ABSTRACT
Since the turn of the century, the religious dimension has been heralded as something of a new discovery in development practice and development studies. Secular donors have channelled increasing amounts of their budgets through so-called faith-based organisations (FBOs), a term which has itself emerged only in the past couple of decades to designate religious organisations working in the field of development. Governmental development offices have sought dialogue with religious communities, such as the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), which recently laid down its ‘Faith Partnership Principles’ (DFID, 2012). DFID has also funded a large-scale research project on Religions and Development, which was conducted at the University of Birmingham between 2005 and 2010 and continues to provide major resources on this subject. 1 Moreover, there has been a flurry of publications on the subject of religions and development in the past couple of decades (Salemink et al., 2004; Bornstein, 2005; Tyndale, 2006; Haynes, 2007; Clarke & Jennings, 2008; Deneulin, 2009; ter Haar, 2011b; M. Clarke, 2013a; Tomalin, 2013, 2015b; Rakodi, 2014).
