In order for us to understand the relationship between religion and social policy in the British context, it is useful to adopt two complementary approaches, one historical and one theoretical. The first of these is the subject of this chapter; the second is taken up in the next. These two perspectives fulfil two important purposes: on the one hand, our view of the welfare state is stretched to the period before the Second World War which is often missing in contemporary social policy scholarship since it is post 1945, which is generally depicted as the watershed moment of the classic...

Following on from the historical focus of the previous chapter, here we examine how religion has been studied within social policy scholarship. This immediately contrasts the British (and English) context with continental Europe and North America in the sense that the role of religion has been more or less lost in the obscurity of the voluntary sector in the UK, whereas in Europe and North America it has figured much more centrally in the analysis of social welfare provision, for example, through the role of Catholic political parties and the Catholic Church or through faith based social welfare provision funded...

What role does religion play in social life in Britain today? Is there a religious profile of social inequality and deprivation? What do we know about the 30,000¹ or so religious welfare charities that are currently operating? What is the contemporary policy context in Britain with regard to the role of religion in social policy?

These are four guiding questions for this chapter, which sets out the contemporary situation of social problems and social policy in relation to the religious welfare sector. Government policy since 1997 (under Tony Blair’s leadership) has been etching out an agenda to engage religious groups...

We start our review of the contribution of religion and religious organisations to social welfare by looking first at the social work profession. It is also apt to begin with social work because the empirical research which this book draws on will help illustrate fundamental characteristics about the nature of religious welfare provision and social action which will help illuminate the concept ofways of beingproposed in this book.

Together with education, social work is a central plank of religious welfare activity. In the British academic literature, it is the subject of social work that has surpassed its cousin,...

In this chapter, we look at the issue of illness and the maintenance of health – the meaning and purpose of the human body in daily human affairs as well as in medical intervention is a matter of perennial importance to all the world religions.

First, there are the teachings and principles in virtually all of the major world religions. The missionary religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) call on believers to tend to the needs of the sick and infirm, such as the Jewish principle ofbikur cholim(visiting the sick) (Kohn, 2010, p 121), the saying of the...

This chapter is concerned with social care. It is important to note from the outset that it represents a complementary conceptual progression from previous chapters on social work and health due to the very close conceptual and practical ties between these three domains. Two tasks are accomplished which are consistent with the book’s overall aims and the progression of its argument: (1) it develops the discussion of holistic approaches to human wellbeing by honing in on the concepts of ‘worldview’ (Stewart, 2002) and ‘lifeworld’ (Grunwald and Thiersch, 2009) in the provision of adequate social care; and (2) it takes the...

This chapter takes us into the realm of poverty, broadly defined, and economic justice, both of which are discourses of prime concern to religious groups and actors in the UK. It builds on the previous discussion of social care and ethics of justice in Chapter 6. Poverty is the perennial social problem of human society, and the bread and butter of social policy, but how do we define it? Indeed, our definition of it will determine what solutions we are able to find for it. In this chapter we look at poverty in a variety of meanings, first, as a...

This chapter takes a spatial lens to consider the role of religion and religious welfare provision in the areas of housing and urban regeneration that are related to a broader constellation of issues such as homelessness, social cohesion and social exclusion, and urban poverty. In both housing and urban regeneration policies, the UK government has increasingly begun to take into account the needs of religious communities and also what part they play in the development of harmonious and socially cohesive communities. In addition, religious organisations offering social welfare services in Britain have themselves catered to the housing and social needs...