Conflict in actions intended for the common good

Thomas J. Davis is Professor of Religious Studies and Professor of Philanthropic Studies at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). He is managing editor of Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, editor of John Calvin’s American Legacy, and author of the entry on philanthropy in the Encyclopedia of Religion in America.

Thomas J. Davis is Professor of Religious Studies and Professor of Philanthropic Studies at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). He is managing editor of Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, editor of John Calvin’s American Legacy, and author of the entry on philanthropy in the Encyclopedia of Religion in America.

Religion in Philanthropic Organizations

Family, Friend, Foe?

By Thomas J. Davis

Indiana University Press

Copyright © 2013 Indiana University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-00995-1

Contents

Acknowledgments,
Introduction / Thomas J. Davis,
1 New Wineskins or New Wine? The Evolution of Ecumenical Humanitarian Assistance / Elizabeth G. Ferris,
2 Religious Ambivalence in Jewish American Philanthropy / Shaul Kelner,
3 The Price of Success: The Impact of News on Religious Identity and Philanthropy / Diane Winston,
4 Heartbroken for God’s World: The Story of Bob Pierce, Founder of World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse / David P. King,
5 Catholic Charities, Religion, and Philanthropy / Fred Kammer, S.J.,
6 “Intelligent Leadership in the Cause of Racial Brotherhood”: Quakers, Social Science, and the American Friends Service Committee’s Interwar Racial Activism / Allan W. Austin,
7 Religious Philanthropies and Government Social Programs / Sheila S. Kennedy,
8 Juggling the Religious and the Secular: World Visions / Susan McDonic,
9 Philanthropic Decisions of American Jews: The Influence of Religious Identity on Charitable Choices / Arnold Dashefsky and Bernard Lazerwitz,
10 Myth vs. Reality: Muslim American Philanthropy since 9/11 / Shariq A. Siddiqui,
Contributors,
Index,

CHAPTER 1

New Wineskins or New Wine?

The Evolution of Ecumenical Humanitarian Assistance

Elizabeth G. Ferris

THIS IS THE story of the global ecumenical movement and the way it has structured its philanthropic action in response to the needs of the world—and the needs of its members. In particular, it is the story of six decades of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and its many related organizations as they have grappled with the question of Christian responsibility to the poor and needy, to refugees, and to victims of floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes. The focus of this essay is on ecumenical humanitarian response—a term that perhaps needs some unpacking. An “ecumenical response” is one in which churches work together in their humanitarian action and see themselves as part of the global movement toward Christian unity. “Humanitarian response” refers to those actions toward people in immediate need or for people who are victims of conflicts, natural disasters, or oppressive governments. In its ideal form, humanitarian work is shaped by the basic principles of humanity, independence, impartiality, and neutrality.

The essay looks at this story in three phases: the era of interchurch aid, 1948–1961; the time of solidarity with the world, 1961–1994; and the transition to new ecumenical instruments, 1994–present. Furthermore, it looks at these three periods through three lenses: the relationship between ecumenism and Christian service (diakonia), the power dynamics within the ecumenical movement over questions of assistance, and the relationship between diakonia and the professional secular world.

The model of interchurch aid as practiced in its first four decades strengthened ecumenism and the ecumenical movement. The decline of interchurch aid in the 1980s and its eventual demise by 2010 weakened ecumenical structures, although it was far from the only factor that contributed to this decline. In fact, developments in the secular world were most responsible for the demise of interchurch aid and global diakonia, particularly the increases in government funding, the needs of governments to channel their support through the nongovernmental sector, the proliferation of humanitarian actors (both faith-based and secular), and increasing professionalism within the humanitarian community. These trends are all related. More available funding for humanitarian work meant the emergence of more actors, which in turn raised concerns about the quality of aid being delivered, and ultimately led governments to demand higher standards of accountability. These global trends, coupled with a certain rigidity in ecumenical structures that limited the ability of the WCC to respond with more flexibility to these challenges, were responsible for the changes that took place over the course of the past two decades. This is a story of transformation, and while the jury is still out on whether the new ecumenical instrument, the ACT Alliance, will be able to overcome the pressures that destroyed interchurch aid, there are possibilities for a new instrument of ecumenical solidarity with those in need—possibilities that hold out the hope for new expressions of ecumenism itself and of a new relationship with the secular world.

A Word on Definitions

While the other essays in this volume may use the term philanthropy as “voluntary action for the public good,” this is not a term used in the ecumenical movement. Rather, in international ecumenical circles, the term of choice has been diakonia, meaning Christian service. This term is widely understood and used in Europe and other parts of the world, but North American ecumenical organizations often used the term service as a stand-in for the poorly understood concept of diakonia (although its expression in terms such as deacon remains widespread). There are many books, articles, consultations, and reports that provide theological reflections on the term diakonia. This essay, however, focuses not on the theological understanding of diakonia but on the way in which the churches have cooperated with each other in service to human need. The ecumenical movement “is committed to the search for visible unity, not as an end in itself but in order to give credible witness ‘so that the world may believe,’ to serve the healing of the human community and the wholeness of God’s entire creation.” In other words, ecumenism is based not only on a commitment to unity between churches as a theological imperative but also on the conviction that, by working together, Christians will be more effective in mission and in service.

Origins and the Era of Interchurch Aid, 1948–1961

The WCC was not the beginning of the global ecumenical movement. On different levels, individual Christians, missionary societies, and churches had developed ways of working together for decades through such instruments as the YMCA, YWCA, the Student Christian Movement, and ecumenical discussions around mission, faith, and order. A global mission conference in 1910 led to the formation of the International Missionary Council in 1921. The 1910 World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh is usually seen as the beginning of the modern ecumenical movement, as missionaries who had seen the negative effects of their competition in missions on Christian unity sought to develop ways of working together. Discussions about forming a global council of churches gathered steam in the years following World War I, and a provisional committee of the WCC was set up in 1942. Delayed by World War II, the WCC was formally established in 1948 as a fellowship of churches (not individual Christians, not ecumenical organizations, but churches). “The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

Even before the WCC was launched, however, the churches worked together in service to people in need. In 1944, organizers of the WCC created the Department of Reconstruction to help war-stricken Europe. This department set up or contacted councils of churches and their agencies which could offer help—first in the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden. Then, it asked the non-Catholic churches in war-affected countries to set up national committees to discuss their common needs (e.g., France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Germany). Funds were given by churches and their related organizations to churches and their related organizations, with the WCC playing the role of “matchmaker” between donors and recipients. Gradually, the Department of Reconstruction took on pieces of work in its own name through funds sent directly to WCC headquarters. By 1945, the department was united with the older European Central Bureau for Inter-Church Aid (set up in 1922) and renamed the Department of Reconstruction and Inter-Church Aid. By 1949, it had taken on the work of the Ecumenical Refugee Commission, which had been set up in 1946, and given yet another name: Department of Inter-Church Aid and Service to Refugees (DICASR). By the early 1950s, it had expanded its scale of response to include regions beyond Europe.

Names:

Department of Reconstruction, 1944–1945

Department of Reconstruction and Inter-Church Aid, 1945–1946

Department of Inter-Church Aid and Service to Refugees (DICASR), 1946–1960

Division of Inter-Church Aid, Refugee and World Service (DICARWS), 1960–1971

Commission on Inter-Church Aid, Refugee and World Service (CICARWS), 1971–1992

Unit IV: Sharing and Service, 1992–1998

Regional Relations and Ecumenical Sharing, 1998–2002

Diakonia and Solidarity, 2002–2006

Ecumenical Solidarity and Regional Relations (a project within the Justice, Diakonia and Responsibility for Creation Unit), 2006–

“From its inception, the World Council of Churches has considered diakonia as an inseparable component of the ecumenical vision, together with worship, fellowship, and witness to the world.” This is a bold statement and one that was largely true for the first four decades of the council’s existence. The first general secretary of the WCC, Dr. Willem A. Visser’t Hooft, made his acceptance of the position conditional upon the readiness of the council to become active in the field of mutual aid, “for there could be no healthy ecumenical fellowship without practical solidarity.” In the years immediately following World War II, the emphasis of ecumenical diakonia was on the reconstruction of Europe and especially on rebuilding and supporting the churches. Interchurch aid was intended to restore church buildings, to replenish human capital, and to support reconciliation between churches. The stories of interchurch relationships in the years immediately following the war are wonderful expressions of repentance, reconciliation, and commitment to maintaining ties between churches in countries that had fought a long, bitter, violent war. As initially formulated, interchurch aid was intended to support churches rather than to provide assistance to all those in need. This concrete expression of solidarity between churches supported ecumenism. Churches that received support through the ecumenical family saw that ecumenism had a practical—as well as a theological—dimension. Churches that supported reconstruction of European churches learned that they could do more by working together than they could do on their own.

In fact, it is hard to imagine what the ecumenical movement would have looked like without interchurch aid. Churches in Germany and elsewhere were desperate for support to rebuild. If they had not received international support, would they have been as committed to ecumenism, or would they have been more inward-looking and isolated? If they had received that support solely through individual denominational channels, would they have been as committed to ecumenism? Certainly, the commitment of the early WCC leaders and some of the major North American and European church leaders in reengaging with German churches was key to German reconciliation, the ecumenical movement, and broader political developments, such as the movement for European unity.

While interchurch aid was the rationale for the development of emergency relief programs, it did not take long for interchurch aid to extend beyond the churches. The churches and their communities were overwhelmed with refugees. Millions of people were displaced by World War II and subsequent Soviet consolidation of control of Eastern Europe. A particularly important component of the WCC’s work was its support for church engagement with refugees and its direct service to refugees. Refugee work was inherently international; refugees fled one country for another, and cooperation between churches enabled those churches to help find solutions for the displaced. Even during the Second World War, churches were actively cooperating to assist Jewish and other refugees to escape Nazi persecution. After the war, it was natural for these churches to work to resettle refugees from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe on a large scale. Indeed, by 1959, the WCC’s Refugee Service had resettled 209,000 refugees. In 1960, the WCC had five hundred field staff working in thirty countries around the world on refugee issues. The WCC’s Refugee Service was one of the first international organizations to work with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) when it was created in 1950. Like both interchurch aid and UNHCR, what began as a focus on finding solutions for Europe’s refugees soon acquired a global character in response to widespread displacement resulting from struggles against colonial rule.

In the ten years or so after World War II, interchurch aid expanded beyond support for churches themselves to support for the churches’ programs to serve their communities. In the broader secular world, this was an era of hope for new multilateral institutions, particularly the United Nations (UN), where the churches had played a central role in drafting the UN Charter and later the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This was a time when governments and citizens around the world hoped that multilateral instruments would overcome national interests and their resulting conflicts. In this context, the WCC was the multilateral instrument of its member churches, and it represented the hope that this instrument would be successful in overcoming the petty disagreements between churches in the quest for Christian unity.

This was also a time when the Protestant churches were powerful actors in North American and European societies. Particularly in North America, most political and economic leaders were members of mainline churches. Moreover, the churches were in a privileged position vis-à-vis the secular world. The UN’s relief apparatus was just being set up, and most of the humanitarian relief agencies were either in the process of formation or were themselves dealing with the effects of the war on their own operations. Thus, 80 percent of the relief channeled through U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the immediate postwar period was sent through Church World Service (CWS), an early ecumenical service effort by U.S. churches later incorporated, for a time, into the National Council of Churches. There simply was not much competition; the churches were way ahead of their secular counterparts in the scale of their organization, the strength of their institutions, and their commitment to international service.

As reconstruction work wound down in Europe, interchurch aid came to mean support for churches in their diaconal work in their communities. In addition to expressions of solidarity, expressed through letters, statements, and pastoral visits, supporting diaconal work also included financial support. The WCC, like many of its secular counterparts in the development world, structured this work as discrete projects. In 1956, the WCC published its first “project list”—a compilation of project proposals and budgets from churches around the world. Screened and recommended for funding by national councils of churches in the global South, the projects were listed and circulated to churches and their agencies in the global North for funding. Funders could pick and choose which projects to support—a system that suited the funders well, but one that some recipient churches did not like, particularly those that were not chosen by the donors. Less popular projects, such as support for theological education, tended to receive less funding than others, such as direct assistance to refugees. Beginning in 1971, the WCC came up with the idea of including “priority projects” along with the comprehensive listing of thousands of projects that were guaranteed funding from undesignated ecumenical funds. But the project system itself became increasingly controversial, as it was slow and bureaucratic, and the large church-related agencies increasingly bypassed the system. Over time, the project system came to represent less and less of the global transfer of ecumenical funds.

A somewhat different system for emergencies and humanitarian response developed in recognition of the fact that there simply was not time to wait for project proposals to be written. Rather, when an emergency occurred—for example, a typhoon or a war—the WCC emergencies desk would contact the churches in the affected area and issue an appeal, which churches around the world would then support. The WCC would monitor the expenditure of funds and, by working multilaterally, would prevent duplication of effort and ensure that small churches as well as large ones were supported.

Interestingly, by the mid-1950s, DICARWS had been “given permission to raise its own budget annually and therefore [was] not dependent on WCC’s general budget.” At that time, the “service budget” was $1.1 million, of which $525,000 was for the refugee service, which in turn was used to mobilize an additional $2.5 million from other sources, mainly UNHCR, for its work with refugees.

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