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The Request and the Gift in Religious and Humanitarian Endeavors pp 93–116Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

How Asking and Giving Beget Distrust in Christian Child Sponsorship

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Part of the book series: Contemporary Anthropology of Religion ((CAR))

Abstract

This chapter examines how US-based Christian child sponsorship organizations make requests for donations, where success depends on their ability to convey moral qualities such as trust. It argues that donors and administrators work with two models of trust simultaneously: secular audit culture and Christian stewardship. While their combined effect would appear to overdetermine the importance of trust, the chapter recalls Alberto Corsín Jiménez’s point that in small-scale societies the interplay between trust and distrust may be explicitly recognized as a device for “coping with the freedom of others.” Likewise, Christian donors and administrators insist that humans are sinful and therefore not necessarily trustworthy. As a result, the distinction between (infallible and informational) audit and (fallible and personal) relationality remains flexible, mediated by philanthropic requests and donor responses.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Historically, proselytism was dependent on CCF local partners, missionaries, and “native” superintendents, and thus sporadic. In 1969, under President Verbon E. Kemp, the Religious Status article of the bylaws stated, “…all children in [CCF’s] orphanage-schools shall receive Christian teachings, bearing witness to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.” In 1974, it was greatly softened (adding “without requirement or obligation”) and subsequently eliminated (Losen, c.2002). There was also a pragmatic reason for the name change: it helped unify a single global brand since “CCF” was only used in the United States. As a result, field workers had to create separate publications for each donor country. For example, the Ethiopian team had to address three sets of donors with different organizational names in the United States, Ireland, and Australia (Louis Weeks to Thomas C. Hogan, Letter, September 11, 2009. Courtesy of Dr. Louis Weeks).

  2. 2.

    According to Forbes, four Christian organizations that rely in part (or largely) on sponsorships are among the 25 largest charities in the United States: Food for the Poor, World Vision, Compassion, and Feed the Children. Compassion and World Vision alone raise 1.5 billion from private donations, nearly all of which is sponsorship (Barrett 2014). Thousands of smaller Christian NGOs use this model too.

  3. 3.

    The Word of Life pastor was trained in the United States and subscribes to the “faith movement” that grew out of American Pentecostalism. In U.S. denominational terms, Christian Children’s Fund would be considered more “mainline” whereas Compassion is conservative evangelical (originating in fundamentalist Baptist churches). However, such labels are messy in the context of these large organizations that explicitly pitch their appeals transdenominationally.

  4. 4.

    Clarke to Sponsors, Letter, c. 1941. Box IB21, Folder 9, JCC.

  5. 5.

    For more details on the spiritual impact for givers, see, for example, “Volunteer Network Handbook” (1999) 3. No Box, Folder USA1999.09.06.01, Archival materials, Compassion International (Colorado Springs, CO). For more on children, see “Write my Child,” Compassion International Website, 2014. Accessed January 11, 2015. http://www.compassion.com/letter-writing/write-my-child.html

  6. 6.

    Charlotte de Fries to J. Calvitt Clarke, Letter, July 18, 1960; J. Calvitt Clarke to William H Henry Jr., Letter, July 26, 1960. Box IB22, Folder 2, JCC.

  7. 7.

    “Choose Your Own Orphan” c. 1954. Box Korea, Folder KR1954.03.03.01. Everett Swanson to Friend of Compassion, Letter, September 1, 1964. Box USA: Documents, Folder 1964, Publication General. Archival materials, Compassion International (Colorado Springs, CO).

  8. 8.

    “Volunteer Network Handbook” (1999) 3. USA1999.09.06.01, Archival materials, Compassion International.

  9. 9.

    “31 Days of Prayer for Your Sponsored Child,” Compassion International website. Accessed January 11, 2015. http://www.compassion.com/get-involved/31-days-of-prayer-for-children.htm

  10. 10.

    “Volunteer Network Handbook” (1999) 3. USA1999.09.06.01, Archival materials, Compassion International.

  11. 11.

    “Unspoken” because, based on my discussions with staff in the Compassion and ChildFund marketing and research departments, surprisingly little information is gathered about sponsors’ spiritual motivations for giving. A number of staff noted that this kind of research is stymied in part because it problematically inverts the logic of Christian witness and charity, clarifying a personal benefit in the “sacrificial gift” (Muehlebach 2013, 517). It also inverts the (not unrelated) logic of development work, which focuses on outcomes for recipients, not givers.

  12. 12.

    Verbon E Kemp to Miss Vivian Moffatt, Letter March 20, 1968. Box IIB7, Folder 8, JCC.

  13. 13.

    CCF never used “the sacred” indiscriminately. It is used with individual (Christian) givers but not in letters with the Better Business Bureau or other secular organizational bodies.

  14. 14.

    Dr. Jay Clarke, Personal Interview, December 11, 2014.

  15. 15.

    For example, Mrs. Charlie Snyder to Chamber of Commerce (Richmond, VA), Letter, September 23, 1953; Verbon E. Kemp to Miss Manila Lyman, Letter, May 19, 1955; Verbon E. Kemp to Frank Ziegler (Director of Public Relations, Nashville Chamber of Commerce), Letter, June 3, 1955; Miss Laura Roberts to Chamber of Commerce (Richmond, VA), Letter, November 5, 1957. Box IB26, Folder 11, JCC.

  16. 16.

    Clarke to Mrs. E.R. Goodwin (National Information Bureau, New York), Letter, February 26, 1947. Box IB21, Folder 9, JCC.

  17. 17.

    For example, Clarke to Sponsors, Letter, c. 1941. Box IB21, Folder 9, JCC.

  18. 18.

    For example, a commissioned biography of Clarke attributed the growth of CCF to the “miracle of human love” and quotes Clarke denying that he ever asks for funds; he merely tells Americans about needs and then God moves them to give (Janss 1961, 2, 30). Pierce, who saw himself as “the next Billy Graham,” traveled Asia as a missionary and committed money to people based on where he felt God was leading him (King 2013, 76, 78).

  19. 19.

    Nevertheless, nearly every sponsorship organization descended into power struggles when the founding pastors (especially Jay Clarke and Bob Pierce) left in the 1960s. While there are differences – Clarke was elderly and highly controlling, Pierce was mentally unstable (King 2013, 78) – in both cases the Boards of Directors felt their presence hindered expansion and professionalization (including financial accountability). Both Clarke and Pierce felt ousted from what they considered a personal ministry and each one responded by starting new organizations. At Compassion, Swanson had the good sense to pass away early (in 1965); however, by 1980, his wife was also convinced to leave her position on the Board for similar reasons. The break was amicable and in 1990 she was given the honorary title “Director Emeritus” (Lee 2014, 130, 144).

  20. 20.

    Corsín Jiménez never quite defines what he means by “occult.” However, his phrasing echoes John and Jean Comaroff’s (1999) contention that “occult economies” result from the failure of emerging neoliberal capitalism, leading to systems where magical means (especially sorcery) are deployed to secure material ends. In Corsín Jiménez, “occult” seems to refer to supernatural systems of relations that are hidden, though not invisible. His examples include witchcraft among the Azande and the human-spirit economy in Willerslev’s work.

  21. 21.

    I base this on a telephone survey conducted by Louis Weeks, former president of Union Presbyterian Seminary (Virginia) and on ChildFund’s Board of Directors. In the weeks after the name change, he personally called about a hundred sponsors who had withdrawn or lodged complaints. While I was able to interview Dr. Weeks about the responses, and secure a list of his questions and one interview transcript, the remaining notes (which he put in CCF possession in 2010) seem to be lost.

  22. 22.

    Louis Weeks, Personal Interview, December 15, 2014.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Ashley Lebner for initial discussions about trust and to Fred Klaits and Britt Halvorson for insightful comments on previous drafts. I thank also the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for a grant that funded research for this chapter.

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  1. Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

    Hillary Kaell

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  1. Hillary Kaell
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  1. State University of New York, Buffalo, New York, USA

    Frederick Klaits

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Kaell, H. (2017). How Asking and Giving Beget Distrust in Christian Child Sponsorship. In: Klaits, F. (eds) The Request and the Gift in Religious and Humanitarian Endeavors. Contemporary Anthropology of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54244-7_5

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