When I met Vince Birley at a round table discussion that focused on best practices for financial advisors, I was intrigued for three reasons:
1. He had distinctive white hair and thick, bushy black eyebrows;
2. He identified himself as chief strategy officer of one of the largest independent fee-only financial planning firms in the country. I'd never heard of it.
3. He identified his firm, Ronald Blue & Co., as "Christian advisors."
All of these things interested me. But it was the Christian advisor part that sent up my journalist's antennae. The discussion started with how wealthy families raise kids. Birley, along with most of the other advisors, was appalled at how many wealthy Americans raise their children. "If you leave millions to the children, they often don't do well," he said.
But when he mentioned that his firm used Christians as advisors, most everyone at the table was interested. Could this be the answer to raising children with good values? We spent some time discussing what makes a "Christian planner," as opposed to being a Christian who is a planner or a Jew who is a planner or a Buddhist.
Full disclosure: I am a Christian. But after some scary encounters with fundamentalists, I feel suspicious of anyone who identifies himself as a Christian plumber, planner, banker, roofer, accountant, reporter (ordained priests and ministers excepted). So I wanted to find out just what Birley meant by this.
A lot of religious folk want to shove their values on everyone else. Or they want to dictate the rules or attract a particular audience with a religious testimonial rather than expert skills. Or they just want to use their religious outlook as a marketing tool. When I Googled "Christian planners," Ronald Blue was listed, as well as many other firms that claim to have some connection to Jesus and the Bible.
I checked some of the Christian Web sites to see what I could learn about the genre before I followed up with Birley to get details on how it was that his firm came to be identified as Christian. I found a directory of Christian planners, among other things. I learned that many of these advisors charge high management fees as well as 12b-1 fees.
Several that I examined seemed to be right-wing mixtures of prophecy and investments. They included load funds, Christian organizations that acknowledged they did nothing to vet their list of religious planners, who each paid a $195 annual fee to be on it. Worse yet, some said they receive compensation from the companies whose products they review. The Web sites of some firms claim that the founder got a message from God that starting a financial advisory firm was the right thing to do.