Abstract
Development studies has traditionally neglected the role of religion and faith and its role in the lives of the poor throughout the developing world. Like other social sciences, it was heavily influenced by ‘secularization theory’, the belief (in Wilson’s classic formulation) that ‘religious institutions, actions and consciousness lose their social significance’ over time as societies modernize (Wilson 1992: 49).1 This influence was evident in two key respects: in ‘secular reductionism’ — the neglect of religious variables in favour of other sociological attributes such as class, ethnicity and gender — and in ‘materialistic determinism’ — the neglect of nonmaterial, especially religious, motivations in explaining individual or institutional behaviour.2 In this vein, academics and policymakers perceived poverty as a matter of material deprivation and its elimination a technical undertaking; they systematically ignored the role of faith as an analytical lens through which the poor experienced and rationalized poverty and through which the well-off empathized with their struggles and provided practical support. Donors were not completely immune to variables such as the religious impulse to help the poor. In practice, however, they engaged with a narrow range of faith-based organizations, mainly specialized development organizations associated with the mainstream Christian Churches (Catholic and Protestant), ignoring discourses and organizations from other religious traditions.
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© 2008 Gerard Clarke
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Clarke, G. (2008). Faith-Based Organizations and International Development: An Overview. In: Clarke, G., Jennings, M. (eds) Development, Civil Society and Faith-Based Organizations. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230371262_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230371262_2
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