Along with religious liberty and AIDS relief, anti-corruption activism is being added to the evangelicals internatiional agenda, reports Christianity Today magazine (November).
In the Second and Third Worlds, “Revulsion against corruption is drawing people to Christ and inspiring Christian leaders to launch campaigns against bribery, scamming, and misappropriation of funds. More and more missions agencies say that robust anticorruption preaching and action must accompany social development,” writes Tony Carnes. In June, President Bush and other leaders of the economically influential G-8 nations announced plans for a series of anticorruption initiatives in Peru, Nicaragua, Nigeria and the Republic of Georgia.
A senior staffer for the National Security Council said that the anticorruption initiatives fit with Bush’s faith-based foreign policy. Nigeria, Nicaragua and Peru, all nations with high rates of corruption, have strong evangelical anticorruption movements. The evangelical relief agency World Vision and the World Bank have both made controlling corruption top priorities. The concern was behind the World Bank’s controversial hiring of a staffer to bring religious and moral considerations into its lending and economic development efforts.
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