. The Winter Park, Fla., fund’s name was inspired by two passages in the fifth chapter of the apostle Paul’s first letter to Timothy: “anyone (who) does not provide for his relatives …. has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” and “keep yourself free from sin.”

Mr. Ally and fellow director Scott Fehrenbacher, whose firm provides social-screening software, have a lot to gain from promoting values-based investing. But they say the association is not a vehicle to prop up their businesses.

“I didn’t want it to be seen as self-serving,” says Mr. Fehrenbacher, founder of the Institute for American Values Investing in Redmond, Wash. “It’s not my intent or need or desire to exploit the membership for my own purposes.”

Besides, he adds, the association would do better accessing his data base than he would tapping its lists.

“Since we sell (the software), we were a magnet for people who would be interested in an association. That’s why it was started. This has been a private dream of mine for a long time. And if you think about it, there are a lot more productive ways to promote the product.”

To date, the group says, 250 advisers have expressed interest in joining. (Membership costs $35 a year.) Mr. Ally says his goal is to have 1,000 members.

So-called socially conscious investors pride themselves on putting their money where their morals are, a strategy that has its share of skeptics, who question whether the returns are worth it.

The Morningstar Socially Responsible Index, for instance, saw returns of 19.86% and 18.99% for the one and three years ending Jan. 28, compared to the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index returns of 28.79% and 30.33%, respectively. Meantime, the Timothy Plan fund gained 16.02% and an annualized 12.57%.

No smokes, booze, porn

Mr. Ally is dead set against investing in companies that have anything to do with tobacco, alcohol, gambling, abortion or pornography. (One reason, no doubt, that publicly traded Playboy Enterprises Inc. proclaimed the Web site for Timothy Plan Mutual Fund one of the weirdest in the country: “We’re sure there are screwier investment plans,” its Playboy magazine reported, “but we’re not sure what they might be.”) Mr. Ally also doesn’t support the growing number of companies that provide domestic partner benefits or “promote” homosexual rights.

The main tenet of the organization states that members conduct their business according to biblical principles. Easier said than done: According to Mr. Ally, the Bible has 2,300 verses relating to investments and other financial matters.

“It’s the subject most neglected by churches,” he says.

What lessons do the Scriptures hold for financial planners? That debt can be dangerous, for one. A verse in Proverbs says a debtor is a servant or slave to the lender.

“There’s no revenue in getting clients out of debt, but it’s the right thing to do,” Mr. Ally says. “You don’t want people taking out a second mortgage and getting into debt so they can reinvest it and I can make commissions.”

Other biblical principles are, of course, open to interpretation. When warning clients not to look for short-term gains by timing the market, association board member Tom Fyler borrows a passage from James: “Yet you do not know (the least thing) about what may happen tomorrow.”

Mr. Fyler, an investment adviser representative at Robert Thomas Securities Inc. in New York, likes to cite Proverbs 21: 5 when counseling clients to avoid high-risk investments: “But everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.”

James Law, a financial adviser with a substantial gay and lesbian clientele, doesn’t see the association as a threat despite its positions on gay issues. “There are markets for all kinds of people,” says Mr. Law, the New York City district manager for American Express Financial Advisors Inc. “This just gives people another choice.”

Faith and knowledge

Members can expect annual conferences, local seminars and a quarterly newsletter to help bolster their faith and pass along ideas.

For instance, Mr. Fyler, who will be editing the newsletter, might discuss the unusually high moral standards he expects when screening mutual funds for his clients at Robert Thomas. It’s not enough that a fund invest in approved industries; the fund manager also must follow biblical principles – Old Testament or New.

“I call them up and ask them,” Mr. Fyler says. “I get some strange reactions, but then I explain why I’m doing it.”

Mr. Fyler invested clients’ money with the New York-based Third Avenue Value Fund after determining that manager Martin Whitman “employs biblical principles.” While Mr. Whitman doesn’t invest in China – a target of conservative groups for human rights abuses – or in tobacco, liquor or gambling companies, he doubts Mr. Fyler would agree with him on every issue.

“Am I pro-choice?” Mr. Whitman asks. “You better believe it.”

Perhaps there’s room for some disagreement. After all, Mr. Ally insists his association won’t be filled with snake-handlers. “We’re not a radical fr
inge element.”