{"id":30235,"date":"2020-10-31T12:54:31","date_gmt":"2020-10-31T16:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/?p=30235"},"modified":"2022-11-24T11:46:28","modified_gmt":"2022-11-24T16:46:28","slug":"the-united-church-of-christ-pioneer-in-faith-and-finance-and-a-force-for-change-50-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/the-united-church-of-christ-pioneer-in-faith-and-finance-and-a-force-for-change-50-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"The United Church of Christ: Pioneer in Faith and Finance and a Force for Change 50 Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"
>> Back to November 2022 Issue<\/a><\/div>\n

The United Church of Christ (UCC) was present at the creation of a new era in the intersection of faith and finance. It was a crossroads moment, but few were aware of its significance at the time.<\/p>\n

\"UnitedIn the early 1970s, energized by the anti-war and anti-apartheid movements, the women\u2019s movement, and the battle for civil rights, Protestant denominations began to examine how their religious values and social justice positions were reflected in their investing and business decisions. For many years, these existed as different realities in the Church, creating an informal split where the social justice agencies of the Church and the financial offices operated with two different and separate agendas. But that was soon to be challenged, and profoundly so.<\/p>\n

By the early 70\u2019s, the UCC\u2019s General Synod had passed resolutions challenging the racist system of apartheid in South Africa, critical of the Vietnam war, and affirming protections for the environment. The Corporate Information Center based in the National Council of Churches began to bridge the gap between statement and action and started looking at major U.S. companies with investments in South Africa, or contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense in support of the war. The connection had been made, and soon there were newspaper stories exposing the fact that denominations owned stock in Dow Chemical, the maker of napalm, or banked with Citibank, then one of the major lenders to the South African government. And, of course, from a theological perspective, it was logical to believe that all the resources and agencies of denominations should be consistently working together for peace and racial justice.<\/p>\n

However, translating that belief into reality was not so simple. The social justice staffs in denominations usually had limited skills in investment, and finance and treasurers\u2019 offices were focused on budgets and the financial health of the denomination. Still, a robust discussion started on Christian ethics and investing, examining the ethical soundness of owning stock in companies that made napalm or cluster bombs and considering our leverage as a stockholder in companies where we wanted to raise social justice and moral issues.<\/p>\n