Social Policy and Religion

Today's society is marked by a fundamental ambiguity: On the one hand we find the loss in old values and systems, in particular what is called secularisation, and the loss of the stronghold of religious institutions. However, at the same time we find the opposite: rather than the loss of confidence in religion, the loss of confidence in citizenship and the institutions of the welfare state. As a conservative answer, policies based in family and religion are constructed and offered as new doctrines as well as for new social policies. The borders between different traditional positions are blurred in this process: conservative and progressive positions claim the turn to communitarian values. This book is a valuable contribution to current debates, looking at the background of faith systems, their understanding and claims, and the limitations in answering the challenges of modernising societies.