Should I Open A Christian Bank?

A number of years ago I heard someone from my church talk about a local bank called Christian Credit Union. Growing up in a small town with only a handful of big-name banks, I had never heard of a Christian bank before. I thought it sounded like a good idea; the Bible, after all, does give Christians principles for managing their money and how to engage in trade.

We can find several examples just in the Proverbs. The Proverbs 31 woman is portrayed as a savvy investor, who considers a field and buys it. We also find a direct rejection of using deception to falsely gain from others in trade. “A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is His delight” (Proverbs 11:1). And if you’ve listened to Dave Ramsey, you surely know by now that “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower becomes the lender’s slave” (Proverbs 22:7). I have certainly come to recognize my own lack of wisdom in being quick to borrow money for post-secondary education.

Even many of the parables in the Gospels, though their ultimate referent is spiritual, assume the validity of ordinary economic prudence at the level of the analogy itself. In Luke 14:28–30, Jesus appeals to the common wisdom of “counting the cost” before building a tower, presupposing financial foresight as self-evidently prudent. Likewise, in Matthew 25:16–17, the servants who actively trade and multiply entrusted capital are commended, while the one who buries it is rebuked. And with the state of inflation today, you would be much worse off burying your money! The analogies work precisely because careful planning and productive stewardship are recognized as wise in themselves; the spiritual lesson intensifies, rather than negates, that underlying economic logic. So a bank that sought to embody such principles would do a lot of good for its customers.

On top of that, greed has driven many banks into using account holder funds in irresponsible and risky ways. Since 2008, the formula in the U.S. has turned into the following: if these risky investments work out, the bank wins; if they don’t, the government (or more accurately the American people) loses and will bail the banks out. So clearly, an obsession with money over God can lead to a bank being the kind of institution a Christian should never do business with.

So perhaps then the best solution is to build a Christian bank. Creating such an institution fits strongly with the ideas of Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper. He famously stated: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” And as an outworking of that idea, he advocated that a Christian worldview be applied to every type of institution in society. His vision was to work this out by creating parallel Christian organizations in society (this would include things like sports leagues, job boards, hospitals, schools, etc.).

Kuyper’s ideas proved extremely influential, especially in the Netherlands, and still today many of the Christian institutions that exist in North America — my local Christian Credit Union in Edmonton, Alberta being no exception — were created by the Dutch Reformed. This movement of seeking to transform or “redeem” various institutions and subjects in society to bring them under Christ’s rule has been given the labels of “neo-Calvinism,” “transformationalism,” and “Kuyperianism.”

For all of the reasons already described, there is great appeal to such an approach. And if we are to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, why not every bank too?

However, there are three important reasons that should give believers caution regarding the idea of creating a Christian bank, which broadly applies to other institutions as well.

Reason #1: Removing Our Christian Witness

Banking is one of the few institutions that nearly everyone interacts with regularly. Labeling it explicitly “Christian” introduces an unnecessary barrier. Most non-Christians have no interest in banking at an institution that signals religious identity as part of its brand. Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, if the world doesn’t like us for being Christian, that is their problem.” It is true that Christians can expect to butt heads with a world that denies the truth of Christ (as we can see throughout the book of Acts). However, nowhere does the Bible require believers to make faith the boundary marker for participation in basic societal institutions. Paul goes to these common areas not to demand that they reform themselves into Christian arenas, but as opportunities to give the gospel and Christianize the people.

This practice of creating parallel Christian institutions — later described by sociologists as “pillarization” — has had the historical consequence in Dutch Reformed circles of removing Christians from common institutions. James K. A. Smith writes that Kuyper’s followers “built schools, newspapers, churches… effectively creating a self-contained world of orthodox Protestantism.”

When believers exit shared spaces, they hand over influence and accountability to others. If a Christian runs a bank without directly making it exclusively for Christians, and they do so with integrity, wisdom, and concern for people, that conduct itself becomes a testimony to his unbelieving neighbors.

Reason #2: Common Grace

A bank can be well-run by non-Christians, often according to principles that look strikingly “Christian.” This is not accidental. It is the doctrine of common grace that explains why unbelievers can discover and apply genuine moral and practical truths in the common realm.

Sound banking practices — risk management, fiduciary duty, transparency, prudence — while found in the pages of Scripture, can also be derived from nature (i.e., general revelation). They can be learned through experience, economic study, and observation of consequences in the real world. Just as gravity governs both believers and unbelievers, so do financial realities.

“The arts and sciences have their principium not in the special grace of regeneration and conversion but in the natural gifts and talents that God in his common grace has also given to nonbelievers.” — Herman Bavinck, Common Grace

Here is what I mean: Christians should build bridges with integrity (pun intended) to the glory of God. But there is no such thing as “Christian engineering.” If there were such a thing as Christian engineering, then it could not be mastered by people who hate Christ.

To be fair, as has been pointed out by many presuppositional apologists, a secular worldview removes the preconditions that make sense of much of our world. Why would an atheist run a bank with integrity if their worldview revolves around survival of the fittest? If I take your money and profit off of it at your expense, that is too bad for you! But atheists are also made in God’s image, and God restrains their sin to some degree, which means they are often inconsistent with their own worldview.

Reason #3: Pillarization Breeds Pillarization

Reading the history page of Christian Credit Union, I learned that originally the bank was made just for one denomination, the Christian Reformed Church. While they did eventually change their practice to include other Reformed denominations, I could not help but see a parallel in other Dutch Reformed institutions in my area. Many of the schools, sports leagues, senior homes, etc. are not just made for Christians or even Reformed Christians, but for a single Christian denomination. This seems like a dramatically different end than Kuyper’s idea to transform every societal institution.

However, scholars argue this is precisely what Kuyper’s model has generally led to. Political theorist David Koyzis observes that Kuyper’s strategy “led to the establishment of explicitly Christian organizations parallel to their secular counterparts,” while others note this created barriers that often discouraged interaction between groups. Historians of Dutch society widely agree that Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty paved the way for a pillarized society, with deeply divided subcultures living side by side rather than engaging one another (Bratt, Harinck, Moorlag).

The Netherlands today remains one of the most secular nations in the world, even while many Reformed Christians continue to operate within a vibrant but isolated ecosystem of Christian schools, banks, and civic groups.

More recently, some in North America have revived Kuyperian themes with renewed zeal. Public voices like Brian Sauvé have promoted the idea of creating distinct “Christian boroughs.” But as we see from the examples above Christian boroughs historically tend to shrink into smaller and smaller sub-boroughs, where shared faith becomes narrowed to denominational uniformity, and engagement with the broader public all but disappears. Instead of transforming the world, these enclaves risk abandoning it.

Unfortunately, I think this is proof that when Christians become discontent to interact with unbelievers in various spaces in society, they go ahead and create their own society within a society. As stated already, this has the terrible effect of removing their godly influence from the world.

I don’t think these critiques apply to every type of Christian institution. The last place I want my kids to be educated is in a common environment in the public schools, where they are taught values in direct opposition to the Christian message. There are different particular circumstances that add a lot of nuance to this conversation. Some banks, as said before, are really so worldly and devoid of common grace no Christian should do business with them. But hopefully these three cautions give reason why Kuyper’s model of transformationalism really has the unintended effect of making Christians leave the world rather than influence it.