An instrumental relationship

In many accounts of religion and development, an instrumental relationship between religion and development has been suggested, emphasized and criticised. Though

alternative views are emerging, many recent publications are still labelled as proposing an instrumentalist relationship between the two concepts (Jones & Petersen 2011:1296-1297).

In the following I will present the main lines of this discussion.

3.4.3.1 Development as instrumental for evangelism

In Transforming Mission, David Bosch states that one of the most difficult areas within Christian mission is the relationship between the evangelistic and the societal dimension (Bosch 1991:401). Terje Tvedt, writing about the Norwegian context, argues that the Norwegian government established a neutrality-paragraph in order that development and aid- industry should not end up being a new form for imperialism. State funding should not serve economic, political or religious goals, which was why such a paragraph was necessary (Tvedt 2009:79). However, Tvedt claims that mission-organizations have always done

48 missionary work, while describing it as diaconia and relief in Norway (Tvedt 2009:80).⁵¹ He accuses Norwegian mission-organizations of being solely concerned with saving souls, and their development and relief initiatives are therefore to be fundamentally considered as instruments for missionary activities (Tvedt 2009:196-197). Based on these concerns, there is a call for a critical investigation of the relationship between diaconia and evangelization within religiously based developmental organizations. Fretheim argues that it is crucial that FBO’s define core terms as mission, diaconia, evangelism and relief, and also differ between their overarching goals and different ways to reach these goals (Fretheim 2013:92-93).

Tvedt’s accusations first came about in 2004, and launched a public debate about the relationship between mission and development. Responding to Tvedt’s accusations, then NMS-leader Kjetil Aano responded by saying that value-based development is not only carried out by FBO’s. Development work can never be value-neutral (Hovland 2008:178- 179). The question, Aano states, is on which values development should be established. Due to the demands of division between spiritual and material work, Hovland identifies an internal tension in NMS as they view their mission as holistic, entailing both material and spiritual dimensions. She continues by stating that much of this debate stems from a vague undefined fear of religion, and accuse development of being the exact same, namely a secular project or even mission (Hovland 2008:178-180).

3.4.3.2 Religion as instrumental for development.

Many accounts on religion and development, through pointing to various characteristics in the relationship between religion and development, remained mainly concerned with exploring the constructive and destructive potentials of religion to achieve developmental goals. A general trait of the exploration has been that it has been focused around what religious organizations has to offer in the development process (Jones & Petersen

2011:1296-1297). Jeffrey Haynes’ book Religion and development: conflict or cooperation, represents an important contribution in this tradition. Haynes touches upon several themes,

51 Tvedt’s definition of missionary-work or mission points to evangelistic practices, not the holistic understanding of the Christian mission which has been suggested in this assignment.

49 such as conflict and conflict resolution, economic growth, poverty and hunger as well as environmental issues, health and education, and considers the developmental role of religion to be crucial especially concerning two issues;

1. Engendering and influencing values, which in turn can affect the formulation of underlying policy considerations and governmental policies;

2. Worsening or help resolving political conflicts depending on the circumstances (Haynes 2007:212)

Haynes furthermore states that religion is a developmental factor of growing importance in the areas from which his cases were taken, and further that the specific confessional and cultural characteristics of the FBOs in question were of major importance to their work (Haynes 2007:213). He also argues that religion may actually play a central part in what is understood to be wellbeing. As well as making a reference to Voices of the Poor, Haynes asserts that religion may add value and meaning to life in spite of being poor (Haynes 2007:55). This, he explains, give reasons to why religion is so important for people in under- developed countries, but also explains why religion can be important to development.⁵² He suggests the role of religion in relation to development to be ambivalent. Positive if it

“motivates civil engagement in pursuit of socially and developmentally constructive goals,”

but negative, if it “(1) seeks to exclude others, (2) perhaps resorts to conflict and violence, and (3) overall seriously undermines achievement of socially and developmentally

constructive goals” (Haynes 2007:62).

Gerard Clarke and Michael Jennings’ book Development, Civil Society and Faith- Based Organizations: Bridging the Sacred and the Secular, is a descriptive account of the role of FBOs in development practice in several geographic regions and with different religious bases. The study tries to bridge religious and secular initiatives, which the authors state, have been finding common ground for over a decade (Clarke & Jennings 2008:4) At the core of this account lies the question of what FBO’s may contribute to development (Clarke &

Jennings 2008:260). The authors conclude that whether or not FBOs should play a central role in development is a meaningless discussion, as there is a consensus that they do. They further name a number of characteristics that makes the FBOs different from their secular

52 He also adds that religious reality and secular reality may collide. Often, he states, adherents to these different realities may attack the other for its lack of realism (Haynes 2007:57)

50 peers and important in development practice. These characteristics include their developed networks on several levels both globally, nationally and locally, their ability to mobilize their adherents, being less dependent on donor-funding and their expertise in many areas of development practice (Clarke and Jennings 2008:269-272).