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Hoksbergen, Book Review  21 

  

Book Review 

 

International Development and Local Faith Actors: 

Ideological and Cultural Encounters 
Edited by Kathryn Kraft and Olivia J. Wilkinson 

 
Reviewed by Roland Hoksbergen 

 
 

 
 

New York: Routledge, 2020, $39.16 (ebook) 

 

Some years ago, I encountered Christian 

philosopher Charles Taylor’s idea that one key quality 

that differentiates human beings from other animals is 

that we are self-interpreting. That made sense as I took 

notice how often everyday conversations revolve 

around explaining and understanding who we are, what 

we do, how we should live, and why. Those thoughts 

came back to me as I read this useful book, because in 

its consideration of faith-based development 

organizations (FBOs), it strives to understand and 

interpret who FBOs are, how they work, and especially, 

how FBOs from the Global North relate to local faith-

based organizations among the poor and marginalized 

in the Global South. 

As the editors point out, the global development 

establishment is largely dominated by a secular 

paradigm, which exercises a good deal of influence on 

people of faith engaged in development work. In this 

context, people of faith often accede to the secular 

paradigm and essentially ignore their faith as they 

emulate the work of the secular professionals in such 

areas as health, education, food security, and economic 

empowerment. For people who take their faith 

seriously, however, this resolution is hardly acceptable. 

If our faith is to be relevant to our work, then we must 

1) learn how to integrate our faith into our work, and 2) 

do that in a world in which faith has many expressions, 

none more objectively legitimate than the other.  

It is this second challenge that the editors and 

contributors to this volume especially take on as they 

work toward understanding and improving the 

encounters among international faith-based 

organizations of the Global North and the local faith 

actors (LFAs) and local faith communities (LFCs) of the 

Global South. To help us define and improve these 

relationships, the editors have assembled an 

experienced and thoughtful group of academics and 

practitioners to tell and/or evaluate stories of 

encounters between organizations in the North and 

those in the South. In the end, the sixteen contributions 

lay out the challenges and explain how those 

relationships succeed or fail to live up to the best 

descriptions of what North-South relationships should 

be.  

The question of how to structure relationships in 

the context of faith diversity is especially acute because 

of all the ways in which those relationships are fraught 

with the post-colonial power dynamics that tilt toward 

northern domination. It is indeed hard to disentangle 

issues of faith from differences and divisions that have 

roots in geography, culture, education, wealth, and 

power, many of which result from and still manifest the 

world’s history of Northern colonial and post-colonial 

domination. Yet if we are to form cooperative and 

respectful bonds of trust, solidarity, and community 

with our global neighbors, we must learn how to work 

together. The stories in this volume provide a welcome 

effort and many illuminating experiential lessons.  

Unfortunately, there is little doubt about the 

tendency of those from the North to dominate, one 

recent example being how the development of the 

Sustainable Development Goals was supposed to be 

inclusive, but failed badly in achieving that (Ch. 12 by 

Tomalin and Haustein). Sometimes it is more subtle, as 

when in the face of “female genital mutilation/cutting” 

(FGM/C) Northerners too easily accept such terms as 

“Harmful Traditional Practices” or “Harmful Cultural 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 3(1),  Summer 2021 

Hoksbergen, Book Review  22 

  

Practices” (HTPs or HCPs), both of which firmly plant 

Northerners on the moral high ground without 

acknowledging the HTPs in our own cultures. Le Roux 

and Bartelink suggest that beauty pageants and 

pornography are among the HCPs of the Global North 

(Ch. 15). The heart of the issue seems to be how those 

from Northern FBOs, with the money, technical know-

how, networking capital, and educational mastery 

engage LFAs as peers and partners. The various 

authors thoughtfully engage this problem, but its depth 

is on display when the realization hits that all the 

assembled wisdom in this volume comes from people 

that Robert Chambers would call “uppers.” Less a 

criticism of the book than an acknowledgement of what 

seem to be inevitable realities, this simply points to how 

hard it is to level the playing field. 

By now we can acknowledge that most Northern 

development professionals, including those from 

FBOs, have learned how important it is to listen, 

respect, walk alongside, and partner. To use one of 

today’s common colloquialisms, “we get it.” But still, 

this is all so much easier said than done, because at the 

end of the day, we still want to move beyond hunger, 

disease, conflict, child and maternal mortality, 

environmental destruction, gender-based violence, and 

other maladies that afflict our neighbors around the 

world. Perhaps the main existential temptation in this 

climate is for Northerners to treat their Southern 

neighbors as instruments that can help achieve these 

good objectives. The strong temptation is for FBOs and 

other Northern organizations to work with LFAs 

precisely because LFAs have the local knowledge and 

local trust that allows them to achieve results. Northern 

organizations (including FBOs) don’t necessarily want 

to hear what LFAs have to say. In such a world, 

however, partnerships are mostly for show and 

continue to embody structures of domination. They are 

not what some call “authentic,” meaning that all voices 

are not only heard, but also accorded equal weight. 

Instrumental relationships must thus be transformed, 

and contributors to this book are united in their desire 

to find pathways toward authentic working relationships 

that respectfully include LFAs even as they achieve 

significant gains in traditional arenas of development.  

Many of the contributions revolve around a World 

Vision framework for including all voices, especially 

those with a faith orientation, and especially when the 

groups working in a certain region or on a particular 

issue are of different faiths. The framework is called 

“Channels of Hope.” The book opens with a story of 

how World Vision and Islamic Relief cooperated in 

Lebanon to use the Channels of Hope methodology 

and then cooperated further to train others in the use 

of the methodology as the practice of working across 

faith difference spreads. Participants are typically faith 

leaders and their wives from all relevant faiths in the 

local area. As Eyber and Jailobaeva explain in chapter 

14, wives of local faith leaders are influential leaders in 

their own right, and their voices make a big difference 

through informal channels. The workshop of several 

days creates a safe space where participants share their 

values, their beliefs, and the scriptures that inspire 

them, and then work toward a common understanding 

of the issues in their community that they can work on 

together.  

The support this book expresses for the Channels 

of Hope strategy is based on allowing local participants 

to build programs that address issues of local concern, 

even when those are delicate and potentially 

controversial, like FGM/C, gender equality, or 

HIV/AIDS. Such locally built and/or influenced 

programs have more staying power than programs 

brought in from the outside, almost certainly because 

local people imagine and build them in the context of 

their own cultures and belief systems. Ownership and 

investment lead both to significant achievements and to 

long-term sustainability.  

In most of the stories, faith differences from North 

to South are contained under the umbrella tradition of 

Christianity, which anyone in the Christian community 

knows does not equal agreement on faith-based views 

and values, thus making Channels of Hope types of 

programs important even within the same overall faith 

tradition. Other religions are also represented, but less 

so. There is one chapter each dedicated to 

communities of Bahá’í and Muslim faiths, and three 

chapters that focus on work in communities where 

Christian and Muslim communities are both strong.  

In spite of the many authors, there is a welcome 

continuity to the writing style and quality. The 

contributors are experienced, knowledgeable, and 

sensitive to the significant challenges of being faithful to 

their own deepest values and beliefs while also being 

respectful of those of others.  

I have two quibbles with the book. One is that 

World Vision’s Channels of Hope program is never 

explained or presented in detail, though aspects of the 

program are brought up throughout. For those who 

would like a thorough description, you can find that 

here. The other is that the book, like others in the 

Routledge series on religion and development, is 

expensive, though options are available online for both 

short-term rental and electronic versions. I fear the cost 

will be a significant barrier to wide readership. 

Overall, the book is a helpful guide to faith-

oriented practitioners who want to work constructively 

in diverse faith contexts. The stories are mostly 

empirically based, from a diverse range of global 

regions, a variety of organizations, and an array of 

issues. There is an early chapter on WASH as well as 

chapters on gender-based topics, child health and 

protection, peacebuilding, general community 

https://www.wvi.org/sites/default/files/Channels_of_Hope_project_model.pdf


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 3(1),  Summer 2021 

Hoksbergen, Book Review  23 

  

mobilization, and more. Something for everyone in 

search of an experiential guide to defining, 

understanding, and improving our development-

oriented relationships in a multi-faith world. 

 

 
 

 

Roland Hoksbergen taught in and directed Calvin 

University’s Global Development Studies program 

for many years. Having retired in 2017, he now 

serves as chief editor of this journal, CRDA.  

 
Author email:  hoksro@calvin.edu 
 

 


