"When it's good, it's very, very good. When it's bad, it's better." So runs the slogan of the Vice Fund, a new investment group that will begin buying stocks next week, with portfolios in alcohol, tobacco, gun makers and casinos. Fund manager Dan Ahrens told Investor's Business Daily: "There's nothing wrong with [socially conscious] investing" if it "helps you sleep at night." But he believes investing should be about making money, not salving one's conscience.

The trend may be going the other way, however. In addition to investment funds that buy stock in, say, only environmentally friendly companies, there are a growing number of faith-based funds. These funds, of which there are 30 (12 founded in the past year), serve mostly Catholics, fundamentalist Christians and Muslims.

The Ave Maria Fund favors companies that adhere to Catholic values by refusing, for example, to produce or sell contraceptives. The Azzad/Dow Jones Ethical Market Fund, a Muslim group, buys shares of companies that do not charge or pay interest. And the Noah Fund shuns corporations that produce or distribute alcohol, tobacco and pornography. Bill Van Allen, the chief executive of Noah, told the Washington Post: "If Jesus were doing the investing, he would invest the way we do."

But wouldn't it be better if Jesus were running the company? After all, faith-based funds don't look any more closely than secular ones at accounting methods, an aspect of business where vice has been rampant of late.

In this light, it is heartening to remember that some students gain their business know-how in a religious environment. Ralph Miller, a professor at evangelical Regent University in Virginia, tells me he integrates faith into the classroom by emphasizing the biblical concept of "stewardship" -- the idea that businessmen are entrusted with protecting the interests of many groups. "We often forget about the stakeholders" in a company, he says, other than customers and employers. "How about your banker? Your supplier?" Mr. Miller says being a Christian businessman is not all about being a nice guy. It is about being "righteous and godly in relationships."

Mr. Miller's colleague Dan Chamberlain, who worked for almost 25 years in senior management at Procter & Gamble and Cadbury Schweppes, says that he became a better boss after he "committed [his] life to Christ in 1975." Whereas he used to think of secretaries and janitors as "the people you sort of trod over, or just order to get you a cup of coffee," he began to show them the respect they deserved once he began to attend prayer meetings with them before work. "God took me down a few notches there."

At Touro College, an orthodox Jewish university in New York, Meyer Peikes, a professor of finance, explains to his students that "the difference between Jewish business ethics and secular ethics is basically that the former is halacha -- law." There are ways to be a businessman that go above and beyond what Jewish law requires, but the shulchan aroch (a 16th-century concordance to Jewish law) is extensive in its prescriptions. He notes: "We do have a principle not to help those who are propagating sin." For Jews, this might include tobacco companies, Mr. Peikes explains, because Judaism forbids the purposeful infliction of harm on the body.

Studying finance or economics at a religious college can also help students make career choices better suited to their religious beliefs. At Southern Virginia University, a predominantly Mormon school, Todd Brotherson advises his students to weigh entrepreneurship "against your family and your faith." He warns that there is a "a high divorce rate among CEOs and entrepreneurs."

Of course, with business there is always a bottom line. Why would a company hire students from religious institutions? Mr. Brotherson, citing the Mormon missionary experience, suggests that his students have excelled at personal-finance services because they have a background in talking to people, and he adds, half-jokingly, "they are not to be dissuaded by a high failure rate." Kenneth Bigel, a Touro professor, says his students are instilled with the belief that they "need to be `a light unto the nations,' as the Bible says." In short, "they must always be aware that the world is looking at them and they need to be doing the right things, even to the small mundane everyday matters."

But the sentiment that may most comfort employers and investors is expressed by Jordi Arimany, a Regent student. "It is the boss who promotes me," but ultimately "I'm accountable to God."