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Allaby, Protestant Christianity and Control of Corruption, Past and Present  83 
 

 

Protestant Christianity and Control of 

Corruption, Past and Present 
Martin Allaby 

 

 
This article is structured around five key statements about corruption: 

1. Corruption is a major obstacle to ending extreme poverty. 

2. The World Bank strategy for reducing corruption lacks focus on incentives and hazards. 

3. Protestant Christianity has motivated individuals to control corruption in the past. 

4. Protestant Christianity continues to motivate some individuals to control corruption in the 

present. 

5. There are, however, serious weaknesses in the wider Protestant response to corruption. 

 

The article concludes with a sixth point, that Christians have a major role to play in the fight against 

corruption, but they must address three areas if they are to realize their potential: adequate funding, 

reflection on their current status in relation to corruption in society, and good theology. Finally, 

interested readers are invited to connect with the Faith and Public Integrity Network 

(https://fpinetwork.wordpress.com/). 

 

 

 

Introduction 

 
Corruption is widely understood to play a causal 

role in the persistence of global poverty. The World 

Bank makes this argument, as do Christian scholars 

such as Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros (2014) and 

Roberto Laver (2018). True, corruption may not be 

poverty’s only cause, but the important role it plays 

requires us to fight it. After some introductory 

comments about how corruption and poverty are 

linked, this paper outlines the World Bank’s strategy 

for controlling corruption, but critiques the Bank for 

being slow to acknowledge the lack of incentives for 

rulers to control corruption, or the hazards faced by 

champions of reform. If the World Bank is not up to 

the task, from whence might help come? The paper 

points out that Protestant Christianity has played an 

important role in the past in limiting corruption and 

goes on to argue that at least some Protestant Christians 

are taking up the task of fighting against corruption 

today. Two such organizations are introduced, one 

from the Philippines and the other from Honduras. 

Unfortunately, we must acknowledge that Christian 

organizations today are not as engaged in fighting 

corruption as their secular counterparts. Why is that? 

The paper explores three reasons why Christians are 

not taking up the fight as they should, and concludes 

with a call to Christians everywhere to take the Bible 

seriously and to get involved. 

Corruption Is a Major Obstacle to Ending 

Extreme Poverty 
 

Let us begin with a look at the nature of corruption, 

and its powerfully negative impacts, especially on the 

poor. There is no universally agreed definition of 

corruption, but this one developed by Transparency 

International is widely used: “the abuse of entrusted 

power for private gain.” Transparency International 

classifies corruption as grand, petty, or political, 

depending on the amounts of money lost, and the 

sector where it occurs: 

 

Grand corruption consists of acts committed at a 

high level of government that distort policies or the 

central functioning of the state, enabling leaders to 

benefit at the expense of the public good.  

 

Petty corruption refers to everyday abuse of 

entrusted power by low- and mid-level public 

officials in their interactions with ordinary citizens, 

who often are trying to access basic goods or 

services in places like hospitals, schools, police 

departments and other agencies. 

 

Political corruption is a manipulation of policies, 

institutions and rules of procedure in the allocation 

of resources and financing by political decision 

makers, who abuse their position to sustain their 

https://fpinetwork.wordpress.com/


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 1(2),  Winter 2020  

 
Allaby, Protestant Christianity and Control of Corruption, Past and Present  84 
 

power, status and wealth (Transparency 

International 2019a). 

 

The discourse on corruption is located within the 

broader concept of governance, which has to do with 

the way decisions are made and implemented and with 

how citizens and other organizations are involved in that 

process. Control of corruption depends on good 

governance, in which the legislature, the executive and 

the judiciary – the three main institutions of the state - 

operate as they should. 

The World Bank considers corruption a major 

challenge to its twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 

2030 and boosting shared prosperity for the poorest 

forty percent of people in developing countries:  

 

Corruption has a disproportionate impact on the 

poor and most vulnerable, increasing costs and 

reducing access to services, including health, 

education and justice … Corruption erodes trust in 

government and undermines the social contract. 

This is cause for concern across the globe, but 

particularly in contexts of fragility and violence, as 

corruption fuels and perpetuates the inequalities 

and discontent that lead to fragility, violent 

extremism, and conflict. Corruption impedes 

investment, with consequent effects on growth and 

jobs. Countries capable of confronting corruption 

use their human and financial resources more 

efficiently, attract more investment, and grow more 

rapidly (World Bank 2018).  

 

Although corruption is often seen as a problem 

that mainly affects lower-income countries, there are no 

grounds for complacency in high-income countries. 

Using a scale where 100 represents perfect control of 

corruption, Transparency International’s Corruption 

Perception Index (CPI) score for the USA fell from a 

high point of 76 in 2015 to 69 in 2019. More 

fundamentally, some observers raise concerns about 

the influence of global finance on government policies, 

particularly in high-income countries (Monbiot 2015), 

but such issues require a discussion that is beyond the 

scope of this article. 

 

The World Bank Strategy for Reducing 

Corruption Lacks Focus on Incentives and 

Hazards 
 

The World Bank’s official engagement with 

corruption began in 1996 when James Wolfensohn, 

President of the Bank at the time, delivered a ground-

breaking speech in which he called on the world to take 

action against the “cancer of corruption” (Wolfensohn 

1996). Over the next few years Bank staff developed a 

strategy for reducing corruption that comprises reforms 

intended to achieve the following: 

 

• Capable, transparent, and accountable states. 

• Multi-stakeholder engagement with civil society, 

media, and communities. 

• A competitive and responsible private sector 

(World Bank 2007, 47-54). 

 

In its early assessments of progress with the 

strategy, the Bank was candid about the enormous 

difficulty of combating corruption: “global trends in 

governance and corruption indicate that, while some 

progress may have been made in strengthening state 

capacity and accountability worldwide, there is little 

evidence that this has had a significant aggregate impact 

on reducing corruption overall” (World Bank 2007, 

40). To tackle the more deep-rooted institutional and 

political problems that underpin grand corruption and 

political corruption, the strategy pinned great hopes on 

“the key role of country-level reformers in moving 

forward the governance reform agenda” (World Bank 

2007, 47). 

While it is certainly true that leadership by country-

level reformers can be very important, the Bank’s 

strategy pays little attention to factors that might 

generate or strengthen the motivation those reformers 

need. Several writers have noted the lack of incentives 

for rulers to control corruption, as well as the hazards 

faced by champions of reform. The economist Robert 

Neild observes that the institutions required to keep 

corruption in check are well known, but poses the 

question “What has sometimes given rulers the will and 

the ability to introduce these institutions which, in their 

very nature, constrain the degree to which they, the 

rulers, can pursue power and wealth?” (Nield 2002, 

201). In his assessment of the task faced by country-

level reformers in the most corrupt countries, the 

economist Paul Collier gives a stark account of the 

challenge they face (Collier 2007, 180, 192): 

 

Within the societies of the bottom billion there is 

an intense struggle between brave people who are 

trying to achieve change and powerful groups who 

oppose them. The politics of the bottom billion is 

not the bland and sedate process of the rich 

democracies but rather a dangerous contest 

between moral extremes… Although the reformers 

have truth on their side, truth is just another special 

interest, and not a particularly powerful one. The 

villains willing to lie in order to defeat change have 

an advantage over those constrained by honesty. 

Reformers do not have it easy. 

 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 1(2),  Winter 2020  

 
Allaby, Protestant Christianity and Control of Corruption, Past and Present  85 
 

To be fair to the Bank, some of their more recent 

statements have been more forthcoming about the 

dangers inherent in fighting corruption, and the moral 

nature of the task. For example, in his speech at a 2016 

Anti-Corruption Summit in London, Bank President 

Jim Yong Kim said: 

 

While information is becoming more accessible, it 

is troubling that the space for citizens and non-state 

organizations to voice their objections is often 

diminishing. The death of activists, such as Berta 

Caceres, Nelson Garcia and so many others in 

Honduras, has had a chilling effect on 

accountability. We must do all we can to protect 

the defenders of transparency … We will 

rededicate ourselves to fighting the cancer of 

corruption and move ahead with urgency to stop 

those who are stealing from the poor. This is both 

our moral duty and one of the best possible 

strategies for economic development (Kim 2016). 

 

Protestant Christianity Has Motivated 

Individuals to Control Corruption in the Past 
 

It is thus of great importance to discover what it is 

that motivates people to live with integrity in public 

office and to establish a civil society that protects against 

corruption. Historically, there is evidence that 

Christianity, particularly Protestant Christianity, has 

played an important role in controlling corruption. 

Consider the work by two contemporary social 

scientists, Francis Fukuyama and Robert Woodberry. 

Fukuyama provides a narrative account of the top-down 

reforming role of political leaders motived by their 

Christian faith. Woodberry uses the power of statistical 

analysis to show that Protestant missionaries have 

played a major role globally in improving control of 

corruption through strengthening civil society.  

Both these scholars emphasize the role of 

Protestants, rather than Roman Catholic or Orthodox 

Christians, and this emphasis is consistent with 

statistical evidence that, after adjusting for other factors, 

countries with a Protestant majority tend to do slightly 

better at controlling corruption (Treisman 2000).  

Proposed explanations for this finding range from the 

religious, in which Protestants are characterized as 

people who emphasize personal responsibility for 

avoiding sin, to the cultural, according to which 

Protestant societies are more likely to discover and 

punish abuses by government officials because dissent 

is the norm in the religious sphere. Attempts to find 

statistical support from international datasets for any of 

the proposed explanations have so far not proved 

successful (Ko & Moon 2014), but the fact remains that 

there is a small, but significant, relationship between 

Protestantism and control of corruption.  

 

Reform from the top down 

 

Fukuyama seeks to explain why the state performs 

better in Germany, Britain, and America than in 

Greece or Italy. Of the former countries, he writes: 

 

In each of these countries, individual leaders of 

reform movements were motivated by personal 

religiosity. They included the Great Elector and 

Frederick William 1 of Prussia, whose Calvinism 

induced them to import coreligionists from abroad 

and gave them a disciplinary vision of an austere 

and moral society led by an upright state … From 

well before the English Civil War, Puritanism was 

an important driver of reform in England, and it 

continued to shape the behavior of the new middle 

classes in the nineteenth century. This was true as 

well of the upper-crust Progressive Era reformers 

in late-nineteenth century America, who did not 

think merely that political bosses and patronage 

politics got in the way of making money. They were 

morally outraged that public offices were being 

perverted for private ends … Individual leaders like 

Gifford Pinchot were driven by a kind of Protestant 

religiosity that has largely disappeared from 

contemporary American public life (Fukuyama 

2014, 206).  

 

The Protestant King Frederick William 1 of 

Prussia (1688-1740) is remembered for transforming 

Prussia from a second-rate power into an efficient and 

prosperous state, through reforms that included 

dissolving his extravagant court, freeing all serfs and 

abolishing hereditary leases, encouraging industry and 

manufacture, and instituting compulsory primary 

education (Britannica Library 2019). 

Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946) was a conservationist 

and Chief Forester of the United States. He is 

remembered as part of a generational cohort that one 

historian has called “ministers of reform,” who 

eschewed the Protestant ministry but invoked 

Protestant values to push for social reform. His concern 

to use forests and rivers for “the greatest good for the 

greatest number for the longest time” thrust him into 

battles against monopolistic corporate abusers of the 

land and cast him as a crusader for the public good 

(Naylor 2005). 

The so-called Clapham Evangelicals exemplify the 

influence of Puritanism in nineteenth century England. 

The historian Herbert Schlossberg described their 

activities in these terms: 

 

Apart from the issue of slavery, their most 

consistent legislative activity was directed at 

economic and administrative issues. They were 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 1(2),  Winter 2020  

 
Allaby, Protestant Christianity and Control of Corruption, Past and Present  86 
 

invariably proponents of reforms that would make 

the government more honest and efficient, and 

they and their allies made significant contributions 

in reforming the navy, chancery law, the East India 

Company, and abuses such as bribery and 

purchase of governmental offices. They found 

offensive the corruption that was endemic in the 

government and had long been tolerated, and they 

did what they could to bring the problem to the 

forefront of debate (Schlossberg 2000, 253). 

 

These individuals and groups illustrate some of the 

diverse ways in which Christians occupying leadership 

positions within the state have been motivated by their 

faith to reform the state and control corruption. 

 

Reform from the bottom up 
 

The sociologist Robert Woodberry analyzed a 

large global dataset to generate evidence that the 

Christianity practiced by “conversionary Protestant” 

missionaries over the past 200 years fostered 

democracy, rule of law, and control of corruption 

through their efforts to enable people to read the Bible 

in their own language and to facilitate lay religious 

involvement: 

 

As conversionary Protestants tried to spread their 

faith, they catalyzed mass education, mass printing, 

and civil society—hampering elite attempts to 

monopolize these resources ... These resource 

transfers to non-elites helped alter the class 

structure, fostered the rise of political parties and 

nonviolent political movements, and facilitated 

broader political participation. 

 

Non-state-supported Protestant denominations 

historically suffered from discrimination and 

persecution by governments and state churches. 

Thus, they fought for religious liberty and against 

state interference in civil society. 

 

Finally, nonstate missionaries moderated colonial 

abuses, particularly when abuses undermined 

conversions and in British colonies (where 

conversionary Protestants had greater influence). 

To reach their religious goals, nonstate 

missionaries punished abusive colonial officials 

and counterbalanced white settlers … When 

missionaries were financially independent of the 

state, of slave owners, and of white settlers, 

missionaries undermined these elite co-religionists 

in ways that fostered democracy (Woodberry 

2012, 244). 

 

Woodberry tested these arguments using a wide 

array of statistical data and found that the most powerful 

predictor of a country’s mean democracy scores, and of 

indicators of rule of law and control of corruption, 

during the period 1950–94 was the number of 

Protestant missionaries per 10,000 population in 1923. 

He concluded that Max Weber was correct in his 

intuitions about the importance of religious beliefs and 

institutions: “What we consider modernity was not the 

inevitable result of economic development, 

urbanization, industrialization, secularization, or the 

Enlightenment, but a far more contingent process 

profoundly shaped by activist religion” (Woodberry 

2012, 270). 

 
 

Protestant Christianity is Motivating Some 

Individuals to Control Corruption in the 

Present 
 

Moving from the past to the present, this section 

briefly describes two examples of ways in which 

Protestant Christians are contributing to controlling 

corruption today: a top-down approach in the 

Philippines, pursued by the Fellowship of Christians in 

Government (FOCIG), and a bottom-up approach in 

Honduras, adopted by the Association for a More Just 

Society (AJS). These two organizations warrant 

attention because they have been established for a 

relatively long period, and because there is some 

evidence that they have made an impact on a national 

scale. 

 
A top-down approach in the Philippines 

 

Since 1989 FOCIG has been pursuing a Christian 

faith-based approach to countering corruption in the 

Philippines. Although they initially pursued a bottom-

up approach that involved public education and 

support for legal cases, in 2005 they shifted to a top-

down strategy, seeking reform from within the state 

itself. Recognizing the huge influence of the military in 

the Philippines, they began there. Their founder, Niels 

Riconalla, described their approach as follows: 

 

If you want to solve a lot of problems in this 

country, notably corruption, then we as Christians 

in the government should play a key role. We’re 

on the inside and we can do something about it. In 

2005 the Secretary of National Defense approved 

our proposal to conduct moral values training for 

the top brass of the Armed Forces of the 

Philippines. We have seen amazing results in the 

Army (Allaby 2013, 74-5). 

 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 1(2),  Winter 2020  

 
Allaby, Protestant Christianity and Control of Corruption, Past and Present  87 
 

Generals who have been influenced by conversion 

to Christ describe changes in their behavior that include 

refusing large kickbacks on high-value contracts for 

military hardware, and adopting a zero-tolerance 

approach to extra-judicial killings. Probably the most 

dramatic impact of this approach came during the 

Philippines Presidential election in 2010. The Army 

Chief at that time, General Bangit, had been converted 

from nominal Catholicism to active Christian faith in 

2005 through attending FOCIG moral values training 

seminars.  

In 2010, subversive political forces offered him the 

opportunity to lead a military junta, provided he would 

promise to lead a coup in the event of victory by the 

reform candidate Benigno Aquino. But General Bangit 

maintained that his duty as a Christian was to protect 

the Philippine constitution, so he refused the offer to 

lead a military junta. Instead, he facilitated a free and 

fair election by ordering the army to assist in the 

distribution of electronic voting machines, and Benigno 

Aquino was duly elected.  

Although the incoming president Aquino decided 

to replace General Bangit as Army Chief, his decision 

to support a free and fair election had a continuing 

impact. According to the Asian Development Bank 

(2016, 3), Aquino’s administration made the fight 

against corruption one of its major thrusts, pursuing 

major corruption cases and creating more trust in the 

functioning of the state. These efforts resulted in higher 

tax collection, increasing investment, and stable 

economic growth.  

It is difficult to measure changes in corruption over 

time, but Transparency International’s CPI score is a 

widely used measure of the perceived extent of 

corruption. During Aquino’s time as president, the 

Philippines CPI ranking among countries in the Asia 

Pacific region improved from 25th out of 33 in 2010, to 

11th out of 27 countries in 2014, before falling back to 

18th out of 30 countries by the end of his term in 2016 

(Transparency International 2019b). Such dramatic 

changes in any country’s CPI ranking are rarely seen 

over such a short period of time. 

Limitations of FOCIG’s approach to reform 

include the relatively high rate of turnover among the 

Philippine generals, who typically spend only a few 

years in the post before facing compulsory retirement 

at age 56, and the risk that a reform-minded president 

will be succeeded by one who lacks such goals. Since 

Rodrigo Duterte was elected president in 2016, the 

Philippines CPI ranking has fallen to 22nd out of 31 

countries in the Asia Pacific region (Transparency 

International 2019b). Turnover of senior personnel 

causes similar problems in other government agencies 

with which FOCIG has worked, such as the Philippine 

National Police, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and 

the Bureau of Customs.  

To help address this limitation, in 2019 FOCIG 

entered a partnership with Trident Integrity, a Malaysia-

based consultancy that helps governments develop 

comprehensive national integrity programs, which 

typically include the design and installation of software 

that makes it much easier to detect theft or fraud from 

public accounts. At the time of writing it is too early to 

say whether this combination of the personal approach 

(encouraging Christian leaders to apply their faith to the 

challenge of corruption) with technical innovation will 

succeed in institutionalizing better control of 

corruption, so that if reform-minded leaders are 

replaced by corrupt officials it will be harder for them 

to revert to corrupt practices. 

 
A bottom-up approach in Honduras 

 
Moving from a top-down to a bottom-up approach 

to controlling corruption, the Honduran organization 

AJS was founded in 1998 by a group of four Hondurans 

and a North American couple working in Honduras. 

Their mission statement is: ‘We strive to be brave 

Christians, dedicated to doing justice in Honduras and 

to inspiring others around the world to seek justice in 

their own contexts’ (Association for a More Just Society 

2019a). Their anti-corruption work encompasses land 

rights, investigative journalism, reform of education and 

public health services, a corruption hotline, and legal 

assistance. Their successful track record in these areas 

is evidenced by the decision of Transparency 

International (a non-religious organization) to designate 

AJS as its national chapter in Honduras.  

An important part of AJS strategy involves 

empowering local citizens to know their rights and to 

hold their local governments, including their schools, 

accountable. They train people in communities on their 

civil rights and the role they can play as monitors of 

educational practice in their local schools. These 

empowered citizens initially focused on monitoring the 

presence of teachers and principals in the schools. In 

recent years, however, in response to student weakness 

on standardized test scores, they have started training 

local teams of monitors to assess the quality of 

education (Hernandez et al. 2019, 26). AJS efforts in 

education reform have produced particularly 

impressive results: 

 

AJS helped discover how corruption was 

preventing Honduran children from getting the 

education they deserve. Although 200 days of class 

are required by law, children in Honduras met for 

school an average of only 125 days per year, 

significantly preventing their opportunities for 

learning. Additionally, 26% of teachers that were 

on the payroll weren’t in the classroom. Because of 

corruption and poor management, Honduras was 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 1(2),  Winter 2020  

 
Allaby, Protestant Christianity and Control of Corruption, Past and Present  88 
 

spending more per capita on education than any 

other Latin American country, but their test results 

were the lowest in Latin America.  

 

By making these reports public and working with 

the Ministry of Education, we helped open up an 

opportunity for education reform: days in class 

have increased to over 200 on average, and 

teachers missing from classrooms have dropped 

from 26% to 1%. We continue to push for a quality 

education so that Honduras’ children have 

opportunities for a bright future (Association for a 

More Just Society 2019b). 

 

Although the relationship between these reforms 

in the education sector and corruption as a whole needs 

further exploration, it is noteworthy that the education 

reforms coincided with a modest improvement in 

Honduras’ CPI ranking, from 25th out of 28 countries 

in the Americas in 2010, to 19th out of 26 countries in 

2015 (Transparency International 2019b). 

 

There are, however, Serious Weaknesses in 

the Wider Protestant Response to Corruption 

 
Despite the evidence that Protestant Christianity 

has helped to control corruption in the past, and is 

inspiring some Protestants to fight corruption today, 

Christian scholar Roberto Laver noted that, on the 

whole, corruption is receiving far more attention from 

secular organizations than religious ones (2010); and 

recent research suggests that Protestants today are not 

seen as particularly effective in opposing corruption 

(Allaby 2013). What might account for the lackluster 

contemporary Protestant response to corruption? 

This important question can usefully be explored 

from three different perspectives: The economic 

strength of Protestants; whether they form a majority or 

minority in society; and their guiding theology.   

 
Economic strength 

 

As noted above, taking a stand against corruption 

is often costly. Although almost everyone is better off 

when corruption is controlled, apart from a few elites 

who lose out financially, efforts to fight corruption are 

hindered by a “prime mover” problem: anyone who 

starts to fight against corruption is likely to face personal 

losses. So potential reformers may be more likely to act 

if they start out with sufficient economic strength to be 

able to accommodate such losses.  

That was the situation of all the top-down 

reformers described in this article and also, but less 

obviously, for the bottom-up “conversionary 

Protestant” missionaries described by Woodberry, and 

for AJS in Honduras. In the nineteenth- and early 

twentieth-centuries, Protestant missionary organizations 

dwarfed most commercial companies, and they were 

institutionally and financially independent of the state; 

this gave them an ability and willingness to challenge the 

state when it abused its power (Woodberry 2011). In a 

similar way, AJS receives substantial support from 

international donors, which gives them a strong 

economic base from which to campaign against 

corruption.  

This contrasts with the relative poverty of many 

Christians and churches in the Global South today. 

Indeed, Christian leaders report poverty and fear of 

poverty as among the most significant factors that lead 

Christians and churches to act in corrupt ways 

themselves (Allaby 2013, 182). 

 

Protestants as a majority or minority in society 
 

An important factor that can influence the ways in 

which Protestants interact with corruption is whether 

they constitute a majority or a minority in society. A 

century ago, the German Protestant theologian Ernst 

Troeltsch used the terms “church” and “sect” to 

describe these two different circumstances:  

 

The church is an institution which is able to receive 

the masses, and to adjust itself to the world, 

because, to a certain extent, it can afford to ignore 

the need for subjective holiness for the sake of the 

objective treasures of grace and of redemption. 

 

The sect is a voluntary society, composed of strict 

and definite Christian believers bound to each 

other by the fact that all have experienced “the new 

birth.” These “believers” live apart from the world, 

are limited to small groups, emphasize the law 

instead of grace, and in varying degrees within their 

own circle set up the Christian order. 

 

Whenever a particular Christian denomination or 

church forms the majority in society, they are at risk of 

accepting prevailing social norms that may be contrary 

to justice and integrity, despite the strong emphasis 

throughout the Bible on upholding justice and living 

with integrity (King 2018). My own research finds that 

Protestants in two countries where they represent a 

majority of the population (Kenya and Zambia) 

correspond to Troeltsch’s “church” type: they are seen 

as no less corrupt than anyone else, having lost their 

moral authority, particularly through being 

compromised through co-option by the state. The same 

research shows quite different findings for Protestants 

in two mainly Catholic countries (the Philippines and 

Peru). They correspond instead to Troeltsch’s “sect” 

type: although they have a reputation for honest 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 1(2),  Winter 2020  

 
Allaby, Protestant Christianity and Control of Corruption, Past and Present  89 
 

behavior, they are seen as too detached from society to 

have much impact on corruption (Allaby 2013, 189).  

Most of the Protestant reformers described in this 

article correspond to the “sect” type: the conversionary 

Protestant missionaries were “strict and definite 

Christian believers” who volunteered to join a 

missionary society. Additionally, the leaders of FOCIG 

and AJS are Protestants operating in Catholic countries, 

and as minority groups they can be characterized as 

“strict and definite Christian believers.” Where FOCIG 

and AJS differ from many “sect” types is that their 

theology encourages engagement with social problems, 

including the challenge of corruption.  

 

Theology 
 

That brings us to the third major influence on the 

relationship between Protestantism and control of 

corruption: theology. Although Martin Luther’s 

program of reformation gave birth to Protestantism and 

arguably contributed to modern democracy, his 

dualistic doctrine of the “two kingdoms,” in which the 

kingdom of God deals with that which is spiritual and 

inward, while the worldly kingdom has authority over 

that which is bodily and outward, has been associated 

with passivity in the face of abuses of power, including 

corruption (Phillips 2012, 62). The continuing 

widespread influence of this dualism was acknowledged 

in the final statement from the 2010 global meeting of 

the Lausanne Movement in Cape Town:  

 

The falsehood of a ‘sacred-secular divide’ has 

permeated the Church’s thinking and action. This 

divide tells us that religious activity belongs to God, 

whereas other activity does not … We name this 

secular-sacred divide as a major obstacle to the 

mobilization of all God’s people in the mission of 

God (Lausanne Movement 2010, 28). 

 

This framing of Christianity as a spiritual or 

otherworldly religion has continued despite official 

statements from several international Protestant bodies, 

from the 1970’s onwards, that have attempted to correct 

it. In 1974 the International Conference on World 

Evangelization (Lausanne Movement 1974) affirmed 

that 

 

(evangelism and socio-political) involvement are 

both part of our Christian duty. For both are 

necessary expressions of our doctrines of God and 

man, our love for our neighbor and our obedience 

to Jesus Christ. 

 

In 1983 the World Evangelical Fellowship made 

this declaration in their Wheaton ’83 Statement 

(Lausanne Movement 1983): 

 

Evil is not only in the human heart but also in social 

structures … The mission of the church includes 

both the proclamation of the Gospel and its 

demonstration. We must therefore evangelize, 

respond to immediate human needs, and press for 

social transformation. 

 

In 2001 the Micah Network produced a 

declaration that articulated a more integrated 

understanding of the relationship between evangelism 

and social involvement for evangelical Protestants: 

 

It is not simply that evangelism and social 

involvement are to be done alongside each other. 

Rather, in integral mission our proclamation has 

social consequences as we call people to love and 

repentance in all areas of life. And our social 

involvement has evangelistic consequences as we 

bear witness to the transforming grace of Jesus 

Christ. 

 

Although a growing number of Protestants have 

embraced this kind of theology, which sees God as 

concerned with matters of earthly justice, they remain a 

minority among Protestants in many countries, which 

constitutes a major obstacle to their constructive 

engagement in the fight against corruption. For 

example, one Filipino Protestant campaigner for social 

justice reported this frustrating experience: 

 

There’s only a minority of Christians in this 

country who would like to engage in good politics 

or good governance, who believe that part of their 

Christianity is a call to be involved in society. The 

belief that ‘politics is evil, Christians should not be 

involved in that, Christians should just pray about 

all this evil’ - that is a huge problem amongst 

Evangelicals in the country. Young people are 

being taught the theology of ‘You can grow as a 

Christian and not care about the world. God 

doesn’t care whether you’re helping the needy 

people around you; as long as you’re not hurting 

other people, as long as you’re doing Bible study 

and praying, that is alright’ ... You need a pastor 

who’s going to tell the congregation: ‘When you do 

not care about the poor around you and when you 

don’t care about society, you’re actually 

committing sin’. But no pastor would say that. It’s 

very difficult to break that theology (Allaby 2013, 

97).  

 

A second, and relatively novel, theological 

impediment to Protestants as they try to fight corruption 

is the so-called “prosperity gospel.” In this theology, 

selected “proof-texts” from the Bible are interpreted to 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 1(2),  Winter 2020  

 
Allaby, Protestant Christianity and Control of Corruption, Past and Present  90 
 

mean that God wills all believers to prosper in this life, 

and that he will bring this about by rewarding them 

financially in proportion to the amount they give away, 

particularly to the pastor (Asamoah-Gyadu 2004). This 

kind of theology not only distracts Christians from 

addressing the true causes of poverty, which include 

corruption, but also prevents the church being seen as 

a credible critic of corruption.  

Even when Christians adopt a theology that can 

potentially equip them to fight corruption, careful 

attention is needed to the way that theology is used in 

the formation of the attitudes and behavior of 

Christians. As Heather Marquette (2010, 31), Professor 

of Development Politics at the University of 

Birmingham, has written: 

 

There is little evidence to suggest that religion, in 

terms of religious content, impacts upon 

individuals’ attitudes towards public morality. 

Membership of a religious community that rejects 

behaviour seen as being ‘corrupt’ seems more 

likely to have an impact, but a lot depends upon 

the way in which members of the community are 

encouraged (or discouraged) to engage in 

principled reasoning. 

 

So, although the Bible can be a rich resource for 

fighting corruption, its potential can only be realized 

when Christian leaders and teachers derive sound 

theology from it, and use that theology to help 

Christians interpret and apply its teachings to the 

challenges of corruption in their own context. 

 

Christians Have a Major Role to Play in the 

Fight Against Corruption  

 
It follows from the analysis in the preceding 

sections that Protestants have a major role to play in the 

fight against corruption, but will only fulfil this God-

given mandate if certain conditions are fulfilled.  

First, individuals with economic resources need to 

take the lead as prime movers, recognizing that they are 

better placed than most to deal with the personal costs 

that reformers are likely to face. As Jesus said, “From 

everyone who has been given much, much will be 

demanded” (Luke 12:48). Christian donor 

organizations need to ask whether their funding 

allocations reflect the importance of controlling 

corruption for achieving development goals, and the 

God-given mandate of the Church to be salt and light in 

society. It is estimated that Protestants in Europe and 

North America donated more than US$120 billion to 

Christian causes in 2015 (Johnson, Zurlo and Hickman 

2015). Formal data are not available, but personal 

experience leads me to believe that only an extremely 

small proportion of that giving is focused on fighting 

corruption. Even a small increase in the proportion of 

those funds allocated to fighting corruption could make 

a big difference.  

Second, Protestants need to take stock of their 

status in relation to corruption in society. Do they 

match the “church” type, so that they are 

indistinguishable from others in terms of corruption? If 

so, no progress will be possible without serious 

reflection and internal reform. Or do they match the 

“sect” type and, if so, are they using their reputation for 

integrity to be salt and light in society? 

Finally, we need to strengthen and promote 

theologies that reflect God’s concern for justice in the 

here and now, as well as educate Protestants away from 

“dualism” and “prosperity theology.” Theology needs 

to be taught in ways that lead the faithful to apply the 

Bible’s teachings to the challenges of corruption in their 

own contexts.  

One initiative that seeks to promote all these things 

is the Faith and Public Integrity Network 

(https://fpinetwork.wordpress.com/). This network 

convenes regular webinars and a biennial global summit 

of Christian anti-corruption activists, and publishes 

country profiles, case profiles of Christian anti-

corruption initiatives, and other anti-corruption 

resources. It welcomes new members who are seeking 

to develop a Christian faith-based approach to fighting 

corruption. If reading this article inspires you to join 

forces with other Christians who are actively engaged in 

fighting corruption, please visit the website and 

introduce yourself. 

 

 

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Allaby, Protestant Christianity and Control of Corruption, Past and Present  92 
 

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/governance/brief/

anti-corruption  
 

 

 

 

Martin Allaby chairs the Steering Committee of the 

Faith and Public Integrity Network. A doctor and 

former missionary, he is now Consultant Advisor at 

the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence 

in England. He holds a PhD from the Oxford Centre 

for Mission Studies. 

  

Author email: mallaby@ocms.ac.uk  
 

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/governance/brief/anti-corruption
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/governance/brief/anti-corruption
mailto:mallaby@ocms.ac.uk

