What is the role of Faith in development?
I feel much development tries to completely avoid the subject. We are not trying to develop people spiritually, they have material needs and rights which are not being met and that is the crisis we are trying to remedy. What place has faith in that? Ultimately though we are trying to achieve behavior change. Whether its changing farming techniques or implementing some new technology… behavior change is the goal. Humans are not material beings though. We need more than food and water and warmth. There is an intangible portion to us. You can label it and divide in many ways [intellect, emotion, spirit, soul, heart, mind, etc.] but its there. People have their beliefs, and often the less-economically-developed world is where you find very devout faith.
[as a side note: if you read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance you’ll likely see that everything we “know” is a belief, even what we think of as reason is just a creation of the human mind and so we cling to our beliefs – such as the laws of physics – in much the same way as any devout religious person clings to their beliefs]
Yet most development organizations don’t address this. Or, even worse, they address it by providing material aid in exchange for conversion to their faith which is, in my opinion, immoral spiritual coercion. I wonder how those groups see it though. After all, in their view they are saving people’s souls and bringing them unto God.
We prefer to view people as economic maximizers. Everyone does what is in their best interest [this refers back to that bit of economic theory I mentioned a couple posts ago]. Everyone weigh their opportunity costs and goes with what comes up being most beneficial. Then, some, balk at people going to Church when they could be earning more money. Watch people give money to their faith when they don’t have enough for themselves. Watch their productivity be interrupted by prayer. And be shocked and frustrated by this. But these actions, which may frustrate a development worker, should not surprise us. The frustrated development worker has just failed to wrap their head around the idea that spiritual activities such as prayer and charity add value to ones life. That individual weighed the opportunity costs and decided to be a little hungrier than to not practice charity.
So how are development workers supposed to come in and treat a spiritual community as if they don’t have beliefs and meet any kind of success? What are the other options though? Do we have only FBOs [Faith Based Organizations?]. Should the area an FBO can work in be limited to the extent of the people who already believe in it so that a Muslim development organization can not come to
Contemporary development rhetoric demands that development be conducted in a bottom-up [as opposed to top-down] way. Is our secular development pushed upon spiritual beneficiaries bottom-up? Seems top-down to me.
Or is making your development work spiritual manipulation? As an example, with my project, I had the idea that if you are having trouble getting a Christian village community to do maintenance on an earth dam which provides water… well there is certainly more than a couple verses of scripture that pertain to the sacredness of water. What if we involved the community’s pastor/religious leader in our project and have sermons that are timed effectively with our dam community meetings which focus on the sacredness of water and the importance of appreciated that sacredness. But, as I said, is that manipulation? Yet if we are trying to cause behavior change… is that not manipulation?
Does not every development worker take his beliefs into the field with him/her? Does that mean that organizations need to employees of certain beliefs?
There seems to be infinite questions that spin of this fundamental concept:
People have spiritual and material needs, and you are trying to change their behavior to satisfy their material needs… how do you incorporate the spiritual? Does this problem contribute to the lack of progress development, which has been going on for decades, has made?
What is the role of faith in development?
1 comment:
Religion is a social organisation like any other organisation. Bear with me here. I'm not belittling faith or religious organisations but outlining their applicable contribution to development. A community is reflective of its social and economic components. By and large, in smaller communities, their social component is linked to their spirituality. Contrary to western political theories of the secular state, these elements are intricately linked. Therefore to get a good economic result, you need to take into consideration a community's social and spiritual elements as well. The role of faith and religion in development is the mobilization of the social structure of religion as a contributing member of the development project. This means that a successful development officer would approach a religious leader and discuss the project with them, acknowledge their role in the community as a spiritual and social leader and seek their support of the project. Instead of asking for sermons on the sacredness of water, ask for active participation in the maintenance of the dam. Have a spiritual leader lead by example. Get them "on-side" as it were. If the response from his congregation is positive, then it is likely that sermons will follow. But that is not the development officer's jurisdiction. What a development officer is responsible for is the development of stronger ties within the community and the development of a sense of responsibility for their resources. This is achieved through partnerships with leaders within a community, of which, religious leaders tend to be part of.
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