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Last fall Network Associates Inc., the manufacturer of McAfee software, announced it had joined San Francisco's 24-hour news station, KCBS, in a goodwill promotion—purchases of McAfee products would result in a donation to Bay Area Habitat. I called the station's marketing director, Noel Wax, to ask if he knew that Habitat for Humanity was a Christian organization. After all, KCBS appeals to the broadest possible market, and San Francisco is not in the Bible belt.

"Does it make any difference to you?" I asked. "No," Wax said. "No difference whatsoever."

The station offers its partnership with Habitat as an incentive to potential advertisers, which are more than willing to pay for association with the Habitat name. Cisco Systems, Whirlpool, General Motors, Bank of America, and Home Depot are among the many companies that have partnered with Habitat.

Politicians from Newt Gingrich to Bill Clinton have made media splashes participating in Habitat projects. Habitat for Humanity has made it into the American mainstream.

Born of a spiritual crisis in the life of its founders, Millard and Linda Fuller, and incubated at Koinonia, a communal Christian farm with Southern Baptist roots, Habitat grew out of evangelical soil and maintains a vital Christian identity. Its mission statement mentions God three times, and its four official purposes include "to witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world" and to exemplify "the Gospel of Jesus Christ through loving acts and the spoken and written word."

After 26 years of growing into one of the nation's largest homebuilders, Habitat's 2,000 affiliates worldwide and revenues of $550 million make it one of America's leading charities. It has built more than 120,000 homes for poor people both here and overseas.

Habitat is one of the few organizations as popular with college students (it has 600 campus chapters) as with corporate America.

Popularity, however, threatens to dilute Habitat's Christian identity.

"We feel daily pressure to secularize," Fuller says. Habitat's corporate and political partnerships raise money and create media attention, but they also push Habitat to downplay its faith. For example, Habitat usually presents a Bible along with house keys to new homeowners; some sponsors would just as soon omit that part of the ceremony.

This pressure is not unique to Habitat. Other widely respected Christian organizations, like World Vision and the Salvation Army (among others), also struggle to remain Christian while partnering with non-Christians. Habitat's struggle merely illustrates a larger challenge.

Habitat gladly partners with people of other faiths—it's not unusual to see a synagogue sponsoring a Habitat home. With each affiliate acting as an independent corporation, Habitat is structured more as a movement than a top-down organization, which also could leave the door open for straying from the Christian hearth. Nonetheless, Fuller is determined to both expand Habitat's role in society and maintain its core Christian identity. That identity is unmistakable to anyone who has met Fuller.

"I'm a strong social activist," he says, "but in a lot of ways, I'm very fundamentalist. I believe Jesus is who he says he is. I believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life—that's the way to the Father, through Christ. But I'm liberal in not standing in judgment on those who differ from me."

Fuller is unapologetic about the faith basis of Habitat, but he's equally clear that Habitat is not a church, doesn't have a statement of faith, and works as an equal partner with people of all faiths and no faith. His way of safeguarding Habitat's Christian identity is to "try to keep the flame alive" by speaking and writing with a strong Christian message.

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June 10 2002, Vol. 46, No. 7