They base money advice on the Bible

Christian financial planner Alan Siegel advises clients to minimize debt and repay whatever debt is unavoidable, according to Biblical and conservative Christian principles. (Bill Greene/Globe Staff)

Financial adviser Alan Siegel typically begins his client meetings with a prayer. Even granting that a lot of investors may be on their knees to God during the current credit crisis, this is not standard operating procedure among money people.

But Siegel keeps an eye to God as well as mammon as a Christian financial planner. The certification - not from the Almighty, but the National Association of Christian Financial Consultants - affirms that, beyond the business degrees on his resume, he spent a year studying the association's principles for "biblically based" investing.

Biblical principles, of course, are in the eye of the Bible holder.

"A lot of the people who come to me [are] more on the conservative Christian side," Siegel said. An affable man, burly and bearded, he was wearing an open-collar shirt as he sat in his conference room in a brick office building in North Easton. He said he is one of about 250 members of the Association of Christian Financial Consultants nationally, while another Christian planner group to which he belongs, Atlanta-based Kingdom Advisors, counts more than 1,300.

And in Massachusetts? "This is the Northeast," he said, explaining that the Bay State is not a hothouse of religious financial advice. "For the longest time, as far as somebody who was a qualified Kingdom Advisor, I was the only guy in New England." Now he's one of two men and one woman, according to the group's website, while the Association of Christian Financial Consultants website lists him as one of only two members in New England (the other's in New Hampshire).

"God had a lot say about how we should handle our finances," said Siegel, who provides clients with chapter and verse on that, including a mandate to minimize debt and repay whatever debt is unavoidable. That's based on Psalm 37 ("The wicked borrow but do not repay; the just are generous in giving.") and Proverbs ("The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.")

He urges clients to use discretionary income to pay off their mortgage before investing elsewhere. He thinks people should not finance their car, but save until they can pay cash for it. He prizes giving regularly to one's church or to Christian ministries, just as St. Paul instructed the Corinthians to support the church in Jerusalem.

"You can tell that [some] might be very stingy in giving to God," Siegel said. "I'll have that conversation with some people."

He also advises some clients on their investments, using guidelines from Stewardship Partners, a Christian firm, that filter out "Dirt in the Dow Jones Industrial Average": companies involved in activities such as abortion, pornography, tobacco, gambling, and homosexuality.

Deny Gallagher sought Siegel's services a year ago, when the trucking company where he is a vice president let him invest his 401(k) outside the plan's offerings. Gallagher, a Methodist who lives in Connecticut, has been "very comforted by the fact [Siegel] would invest in the kingdom of God." He said that in the past year, his retirement holdings dropped 3 percent, which, given the financial wreckage on Wall Street, has him counting his blessings.

"When I became a Christian 32 years ago, Jesus changed my life tremendously," Gallagher said. "When you turn your life over to [God], you turn your wallet over as well."

There are Islamic and Catholic funds that also screen for what they consider to be immoral corporate behavior. Religion-based funds, though a fraction of total US investment, blossomed from $500 million little more than a decade ago to $17.5 billion this year, said David Kathman, an analyst with the investment research firm Morningstar. Islamic funds, which shun financial companies because of Koranic prohibitions on interest, have done well during Wall Street's crisis, said Kathman, though the strategy has not always been a financial winner.

Concern over ethical screens filtering out profit, as well as immorality, is "not something most people need to worry about," he said by e-mail. "It's a lot more important to find good managers and low-cost funds."

As for the broad biblical principles undergirding Siegel's advice, "It certainly seems like sound advice: managing debt, living within your means, etc.," said Chris Wloszczyna, a spokesman for the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc., which oversees more than 58,000 planners.

"I've steered a few people to Alan because of his direct honesty and integrity," Gallagher said, noting his adviser called to check in on him during the market crisis of the past weeks.

"He asked me, 'Are you worried?' " Gallagher recalled. "I said, 'The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want.' "

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