christian globalism
How do U.S. Christians imagine and experience globalism in conditions of relative immobility?
My research responds to this question by tracing two hundred years of efforts by U.S. Christians at home to cultivate discourse, aesthetics, and sensations related to the world as a whole. These efforts promote a state I sometimes shorthand as the absent/present, in which physically absent beings—divine ones, but also humans far away—are rendered present in some capacity for a brief time, or at least that is the hope. Of course, all types of globalism take shape within culturally specific contexts. With that in mind, I focus on one site in particular: child sponsorship programs. This fundraising model, which began in Protestant missions and spread to NGOs in the mid-twentieth century, is distinguished by how it requests a defined monthly amount for ongoing support of a child, with some promise of communication between donors and recipients.
Sponsorship offers an excellent vantage point from which to explore the production of Christian globalism since only about 1% of U.S. sponsors meet the child they support. Yet they participate in an enterprise that circulates billions of dollars and millions of letters and photos around the globe every year. It is arguably the most profitable private Christian fundraising tool today, while also expressing and championing some of Christianity’s “biggest world-making dreams and schemes.”
That world-making—its hopes and limitations—is the subject of my study.
My research responds to this question by tracing two hundred years of efforts by U.S. Christians at home to cultivate discourse, aesthetics, and sensations related to the world as a whole. These efforts promote a state I sometimes shorthand as the absent/present, in which physically absent beings—divine ones, but also humans far away—are rendered present in some capacity for a brief time, or at least that is the hope. Of course, all types of globalism take shape within culturally specific contexts. With that in mind, I focus on one site in particular: child sponsorship programs. This fundraising model, which began in Protestant missions and spread to NGOs in the mid-twentieth century, is distinguished by how it requests a defined monthly amount for ongoing support of a child, with some promise of communication between donors and recipients.
Sponsorship offers an excellent vantage point from which to explore the production of Christian globalism since only about 1% of U.S. sponsors meet the child they support. Yet they participate in an enterprise that circulates billions of dollars and millions of letters and photos around the globe every year. It is arguably the most profitable private Christian fundraising tool today, while also expressing and championing some of Christianity’s “biggest world-making dreams and schemes.”
That world-making—its hopes and limitations—is the subject of my study.
“How the World Has United,” Map (American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief/Near East Relief), 1918.