Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development: Faith-Based NGOs as Non-state Political and Moral Actors (Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy) 3030689638, 9783030689636

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN RELIGION, POLITICS, AND POLICY

Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development Faith-Based NGOs as Non-state Political and Moral Actors

Paul J. Nelson

Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy

Series Editor Mark J. Rozell, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA

This series originated under the co-editorship of the late Ted Jelen and Mark J. Rozell. A generation ago, many social scientists regarded religion as an anachronism, whose social, economic, and political importance would inevitably wane and disappear in the face of the inexorable forces of modernity. Of course, nothing of the sort has occurred; indeed, the public role of religion is resurgent in US domestic politics, in other nations, and in the international arena. Today, religion is widely acknowledged to be a key variable in candidate nominations, platforms, and elections; it is recognized as a major influence on domestic and foreign policies. National religious movements as diverse as the Christian Right in the United States and the Taliban in Afghanistan are important factors in the internal politics of particular nations. Moreover, such transnational religious actors as Al-Qaida, Falun Gong, and the Vatican have had important effects on the politics and policies of nations around the world. Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy serves a growing niche in the discipline of political science. This subfield has proliferated rapidly during the past two decades, and has generated an enormous amount of scholarly studies and journalistic coverage. Five years ago, the journal Politics and Religion was created; in addition, works relating to religion and politics have been the subject of many articles in more general academic journals. The number of books and monographs on religion and politics has increased tremendously. In the past, many social scientists dismissed religion as a key variable in politics and government. This series casts a broad net over the subfield, providing opportunities for scholars at all levels to publish their works with Palgrave. The series publishes monographs in all subfields of political science, including American Politics, Public Policy, Public Law, Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Political Theory. The principal focus of the series is the public role of religion. “Religion” is construed broadly to include public opinion, religious institutions, and the legal frameworks under which religious politics are practiced. The “dependent variable” in which we are interested is politics, defined broadly to include analyses of the public sources and consequences of religious belief and behavior. These would include matters of public policy, as well as variations in the practice of political life. We welcome a diverse range of methodological perspectives, provided that the approaches taken are intellectually rigorous. The series does not deal with works of theology, in that arguments about the validity or utility of religious beliefs are not a part of the series focus. Similarly, the authors of works about the private or personal consequences of religious belief and behavior, such as personal happiness, mental health, or family dysfunction, should seek other outlets for their writings. Although historical perspectives can often illuminate our understanding of modern political phenomena, our focus in the Religion, Politics, and Policy series is on the relationship between the sacred and the political in contemporary societies.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14594

Paul J. Nelson

Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development Faith-Based NGOs as Non-state Political and Moral Actors

Paul J. Nelson Graduate School of Public and International Affairs University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy ISBN 978-3-030-68963-6 ISBN 978-3-030-68964-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © Bo Zaunders/Corbin Documentary/Getty Image This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

This project grew out of my scholarly interest in non-governmental organizations, religion, and international development and human rights, but more profoundly it has its origins in my first career. I worked for 13 years for faith-based NGOs based in the United States—Bread for the World, Church World Service, Lutheran World Relief, and Catholic Relief Services—representing their views to policy makers in Washington, D.C., and writing about their priority policy issues for the organizations’ members and supporters. I became convinced that the voices of people of faith are important, and that there is enormous untapped potential for a significant moral voice that could help shape the United States’ role in the world. I am sure that conviction is evident in the writing in these chapters. I think the evidence in this volume supports the view that the voices of people of faith against poverty and for human rights could be much more powerful, and that faith-based NGOs could contribute to raising those voices. The need and potential for an informed, outspoken moral citizenry has never seemed as clear to me as it does now, in October 2020. The climate crisis; the COVID-19 pandemic; nationalist anti-immigrant “America First” sentiment; and the heart-rending, furious cry for racial justice in the United States and worldwide all are calls to people of faith and conscience to step up and make their voices heard. Several of the NGOs and movements I have studied give us guidance as to how to build an informed, principled, outspoken moral and political voice. Many of my conclusions are critical of how faith-based NGOs have approached this v

vi

PREFACE

challenge, but it is important to call attention to communities of faith that are building powerful cultures of service and citizenship. Because this project has been in process for ten years, I have had the pleasure of working with many able graduate student researchers at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Dr. Chris Belasco, Dr. Aya Okada, and Dr. Bok Jeong, who are all long since launched into distinguished careers, made substantial creative and intellectual contributions and coordinated a larger group in data collection. Dijana Mujkanovi´c, Caitlin Newman Thistle, Khurram Butt, Rachel Vinciguerra, Jillian Royal, and Victoria Hoang also provided skilled research support, and I thank them all. Comments from three reviewers have challenged and strengthened the argument and the writing, and I am grateful to them. I appreciate support and encouragement of some of my colleagues at Pitt, especially Dr. Nuno Themudo, and GSPIA’s Deans during the life of the project, Dr. Carolyn Ban and Dr. John T. S. Keeler. Any errors of fact or judgment are my responsibility. The research was made possible by a generous grant from the Henry T. Luce Program on Religion and International Affairs, at the Henry Luce Foundation. My parents-in-law, Dr. Antonio and Lillian Scommegna, made their house on a quiet wooded hilltop in Jefferson County, Wisconsin available for writing retreats, and much of the writing was done in that beautiful spot. My wife, Paola Scommegna, has been supportive and appropriately skeptical of my arguments along the way, and I thank her for that and much more. We met 40 years ago while both working at the faith-based advocacy NGO Bread for the World in Washington, D.C., and it is ironic that she is still enduring my pronouncements on the subject. Many versions of these chapters have benefited from comments and criticism during panels at the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), the International Studies Association (ISA), and the International Society for Third-Sector Research. Passages in Chapter 4 are reprinted with permission from a 2019 article inReview of Faith and International Affairs. Pittsburgh, USA October 2020

Paul J. Nelson

Contents

1

Introduction Religious Voices Between Silence and Social Protest References

1 5 7 11

2

Religion, Development, and Faith-Based Organizations Religion and Development Religion’s Influence: Belief, Institutions, Practices “World Religions”: Changing Patterns, Dynamism, and Influence Religion and Politics: The United States and Beyond Contemporary Religious Voices in US Policy Religion, Mobilization, and Politics in the Rich Countries Perspectives on NGOs Marketplace Global Socio-Political Systems Shared Values, Identity, and Trust Institutions: Organizational Affiliation and Institutional Rootedness Why Faith-Based NGOs? Religion, FBOs, and Development Agencies References

13 14 15 21 23 24 25 27 27 28 28 29 30 31 34

vii

viii

3

4

5

CONTENTS

Faith-Based Identities FBOs as Religious and as Organizations Types of Faith-Based Organizations in International Charitable Action FBOs: The Players Human Rights NGOs and Religion Balancing Professional and Religious Identities Faith-Based NGOs: Four Big Issues Whom to Serve? Universal or Communal? Individual Transformation and Social Change Proselytizing Religious Belief, Organizational Culture, and Staff FBOs’ Institutional Ties to Religion: A Typology References Encouraging Active Citizen Voices on International Policy? The Record of US Faith-Based NGOs FBOs, Religious Organizations, and Political Voice Religious Agencies Coalitions and Federations Independent Issue-Focused Groups Faith-Based Humanitarian NGOs and Advocacy Faith-Based NGOs as Advocates Record and Limitations Independent Issue-Focused Groups Mobilizing or Marginalizing Religious Citizen Action? References Agendas and Strategies: Prophetic Voices and Cautious Reformers Understanding FBO Advocacy: Theory and Motivations Why FBO Advocacy? Method: Categorizing Advocacy Issues Public Policy Advocacy Agendas: Findings FBO and Secular NGO Agendas A Closer Look: “Advocating Against Hunger” Benchmarks: Two Broad Agendas on Food Security Faith-Based Food Security Agendas Agendas in Comparative Perspective References

41 42 44 46 50 51 55 55 57 58 60 62 66 71 73 75 77 77 77 79 89 90 94 96 101 102 103 106 109 114 114 116 118 120 121

CONTENTS

ix

6

Global Religions and National Politics NGOs, Politics, Religion, and International Development Four FBO Families Transnational Relationships in Religious Communities Universal Faiths and Sources of Variation Legal-Institutional Framework Public Opinion on Religion and Politics Faith-Based Identities and Political Voice Advocacy Issue Agendas Advocacy Alliances Universal Faiths and National Politics References

125 127 128 131 133 134 134 136 137 141 142 145

7

Beyond Advocacy? Mobilizing Compassion What We Know: Religion, Volunteering, and Mobilization Methodology Findings: What Are FBOs Asking of Supporters? The FBOs and the Actions They Encourage Transformative Work in Action: Some Themes and Cases Transformative Experiences: Personal Practices and Volunteering Volunteering Mennonite Central Committee (MCC): Building a Culture of Service Christian Peacemaker Teams Maryknoll Lay Missioners and Volunteers Faith in the Marketplace: Consumers and Investors Simplicity Impact Investing Fair Trade Divesting Fossil Fuels, Investing in Energy Access Some Implications References

149 150 152 153 155 158

8

Religious Movements and FBOs: The Climate Threat and COVID-19 Social Movements, Religion, and FBOs Historic Movements Three Contemporary Movements Jubilee Debt Campaign

159 160 161 161 162 163 164 165 167 167 169 172 177 179 180 181 181

x

9

CONTENTS

Sanctuary Movements Save Darfur Coalition Climate and Energy Access: A Cause Struggles to Become a Movement COVID-19: Prophetic Voices in a Pandemic? FBOs in a Society in Crisis: Racial Justice References

184 185

Conclusions FBOs, Religious Identities, and US Politics Limiting Factors: Agendas and Communication National or Global Voices? Generosity, Citizenship, and Lifestyle FBOs and the Potential for Mass Action Lessons from Most Active Mobilizers

205 206 207 208 209 210 211

186 190 197 199

Appendix

215

Index

219

About the Author

Paul J. Nelson is an Associate Professor of International Development at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), University of Pittsburgh. Before joining the university in 1998, he worked for several faith-related non-governmental organizations (NGOs). He has published research on the World Bank, transnational NGO advocacy, religion and development, human rights-based development, and the Sustainable Development Goals. He holds a Ph.D. in International Development Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

xi

Abbreviations and Acronyms

ACLU ACT (Alliance) AFJN AFSC AIDS AJWS AKDN BFW BPF CAFOD CRS DfID ELCA FBO FCNL HIV INGO JDC LGBT LMIC LWR MCC NGO OVCs Sida UNICEF

American Civil Liberties Union Action by Churches Together Africa Faith and Justice Network American Friends Service Committee Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome American Jewish World Service Aga Khan Development Network Bread for the World Buddhist Peace Fellowship Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (UK) Catholic Relief Services Department for International Development (UK) Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Faith-Based organization Friends Committee on National Legislation Human Immunodeficiency Virus International Non-Governmental Organization Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Low- and Middle-Income Countries Lutheran World Relief Mennonite Central Committee Non-Governmental Organization Orphans and Vulnerable Children Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency United Nations Children’s Fund xiii

xiv

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

USAID WHO WJA

United States Agency for International Development World Health Organization World Jewish Aid

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1

Fig. 5.1

The continuum, generosity to resistance US religious traditions: moral project, source of authority, perspective on development (Source Adapted from Kniss [2003]) Issue selection: The charity to structural change continuum

26

43 107

xv

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Table Table Table Table

3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1

Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table Table Table Table

5.1 5.2 6.1 6.2

Table 6.3 Table 6.4 Table Table Table Table

7.1 7.2 7.3 8.1

Roman Catholic relief, humanitarian, and development agencies Protestant and inter-denominational Christian agencies Agencies associated with Judaism and Islam Faith-based NGOs in human rights Ten faith-based NGOs and their relationships to religious communities Sources for assessing advocacy, ten FBOs Advocacy at ten faith-based NGOs Advocacy content in Facebook and Twitter, September 1–24, 2020 Advocacy profile of ten comparable secular development NGOs Faith-based Advocacy Agendas, by Issue Category Advocacy Agendas of Selected Secular US-based NGOs Four faith-based NGO families in four countries Faith identity and opinion about religious voice in politics, four countries Advocacy issues by category, country totals Number of advocacy issues by category and FBO family, four countries, 2020 Examples of lower and higher “cost” actions Mobilization activities, 50 FBOs Frequency of activities, by category of FBO Climate change in advocacy by selected faith-based NGOs

47 49 51 52 74 80 81 83 91 110 111 129 136 138 140 153 154 156 189

xvii

xviii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 8.2 Table 8.3

Communication by FBOs about the COVID-19 pandemic, March and April 2020 Facebook posts by FBOs on pandemic & climate, September 1–24, 2020

193 196

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

[W]e begin with spiritual empowerment. … When 200,000 people get together, if they don’t have 100 percent spiritual discipline, if someone throws a stone, the whole group can go astray. That’s why you need a very strong spiritual foundation, and also a very strong scientific and technological foundation to bring about, from bottom up, an awakening. (A.T. Aryaratne, leader of the Sarvodaya Shramadan movement, Sri Lanka)

The obligation to pursue justice is at the heart of Jewish tradition. In the face of terrible poverty, epidemic disease, violence and human rights violations around the world, how should American Jews interpret and respond to that obligation? (American Jewish World Service, introduction to “Education”)

For Islamic Relief, it is a priority to increase partnership with religious institutions and to re-integrate them into the development movement. Its aim is to harness the spiritual and material capital of these communities and to reduce the divide that imposed secularism has created in their perceived role. (Islamic Relief on “Spiritual Capital in Development”)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. J. Nelson, Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3_1

1

2

P. J. NELSON

We believe in life before death. We seek to follow the teaching of Jesus Christ, who commanded his followers to love their neighbour and work for a better world…. We support people to stand up for their rights and to build stable, secure lives they can enjoy living. (Christian Aid, “Our Aims”)

As these statements show, there is no shortage of religiously inspired moral motivation among outspoken advocates in international economic and social development. Religious visions of a just social order often motivate charitable, personal, and political engagement in social change, at home and in societies far from home. Religion has supported human slavery and its abolition, the subjugation of women and their advancement, oppressive authoritarian rule and democratic and egalitarian communities. It has produced dynamic movements for pro-poor social change, formed social safety nets, encouraged reverence and stewardship of natural resources, and supported the human rights claims of marginalized groups. It has also propped up violent authoritarian dictators, excluded already impoverished groups from communal protections, justified ruthless environmental exploitation, and suppressed women and sexual minorities. The charitable role of religious and faith-based organization in international humanitarian work is well recognized in the rich countries. This book explores a less-discussed aspect of their work: How do religious organizations in the United States and in other wealthy societies explain global poverty and inequality to their constituents, and help those constituents understand and fulfill their religious duties? In an era when religious voices have become prominent in politics in the United States and elsewhere, where is the moral and religious call for worldwide greater opportunity, human rights, fair global economic rules, and humane foreign policies? Is there a significant movement among people of faith, and what are the roles of NGOs and other forms of faith-related organizations in building such a constituency? Religious principles and teachings have motivated acts of great charity and self-sacrifice, as well as acts of violence and repression through the ages. Religious principles and motivations are institutionalized and represented in the international arena today by religious organizations and coalitions, faith-based NGOs (FBOs), and other research and advocacy networks that translate principles into advocacy for human rights and

1

INTRODUCTION

3

development policies. Faith-based NGOs and the religious organizations that sponsor some of them have prominent roles through education, volunteer opportunities, advocacy programs, and other initiatives that religious organizations use to educate and mobilize their members and supporters. FBOs have become leaders in delivering humanitarian and community development aid in poor countries. But how do they participate in educating and mobilizing their members and donors on behalf of the world’s poorest people? Their efforts to build public support for action to expand opportunities, challenge injustices, and respect rights are, with exceptions, modest in their scope and impact. This volume examines these efforts in the United States in order to understand why they remain modest, and what can be learned from the notable exceptions among religious and faith-based groups. There are two reasons why the question of faith-based NGOs’ policy advocacy work, especially their outreach to individual donors and constituents, should be of urgent interest. First, it shapes the future direction of international NGOs (INGOs): Humanitarian nonprofits can steer toward delivering material aid and services, or toward participating in the kind of dynamic civil society that can shape social policy and influence the direction and impact of political and economic change in the countries where they work. Both choices—aid delivery and political voice—are legitimate, and secular and faith-based NGOs will choose both paths. How faith-based groups navigate these choices is important, and shapes their distinctive roles in international affairs. Second, voices of the religious right have become politically influential in American politics, and FBOs have a distinctive opportunity to inform and mobilize a potentially influential public voice in the country’s public life. Faith-based humanitarian agencies won’t be the central religious actors in such a process, of course, but they have a legitimacy and privileged access to a segment of the public. What they do with that access and trust is politically important, and can help shape the future roles of religion in public life. At the center of the study are the tensions between charitable action and political voice, and between religion and politics. The first tension arises because FBOs were almost all created as charitable nonprofits and therefore assign high priority to their ability to deliver material aid and capacity-building support in poor communities. Delivering this aid—expressing a religious community’s generosity—in turn requires a

4

P. J. NELSON

secure flow of funding. Can organizations whose primary interest in their constituents is as a donor base also challenge and equip those constituents to become informed, outspoken, prophetic advocates for economic justice and political and civil freedoms? The second tension, the role of religious voices in politics, has become acute in twenty-first-century US politics. Many Americans and Europeans are uncomfortable with the outspoken and direct application of religious teaching to public policy. Yet activists, clergy, and candidates for public office in the United States boldly compete for the strong positions on “moral issues” of family, culture, sexuality, and personal character. How do organizations that seek to mobilize a constituency in support of a just global order handle this discomfort with religious influence over public policy? In general, the answer to these questions is in two parts: First, religious bodies tend to delegate their effort to influence international policy issues to the organizations created to provide relief—faith-based NGOs. Second, most of these faith-based NGOs practice a kind of cautious reformism, advancing modest proposals, and reaching out tentatively to their constituents. They call for modest reforms in foreign aid policy, more generous aid, partial forgiveness of debts, and incremental improvement in human rights performance. Real religious fervor seems to be concentrated in movements against abortion, for a traditional vision of the family, and for specifically religious freedoms. Some FBOs are important exceptions, with programs of education, personal transformative activities, and policy advocacy are strikingly more systematic and more prophetic in tone. One strategy of this study is to document these outliers and understand how they came to embrace such mobilization efforts and build a culture of personal and political mobilization among their constituents. This book has been on my mind for nearly 40 years. My first real job, which began as an internship at age 24, was at the faith-based advocacy organization Bread for the World. It was an exciting, fulfilling, life-changing job, and I remain convinced of the organization’s premise that people of faith should care about helping create opportunities for poor and marginalized people, and that this caring must translate into their citizenship—how they vote, communicate with elected officials, and use their considerable power as consumers and investors. After 13 years working for faith-based NGOs and more than 20 years teaching international development to aspiring humanitarians, I continue to believe this

1

INTRODUCTION

5

is true, and that when FBOs don’t work energetically and imaginatively to build an informed, active constituency, it is a critical failing. The potential of this moral voice seems particularly important at a moment of extreme challenges for the United States and for the world. The looming crisis of climate change is manifesting itself in frightening weather patterns; the world is experiencing a pandemic of historic proportions; the long history of racial exploitation and discrimination has boiled over in response to deadly policy violence against Black Americans; and the country’s electoral system and capacity for democratic decisionmaking are being strained. All of these challenges have global implications or manifestations, and they present challenges to people of faith that seem to call for a level of urgency and bold religious leadership, not business as usual.

Religious Voices When I refer to “religious voices,” I mean to include religious leaders themselves; worshipping communities; faith-based NGOs; interfaith federations formed to address topics such as debt, HIV/AIDS, and labor rights; and citizen movements and social movements with strong religious identification. This study focuses primarily on US-based faith-related NGOs, from well-known names such as Catholic Relief Services, Islamic Relief, American Jewish World Service, and World Vision, to smaller agencies with ties to particular religious communities or simply self-identified as faith-based. These FBOs have come to play a large part in US and European voluntary action in international humanitarian affairs. They are among the largest, most influential NGOs in development and humanitarian assistance, and in the United States they account for some 40 percent of gross NGO development expenditures (McCleary, 2011). But their moral and political voice and the strength of their identification with national and transnational religious communities are not widely discussed or studied, and this book focuses on their significance as expressions of religious identity, and their roles in the education and formation of faith communities in the wealthy donor countries. It begins to fill this gap by exploring and proposing answers to five questions: 1. How important is the religious identification of faith-based development NGOs to their operations, theory of change, choice of whom to serve, among other considerations?

6

P. J. NELSON

2. How do religious organizations and faith-based NGOs shape their members’ awareness of global poverty, inequality, and human rights violations, and mobilize them as citizens and consumers? 3. As public policy actors, how do faith-based organizations make their views heard on international development and justice issues, and is their agenda reformist or “prophetic”? 4. What explains the considerable variation among FBOs, and what lessons can be learned from highly active mobilizers, and from mass movements that have mobilized on international causes? 5. Are transnational faith-based NGOs essentially national or global political actors? Much of the research on religion and politics in the United States focuses on volatile, high-profile issues, and on church-state relations. This book takes a complementary approach, shedding light on religion and politics by examining religious voices on a set of issues with great moral significance but lower political salience for wealthy societies, issues such as extreme economic inequality, widespread malnutrition in a world with adequate food supplies, widespread violations of girls’ and women’s rights to health and education, and human trafficking. I argue that these are moral issues that command the attention and action of the religious traditions that FBOs represent, and I treat FBOs as political actors and as organizations, non-profits that confront the same institutional imperatives, including the need for stable funding, as do other NGOs. The ten-year investigation reported here employs mixed methods and rests on three sets of sources: • a survey of public documents pertaining to 91 religious and faithbased organizations in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia, and a smaller number in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East; • case studies of organizations with extensive or distinctive education and advocacy agendas, to probe their strategies and identify factors that make such work possible; • studies of religious bodies’ and NGOs’ participation in several major development policy and human rights issues: the “Jubilee 2000” campaign to reduce and forgive the debt burden of highly indebted,

1

INTRODUCTION

7

low-income countries; the effort to expand energy access in communities and regions of the world where electricity and clean cooking fuel are unavailable; and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic; and demands for racial justice. By examining how extensively FBOs and other religious bodies participated, their places in international advocacy networks, and the advocacy strategies they employ, I identify their distinctive voice and moral roles in development policy-making, and their limitations and disagreements.

Between Silence and Social Protest Religious institutions and people of faith in the United States and Europe have from time to time mobilized and motivated enough of their constituencies to produce influential movements. The best known in contemporary US politics are culturally conservative, traditionalist movements associated with the religious right and with anti-abortion advocacy (Conger, 2010). But smaller movements led by religious activists have had impacts on international human rights and poverty. US churches played important roles in opposing to US interventions in Central America in the 1980s. Nepstad (2007) shows that progressive churches created the narratives that inspired a strong enough “oppositional consciousness” that US citizens were prepared to take to the streets, commit civil disobedience, and harbor refugees from the region in what became known as the Sanctuary movement. This movement and others focused on the well-being of people living in or immigrating from poor countries—like the mobilization in favor of debt forgiveness for low-income countries, and the movement, led by Jewish congregations, to protect civilians in Sudan’s Darfur region—all were episodes of unusually high level of mobilization among American houses of worship. This kind of mobilization is relatively rare. Do churches, religious agencies, and faith-based NGOs effectively encourage their constituencies to be active in the broad terrain that lies between donating in response to a plea for generosity, and the level of outrage and commitment that leads individuals and faith communities to take personal, social, and political risks to express their solidarity with poor communities? This middle terrain, made up of educational work, advocacy through letters to elected representatives, programs to encourage significant volunteer

8

P. J. NELSON

service, changes in consumption patterns, or even new forms of investment, is the subject of this study. How do FBOs try to educate and mobilize their constituencies to adopt these steps as principled citizens and consumers? Most faith-based NGOs in the wealthy countries have an asset that their secular counterparts do not: Shared identity, faith, and in some cases institutional affiliation and history. One of the central questions motivating this research is about how they work with this powerful asset that ties their constituencies to them more strongly than the constituencies of other humanitarian NGOs. Do they operate like organizations in a marketplace, competing for the generosity and loyalty of their constituents? Or do they build on the shared identity and belief in an effort to construct a more dynamic community of shared faith, voice in society, and material support? Faith-based NGOs have the opportunity to use these deep ties to build a dynamic moral voice for global justice. Instead, most tend to behave more like charities in a marketplace, competing for support and treading carefully when they ask their supports to take actions as citizens or as consumers. NGOs in development, environment, and human rights are often discussed as political actors and have led some significant initiatives to address policy issues of dam construction, debt forgiveness, antipersonnel land mines. Among secular development/humanitarian NGOs, Oxfam, Action Aid, Doctors Without Borders, and Save the Children, UK and Sweden are among the most outspoken (Lindenberg & Bryant, 2001; Mahoney, 2008; Nelson & Dorsey, 2008). Religious agencies and faith-based NGOs are often participants in major campaigns as well and played significant leadership roles in several. But considering how central economic justice and relief of poverty and hunger are in religious teaching, their efforts are muted. The remainder of the book opens up and examines the dimensions of faith-based NGOs’ challenges to their supporters and constituents. Chapter 2, on religion and development, establishes the context by introducing religion as a factor in developing societies, religion in social and political movements in the United States and Europe, and FBOs as actors in international development. Religious beliefs, institutions, and practices are present and influential in almost every neighborhood and village in the countries of the Global South and are often powerful sources of rhetorical, ideological, spiritual, and organizational resources for community development and social action. Religion is also often a conservative

1

INTRODUCTION

9

force, anchoring traditional social orders, notably with respect to gender relations and reproductive practices and choices. Religion is a powerful societal and political force in the United States as well, both in contemporary politics and historically. Since the 1990s, conservative religious leaders have been increasingly prominent, mobilizing a significant voting public on policies that favor private education, restrict reproductive rights, oppose LGBT rights, and redefine and expand “religious liberties.” Religion has also been a major organizing and motivating force for progressive movements for civil rights, peace, and immigration and sanctuary. Chapter 3 explores the faith-based identities of FBOs, how they are expressed, and the issues and debates that shape their roles as actors in development. The chapter begins by surveying the variety of religious traditions and forms of action in international development, including monastic traditions, missionary movements and schools, hospitals, and religious solidarity groups. Then the religious identities of four contemporary faith-based NGOs are profiled: American Jewish World Service, World Vision, Islamic Relief, and Catholic Relief Services. I develop a typology of forms of organizational relationship between faith-based NGO and religious institutions themselves, and discuss four critical choices related to FBOs’ religious identity: Their understanding of whom to serve; the relationship between individual transformation and social change; their position and practice on proselytizing; and the roles of religious belief, organizational culture, and staffing. With FBOs defined, conceptualized, and profiled, Chapter 4 turns to advocacy and constituency education. In practice, responsibility for the moral formation of the faithful as global citizens often falls to NGOs that were created to do charitable work. How do they educate and mobilize their US constituencies? I examine ten diverse FBOs’ advocacy as represented on their websites, and using budget and staffing data. Among these Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, Evangelical, Reform Jewish, Islamic, Mennonite, and Quaker agencies, including some with significant “insider” lobbying presence in Washington, DC and other capitals. The extent of advocacy and its prominence and urgency in agencies’ websites and other communications with their constituencies varies widely. Some small Christian sects with historic commitment to social justice, and nonChristian minority faiths in the United States make exceptional efforts to mobilize their constituents, and independent NGOs that specialize in advocacy play an important role. In light of the importance of helping

10

P. J. NELSON

poor people in religious teachings, the religious voice on these matters is modest. People of faith in the United States can find guidance and support in translating their faith and values into effective political voice, but they need to seek it out. When people do look to FBOs for such guidance, their understanding is shaped by the issues that FBOs have chosen to highlight. In Chapter 5, I analyze their policy advocacy agendas in 2010 and again in 2018, and find that most agencies consistently devote their public voice to supporting more generous and responsive aid spending, and give less attention to more complex, structural causes of poverty, including human rights, military policy, trade, taxation, immigration, or corporate conduct. The findings suggest that, as is true of the larger development NGO population, a handful of NGOs take leadership roles on new or difficult issues, and a larger population of faith-based groups focus their advocacy largely on encouraging generosity. Shifts in their agendas from 2010 to 2018 also suggest that climate and immigration issues have gained more central positions in the religious humanitarian agenda, but FBOs are more often cautious reformers than prophetic voices. How do these generalizations vary across the rich countries? Recent studies suggest that national boundaries and political cultures have a powerful effect on NGOs that are often viewed as transnational actors in a global civil society. Chapter 6 demonstrates that even organizations representing universal faith traditions and social teachings express themselves differently in the varied political and cultural environments of distinct wealthy donor societies. Four “families” of faith-based organizations, with affiliates in the United States, the UK, Germany, and Japan, are examined, representing Roman Catholicism , mainline Protestant denominations, Reform Judaism, and evangelical Christianity. While the members of each FBO family do embrace common principles and some common agendas, choices about policy advocacy appear to be shaped by national political cultures. This prominence of national political environments over shared religious identities is further reinforced by sharp differences that have emerged within transnational religious communities over policies related to sexuality and sexual identities, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and other issues. These findings reinforce the importance of national political cultures, and the limits of “global” civil society. Chapter 7 moves away from policy advocacy, examining how some FBOs encourage their constituencies to consider pro-social investment, conscious consumption patterns, long-term volunteering, international

1

INTRODUCTION

11

service learning, and other potentially transformative experiences. By assessing the range of activities encouraged by FBOs, and distinguishing the demands they place on constituents’ time and other resources, it is possible to make a broader assessment of what FBOs are asking of their constituents, beyond financial support. I review the record of 50 NGOs, most from the United States, in 2011 and 2020. Profiles of several FBOs that motivate their constituents to provide exceptional levels of political or other engagement highlight the patterns of volunteering, education, spiritual practices, and community engagement involved, and provide insight into how religious belief and political, consumer, and investment action are integrated. In Chapter 8, significant faith-based movements have mobilized around causes as diverse as religious freedom, anti-abortion, opposition to (or support for) LGBT rights, civilians’ safety in Darfur, Sanctuary movements in the United States, the Jubilee Debt Campaign, and climate activism including the movement to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in energy access for poor communities. These and other movements, which achieved varying degrees of success mobilizing mass support, offer lessons about how faith communities help and hinder individual mobilization. That experience also provides perspective on how US-based FBOs engage with contemporary global crises—climate change, racial justice, and the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. This approach to religious voices and an aspect of US foreign policy may seem naïve to some, unreasonably demanding of FBOs to others. But it is grounded in my experience with these NGOs, in what research has shown about the importance of membership-based NGOs and the power of religion to motivate political action, and grounded in a careful study of a sample of FBOs.

References Conger, K. H. (2010). Religious interest groups and the American political process. In K. Black, D. Koopman & L. Hawkins (Eds.), Religion in American politics (pp. 192–201). Boston: Longman. Lindenberg, M., & Bryant, C. (2001). Going global. Transforming relief and development NGOs. Kumarian Press. Mahoney, C. (2008). Brussels versus the beltway: Advocacy in the United States and the European Union. Washington, DC: Georgetown.

12

P. J. NELSON

McCleary, R. (2011). Private voluntary organizations and relief and development, 1939–2005. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nelson, P., & Dorsey, E. (2008). New rights advocacy: Changing strategies of development and human rights NGOs. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Nepstad, S. E. (2007). Oppositional consciousness among the privileged: Remaking religion in the Central America solidarity movement. Critical Sociology, 33(4), 661–688.

CHAPTER 2

Religion, Development, and Faith-Based Organizations

In early 2020, Zimbabwean Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa was busy “reassuring his congregants that they will be ‘spared’ from the [Corona] virus through prayer and the divine protection he mediates. ‘You will not die, because the Son is involved,’ he says, giving believers ‘the freedom that no medication can offer (in Kirby et al., 2020).’” In Uganda, concern about similar messages was so great that the government threatened to prosecute some pastors, but in neighboring Tanzania the President himself uses imagery of spiritual battles against demonic disease to mobilize his people (Kirby et al., 2020). At the same time, in all three countries Muslim, Protestant, and Catholic-sponsored social service and public health agencies are doing essential, life-saving work to prevent infections and treat the sick (Rivera, 2020). The urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic put contrasting roles and views of religion in sharp relief in 2020. While some religious leaders promoted magical thinking and offered dangerous guidance, others were important voices communicating public health guidance, and religious agencies provided critical support to immigrants, poor communities, and other vulnerable people. None of this is unfamiliar to readers in the United States, where some religious and political leaders have behaved similarly, for good and ill.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. J. Nelson, Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3_2

13

14

P. J. NELSON

Before delving into the political life of FBOs, this chapter establishes the context by discussing major themes in scholarship and experience with religion and international development; religion and politics in the United States and other aid donor countries; and NGOs as political actors.

Religion and Development The apparent tensions between religion and the modernizing impulse of development have led to a discomfort with religion among many development scholars and professionals. Religious beliefs and institutions are often seen as anti-scientific, emphasizing personal conduct over social relations, focusing on otherworldly concerns rather than concrete human needs, and furthering communitarian and sectarian divisions. Religion and development are sometimes seen as upholding competing visions for human advancement. Religion invites people to find meaning in community and in beliefs, disciplines, and rituals that recognize and honor the sacred, discipline the mind and spirit, and ultimately uphold another reality over the physical one. Development holds that improving the physical quality of life and promoting social cohesion and participation are the goods that we should pursue. Yet religious actors are persistently involved in development, through missions; faith-based NGOs; and local religious communities, leaders, and authorities. Whether they appear to development practitioners as obstacles or resources, religious institutions and beliefs are influential almost everywhere that development practitioners work. The importance of national and local faith-related community organizations, religious authorities, and worshipping communities is increasingly recognized, as the recent outpouring of published research suggests (Hoksbergen & Ewert, 2002; Candland, 2001; Herbert, 2003; James, 2007; Hefferan et al., 2009; Ter Haar, 2009; Clarke & Jennings, 2008; Haynes, 2007, 2014; Tomalin, 2013; Deneulin & Radoki, 2011; Kagawa et al., 2012; Ali & Hatta, 2014; Appleby et al., 2015; Hasan, 2017; Öhlmann et al., 2018; Barro & McCleary, 2019; Rajkobal, 2019; Kraft & Wilkinson, 2020). Faith-based organizations are subject to many of the concerns and issues discussed in the literature on NGOs and nonprofits. But international NGOs in the faith communities can play a particular role, linking individuals, worshipping communities, and national religious organizations across geographic, economic, and cultural gaps. In the United States, McCleary (2009) shows that FBOs raise and deliver a large and growing share of private development and humanitarian assistance,

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

15

and these international NGOs (INGOs) with ties to religious traditions are only the most visible manifestations of “faith-based” development voluntary action. Tens of thousands of local, national, and sub-national organizations, from individual congregations, temples, religious orders, and authorities, to national religious agencies and movements, shape the politics of economic and social development in virtually every society. Religious and faith-based action are organized at many levels. A 2005 UNICEF study of Christian and Islamic faith-based responses to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in Africa identifies four kinds of FBOs working in rural communities and urban neighborhoods: Worshipping congregations (churches, parishes, or mosques); faith-based NGOs, which have an identity separate from a single congregation; communitybased organizations (which differ from NGOs in this study because they employ no full-time staff); and religious coordinating bodies, which support and coordinate the efforts of local congregations (Foster, 2005). All of these except the “coordinating bodies” are organized in the communities. The coordinating groups may be coalitions or more highly structured and hierarchical agencies, as in the Anglican and Catholic churches, whose national social service agencies are under the authority of the country’s bishops. Among FBOs organized on all of these levels, INGOs based in the rich countries play influential roles in the flow of funds, but community-based groups are the service providers. Religion’s Influence: Belief, Institutions, Practices The relationship between religion and development is complicated. In virtually every village and poor neighborhood, religious institutions are important social features and central to many peoples’ daily lives. Religion influences people’s life choices and the social and economic life of their communities through individual religious beliefs and ideas; through religious disciplines, practices, and institutions that shape social life; and through religious institutions and authorities. In pages that follow, I consider examples of religion’s significance to the daily lives of poor communities, including the significance of religious conversions; its significance to social and political movements; and the ways in which religious organizations are political arenas where important social issues of power identity are debated. First, consider the variety of ways that religious influence is exercised at the local level.

16

P. J. NELSON

Daily Life Buddhists in many Southeast Asian communities begin their mornings by appearing on streets or footpaths to offer food or cash to monks who live in and serve the community. The gesture “makes merit”—earns religious credit—for the donors, feeds the monks who provide educational and other services in the community, and cements the link between the institutions of Theravada Buddhism and its adherents in an immediate and important way. Especially in villages and small towns, the village temple or pagoda is not only the home of the monks and a religious center, but also the best school for boys and a center for community activity (McDaniel, 2010). Faithful Muslims see their dedication to God and to the global community of the faithful (umma) as shaping every aspect of their lives. But the faith’s expressions in clothing, family life, business, and everyday interactions between the sexes differ widely across the Asian, Middle Eastern, and African societies where Islam is most practiced. Fundamental obligations, sometimes called Islam’s five pillars, are honored everywhere: Prayer, affirming Allah’s Godhood and dominion, charity, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and fasting. Other ethical requirements include the obligation to structure financial transactions so that lenders share the risk involved and do not charge interest. Ordinary life stops five times a day for prayers, and Sufi Muslims practice forms of repetitive prayer intended to deepen the consciousness of the presence of the Divine. Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Catholic Christians in many parts of Latin America express their religious faith in daily life in contrasting ways. Sheldon Annis’ (2000) classic study of these groups in a Guatemalan village puts these differences in sharp relief. Evangelicals’ emphasis on personal righteousness and individual advancement means that in addition to abstaining from worldly vices such as alcohol, gambling, and extramarital sex, evangelicals demonstrate their commitment by investing, increasing non-farm incomes, and accumulating wealth even on a modest scale. The Catholic emphasis on community obligations, ritual celebrations, and solidarity produces a distinct pattern of mostly agricultural and less abstemious conduct. The considerable costs of these ritual events amounts to a kind of a “tax” on Catholic villagers, but they also provide a source of social solidarity and spiritual and cultural meaning.

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

17

Religious Conversion and Identity These examples only scratch the surface of the many ways that religious beliefs, practices, identities, and institutions shape individual and community life. Religious identity is a source of inequalities and conflicts that development practice does not consistently recognize (Tadros & Sabates-Wheeler, 2020). One way to illustrate the depth and dimensions of religion’s influence is to consider the significance of religious identity and religious conversions. Conversion can be an intensely personal step, but it can have deep political meaning and profound implications for livelihoods, social acceptance, and political identity. In Brazil, Chesnut’s (1997) study of Pentecostal Christians in the northeastern city of Belen found that the conversion from Catholicism to emotionally expressive Pentecostal Christianity usually resulted from a personal crisis—illness, addiction, spousal abuse—and had demonstrable health benefits for many converts. The growing Pentecostal Christian minority in Brazil is usually seen as politically conservative, patriarchal, and less engaged in community development than the country’s activist Catholic Church. But converts in Chesnut’s study had improved health and incomes, traceable to the strict behavioral standards, and women found powerful ways to leverage their new spiritual and social identity to improve or escape from violent, abusive marriages. Conversion from Hinduism in parts of India, on the other hand, has at times been an individual or mass strategy to escape caste-based discrimination against dalits. Ever since the conversion of dalit leader Dr. Ambedkar and 400,000 others in October 1956, conversion to Buddhism or Christianity has been a highly visible strategy. In 2010 and 2011, conversions to Christianity in several Indian states sparked reprisals against Christians suspected by militant Hindus of evangelizing among dalits (Wankede, 2008), and laws against conversions are on the books in several Indian states (Jenkins, 2019). Even when it is not a public, conspicuous gesture, conversion, or re-assertion of religious identity can have wide-ranging social significance. Religious commitment and identity has been used to mobilize people in social movements, including civil rights in the United States, anti-apartheid in South Africa, anti-colonial movements in India and elsewhere, and movements for debt relief and other reforms. Human rights standards recognize the right of every person to choose their own religion, or to practice none, as well as the right of parents to raise children in a chosen faith (Office of the High Commissioner on Human

18

P. J. NELSON

Rights, n.d.). But these freedoms are often restricted in practice, and belonging to a religious minority is very often grounds for exclusion and discrimination. Religion and Social Movements Religious belief, institutions, and leaders play significant roles in social and political movements and community organizations. These movements, whether focused on resistance to an authoritarian state, groups’ rights, or on particular issues, often draw on religious resources. Religion appears to provide shared ideology and identity, a set of individual beliefs as well as group identities that help mobilize movements and give them a distinctive (religious) identity socially (Williams, 2006). Religion can provide ideological and spiritual support for justice and rights claims, as did Christian Base Communities in Central America in the 1980s and 1990s; institutional support and protection for vulnerable communities, as in cases of land occupation by poor peoples’ movements in Guatemala and Brazil; and national-level resistance by religious leaders, as in resistance by the Kenyan Churches under President Daniel Arap Moi in the 1990s, and by Burmese monks in 2007 (Kinyanjui, 2002). Whether well-known or obscure, successful or barely hanging on, religiously-led campaigns have contributed in diverse ways to movements for freedom and human rights. Buddhist monks in Burma at times helped check the excesses of that country’s regime, even while the institutions of Buddhism also provide the regime a measure of legitimacy. Thousands of orange-robed monks took to the streets in September 2007 following government violence against peaceful protesters, symbolically inverting their alms bowls to signal that they would not accept gifts—a source of religious merit—from the country’s rulers. But in the last decade Burma’s monks have been better known for leading the extremist anti-Muslim movement MaBaTha (Association for the Protection of Race and Religion) (International Crisis Group, 2017). The monks’ long-standing role in providing education and articulating shared values and identity have been sources of popularity for its Buddhist nationalist platform, associated with the expulsion of Rohingya Muslims. Catholic “base communities” in Latin America provided ideological and material support for progressive grassroots social and political action over four decades. Inspired in the late twentieth century by liberation theology that emphasized God’s special care for poor people, base communities are small groups mostly within Catholic parishes that meet

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

19

to study, pray, and to provide mutual support for practical action. Base communities’ numbers and influence have been in decline as the Catholic hierarchy has discouraged the radical politicization of the church (Nordstokke, 2015). But base community groups remain an enduring source of trust and group solidarity in many countries. In El Salvador, for example, the NGO FUNDAHMER works with ecclesial base communities on projects that integrate community development with political and spiritual awareness. In Nicaragua, where base communities provided support for the Sandinista revolution in the 1980s, these communities continue to sponsor social services including community-based childcare, child nutrition, schools, and preschools. Progressive Catholic communities are not the only voice of Christianity in the region. Pentecostal churches, often housed in storefronts, are the fastest growing faith in the region, and they have a reputation as apolitical or politically conservative. In many cases this reputation is well-earned, as Pentecostal Christianity stresses personal transformation and has had close ties to authoritarian rule in countries such as Guatemala and Brazil (Smith & Silveira, 2018). Still, in many towns and poor urban neighborhoods Pentecostal leaders too can be found struggling for housing rights and against evictions, and helping provide water and healthcare services to their underserved neighborhoods (Freeman, 2012). Thai “environment monks” have worked since at least the 1980s to support local communities and NGOs in protecting forest resources. The Buddhist monks, whose high status in Thai society gives them a measure of protection and credibility, have used both highly symbolic gestures (“ordaining” individual trees and draping them with a monk’s orange robes), and more conventional forms of organizing, dialogue, and protest to educate and advocate for forest protection (Walter, 2006). They do this work in several of Thailand’s regions despite the general conservatism of organized Buddhist monks (the sangha) (McCargo, 2004). Religious Institutions Are Important Social Institutions Themselves Debates over authority and rights within religions themselves can also be important arenas for shaping social relations. Debates over who has power to define religious doctrine, practice, leadership, and membership, and to exercise leadership and receive religious service and status are framed in theological terms, but the debates can have direct implications for social and political institutions. The sangha in Thailand is embroiled in debates over ordination of women, and its strong links to the Thai monarchy

20

P. J. NELSON

and national identity make these debates important to national political culture. Thai women who want to be ordained as nuns—bhikkhuni—are limited to a secondary level of religious service as white-robed mae jis who largely provide cleaning and cooking services to monks. In some other national Theravada Buddhist institutions (Sri Lanka’s for example) and in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism, women can be ordained to status equal to that of monks, subject to all of the vows and disciplines by which monks live, and able to play a role in education and community services provided by Buddhism’s ordained religious (Tomalin, 2006; Gray, 2017). In rural Thailand, where village pagodas are schools and monks are respected local leaders, Tomalin (2006) and others have shown that battles over religious ordination mirror larger social struggles over equal rights and gender roles. Churches and religious leaders have a mixed and contradictory record of resisting or bowing to authoritarian governments’ excesses. The failure of Christian leaders in Nazi Germany, and again in 1990s Rwanda, inspired soul-searching and institutional reviews in churches and NGOs. The Kenyan Council of Christian Churches helped protect electoral processes and political rights from abuse by Daniel Arap Moi’s government in the 1990s, leveraging its moral authority and mass support, and its ability to retain some of the evangelical/Pentecostal movements, successfully resisting Moi’s efforts to erode electoral rights (Kinyanjui, 2002). But the same churches failed to prevent mass political violence during the 2010 elections. Similarly, the Philippines’ Catholic Bishop Jaime Sin famously helped inspire the “people power” mass movement that protected the results of a national election and ousted Ferdinand Marcos from power in 2007. Since then, Buenaobra argues, the Philippine Church has often opposed and blocked progressive change (Buenaobra, 2016). At a global level, the Roman Catholic Church entered into a deliberative process in the mid-twentieth century that changed its outlook and practices on issues ranging from religious ecumenism to human rights. Pope John XXIII opened a reconsideration of aspects of the Church’s social teachings in 1959 that produced the reform process known as Vatican II. Appleby traces the debates over social teachings and religious pluralism, in what he calls an example of “internal religious pluralism turned to the advantage of ecumenism, tolerance, human rights and peace (Appleby, 2000, 42).” The substantive changes were momentous for Catholics, and they illustrate how religious bodies themselves can be political institutions subject to debates and policy changes. The changes in

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

21

tone and policy brought by Pope Francis beginning in 2013 are perhaps equally significant for contemporary Catholics and their engagement internationally (Algo & Gelito, n.d.). From the local fabric of individual life to global institutions, religion is often highly salient for political and social relations. At the global level, membership and dynamics of the world religions are seeing momentous changes, and these are the focus of this last introductory section. “World Religions”: Changing Patterns, Dynamism, and Influence What are often referred to as the world religions—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism—can also be seen not as cohesive global religions but as constructions that cobble together highly diverse variants of these faith traditions (Kurtz, 2017). Christian patterns of worship vary from highly emotional charismatic faith, stressing visible manifestations of possession by the Holy Spirit such as speaking in tongues and healing by touch and prayer; to Orthodox Christianity, whose rich, highly ritualistic worship uses painted icons, age-old musical settings, and ancient rites and sacraments to express devotion. The ceremonies and physical trapping of religion vary most visibly, but institutions, authority, governance, and social teachings are at least as diverse. Islam displays an equally wide variety of religious/political institutions, from the strict Wahabist Islam of Saudi Arabia to the cosmopolitan and often egalitarian Islam of Indonesia and Malaysia, practiced in multi-faith cultures and societies; to the mystical and highly egalitarian practices of Sufi communities (Roy, 2004). Despite the variation within global religious traditions, it is possible to see that the major world religions are undergoing important geographic, institutional, and sometimes political shifts. Christianity and Islam have both experienced dramatic shifts in the global distribution of influence, numbers, and dynamism. Christianity’s historic spread from the Middle East, Europe, and North America, often linked to European colonization or US church-sponsored missionaries, has created a global religious community whose numbers are much greater in the Global South than in Europe and North America. More than 82% of Christians lived in the “global North” in 1910, but a century later, the figure was 39%, reflecting rapid growth in Africa and parts of Asia (Pew Forum, 2011). The African majority within the Anglican Communion—which includes the US Protestant Episcopal Church—is now pushing back

22

P. J. NELSON

against trends in North American and European churches that accommodate and embrace increasingly accepting views on issues of sexuality and theology. These churches in the Global South have sometimes allied and affiliated with traditionalists in the North American and European churches to assert their perspectives. The US Episcopal church suffered a major split in the first decade of the 2000’s, directly sparked by the status of openly gay and lesbian people in the church and its clergy, but long driven by differences over the ordination of women and the interpretation of scripture. A total of 1004 parishes left the US Episcopal Church and formed a separate Anglican Church in North America, with its own governing structures (Anglican Church in North America, n.d.). When the state of Israel recognized and agreed to employ the first Reform Jewish rabbi in 2012, it was a victory for reform and conservative Jews in Israel, where previously only Orthodox Jews were recognized and employed. It was also a victory in a long-term effort for interests groups of Reform Jews elsewhere. The Union for Reform Judaism (2012), for example, sponsors a Reform Israel Fund, ARZA, which works in the United States to “make Israel fundamental to the sacred lives and Jewish identities of Reform Jews… [and to] …help build an inclusive and democratic Israeli society.” Buddhism’s several variants, including Zen, Mahayana, and Theravada, are being adapted and subtly reshaped by their interactions with new adherents in the West. In particular, Western Buddhists have supported the growth of socially and political active engaged Buddhist movements. Queen (2000) argues that engaged Buddhism may even be considered a new form of Buddhism, though this claim may not give enough attention to the practice of environmental, peace, and human rights activism among Buddhists in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere. Still, while internal dialogues about matters of faith, culture, and ethics go on within religious traditions constantly, institutions show us repeatedly that they are conservative and slow to change. The Vatican’s resistance to change in the marital status of priests and the roles of women in the Church show how determined global Catholic institutions are to hold to traditions. An association “Future Church” was formed in 1990 to advocate for “changes that will provide all Roman Catholics the opportunity to participate fully in Church life and leadership” (Future Church, n.d.). The Church’s insistence on a celibate priesthood survived a serious test in 2020 when a proposal to loosen the requirement in the

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

23

Brazilian Amazon, motivated by the desperate need for more priests to serve growing populations there, failed to win support in the Vatican. In Islam, where no global institution comparable to the Vatican defines orthodoxy or sanctions religious practice, the wide variety of expressions of the faith has not shaken the strictest, fundamentalist religious establishments based in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, religious fundamentalism often represents the opposite response: Fundamentalists typically react against accommodation of “modern,” secular society by others in their faith, countering this accommodation by reasserting selected teachings, traditions, and institutions (Almond et al., 2003). Religions are diverse, dynamic social organizations. They reach deep into many dimensions of social life, promoting or resisting social change in ways that development advocates sometimes see as positive, sometimes negative, and often as ambiguous. With these themes of religion and development established, we turn to the interaction of religion and politics.

Religion and Politics: The United States and Beyond Faith-based community organizations and religious congregations themselves are important features of voluntary action in the United States and across many low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). In the United States, faith-based initiatives in the 1990s promoted such social service providers as replacing or supplementing state welfare services as public budgets shrank and programs for poor people lost political support (Sager, 2010). During the same period, religious voices became more prominent in the public arena. Christian and Jewish leaders from across the political spectrum competed for legitimacy as interpreters of their faiths’ implications for public life, and an evangelical Christian movement with broad support, deep pockets, and a conservative platform on social and cultural issues was the most prominent (Conger, 2010; Butler, 2006). The prominent support from conservative evangelical Christian leaders for Donald Trump since 2016 has highlighted this political role and brought a deepening divide between a reformist minority and the larger body of conservative white evangelicals willing to support former President Trump despite his manifest moral failings. When mainstream evangelical magazine Christianity Today editorialized in favor of Trump’s impeachment

24

P. J. NELSON

in December 2019, it provoked a firestorm of criticism and some praise from across the evangelical Christian community (Berr, 2019). Historically, US religious activists have been prominent in social and political movements. The campaigns against slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade were led by religious activists in the United States and England. The temperance movement was initially motivated by a broadbased effort from the pulpit, and from local temperance societies. By the early twentieth century, women’s organizations and others had assumed leadership roles, but the moral and humanitarian message from Christian clerics remained important (Evans, 2017). Civil rights, voting rights, and housing movements among AfricanAmericans in the mid-twentieth century had important support in the Black churches. Not all churches or even all the historically Black Christian denominations were supportive. Nonetheless, “[t]he church was not only the meeting place for the movement in the South, it also was… the symbol of the movement…,. [T]he church represented the freedom that the movement participants sought. It was a facility in the community beyond the control of the white power structure,…where people could express themselves without reprisal (LaFayette, 2004).” As I will show in Chapter 8, there are instances of religious leadership in movements on transnational issues as well. Contemporary Religious Voices in US Policy A 2011 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life provided a vivid profile of how religious opinion is represented in the nation’s capital. The study surveyed 212 religious advocacy groups in Washington, DC, including religious bodies themselves, membership organizations representing individuals’ opinions, permanent coalitions, think tanks, and organizations representing groups of religious institutions (Hertzke et al., 2011). The extent and range of religious advocacy are striking. Of the 212 Washington offices, 17% are devoted entirely to international, 64% both international and domestic. More than 90% say that they practice insider lobbying methods (meet with policy-makers and legislators, sign letters to members of Congress), but more agencies name “contacting their constituency” as their most important method of advocacy. Coordinated religious grassroots advocacy, it appears, is alive and well in Washington. These 212 agencies (up from 111 just before 1990) are affiliated as interreligious (25%), Roman Catholic (19%), Evangelical (18%), Jewish (12), Muslim

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

25

and Mainline Protestant (8% each), and the remainder represent other faiths, including several affiliated with Quaker and Mennonite Christian bodies, historic “peace churches” in which pacifism is a core teaching (Hertzke et al., 2011). On which issues do these religious voices clamor to be heard in the US capital? The top forty spenders—with budgets totaling roughly $330 million for advocacy in 2009—work on US policy toward Israel ($88 million), abortion ($30 million), conservative or traditional cultural values ($64 million), progressive cultural values (at least $14 million), and “social justice” issues of hunger poverty and peace ($30 million). Pro-Israel and “family” and “traditional values” issues, including homeschooling and abortion, dominate the largest spenders. But religious voices on international issues are well represented in the top 25 budgets, with the US Catholic Conference of Bishops, the anti-hunger movement Bread for the World, World Vision, Save Darfur Coalition, Catholic Relief Services, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, International Campaign for Tibet, and the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries. Religious voices on international development-related issues are far from the biggest religious lobbies, but they are a significant segment of those “lobbying for the faithful.” Religion, Mobilization, and Politics in the Rich Countries Religious leaders, institutions, and faith-based NGOs in the United States and Europe have from time to time mobilized enough of their constituencies to produce influential movements. US churches played this role in the opposition to US policies in Central America in the 1990s. Nepstad (2007) shows that progressive churches created the narratives that framed US policy in the region and created a strong enough “oppositional consciousness” that US citizens were prepared to take to the streets, commit civil disobedience, and harbor refugees from the region in what became known as the sanctuary movement. Like the Jubilee 2000 campaign for debt forgiveness for low-income countries, and the movement among Jewish congregations to protect civilians in Darfur, the sanctuary movement was an episode of intense grassroots mobilization focused on the well-being of people in low-income countries. Religious symbols, teaching, and identities can be important vehicles for mobilizing people of faith in these movements, as the Central America movement of the 1980s and Jubilee debt forgiveness movement illustrate. Sanctuary for refugees builds on a long tradition of houses of worship as

26

P. J. NELSON

safe havens beyond the reach of civil authority for individuals in urgent need. The value of hospitality to “strangers and wayfarers” was linked to religiously motivated opposition to US policy in Central America, and to the identification that progressive US Christians often feel to Central American members of “base communities.” Jewish support for action on Darfur similarly taps into Jews’ identification with persecuted minorities, and the Jubilee movement drew on the Biblical tradition of periodic debt forgiveness that was taught (if not practiced) in ancient Israel. Mayo stresses the Jubilee movement’s ability to mobilize large numbers of participants who had never participated in demonstrations or made phone calls to elected representatives before—in short, who were “so evidently not the ‘usual suspects’” (Mayo, 2005, 148). Among religious minorities, too, symbols and narratives can be important mobilization tools. Much of the discussion that follows concentrates on the three Abrahamic religions, and on the many agencies associated with Christian faith communities. This is largely because more than 80% of Americans identify as Christians (78.4%), Jews (1.7%), or Muslims (.7%)—and Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Bahá’ís, and others total less than two percent of the population. But other religious communities have an active interest in international human rights and development issues. Hindus do not make advocacy on international development a priority in the United States, but Buddhist and Bahá’í organizations are quite active. Their efforts and agendas are discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. But in international humanitarian, human rights, and development issues, episodes of mass mobilization have been rare. The more standard response in the religious community to chronic inequalities, needs, and injustices is to make a financial contribution to an NGO or church’s special appeal for compassionate aid. This raises a central question for this study: How do organizations attempt to move their constituents to continue to make financial contributions, while challenging them to other forms of action as citizens, consumers, and investors? What is the terrain in Fig. 2.1 that lies between the standard, usually modest response to a plea for generosity, and the level of outrage and Financial contribution for material aid

Principled resistance in social --------------------------------------- movement-style action

Fig. 2.1 The continuum, generosity to resistance

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

27

commitment that leads individuals and faith communities to take personal, social, and political risks to express solidarity with suffering people? This middle terrain, made up of educational work, conventional political advocacy, public mobilization such as marches or vigils, programs to encourage significant volunteer service, changes in consumption patterns, and new forms of investment—these are the focus of this study. How do FBOs try to educate and mobilize constituencies to take more of these actions as principled citizens and consumers? How active are the FBOs, and what can be learned from those that are most outspoken? But before examining faith-based NGOs more closely, we need a framework for thinking about NGOs generally, and their roles in international development policy in particular.

Perspectives on NGOs Here we step back from the focus on faith-related NGOs, to consider NGOs broadly as actors in the international system. Their significance is widely acknowledged, both in service delivery and as expressive organizations representing values, ideologies, or pragmatic policy positions. NGO roles as transnational political actors continue to produce debate as well, as a recent essay in the Stanford Social Innovation Review shows (Bloodgood et al., 2019). I identify four broad perspectives on NGOs, each based in a tradition of social theory. Each of the approaches—emphasizing market dynamics, embeddedness in political systems, shared values, and institutional relationships—emphasizes a distinct aspect of the NGOs’ organizational life and relationship to the aid system that surrounds them. Marketplace Charitable agencies compete in a market for the compassion, generosity, and loyalty of individual and institutional donors. Sogge et al. (1996) portray relief and development NGOs, religious, and secular alike, as competitors for whom image, substantive reputation, and loyalties are key variables in organizational survival. This view of social interactions, when applied to NGOs, emphasizes their strategic calculation and calls attention to the operation of sectors (e.g., development, human rights) in which NGOs work. Several recent books portray humanitarian relief NGOs, for example, as competitors in a humanitarian arena (Aldashev & Verdier, 2009;

28

P. J. NELSON

Smillie, 1995). International environmental, development, and human rights NGOs may also compete for resources from a few foundation and other sources to maintain their public advocacy roles, or, as Bob (2005) has argued, to position themselves with the most articulate, compelling, and photogenic local partner organizations. Eilstrup-Sangiovianni (2019) shows how differentiation in advocacy strategies can produce “…a strategic division of labor whereby some groups (mainly larger, wellestablished and resource-rich groups) specialize in gaining political access and media attention, while others (mainly smaller, less established groups) focus on developing ‘niche’ agendas and strategies including, inter alia, radical protest, monitoring and enforcement, and litigation.” Global Socio-Political Systems NGOs, in this view, are secondary actors within an international development aid system dominated by states and donor agencies. Scholars who treat them as political actors in such a system see NGOs either as transformative actors promoting principled changes in international norms and practices; or as actors who conform with and thereby support existing state or corporate-dominated systems. In the latter view, the system’s more powerful actors define NGOs’ roles within the system’s operation, and religious NGOs may compete with other NGOs and contracting firms for contracts to deliver services (Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Tvedt, 1998). This view emphasizes the state- and donor-dominated system in which NGOs work, and which has assigned them their current relatively prominent public role. The aid system supplies key resources, especially for many of the larger religious development NGOs. Stroup (2012) shows that the global identities of international NGOs can be over-emphasized, a theme explored later in Chapter 6. Shared Values, Identity, and Trust Many NGOs and social movements define themselves with reference to shared ideologies, identities, and community, and this perspective on voluntary organizations has also been adopted by some scholars interested in NGOs as political actors. Many faith-based NGOs are agencies of particular religious communities and act as a public expression of the

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

29

community’s identity and beliefs. Identity and values are defining characteristics of NGOs from this perspective, whether the values are secular ideology; broad humanitarian values; or shared values and trust grounded in religious teachings and ethical principles and identities (Edwards & Gaventa, 2001; Nelson & Dorsey, 2008). For some organizations, the shared identity is a common interest in economic rights for women, civil and religious liberties for dalits, or religious freedoms. This action may take various forms, including service delivery, expressions of solidarity, and policy advocacy. Much of the debate among international relations theorists centers around the dynamics among NGOs in Global North and South. Keck and Sikkink (1998) argued that INGOs responded to the need of beleaguered advocates, often in the Global South, whose governments were unresponsive. This model was grounded in the experience of civil and political human rights advocacy, but recent scholarship suggests that the dynamic is more varied, and that transnational advocacy is also initiated when an NGO in the United States or Europe confronts political “blockage” and seeks out supportive partnerships from other regions (Pallas, 2017). Institutions: Organizational Affiliation and Institutional Rootedness A fourth perspective on organizations stresses their institutional relationships and interests as organizations. Memberships, affiliations, and the ties of networks and coalitions help to define and locate an organization in society by defining its relationships to other institutions, and the strength of those ties. An NGO sponsored by a labor union, a professional association, or a religious community is tied to that social group, with the advantages and limitations that those ties bring. Membership organizations, especially with a membership of poor or excluded groups, can play vital representative roles (Chen et al., 2007). Unlike the market framework, this perspective sees at least some NGOs as expressions of institutional identity, values, and interests. FBOs are often institutionally linked to religious organizations that sponsor, endorse, and/or oversee the NGOs’ work. Gugerty and Prakash (2010) propose that we think of transnational NGO advocacy as actions by organizations much like firms, making choices driven both by their values commitments and by institutional needs and imperatives.

30

P. J. NELSON

These four perspectives are not competing or mutually exclusive theoretical perspectives for understanding faith-based NGOs. Rather, I will argue that FBOs choose to see themselves in one of these lenses, i.e., as an agency with a loyal constituency bound to them; or as competing for donors in a charity marketplace. I revisit this distinction in Chapter 5. Why Faith-Based NGOs? Religious institutions were among the earliest transnational charities and community development agencies, and US-based development work is tied historically to religious missions (Scheer et al., 2018). But FBOs now operate in a sector that, despite its missionary origins, is secular in its outlook and culture. Development assistance is largely driven by economic theory, dominated by state-run and international donors, and is a highly professionalized and institutionalized industry. Even NGOs that do not accept government funding still come under pressure to honor professional norms and standards, to coordinate and cooperate with other agencies, and to respect laws and customs regarding religious activities. These issues are discussed in Chapter 3. The importance of national and local faith-related community organizations, church bodies, and worshipping communities is increasingly recognized. But international NGOs in the faith communities play a particular role, linking individuals, local worshipping communities, and national religious organizations across gaps of distance, culture, economics, and imagination. Faith-based NGOs are many and diverse, and the term “faith-based” is imprecise. Even prominent “faith-based” initiatives for domestic social services in the United States included no official definition of the term. But faith-based is so widely used and so well-established that I have chosen to use it, as defined by Ferris (2005), who proposes that faith-based organizations hav[e] one or more of the following: affiliation with a religious body; a mission statement with explicit reference to religious values; financial support from religious sources; and/or a governance structure where selection of board members or staff is based on religious beliefs or affiliation and/or decision-making processes based on religious values.

This broad definition includes organizations based on their selfdeclaration and avoids making judgments about organizations’ motives

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

31

and motivations. I make one proviso: Because religious organizations often make grants to support secular grantees, not all organizations that receive funding from religious organizations should be considered “faith-based.” This approach is in contrast to Unruh and Sider’s (2004) approach, which assesses the extent to which religious motives, individual identities, and funding pervade all aspects of organizational life, and places the organization on a continuum of six categories from faith-permeated to secular. Religion, FBOs, and Development Agencies The encounter between most development agencies and religion is sometimes awkward and ambivalent. Many development agencies are reluctant to engage directly with religious authority, but the encounter is essential. Religious institutions are often the best-organized social structure in town. It may be recognizable, in the person of a priest, pastor, imam, monk, or nun; or less obvious to the outsider, in the person of an elder or healer; and there may be several distinct forms of religious authority and belief, apparently inconsistent and in competition. Religious or “faith-based” organizations, however, are increasingly seen as part of civil society, and incorporated in efforts to improve service delivery and information dissemination. Near the turn of the century, Ver Beek (2002) could rightly argue that spirituality and religion were “taboo” subjects in secular development agencies. Development professionals’ failure to address spiritual matters, he argued, meant that the change agent could not hear what community members say about themselves, and ignoring spirituality could even in effect deprive community members of the right to decide how their spirituality shapes their future. This “taboo” has eased somewhat in the past ten years. The 2000’s saw a wave of academic publications and public efforts by donor agencies to come to grips with religion and religious actors in their work. British Department for International Development (Dfid) funded a major research program on Religion and Development at Birmingham University. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) (2009) produced a colloquium and report on The Role of Religion in Development, summed up by a section heading, “A Challenging Opportunity.” The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has shown less hesitation about cooperating with religious agencies, and its choices have sometimes been controversial. USAID’s funding of abstinence-based HIV/AIDS education programs in East Africa,

32

P. J. NELSON

sometimes by faith-based groups using religious texts to reinforce their messages, led to a lawsuit in 2010 (ACLU, 2010). A proposed rule change to permit use of USAID funds in the construction of religious buildings provoked further resistance, and USAID continues to be among the major donors most engaged with religious organizations (ACLU, 2011). The World Bank’s organized engagement with religious leaders began with a World Faiths and Development Dialogue in 1998 and featured dozens of meetings around the world under the Bank’s Development Values and Ethics series. Many of the meetings address religion directly or feature dialogue with national or regional religious leaders; many others were on related ethical issues (Marshall & Keough, 2005). UNICEF and UNAIDS (2003) have engaged religious actors pragmatically, focused on religion’s ability to provide social infrastructure and a trusted communication network for issues related to women’s and children’s health, but also the healing power that religious practices can offer to persons coping with both medical symptoms and mental health stresses of living with HIV. Secular INGOs have also tried to clarify their postures toward religious actors. Oxfam approaches the topic with great caution, and an article by Oxfam-UK staff on dealing with Islamic authorities is an example of the difficulty and awkwardness for many secular NGOs (Balchin, 2011; Hopkins & Patel, 2006). Perhaps Khalaf-Elledge (2020) is correct to argue that development practitioners still lack familiarity with religion and are “reluctant to engage.” Donor agencies have sought out faith-based partners for peace-building activities in conflict and post-conflict areas, and in the search for humane and effective care for orphaned and vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa (Appleby et al., 2015; Vitillo, 2006). Practitioners have noted some lessons and principles for working successfully with local religious institutions, gleaned from experience. • Dealing with expected resistance to reproductive health work, from “custodians of culture”: The UN Fund for Population Activities (n.d.) documented its experience with religious and traditional leaders who generally are a conservative force with respect to cultural change. The results have been mixed, sometimes winning support or neutralizing opposition of these “custodians of culture.” • Understanding and supporting religious institutions by rebuilding the social function of Buddhist leadership in Cambodia: Secular

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

33

NGOs including Oxfam UK worked with Buddhist leaders in neighboring countries to train Cambodian leadership to replace village religious leaders killed under the Khmer Rouge. Results have been uneven, and the Buddhist sangha in Cambodia is plagued by difficulties regulating the nation’s monks, and by disputed charges of criminal behavior by some of the 55,000 monks who inhabit 4,300 pagodas (Poethig, 2003). Lee’s (2020) assessment is more positive and treats the experience as evidence of the resilience of Cambodian institutions. • Providing support without compromising the integrity of religious actors: Religious leaders in several southern African countries, together with UN Agencies and NGOs serving orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), have worked to build the capacities of local congregations to care for OVCs. This is a work in progress, a potentially important movement away from orphanages to community care (Vitillo, 2006). • Religious leaders and networks have been mobilized as vehicles for communication in HIV/AIDS prevention and care in Uganda. Christian and Muslim leaders were effective communicators, helping to account for Uganda’s early relative success in slowing the pandemic. But some were profoundly influenced by external pressure for abstinence-only approaches (Human Rights Watch, 2005). These instances of religious institutions as care providers conform to a larger pattern. In Africa, it is estimated that 30–70% of healthcare services are provided by faith-based clinics, hospitals, and outreach services (Olivier et al., 2015), and the education services provided in rural areas of some Southeast Asian societies mean that many rural boys in the region live and serve at some point in monasteries (Gil, 2008). In Jordan, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East, charitable institutions, especially Islamic charitable hospitals, are among the most widely used and highest quality healthcare institutions (Clark, 2004). Religion has many and diverse forms of influence in development, from the everyday rhythms of daily life to the influence of national and global religious institutions over education, gender norms, and electoral politics. Beginning in the next chapter, we turn to faith-based NGOs, one form of institution often related to religious institutions but with varied expressions of religious identity.

34

P. J. NELSON

References Aldashev, G., & Verdier, T. (2009). When NGOs go global: Competition on international markets for development donations. Journal of International Economics, 79, 180–210. Algo, J. L., & Gelito, W. M. (n.d.). Sustainable development goals and Laudato Si’ towards eco-solidarity. Living Laudato Si’ Philippines. Ali, I., & Hatta, Z. A. (2014). Zakat as a poverty reduction mechanism among the Muslim community: Case study of Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Asian Social Work and Policy Review, 8, 59–70. Almond, G. A. R., Appleby, S., & Sivan, E. (2003). Strong religion: The rise of fundamentalisms. University of Chicago Press. American Civil Liberties Union. (2010). ACLU sues to obtain information about taxpayer-funded religion in abstinence-only programs overseas. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-sues-obtain-informationabout-taxpayer-funded-religion-abstinence-only-programs. American Civil Liberties Union. (2011). New regulation proposes governmentfunding of religion. May 10, 2011. http://www.aclu.org/blog/religion-bel ief/new-regulation-proposes-government-funding-religion. July 12, 2013. Anglican Church in North America. (n.d.). About the Anglican Church in North America. http://www.anglicanchurch.net/?/main/page/about. Annis, S. (2000). The production of Christians: Catholics and protestants in a Guatemalan Town. In V. Garrard-Burnett (Ed.), On Earth as it is in heaven: Religion in modern Latin America (pp. 189–218). Wilmington, DE: Jaguar Books. Appleby, R. S. (2000). The ambivalence of the sacred: Religion, violence and reconciliation. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Appleby, R., Omer, S. A., & Little, D. (2015). The oxford handbook of religion, conflict, and peacebuilding. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Balchin, C. (2011). Avoiding some deadly sins: Oxfam learnings and analysis about religion, culture, diversity, and development. Oxfam Great Britain. Barro, R., & McCleary, R. (2019). The wealth of religions: The political economy of believing and belonging. Princeton, NJ: Princeton. Berr, J. (2019, December 27). ‘Christianity Today’ gains thousands of new readers after backing trump impeachment. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/ sites/jonathanberr/2019/12/27/christianity-today-gains-thousands-new-rea ders-after-backing-trump-impeachment/#5a1d5d9e74a0. Bloodgood, E. et al. (2019). The future of transnational NGO advocacy: Three perspectives on the future of transnational advocacy, and how organizations can adapt to the challenges of 21st-century campaigning. Stanford Social and Innovation Review, May 20, 2019. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_ future_of_transnational_ngo_advocacy.

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

35

Bob, C. (2005). The marketing of rebellion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buenaobra, M. I. T. (2016, February 24). The politics of religion in the Philippines. The Asia Foundation, https://asiafoundation.org/2016/02/24/thepolitics-of-religion-in-the-philippines/. Butler, J. S. (2006). Born again: The Christian right globalized. London: Pluto Press. Candland, C. (2001). Faith as social capital: Religion and community development in Southern Asia. In J. D. Montgomery, & A. Inkeles (Eds.), Social capital as a policy resource. Boston, MA: Springer. Chen, M. et al. (2007). Membership-based organizations of the poor. New York: Routledge. Chesnut, R. A. (1997). Born again in Brazil. New Brunswick: Rutgers. Clark, J. A. (2004). Islam, charity and activism: Middle-class networks and social welfare in Egypt, Jordan and Yemen. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Clarke, G., & Jennings, M. (2008). Development, civil society and faith-based organisations: Bridging the sacred and secular. Palgrave/Macmillan. Conger, K. H. (2010). Religious interest groups and the American political process. In Black, Koopman & Hawkins (Eds.), Religion in American politics (pp. 192–201). Boston: Longman. Deneulin, S., & Rakodi, C. (2011). Revisiting religion: Development studies thirty years on. World Development, 39(1), 45–54. Edwards, M., & Gaventa, J. (2001). Global citizen action. New York: Routledge. Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, M. (2019). Competition and strategic differentiation among transnational advocacy groups. Interest Groups and Advocacy, 8, 376–406. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-019-00055-y. Evans, C. H. (2017). The social gospel in American religion: A history. New York: New York University Press. Ferris, E. (2005). Faith-based and secular humanitarian organizations. International Review of the Red Cross, 87 (858) (June). Foster, G. (2005). Study of the response by faith-based organizations to orphans and vulnerable children. New York: UNICEF. Freeman, D. (Ed.). (2012). Pentecostalism and development. Churches, NGOs and social change in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan. Future Church. (n.d.). Future Church. https://www.futurechurch.org/. Gil, S. (2008). The role of monkhood in contemporary Myanmar society. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. https://burmese-buddhas.com/burma/the-role-ofmonkhood-in-contemporary-myanmar-society/. Gray, D. (2017, August 24). Thailand’s female Buddhist nuns fight for equality. Nikkei Asian Review. https://asia.nikkei.com/NAR/Articles/Thailand-s-Bud dhist-nuns-fight-for-equality.

36

P. J. NELSON

Hasan, R. (2017). Religion and development in the global south. Palgrave Macmillan. Haynes, J. (2007). Religion and development: Conflict or cooperation? Palgrave. Haynes, J. (2014). Religion and development: Conflict or cooperation? New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hefferan, T. et al. (Eds.). (2009). Bridging the gaps: faith-based organizations, neoliberalism, and development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lexington. Herbert, D. (2003). Religion and civil society: Rethinking public religion in the contemporary world. Aldershot: Ashgate. Hertzke, A. et al. (2011). Lobbying for the faithful: Religious advocacy groups in Washington, D.C. Washington: Pew Research Center. Hoksbergen, R. & L. Ewert. (2002). Local ownership global change. Monrovia, CA: World Vision International. Hopkins, A., & Patel, K. (2006). Reflecting on gender equality in Muslim contexts in Oxfam GB. Gender & Development, 14(3) (November), 423–435. Human Rights Watch. (2005). The less they know the better: Abstinence-only HIV/AIDS programs in Uganda. https://www.hrw.org/report/2005/03/ 30/less-they-know-better/abstinence-only-hiv/aids-programs-uganda#. International Crisis Group. (2017). Buddhism and state power in Myanmar Asia report N°290 | 5 September 2017. https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/ 290-buddhism-and-state-power-in-myanmar.pdf. Islamic Relief. (2020). https://www.islamic-relief.org/how-covid-19-means-isl amic-relief-is-doing-things-differently-in-kenya/. James, H. (2007). Civil society, religion and global governance. London: Routledge. Jenkins, L. D. (2019). Religious freedom and mass conversion in India. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kagawa, R. C., Anglemyer, A., & Montagu, D. (2012). The scale of faith based organization participation in health service delivery in developing countries: Systemic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE, 7 (11), e48457. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048457. Kay, G. M., & Prakash, A. (2010). Advocacy organizations and collective action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders. Ithaca: Cornell. Khalaf-Elledge, N. (2020). “It’s a tricky one”—Development practitioners’ attitudes towards religion, development in practice. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 09614524.2020.1760210. Kinyanjui, K. (2002). The Christian churches and civil society in Kenya. In Hoksbergen & Ewert (Eds.), Local ownership global change (pp. 57–78). Monrovia, CA: World Vision International.

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

37

Kirby, B. J. T., & Chimbidzikai, T. (2020, April 30). Pentecostals are in a “spiritual war” against coronavirus in Africa—As are some political leaders. https://theconversation.com/pentecostals-and-the-spiritual-waragainst-coronavirus-in-africa-137424. Kraft, K., & Wilkinson, O. J. (2020). International development and local faith actors: Ideological and cultural encounters. London: Routledge. Kurtz, L. R. (2017). Gods in the global village: The world’s religions in sociological perspective (4th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage. LaFayette, B. (2004, June 9). The role of religion in the civil rights movements. Presented at the Faith and Progressive Policy: Proud Past, Promising Future Conference, sponsored by the Center for American Progress. Lee, S. Y. (2020). Local resilience and the reconstruction of social institutions: Recovery, maintenance and transformation of Buddhist sangha in post-khmer rouge cambodia. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 14(3), 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2020.1736448. Marshall, K., & Keough, L. (Eds.). (2005). Finding global balance—Common ground between the worlds of development and faith. http://documents1.wor ldbank.org/curated/en/937081468158698005/pdf/334310rev.pdf. Mayo, M. (2005). ‘The world will never be the same again’? Reflecting on the experiences of Jubilee 2000, Mobilizing globally for the remission of unpayable Debts’. Social Movement Studies, 4(2), 139–154. McCargo, D. (2004). Buddhism, democracy and identity in Thailand. Democratization, 11(4), 155–170. McCleary, R. (2009). Private voluntary organizations and relief and development, 1939–2005. Oxford University Press. McDaniel, J. T. (2010). Buddhists in modern Southeast Asia. Religions Compass, 4(11), 657–668. Nelson, P., & Dorsey, E. (2008). New rights advocacy: Changing strategies of development and human rights NGOs. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Nepstad, S. E. (2007). Oppositional consciousness among the privileged: Remaking religion in the Central America solidarity movement. Critical Sociology, 33(4), 661–688. Nordstokke, K. (2015). Christian Base Communities (CEB). In H. Gooren (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Latin American religions. Springer, Cham https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0-196-1. Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. (n.d.).International standards on freedom of religion or belief. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/ FreedomReligion/Pages/Standards.aspx. Öhlmann, P. et al. (2018). Religion and sustainable development: The secular distinction. In development policy and its implication for development

38

P. J. NELSON

cooperation with religious communities. Research Programme on Religious Communities and Sustainable Development. Humboldt University Berlin. Olivier, J. et al. (2015). Understanding the roles of faith-based health-care providers in Africa: Review of the evidence with a focus on magnitude, reach, cost, and satisfaction. Lancet, 386, 1765–1775. Pallas, C. L. (2017). Inverting the boomerang: Examining the legitimacy of North–South–North campaigns in transnational advocacy. Global Networks, 17 (2) (April), 281–299. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. (2011). Global Christianity, a report on the size and distribution of the world’s Christian population. December 19, 2011, at http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-exec. aspx. Poethig, K. (2003). Building peace in Cambodia: Faith initiatives 1992–2001. In K. Marshall, & L. Keough (Eds.), Mind, heart, and soul in the fight against poverty. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Queen, C. (Ed.). (2000). Engaged Buddhism in the West. Boston: Wisdom. Rajkobal, P. (2019). The sarvodaya movement: Holistic development and risk governance in Sri Lanka. London: Routledge Research in Religion and Development. Rivera, J. (2020, April 6). IMA world health partners with African Christian health network in seven-country coronavirus response. https://imaworldh ealth.org/story-hub/ima-world-health-partners-african-christian-health-net work-seven-country-coronavirus. Roy, O. (2004). Globalized Islam, the search for a new ummah. New York: Columbia University Press. Sager, R. (2010). Faith, politics, and power: The politics of faith-based initiatives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scheer, C., Fountain, P., & Feener, R. M. (Eds.). (2018). The mission of development: Religion and techno-politics in Asia. London: Brill. Sida. (n.d.). The role of religion in development cooperation. Stockholm: Sida. http://www.sida.se/Publications/Import/pdf/sv/The-role-of-religionin-development-cooperation.pdf. July 12, 2013. Smillie, I. (1995). The alms bazaar: Altruism under fire—Non-profit organizations and international development. London: Intermediate Technology Publications. Smith, D. A., & Campos, L. S. (2018). God’s politicians: Pentecostals, media, and politics in Guatemala and Brazil. In P. N. Thomas, & P. Lee (Eds.),Global and local televangelism (pp. 200–218). Springer. Sogge, D., Biekart, K., & Saxby, J. (1996). Compassion and calculation. London: Pluto Press. Stroup, S. S. (2012). Borders among activists. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

2

RELIGION, DEVELOPMENT, AND FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

39

Tadros, M., & Sabates-Wheeler, R. (2020). Inclusive development: Beyond need, not creed, CREID Working Paper 1. Brighton: Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development, IDS. Ter Haar, G. (Ed.). (2009). Religion and development (pp. 253–272). New York: Columbia University Press. Tomalin, E. (2006). The Thai bhikkhuni movement and women’s empowerment. Gender and Development, 14(3), 385–397. Tomalin, E. (2013). Religions and development. London: Routledge. Tvedt, T. (1998). Angels of mercy or development diplomats? London: Africa World Press. UNICEF and UNAIDS. (2003). What religious leaders can do about HIV/AIDS: Action for children and young people. https://www.unicef.org/media/files/ Religious_leaders_Aids.pdf. Union for Reform Judaism. (2012). Historic decision in Israel: Rabbi Miri gold recognized by state, May 29, 2012. http://urj.org/about/union/pr/2012/? syspage=article&item_id=89826. Unruh, H. R., & Sider, R. (2004). Saving souls, serving society: Understanding the faith factor in Church-based social ministry. Oxford: Oxford publications. UNFPA. (n.d.). Working from within: Culturally sensitive approaches in UNFPA programming, at http://www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/268_filename_ Culture_2004.pdf. ver Beek, K. A. (2002). Spirituality: A development taboo. In Eade (Ed.), Development and culture (pp. 60–77). Vitillo, R. J. (2006). A faith-based response to HIV in Southern Africa: The choose to care initiative. UNAIDS. Walter, P. (2006). Activist forest monks, adult learning and the Buddhist environmental movement in Thailand. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 26(3), 329–245. Wankede, H. K. (2008, February 9). The political and the social in the dalit movement today. Political Weekly, 50–58. https://www.yumpu.com/en/doc ument/read/52175650/the-political-and-the-social-in-the-dalit-movementtoday-dr-br-. Williams, R. H. (2006). Collective action, everyday protest, and lived religion. Social Movement Studies, 5(1), 83–89.

CHAPTER 3

Faith-Based Identities

How important is the faith “base” of faith-based NGOs (FBOs)? How are their faith identities expressed, and what are the particular issues and debates that shape their roles as political actors in development? This chapter first surveys faith-based organizations, to establish the range of organizations under consideration, then turns to four major issues that FBOs confront in distinctive ways, and the debate over secularization and religious identity that underlies these issues. Finally, I advance a typology of the relationships between NGOs and religious organizations, a typology that will be useful in making and testing distinctions among FBOs in the remaining chapters. My interest is in how FBOs, grounded in religion and humanitarianism, speak out politically to inform their constituents and influence policies and market behaviors that affect the well-being of communities they serve. FBOs command loyalty and support from significant, potentially influential populations in the donor countries. Understanding their faith identities will help us analyze how—and whether—they shape the politics of more than a quarter of the American voting public, and of smaller but significant populations in other wealthy countries. FBOs clearly invoke religious teachings and traditions to leverage charitable giving, both in emergencies and for ongoing support. But how do they go beyond charity to inform and mobilize individuals as citizens, or © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. J. Nelson, Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3_3

41

42

P. J. NELSON

challenge their consumption or investment practices? First, we visit the several forms of faith-based action on international humanitarian issues.

FBOs as Religious and as Organizations In the following chapters I examine a broad set of NGOs with a connection to religious faith traditions to understand how they educate, motivate, and mobilize their constituencies. In almost all cases, two related sets of factors come into play in the analysis. First, to the extent that the FBO identifies with a particular tradition, that tradition’s outlook on its role in public life, and the relationship between individual religious belief and communal or societal issues are guiding factors. An NGO whose US constituency sees individual religious transformation as the faith’s moral project, and favors traditionalist interpretations of religious and behavioral codes, will likely embrace a different advocacy agenda than a tradition with greater emphasis on societal transformation and on adapting to changing modern norms and circumstances. But FBOs are also organizations, and they will implement an advocacy agenda in keeping with their mission and their dependence on key resources, especially financial support and their working relationships and partnerships in countries where they work. These two sets of variables, religious identities and organizational imperatives, help account for the variation among FBOs as educators and mobilizers of their constituencies.1 American religious traditions represent diverse outlooks on society, tradition, and justice. Kniss (2003) suggests a two-dimensional framework, plotting US religious traditions by their prevailing outlook on the moral project of religion (individual conversion or justice in the collectivity); and on the source of authority in religion (tradition or individual judgment and reason) (Figure 3.1). So American Catholicism is largely traditionalist and communal, as are Orthodox Judaism and Islam.

1 This analysis applies as well to faith-based non-profits delivering community devel-

opment services in the United States. At the congregational level and in faithsponsored nonprofits, these faith-based agencies often have distinctive organizational forms (Schneider, 2012, 2013), wrestle with religious identity and its challenges (Wittberg, 2013), and take on varied roles in advanced industrial societies (Göcmen, 2013; Burckhardt, 2013).

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

• Modernist-Individualist • Buddhism, Hinduism, "New Age" movements

• Modernist-Communalist • Mainline Protestants, Reform Jews tend to see human rights, sustainable ways of life threatened by predatory development, forces outside community.

Individual moral project, moral authority not vested in insƟtuƟon or tradiƟon

Authority in tradiƟon, individual focus

Authority in individual, reason, adaptaƟon to modernity; community focus

TradiƟon authority in hierarchy, Scripture; community focus

43

• Traditionalist-Individualist • Evangelicals: tend to see acute suffering, opportunity to unleash entrepreneurial drive; see threats to traditional order

• TraditionalistCommunalist • Catholics, Orthodox Jews, Muslims tend to see acute suffering; communities impoverished, inequalities.

Fig. 3.1 US religious traditions: moral project, source of authority, perspective on development (Source Adapted from Kniss [2003])

Mainline Protestants and Reform Jews tend to embrace a communal or societal vision of their faiths’ moral projects, but are more modernist in their outlook on authority. Evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians are mostly in the quadrant that sees the moral project as individualfocused, and authority as resting with tradition (Scripture). None of these traditions are monolithic, and some experience important internal divisions along fault lines related to these variables, especially over how to understand the authority of sacred writings and apply them to modern problems. Many of the most active advocacy voices, unsurprisingly, are associated with traditions found in the modernist-communalist quadrant. Being outspoken on economic and social justice issues is an easier choice for an NGO when the constituency it cultivates tends toward the progressive end of the political spectrum. But FBOs’ perspectives are only partly defined by their religious tradition’s outlook. Some are only loosely tied to a tradition, and all FBOs, like other nonprofits, are constrained by their dependence on financial and other resources. My analysis of the intensity and prominence of FBOs’ education and advocacy work in Chapter 4 identifies some outspoken activist organizations that promote activism

44

P. J. NELSON

among constituencies outside of the modernist-communalist quadrant, and those cases receive particular attention.

Types of Faith-Based Organizations in International Charitable Action Overseas relief and development agencies and NGOs concerned with peace and justice are associated with virtually every major religious tradition in the rich countries. Berger’s (2003) survey of “religious NGOs” registered with the United Nations demonstrates their breadth and diversity: The various traditions of Christianity and of Judaism, as well as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and the Bahá’í faith, all can be identified with development and relief agencies, as can “spiritual,” non-institutional religious communities. Religious traditions vary in the forms and practice of relief and development work they promote. Studies by Kniss and Campbell (1997), Berger (2003), Kliksberg (2003), Monsma (2007), Thaut (2009), and Jens and Heuser (2020) demonstrate variation in organizational characteristics of FBOs. Kliksberg (2003) examines the Jewish and Christian moral bases for relief and development work, and shows that the Hebrew Scriptures provide a basis for progressive moral reasoning and approaches to developmental issues. Thaut (2009) finds that there is no singular Christian theology guiding Christian FBOs; she distinguishes among FBOs based on the extent to which they accommodate secular culture and appeal to the general public, or evangelize and stress an identity over and against secular culture; this distinction will resurface several times in these chapters. Kniss and Campbell’s (1997) review of 63 US-based FBOs’ mission statements and program descriptions shows that protestant and ecumenical groups draw sharp boundaries between church outreach programs and development activities, while evangelical organizations blur this distinction. Mylek and Nel’s (2010) study of evangelical NGOs based in New Zealand suggests that religious social capital, religious teachings, and the power of religious symbols and ritual all strongly affect FBOs’ ability to mobilize involvement in transnational poverty issues. Most of the discussion that follows focuses on formal faith-based development NGOs, but first I will call attention to the wider variety of religious organizations, including monastic orders, missionary movements, and religious solidarity groups.

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

45

Monastics—religious men and women who live a life set apart from secular society and are recognized by religious institutions or traditions as holy men and women—are present in many religious traditions. Christian (mainly Roman Catholic) and Buddhist monastics have extensive transnational networks. Catholic orders of men and women religious including the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), Benedictine, Franciscan, Dominican and Holy Spirit Fathers (Spiritans) not only have a missionary and educational presence on several continents, they also educate and advocate on global affairs in the United States and Europe. The Spiritan Fathers, Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, and Maryknoll Sisters are organized around their commitments to promote opportunity and socio-political inclusion in poor societies (Maryknoll, n.d.), and the Franciscan order is an active proponent of human rights-based approaches to development (International Movement ATD FourthWorld and Fransciscans International, 2015). Founded in 1703, the Spiritan Fathers (also known as Holy Ghost Fathers) assumed their distinctive mission in the 1840s when they worked among newly freed slaves in Haiti, Mauritius, and Reunion. This commitment grew into an extensive presence in Africa, and the Spiritans developed a distinctive, respectful approach to missionary and community development work, and have lived and worked in some 60 countries (https://spiritans.org/). Buddhist monasticism has also developed transnational networks of both Theravada and Zen monasteries, with both charitable and teaching intent. Their roles in education, environmental advocacy, and health care in Thailand are well documented, as is their significance as a political presence in Burma (Myanmar) and in shaping the Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka (Darlington, 2003, 2018; Bond, 2004). But there is little evidence of transnational policy advocacy or education on global justice like that of the Catholic religious orders, except by individual religious practitioners. Both historically and in the twenty-first century, missionary activity has featured evangelization, translation and linguistic work, and education and health services often delivered by trained expatriates who committed decades of their lives to building charitable institutions. The Christian missionary phenomenon is multi-faceted, involving evangelization and church building along with social services, sometimes carefully held separate but often blended in “holistic” ministries. Its historic association with colonial rule in many societies and the sensitivity of evangelization and “church-planting” among non-Christians makes many development

46

P. J. NELSON

professionals uncomfortable with religious missions, even in countries with no history of colonial rule, as the lively debate over public funding to the Norwegian Mission Society’s development work shows (Simensen, 2006). Missionary institutions are significant religious actors in development (Hearn, 2002; Pierson, 2001), and their hospitals, clinics, and schools operate in many societies, but missionary enterprises are not well integrated in most discussions of development work (Smith, 2017). Religious solidarity organizations are a final form of faith-based actor, organizing individuals or houses of worship to form reciprocal relationships with communities or houses of worship in other societies. Jewish organizations sponsoring travel and education programs in Israel remain perhaps the largest-scale religious solidarity initiative; 36% of American Jews report having traveled to Israel (Sasson et al., 2011). But Jewish, Christian, and other organizations in the United States and Europe also sponsor sister-church relationships, programs to encourage clergy and lay people to travel and build understanding, and efforts to send observers to communities under threat. Iglesias Hermanas (Sister Churches) encourages such ties between US and Latin American churches and community organizations as a means of promoting solidarity, reconciliation, and ecumenism (http://www.sisterparish.org/). Christian Peacemaker Teams (profiled in Chapter 7) send volunteers to sites of conflict and political tensions, and several US-based organizations have organized Christians to monitor and advocate for humane and non-interventionist policies in Central America as part of a broader effort to build “oppositional consciousness” among progressive US Christians (Nepstad, 2007). The category “faith-based,” then, is quite broad. It includes institutions whose primary focus is on religious identity and on institutionbuilding within the faith; others committed to non-violence and peacemaking, and many that sponsor individuals who make life-long commitments to living and working in other cultures, as well as development and human rights NGOs. FBOs: The Players For development practitioners who don’t have strong association with an organized religion, and even for some who do, the number and variety of agencies and the traditions they represent can be bewildering. What follows is a selective survey of categories of transnational FBOs and

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

47

their religious traditions. Explaining doctrinal differences and institutional subtleties is beyond the scope of this study, but characteristics of each tradition’s profile in development work are highlighted. Most Roman Catholic NGOs have strong relationships to national church hierarchies, or to religious orders such as the Jesuits or Franciscans (Table 3.1). The family of national Caritas organizations, including the US-based Catholic Relief Services (CRS), are by far the largest actors. Caritas Internationalis includes 164 Catholic relief and development organizations in 200 countries and territories, and has an institutional tie to nearly all of the nearly 1.2 billion Roman Catholics worldwide. A small but influential group of “new Catholic” NGOs, some of which are independent of the Church hierarchy, represent mostly theologically traditionalist and politically conservative views on the Church and on social policy issues. The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, founded in 1997, represents Catholic positions in UN social policy negotiations, and participates in a coalition of anti-abortion NGOs (McKeegan, 2011). The European Center for Law and Justice, founded in 1998, advocates for religious freedoms in Europe, litigating cases in Table 3.1 Roman Catholic relief, humanitarian, and development agencies Category of Catholic NGO

Relation to Catholic Church hierarchy

Agencies

Agencies of national Catholic Churches

Each is sponsored by the national conference of Bishops that oversee and govern national Catholic Churches

Religious orders

Orders are governed by church law and by their own “rule.” Male members may be ordained as priests; members have theological training, live under a religious discipline, serve in varied professions and capacities Catholic identity but no affiliation to national church bodies

Catholic Relief Services (United States) Trocaire (Caritas Ireland) CAFOD (England and Wales) Misereor (Germany) Spiritan Fathers Franciscan Benedictine Society of Jesus (Jesuit) Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, Maryknoll Sisters

Independent

Catholics for Choice Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute Catholic Climate Network

48

P. J. NELSON

European courts and advising the Holy See. On the progressive Catholic wing, Catholics for Choice, Catholic Climate Network, and like-minded Catholic groups are active in national and transnational arenas (Norad, 2013). Several of the religious orders also make human rights a priority in their representation at the United Nations, and the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns is a well-known center of human rights advocacy. Its work is profiled in Chapter 7. Protestant, Orthodox, Evangelical, and Anabaptist (Mennonite and Brethren) churches are associated with a wide variety of NGOs, some within the organizational structure of the churches, others outside. Several are profiled in the coming chapters. The mainline Protestant denominations (Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, etc.) sponsor denominational agencies and in many countries they cooperate to sponsor inter-denominational agencies such as Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World) (Germany), Christian Aid (UK), Diakonia (Sweden), and Church World Service (United States). Evangelical agencies are less likely to represent a denomination, and most, like World Vision, Tear Fund, Hope International, or Samaritan’s Purse, are organizationally independent of the churches (Table 3.2). Although Jewish and Muslim INGOs are fewer and less prominent in the United States than Christian NGOs, both faiths have inspired important international charities. Some work entirely or primarily to support their coreligionists, but the largest and most influential of the NGOs, including American Jewish World Service (AJWS) and Islamic Relief, provide humanitarian and community development services without regard to religion or ethnicity. The US Reform Jewish community is represented in public affairs by the Union for Reform Judaism, which encourages social awareness among Reform congregations, and represents them through the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism. Not formally related to these bodies is the influential American Israel Political Action Committee, the largest of several organizations lobbying for a strong US commitment to Israel’s security; and NGOs such as AJWS and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Petersen (2012) distinguishes a set of “secularized” Muslim NGOs, including Islamic Relief, distinguishing them from those that are directly a mechanism for obligatory charitable donations by Muslims. “Secularized” Muslim FBOs, she argues, present a recognized form of international

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

49

Table 3.2 Protestant and inter-denominational Christian agencies Category of organizations

Relation to church denominations

National inter-denominational agencies

Inter-denominational agencies may be sponsored by a national association (a National Council of Churches); or be sponsored by several denominations

Transnational inter-denominational

Mainline protestant denominational

Orthodox

Anabaptist

Evangelical Christian

Agencies

Christian Aid (UK) Church World Service (CWS) (US) Brot für die Welt (Germany) Diakonia (Sweden) Norwegian Church Aid Independent agencies or Oikocredit alliances; national ACT Alliance church bodies may be (formerly members or endorse APRODEV) Lutheran World These may be agencies Relief of the denomination Global Ministries itself, as in the US (United Church of Methodist, Episcopal, Christ and Disciples) UCC/Disciples and Episcopal Relief and Presbyterian churches; Development or an NGO sponsored Presbyterian Hunger by the denomination (Lutheran World Relief) Program Orthodox Christianity International Orthodox Christian Charities Mennonites, Church of Mennonite Central the Brethren, and Committee Amish share a commitment to pacifism, simple living, and social service World Vision Evangelicals stress World Relief personal religiosity. Samaritan’s Purse Evangelical agencies Project Hope may be tied to a denomination or to the Tear Fund (UK) broader community, as with World Vision and World Relief

(continued)

50

P. J. NELSON

Table 3.2 (continued) Category of organizations

Relation to church denominations

Agencies

Quaker agencies

The Society of Friends has no central religious authority. Each Quaker agency is independent, with cooperative ties to regional Quaker groups and each other

American Friends Service Committee Friends Committee on National Legislation Quaker Office at the United Nations Quaker Earthcare Witness

Sources Agencies’ websites

charity to the non-Muslim public, and allow donors to work through NGOs identified with the faith tradition. Buddhist NGOs including the Tzu Chi Foundation in Taiwan and Buddhism for Development in Thailand play major roles in South and Southeast Asian countries, but the Hindu and Buddhist communities in North America and Europe are small, as are the international NGOs associated with them, Buddhist Peace Fellowship and American Hindu World Service (Table 3.3). Bahá’í, the newest of the world faiths, gives high priority to promoting peace, international cooperation, and human rights through the Bahá’í Office on Social and Economic Development and the Rabbani Trust. Human Rights NGOs and Religion Several important international human rights agencies have strong religious identities. Jewish and Christian human rights advocates played critical roles in the first decade of post-World War II human rights advocacy (Kelsay & Twiss, 1994; Welch, 2000), and although the religious role in the field diminished as larger secular human rights organizations grew in the 1960s and 1970s, faith-based NGOs continue to play active and sometimes controversial roles in human rights advocacy. Jewish NGOs continue the long and influential involvement of Jewish activists and human rights. René Cassin, the NGO named for the French Jewish human rights activist, has advocated since 2000 for civil and political human rights with emphasis on non-discrimination, anti-genocide,

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

51

Table 3.3 Agencies associated with Judaism and Islam Religious community

Agencies

Issues

Reform Judaism

American Jewish World Service (United States) American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (United States)

Shi’a Islam

Aga Khan Foundation and AK Development Network

Sufism

Sufi Women Organization, part of the International Association of Sufism

Islam (no affiliation)

Islamic Relief (UK) Muslim Hands Muslim Relief (UK)

Wide range of local and global justice issues; human rights-based Advocacy and material support specifically to Jewish communities in need Agricultural and rural development, especially in South Asia and Africa Women’s rights within Islam; Campaign against Rape During War; Prison Project on conditions of imprisoned women Wide range of humanitarian and community development issues

and refugee and immigrant rights. International Justice Mission, founded in the United States in 1997 by evangelical Christians, employs advocacy and direct action to “bring rescue to victims of slavery, sexual exploitation, …[and] violent oppression.” T’ruah, originally founded as the North American affiliate of Rabbis for Human Rights, trains and organizes rabbis and cantors to lead a movement that “call[s] upon Jews to assert Jewish values by raising our voices and taking concrete steps to protect and expand human rights in North America, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories (T’ruah, n.d.).” Ruth Messinger, then director of AJWS, launched the Save Darfur Coalition in 2004, which grew to be an influential coalition of 190 NGOs working against human rights abuses and genocide in the western Sudan (Galchinsky, 2011) (Table 3.4).

Balancing Professional and Religious Identities Faith-based development NGOs form the most public, visible subset of faith-based organizations, and their associations with religious traditions are varied and changing. These development NGOs include some of the largest in the world, and they wrestle with the combinations of religious and professional identities in their staffing, publications,

52

P. J. NELSON

Table 3.4 Faith-based NGOs in human rights Organization

Religious affiliation, founding

Issues

René Cassin

London, 2000, named for Jewish French mid-twentieth century human rights advocate Washington, DC, advocates for and rescues “victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression” Paris-based agency, founded 1974

Discrimination, anti-genocide, asylum, immigration campaigns

International Justice Mission

FIACAT (Int’l. Federation for Action by Christians for the Elimination of Torture) Simon Wiesenthal center

Los Angeles-based, founded 1977

T’ruah

New York-based network of 2,000 North American rabbis founded 2002

Institute on religion and public policy Hindu human rights

US-based, founded 1999 London, founded 2000

Slavery, human trafficking

Torture and death penalty

Civil and political human rights; works against anti-Semitism and to protect Jews worldwide “human rights in North America, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories” Documents violations of religious freedoms Educating people on the human rights of Hindus

Source Organizations’ websites

and organizational culture. Most have separated themselves from other missionary activities—as with Catholic Relief Services, Lutheran World Relief, Church World Service, and Christian Aid. FBOs construct their public faith identity in part by positioning themselves among international NGOs and religious actors (James, 2009; Wuthnow, 2009). They participate in largely secular policy networks and NGO umbrella groups (InterAction in the United States, BOND in the United Kingdom); use contemporary marketing and analytic methods; negotiate aid contracts with government aid agencies and international organizations; and in many ways closely resemble their secular peers. Some maintain advertising, media relations, and fundraising capacities that target the donor public beyond their constituent communities. But they also draw on connections based on shared faith and identity to

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

53

create bonds, and these bonds with their constituencies—individuals and congregations with similar frames—may enable FBOs to generate public support and impact policy (Wuthnow, 2009). Some are truly transnational organizations. Roman Catholic agencies are organized under the global umbrella of Caritas Internationalis, including Caritas affiliates in the traditional donor countries and national social service agencies in countries of every region (Caritas internationalis , n.d.). World Vision’s identity as a theologically conservative, child-centered development agency is consistent across its 50 national affiliates (Haynes, 2020), but World Vision also illustrates the variation across national cultures and affiliates. This variation within faith-based “families” is the subject of Chapter 6. Rick James’ (2009) research on European FBOs argues that they tend to be uncomfortable with giving their faith identity a central place in their public profiles. James notes that NGO leaders may be wary of being associated with past abuses carried out in the name of religion; eager to appear professional and to avoid appearing to exclude others; concerned about their ability to operate in settings where they represent a minority faith; and eager to gain access to increased government funding. Public policy advocacy as well as investment and consumption patterns present particular challenges for the international faith-based NGOs. They must communicate with their constituencies about taking political action or about personal finance issues, persuading constituencies who may not be comfortable with nonprofit political action; and they must also communicate effectively with their policy-making audience in governments or international organizations. FBOs studied here all make some effort to ground their public policy role in religious principles, but the style of this distinctive religious voice varies considerably, with the two evangelical agencies taking a more explicitly religious tone in documents for a policy audience. World Relief, for example, lays out its policy agenda in a document laced with references to the Hebrew prophets’ calls for faithful people to do justice, to side with and speak out for the poor and marginalized, and for their society to follow the same principles. Christian Aid, which operates in the United Kingdom where policy “campaigning” is more deeply embedded in NGO work, makes much less prominent and less frequent references to the religious basis for its work. Rather, it takes an assertive approach that appears to assume the legitimacy of the advocacy role, calling itself “outspoken and prophetic,” and declaring its intention to educate and mobilize British Christians and to

54

P. J. NELSON

“build a movement that will change the course of history.” Still, Christian Aid is clear about its faith motivation, offering worship resources, religious reflections, and reminding readers “our belief is the driving force behind what we do.” Islamic Relief (IR), similarly, invokes religious principles but uses broad, inclusive language to introduce its mission, “envisage[ing] a caring world in which people unite to respond to the suffering of others.” Islamic Relief also makes a concerted effort to ground its policy work—on refugees, orphans, finance, reproductive health, environment, and other issues—in Islam’s social ethics. A set of policy papers sets out for the lay reader IR’s positions and strategies and demonstrates their consistency with historic teachings of Islam (Islamic Relief, n.d.) American Jewish World Service (AJWS) promotes both adult and youth education through curricula on “Jews as Global Citizens.” AJWS (n.d. a) grounds its educational work rigorously and imaginatively in Jewish teaching and tradition, declaring that it “seeks to make the pursuit of global justice an integral part of American Jewish identity…”. Its efforts to do this are extensive, including volunteer programs for young people and for “experienced professionals,” publications, curricula, resources to link religious holidays to international justice issues. They stress the obligation to pursue justice that is “at the heart of Jewish tradition,” and directly encourage constituents to participate in deliberative processes that deepen their personal commitment to justice, and their understanding of how this commitment shapes their obligations as citizens (AJWS, n.d. b). Similarly, the London-based NGO Tzedek offers topical resources and links to NGO issue campaigns (Tzedek, 2020). Finally, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) frames its advocacy agenda by grounding it in principles of Catholic social teaching, the historic body of authoritative Catholic thinking about economic, social, and political life. CRS statements and papers on policy issues establish that the positions taken are grounded in historic Catholic understandings of the Gospel, but the documents written for policy-makers present their arguments in secular policy terms. Only a few of US-based FBOs actively encourage constituents to evaluate and change their consumption and investment behavior. A handful specialize in socially responsible investment or investment channeled to microfinance, exemplified by the Netherlands-based Oikocredit, which mobilizes capital by encouraging individuals and institutions to invest at low or no interest. Several Christian denominations have also established

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

55

funds that are socially screened or that focus on community development needs. Many FBOs mention consumption behavior and encourage buying fair trade products, and a few have more sustained efforts to encourage constituents to rethink their buying patterns and consumption. Church-based organizations were among the earliest organizers of fair-trade shops and promoters of fair-trade labels in the United States and in Europe, and several FBOs promote symbolic purchases (coffee for church-sponsored events), or make stronger, more systematic appeals for principled consumption. These efforts by FBOs to influence their consumer and investment behaviors are the subject of Chapter 7.

Faith-Based NGOs: Four Big Issues Faith-based NGOs face many of the same issues that confront their secular counterparts: securing funding, maintaining a measure of autonomy from official donors, relating to local NGO partners, balancing short-term humanitarian needs and longer-term solidarity, development and advocacy work (Lewis, 2014; Howell & Pearce, 2002; Lindenberg & Bryant, 2001; Banks et al. 2015; among others). But faith-based agencies also face the challenge of balancing sometimes competing priorities and pressures related to their religious identities. This section outlines the policies, practices, and explanations by some faith-based agencies. Whom to Serve? Universal or Communal? Every major religious tradition encourages believers to form a global community with other believers in the faith, and to respond with compassion to human need wherever it appears. These complementary mandates can sometimes become competing priorities, and in many religious traditions one finds agencies and initiatives pursuing each mission. The division between universalism and communal service is fundamental among Jewish FBOs (Galchinsky, 2011). The US-based Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) (2020), founded in 1914, acts “to rescue Jews in danger, provide aid to vulnerable Jews, develop innovative solutions to Israel’s most complex social challenges, cultivate a Jewish future, and lead the Jewish community’s response to crisis.” JDC’s focus on the needs of Jewish communities is complemented by “non-sectarian” programs, especially for children. The UK-based World Jewish Relief takes a similar approach, with community development efforts to strengthen

56

P. J. NELSON

and maintain vibrant Jewish communities and institutions, and some non-sectarian work, especially in response to emergencies. AJWS and its British counterpart agency World Jewish Aid (WJA) adopt the alternative approach, with programming and advocacy without regard for the religion of those they serve. AJWS and WJA appeal to Jews in their societies to show compassion and solidarity beyond the boundaries of their faith, embracing all humankind. AJWS (n.d. a) places a strong emphasis on Jewish ethical teachings and on “promoting the values and responsibilities of global citizenship within the Jewish community” by encouraging citizen activism and education. This distinction between sectarian and universal service manifests itself to some extent in FBOs’ advocacy agendas. It is apparent in evangelical Christian agencies’ emphasis on religious freedoms in societies where Christians are a minority. Some US advocates for religious liberties focus overwhelmingly on the plights of Christian minorities, as in World Relief’s 2019 advocacy alerts on Iraqi refugees and displaced persons. Others call for action on behalf of Iraqi refugees, including their religious liberties, without reference to the religious identity of the displaced populations (CRS, 2020). But the issue of communal versus universal service is primarily an issue for delivering material aid. The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is a highly respected Geneva-based NGO rooted in the Ismaili branch of Shi’a Islam and led by the hereditary religious leader of the Ismailis. AKDN balances universal service with its identity as a minority sect in a distinctive way: It works in countries where there is a significant Ismaili community, and in those contexts it is committed to serve individuals and communities without regard to religion or ethnicity. The largest and best-known Muslim humanitarian organizations provide aid without regard to religion or ethnicity: Muslim Hands, Islamic Relief, and Islamic Aid all affirm and practice this approach. Others, such as the British NGO Ummah Welfare Trust, created in 2001, explicitly use funds collected through Muslims’ zakat contributions, religiously prescribed charitable gifts to benefit certain categories of persons, to support livelihood opportunities in Muslim communities.

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

57

Individual Transformation and Social Change In most religious traditions there is some tension between two visions of human transformation: Personal transformation that changes individual hearts and consciences, inculcating ethics and responsibility; and social action to reform and transform social orders by challenging sources of exclusion, discrimination, and indignity. These two levels of transformation in religious thought are present side by side in the doctrine of many religious traditions. Buddhism, for example, is often interpreted as focused on elevating and transforming individual consciousness, but the engaged Buddhism movement sees the transformation of social relations as a key manifestation of heightened consciousness, and Buddhism has produced significant movements in countries including Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand (Bond, 2004; Darlington, 2003; Huang, 2008). Among Christians, there are enduring differences over individual and social transformation or redemption. Broadly, Roman Catholic teaching stresses the communitarian dimension, and social teaching in the Catholic tradition strongly upholds labor rights, equity across class and national lines, and political and civil rights (Massaro, 2012). Protestant theology is often viewed as placing greater emphasis on the individual, but there are variants: Evangelical Protestant Christians emphasize the individual encounter with God through Christ and the primacy of personal salvation, while mainline Protestant denominations give greater emphasis to a “social Gospel” alongside individual piety (Wuthnow, 2009). Evangelical Christians uphold individual spiritual conversion and emphasize social priorities that flow from a literal and sometimes selective reading of Biblical texts, including family, sex, marriage, and related social issues such as pornography and gambling. There are important exceptions to every generalization here: Swartz (2014) profiles US evangelicals active in promoting both socially conservative values and in calling for progressive social change through networks such as Sojourners and Evangelicals for Social Action. Reform Jewish ethics emphasize the role of reason and individual conscience, and the duty to participate in healing the world (tikkun olam) of brokenness and evil. This duty is fundamental for Reform Jews, and draws on the message of the Biblical prophets’ calls for a just social order. Islam is explicit in prescribing social duties, including personal religious obligations, individual charity, and expectations about the social order. Muslims are to pay zakat and to participate in other forms of

58

P. J. NELSON

charitable giving, to lend without interest and to structure loan transactions in a way that shares risk. Injunctions to take special care of orphans and widows have powerfully shaped Muslim charities’ humanitarian work (Mansur & Ezzat, 2009). But in Islam as among Christians, Jews, and Buddhists, there is a range of interpretations of these duties. Orthodox Jews, strict Wahabist Muslims, and most fundamentalist Christians all place high priority on personal and family duties and on behavioral obligations, and are less visibly concerned with obligations regarding economic justice or civil rights. Proselytizing Religious authorities in many settings use their influence to retain and recruit adherents. But promoting the faith to win converts across national borders is practiced mainly in Christianity and Islam, and opinions and practices vary within both traditions. Proselytizing is often politically and culturally sensitive, and when done alongside humanitarian or community development work it raises ethical issues. Standards and agreements addressing these issues are in place among FBOs in the United States and Europe, and the stated practice of nearly all the larger international FBOs is to separate religious message from material assistance. This is consistent with the code of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement (Principle 3) and national codes governing NGO practice in countries such as Afghanistan, Malaysia, Nepal, and Indonesia (International Center for Not-for-Profit Law). Interestingly, the US-based coalition of Evangelical Christian agencies, ACCORD, has an extensive code of conduct that makes only the briefest mention of proselytizing, calling on agencies to put in place “a program strategy and activities that appropriately and sensitively share the good news of Jesus Christ” (ACCORD, n.d.). It does require members to abide by the laws of any host country. Islamic Relief notes that the responsibility to “invite others to Islam”— da’wa—is obligatory for all Muslims, but that it is to be kept separate from humanitarian work (Abuarqub, 2010). Many Christian NGOs have origins in missionary outreach, and some denominations’ humanitarian work continues to be housed in agencies that have responsibility for interchurch relationships and leadership building as well. Similarly, Muslim agencies dedicated to community development are often closely tied to the advancement of Islamic religious causes and duties, both in the eyes of their donors and to outsiders.

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

59

Christian FBOs that avoid proselytizing, including all of the large Catholic, Orthodox, and mainline Protestant agencies, affirm that they demonstrate the love that their faith inspires for all humanity through their actions. One often hears cited the aphorism attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.” The near-consensus among Christian FBOs to separate service and proselytizing is grounded in two factors. Principles, which most faithbased NGOs cite, hold that linking religious conversion with material aid is potentially manipulative and compromises the recipients’ response both to religious messages and to community development initiatives. A more pragmatic factor is that governments have historically required that government-funded services be strictly separate from religious services. Although this requirement has recently been interpreted more loosely in the United States, the division has been institutionalized by NGOs and in the codes of conduct mentioned above. Most Christian denominations that sponsor FBOs also support traditional missionary enterprises such as establishing new churches, training and supporting clergy, and maintaining relationships among national churches. The choice to separate material aid from such outreach is not a decision not to preach as missionaries, but a decision not to blend the two activities. Mennonite Central Committee makes a distinction common to some Christian church-based agencies: Its programs do not evangelize, but its workers are expected to participate in local Christian churches: MCC workers witness to their Christian faith in both word and deed… Workers are active in local churches…. In non-Christian contexts, MCC workers are respectful but unabashedly Christian, witnessing through the work they do. Many workers have found that their strong Christian identity and commitment to live out their faith can be a point of connection and deeper conversation with people of other faiths….

The exceptions to this general agreement among FBOs are significant. Some evangelical Christian groups argue that separating preaching and social service is artificial and that building and supporting leaders and helping to transform communities requires that they integrate personal transformation with societal change. Samaritan’s Purse adopts this approach, delivering relief and community development assistance coupled with a religious message: “[by] providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world, … Samaritan’s Purse has

60

P. J. NELSON

helped meet needs of people… with the purpose of sharing God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ.” Similarly, the British evangelical NGO Tear Fund pursues an integrated strategy, working through local churches to “unlock people’s potential, helping them to discover that the answer to poverty is within themselves” (Tearfund, n.d.).2 For some evangelical Christians, who emphasize the obligation to present the Christian Gospel to all people, the choice is justified both because of its benefit for leadership building and holistic or integral development or ministry, and because of their deep belief that the eternal destinies of their fellow humans are at stake. Religious Belief, Organizational Culture, and Staff “Faith-based” is more often an institutional description than a collective characterization of an agency’s staff. The professionalization of staffing and organizational culture of many Catholic and mainline Protestant agencies has altered the makeup of their staff and some internal operations. Some agencies maintain stronger personal religious identity requirements. Others approach the issue by articulating the job functions involved: The US advocacy organization Bread for the World for many years required that staff be able to articulate a Christian perspective on global poverty and food policy issues. A closer look at organizational features that signal and express religious identity may sharpen our understanding of how religious identity shapes FBOs. Unruh and Sider propose a framework that rates many aspects of organizational identity and practice according to the centrality of religious identity. They assess the centrality of religion by noting its place in the organization’s name and mission, language and imagery, employment and staff, affiliations and partnerships, and willingness to separate humanitarian action from expression of belief and practice (Unruh and Sider, 2004). Frame (2020) suggests a modified version of the typology. Professionalization and the de-emphasis of personal religious identity have shaped most large international FBOs. Goulet (2002) shows how organizational transformations at Catholic Relief Services in the 1980s and 1990s de-emphasized some aspects of religious identity while reinforcing others. CRS was transformed from a Catholic organization with 2 Tearfund, unlike Samaritan’s Purse, pursues a progressive and creative advocacy agenda on development policy.

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

61

clerical leadership and a parochial identity to a highly professional NGO under lay professional leadership that broadened its development and capacity building efforts and recruited a new generation of development professionals, many not Catholic. While some aspects of the internal Catholic culture were de-emphasized, Goulet argues that CRS was reCatholicized by strengthening the ties to Catholic social teaching in CRS operations. Goulet’s interviews reveal that CRS senior leadership were shocked by the genocide in Rwanda, a country where CRS had long worked and where they felt that it had failed to understand the depth of injustices and divisions, and the inadequacy of civil and religious institutions to protect people from deadly violence. The “justice lens” that was developed to analyze conditions and plan CRS interventions is grounded in Catholic social teaching and stresses social solidarity and policies that counter discrimination against poor and marginalized groups. Faith-based NGOs provide an important case of broader debates over secularization. The decline in organized religious institutions’ membership in North America and Europe and individuals’ tendency to report decreasing involvement and influence of religion in their lives in Western societies have led many to posit that religion’s relevance to public life is declining. Berger (1999) argues that while traditional religious institutions lose membership and seek to accommodate the norms of modern democratic and consumer societies, more fundamentalist movements take a more militant stance and grow rapidly in numbers and influence. The growth and professionalization of FBOs offers a perspective on these trends. As these FBOs have grown in the United States and Europe since 1980, three sometimes contrary trends have manifested themselves: Some of the largest have professionalized and moderated their religious identities by presenting a more secular public face, but a strong religious identity to their core constituency. Second, some states have relaxed rules for impartiality in hiring and for public cooperation with religious agencies. Third, a number of new, faith-based agencies with more assertive religious identities have risen to prominence. Among Christians, for example, vocal evangelical NGOs such as Samaritan’s Purse have won growing support. But Catholic and mainline Protestant NGOs have also experienced growth while maintaining religious identities that are more accommodating of most cultural and social changes. Particularly in the United States, the law and regulations on religious organizations’ hiring have been relaxed. World Vision, for example, won a ruling supporting its right to discriminate in hiring by requiring

62

P. J. NELSON

that employees be Christian, and affirm a statement of faith. The NGO was found to qualify as a religious organization, under legal protections intended to protect houses of worship and the religious organizations that sponsor them (Reilly, 2011). Faith-based NGOs, then, express their faith identities in widely varied ways, and many have been affected by trends toward secularization and professionalization of church-related organizations in recent decades. In the remaining section, we examine four distinct ways that FBOs are related to religious organizations.

FBOs’ Institutional Ties to Religion: A Typology Faith-based NGOs have formal or informal ties to religious institutions, religious belief systems, and to believing constituencies in their home societies. They exhibit four forms of affiliation with religious traditions and communities: • official representatives of those traditions; • clearly identified with a specific tradition, but without a formal institutional tie; • affiliated with coalitions, alliances, or families of religious bodies; • broadly identified with a religion but are not institutionally linked. In the first category, Catholic Relief Services is the official relief and development agency of the US Roman Catholic community, an agency of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Lutheran World Federation is the agency of the federated Lutheran churches worldwide; Mennonite Central Committee represents the Mennonite and Brethren churches in the United States and Canada; and the Aga Khan Development Network is the agency of the Ismaili Imamat, the largest division of Shi’a Islam. Each is chartered by an authoritative body of the religious organization, to act on behalf of the believing community and to report to it through an established mechanism. The second group have clear religious inspiration and identity, but no formal affiliation. The World Vision organizations are clearly identified with evangelical Christianity, but do not represent a religious organization or church body. American Jewish World Service similarly is strongly based in the US Jewish community, but has no institutional affiliation. The

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

63

same is true of Buddhists for Peace, British Tear Fund, and Islamic Relief. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), and others, have important roles in the US Quaker community. With no authoritative central organization, each Quaker organization is independent and works in cooperation rather than as an agency of a religious authority. A third group consists of NGOs affiliated with coalitions or associations of religious bodies. World Relief represents the National Association of Evangelicals, an association of some 40 US evangelical Christian denominations; Church World Service was an agency of the National Council of Churches (NCC), whose members include most of the mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches, until the NCC and CWS became independent nonprofit organizations in 2000. CWS continues to represent the 37 member denominations of the NCC. In the United Kingdom, Christian Aid represents a similar array of Protestant and Orthodox churches. A fourth set of faith-based NGOs have a self-declared religious identity, but are entirely independent. These organizations are distinguished from the second set by their less specific religious self-identification, and lower religious profile. Habitat for Humanity describes itself as a “nonprofit ecumenical Christian ministry” without affiliation. While religious practices such as house-blessings for newly built houses are regular Habitat practices, its religious identity is less prominent in its Website and publications. Christian Children’s Fund abandoned its name in 2009 in favor of Childfund International. Childfund actively distances itself from its origin as a missionary organization created in 1938 by a Presbyterian pastor. To understand why these distinctions matter, recall the distinction between membership and “marketplace” NGOs in Chapter 2. An organization with institutional ties to a religion and its constituency is in a distinctly different situation than NGOs who search the humanitarian marketplace for sources of support. Catholic Relief Services and American Friends Service Committee have clear institutional sources of support, a body of ethical and social teachings, and a public constituency with whom they share deeply held identity and beliefs. This also comes with forms of accountability and a measure of trust and identification that other NGOs must struggle to find and retain in a marketplace. What do the religious bodies or constituencies expect of their agencies? NGOs with ties to a religious body must represent the social teachings

64

P. J. NELSON

of a religious institution. They often maintain relationships with religious host agencies and partners in the countries where they work, and play a role in the education and moral formation of congregants. Some FBOs that are agencies of the religious organization play a role in the formation of its members/donors. Such an agency, we will see, tends to approach education and mobilization differently than an independent faith-related NGO. The duty to practice charity or solidarity toward poor and oppressed people is an important ethical teaching of each major religious tradition. Several Christian and Islamic NGOs reviewed here are clearly expected to participate in forming the spiritual character of congregants by educating them about global realities, about the ethical demands of their faith, and by offering opportunities to contribute and serve. Church World Service, for example, has long provided educational and worship materials to local churches, and sponsoring local events to increase congregants’ involvement and raise funds. The CWS staff includes educators and organizers posted in state and regional offices across the United States. In the United Kingdom, Christian Aid gives similar emphasis to educational work within the churches. Catholic Relief Services coordinates education efforts through a designated CRS volunteer leader in each diocese, and AFSC has staff representatives in 29 US cities. Islamic Relief has established a mechanism for contributions by which Muslims may donate and fulfill their obligation of waqf , or generous contribution to those in need, through a fund analogous to a charitable fund or endowment. Contributors to IRUSA-Waqf can choose among programs, and purchase units or shares in waqf funds, either alone or jointly with others (Islamic Relief, n.d. b). Among agencies with roots in the Jewish faith, AJWS promotes education including through adult and youth curricula on “Jews as Global Citizens,” the London-based NGO Tzedek offers topical resources and links to NGO issue campaigns; and T’ruah, the North American rabbinical campaign for human rights. AJWS’s extensive education and advocacy work is profiled in Chapter 4. Several Christian agencies in the United States maintain programs for voluntary overseas service, including long-term service through the Mennonite Central Committee, Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and Maryknoll Lay Missioner program (http://www.jesuitvolunteers.org/ and http:// home.maryknoll.org/). These are discussed in Chapter 7. Agencies of Christian church bodies often serve both as relief/development agencies and as agents of church ethical and social

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

65

teachings. Catholic agencies such as CRS, for example, adhere to detailed and often highly nuanced body of social teachings of the Catholic Church, over issues ranging from labor rights and the environment to contraception. Other religious traditions such as the historic peace churches (Quaker, Mennonite, and Brethren) promote international service and development cooperation while giving high priority to nonviolence as a core Christian teaching (Dicklitch & Rice, 2004; Yoder et al., 2009). Adherence to religious social teaching can be both a constraint and an asset for the FBO. On an issue such as contraception, social teachings clearly constrain a Catholic agency’s operational choices and partnerships, and CRS has endured multiple attacks from anti-abortion activists for any association with agencies that provide contraceptive services (Roewe, 2013). But more often, when teachings are genuinely embraced by a religious constituency—a broad pro-life stance among Catholics, nonviolence and peace-building among Quakers and Mennonites, prohibition against usury among Muslims—the NGO’s adherence reinforces loyalty to the NGO by promoting social change consistent with the community’s distinctive social ethics. Maintaining relationships within transnational religious institutions is at least a secondary role for some faith-based NGOs. Church-related NGOs often work as guests of national religious authorities, and maintain relationships with those authorities and agencies. Catholic Relief Services supports local Catholic social service agencies and human rights bodies in many countries; Lutheran World Relief sometimes works with church-related agencies but also makes independent choices of local “partner” agencies. Several church-related NGOs also cooperate with their host church on advocacy initiatives. Church World Service, for example, works with an Anglican NGO in Argentina to document how bank lending contributes to deforestation in the Gran Chaco forest, and to carry on a dialogue with lenders about environmental standards for lending (Seghezzo et al., n.d.). This model, in which the INGO plays a supportive role for a local partner’s advocacy campaigns, is becoming more common among the FBOs reviewed here. This important trend is not discussed extensively here, because my focus is on how INGOs mobilize their wealthy-country constituents. I turn next to that subject, examining how faith-based NGOs encourage public advocacy on international development issues.

66

P. J. NELSON

References Abuarqub, M. (2010). Islamic relief: Faith and identity in practice. Ontrac, 43, 2010. http://www.islamic-relief.com/InDepth/downloads/Isl amic_Relief_Faith.pdf. January 16, 2012. ACCORD. (2012). Accord principles of practice, guidelines for the development of agency standards. http://www.accordnetwork.org/wp-content/upl oads/2012/01/Accord_Principles-Of-Practice_2012.pdf. AJWS. (n.d. a.). What we do. http://ajws.org/what_we_do/. Retrieved March 22, 2011. AJWS. (n.d. b.). Who we are. http://ajws.org/who_we_are/. Retrieved March 22, 2011. Banks, N., Hulme, D., & Edwards, M. (2015). NGOs, states, and donors revisited: Still too close for comfort? World Development, 66, 707–718. Berger, J. (2003). Religious nongovernmental organizations: An exploratory analysis. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 14(1), 15–39. Berger, P. L. (Ed.). (1999). The desecularization of the world: Resurgent religion and world politics (p. 1999). Eerdmans: Grand Rapids. Bond, G. D. (2004). Buddhism at work. Westport, CN: Kumarian. Burckhardt, M. (2013). Faith-based humanitarianism: Organizational change and everyday meanings in South Africa. Sociology of Religion, 74(1), 30–55. Caritas Internationalis. (n.d.). http://www.caritas.org/index.html, September 30, 2011. Catholic Relief Services. (n.d.). Public policy. http://crs.org/public-policy/ira q.cfm, June 10, 2013. Catholic Relief Services. (2020). Emergency and humanitarian response: Iraq. https://www.crs.org/get-involved/advocate/public-policy/emergencyhumanitarian-response-iraq. Christian Aid. (n.d.). “Why we do what we do”, and “Churches”. http://www. islamic-relief.com/Indepth/Default.aspx?depID=6. Darlington, S.M. (2003). Buddhism and development: The ecology monks of Thailand. In D. Keown et al. (Eds.), Action dharma: New studies in engaged Buddhism (pp. 96–109). Routledge. Darlington, S. M. (2018). Environmental Buddhism across borders. Journal of Global Buddhism, 19(2018), 77–93. Dicklitch, S., & Rice, H. (2004). The mennonite central committee and faithbased NGO aid to Africa. Development in Practice, 14(5) (August), 660–672. Frame, J. (2020). A modified typology to classify secular NGOs and faith-based organisations in development contexts. Development in Practice, 30(2), 143– 153. Galchinsky, M. (2011). Jewish Non-governmental organizations. Georgia State University Working Paper, 2011.

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

67

Göçmen, I. (2013). The role of faith-based organizations in social welfare systems: A comparison of France, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42(2013), 495–516. Goulet, D. (2002). A Christian NGO faces globalization. In R. Hoksbergen & L. Ewert (Eds.), Local ownership: Global change: Will civil society save the world? . Monrovia, CA: World Vision Publications. Haynes, J. (2020). World vision and ‘Christian values’ at the United Nations. In J. Koehrsen, & A. Heuser (Eds.), Faith-based organizations in development discourses and practice (pp. 86–112). Routledge. Hearn, J. (2002). The invisible NGO: US evangelical missions in Kenya. Journal of Religion in Africa, 32(1), 32–61. Howell, J., & Pearce, J. (2002). Civil society and development: A critical exploration. Lynne Rienner. Huang, J. C. (2008). Gendered Charisma in the Buddhist “Tzu Chi (Ciji) Movement”. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 12(2), 29–47. Iglesias Hermanas. (n.d.). https://www.facebook.com/Sister.Parish/. International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. (n.d.). NGO law monitor. http:// www.icnl.org/research/monitor/index.html. July 29, 2013. Islamic Relief. (n.d. a). Our campaigns. https://www.islamic-relief.org/our-cam paigns/. Islamic Relief. (n.d. b). What is waqf? https://irusawaqf.org/what-is-irusawaqf/. James, R. (2009). What is Distinctive about FBOs? How European FBOs define and operationalise their faith. Praxis paper 22, Oxford: INTRAC, February 2009, 10–11. Jens, K., & Heuser, A. (Eds.). (2020). Faith-based organizations in development discourses and practice. New York: Routledge. Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. (2020). Our work. https://www.jdc.org/ our-work/. John, K., & Twiss, S. B. (Eds.). (1994). Religion and human rights. New York: The Project on Religion and Human Rights. Kliksberg, B. (2003). Facing the inequalities of development: Some lessons from Judaism and Christianity. Development, 46(4), 57–63. Kniss, F. (2003). Mapping the moral order: Depicting the terrain of religious conflict and change. In M. Dillon (Ed.), Handbook of the sociology of religion (pp. 331–347). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kniss, F., & Campbell, D. T. (1997). The effect of religious orientation on international relief and development organizations. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 36(1), 93–103. Lewis, D. (2014). Managing non-governmental organizations development (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.

68

P. J. NELSON

Lindenberg, M., & Bryant, C. (2001). Going global: Transforming relief and development NGOs. Westport, CN: Kumarian. Making human rights work for people living in extreme poverty: A handbook for implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights © 2015—International Movement ATD Fourth World and Franciscans International. Mansur, K., & Ezzat, H. R. (2009). Faith-based action in development and humanitarian work. In A. Kumar, et al. (Eds.), Global civil society. London: Sage. Maryknoll. (n.d.). http://www.maryknoll.org/home/. Massaro, Thomas S. J. (2012). Living justice: Catholic social teaching in action (p. 2012). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. McKeegan, T. (2011). Meet the new generation of Catholic-inspired NGOs. http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8187. January 23, 2012. Mennonite Central Committee, FAQ, July 3, 2013. Monsma, S. V. (2007). Religion and philanthropic giving and volunteering: Building blocks for civic responsibility. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, 3(1), 3–28. Mylek, I., & Nel, P. (2010). Religion and relief: The role of religion in mobilizing civil society against global poverty. Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, 5(2), 81–97. Nepstad, S. E. (2007). Oppositional consciousness among the privileged: Remaking religion in the Central America solidarity movement. Critical Sociology, 33(4), 661–688. Norad. (2013). Lobbying for faith and family: A study of religious NGOs at the United Nations. Norad Report 7/2013, 2013. Oikocredit. (n.d.). What is Oikocredit? http://www.oikocredit.org/en/whowe-are. July 3, 2013. Petersen, M. J. (2012). Trajectories of transnational Muslim NGOs. Development in Practice, 22, 5–6, 763–778. Pierson, P. E. (2001). The rise of Christian mission and relief agencies. In E. Abrams (Ed.), The influence of faith: Religious groups and U.S. foreign policy (pp. 153–170). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Reilly, P. J. (2011, October 11). Victory for rights of Catholic organizations. Crisis Magazine. http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/victory-for-rig hts-of-catholic-organizations. November 14, 2011. Roewe, B. (2013, September 12). Bishops defend Catholic relief services amid barrage of attacks. National Catholic Reporter. https://www.ncronline.org/ news/politics/bishops-defend-catholic-relief-services-amid-barrage-attacks. Sasson, T., et al. (2011). Still connected: American Jewish attitudes about Israel. Cohen Center, Brandeis University, p. 23. http://brandeis.longsight.com/bit stream/handle/10192/24037/still.connected.08.25.10.3.pdf?sequence=9. Accessed March 12, 2012.

3

FAITH-BASED IDENTITIES

69

Schneider, J. A. (2013). Comparing stewardship across faith-based organizations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42(2013), 517–539. Schneider, J.A. (2012). Religious models of organization: Lessons on microstructure from the faith and organizations project. Paper presented at the 41st annual Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action Conference, Indianapolis, IN. Seghezzo, G., et al. (n.d.). Empowerment and right-based approaches for indigenous communities in the South American Gran Chaco. https://ic-sd.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/11/martin_coria.pdf. Simensen, J. (2006). Religious NGOs and the politics of international aid: The Norwegian experience. Forum for Development Studies, 33(1) (June), 83–104. Smith, J. D. (2017). Positioning missionaries in development studies, policy, and practice. World Development, 90, 63–76. Swartz, D. R. (2014). Moral minority: The evangelical left in an age of conservatism. Philadelphia: Penn. T’ruah. (n.d.). About T’ruah, at https://www.truah.org/about/. Tearfund. (n.d.). We’re Christians passionate about ending poverty. http://www. tearfund.org/. Accessed June 10, 2013. Thaut, L. C. (2009). The role of faith in christian faith-based humanitarian agencies: Constructing the taxonomy. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 20, 319–350. Tzedek. (2020). Tzedek. Together against poverty now, more than ever. https:// tzedek.org.uk/. Unruh, H. R., & Sider, R. (2004). Saving souls, serving society: Understanding the faith factor in Church-based social ministry. Oxford: Oxford publications. Welch, C. (Ed.). (2000). NGOs and human rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Wittberg, P. (2013). Faith-based umbrella organizations: Implications for religious identity. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42(2013), 540–562. Wuthnow, R. (2009). Boundless faith: The global outreach of American churches. University of California Press. Yoder, R., Redekop, C., & Jantzi, V. (2009). Development to a different drummer: Anabaptist/mennonite perspectives and experiences. Intercourse, PA: Good Books.

CHAPTER 4

Encouraging Active Citizen Voices on International Policy? The Record of US Faith-Based NGOs

How do religious traditions in the wealthy countries educate their members and constituencies and shape constituents’ political, consumption, and investment practices? In a world of inequality, poverty, and human rights abuses, much of the responsibility for the moral formation of the faithful as global citizens falls in practice to agencies created by the religious communities to do relief and development work, and to independent NGOs with strong faith identification. In this chapter I examine organizations rooted in Roman Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity, mainline Protestantism, Reform Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, asking how the moral voices of religious people and institutions are shaped, encouraged, or constrained by faith-based NGOs (FBOs) with complex, mixed missions. International NGOs have led significant initiatives to address issues including debt forgiveness, anti-personnel land mines, conflict diamonds, and dam construction, and they attract growing scholarly attention (Lindenberg & Bryant, 2001; Mahoney, 2008; Nelson & Dorsey, 2008;

Portions of this chapter are based on a paper that appeared as Paul J. Nelson, “Political Voice Among International Faith-based NGOs,” Review of Faith and International Affairs, June 2019, 27(2), 13–25. Reprinted with permission. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. J. Nelson, Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3_4

71

72

P. J. NELSON

Stroup 2012; Tallberg et al., 2015; Stroup and Wong, 2017; Mitchell et al., 2020). Faith-based NGOs have been part of these efforts, and played a leading role in the debt-forgiveness campaigns (Mayo, 2005). Hertzke (2010) observes that “[l]arge relief and development agencies like World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, Lutheran World Relief, and Church World Service have moved from solely delivering of services to political advocacy,” with substantial capacity to do “insider” lobbying. This is accurate over the long term, but as we will see, Lutheran World Relief has moved back “out” of advocacy, and most of the US-based FBOs confront some institutional limitations as advocates and mobilizers. In light of the centrality of economic justice and poverty in religious teachings, their efforts—particularly their efforts to educate and mobilize their US constituencies as active citizens—vary a great deal, and most are modest and their voices are muted. Faith-based NGOs play a large part in US and European voluntary action in international humanitarian affairs. They make up 59% of international development NGOs in the United States and account for 40% of gross NGO expenditures in development (McCleary, 2009). We know little about how FBOs participate in the education and formation of their faith communities in the wealthy countries, and involve them in policy advocacy. Some faith-based organizations encourage conscious consumption, investment, and other potentially important market-based actions, which are examined in Chapter 7. This chapter focuses on education, information, and organization related to voice in public policy. International faith-based groups, like other humanitarian and development INGOs, must balance their need to raise resources and encourage generosity against the desire to have a public voice on global development issues. For most FBOs delivering aid was the original mission and is the continuing priority, and this and other considerations shape how US-based FBOs approach educating and mobilizing their constituencies. Building on research in international development, nonprofit studies, organizational theory, and on religion and politics, I will develop a finergrained understanding of religious “voice” on these issues, gaining insight into the distinctive features, assets, and limitations of faith-based NGOs. Part 1 describes how religious actors in the United States express their political views, especially on international affairs, and clarifies the multiple voices that speak on policy issues for some of the religious traditions. FBOs are not the only actors speaking for religious communities, and their voices on public policy need to be analyzed in the context of the

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

73

institutions and voices of the religious communities they identify with or represent. Religious authorities themselves speak out directly on some issues, but for issues of global poverty, justice, and inequality, many religious organizations essentially delegate the political role to faith-based NGOs. Part 2 focuses on the FBOs, examining advocacy agendas and the public profile given to education and advocacy at ten prominent FBOs to reveal the variety of approaches and the limits of FBO political voice. Part 3 examines the contributions of faith-based advocacy organizations focused on specific international development-related issues.

FBOs, Religious Organizations, and Political Voice Religious actors’ engage with international development issues through religious missions, faith-based NGOs, and through cooperation with local religious agencies (Berger & Hefner, 2004; Herbert, 2003; Ferris, 2005; Hoksbergen & Ewert, 2002; Haynes, 2007, 2014; Heist & Cnaan, 2016; Ware et al., 2016; Deneulin & Rakodi, 2011; Clark & Jennings, 2008; Tomalin, ed., 2015). But ties to transnational faith communities enable FBOs to play a distinctive role, linking individuals, congregations, and national religious organizations across divides of geography and culture. The ties of shared beliefs, ethical commitments, and in some cases histories and ethnic identities can link FBOs to supporters and encourage donor loyalty and a sense of shared mission in societies where many NGOs compete for humanitarian donors’ support. FBOs’ advantage is not necessarily that religious people are more altruistic or generous—the research is not conclusive on that point (Nguyen & Wodon, 2018). We know, too, that the various Christian denominations have differing views on religious engagement in politics (Joireman, 2009). So faith-based NGOs often have complex identities as nonprofit organizations, but also as religious or quasi-religious organizations. Drawing on a database of 91 faith-based NGOs, mostly in the United States, I chose ten prominent US-based FBOs for study in this chapter and the next. In this section I present a profile of each, and discuss their relationships to religious bodies or coalitions. The ten FBOs are listed in Table 4.1: Lutheran World Relief (LWR) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) each represent their communities officially. Church World Service (CWS) represents the US National Council of Churches, with 38 partner

74

P. J. NELSON

Table 4.1 Ten faith-based NGOs and their relationships to religious communities Faith-based NGO

Relationship to religious community

Lutheran World Relief

LWR is sponsored by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Each also has mission or World Hunger office CWS is sponsored by the National Council of Churches, with 37 mainline Protestant and Orthodox denominations CRS is the overseas relief and development agency of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, representing the US Catholic community World Vision is an independent faith-based agency with strong ties to the evangelical Christian community in the United States AJWS is an independent agency with strong ties to the Reform Jewish and Reconstructionist communities MCC is the agency of the US and Canadian Mennonite and Brethren Churches, denominations committed to nonviolence and service World Relief is an agency of the National Association of Evangelicals; 40 denominations and many congregations are members Samaritan’s Purse is an independent agency with strong ties to the evangelical Christian community Islamic Relief is an independent agency with strong Islamic identity AFSC is sponsored by the Society of Friends (Quakers)

Church World Service

Catholic Relief Services

World Vision

American Jewish World Service

Mennonite Central Committee

World Relief

Samaritan’s Purse

Islamic Relief American Friends Service Committee

church denominations; American Jewish World Service (AJWS) is strongly but not officially affiliated with Reform Judaism; World Relief is an agency of the National Association of Evangelicals, a coalition of 40 denominations; and World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse are independent NGOs with evangelical ties. Islamic Relief is an independent Islamic NGO, and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) are associated with two historic “peace churches.”

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

75

Faith-based development NGOs are one of several forms of religious organizations with an interest in international policy issues, and understanding the relationships among them will be important to evaluating FBOs’ communication and mobilization efforts. Faith-based NGOs work in an organizational context that includes church agencies, religious coalitions and federations, and independent issue-focused advocacy groups. The agencies and coalitions reviewed here vary considerably, but international humanitarian issues are generally the responsibility of faith-based NGOs. Religious Agencies The organizational structures of most religious traditions oversee matters such as the certification and regulation of clergy, international missions, and relations with sister churches in other countries and with other faiths at home. Some of the ten FBOs engaged in policy advocacy work represent religious bodies that also speak out on some issues. The Presbyterian Church-USA (PC-USA), for example, is a member of the National Council of Churches, which sponsors CWS, and PC-USA also sponsors the Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP), making grants and sponsoring programs against hunger in the United States and around the world; and a Presbyterian Mission Agency. In addition to relief and community development, the two agencies’ priorities include “influencing public policy” and “lifestyle integrity” (Presbyterian Hunger Program, n.d.). The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the largest US Lutheran church body, maintains an office of Global Mission to respond to social and material needs around the world; ELCA Disaster Response; and ELCA World Hunger, which seeks to educate and equip Lutherans for advocacy on “the root causes of hunger and poverty” (ELCA World Hunger, n.d.). In the US Roman Catholic Church, responsibility is divided between the public policy office of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and Catholic Relief Services. In 2011, for example, USCCB’s “Catholics Confront Global Poverty” sought to mobilize Catholics to “take a moral stand on the budget,” urging Catholics to contact their Congressional representatives in support of foreign humanitarian and development aid spending among other budget issues (USCCB, 2011). The Bishops’ Office on International Justice and Peace covers a range

76

P. J. NELSON

of foreign and economic policy issues, but does not generally call for grassroots action by the faithful. The Catholic Bishops’ public policy web page, for example, focuses entirely on high-profile issues on which the bishops themselves speak out, especially religious liberties, marriage and family, human life and dignity, and child and youth protection. A reader who navigates to the Bishops’ page on International Justice and Peace finds copies of letters from bishops to various authorities on human rights and justice issues, and an opportunity to “sign up for our advocacy network” and receive action alerts. Clicking through to “Take Action” takes the reader to the Bishops’ Action Center, where in October 2020 there are four action alerts, dominated by a single issue, abortion: “Stop mailorder abortion”; pass a COVID-19 relief bill; thank the pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Pastuer for discontinuing the use of fetal cells in its polio vaccine research; and “Demand a Covid-19 Vaccine Free from Abortion” (USCCB 2020). On global poverty, the Bishops’ web page directs readers to the “Lead the Way” initiative led by CRS and discussed below. So while the Bishops conference is responsible for the church’s public policy voice, and CRS defers to the Bishops Conference and its policy staff, the voice that is heard on international economic affairs is that of CRS. It is true that individual church leaders—Bishops of dioceses within the United States, for example—can speak out individually to their diocese on human rights, global poverty, or immigration issues, and some do. But the weight of Catholic Bishops’ influence in US politics was captured after the release of Pope Francis’ encyclical on universal love and shared mutual responsibility, “Fratelli Tutti,” which appeared in the month before the US Presidential election. Most pastoral letters sent by bishops to Catholics in their dioceses, wrote Michael Sean Winters (2020), “articulate a worldview that is more consistent with that of the president than that of the pope.” Like the Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Religious Action Center of the Union for Reform Judaism has a formidable agenda of social and economic policy issues. It does work on human rights and other international issues, but its “key issues” in October, 2020 were racial justice, a call to participate and protect the 2020 elections, aid for people impacted by COVID-19, and policing reforms. On poverty and human rights issues, readers are encouraged to support legislation defending Uyghur Muslims in Burma, and two development organizations appear in the list of “partners”: American Jewish World Service and Bread for the World.

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

77

Coalitions and Federations Coalitions, too, play important roles in articulating religious views: Some 40 evangelical denominations and thousands of congregations belong to the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), sponsor of World Relief. The NAE (n.d.) describes World Relief’s mission as to “empower the local church to serve the most vulnerable.” Similarly, 37 protestant and orthodox denominations, also members of the National Council of Churches in the United States, are the church partners of Church World Service (CWS). Independent Issue-Focused Groups Independent advocacy groups on hunger, on Africa, and on development issues have become central to faith-based advocacy. Five of them—Bread for the World, Jubilee United States, Micah Challenge, Buddhist Peace Fellowship and Africa Faith and Justice Network—are discussed at length later in this chapter. Faith-Based Humanitarian NGOs and Advocacy With representatives in Washington DC, and/or at the United Nations, many FBOs practice some policy advocacy, and their agendas often reflect the agency’s or religious community’s history and teachings. In recent decades some FBOs with evangelical connections have been credited with significant impact through “insider lobbying,” gaining influence with US policy-makers in USAID, the State Department, and in the White House. Sometimes this is routine, as in the annual ritual of testimony before the relevant Congressional committees on foreign aid priorities (Hertzke, 2010). But insider lobbying has also involved significant breakthroughs, as in the success of World Vision and other evangelical voices in winning President George W. Bush’s support for the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) (Hertzke, 2016; Igoe, 2018). The evangelical Christian role in the AIDS response has been mixed at best. While some credit evangelical leaders with winning President Bush’s support, other studies show that the priority issue for some evangelical activists was forcing a focus on abstinence-based methods of prevention, opposing stronger emphasis on condom use, and making the AIDS

78

P. J. NELSON

debate another front in a broad campaign against contraception and abortion (Ingram, 2010). Influential evangelical voices continued interpreting the epidemic in terms of sexual morality throughout the PEPFAR period, and American conservative evangelicals made common cause with Nigerian and other religious movements promoting conservative ideologies of sexuality and morality (Jappah, 2013). In 2007, 23 percent of Americans still believed that AIDS might be “God’s punishment,” down from 43% in 1987 (Heimlich, 2007). Moreover, Ingram (2010) shows that the religious advocacy was consistent with the Bush Administration’s commitment to promote market-led responses favoring expensive versions of anti-retroviral pharmaceuticals over lower-cost generics. Still, PEPFAR is often cited as illustrating the influence evangelical voices have had in recent US administrations (Dietrich, 2007). Although the section that follows touches on examples of “insider lobbying,” my primary focus is on how FBOs communicate to audiences of supporters and potential supporters that I will refer to as “constituencies.” I use the term constituency to refer to the population of likely supporters for a faith-based NGO. The term is deliberately broader than “members” (many FBOs have no membership structure); it refers to the intended audience, the reader to whom message is directed. For FBOs with an institutional tie to a religious community, that population is well defined. CRS addresses the country’s 70 million Catholics, LWR clearly focuses on readers with an association with Lutheran churches or traditions. Of course, organizations such as AFSC and AJWS, with strong ties to the Society of Friends and to Reform Judaism, also have supporters who are not Quakers or Jews. For many of the FBOs the boundaries of the constituency are more fluid: World Vision, without a base in a single denomination, appeals directly to evangelicals but may find support among other Christians. Many FBOs outside of the ten studied here are in this situation: World Concern, Food for the Poor, World Hope International and many others all compete for support from the US Christian community and from others they may be able to reach with their appeals. So a strong constituency is a distinctive and important political asset of a faith-based NGO. Not all NGOs try to mobilize a membership or donor constituency for advocacy, relying instead on expertise or insider lobbying. Many do try to mobilize, however, and their efforts are examined in the next section.

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

79

Faith-Based NGOs as Advocates How energetically do faith-based NGOs work to educate and mobilize their constituencies for policy advocacy? I use multiple sources as indicators of the level of each FBO’s effort to educate and mobilize its constituency and engage them in advocacy. Diverse sources and publications vary somewhat across the organizations, but consistently include messaging that addresses the organizations’ broad constituencies, as well as newsletters and other formats targeted to readers interested in advocacy. These include the prominence of public policy and advocacy on the organizational web pages and social media (Facebook and Twitter) content1 ; budget and/or staffing for advocacy functions; Annual Reports; newsletters on advocacy or education; special reports and publications; and selected media coverage. Table 4.2 describes sources for each FBO. Two of these sources are central: Web site and social media content captures how prominently the NGO presents its advocacy work to its constituency and other readers; and budget and staffing reflect the level of resource commitment. The language with which each agency introduces advocacy, to judge whether it is offered as an optional activity, or presented as central to the organization’s mission and faith identity. For many of the ten FBOs the Web site and social media content are supplemented by publications on advocacy, newsletters or updates to advocacy participants, and the content of the two most recent Annual Reports and other flagship publications. Each agency’s advocacy work, and evidence of how prominently it is featured in the agencies’ communications, is reported here and summarized in Table 4.3. For some of the FBOs advocacy staff and budget are not available or cannot be broken out. The first six agencies’ budget figures can be broken out, and all except LWR, Islamic Relief-US, and Samaritan’s Purse report some resources spent for education and advocacy. CWS and AJWS clearly assign high budget priority to advocacy and education: 1.7% of expenses (CWS) in 2016, 14% (AJWS); compared to .5% (World Vision) and .81% (CRS).

1 Hertzke et al. (2018) shows that some FBOs have significant followings on social media. The analysis in this chapter is based on Web site content, because the chapter focuses on relatively stable agendas that are not usually subject to frequent change. Facebook and Twitter are included in the analysis in Chapters 7 and 8.

80

P. J. NELSON

Table 4.2 Sources for assessing advocacy, ten FBOs Faith-based NGO

Sources for assessing advocacy

Lutheran World Relief

Web site, Facebook page and Twitter, September 2020 ELCA advocacy agenda; ELCA Advocacy Notes (weekly email) Web site, Facebook page and Twitter, September 2020 CWS Blog is active; occasional content on advocacy Web site, Facebook page and Twitter, September 2020; US Conference of Catholic Bishops Web site Web site, Facebook page and Twitter, September 2020; World Vision USA Blog; Web site, Facebook page and Twitter, September 2020 “Global Justice Chavurah” for rabbis; extensive AJWS Blog Web site, Facebook page and Twitter, September 2020 Periodical “Intersections,” quarterly, articles on advocacy in most issues Web site, Facebook page and Twitter, September 2020 Immigration Legal Support Network online; other training resources Web site, Facebook page and Twitter, September 2020 Web site, Facebook page and Twitter, September 2020 “Partnerships” magazine, annually at Ramadan Web site, Facebook page and Twitter, September 2020. “Alumni Newsletter”; “Quaker Action” magazine, three issues/year

Church World Service

Catholic Relief Services

World Vision

American Jewish World Service

Mennonite Central Committee

World Relief

Samaritan’s Purse Islamic Relief

American Friends Service Committee

CRS and World Vision mount substantial, sophisticated education and advocacy program, but CWS and AJWS’ budgets reflect a higher priority. On the CWS and AJWS Web sites the front pages give advocacy a very high profile. CWS calls for messages to the White House and Congress

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

81

Table 4.3 Advocacy at ten faith-based NGOs Budget, staff, and network Lutheran World Relief

Church World Service

Catholic Relief Services

World Vision

American Jewish World Service

Mennonite Central Committee

World Relief

Samaritan’s Purse Islamic Relief

Prominence on web pages

Only advocacy reference is that LWR stays within legal limits Program budget: $79.3 mn Advocacy: $1.39 mn

No reference at Web site; a separate page has three issue “postcards” Front: Take Action: Life Saving Refugee Program at Risk Second: “be an advocate” link Program budget: $915 mn Front: Global COVID $7.8 mn. public awareness funding; US refugee (not categorized as policy; link to CRS “Lead “program”) the Way” Second: links under “Get Involved” and “Research and Publications” Program budget: $835 mn Front: no advocacy; Link Awareness/education $4 mn to “Speak out and Advocacy” under Get Involved Front page is devoted to 5 advocacy staff plus education and “storytelling” Action Against COVID-19; link to four staff in 2020. Program highlights including $46.4 mn. (2016) protect civil/political Education/Advocacy$6.5 rights during pandemic mn International programs $47 Front page Advocacy; mn links via three tabs to US justice/peace-building Washington Office; act on $1.48 mn. includes advocacy immigrant detention, Korean War, policing On front page: Volunteer, Budget and staff not Give, Advocate. Get reported separately. Two Involved: immigration advocacy staff advocacy link Program $588 million 2018 No advocacy at either No advocacy budget level of Web site US affiliate had no advocacy Advocacy on US Web site budget in 2018 2020, including constituency action on hunger, COVID-19

(continued)

82

P. J. NELSON

Table 4.3 (continued)

American Friends Service Committee

Budget, staff, and network

Prominence on web pages

US & international, advocacy & other program are integrated

Links through “Key Issues” and “Get Involved”; no advocacy on front page

Sources Organization Web sites and Annual Reports, 2020 unless specified

opposing immigration restrictions and supporting international humanitarian and development assistance (October 2020), calling for messages to the White House and Congress. One-third of the AJWS front page is devoted to advocacy actions, and AJWS gives political voice an unusually prominent role in this tag-line: “Through grantmaking and advocacy, we’re improving the lives of millions of people….” The CRS Web site’s “Get Involved” tab features “Advocate” as an option, and links to the CRS “Lead the Way” advocacy initiatives on COVID-19 and international humanitarian assistance, and child health legislation, and Syria (Catholic Relief Services, 2020a, 2020b). World Vision (2020) offers “Use Your Voice: Advocacy” in a menu of 16 options reached by clicking “Get Involved”; in October 2020 the advocacy issues were hunger, foreign assistance, refugees (but not US immigration policy), child protection, violence against women and girls, and “healthy moms and babies.” I tested social media posts as well, to ascertain whether Facebook pages, with more frequent posts and potentially quicker response to events, would show a different pattern. For the month of September I counted total posts and the number that called for advocacy or promoted greater involvement in advocacy. The pattern is strikingly similar to the Web site data, as Table 4.4 shows. This evidence about budget, staffing, Web site presence, social media content, and other factors explained below suggests that there are four patterns among the 10 agencies. 1. Two of the FBOs are silent on advocacy: Samaritan’s Purse and Lutheran World Relief. The independent evangelical Samaritan’s Purse features no advocacy program, instead highlighting religious outreach to US military veterans. (While Samaritan’s Purse as

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

83

Table 4.4 Advocacy content in Facebook and Twitter, September 1–24, 2020 Advocacy posts in Facebook

Comments

AFSC

25 of 61

AJWS

1 of 24

CRS

1 of 25

CWS

3 of 33

IR-USA

0 of 29

LWR

0 of 9

MCC

10 of 60

SP

0 of 27

WR

3 of 22

WV-USA

2 of 26

High proportion of posts on immigration (15) and on US justice system (27) Messages of hope and inspiration at high holidays; grieving Justice Ginsburg; community building (book lists); advocacy on COVID climate racial justice One advocacy message: write Congress, call for $20 billion for overseas aid in COVID relief bill. Posts emphasize CRS projects Heavy focus on immigration (8 of 33 posts); all the advocacy messages are on immigration No advocacy; emergencies, development projects. Seven present relief needs, ask for donation, one prayer Messages emphasize relief and quilts; community building, inspiration Month-long theme on forced migration, causes, and how advocacy can contribute. Many advocacy entries present its value, not actions Disaster relief-focused, 20 of 27. Four of these ask for prayer; five posts feature program for military families, “Healing Wounded Heroes” Advocacy is on immigration; two of three are messages to Ivanka on trafficking. Five spiritual/inspirational Scripture messages Posts promote idea of advocacy, not actions. Seven inspirational/scripture messages, four on child sponsorship. Emotional: “we cried when we saw this”

Source Organization’s Facebook pages, author’s calculations

84

P. J. NELSON

an organization is quiet on policy issues, its Executive Director, Franklin Graham, has a public presence unlike any of his FBO counterparts. His opinions are broadcast on FOX and religious networks on subjects including LGBTQ rights, the Boy Scouts, the Supreme Court, President Trump’s Bible, religious persecution, and Dr. Anthony Fauci [Green, 2017]). Advocacy is also absent from LWR’s Web site and Facebook: No connection from its front page leads to advocacy or policy issues. LWR “constituency engagement” focuses on buying fair trade, making quilts for relief kits, and a Lutheran Malaria Initiative. LWR (n.d.) does continue to make one quiet appeal for support for US spending on development aid, which can be located with a determined online search, but not from within the LWR Web site. These two NGOs are likely reticent on policy issues for different reasons. Samaritan’s Purse’s constituency is made up of politically and theologically conservative evangelical donors. Its founder and president Franklin Graham has been a prominent supporter of President Trump, and the organization is an unlikely candidate to join an NGO chorus on foreign aid spending, environmental protection, or human rights. Lutheran World Relief represents two Lutheran denominations, the politically active ELCA and the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. The NGO once sponsored an active Washington, DC advocacy office jointly with CWS, but that partnership and LWR’s advocacy unit ended during the 2000s. In mid-2018, at the time of the first round of data collection for this chapter, Islamic Relief-USA also did not mention advocacy on its Web site. The US affiliate largely serves as a fundraising arm for IR International, and in the US context, where Islamic organizations have experienced monitoring and legal harassment, the low profile on policy issues is not hard to explain. But it’s Annual Reports began in 2016 to report on “Public Affairs and Advocacy,” primarily tallying its mentions in the media and number of “outreach” events, but also noting the number of visits to Congressional offices (40 in 2016) and that the NGO had signed onto coalition statements (IRUSA 2016). By April of 2020 IR-USA annual reports continued to report on advocacy, and the Web site urged supporters to vote, and to contact members of Congress in support of H.R. 6201, the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act,” the first bill to extend welfare, unemployment, sick leave and other domestic benefits.

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

85

2. Evangelical FBOs World Vision and World Relief provide carefully focused, doctrinally justified advocacy resources, framing their calls for political action by reference to Biblical passages and encouragement to “pray for our leaders.” World Relief’s detailed presentations of policy issues and advocacy actions cites Scripture to demonstrate the appropriateness of political action. In 2020 World Relief (2020a) mounted an outspoken campaign in defense of immigrant populations in the United States. This is a conspicuous, politically courageous stance on a high-profile issue for the many evangelicals who support President Trump. World Relief offers training in immigration law and procedures (online modules in 2020) through its Immigration Legal Support Network, and assistance with “churches and individuals in obtaining proper recognition and accreditation” with the Department of Justice under a US program that allows “accredited non-lawyers” to provide legal support (World Relief 2020b). World Vision’s (2020) advocacy agenda is consistently tied to children’s health and well-being. Readers are encouraged to write to Congress on five topics related to child nutrition, health, and education; the Web site provides draft paragraphs for a letter and suggests personal messages one might add, including “a Bible verse that strikes you or a note of prayer.” 3. Catholic Relief Services and World Vision, two of the largest humanitarian NGOs, exemplify the advocacy strategy of many FBOs, with significant expert advocacy, and political action suggested as an option to readers of their Web sites, publications, and newsletters. CRS’ Advocacy web page leads by identifying CRS advocacy with the Catholic Bishops’ authority: “Our campaign to address the world’s most pressing issues, initiative of the US Catholic Conference of Bishops and Catholic Relief Services, are the official voice of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States” (Catholic Relief Services, 2020a, 2020b). Readers are urged to “join Catholics in the United States in these CRS campaigns.” The CRS advocacy agenda encourages action on poverty-focused foreign aid, pursuing peace, and climate policy. It quotes the Catholic Catechism, reminding readers that “as far as possible, Catholics should take an active part in public life” (Catholic Relief Services, 2020a, 2020b). World Vision-US (n.d. a) frames its advocacy agenda carefully for evangelical Christians, declaring that “we

86

P. J. NELSON

are different” because we know “[a]ll spiritual gifts and skill sets can contribute to the work of advocacy, and God’s power can move our leaders to action. Trusting in this power, we give prayer an integral place in our advocacy efforts,” and “approach governments as partners, not targets.” An essay at the WV-USA blog in August 2020 introduces advocacy the challenge of contacting an elected representative. Proclaiming that “Advocacy can be easy and fun,” it explains the information system, script, and one-click dial available from World Vision’s advocacy web page (Reynolds 2020). Both CRS and World Vision-USA are the US affiliates of international NGO families (examined in Chapter 6) whose other members are often more inclined to public activism. World Vision UK leads the global World Vision network with more extensive research and policy-oriented publications than the US affiliate. CRS is a member of the Catholic Caritas International network of national Catholic aid agencies, many of which are more outspoken than CRS. 4. Several smaller activist agencies—AJWS, CWS, and AFSC—give high priority, high visibility, and feature high constituency outreach in their policy advocacy efforts. These FBOs each create a culture of advocacy and service, and give high priority and high visibility to advocacy, expecting their constituents to embrace a political role as part of their identity as people of faith. AJWS, CWS, and AFSC have extensive education and outreach programs among their US faith communities and followers. AFSC represents the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), working out of offices in 29 US cities to organize, educate, and deliver services locally and transnationally. Grounded in Quaker commitments to nonviolence and social inclusion, AFSC cooperates with other Quaker advocacy groups including the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Quaker Earthcare Witness, and Quaker United Nations Office, its advocacy in 2020 includes international peacebuilding, creating inclusive communities, defending immigrant rights, ending mass incarceration, building economic justice, and justice in Palestine and Israel. While the incarceration issue is especially relevant in the United States, all six are applicable in many of the 25 countries where AFSC works. Activism is the central theme of the AFSC periodical Quaker Action, free online and published three times a year.

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

87

Church World Service, whose member denominations include Protestant and Orthodox churches, maintains an Office of Global Education and sponsors publications on a range of global justice issues. The education and outreach efforts in the United States are highlighted by an annual fundraising and awareness-raising event, the CROP Walk. In 2019, 800 community walks involved 100,000 people nationwide and raised nearly $8 million (CWS, 2020a). Advocacy resources and messages are prominent in virtually every CWS publication and format. The reader who follows Take Action/Advocacy is also urged (“we need your voice”) to write messages to Congress on climate policy, foreign assistance, immigrant and refugee rights, and presented a set of regional issues such as deforestation in the South American Chaco region and anti-corruption initiatives in Haiti (Church World Service, n.d.). CWS call for action on climate is perhaps the most extensive of the FBOs’ studied. It highlights CWS’ role in a “Big Shift” campaign to persuade the World Bank to shift energy investment entirely to renewables; features faith-based youth activism on climate in Africa, suggesting that the advocacy model would fit in the United States. CWS’ call for action on immigration and refugee policy is presented under a #GREATERAS1 campaign that urges grassroots action on separate legislation for refugee and immigrant admissions, integration, and abuse in detention (Church World Service, 2020c). Mennonite Central Committee’s (MCC) policy advocacy is more modest, but it merits mention with these activist FBOs because of MCC’s effort to build a culture of global awareness and service among North American Mennonites through volunteering and other transformative experiences. Although it represents a numerically tiny religious group, MCC’s peace-building efforts and community-based development work in some 40 countries, staffed by long-term volunteers, have won praise from observers (Appleby, 1999; Dicklitch and Rice, 2004). Some argue that Mennonites’ commitment to peace-building and social service rests not only in their interpretation of Christian teachings, but in their own historic experiences of persecution (Gopin, in Dicklitch & Rice, 2004). MCC’s advocacy work offices in Ottawa, Washington, DC and at the United Nations reflects the historic Anabaptist commitment to nonviolence and peacebuilding, but also the deep ambivalence about politics. Some Anabaptists uphold a tradition of separation from state authority and maintain distance from secular politics (Kopko, 2012), and MCC’s Washington office was long represented at a separate Web site from

88

P. J. NELSON

the agency’s program work. In 2020 advocacy appears prominently, an option for readers who want to “Get Involved” alongside volunteering and hosting fundraising events. The MCC quarterly periodical Intersections, for a practitioner audience, features an article on the contribution of advocacy to most its thematic issues, for example on debt relief and on indigenous peoples’ rights in Canada (MCC, n.d.). AJWS (2011), “inspired by the Jewish commitment to justice…works to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world” (Our Mission), and (in an earlier statement) “encourage[s]… American Jews to assume the responsibilities of global citizenship by advocating for change in developing countries right here at home.” AJWS presents a focused policy agenda, using the language of human rights and power to articulate its positions: Human rights appear in its analyses of gender discrimination, conflict in Sudan, and world food prices and supplies. Its 2020 action agenda included protecting LGBT people’s access to healthcare worldwide, stopping persecution of Rohingya people in Burma, and supporting the World Health Organization. The AJWS blog and programming for rabbis have a similar dual focus, highlighting grantees’ communications work against COVID-19 in El Salvador and India, while featuring US advocacy to the State Department on human rights (AJWS, 2020). Affirming that political action on behalf of justice is essential to Jewish identity, AJWS produces and distributes resources for worship, for family holiday observances, for schools, and for personal study. “Constructing the Universe of Obligation” is a study program for adults, juxtaposing sacred texts and teachings with contemporary case studies to help Jews examine what faith and conscience require of them. “Prayer in a Time of Famine” links the contemporary experiences of uprooted and threatened people to the wanderings, exile, and famines in Jewish sacred history. But AJWS’ recent experience shows that even an agency deeply committed to activism faces real constraints. In 2011 AJWS dramatically increased its advocacy and organizing budget and activity, but by 2015 the agency encountered difficulty raising financial support for advocacy on such a scale, and advocacy and organizing staff were cut by 13 (NathanKazis, 2015). AJWS continues to mount a formidable advocacy program, but not the higher-intensity organizing and policy work its leaders had envisioned.

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

89

Record and Limitations What do the experiences of these activist agencies—AFSC, CWS, AJWS and MCC—and other FBOs reveal about faith-based advocacy? First, three of the four activist FBOs (excepting CWS) originate in minority faiths, either Christian sects or minority religions, some with long traditions of peace and social justice and their own historic experiences of persecution. It seems likely that these experiences and traditions shape their political postures. Second, for most, advocacy is secondary to the priority of raising funds for material aid (AFSC and AJWS are exceptions), and political voice tends to be cautious, selective, and optional for constituents. Financial contributions are the key resource for their core activity, and NGOs like other organizations protect that resource. FBOs’ ability to deliver resources for material assistance is well documented (McCleary, 2009), and King (2018) suggests that their prominent role in material aid reinforces the popular understanding that the churches address global poverty primarily through charitable action, and that donations are the principal way to support these good works. Stoddard (2003, p. 28) notes that NGOs always weigh “advocacy against operations,” and NGOs’ political voice can be constrained by factors including field workers’ security and donors’ political sensitivities. Protecting these resources requires adopting a political profile that will be acceptable to constituents, a calculation that can shape the range of issues, the positions adopted, and the prominence given to advocacy. AFSC, AJWS, and CWS cultivate an activist image with high-profile mobilizing efforts, appealing to their politically progressive constituencies, but most FBOs do their advocacy work more quietly, whether they are church agencies (CRS) or independent (World Vision). Efforts to mobilize members are almost always optional or selective. Rather than calling on all constituents to write a letter or join in another action, advocacy is presented as optional by all agencies except AFSC and AJWS. This location of political action at the margins is consistent with the expectation in Christian traditions that the people in the pews will support missions and international charity through prayer and the offering plate. Supporters often have the option to sign up for an advocacy network or email list, as at CWS, World Vision, MCC, and CRS. The case for this segmentation is clear: Supporters who don’t want to participate in advocacy can avoid receiving unwanted emails. But the separate network

90

P. J. NELSON

may also have the effect of insulating those less-politicized supporters from the needs and opportunities that motivate advocacy. It also signals that citizen advocacy is secondary to financial support: Certainly none of the organizations require readers to opt into a list in order to receive information about donating to relief and development operations. Even the most active FBOs encounter constraints, as we have seen in AJWS’ unsuccessful effort to expand education and advocacy in 2011, and while CWS remains the NGO of choice for many mainline protestant congregations, there is evidence of a shift to World Vision’s less activist, more charitable option (King, 2011). A final question: How do these ten FBOs compare to similarly-sized US-based secular NGOs with similar organizational missions? The data and the comparisons here are imprecise, and I offer a comparison only to convey the broad understanding that there is not a dramatic difference between samples of FBOs and secular development NGOs in the visible intensity of their advocacy work. I have chosen ten secular NGOs ranging in size from World Neighbors ($5 million annual budget) to Care ($601 million annual operational budget), and like the faith-based sample they include one focused on children (Save the Children), and several that are tied to transnational “families” of organizations (Care, Oxfam, and Save the Children). They are profiled in Table 4.5. Their visible commitment to encouraging advocacy among their constituency varies roughly as much as their faith-based counterparts’, and they may have slightly fewer resources and efforts for constituency mobilization. Only one mentions no advocacy work at all, and five of the ten provide resources and encouragement to their readers to participate in advocacy actions: Care, Mercy Corps, Oxfam America, Save the Children, and World Neighbors. Based on available budget data and profile on organizational Web sites, faith-based NGOs do not appear to vary systematically from the larger population of US-based development NGOs. Thus far this chapter has focused on FBOs engaged in overseas relief and development work, not on those that specialize in public policy advocacy. That final category of FBOs is the subject of the next section.

Independent Issue-Focused Groups Several relatively small issue-focused organizations, independent of religious denominations, have an outsized presence in faith-based advocacy. Bread for the World, the Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN),

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

91

Table 4.5 Advocacy profile of ten comparable secular development NGOs Secular NGO

Budget and staff

Prominence on web pages

Plan International USA

$57.43 million total Advocacy 1.7 million

Counterpart International

$69.7 million No separate budget

Mercy Corps

$414 million Advocacy budget NA $601 million Advocacy budget NA

Geneva and EU tabs feature advocacy, no mobilization Emphasis on promoting advocacy capacities in country programs Petitions or letters to Congress available. “Speak out”: policy issues with letters, petitions. Join advocacy network Advocacy mentioned only in context of projects to prevent human trafficking Save Children Action Network (SCAN): mobilization on US & global child health No reference to advocacy, despite emphasis on human rights and trafficking Multiple advocacy features, most under “speak out” or “policy and practice” PACT advocates with governments and firms in context of its programs Promotes Civic Engagement in programs, but no advocacy promotion among constituents “Get involved” tab leads to Advocacy through alliances: Women Thrive Worldwide, InterAction, and Coalition for Child Survival

Care USA

Winrock International

$94.8 million No advocacy budget

Save the Children

$774 million $57 million advocacy

Relief International

$47 million No advocacy budget

Oxfam America

$82 million; 28.4% campaigns 7.9% ed

PACT

$122 million No advocacy budget

World Learning

$121 million Advocacy budget NA

World Neighbors

$5.0 million $212,000 public education

Source Organizations’ web sites

Jubilee Network, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and Micah Challenge—all encourage advocacy while not competing directly with religious agencies or NGOs for donations, and have methods of mobilizing both individuals and houses of worship. While many other faith-based groups lobby

92

P. J. NELSON

on international justice issues, I focus here on organizations that build, educate, and mobilize constituency networks. Bread for the World (BFW), the self-styled Christian Citizens Movement against Hunger organizes a membership network to influence Congressional action on hunger-related legislation. Founded in 1974, BFW has some 72,000 individual members, many meeting in local groups that meet to study the issues, write letters to their members of Congress, and educate in their churches. Church congregations can also affiliate, committing to use BFW educational and worship resources, and hold letter-writing events. BFW estimates that it reaches a million US Christians with the call to citizen action against hunger. In 2020 it called on its members for activism on the Federal budget, legislation on both domestic and international nutrition programs during the pandemic, immigration policy, and development aid to Central America. Its strong outreach and organizing work and incremental agenda enable BFW to reach churchgoers with the message that a letter to your member of Congress can save lives. The Jubilee campaign was launched just before the turn of the millennium to reduce the burden of debt on low-income, highly indebted countries. An “alliance of more than 75 US organizations, 650 faith communities and 50 Jubilee global partners,” it reports that the debt campaign won more than $130 billion in debt relief, and now pursues a broader agenda on economic justice, corruption, money laundering, and related issues (Jubilee USA, 2018). The US organization is explicitly interfaith, offering worship and prayer resources for Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Many of its members are national church bodies, and how effectively the resources reach and mobilize individuals depends on the connections between those national offices and individual houses of worship. Jubilee’s work is profiled in Chapter 8. The Micah Challenge, launched in 2004, encouraged individual Christians to hold their governments accountable to commitments to end extreme poverty, echoing the prophet Micah’s insistence that faithful people “act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Smaller and less institutionalized than BFW, the Challenge grew out of the evangelism and social change mission of the Micah Network, and used a distinctive, decentralized model to educate, train, and equip Christians to be advocates. Micah Challenge urged governments to meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals’ anti-poverty goals. The NGO Tearfund played a leading role in its creation in the

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

93

United Kingdom, and Freeman (2020) describes its determined, creative efforts to link lifestyle commitments and political action against global poverty to Biblical mandates, in order to win over Evangelicals. Freeman’s (2018) sympathetic account of the movement acknowledges that even in the UK and Australia, where it had greatest impact, Micah had some success winning over Evangelicals to greater involvement as donors or volunteers, it “did not really succeed in carrying out much advocacy.” Micah Challenge dissolved in 2015 with the completion of the MDGs, and its successor organization, Micah Global, continues to encourage political advocacy. The Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF) is an expression in the United States of the global social engaged Buddhist movement. Globally, social engagement is visible in the work of environmental activist monks in Southeast Asia, community development work by Buddhists for Development in Cambodia, and Taiwan’s Tzu Chi foundation (Darlington, 2012; Bond, 2004; Huang, 2008). Organized in 1978, its approach to social action is loosely coordinated (Schnoetimer, 2013). It offers resources on the social justice implications of Buddhist teaching and practice, aspiring to “Block harm and oppression, Build solutions, and Be free inside” (Buddhist Peace Fellowship, 2020). More than 30 Roman Catholic religious orders with commitments to Africa cooperate to sponsor the Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN). Members include orders of men and women religious (Jesuit, Franciscan, Dominican, and others), as well as medical and other mission agencies. As a “community of advocates,” whose readership extends beyond these religious orders, AFJN works for US economic and political policies that will “benefit Africa’s poor majority, facilitate an end to armed conflict, establish equitable trade and investment with Africa and promote sustainable development” (AFJN, n.d.). AFJN’s agenda in 2020 includes “focus campaigns” on women’s employment, land grabbing, restorative justice, and peace in central Africa. It alerts members through a newsletter and through action alerts such as the 2020 alerts on IMF debt cancellation, child labor in Nigeria, and a call to the US Senate for a global strategy on the COVID-19 pandemic (AFJN, 2020). AFJN also advocates with the US Catholic hierarchy to live up to its commitments to African Church leaders.

94

P. J. NELSON

Mobilizing or Marginalizing Religious Citizen Action? Some US religious bodies are outspoken and influential on a handful of issues related to sexuality, reproduction, marriage, religious freedoms, and family. In this context of increased and selective political engagement, FBOs’ mobilization efforts on international development issues suggest some tentative conclusions and several questions. Poverty and international justice are matters of concern in religious value systems and teachings, but most religious communities make modest efforts at best to speak out publicly on these issues, and to challenge their members and constituents to do the same. In most faith communities, international poverty and development policy issues are delegated to the faith-based NGOs that work on them, or the role is shared between an NGO and an agency of the religious institution. The USCCB, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America World Hunger office, and Presbyterian Hunger Program, for example, maintain educational programs that are important resources for congregations and individuals. Almost all of the faith-based groups studied here support the idea that people of faith should voice their views on poverty and public policy. The extent and profile of this work varies considerably. Some FBOs are very active as insider lobbyists, using their influence selectively to back humanitarian initiatives. A few, especially American Jewish World Service, Church World Service, Mennonite Central Committee and the American Friends Service Committee, make education and mobilization a priority and create or reinforce the norm among their constituencies that compassionate, faithful response includes political action. Delegating issues to the NGOs has advantages: They know circumstances in poor communities and may be able to speak persuasively to their constituency and to policy-makers. They also need to maintain support for their primary mission—to deliver material aid—and this has two implications for how they mobilize their supporters. First, it factors in decisions about how many resources to devote to education and mobilization, and how prominently to promote that work. As I showed, even AFSC, with a liberal, activist constituency, encountered a limit on the size and profile of its public advocacy work. Second, like all NGOs, these FBOs must be aware of the acceptability of their policy positions to a broad audience, and in most cases their efforts involve a self-selected, committed core of constituents who opt to receive information on public policy issues.

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

95

Finally, the most energetic efforts to mobilize political action are found in minority religions outside of the Christian community; in small Christian sects whose teachings and experience emphasize peace, service, and justice; and in independent, non-affiliated faith-based issue-focused organizations. These are separate from church structures and not attached to development NGOs, and they present the option of advocacy to the minority of religious people who choose to affiliate. At times religious communities and FBOs have spoken out in mass numbers, against genocidal violence in South Sudan and Sudan’s Darfur region, for debt relief, and perhaps now against immigration restrictions and for responsible climate policies. We will return to these movements in Chapter 8. Considering the centrality of poverty and justice to all of the faiths discussed here, the religious voice is modest. Why? It could be that Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the United States do not give much attention to global poverty, and that may be part of the answer. Still, the same communities are relatively generous in giving to support relief and community development, so disinterest seems unlikely to be the main factor. It is possible that significant numbers of religious people prefer secular NGOs and are active through other activist development NGO. But it also seems likely that the prominence of the faith-based development and relief NGOs as a visible and expected organizational form is part of the explanation. The NGOs are a highly visible expression of charity in the religious communities, and they have good reason to prioritize financial contributions that support their core mission. This curious mismatch— calling on people to address large, systemic poverty problems by donating to small, community-level projects and programs—is ripe for further investigation. It applies to secular as well as faith-based groups. FBOs and the people of faith who make up their constituencies are grounded in powerful moral and spiritual traditions, teachings with the power to call a society to action and contribute to defining and inspiring its place in the world. Yet faith-based NGOs seem much more ready to expound on the duty of generosity—to “stand with” people by donating—than on the duty to speak out, or to study, boycott, invest, or disinvest. Constituents within the religious communities may well draw the implication that their central duty as faithful, compassionate people is to contribute to financing NGOs’ material aid, and that speaking out on national policy is an option for the outspoken few.

96

P. J. NELSON

References AFJN. (2020). Focus campaigns. https://afjn.org/focus-campaigns/. AFJN (n.d.). Who we are. https://afjn.org/about-afjn/who-we-are/. American Jewish World Service. (December 22, 2011). Advocacy. American Jewish World Service. Take action. Accessed July 23, 2017. American Jewish World Service. (2020). Do more to repair the world. Your voice matters. https://ajws.org/get-involved/activists/. Appleby, R. S. (1999). The ambivalence of the sacred. NY: Rowman and Littlefield. Berger, P. L., & Hefner, R. W. (2004). Spiritual capital in comparative perspective. https://www.metanexus.net/archive/spiritualcapitalresearch program/pdf/Berger.pdf. Bond, G. D. (2004). Buddhism at work: Community development, social empowerment and the sarvodaya movement. Kumarian Press. Buddhist Peace Fellowship. (2020). What we do. http://www.buddhistpeacefe llowship.org/our-work/what-we-do/. Catholic Relief Services. (2020a). Advocate. https://www.crs.org/get-involved/ advocate. October 1, 2020. Catholic Relief Services. (2020b). Lead the way. https://www.crs.org/get-inv olved/lead-way. Clarke, G., & Jennings, M. (Eds.). (2008). Development, civil society and faithbased organizations. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Church World Service. (2020a). CROP walk resources. https://resources.crophu ngerwalk.org/. Church World Service. (2020b). Annual Report 2019. Church World Service. (2020c). Greater as 1. (http://www.greateras1.org/ act_3/). Church World Service. (n.d.). Our work in advocacy. https://cwsglobal.org/ our-work/advocacy/. Darlington, S. (2012). The ordination of a tree. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Deneulin, S., & Rakodi, C. (2011). Revisiting religion: Development studies thirty years on. World Development, 39(1), 45–54. Dicklitch, S., & Rice, H. (2004). The mennonite central committee and faithbased NGO aid to Africa. Development in Practice, 14(5), 660–672. Dietrich, J. W. (2007). The politics of PEPFAR: The president’s emergency plan for AIDS relief. Ethics and International Affairs, 21(3) (Fall), 277–292. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. (n.d.). ELCA world hunger. http:// www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Responding-to-the-World/ELCAWorld-Hunger.aspx. Ferris, E. (2005). Faith-based and secular humanitarian organisations. International Review of the Red Cross., 87 (858), 311–325.

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

97

Freeman, D. (2018). From ‘Christians doing development’ to ‘doing Christian development’: The changing role of religion in the international work of Tearfund. Development in Practice, 28(2), 280–291. Freeman, D. (2020). Mobilising evangelicals for development advocacy: Politics and theology in the micah challenge campaign for the millennium development goals. In Koehrsen & Heuser (Eds.), Faith-based organizations in development discourses and practice (pp. 57–85). Green, E. (2017, May 21). Franklin Graham is the evangelical id. Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/franklingraham/527013/. Haynes, J. (2007). Religion and development: Conflict or cooperation? Palgrave. Haynes, J. (2014). Faith-based organizations at the United Nations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Heimlich, R. (2007, May 7). See AIDS as god’s punishment for immorality. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2007/05/ 07/see-aids-as-gods-punishment-for-immorality/. Heist, D., & Cnaan, R. A. (2016). Faith-based international development work: A review. Religions, 7 (3), 19. Herbert, D. (2003). Religion and civil society: Rethinking public religion in the contemporary world. Aldershot: Ashgate. Hertzke, A. D. (2010). “The globalization of religious advocacy in america,” e-International Relations. In Religion and politics in America: Faith, culture, and strategic choices, fourth edition (Eds.), Robert Booth Fowler, Allen D. Hertzke, Laura R. Olson, & Kevin R. den Dulk. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Hertzke, A. D. (2016). The globalization of religious advocacy: Implications for US foreign policy. In Andrew Dawson (Ed.), The politics and practice of religious diversity (pp. 155–173). New York: Routledge. Hertzke, A. D., et al. (2018). Religion and politics in America. Faith, culture, and strategic choices (6th ed.). New York: Routledge. Hoksbergen, R., & Ewert, L. (Eds.). (2002). Local ownership global change (pp. 204–233). Monrovia, CA: Marc. http://www.worldvisionadvocacy.org/ about/ and https://cwsglobal.org/our-work/advocacy/. Huang, J. C. (2008). Gendered charisma in the Buddhist Tzu Chi (Ciji) movement. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 12(2), 29–47. Igoe, M. (2018). Christians and the new age of AIDS. https://www.devex.com/ news/christians-and-the-new-age-of-aids-93128. Accessed March 3, 2020. Ingram, A. (2010). Governmentality and security in the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Geoforum, 41(4), 607–616. Islamic Relief-USA. (2016). Annual Report 2016.

98

P. J. NELSON

Jappah, J. V. (2013). The convergence of American and Nigerian religious conservatism in a biopolitical shaping of Nigeria’s HIV/AIDS prevention programmes. Global Public Health, 8(3), 312–325. https://doi.org/10. 1080/17441692.2013.765023. Joireman, S. F. (Ed.). (2009). Church, state and citizen. Christian approaches to political engagement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jubilee USA. (2018). Who we are. http://www.jubileeusa.org/about. June 5, 2018. King, D. P. (2011). World vision: Religious identity in the discourse and practice of global relief and development. The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 9(3), 21–28. King, D. P. (2018, February). Religion, charity, and philanthropy in America. Religion in America, sociology, anthropology, and psychology of religion. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.435. Accessed June 4, 2018. Kopko, K. C. (2012). Religious identity and political participation in the mennonite Church USA. Politics and Religion, 5, 367–393. Lindenberg, M., & Bryant, C. (2001). Going global: Transforming relief and development NGOs. Kumarian Press. Lutheran world Relief. (n.d.). Action center. https://secure3.convio.net/lwr/ site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=267. Retrieved May 21, 2018. Mahoney, C. (2008). Brussels versus the beltway: Advocacy in the United States and the European Union. Washington, DC: Georgetown. Mayo, M. (2005). The world will never be the same again’? Reflecting on the experiences of Jubilee 2000, mobilizing globally for the remission of unpayable debts. Social Movement Studies, 4(2), 139–154. McCleary, R. (2009). Private voluntary organizations and relief and development. 1939–2005. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mennonite Central Committee. (n.d.). Intersections. https://mcc.org/stories/ intersections. Micah Challenge UK. (2010). Annual Report 2009–2010. Mitchell, G., Schmitz, H. P., & Vijfeijken, T B-v. (2020). Between power and irrelevance, the future of transnational NGOs. Oxford: New York. Nathan-Kazis, J. (2015, May 13). AJWS cuts back on domestic advocacy after donors balk. FORWARD. National Association of Evangelicals. (n.d.). World relief. Nelson, P., & Dorsey, E. (2008). New rights advocacy: Changing strategies of development and human rights NGOs. Washington, DC: Georgetown. Nguyen, Hoa, & Wodon, Quentin. (2018). Faith affiliation, religiosity, and altruistic behaviors: An analysis of gallup world poll data. Review of Faith and International Affairs, 16(2), 15–22.

4

ENCOURAGING ACTIVE CITIZEN VOICES ON …

99

Presbyterian Hunger Program. (n.d.). Enough for everyone. https://www.pre sbyterianmission.org/ministries/compassion-peace-justice/hunger/enough/. Reynolds, S. (2020). Why advocacy, world vision? August 2020. https://worldv isionadvocacy.org/2020/08/13/why-advocacy-world-vision/. Schnoetimer, P. (2013). Zen and the science of American politics: Minority religious traditions and political engagement. Politics and Religion, 6(1), 164–185. Stoddard, A. (2003). Humanitarian NGOs: Challenges and trends. In J. MacRae & A. Harmer (Eds.), Humanitarian action and the ‘global war on terror’: A review of trends and issues (pp. 25–36). London: Overseas Development Institute. Stroup, S. (2012). Borders among activists. Cornell University Press. Stroup, S., & Wong, W. (2017). The authority trap. Cornell University Press. Tallberg, J., Dellmuth, L., Agné, H., & Duit, A. (2015). NGO influence in international organizations: Information, access and exchange. British Journal of Political Science, 48(1), 1–26. Tomalin, E. (Ed.). (2015). The routledge handbook of religions and Global development. New York: Routledge. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (2020). Action center. October 1, 2020. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (2011). Be one in a million, September 19, 2011. http://old.usccb.org/sdwp/globalpoverty/. Accessed September 19, 2011. Ware, V.-A., Ware, A., & Clarke, M. (2016). Domains of faith impact: October 4, 2020. https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/fratellitutti-challenges-our-country-and-our-church. World Relief. (2020a). Seek justice and mercy for the vulnerable and suffering. https://worldrelief.org/advocate/. World Relief. (2020b). Legal support network. https://worldrelief.org/legal-sup port-network/. World Vision. (2020). Get Involved. https://www.worldvision.org/get-involved. World Vision. (n.d.). Use your voice. www.worldvisionadvoacy.org. World Vision U.S. (n.d. a.). How we advocate. https://www.worldvisionadvo cacy.org/about/.

CHAPTER 5

Agendas and Strategies: Prophetic Voices and Cautious Reformers

Studies of international NGO (INGO) advocacy have raised a number of questions about how NGOs choose and frame their advocacy agendas. How well do the choices reflect the priorities and wishes of INGOs’ Southern partner organizations, for whom INGOs at least implicitly claim to speak (Nelson, 1997)? When there are gaps in the collective advocacy agenda—important issues that are not being addressed—why does this happen (Carpenter, 2007)? Are issues chosen in a way that reflects the intensity of need, or because a policy victory will enhance the INGO’s reputation and stature (Bob, 2001)? All of these questions are relevant to this chapter, but I have focused the question differently, asking what issues US-based faith-based organizations (FBOs) choose to educate and mobilize their constituencies, and what that implies for how people of faith are encouraged to understand global poverty and inequality. Religious agencies and faith-based NGOs are not political heavyweights, and on most issues their influence is modest. But when faith-inspired advocates make a concerted effort, they have shown they can help enact or block new policies or initiatives, or inspire new commitments. The issues they choose to adopt are also important because they indicate to their constituencies the policy issues that are important to addressing global hunger, human rights, poverty, and inequality. This, in turn, signals to policy-makers what actions will satisfy © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. J. Nelson, Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3_5

101

102

P. J. NELSON

humanitarian voices and voters. Foreign aid policy consistently dominates these advocacy agendas, even though analysts from across the political spectrum agree that aid policies have much less impact on prospects for the world’s poor people than do trade, intellectual property, finance, taxation, investment, energy, and other economic policy priorities. I examine these issues by discussing the motivations and context for FBO advocacy agendas, laying out a set of categories for policy issues that will allow broad comparisons, and then comparing the issue agendas of the ten FBOs from Chapter 4, the secular comparison NGOs also presented in Chapter 4, and finally reviewing a handful of FBO agendas on hunger and food security in greater detail.

Understanding FBO Advocacy: Theory and Motivations This chapter examines the issues on which faith-based NGOs do speak out, and on which they try to educate and mobilize their constituencies. The findings suggest that, as is true in the larger population of development NGOs, a handful of NGOs take leadership roles on new or difficult issues—issues beyond foreign aid policy—and a larger population of faith-based groups focus their advocacy largely on encouraging generosity and effective aid policies. Faith-based groups that specialize in policy advocacy often play a trail-blazing role. Such organizations as Bread for the World, Africa Faith and Justice Network, and Evangelicals for Social Action recruit and retain supporters and members who want to be involved in public advocacy work, and they may well be able to make more extensive demands on their members’ time and political energies than do other NGOs, for whom constituents are first and foremost financial donors. Advocacy organizations often have staff and resources that allow them to develop broader and more varied public policy agendas, and to produce materials and events to educate their constituencies. Examining advocacy, political speech, and education work by faithbased groups turns up evidence that suggests patterns of political and organizational behavior. Agendas reflect distinctive experiences and teachings of religious groups. Roman Catholic organizations would be expected to take strong positions on sanctity of life issues, and historic peace churches’ (Quakers and Mennonites) agendas would reflect their commitments to nonviolence. FBOs with ties to US Evangelicals, who are disproportionately associated with conservative political causes and

5

AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES: PROPHETIC VOICES …

103

movements, limit their humanitarian advocacy work, making relatively few challenges to international order or to national foreign policy, and taking up important but politically “safe” issues related to childhood and aid in humanitarian emergencies. NGOs that are agencies of church bodies and independent faithbased groups might be expected to show different patterns of behavior. Church agencies with strong institutional ties to a transnational religious community may be able to assume unusually strong loyalty from their member/donors. Church members are a relatively secure constituency, with some loyalty to the agency grounded in shared belief and identity. That is not to say that Presbyterians, for example, never question the agenda or judgment of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, but it does suggest that religious NGOs and others with strong affective or membership ties to segments of the donor public are not simply competing in a humanitarian marketplace for members’ loyalty. Do some religious faith-based NGOs enjoy a privileged covenantal relationship of support from their religious tradition, both in the form of institutional support and of individual contributions? If so, does this affect their willingness to engage with controversial issues? On the other hand, there may be reasons to expect stronger, more outspoken positions from independent FBOs. Advocacy-focused group such as Bread for the World may attract a smaller constituency of members already committed to an issue and comfortable with the idea of public policy advocacy. This would suggest that a third group of independent agencies focused mainly on material aid would be most careful and selective in their advocacy choices, having neither the advantages of shared belief and identity, nor the self-selected, politically active constituency. Why FBO Advocacy? Any NGO may choose to undertake advocacy and education work for a variety of ideological, political, organizational, and belief-driven reasons. To understand the range of advocacy styles and positions adopted by religious actors and faith-based NGOs requires an awareness of the possible political, religious, and organizational motivations. The conventional stated reason for advocacy work is to change the policy or practice of some government, international agency, or corporation. At times the target is broader, and advocacy efforts can aim to affect broad public mores

104

P. J. NELSON

or public opinion, or to affect the practice of a sector of organizations, including NGOs themselves. Some FBOs and religious bodies make it clear that their advocacy is an exercise of a religious duty, to speak with a moral or prophetic voice to powers or authorities. Catholic Relief Service (2020d), for example, “…approaches the budget as a moral document that must protect the poor and marginalized. Foreign assistance focused on relieving poverty, consistent with Catholic Social Teaching, are those [budget] accounts that contribute most directly to life-saving emergency assistance, reducing poverty and promoting sustainable peace.” This motivation may of course be compatible with influencing policy, but religious advocacy work will at times articulate a position or advance a proposal not because it has any prospect of being adopted, but because it represents a vision of a just society that religious principles require. This kind of “prophetic” advocacy—contrasted with strategic, more modest advocacy efforts crafted to have a chance of short-term success— is rare among the larger, more professionalized faith-based organizations. The British NGO Christian Aid (2020b) sometimes adopts this posture, as in its description of its advocacy role: “Our policy work aims to have a prophetic voice - influencing and informing a wide range of stakeholders from civil society, to government, private sector and church leaders. We create policy materials on a wide range of topical and cutting-edge issues, which in turn informs our advocacy and campaigning work around the world.” Most of the FBOs studied here explain their advocacy in something like these terms: “We believe in building strong links between our interventions in the field – short-term measures to effect change – and the advocacy that will ultimately change policies that will bring about justice for the long-term.” World Vision (2020) states: “By addressing the systemic contributors and causes of poverty, World Vision’s advocacy work ensures that community transformation is sustainable and scalable.” And Catholic Relief Services (2020c) “complements its humanitarian and development work and experience with policy analysis and advocacy to address the root causes of poverty, conflict and marginalization.” But it is curious that FBOs—even those representing the most socially and politically progressive religious communities—are not the voices taking the lead on broad, challenging cutting-edge global justice issues. The movement pressing for a global living wage, for example—admittedly a complex, long-term campaign—has no visible religious participation,

5

AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES: PROPHETIC VOICES …

105

despite interest from some US Christian denominations and the Religious Action Center (n.d.) of Reform Judaism in living wage proposals in the United States, and AJWS (2015) work in support of Cambodian advocacy for living wage legislation. What political voices, if not faith-based NGOs, will speak out in favor of compensation for slavery or for climate-related damage on a large scale? Proposals of this kind languish in the journals of ethicists and global futurists. The hesitancy to engage with such “prophetic” issues or campaigns is particularly problematic as I write in June 2020. Sweeping movements and proposals related to racial justice dominate political news in the United States and elsewhere, but most FBOs have had little to say beyond statements of sorrow or solidarity with people of color in the United States. Leaders of CRS and of AJWS have made powerful, compelling statements (Pozniak, 2020; Bank, 2020a, 2020b). It remains to be seen how these and other FBOs will be able to tie their work, which is almost entirely in communities of people of color worldwide, to the renewed public focus on race in the United States. In addition to being principled actors, often tied to a religious community, FBOs are also organizations, advancing and defending their own interests. Advocacy may be undertaken to secure resources for their own organizational work, to ensure that government relief and emergency assistance is made available to NGOs in general, to underscore the legitimacy of work they undertake, or to demonstrate a kind of organizational competence by conforming to widely held expectations that advocacy is a form of work that sophisticated, professional NGOs do. Catholic Relief Services (2018), for example, received $761 million in support from US government sources in 2018, nearly 77% of its operating revenue. World Vision (2018) relied on government grants and food aid commodities and shipping for roughly 31% of its operating expenses in 2018. More representative of the mid-sized FBOs studied here is Lutheran World Relief (2018), which received US government support amounting to 14.3% of its $47 million 2018 budget. Their advocacy agendas extend well beyond advocating for aid programs that directly support their operations, but it is reasonable to expect that this operational link would be a factor motiving advocacy. Advocates often seek to speak for or “with” a particular social group, population, or set of organizational partners, and religious advocates are no exception. Christian faith-based agencies leading the early years of the Jubilee debt relief campaign, for example, articulated a moral and

106

P. J. NELSON

economic argument for their proposals, but were also careful to cite the initiative of leaders in heavily indebted African countries as a grounds and source of support for their arguments. One distinctive motivation for religious and faith-based NGOs’ advocacy may be the education and moral formation of their membership and constituency, discussed below. If this moral formation role is important to an FBO, then its leaders may make a calculation about what issues will have educational value for the constituency, as well as substantive public policy importance. An NGO that presents a broad, complex agenda may be representing its honest, full analysis of the causes of global poverty, but may also fear that the complexity of the issues will discourage and silence its constituents. I have been part of such discussions during the years that I worked at faith-based advocacy organizations: Staff were careful to balance new, challenging issues with familiar, “winnable” issues that would help maintain citizen activists’ confidence as they lobbied their elected representatives and recruited new members. These distinctions suggest multiple factors that may shape a faith-based organization’s choices about its advocacy work: Calculation of expected gains for the people they serve; ideology or religious social teaching; a duty to be a prophetic voice; educational value for participants; or because of organizational imperatives, to demonstrate their legitimacy. The interplay of these organizational motivations may affect the choice of issues and strategies, and would certainly affect how advocacy initiatives are evaluated. Moreover, faith-based groups may balance the interest in cultivating this membership, and in influencing public or corporate policy, with an interest in gaining greater legitimacy in the eyes of development professionals, potential funders, and others.

Method: Categorizing Advocacy Issues I employed a two-step process to develop a standard by which to assess and compare the breadth and complexity of advocacy agendas. Because these comparisons could face potential reliability problems, including my personal judgments and preferences, I will explain my approach in some detail. First, InterAction, the 180-member association of US-based NGOs in development, maintains an advocacy agenda that collects its members’ widely agreed priority issues, and this agenda can serve as a kind of baseline. InterAction sets its advocacy agenda to represent the interests of its membership. The agenda therefore is a kind of common denominator,

5

AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES: PROPHETIC VOICES …

107

representing the handful of issues that virtually all of its members agree to, leaving individual members to speak out individually on other priority issues. In March 2020 the agenda consisted of: 1. Funding and structure of US foreign assistance; budgets, allocations, independence of USAID in the US foreign policy structure 2. Humanitarian emergency concerns: in 2020, the focus is on Venezuela 3. Funding the Feed the Future Program 4. Budget priorities: Specifically, defending the budget account (Function 150) that includes most forms of foreign assistance 5. Immigration InterAction’s agenda is useful for our purposes because we can treat it as a baseline, an expected set of issues that US-based NGOs, secular or faith-based, speak out on. Significant variations from this baseline would be noteworthy because they would suggest that other issues are organizational priorities for reasons of values, ideology, field experience, or the preferences of partner NGOs. Second, beyond a baseline advocacy agenda, I categorize the issues on FBO advocacy agendas according to the approach they take to addressing poverty and deprivation. Responding to immediate need with material aid is at one end of the continuum, and addressing global, national, natural, and social root causes of poverty and exclusion, or related national policy issues such as energy policy is at the other end (Fig. 5.1). I group the policy issues thematically under six headings: aid and poverty including foreign aid, social policy interventions, and most Generosity Power Structure Material Aid Rules Humanitarianism Systemic ______________________________________________________________________________ __________________________ Issues Issues Issues Emergency humanitarian aid Health or education policy Aid and social policy

Debt forgiveness Military/foreign policy Energy policy

global trade rules tax havens corruption

Fig. 5.1 Issue selection: The charity to structural change continuum

108

P. J. NELSON

humanitarian emergency issues; structural issues, including global and national-level policies and institutions and development issues such as trade, debt, and climate change; immigration and migration policy including both US immigration policy and migrants elsewhere; armed conflict; human rights and marginalized groups, including physical and humanitarian threats to indigenous groups, human rights issues affecting women or religious/ethnic minorities, and other human rights violations; and religion and solidarity, including religious freedom and religious and ethnic solidarity. These categories distinguish policy issues according to how and whether they identify and address root causes of poverty; whether they essentially call for generous aid or for more fundamental changes of economic rules and institutions; and whether they aim to address universal injustices or to express religious solidarity with fellow believers. With few exceptions, this study sets aside the final category, religious freedom. Advocacy for religious freedom among faith-based groups is largely carried out by NGOs focused on that issue, and not engaged with other development policy matters, and in the interest of clarity of focus on development policy, I do not attempt to integrate religious liberty advocacy into the discussion (Thames et al., 2009). So I use five categories to distinguish the themes in FBOs’ public voice: 1. Aid-focused: Generosity in emergency response and in long-term commitments, as well as specific aid objectives such as maternal and child nutrition 2. Structural and economic justice: Trade, debt, corporate conduct, climate, finance, tax policy 3. Conflict situations and humanitarian response 4. Immigration and migration 5. Human rights and solidarity, including initiatives focusing on marginalized groups, on women or minorities, and on group rights. Even a glance at the advocacy record of many development NGOs suggests that they have agendas that span these categories. Calling for generous and poverty-focused foreign assistance has been the centerpiece of religious advocacy since the Marshall Plan. The focus on aid policy is attractive both because it builds on the same impulse that drives the NGOs’ program work—material assistance to relieve suffering and

5

AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES: PROPHETIC VOICES …

109

promote community development—and because it is easy to explain to a donor constituency, and less likely to offend cautious donors than more volatile structural issues such as debt relief, land reform, trade or investment policies, or militarism. Almost all organizations that advocate on debt forgiveness or on international financial rules, for example, also support more generous and more effective development aid. Some organizations focused on human rights and expressions of solidarity with a country or region (Central America, Palestine, sub-Saharan Africa) also work on aid and trade policy with those regions. But these categories allow us to make an important distinction among faith-based NGOs, because organizations that focus primarily on aid spending and policy—an approach that emphasizes generosity—seldom stray into significant policy advocacy on human rights or structural economic policy issues. Using this framework, I have monitored the advocacy agendas of the FBOs, and of the comparison group of secular NGOs, discussed below. The summaries presented here are based on observations recorded in September and October 2018 and in March 2020. I have included advocacy issues observed at both times in order to present a more representative view of the tendency of each organization, rather than capturing only a single moment where the issue agenda may have been shaped by unusual events. When these advocacy issues are reported, I have noted either 2018 or 2020 for clarity and reported the 2020 issues in Tables 5.1 and 5.2 in italics.

Public Policy Advocacy Agendas: Findings NGOs with development and humanitarian agendas have long focused much of their public policy advocacy on development aid policy. The choice makes sense: Many of the agencies participate in governmentfunded aid projects and programs, and have an interest in encouraging government aid agencies to turn to them as contractors and project implementers, and to maintain policies and procedures that facilitate this cooperation. Moreover, NGOs that are in the business of community development have some expertise in aid policy, and relationships with official aid agencies, that give them credibility and access for advocacy on this subject. But in the past two decades this agenda has broadened considerably, with development NGOs staking out positions on international economic relations, human rights, and on international agreements on subjects such

Reform US aid; HIV; aid for climate change Support poverty-focused international assistance

Catholic Relief Services

Fund aid; Support poverty-focused aid, food aid, Feed the Future Maternal/child health

World Vision

Climate Change topic but no action; climate

Extractive industries; climate change adaptation; Green Climate fund, Paris accord

Cambodian garment workers

International order

Source Organizations’ websites; 2020 issue agendas in italics

Postcard on support for aid funding

Lutheran World Relief World Relief

Mennonite Central Support foreign aid; Committee eradicate Ebola; Maternal-Child nutrition Church World Support int’l relief & Service development aid

Oppose cuts to US foreign aid

Aid spending, poverty

Faith-based Advocacy Agendas, by Issue Category

American Jewish World Service

Table 5.1

Congo: diplomacy, relief aid Multiple conflict areas

End Korean War

Sudan; Rohingya people in Burma Middle East peace; Congo and minerals

Conflict

Iraq refugees; immigration; Immigrants Refugees from Syrian war, in region

Resettlement offices; No travel ban

Global migration, US immigration policy

Immigration

Child labor, sex tourism, trafficking; help children thrive, keep girls in school, child labor

End blockade of Gaza; restore humanitarian aid

Right to food; Repeal Global Gag Rule; LGBTQI rights Human Trafficking —legislation for Supply Chain transparency

Protect group rights

110 P. J. NELSON

#dontcutlives—protect foreign aid; Family planning agencies & funds

Care USA

PACT

Oxfam America

extreme inequality and Climate; natural poverty, making aid resource justice; work petition candidates on climate; tax havens & World Bank Artisanal/small-scale conflict minerals mining

Save the Children Protect funding for life-saving health programs; fund children’s programs in budget

Support Global Fragility & Violence Reduction Act Safe from the Start Act to protect women in humanitarian emergencies

Protect people at risk from climate change

Protect foreign aid; protect food security

Conflict

Mercy Corps

International order Land mines policy (statement)

Aid spending, poverty

Advocacy Agendas of Selected Secular US-based NGOs

Plan International Oppose cuts; support reforms

Table 5.2

Keep migrant children safe at the border Stop indefinite detention; End “Remain in Mexico” Protect refugee resettlement; respect migrant/immigrants rights

Family separation; detention facilities

Migration

Women’s entrepreneurship bill (passed 2018); end violence against women Invest childcare and US early education; end child marriages; Every Last Child

Sexual & reproductive health rights; keep girls in school; LGBTQI rights

Protect group rights

5 AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES: PROPHETIC VOICES …

111

112

P. J. NELSON

as conflict diamonds, climate change, the extractive industries, human trafficking, tax policy and tax shelters, and regional free trade. One factor in this broadening of agendas has been the increasing interaction and cooperation among social movement organizations based in the poor countries, human rights NGOs, environmental advocacy groups, and development NGOs. The increasing embrace of human rights-based advocacy agendas and strategies has contributed to international development NGOs’ growing attention to international financial institutions (especially the World Bank), to trade and finance policy, and to pressing for national policies that guarantee and deliver services such as education, health care, and housing (Nelson and Dorsey, 2008). Still, for many NGOs, straying far from the humanitarian and community development work for which they are known is perceived as a risk. FBO advocacy agendas reveal several ways of balancing these priorities. Some appear to adopt the strategy of staying close to the issues for which the NGOs are known. World Vision, long known for “Building a Better World for Children,” focuses its advocacy agenda largely on issues affecting children. Many of these are important but perhaps peripheral to the standard anti-poverty agenda: Child labor, human trafficking, and sex tourism are major issues. World Relief’s advocacy agenda and message in 2020 focused strongly on encouraging a more compassionate response to immigrants and refugees in the United States and in particular among evangelical churches. World Relief (2019) opposed expanded lists of nationalities under travel restrictions and issued a statement after thenPresident Trump’s 2019 State of the Union asserting that “[i]t is counter to our nation’s legacy as a country of immigrants to restrict avenues through which those who are fleeing persecution and danger can find protection in the United States.” A review of the eight NGOs’ agendas confirms two expected characteristics: First, all eight advocate on US foreign aid policy. Persuading their individual contributors to speak out politically on a poverty issue is probably easiest where the issue is straightforward and where, in effect, it is asking the government to do the same kind of work that the donor supports financially through the FBO. World Vision’s Advocacy website, for example, introduces advocacy on international children’s issues by referring to its own work in the field: “As we work alongside communities to provide safety, health, and opportunity for every child, our advocacy challenges the policies, systems, structures, practices and attitudes that make it difficult for vulnerable children and their families to experience

5

AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES: PROPHETIC VOICES …

113

‘life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10).” This tendency to gravitate to aid policy has been recognized elsewhere, as in Freeman’s (2019) observation that evangelical NGOs focus their advocacy on foreign assistance. Aid policy makes sense as an advocacy target, because it is readily understandable and legislation can affect amounts and allocations. But most Americans should suspect, as a recent Brookings Institution paper on attitudes toward aid holds, that: Foreign aid has not been the major driver of development progress over the last 20 years, nor will it be in the future. Long-term development progress depends primarily on the economic and political institutions that are built over time in low-income countries, and the actions taken by those countries themselves. Aid programs (alongside diplomacy and other tools of international engagement) are not the driving force behind development, but they can help support development progress along the way. (Radelet, 2017)

A second observation about these agendas: The agencies tend to specialize in thematic areas with a link to their own profiles as aid providers, or to issues of historic interest to their constituency. World Vision’s focus on children, for example, links their advocacy to the agency’s “tag-line” and to its prominent use of child sponsorships. Church World Service’s extensive work on immigration policy fits with the major role it plays in refugee resettlement in the United States. Both World Relief and World Vision focus heavily on conflict situations, again consistent with their work in providing humanitarian aid in conflict-affected areas. Third, three of the FBOs also tackle issues that are arguably more challenging to explain to constituents, and more difficult to “win.” Catholic Relief Services’ work calling for greater transparency by extractive industries, especially mining and petroleum, is an example, as is American Jewish World Service’s rights-based work on Sudan. So while most faith-based advocacy stays close to asking for generous government aid response to global poverty, some of our FBOs do engage complex and controversial issues as well. The profile of their agendas is summarized in Table 5.1. Issues from the 2020 agendas are in italics.

114

P. J. NELSON

FBO and Secular NGO Agendas How do these choices by faith-based NGOs compare to the advocacy agendas of their secular counterpart NGOs? As in Chapter 4, I have assembled advocacy profiles for the same ten secular development NGOs, US-based charities that are comparable by size and specializations to the FBO sample. The similarities in the range of issues, the issue categories, and the breadth of advocacy agendas are strong. Almost all the secular counterpart agencies focus some of their advocacy on US government funding for development assistance programs, and there is little attention to complex issues involving the international order or trade and finance, with the exception of Oxfam America’s work on income inequality, tax, and investment policies. Five of the secular counterpart NGOs discussed in Chapter 4 do not have an active US advocacy agenda and are not included here: Counterpart International, Winrock International, Relief International, World Learning, and World Neighbors. Counterpart International (2020) supports advocacy by civil society in countries where it has assistance programs, but it does not encourage constituents or supporters in the United States to work on these or other policy issues. The policy agendas of these secular NGOs may be somewhat broader, taking in a larger number of total issues, and in the cases of Save the Children and Oxfam America they tilt away from aid policy and toward structural and human rights issues. But the broad agenda that Oxfam, for example, lays out in 2020 includes research and policy recommendations on complex investment, trade, and tax policies, but calls directly for constituent action only on the budget and petitioning Presidential candidates to act boldly on the climate crisis. Based on this comparison sample, secular NGOs may maintain slightly broader advocacy agendas on average, but the difference is not conspicuous or dramatic.

A Closer Look: “Advocating Against Hunger” To gain a closer and clearer look at how advocacy agenda s are framed and communicated to FBOs’ constituencies, I have focused on one major theme, common to several organizations’ agendas. Ending “world hunger” is a longtime theme and goal in NGO advocacy. In this section, I narrow the list of FBOs to four that have significant agendas on food and agriculture: Catholic Relief Services, American Jewish World Service,

5

AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES: PROPHETIC VOICES …

115

World Vision, and ELCA World Hunger. For comparison I will also examine the relatively broad food policy agendas of Oxfam and Bread for the World. Hunger is a visible manifestation of poverty and “world hunger” is sometimes used as a shorthand for the complex issues of poverty, inequality, and malnutrition. “Hunger” offers a way to talk about poverty that most people have experienced—that is, most of us can identify with the tangible ache of being hungry, so “hunger” moves the discussion from economic abstractions related to “poverty” and “livelihoods” to an issue that is one step closer to middle-class people’s experience. Among faithbased advocates, examining anti-hunger advocacy more closely affords a way to examine the different ways that agencies analyze, frame, and present poverty and justice issues. Using publications and organization web pages, I examined the NGOs’ positions on food policy issues in order to determine how they analyze hunger issues; how they are linked to faith, social teachings, and other frameworks; what specific policy actions they encourage; and how they encourage their constituencies to support them. In most cases I distinguish the broad set of issues on which organizations are carrying out ongoing education from the smaller active agenda on which they encourage their members to advocate. The content of the longer-term education in some cases highlights the FBOs’ contrasting emphases in messaging to their constituencies. AJWS (2020) presents food insecurity as a human rights issue and a function of political power, to be addressed by protecting vulnerable peoples’ land rights and regulating large-scale land investments. CRS (2020a) also values protecting smallholder agriculture, but calls attention to strategies that can help smallholders prosper in the marketplace by forming producer associations and producing with the marketplace in mind. World Vision calls for investment in interventions that can improve nutritional outcomes for children (World Vision International, 2020). The ELCA Hunger Program emphasizes education, providing background resources rather than advocacy action items, and linking food security and poverty issues to Christian scriptures appropriate to liturgical seasons (ELCA, 2020). Arguably these approaches are tailored appropriately to the FBOs’ constituencies. World Vision’s donors might not be receptive to the AJWS’ analysis of power, oppression, and food sovereignty with anticorporate overtones and a preference for small-scale farmers’ control

116

P. J. NELSON

of land, crops, and market decisions; AJWS more politically progressive supporters might not be satisfied with the market-based approach that CRS advocates, although both agencies’ frames are detailed and carefully developed based on experience with small-scale food producers. Benchmarks: Two Broad Agendas on Food Security The broad food security agendas of Oxfam America and Bread for the World provide points of comparison in assessing the FBOs’ framing. Bread for the World is devoted entirely to policy advocacy and education in the United States, and Oxfam devotes more than a quarter of its budget to policy advocacy and public education. Here is a summary of their stated advocacy agendas on hunger as of March 2020. Oxfam America Oxfam America participates in the global Oxfam family of NGOs and benefits from the shared research and advocacy capacity of that network. Its agenda on food security issues is broad and addresses complex issues related to trade, investment in agricultural land, subsidies for corn-based ethanol fuel in the United States, and other issues. Not all of these issues are featured at any one time for action by Oxfam members, but like Bread for the World it packages educational and advocacy resources in a seamless way, encouraging readers to understand underlying issues as well as immediate opportunities for influence on US policy. The topics: • Land rights and large-scale land investments: Oxfam’s advocacy on “land grabs” calls for and monitors implementation of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Voluntary Standards for Governance of Land Tenure. • Responsible agricultural investment principles through Committee for Food Security: This initiative aims to develop and strengthen practice of guidelines limiting investment in land that can lead to rapid changes in land use and food production. Oxfam also monitors the US role in the Committee for Food Security. • End ethanol subsidies: Oxfam calls for an end to payments that lower the cost of fuel derived from corn, which has consumed 40% of US production in some years.

5

AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES: PROPHETIC VOICES …

117

• Critique and monitor New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, public-private partnerships created by the G-8 in 2010 and operating in several African countries. • Food aid reform: Oxfam has been a leader in advocacy for reforms of US food aid, shifting away from shipping US surpluses toward local purchase, cash assistance, and other measures that are widely considered more cost-effective. • Monitoring and improving the US Feed the Future Initiative: Oxfam calls for improvements and supports funding for this agriculturefocused development assistance initiative. Bread for the World Bread for the World (BFW) has some 72,000 individual members and is devoted to citizen action on hunger and poverty. Bread for the World’s stated agenda on hunger-related issues is broad and takes on social policy issues related to poverty, including, for example, prison reform and promoting tax credits. The active agenda in 2020, however—the agenda its members are encouraged to speak out on—is confined to food assistance and supporting development assistance programs. The agenda in 2020 (before the pandemic) includes: • Child Nutrition: Readers are urged to write members of Congress, asking them to support an initiative calling for a larger appropriation in 2020 for child nutrition. • Federal budget: Supporting foreign assistance as well as domestic anti-poverty priorities. • Foreign assistance support: As with many of the FBOs reviewed here funding for development and humanitarian aid appropriations is a major priority. • Food aid reform: BFW supports changes to the Food for Peace program to place greater priority on providing cash grants for local purchases of available food, reducing the high overhead costs of paying US shippers to transport grain from US ports. • Immigration reform • Trade reform (background discussion but no action items). • Criminal Justice Reform: Urging Congress to fully fund Second Chance Act, making small grants to recently released prisoners.

118

P. J. NELSON

BFW has specialized for decades in linking food security concerns to particular pieces of legislation in Congress, presenting citizens with specific tangible advocacy targets. Its agenda in 2020 focuses active citizen lobbying on foreign assistance and federal budget priorities and includes some longer-term structural issues not connected to viable pieces of legislation or to political actions. Faith-Based Food Security Agendas With these two broad agendas in mind, how do four active FBOs’ antihunger agendas compare? World Vision-USA World Vision’s advocacy agenda on food security policy is framed as actions to “plead another’s cause” and to maintain its programmatic focus on child well-being by calling for public policy that supports child and maternal nutrition. Its advocacy in March 2020 included pressing for Congressional action on resolutions supporting expanded nutrition assistance during the first 1000 days after conception; maternal and child nutrition appropriations; the Global Child Thrive Act, calling for greater attention to child health, education, and nutrition, especially in violent conflict situations. The agenda also urged support for breastfeeding advocacy. Using resources from the Global Breastfeeding Collective, this advocacy is focused not on a particular action by US policymakers, but on encouraging “greater support for breastfeeding and frontline health workers, we can increase prosperity, save the lives of many women and children, and create a winning global breastfeeding team” (Medlock, 2019). American Jewish World Service AJWS advocacy on hunger issues rests on food as a human right, a theme that informs its discussion of food, land, nutrition, and aid whether in the Haitian earthquake emergency or in situations of chronic or seasonal malnutrition. The link to human rights is paired with the claim that “food is a Jewish issue,” that, as an ancient teacher put it (Pirke Avot [Ethics of the Fathers] 3:21), “‘Without sustenance, there is no Torah.’ In other words, without food, there is no education; no progress; no justice” (AJWS, 2011).

5

AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES: PROPHETIC VOICES …

119

This dual framework of human rights and Jewish ethical teaching grounds a broad analysis of food and justice. AJWS’ active agenda in 2020 did not include food policy issues. But its work during the 2010s included advocacy on issues including food aid reform, opposition to US subsidies for ethanol production, and advocacy for full funding of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a small UN agency that specializes in assistance to smallholder farmers. AJWS’ member education on hunger covers a broader set of issues, also framed in terms of human rights and power. In March 2020 these include defending land rights, protecting small farmers who are “the global guardians of our woodlands,” and defending land and water rights against extractive industries (AJWS, 2020). ELCA World Hunger ELCA World Hunger stresses education for its constituency through an array of educational materials for children and adults, many appropriate to in-church programming, to build understanding of world hunger. Its advocacy network is accessible by signing up to receive email advocacy updates, and featured action items in March 2020 on immigration, Palestine/Israel, maternal and child health legislation, and the US travel ban. Its longer-term education agenda is focused on relating Biblical stories and themes of the liturgical year to the lives of families living in situations of vulnerability and oppression in Central America and elsewhere. A family might read and reflect during Lent (the penitential season before Easter) about Jesus’ teachings and how they would be received and heard by a family in Honduras or in Kenya (ELCA, 2020). Resources also include props to encourage financial giving, such as jars for family members to contribute coins on a daily basis. In short, educational materials are tied to well-known stories from Scripture, but do not go deeply into issues and causes. In addition to ELCA Hunger social media outlets, the campaign’s Take Action page offers other ways for Lutherans to advocate against hunger through a Lutheran social network on hunger (“The Table”), by using Bread for the World resources to sponsor letter-writing events at Sunday services, and by signing up as a “hunger contact” to receive educational materials and occasional action items.

120

P. J. NELSON

Catholic Relief Services CRS’ active agenda for its supporters is built around a straightforward policy statement on hunger: CRS (2020a) “supports U.S. programs that help address hunger around the world.” Concretely, this means advocacy in support of Feed the Future, the agricultural development program created under the Obama administration and focused on Africa; and the Food for Peace food aid program. CRS education and background materials for its members stress CRS strategies to make smallholder farmers more successful in the market. Its Pathway to Prosperity approach stresses organizing producer associations that will allow farmers to reorient to growing crops for maximum income in the marketplace. As an educational approach for its constituents, it is strikingly different from AJWS’ rights-based agenda of defending women’s and indigenous peoples’ land rights. It emphasizes the power of cooperatives and producer associations to allow peasant farmers to survive and prosper in the marketplace (CRS, 2020a, 2020b). Focusing on these food security agendas reveals the assets of each of the FBOs’ approaches. World Vision’s child-focused agenda rests heavily on winning commitments from Congress for future funding of programs focused on nutrition in the first 1000 years; it also introduces long-term support not for a legislative proposal but for breastfeeding. The ELCA focus is more strongly on education, referring its readers to Bread for the World for resources on current legislation. AJWS’ rights-based approach and CRS’ more market-friendly strategy are compared above. Agendas in Comparative Perspective Chapters 4 and 5 have focused on the extent and the content of USbased FBOs’ efforts to educate and mobilize their constituencies, and their related policy advocacy work as organizations. In Chapter 6, I will examine how FBOs in several wealthy, aid donor countries approach advocacy and mobilization quite differently, even though the FBOs are members of global religious “families” of Catholic, Evangelical, mainline Protestant, and Jewish organizations. One such comparison puts this chapter’s findings in context. The London-based NGO Christian Aid is the relief and development agency of mainline Protestant and Orthodox denominations. Christian Aid describes its advocacy as engaging in campaigns, sustained efforts to advance policy and social change on five themes: Climate change, tax

5

AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES: PROPHETIC VOICES …

121

justice, immigrants and displaced people, debt jubilee, and economic justice (trade policy). (The tax policy agenda highlights how British and international firms take advantage of tax havens and loopholes in some countries in the Global South, depriving those societies of financial resources that dwarf the flow of development aid.) The campaigns take on complex policy issues, are well-resourced and highly public, and Christian Aid (2020a) presents this kind of activism as an expected obligation for faithful people: “Our faith demands that we challenge the injustices that keep people poor and marginalised.” Only American Jewish World Service offers comparable challenges to its constituents in the United States, and as we will see in the next chapter, this kind of variation across societies but within faith traditions is common.

References AJWS. (2011, July 22). Fighting hunger from the ground up. AJWS. (2015, October 30). Creative campaigning: How Cambodian garment workers used fashion to fight for a living wage. BLOG. https://ajws.org/ blog/creative-campaigning-how-cambodian-garment-workers-used-fashionto-fight-for-a-living-wage/. AJWS. (2020). Land, water and climate justice. https://ajws.org/what-we-do/ land-and-water-rights/. Bank, R. (2020a). I lived through the AIDS crisis: Here’s how we take care of each other now. Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-lived-thr ough-aids-heres-how-we-take-care-of-each-other-now. Bank, R. (2020b). I grew up a White Jew in South Africa: We cannot sit out today’s fight. Jewish Exponent. https://www.jewishexponent.com/2020/06/ 24/i-grew-up-a-white-jew-in-south-africa-we-cannot-sit-out-todays-fight/. Bob, C. (2001). The marketing of rebellion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carpenter, C. (2007). Studying issue (non)-adoption in transnational networks. International Organization, 61(3) (Summer). Catholic Relief Services. (2018). Annual Report 2018. Catholic Relief Services. (2020a). Advocacy: Global hunger. https://www.crs. org/get-involved/advocate/public-policy/global-hunger. Catholic Relief Services. (2020b). Food security and livelihoods. https://www.crs. org/our-work-overseas/program-areas/food-security-and-livelihoods. Catholic Relief Services. (2020c). Advocate for the poor. https://www.crs.org/ get-involved/advocate-poor. Accessed March 27, 2020.

122

P. J. NELSON

Catholic Relief Services. (2020d). Foreign assistance funding and reform. https://www.crs.org/get-involved/advocate/public-policy/foreign-assist ance-funding-and-reform. Catholic Relief Services. (n.d.). Public policy. https://www.crs.org/get-involved/ advocate/public-policy/global-hunger. Accessed March 10, 2020. Christian Aid. (2020a). Why we do what we do. http://www.christianaid.org.uk/ aboutus/who/what_we_stand_for/Life_before_death.aspx. Christian Aid. (2020b). Our work: Policy. https://www.christianaid.org.uk/ourwork/policy. Church World Service. (2020). Speaking out. https://cwsglobal.org/our-work/ advocacy/ Accessed March 27, 2020. ELCA Hunger Program. (2020). Lenten study guide. https://download.elca. org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Lenten_Study_Guide_2020.pdf?_ga= 2.206377424.2132736001.1592594117-787369393.1592436884. Freeman, D. (2019). Tearfund and the quest for faith-based development. London: Routledge. Lutheran World Relief. (2018). Annual Report 2018. Medlock, A. (2019). Breastfeeding is a team sport, and frontline health workers are key players, world vision advocacy. https://worldvisionadvocacy.org/ 2019/07/30/breastfeeding-is-a-team-sport-and-frontline-health-workersare-key-players/. Accessed March 10, 2020. Nelson, P. (1997). Conflict, legitimacy, and effectiveness: Who speaks for whom in transnational NGO networks lobbying the World Bank? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 26, 421. Nelson, P., & Dorsey, E. (2008). New rights advocacy. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Pozniak, K. (2020, June 2). CRS CEO & President: ‘George Floyd’s Blood Cries Out to God’. https://www.crs.org/media-center/news-release/crs-ceo-presid ent-george-floyds-blood-cries-out-god. Radelet, S. (2017, May 8, Monday). Once more into the breach: Does foreign aid work?”. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2017/ 05/08/once-more-into-the-breach-does-foreign-aid-work/. Religious Action Center. (n.d.). Background on living wage. https://rac.org/bac kground-living-wage. Thames, H. K., Seiple, C., & Rowe, A. (2009). International religious freedom advocacy. Waco, TX: Baylor. World Relief. (2019, February 5). World relief responds to President Trump’s state of the union address, urges comprehensive immigration reform. https://worldrelief.org/press-releases/state-of-the-union-add ress-urges-comprehensive-immigration-reform. Accessed March 11, 2020.

5

AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES: PROPHETIC VOICES …

123

World Vision International. (2020, January 17). Nutrition for growth: Call to action 2020. https://www.wvi.org/stories/nutrition/nutrition-growth-callaction-2020. World Vision US. (2018). Annual Report 2018. World Vision US. (2020). How we advocate. https://www.worldvisionadvocacy. org/about/.

CHAPTER 6

Global Religions and National Politics

International families of NGOs such as the national affiliates of CARE, Oxfam, Save the Children, and Amnesty International, have drawn a good deal of scholarly interest of late. Recent studies suggest that national boundaries and political cultures may have a powerful effect on political actors that are often viewed as transnational actors in a global civil society. Unlike research that established NGOs as significant global actors in some policy areas (Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Fox & Brown, 1998), Stroup (2011) calls attention to the significant variation among US, British, and French affiliates of Oxfam, Amnesty, Save the Children and others, in their operations, organizational culture, and political voice. Similarly, Tarrow (2005) emphasizes the rootedness even of transnational social movement organizations in individual societies, calling them “rooted cosmopolitans.” This chapter explores the same phenomenon in a set of NGOs with unusually strong “family” ties, faith-based NGOs from Catholic, Protestant, evangelical Christian, and Reform Jewish communities. Do the strong ties of doctrine, social teaching, identity, and tradition lead to

This chapter is based on a paper co-authored by Paul Nelson, Aya Okada and Chris Belasco. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. J. Nelson, Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3_6

125

126

P. J. NELSON

consistent public policy advocacy agendas among NGOs that share a strong association with a religious community? Or do national political, social, religious, and institutional contexts produce varied advocacy agendas? Faith-based NGOs provide a distinctive test of theories about NGOs as global political actors. Faith-based agencies that share a connection to a religious tradition, either an institutional link or one grounded in declared shared values and identities, are a strong case of the phenomenon of transnational NGO “families.” The ideological basis for their common identity is strong, grounded not only in shared principles or political inclinations but in traditions of social teaching and shared identities as Jews, evangelical Christians, Catholics, or Protestants (Unruh and Sider, 2004). The examination of faith-based NGO families in this chapter yields two broad findings: First, it confirms that faith identities do matter to the political voice of these NGOs, and that each faith-based family does adopt a policy agenda that is recognizably different from the other faith families. Differences in emphasis exist, for example, between mainline Protestant agencies (of Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches) and evangelical Christian NGOs. But we focus primarily on variation among the national affiliates of each religious NGO “family,” and this analysis suggests a second broad finding: National contexts are as important as the religions that inspire and guide the organizations. Comparing FBOs from Germany, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom—geographically diverse and influential aid donor countries that represent divergent patterns of relationships between civil society and religion in public life—shows that national context shapes even advocacy agendas that are grounded in shared religious beliefs, ethical principles, and social teaching. Focused on these faith-based NGO families, I pose two broad questions: How do national advocacy agendas and methods differ among the national affiliates of FBO “families,” and what factors account for these differences? One would expect some variations among these countries due to foreign policy and geography. Catholic political organizations, for example, could be expected to have different domestic policy priorities in these four varied countries. But the issues at stake here are transnational and global issues of poverty, foreign assistance, and human rights, and the FBOs’ mission is to address these issues. They are issues on which religious teachings give a strong basis for consistent positions, and

6

GLOBAL RELIGIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS

127

where governments of all four countries act as aid donors, trade partners, investors, and participate in transnational decision-making about peacekeeping, climate, development finance, and related global issues. These data on four families across four aid donor countries show that both shared religious teaching and country-specific institutions and attitudes toward religion and politics shape NGOs’ advocacy. Political context shapes how FBOs frame their advocacy work. This holds for faith-based families regardless of their institutional forms, whether the FBOs are affiliated with global religious bodies, as are Roman Catholic NGOs; with transnational associations of religious bodies, as with mainline protestant FBOs; or not institutionally affiliated with a religion, as with the evangelical and Jewish organizations studied here. Faith-based NGOs have political, organizational, and religious identities. As political actors, FBOs participate in national and global coalitions and advocacy networks, respond to political opportunities, and work in various national and transnational political arenas. As religious bodies, some of them take responsibility for the education and moral formation of the faithful, shaping their awareness of global affairs and of the duties that faith and conscience impose on them as citizens. As nonprofit organizations, they face resource and other material challenges as do other NGOs, and make choices regarding political agendas and strategies in light of these organizational imperatives (Berger, 2003; Clarke, 2006; Clarke & Jennings, 2008). The first half of this chapter discusses the relevant scholarship on transnational NGO advocacy and on FBOs, explains the methodology, and introduces the four NGO families in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan. The second section examines national contexts including NGO regulations and civil society-state relations, as well as religiosity and attitudes toward religion in public life. With these contextual factors established, the third section examines how each FBO establishes organizational identity and the policy issue areas chosen for their advocacy agendas.

NGOs, Politics, Religion, and International Development A wealth of scholarship on international NGO advocacy, by international relations specialists as well as nonprofit and organizational scholars, has

128

P. J. NELSON

important implications for understanding faith-based international families. International relations scholarship has stressed the NGOs’ political significance to policy processes and outcomes (Anheier et al., 2001; Fox & Brown, 1998; Khagram et al., 2002; Smith & Bandy, 2005; Carpenter et al., 2014; Lang, 2013; Price, 1998). Scholars have observed the growing consistency of political behavior and programmatic choices among international NGOs within major sectors (development, humanitarian, environmental, and human rights), and across sector boundaries (Boli & Thomas, 1997; Nelson & Dorsey, 2003; Lindenberg & Bryant, 2001; Welch, 2001), sparking interest in the causes of this isomorphism (Stroup & Wong, 2017). Scholars have treated NGO families as relatively united, coherent sets of actors, bound by shared mission, values, organizational identity and motivated by the benefits of the shared name to maintain considerable consistency of behavior. Lindenberg and Bryant (2001) show that many large international NGOs rely heavily on the global “family” structure, and while there is variety within the transnational families, they share advocacy campaigns, and deliberate carefully and jointly over selecting advocacy targets and themes. Coordination is an important feature within families (Lindenberg & Bryant, 2001). Faith-based NGOs are rooted both in individual societies and in global faith traditions with shared teachings, identity, and (in some cases) religious institutions, and this makes faith-based NGOs, whose transnational networks have not been extensively studied, a particularly interesting case.

Four FBO Families The four families studied here are: • Evangelical Christian (World Vision Germany, World Vision Japan, World Vision United Kingdom, and World Vision United States); • Mainline Protestant (Church World Service [United States], Christian Aid [United Kingdom], and Brot für die Welt [Bread for the World, Germany1 ]);

1 Brot für die Welt and the US advocacy NGO Bread for the World, discussed in Chapter 4, are unrelated.

6

GLOBAL RELIGIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS

129

• Roman Catholic (Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), Misereor Germany, and CARITAS Japan); and • Reform Jewish (American Jewish World Service and World Jewish Relief). The FBOs’ budgets and the size of their potential volunteer base vary considerably, and they are related to each other as families in varied ways, formally or by each being representatives of comparable national religious communities. Each is linked to a religious tradition with a significant body of social teachings on poverty and justice, social teachings that are consistent across the national affiliates of each family. The substance of religious teachings can help explain differences among the four families, but not differences among national affiliates within each family. They have similar missions (relief and development), undertake broadly similar program and advocacy activities, and are present in the four comparison societies, with two exceptions: I did not identify Jewish NGOs in Germany and Japan that work on international development issues with a significant advocacy function (Table 6.1). These transnational “family” relationships take various forms. Catholic Relief Services and the Caritas Internationalis network of 160 national Table 6.1 Four faith-based NGO families in four countries

Evangelical Christian Mainline Protestant Roman Catholic

Reform Jewish

United States

United Kingdom

Germany

Japan

World Vision USA Church World Service Catholic Relief Services American Jewish World Service

World Vision UK Christian Aid

World Vision Germany Brot für die Welt Misereor

World Vision Japan National Christian Council/Japana CARITAS-Japan

–

–

CAFOD

World Jewish Relief

a The National Christian Council of Japan has two NGOs as associated members: Asian Health

Institute and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Neither is strictly comparable to the European and North American protestant FBOs, and neither does significant advocacy. The NCC-Japan itself has an international affairs committee and special interest groups for relationships with the Philippines and North Korea

130

P. J. NELSON

Catholic relief and development NGOs, each under the authority of its country’s Bishops, are united in a global federation and organized in a structure parallel to that of the Church itself, at local (parish), diocesan, national, regional and international levels. The network is headquartered in Vatican City and a papal representative supports and oversees its operation. In contrast, World Vision International (WVI), based in Uxbridge, England, is an independent “partnership” of national World Vision offices, with WVI playing a supportive and coordinating role for policy, and acting as the highest decision-making body (World Vision International, 2020). The mainline Protestant agencies each represent a coalition of denominations in its own country, including both Protestant and Orthodox churches. These distinct patterns of network governance seem to be aligned with the networks’ advocacy choices in surprising and sometimes counterintuitive. For example, World Vision International manages a worldwide campaign on violence against children, which prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was the centerpiece of each national affiliate’s advocacy efforts. Earlier, a similar coordinated campaign focused on child health. While the World Vision family follows fairly strong direction from World Vision International, Caritas Internationalis provides its members with a set of background resources on seven policy issues (migration and human trafficking, food, climate change, health and HIV, SDGs, humanitarian policy, and peacebuilding), which affiliates appear to treat as a menu. The WVI strategy, whose more centralized direction suggests a strong “partnership,” allows WVI to provide action items such as a petition, and to allow a reader to choose to move directly from the WVI advocacy page to the national WV affiliate’s action web page. The evangelical network’s stronger control and focus contrasts unexpectedly with the Catholic network’s more decentralized agenda setting. The Adventest Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), which is not one of the four families studied here, represents another model of coordinated global advocacy. ADRA sponsors a global campaign—“Every child. Everywhere. In school”—which addresses “world policy makers” with a message about children’s health and education. ADRA, the relief and humanitarian organization of the Seventh Day Adventist Church worldwide, sponsors “the second largest private education system worldwide,” and leans heavily on its expertise in the field to buttress its campaigning for education access. ADRA is a major NGO in the United States and delivers significant US government-funded humanitarian relief programs.

6

GLOBAL RELIGIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS

131

But the worldwide 20 million–person Adventist community is much larger in the United States (nearly a million people) than in any of the comparison countries (fewer than 50,000 each). The ADRA Campaign web page encourages readers to sign a petition, without details about how and to whom the petition is to be delivered. While the German, Japanese, and British ADRA websites do not link to the campaign or mention advocacy, the ADRA-Europe website does. Neither the Jewish NGOs nor those associated with mainline Protestant denominations manifest this kind of global coordination. CWS, Christian Aid, and most national agencies representing the protestant denominations do belong to the global ACT Alliance network. ACT Alliance, formed in 2010 in the merger of two pre-existing associations, represents 160 member denominations and faith institutions in doing humanitarian, development, and advocacy work. While ACT Alliance does not manage campaigns that call for mass participation by individual constituents of its member organizations, it has ongoing human rights advocacy agendas at the United Nations and European Union, and a broader agenda at the European Union including issues of food security and migration (ACT Alliance, 2020). Transnational Relationships in Religious Communities Many of the religious communities themselves are transnational, and agencies based in the wealthy countries are subject to issues and disagreements that arise among the national church bodies. The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States is a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which is now dominated numerically by its African members. The Anglican Communion has been split by a divisive debate over the churches’ views of sexuality, the roles of women in the priesthood and of gay and lesbian persons in the church, and the interpretation of scripture. The division was so deep that individual parishes in the United States left their dioceses and departed the more liberal US Episcopal Church, affiliating with the diocese of Uganda, and later formed a new US association as the Anglican Church in North America. The split affected all interactions among the national churches, and the Church of Uganda’s decision to break off relations with the US Episcopal Church disrupted cooperation with the US-based Episcopal Relief and Development. Other US and North American churches have experienced division over related issues, including the Presbyterian Church USA, and

132

P. J. NELSON

Methodist and Mennonite Churches. The divisions are important and they do sometimes have implications for the churches’ global cooperation, but not as directly and profoundly as the divide in the Anglican Communion, where relations between the Episcopal Relief and Development agency and some African dioceses and agencies were at least temporarily disrupted. I observed in Chapter 3 that faith-based NGOs are related to other religious institutions in varied ways, and this variation is apparent in this chapter. Some are agencies sponsored directly by religious organizations or by coalitions or networks of religious organizations such as the National Council of Churches in the United States, or the National Association of Evangelicals. Others are faith-based in inspiration but independent of religious organizations. The transnational governance structures that Brown et al. (2011) identify in their study of international advocacy NGOs—unitary, federation, confederation, and support organization—are represented in our population of faith-based families. Whatever the institutional relationship to religion, for most NGOs, advocacy is both a dimension of the agency’s public self-presentation and image, and a substantive part of the agency’s work. Most FBOs are careful to communicate to constituents and to the public how a political agenda fits within their humanitarian and religious mission, navigating the challenge of working as “political humanitarians,” and participating in foreign policy debates. National political cultures can also have decisive effects on aspects of NGO life, including for FBOs. Lee (2006) shows that varied legalinstitutional relationships between states and NGOs reflect cultural and political norms, and that these relationships shape NGOs’ political actions. Bailey’s (2007) analysis of contrasting political and civil society structures in the United States and Norway, and Haddad’s assessment of volunteer organizations and citizens’ attitudes toward participation and societal responsibility, further reinforce the significance of these differences in national political environments. Reimann (2010) shows how national political factors have affected the emergence and development of NGOs in Japan. Distinctive legal and tax structures, government grants and subsidies to NGOs, and variation in regimes’ openness to INGOs all impact national NGOs’ activities, including advocacy. So the experience of transnational NGOs gives reason to expect consistency among the members of FBO families, but also suggests likely sources of variation among national affiliates. The relevant factors seem

6

GLOBAL RELIGIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS

133

to include organizational structure, national attitudes toward religion and politics, and legal and regulatory structures for secular and faithbased organizations. The next section examines these factors in the four societies.

Universal Faiths and Sources of Variation “Churches” were among the earliest “transnationals,” and most are organized globally and manifest a degree of consistency in organizational forms, doctrinal statements, and in the organization of social services (Rudolph, 2005). Religious traditions and actors have sometimes created unitary transnational organizations, and these have drawn considerable interest (Haynes, 2009; Juergensmeyer, 2005). But other faith-related organizations, like the NGOs observed here, are federations or families of national affiliates, always displaying some common features across national lines. The fact that religions themselves and faith-related organizations do organize globally indicates the desire to express a common identity, grounded in shared belief, religious practice, and history, and religion can provide what Tipton (2005) calls “a ‘superstructural’ locus of moral sovereignty above the sovereignty of the state and the people.” The kind of variation among national affiliates of global faith-based networks that we observe in this chapter is therefore noteworthy. Examining this variation and the social construction of political institutions and FBO choices in the four polities will allow us to understand how faith affects FBOs’ construction of their political roles. Each FBO chooses how faith will contribute to defining the organization and its public image and operations, and national institutional context and religious teachings combine to shape how FBOs create the shared frames that allow them to mobilize constituents. The kinds of political behavior by religious actors approved of by society at large, and the issues and forms of political expression that will be embraced by their memberships both shape how FBOs construct their faith-based identities and advocacy practices. What James (2009) calls FBOs’ “reticence” about their religious identities in Europe may be even stronger in Japan, and less present in the United States. To identify and understand the variation among FBOs’ advocacy agendas, I examine state institutional characteristics, societal attitudes toward religion and politics, organizational characteristics, and organizations’ advocacy agendas.

134

P. J. NELSON

Legal-Institutional Framework Institutional and societal factors, especially regulatory arrangements and public opinion regarding religion, are important context for faith-based NGO political action (Bloodgood, et al., 2013). These institutional features shape how civil society, including FBOs, fit within national societies. FBOs’ registry status under nonprofit regulations largely establishes their tax status and the rules governing lobbying. In Germany, religious organizations register as corporations, a category that includes associations and foundations (Ernst-Pörksen & Pörksen, 2004). Civil Society Organizations can lobby, campaign, provide political education, and adopt political positions, but they may not engage in direct political activities or raise or divert money to political parties. Japanese nonprofits have three registration options: As a religious corporation, as a special nonprofit activities legal corporation, or as an association/foundation. While registering as option two or three constrains an FBO’s religious outreach, regulation governing lobbying is nearly non-existent in Japan (Malone, 2004). Japan is sometimes said not to be an interest group society (Hrebenar et al., 1998), and Pekkanan (2006) describes its civil society organizations as “members without advocates.” In the United Kingdom, each nonprofit organization—including FBOs—must register as a charity, or as a charitable trust with a national charity office (Government of the United Kingdom, 2011). A Charity may undertake political activities only to support its charitable purposes, and political activities cannot be its only activities or its reason for existence (Government of the United Kingdom, Charity Commission, 2008). In the United States, nonprofit registry and incorporation occur at the state level, and tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations are permitted to engage in substantial amount of lobbying (Internal Revenue Service, n.d.). They may contact or urge the public to contact elected representatives to propose, support, or oppose legislation; engage in non-partisan voter education, voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives; but they may not campaign on behalf of candidates. Public Opinion on Religion and Politics The subject of religious influence in politics is complex, and the four contexts differ institutionally and in public views of religious leadership and institutions’ appropriate roles in public affairs. The United States’

6

GLOBAL RELIGIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS

135

legal separation of church and state is a principle that is often cited but has recently been eroded by the growing role of conservative white evangelical religious leaders. In the United Kingdom, in contrast, the Anglican Church has long been the state religion, and the Archbishop of Canterbury has visible roles in some political institutions and processes. Germany is a more secular society, but has long had political parties with some religious identification, as, for example, with the Centre Party’s strong identification with Catholicism. The considerable power of Japan’s Buddhist political bloc (Soka Gakkhai), which is not organized as a party, is another reminder that religious influence in politics takes many institutional forms. Public views of religious participation in politics are shaped by individuals’ personal religiosity and provide the context for faith-based NGOs’ organizational identity. Public opinion data from waves of the World Values Survey (WVS) and from the 2019 Pew Survey of Global Attitudes toward Religion and Politics reveal the construction of religious participation in each society. World Values Survey (2009) data suggests that the importance of religion and religious participation varies greatly across the four countries. Responses from earlier WVS waves to questions about how “Churches Speak Out on Third World Problems” capture another measure of the societal climate in which FBOs work. These responses are summarized in Table 6.2, grouping the “nonreligious” and “atheist” categories for responses to the first question. More US citizens surveyed define themselves as religious (72%) than do Germans, Japanese, or Britons (43%, 24%, and 49%, respectively), and American respondents participate more frequently in religious services (the highest share—36%—participated weekly or more) than do others. Unsurprisingly, those who identify themselves as religious think that religious voices should speak out on Third World issues. Japanese religious respondents are the exception, as less than half (48%, compared to 43% of all Japanese respondents) thought that religious voices should speak out on Third World issues. Interestingly, respondents in Germany and the United Kingdom still encourage religious voices to speak out on Third World issues, suggesting that while personal religiosity has declined, respondents still assign a measure of moral authority to religious leaders, and expect them to encourage governments and individuals to respond to human suffering and remedy global inequities in developing countries.

136

P. J. NELSON

Table 6.2 Faith identity and opinion about religious voice in politics, four countries

Importance of religion in respondents’ lives

Religious Participation

Favor an increased role for religion Religious voices should speak out on Third World Issues

Religious Person (%) Not religious/atheist (%) Weekly or more (%) Monthly (%) Only on Holy Days (%) Once a Year or Less (%) Never/Practically Never (%) Favor (%) Oppose (%) Share of Religious Respondents (%) Share of Total Respondents (%)

United States

Japan

UK

Germany

72

24

49

43

28

76

51

57

36 13 9

3 42 22

17 10 19

8 11 16

17

15

23

23

26

11

33

42

51 18 62

15 10 48

32 31 81

34 35 87

60

43

77

87

Sources World Values Surveys, various years; Pew Survey on Global Attitudes Toward Religion and Politics 2019

Faith-Based Identities and Political Voice For Catholic, Evangelical, Reform Jewish, and mainline Protestant organizations across the four countries, I will report on their choices of policy issues using the framework of five categories of issues developed in Chapter 5; and secondarily on their choices to create or join advocacy alliances. German- and English-language texts were read in the original languages, and English-language web pages and Google Translate were used for the Japanese texts. Before turning to the variation among them, two common characteristics are fundamental. First, all the NGO families attempt to inform and mobilize their constituencies (supporters of the FBO, churches, youth, and college students) through online alerts, social media, direct mail, meetings, networking through houses of worship, and other means. While the profile of advocacy work varies among national affiliates, no NGO studied here opts out of advocacy entirely. Second, all the organizations consistently portray themselves as taking the side

6

GLOBAL RELIGIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS

137

of the poor and oppressed. Christian Aid’s self-identification is typical of British FBOs, blending religious and humanitarian concepts: Its work is “founded on Christian faith, inspired by hope and acts to change an unjust world through charity – a practical love and care for our neighbors.” This common identity, as partisans of the poor enabling and motivating public constituencies to do public advocacy, is the context for the important differences that follow. These comparisons focus on how FBOs present policy advocacy to their constituencies and individual donors in the four comparison countries, but this advocacy in their home countries is only one dimension of political voice for some international FBOs. Several of the FBOs discussed here and in previous chapters also encourage and support advocacy by local partner NGOs in the countries where they work. American Jewish World Service places the strongest emphasis on this dimension of advocacy. According to AJWS’ (2020) summary of its grantees’ activities, 93% of grantees engage in advocacy in their communities or society, 13% provide legal aid or related training, 22% receive grants to investigate, document and report human rights abuses. Christian Aid (2020) promotes its “Big Shift” Campaign, calling for finance to shift away from fossil fuels and for expanded access to affordable renewable energy in poor countries, both in the United Kingdom and through cooperation with coalitions of African and Asian agencies. Advocacy Issue Agendas Choosing from a very broad set of issues related to international development, FBOs select issues and adopt agendas, and experience suggests several possible factors that guide the choices, including doctrine, domestic political constituencies, constituents’ political views, the NGO’s programming specializations, and the views of their global church partners. Advocacy agendas of FBOs of similar faith orientation, where global doctrine and social teaching gives a basis for consistent agendas, vary both in the issues they engage, and the extent of campaigning. As in Chapter 5, each issue in an organization’s agenda is categorized according to its approach to addressing poverty and deprivation, on a continuum placing immediate emergency response with material aid at one end, and policies addressing global, national, natural, and social root causes of poverty and exclusion, or related national policy issues such as energy

138

P. J. NELSON

policy, at the other end. The five categories are aid and poverty including foreign aid and social policy interventions; structural issues, including global and national-level policies and institutions and development issues such as trade, debt, and climate change; immigration and migration policy including both US immigration policy and migrants elsewhere; armed conflict; and human rights and marginalized groups, including physical and humanitarian threats to indigenous groups, human rights issues affecting women or religious/ethnic minorities and other human rights violations. As in Chapter 5, advocacy on religion and solidarity, including religious freedom and religious and ethnic solidarity, is noted but is not a significant theme and does not appear in the comparisons. Table 6.3 reports the country total of each category of issue, by FBOs of all four families combined. The number of issues is relatively small, and the count here is based on organizations’ websites early in March 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic became an overwhelming issue, so I will make only very broad comparisons. Four observations stand out. First, faith-based groups are much more active in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, than in Japan. Christian and Jewish religious communities in Japan are small minorities without deep roots in Japanese society, and this and other factors help to account for their relatively quiet political presence (Kim et al., 2007). Second, FBOs in Britain and Germany are more active on issues involving human rights violations against groups such as women and children than are the US-based FBOs observed here. The popularity Table 6.3 Advocacy issues by category, country totals United States

Japan

United Kingdom

Germany

Total

5 2

0 0

2 4

2 7

9 13

3

0

2

1

6

2 3

0 2

2 6

3 5

7 16

15

2

16

18

51

Aid and Poverty International Order Immigration and Migration Armed Conflict Human Rights/Groups Total number of issues Sources Organizations’ websites

6

GLOBAL RELIGIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS

139

of human rights-based approaches among Europe’s NGOs may help to explain this. The issues they address include protecting human rights and environmental defenders, violence against women, discrimination and stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, the plight of displaced persons, women’s equal political rights and land rights, child soldiers, and child marriage. Christian Aid’s (2017) campaign on displaced persons is a multi-year effort launched in 2017 that proposes sweeping changes to global systems intended to protect displaced persons’ rights under international law, and their well-being. It is unusual in its scope and duration but not unique, as WVI also maintains multi-year campaigns on child welfare issues, discussed below. Third, US-based FBOs devote greater portions of their political energy to defending development and humanitarian aid spending and to proposals reforming aid policies. The perennial political difficulty in the United States of winning support for foreign aid, including development assistance, is likely one factor explaining this emphasis. The British and German FBOs also apparently feel that their constituencies are prepared to support a gender equality agenda and claims to economic and social rights for children. Finally, US-based FBOs are less likely to address issues in the broader international order, including climate change, tax havens, and trade policy, than their European counterparts. Most of the numerical differences reflect the prominence of climate change on the European FBOs’ agendas. Christian Aid’s report on its members’ advocacy achievements in 2019 focuses almost entirely on an impressive number of political events and actions on climate policy at the congregational, diocesan, and national levels. Advocacy on climate, energy use, and mitigating the impact on very poor communities appears to attract enthusiastic support in the Christian Aid network (Christian Aid, 2019) (Table 6.4). Public policy agendas of related religious NGOs, with essentially identical doctrinal bases, appear to vary significantly with the degree of openness in society to religious advocacy. Among the countries in our subset, the issues of aid policy and practice are undertaken most intensively by FBOs in the United States. Issues of the global order—trade, finance, investment, and climate change—are engaged more strongly by German and British FBOs, consistent with observed behavior among British NGOs, which tend to be are outspoken and give relatively high priority to “campaigning” (Stroup, 2011, 46). German FBOs appear to be roughly comparable with their UK counterparts in the level and scope

140

P. J. NELSON

Table 6.4 Number of advocacy issues by category and FBO family, four countries, 2020 Mainline Protestant

Aid and Poverty International Order Immigration and Migration Armed Conflict Human Rights/Groups Total number of issues

Roman Catholic

Evangelical Christian

Reform Jewish

US UK G

J

US UK G

J

US

UK

G

J

US UK G J

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

1

0

0

1

0

– –

1

2

3

0

1

1

4

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

– –

2

1

1

0

0

1

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

– –

0

0

1

0

0

0

0

0

1

1

1

0

1

0

– –

0

1

2

0

1

3

0

1

3

3

2

1

2

0

– –

4

4

8

0

3

5

5

1

5

5

3

1

4

0

– –

Sources Organizations’ websites

of their advocacy, despite more restrictive German lobbying regulations. Japanese FBOs account for a small share of the four countries’ advocacy activity; Japanese informally institutionalized limits are consistent with FBOs’ very limited issue advocacy. The differences are present as well within the “families”, but the small numbers of issues taken up by each FBO make numerical comparisons difficult. Among Catholic agencies, US-based CRS has a broad issue agenda, with some 20 separate policy issues focused mainly on aid policy and economic justice. German Misereor has a focused agenda, with policy papers on five topics and an annual Lenten campaign that includes policy and lifestyle work; Caritas Japan is involved in regional work by the Caritas Asia network on human trafficking, but does not describe any advocacy directed to the Japanese government. The mainline Protestant agencies Church World Service, Brot für die Welt , and Christian Aid have broadly similar agendas, with the European agencies articulating issues more strongly in human rights language. Protestant Brot für die Welt (2010) presents a major section of its advocacy resources as “Ensuring the Right to Health,” and Misereor’s (2014) Lenten paper on hunger spells out the human right to food.

6

GLOBAL RELIGIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS

141

World Vision agencies all tie their issue agendas to children, and the centerpiece of each affiliate’s campaigning pre-COVID-19 was the World Vision “It Takes a World” campaign on child protection. That campaign, linked to child protection goals and targets in the Sustainable Development Goals, is presented with a wide range of briefing papers on important child protection themes. The coordinated global campaign by WVI follows on the agency’s first multi-year worldwide campaign on Child Health, launched in 2009 (World Vision International, 2016, 2017). When FBOs are associated with active, outspoken religious leadership on humanitarian issues, are the FBOs themselves less outspoken? I have found no pattern of such a division of political labor. Christian Aid and Church World Service, among the most outspoken of FBOs in these families, also represent coalitions with outspoken religious leadership. The World Vision agencies, while they are the one set of entirely independent NGOs in the study, are the most constrained in their advocacy work. Clearly, their singular focus on child well-being is an organizational strategy, not a function of direction from any sponsoring religious body. Advocacy Alliances These comparisons yield some broad characterizations of the agendas of individual organizations: US FBOs focus more heavily on aid policy, British and German faith-based groups are more active on structural issues, and Japanese FBOs engage in relatively little policy advocacy. But they should also be interpreted in view of the national FBOs’ varying institutional contexts, particularly the advocacy networks in which they participate. German Protestant and Catholic FBOs both participate in European networks of agencies that have advocacy agendas. The European Protestant NGO association, long known as APRODEV and since 2015 as ACT-EU, has 13 NGO members and carries out advocacy to influence EU development policy. Brot für die Welt and Christian Aid are both full members. Europe-based Catholic-inspired NGOs are densely networked on the continent, many belonging to CIDSE, CONCORD (European NGO Confederation for Relief and Development), and collaborating with Caritas-Europa (focused mainly on social policy and humanitarian relief in Europe), and Caritas-International, as well as to national NGO associations (BOND in the United Kingdom, VENRO in Germany). These multiple associations make it likely that

142

P. J. NELSON

German and UK NGOs’ advocacy is understated by counting strictly references from organizational web pages and publications. US FBOs are also members of global federations, including the Catholic Caritas Internationalis network and the Protestant ACT Alliance. But US agencies’ engagement in such regional or global networks tends to be less robust, a difference that is a function of geography, the distinctives of US foreign policy, and of American exceptionalism. CWS and CRS are both agencies of Church bodies or coalitions that themselves have significant policy advocacy capacity, as was discussed in Chapter 2. So a more complete comparison of how these FBOs engage their members in advocacy would require deeper analysis of these networks and the transnational religious networks in which some of them are embedded. The comparisons are nonetheless important. NGOs have come to be expected voices on policy matters that directly affect poverty, inequality, human rights, health, and hunger, and these FBOs in particular are trusted sources that shape their constituents’ understanding of why the world is unequal and plagued by extreme poverty. It is fair to surmise from these comparisons that American supporters of these FBOs are receiving and acting on a different and less complete analysis than their European counterparts.

Universal Faiths and National Politics Transnational families of FBOs, like their secular counterparts, display important similarities across national lines. But the striking differences in their political voices show that national political cultures and expectations about religion in society can often override shared belief and doctrine in shaping how they speak out on global justice issues. FBOs respond to the varied regulatory practice and public opinion in the four countries, and they vary their advocacy practices and choices of issues even where doctrine and ethical teachings would suggest a more uniform position. These findings suggest that: First, faith traditions do display subtle patterns of variation in issue selection. Across the four countries (where member FBOs are present), Mainline Protestant and Catholic organizations are likely to have the broadest advocacy agenda, take up the largest number of issues, and most likely to engage complex issues of structural change in economic rules or climate, trade, and banking. Evangelical organizations are somewhat less likely to focus on structural changes, but these tendencies—especially

6

GLOBAL RELIGIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS

143

regarding evangelicals—are not uniform. Consistent with McAdams and Lance’s (2013) argument that the political views of evangelicals are not consistent across national boundaries, the World Vision affiliate in the UK, for example, has in recent years pursued an agenda that is significantly more focused on climate policy issues than the World Vision-USA. Issues addressed in reports specific to the UK include climate change (World Vision UK, 2015), and reform of the World Health Organization (World Vision UK, 2012). Prominent features at the World Vision-USA advocacy page in May 2020 are distinctive as well: Civility in the 2020 election (Lance, 2020), and 30 Bible Verses for Advocates, with prominent photos of advocates and the US Capitol building (World Vision, 2020). The links to climate policy, including demands that world leaders act more aggressively to address climate change, are present on the UK website but not found by a search on the US web pages, where climate information focuses on mitigating effects through actions such as agroforestry. This variation suggests a second conclusion: Advocacy by faith-based NGOs in otherwise coherent families varies considerably, and both religious and national institutional factors appear to shape this variation. FBOs in the United States and the United Kingdom, the most religious countries in the set, promote the broadest agendas of policy change across the greatest number of issue areas. They present their advocacy roles somewhat more prominently on web pages, and select different patterns of policy issues for public advocacy. Variations in the prominence FBOs assigned to advocacy in their public image, and the nature of the issues they select produce patterns of advocacy issue agenda that are more diverse, more complex, and more interesting than we expected. World Vision agencies, for example, all focus on children, child welfare, child sponsorship, and children’s rights. But there are significant differences between, for example, the US and UK affiliates in their approach to advocacy. The World Vision-USA agenda focuses on development policy issues that affect children and on child soldiers, trafficking, and related abuses of children’s rights. The UK affiliate works on these issues, but also reports on campaigning to reform UK banking law and tax havens, issues that cannot be found on the US or International websites. These differences in issue agendas are visible across all of the families. British and German advocacy agendas include systemic issues with

144

P. J. NELSON

domestic policy implications including tax havens in UK law, G-8 companies’ investments in large-scale land purchases, and biofuel policies in the United Kingdom and Germany. Japanese affiliates’ agendas include no such policies in domestic policies, and their advocacy is more directed toward international organizations than toward their own government. US affiliates tend strongly toward the humanitarian and development aid policy issues, and do not link corporate or investment issues to the humanitarian concerns that motivate their constituencies. (Church World Service’s work on banking practices and the financing of deforestation in the Argentine Chaco forest is an exception.) These findings support the view that transnational advocates are firmly rooted in national contexts, and that national borders do strongly affect the political behavior even of closely-tied civil society actors. They suggest that the “global” nature of global civil society is limited, and that transnational associations of civil society are far from uniform and global. The findings also should temper any conclusions about the global roles of religion in international affairs. Religious agencies and faith-based NGOs do make common cause and pursue shared agendas with coreligionists, but there is a great deal of variation across the four wealthy societies reviewed here, both in how open or reticent FBOs are about their religious identity, and in regard to the issues on which they try to mobilize their constituents. Religious communities in the wealthy countries tend to assign the role of educating and mobilizing the faithful on humanitarian policy issues largely to the same NGOs that carry out material aid, often relying heavily on government resources. Is this an inherent constraint on the religions’ potential “prophetic” voice upholding moral duties to respond to injustice and defend the dignity of every person? In this study, faithbased NGOs’ policy advocacy appears more calculated and measured than prophetic, and shaped in important ways by national context. The constraint of being both a material aid organization and mobilizing advocacy does not seem to limit the issue agenda as severely in the UK and Germany as it has in the United States. This variation is apparent as well when we turn to the subject of the next chapter, initiatives to encourage reflection and change in lifestyle, consumer, and investment behavior.

6

GLOBAL RELIGIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS

145

References ACT Alliance. (2020). ACT alliance advocacy office to the EU . https://actall iance.org/advocacy/act-alliance-advocacy-office-to-the-eu/. American Jewish World Service. (2020). Our value added. https://ajws.org/ourimpact/. Anheier, H., Glasius, M., & Kaldor, M. (2001). Introducing global civil society. In H. Anheier, M. Glasius, & M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global civil society yearbook (pp. 5–27). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bailey, J. L. (2007, February 28–March 3). Political structures and the structure of civil society: A comparison of the pluralist US and corporatist Norway. Paper prepared for the 48th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Chicago, IL. Berger, J. (2003). Religious nongovernmental organizations: An exploratory analysis. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 14(1), 15–39. Bloodgood, E. A., et al. (2013). National styles of NGO regulation. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 43(4), 716–736. Boli, J., & Thomas, G. (1997). International nongovernmental organizations since 1875. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Brot für die Welt. (2010). Ensuring the right to health. https://www.brot-fuerdie-welt.de/en/bread-for-the-world/our-topics/health/. Accessed April 10, 2010. Brown, L. D., Ebrahim, A., & Batliwala, S. (2011). Governing international advocacy NGOs. World Development, 40(6), 1098–1108. Caritas. (n.d.). Caritas is Church. https://www.caritas.org/who-we-are/caritasis-church/. Carpenter, R. C., et al. (2014). Explaining the advocacy agenda: Insights from the human security network. International Organization, 68(2), 449–470. Christian Aid. (2017). Uprooted and overlooked. https://www.christianaid.org. uk/campaigns/uprooted-overlooked. Christian Aid. (2019). Campaigns roundup 2019. https://www.christianaid.org. uk/news/campaigns-round-2019. Christian Aid. (n.d.). The big shift: International. https://medium.com/christ ian-aid-campaigns/the-big-shift-international-d25b0593ce12. Clarke, G. (2006). Faith matters: Faith-based organisations, civil society and international development. Journal of International Development, 18, 835– 848. Clarke, G., & Jennings, M. (Eds.). (2008). Development, civil society and faithbased organizations: Bridging the sacred and the secular. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ernst-Pörksen, M., & Pörksen, T. (2004, October 12–14). Third sector organizations in Germany: Legal forms and taxation. International Center for

146

P. J. NELSON

Nonprofit Law. International Charity Law: Comparative Seminar, Beijing, p. 15. https://mk0rofifiqa2w3u89nud.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/ Germany_third.pdf?_ga=2.39068899.1903286602.1593780402-744475007. 1593780402. Fox, J., & Brown, L. D. (1998). The struggle for accountability. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Government of the United Kingdom. (2011). HM revenue and customs. Chapter 2—Applications for recognition as a charity for tax purposes. Retrieved November 17, 2011 from http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/charities/gui dance-notes/chapter2/chapter_2.htm. Government of the United Kingdom, Charity Commission. (2008). Speaking out—Guidance on campaigning and political activity by charities. Retrieved November 17, 2011 from http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/publicati ons/cc9.aspx. Haddad, M. A. (2006). Civic responsibility and patterns of voluntary participation around the world. Comparative Political Studies, 39(10), 1220–1242. Haynes, J. (2009). Routledge handbook of religion and politics. London: Routledge. Hrebenar, R. J., Nakainura, A., & Nakamura, A. (1998). Lobby regulation in the Japanese Diet. Parliamentary Affairs, 51, 551. Internal Revenue Service. (n.d.). Tax guide for churches and religious organizations: Benefits and responsibilities under the federal tax law. https://www.irs. gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1828.pdf. James, R. (2009, February). What is distinctive about FBOs? How European FBOs define and operationalise their faith (INTRAC Praxis Paper 22). Juergensmeyer, M. (2005). Religion in global civil society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists across borders. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Khagram, S., et al. (Eds.). (2002). World politics: Transnational social movements, networks and norms. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kim, G., Fukutake, S., Tada, T., & Yamada, Y. (2007). The frontier of international cooperation NGOs. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Lance, N. (2020, May 15). Civility in the 2020 election: Engaging with love. Biblical Call to Advocacy. https://www.worldvisionadvocacy.org/2020/05/ 15/civility-in-the-election-2020/. Lang, S. (2013). NGOs, civil society and the public sphere. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lee, J. (2006). Comparing NGO influence in the EU and the U.S. Centre for Applied Studies in International Negotiations Programme on NGOs & Civil Society.

6

GLOBAL RELIGIONS AND NATIONAL POLITICS

147

Lindenberg, M., & Bryant, C. (2001). Going global: Transforming relief and development NGOs. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Malone, M. M. (2004). Regulation of lobbyists in developed countries: Current Rules and Practices. Institute of Public Administration, 16. https://www.housing.gov.ie/sites/default/files/migrated-files/en/ Publications/LocalGovernment/Administration/FileDownLoad,2048,en.pdf. McAdams, E., & Lance, J. (2013). Religion’s impact on the divergent political attitudes of evangelical protestants in the United States and Brazil. Politics and Religion, 6, 483–511. Misereor. (2014). Fundamentals of the MISEREOR Lenten Campaign 2014. https://www.misereor.org/fileadmin//user_upload/misereor_org/About_ us/englisch/lenten-campaign-2014-feature-article.pdf. Nelson, P., & Dorsey, E. (2003). At the Nexus of human rights and development: New methods and strategies of global NGOs. World Development, 31(12), 2013–2026. Pekkanan, R. (2006). Japan’s dual civil society: Members without advocates. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Price, R. (1998). Reversing the gun sights’ transnational civil society targets landmines. International Organization, 52(3), 613–644. Reimann, K. D. (2010). The rise of Japanese NGOs: Activism from above. London: Routledge. Rudolph, S. H. (2005). Religious transnationalism. In M. Juergensmeyer (Ed.), Religion and global civil society (pp. 189–200). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, J., & Bandy, J. (Eds.). (2005). Coalitions across borders: Transnational protest and the neoliberal order. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Stroup, S. (2011). Borders among activists. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Stroup, S., & Wong, W. (2017). The authority trap. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Tarrow, S. (2005). The new transnational activism. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tipton, S. M. (2005). Globalizing civil religion and public theology. In M. Juergensmeyer (Ed.), Religion in global civil society, pp. 49–67. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Unruh, H. R., & Sider, R. (2004). Saving souls, serving society: Understanding the faith factor in church-based social ministry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weiss, T. (1999). Principles, politics, and humanitarian action. Ethics and International Affairs, 13(1), 1–22. Welch, C. (2001). NGOs and human rights: Promise and performance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. World Values Survey Association. (2009). World values survey 2009 Official Data File (v.2009090).

148

P. J. NELSON

World Vision UK. (2012). Barriers on the road to achieving the health MDGs Global Health Governance and Reform of the World Health Organization. https://assets.worldvision.org.uk/files/9013/6852/3791/Reform_of_ the_World_Health_Organisation.pdf. World Vision UK. (2015, November 30, Monday). Our children and climate change. https://www.worldvision.org.uk/news-and-views/blog/2015/nov ember-2015/our-children-and-climate-change/. World Vision. (2016, September). Campaign report. https://www.wvi. org/sites/default/files/ChildHealthNow%20Wrap%20Up%20Report_Sept2016_Full-Report.pdf. World Vision. (2017, March). World Vision launches the global campaign ‘It Takes A World’. https://www.wvi.org/asia-pacific/article/world-vision-lau nches-global-campaign-it-takes-a-world. World Vision. (2020). 30 Bible verses for advocates. https://www.worldvisiona dvocacy.org/2020/05/12/30-bible-verses-about-advocacy-for-advocates/. World Vision International. (2020). About us: Our structure. https://www.wvi. org/about-us/our-structure. Accessed March 29, 2020.

CHAPTER 7

Beyond Advocacy? Mobilizing Compassion

Thousands of people make a private choice each year to invest some of their savings in an investment instrument that returns at best 2% interest, in order to help capitalize small-scale financial institutions that serve people who otherwise have no access to financial services. These investments, through Oikocredit and other nonprofit intermediaries, have become a major source of capital for microfinance lending. Most such capital is now raised through commercial investment funds, but the initiative came from a faith-based NGO, Oikocredit, which continues to be an important source of capital for small microfinance institutions that cannot attract commercial funds. Public policy is not the only arena available to FBOs and their supporters, and this chapter examines some of the other actions that faith-based groups encourage. In the United States, delegations of volunteers undergo training each year for an unusual and risky kind of international travel. They join Christian Peacemaker Teams and travel to places where civilians are at risk of violence—Palestine, Syria, immigration sites on the Aegean Sea, Colombia—to “support and amplify the voices of local peacemakers who risk injury and death by waging nonviolent direct action to confront systems of violence and oppression…” (emphasis in original) (Christian Peacemaker Teams, 2020). More routinely, a growing number of consumers make a choice while shopping that they intend as an act of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. J. Nelson, Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3_7

149

150

P. J. NELSON

solidarity with agricultural workers in poor communities, buying fair trade coffee, bananas, chocolate, or other products; or boycotting certain other products. These are religiously-inspired forms of voluntary action, and voluntarism is a widely studied phenomenon among nonprofits. But they are a particular kind of principled voluntary action intended to have an impact far from home. Many of them go beyond simply inviting and persuading constituents to express an opinion or take an action; they rely on the power of person-to-person contact, personal experiences, and religious beliefs. The challenge for FBOs is to tie the motivating power of these relationships, experiences, and beliefs to concrete steps that affect the lives and prospects of people living half a world away. This chapter examines how FBOs try to make this connection, through transformative experiences or changes in lifestyle, consumption, investment, and other market behaviors.

What We Know: Religion, Volunteering, and Mobilization Research confirms that religion is an important factor in many individuals’ choices about volunteering. By examining and highlighting the differences among branches of religious faiths and their attempts to encourage voluntary action on global poverty, we can contribute to the broader understanding of individuals’ voluntary action and of the characteristics of faith-based nonprofits. First I review some recent studies of volunteering and religiosity, and of religion and social and political movement mobilization. Religiosity can motivate and shape volunteering. Several studies show that religious individuals are more likely to volunteer (Smith, 1994), with Berger (2006) and van Tienen et al. (2010) emphasizing the individuals’ religiosity, while studies by Becker and Dhingra (2001) and Monsma (2007) report evidence that organizational identity and social network characteristics explain much of the positive relationship between individuals’ religiosity and volunteering. Monsma’s research, Smidt and colleagues (2008), and Alvarez et al. (2018) suggest that religiosity is positively associated with participation in civic culture (and support for humanitarian aid in Alvarez) as well. These analyses help to explain the increased participation of religious volunteers; I will investigate the kind and extent of mobilization encouraged by FBOs.

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

151

FBOs encourage their constituents to participate in a range of activities including education of themselves and others, advocacy, changes in consumption and investment, and personally transformative activities. Each of these activities requires time and effort, and in this sense, the activities have costs, requiring that members contribute time, money, or skill in support of the FBO’s mission. By involving constituents in multiple forms of voluntary activity, FBOs may build networks and a culture of solidarity, expand their reach, and encourage active citizenship. Teachings and expressions of faith do appear to affect the kinds of activities that organizations encourage. Organizations associated with more expressive faiths and those that have strong doctrinal, ethical, and historic commitments to economic and social justice will be most active in promoting “costly” actions by their constituents. Calling on constituents—their donors—to embrace and promote a political agenda or challenging them to rethink aspects of their lifestyle has costs and benefits to the organization, strengthening or undercutting their donors’ support. FBOs’ behavior will be shaped, one hopes, by the social and ethical teachings of their faiths and by cultural expectations about political and personal engagement with poverty and injustice. But we should also expect FBOs to be more or less bold in calling for political or consumer actions depending on how secure they perceive their access to resources and their bond with their constituents to be. Organizations encourage four broad kinds of participation in addition to financial support: Education, advocacy, lifestyle, and a category I am calling “transformative opportunities.” Education is embedded within nearly all NGO communications, as NGOs want their constituents to know about their work and about the problems they seek to remedy. Education occurs through various media and varies in the extent to which it is focused on highlighting the FBO’s work, or on understanding broader issues. Education may be a good in itself, but for FBOs it is also a means to encourage members to donate, and to engage in advocacy and or other activities. As we have seen, many FBOs devote resources and attention to policy advocacy. Often this is coordinated through offices in Washington DC, New York, Brussels, and Geneva, and while most have some advocacy staff and agenda, not all organizations try to mobilize their constituencies to participate. Advocacy is not the primary focus of this chapter, but there are important connections between advocacy and the other forms of action considered here.

152

P. J. NELSON

Third, many NGOs encourage constituents to engage more personally and reflect on their own lifestyles and market behaviors, and how these choices relate to global issues. Some FBOs and other religious actors encourage constituents to make lifestyle changes by buying fair trade or practicing a degree of voluntary simplicity, practicing socially responsible investment, becoming involved in shareholder advocacy with publically-owned firms. A fourth set of “transformative actions” includes service volunteering at home or abroad as well as spiritual practices including meditation, prayer, and fasting. These activities, it is hoped, encourage constituents to understand and develop empathetic responses to issues of poverty and inequality, and to connect teaching, faith, and practice. By linking global justice issues to personal experience and to spiritual practices that may have great meaning for individuals, these transformative activities may deepen supporters’ commitment. Our data do not allow us to demonstrate causal relationships among these activities. But there is clear evidence as to which FBOs encourage them, and some organizations are very clear about why they encourage these transformative activities: Personal experiences and education can strengthen commitments and lay the groundwork for future generous support and for continued participation in the future, as well as encouraging the moral and spiritual growth of their members and supporters. Methodology This review of 50 FBOs began in 2011 as an effort to quantify the activities they encouraged among their constituents, the intensity of effort required, and to identify the characteristics of FBOs associated with more and less mobilization. I became convinced that the data collected in 2011 were too fraught with subjective distinctions and judgment calls, and would not yield reliable statistical findings. But the data allow some comparisons using descriptive statistics, and in 2020 I updated some data from the same set of 50 organizations, allowing comparisons over a decade. Starting from a database of 91 FBOs described in Chapter 4, I identified the 50 organizations that clearly encourage constituent mobilization in advocacy, education, lifestyle, or transformative activities that involves more than simply posting educational materials. The 50 FBOs vary considerably: They are US-based NGOs (41 of 50), Christian

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

153

(40), and primarily service delivery (38); some specialize in advocacy (12). Among the Christian FBOs, 17 are evangelical, five Catholic, and nine mainline Protestant (including the Anabaptist Mennonite Central Committee somewhat inaccurately in the last category). The remaining Christian-affiliated FBOs are non- or inter-denominational.

Findings: What Are FBOs Asking of Supporters? How much are organizations asking of their constituents? Drawing on frameworks from studies of community organizing, I grouped activities by their intended effect (education, advocacy, personal/transformative, and market), and according to their “cost” in time, effort, and social activity, referred to as net perceived opportunity cost. In effect, each activity has a net perceived opportunity cost (Cnaan & Amrofell, 1994). Some examples appear in Table 7.1. Among educational activities, for example, attending a daylong conference requires greater sacrifice of time and effort than joining an email list. Meeting face-to-face with Congressional representatives is more demanding than contacting by phone or mail; these in turn are more Table 7.1 Examples of lower and higher “cost” actions

Lower cost

Higher cost

Advocacy

Sign a petition Write an email

Education

Join an email list

Market/lifestyle

Buy fair trade products Simplify holiday celebrations Pray Watch a video

Meet with an elected official Participate in a demonstration Attend a weekend conference Invest in social investment fund Participate in shareholder action Travel to visit projects Volunteer for a longer period

Transformative

Source Organizations’ websites

154

P. J. NELSON

Table 7.2 Mobilization activities, 50 FBOs

Activities

Frequency 2011

Frequency 2020

35 30 27 27

38 26 39 20

25 25

25 7

23

20

22

9

17 16 16

7 13 19

5 15

0 9

12

4

12

8

8 8 6 6 4

8 9 4 13 7

Pray Join email list Educate others Contact representatives directly Volunteer locally Attend conference or advocacy event Travel/volunteer abroad Host a forum or event Use social media Sign petition Send pre-made message Send a postcard Meet with official personally Write a letter to editor Change consumption Vote (informed) Buy fair trade Protest Fast Attend public meeting w/official Source Organizations’ websites

“costly” than signing an online petition. Traveling or volunteering abroad entails more effort and expense than buying fair trade coffee.1 Across the 50 organizations and four categories of actions, what do FBOs ask their constituents to do, and how did that agenda change during the decade of the 2010s? Table 7.2 reports a summary from 2011

1 Assigning net perceived opportunity costs is an inexact judgment. Speaking at a public meeting may be much more “costly” to one person than to another, and different preferences and life situations will likely all affect the true “cost” of many of these actions.

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

155

and 2020.2 The most frequent requests in 2011 are to pray (35), join an email list (30), educate others by sharing information (27), and contact a public official (usually a Congressional representative) directly (27). Much more unusual are calls to join a protest (6), fast (6), send a postcard, (5), and attend a public meeting with public officials (4). In 2020 that pattern had not changed fundamentally. Three of the activities saw a growth greater than 20%: Educate others, contact a public official, and attend a public meeting with a public official. Several also appeared much less frequently: Meet with an elected official directly, attend an event, host an event, use social media, write a letter to the editor, and participate in a protest. Requests to use social media likely shrank because its use is nearly universal in 2020 and can be assumed; letters to the editor and postcards are less favored strategies after the decade’s changes in the news media and communications. The FBOs and the Actions They Encourage Totaling the activities that FBOs promote under the four categories provides a rough indication of the emphasis given to each. In 2020, 45 of the 50 FBOs promoted educational activities, 36 encouraged advocacy, 46 promoted experiential/transformative actions, and just 12 challenged constituents to alter consumption or investment. Some organizations stand out because of the large number of activities they sponsor or encourage: World Vision-USA, Bread for the World (BFW), Jubilee USA Network, and Christian Reform World Relief Committee. Three of these are either very large NGOs with staff and resources to support multiple activities (World Vision) or specialize in advocacy (Jubilee and BFW). Considering the “cost” of these activities to individual supporters provides additional insight. Acknowledging the subjectivity and variability of what activities are “easy” or “costly” for individuals, I have identified six low-cost and four high-cost activities among the 19 activities reported here. The results reported here and in Table 7.3 are a crude measure: Most FBOs encourage low-cost activities of all kinds and are more selective of the higher cost activities; volunteer opportunities abroad are encouraged by 22 of the 50 FBOs; and the other high-cost options each are proposed by fewer than ten. Volunteering internationally remains 2 For two of the activities, social investment and buying fair trade products, data was not collected in 2011.

156

P. J. NELSON

Table 7.3 Frequency of activities, by category of FBO

PERSONAL Pray Fast Join email list Volunteer local Volunteer int’l. Group activity MARKET Simplify Fair Trade Invest EDUCATION Share info Attend event travel ADVOCACY Social media Petition Send message Meet rep. Contact rep. Vote Protest

Total N 50

Adv. N 12

M Prot N9

RC N5

Evang N 17

Jewish N3

Islamic N2

Bud. N2

38 13 26 22 25 5

6 2 10 1 1 -

2 2 4 8 7 3

3 3 3 4 -

4 7 8 1

1 2 3 1 -

2 2 -

2 1 2 1 1 1

8 9 6

1

3 4 4

2 2 1

3 2 -

-

1 -

-

29 7 15

10 3 1

6 4

3 1 -

13 3 9

3 1

2 -

2 -

7 13 19 9 20 8 4

2 3 5 3 6 2 1

2 3 4 3 5 2 2

1 3 2 2 3 1 1

1 4 6 5 3 -

1 1 1 1 -

-

1 -

Source Author’s calculations, organizations’ websites Abbreviations: Adv. (Advocacy), M. Prot (Mainline Protestant), RC (Roman Catholic), Evang (Evangelical), Bud (Buddhist)

a popular option, despite the relatively high cost. In the section that follows, I use this categorization to examine organizations that promote these actions, and identify patterns among the FBOs. With data on FBO characteristics and on the kinds and intensity of constituent mobilization, one can identify organizational characteristics associated with distinct patterns of mobilization. FBOs Mobilization—Education, Advocacy, Consumption/Investment, and Experiential The overwhelming majority of FBOs encourage personal transformative activities, with no significant change between 2011 and 2020. Experiential activities—prayer, fasting, volunteering at home or abroad—are

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

157

featured by almost all the FBOs that have an individual donor base. Evangelical organizations in the United States and in the United Kingdom emphasize these personal transformative activities. World Vision-USA’s popular 30-hour fast is a good example, a weekend experience for teenagers in a church congregation that combines the fun of a weekend sleepover at church with a fast and lessons about global hunger. Most other uses of “fasting” reported are more traditional practices of the spiritual discipline, including the Ramadan fast of many supporters of the two Muslim FBOs. Lifestyle and marketplace changes—reducing consumption, buying fair trade products, and social investment—are less widely promoted. Eight of the FBOs encourage simplifying or reducing consumption, either for a season or permanently; nine encourage or sell fair trade coffee and other products; and six promote social investment. FBOs tied to Catholic or mainline Protestant denominations dominate both social investment and consumption categories, making up five of the eight FBOs that promote consumption changes. Four of the six that encourage shifting investments to promote social objectives are from the same US agencies; the other two are British Protestant Christian Aid, and the progressive Catholic Maryknoll order. Evangelical FBOs, many of which promote volunteering and other experiential activities, rarely communicate with their supporters about investment or lifestyle issues; denominational FBOs, with a bond of membership to their constituents and a direct role in their moral formation, are the most engaged in talking about money with their donors. All these FBOs have reason to emphasize personal transformative experience. Among evangelicals, the emphasis is consistent with the theological and cultural emphasis on personal spiritual transformation. FBOs that are official church agencies seem likely to assign greater importance to participate in the moral and spiritual formation of their constituents by actively promoting transformative activities. The same tendency holds for consumption and investment issues among Catholic and mainline Protestant agencies, but not among evangelical agencies. What Kinds of Activities? How Costly? What tendencies emerge when we distinguish the forms of participation with “high perceived net opportunity cost” from less personally costly activities? The concepts are too fluid to assign “high” or “low” cost reliably to all activities, but a handful of activities clearly require relatively

158

P. J. NELSON

little effort in time, social costs, or expense. In Table 7.3, six rows are lightly shaded to mark them as low-cost: Pray, join an email list, sign a petition, send a pre-written message, vote, and “educate others” (generally by sharing content from the organization’s website). Even these are open to interpretation, as particular prayers in specific situations might require great personal effort, and voting is more “costly” for some individuals than for others. Generally, however, these can be labeled low-cost, and a handful of activities can similarly be treated as costly: Volunteer internationally, make social investments, meet face-to-face with an elected representative, and make an international trip all have self-evident costs. These rows are shaded more darkly. Three findings stand out from this examination of high- and low-cost interventions. First, evangelical FBOs and denominational Christian agencies emphasize experiential and transformative activities, and this tendency holds across the high- and low-cost categories. Catholic organizations also do so at higher rates than the sample as a whole. Second and not surprisingly, organizations that specialize in policy advocacy provide more advocacy actions than do material aid organizations. These actions tend to be relatively easy, “low-cost” voluntary measures that allow a reader to sign a petition or sign and click to send an email message. Among our organizations, three offered the most high-cost activities: Catholic Relief Services, Presbyterian Hunger Program, and Church World Service. They have in common their status as agencies of a religious community, with a role in moral formation or education as well as for delivering services. Third, when evangelical and denominational FBOs encourage activities such as volunteering or traveling abroad, altering consumption, fasting, voting, fair trade, and social investing, they signal that voluntary service and lifestyle choices are linked to the values of justice and generosity that they represent. Even low-cost informative activities such as joining an email list can help build their network base and generate information among constituents to share with others.

Transformative Work in Action: Some Themes and Cases NGOs, and faith-based groups in particular, increasingly encourage practices that not only educate but can inspire and even transform, practices that help constituents link their political and financial support to their personal and spiritual practices. There has been little study of FBOs’

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

159

widespread practices of encouraging personal transformative activities such as prayer and volunteering, or building global awareness through volunteering and other transformative experiences. Transformative Experiences: Personal Practices and Volunteering Faith-based organizations are not alone in offering volunteer opportunities, but the fact that many of the NGOs are situated within religious traditions and communities means that the volunteer experience can contribute to the personal and spiritual formation of people within the community. FBOs have devised multiple ways to tie personal spirituality to the organizations’ missions. A handful of the FBOs encourage group activities to make or package material aid, or to raise funds. Some are long-standing traditions such as Church World Service’s annual CROP Walks and Catholic Relief Services’ Lenten Operation Rice Bowl. A few draw on crafts and rural traditions, including Mennonite and Lutheran quilting. Annual “relief sales” of hand-crafted quilts raised more than $4 million for MCC and thrift stores more than $15 million in 2018, just under a quarter of MCC revenues (Mennonite Central Committee, 2018). Lutheran World Relief sends quilts and blankets in certain disaster relief situations, and CWS has updated the tradition to collect linens at a “Blanket Sunday,” material aid that is used primarily to respond to disasters in the United States. These have in common the tangible experience of assembling materials to be donated to people in need. International travel to visit an agency’s projects or partners in a country of the Global South is another form of “transformative” activity. Many Jewish and Christian agencies sponsor overseas experiences for their members visiting poor communities, activists, and community development projects. Some trips target donors or potential significant donors, or are designed to create an experience for a congregation. Through its Entwine initiative, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (n.d.) sponsors Insider Trips for college-aged participants and for young professionals, to “directly engage with JDC’s global mission while actively fulfilling the value of global Jewish responsibility.” World Relief practices a strategy grounded in its belief that the church congregation is the right unit for mobilization to transform societies. World Relief seeks to build a base of committed interest in a US church congregation that will motivate and sustain a relationship with the FBO. A suburban Chicago church’s engagement with the semi-nomadic Turkana

160

P. J. NELSON

people, who live along the Ethiopia-Kenya border, has engaged at least some of the Americans with the experience of climate change, land rights, and a set of complex policy issues, while building a tangible connection to people half a world away (World Relief, 2017). World Relief has several other initiatives to engage church congregations as donors and as advocates on refugee issues worldwide and on US immigration policy. Its Immigration Legal Support Network allows members of a congregation to get training and certification that qualifies them to provide counseling and support to immigrant families. Volunteering These experiences are a variant on a widely practiced form of shortterm travel and volunteering that is especially popular among faith-based groups. Fogarty’s (2009) study of faith-based “voluntourism” highlights the benefits for FBOs and the pitfalls of FBO-sponsored mission trips. He argues that such travel has the potential to promote solidarity across cultures, a virtue that Pope John Paul II described as “not a feeling of vague compassion but a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good” (Sollicitudo rei socialis, Section 38). But Fogarty shows that most such travel begins from a mistaken premise, the belief that the travelers are there to help a community by building a school building or providing some other service. Rather than promoting solidarity and global citizenship, voluntourism often elicits altruism, a weaker sense of charity and of gratitude for one’s own privileged situation (Fogarty, 2009). I have not seen reliable estimates of the number of Americans who participate in such travel with FBOs, but the practice is widespread, and it is widely criticized by scholars of international service learning (Smith & Laurie, 2011; Hartman et al., 2018). But several agencies have developed long-term, sustained systems of volunteer placement that involve significant numbers of young people, often just out of college or university, in international social justice work. Among them are programs sponsored by Protestant denominations (Lutheran Volunteer Corps, Reform Church, Presbyterian Volunteer Corps); by religious orders (Jesuit Volunteer Corps); and by faith-based NGOs, including Mennonite Central Committee, Christian Peacemaker Teams, and the Catholic Maryknoll Orders.

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

161

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC): Building a Culture of Service MCC promotes a culture of engagement in service with poor communities. In addition to multiple opportunities to collect in-kind assistance, raise funds through fair trade shops and other means, MCC has several short- and long-term volunteer programs and opportunities that are widely known among Mennonites. MCC participates in building a culture of participation and service among North American Mennonites. It staffs most of its program and country work with long-term (two years) volunteers; collaborates with Mennonite Economic Development Associates, which encourages individuals and churches to invest in economic enterprises in poor communities; and encourages lifestyle choices that are conscious and respectful of their place in a global community. Its funding comes largely from individual donations and communitybased fundraising efforts through thrift shops and “relief sales” that feature traditional quilts made in Mennonite communities. (MCC does not accept US government funding.) Mennonites are also deeply involved in the operation of Ten Thousand Villages stores, a network of more than 100 nonprofit fair trade stores in North America that sell products made by craftspeople and cooperatives in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East (Littrell & Dickson, 1999). MCC ties its advocacy to religious values and to this culture of service: “…we are called by God to be a voice with and for the poor, oppressed and marginalized. …At MCC we base our advocacy on what we hear from workers and partners on the ground; as Christians, we believe loving our neighbors means their voices shape our messages to governments” (Mennonite Central Committee, 2020). Christian Peacemaker Teams Founded in 1986, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) calls itself “a living answer to the question, ‘what would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war?’” (Christian Peacemaker Teams, n.d.). By training and placing teams of volunteers in or near violent conflict situations, it aims to “get in the way” of violence and “create space for peace” while supporting local organizations that can further these objectives. Its signature activity, sending teams of trained short-term peacemakers to be present in situations of violent conflict, is designed to be transformative

162

P. J. NELSON

for the individuals as well as to influence the course of events at the sites they visit. The network has drawn delegates from the United States and Canada to sites in 12 countries and multiple sites in North America, many volunteering for more than one assignment. CPT volunteers commit to a high level of training, commitment, and sometimes danger. The organization’s withdrawal from one site in Palestine, the village of At-Tuwani, embodies some of CPT’s intentions and ideals. When Palestinian and Israeli organizations asked CPT to establish a presence there in 2004, it was because of harassment and attacks by Israeli settlers, and antipathy between the two groups. The organization ended its presence at At-Tuwani in 2011 because, according to CPT, local organizations had developed the capacity and the standing to handle incidents when they arose and to engage both parties in ongoing talks aimed at improving relations (CPT Ends Presence in At-Tuwani, 2011). CPT continues to work elsewhere in Palestine. Maryknoll Lay Missioners and Volunteers The Maryknoll orders of men and women religious began in 1975 to sponsor a program training and placing “lay missioners,” long-term volunteers, in low-income communities to provide social, educational, health, and educational services. Twelve new lay missioners were placed in 2018, and Maryknoll reports that it has placed 700 volunteers since the program was formalized in 1975. The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers and Maryknoll Sisters, relatively small orders with 700 and 400 members respectively, have an international presence and are a source of support to progressive Catholic movements in many societies and within the church in the United States. Maryknoll Lay Missioners, as the long-term volunteers are called, work in challenging places. The 74 current volunteers live in the United States, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, El Salvador, Kenya, and Tanzania. They work, like ordained Maryknoll missioners, embedded in local institutions that serve underserved populations. In the United States, Catholic observers attest that the Maryknoll orders have an outsized impact through their Office for Global Concerns, the influential publishing house Orbis, and their presence in US communities and dioceses (Sordo Palacios et al., 2015; Maryknoll Sisters, n.d.).

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

163

Faith in the Marketplace: Consumers and Investors Encouraging people to rethink their money and their consumption in light of their faith and values (Schut, 2008; Taylor & Little, 2016) is a vital form of conscientization that is too little practiced in US religious communities and by FBOs. Donating to a church-sponsored or independent relief charity is the standard way that religious individuals and communities express care or solidarity. Touching on constituents’ behavior as consumers or investors is more sensitive terrain, but some religious traditions have long made integrity in financial dealings a priority. Islam and Judaism have well-defined principles that govern finance, particularly interest-bearing loans. In Islam, these have led to the creation of significant financial institutions that make saving, investment, and access to capital possible through a variety of means that generally involve the investor/lender sharing in the risks involved in the activity financed (Iqbal & Mirakhor 2012; Khan & Thaut, 2011). In other traditions, where there is no such clear guidance on financial practices, the matter receives less attention. But a growing literature on social movements and NGOs argues that “political” action includes deliberate marketplace choices—consumption, investment, and others—choices that are motivated by desire for social change (Wapner, 1996; Seidman, 2007). Building on Bretherton’s (2010) insight that the prospect of “faithful witness” by religion involves relations to the state, market, and civil society, I argue that faith-based initiatives promoting principled consumption or investment decisions should be considered both political and religious acts. Since the 1970s, several faith-related initiatives have grown among FBOs encouraging people of faith to buy less, buy locally produced goods, buy fairly-traded commodities that provide living incomes to their producers, and invest with a social purpose. This social investment or impact investment involves some combination of avoiding morally troublesome industries and helping to capitalize under-financed enterprises such as renewable energy, low-income housing, and micro-finance (Loving, 2014). Churches and religious organizations themselves are important consumers and investors. Religious organizations played significant roles in the campaign to disinvest from US firms invested in apartheid South Africa, and Catholic religious orders and other organizations—notably the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility—have

164

P. J. NELSON

pressed transnational firms on environmental, labor rights, and human rights through shareholder activism (Brodsky, 2018; Guay et al., 2004; O’Rourke, 2003). These three initiatives represent the range of consumer and investor consciousness being promoted by the organizations in our sample: Voluntary simplicity, countering the consumer culture; social investment initiatives; and the promotion of fair trade through small specialized shops and then on a mass consumption level. Simplicity In the United States, religion, particularly evangelical Christianity, has become associated with the society’s high levels of wealth, consumption, and work ethic. But there is a counter-movement in US and European Christendom to encourage local food consumption, reduced consumption of consumer goods, and/or reduced reliance on fossil fuels. The movement parallels themes in secular counter-culture and relies on a mix of environmental, aesthetic, community-building, and spiritual motivations to encourage constituents to reconsider some of their consumption patterns. North American and European Christian cultures clearly contributed to the development of global consumer economy and so have an obligation to begin to lead a change. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, for example, maintains a “simple living” emphasis within its World Hunger program, with resources stressing the spirituality of simpler material lifestyles, practical resources from a variety of secular and Christian sources, and linking simpler, responsible resource use to solutions to poverty and hunger in poor countries. The American Friends Service Committee, anchored in the historic Quaker commitment to simplicity, refers to a lifestyle based on being and becoming, not having (JustFaith, 2014). Sorensen and Sorensen (1992) call voluntary simplicity an “act of provocation” and advocacy, in a consumer culture. Several Christian denominational offices refer constituents to the faithbased simplicity campaign: Alternatives for Simple Living. Created in 1973 “as a protest against the commercialization of Christmas,” Alternatives now distributes resources and maintains support networks and a speakers’ bureau to encourage congregations and households to scale back their consumption. Eight of the 50 FBOs in our sample include content encouraging readers to rethink a consumerist lifestyle.

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

165

Impact Investing Many NGOs and other nonprofits now promote annuities to benefit the NGO, as a fund-raising strategy. NGOs promoting investment by faith communities in the agencies’ programmatic work are less known, but the practice is growing rapidly. Faith-based nonprofits working in the United States have used forms of local impact investing for decades to raise capital for community development (Ren, 2015), and now investments to support enterprise in communities in the Global South are growing. INGOs based in Europe have expanded their use of such investing, principally as a source of capital for their own investments in projects with partner NGOs (O’Sullivan-Winks, 2018). Access to Capital for Rural Enterprises (ACRE) is perhaps the most visible NGO actor facilitating what it calls impact-first investing. A consortium led by Christian Aid, ACRE also involves the NGO Practical Action and several others, using the NGOs’ field experience and contacts to facilitate transactions that lead to “impactfirst investment in rural enterprises in developing markets” (ACRE, n.d.). Lutheran World Relief has launched a “for-profit impact-investing subsidiary,” Ground-Up Investing, which encourages investments by US supporters that will build a fund to capitalize farmers’ cooperatives and similar LWR-supported enterprises (Lutheran World Relief, 2020). Two kinds of motivation are at play in FBOs’ limited embrace of impact investing, on the supply side and demand side.3 Organizations need the capital, and social or impact investors can be a good source of “patient” capital, willing to commit for five years or longer. But the call to think about the implications of one’s faith and values for one’s investments or retirement savings—or for a faith-related pension fund’s or church endowment’s investments—is an important challenge on the supply side. The interplay of the two motivations is apparent in the examples that follow. The Netherlands-based Oikocredit, an independent nonprofit initially launched in 1974 by the World Council of Churches, encourages individual and institutional investment that is used to capitalize microfinance

3 I am focusing here on encouraging investment as a principled activity, and leaving aside the related fundraising practice of encouraging regular donors to consider retirement annuities or other quasi-investment gifts to the NGO itself.

166

P. J. NELSON

institutions and lent to small and medium enterprises, including cooperatives in poor countries. Oikocredit has lent 1.3 billion euros to microfinance institutions, cooperatives, and small businesses in poor countries, with a policy of reaching less well-established microfinance lenders and small and medium enterprises (Oikocredit, 2019). Oikocredit’s capital is mobilized largely by investments at 2% annual interest from individuals, church congregations, and institutions such as religious orders and pension funds of religious institutions. National offices and local “support associations” in Europe and North America have attracted some 53,000 individual investors and 6000 institutional investors (Oikocredit, 2019). Social investment, especially among churches, is better established in Europe than in the United States, and Germany is by far the largest source of investments (29.3 million euros in 2019, from 27,000 investors). The United States, where networks recruiting investors are much less developed, ranked fifth with 1.3 million euros in 2010 (Oikocredit, 2011), but US investments have fallen as Oikocredit de-emphasized US operations, which are costly due to multiple state regulatory regimes. A US affiliate is now in the process of rebuilding operations after Oikocredit’s decision to step away from the United States. The support associations, which play a central role in recruiting new investors, are largely directed and run by volunteers. US religious institutions that promote social investment may encourage members to consider Oikocredit, as the Presbyterian Church has; they may call attention to a number of commercially-available investment funds, as the Unitarian Universalist Association does with the investment fund Root Capital; or, in the case of the Mennonite Church, maintain investment instruments for their members through Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA). Social investment, especially among churches, is a more established practice in Europe than in the United States. Some US states regulate private investment offerings like Oikocredit tightly, and Federal regulation is an issue for impact investment advocates as well (US Impact Investing Alliance, 2020). One implication is that the potentially huge US market is underdeveloped, and there are no investment instruments with name recognition or with widespread familiarity among investment advisors. The potential clientele—including people of faith who also support international NGOs and charities—are much less well informed in the United

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

167

States than in Europe of such investment opportunities, and this perpetuates the chasm between donations and the potential impact of much larger investment portfolios (Crawford, n.d.). Fair Trade Fair trade schemes aim to create a market niche for consumers willing to pay a premium for products—coffee, bananas, chocolate, handicrafts—if they believe that the producer will receive a better price than otherwise. Fair trade coffee has captured about 12% of the market in the United States, more in much of Europe, and fair trade stores such as 10,000 Villages are a regular presence in American cities. Volumes have been written about fair trade, especially in coffee, including by sympathetic critics who point out the uncertainty created by multiple fair trade “labels” purporting to certify products (Mesenbring, 2019; Zwissler, 2017). But my focus here is on whether and how FBOs have linked fair trade consumption to their work and encouraged their constituents to participate. Nine of the 50 FBOs offer such encouragement in their websites or publications. Mainline Protestant FBOs are most strongly represented but there is some enthusiasm for fair trade across all parts of the Christian spectrum, and from one Islamic FBO. Whether encouraging congregations to buy and serve fair trade coffee at events in houses of worship, or individuals to shop regularly for fair trade products, FBOs emphasize the link to individual farmers or craftspeople, and in some cases, they promote products actually produced in communities where they work. Two Christian denominations represented among the FBOs—Mennonite and Presbyterian—have been directly involved in sponsoring fair trade retail stores in the United States. Covenant World Relief (n.d.), the agency of the Evangelical Covenant Church, promotes a fascinating initiative, encouraging churches to purchase communion wafers made at a charity associated with the Hindustani Covenant Church in Pune, India. Divesting Fossil Fuels, Investing in Energy Access A parallel effort to mobilize social investment, ShineInvest, was launched in 2018 by four principals—GreenFaith, Ikea Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund, and the NGO Sustainable Energy for All. ShineInvest mobilizes capital to help finance extension of electricity and clean cooking

168

P. J. NELSON

energy to “the last mile”—people in remote, poor, and underserved communities in the Global South. The four founding organizations have been joined by 38 organizational members, of which 13 are faith-related (ShineInvest, n.d.). GreenFaith, the founding NGOs, is “building a global, multi-faith climate and environmental movement” (https://gre enfaith.org/). Thain (2019), in an essay introducing the London School of Economics’ “Faith and Climate Action” project, points to dynamic secular movements addressing the climate crisis and argues that: Extinction Rebellion, the school strikes and global climate activism cannot just be a secular movement. Faith communities have unparalleled social capital that can be mobilised on all issues…. Faith groups are also major voices on both sides of the climate debate, from climate denial to Pope Francis’s second encyclical, Laudato Si (subtitled ‘on care for our common home’). Our challenge is to work in a language that speaks to faith communities across denominations and meets people where they are at in terms of climate action, activism and engagement.

Western religious institutions were hesitant, through much of the late twentieth-century rise of the US environmental movement, to prioritize the issue (Ellingson et al., 2012). More conservative Christians were (and are) skeptical of the environmental movement’s agenda, and progressive religious social activists tended to give higher priority to social and economic injustice over environmental protection or conservation. Now, the environmental agenda presents an existential crisis, but religious people in the United States still lag behind the population at large and far behind citizens of other wealthy countries (PRRI, 2019). Religious institutions have begun to step up, and they are important actors in particular in the divest/reinvest movement. As significant investors, religious institutions’ choices to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in renewables and energy access have made news. Forty-two institutions from 14 countries made such a move on May 18, 2020, when a joint announcement came “from Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, United Reformed, Baptist, Quaker and Buddhist institutions, among others, with over £1.1 billion in assets under management” (BrightNow, n.d.). Multiple networks and coalitions have grown up to promote divestment and reinvestment, including BrightNow, Operation Noah, Catholic Impact Investing Collaborative, FaithInvest, the Oblate International

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

169

Investment Trust (for portfolios of religious orders), and others. Most focus on religious institutions with larger potential investments than most individuals, for obvious reasons. But that leaves individual investors without the same kind of coordinated opportunities and information, and this is where their religious institutions and FBOs have a role to play. Reaching individuals to gain modest individual investments is labor intensive—I have participated in this work on behalf of Oikocredit—but it is also a service to people of faith. The nonprofit Faith and Money Network does outreach and provides resources to individuals and houses of worship.

Some Implications Advocacy and education have become expected parts of the work of US and European development NGOs. They are far more widely practiced than 30 years ago, when Church World Service Washington, DC, representative Larry Minear (1987) called them the “other mission” and urged more NGOs, religious and secular alike, to find their voice, and they are more widely and vigorously promoted in Europe than in the United States. But the related set of other activities, not directly tied to raising funds or material resources for the NGO, expose some distinctive patterns and issues for these faith-based groups. Two kinds of outreach are almost universally practiced in some way across the spectrum of faith-based NGOs: Prayer and constituency education. Nearly all the organizations connect their mission to spiritual practices that their constituencies value. There are subtle and important differences in how that connection is made, but prayer clearly forms a link between the religious identities of our FBOs and their missions in the material world, reinforcing participants’ sense of shared community and purpose. Education, too, is practiced with different levels of sophistication and investment. All NGOs want their readers to become familiar with their activities, and they also clearly seek to frame those activities for their readers, as promoting human rights (AJWS, Franciscans International, and Christian Solidarity Worldwide); as essential service that expresses their particular history and faith tradition (American Jewish Joint Distribution Service, Mennonite Central Committee, Karuna Foundation, Micah Challenge International); or as the work of spiritual values shared across faiths or traditions (Religions for Peace, Jubilee Network, Bread

170

P. J. NELSON

for the World, Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance). Educational materials for some provide a link between the human experience that motivates their readers, and the more abstract issues of policy or markets. This is especially evident in the educational strategies of American Jewish World Service, World Relief, and Tearfund, working in different traditions and different political and cultural contexts. The second finding relates to evangelical Christian NGOs: The evangelical Christian constituency might be expected to be politically conservative and more open to messages that emphasize personal transformation than social change. The data on these NGOs offer a more mixed profile. This study confirms the emphasis on personal transformation: All evangelical organizations in the survey do stress personal spiritual expressions such as prayer. But evangelical FBOs in the United Kingdom encourage policy advocacy and market-related actions much more frequently than their US counterparts, and US evangelical FBOs also vary considerably. This suggests that there is a divide among evangelical institutions, which extends into the world of international humanitarian work. This progressive minority among American evangelicals has manifested itself several times in recent years. It appeared in the highly public 2008/2009 battles over the policy agenda of the National Association of Evangelicals, when the NAE’s highly respected vice president for government affairs, Richard Cizic, was forced out (Pulliam, 2008). It is visible as well in the continued growth of still relatively small evangelical organizations such as Evangelicals for Social Action and the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good that Cizik launched after leaving NAE. Among the Evangelical FBOs, British Tearfund and American World Relief are relatively outspoken, while others including Samaritan’s Purse, World Hope International, Compassion International, and the several Baptist agencies are essentially silent on policy advocacy. World Vision, the largest of the evangelical actors, encourages advocacy and focuses it carefully on child welfare, as we saw in Chapter 4. Outside of the FBO orbit it is visible in the enthusiasm and loyalty of the white evangelical community for former President Donald Trump. As the 2020 election approached, US public opinion surveys continued to show white evangelicals as one of then-President Trump’s strongest bases of support. Most FBOs with evangelical ties reflect the politics of their constituency, ranging from Samaritan Purse’s support to World VisionUSA’s cautious, nuanced statements on immigration measures such as separating children from their families, issues that clearly are opposed

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

171

to the organization’s stated positions (World Vision n.d.). World Relief stands out by taking emphatic positions on core issues of immigration and racial justice, aligning itself more closely with progressive evangelical voices. A third finding relates to the place of experiential and transformative activities in faith-based NGOs’ mobilization strategies. Two sets of mobilization strategies tend to appear together among the FBOs studied: Experiential activities designed to help challenge and transform constituents’ worldviews and strengthen their commitment to justice; and relatively simple, “low-cost” advocacy activities that may not intimidate individuals with the levels of time, expertise and public speaking involved. It seems likely that FBOs use these two strategies as the narrow end of the wedge, a means of getting constituents involved in these activities, in the hope that some will become deeply engaged and take on more significant challenges. FBOs that encourage a range of experiential and market actions are also among the most active in promoting advocacy. The extent of educational, experiential, and advocacy mobilization, measured by the number and intensity of actions proposed by the NGOs, is all positively aligned with the number of policy issues in the FBOs’ advocacy agendas. Catholic Relief Services, Mennonite Central Committee, and Presbyterian Hunger Program (all denominational agencies) are examples of this tendency to feature both lifestyle/market and policy advocacy initiatives. Lutheran World Relief is an exception, emphasizing the lifestyle and market actions while proposing essentially no advocacy agenda. Evangelical and Catholic FBOs promote educational and experiential and transformative activities most frequently, and denominational FBOs promote mobilization more consistently and aggressively than independent organizations. Mainline Protestant organizations encourage more high-level advocacy and experiential/transformative activities than others, a pattern that is consistent with their historic association with a “social Gospel” that emphasizes social transformation as part of Christian teaching. Taking initiative on behalf of global equity and opportunity means more than only being politically active. A few FBOs in the United States and more in Europe are showing that it also involves rethinking one’s power as a consumer and investor. FBOs are also clearly convinced that very personal transformative activities, from prayer to volunteering, build support and commitment among their constituencies. In the final chapter,

172

P. J. NELSON

I turn to some examples of larger scale movements among people of faith in the United States and to an assessment of what we can discern from the faith-based development and humanitarian community’s response to three crises that are genuinely both global and existentially threatening to the rich countries: Climate, COVID-19, and racial injustice.

References ACRE. (n.d.). Information for investors. https://policy.practicalaction.org/com ponent/dspace/item/acre-access-to-capital-for-rural-enterprises. Alvarez, Linda, et al. (2018). Love thy neighbour: Social identity and public support for humanitarian aid. Development Policy Review, 36, O935–O953. Berger, I. E. (2006). The influence of religion on philanthropy in Canada. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 17, 115–132. Bretherton, L. (2010). Christianity and contemporary politics. New York: Wiley. BrightNow. (2020). Global coalition of 42 faith institutions divest from fossil fuels. https://brightnow.org.uk/news/42-faith-institutions-in-global-div estment-announcement/. Brodsky, S. (2018, August 3). On climate change, faith-based shareholders take the lead. https://www.theimpactivate.com/on-climate-change-faith-based-shareh olders-take-the-lead/. Guay, T., Doh, J. P., & Sinclair, G. (2004). Non-governmental organizations, shareholder activism, and socially responsible investments: Ethical, strategic, and governance implications. Journal of Business Ethics, 52, 125–139. Cnaan, R. A., & Amrofell, L. (1994). Mapping volunteer activity. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 23(4), 335–351. Covenant World Relief. (n.d.). Communion wafers. https://covchurch.org/cwr/ communion-wafers/. Crawford, G. (n.d.). The US-Europe divide in the development of impact investing. Philanthropy Impact. https://www.philanthropy-impact.org/exp ert-opinion/us-europe-divide-development-impact-investing. Edgell Becker, P., & Dhingra, P. H. (2001). Religious involvement and volunteering: Implications for civil society. Sociology of Religion, 62(3), 315–335. Ellingson, S., Woodley, V. A., & Paik, A. (2012). The structure of religious environmentalism: Movement organizations, interorganizational networks, and collective action. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 51(2), 266–285. Fogarty, T. (2009). Searching for solidarity in Nicaragua: Faith-based NGOs as agents of transcultural voluntourism. Bridging the Gaps: Faith-Based Organizations, Neoliberalism, and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, 83–102.

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

173

Hartman, E., Kiely, R., Boettcher, C., & Friedrichs, J. (2018). Community-based global learning: The theory and practice of ethical engagement at home and abroad. Sterling, VA: Stylus Press. Iqbal, Z., & Mirakhor, A. (2012). Financial inclusion: Islamic finance perspective. Journal of Islamic Business and Management, 2(1), 35–64. JDC Entwine Insider Trips. (n.d.). https://www.jdcentwine.org/about-us/faq/. John Paul II. (1987). Sollicitudo rei socialis, Section 38. http://www.vatican.va/ content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_30121987_sol licitudo-rei-socialis.html. JustFaith. (2014). The art of simple living, notes to participants for week seventeen. https://justfaith.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/JF-Weeks-16-20Participant-Handouts-2014-15.pdf. Keane, J. T. (2011, June 10). Outward bound: How Maryknoll defined a century of mission work. America. https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/780/art icle/outward-bound. Khan, A. A., & Thaut, L. (2011). An Islamic perspective on fair trade. Birmingham: Islamic Relief Worldwide. Littrell, M. A., & Dickson, M. A. (1999). Ten thousand villages: A missiondriven journey. Social Responsibility in the Global Market: Fair Trade of Cultural Products. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452231402.n3. Loving, A. R. (2014). Putting your money where your values are: Introducing social investing. http://faithandmoneynetwork.org/wp-content/upl oads/2014/10/Loving-article-on-social-investing-1.pdf. Lutheran World Relief. (2020). Ground-up investing LLC. https://lwr.org/gro und-investing-llc. Maryknoll Sisters. (n.d). About us. https://www.maryknollsisters.org/about-us/ our-mission/. MCC. (2018). Annual Report 2018. https://mcc.org/sites/mcc.org/files/ media/common/documents/2018-11-20_us_annual_report_2018_web.pdf. Mennonite Central Committee. (2020). Advocacy. https://mcc.org/get-inv olved/advocacy. Mesenbring, D. (2019, December 18). How fair is fair trade: The reality behind the labels. Christian Century, 20–25. Minear, L. (1987). The other missions of NGOs: Education and advocacy. World Development, Vol. IS, Supplement, pp. 201–211. Monsma, S. V. (2007). Religion and philanthropic giving and volunteering: Building blocks for civic responsibility. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion., 3(1), 3–28. O’Sullivan-Winks, D. (2018, September 19). The growing and critical role of NGOs in impact investment. https://www.inclusivebusiness.net/ib-voices/ growing-and-critical-role-ngos-impact-investment.

174

P. J. NELSON

Oikocredit. (2011). Annual Report, 2011. https://www.oikocredit.coop/en/ publications/annual-reports. Oikocredit. (2019). Annual Report 2018. https://www.oikocredit.coop/en/pub lications/annual-reports. O’Rourke, A. (2003). A new politics of engagement: Shareholder activism for corporate social responsibility. Business Strategy and the Environment, 12(4), 227–239. PRRI. (2019). Fractured nation widening partisan polarization and key issues in 2020 presidential elections. Washington, DC: PRRI. https://www.prri.org/ wp-content/uploads/2019/10/PRRI_Oct_AVS-web.pdf. Pulliam, S. (2008, December 11). Richard Cizik Resigns from the National Association of Evangelicals. Christianity Today. https://www.christianitytoday. com/ct/2008/decemberweb-only/150-42.0.html. Ren, J. (2015). Impact investing 101: Faith-based organizations and impact investing. https://www.pacificcommunityventures.org/2015/07/20/ impact-investing-101-faith-based-organizations-and-impact-investing/. Sordo Palacios, S., Gaunt, T. P., & Gautier, M. L. (2015). Population trends among religious institutes of men. Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. Men_Religious_Fall2015_FINAL(1).pdf. Schut, M. (Ed.). (2008). Money and faith: The search for enough. Denver: Morehouse Publishing. Seidman, G. (2007). Beyond the Boycott: Labor rights, human rights, and transnational activism. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. ShineInvest. (n.d.). Our partners. https://www.shineinvest.org/partners/. Smidt, C. E., et al. (2008). Pews, prayers, and participation: Religion and civic responsibility in America. Washington, DC: Georgetown. Smith, D. H. (1994). Determinants of voluntary association participation and volunteering: A literature review. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 23(3), 243–263. Smith, M. B., & Laurie, N. (2011). International volunteering and development: Global citizenship and neoliberal professionalisation today. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 36, 545–559. Sorensen, B., & Sorensen, D. A. (1992). Tis a gift to be simple: Embracing the freedom of living with less. Minneapolis: Augsburg Books. Taylor, S., & Little, M. (2016). Clergy and money: Understanding the complexity of our relationship to money. Giving: Growing Joyful Stewards in your Congregation, 18, 26–27. Thain, A. (2019). The climate crisis: Faith, hope, and change. https://blogs.lse. ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2019/10/the-climate-crisis-faith-hope-and-cha nge/. U.S. Impact Investing Alliance. (2020). News and updates. http://impinvall iance.org/news-updates.

7

BEYOND ADVOCACY? MOBILIZING COMPASSION

175

van Tienen, M., et al. (2010). The role of religiosity for formal and informal volunteering in the Netherlands. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 22(3), 1–25. Wapner, P. (1996). Environmental activism and world civic politics. Albany: SUNY Press. World Relief. (2017). Frontline reports: Business as unusual. https://worldrelief. org/business-as-unusual/. World Vision. (n.d.). World Vision urges U.S. government to protect children and families in immigration detention. https://www.worldvision.org/about-us/ media-center/world-vision-urges-u-s-government-to-protect-children-andfamilies-in-immigration-detention. Zwissler, L. (2017). Markets of the heart: Weighing economic and ethical values at ten thousand villages. In Anthropological considerations of production, exchange, vending and tourism (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 37, pp. 115–135). Emerald Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190128120170000037006.

CHAPTER 8

Religious Movements and FBOs: The Climate Threat and COVID-19

In March, April, and May of 2020 much of the world’s attention was riveted to the existential threat of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The pandemic eclipsed other critical concerns on the global agenda, taking its place atop the list of a handful of issues that are seen in the wealthy industrial world as truly global threats—cyberattacks, nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and climate change also make this short list. COVID-19 was seen as a “serious threat” to the country (71%) and to the global economy (76%), though fewer than a third saw it as a serious threat to themselves (29%) (Newall & Jackson, 2020). In the United States, 60% of adults in an April 2020 poll saw climate change as a serious threat, up from 44% in 2010 (Kennedy, 2020). Most religious groups lagged behind: In 2015 polling that asks people to identify the top “critical issues” facing the United States, only three of ten religious groups identify climate change among the top three: Unaffiliated people, non-Christian groups, and Hispanic Catholics (PRRI, 2019). Then, in late May and June 2020, police killings of several Black Americans reopened the long history of racial discrimination in law enforcement and the broader issues of racial injustice in US society, and even the pandemic was eclipsed by days of demonstrations and national soul-searching. The United States was—is—in crisis. The question of how © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. J. Nelson, Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3_8

177

178

P. J. NELSON

religious voices and institutions can contribute to movements for justice and life, at home and abroad, is now a fundamental challenge to the moral role and standing of religion in the society. International development NGOs clearly are not the central actor in answering this challenge, but I want to suggest that they can have a role, as they can play a more significant role in responding to the climate crisis and calling for just and transformative responses to the pandemic. This chapter reviews the recent history of selected movements for social justice with important religious inspiration or involvement, side by side with the response of religious and faith-based NGOs to the climate crisis and to Covid-19. It also includes a discussion of the opportunities for FBOs to contribute to the movement for racial justice in the United States and worldwide. The climate crisis and the pandemic differ in important ways that are discussed below, but unlike most global development policy issues, they are perceived as existential threats by many of the Americans who form FBOs’ constituencies. This means that the challenge of generating large-scale interest among people of faith is different, too. Nearly everyone in the United States was concerned about COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, but almost no Americans, other than those with personal or professional connections to countries in the Global South, was focusing much attention on what the pandemic meant for vulnerable people in LMICs. Even people normally interested in global affairs were preoccupied with keeping their elderly relatives safe, worried that their trip to the grocery store would bring a lethal virus into their kitchens, and managing work, their children’s education, and their own health. Climate threats, too, are on some people’s minds increasingly in a concrete, threatening way: Will tropical storms and wildfires continue to become more severe? If the sea level rises as predicted, what happens to coastal developments? Should I have made that trip in the family car? Should I fly to that conference? But except for the few who are unusually attentive to climate news, the effect on our moment-to-moment consciousness is nothing like that of COVID-19 in early 2020. The challenge for a FBO, then, is not to persuade constituents to think about COVID, or (to a lesser extent) to worry about the climate. The challenge is to frame the issue in a way that allows constituents to think beyond their legitimate family and local concerns, and to be aware, informed, and prepared to speak out, about the threats to others. To put

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

179

these challenges in context, I will first review the recent history of religious social justice movements, asking how resistance arises on a scale large enough to attract attention and perhaps influence public action. In the second half of the chapter, I turn to FBOs’ voices on climate and on the pandemic, to gain insight into religion’s role in addressing these two existential threats, and into the capabilities and limitations of faith-based NGOs to participate.

Social Movements, Religion, and FBOs Religious activists, including some faith-based NGOs, have been involved in social movement efforts to address global and national issues. These include civilian protection in Darfur beginning in the early 2000s, the sanctuary movements in the 1980s and again in the new millennium, the Jubilee Debt Campaign (1990s–present), and climate activism, including the movement to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in energy access for poor communities. I distinguish “movements” here from ongoing NGO advocacy efforts by several characteristics: Movements originate in initiatives of individuals, not plans of organizations; they engage contentious issues; they are at least somewhat sustained, and they involve forming or strengthening a shared collective identity. An action alert to a FBO’s readers asking them to contact an elected official can be a part of a movement, but the typical advocacy by FBOs is usually less sustained, more organization-driven, and less contentious. Many influential religious movements have been repressive rather than emancipatory. Religious people and institutions have long been implicated in a long list of social, cultural, and political forms of repression and exploitation—expressing racial hatred and anti-Semitism, supporting slavery, Apartheid, patriarchal institutions, and exploiting and degrading women, indigenous peoples, and non-human resources in the environment. On other issues, religious leadership’s response has been uneven or unhelpful: Religious roles in building strong commitments to prevent and treat HIV and AIDS, for example, were important, complex, mixed, and inexcusably slow. In some communities in parts of Africa, religious congregations were the networks through which compassionate care for AIDS patients and for AIDS orphans were best provided (Foster, n.d.). In many others, religious leaders preached against the sexual behavior of those who spread or suffered from HIV—without full understanding of

180

P. J. NELSON

the disease’s transmission, or full knowledge of the cases of particular individuals. This focus on sexual morality limited the scope and effectiveness of religious participation in the larger movement to protect the rights and guarantee life-saving treatment for HIV patients worldwide. While the remainder of this chapter focuses on religious movements promoting human rights and attacking global poverty, these always be viewed in historical and political perspective. Social movement scholars have shown a lively interest in the roles of religion. Williams argues that “religious commitment can play a central role in motivating social action, religious ideologies can be powerful vehicles for articulating ‘injustice frames’ that diagnose social problems, and religious leaders often have charismatic authority and organizational acumen that helps facilitate mobilization” (Williams, 2006, 85). Smith (1996) shows that religion offers assets to social movements, including a source of “transcendent motivation” for participants, organizational resources, shared identity that encourages cohesion, widespread presence throughout society, privileged legitimacy in society that lends credibility, and logistical support. Religious institutions, faith-based NGOs, and individuals with prominent religious identities have inspired and led social justice movements throughout US history. The United States has seen religious communities and congregations serve as bases for organizing and heard their voices raised to make the case. Religious actors have also become involved in movements such as civil rights or United Farm Workers organizing, whose leadership came from autonomous organizations (Williams, 2003). Can international faith-based NGOs be effective participants in authentic movements of this kind? How have FBOs responded to recent and contemporary movements around humanitarian issues clearly tied to the FBOs’ work, and what are the implications for understanding religious movements and understanding NGOs as political actors? Where do movements’ demands and agendas originate, and how responsive are US and European actors to the wishes and initiatives of allies and coreligionists in the Global South? Historic Movements The history of religious roles in social movements for liberation and justice is complex and the roles mixed. The movement against slavery and the slave trade in England and the United States was led by outspoken

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

181

evangelical Christians, Quakers, and others. These prophetic leaders were aghast not only at the practice of slavery but also at the failure of religious institutions to challenge it (McKivigan, 1984). The Christian movements against apartheid in South Africa and Buddhist-inspired movement against untouchability and the abuse of dalits in India both feature religious leadership against abuses that other religious authorities supported, or had once supported (Taliep et al., 2016; Zene, 2020). Wright (2013) credits Islam with significant role in the decolonization of some countries, especially in Africa, but religion’s support for colonization was longer-term and is rightly more remembered.

Three Contemporary Movements Religious leaders and faith-based NGOs have been active in a handful of large-scale movements addressing international justice issues in recent decades. A few have been inspired or at least partly led by FBOs, and I will focus primarily on these. But the role that FBOs play by simply signing onto a campaign can also be significant. Broader US coalitions addressing dozens of international issues have included representatives of religious organizations. These include coalitions to protect the rights of indigenous peoples, preserve tropical forests (Interfaith Rainforest Initiative), advance women’s sexual and reproductive rights (Barot, 2013), end female genital mutilation (FGM), reform the World Bank (Nelson, 1995), expand girls’ education (Ord, 2018), address climate change (National Religious Coalition on Creation Care), and multiple country-specific campaigns. The value and role of international advocacy work varies, but in many cases the political opportunity structure or the locus of decision-making makes it possible for transnational advocates to have significant influence, and these are of greatest interest for this discussion. Jubilee Debt Campaign On May 16, 1998, more than 50,000 people held a remarkable public demonstration in Birmingham, England. Holding hands, they formed a chain more than three miles long near the site of the Group of Eight meeting to call for their government and other major creditors to forgive or radically write down the debts of low-income, highly indebted countries, mostly in Africa. The event made news around the world: A mass

182

P. J. NELSON

demonstration on an arcane issue, far removed from daily life in Birmingham. Religious involvement was so significant that columnist Will Sutton wrote, somewhat dramatically, that “the biblical proof and moral imagination of religion… have torched the principles of the hitherto unassailable citadels of international finance” (Sutton, 1999 quoted in Hoover, 2001). The campaign to reduce the crushing debt service burden on highly indebted low-income countries was a transnational effort with significant religious leadership, joined and amplified by secular activists as well as by international governmental organizations. Religious leaders in the United States and Europe, especially Roman Catholic and Episcopalian, responded to persistent calls from their counterparts in the Global South to press for measures to reduce the pressure of debt repayment and debt servicing—maintaining payments on the interest owed (US Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1999). The case for some debt relief was especially potent in countries where debt had been incurred by unrepresentative governments for useless or failed projects—referred to as odious debts (Kremer & Jayachandran, 2003). Begun in the 1990s, the international campaign mobilized religious support by embracing the Biblical concept of Jubilee, a periodic debt forgiveness and restoration of land mandated in the Hebrew Scriptures (though apparently never systematically practiced). Religious advocates wrote serious analyses of the impact of debt servicing on the development prospects of some highly indebted countries, and developed a proposal for the scope of debt forgiveness (Mayo, 2005). They called for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and the major creditor countries to cancel the debt of the most highly indebted low-income countries. They mobilized Protestant and Catholic churchgoers, along with other people of faith and of conscience, for remarkable mass demonstrations addressing an issue that was abstract and at a great distance from the global capitals. Was the Jubilee campaign a religious movement? By the time it gained headlines with a mass demonstration in Birmingham, England in 1998, it was much broader, and intellectual and political leadership was coming from a London office directed by Anne Pettifor, and from Oxfam. But at its launch, religious imagery and faith-related organizations were central. In addition to the iconic Birmingham demonstration, the campaign featured celebrities from Bono to Muhammad Ali, mass gatherings on five continents, a petition that amassed 24 million signatures on paper,

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

183

and widespread support from religious leaders and faith-based organizations. The outcome fell far short of the Jubilee proposals, but more than $100 billion of debt owed by the 35 poorest highly indebted countries was written down. Debt-reduction measures by the World Bank and IMF were motivated by hard economic considerations as well as by the arguments of the Jubilee campaign. High levels of debt were threatening to make a significant number of these agencies’ borrowers simply too risky, so prudent financial management by the banks was likely at least as influential a factor as the ethical demands of the Jubilee proposal (Evans, 1999). The Jubilee USA movement and other debt relief campaigns continued after the turn of the millennium. Jubilee USA broadened its agenda to a set of debt-related economic justice issues including consumer and student debt in the United States, and transparency and corruption in finance. The Jubilee USA network reports that 650 “faith organizations and congregations” participate in its network (Jubilee USA, 2020), and many of those are national-level religious bodies that disseminate Jubilee information through extensive networks. The economic and public health crises of COVID-19 inspired a new round of debt forgiveness proposals. The Jubilee campaigns were among those calling for large-scale debt forgiveness to allow low-income countries to devote resources to health care, and the World Bank and IMF announced steps that included some of the movement’s proposals, while the US Treasury advocated others (Rediker & Crebo-Rediker, 2020). The campaign in 2020 to expand debt forgiveness, restructure debt repayment schedules and interest rates, and access new or hitherto unused funds, demonstrates the merits of a network “hub” with relatively deep knowledge of an issue, able to provide information and policy resources to other advocates (Carpenter et al., 2014). In this case, Jubilee USA serves as a hub for a broad set of religious actors and FBOs. Some of network participants also have considerable policy analytic resources of their own (US Conference of Catholic Bishops, for example), but because Jubilee’s small staff has focused exclusively on debt-related issues for two decades, it provides an important resource that enables other faith-based groups to act.

184

P. J. NELSON

Sanctuary Movements The tradition of houses of worship serving as sanctuaries or refuges for persecuted groups found expression in the United States in the Nineteenth-Century Underground Railroad, in churches sheltering conscientious objectors to military service during the US war in Vietnam, and in the sanctuary movement for refugees and asylum seekers in the late twentieth and now the early twenty-first centuries. Beginning in the early 1980s, during a period of heavy United States involvement in civil wars in Central America, US citizens in Tucson, Arizona began a practice of providing shelter and legal protection to migrants escaping the wars. A network of congregations sheltered and transported half a million Central American migrants. Sanctuary in the 1980s was never a mass movement, but it stands out as a high-risk form of resistance that involved more than 150 congregations publicly sponsoring and supporting undocumented refugee families from El Salvador or Guatemala (Wiltfang & McAdam, 1991). They had institutional and moral support from “another 1,000 local Christian and Jewish congregations, several major Protestant denominations, the Conservative and Reform Jewish associations, and several Catholic orders all [of which] endorsed the concept and practice of sanctuary” (Gzesh, 2006). In 2014, when authorities in Arizona resumed vigorous enforcement of deportation orders, Sanctuary churches in Tucson and Phoenix again opened their doors. The New Sanctuary Movement (also called Sanctuary 2014) was actually formed in 2007 and claims 300 faith community members and lists 18 state and local affiliates in more than 10 states. It identifies itself as acting in alliance and solidarity “through rapid response mobilization,” “with a prophetic and bold voice” to stop deportations and oppose the Trump administration’s “anti-immigrant agenda” (New Sanctuary Movement, n.d.). “Sanctuary” became a more volatile topic when political jurisdictions began declaring themselves “sanctuary cities” in defiance of President Trump’s 2017 deportation orders, and the network of worshiping congregations has persisted with support from local immigrant rights organizations like Tucson’s No More Deaths, and national NGOs like Church World Service (CWS, n.d.; Lo, 2015). Church buildings and congregations are not legally protected, and McDaniel (2017) warns that “[t]here is no reason to think that ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents will not enter those buildings, however sacred,

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

185

where refugees are being protected. There is no special legal protection for those who claim they are exercising their protected right to practice their religious beliefs.” In recent years, lawyers have constructed arguments to strengthen the legal defense, based on expanded legal understandings of the “religious accommodation” doctrine in the United States (Scott-Railton, 2019; Lo, 2015). What is the scope of religious involvement in Sanctuary, and how has support been encouraged? Many of the largest Protestant denominations have resolutions supporting sanctuary, and some have guided congregations to find advice and support if members of the congregation are interested in acting as a sanctuary church (United Church of Christ, 2012). A few religious bodies, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, have declared themselves sanctuary church bodies, and Church World Service, the overseas relief and development and immigration agency of the National Council of Churches, provides programmatic support (Church World Service, n.d.-a, n.d.-b). Baptist congregations have had support from the Baptist Joint Commission for Religious Liberty (n.d.); some Catholic parishes and other houses of worship have taken action without strong support from national church bodies. T’ruah, the Rabbinic NGO for human rights, provides support including through its detailed and compelling guide to sanctuary (T’ruah, 2019). T’ruah’s support for sanctuary is grounded in its mission to train Jewish clergy—rabbis and cantors—in human rights principles and action (Nelson & Pearce, 2019). Its 2000 member rabbis provide a structure for educating and mobilizing congregations. Several Reconstructionist congregations have housed immigrants, and many more from Christian and Jewish congregations have provided support to immigrant families in their communities. Save Darfur Coalition Formed at a “Darfur Emergency Summit” in New York City in 2004, the Save Darfur Coalition called for diplomatic, military, and humanitarian responses to large-scale attacks on the population of Darfur in Western Sudan, attacks carried out by government forces and regional Janjaweed militias. Jewish and evangelical Christian sponsors worked to create a coalition, emphasizing the moral obligation to stop genocide in Darfur (Eichler-Levine & Hicks, 2007; Hertzke, 2005). In so doing, Lanz

186

P. J. NELSON

(2009) argues, they linked to ongoing Christian advocacy for Sudan’s Christian minority population, the particular concern of Jewish advocacy organizations with genocide, support for international criminal justice, student activism, and celebrity interest and concern. AJWS’ role in the coalition and its sustained, intensive involvement with policy on Sudan, are still highlighted on its website (AJWS, n.d.). The coalition produced major demonstrations in Washington, DC and other national capitals, a student advocacy organization STAND, a “Million Voices for Darfur” postcard campaign targeting public officials in the United States, and numerous public events and celebrity endorsements. Organizers also launched a Divest for Darfur campaign calling on US and Asian firms, mainly in the petrochemical industry, to pull out of Sudan. The US Congress passed legislation promoting divestment, but Patey’s (2009) review of the experience shows it had little impact on oil extraction in Sudan, most of which was being done by Chinese, Malaysian, and Indian firms. The broader movement surely drew attention to the crisis in Darfur; Lanz (2009, 671) concludes that the campaign “led governments and international organizations to react to the crisis in ways that go beyond typical policy responses to conflicts in Africa.”

Climate and Energy Access: A Cause Struggles to Become a Movement The remainder of this chapter examines FBOs’ responses to two contemporary, ongoing crises. The two share certain characteristics, and the methods used in my review of 10 FBOs’ engagement with them are outlined below. The review is limited to an examination of their websites, social media presence, and topical publications by the 10 FBOs and relevant coalitions; it amounts to snapshots of the FBOs’ actions during a period in April 2020, and again in October 2020. I included Facebook and Twitter content in an effort to capture comments and actions on rapidly developing issues related to the pandemic, while continuing to monitor communications through web pages. The review yields critical insights about how FBOs communicate with the people of faith who rely on them for perspective on global issues. In the case of the climate threat, I pose four questions about the FBO response:

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

187

• To what extent does the FBO highlight climate change in profiling its work and values? • Does the FBO state positions or recommendations on climate policy? • Does the FBO encourage any political action by its constituents? • What roles do specialized FBOs focused on climate and energy issues play in educating and mobilizing faith constituencies? The final question, regarding coalitions, emerged as very important. Several of the FBOs are members of networks or associations that advocate on climate issues. By assembling resources and expertise in one organization, these networks may be able to produce more fully informed policy work than the individual FBOs could accomplish. For example, mainline Protestant groups belong to the global ACT Alliance, whose roles include advocacy and which maintains a presence in Geneva, Brussels, and New York. ACT’s agenda includes human rights, funding issues specific to the European Union (EU), and climate and environmental justice (ACT Alliance, 2020). Its advocacy within the UN and EU is an important aspect of public voice for many of its members, particularly those based in Europe. But it cannot entirely replace the role that a US faith-based group can play in educating and mobilizing a constituency of people who trust and support it. A publication, or email alert from ACT is not likely to have the same resonance for most US Lutherans, for example, as a message from Lutheran World Relief. In other cases, the cooperation is within a faith tradition. Catholic Relief Services is a partner in the Catholic Climate Covenant to “speak and act on climate change.” The US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development is also a member of the Covenant, which leads education, training for parish and diocesan activists, advocacy and outreach within the Catholic community in the United States (Wood, 2016). The Covenant also sponsors Catholic Energies, which promotes and implements renewable energy projects for Catholic institutions. On a smaller scale, Mennonite Central Committee cooperates with Goshen College and Eastern Mennonite University to inform its constituency through the Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions; Islamic Relief has ties to a larger community of concern among Muslims that produced an Islamic Declaration on Climate Change; and AFSC and other Quaker agencies rely on the work of Quaker Earthcare Witness.

188

P. J. NELSON

Most of the 10 FBOs do participate in climate advocacy networks, and this and other factors mean that no precise comparisons can be made simply by examining individual FBOs’ online and social media content. But evidence from each FBO, summarized in Table 8.1, does indicate their orientation toward climate change as an issue. CRS and AJWS give climate concerns high visibility and priority in their communication on websites, Facebook and Twitter. CRS has the most extensive educational materials of any FBO studied and makes limited calls for users of some of those curricula to contact Congress about climate concerns. AJWS (2017) fired off several strongly worded statements, during the year after the United States announced withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, and continues to reference climate issues in the context of its advocacy theme on defending land and water rights. Similarly, CWS has posted copies of its letters to policy-makers on aspects of climate policy, but it does not present readers with a vehicle for their own advocacy (Church World Service, 2017). Several of the FBOs, in contrast, have content limited to one or two items directly related to climate, and feature information only about the agencies’ projects, not climate policy. These include Lutheran World Relief, Mennonite Central Committee, Samaritan’s Purse, and Islamic Relief. The relatively limited number of calls for constituents to take political action on climate policy may be partly a function of a division of labor among related faith-based organizations. AFSC, for example, makes no reference to climate, but directs readers to Quaker Earthcare Witness, and MCC points readers toward the Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions. The broader faith-related response to climate change and energy access includes other organizations and networks. The Shine Campaign (encouraging investment in energy access solutions), Interfaith Power and Light, Greenfaith, US Catholic Climate Project, the Global Catholic Climate Movement, and other nodes of this movement discussed in Chapter 7 form part of the context for assessing our FBOs. But I found no publications nor social media references from the 10 FBOs directing readers toward these movement-leading organizations. The climate crisis does not loom as large in faith-based groups’ public policy voice as might have been anticipated. The global crisis of COVID-19, on the other hand, dominated their communications in March and April of 2020. How they addressed the pandemic then and later in the year can offer insights.

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

189

Table 8.1 Climate change in advocacy by selected faith-based NGOs Climate change references

Climate policy and constituent action

Other networks, affiliates

Lutheran World Relief

Short articles with detail about agricultural adaptations in Africa

None

Church World Service

Requires urgent action; content is about impact on CWS partner communities Most extensive educational materials, mostly on CRS projects, adaptation

CWS letters to policy-makers; no explicit call for constituent action

ACT Alliance member; its advocacy includes climate & environment CWS belongs to ACT Alliance

Catholic Relief Services

World Vision

American Jewish World Service

Mennonite Central Committee World Relief

Samaritan’s Purse

Islamic Relief

American Friends Service Committee

School programs en-courage letters to Congress on climate

US Conference of Catholic Bishops policy staff; Catholic Climate Covenant Support climate-smart None in United Climate Smart farm methods; States; WVI at Agriculture Alliance children Climate Summit (no advocacy) Statements after Action in the Some statements by United States context of land and Jewish faith leaders withdrew from Paris water rights Agreement Educational: None Center for “Mennonite voices Sustainable Climate respond” series Solutions One story of a None National Chicago area Association of congregation’s work Evangelicals; with Turkana people member Accord in Ethiopia Network None Member of Accord One reference to Network, advocates project introducing for Australian acacia tree “Christ-centered” in Niger charities None Islamic Declaration Reposted articles on on Climate Change climate and on positive Muslim role Equity & peace Quaker Earthcare Few, e.g., public focus, no climate Witness meetings with partners in Indonesia

190

P. J. NELSON

COVID-19: Prophetic Voices in a Pandemic? How have faith-based NGOs helped their constituencies understand and respond to the pandemic? In early April 2020, a time when people seem to be thinking about almost nothing else, and then again in September 2020, I examined how FBOs were presenting the pandemic and their response to the public. I will summarize the messages that the same 10 faith-based agencies delivered to their constituencies about responding both at home and abroad. There are hundreds of religious statements, events, collections of resources, and guidance for houses of worship, many of them collected in a timely and useful resource center at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. This brief review of faith-based responses narrows the survey to FBOs doing community-based and policy advocacy work in the Global South. Some extraordinary constraints in the early months of the pandemic make this a difficult issue for these US-based FBOs. Calling for a more generous response to needs in other societies was problematic in April 2020. The public reacted strongly to reports that respirators and protective equipment were being sent abroad during the weeks before the incidence of COVID-19 cases began to grow in the United States. Even in June USAID operated under rules that restricted its procurement of ventilators and personal protective equipment for aid programs, in order to ensure that USAID purchases would not compete with procurement for domestic uses (Jakes, 2020). An advocacy campaign that could be seen as putting the welfare of people in the Global South ahead of the interests of Americans would have been difficult for any organization. Most public voices were also initially reluctant to be “politicizing” or second-guessing the President on a dire public health crisis, a hesitation that faded during the summer months in the United States. By the summer, aspects of the pandemic had become caught up in the country’s angry partisan divide, and public health measures that seemed indisputable—face masks, physical distancing, limits on large gatherings—had become controversial and fodder for both religious and secular partisans. Still, US-based NGOs had opportunities to educate and prepare their constituencies. Even as the disease preoccupied, frightened, and changed the lives of many Americans, faith-based advocates had the chance to frame the global issue, and to educate and prepare constituencies to have a well-informed and principled understanding of the pandemic, the vulnerabilities of people in LMIC communities, and the potential to respond.

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

191

To assess whether and how FBOs played this role, I read and monitored the ten organizations’ web pages, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds on selected days during early and mid-April 2020, and again in September. Even a cursory reading of this social media content makes it clear that the FBOs communication via social media has multiple purposes. The aims include: • Promotion, to highlight the FBO’s works of compassion, and build support for them; • Community-building, to deepen a constituency by strengthening religious and emotional bonds through shared identity and experience; • Education, to convey the subtleties and underlying causes of communities’ need; and • Advocacy, to express opinion about issues of practice or policy, and (at times) enable readers to do the same. A story or video posted to Facebook can clearly serve multiple objectives. For example, AJWS’ vignettes showing how partner organizations (grantees) defend the human rights of vulnerable groups clearly portrays AJWS’ grant-making as strategic and effective, while also educating and framing the public health crisis for its readers. Its partner in El Salvador, for example, promoted a “Quarantine without Violence” social media campaign and staffed phone lines for potential victims of abuse. Kenyan partners denounced and resisted police brutality in late March 2020, while Indian partner organizations protected and provided cash and food to vulnerable migrant families (Twitter entries April 1, March 27 and 28, and April 9). For each organization, I recorded answers to the following questions referring to the pandemic, by saving text when possible. • What actions does the FBO say it is taking to influence policy? • What policy actions, if any, does it ask from constituency? What other kinds of lifestyle or other actions, beyond donating, hygiene, face masks, and physical distancing?

192

P. J. NELSON

• What educational materials are presented, beyond hygiene and distancing advice? Is the pandemic linked to issues such as gender inequality, human rights, or income inequality? • What is the balance of content about the United States, and about LMICs? • What is the tone and emphasis of the content on COVID-19?1 In April 2020, most of these internationally oriented FBOs were nonetheless focused primarily on the pandemic in US communities. Still, clear differences are evident in how these ten FBOs communicate about the crisis, and they add to our understanding of how they participate in informing and mobilizing a constituency. The FBOs’ social media comments are summarized in Table 8.2. Several FBOs’ focused entirely on their role in delivering material aid, their need for donations to support that aid, and the importance of spiritual support. Samaritan’s Purse follows this pattern, with videos documenting the highly-publicized field hospital the NGO constructed in New York’s Central Park, and its hospital facility in Cremona, Italy. These are interspersed with inspirational messages from staff members and from Executive Director Franklin Graham, either quoting a verse of scripture or calling for prayers from viewers and supporters. The NGO’s effort to speak to a mass constituency in the United States included an Easter sermon by Graham broadcast on FOX from New York’s Central Park. Lutheran World Relief’s communication likewise focuses on building understanding of LWR’s response, building community, and providing emotional support. Working in conjunction with IMA World Health (with which LWR has now merged) LWR is “on the ground” supporting local agencies in Africa. A tweet on April 1 asked readers how they were faring while sheltering in place and thanked them for their support. On March 26, LWR posted an article from the Baltimore Sun highlighting LWR’s presence in Baltimore and its role in meeting COVID-related needs on a global scale. LWR’s spokesperson observes that because

1 The 10 websites were visited on April 10 and 12, 2020, and current content was noted

and/or copied and stored. The Facebook pages were visited on April 14, and content was read and selectively copied and recorded, starting from the last week in March in order to catch any statements made about deliberations over the Federal Coronavirus relief bills that were passed that week. Twitter feeds were read on April 16; as expected, they largely replicated the coronavirus content of the FBOs’ Facebook pages.

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

193

Table 8.2 Communication by FBOs about the COVID-19 pandemic, March and April 2020

Lutheran World Relief

Church World Service

Tone, content on COVID-19; Balance US/international

Policy positions and constituency action

Education and links to other issues

Emphasis on well-being of US constituents, value of overseas community work Immigrant and refugee protection, equally in United States and abroad

Encourage quilting and fair trade coffee. No policy references

How village savings groups operate safely; health volunteers

Oppose illegal expulsions from United States; lift sanctions on countries during COVID-19 Support aid to children; praise US relief bill; letter on most vulnerable, global Pray for Congress, for “our nation’s leaders”

Tied to vulnerability of refugees and displaced persons

Catholic Relief Services

Many Holy Week images and reflections; focus entirely on LMICs

World Vision

Bible stories, prayer; half US; distributing health/hygiene kits Focus on human rights protections, vulnerable groups in LMICs, US policy Focus on LMICs, MCC presence & competence. The Lord is our refuge Congregation action US & abroad; US immigrants Videos of US medical services; prayer, healing; Biblical themes IR global presence, responses; Coronavirus affects everyone

American Jewish World Service

Mennonite Central Committee World Relief

Samaritan’s Purse

Islamic Relief

Protect housing, lock-down in the Philippines; food aid Some linkage to children’s welfare

Defunding WHO; abuses in Kenya, India, Uganda; link virus to climate Sanctions worsen COVID-19 outbreak in North Korea

Tied to LGBT rights, violence v. women, climate, refugees Hygiene and health programs in Haiti

Relief to include undoc-umented immigrants None

Tied to advocacy for US immigrant rights Religious focus: Christ is hope you are seeking

Encouragement to vote. IR supports relief bill

Global and US food, health aid needs

(continued)

194

P. J. NELSON

Table 8.2 (continued)

American Friends Svc. Ctee.

Tone, content on COVID-19; Balance US/international

Policy positions and constituency action

Education and links to other issues

“protect the human rights and dignity of communities worldwide.” Focus on United States

Governors: protect ICE detainees, prisoners; rent relief; vulnerable groups

Links to human rights, gender, LGBTQI rights worldwide

Sources Organizations’ websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter

personal protective equipment and other goods were so highly in demand in the United States, it was difficult to provide material aid, and much of LWR’s response involved “adapt[ing] programs already underway to provide outreach in response to the pandemic” (Wenger, 2020). LWR sought to engage its constituency in entirely non-political ways. On National Quilting Day, LWR’s social media celebrated the support that Lutheran congregations provide by making quilts for distribution and highlighted the quilts’ use in a children’s hospital ward in Tanzania. Then, on April 16, LWR launched a “75,000 Face Mask Challenge,” asking “volunteers to sew cloth face masks that will be sent to the areas in which it works — from slums to remote rural villages — for those who don’t have the option of social distancing or frequent hand washing….” (LWR, 2020). Another April 1 message promoted LWR fair trade coffee: “something to feel good about.” In contrast, AJWS and AFSC both made policy advocacy the major focus of their communication on the pandemic, even in April 2020. AFSC integrated the pandemic into advocacy for its existing agenda, mostly on domestic policy, particularly calling for release of incarcerated prisoners, release of vulnerable detainees held by ICE, defunding ICE, preventing evictions and defending housing rights, and providing safe conditions for immigrant farmworkers. There are international policy links as well, including an appeal for personal protective equipment for health workers in Zimbabwe, concern about Palestinian children at risk, and support for a bill proposing changes to US humanitarian aid policy to North Korea. Readers are asked to sign a petition addressed to “global leaders” (AFSC, 2020), supporting UN Secretary General António Gutteres’ proposal for a global ceasefire during the pandemic.

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

195

American Jewish World Service mounts a similarly broad and active agenda on policy issues tied to COVID-19, focused on its grantees in LMICs. In addition to the several instances above in which AJWS highlights its’ partner agencies’ advocacy work, the NGO gives a high profile to its own national and global advocacy efforts. On March 26, AJWS released an open letter, signed by 300 American rabbis and cantors, to US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, critical of the State Department’s “Commission on Unalienable Rights” and the elevation of religious liberties over other human rights standards and principles (AJWS, Twitter, March 26). In April, AJWS highlighted the link between COVID-19 and the climate threat, including in an editorial titled “Coronavirus is a fire drill for climate change” (AJWS, Twitter, April 16). On April 16 AJWS, like several of the FBOs studied, denounced President Trump’s freezing of funding to the World Health Organization (WHO). AJWS’ advocacy on the pandemic makes political voice central to its relationship with its constituency, tying the issues to themes in Jewish history and practice. The mass movement of informal workers in India is headlined as an “Exodus” (AJWS, 2020), and similar religious imagery appears in later posts. In different ways, several of these FBOs sought during the early weeks of the pandemic to prepare US constituents to think about and act on the needs of people in LMICs. Messages on US policy, when they are present, are mingled with calls for contributions to material aid. Catholic Relief Services and American Jewish World Service were clearly the most focused at this stage on their global work, and on policy. CWS and World Relief are most engaged with refugee and immigration issues in the United States, and most of the others primarily highlighted their own relief work, either worldwide (as with LWR and MCC) or primarily in the United States (as with Samaritan’s Purse, Islamic Relief, and World Vision). Six months later, as the country adjusted to living with the virus, the content and tone of FBOs’ communication about the pandemic had shifted dramatically, in two ways. First, while responding to the pandemic remains a top priority, COVID-19 no longer dominated their communications. September’s websites and Facebook pages contain no more expressions of concern for the reader’s safety, and the content again covers the range of emergency and development priorities. None of the FBOs’ Facebook pages in September 2020 display the kind of near-obsession that they—and the country—experienced in March and April. As the

196

P. J. NELSON

summary in Table 8.3 shows, a relatively small proportion of posts directly addressed the pandemic. Second, most September communications related to the pandemic focus on the response in low- and middle-income countries. Two of the ten FBOs’ messaging on COVID remained focused on the United States, Table 8.3 Facebook posts by FBOs on pandemic & climate, September 1–24, 2020 NGO, FB posts

Covid-19 posts

Climate posts

Comments

AFSC 61 posts

5 on US justice and incarceration, immigration 2 on grantees’ projects, gender equality in Kenya

None

CRS 25

7 on projects supplying hygiene and savings groups

None

CWS 33

2 on gender equality and food security, project focus 1 on Muslim NGOs’ responses to pandemic 1 Op-ed: disaster preparedness and COVID in The Hill 1 on COVID in immigration detention centers

2 on wildfires, hurricanes

S Purse 27

1 on project providing clean water in Ethiopia for hygiene

None

WR 22

3 on immigrant adjustment, international, call to open hearts 3 on food insecurity, hygiene kits, children at risk of violence

None

Quaker Earthcare Witness focuses on climate Inspirational posts at High Holy Days; grief for Justice Ginsburg Several educational stories of COVID-related projects in W. Africa 8 Immigration posts including vote & duty to welcome Most feature IR projects 4 of 9 posts on relief, especially quilts In anniversary year for MCC, September has advocacy theme Prayer for disaster victims (4); “heal our wounded heroes” (5) 5 inspirational; Sunday Scripture verses

AJWS 24

IR-USA 29 LWR 9 MCC 60

WV-USA 26

Sources Organizations’ Facebook pages

None

None None

3 on climate & migration

None

7 inspirational; 4 about child sponsorship

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

197

and both were calling attention to inequalities and human right s issues such as immigrant detention (MCC) and mass incarceration (AFSC). All of the remaining organizations’ messaging highlighted the struggles of people in Ethiopia (Samaritan’s Purse), Kenya (AJWS), Ghana and Sierra Leone (CRS); and to systemic concerns such as gender inequalities and food insecurity (CWS), and children at risk of violence (WV-USA). Alongside the content on the pandemic, the FBOs use their social media communication in strikingly different ways. AJWS’ messaging includes sober reflections for the Jewish New Year, and on the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. CRS and IR-USA use social media messaging to present their project activities in multiple countries; LWR and Samaritan’s Purse devote more messaging to reinforcing the shared spiritual commitments and community identities of their readers. World Vision-USA presents the most emotional content, describing the reactions of families and children as new child sponsorships are “revealed”; and World Relief and CWS each reinforce their arguments that we have shared duties to welcome immigrants and be in solidarity with poor people worldwide.

FBOs in a Society in Crisis: Racial Justice The FBOs studied here work on challenges of poverty in low- and middleincome countries mostly far from the United States. But they confront a challenge and opportunity. Their donors’ and constituents’ minds were seized, at least for a period in 2020, by a crisis of racial inequality and institutionalized discrimination that seems to have challenged some White Americans’ thinking about race. And the world is experiencing “a growing international movement of black resistance, connected and reinvigorated to dismantle the structures of racism and oppression to finally get the justice black people deserve” (Coke & Taylor, 2020). This global uprising includes demonstrations in Europe, Korea, and Japan in support of Black Lives Matter, but it also includes mass demonstrations in Brazil, Kenya, South Africa, India, and other societies where race, policing, unemployment, gender-based violence, the pandemic, and grinding urban poverty have combined to motivate protests. What could FBOs based in the United States do? The expressions of solidarity from most of our sample of ten are welcome. They are perhaps most useful if they engage their readers and donors with religious imagery

198

P. J. NELSON

and calls to action. CRS President Sean Callahan issued this statement on June 3: “Then the Lord asked Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ He answered, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?’ The Lord then said: ‘What have you done! Listen: your brother’s blood cries out to me from the soil.’—Genesis 4:9–10 George Floyd’s blood cries out to God. His tragic death lays bare centuries of oppression and racial injustice in the United States. … We commit as an employer and organization of the Catholic Church in the United States to open ourselves to new solutions that contribute to the realization of a more just world.” (Callahan, 2020)

American Jewish World Service President Robert Bank posted a message and two essays on June 26, challenging AJWS community of supporters to be energized by protests for racial justice, and to join him in “leaning into partnership and allyship, listening and learning” (email message, June 26, 2020). Islamic Relief-USA’s message of solidarity after George Floyd’s killing included a moving greeting and a photo of staff members. IR-USA notes that its “mission demands that we alleviate poverty and that can not be done without an anti-racism framework, as poverty is wedded to systemic racism. Our work is most effective when we listen intently to those who are directly affected…” (“In Solidarity”). World Relief issued a strong statement June 3 supporting anti-racism protests and objecting to how US authorities moved against some protestors, affirming that the NGO “celebrates and stands in solidarity with” peaceful protestors, decries violence and “passionately disagree[s] with” how the administration used force to advance its law and order agenda (World Relief, 2020). In August, drawing on the experience of Rwandan churches in addressing ethnic division and violence, the organization’s Board President and the Board Chair of the National Association of Evangelicals soberly told readers at World Relief’s website that: The church is divided over the issue of race. But it should not be…. As the Rwandan church has modeled, we must name our sin against the Black community without excuse, deflection or denial. We must seek forgiveness for our complicity in and defense of unjust laws…. The white church, and especially the white evangelical church of today, must turn from the dehumanizing attitudes, rhetoric and policies that are so destructive to the

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

199

Black community and toxic to our own souls. And as we do this work within our churches, we must also turn outwards. (Jenkins & Arbeiter, 2020)

Rhetoric and sentiment, of course, come at little cost. They do have value, when they reach an audience that can connect racial injustice in the United States to global inequities and denials of human rights. But deeds, not words, are central, and in many cases programmatic work on race in the United States will fall to the religious organizations that sponsor international development FBOs, rather than the FBOs. FBOs do have distinctive opportunities to support movements in South Asia, Latin America, and Africa that challenge exclusion and discrimination locally or globally. FBOs might choose to support global reparations, and support advocates calling for economic opportunity and claiming their civil and political rights. They can re-emphasize the role of race and ethnicity in poverty and inequality in the societies where they work, and help their US readers make the connection. Work on any area of economic and social policy—land ownership, education, employment, healthcare, housing— can be focused on racial inequalities, and together work in several of these sectors would constitute visible contribution to racial justice advocacy that would, in turn, help communicate that priority to US constituencies. Race, climate change, and a virus are formidable challenges. They are also—racial justice and climate especially—the kinds of issues around which lasting mass movements come together.

References ACT Alliance. (2020). How we help: Advocacy. https://actalliance.org/how-wehelp/advocacy/. AFSC. (2020, May 12). Pandemic demands a global ceasefire. https://www.afsc. org/newsroom/rich-van-dellen-pandemic-demands-global-ceasefire. AJWS. (2017). 140 Jewish leaders vow to help US reach Paris climate accord goals. https://www.jta.org/2017/07/07/united-states/140-jewishleaders-vow-to-help-us-reach-paris-climate-accord-goals. AJWS. (2020, April 22). Exodus in India: Migrant workers during the world’s largest lockdown. https://ajws.org/blog/exodus-in-india-migrant-wor kers-during-the-worlds-largest-lockdown/. AJWS. (n.d.). Our story. https://ajws.org/who-we-are/our-story/. Baptist Joint Commission. (n.d.). An introduction for churches considering ‘sanctuary’ ministries. https://bjconline.org/sanctuarymovement/.

200

P. J. NELSON

Barot, S. (2013). A common cause: Faith-based organizations and promoting access to family planning in the developing world. Guttmacher Policy Review, 16(4), 18–23. Callahan, S. (2020). CRS president: George Floyd’s blood cries out to god. https://www.crs.org/media-center/news-release/crs-ceo-president-geo rge-floyds-blood-cries-out-god. Carpenter, C. S. D., Montgomery, A. H., & Rapp, A. (2014). Explaining the advocacy agenda: Insights from the human security network. International Organization, 68(2), 449–470. Church World Service. (2017, May 15). CWS partners with interfaith leaders in support of the Paris agreement on climate change. https://cwsglobal.org/cwspartners-interfaith-leaders-support-paris-agreement-climate-change/. Church World Service. (n.d.-a). Support the sanctuary movement. https://cwsglo bal.org/support-the-sanctuary-movement/. Church World Service. (n.d.-b). Toolkit for faith communities to accompany asylum seekers. https://www.sanctuarynotdeportation.org/resources.html. Coke, T., & Taylor, N. (2020). A moment of reckoning and reflection in the global fight for racial equality. https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equ als-change-blog/posts/a-moment-of-reckoning-and-reflection-in-the-globalfight-for-racial-equality/. Eichler-Levine, J., & Hicks, R. (2007). “As Americans” against “Genocide”: The crisis in Darfur and interreligious political activism. American Quarterly, 59(3), 711–735. https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2007.0061. Evans, H. (1999). Debt relief for the poorest countries: Why did it take so long?”. Development Policy Review, 17, 267–279. Foster, G. (n.d.). Study of the response by faith-based organizations to orphans and vulnerable children. UNICEF. https://www.unicef.org/media/files/FBO_ OVC_study_summary.pdf. Gzesh, S. (2006, April 1). Central Americans and asylum policy in the Reagan era. Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/cen tral-americans-and-asylum-policy-reagan-era. Accessed February 17, 2020. Hertzke, A. D. (2005, October). The shame of Darfur. www.firstthings.com/ web-exclusives/2005/11/rjn-as-allen-hertzke. Hoover, D. (2001). What would Moses do? Debt relief in the Jubilee year. Religion in the News, 4(1). http://www2.trincoll.edu/csrpl/RINVol4No1/jub ilee_2000.htm. Islamic Declaration on Climate Change. (2015). http://www.ifees.org.uk/dec laration/. Jakes, L. (2020, June 9). U.S. limits virus aid for masks, gloves and other medical gear abroad. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/us/ politics/coronavirus-international-aid-masks.html.

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

201

Jenkins, J., & Arbeiter, S. (2020, August 3). The Church is divided over racial justice, but it shouldn’t be. https://worldrelief.org/the-church-is-divided-overracial-justice-but-it-shouldnt-be/. Jubilee USA. (2020). Congregations and faith communities. https://www.jubile eusa.org/congregations_faith_communitities. Accessed April 22, 2020. Kennedy, B. (2020, April 16). U.S. concern about climate change is rising, but mainly among Democrats. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch. org/fact-tank/2020/04/16/u-s-concern-about-climate-change-is-rising-butmainly-among-democrats/. Kremer, M., & Jayachandran, S. (2003, March 1). Odious debt: When dictators borrow, who repays the loan? Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings. edu/articles/odious-debt-when-dictators-borrow-who-repays-the-loan/. Lanz, D. (2009). Save Darfur: A movement and its discontents. African Affairs, 108(433), 669–677. Lo, P. (2015, May 6). Inside the new sanctuary movement that’s protecting immigrants from ICE, can a network of churches fight deportations? Immigration Policy. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/inside-new-san ctuary-movement-thats-protecting-immigrants-ice/. Accessed February 14, 2020. LWR. (2020). Lutheran world relief launches the 75,000 face mask challenge to inhibit the spread of coronavirus in vulnerable communities abroad. Cision PR Newswire. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lutheran-world-rel ief-launches-the-75-000-face-mask-challenge-to-inhibit-the-spread-of-corona virus-in-vulnerable-communities-abroad-301042131.html. Mayo, M. (2005). ‘The world will never be the same again’? Reflecting on the experiences of Jubilee 2000, mobilizing globally for the remission of unpayable debts. Social Movement Studies, 4(2), 139–154. McDaniel, J. (2017, February 21). The sanctuary movement, then and now. Religion and Politics. https://religionandpolitics.org/2017/02/21/the-san ctuary-movement-then-and-now/. McKivigan, J. R. (1984). The war against Proslavery religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830–1865. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Nelson, L. M., & Pearce, S. (2019). Mikdash: A Jewish guide to the new sanctuary movement. T’ruah. https://www.truah.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/ Mikdash-Handbook-Expanded-FINAL.pdf. Nelson, P. J. (1995). The World Bank and NGOs: The limits of apolitical development. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Newall, M., & Jackson, C. (2020, April 13). Perceived level of threat COVID-19 poses to the U.S. and individuals doubles in less than a month. Ipsos. https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/perceived-level-ofthreat-covid19-poses-doubles.

202

P. J. NELSON

NewSanctuary Movement. (n.d.). https://www.sanctuarynotdeportation.org/res ources.html. Ord, K. (2018). Faith leaders have the power to make or break girls’ education. https://www.wvi.org/blogpost/faith-leaders-have-powermake-or-break-girl%E2%80%99s-education. Patey, L. A. (2009). Against the Asian tide: The Sudan divestment campaign. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 47 (4), 551–573. PRRI. (2019). Fractured nation widening partisan polarization and key issues in 2020 presidential elections. Washington, DC: PRRI. https://www.prri.org/ wp-content/uploads/2019/10/PRRI_Oct_AVS-web.pdf. Rediker, D. A., & Crebo-Rediker, H. (2020). Covid-19 uncertainty and the IMF . Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-develo pment/2020/04/14/covid-19-uncertainty-and-the-imf/. Scott-Railton, T. (2019). A legal sanctuary: How the religious freedom restoration act could protect sanctuary churches. Yale Law Journal, 128, 408. Smith, C. (1996). Disruptive religion. New York: Routledge. Sutton, W. (1999, October 3). London Observer, quoted in Hoover (2001). Taliep, N., Lazarus, S., Seedat, M., & Cochrane, J. R. (2016). The role of religious leaders in anti-Apartheid mobilisation: Implications for violence prevention in contemporary South Africa. Religion, State and Society, 44, 331–348. United Church of Christ. (2012). Becoming an immigrant welcoming congregation. http://www.uccfiles.com/pdf/Becoming%20an%20immigrant% 20welcoming%20congregation%20updated%20Nov%201%202012.pdf. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (1999). A Jubilee call for debt forgiveness. https://www.usccb.org/resources/jubilee-call-debt-forgiveness. Wenger, Y. (2020). Baltimore-based Lutheran World Relief preparing response to coronavirus in Africa: ‘This is a moment of unity’, quoting Allyson Bear. Williams, R. (2003). Religious social movements in the public sphere. In Michelle Dillon (Ed.), Handbook of the sociology of religion (pp. 315–330). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, R. H. (2006). Collective action, everyday protest, and lived religion, review essay. Social Movement Studies, 5(1), 83–89. Wiltfang, G. L., & McAdam, D. (1991). The costs and risks of social activism: A study of sanctuary movement activism. Social Forces, 69(4), 101–987. Wood, R. L. (2016). The catholic bishops in the U.S. public arena: Changing prospects under Pope Francis. Religions, 7 (2). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel 7020014. World Relief. (2020). World relief calls on church to rise up for Biblical justice in the face of ongoing racism. https://worldrelief.org/world-relief-calls-on-chu rch-to-rise-up-for-biblical-justice-in-the-face-of-ongoing-racism/.

8

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND FBOS …

203

Wright, Z. V. (2013). Islam and decolonization in Africa: The political engagement of a West African Muslim community. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 46(2), 205–227. Zene, C. (Ed.). (2020). Dalits and religion: Ambiguity, tension, diversity and vitality. Religions. https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/ Dalits.

CHAPTER 9

Conclusions

In the Introduction, I posed five questions about faith-based NGOs (FBOs) working in international development and humanitarian relief: • How important are the religious identities of faith-based development NGOs? • How do religious organizations and faith-based NGOs shape their members’ awareness of global justice issues, and mobilize them as citizens and consumers? • As public policy actors, how do faith-based organizations make their views heard on international development and justice issues, and is their agenda reformist or “prophetic”? • What explains the considerable variation among FBOs; and what lessons can be learned from highly active mobilizers, and from movements that have arisen around international causes? • Are transnational faith-based NGOs essentially national or global political actors? Events during 2020 have led me to add a sixth key question: • What prospect is there for FBOs contributing to mass movements on contemporary racial justice, climate, and the COVID-19 pandemic? © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. J. Nelson, Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3_9

205

206

P. J. NELSON

Collectively, the evidence and provisional answers assembled here provide some clarity on how religious voices speak out on global issues, on the dynamics and contrasts among US religious communities, and on the potential and limitations for faith-based NGOs to lead religious voices in significant social change movements with global implications.

FBOs, Religious Identities, and US Politics The significance of FBOs’ religious identities varies a great deal. Their institutional relationships to religious bodies themselves are varied: Some are official agencies of a denomination, some represent coalitions, and others are independent faith-identified agencies. But for FBOs in all of these categories, faith identities figure most prominently in their communications to the public. Almost without exception the FBOs use religious references, imagery, and social teachings to ground and reinforce their communications about policy matters to their constituencies. For most FBOs the impact these teachings have on the content of advocacy agendas is less obvious, but often some impact is evident. World Relief employs a distinctive operational approach that works with church congregations as change agents both at home and abroad. Quaker agencies cooperate on legislative, public policy, environmental, and human rights advocacy in a way that is distinctive to that faith community, and Quaker and Mennonite historic commitments to peace-building and nonviolence shape their advocacy choices. Catholic Relief Services refers to the church’s social teaching in articulating policy positions, and AJWS invokes both religious teaching and a cultural tradition of political responsibility among Jews. So in different ways, faith identities do subtly shape the substance of FBOs’ work, including advocacy. The sharp divisions among faith groups in the United States over electoral politics and some hot-button issues could lead one to expect equally dramatic differences of opinion among affiliated FBOs, and there are some visible differences. Samaritan’s Purse, for example, aligns with a stream of political opinion that generally supported former President Trump and his agenda, and consistently takes traditionalist positions on cultural, family, and related issues. Their public presence—although they do not have an advocacy agenda—contrasts with the Catholic and mainstream Protestant FBOs, and is sharply at odds with the progressive agendas of AJWS or AFSC.

9

CONCLUSIONS

207

But there is more common ground than disagreement among the other FBOs in the ten-organization sample studied here. World Relief’s evangelical voice speaks out sharply on immigration policy issues, with little evidence of softening the message in deference to evangelical political opinion. World Vision-USA is less engaged than others in the sample with controversial issues of economic policy or climate. But it uses its focus on child well-being to assemble coherent policy proposals, and although it is known more for its insider lobbying on humanitarian matters, it is working to build interest in a child-focused humanitarian advocacy among its substantial following.

Limiting Factors: Agendas and Communication The differences between the evangelical FBOs and others, and the factors constraining all FBO advocacy are clearer if one focuses on the tone of presentation and the degree to which political activism is an expected part of individual supporters’ embrace of the FBO’s vision. Most of the US-based FBOs observed here practice some advocacy and do reach out to inform and encourage political participation by their donors and constituents. For almost all of them, several features limit the likely impact of that outreach. First, policy advocacy is presented as an option. For most, advocacy appears in a menu of ways to “Get Involved,” alongside options such as volunteering, traveling abroad, hosting an event, presenting to one’s congregation, or saying a prayer. When advocacy is introduced tentatively and cautiously rather than as a core aspect of the mission, it is likely to remain at the periphery of most readers’ commitment to the FBOs. The exceptions are striking: AJWS makes advocacy central not only to its image, but also to “Jewish identity” in the United States. Outside of the United States, there is greater evidence of this more confident approach: Christian Aid and Tearfund in the United Kingdom and the German Protestant and Catholic agencies in the transnational comparisons in Chapter 6 all present advocacy as central to their missions, and therefore central to their relationships with their constituencies. Second, the FBOs seldom make direct, compelling linkages between their program work and the advocacy actions they want people to take. These linkages can provide the emotional connection that overcomes people’s reticence to speak up, and without them most policy issues are abstract to most US readers. When the connections are made, they can be compelling: AJWS makes the case for advocacy on people’s land and water

208

P. J. NELSON

rights, for example, with a blog post full of vivid photographs of communities involved in struggling for their land tenure or water access rights. The photos convey not just the need and injustice, but the power and dignity of communities in Sierra Leone, Honduras, Guatemala, Southern Mexico, Burma, and Kenya (https://ajws.org/blog/world-environmentday-honor-ajws-grantees-fighting-protect-environment/). Third, most FBO policy advocacy in the United States is focused on foreign assistance policy, the centerpiece of what are clearly reformist rather than prophetic agendas. Jubilee debt cancelation and the Sanctuary movement are the only exceptions in recent decades to the rule that FBOs don’t present dynamic proposals to excite and mobilize religious voices. A wealth of research and opinion critical of the aid industry tells informed FBO supporters that development assistance can be helpful but is not the solution to poverty and inequality. My own experience in FBOs confirmed this repeatedly: Activists who were committed to speaking out against poverty, and to organizing support among others, wanted solutions that went beyond more and better aid, solutions that addressed the causes of poverty. Sometimes an FBO’s caution in setting an advocacy agenda can be strategic and justified. There may be good reason to construct a policy agenda that includes issues where participants can experience a “win.” It is difficult to maintain engagement with complex issues for the long timeframe often involved in really major reforms. This is a challenge for all social movements, compounded when activists are working for changes that will not affect them directly, but have their impact in distant countries that they may have never even visited. But the United States is in crisis as I write this, threatened by pandemic, climate change, abusive racially discriminatory policing, and challenges to its democratic decision-making. It is jarring to see many of the country’s FBOs often appear to conduct business as usual. National or Global Voices? National politics and universal principles of faith inevitably both shape the advocacy choices of faith-based NGOs, and the evidence suggests that national cultures and norms play a very strong role and shape the advocacy practices of FBOs that are tied by links of belief and even common institutional identities—Catholic, mainline Protestant, and evangelical Protestant NGO families. The differences reinforce the growing

9

CONCLUSIONS

209

understanding that national political cultures and norms are decisive in NGOs’ political action, and that “global civil society” participants are actually strongly conditioned by their national settings. It also carries important insights for US-based FBOs. Their agendas differ systematically from those of their European counterparts, which tend to take on more of the issues related to climate, economic policy, and causes of poverty and inequality beyond development aid policy. The narrower, more cautious US agendas may be a function of the political views of the US public, but if that is true, the relatively cautious approach by American FBOs makes it a self-perpetuating reality. Generosity, Citizenship, and Lifestyle FBOs in the United States give relatively little attention to the lifestyle and marketplace opportunities for activism: Social investment, consumption issues, consumer and shareholder activism, fair trade, and voluntary simplicity. In some cases this means that a FBO’s agenda is tethered to abstract policy issues, that participants are asked to write letters, make phone calls, attend meetings, and read background papers without a way to connect the policy issues to the stuff of their daily lives. For the FBOs without substantial policy agendas, the absence of consumer or investor initiatives simply means that their supporters are not being challenged to take any action beyond a financial contribution. From one perspective that is to be expected, even to be desired. A charitable organization that does its charitable work very well earns the respect and support of donors. But from another perspective, FBOs like other NGOs are a part of civil society, faced with a tension between their charitable mandate and a broader understanding of the duty to be an independent voice that upholds values and encourages civic and political virtues. This perspective seems particularly relevant for faith-based organizations that at least implicitly are signaling to people of faith what is their duty in responding to the condition of the world we live in. From this perspective, most religious institutions and FBOs in the United States have made the implicit decision that making a cash contribution for humanitarian relief (however modest) is the substance of what faith and conscience require. And the institutional expression of caring that each religious community has created—a faith-based NGO—is one that offers material aid. Hesitant to make a commitment to being a moral political voice, people of faith in the world’s richest country create charities to

210

P. J. NELSON

hand out food, treat sick children, and drill wells. That charitable work is good work, when done well. But what prospect is there of a broad, influential, moral voice?

FBOs and the Potential for Mass Action Religious voices, especially the internationally-oriented principled voices of these FBOs, are curiously quiet on the major, potentially gamechanging proposals that are being discussed and advocated elsewhere. In the summer of 2020, the United States was in a period of upheaval and potential for dramatic change. The Poor People’s Campaign, led by the Revs. William Barber and Liz Theoharis, was calling for fundamental changes to domestic economy and politics. The Black Lives Matter movement re-opened debates over race relations that could have momentous implications, and they were being echoed worldwide. Most of the FBOs studied here had nothing to say about these movements and the connection to their own work. Several expressed sympathy, solidarity, or outrage at the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, but by October 2020 there was not yet any evidence of any of the organizations linking racial justice in the United States to the racial disparities they work to address worldwide. The climate crisis presents another existential challenge and opportunity to FBOs. Their communications focus strongly on the work they do in dozens of countries to help farmers and poor communities adapt to climate changes that threaten their livelihoods. Their efforts to mobilize faith communities in the United States to mitigate the climate threats regulate greenhouse gas emissions and increase energy access for the world’s remote and underserved communities have been modest. Faith leaders and FBOs obviously are not responsible for the disturbing skepticism about climate change in US public opinion. But it seems fair to ask how they have been so ineffective and apparently half-hearted in shaping religious public opinion, which consistently lags behind US public opinion in understanding the climate crisis and acknowledging its urgency. Creative faith-based initiatives in the United States, such as Interfaith Power and Light, are working to build broader support. That broad effort would surely be helped if the connection between US climate policy and the welfare of vulnerable populations in the Global South were being made emphatically by the trusted voices of development FBOs.

9

CONCLUSIONS

211

Religious people and faith-based organizations have from time to time been part of large-scale, high-impact movements. What would it take for religious sentiment to grow from occasional, modest support for reform proposals to a politically potent voice? We can discern some features of the issues and movements that do stand out. Mass movements have responded to abuses and injustices so offensive and straightforward that they were nearly unavoidable, as in slavery, apartheid, and the denial of voting rights to women. They have grown up to address causes that can be linked to powerful religious imagery, even when the cause was more complex, as in the Jubilee movement. And they have responded to situations that make a tangible connection to people’s daily experience, as in the Sanctuary movement or—arguably—promoting fair trade coffee or social investment. What are the prospects for mass, faith-inspired response to the climate threat and the COVID-19 pandemic, where the shared global threat is clear? The time for action to prevent significant climate disturbance has already passed, according to most models. But there is much work to do to prevent catastrophic global harm, and to redress the worst effects on the most vulnerable populations, and one might expect that the ingredients would be present for a massive faith response: A global problem, created overwhelmingly by the industrialized Global North, that threatens livelihoods, lives, and ecosystems in the rest of the world. But as we have seen, most Christians in the United States, regardless of denomination, are not on board. Their religious leaders, clergy, agencies, charities, and others have not made this a high priority, presumably because it is not a popular issue with religious Americans. The results: No large-scale movement, and the perception of resistance from almost all quarters of US Christian Churches.

Lessons from Most Active Mobilizers Large-scale movements with significant involvement from religious organizations and people of faith, then, can teach us some lessons about religious mobilization. The variation among FBOs in their advocacy and other public witness is a second source of lessons. It seems clear that entrusting faith-based voice on policy to NGOs created primarily to do overseas humanitarian work is not a recipe for building large-scale, committed, informed public advocacy. Organizations created as international charities have made significant efforts to develop policy capacity

212

P. J. NELSON

since the 1980s, and some of them mount impressive, sophisticated policy shops. World Vision and Catholic Relief Services, for example, have been quite effective as inside lobby organizations with name recognition, expertise, and credibility on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Others, especially AJWS, have made concerted, creative efforts to mobilize their supporters. If the religious communities linked to America’s faith-based overseas development and relief NGOs want to have a broader and more influential role in shaping the global policies most related to international development, there are limitations they will need to overcome. Their constituencies are relatively small and not growing. Their members remain unconvinced of essential global realities, especially the scale and cause of global climate change. And the organizations through which they speak make fundraising for material aid a high priority, sometimes constraining their public voice. What promising strategies and models could FBO leaders look to? Specialized thematic advocacy organizations have attracted small, committed public followings and are sometimes able to mobilize a larger voice around an issue such as debt forgiveness or human rights in acute crisis situations, such as Darfur, Sudan. Like Bread for the World, the Jubilee Debt Campaign, and Catholic Climate Covenant, they avoid the problems of balancing material aid with political voice and can develop the expertise to lead campaigns. They may be able to win endorsements and support from larger FBOs, even if they don’t have the legitimacy that well-known humanitarian voices with global presence enjoy. Several FBOs practice assertive, no-apology activism. They present the opportunity to speak out as if they expect that all their supporters will want to do so, and those NGOs also tend to choose an agenda that challenges and can excite their members. Undoubtedly this is partly explained by the prevailing politics of their constituencies: Quakers and Reform and Reconstructionist Jews are progressive; white evangelicals more conservative. Building a culture of global service at MCC, or of outspoken advocacy among Quaker agencies or AJWS, is obviously good for building active, informed religious opinion. It is also probably at least a generationlong project, but it may be a project worth attempting within well-defined faith communities. Tackling big issues and ambitious, inspiring proposals has risks for religious advocates. They run the risk of being labeled naïve or unaware of political realities and of alienating supporters for similar reasons. But there are large-scale proposals being discussed and advocated around the

9

CONCLUSIONS

213

world today, proposals that could inspire a movement of people of faith and conscience. The global discussion and movement for racial justice, including environmental justice, housing, economic opportunity, environmental justice, reparations, and other proposals, is fertile ground. The UN Secretary General’s proposal in spring of 2020 for a global ceasefire during the Coronavirus emergency failed in the Security Council, but the US government, which played a central role in blocking it, never felt any serious political pressure from a citizen movement. Movements for a global minimum wage and for guaranteed income programs have attracted support from researchers and labor unions, but no US-based FBO that I am aware of has joined these efforts, even tentatively. Perhaps these proposals are not as morally compelling as the nineteenth-century movements against slaveryand the slave trade or for women suffrage appear to us in retrospect, but these were controversial proposals in their day. The religious advocates who embraced them worked for a generation or more to realize their objectives, and they are rightly remembered by historians as moral and political leaders.

Appendix

Faith-Based Organizations Reviewed in Chapter 7 Advocacy FBOs Religions for Peace Better Care Network-Faith in Action Initiative Americans for Peace Now Bread for the World Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN) Jubilee USA Network Arigatou Foundation NETWORK Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns Christian Solidarity Worldwide Micah Challenge International Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance Buddhist KARUNA Trust Buddhist Global Relief © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. J. Nelson, Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3

215

216

APPENDIX

Catholic Catholic Relief Services Franciscans International Pax Christi International Catholic Medical Mission Board Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) Islamic International Development and Relief Foundation Muslim Aid Jewish The Jewish Federation of America American Jewish World Service American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Mainline Protestant Habitat for Humanity Presbyterian Hunger Program Mennonite Central Committee Lutheran World Relief Lutheran World Federation Church World Service Christian Reform World Relief Committee United Methodist Committee on Relief Christian Aid Evangelical Nazarene Compassionate Ministries Compassion International World Concern Viva Network International Justice Mission

APPENDIX

Medical Assistance Program International Women’s Missionary Union (Southern Baptist Convention) International Mission Board (Southern Baptist Convention) International Ministries World Hope International World Vision Japan World Vision USA World Relief Covenant World Relief World Vision Australia Tearfund-UK World Vision-UK Hope International

217

Index

A Adventist Development and Relief Association (ADRA), 130, 131 Advocacy, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 24–29, 42, 43, 45, 48, 50, 51, 53–56, 60, 64, 65, 72, 73, 75–91, 93–95, 101–113, 115–120, 127–133, 136–144, 151–153, 155, 158, 161, 164, 169–171, 179, 181, 186–191, 193–196, 199, 206–208, 211, 212 as expected NGO function, 107, 112, 169, 170 by NGO partners in global South, 29 Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN), 77, 90, 93, 102 Aga Khan Foundation, 51 American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), 50, 63, 64, 74, 78, 86, 89, 94, 164, 187, 188, 194, 197, 206 advocacy agenda, 206

cooperation with Quaker agencies, 50, 187 American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 48, 51, 159 American Jewish World Service (AJWS), 5, 9, 48, 51, 54, 56, 62, 64, 74, 76, 78–80, 82, 86, 88–90, 94, 105, 113–116, 118–121, 129, 137, 169, 170, 186, 188, 191, 194, 195, 197, 198, 206, 207, 212 advocacy agenda, 54, 80, 114, 206 “Jews as Global Citizens”, 54, 64 religious teaching and identity, 206 Anglicanism, 15, 21, 22, 65, 131, 132, 135, 168 split in United States Episcopal Church, 22, 131 Appleby, R. Scott, 14, 20, 32, 87

B Base communities, 18, 19, 26

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. J. Nelson, Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3

219

220

INDEX

continuing influence, 19 discouraged by Vatican, 19 BOND, 52, 141 Bread for the World (BFW), US, 4, 25, 60, 76, 77, 90, 92, 102, 103, 115–117, 119, 120, 128, 155, 170, 212 British FBO advocacy, 137, 139 charity registration, 137 FBO advocacy agendas, 56, 126 public opinion on religion and politics, 134 Brot für die Welt, 48, 49, 128, 129, 140, 141 Buddhism engaged Buddhism, 22, 57 “environmental monks”, 19, 93 in Burma, 18 in Cambodia, 32, 33, 93 in Thailand, 20, 22, 50, 57 monks, 16, 18, 20 ordination of female bhikkhuni, 20 Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF), 50, 77, 91, 93 C Care, 4, 18, 19, 32, 33, 45, 58, 90, 91, 125, 137, 163, 168, 179, 181, 183 Caritas Internationalis , 47, 53, 129 Caritas Japan, 129, 140 Cassin, René, 50, 52 Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), UK, 47, 129 Catholicism, 10, 17, 42, 71, 135 celibacy of priests upheld, 22 Vatican II, 20 Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Catholic Social Teaching and “Justice lens”, 61 education curricula, 188

Rwandan genocide, 61 statement on death of George Floyd, 198 Childfund International, 63 Christian Aid, 48, 49, 52–54, 63, 64, 104, 120, 121, 128, 129, 131, 137, 139–141, 157, 165, 207 Big Shift Campaign, 137 Christianity Catholicism. See Catholicism Evangelical. See Evangelical Pentecostal. See Pentecostalism population shift to global South, 21 Protestant. See Protestantism Church World Service (CWS), 48, 49, 52, 63–65, 72–75, 77, 79, 80, 84, 86, 87, 89, 90, 94, 113, 128, 129, 131, 140–142, 144, 158, 159, 169, 184, 185, 188, 189, 195, 197 National Council of Churches (NCC) and, 49, 63, 73–75, 77, 185 Civil rights movement, 9, 17, 24, 180 churches and, 24 Cizik, Richard, 170 Communitarian, 14, 57 Congregations, 7, 15, 23, 25, 33, 48, 53, 73, 74, 77, 90, 94, 159, 160, 164, 167, 179, 180, 183–185, 189, 193, 194, 207 care of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), 33 Conversion, 15, 17, 42, 57, 59 COVID-19, 7, 11, 13, 76, 81, 82, 88, 93, 130, 138, 141, 177, 178, 183, 188, 190, 192, 193, 195, 205, 211 FBO responses in global South, 190 FBO responses in United States, 178 magical thinking about, 13

INDEX

D Darfur, 7, 11, 25, 26, 51, 95, 179, 185, 186, 212 American Jewish World Service (AJWS) and, 51, 186 Jewish activism and, 50 Save the Darfur Coalition, 25, 51, 185

221

motivations for advocacy, 2, 102, 103, 106, 180 prayer and spiritual practices, 158, 169 prophetic or reformist advocacy, 6, 205 shared identity, 8, 126, 180, 191 Feed the Future, 107, 117, 120 Food aid reform, 117, 119 Food security AJWS rights-based approach, 120 CRS “Pathway to Prosperity”, 120 FBO advocacy agendas compared, 102, 116, 131 land rights of indigenous peoples, 120 Francis, Pope, 21, 76, 168 Fundamentalism, 23

E Education by faith-based NGOs, 3, 4, 9, 33, 43, 64, 72, 73, 79, 106, 115, 151 Evangelical, 9, 16, 20, 23, 24, 43, 44, 48, 49, 51, 53, 56–61, 63, 74, 77, 78, 82, 84, 85, 93, 102, 112, 113, 120, 125–130, 132, 135, 136, 140, 142, 153, 156–158, 164, 167, 170, 171, 181, 185, 189, 198, 207, 208, 212 Evangelical Christianity, 10, 62, 71, 164 and President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), 77 and religious right in United States, 16, 24 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America World Hunger, 94 Evangelicals for Social Action, 57, 102, 170

G Generosity, 3, 7, 8, 10, 26, 27, 72, 95, 102, 108, 109, 158 German FBO advocacy, 136, 139, 141, 142 FBO advocacy agendas, 126, 127, 141, 143 public opinion on religion and politics, 134 registration, 137 Guatemala, 18, 19, 184, 208

F Faith-based NGO comparing advocacy on FBO website, 9, 80, 102, 114 definitions, 30 material aid as original mandate, priority, 3, 59, 95, 144, 209 moral formation of constituencies, 9, 64, 106

H Habitat for Humanity, 63 Hinduism, 17, 21, 44 Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), 5, 31–33, 77, 78, 110, 130, 139, 179, 180 evangelical support for PEPFAR, 78

222

INDEX

public opinion, AIDS as punishment, 78 Human rights, 2, 4, 6–8, 10, 17, 18, 20, 22, 26–29, 33, 45–48, 50–52, 64, 65, 71, 76, 84, 88, 91, 101, 108, 109, 112, 114, 115, 118, 119, 126, 128, 131, 137–140, 142, 164, 169, 180, 185, 187, 191–195, 197, 199, 206, 212 and practice of religion, 17 based approach at AJWS, 120 I India, 17, 88, 167, 181, 193, 195, 197 “Insider lobbying” by FBOs, 77, 78, 207 InterAction, 52, 91, 106, 107 advocacy agenda, 106 faith-based and secular members, 107 Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, 163 Interfaith Power and Light, 188, 210 International Justice Mission, 51 International non-governmental organization (INGO), 15, 29, 32, 48, 65, 72, 101, 132, 165 INGO families, 132 transnational governance structures, 132 Islam charitable hospitals, 33 five pillars, 16 Islamic finance, 54, 163 Sufism, 51 Ummah, 56 Wahabbism, 21, 58 Islamic Relief, 5, 9, 48, 51, 54, 56, 58, 63, 64, 74, 79, 84, 187, 188, 195, 198

J Japanese FBO advocacy, 136, 140, 141, 144 public opinion on religion and politics, 134 registration, 134, 137 Jubilee Debt Campaign, 11, 179, 212 and COVID-19 pandemic, 11 Jubilee 2000, 6, 25 mass demonstrations, 182 Judaism, 10, 42, 44, 48, 71, 74, 78, 105, 163 in Israel, 22 Orthodox Judaism, 42 Reform Judaism, 10, 48, 71, 74, 78, 105

K Keck, Margaret, 28, 29, 125 Kniss, Fred, 42, 44

L Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), 23, 178, 190, 192, 193, 195 Lutheran World Relief (LWR), 49, 52, 65, 72–74, 78, 79, 81, 82, 84, 105, 159, 165, 171, 187, 188, 192, 194, 195, 197 advocacy, 65, 72, 79, 81, 82, 84, 105, 171 impact investing, 165 Quilting, 194

M Marcos, Ferdinand, 20 Maryknoll Lay Missioners, 64, 162 Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) advocacy agenda, 171

INDEX

fair trade, 193 peace, 74, 81, 87, 89, 169, 187 volunteer service, 8, 27 Mercy Corps, 90, 91 Micah Challenge, 77, 91–93, 169 Misereor, 47, 129, 140 Missionaries, 9, 21, 30, 44–46, 52, 58, 59, 63 roles in development, 9, 30, 45 Modernist, 43, 44 Monastic religious orders Franciscans, 45, 47, 93 Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, 45, 47, 162 Maryknoll sisters, 45, 47, 162 Society of Jesus (Jesuits), 45, 47 Spiritan (Holy Ghost Fathers), 45, 47 N Nepstad, Sharon, 7, 25, 46 Non-governmental organizations (NGO) as political actors, 6, 8, 14, 28, 127, 180 in humanitarian marketplace, 63, 103 membership organizations, 29 organizational imperatives, 127 shared identities, 29, 126, 180 O Oikocredit, 49, 54, 149, 165, 166, 169 operations in United States, 166 social investment, 166 Oxfam, 8, 32, 33, 90, 114–117, 125, 182 food security agenda, 116 guidance on religion, 116 Oxfam America, 90, 91, 114, 116

223

P Pandemic. See COVID-19 Pentecostalism, 17 as apolitical, 19 in Brazil, health benefits, 19 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 24 Pew Survey on Global Attitudes toward Religion and Politics, 136 Philippines, 20, 129, 193 Prayer, 13, 16, 21, 83, 85, 86, 88, 89, 92, 152, 156, 158, 159, 169–171, 192, 193, 196, 207 Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP), 49, 75, 94, 103, 158, 171 Prophetic advocacy, 4, 10, 53, 104, 106, 144 Protestantism, 9, 10, 13, 21, 25, 43, 44, 48, 49, 57, 59–61, 63, 71, 74, 77, 87, 90, 120, 125–131, 136, 140–142, 153, 157, 160, 167, 171, 182, 184, 185, 187, 206–208

Q Quaker Earthcare Witness, 50, 86, 187–189, 196

R Religion, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13–15, 17–19, 21, 23, 26, 31–33, 41, 42, 46, 48, 53, 56, 60–63, 72, 89, 95, 126, 127, 132–135, 142, 144, 150, 163, 164, 169, 178–182, 190 and social change, 2, 23, 163 as a conservative force, 9 presence in societies, 180 Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, 48, 76, 105

224

INDEX

Religious beliefs, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 30, 42, 62, 126, 150, 185 Religious institutions, 7, 9, 14, 15, 24, 30–33, 45, 61, 62, 64, 65, 94, 128, 132, 166, 168, 169, 180, 181, 209 Religious lobbies, 25 “family” and “traditional values”, 25 Pro-Israel, 25 Washington, DC presence, 9, 24, 77 Religious solidarity organizations, 46 Christian Peacemakers, 46 Israel, 46 Sister churches, parishes, 46 S Samaritan’s Purse, 48, 49, 59–61, 74, 79, 82, 84, 170, 188, 192, 195, 197, 206 and Covid 19 pandemic, 81, 188, 195 proselytizing, 59 Sanctuary movement and Central America, 7, 25, 184 FBO involvement, 179, 184 in 1980s, 7, 25, 179, 184 NewSanctuary, 184 Sarvodaya Shramadana movement, 45 Save the Children, 8, 90, 91, 114, 125 Secular comparison NGOs, 90, 102, 109, 114 advocacy agendas, 102, 109, 114 advocacy prominence and budget, 91 ShineInvest, 167, 168 Sikkink, Kathryn, 28, 29, 125 Sin, Jaime (Cardinal), 20 Slavery, 2, 24, 51, 52, 105, 179–181, 211, 213

religious movement against, 24, 104, 179–181, 213 religious support, 104, 179, 181, 211 South Africa, 17, 163, 181, 197 Sri Lanka, 20, 22, 45, 57 Stroup, Sarah E., 28, 72, 125, 128, 139

T Tanzania, 13, 162, 194 Tearfund, 60, 92, 170, 207 Traditionalist, 7, 22, 42, 47, 206 T’ruah, 51, 64, 185 Trump, Donald, 23, 84, 85, 112, 170, 184, 195, 206 Tzu Chi Foundation, 50, 93

U Uganda, 13, 33, 131, 193 Union for Reform Judaism, 22, 48, 76 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), 62, 74–76, 80, 94, 182, 183, 187, 189 policy, 75, 183, 189 relationship to Catholic Relief Services (CRS), 62, 74, 75, 85, 187

W World Jewish Relief (UK), 55, 129 World Neighbors, 90, 91, 114 World Relief, 49, 53, 56, 63, 74, 77, 85, 112, 113, 155, 159, 160, 167, 170, 171, 195, 197, 198, 206, 207 and immigrant rights, 193 church congregations, 159, 160, 206

INDEX

National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), 63, 74, 77, 170, 198

child-focused agenda, 120, 207 statement of faith for staff, 62

World Values Survey (WVS), 135, 136 World Vision-USA, 80, 85, 86, 129, 143, 155, 157, 170, 197, 207

Z Zimbabwe, 194

225