ABSTRACT
This chapter continues the analysis begun in Chapter 4. While the fourth chapter described and offered examples of three different actors—the social evangelists, the social engineer, and the social reconstructionist—this fifth chapter describes efforts to carry out hybrid models among the three in various combinations. The first model, the evangelist/engineer, is represented in the work of the Christian Medical Commission (CMC) of the World Council of Churches and the influence of the CMC on the broader primary health care movement championed by the World Health Organization during the 1970s. The second model, the evangelist/reconstructionist, is represented in the various theological critiques from Christians both in the United States and around the globe who continued to develop pointed critiques of social and religious forces in order to provide a new framework for Christian theologies of justice. The chapter surveys a number of theological movements and examines the influences of a handful of them in relation to global health and development.
The third model, the engineer/reconstructionist, is represented by Halfdan Mahler, the Director General of the World Health Organization from 1973–1988. Mahler was unafraid to take seriously the critical ideas of the reconstructionists to overhaul the WHO’s priorities through the primary health care movement. The fourth and final model, the evangelist/engineer/reconstructionist, is represented in the principles set forth in Alma-Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care.
