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Bronkema, et al., Further Discussion on Tough Questions About Transformational Development 146 

 

Further Discussion on Tough Questions About 

Transformational Development  
 

Moderated by David Bronkema, with Contributions from Ravi 

Jayakaran, Philip Powell, Katie Toop, and Richard Slimbach. 
 

 

On June 27, 2023, the Accord Research Alliance Faculty Group organized a webinar to provide a 

space for discussion on Richard Slimbach’s article “Asking Tough Questions About Transformational 

Development,” published in this journal in the summer of 2023 (Slimbach 2023). The webinar was 

moderated by David Bronkema, co-editor of the journal, and started with remarks by three main 

discussants: Ravi Jayakaran (president of Medical Ambassadors International) who tackled Slimbach’s 

questions around faith and development; Philip Powell (co-director of the Justice Conference, UK, 

and also Theology and Network Engagement Manager with Tearfund, UK) who responded to 

questions involving faith and political economy; and Katie Toop (senior director of transformational 

development with World Concern), who addressed the questions of faith and field partnerships.  

These three responses, published separately in this issue of the journal along with Slimbach’s 

comments on them, were followed by a moderated discussion between the author and the three 

respondents, which is reproduced below in a lightly edited version. The specific and detailed questions 

posed by Richard Slimbach are found in the original article, and the full recording of the webinar can 

be found at https://vimeo.com/844345288/e970fe8826?share=copy. 

 

 

 
David Bronkema 

A question for Philip: It seems that one 

undercurrent in Rich’s article is that Christian 

development NGOs engaged in relief, development, 

and advocacy should in some way be wrestling with the 

degree to which they are complicit with capitalism, 

militarism, and also ecocide or environmental 

problems like climate change. So, Phillip, since you 

addressed the structural aspects in your response, what 

do you think the role of NGOs should be in tackling 

this issue of whether they are or are not complicit in 

this? Are they facilitating the perpetuation of these 

structures and systems Rich has mentioned?  To what 

degree should NGOs be self-reflective in terms of what 

Rich has argued?  

 

Philip Powell 
I guess the answer would be “yes” to your 

question. It is working out the details of if that self-

reflection happens, where do we go with it? What are 

your ways to measure that you're making some 

progress to do things differently? So, for example, if 

you say you care about the destruction of the planet 

and you want to do something about it, are you 

avoiding air travel? There are some small steps we can 

take. But the bigger question is about systems and it is 

hard to generalize about capitalism, because the more 

you study the phenomenon, you realize there is more 

than one kind of capitalism in the world. There are 

different ways in which capitalism is being done in 

China and the Scandinavian countries and the United 

States. Therefore, what I'm expecting of Christian 

NGOs is both to be self-consciously critical and 

reflective, but also to avoid thinking that we’ve solved 

the problem when we promote a Muhammad Yunus 

model of free enterprise in places like Bangladesh. 

Ultimately, gains at the community level are going to 

have to be worked out in relation to all the meta stuff 

that is going on. Inequality in the world has increased 

dramatically. Until we deal with such meta questions of 

structural injustice and how it eats into the small gains 

we make at the local level, I don't see how NGOs can 

simply say we are happy distributing clean water in 

plastic bottles when we have not dealt with the fact that 

the wells have been polluted in the first place.  

 

David Bronkema 
Katie, I wonder if you could respond to what 

Philip just said. You spoke today about partnerships at 

the local level. Obviously, there are dire needs there, 

https://crdajournal.org/index.php/crda/article/view/547
https://crdajournal.org/index.php/crda/article/view/547
https://vimeo.com/844345288/e970fe8826?share=copy


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

Bronkema, et al., Further Discussion on Tough Questions About Transformational Development 147 

survival needs, for relief, but also in development. Do 

you think there is time for NGOs to be self-consciously 

critical and reflective? Should time be made?  

 

Katie Toop 
This is indeed a great question. We were just 

engaging in conversation with our teams in Bangladesh 

and looking at our principles, and so many of the things 

that oppose our principles are time and time 

restrictions. We are so driven by the tyranny of the 

urgent. Should we be considering this? Absolutely. 

Will we? This is another question. I think we can look 

at the history of the work in development as an 

example, and if we take an entirely different topic and 

think about the importance of community ownership, 

well, we have known about that for decades. But has 

that shaped the way that we approach community 

engagement? Not in a lot of ways. In some places, yes. 

And in small pockets, yes. Is there time and space? 

There is the time and the space that we make for it. I 

should say that when we consider issues like climate 

impact, this is what communities themselves are crying 

out for. They are feeling the weight of this, and it what 

comes up all the time. We recently had an external 

evaluation and, again, this is what comes up from 

communities, saying “we don't know what to do about 

extreme climate issues and we don't have an answer. 

This is what we need.” If we can be genuinely 

responsive to that and recognize that we are called to 

serve those who are disproportionately feeling the 

effects of this, then yes, but we have to choose to make 

those shifts, and we have to choose to ask those 

potentially costly questions and be willing to change the 

way that we do things and ask ourselves if we are ready 

to do that.  

 

David Bronkema 
Ravi, what if communities are not identifying a gap 

that has to do with the political economy, with 

capitalism, or with militarism? How do we deal with 

that at the local level? Is it our responsibility to impose 

those kinds of issues, or are those issues already there 

and we are just not recognizing them?  

 

Ravi Jayakaran 
First of all, the issue is that in terms of the size of 

organizations, Christian organizations, even the mega 

organizations, do not have much influence in the global 

economy, and as Christian NGOs we still play a very, 

very diminished role in making global change. Second, 

though, what is important is to look for what and where 

the points of conflict are for the people that we work 

with and those who support us. Those specific conflicts 

for them are the relevant ones for our work. When an 

issue comes up, when a point of conflict comes up, it 

might be a purely local issue that needs addressing, but 

it might also be connected with something that calls for 

global change and for engagement in advocacy. That is 

when you look back to your supporters, and if 

advocacy in that area is going to cause them to feel 

conflicted or held back, then you need to reach a 

decision with them about whether it should be engaged 

or not. In other words, there are some situations where 

people talk about social justice, for example an issue of 

racial problems, that affects everyone.  The question is 

how much would your supporters want you to be 

engaged in addressing that? Because it would call for 

changes for them too.  

 

David Bronkema 
To close this rich conversation, any highlights and 

takeaways that jumped out at each of you? 

 

Ravi Jayakaran 
It has been a great dialogue-starter for us to more 

succinctly address the sort of frameworks we use. It 

also calls for more dialogue on these issues among 

those of us who are engaged in this work. I am glad that 

you brought out some of those important questions, 

Rich. We need to address them. For a long time, we 

have been engaged with simply doing what we are 

doing. Like I said, sometimes what we are doing is so 

small compared to the larger global needs. And no one 

is questioning us in terms of our framework and what 

we are advocating. It is important for us to start looking 

at that, address it, and dialogue on it. So thank you. 

 

Philip Powell 
I would like to mention a couple of things. In my 

own mind, I am trying to make a distinction between 

the four broken relationships—God, others, self, and 

nature—but also talk about broken systems and how to 

deal with those. A big question is how to maintain 

institutions that sustain justice over time. To Ravi’s 

point that you cannot bite the hand that feeds you, 

there are times when you have to choose to do 

something, but you need wisdom for that. Years ago, 

Tearfund decided to start talking publicly and with 

supporters about how climate change is affecting 

communities we are working with. Supporters wanted 

to know why, if we were there to help communities in 

poverty, why were we jumping on the green 

bandwagon. But now, twenty years later, we have 

earned a role of leadership in making some difficult 

choices. The last thing I want to say is that Christian 

and Jewish Christian development leaders can play a 

role in shifting norms. So even if diversity and inclusion 

at some point looks like window dressing, over the long 

term, there can be ways in which you see a substantive 

difference. I would also highly recommend a book that 

came out a couple of years ago called The 

Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

Bronkema, et al., Further Discussion on Tough Questions About Transformational Development 148 

the Religion of Modernity by Eugene McCarraher 

(2019). It is a long book, about 700 pages, but it helps 

one see the spiritual and enchantment dimensions of 

capitalism. I would love to talk about it more 

sometime.  

 

Katie Toop 
I love that there's a curiosity and openness to 

considering difficult questions. At the beginning of 

Rich’s article, there is a quote that talks about loving 

questions. I appreciate and agree with that, especially 

because we are often afraid of questions. Let us not be 

afraid of questions or of the dialogue. We also 

recognize in this dialogue that it takes courage to do 

something differently, to even talk about something 

differently. So choosing to move ahead in courage is 

important. Yet as much as we dialogue around our 

questions, we must also be careful not to love our 

questions so much that we fail to listen for answers. 

There will not be one-size-fits-all solutions. But we 

need to remember there is a Spirit who will guide us 

and a God who promises to give wisdom if we ask. As 

we ask questions of each other, we should also remain 

in a posture of humility before a God who has 

promised to give us wisdom.  

 

Richard Slimbach 
Following up on what Phillip mentioned, you can 

find a much shorter examination of political economy 

as a religious system in an early 2000 article by Harvey 

Cox, “The Market as God.” Very, very powerful. It 

shows how modern consumer capitalism provides an 

ultimate sense of meaning and purpose in people's 

lives, a path to fulfillment. It has its own rituals, 

sacraments, high priests, etc. A more forthright critique 

coming out of the relief and development community 

of this global system could help those on the ground. 

Local churches and their leaders interpret their context 

both locally and extend it outwardly, nationally and 

globally, in ways that might lend insight to their well-

being initiatives.  

 

References 
 

Cox, Harvey. 1999. “The Market as God.” Atlantic 

Monthly 283 (3): 18–23. 

McCarraher, Eugene. 2019. The Enchantments of 

Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion 

of Modernity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The 

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 

 

 


