‘The power of a simple gift’: The ethics of children’s evangelization by Christian NGOs in Côte d’Ivoire

Introduction

Over the last decade or so, a number of Christian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in West Africa have developed extensive programmes that combine religious education, humanitarian aid, and proselytization of children. In organizing such activities, the leaders of these NGOs appeal to different ideas regarding the place of children in religion and society. Considering that the topic of childhood and conversion has received limited attention in the anthropological literature, we propose in this article to analyze the case of local Evangelical ¹ NGOs that are active in Côte d’Ivoire since the turn of the twenty-first century. This case study provides, on the one hand, fresh insights into the relationship between ethical commitments, religious worldviews, and different categories of social actors, namely children. On the other hand, this case study illustrates how ethical ideals of evangelization defined by transnational organizations are appropriated by local actors and integrated within local discourses regarding the moralization of Ivorian society.

Since the political and military conflicts that started in 2002, NGOs in Côte d’Ivoire have occupied an increasingly significant place in the national public sphere (LeBlanc and Audet Gosselin, 2016). In the absence of effective government services, NGO, including religious ones, responded to the needs of the population in the different parts of the country. In this context, humanitarian and development activities geared to improving the material and spiritual well-being of children have significantly increased with the recent creation of local, child-centred religious NGOs (Catholics, Evangelical, and Muslim). The organizations discussed in this article are locally initiated NGOs that have emerged out of local churches or transnational initiatives. As such, they represent strong moral reactions to what is often described by local actors as the ‘degradation of society’ caused by the Ivorian military and political conflict, which lasted from 2002 to 2011.

Activities of local Ivorian Evangelical NGOs that target children are embedded in the broader context of resurgent international Christian humanitarian and spiritual assistance programmes that focus on children, who ‘have not yet been reached by the gospel’ (Bornstein, 2005; Brewster, 2011; Budijanto, 2011; Klaus, 2000; LeBlanc and Koenig, 2014; Myers, 1994; Prevette et al., 2014). Many of local Ivorian Evangelical NGOs’ programmes, involving humanitarian and evangelization activities, have been developed by transnational faith-based organizations and NGOs, especially North American ones, such as Child Evangelism Fellowship (Doherty, 1996), World Vision (Bornstein, 2005; Myers, 1994), Compassion International (Brewster, 2011), and Samaritan’s Purse (Graham and Toney, 2013).

These recent efforts to evangelize children draw attention to the presence of competing ideals of humanitarian aid and ethical stances. While many faith-based organizations draw on contemporary developmentalist values framed by universalist discourses on the rights of children, their activities are embedded within diverse logics of proselytization and religious beliefs (LeBlanc and Koenig, 2014). From a missionary perspective, all Christians must share their faith and transmit it to those who have not yet been touched by the gospel. However, the means by which Christian groups seek to evangelize children, as well the theological foundations of the Christian ethics of childhood that support them, vary between different actors and religious groups (Bunge, 2014; Konz, 2014). As Bunge (2014: 209) has pointed out, although all Christians share a common will to transmit their religious identity, ‘they certainly debate and disagree about approaches to spreading the gospel and proper conceptions of persuasion, proselytization, evangelisation, proclamation and mission’. These debates include the possibility of conversion among children, that is, the capacity of children to relate to religious identities as well as their position concerning judgement of the good and the bad. These ‘mission postures’, or means by which missionary endeavours seek to evangelize children in specific historical periods and social contexts (Konz, 2014: 25), can involve supporting children facing situations of oppression or suffering, including (or not) bible study, preaching the word of God, and more or less explicit proselytization (Bunge, 2014: 210).

We argue in this article that the local Ivorian Evangelical NGOs discussed distinguish themselves through the manner of their involvement in children’s everyday activities by using festive activities and the distribution of gifts. Several Evangelical NGOs established in Abidjan have developed programmes that include festive events during which gifts and games are used to attract children to become better integrated into the Evangelical community. These events give the organizations an opportunity to call on children to convert and to continue following evangelization programmes offered in local churches and clubs. Gifts are mainly used by ‘richer’ NGOs with links to transnational organizations, especially American-based missions, churches, and associations. Less well-connected Evangelical NGOs tend to privilege game and sports as mechanisms to attract young converts (LeBlanc and Koenig, 2014).

The leaders of these organizations appeal to emotional affect through the ‘sensational form’ (Meyer, 2010a) of gift-giving and to their miracle-like quality as means to implement an ethic of evangelization. The strategies used by transnational Christian organizations to mobilize moral sentiments on the part of international donors, on the one side, and, on the other side, the strategies used by local NGOs to create surprise and excitement on the part of receiving children can be seen as an intricate mixture of the ‘humanitarian reason’ described by Didier Fassin (2010). As such, we will show that it relies, on the one hand, on a logic of care that mixes compassion and solidarity in the face of ‘sufferings’ (Redfield and Bornstein, 2011) and, on the other end, an amalgamation of the instantiation of giving and proselytization in Evangelical milieus. In addition, the Ivorian leaders of Evangelical NGOs that are involved in gift-giving programmes emphasize a connection between the evangelization of children and the ‘building of the Ivorian nation’, a connection that is specific to local Ivorian dynamics. Our analysis draws attention to how the activities of these Evangelical NGOs appeal to a subtle juxtaposition of gift, play, and evangelization, while underlying the idea that ‘good Christians will make good citizens’.

The article is based on ethnographic field research conducted in the city of Abidjan in 2011, 2012, and 2016. These three periods of ethnographic fieldwork form part of a larger research programme on the place and role of religious NGOs (Muslim, Catholic, and Evangelical) in West Africa (LeBlanc and Audet Gosselin, 2016). In order to illustrate how gift-giving is key to humanitarian and proselytizing activities as well as how ethics of evangelization designed by transnational religious actors are appropriated by local actors, we focus the analysis on the activities of a local Ivorian affiliate of one of the prominent transnational faith-based organization Samaritan’s Purse, which we name ‘Joyful Child’ ² in this article. We analyze more specifically how local leaders, as beholders of ethical commitments to evangelization, perceive their humanitarian activities and insert them into a logic of evangelization.

Christian theologies of childhood and international missions

The roots of international Evangelical missions’ interest in children go much deeper than the recent widespread emergence of NGOs. In the 1780s, Robert Raikes established the first Sunday schools in England, with the aim of providing education to poor children and those marginalized by the changes brought about by the industrial revolution (Klaus, 2000). In 1824, the American Sunday School Union brought Raikes’ project to the United States, starting with impoverished areas of the Mississippi Valley. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Sunday School Union expanded its efforts to other continents (Balmer, 2004: 22; Klaus, 2000; Konz, 2014). Likewise, Jesse Irvin Overholtzer, acting on his belief that evangelization programmes should not ignore young children, founded the Child Evangelism Fellowship in 1973. In particular, this organization offered fun hour-long bible classes – The Good News Clubs – once a week in the children’s own neighbourhoods (Balmer, 2004: 153; Doherty, 1996). Today, the organization founded by Overholtzer is active in 192 countries, with upwards of 2000 employees and 40,000 volunteers. ³

More recently, evangelization programmes targeting children have been coupled with various missionary endeavours for reaching ‘unchurched’ children who ‘have not yet been touched by the gospel’, programmes such as those organized by World Vision, Compassion International, and Samaritan’s Purse. In particular, the logic adopted by international movements active in the evangelization of children rests on two biblical references in the Book of Matthew: ‘Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (28: 19) and ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’ (19: 14). An Ivorian local affiliate of the transnational NGO Samaritan’s Purse asserts the biblical injunction in this way:

This verse reflects the fact that those who act as a child steps into the kingdom of heaven easily. We might say that a child can believe, trust, and be guided easily. The verse (Matthew 19: 14) means that we must believe like a child. The adults have lost those values. ⁴

In addition, the missionary strategies of these transnational religious organizations rest on the idea that children younger than 15 years have a much greater capacity for conversion than older individuals. Children therefore constitute ideal audiences and anchor points for missions, as well as key actors for furthering God’s kingdom. The discourse leading present-day missionary endeavours to prioritize ‘the Ages of Opportunity’ represented by 4- to 14-year-olds was popularized by the 4/14 Window Movement, whose stated mission is to ‘mobilize the churches to disciples the children who will transform the nation’ ⁵ (Bush, 2018; see also Brewster, 2011; Budijanto, 2011; Myers, 1994; Oxbrow, 2014). The preference most of these organizations share for evangelizing children is also closely tied to the ‘10/40 window’, a notion popularized by the AD 2000 movement. The aim of the latter was to reorganize missionary endeavours by the year 2000 in order to establish churches and preach the gospel in the least Christianized regions located between 10° and 40° north, from Africa in the west to Japan in the east (Brewster, 2011; Bush, 2001; Oxbrow, 2014).

The recent literature on Christian theologies of childhood (Bunge, 2001, 2012; Bunge, 2012; Bunge and Wall, 2009; Prevette et al., 2014; White and Willmer, 2006) and the role of children in contemporary Evangelical missionary activities, briefly described here, offer a springboard for contextualizing and historicizing the evangelization programmes of Joyful Child. As we will show in the following sections, this case study illustrates how local organizations appropriate methods developed by large-scale Samaritan’s Purse transnational missionary endeavours. The case of Joyful Child shows how Samaritan’s Purse general commitment to the conversion of children is revisited in light of local Ivorian dynamics. In order to attract the interest of children for ‘the work of Christ’, the Ivorian affiliate has organized sensational festive events, which involve a combination of fun activities and gift-giving to build suspense and provide an ‘emotional shock’. In turn, this emotional experience is drawn upon to awaken the interest of children to participate in the Evangelical community.

‘You could feel the excitement in the air!’

Joyful Child, the Ivorian Evangelical NGO at the heart of our analysis, was established in Abidjan in 2002, following the recruitment and training by representatives of the American parent organization of two managers active in the Evangelical community of Côte d’Ivoire. During the 1980s and 1990s, these two Ivorian pastors had been active in the religious revival movement in West Africa. They sought to establish new evangelization strategies, in particular by organizing large-scale meetings in neutral spaces outside of established churches and led by charismatic speakers, in order to ‘convert, win souls and express one’s faith’. ⁶ During this earlier period, these two leaders made names for themselves by participating in different evangelization actions, in particular those organized by AD 2000, an organization that concentrated on the evangelization of populations living in the 10/40 window described in the previous section.

Since 1993, the main activity of Samaritan’s Purse has been Operation Christmas Child (OCC), which involves the distribution of gift boxes in 130 countries to more than 100,000,000 girls and boys who are between the ages of 2 and 14 and who do not belong to a Christian faith community. ⁷ The gift boxes, prepared over the Christmas holidays by residents of countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland, contain toys, school supplies, and toiletries, as well as a photo and a personal note from the donor. When preparing the box, which is in the shape of a shoebox, donors take into account the sex of the recipient and the three age groups targeted by the programme: 2–4, 5–9, and 10–14. ⁸ Donors deliver their gift boxes to warehouses or to Samaritan’s Purse drop-off locations and cover the cost for the shipping of the box to its target countries. After the gifts are shipped, representatives of local organizations affiliated with Samaritan’s Purse take over and oversee the distribution.

The transnational support offered by Samaritan’s Purse to its national affiliates is key to the success of large-scale evangelization campaigns that are organized on a global scale. Franklin Graham, the programme’s president and director, explains the vision that lies behind the activities of his transnational NGO:

We call the largest international Christmas program for children in the world an ‘operation’ – a rescue mission – to win souls for the Christmas Child, one lamb at a time. (…) One of the great journeys for OCC has been to explore how we can best reach kids ‘after the box’. We don’t want to just give a shoebox of toys. We want the gifts to be followed by a practical and biblical study of God’s Word. (…) This is the sole purpose of Operation Christmas Child – to reach out to children in Jesus’ name and to communicate God’s love for them. (…) These simple shoebox gifts carry the Good News into far-away lands, into one heart at a time. That is the mission of Operation Christmas Child. By going into these forsaken places, the seed of the Gospel is planted in hearts – many that are longing for God’s truth, needing someone to tell them that truth is found in the Savior (…) Yes, we want to take the pleasant words, forgiving words, and life-changing words of Jesus into these dark places. (Graham and Toney, 2013: 111, 249, 260)

The gift boxes collected by the Samaritan’s Purse and distributed to national organizations and churches represent the cornerstone supporting the organization’s evangelization of children.

In Côte d’Ivoire, after receiving the boxes, local affiliates visit targeted areas within the country to organize festive events, during which a gift box is given to each participating child. Both national and international representatives emphasize how gift-giving introduces an element of surprise that, in their view, encourages the greatest possible number of children to take in-depth Bible classes in local churches or in ‘neighbourhood Bible study classes’, following a formula similar to that of the Good News Clubs organized by the Child Evangelism Fellowship. As the following description of a gift-giving event will show the emotional experience reached through festive activities is central to the ethic of evangelisation put forward by the leaders of these organizations.

Here is how a typical OCC event involving festive activities and the distribution of gifts unfolds in Côte d’Ivoire: the activity, involving approximately 200 children, took place in a small community located between the cities of Divo and Gagnoa. Beforehand, the leaders of Joyful Child had contacted a local church in the hope of mobilizing its networks to raise money for distribution, brokerage fees (700 francs CFA or US$ 1.21), and a party for the children. Activities involving the distribution of gift boxes do not aim to establish new churches but rather to mobilize members of existing congregations to help evangelize children who ‘had not yet been reached by the gospel’. However, organizers do not limit themselves to these religious structures and also plan distributions in neutral locations, such as local concert halls and town halls. In the case presented here, representatives of the host church called on local actors to organize a party involving worship, Bible games, snacks, and religious songs. As for the children in the neighbourhood, they were simply told that a party was being organized for them. The event took place on a public square in front of the hosting church. Once the children were gathered together, standard ‘Bible games’ were organized such as the ‘blind game’, in which children paired in two, were blind folded, and had to look for a treasury. The treasury was a blown balloon in which a ripped piece of paper was introduced. They had to blow the balloons to discover pieces of ripped paper, which once assembled formed a Bible lesson, namely that two blind people cannot lead one another to God. At the end of the game, adults explained to the children that they needed to be guided as witnesses of Jesus. The Bible game was followed by playful activities, including singing and dancing. When the festive event was over, staff and volunteers began to distribute Samaritan’s Purse gift boxes. In keeping with the spirit of the OCC, which holds that ‘a gift is a vehicle of prayer and the gospel’, a representative took the microphone to explain to the local children that children and their parents in Canada had prepared a gift for them to express ‘God’s great love’. According to the local representatives that were present at the event, the unexpected gifts caused a nervous tremor and a contagious state of excitement among the children. The children were asked to wait until they had all received a box before opening theirs. Once the distribution was complete, the organizers allowed the children to open their gifts, immersing them in a state of joy that was increasingly explosive, as they discovered the various toys and other items contained in the boxes. The audience was electrified by the contagious enthusiasm of overexcited children playing with toys such as dolls and trucks. As they opened the box, most of the children were yelling, dancing, jumping for joy, and running in all directions. Some staff and volunteers were brought to tears as they explained how to operate a particularly complicated toy. Others answered the children’s questions about the donors and the toys. ‘The whole box is for me?’ asked one. Some children opened their box and took a single toy before closing it, not believing that the entire gift box was for them. ‘Do the Canadian children know us?’ another child asked a representative of Joyful Child. The latter responded, ‘No, but they send you the joy of knowing Jesus’. ‘There’s everything I need for school!’ cried another, as several of his friends offered simple thanks to the organizers. ⁹

‘The power of a simple gift’, as it was displayed at this and other similar events, marked an ecstatic mood manifested among the children during the distribution of gifts, which is transformed into a community emotional upheaval by local organizers. ‘It is always surprising’, a representative of the national NGO explained to us, ‘how there was such joy in the town, there was incredible joy, a joy that spread throughout the town’. ¹⁰ This interpretation of the role of gift-giving by local organizers fits with the ethics of evangelization put forward by Franklin Graham as well as the miracle-like character given to such events. In his words, ‘these demonstrations helped us grasp the reality that these shoeboxes carried miracles from the heart of God’ (Graham and Toney, 2013: 42). International representatives speak in terms of ‘miracles in a shoebox’ that provide recipients with divine guidance and allow the organization to achieve its goals. Representatives from Côte d’Ivoire instantiated the so-called ‘miracles in a shoebox’ by using the anecdotal illustrations of reactions by adults present at gift-giving events. For instance, they related how, in one of their events, one father told them that with the money raised by selling a camera in one of the gift boxes, he would no doubt be able to pay for a surgery his ill son required. A statement that was reiterated by the organizers to emphasize the miraculous dimension of gift-giving was ‘The impact of these gifts is extraordinary!’ ¹¹ While it is clear that the surprise effect certainly stems out partly from the relative largeness of the gifts, the local representatives explained that, through the sensational form of gift-giving, the miraculous character of the gift manifests itself prominently to the children that were the most materially deprived. As is usually the case, by the end of this particular event, the organizers invited the children ‘to pursue their walk alongside Jesus’ by committing to in-depth Bible courses offered by the local church. In the organizers’ view, the excitement surrounding gift-giving and the hope of receiving more gifts in the future account for the popularity of evangelization activities among children.

As a matter of fact, NGO leaders see their role in OCC activities as one in which they plant the ‘seed of the love of Jesus’ so that it can be harvested by local church members. They describe themselves as agents that can merely give a new boost to the evangelization’s process of unreached children. As one of the representatives explained,

We come with gifts, and we tell the children that Jesus is the right path. We invite them to join the church or neighborhood Bible study clubs; then, we leave. But we can’t do all the work. We can only provide an opportunity to revitalize the evangelization of individuals through the children. Because, nowadays, we must not deceive each other. If you place a podium and a sound system in the middle of Abidjan, and you start to evangelize, you will merely get an audience of a few people. That’s the reality! People continue to undertake huge programs and talk about edification, but it is the same Christians who are Christians for centuries who fill those programs. ¹²

The keen interest, the unexpected event, and the surprise created through the distribution of gifts play a central role to invigorate these programmes targeting children in social spaces where poverty is common and where mainline churches do not play a significant role in evangelizing children. According to Joyful Child’s leaders, the principal effect of the OCC is to increase the number of children following evangelization programmes in places situated outside preexisting religious structures like neighbourhood Bible study clubs. However, such participation depends on the capacity of local churches and Bible groups to build up on events such as OCC, as well as on the local populations’ perception and relation to Evangelical groups.

‘The power of a simple gift’: ‘Portable practices’ and the ambiguity of gift-giving

The festive activities described above shed light on the ethics of evangelization espoused by the leaders of Joyful Child and intended to develop, what Bornstein has called, ‘lifestyle evangelism’ (Bornstein, 2005: 50–51). Festive and gift-giving activities are seen by the organization’s leaders as opening the door to potential conversion. In this section, we turn to how the leaders of Evangelical NGOs, such as Joyful Child, understand and negotiate the place of gift-giving activities in their humanitarian and proselytizing actions. First, we appeal to the ideas of ‘transposable messages’ and ‘portables practices’ to refer to the influence of globalization and transnational Evangelical perspectives on the local instantiation of giving. This perspective allows to seize how gift-giving activities that create transnational connections between communities of believers are not necessarily interpreted in the same manner by the different participants. Second, we discuss the ambiguity surrounding the idea of gift-giving, which carries ethical implications risen by the tension between the intent of generosity hidden behind the act of giving and the clear intention of using gifts as a means to entice children.

Conclusion

In this article, we examined how local and transnational NGO leaders use sensational forms, in the shape of gift boxes, in attempts to consolidate the Evangelical community. While Samaritan Purse leaders and gift boxes donors from abroad emphasize the standardization of gift-giving activities and mobilize a logic of ‘humanitarian reason’ based on sentiments of generosity, care, and compassion, Ivorian NGO leaders’ attention to children and involvement in gift box activities are rather geared to the strengthening of local Evangelical communities as well as efforts to partake in the post-crisis reconstruction of Ivorian society, especially in a context where inter-community and inter-confessional relations may be awkward. Through their activities, Evangelical NGOs appear to be redefining the relationship between spirituality and humanitarian activities, as they open up new spaces for evangelization outside of preexisting religious structures, such as schools and churches by using gifts, games, and play. The appeal to ‘giving’ as an ethic of evangelization highlights both the central role played by emotions and the ambiguous role of gifts in blurring the boundary between charity and lure.