5. MARCO CONCEPTUAL
5.2. Defensa Nacional, Seguridad Nacional, Asuntos Externos e Internos
Source: World Vision 2004 annual report196
195 David Kupp, ‗Urban Issues: Discussion Papers‘,http://www.transformational-
development.org/Ministry/TransDev2.nsf/webmaindocs/094A3B847DCC22F4852570A4005626B6?OpenDocume nt (accessed June 29, 2011). These figures are derived by adding up costings from 669 of WV‘s projects in 2004 which were identified as urban in general and ‗slums‘ specifically in ‗So, Where Are Those Urban Programmes?‘ Discussion Paper #4 Transformational Development News 2005 Jul 22; Vol. 3(3): 6-7. These figures were published in WV‘s 2004 budget, in World Vision International, ‗2004 Annual Review‘,
http://www.wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf/webmaindocs/1C72CA5128025B288825737C00756949?OpenDocument (accessed January 8, 2010). For the full Excel sheet and notes about urban projects, see Kupp, ‗So, Where Are Those Urban Programmes?‘
That WV, the world‘s largest Christian development agency, would spend such a small percentage of its funds on urban projects generally and in urban slums specifically is significant, not least because WV has a history of engaging with urban development issues. People like Rob Linthicum and Ken Luscombe, when with WV‘s Urban Advance, published some important work in the 1980s and 1990s; this was influential for contemporary understandings of urban development.197 Yet, WV has had trouble translating this into practice on the field. One WV task force report concluded that: ‗Perhaps 15-18% of WV‘s programming is located in urban settings, but for the past ten years the WV Partnership has had no urban strategy. The last approved WVI Board urban policy and strategy was twenty years ago.‘198
Though Part B contains a fuller discussion of the reasons urban community development is so difficult, let it be noted here that the methodologies which have been successful in rural settings, like child sponsorship, have been less effective in urban slums. The same WV task force, for example, found the following: ‗Initial research shows us that child sponsorship is not incompatible with the range of urban project settings, but further research is required to more accurately establish the risks, opportunities and costs.‘199 Building up child-centred and community-based institutions and keeping track of children accessing these services are extremely difficult tasks in the fragile squatter lands that slum neighbourhoods occupy.200 This is especially the case in comparison to rural village settings, where WV strategies have often been implemented with minimal expenditure and maximum effectiveness.201
What is true of WV is also true of other INGOs. A survey of fourteen other major
197
See, Tetsunao Yamori, Bryant Myers and Kenneth Luscombe, eds., Serving with the Urban Poor (Monrovia: MARC, 1998). For a fuller treatment of Urban Advance and WV‘s struggles with urban development see David Kupp, ‗World Vision‘s Urban History and Theology‘, http://www.transformational-
development.org/Ministry/TransDev2.nsf/A6748A23BB21C3F08825725700707E73/$file/Urban%20R&D%20Re port%20-%20Chapter%206%20(Draft)%20-%20Jan%209,%202007.pdf (accessed January 10, 2011).
198 The Urban Working Group, ‗The Keys to the City: Finding New Doorways to Urban Transformation—A
Report and Recommendations‘, (Draft: 2007), http://www.transformational-
development.org/Ministry/TransDev2.nsf/A6748A23BB21C3F08825725700707E73/$file/Urban%20R&D%20Re port%20-%20Summary%20(Draft)%20-%20Jan%209,%202007.pdf (accessed January 8, 2010).
199 The Urban Working Group, ‗The Keys to the City‘.
200 One World Vision survey comparing sponsored children in urban and rural areas found that over four years the
percentage child drop-out rates were significantly higher in urban areas each year in each region: David Kupp, ‗Urban Child Sponsorship and Fundraising‘, 5, http://www.transformational-
development.org/Ministry/TransDev2.nsf/A6748A23BB21C3F08825725700707E73/$file/Urban%20R&D%20Re port%20-%20Chapter%209%20(Draft)%20-%20Jan%2010,%202007.pdf (accessed January 11, 2011).
201
See, for example, World Vision‘s work in rural Peru with children: World Vision, ‗Putting Children First in the Highlands of Peru‘,
http://www.worldvision.com.au/Issues/Transforming_Lives___Child_Sponsorship/WhatIsOurResponse/Putting_ch ildren_first_in_the_highlands_of_Pe.aspx (accessed December 22, 2010).
INGOs by WV‘s David Kupp found that only one had a majority focus on slums. He summarized his findings thus:
INGOs have a clear history of rural activity and, many would argue, a bias against working in urban settings... on the whole, INGOs are primarily rural organizations playing catch-up in the face of rapid urbanization.202
It is difficult to empirically back the claim of a governmental or NGO bias against working in urban settings, because there is a serious problem in identifying and tracking the balance of development work in slums. This is despite the inclusion of slums in the much publicised Millennium Development Goals. For example, the only clear public record of what part of AusAID‘s budget could have focused on slums is in the area of ‗urban development and management‘. In the 2008-09 figures this item was worth A$999,000 (0.02%) in a total budget of A$3.8 billion. There could well be other areas that include slum projects, but this is not clear. In fact, even the ‗urban development and management budget‘ may not have been focused specifically on urban slums.203 A similar lack of clarity is found in Tear Australia‘s records: they could identify 15% of their funded programs as ‗urban work‘ in the Two-thirds World, but not all of these programs were necessarily focused on slums.204 This lack of tracking makes it difficult to say with any authority what is happening, but it does seem clear that slums are not understood as a specialized area of development with unique needs. The indications are, however, that slum projects are not funded well in comparison to rural projects by government and NGO development agencies. As far as Christian NGOs are concerned, this is part of an overall trend reflecting Christian priorities in resourcing, especially for those who live in the 10/40 Window. With few Christians to draw on in the majority of slums, Christian mission and development agencies have trouble finding traction.
David Barrett has also called attention to distortions in Christian resourcing. What he
202 David Kupp, ‗Playing ―Catch Up‖ with the City: How are other international agencies responding to urban
poverty?‘, World Vision International, http://www.transformational-
development.org/Ministry/TransDev2.nsf/094A3B847DCC22F4852570A4005626B6/$file/Urban%20Issues%207 %20-%20Playing%20Catch-Up%20With%20the%20City.pdf (accessed January 8, 2011).
203 Australian Government, ‗Statistical Summary 2008–2009: Australia‘s International Aid Program‘,
http://www.ausaid.gov.au/publications/green-book/AusAID%20Statistical%20Summary%202008-09.pdf (accessed January 21, 2011).
204 Jenny Beechey (TEAR Australia Project Accountability Officer), January 21, 2011, personal email message to
calls ‗World A‘ (unevangelized) and ‗World B‘ (only partly evangelized)205 are the regions in which the majority of slums are found. Barrett found that in 2010 World A received only 0.5% of US dollars given to Christian missions;206 ‗World B‘ received only 5%.207 Even this small percentage of funds is not necessarily directed toward ministry in urban slums; we can ascertain only that it goes to those areas in general. Contrast those figures with the US$1.6 billion spent on short-term mission trips by Americans in 2006.208 Further, in 2010 ‗World C‘ (the Western Christian world) received 94.5% of money given to Christian mission.209 Though we can‘t access specific details, it is clear that overall only a small fraction of Christian mission, development and ministry resources are being focused upon seeking transformation in urban slum and squatter neighbourhoods.
4.0 What Kind of Christianity is Growing in Slums and Where?
Though the overall picture of the state of Christianity in slums does not seem positive, it is important to highlight some signs of growth and health where Christians are serving in slums.
First, we can see that Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism is growing in the slums of Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Philippines. This is consistent with the conditions and factors we considered earlier, but positive conditions still need to be intentionally responded to and maximized. Pentecostalism has been especially effective in urban centres around the world in the latter half of the twentieth century and into this century. Even left-wing political activist Mike Davis acknowledges the growth of such movements.
With the Left still largely missing from the slum, the eschatology of Pentecostalism admirably refuses the inhuman destiny of the Third World city that Slums warns about. It also sanctifies those who, in every structural and existential sense, truly live in exile.210
Though conditions conducive to the growth of urban Christianity are not usually found in the
205 Howard Culbertson, ‗10/40 Window: Do you need to be stirred into action?‘ Southern Nazarene University,
http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/1040.htm#abc (accessed July 11, 2011).
206 World Christian News, ‗Statistics: The 21st century world‘, World Christian News, issue 24; Population
Reference Bureau, Data Sheet 2002 http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/world.htm (accessed December 22, 2010).
207 World Christian News, ‗Statistics: The 21st century world‘.
208 Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor and
yourself (Chicago: Moody, 2009), Kindle loc. 2316-29.
209 World Christian News, ‗Statistics: The 21st century world‘.
210 Mike Davis, ‗Planet of Slums‘, New Left Review, March-April, 2004, 26, http://newleftreview.org/A2496
10/40 Window, Grigg does offer some examples in India that are worthy of further investigation. In Chennai, a city with 747,936 slum residents,211 ‗the ACE church of 15,000 continues to multiply cells in slums. There is now spontaneous combustion of church growth across the city and particularly among the poor.‘212 There is also anecdotal evidence which suggests that these kinds of church planting movements are flourishing: ‗In Mumbai [it has grown] from 40 slum workers in 1986 to 400 churches in 2004[;] there are at least 800 [churches] in the slums‘. The ‗effect of a million people pouring out of the slums to hear Benny Hinn a couple of years ago is undocumented, but we estimate another 800 slum cells have occurred from this. These are largely indigenous, Pentecostal, but some have been able to access resources on their terms from elsewhere to sustain indigenous growth.‘213
Second, Christian communities and liberation theology seem to be significant in the slums of Latin America, as well as in other cities where colonisers were majority Catholic, such as in East Timor, Manila or francophone Africa.214 However, it is far weaker in places where Catholicism has not been part of a colonizing power. Again it must be stressed that simply because conditions are positive for Christian engagement, it does not mean that Christianity thrives. In this case, it is clear that Catholicism, via liberation theology and basic Christian communities, has been able to adapt and make positive contributions in these conditions. Certainly one of the themes of liberation theology is the challenge to the partnership between Christianity and colonizing powers. In fact, the focus on the oppression and inherited power originating with colonization is a central theme.
Third, some Catholic orders are moving from institutionally-based responses to more incarnational approaches that can adapt to the slums. Large institutions like schools, orphanages and hospitals have been an important strategy of many Protestant and Catholic missions over the past two centuries. In the beginning these institutional responses were difficult to establish in congested slums due to a lack of space and stability. There have been many adaptations to engage slums since the 1950s, however. Perhaps Mother Teresa of Kolkata and her Missionaries of Charity are the most prominent. Time Magazine, for example, named Mother Teresa as one of the most powerful twenty-five women of the last century, noting that ‗her start-up missionary
211 Government of India, ‗Census of India 2001‘. 212
Viv Grigg, September 7, 2010, personal email message to author used with permission.
213 Grigg, personal email used with permission.
214 Daniel H. Levines, ‗Assessing the Impact of Liberation Theology in Latin America‘, The Review of Politics Vol.
community of 13 members in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta)‘ has grown ‗into a global network of more than 4,000 sisters running orphanages and AIDS hospices‘.215 Many of these 4,000 sisters and many tens of thousands of volunteers are serving in urban slums like their founder.
The Missionaries of Charity, however, are just one of many hundreds if not thousands of Catholic communities finding more flexible approaches to respond to slums. The combination of local parishes—often based in slums—with specialised workers recognized as having as a vocation in a specific religious community has often proven to be impressive. In Nairobi, Kenya, for example, an area with some of the largest slums in the world, the Exodus Kutota network of Catholic parishes working in slums has been able to make a significant impact. The story of their impact is told by Christine Bodewes.216 Map 8 below shows where eighteen parishes are located (higher density of slum residency is shown by darker colours).