This week saw the launch of Europe's first Christian equity index. The Stoxx Europe Christian Index is comprised of 533 European companies that only derive revenues from sources approved 'according to the values and principles of the Christian religion', as assessed by a committee of ethicists and theologians, including representatives of the Vatican.

Drawn from the Stoxx Europe 600 Index, it supposedly excludes any groups that make money from pornography, weapons, tobacco, birth control and gambling. Yet its top ten companies includes GlaxoSmithKline, who market two birth-control pills – Elogen and Zerogen – in India, and Nestlé, against whom many ethical consumers have previously campaigned after they marketed their products to poorer nations by claiming that formula was better than breast feeding.

More fundamentally, as I told the Independent newspaper, 'In advising which companies to invest in, they seem to have concentrated on the negatives rather than looking for positives. The negatives are a helpful start for people, but surely it would be better to use positive ethical attributes to encourage people – be they Christian or not – to put their money into companies that are actively seeking to improve people's lives?'

As Guy Brandon observes in Free to Live, wherever money changes hands, there is a relationship and that transaction is unlikely to be morally neutral: 'If someone is making money, that money has to come from somewhere – or, more accurately, someone.' As we have noted previously, in Jubilee Manifesto, 'It is contradictory to bemoan economic exploitation of low-income countries and yet fail to realize that our interest and pensions are being secured by the same exploitation perpetrated in the name of shareholders and bondholders.'

We should therefore be more involved in the decisions about how our money is spent, ideally using our money to love our neighbour. Heeding the warning against reaping where we have not sown, we should also look to share the responsibilities incurred as a result of our investment, including any debts or losses if a business venture fails, not just sharing in any profits if it succeeds. This might mean investing in smaller, local businesses instead of the largest national and international corporations and might mean lower potential returns, but would these necessarily be bad things?

Perhaps we should recall the advice John Wesley gave in a sermon 250 years ago: 'Gain all you can; save all you can; give all you can.'

To explore issues of Christian investment further, see our series of two Cambridge Papers on the subject: Investing as a Christian: reaping where you have not sown? and Faith versus prudence? Christians and financial security

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