US foreign aid is unexpectedly in the news in 2025 as never before. What do Christians need to know, to help us be part of the dialogue?

America’s history of foreign aid dates back at least to the Marshall Plan that followed World War II. Many Christians have been involved. How have these believers thought about the appropriate roles of government and of faith-based institutions? What has the US been doing, with what impact? And what is the situation on the ground now?

We heard from three believers knowledgable about this work.

• Ambassador Mark Lagon has served as the US Ambassador to combat human trafficking, and is now focused on the fight against malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS.
• Nicole Bibbins Sedaca has held leadership roles in the government, academic and NGO sectors working and teaching on democracy, human rights and religious freedom.
• Myal Greene leads World Relief, the development arm of the National Association of Evangelicals; while serving in Rwanda, he developed its church-based programming model.

Please note this transcript may contain inaccuracies and should not be used as an authoritative source.

Tom Walsh: A warm welcome to all of you joining us for today’s conversation. We are so encouraged by your interest. We have around 1200 registrants for today, which is impressive. We are so grateful for each of you. I understand about 250 of you are with us for the first time, in places ranging from Panama to Eswatini to Cambodia. So let me say respectively, good afternoon, good evening and good morning. As a quick introduction, if you’re new here, what is the Trinity Forum all about? We are a community of people engaged in a common effort to keep the historic Christian intellectual tradition alive, and, of course, that’s in the face of many challenges and distortions it faces, to nurture new growth in that tradition and to make it available to everyone. Many of you are part of this work as members of our Trinity Forum society. Thank you. Well, what we try to do in these conversations is provide a hospitable place to engage the big questions of life in the context of faith and ultimately to come to better know the author of the answers. Turning to today’s topic, foreign aid is something that most Americans really don’t have a reason to engage with most of the time, focusing on things where we are is only natural, and it’s also the case that the phrase foreign aid is a bit abstract. So this conversation today is a chance to make it more real and to try to bring it home for all of us. The goal today, in my mind, is to expand the knowledge base of all of us around U.S. foreign aid, and to do it through the lens of Christian faith. Whatever your own perspective is, I hope you will find it helpful. If you have questions as we go, please post them in the Q&A box and we will turn to them in the second half of the hour. American foreign aid has been going on for a long time. You can trace it back to the Marshall Plan and maybe farther, but it has seldom been in the headlines. But now, in 2025, completely without warning, it is. Many American Christians are connected with people in developing countries, perhaps through church to church relationships or by supporting charities. But through the years, Christians have been deeply involved in U.S. government efforts, in various ways, to various roles. So this is an opportunity today to learn from just three of them.

Tom Walsh: You can find their bios in the chat, but to introduce them briefly. Nicole Bibbins Sadaka is the Kelly and David File Fellow at the George W Bush Institute. Nicole has held leadership roles in the government, academic and nonprofit sectors, working and teaching on democracy, human rights, and religious freedom. Myal Greene leads World Relief, the development arm of the National Association of Evangelicals. Myal has a long career, and part of that was during his service in Rwanda. He developed World Relief’s church based programing model. And Mark Lagon has served as the US Ambassador to Combat Human Trafficking. He is now the Chief Policy Officer at Friends of the Global Fight Against Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. And I should note that Mark is one of our Trinity Forum Senior Fellows. And in a spirit of transparency, I will note that I used to work on the PEPFAR Global Health program, which I suspect may come up today. So welcome to all our guests. We’re delighted to have you here with us. Let me start with kind of an introductory, somewhat personal question for each of you. What has been your motivation for being in this kind of work? Maybe I’ll start with you, Myal.

Myal Greene: Well, I think my motivation comes back to my own faith journey. And I became a Christian in my early 20s and really, from the beginning of that faith journey, God opened up the scriptures to me about what it means to help the poor. And, you know, in those seasons, my early years, my career actually spent working on Capitol Hill. And I remember very specifically watching the state of the Union when when President George W Bush really announced what would become PEPFAR. And I remember being deeply excited as an individual of faith and a person involved in the public sector, seeing this commitment that really aligned with the values of the country and being a truly blessed country that has the opportunity to bless other countries and address a common challenge and a common crisis that all of humanity was facing. And so that, you know, it was in that season that I really made some bold decisions to step into work in the humanitarian sector 18 years ago and moved to Rwanda. And in those days, one of the first projects I worked on and participated in was the PEPFAR project that was training churches at the time, before ARVs were readily accessible to provide palliative care to people with HIV and Aids, and learned very quickly what it means to see the power of the church coming alongside and meeting the needs of people in the community and really representing the gospel in that space. And so that has just motivated me and drawn me through this work over time and just to continue to see what it means to see change in a community and see the work of the church at the heart of that change, and knowing that sometimes that means partnering with the government and that being a really wonderful and beautiful thing and not something to be afraid of.

Tom Walsh: Thanks, Nicole, can you give us a bit of what’s drawn you into this?

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: Thank you, and thank you to Trinity Forum for opening this space. I’m really encouraged by all the people from many different corners of our country, in the world who are signing in today. Similar to Myal, I also, was drawn during my faith journey into the type of work that I’ve been working on, which is primarily on democracy, countering human trafficking and human rights work. I too, was drawn into the international side of work, being the daughter of an immigrant from Europe and a father who served many years in the US military. And so the idea of service and international service was just a given in my path. But then once I understood, really a biblical calling for justice and was able to see, particularly during the Bush administration, just the service of faith based organizations in advocacy, in working directly and shaping policy, and in implementing partners, it really solidified for me an understanding of just how compelling it is for a person of faith to be in international service, whether that’s in government or out of government, and to really work with the many, many gifts that we have been given to help those who are most needy around the world, those who are living without the liberty that we enjoy, and those who continue to strive for the freedoms that we enjoy on a daily basis.

Tom Walsh: Thanks, Nicole. How about you, Mark?

Mark Lagon: Well, it’s a special pleasure to join this conversation. Including with friends. May sound similar, but I’m the son of Polish immigrants, refugees from World War two. I was baptized as a Catholic, but I have my wife to thank for churching me around age 25 as an Episcopalian. There were a couple of turns in my career on human rights and international organizations that I can only see, as you know, providential, you know, touch of the hand of God. And year 2000, being assigned as a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer to help finish the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which sets up their apparatus in the US government for fighting human trafficking worldwide and at home. Who knew that seven years later, I’d end up being the ambassador to combat human trafficking? You know, in 2017, the head of my current organization and the head of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and malaria said you’re interested in international organizations that work and don’t. And the human rights of the particularly vulnerable come into the Aids, TB and malaria field. It as far as values go, you know, the Old and New Testaments could not be clearer that every human being is of value inherently and equally, because they’re made in the image of the Lord. And I think we’re called by Scripture to be generous, not just with our resources, but generous of spirit about how we look at those other human beings. Jesus calls on us to help the poor, your neighbor, the stranger, the sick, the shunned, the scorned, the stigmatized. Think of Jesus embracing those in poverty, prostitution, leprosy, and the way I look at it is the US should not be is not a savior. That’s Jesus’s job. But it can be an enabler of human flourishing so that people can survive and thrive. That inspired a book I co-edited, Human Dignity in the Future of Global Institutions, to which Nicole contributed a chapter on faith based organizations.

Tom Walsh: Great. Well, Nicole, maybe I can turn to you to start to just give us some context. And again, we’re not assuming the people in this conversation are deeply versed in all of this. We’ve used the acronym PEPFAR a couple of times. It’s the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief. We’ll try to otherwise identify things as they come up. But maybe to set the scene, where does foreign aid fit into the overall US budget?

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: Excellent. Thanks so much, so foreign assistance, foreign aid is how the US government, to some extent operationalizes some of our foreign policy. And what that has looked like is either through the US agency for International Development, through the State Department or other agencies, funds are provided either directly to organizations in other countries. Sometimes it’s provided through organizations like the one that Myal or I have worked at, Mark as well, that take that money and spend it for work on humanitarian assistance when there has been a disaster or work that prevents or treats diseases around the world or works on the persecuted. Whether those are people who are persecuted because of their faith or because they are journalists or others. So there’s a wide array of things which are foreign assistance has been used for and in many ways and in all ways, it’s been aligned with what the president’s priorities have been, whether that is under President Reagan or President Obama or President Bush or whoever. It has been an arm of our foreign policy. The reason it’s in the news today is because President Trump made a decision in his early days of his administration to freeze and then to cut a significant amount of that assistance.

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: And that is something which many of us in this community are unpacking and wrestling with and analyzing in these days, just to put a few numbers on it so we can look at what that looks like, there were 6200 different awards that the US agency for International Development had. 5800 of those have been eliminated, that’s about a cut of $54 billion and so that’s a sizable cut. And US agency for International Development, the president has made a decision to also phase out that organization, fold it into the State Department, and that those people working there will finish their time and service over the next several months. The State Department also runs about 9000 grants. About half of those are being eliminated, and that’s about a $4.4 billion cut. So we’re looking at about 58.5, 58.4 billion, sorry billion with a B cuts to foreign assistance in this in this era.

Tom Walsh: And a question that comes up a lot is where does foreign aid fit into the overall budget of the United States government. Like what  a share of it is it?

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: Prior to the cuts, it was less than 1%. It was just around 1% of the entire budget. I think many Americans, and I probably would have thought the same thing before I moved to Washington, think that it is 20, 30, 40% of our budget, but really is 1%. And part of that is a lot of the work that falls into foreign assistance are not always high dollar figures. It’s not like buying an aircraft carrier or buying something that has a huge price tag. A lot of times you’re talking about assistance that can be done with relatively small amounts of money, and that it is as you’re seeing if it’s only 1% of the budget, but thousands and thousands of grants doing all of this type of work, it’s actually work where the impact is often quite larger than what the price tag would indicate.

Tom Walsh: And just it’s another piece of context. What is the, in a big picture sense, engagement of faith based organizations with the US foreign assistance enterprise?

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: Absolutely, so foreign assistance faith based organizations have been partners to the US government for many, many, many years. Under President Bush, there was a more explicit effort and that has been continued through all of the subsequent presidents, a creation of a faith based organization office both in the White House and then in many of the other agencies as well. And what that was to say is, if the United States is going to be out and about in the world and is going to be spending money and doing things to help the needy to support and free the persecuted in many countries. Well, faith based organizations should be part of that work. And it’s not something that we should just look to secular organizations. And the interesting thing about this is what it has done is one grown the faith based organizations, because they have been they’ve benefited from the funds that the US government has been expanding for foreign assistance. It has then allowed faith based organizations really to be the face alongside of our secular colleagues around the world in doing some of this life saving work that the US government has committed to. And it has also allowed faith based organizations to protect what makes them unique. They still are able to hire people according to their faith. That’s a carve out that is reserved just for faith based organizations. They’re able to still run with the faith traditions that make them unique and special. But while also doing this work again on health or economic development or or working on freedom issues globally.

Tom Walsh: And, Mark, let me turn to you. So from a stewardship perspective, how do you think about this aid? What are some of the key elements that you have in mind that others might also find useful?

Mark Lagon: Well, Nicole is right to point out that it was less than 1% of the federal budget that goes to nonmilitary aid. And just to know in line with the suggestion that, you should play to the gifts that God has given you. We have focused a quarter of that in recent years on health. You know, we are a country of doctors and innovators, you know, medicine producers. We have experience with PEPFAR, so we play to that specialty, and then within that one quarter of 1%, that’s for health. We have specialized in infectious disease killers, those things that spread fast and kill indiscriminately whatever kind of human being you are. But our investment in PEPFAR over the last two decades has saved an estimated 26 million lives. I work as an advocate for the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and malaria. In fighting those three infectious diseases. It’s saved 65 million lives and reduced the combined death rate of the three diseases by 63% since 2002. So business people would use the expression return on investment. But I think stewardship is the right way to look at it and to get in the weeds just on the example of the Global Fund, It only spends 6.2% of its funds on administration because it doesn’t have bureaucrats in the field. It funds faith based organizations, civil society, private sector and government partners in countries and low and middle income countries and that’s good stewardship.

Tom Walsh: And just to turn the clock back about 20 years, maybe it would be helpful to understand the role of the faith community in the US in creating this level of global health investment back at that time. I don’t know, Mark, Nicole, either of you could probably tackle that one. 

Mark Lagon: I can go first. But there was a critical role and if you will, strange bedfellows. Coalition of left and right, secular and faith based. Particularly focused on HIV Aids and figures like Franklin Graham at Samaritan’s Purse were substantial. And some people who, you know, may have different points of view and the political spectrum were involved too. I by strange luck was in a meeting that Senator Helms had with Bono where they talked about debt relief for the poor, and they soon came to be dialoguing about the orphans, the mothers, the generation being wiped out in Africa from Aids. So they were essential in bringing on board this view, which was kind of a Reagan like view of aid, trust but verify that it’s being used well. As opposed to a kind of a view of distrust, all aid from governments and maybe then verify.

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: Just add to that, it was very much consistent with what President Bush’s commitment to compassionate conservatism was, and just a recognition that the United States is and needs to be a compassionate nation in which where we have resources to address something which was really crippling many countries in Africa, but certainly spreading all around the world. We had an opportunity to help. And, you know, Mark shared it with 26 million people who’ve been saved through that. 8 million babies have been saved from having the transmission from the mother to the child, and they are now living as children and growing up without this crippling disease. And so it just was an opportunity for the United States to show the best of who we are, but also to deal with something which was really a true global pandemic at the time.

Mark Lagon: Could I just add a quick point? There’s still really important faith based players are still really important. You know, a few days ago, 225 faith leaders wrote to Congress saying that the Global Fund and health programs are important. People say that opinions are changing, but there’s still a wellspring of those of faith. And there are enormous numbers of implementers that my colleagues have talked about. You know, how is it that the Global Fund now spends about half $1 billion a year on faith organizations as implementers? As partners, they have faith in them.

Tom Walsh: Let me turn to some of the some of the questions or concerns that typically come up in this conversation, I see people are starting to submit some questions. So please keep that up and we’ll definitely be getting to some of those. But let me turn to you, Myal, as someone leading a Christian faith based organization that focuses on working with local churches, how do you maintain your values? How does World Relief maintain its values in working with the US government?

Myal Greene: So it’s a wonderful question, it’s an important one, it’s one I get quite a bit. And Nicole touched on this a little bit earlier, one thing is having a robust and meaningful faith based hiring policy. And so to be a Christian organization, to be an evangelical organization, World Relief, we’re actually a subsidiary of the relief and development arm of the National Association of Evangelicals. And so for us, having a faith based hiring policy that allows us to hire people who share our statement of faith is really crucial to maintaining our organizational identity. Secondly, you know, the work that we do with the US government is not the totality of the work that we do. And we actually only work with US government funded projects in four of the 12 countries that we work in overseas. And where we’ve chosen to do it, and different organizations have different approaches to this, but where we’ve chosen to specialize our work, previously used to be in the health sector when there were some major health crises going on in the world in recent years, we’ve shifted the focus there to really partnering in humanitarian crisis. And so we really want to look at strategic partnerships where we have shared values and interests with the government. And so by ensuring that it’s only a portion of our funding mix helps us to keep those priorities clear. Second is we’ve got a very refined and thoughtful theory of change, which is tied to our mission as an organization.

Myal Greene: And so when we write proposals and design projects, we’re very clear about our approach and how we’ll integrate the work of the church into that. What values that we’re going to integrate into the work that we’re doing here, and the government and the committees that review these proposals make a decision if that’s something that they want to sign up for and that they see that as aligned with the overarching goals or not. And so we’re very intentional to be clear on the front end what it is that we want to do. And if the donor or the funding agency says, no, we’re not interested in that, then the project doesn’t go forward and we make sure that we’re real clear on that. You know, and I think that one thing that is clear and understandable is that public agencies typically do have very specific restrictions on overt proclamation of faith. That’s fair and so one thing that we’ve done as an organization is to make sure that we’re always integrating in some private revenue and private funding right alongside those projects, so our staff can freely live out their faith without violating some of those covenants that we have to make with the government in those instances, in those cases.

Tom Walsh: Good and, Nicole, let me ask you about something you sort of alluded to earlier, but to go a bit deeper on this question of should Christian organizations be taking US government funding? Like, why is that a good thing, if it is?

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: Obviously, every Christian organization is making the determination for themselves, and I know some who have just a small percentage and I know some who have a much larger percentage. In my view, we see throughout Scripture Joseph, Daniel, others where there are people of faith who are working in or with secular governments. And so I don’t think that there is inherently anything wrong with taking US government funding, provided that it does not cause a compromise. And Myal’s just walked through how he and others are able to run faith based organizations, be very true to their faith principles without compromising anything because they’re taking USG funds. In my view, the United States will always be present in the world, whether we are present with the US government through faith based organizations, through businesses, through our military, we will be present. And in my view, I would love that to represent the entirety of the American population, including faith based organizations. And so when we think the United States government is going to be out and about doing foreign assistance, I absolutely would love to see faith based organizations included among those not at the exclusion of secular, but included among those that are doing that. One light bulb moment I had when I served in government for many years was how important it was to have good relations with faith based organizations in other countries, because you go to another country and you say, who has the credibility? Who has the reach? Who has the knowledge, who has the analysis of what’s going on? It is quite often the faith leaders or people who are deeply intertwined in the faith community and to the extent that we then are also sharing the wealth of our Christian and faith based organizations doing the work, we’re able to build those bridges. And we’re also saying that there doesn’t have to be a division, because the way our democracy works, it allows people of faith and of no faith to show up in their fullness and to do their work as part of one whole.

Tom Walsh: Thank you Nicole. Myal, a question for you. Can you walk us through, as someone who’s a current implementing agency, the kind of oversight that projects receive in your experience? The kind of management oversight to make sure that policies and procedures are set by the government, by law, in many cases are actually followed. What’s it like?

Myal Greene Yeah, that’s a really valid and important question in this season. And I’ll answer the question more in terms of what was the oversight infrastructure that was in place. We know that much of what is USAID has been systematically dismantled in recent weeks, and so I’m not sure that all of these assurances still are in place. But, you know, one thing that I can tell you with experience working with USAID for nearly 20 years is that the oversight was much stricter than most people realize and quite frankly, was probably the most extensive, multi-layered and complex oversight process of any granting agency that we would work with. Really, accountability mechanisms are built into every step of the process. And so that begins with pre-award due diligence. And so, you know, before you’re selected for an award, you’re checked on your financial capabilities, your technical skills, your program design, what that takes into place. And then as the project goes on, there’s performance monitoring. Are you meeting your goals and your targets, your assigned specific government officers who are following up with you, making sure that your work is being executed appropriately. Oftentimes there’s third party evaluations when you get to the midterm or the end of a project. And so an outside agency comes in to evaluate if you’ve done what you said, if you followed the USAID regulations and brings that independent verification. And throughout the process, there’s spot checks, audits, and projects of a certain financial size can be inspected by the inspector general. So there’s really a thorough process built into design. I think one of my concerns right now is with the significant staffing reductions that have happened at USAID, is can projects continue to be implemented with clear oversight and accountability going forward?

Tom Walsh: So historically, when the oversight infrastructure was in place, did it ever fail? And in your view, what lessons were learned from that for organizations such as yourselves that are then trying to, you know, stay on the right side?

Myal Greene: Yeah and so I think we need to kind of separate the failure of a oversight process or from the oversight process identifying, you know, a failure of a project. And so I think that those are two different things. I think that USAID systems and processes would tell you that 80% of USAID funded projects successfully meet or exceed their project targets. I find that to be a very successful, very strong rate. Some might say no, we need to put steps in process to get that higher. Occasionally. And I think a lot of what’s been put in the news of late are these examples of very egregious lapses. But what I would come back and say, well, it’s actually a good thing because the oversight processes identified those things. Restrictions were made against those implement agencies, corrections were made proactively. And so I think that that’s actually where oversight is successful and it works. And so, you know, I think we shouldn’t judge foreign assistance by its rare failures that have been publicized. But we need to look at saying, hey, the fact that we noticed those failures is a positive. And we’ve got a very strong track record of success and a very strong track record of data that points to projects being implemented. Both Nicole and Mark referenced several of those great successes around public health and and PEPFAR and the number of lives that have been saved. And those are really remarkable things that we need to look at and balance. And I think to the question that Mark brought up of stewardship, that really is a very meaningful way to look at saying, have we stewarded these resources well? And I think on balance, the answer is yes.

Tom Walsh: Nicole, let me just we’ve been talking a little bit about global health and we’ll come back to it. But what are some of the other areas of US international humanitarian engagement that people should bear in mind and what kind of impact has it had?

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: Absolutely.  A lot of the work that I’ve done, and many of my colleagues have done in this space has really focused on when you think about the persecuted church or you think about those who are persecuted or those who are in prison; that’s the work that many of us have done in the justice space. That has ranged from organizations that are working on countering human trafficking and relieving people from the slavery that they have been forced into in human trafficking (which is a problem that exists all around the world), to those who have worked on religious freedom, Mark and I have worked on those issues for many, many years together, and really how do you advocate for a space that is open for people of all faiths, not just of one faith or no faith, but really for people who are believers in any faith and those who are secular, agnostic, or atheist as well. We really have worked around the world to ensure that people have the freedom of conscience, the freedom of belief; many of us have also worked in the space of supporting democracy around the world. What that looks like is ensuring that the governments around the world are responsive to the people that they serve. That there are ways that the people’s voices are heard in a society. That the government then is accountable to its people, and that the government is there to protect the liberties and freedom of people as opposed to being the source of the persecution.

We have been able, in the organization that I was working with previously (before the Bush Institute), we worked on providing emergency assistance, for example, to people of faith around the world of all different faiths and people who are persecuted for not believing what a government forced them to believe – so really looking at how we could provide that life saving emergency assistance to people of who were persecuted because of religious freedom. We also worked to support, throughout Asia, religious freedom – work that helped individual faith communities across the board. All different types of faiths advocate for laws that would protect the right of people to worship or to be free of government coercion on their worship. What that was is just a way for us to be able to ensure that the freedoms and liberties that each of us enjoy every day in the United States (and that are enshrined in universal values), are able to be shared with people who live in countries where that is not the case right now.

Tom Walsh: Mark, anything you would like to add about human trafficking, since you led that effort? Nicole certainly touched on it. But anything you would add? Because I know that’s a big concern for many in the Christian community.

Mark Lagon: Yeah. Based on legislation in 2000 and an office that the Bush administration stood up, but that has had enormous bipartisan support, the United States has had a policy of trying to prosecute the perpetrators of trafficking, empowering the survivors and preventing trafficking. For me, the imperative is helping the survivors –  finding and helping the survivors. The four human trafficking ambassadors since me have all been prosecutors; I love them, they’re friends, but I think we need a human dignity perspective first. The trafficking office of the State Department is most known for a report that gives grades to other countries and prodding other countries with diplomacy. But actually, a really important role that it plays is assistance: giving assistance to secular and faith based organizations, people who have survived human trafficking and are trying to change things, and the training of law enforcement to permit access to justice for the poor. The agency for International Development had its own aid programs, but I think those being folded into states will probably be winnowed. But it would be tragic if that actual assistance that accompanies the diplomacy were reduced. If the trafficking office in the State Department or the Department of Labor’s programs on forced labor and child labor were cut and personnel to implement them and check them.

Tom Walsh: Thank you. So I’m about to turn to audience questions, but first, just a question or two to kind of establish the state of play today: April 4th, 2025. So Myal, for you and world relief, what is the situation in the field now, and the programs you have direct knowledge of, and the outlook going forward?

Myal Greene: So overall the outlook is mixed for us. Nicole mentioned earlier some of the really high level statistics: about 80+ percent of the projects of USAID and the State Department being closed, that had wide sweeping effects. Now for world relief, we work in the humanitarian sector, which is the life saving, life preserving sector. So we’ve seen more of the waivers of those projects being reinstated, and that’s been the administration’s focus. What we’ve seen is that most of our projects, even though there might have been a 60 or 70 day delay in those projects restarting, have been cleared to restart. So that’s a very positive thing that I look to. I think where I am more concerned is outside of some of our humanitarian context, where we’re not even implementing directly with the US government, but where the communities that we’re serving are feeling immediately the effects of the stoppage of some of these projects. So people in health centers not having resources to take care of them – that affects our beneficiaries in an economic development program on the side. Some of those are crucial. I would maybe tell you two stories that come to mind of the impacts of the freezes and the pauses that took place. There’s a health center in South Sudan that we work with very closely and are the main agency that the US government has worked with to support that health center. They went weeks without any new medicines coming into the hospital and had zero on the shelves in the pediatric department left by the time these challenges came. So it directly affected lives in a feeding program that we’re involved with in Sudan. The availability of food was shut down almost completely, and in a report I read from one of our staff on this – he said in that report: Well, the community doesn’t have food, so we will fast also. This is a really strong impact that reminds us here that at the heart of the challenges of these shutdowns, lives are at stake. I believe lives have been lost and more lives will continue to be lost. And, you know, I think if there’s a policy realm to get to changing aid, to change the priorities of the values with which are implemented through that, where we are right now has not really taken into consideration the short term effects trying to get to long term gains. And there was no preparation for, well, expect in six months that you’re going to have to find new sourcing for the pharmacy or make alternate plans for how we’re going to bring feeding programs to this community. And so I think that’s been one of the most devastating effects of this is how short and quickly the shutdowns were implemented, that it left communities without the ability to reconsider what their resiliency plans and how to overcome them.

Tom Walsh: Was there any estimate of the impact at a global level done or shared before these before these changes were put into effect?

Myal Greene: I’m not aware of any US government assessment that was done. If one was done, it certainly was not shared widely with partners about what that impact would be. I’ve seen a number of third party assessments that have been done trying to grapple with what are going to be the impacts of lack of HIV, Aids drugs for children going forward. How many infections will that lead to? What will be the effects of this on the food security situation in a number of countries? But nothing that I’ve seen has been produced by the US government to anticipate the effects of these reductions.

Tom Walsh: Thanks. Let me turn to some audience questions. We definitely have a lot of good ones here.

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca Sorry, Tom, can I just add one other point to that? Myal’s is really captured very, very well, this short term impact of those people who were desperately counting on a compassionate nation to provide this immediate assistance through the partners like Myal’s organization. There is also the challenge that you have a lot of organizations now that have laid off a significant portion of their staff, including faith based organizations, and many of the partners in government have also been relieved of their duty or are now not. And so our ability if this gets turned on or if different priorities are named to restart life saving assistance to people where it has been cut off is really, really going to be hampered because that infrastructure is also gone. I know in our case, the two programs that I mentioned that work on religious freedom, one has been frozen for months. One is completely terminated. Our ability to go back to those communities to help with that life saving assistance to some of those faith based actors that are under persecution of these governments is going to be infinitely harder because of how the cuts were done, that infrastructure really is not there the way it had been just a few months ago.

Tom Walsh: A question from Betsy Kodat kind of got at that point. In your opinion, how easy would it be to reintroduce programs which might be eliminated now? So I think she’s talking not just about right now, but perhaps down the road. What would the challenge be to doing that?

Myal Greene : Go ahead Nicole.

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: I’ll speak in the in the democracy and justice space. I think many of the organizations that we’ve worked with, some are secular, some that have a more specific faith focus have cut 60, 75, 80, 90% of their staff. And so and those people really dedicated work. I just spoke with one yesterday who works on religious freedom and is looking for his next opportunity. It’s not easy to turn those back on when those people then are have moved on to other roles because they are obviously looking for ways for their own livelihoods. So I can tell you in that space just to turn everything on tomorrow, it will take time to rebuild. And I think that is something that’s going to be a challenge for that sector and I imagine in other areas too, that have seen significant cuts.

Myal Greene: Yeah. What I would add  to that, I think there’s two big challenges here. One is the lack of human resource left within the government for administering these programs, which means how quickly could they get resources out the door and steward them well at the same time? And then what is the follow up mechanisms look like to ensure that that work is done well in the future? Similarly, many of the implementing agencies have been directly affected, and I know some that used to be organizations of 1000 people that are now down to a small Home Office executive team trying to look for what the future holds for them and I think that’s very devastating to the capacity of the institutions that have done this work for many years, and the rebuilding process will take decades, not just the next presidential administration.

Tom Walsh: Let me ask a really big picture question asked by an anonymous attendee. In what ways has foreign aid investment benefited the American people, assuming it has. So let’s not assume it has. What would you say? Maybe we’ll start with you, Nicole. What’s the right way to think about that question?

Nicole Babbins Sedaca: Yeah, I think that there’s two ways and I think it’s a both and. There’s both a moral point of it, and there’s a strategic point of it. On a moral point, I do think that we have an opportunity as a nation to help the least of those around the world, the most vulnerable, those that are facing persecution. And I do think we have a moral responsibility as a nation to do that. For me, that is borne out of my Christian faith. I know for people of other faiths it is borne out of theirs, and others who come to that otherwise. But it’s in our strategic interest as well. And I want to say that both of those go hand in hand for the United States to be the nation around the world that is meeting the needs of other nations, but also standing for the democratic values that are first and normal nature to us, is an important part of the United States building relations with other nations, addressing problems in those nations, which we hope truthfully will never come to our nation, whether those are health problems, whether those are problems of migration or forced migration. So there’s a strategic reason for us to also be concerned about helping other nations be healthy, be stable, be secure and be prosperous. Because when we’re in a world where other nations are democratic or stable, then that helps our security. It helps our prosperity. It helps our businesses when we’re around the world, it helps to ensure that they’re not conflicts breaking around the world that eventually come to our shores. So it’s really important, I think, that people know that there is unquestionably a compassionate reason for us to be around the world addressing these needs, and there’s a strategic need. And both of those go hand in hand and just really compel us as a nation and in bringing the resources of all parts of our nation, really to be engaging with the rest of the world.

Tom Walsh: And I think there’s a some concern about China’s role in the world and China and the US as being global competitors, and some discussion about them occupying the space that the US vacates. And I think the earthquake in Myanmar this past week, there has been some some reporting on that. Would you care to comment on that, Nicole?

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: I would be delighted to. We are in a competition with China over what is the world actually going to look like? Is it going to be a world that is open and and inclined towards democratic openness, where there’s a respect for people’s rights, where there’s a respect of religious freedom, where there’s a respect of the individual freedoms and liberties that we believe as a nation that we should have? I believe that China is actively, along with Russia and Iran and a number of other nations, which it’s aligned with, is actively trying to change to a very different model in the world that will see the restrictions and the limitations of liberties around the world. And for that reason, it’s really important that the United States continues to stand with those individuals that are interested in living in a democratic way, living with openness and liberty, and that we are also seen as a compassionate, generous nation that is around the world, actively engaged with other partners. And when we retreat, there is no doubt in the world that that space will be filled by China in many ways. One concern that people have is that they may not fill some of the humanitarian space that we have been, which will be a humanitarian crisis, but it will undoubtedly fill the space of what is the best way to think about the liberties and the freedoms that we believe are right in the world. And it will fill them with a very, very different narrative and fill them with a very different understanding of what it means to live freely, to live generously, and live in community with people. And we know that we are in that battle right now. So it’s an important reason for the United States to be engaged strategically in many of these corners.

Tom Walsh: Thank you. Mark, can I call on you for that question, but also add another one from the audience? Maybe you can tackle them both, with the other one is can faith based organizations, particularly Christian, step in to make up some or most of the government cuts? How?

Speaker5: Great question. Well, first I just say that for the global health area, it manifestly, you know, serves our interests. We saw that PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and malaria use their partnerships and their wherewithal to help fight Covid-19. And I think global health security and, you know, preventing diseases from coming to the United States and harming our citizens are a distinct interest. Nicole’s absolutely right about China. And if we have been in a generosity of spirit, walking as partners for people in Africa and Asia, PEPFAR program has saved 7.5 million babies from having an HIV infection born healthy and saved 8 million children from being orphans. Yes. We need to ramp down aid over time, but walk with countries in doing that, as Myal’s said. Can the faith based organizations step in? Well, I guess what comes to mind is what Rich Stearns, who is president for 20 years of World Vision, recently observed. Christians in the United States, on average, donate about one tenth of 1% of their incomes to help people.

Mark Lagon: We talked about the 54 billion dollar cut in aid that Nicole referred to 40 billion for humanitarian, all Christian adults in the United States would have to increase their giving by at least four times, Rich Stearns notes, to make it up. There are a lot of faith based organizations that will not be able to do their business without the money from the US government. So in fact, it’s not a replacement thing, but in fact, I look at it as a multiplier effect that the US government can help faith based organizations do the work. PEPFAR has a re-authorization that’s lapsed but in the PEPFAR authorization is something incredibly valuable. The conscience clause, which says that faith based organizations can do the work. They can have a faith identity as a basis of hiring. And if there are certain elements of health that employees don’t want to be part of, they can respect their conscience. We need to reauthorize PEPFAR.

Tom Walsh: Let me tackle, or sort of combine two questions from Fritz Heinzen and Diane Smith. As Diane puts it, in some sectors of Christian conversation, the justification for these cuts has been the application of the idea of ordo amoris, or the proper hierarchy of affections and priorities in loving. How would you argue that the funding of foreign aid is not taking away from caring for our domestic needs and loving those close to us? Maybe I’ll turn to you, Myal to take a first stab at that, if you’d like. If not, you can tag somebody else and they can have at it.

Myal Greene: Great. Well, I’m not a Catholic and I’m not an expert on Ordo Amoris, but I do understand the principles enough here, which is to say that care for those close to you first before you care for others as, as the idea. And what I would argue is that the reality that US foreign assistance is less than 1% of the entire federal budget is a very clear indicator of the fact that it was an important but relatively small portion of that. And so what it is, is reducing that level to an even smaller level. And so if Ordo Amoris compels us to make a charitable giving. What is that smaller piece for neighbors around the world? I would look to Matthew 25 and I would know that what’s what’s interesting when you look at that passage, it’s not necessarily it’s directed to the nations, not to the individuals in that passage. And, this idea that those who were nations that cared for the poor, the sick, the hungry, the imprisoned, the thirsty, the strangers. And what is the implication that means? And I think that’s something we have to have firmly in our mind, and we can’t lose sight of the fact that the United States is the richest and most prosperous nation in the world, and perhaps the richest and most prosperous nation of all time.

Myal Greene: And so what does it mean when we take the blessing and the resources that we have in this country, and we choose not to share those and be a blessing with other nations of the world. And I think that at the heart of a biblical concept is that we’ve been blessed so that we can bless others. And I would also kind of add that, you know, we’re also seeing reductions to domestic programs as well, happening right alongside the reductions to foreign assistance. And so, the question, you know, that raised earlier is can the church respond? I absolutely believe the church can fill the gap. I think the question is, will the church fill the gap? And do they want to? And is every Christian that looks out across the map willing to step in and give four fold of what they give today, or probably tenfold, because many are looking at and saying, no, I’m not ready to make additional gifts here. And are the Christian community of this world, or the churches of this country willing to step up and give generously. And that’s my great hope in this situation, that there can be a change of that perspective and there can be a spirit of generosity and love.

Mark Lagon: And as a stewardship matter, the US is not going to balance its budget by eliminating that 1% of the budget and we must prioritize American citizens. But when we do choose to spend a small amount of our treasure, it goes very far abroad. There’s so much that our funding can influence, particularly done by those on the ground and faith based implementers on the ground. So many people for each dollar can be helped.

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: Just add to that, I think that many of us are called into different types of work, and I think that is a really wonderful thing. And we’re called into different types of support. And as Myal’s said, 1% of the US budget has gone to the international work. But so much more can also come to serve Americans. And I think we tend to think of it as an either or, but it really is that we have an opportunity to be generous in many different places. And when it’s pitched as it’s this or that, I think it’s actually most people who have done the numbers and looked at it, it is not an either or. It’s a both and. And I think that we have an opportunity. And truthfully, as Americans, we have an opportunity to also with every administration say all of this is our priority. And to be able to say, we would love to serve the needs of Americans, and we would love to be generous towards our neighbors and those around the world as well, that are in the most vulnerable situations.

Tom Walsh: Thank you. In a spirit of bundling, a few more questions. There’s a few around this question of how to communicate with people who are coming from a place where they are, you know, their initial instinct is to be supportive of these changes or to think this is probably a good thing. For example, Nathan Swanson said, how should proponents of this make the case to the audiences who are probably most skeptical about it. What are the steps? Nicole, do you want to start?

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: Yeah, I’d be happy to. I think it really does come down to the biblical principles of that we are called to serve those, the most vulnerable, those who are persecuted, the widows, the orphans, and to say that that continues to be a calling upon us and to also counter some of the conversation, I think some of the people who have celebrated the cuts have celebrated them because of this thought that there is significant waste and fraud and abuse, which has not actually borne out. And what we’ve actually seen is far more fruit that has been borne out of this assistance. The fruit of lives saved, the fruit of prisoners walking out of cells, the fruit of trafficked people being restored back to the nature in which God intended them to be. We’ve seen all of that fruit and what we’re able to say then to our neighbors and our family and others is to say that foreign assistance has borne that fruit, and we can be very good stewards by saying yes, continue to ensure that we have strict oversight and that we have an assurance of if we set a priority to save lives, to ensure babies do not have transmission of HIV Aids, that our money goes to it. But this narrative that there has been extensive waste, fraud and abuse, but without the fruit just hasn’t borne out. And so I think it’s an opportunity for us to really share with people that many of our faith based colleagues, our secular colleagues, have been doing this good work, and it has been bearing fruit in the name of the United States and in the name of a compassionate nation. And that there’s far, far, far more compassionate work that has been done to save lives than any of the concerns about the shortcomings that people have named.

Mark Lagon: Values and interests are not mutually exclusive. A strong America and a generous America, those are not opposites. And there are practical ways US has invested in the Global Fund to try and end Aids, TB and malaria. $3.5 million over the last two decades has come back to companies and employees in the United States producing drugs, producing equipment. And that’s not even to speak of the NGOs and faith based organizations, just businesses, and a strong America that stops this evil governance model of China is one that shows itself to be generous and a partner to countries, and not one that turns its back quickly on health aid.

Myal Greene: Yeah, I think one thought that I would add to it as well is that and both of you mentioned your response to this importance of values and I think prevailing in society right now, there’s the victim and the villain narrative that sits out there, especially when it talks about vulnerable groups of people. And so oftentimes, you see on the political right, talk about a social program and identifying the individuals receiving that program or participating in that as the villains, the problem and as the critique. And then the justification, the defense from that political left often comes in with this idea of a victim mentality and how to care for them. And I think when people, you know, in the center or in the church especially, hear just a victim narrative coming from the church or people talking about something like foreign assistance, they become very wary of that. And I would argue that, you know, the Bible is replete with examples of calling on people to serve and care for people who have experienced injustice, who are hungry, who are thirsty, who are naked, who are strangers among us again. And sometimes if we just speak with that space, rather than speaking of these individuals, assisted by these programs as individuals of inherent value and dignity, with the potential for change and the potential to offer, it’s very many people in the church are going to see that message and say, well, that’s just a left idea, and I’m not comfortable with it. They may not be comfortable with the villain narrative either, and so they’re left to be confused. I think that’s for us in leadership roles, it’s really important to talk about the inherent value that these programs provide and the inherent value that the beneficiaries of these programs provide to the rest of society globally and locally. And I think that that’s just a really important communication point that we have to keep in mind in this season.

Tom Walsh: It’s the end of the hour. I just want to first ask our audience immediately after we conclude on your screen, you’ll see an online feedback form and would be really grateful for your thoughts on how we can make conversations like this even more valuable to you. And if you take the survey, you’ll be gifted a free digital copy of the Trinity Forum reading of your choice. We’ve published over 100 of them. Some that you might find relevant to this conversation today feature people like William Wilberforce, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and as we remember him today on the anniversary of his death, Martin Luther King Junior. Then tomorrow we’ll send all of you an email with the link to today’s video and some discussion questions and links for our upcoming events. We also hope you’ll join us in our community, the Trinity Forum society, and the link to that is in the chat. Your membership and support helps keep these conversations free. I should note that after 16 years at the same price, the base price of membership is going up on May 1st, so this is a good time to join. Together, let’s keep the Christian intellectual tradition alive, nurture new growth, and make it available to everyone. A quick word about upcoming events, which you can register for there through the links on April 18th. We’ll have a Good Friday online special presentation on the Saint Matthew Passion by Bach, led by our senior fellow Mia Chung, who is a renowned concert pianist.

Tom Walsh: If you’re in Nashville, join us there on April 29th with Lydia Dugdale of Columbia medical school, who will be speaking on Living Well and Dying Well Practical wisdom from the Christian Tradition. If you’re not in Nashville, we’ll post the video soon afterward. And then on May 16th, Nicole Massey Martin will join us on the theme How We Become True Leaders. It’s also a good time to subscribe to our podcast. We’re doing a special Lenten series with speakers like N.T. Wright. Some of our other recent podcast guests include the historian Tom Holland from the Rest Is History podcast, which I know has a lot of fans, including me and Curt Thompson and Warren Kinghorn. Speaking on faith and mental Health. I’m afraid we’ve got to wrap it up there. There were so many great questions. I wish we could have gotten to more, but I would just encourage everyone to take a look at the websites of the organizations represented here. World relief, the friends of the Global Fight,  the Bush Institute. All of them have good resources. Center for Global Development is another one that’s really tracking the impact. And for those who want to dive deeply, that’s a good place to go. Thanks to each of our guests, we’re so grateful for each of you, Mark, Myal, and Nicole. And thanks to all of you out there for making time to engage with this issue. Have a great weekend.

Myal Greene: Thank you.

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca: Thank you.