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Founded over a century ago, the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is regarded as one of the most important institutional carriers of Canadian and American Mennonite identity. Generations of Mennonites and others have served with the organization, carrying out development, disaster relief, and peacebuilding work in over fifty countries globally. The Service of Faith offers an ethnography of MCC’s Christian development work in Indonesia, exploring the challenges, conundrums, theologies, and ethical commitments that shape Mennonite 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, Philip 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.
Exploring the diverse ways in which Mennonite convictions permeate MCC’s work in Indonesia, The Service of Faith confronts the question of whether religion has a legitimate place in international development work.
“Fountain presents his research in unusual and insightful ways in this strong book. The great richness of his reading enables him to highlight the history and ethos of Mennonites and the MCC.” Emily Welty, Pace University
“This book is noteworthy. It makes a significant contribution to both academic and non-academic communities, especially in the fields or anthropological studies of development, Christianity (particularly Mennonites), peacebuilding, service, and religious NGOs. The book appears to be fair and balanced in analyzing the history and contemporary development of Mennonites, MCC, and MCC’s work in Indonesia.” Southeast Asian Studies
“Fountain’s ethnography stands as a valuable and illuminating contribution to the study of faith-infused development practice. He offers a careful and textured account of how MCC’s work in Indonesia generated theological, institutional, and interpersonal tensions that shaped both practice and identity, and he is especially attentive to the fragility and complexity of missional self-understanding.” Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy
“The Service of Faith is a sweeping and fascinating account of North American, faith-based service work abroad. It will be a great read for those interested in the international organisation of religious development work, especially scholars of Mennonite Christianity. Fountain’s diligent work makes clear this is a rich area of study that warrants more ethnographic research.” Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology