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Some 250 years after Martin Luther suggested that we are not only justified by faith but that it should permeate all areas of our lives, including enterprise, a young man in Mount Holly, New Jersey, opened a humble tailor shop.

Unlike other businessmen, John Woolman refused to purchase any cotton or dye supplies handled by slaves. His commitment to Christian love—with excellence, mind you—attracted customers in droves, despite occasions when he could only offer them beige sackcloth.

In 1759 Woolman convinced the Philadelphia Quakers to pass the first resolution in the American Colonies not to own, deal, or sell slaves. Why use God's blessings, he reasoned, to buy people captive to chains for personal profit?

Another two and a half centuries passed: summer 1997. My internship as a consultant in Santa Clara, California, had ended, and I picked up my last paycheck. How did I begin to employ the talents my Master entrusted to me? Well, I invested a portion of them just like everybody else—in a top-performing mutual fund mentioned in Money magazine. Highest return? Sign me up!

I cheerfully chanted the popular market mantra—one criterion, one conclusion—only recently pausing to ask: "What is a stock, anyway?"

Besides a fancy certificate or electronic symbol on ticker tape, a stock represents ownership shares in a corporation. You might be the sole proprietor of a lemonade stand, or one of 888,000 shareholders in McDonald's. As an owner, you participate in providing a product or service to people. Lemonade or Big Macs. You also become its promoter and profiteer.

I uncovered a disturbing reality. While the managers of many publicly traded corporations choose to grow by providing beneficial goods for society, others have decided that as long as they have their profits and satisfy their greed, they will sell products or services that appeal to weaknesses and addictions, and that ultimately harm others. Such companies include those profiting from abortion, pornography, tobacco, gambling, and sweatshops—and never mind if it injures my neighbor in 10 ways at once.

Some investors are anguished to learn that while mutual funds offer the diversification of owning many companies, some of these companies profit from people captive to chains. Upon closer inspection of my own mutual fund, I discovered that my Lord's money was partially invested in General Motors, which sells more hard-core sex videos (through its Hughes Electronics subsidiary, which owns DIRECTV) than Hustler Magazine Inc. each year.

If the Master angrily called the third servant "wicked and lazy" for merely burying his one talent (Matt. 25:24-30), what awaited me?

Master, with your money I purchased ownership shares in a company profiting from porn. Our company bought destitute women at a low price, for sale to addicted men at a higher price …

Sadness overcame me. Jesus promises freedom to the prisoners, liberty to the oppressed. How could I then use his talents to produce, promote, and profit from the chains?

A recent CT cover story (June 12, 2000) inquired, "How did evangelicals get so wealthy?" One accurate answer: the longest bull market run in U.S. history. Yet in our eager embrace of the stock market through the 1990s, many of us uncritically adopted its doctrine—high return is all that matters—and neglected to reflect on the moral implications.

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September 3 2001, Vol. 45, No. 11