CHR: Christian Culture (Topic) - Forthcoming最新文献

{"title":"How Negative Screening According to Christian Principles Influence Stock Returns","authors":"Shane Enete, E. Kiss","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3036608","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3036608","url":null,"abstract":"Socially responsible investing (SRI) has grown to represent approximately one quarter of all managed assets in the world. Given this scale, it is important to understand the financial implications when financial planners offer an SRI product to a client. One of the biggest questions to ask is: does adding non-financial criteria to the investment process help or hurt risk-adjusted returns? While most academic studies in the past have compared all SRI funds to unrestricted funds, this has been problematic because of the heterogeneous nature of SRI funds. This study will narrow the focus to Evangelical, Charismatic and Pentecostal Christians (approximately 870 million people in the world). This sample group has the potential to request a portfolio that includes a negative screen for certain moral criteria consistent with fundamental Biblical principles. If these Christian investors were to restrict their portfolios (i.e., engage in negative screening) according to fundamental Biblical principles, would the resulting restricted portfolio have risk-adjusted returns that are significantly different than an unrestricted portfolio? Modern portfolio theory (MPT) argues for an underperformance hypothesis, since restricting an investment universe because of individual preferences will necessarily reduce diversification efficiencies. Stakeholder theory has the potential to argue for an outperformance hypothesis, since Christians believe that screening out certain corporate behaviors will lead to a portfolio that avoids companies that will have higher costs, lower revenue, and decreased human capital because of their un-Biblical behavior.  This study will test 7 moral criteria that are consistent with fundamental Biblical principles: abortion, alcohol, entertainment, gambling, LGBTQ lobbying, human rights, and tobacco. The mapping of the 7 criteria to the investable universe has been conducted by the screening service, eValueator. eValueator carefully proscribes to fundamental Biblical principles within each moral criterion. Each Biblical principle will be tested using the Carhart 4 factor model to determine the potential cost, or benefit, when using each ethical negative screen. This study will also test whether risk-adjusted returns have a curvilinear relationship relative to screening intensity (which has been shown in other SRI studies of ethical screens). In addition, this study will test whether results are significantly different before-and-after the global financial crisis of 2008. This will be an important study for financial planners as more and more clients seek to incorporate their Christian values into their investment portfolios. Full transparency of potential costs and benefits is greatly needed for the financial planner to be able to discern the best solution for their client.","PeriodicalId":136308,"journal":{"name":"CHR: Christian Culture (Topic) - Forthcoming","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122757198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Putting the World Back Together? Recovering Faithful Citizenship in a Postmodern Age","authors":"H. Hutchison","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1368433","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1368433","url":null,"abstract":"Archbishop Chaput's book, Render Unto Caesar, signifies the continuation of an impressive and persistent debate about what it means to be Catholic and how Catholics should live out the teachings of the Church in political life in our postmodern society. Render Unto Caesar provides evidence that America's identity and future are endangered by trends reifying radical human autonomy and choice. New threats surface in the form of legislation and judicial interpretations permitting choices that were once considered criminal to be accepted. This trend has been accompanied, if not facilitated, by U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have contributed greatly to the privatization of religion. In light of the emergence of such trends, and given the likelihood that some Catholics, guided by an ongoing process of assimilation, have failed to contest adequately these developments, Archbishop Chaput offers a splendid reply to Aristotle and Professors Scaperlanda and Collett's dense interrogation: how ought we to live together. Such questions are complex because the acceleration of trends favoring individual singularity in our own age signals that many humans prefer to distance themselves from a community and a tradition representing shared values. Instead of accepting the real world of human history they see themselves as an abstract instance of the human species, an autonomous being that remains the epicenter of the universe.Against this inclination, and venturing to engage a nation that is exemplified by a diversity of incommensurable values and world-views, Charles Chaput stresses the special responsibility of Catholic public officials in sorting out the good and calls upon all Catholics to refrain from self-censorship regarding issues that ought to concern them. But in a postmodern society, the inevitable effect of modern liberalism is that some will view religion as \"a private eccentricity\" rather than as a central and formative element of the nation. This viewpoint is commonplace because giving religious voices space in the public square as a singularly important aspect of a believer's life locks in both society and individuality to the past from which modern liberalism seeks to deliver us. While Render Unto Caesar provides a laudable foundation that might enable Catholics to properly influence America's ongoing debate about public policy, the common good and the nation's identity, such a foundation must confront the insistent demands of modern liberalism, and the likelihood that Catholics themselves have been incubated in, and have accepted as normative, a process of equivocation and self-censorship. Given this outcome, the likelihood that American Catholics will surrender to Archbishop Chaput's persuasive intuition is remote.","PeriodicalId":136308,"journal":{"name":"CHR: Christian Culture (Topic) - Forthcoming","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115012050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Anglican Church and its Decision-Making Structures","authors":"N. Cox","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.1140465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.1140465","url":null,"abstract":"The legal position of an ecclesial body is fraught with inherent tensions. The Anglican Church in New Zealand (officially the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia), may be taken to illustrate this. The Church operates under its own laws, yet is also subject to the laws of the land. But both sets of laws reflect the special position of a church. In New Zealand the executive, legislative and judicial branches of Church government of the Anglican Church depend for their authority, at least in part, upon legislation enacted by Parliament (usually private, rather than public, Acts of Parliament), but the influence of secular law extends beyond this formal law (see, for instance, Noel Cox, \"Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Church of the Province of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia\" (2001) 6(2) Deakin Law Review 266-284). Although in recent years there has been a conscious reduction in the influence of the secular judiciary (compare, for instance, the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963 (UK) and the Constitution of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia (\"Const.\"), and the Canons made thereunder (as revised), afterwards \"Cans.\"), it remains to be seen whether this will be effective in distancing the Church tribunals from the influence of the common law. The authority of the Church remains primarily dependent upon secular statutes, and its procedures remain legalistic. Attempts to develop more theologically-based decision-making risks \"correction\" by secular courts on judicial review (see, for instance, Noel Cox, \"The Symbiosis of Secular and Spiritual Influences upon the Judiciary of the Anglican Church in New Zealand\" (2004) 9(1) Deakin Law Review 145-182). The origins of legislative power within the Church are both secular and religious, yet both may be seen as reflections of the will of God. Legislative competence, or the legal power to alter and amend laws, may be conferred by the secular power, recognised by the secular power, or independent of the secular power. This depends upon the particular church's relationship with the State. If certain laws affect property, or where the church wishes to avail itself of powers additional to those enjoyed by other voluntary associations, recourse may be made to the State (Gregory v Bishop of Waiapu [1975] 1 NZLR 705). Powers may be conferred by the legislative organs of the State (as by Acts of Parliament, such as the Church of England Empowering Act 1928; Sir Robert Phillimore, The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England (2nd ed, 1895) vol II, 1786). As generally with any legal system, it is also possible to dispense with certain laws, in special cases and within certain bounds (Noel Cox, 'Dispensation, Privileges, and the Conferment of Graduate Status: With Special Reference to Lambeth Degrees' (2002-2003) 18(1) Journal of Law and Religion 101-126). The regular legislative authority in the Anglican Church in New Zealand is, however, vested in the General S","PeriodicalId":136308,"journal":{"name":"CHR: Christian Culture (Topic) - Forthcoming","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124201491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}