make sense of and give meaning to their lives, and because it
is one of the primary sources of values and morality for the
majority of the world’s population, it is important that development
studies acknowledges the religious dimension of people’s
lives; understands the relationships between religion,
societies, and states; and appreciates the motives and characteristics
of the organizational expressions of the faith traditions,
including FBOs. In other words, religion needs to be
“brought back in” to development research so that our understanding
of challenging development issues can be improved.
Whether the potential for harnessing religious values and beliefs
or collaboration between secular and religious organizations
outweighs the pitfalls must also be subject to critical
analysis.