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"Faith-based human services."
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Religion and faith-based welfare : from wellbeing to ways of being
This text makes a potentially controversial contribution to social policy debates in Britain, Europe, and North America. Drawing on a critical overview of the role religious values, actors, and institutions have on social programs, Rana Jawad examines the workings of religious welfare organizations from the worlda's major faiths.
Book
The Other Philadelphia Story
For people living in U.S. cities, social services come not only from the government but increasingly also from local religious communities. Ever since the Clinton administration's welfare reform, faith-based institutions, and especially congregations, have been allowed to bid for federal funds for their programs. InThe Other Philadelphia Story, drawing on the first-ever census of congregations in any American city, Ram Cnaan and his colleagues provide an authoritative account of the functioning of congregations, their involvement in social services, and their support of other charitable organizations. An in-depth study of 1,392 congregations in Philadelphia, the book illuminates how these groups function as community hubs where members and neighbors alike gather throughout the week. Cnaan's findings show that almost every assembly of parishioners emphasizes caring for others, even if the help is modest. Thus American congregations uphold an implicit but strong norm of social responsibility and work to improve the quality of life for members and nonmembers alike. Many of the problems associated with urban life persist in the face of governmental inaction, and the burden of responsibility cannot be shouldered entirely by congregations. However, in a city such as Philadelphia, where half the residents are regular attenders of religious congregations, hopes for urban improvement are largely to be found in these local groups. Special focus is given in the book to kinds of care that often go unnoticed: volunteerism, provision of refuge, and informal assistance to community members in need. All told, Cnaan asserts, congregations are an essential component of Philadelphia's civil society. Without them, the quality of life would deteriorate immeasurably.
eBook
Overcoming conflicting loyalties : intimate partner violence, community resources, and faith
\"To date, little has been published about the place of spirituality in working with survivors of intimate partner violence. Overcoming Conflicting Loyalties examines the intersection of faith and culture in the lives of religious and ethno-cultural women in the context of the work of FaithLink, a unique community initiative that encourages religious leaders and secular service providers to work together. The authors present the benefits of such co-operation by reporting the findings of three qualitative research studies. Individuals in secular and sacral services who work with victims of domestic violence, as well as academics in the fields of social work, psychology, and religious studies, will benefit from the insights, depth of experience, and range of voices represented in this valuable book.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Conversionary sites : transforming medical aid and global Christianity from Madagascar to Minnesota
Drawing on more than two years of participant observation in the American Midwest and in Madagascar among Lutheran clinicians, volunteer laborers, healers, evangelists, and former missionaries, Conversionary Sites investigates the role of religion in the globalization of medicine. Based on immersive research of a transnational Christian medical aid program, Britt Halvorson tells the story of a thirty-year-old initiative that aimed to professionalize and modernize colonial-era evangelism. Creatively blending perspectives on humanitarianism, global medicine, and the anthropology of Christianity, she argues that the cultural spaces created by these programs operate as multistranded \"conversionary sites,\" where questions of global inequality, transnational religious fellowship, and postcolonial cultural and economic forces are negotiated.
A nuanced critique of the ambivalent relationships among religion, capitalism, and humanitarian aid, Conversionary Sites draws important connections between religion and science, capitalism and charity, and the US and the Global South.
eBook
Piety and Public Funding
How is it that some conservative groups are viscerally antigovernment even while enjoying the benefits of government funding? InPiety and Public Fundinghistorian Axel R. Schäfer offers a compelling answer to this question by chronicling how, in the first half century since World War II, conservative evangelical groups became increasingly adept at accommodating their hostility to the state with federal support. Though holding to the ideals of church-state separation, evangelicals gradually took advantage of expanded public funding opportunities for religious foreign aid, health care, education, and social welfare. This was especially the case during the Cold War, when groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals were at the forefront of battling communism at home and abroad. It was evident, too, in the Sunbelt, where the military-industrial complex grew exponentially after World War II and where the postwar right would achieve its earliest success. Contrary to evangelicals' own claims, liberal public policies were a boon for, not a threat to, their own institutions and values. The welfare state, forged during the New Deal and renewed by the Great Society, hastened-not hindered-the ascendancy of a conservative political movement that would, in turn, use its resurgence as leverage against the very system that helped create it. By showing that the liberal state's dependence on private and nonprofit social services made it vulnerable to assaults from the right,Piety and Public Fundingbrings a much needed historical perspective to a hotly debated contemporary issue: the efforts of both Republican and Democratic administrations to channel federal money to \"faith-based\" organizations. It suggests a major reevaluation of the religious right, which grew to dominate evangelicalism by exploiting institutional ties to the state while simultaneously brandishing a message of free enterprise and moral awakening.
eBook
Faith-based policy
In 2001, George W. Bush created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The driving force behind the policy was to create a “level playing field” where faith-based organizations could compete on an equal footing with secular organizations for government funding of social aid programs. Given, on the one hand, the continuation of faith-based policy under Barack Obama and, on the other, the continued support by the vast majority of the American people for some form of such policy, the need has emerged to clearly understand what this policy is and the issues that it raises. Why? First, because the policy reveals new paradigms that explode traditional political and religious designations such as conservative–liberal or evangelical–progressive. Secondly, it is a policy which is setting precedents that with time will only become more entrenched in the institutional fabric of American government and the values of the culture. Finally, it does not seem to be a policy that is likely to just go away. And if it won’t go away, then, how should responsible policy be conducted? While John Chandler's Faith-Based Policy: A Litmus Test for Understanding Contemporary Americaresponds to this need to understand, it also acknowledges that there is already a substantial amount of documentation available, which, taken together, provides a comprehensive, though sometimes biased, picture of faith-based policy. This book contributes a relatively brief, impartial analysis that draws on and synthesizes the available information. More specifically, in order to dissipate the confusion surrounding the perceptions that many have had concerning the intention and meaning of the policy, this book provides insight into: 1) the theological visions of the faith-based actors behind the policy; 2) how these actors have tried to apply these visions as the program has evolved in the 2000s; 3) the divisiveness and debate that has characterized the faith-based experiment, and; 4) how all of the above may be held up for contemplation by the reader as a mirror of developing American culture.
eBook
Not by faith alone : social services, social justice, and faith-based organizations in the United States
This edited collection provides an in-depth ethnographic study of faith-based development organizations in the United States, shining a much needed critical light onto these organizations and their role in the United States by exploring the varied ways that faith-based organizations attempt to mend the fissures and mitigate the effects of neoliberal capitalism, poverty, and the social service sector on the poor and powerless. In doing so, Not by Faith Alone generates provocative and sophisticated analyses-grounded in empirical case studies-of such topics as the meaning of 'faith-based' development, evaluations of faith-based versus secular approaches, the influence of faith-orientation on program formulation and delivery, and examinations of faith-based organizations' impacts on structural inequality and poverty alleviation. Taken together, the chapters in this volume demonstrate the vital importance of ethnography for understanding the particular role of faith-based agencies in development. The contributors argue for an understanding of faith-based development that moves beyond either dismissing or uncritically supporting faith-based initiatives. Instead, contributors demonstrate the importance of grounded analysis of the specific discourses, practices, and beliefs that imbue faith-based development with such power and reveal both the promise and the limitations of this particular vehicle of service delivery.
eBook
Religion in Philanthropic Organizations
Religion in Philanthropic Organizations explores the tensions inherent in religious philanthropies across a variety of organizations and examines the effect assumptions about \"professional, scientific, nonsectarian\" philanthropy have had on how religious philanthropies carry out their activities. The organizations examined include the American Friends Service Committee, the American Soviet Jewry Movement, Catholic Charities USA, the Salvation Army, the World Council of Churches, and World Vision (in global comparative context). The book also looks at Robert Pierce, founder of World Vision and Samaritan's Purse, and at matters not bounded by a single religious philanthropy: philanthropy and Jewish identity, American Muslim philanthropy since 9/11, and the complexities of the federal program that funds faith-based initiatives. These essays shed light on how religion and philanthropy function in American society, shaping and being shaped by the culture and its notions of the \"common good.\"
eBook