After ending my career at Michigan National Bank, I spent a week at a Trappist retreat house in Spencer, Massachusetts, seeking direction. One thing I sensed was that I should “bloom where planted.” Stay in the business community and do God’s work. The business ventures to which I have been attracted are those that seek to transform the culture by reallocating capital in support of the family and away from secular trends that—either subtly or not—seek to undermine it.
As a result, an insurance executive, Mike O’Dea, and I have recently raised capital among Christians and with it created a health-care insurance consulting company called ValuSure. Another health-care consultant and strong Catholic, David Wilson, through his company, FlexBen, is providing first-rate administration for our insurance plans. We launched this effort to encourage greater health-care support for Christian families.
Because some insurers are so huge, and health-care consultants are not always fully informed, these plans are manipulated by those who seek reimbursement for “culture of death” procedures, such as abortion, contraception, sterilization, and other such elective practices.
Most CEOs have no real idea of the content of their health plans. Complex as they are, many plans glaze over the eyes of even the most diligent executive. Yet, these plans provide the financial fuel for a major portion of the 1.5 million abortions performed every year. We can’t reverse these trends unilaterally, but we and our employees should not fund them.
Furthermore, these plans, which focus little on adoption, natural family planning, and other family services present a powerful opportunity to transform our society. When we take money from abortions and use it to support the family, we pull the culture in a positive, morally beneficial direction. This is not an easy task. Mr. O’Dea and I have discovered that there are powerful forces unhappy with the economic implications of our behavior, but leadership from the top can have a significant impact on the surrounding culture.
Our first plan will affect thirty-two hundred employees. There are millions, actually a majority of our citizens, who believe these elective procedures are wrong and don’t want to pay for them. We and others in the industry must help like-minded CEOs provide the products and administrative oversight to effect such constructive change.
The stock market is another potential vehicle for supporting the family. Catholics and other Christians control vast amounts of this country’s capital.
We should be directing resources away from companies that pursue the “post- Christian” agenda and toward a wholesome use of the nation’s capital. Recently I became an investor in a partnership that manages a mutual fund called The Timothy Plan. This $10 million fund screens out companies that pollute the culture in their hedonistic pursuit of financial gain. The Timothy Plan won’t invest in Disney, for example, because its subsidiary, Touchstone Films, is outwardly hostile to people of faith in the movies it produces. The film Priest is a perfect example of Touchstone’s assault on the Catholic Church. Other like companies, including Time/Warner, MCA, and the many pharmaceutical companies that produce contraceptives, most of which are abortifacients, should also be avoided by the conscientious investor.
If ValuSure, FlexBen, and the Timothy Plan grow large enough, they can have a major influence both on what happens inside companies and in the culture-at-large.