Amazon (AMZN): When Shipping Pornography Becomes a Filter

Amazon is everywhere. Prime delivery, AWS, Whole Foods, Kindle, Alexa, Ring doorbells, Twitch, MGM Studios. It is one of the five largest companies in the US by market cap. Almost every American has done business with Amazon in some form this year.

It is also one of the trickier calls for Biblically Responsible Investing funds, because Amazon does some things BRI investors appreciate (AWS powers about a third of the internet, fast delivery makes life genuinely easier for a lot of families, Whole Foods sells things that are not Pringles) and does some things BRI investors absolutely do not appreciate.

Let me walk through the actual issues and where BRI funds land.

What Amazon sells that BRI funds flag

Pornographic content. Amazon does not run a porn site, but the Amazon marketplace has historically sold adult DVDs, magazines, books, and some self-published erotica on Kindle. The marketplace is large enough that the company does not pre-screen every listing, so adult content slips through and gets sold alongside everything else.

In practical terms, if you go to Amazon.com right now and search for certain keywords, you will find explicit content. The company has made some efforts to clean this up, especially on Kindle Direct Publishing, but the marketplace still lists adult merchandise in multiple categories.

Amazon Prime Video has carried R-rated content for years, including movies with explicit scenes and series with nudity. Amazon's MGM Studios acquisition in 2022 brought in a content library that includes plenty of material that BRI funds would flag.

Whole Foods. Whole Foods sells alcohol, which is part of the broader alcohol retail question. Revenue contribution is small, so the alcohol screen alone rarely triggers AMZN exclusion.

Corporate giving. Amazon's corporate giving has included donations to organizations that BRI funds track as advocacy groups. Like most mega-caps, Amazon's charitable and political giving is diversified enough that you can find something to object to from most ideological positions.

Labor practices. Amazon warehouse conditions have been documented in investigative reporting for years. Injury rates, productivity surveillance, and unionization fights have all been concerns for anyone interested in worker treatment. This is not a direct BRI screen category, but Eventide and other funds that weigh worker impact pay attention.

How the major BRI funds handle AMZN

Inspire excludes Amazon from BIBL. The primary flag is content distribution (Prime Video, Kindle adult content, marketplace adult products) combined with the advocacy giving and Amazon's handling of the Pride merchandise question.

Timothy Plan excludes Amazon. No surprise given the strict screen.

Eventide has held Amazon at times and not at other times. The Eventide team's public commentary has treated AMZN as a company with significant positive impact (AWS, marketplace enabling small businesses, faster logistics) alongside real concerns. Eventide's flagship funds have tended to underweight or exclude AMZN in recent years rather than hold large positions.

GuideStone has historically owned AMZN in some funds, treating the pornography question as a marketplace issue that does not rise to the level of core business exclusion. The thinking is that eBay and other marketplaces also let adult products slip through.

Praxis does not own Amazon.

So AMZN is mostly excluded or underweighted in BRI portfolios in 2026, but without the unanimous exclusion that BUD or MGM gets.

The core business test is what makes this hard

BRI screens usually ask whether a company's core business is a problem. Amazon's core business is the marketplace, cloud computing, advertising, and logistics. Adult content is a small fraction. If you applied a 1 percent revenue threshold, AMZN would pass almost any pornography screen.

The counterargument is that Amazon is a distributor and enabler, not just a seller. A marketplace that knowingly allows adult products to be listed alongside children's toys and school supplies is not the same as a grocery store that happens to sell cigarettes behind the counter. The curation choices Amazon makes (or does not make) shape the cultural environment in a way that a revenue percentage does not fully capture.

This is a real disagreement, and it is why BRI funds do not all land in the same place.

The content distribution angle

Here is where the case for AMZN exclusion gets stronger. Amazon Prime Video hosts content that BRI funds would exclude if they were reviewing a traditional studio. Some Prime Original series include explicit sex scenes, nudity, and themes that conflict with biblical values. The MGM library Amazon now controls includes movies that BRI content audits routinely flag.

If Inspire excludes Disney for content decisions, it is consistent for Inspire to exclude Amazon on similar grounds. That is the logic behind the BIBL exclusion.

On the other hand, Amazon is a distribution platform, not primarily a producer. Most of its viewing hours come from licensed content made by other studios. Whether that distinction matters is a judgment call.

The Kindle Direct Publishing question

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) lets anyone upload and sell an ebook. Amazon takes a cut of every sale. Some of the content uploaded to KDP is explicit, and some authors make real money writing adult romance (a legal category of erotica) through KDP. Amazon has content guidelines and removes the worst material, but the line between "adult romance" and "pornography" is not clean, and Amazon has historically been slow to enforce.

For BRI funds, the KDP question is whether a company that profits from self-published erotica crosses the pornography screen. Some say yes. Some say the revenue is too small to matter. The answer depends on how strict the fund is.

The Ring and Alexa concerns

These are different from the content questions but sometimes come up in BRI analysis. Ring doorbells have had privacy issues. Alexa has had recordings sent to Amazon employees. These are not core BRI screens but they relate to the broader stewardship question of whether a company's products serve customers well or exploit them.

Eventide's Business 360 framework does weigh customer treatment as part of its analysis. On these privacy questions, Amazon has had a mixed record, and it has factored into Eventide's reluctance to hold large AMZN positions.

The financial picture

Amazon has been a strong performer. AWS has grown consistently, retail margins have improved, and the advertising business has become a multi-billion dollar profit center. The stock traded around 100 dollars in early 2023, went above 200 by early 2025, and has been in the 200 to 240 range through early 2026. Over the long term, AMZN has been one of the best performing large caps.

For BRI funds that excluded it, that is a meaningful opportunity cost. The trade-off is visible in the numbers. Inspire BIBL has underperformed the S&P 500 in some years partially because it skipped Amazon. Timothy Plan similarly. Excluding mega-cap winners has a cost, and investors in these funds should understand it as part of the deal they are making when they choose a strict BRI approach.

The practical question for investors

If you are choosing whether to own AMZN in a BRI-aligned portfolio in 2026, here is how to think about it.

You can exclude it cleanly. Pick a BRI fund that does not own it, or direct index around it. The logic is consistent, the concerns are documented, and you will not lose sleep over the content library or the marketplace adult listings.

You can make a focused case for inclusion. You believe AWS is a generally beneficial business, you think the marketplace gives small businesses real opportunity, and you treat the content and marketplace concerns as minor and mostly not core. This is a defensible position but it is not the position most BRI fund managers take.

You can hold a small position with engagement. Vote your shares on shareholder proposals that relate to content moderation or marketplace standards. This is the ESG-style engagement approach and some Christian investors have applied it to AMZN. The impact is modest, but it is something.

Ephesians 5:11 says, "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them." BRI funds that exclude Amazon are following the first half of that verse. Those who own it and try to engage are following the second half. Both readings are legitimate.

What to watch going forward

Three things to watch on Amazon in 2026 and beyond.

Content policy on Kindle and the marketplace. If Amazon tightens enforcement on adult content, that could shift some BRI funds toward inclusion. No sign of that yet, but it is possible.

Prime Video library curation. If Amazon's original production continues in the current direction, the content concerns will grow. If the company pivots toward more family-friendly originals, the concerns will shrink.

Corporate giving patterns. Amazon's political and charitable giving gets updated annually, and BRI funds with advocacy screens track it carefully. A major shift in giving could change the exclusion analysis.

The bottom line

Most BRI funds in 2026 do not own Amazon. The reasons are layered: content distribution, marketplace adult products, advocacy giving, and worker treatment concerns. None of these individually would be disqualifying under the strictest core business test, but taken together, they add up to a stock that fails most BRI screens.

If you care about consistency with your values and you can afford to give up some of the mega-cap performance, AMZN is an exclusion. If you need the market exposure and are willing to live with the tensions, own it knowing what you own. Either way, the worst thing you can do is own it by accident because your 401k defaults to a cap-weighted index and you never looked at what was inside.

Look. Decide. Own your decision. That is what BRI asks of you.