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 PrintableVersion Development, the Christian and the Muslim worldThe world’s population explosion is a much talked-about topic in development circles, and so it should be. After having taken millennia to pass the 2,000 million mark, it will take barely 100 years to increase from that figure to over 9,000 million by the middle of the 21st century. The most densely populated countries have majority Muslim populations, so Muslims will constitute an increasing percentage of the world’s population in years to come. Coupled with this is the fact that Muslim communities worldwide are among the poorest. Therefore tackling population and poverty, urgent goals for world leaders in coming decades, will place increasing focus on the world of Islam. Muslim povertyBangladesh provides a window into Muslim poverty. Writing in 1997, the prominent Christian scholar Ron Sider points out that in Bangladesh 65% of all children are malnourished, 87% of the people live in the countryside, and 86% of that rural population lives below the poverty level. This image of disadvantage is reflected in refugee figures, where Muslims are disproportionately represented, comprising 70-80% of the world’s 25 million refugees, according to UNHCR figures. Responses to the global situation of disparity and disadvantage have become increasingly sophisticated in the last 50-60 years. In the wake of the Second World War, in the context of the rivalry between the Capitalist West and the Communist bloc, development was seen purely in terms of economics. In The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1960), Walt Rostow saw development in terms of mass consumption, with the goal being to convert traditional societies into clones of the mass-consuming West. Best practiceRostow’s view has now been discredited among development theorists. Subsequent thinkers offer vastly different angles on the challenge of identifying best practice in development work. Sider attributes poverty to diverse factors: unfair systems, inadequate tools, disasters, great inequalities of power, sinful personal choices, unbiblical worldviews, and laziness, among others. He argues passionately that addressing economic inequalities is just the tip of the iceberg, asserting that ‘evangelism and divine transformation of rebellious sinners is central to the solution of some forms of poverty.’ Sider is not coy about being politically incorrect: he adds that ‘Hinduism’s complex theology and practice of the caste system is a major cause of poverty...’. Sider’s comments provide a window into the long debate regarding the relative importance of evangelism and social action in development work. Many Christian writers take a clear stance on this issue. James Gustafson writes that ‘the Word of God must be the norm from which all of our development theory is drawn’. In contrast, Sarah White and Romy Tiongco see potential problems with applying the biblical text to women’s development. They propose creatively re-reading the Bible, reclaiming strong images of women. Social action or evangelism?The lines in the social action versus evangelism debate have been drawn for several decades, though they have become somewhat blurred with changing times and contexts. Nevertheless, at one side of the debate one finds development workers who are fundamentally committed to the concept of the participation of the recipient community at every stage of the development activity. The idea here is that communities are aware of their own needs, and that development projects conceived and implemented by communities themselves, with outside support, are more likely to be sustainable than projects conceived and designed by outsiders. The members of the recipient community must themselves take the initiative, according to this line of thinking. Nevertheless, outside development workers are still needed to facilitate the participatory process. The development worker’s role as facilitator might include a range of strategies to enable the members of the community to articulate its life situation, where the community is not able to produce a multi-page project design document. Such a participatory approach, in which active evangelism tends to drop from sight, has become the preferred model among development agencies, both secular and Christian. However, those who prefer a more overtly evangelistic approach level a number of challenges. Some argue for the priority of personal conversion as a necessary ingredient of successful development work. Myers and Rowland, though writing almost 20 years ago, raise issues which strike chords with some Christian development workers. They assert that ‘true development can only take place when people have transformed lives in Christ. As people come to Christ and begin to walk in newness of life, they can then participate more effectively in building community.’ They argue for the central role of the outside agent, who leads the particular development programme. The community’s participation comes gradually as a step by step process. Myers and Rowland place their focus on individuals rather than on communities, suggesting rather controversially that Jesus’s ‘primary objective was not community ownership but individual ownership’. They do not merely theorise, but relate their claims to practical projects which they have carried out, in fields as broad as food production, small animal husbandry, nutrition, clean water, sanitation, and forestation. They stress that ‘all of it is balanced with an integrated presentation of the gospel’, and claim a remarkable rate of success using their methods. Peter Batchelor makes an important point regarding the decision to focus on the community or the individual, asking rhetorically: ‘What happens to men and women who make progress and in doing so break with traditional culture? One of the most precious values in many developing countries that has been lost in the West is that of mutual care and sharing. Yet many development programmes, by encouraging individual effort, make sharing more difficult...’. Bone of contentionThis debate has particular ramifications for Christian development activities among Muslim communities. In the wake of the 2003 Iraq War, there was much controversy surrounding the activities of certain Christian development agencies which saw evangelism as being integral to their work among particular Iraqi Muslim communities. Some of the most vocal critics were Muslims writing in the Western and Christian media. Clearly there is much sensitivity among Muslims regarding Christian mission related with development work, largely resulting from the Islamic legal prohibition of Muslims converting away from Islam. Yet, while many Muslims feel bound by the requirements of their faith on this issue, many Christians feel that their faith calls them to see preaching of the Word as a necessary part of their work as compassionate development workers. This situation risks becoming a major bone of contention in coming years, as Muslim communities around the world become more populous and less prosperous, and many Christian development workers seek to address what their faith tells them are the material and spiritual needs of Muslim recipient communities. Peter Riddell, © Evangelicals Now - May 2005 |
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