This book is an examination of the connections between modern economic practices, globalization, and contemporary Christian religious belief, based on an ethnographic study of NGOs in Zimbabwe. It addresses issues crucial for those interested in the strengths and weaknesses of development theory and practice, as well as in Protestant Christianity as a transnational religion.

Religious NGOs are important sources of humanitarian aid in Africa, entering where the welfare programs of weakened states fail to provide basic services. As collaborators and critics of African states, religious NGOs occupy an important structural and ideological position. They also, however, illustrate a key irony--how economic development, a symbol of science, progress, and this-worldly material improvement, borrows heavily from other-worldly faith.
Through a study of two transnational NGOs in Zimbabwe, this book offers a nuanced depiction of development as both liberatory and limiting. Humanitarian effort is not a hopeless task, but behind the liberatory potential of Christian development lurks the sad irony that change can bring its own disappointments.
While rapt attention has been given to the supposed role of NGOs in democratizing Africa, few studies engage with the ground operations. Questioning the assumption that economic development is a move away from religious mysticism toward the scientific promise of progress, the author offers a remarkable account of development that is neither defeatist nor comforting.

"The Spirit of Development...provides exemplary insight into the debates and practices amongst NGO staff in Harare and the United States concerning the intersection of faith and development, providing much-needed analysis on the intertwining of religious and economic assumptions and their (mis)translations within transnational organizations such as NGOs and those they endeavor to spiritually and materially transform."