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Bloem, Review  15 

  

Review 

 

Being Light: Navigating the Blogosphere for Faith-Based 

Development Professionals 

 
by Jeffrey Bloem 

 
Consider lighthouses. They communicate 

knowledge to the public, preventing potentially deadly 

accidents while safely guiding travelers. They are easy 

to see from afar. Without lighthouses, ship captains 

would have to sail tentatively, constantly worrying about 

making a potentially deadly mistake.  

Blogs and podcasts are a bit like lighthouses. They 

communicate knowledge to the public. They are easy 

for many to access. Without blogs we would not have 

as much access to the knowledge we need to perform 

our work effectively. 

But what if there are too many lighthouses, or, 

more to the point, too many blogs and podcasts? Some 

might argue that they are now so numerous and varied 

that it has become difficult to identify quality sources 

that provide reliable and relevant information. This is 

why reason, learning from others, and triangulating 

information from multiple sources are so important. 

Lighthouses are not the only resource of value to ship 

captains. Maps, compasses, GPS systems, and reason 

are also of great value for sailing safely. In the world of 

relief, development, and advocacy work, we too can use 

reason and other tools, including blogs and podcasts, to 

access the knowledge we need. 

In this short review, I provide a brief overview of 

some of my favorite blogs and podcasts that I have 

engaged with over the last ten years. Some of these 

resources are relatively new and currently active, while 

others are less active but contain a treasure-trove of 

useful information. I hope you will find something 

helpful. The discussion is organized into three 

categories: (i) faith-based blogs, (ii) non-faith-based 

blogs, and (iii) podcasts. 

 

Best Faith-Based Blogs 

This first category focuses on blogs that write about 

development and humanitarian action from an 

explicitly faith-based perspective. This category is likely 

the most familiar to CRDA readers and members of the 

Accord Network. In fact, the two blogs featured here 

are both managed by members of the CRDA editorial 

board. There are other excellent and worthwhile 

blogs—such as those by Richard Stearns, Peter Greer, 

Ron Sider, or Shared Justice by the Center for Public 

Justice—but the two blogs below are more rigorous, 

active, and focused on relief, development, or 

advocacy. 

 
1) The Better Samaritan, by Kent Annan and 

Jamie Aten 

(https://www.christianitytoday.com/better-

samaritan/) 

Annan and Aten help run the Humanitarian 

Disaster Institute (HDI) at Wheaton College. 

Hosted by Christianity Today, their blog, The 
Better Samaritan, represents an accessible 

extension of their work with HDI. The blog 

features the ideas of both Annan and Aten, as well 

as those of frequent guests who specialize in 

Christian theology, missions, African studies, 

development, humanitarian assistance, refugee 

resettlement, philanthropy, and more.  

Two recent posts from The Better Samarian 

blog highlight this variety in content. In “What 

Standard Should We Use for Loving Our 

Neighbors in Crisis?” Annan and Aten argue that 

serving others in their most vulnerable moments is 

a holy and sacred task. Therefore, we had better be 

good at it.  In “5 Tips for Getting a Job in 

Humanitarian Aid,” guest contributor Sarah 

Wilcox provides job advice for folks who want to 

work in relief, development, and advocacy. Blogs 

are particularly helpful in providing space for 

individuals to write about their experiences finding 

meaningful and effective work in our field. Later 

on, I mention several other blogs that aim to 

provide career guidance. 

 

2) The Shrewd Samaritan, by Bruce Wydick 

(http://www.acrosstwoworlds.net/) 

Bruce Wydick is a development economist 

and professor at the University of San Francisco. 

His blog, Across Two Worlds, aims to bridge the 

perceived gap between academics and 

development practitioners. The core theme 

running through every one of Wydick’s posts is 

that each of these “worlds” can benefit from 

listening and engaging more with the other. 

https://www.christianitytoday.com/better-samaritan/
https://www.christianitytoday.com/better-samaritan/
http://www.acrosstwoworlds.net/


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

Bloem, Review  16 

  

This theme is displayed well in a post from 

2015 entitled “What Secular Academics Can 

Learn from the Faith-Based Development 

Community.” In this post, Wydick argues that 

secular academics should adopt the view that 

humans are multidimensional and complex social 

individuals. Particularly in a discipline like 

economics, secular academics too easily reduce 

humans to being simple, selfish, profit maximizing 

computers, which can lead to misguided policy 

recommendations. Wydick also pushes back in the 

other direction by highlighting that the faith-based 

development community would do well to adopt 

the commitment of secular academics to rigorous 

program evaluation and research in understanding 

what works best to serve the poor.  

Another excellent post in The Shrewd 
Samaritan is a set of reflections on 24 hours of 

being homeless in San Francisco, something 

Wydick did to get a flavor of what being homeless 

is like. The post reads like an hour-by-hour diary. 

Although Wydick is careful to point out that “being 

homeless” for only 24 hours is not really 

comparable to the true, day-in-day-out grind of 

being homeless, the experience led him to 

reflections about how global poverty compares and 

contrasts with poverty in the United States.  

 

Best Non-Faith-Based Blogs 
Christians can also learn from non-faith-based 

blogs. These blogs will likely be the familiar to CRDA 

readers and members of the Accord Network. Again, I 

highlight two excellent blogs, but some others worth 

your time include: Jeffrey Paller’s This Week in Africa 

newsletter (providing links on a weekly basis on all 

things related to Africa), Rachel Strohm’s blog (where 

Rachel aims to amplify African voices in research and 

policymaking), and Martin Ravallion’s blog (Ravallion 

writes from a career of experience measuring poverty 

and informing poverty-alleviation policy). 

 

1) Development Impact, by The World Bank 

(https://blogs.worldbank.org/impactevaluations)  

The World Bank’s Development Impact blog 

is a highly active and consistent resource for news, 

insights on new research, and discussions about 

research methodology curated by some of the most 

well-known development economists in the world, 

such as Berk Ozler, David McKenzie, Jed 

Friedman, Florence Kondylis, Kathleen Beegle, 

Marcus Goldstein, and Dave Evans. The blog also 

holds an extensive history of over 1,500 posts from 

the past ten years. A recent post summarizes the 

blog’s history and asks, “Did our blog posts age 

well?” 

A classic post is David McKenzie’s 2011 

discussion of the Millennium Villages Project. In 

this post McKenzie engages with an ongoing (at the 

time) debate among development professionals 

about the effectiveness of the Millennium Villages 

Project led by Jeffrey Sachs. A key theme in this 

specific post is an aim to tie public commentary 

together with academic research in an effort to 

break down barriers between development 

practitioners and researchers. 

 

2) Chris Blattman’s Blog 

(https://chrisblattman.com/)  

Between 2012 and 2016, Chris Blattman 

created one of the most active and widely read 

blogs in international development, economics, 

and policy. Currently, Blattman posts much less 

frequently and his blog has been largely taken over 

by Jeff Mosenkis on behalf of Innovations for 

Poverty Action, with a “weekly links” post that 

summarizes the past week of news in international 

development, economics, and policy. These 

weekly links are worth subscribing to, but the most 

valuable content is still Blattman’s archived blog 

posts.  

Blattman’s archived posts are a treasure-trove 

of excellent advice. For example, “Getting a job in 

international development,” and “What MA, 

MPA, or MIA program is for you?” and “How to 

get a PhD *and* save the world,” all helped me, 

along with so many others, to navigate the early part 

of our post-undergraduate career. In addition, I 

made his 2010 post on “How to write an essay” 

required reading in my international economics 

class this past semester.  

Blattman often writes about development 

policy, based on his own research. Some of my 

favorite posts include his 2017 post, “Do 

sweatshops lift workers out of poverty? This 

experiment might surprise you.” and his 2014 post 

“Cash transfers: The index fund of international 

development.” Blattman’s informal writing style 

may take some getting used to, but his commentary 

remains surprisingly useful today. 

 

Best Podcasts 

Podcasts are another medium that has grown 

substantially in recent years. There are many podcasts 

that are both well-known and worth listening to. For 

example, Kent Annan and Jamie Aten have their own 

podcast linked to The Better Samaritan blog. But I will 

once again highlight two podcasts that are relatively new 

and may be of particular interest to CRDA readers.  

 

 

https://blogs.worldbank.org/impactevaluations
https://chrisblattman.com/


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

Bloem, Review  17 

  

1) The Accord Research Alliance Podcast, by the 
Accord Network 

(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-

accord-research-alliance-podcast/id1292714350)  

Nathan Mallonee, Kristen Check, and 

Rodney Green from the Accord Research Alliance 

produce a podcast that features conversations with 

leaders working in Christian international relief, 

development, and advocacy. The podcast provides 

insights and opportunities for shared learning from 

within the Accord community. This podcast is 

really a must-follow for CRDA readers. 

These conversations not only provide 

interesting discussions of the work of specific 

individuals—such as Michael Woolcock, Mary Kay 

Gugerty, Jamie Aten, and Bruce Wydick—but they 

also provide introductions on topics such as the 

importance of a theory of change, measuring 

spiritual metrics, implementing randomized 

control trials, and partnerships between 

implementing organizations and universities. I am 

looking forward to seeing this podcast grow and 

develop in the future. For example, it may be an 

excellent outlet for authors of CRDA articles to 

discuss and share their findings in an alternative 

medium.  

 

2) Faithful Economy, by Steven McMullen 

(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/faithful-

economy/id1533993289)  

Steven McMullen is an Associate Professor of 

Economics at Hope College and the host of 

Faithful Economy, a podcast launched in late 2020 

and sponsored by the Association of Christian 

Economists. The podcast focuses on facilitating 

thoughtful conversations at the intersection of 

morality, theology, and economics. So far, the 

podcast has included conversations with many 

economists—such as Scott Cunningham from 

Baylor University, Bruce Wydick from the 

University of San Francisco, Denise Daniels from 

Wheaton College, Art Carden from Samford 

University, Rob Tatum from the University of 

North Carolina Ashville, Stephen Smith from 

Hope College, and Edd Noell from Westmont 

College. Economists are most commonly featured, 

but sprinkled into the field are philosophers and 

theologians, like Greg Forster from Trinity 

International University and Jordan Ballor from 

the Acton Institute. 

These conversations often take the form of 

long conversations that aim to dig deep into the 

granular aspects of the guest’s work. Each episode 

generally focuses on either the moral or spiritual 

implications of economics or the economic 

implications of moral thinking. These 

conversations may not directly relate to relief, 

development, or advocacy, but most apply 

indirectly.  

 

Be a Lighthouse 
The challenge in taking full advantage of blogs and 

podcasts is that almost anyone can write a blog or 

record a podcast. This is, perhaps, the biggest strength 

of blogs and podcasts, but also their biggest weakness. 

On the one hand, anyone can contribute, so blogs and 

podcasts can provide relatively unfiltered and honest 

discussions. Contributors do not need to convince an 

editor or an anonymous group of peer-reviewers to get 

their ideas and perspectives out. This is helpful because 

sometimes the information we consume in formal 

outlets has been vetted and edited so thoroughly that 

the true voice of the author hardly survives in the 

finished product. On the other hand, anyone can 

contribute, so blogs and podcasts can be misleading and 

unpolished. Contributors may not have discussed these 

ideas and perspectives with others. This can be harmful 

because the information may not be trustworthy or 

rigorous.  

Here is where we can all play a role. As consumers 

of blogs and podcasts, we can play an active role in 

shining a light on the resources that we find helpful, 

reliable, and relevant. This does not mean that we all 

should go out and start our own blog or podcast 

(although some should do that!). It does mean that we 

can all share useful blogs and podcasts within our 

sphere of influence. We can also provide feedback to 

authors and hosts, telling them what sort of topics we 

would like them to cover. This will help enhance the 

ability of blogs and podcasts we appreciate to shine a bit 

brighter in sharing knowledge with a wide audience. 
 

 

Jeffrey R. Bloem (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) 

currently works as a research economist with the US 

Department of Agriculture's Economic Research 

Service. Jeff also serves as the book review editor at 

Faith & Economics, a peer-reviewed economics 

journal published by the Association of Christian 

Economists. 

 

Author email:  bloem.jeff@gmail.com   
 

 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-accord-research-alliance-podcast/id1292714350
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-accord-research-alliance-podcast/id1292714350
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/faithful-economy/id1533993289
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/faithful-economy/id1533993289
mailto:bloem.jeff@gmail.com

