Journal of Refugee Studies Vol. 24, No. 3 ß The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press.
All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
doi:10.1093/jrs/fer028 Advance Access publication 18 July 2011
Faith and Humanitarianism: It’s
Complicated
ELIZABETH FERRIS
Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036
eferris@brookings.edu
MS received December 2010; revised MS received April 2011
Keywords: faith-based organizations, humanitarianism
Introduction
As the articles in this Special Issue illustrate, faith-based humanitarianism
takes many forms, ranging from small-scale efforts by individual religious
communities to the professional operations of large international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). While this makes generalizations
difficult, this concluding article offers some reflections about the interrelationship between humanitarianism and faith, with a particular emphasis
on the specificity of faith-based approaches to humanitarian work. It therefore asks whether there is something distinctive about faith-based humanitarianism, or to phrase the question differently: are the differences between
faith-based organizations and their secular counterparts greater than the
differences between organizations falling in the faith-based category? The
article then considers the issue of professionalism of faith-based organizations
and the challenges of developing partnerships between faith-based and secular
organizations. The article concludes by noting that, despite the important role
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This article examines the relationship between faith and humanitarianism in
a variety of religious traditions, with particular emphasis on Christian and
Muslim organizations. Following a brief historical overview and a short (and
incomplete) description of the scale of faith-based contributions to humanitarian
work, the article then addresses three issues: the distinctiveness of faith-based
organizations, their professionalism, and the potential for partnerships between
secular and faith-based organizations. It finds that the variety of faith-based
actors makes generalizations difficult and questions the utility of the term, suggesting that differences between faith-based actors are often greater than those
between secular and faith-based organizations. The article concludes by noting
the need for serious academic research on faith-based humanitarian organizations and suggesting areas where future research is particularly needed.
Faith and Humanitarianism: It’s Complicated
607
played by faith-based actors in humanitarian responses in all regions of the
world, there is surprisingly little academic research on the scale, modalities,
and distinctiveness of faith-based humanitarianism; it therefore closes by
suggesting areas where further research is needed.
At the outset, it is important to underline that the term faith-based organization (or FBO) is a contentious and difficult one, as reflected in the
Introduction to this Special Issue. Although there have been organized
expressions of faith communities for hundreds of years, the term FBO
entered into mainstream usage in the US in a specific political context in
which Republican US President George W. Bush sought to give wider
acknowledgement (and funding) to the role of religious organizations in
addressing social needs.
Clarke and Jennings define a faith-based organization as:
As these authors and others working in the field acknowledge, the definition
is a broad one reflecting the difficulties in developing a definition which
draws a connection between different faith traditions and a multitude of
organizational expressions (Sider and Unruh 2004: 109–110). In reviewing
the literature on faith-based organizations, Scott concludes that:
at a minimum, FBOs must be connected with an organized faith community.
These connections occur when an FBO is based on a particular religious
ideology and draws staff, volunteers, or leadership from a particular religious
group. Other characteristics that qualify an organization as ‘faith-based’ are
religiously oriented mission statements, the receipt of substantial support from
a religious organization, or the initiation by a religious institution (2003: 1–2).
While its premise may be fundamentally different from non-faith or so-called
secular organizations, the term ‘faith-based organization’ locks together
multiple faith denominations and organizations which may in fact bear
little resemblance to one another, as will be discussed further in the sections
below. Although the term is used in this article, it is done so with trepidation.
It would perhaps be more accurate to refer to organizations affiliated with a
specific faith tradition, but even then there are major differences between
organizations in terms of their relationship with established religious
structures, the degree to which considerations of faith are reflected in their
work, the scale of their operations, their ways of working, and their
understandings of the political and social context in which they operate.
Humanitarianism and Faith
Concern for others is a defining characteristic of humans (Payton and Moody
2008: 72). Altruism, the human impulse to help others with no expectation of
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any organization that derives inspiration and guidance for its activities from the
teachings and principles of the faith or from a particular interpretation or
school of thought within that faith (2008: 6).
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a tangible reward, is a cultural universal. In fact, anthropologists argue that
the social norm of charity was a necessity—not just a nice thing to do—for
prehistoric societies (see for example, Brody 2002: 40). Simply put: communities in which people care for one another and take care of the sick and the
vulnerable are more likely to survive than those that do not. The belief that
it is good to protect and provide for the most vulnerable members of
a society—the widows and orphans, disabled and sick, foreigners and
paupers—is central to all religious traditions.
Values of charity are apparent in all of the world’s major religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. In Judaism, the
concept of tzedakah, usually translated as charity or righteousness, is central
to the practice of the faith. Jewish philosopher Maimonides ranked eight
levels of practising tzedakah in a hierarchy from the lowest (giving with
a heavy heart) to the highest (supporting self-sufficiency) (Payton and
Moody 2008: 78). The Bible exhorts Christians to practise charity towards
the vulnerable members of a society: strangers, widows, orphans; and the
Qur’an is equally filled with instructions to practice charity, to care for
orphans, and to give refuge to those in need. Indeed, zakat, the practice of
obligatory charity, is one of the five pillars of Islam, but the Qur’an also
emphasizes the importance of sadaqah, voluntary charity, and provides for
awqaf (charitable trusts often set up through endowments) (Hayatli 2009: 2–3;
Rahaei 2009: 4). Similarly, Hinduism requires charity of its adherents, including giving alms and ritual feeding of the poor. In fact, seva or service is a
means of fostering and expressing an individual’s spirituality (Rakodi 2010:
11–12).
As Marfleet’s article in this Special Issue indicates, the foundations of
Christian engagement can be traced over centuries; however, the modern
humanitarian system, and indeed the human rights system, have their roots
in the Christian evangelical tradition of the mid-1800s. At that time evangelicals were at the forefront of a remarkable reform movement on many levels,
seeking to abolish slavery, reform prisons, and establish humane systems for
the treatment of the mentally ill. Henri Dunant, Florence Nightingale and
many other humanitarians came to the fore during this reform era. Nearly a
century after Dunant’s epiphany on the battlefields of Solferino, religious
values and particularly Christian ideals were central to writing the United
Nations (UN) Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as
evidenced by their aspirational tone. While today’s proponents of humanitarianism and human rights worry that their security is endangered when
humanitarian action is seen as a Western tradition, they cannot escape
the historical fact that the modern humanitarian system came out of the
Judaeo-Christian tradition (also see Ager and Ager, this Issue), even
though the ideals of charity are shared by many faiths.
The same century that gave rise to the modern humanitarian system was
also the century during which Western mission societies, frequently working
hand in hand with colonial governments, set out to Christianize the world.
Faith and Humanitarianism: It’s Complicated
609
Estimating the Scale of FBO Contributions to Humanitarianism
Faith-based expressions of humanitarian response are still central to both
relief and development work. As the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria notes,
FBOs have historically played a central role in the provision of healthcare in the
developing world. Many hospitals and clinics that form the backbone of the
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The missionary legacy has been robustly discredited for its role in legitimizing
colonialism, imposing Western values and denigrating local traditions and
customs (Neill and Chadwick 1990). At the same time, it is undeniable that
missionaries were a globalizing force: missionaries returning to Europe and
North America from Asia and Africa brought with them stories of different
worlds and led many church members to an international engagement which
would otherwise not have been possible. It is partly this evangelical, missionary legacy that causes a sense of discomfort (ranging from vague to acute)
in interactions between Christian organizations and secular ones, between
Christian organizations and other faith-based organizations, and sometimes
between Christian organizations themselves.
Despite earlier assertions to the contrary, religion continues to play a
central role for most of the earth’s inhabitants in our ‘post-secular’ world
(Ager and Ager, this Issue). However, the forms by which they organize
themselves vary tremendously. In the late 2000s, Christians were estimated
to number approximately 1.9 billion in the world, Muslims 1.3 billion, and
Hindus 900 million—together accounting for 70 per cent of the world’s population (Clarke and Jennings 2008: 6). Indeed, despite the decline of mainstream Christianity in Western societies, the significance of religion in Africa,
Asia and Latin America is ever-growing. In the West, mainstream Christian
churches with their approaches of moderation and messages of tolerance are
losing members, money, and energy as the result of secularization, while
evangelical and Pentecostal churches are on the rise; concurrently, in the
developing world, ever more militant forms of religion are being strengthened
(Benedetti 2006: 856).
The legal separation of church and state in Western societies also raises a
disquiet about faith-based humanitarianism, a fear that somehow churches
and faith-based organizations will use the fact that affected communities
are particularly vulnerable to try to convert them (a dynamic explored in
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s contribution to this Issue). Even as mainstream churches
go to great lengths to distance themselves from missionary endeavours, stories
abound of Christian organizations which take advantage of people’s desperation by creating conditional connections between the provision of relief and
faith. Although proselytizing is associated with Christianity, the Islamic concept of da’wa, or calling people to Islam, raises similar concerns about the
activities of some Islamic organizations (Benedetti 2006: 856).
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Elizabeth Ferris
health infrastructure in countries today trace their roots to missionaries and
churches. This is particularly true in Africa, where it is estimated that FBOs
currently provide 40 per cent of all health services, especially in remote rural
areas (Amayun et al. n.d.).
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World Bank president James Wolfensohn recognized this reality when he,
together with Archbishop George Carey, launched a Faith in Development
initiative in 1998 (Belshaw et al. 2001; Marshall 2005).
When estimating the scale of humanitarian and development assistance
provided through faith-based organizations, it is important to emphasize
that most of the work of faith-based organizations is not quantified or
recorded anywhere. Local churches and mosques provide important tangible
support to people in need in their communities. Mosques in Iraq, for
example—quite apart from humanitarian wings of militias, political parties,
or organized NGOs—provide support to needy people in their communities.
The contributions of these initiatives, such as soup kitchens organized by
local religious organizations or volunteers helping disaster victims, are not
recorded anywhere in the UN’s statistics on humanitarian contributions.
Nonetheless, the sums of money mobilized by these small mosques and
congregationally-based charitable organizations are undoubtedly substantial.
Indeed, there are complex interfaces between the charitable initiatives of
local religious communities and the large international faith-based NGOs
which are familiar actors on the global scene. In effect, there are hundreds,
if not thousands, of religious organizations operating at the local, national,
and regional levels which are actively involved in humanitarian assistance,
particularly when an emergency occurs. For example, on the national level,
churches may have their own diaconal structures or mechanisms for responding to need in their countries (as discussed by Orji in the context of the
conflict in Jos, Nigeria, this Special Issue) and, increasingly in other countries. However, to date there has been no attempt to estimate the contributions of such diverse Christian groups as the Anglican Church in Kenya, the
Christian Council of Malaysia, the YMCA in Sri Lanka and the Conferencia
Episcopal de Colombia—all of which provide direct assistance to individuals
in need from their own resources—in addition to the international support
they may receive. Other religious traditions have a similarly varied assortment
of organizations which provide assistance that is rarely included in
tabulations of aid.
Moreover, with respect to the Christian tradition, the sharing of resources
between individual congregations remains unknown and yet appears to be
a large and growing trend. Individual Methodist congregations in the US
provide direct financial support to Methodist congregations in Russia,
bypassing their own denominational structures. The enormous Bible
College in the Mae La Camp in Thailand (explored in Horstmann, this
Special Issue) is almost entirely funded by Baptists in the US. At times,
there are strong links between churches in the diaspora and churches in the
Faith and Humanitarianism: It’s Complicated
611
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country of origin, as evidenced after the Haitian earthquake when hundreds
of US churches with Haitian-American members channelled support directly
to congregations and individuals in Haiti. Many of these resource transfers
also bypass official church or denominational structures.
Efforts to estimate the contributions of Islamic charities are similarly
difficult. As De Cordier (2009: 670) points out, most expressions of Islamic
charity are informal and are not recorded anywhere. A study by the US State
Department estimated philanthropic giving in Muslim communities to be
between $250 billion and $1 trillion annually (Alterman et al. 2005: 1).
However, the methodology of this estimate has been criticized and most
observers consider that the total amount is likely to be much lower.1 Even
with the heightened scrutiny of Muslim organizations after the attacks of 11
September 2001, there are no generally accepted estimates of the amount of
financial support channelled through informal Islamic charitable channels.
Although little hard data exist on informal transfers by any religious
tradition, it seems likely that official statistics on humanitarian assistance
are overlooking (or neglecting) an important dimension of aid—just as
official humanitarian assistance is dwarfed by the scale of remittances by
individuals (Monsutti 2000: 72–73; Weiss-Fagen and Bump 2006). Our understanding of the scale of financial contributions of faith-based organizations in
providing assistance to people in need is therefore extremely limited.
More detailed information is nonetheless available vis-à-vis the financial
resources transferred by large international faith-based NGOs, although it
remains difficult to determine the extent to which this represents the contributions of communities of faith (at least in some cases), the channelling of
government funds, or funding from secular sources. Although more is known
about the work of Christian NGOs, Muslim charities have received more
attention from scholars in the West, particularly after 11 September 2001,
than those of other religious traditions (Krafess 2005: 327–342; Alterman and
von Hippel 2007; Kaag 2007; Kirman and Khan 2008). Benedetti points
out that there are differences between Muslim NGOs such as Islamic
Relief, which has moved into the mainstream of the NGO world, and the
International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), largely funded by the Saudi
government, but both certainly mobilize significant resources (2006: 851–853).
According to Khan et al. (2009: 4), there are currently 11 Muslim charities in
the United Kingdom each with an annual income of more than £1 million,
which work to provide humanitarian relief and support long-term development. Combined, these 11 charities mobilize over £100 million per year. In
addition, there are innumerable smaller charities with incomes of less than
£1 million (Khan et al. 2009: 4).
The availability of more comprehensive data enables us to estimate the
scale of contributions made by Christian organizations. The Catholic
International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity (CIDSE, the
organization of European Catholic agencies) had a combined budget of
US$950 million in 2000; APRODEV (a partnership linking European
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Distinctiveness of Faith-based Organizations?
Talking about the distinctiveness of faith-based humanitarianism is particularly difficult, largely because of the diversity of faith-based organizations
(as reflected in the contributions to this Special Issue), but also due to the
dangers of attempting to make generalizations per se. Indeed, there is often a
tendency by people on both sides of the secular–faith divide to assume that
the ‘others’ are all alike. However, just as it would be a mistake to conflate
the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Médecins sans
Frontières and Oxfam, it is equally an oversimplification to equate
Samaritan’s Purse, Catholic Relief Services, and Norwegian Church Aid:
these organizations have thoroughly differing histories, relationships with
their constituencies, views on their mandates and missions, and ways of
working.
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development and aid organizations with the World Council of Churches) had
a budget of $470 million; and World Vision International had a budget of
$600 million in 1999. Together with Caritas Internationalis, these four
Christian organizations had a combined annual income of $2.5 billion in
2000—about two-thirds of the annual budget of the UK’s Department for
International Development (DFID) (Clarke and Jennings 2008: 25–30). This
does not include, however, the contributions made by North American,
Australian or Asian churches and related organizations. Neither does it include bilateral transfers of humanitarian funds from one church—such as the
Presbyterian Church or Church of Norway—to support the humanitarian
work of a partner church in the global South, nor the transfers by mission
societies and agencies, some of which support humanitarian work as well as
evangelical activity. Clarke and Jennings (2008: 30) estimate that these missionary societies had donations of $3.75 billion in 2000—a considerably
greater income than that of the four large church-related agencies referred
to above.
In looking at the scale of contributions by faith-based organizations, it is
clear that a) the amounts involved are substantial, and b) we do not know
nearly enough about these amounts. As mentioned earlier, there is a paucity
of even basic information on informal transfers—other than frequently made
assertions that these transfers may be greater than those mobilized through
formal organizations. However, even when we look at formal organizations,
including Western Christian NGOs, there are major lacunae in our
knowledge.
The scale of the work of faith-based organizations in humanitarian activities is an important indicator of the role they play in the international
humanitarian system, and yet it is also important to consider their distinctiveness from secular ones, and their diversity in comparison with one
another.
Faith and Humanitarianism: It’s Complicated
613
Table 1
Faith-based and Secular International NGOs
Organization
Founded Annual Budget (US$)
Care UK
1945
Care USA
1919
Save the Children (US)
1932
Amnesty International
1961
Médecins sans Frontières
Oxfam Great Britain
1971
1942
World Vision International 1950
World Vision US
Samaritan’s Purse
Caritas Internationalis
Christian Aid
Catholic Relief Services
1970
1897
1945
1943
1
US$ figure obtained using 2009 average conversion rate of £1 to $1.56.
US$ figure obtained using 2008 average conversion rate of £1 to $1.85.
US$ figure obtained using a conversion rate of E0.72 to $1.
4
Figure originally given in euros (E94.4 million). Conversion obtained by averaging euro to
dollar conversion rates for 2008–2009.
2
3
A further complication is that it is often difficult to establish the precise
relationship between an organization and religion. At times, organizations
claim to be faith-based when there are no obvious signs of the faith relationship, while organizations with ‘secular-sounding’ names may ultimately have
a strong faith component. On other occasions, organizations change their
names and organizational frameworks. For example, China Children’s
Fund was established in 1938, changing its name in 1951 to Christian
Children’s Fund (as it was by then working in many different countries),
and once again in 2009, when it was renamed ChildFund International.
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Save the Children (UK)
2009 income: 52.7 million þ 3.12 million in
reserves
2009 expenditure: 41.18 million1
2009 total operating support and revenue:
700.6 million
2009 total operating expenses: 708.39 million
2009 income: 336.96 million
2009 expenditure: 324.64 million1
Total operating revenue FY 2009:
445.65 million
Total operating expenses FY 2009:
465.66 million
2008 total funds: 65.16 million
2008 total resources expended: 65.54 million2
2009 operational budget: 393.35 million
Total 2009 income: 480.95 million
Total 2009 charitable expenditure:
367.85 million1
2008 net assets: 701.16 million
2008 total expenses: 1.72 billion
2009 total revenue: 1.22 billion
2009 total operating expenses: 1.21 billion
2009 net assets: 178.24 million
2009 annual income: 9,682,487.023
2008–2009 income: 135 million4
2009 total operating revenue: 780.59 million
2009 total expenses: 767.64 million
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While its origins were clearly Christian, the NGO has always emphasized that
it serves children without regard to their religious or other affiliation, in line
with international humanitarian standards.
Given these complexities, is it possible to identify differences in the
motivation of faith-based and secular organizations, and the types of work
they undertake or fund? This is a question which has also been posed by
Michael Taylor (1995), former Director of Christian Aid, who has asked: ‘is
Christian Aid just an Oxfam with hymn books?’ The articles in this Special
Issue, including Eby et al.’s examination of Church World Service’s support
of resettled refugees in the USA, and Wilson’s paper on FBOs in the context
of Australia, suggest that there are indeed differences between FBOs and
secular organizations; however, the articles equally confirm that these differences vary both in relation to the context in which they are operating and in
the extent to which religious values permeate the organization’s approach.
Furthermore, as Ager and Ager’s article in this Special Issue indicates, powerful forces of secularization may restrict awareness of the articles of faith
underpinning the secular humanitarian response.
An additional challenge when comparing and contrasting ‘FBOs’ and
‘secular organizations’ arises given that, with respect to the ecumenical
world for instance, church-related agencies increasingly employ secular
professionals, adhere to high professional standards, and rigorously distance
themselves from anything that can be considered to be missionary activity.2
Indeed, while their governing bodies always include representatives of
churches and their top leader is always a Christian, much, perhaps most,
of the day-to-day work is carried out by professionals who are not very
different from their counterparts working in secular organizations.
While many secular NGOs have broadened their humanitarian work to
include advocacy and work for justice, the traditional focus of Muslim
charities has been on providing food parcels during Ramadan, sponsoring
orphans and providing access to clean water through wells and boreholes
(Khan et al. 2009: 5). There has also been a tradition of Muslim generosity
toward refugees, as Prophet Muhammad was himself a refugee who fled
Mecca in order to escape persecution in 622 AD. However, as Khan et al.
report, the focus of Muslim charities has generally been quite ‘paternalistic’
and ‘centered on relief’ rather than providing services which empower the
poor or address root causes of poverty (2009: 6). They argue that this is due
to the conservatism of traditional Muslim donors, who put a priority on
providing direct assistance to individuals, as well as to the lack of professional development of some staff of Islamic charities (ibid.). With reference to
Muslim FBOs’ roles in advocacy, these organizations in turn tend to advocate for the provision of relief, but not for political and social change (Sparre
and Petersen 2007: 32). In many cases this is a result of government restrictions on the activities of NGOs, which limit their work to endeavours which
can be readily classified as ‘non-political.’
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Contrary to this depiction of ‘traditional’ Muslim NGOs as engaging in
‘non-political’ activities, Wigger (2005: 356, citing Bellion-Jourdan 2003)
notes a ‘depoliticization’ of Muslim NGOs in recent years. Whereas in the
1980s international Muslim organizations routinely combined da’wa with
humanitarian assistance and portrayed western humanitarian organizations
in Pakistan and Afghanistan as missionary societies, by the 1990s they moved
away from political and military objectives, as evidenced by the disappearance of the terms da’wa and jihad from their brochures (Wigger 2005).
In other words, it may be that there are pressures on both Christian and
Muslim NGOs to adopt more secular—or at least less overtly religious—
approaches to humanitarian endeavours. As discussed in greater detail
below, these pressures stem from increasing demands for professionalism
and accountability from governmental funders and pressures within the
greater NGO community to incorporate professional standards into their
work, including adherence to codes of conduct which preclude response on
the basis of religious affiliation (IFRC 1994).
While there are differences between Muslim NGOs, it is probably true that
most Muslim NGOs work closely with mosques and other Muslim organizations and in primarily Muslim countries (Wigger 2005; Benedetti 2006: 856).
This is partly due to the widespread understanding that zakat is primarily to
be given to Muslims (although this is hotly debated within the Islamic
humanitarian community). Within the Christian tradition, on the other
hand, not all organizations are directly related to churches. In some cases,
FBOs’ aid operations are indeed part of church structures, or their governing
bodies include representatives named by churches. For example, Presbyterian
Disaster Assistance (USA) and Christian World Service (Australia) are
both related to churches, the former as part of one denomination’s national
structure, the latter accountable to a governing body which includes
representatives of a number of churches. There are also Christian organizations which are clearly inspired by Christian teachings but which do not have
a formal link to established church structures. Thus World Vision, an NGO
with an overtly Christian mission, is not organically tied to one particular
denomination or even to a particular group of churches.
There are considerable differences in the ways that these two types of
Christian NGOs operate. On the one hand, church-related organizations
are more likely to work with local churches and related organizations.
However, even this distinction appears to be diminishing as a result of
the growing number of civil society organizations in developing countries,
and growing demands for increased accountability and efficiency. Daleep
Mukarji, a former director of Christian Aid, would often make the point
that Christian Aid’s mission was to reduce poverty and if churches were
the best means of confronting poverty, then Christian Aid would work
with them; nevertheless, if local secular NGOs were doing a better job,
then Christian Aid would work with these organizations instead. ‘Our mission is not to support churches,’ he would say, ‘but to address poverty’
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Elizabeth Ferris
Passive: Teachings of faith are subsidiary to broader humanitarian principles,
and play a secondary role to humanitarian considerations in identifying
beneficiaries and partners.
Active: Faith is the important and explicit motivation for action and for
mobilizing staff and supporters, and plays a direct role in identifying
beneficiaries and partners (although there is no overt discrimination).
Persuasive: Faith is an important and explicit motivation for action, plays a
significant role in identifying beneficiaries and partners, and is the dominant
basis for re-engagement. It aims to bring new converts to the faith and/or
advance the interests of the faith at the expense of others.
Exclusive: Faith provides the overriding motivation for action and in mobilizing
staff and supporters. It provides the principal consideration in identifying
beneficiaries. Social and political engagement is rooted in the faith and is
often militant or violent, and/or directed against one or more rival faiths.
While this typology is useful for understanding the distinctiveness of
faith-based organizations, it also raises serious questions about the extent
to which faith-based organizations are adhering to humanitarian principles
of neutrality and impartiality. Organizations classified as ‘passive’ are
arguably much less distinct from their secular counterparts in both their
orientation and their working methods than those classified as ‘exclusive.’
In effect, an organization with a passive approach may derive inspiration
from religious beliefs, but is committed to impartiality in the distribution
of assistance, identifying beneficiaries on the basis of need rather than on
their religious affiliation (or potential religious affiliation). In contrast,
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(interviews with author 2005–2007). For Christian NGOs without a formal
link to church structures, on the other hand, there appears to be even less of
a commitment to coordinating efforts with local churches. For example, the
director of a council of 8,000 Haitian churches noted that, while a few
church-related agencies from other countries had offered assistance with
reconstruction after the devastating 2010 earthquake, there had been no
contact with some of the large evangelical Christian NGOs: ‘They come in
and do their own thing,’ he remarked with some bitterness; ‘It’s as if it never
occurs to them to look at what Haitian churches are doing’ (interview with
author, January 2011).
Ultimately, differences between faith-based and secular organizations
appear to centre on the extent to which religious activities such as worship,
prayer, and evangelical activities are integrated into these organizations’
humanitarian work. The different degrees of such integration are reflected
in Benedetti’s proposal (2006) that we differentiate between militant and
secular Christian NGOs, and between militant and moderate Islamic
NGOs; equally, Clarke and Jennings (2008: 32–33) have developed a fourfold
classification scheme which categorizes FBOs depending on the ways in which
faith influences the organization’s activities:
Faith and Humanitarianism: It’s Complicated
617
Distinctiveness’ Advantages and Disadvantages
While recognizing that there are major differences between faith-based organizations—differences stemming from religious traditions, the extent to which
these religious traditions affect work on the ground, the scale of involvement
with humanitarian assistance, and the specific context in which they are
working—it may still be useful to identify some overarching advantages
and disadvantages to the work of faith-based organizations.
Firstly, they have at least some unrestricted funding from faith communities which gives them freedom to carry out activities that are not funded by
governmental donors. Furthermore, since faith-based organizations are not
bound by legal definitions, their work with refugees is not limited to those
with officially-recognized refugee status. Many secular NGOs, on the other
hand, are increasingly reliant upon government funds which are restricted to
the priorities of the donors, leaving them little leeway to develop new
programmes based on an assessment of needs which differs from that of
their funding partners.3
A second advantage is that faith-based and particularly church-related
organizations are part of a vast global network of communities that are
linked to each other by something besides funding and programming.4 They
have a built-in network of local partners who are rooted in their communities.
Thus, the article by Eby et al. in this Special Issue points to the importance of
long-established community networks as a strength of Christian organizations
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for those classified as persuasive or exclusive, beneficiaries are identified in
line with faith-based criteria. Indeed, as evidenced in several of the articles
in this issue, there are multiple variations in the ways in which faith has
been and can be incorporated into humanitarian work. In this Special
Issue, Horstmann, for example, argues that the role of Christian humanitarian organizations in the refugee camps on the Thai/Burmese border is an
extension of their early missionary activities, while the articles by Eby
et al., Snyder, and Wilson respectively analyse the different approaches
taken by faith-based organizations in the United States, United Kingdom
and Australia.
Ultimately, the differences between passive FBOs and those that are
persuasive or exclusive do matter. For example, using faith-based criteria
to identify beneficiaries is inconsistent with humanitarian principles that
assistance should be given on the basis of need alone and not on ‘the basis
of race, creed or nationality of the recipient’ (IFRC 1994). There are, of
course, serious questions about whether organizations using faith-based
criteria to determine who receives assistance are indeed humanitarian
organizations per se. By favouring one group or another, such organizations
may discredit the humanitarian system, or even put other organizations
at risk.
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involved in refugee resettlement in the US. Similarly, Muslim organizations
operating in Muslim countries can count on connections with and often support from local mosques and Muslim civil society organizations. Furthermore,
the capacity for FBOs to engage in transnational advocacy in favour of displaced populations is enhanced by their global connections, as explored by
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (this Issue) with reference to the global connections of
American evangelical organizations which have mobilized both humanitarian
and political support for Sahrawi refugees in Algeria.
A third advantage, particularly of church-related agencies, comes, somewhat surprisingly, from the mission tradition, or at least the ecumenical
mission tradition. Although the large international ecumenical agencies
usually try to distance themselves as much as they can from the mission
societies, they benefit from the discussions that began in the 1960s, which
were critical of power dynamics between churches in the North and South.
In the context of today’s discussions of partnership between secular NGOs or
between the UN and NGOs, the deliberations of ecumenical mission societies
some four decades ago seem surprisingly relevant. In the 1960s there was
a significant shift away from providing charity towards a focus on social
justice—a theme which gained prominence in the secular world much later.
Equally, by the early 1970s, the ecumenical mission organizations moved
away from characterizing their relationship as a donor–recipient one to one
of partnership, and they called for a moratorium on aid to Africa in 1971,
recognizing the unhealthy dependencies that were created by assistance
(Ferris forthcoming). Such organizations struggled with how to model their
relationships to reflect Christian values. If one elides the explicitly Christian
language, it is clear that many of these discussions are now being played out
in the broader world of secular NGOs.
Despite these advantages, there are, of course, also disadvantages faced by
many faith-based agencies engaging in humanitarian work. In the first place,
due to their traditions vis-à-vis social justice, FBOs have a problematic relationship with the humanitarian principle of neutrality. Advocacy for justice is
never neutral, nor is much of either Christian or inter-faith peace work—at
least that work which goes beyond calling on all parties to uphold international humanitarian law. Some secular organizations face the same challenge,
of course, but it is particularly prominent in religious humanitarian agencies.
While the humanitarian principle of independence asserts that humanitarian
actors will endeavour not to be instruments of governmental foreign policy,
the fact that some large faith-based NGOs receive a significant portion of
their funds from governments can raise questions about the extent to which
they are independent humanitarian actors. Faith-based organizations also
face problems related, not surprisingly, to their faith communities. For
example, while churches set up church-related agencies precisely to carry
out charitable work on their behalf, the interests of the church may differ
from those of the specialized agency. When a Christian agency rebuffs the
Faith and Humanitarianism: It’s Complicated
619
request of a local bishop, tensions may be created within the broader church
constituency.
The particular advantages and disadvantages of faith-based organizations
have set them apart to varying degrees from their secular counterparts,
but these differences may be decreasing with the increased emphasis on
professional standards of behaviour.
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The proliferation of NGOs and the increasing tendency of governmental
donors to channel humanitarian funds through NGOs have led to a greater
emphasis on standards and accountability within the NGO community.
Increased training, development of codes of conduct and the implementation
of peer review mechanisms are all leading to the development of a more
professional approach to humanitarian work.
However, the word ‘professionalism’ is a highly-charged one in some
quarters, particularly when it is associated with activities such as the ability
to craft elegant log-frames and funding proposals. In fact, the way it is often
used in humanitarian circles contains a clear Northern/Western bias. Rather,
professionalism should be seen as behaviour ‘worthy of the highest standards
of a profession,’ including the highest ethical standards. Walker emphasizes
that professionalism requires knowledge, values, and systems of learning
(Walker n.d.; Walker and Russ 2010).
It is important to recognize that the ‘knowledge’ component of professionalism consists of more than academic background, familiarity with financial
accounting, and familiarity with the multitude of existing guidelines and
standards. This is the kind of knowledge that is usually prioritized by
Western aid workers and yet such components as knowledge of a local
language, familiarity with the culture, and even pastoral skills, are often
the type of knowledge that is most appropriate in a given situation. It is
essential to exercise caution when invoking the term ‘professional’, since
this word may inappropriately be used to exclude those who are simply
working in different, rather than ‘unprofessional’ ways; this may particularly
be the case for those coming from a faith tradition. Indeed, there is at times
a tendency to view ‘professionalism’ and ‘faith-based’ as polar opposites.5
Just as it is inaccurate to assume that all secular workers are professional,
it is equally problematic to assume that faith-based humanitarians are automatically less so. Indeed, many of the issues that are now routinely seen as
central to humanitarian response, such as addressing psychosocial needs and
family unity, started as the specific concern of religious workers. Equally, for
secular workers, working with victims of atrocities can create unexpected
spiritual crises. Despair, anger and realization of one’s own mortality can
be coupled with questions about whether or not there is a god, whether
there is an afterlife, and how one can make sense of it all. These are
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often spiritual issues faced by secular and faith-based humanitarian professionals alike.6
In essence, faith-based and secular workers can be equally professional,
although faith-based humanitarians must perhaps make a concerted effort
to demonstrate their adherence to principles of impartiality. As such,
FBOs, at least those working as NGOs, are going to increasing lengths to
demonstrate their professionalism by developing policies on a range of issues,
by increasing training of staff, by participating in NGO coalitions, and by
signing on to codes of conduct and participating in peer review mechanisms.
Indeed, it is only fair to expect the very highest levels of professionalism from
people working in secular or faith-based organizations, whether they are
mega-organizations or family-run charities.
If faith-based organizations are distinct from their secular counterparts,
a further question arises regarding the extent to which they are able to
work in partnership with secular organizations. On the level of cooperation
between large faith-based NGOs and secular NGOs, UN agencies and other
international organizations, partnership thrives; indeed, staff of large NGOs
gather together frequently around the policy table, collaborate with each
other and with the UN in the field, and share information and strategies.
However, this itself is not the challenge. Rather, it is arguably easier for
Oxfam, Christian Aid and Islamic Relief to work together than it is for
most large international NGOs to work with their local counterparts. As
has been explored elsewhere, despite the benign undertones of the term
‘partnership’, there is too frequently an element of a ‘senior–junior’ relationship rather than one of equality (Ferris 2007). The United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has ‘implementing partners’—which
is invariably a better word than ‘subcontractors’—but the agency which
controls the funding is always more senior than the organization which
ultimately spends the funds. Within both the secular and faith-based
NGO worlds, there are certainly many disparities and inequalities in
partnerships.
Those faith-based organizations that are most comfortable in the international humanitarian world are often less comfortable talking with conservatives within their own religious traditions. It is in those encounters that the
real difficulties are faced: of working with others who have a different sense
of what professionalism means; of working with those who have little understanding of humanitarian principles, or those seized with an absolute belief
that their religious views are the only way to God; or others who behave in
ways that are inconsistent with humanitarian principles, such as linking
missionary activity with humanitarian assistance or political objectives. This
is uncomfortable for many faith-based humanitarian professionals who, like
most people, prefer talking with people who are similar to themselves rather
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Faith-based Humanitarianism: Partnership
Faith and Humanitarianism: It’s Complicated
621
than with those who have different values and approaches to the world. In
effect, the differences between faith-based organizations can be much greater
than between faith-based and secular organizations.
Concluding Remarks: the Need for Further Research
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Given the history and current scale of faith-based organizations’ involvement
with humanitarian relief, the paucity of serious academic research on these
organizations is lamentable. However, in recent years, there have been efforts
to address some specific aspects of the work of FBOs in research and training
institutions, such as the UK’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI)
and International NGO Training and Research Centre (INTRAC). The
University of Birmingham has recently completed a five-year research initiative, the Religions and Development Programme, to analyse the relationship
between religion and development which is resulting in a number of studies
which offer insights into the issue of faith and humanitarianism (RaD
2010, 2011). Edited volumes by Duriez et al. (2007) and Simkhada and
Warner (2006) examine the intersections between religious organizations
and humanitarian work, and there are a growing number of studies of
philanthropic action, although few of these explicitly address the role of
FBOs in humanitarian work (Ilchman et al. 1995). A welcome trend is the
growing number of academic works on Islamic charitable activities
(Alterman and von Hippel 2007; Kaag 2007; Kirman and Khan 2008).
At the same time, there is little serious academic research comparing the
actions of faith-based organizations in the humanitarian realm. For example,
over 20 years ago Bruce Nichols wrote The Uneasy Alliance, comparing the
politics and practices of Catholic, Protestant and Jewish agencies in the US in
terms of their relationship with the US government in the specific field of
refugee work (Nichols 1988). Although this focused on only a limited number
of faith-based organizations based in one country and working on one issue,
it provided valuable insights into the different ways that faith-based
organizations operated and the ways in which their religious beliefs informed
their activities. Since then, there have been very few serious academic studies
providing a comparative analysis of the work and orientation of faith-based
organizations.
Most of what is known about these organizations comes from the
organizations themselves, from journalists, or from general observers of the
humanitarian world who have not explored the particular orientations
of faith-based organizations. For example, one of the strongest studies of
NGOs, Humanitarian Alert, distinguishes between NGOs on the basis of
their relationship to governments, categorizing them as Wilsonian,
Dunantist or faith-based (Stoddard 2006). In other words, while non-faithbased NGOs are distinguished in terms of their orientation and activities,
faith-based NGOs are simply homogenized. And yet, as the articles in this
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Special Issue have demonstrated, the world of faith-based organizations is an
incredibly diverse one.
In fact, as noted in the introduction to this article, the term ‘faith-based
organization’ itself is problematic because it encompasses such a sweeping
range of organizations, from Buddhist monks in Myanmar distributing food
to victims of Cyclone Nargis to large international NGOs, to Jewish social
service agencies. Is the small charitable work organized out of a congregation
in the same class with CIDSE, the alliance of European Catholic humanitarian and development organizations? Or with the International Islamic Relief
Organization, which is almost exclusively funded by the Saudi Arabian
government? Or with Samaritan’s Purse whose website states that ‘our
ministry is all about Jesus: first, last and always’ (Samaritan’s Purse 2010).
As Benedetti argues, the distinction between secular and faith-based NGOs
is better understood as a continuum than a dichotomy (2006: 851). Further
research is needed on the faith-based organizations themselves, including
research on their development and history—research which is similar to
that which exists for secular NGOs such as Oxfam (Black 1992) and
BRAC (Smillie 2009). Such research is complex, given the need to review
extensive archives of grey literature, including reports from the organizations
themselves, internal memos, and NGO meeting summaries. Serious histories,
institutional ethnographies, and analyses of these organizations would
contribute to our understanding of the ways in which they operate and to
assessing both their contributions and their shortcomings.
Research is concurrently needed on the funds that are raised and
channelled through faith-based organizations, on the local, national and
international levels. It is striking how little consolidated data are available
on basic questions such as how much money is mobilized by Islamic or
Christian organizations—whether within a particular country or internationally. What was the contribution of Muslim organizations to helping victims
of the 2010 floods in Pakistan? Or of faith-based organizations to those of the
earthquake in Haiti in the same year? Those data simply do not exist, with
some exceptions from international NGOs. Research on the informal
faith-based channels is particularly necessary. Given the significance of research conducted over the past 10 or 20 years into the scale of remittances, an
awareness of the scale and variety of ways that funds are transferred within
faith-based organizations could equally transform the way we think about
motivations for, and nature and impacts of humanitarian assistance.
In particular, a better understanding of the resources mobilized at the local
level by grass-roots faith-based communities could lead to a new, and likely
more humble, assessment of the role of international funds in supporting
local communities.
An additional area requiring analysis pertains to the intersections between
the political context, the nature of civil society, and the particular roles of
faith-based organizations. Carole Rakodi (Rakodi 2010) and other researchers at Birmingham University have found that exploratory studies in Nigeria,
Faith and Humanitarianism: It’s Complicated
623
Pakistan, India and Tanzania show that NGO and FBO characteristics and
activities are ‘both varied and context-specific, influencing the extent to which
religious organizations can be seen as distinctive and generalizations about
them can be made.’ For example, in contexts such as Pakistan, charity or
philanthropy is closely associated with religion; there is a universal acceptance that faith entails an obligation to care for the poor. In other situations,
there may be a variety of religious or religious and secular perspectives on
responsibility for meeting social needs.
The organizers of the Refugee Studies Centre’s Conference on Faith-Based
Humanitarianism are to be commended for opening the door to research on
this important segment of the international humanitarian system, and for
highlighting the need for more nuanced and comparative research to enhance
our understanding of the multiple roles that such organizations play.
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1. The authors extrapolated this amount by applying the religious obligation to
donate at least 10 per cent of one’s assets to charity to the per capita income of
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2. In contrast, some evangelical agencies, such as World Relief, are reportedly
adopting personnel policies requiring all employees to affirm their belief in Jesus
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