Living in the Shadow of the Cross by Paul Kivel

Author:Paul Kivel [Kivel, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781550925418
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2013-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) and Faith-based Funding

Many of us think the age of widespread Christian missionary efforts is long past, but that is hardly the case. Nearly all US congregations are involved in some kind of international ministry that might include church planting ministries, Bible study programs, work with international non-governmental agencies, youth programs or the collection of money for such projects.32 They operate as US-based NGOs.

In 2001, US Protestant agency numbers indicated there were 42,787 US citizens working full-time as missionaries in other countries, as many as 350,000 others who had spent between two weeks and a year serving as short-term mission volunteers abroad and at least a million more who had served for less than two weeks. In that year, US churches contributed more than $3.7 billion for overseas ministries.33 Nearly ¾ of US church members said their congregation had supported a missionary working in another country during the past year, including a large majority of those in mainline Protestant and Catholic denominations.34 Enhancing these efforts are Christian publishing houses, television ministries, seminaries, relief workers, international broadcasting networks, movies, performers, US foreign aid and individual donations from 60 million churchgoers.35 Overseas Christian missionary activity is now a vast network of transdenominational36 parachurch organizations pushing the word of God through multiple forms of media.

In Bangladesh in 1991, in the aftermath of a devastating cyclone, thousands of people stormed the office of an NGO in Kutubdia in Chittagong to protest being asked to change their faith if they wanted to receive relief material. The NGO Bureau inquiry report issued in 1992 found that, in addition to monumental amounts of graft, corruption and influence peddling, 52 NGOs operating in the country were directly involved in converting people to one or another Christian sect. Some required Bible-reading for their staff, including Muslims. Many made conversion to Christianity compulsory for recipients of benefits such as food, housing, jobs or schooling.37

Christian NGOs often have tremendous clout with local governments throughout the world because of their money and political connections. Especially after national disasters, they can mobilize and shape international flows of aid—and their staff, equipment, transportation and distribution networks play a major role.

Even before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Christian groups had identified a broad belt of Asia and North Africa—called the 10/40 Window (between 10 and 40 degrees north latitude)—as the frontier zone for missionaries because that is where the majority of the world’s Muslims live. Therefore, it was not surprising that Christians showed up in yet another war zone to bundle bandages and Bibles for desperate war survivors.38 In September 2003, four months after US forces defeated Saddam Hussein, 350 church leaders assembled in Kirkuk, welcomed by Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani.39 The Kurds, with US support, have been trying to secede from Iraq in order to monopolize oil revenues from the Kirkuk oil fields. According to investigative reporter Mike Reynolds, Christian missionaries were:

brokering international business concessions and oil drilling contracts, funneling USAID money into their missions, setting up a chain

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