The Pitfalls of the International Aid Rationale: Comparisons between Missionary Aid and the International Aid Network

Abstract

Mission agencies have borrowed a politically oriented aid rationale that was born in the immediate post-World War II years with the Marshall Plan and fine-tuned during the long ideological struggle of the cold war. The goals and principles of this rationale are antithetical to mission purposes. Mission aid conducted on this basis leads to dependent ecclesiastical development and creates theologies of reaction. Mission agencies need to modify the aid rationale by restoring mutuality to the aid relationship, developing contextual standards for the definition of need/aid, moderating the effects of the bureaucratization of aid, and creating full webs of meaning in which to situate aid relationships.