Christian churches and Financial Services
There are some Christian Churches around the world where the leadership also run financial services of some sort.
There is a problem with this in that however genuine and sincere the church leadership are, there is undue influence on people buying financial services because they 'trust' the leadership of the church.
Although I am sure that the majority of Christian leaders who sell mortgages, insurance policies etc to their church members are totally sincere and honest; there are two immediate problems with such a captive marketplace.
The first is that those buying policies from their church leadership will find it difficult to question what the leadership say. The pressure on them to accept what the leadership tell them will be strong.
The second problem occurs if the customer becomes dissatified with the financial policy that they have. Perhaps it was not what the customer required, they could not really afford it, or worse, they were missold a policy that was totally unsuitable for their needs. In either case there is a problem with the customer being able to complain to the appropriate financial services authority.
Many Christians would not want to upset their church leadership and may even find it difficult to complain about the problems with the policy to the church leadership.
This problem is not just to do with financial services. I know of one church leader who signed up for a multi level marketing scheme and immediately got everyone in his church to sign up as well!