A Theology of International Development

Thia Cooper

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367332013
• eBook ISBN: 9781000047516
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Religion and development have been intertwined since development's beginnings, yet faith-based aid and development agencies consistently fail to consider how their theology and practice intersect. This book offers a Christian theology of development, with practical solutions to bridge the gap and return to truly faith-based policies and practices.

Development aims to raise the living standard of the world's poor, mainly through small-scale projects that increase economic growth. A theology of liberation provided a critique to development practice, but a specific theology of development is still lacking, and many faith-based aid agencies have failed to adapt their practice. In applying theological thinking to development, the author argues that aid agencies need to address the entrenchment of unequal power relations, and embrace a holistic notion of development, defined by the needs of those most marginalized, instead of by a focus on economic growth. Development organisations need to consider the distinction between charity and justice, and to empower people in the Global South, paying particular attention to the intersections of race, class, sexuality, religion, and the environment.

Overall this book is a powerful call to upend development practice as it currently exists and to return faith-based organizations to following Christian practices. It will be an important read for religion and development researchers, practitioners, and students.

Part 1
Theology

This first section articulates a theology of development.

1 Empowerment

One of the most important pieces to consider within theology and development is the use of power. Power is not a neutral concept. It infuses daily life and can be used for good or ill: to dominate or to empower. Power is enacted in relation with others. Within Christian theology, many people consider God to be all-powerful and all good. Then, the question arises, why does evil exist? Why doesn’t God use God’s power to prevent evil? This question leads people to wonder whether God exists, whether God is good, and whether God is powerful. Instead, I argue that because God is good, God does not use power to dominate; rather, God empowers creation to act. This chapter argues, from examples of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, that a Christian use of power is empowerment: power to, power with, and power within, not power over. Such use of power will shift Christian development practice, as later chapters explore.

“Power over”

Unfortunately, we have often focused on domination by a few over the many, even within Christianity. As Mark Lewis Taylor, U.S professor of theology and culture, has noted, “The world is heavy, then, with social practices that generate and organize death and dying” (Taylor 2011, p. 7). We participate in structures that marginalize and kill. Sometimes we want to move the blame for horrific acts away from humans onto God. However, humans are responsible for their own uses and abuses of power. Christianity and Christians, however, can work toward empowerment rather than domination, following the example of Jesus.

Most people understand power as “power over,” in terms of strength and control. In this view, when one exercises power it has a negative effect on another. People tend to see power as “zero-sum;” if I am powerful you are not, and vice versa. “Traditional psychological and sociological concepts of power define it as societal, for example, based on resources, wealth, influence, control, and physical strength (Miller & Cummins, 1992) […] domination or power over” (Norsworthy, McLaren, and Waterfield, 2012, p. 62). If a person has power, s/he will use it to control others, bending others to one’s own will. Power is used for an individual’s benefit in this definition. Hence, we try to accumulate power for ourselves and we fear losing power to others.

Most of the structures of power we see, as well as the ways in which we interact with others, are in terms of power over. The “nuclear” family, for example, with a husband, wife, and children traditionally understood the husband to be the “head of the household.” Religions, including Christianity, developed hierarchical structures where the rules of what to believe or practice come from the top down. Our educational systems have enacted a dominating form of power where teachers hold the knowledge and the students’ role is to memorize that knowledge. Paulo Freire, a Brazilian philosopher of education, has countered this understanding, as I note in a further chapter. The state holds power over people, enforcing laws. The state dictates my rights and responsibilities. Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist, refers to these concepts as the four guardians of symbolic capital. Structures tell us what to do and what not to do; structures constrain our choices and they exercise evil through racism, sexism, and classism, among other isms. We live within these structures of power, tending to see the structures as normal.

This oppressive form of power is more than just economic and political. As Taylor notes from Bourdieu, as humans, we want others to recognize our humanity. With an understanding of power as dominance and zero-sum, we try to accumulate power so that others will recognize us. The key for the dominant group is to set up oppositions with certain values (good and bad) and make the values seem natural, so natural that those people who are labeled negatively may absorb those labels in some sense, called (mis)recognition. If I am recognized as powerful, you must lack power. So I define you in ways that disempower you. You can either accept this definition or be excluded altogether. Bourdieu “speaks of the ratification of domination… as a coercion, one that is ‘set up only through the consent the dominated cannot fail to give’” (Taylor 2011, pp. 92–4). It is hard to see and even harder to resist this power. We want to be recognized as human. Sometimes our humanity is only recognized in negative ways. To be dominated is at least to be included, even if in a negative way. We may absorb these negative aspects, assuming them to be part of who we are in the same way we absorb positive reinforcements. Rather than questioning the oppositions, we tend to work within the value system, particularly if the system privileges us.

Because power is key to relations, theology and ethics should not be able to avoid analyzing power. Yet, they often do. Miguel de la Torre, Latino social ethicist, speaking of “ethics from the margins,” argues that “power is used to normalize what the dominant culture determines to be ethical” (de la Torre 2004, p. 32). Our ethics contain notions of good and bad that include some and exclude others. This normalization has included racism, classism, sexism, and other isms, supporting structures of dominance. Even privileged Christians see this type of power to be normal and supported by Christianity, protecting their own privilege. Using Michel Foucault’s (French philosopher) notion of the insane asylum, de la Torre continues “Like the patients in the asylum, the marginalized suffer from their own “madness” – their refusal to conform…” (de la Torre 2004, p. 33) Those who are marginalized are seen as “mad” for not accepting and participating in the system. If I argue against the dominance of men or the church hierarchy or another powerful system, I am seen as the one with the problem. The system is fine. It is also difficult, sometimes impossible, to step outside the system. Some people claim neutrality; however, that claim simply supports the status quo.

We are so enmeshed with the dominating sense of power that we support it in our everyday actions. Foucault, for example, analyzed how this power is not solely from the top-down but is networked, through and within us. To upset this notion of power would upset our systems and our daily lives. We see and participate in a harmful use of power daily, for example, with the killing of black people by police officers in far greater percentages than people of other races or with the senseless death of millions from preventable and curable disease. While some sense a problem with the system, others simply assume it is the way things are in order to “protect” and progress society. In this view, some people have to be excluded for others to survive.

Dealing with power is not as simple as my deciding to behave differently, once I recognize a problem. Danny Burns and Stuart Worsley, U.K. researchers in development, discuss power as a systemic property. “The laws, rules, norms, customs, identities, standards, and so on are elements of a system dynamic which become crystallized like well-worn paths through a forest” (Burns and Worsley 2015, p. 153). We grow up and are educated within these power structures. Without obvious competing narratives or alternatives, we cannot see a different path, even when we feel something is wrong. We can see this tendency even in forms of resistance. I’ve heard the comment, “the world would be better if women were in charge,” and this comment may be true. However, sometimes we don’t question the hierarchy itself, we just advocate for change at the top of the pile. It is difficult to see true alternatives.

We not only accept this dominating form of power, we also accept the violence that comes with it. Violence can be both an exercise of power and a reinforcement of power. The violence caused by this domination is seen to be normal. The powerful use violence deliberately as a form of control. Further, the dominant powers in society tend to define violence on their own terms and try to make other forms of violence invisible. In this way, structures determine what violence is, ignoring some forms while exaggerating others. Hence, starving to death from lack of food is not seen as violence, while the violence of stealing food is condemned and punished.

A spiral of violence exists, as Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camara called it (1971). First, daily life is violent, where people die from hunger, thirst, and disease. Taylor speaks of this violence in terms of weight: “the suffering known by the most acute and direct victims of social constraints and oppressive structures” (Taylor 2011, p. 38).¹ The excluded feel the weight of the world bearing down on them. Those of us with privilege can also feel this weight in terms of empathy. Whether or not we do depends on who we see as our neighbor, who we see as Jesus, others with privilege or those excluded from society altogether, condemned to death, if not yet dead. The third chapter explores this concept further.

Those of us who feel this weight also can enact a counter-weight, all of us pressed up against each other, a buttressing weight, according to Jean Luc Nancy, French philosopher. In Camara’s terms, a second understanding of violence is the resistance of the people against the first level of violence. Resistance is what tends to be categorized as the first level of “violence” within our society, not the violence of daily life. Resisting domination is condemned. “The word terror is usually reserved for those military guerrilla groups fighting the empire… while the empire utilizes the most violent means to suppress the native people” (Raheb 2013, p. 60). The powerful enact their own violence, while publicizing resistance as terror. The label of terror shifts depending on who the powerful understand to be on their side. For example, the USA supported the Taliban in Afghanistan during the Cold War but later shifted to view the Taliban as the enemy. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel bombing the Gaza Strip is not considered terrorism, while a Palestinian bomb in Israel would be terrorism. Whether one is labeled a terrorist tends to be determined by whether one supports or resists the dominant system.

The reaction to the resistance, the third aspect of violence, is repression of that resistance by those in power. Because the first aspect of the spiral of violence is not acknowledged by the powerful, and the resistance is seen as the original violence, then this third level of violence is determined to be necessary to maintain control. The violence of everyday existence is ignored because it is an inherent part of the way our systems work. Instead, in the public realm, we tend to argue over the violence we see in the resistance and the repression. Everyday violence remains hidden.

Other countries’ experiences of development have often occurred under this dominating form of power by the USA and Europe. The USA, for example, has deliberately used “power over” to dominate in the international realm and it has encouraged other governments to use a dominant form of power to repress their citizens, particularly throughout the second half of the twentieth century. U.S. peace studies professor, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer outlines five stages of U.S. policy, each using a dominating form of power: from 1946 to 1979, the USA supported dictatorships throughout Latin America, Asia, and Africa. From 1980 to 1991, it continued this support and also enforced its economic policies through the IMF and the World Bank. From 1992 to 1997, the USA mainly used its dominant economic power. From 1998 to 2001, it used this economic power and began to use military power again as well. And in 2001, with the start of the Bush administration it returned to military power, viewing the solely economic push of the Clinton era to be wrong (Nelson-Pallmeyer 2005, pp. 84–98). Both military and economic power have continued to be exerted as dominance in the twenty-first century.

Latin American liberation theology along with other liberation theologies emerged out of the experience of being dominated. The USA directly worked against liberationist Christians in Latin America, according to a 1980 Committee...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1 Theology
• Part 2 Practice
• Conclusion
• Index