World Christianity and International Development: Contours of a Long History

17 November 2020, 16:30 - 17 November 2020, 18:00 Webinar - please register

TO REGISTER:  email centre@cccw.cam.ac.uk

Speaker: Dr Jörg Haustein
Lecturer in World Christianities, University of Cambridge

The burgeoning literature on international development and religion tends to set out with the premise that the development project was born out of a post-Second World War secular modernism. This perception is based on a two-fold forgetfulness of history. On the one hand, one needs to consider the genealogical roots of development in colonialism and the “civilising mission,” which had decisive Christian inputs. On the other hand, the notion of secular modernity, conceals the intricate history of religion and secularity in the West, which needs to be analysed with much more precision, especially with regard to the neo-classical secularisation theories and the more recent “return of God” master narratives, and their relation with the development project.

Drawing out the contours of a long history of international development, from the Victorian abolitionist movements to the recent demarcation of “faith-based organisations”, the article argues that scholarship needs to move beyond the simple diagnoses of the presence or absence of religion in the development project, but highlight how the ideology of development has tended to follow religion-related master narratives about progress and values in Christian donor countries. From this vantage point the current re-discovery of faith-based actors in international development funding and practice is only the latest turn in a longer and mostly Euro-American debate about the role of church and state in society.

afterwards, THE TALK WILL BE UPLOADED ONTO OUR NEW CCCW YOUTUBE CHANNEL

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