Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Jessica Brown, The Role of Religion in Development: A Case Study of World Vision

The Role of Religion in Development: A Case Study of World Vision
By Jessica Brown

The relationship between religion and development is complex and dynamic, originally manifested in the form of colonial missionary work, and evolving into modern faith based development organizations (FBDO). Religion’s role as accomplice and oftentimes fundamental driver of imperial ambitions has resulted in a highly polarized public opinion on its place in development. Consequently, many FBDOs, and the churches that they spring from, have transformed their role overseas from missionary work to development work. However, despite this attempt to accommodate civil society’s transformed world views, criticism continues to be laid against these FBDOs. Non-religious donors remain skeptical of their agenda in developing countries, while religious donors criticize what they see as waning Christian content in development dialogue1. World Vision is one of the most recognizable FBDOs working from the northern hemisphere, and has maintained the evangelical traditions of its missionary roots, which has limited the efficacy of its development projects. To be truly successful as a development organization in the 21st century, World Vision must divorce itself from its evangelical ambitions, but not necessarily from its religious motivations.


Religion in a Colonial Context

In order to understand the contemporary relationship between religion and development, an exploration of colonial religious ambitions is necessary. Colonial ambitions are often encapsulated within the ‘three g’s’ or ‘god, gold and glory’. This reduction of the complexities of imperial ambitions into a three-word catchphrase in which “god” holds primacy demonstrates the significance that proselytizing held in the process of colonizing new nations, and the central motivating role that religion played in the process.

Missionary proselytizing and colonial attempts to ‘modernize’ indigenous populations were intricately connected, and oftentimes impossible to separate. As Manji and O’Coill explain, colonial powers tended to pass the responsibility of providing for rural social services to missionary groups. In return for their services, these missionary groups demanded local participation in the mission’s religious services, and some level of adherence to the missionary’s concept of civilization (Manji, 2002, 569). Obviously this understanding civilization was biased by a Christian understanding of how a society should organize and conduct itself.
Indeed, the relationship between religion and colonialism was more than a connection: it was a mutually reinforcing relationship. As Manji and O’Coill explain, missionary organizations were complicit in maintenance of colonial hierarchies and norms, even frequently actively suppressing liberation movements. In this way, colonial processes supported the spread of religion, and those religious forces supported the process of colonialism.

However, as anti-colonial resistance movements grew in number and strength, and swept the southern hemisphere, missions were forced to reconsider their role in the south in order to ensure their survival. Manji argues that in order to remain relevant, missionaries adopted the language of ‘development NGOs’. Newly anointed faith based development organizations move away from ‘civilizing’ locals to ‘developing’ host countries, and therefore into line with the dominant rhetoric of newly internationalized European relief organizations such as Oxfam and Plan International (Manji, 2002, 574).

This accounted for, the term ‘faith based development organization’ demonstrates that religion has not been abandoned by any means. Indeed, FBDOs still rely heavily on their religious natures to garner volunteer and financial support from governments and civil society. Coming into the 21st century, this has created a difficult paradox wherein the religious component of FBDOs has become a simultaneous asset and liability, and led to the creation of a double burden. FBDOs must now appeal to the growing section of civil society that has declared its contempt, or at the very least its indifference to religion, while simultaneously retaining support from civil society’s remaining religious community. Of course, maintaining the delicate balance necessary to engage the broadest demographic of civil society possible is not a challenge unique to FBDO; however, one would be hard pressed to imagine a more schismatic demographic split than the religious and non-religious (or those of one religion and another).

This reliance on a civil society and governments for funding is of serious concern, considering that FBDOs (and NGOs in general) rely entirely on some combination of one or the other for their budgets. Following the fall of colonialism and the subsequent flood of declarations of independence in the late 20th century there was a reduction of the responsibilities held by newly styled development NGOs as states took control of social programs. However, this shift was short-lived, and within a few decades was reversed. With the advent of Reagan and Thatcher-styled neoliberalism, these responsibilities have been largely returned to development NGOs. (ibid, 2002, 579). This shift has been part of a structural adjustment in the provision of aid known as the ‘New Policy Agenda’ in which the role of the state is decreased in the processes of economic development and social welfare, and responsibility is shifted to civil society (Ahmed, 2006, 80). As a consequence, organizations such as FBDOs have grown increasingly influential in both international politics as a broad arena, and more specifically, in the development sphere.

World Vision International

World Vision was created in 1950 by Baptist minister Bob Pierce in order to provide relief for Korean War orphans (World Vision Canada). It has evolved into an impressively sized NGO, with the umbrella organization of World Vision International linking World Vision chapters in approximately 100 countries around the world, both in the global north and the global south. World Vision is a major player in the transfer of aid money that flows from the north to the south, working to provide relief, development and advocacy. The FBDO has 23,000 staff, and a yearly budget of almost 2 billion dollars (Wallis, 2007, 5). 80 percent of World Vision’s donations are privately contributed, while the remaining 20 percent is composed of government subsidies, and over half of the private donations are contributed in the form of child sponsorship (world vision website). The sponsorship money is pooled and used for community development, although, as Bornstein asserts, the relationship formed between sponsor and child is not to be disregarded (Bornstein, 2001, 598). It describes itself as a “Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice” (World Vision Canada).

It has not avoided the aforementioned double edged sword of stigma and leverage that comes with mixing religion and development, seeing both scathing allegations of evangelism in the south, as well as support from Christian patriots in the north. Although its mission statement clearly explains that “World Vision is an international partnership of Christians whose mission is to follow our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” and to “bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of God” (World Vision Canada), the organization states that it does not proselytize. It claims that it adheres to the International Red Cross Code of Conduct, which states that aid is to be allotted “regardless of the race, creed or nationality of recipients and without adverse distinction of any kind” and that “Aid priorities are calculated on the basis of need alone” (World Vision Canada). In fact, the FBDO explicitly states that “World Vision does not proselytize. The organization does not demand that people hear any religious message or convert to Christianity before, during or after receiving assistance” (World Vision Canada).

Indeed, evangelists have vocally questioned World Vision’s dedication to religion. According to Stafford, “some have questioned whether World Vision’s passion for Christ has been diluted” (Stafford, 2005, 52). There is little to be concerned about, however, as the language of World Vision board members clearly demonstrates that World Vision has no intentions of operating in an non-religious manner. Former board chair Roberta Hestenes has stated that although some Christian organizations shy away from outwardly demonstrating their beliefs in hostile countries, “World Vision has never accepted that” and that “Deeds, words, and signs are part of our Christian witness” and wherever possible “we have to have staff who are Christian and know how to bear witness to their faith” (Stafford, 2005, 53). Moreover, World Vision U.S. president Richard Stearns has asserted that World Vision regrets its drift away from the church, and that they want to “reverse that trend, to bring World Vision into closer partnership with churches, and to encourage staff into a deeper Christian faith” (Stafford, 2005, 53). Past president of World Vision, Bob Seiple, stated most boldly that World Vision has never “lost that evangelistic heart” (Miller, 1998).

Indeed, World Vision is proud of its ability to convey the word of God to the communities that it works in. The World Vision International website proudly points out that in countries dominated by other faiths, “World Vision's ministry is the only Christian influence a community or country will experience,” and that “World Vision supports verbal proclamation of the Gospel whenever it is possible” unless it is forbidden by local religion or law (World Vision International). However, this statement is misleading in that it suggests that any form of Christianity is acceptable, which is not the case. Lee discusses the issue of World Vision’s anti-Roman Catholic bias, and its practice of pressuring community members to convert to Protestantism in return for aid. The Roman Catholic Church has documented cases where “[f]ood programs were used as a lever to get poor Catholic families to attend evangelical services, and those who refused were dropped from the programs” (Lee, 1979, 543).

More important than the rhetoric and language experienced by northern sponsors, however, is the evangelism actually experienced by target countries, and there is documentation of bold evangelism in multiple instances. Bornstein speaks to the Zimbabwean experience, in which she unambiguously describes World Vision as a “contemporary missionary organization” (ibid., 2001, 596). Bornstein explains that World Vision Zimbabwe staff “carefully cultivate relationships with community members in order to build trust and a context within which people will listen to the gospel” (ibid., 2001, 605), where religion is not a tool but a goal.

Moreover, World Vision maintains an overt policy of discriminatory hiring policies wherein only Christian applicants are considered for employment (Christian Century, 2008, 17). This is problematic when considering that employment with NGOs in the global south is a particularly appealing employment prospect for communities with debilitating unemployment rates. It must be acknowledged that discriminatory hiring practices based upon faith does not necessarily mean that the organization is evangelizing in recipient countries, or that it is discriminating against donor recipients based upon faith. This policy, does, however, provide useful insight into the significance role that religion plays within the organization.
With all of this considered, it would be careless not to explore the impact of an evangelical agenda on sponsored children and his or her target community, if they already self-identify as Christian. As Abbink asserts, while aid tied to religion coming from outside communities is common, “the processes of local or indigenous ‘appropriation’ of the Christian faith by Africans themselves is remarkable” (Abbink, 2004, 133). In considering this case of a sponsor child who already identified as Christian before the intervention of World Vision, or even one who willingly adopts Christianity, the links between religion in development become more complex. Albert, a now-grown sponsored child from a Zimbabwe community, recounts that “The Lord came to my rescue in the form of a sponsor” (Bornstein, 2001, 599).
Christianity resonates with a significant portion of the south, and especially in Latin America, where World Vision is extremely active. In the same way that the international development community should be wary of evangelizing development organizations, so too should it be wary of condemning the mixing of Christianity and development, if it is desired or welcomed by the target community. To bar it would be to act in the same vein of trusteeship that has blackened the name of religion in development. However, communities are not homogeneous, and herein lies the complexity of the issue. Albert recalls that his father was wary of World Vision: of the unspoken conditions of sponsorship, and the ties to colonial trusteeship. His father even told him at one point that he should reject additional money from his sponsor; he was concerned that Albert would be removed to America (Bornstein, 2001, 600).

Of course, Albert’s father’s wariness of World Vision’s relationship with the United States is not unjustified. It is important to consider World Vision’s ties to the United States, and the implications of this relationship. Although World Vision International has chapters in many other countries, the largest of whom are Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa (Lee, 1979, 543), the organization receives the bulk of its funding from America, both private and public sponsorship; in 2001, 55 percent of its funding came from the US (Fahlbusch, 2003, 793). This is problematic, as aid provided by the American government is politically charged. This is not uniquely American: international development aid is a political tool, and with the New Policy Agenda and its shift of responsibility, there is no reason to believe that this shift has reduced the political nature of aid. In other words, the shifting of responsibility does not mean that there has been a shifting of control. Responsibility and control should not be confused, and it can be said with confidence that the state maintains control.

Ahmed and Potter also speak to the importance of understanding the nature of the relationship between World Vision and the American government, and the power dynamics that exist within it. They speak to the difficulties that arise from any NGO-government relationship: reporting standards that require larger bureaucracies, and experiencing delayed funding affecting projects on the ground, and most importantly, toeing current party lines (Ahmed, 2006, 112). Of course, considering the fact that America is a predominantly Christian nation (or that its politics, at least, are dominantly Christian), this is less of a concern for a Christian FBDO such as World Vision. It can be, however, be a concern for non-Christian target countries. All of this considered, Bornstein recognizes World Vision’s evangelical nature as a necessary component of its success in the global north. As Bornstein asserts, “discourses of evangelism build relationships of child sponsorship within World Vision, transmogrifying money in the form of monthly remittances - a generic and impersonal standard of value - into embodied human relationships with alive, unpredictable, and spontaneous others” (Bornstein, 2001, 597).

However, it would be misleading to suggest that World Vision’s sole means of success is derived from its ties to religion. Fellow development agency, Plan International, also operates via the sponsorship of children and transfer of wealth from the global north to the global south. It states clearly that it is non-religious, and yet it maintains the status of one of the largest and most successful sponsorship agencies in the world, claiming to impact the lives of approximately 3.5 million children and their families each year (Plan). World Vision International, on the other hand, serves approximately 3.8 million children and their families each year (World Vision International, 2009, 1). When the work of the two organizations is reduced to numbers (3.5 million versus 3.8 million) it becomes clear that the benefit of religiously-inspired donations does not provide a significant edge. That being said, World Vision and Plan International each inhabit a niche - one religious, and one non-religious - and each one tailored to the values of a specific population of civil society. A move from a religious space to a non-religious space would very likely lose World Vision its religiously inspired donations, as well as flood the niche market of non-religious donations currently occupied by Plan.

Conclusion

Judgement on World Vision’s motives and actions in the global south must not be passed so quickly that it is branded while other organizations ostensibly working a-religiously in the south are applauded for their secularity. As Abbink discusses, even those organizations that claim non-partisanship and non-religious development agendas, be they other NGOs or even the United Nations, carry along with them their cultural baggage, most often replete with Christian cultural assumptions (Abbink, 2004, 134).

Moreover, the concept of missionary work in the 21st century requires consideration. Abbink suggests that in the process of the institutions driving missionary work evolving, the conceptualization of missionary work evolved alongside them. Abbink asserts that contemporary missionaries are not the stereotypically dogmatic individuals imposing conversion upon their target population, as was witnessed during colonialism, but “development workers with a religious inspiration, convinced of the value of the Christian message of solidarity and salvation... as potentially applying to everyone, but not driving towards conversion per se” (Abbink, 2004, 137). It would follow then, that these individuals and institutions are less deserving of criticism than their forbears.

However, despite the changes that religious organizations and movements have experienced in the contexts of colonialism and then development, Manji and O’Coill maintain that even now, development NGOs in general “[represent] a continuity of the work of their precursors, the missionaries and voluntary organizations that cooperated in Europe’s colonization and control of Africa.” (Manji, 2002, 568). Manji and O’Coill attest that there is potential for real development to occur, but that first these organizations would have to “disengag[e] from their paternalistic role in development” (Manji, 2002, 568), and from the mentality of trusteeship.

Moreover, Manji argues that if a development NGO does not fight the system that oppresses the subjects of development in the first place (eg. colonialism, or global capitalism), which they term an ‘emancipatory agenda’, then the NGO, despite its very best intentions, is complicit in reinforcing the system by enabling its continued existence (Manji, 2002, 582). In addition, Manji and and O’Coill suggest that in this way, development organizations who reinforce the system are no better than the missionary organizations that they evolved from.

In a strictly religious sense, Katherine Marshall speaks to the term “aid conversion,” which she defines as “linking charity and development aid to a religious message and, at its most intense, insisting that the recipients convert in order to receive the aid” (Marshall, 2010). There is no evidence to suggest that World Vision has ever withheld aid as a consequence of a recipient’s religious inclinations. However, as demonstrated, there is without question a linking of “charity and development aid to a religious message”.

Of final consideration, however, must be the pre-existence of Christianity within target populations prior to World Vision’s arrival. Regardless of how Christianity arrived in the community, it cannot be denied that it exists, and that World Vision’s beliefs are not always foreign. In some cases, as was the case with Albert’s father, Christian reform is not welcome. In others, however, as was the case with Albert, Christianity is a normalized and welcome institution. To generalize the role of organizations like World Vision as refurbished missionary groups thrusting themselves upon a hapless global south would be to disregard the agency of those in the south, and assume the same mentality of trusteeship that pervaded missionary work of past centuries.

World Vision’s role in the global south is complex, and cannot be reduced to ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Its impact upon a community varies wildly from one individual to the next, and this situation will only grow more complex as the processes of globalization create an even greater variation of political, religious, and a myriad of other beliefs in one-time remote and untouched communities. It can be said with certainty that World Vision is contributing to improved health and education opportunities in the communities they work with, and considering the unique perspectives of the individuals that they work alongside, it may never be possible to ascertain the overall impact of World Vision’s strong Christian presence in terms of development in the global south. Moreover, as Abbink asserts, “Faith-based development work is, and will remain a powerful means to engage people in processes of change” (Abbink, 2004, 141).

Criticism of World Vision’s evangelical habits is not meant to insinuate that World Vision should remove its Christian component, nor that it should stop providing Christian services in the communities it is involved in. This would be to the discredit of indigenous Christians, and it would be to deny their agency. It can be said with certainty, however, that if World Vision divorces itself from its evangelical tradition of exchanging conversion for aid, it will become more effective and less biased in its development work. Moreover, this shift would place World Vision’s work closer to the Christian teachings of selfless charity than any act of contrived conversion ever could.


Works Cited
Abbink, J. (2004). “Converting Pastoralists: Reflections on missionary work and development in Southern Ethiopia.” The Development of Religion/The Religion of Development. Oscar Salemink, Anton Van Harskamp and Ananta Kumar Giri (eds). Eburon Delfit: Uitgeverij Eburon. p 133 - 142.
Ahmed, S. and Potter D. (2006). NGOs in International Politics. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press.
Bornstein, E. (2001). “Child Sponsorship, Evangelism, and Belonging in the Work of World Vision Zimbabwe.” American Ethnologist. 28(3), p 606.
Brouwer, R. (2010). “When Missions Became Development: Ironies of ‘NGOization’ in Mainstream Canadian Churches in the 1960s”. The Canadian Historical Review. 91(4) University of Toronto Press. p 661-693.
Christian Century (2008). “Justice department oks Christian-only hiring by World Vision.” 125(24), p 17.
Fahlbusch, E., Bromiley, G. W. (2003). “North America.” The Encyclopedia of Christianity. Volume 3. Grand Rapids: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Lee, M. (1979). “World Vision, Go Home!” Christian Century. 96(18), p 542-544. May 16.
Manji F. and O’Coill C. (2002). “The Missionary Position: NGOs and Development in Africa.” International Affairs. Blackwell Publishing. 78 (3), pp 567-583.
Marshall, K. (2010). “Faith-based aid conversion: faith in action.” The Washington Post.
Plan International. Accessed online: http://plan-international.org/about-plan. February 12, 2011.
Miller, K. D. (1998). “De-Seiple-ing World Vision.” Christianity Today. 42(7), p 49-51.
Stafford, T. (2005). “The Colosuss of Care: World Vision has become an international force -- and a partner with the poor.” Christianity Today. 49(3), p 50-56.
Wallis, J. (2007). “No Turning Back.” Sojourners Magazine. 36(10), pg 5 - 6.
World Vision Canada. Accessed online: http://www.worldvision.ca/Pages/welcome.aspx. February 10, 2011.
World Vision International. Accessed online: http://www.wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf. March 4, 2011.

World Vision International (2009). “World Vision International Voluntary Disclosure Report”

1 This is not to suggest that this is the only criticism being charged against FBDOs, when other important discussions such as funding allocation and project efficacy exist; however, the purpose of this paper is not to evaluate the success of FBDOs as development institutions based on discussions of funding and project success, but to explore the interactions between religion and development.

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