1. Is BRI possible?
Yes. Biblically Responsible Investing (BRI) is done by considering two types of values pertaining to publicly-owned companies.
- Negative values – we access negative values data online through IW Financial’s comprehensive database. The data is quite accurate on most of the eight criteria that are of greatest concern to Christians: tobacco, alcohol, gambling, pornography, abortion, non-traditional marriage lifestyles, violent entertainment and embryonic stem cell research. On a scale of 1 to 10 for data quality / accessibility with 10 being the highest, we think negative values data quality is 8-9, or quite high. Thus, we are reasonably confident of being able to identify the violators of biblical values.
- Positive values, such as integrity or servant leadership,are more difficult to identify and assess through IW Financial. On the same scale, we think positive values data quality is 2-3, or quite low, but it is improving. Therefore, we read material from and about the company to better assess the positive values.
Other firms use values strategies with different screening criteria, such as: socially responsible investing (SRI), American values investing, morally responsible investing, Christian worldview investing, faith based investing, values based investing or values-driven investing. BRI screening criteria are similar to most of these approaches, except for SRI, which differs in two key areas, abortion and non-traditional marriage lifestyles.