Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Nor Ishma, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

 
PROGRAMME

ABSTRACT

Philip Fountain’s The Service of Faith is a deep-dive anthropological investigation into the peace, development and relief work of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), a North American Christian NGO, in the context of Indonesia. The book explores the challenges, conundrums, theologies, and ethical commitments that shape Christian service. The success of religious-based development work depends on effectively bridging very different cultural and religious worlds. Braiding together extensive ethnographic and archival research, Fountain analyzes MCC’s practices of cultural translation in the Indonesian context. While the particularities of Mennonite religious values are deeply influential for MCC’s work, in practice its humanitarian project involves collaboration with a range of actors who come from widely varied religious positions. In taking a nuanced, case-specific approach to understanding how faith shapes moral projects, Fountain challenges mainstream claims to secular neutrality and the tendency to dismiss or disapprove of religious motivations in development work. In this roundtable discussion the author is joined by Dr Ryan Tans and Dr Michel Chambon to discuss the book and explore the question of whether Christianity has a legitimate place in international development work.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Philip Fountain is Senior Lecturer in Study of Religion at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He was previously a senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He was awarded a PhD in Anthropology from the Australian National University. He is the author of The Service of Faith: An Ethnography of Mennonites and Development and the co-editor of Political Theologies and Development in Asia: Transcendence, Sacrifice and Aspiration, The Mission of Development: Religion and Techno-Politics in Asia, and Religion and the Politics of Development. He has been a visiting research fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.

Ryan Tans is Lecturer in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Yale-NUS College and in Special Programmes at NUS College. He studies the political economy of coastal development and adaptation in Southeast Asia during an era of climate change. His research interests were partly inspired by his experiences as a volunteer in Indonesia with Mennonite Central Committee. He received a PhD in political science from Emory University, and an MA in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore.

Michel Chambon is Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute in National University of Singapore and he has a PhD in Anthropology from Boston University. He is a French Catholic theologian and a cultural anthropologist interested in Christianity in Asia. He has published research on the agency of Christian buildings, Chinese Pentecostalism, and Chinese Catholic nuns. His most recent book, Making Christ Present in China Actor-Network Theory and the Anthropology of Christianity, examines the five Christian denominations of Nanping (Fujian Province) to question the ways social science theorizes the unity and diversity of Christianity. He is coordinating the Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics (www.isac-research.org). His current research projects examine the materialisation of Christianity within Taiwanese households, as well as the expansion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta across the Asia Pacific region.