It’s a good day on Wall Street, high temple of Mammon, when Robert Netzly proclaims the power of God.
At 4 p.m. New York time, 2 p.m. here in Idaho, Netzly takes a break after the market close, gathers his analysts and sales reps and turns to the Book of Romans. He’s been praying on a question you never hear on the Street: What would Jesus buy?
Robert Netzly leads employees in prayer before a meeting at Inspire Investing in Meridian, Idaho. (Kyle Green/Bloomberg)
Netzly has his list: 24,000-or-so stocks that do and don’t conform to his reading of the Bible. A hard no: Amazon.com Inc. Never mind that its stock has appreciated 845% in 10 years. Amazon supports LBGTQ rights and, post-Roe, is covering employees’ travel expenses for abortions—decisions that Netzly, an evangelical Christian whose firm oversees about $2 billion, says disqualify a company from “God’s portfolios.”
Lloyd Blankfein, the former boss of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., once joked that he was doing God’s work. Netzly, a former Wells Fargo wealth adviser, insists he really is doing it. He wants corporate America to answer to a higher CEO, and he’s picking stocks such as gunmaker Sturm Ruger & Co., discount retailer Dollar Tree Inc. and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp. to hasten the day.
Here in Boise—a fast-growing city of Brooklyn-esque lattes and out-of-state transplants grafted upon deep-red America—Netzly is positioning himself as an evangelical answer to big money. His idea is that the US is so riven by politics, culture, faith and more that even the stock market can tear us apart. Netzly’s small firm, Inspire Investing—which follows a strategy that he calls biblically responsible—is part of something larger: a Republican backlash to the trillions of dollars committed to environmental, social and governance investing.
When one thinks about the role corporations play in American life, solving society’s problems probably isn’t the first thing that springs to mind. Many would argue that companies aren’t doing nearly enough, particularly given our overheating planet (Netzly said he cares about the environment but isn’t especially worried about climate change). And yet, prominent figures on the right paint ESG as a threat to the nation.
Former US Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis insist corporate elites are foisting liberal agendas on everyone else—a claim that resonates with the millions of White evangelicals who embraced Donald Trump as president and remain a potent force in US politics. Looming large are hardening positions on race, diversity and reproductive rights.
Enter Inspire Investing. Netzly’s seven-year-old firm oversees exchange-traded funds with tickers such as BIBL, BLES, GLRY and WWJD, short for “What Would Jesus Do?” This year, his biggest ETF, Inspire 100 (ticker BIBL), is posting wider losses than the S&P 500.
Until recently, Netzly was marketing a Christian, conservative version of ESG. Now, with Republicans trashing ESG as “woke capitalism,” Netzly has stripped the label from his products. He said “hard-left liberal activists” and “Marxists” have “weaponized” the whole idea of investing with a broader purpose.
Where Netzly sees providence, others see prejudice. He dreams of a day when all corporations will hew to his evangelical reading of the Bible. He’s aligned himself with Alliance Defending Freedom, an influential conservative Christian group that’s fought to limit the separation of church and state and to roll back laws on same-sex marriage and reproductive rights.