Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- List of Arabic words with English translations
- List of abbreviations
- Map of the Middle East
- one Introduction: religion and social policy – an “old–new” partnership
- two Religion and the foundations of social policy
- three Lebanon: a profile of political and welfare institutions
- four A philosophy of social service: faith or social insurance?
- five Systems of provision and welfare outcomes: defining and treating the causes of poverty
- six Social solidarity: between power and morality
- seven Social ethics and welfare particularism
- eight What next for the Middle East? Re-reading history, re-visioning future possibilities of positive action
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Appendix A Lebanon country profile
- Appendix B Social protection institutions and coverage
- Index
one - Introduction: religion and social policy – an “old–new” partnership
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- List of Arabic words with English translations
- List of abbreviations
- Map of the Middle East
- one Introduction: religion and social policy – an “old–new” partnership
- two Religion and the foundations of social policy
- three Lebanon: a profile of political and welfare institutions
- four A philosophy of social service: faith or social insurance?
- five Systems of provision and welfare outcomes: defining and treating the causes of poverty
- six Social solidarity: between power and morality
- seven Social ethics and welfare particularism
- eight What next for the Middle East? Re-reading history, re-visioning future possibilities of positive action
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Appendix A Lebanon country profile
- Appendix B Social protection institutions and coverage
- Index
Summary
One wonders whether the greater willingness of social scientists to consider religious factors in Third World cases might be the result of a strange marriage of positivism and post-modernism in which cultural relativism serves as cover for a deep-seated modernism that still sees religion as a symptom of backwardness. (Gorski, 2005, p 187)
[R]eligious faith is a good thing in itself, … far from being a reactionary force, it has a major part to play in shaping the values which guide the modern world, and can and should be a force for progress … I see Faith and Reason, Faith and Progress, as in alliance not contention…. We can think of the great humanitarian enterprises which bring relief to those who are suffering – the Red Cross, the Red Crescent or Islamic Relief, CAFOD and Christian Aid, Hindu Aid and SEWA International, World Jewish Relief and Khalsa Aid – all the charities which draw inspiration from the teachings of the different faiths…. And in the West, for example, we owe an incalculable debt to the Judaeo-Christian tradition in terms of our concepts of human worth and dignity, law and democracy. (Blair, 2008, p 9)
Once the muse of the founding fathers of the modern social sciences, today religion has mostly become associated with a regressive or self-deluding impulse; or at best it is regarded as a cultural artefact. By the 1970s, few scholars would have imagined the centrality of religion on the world stage in the new millennium, but the last three decades have indeed been marked by the prominence of religiously inspired social and political mobilisation worldwide, as highlighted by a variety of publications that consider evidence on all the world religions (Antoun and Hegland, 1987; Moyser, 1991; Esposito, 2000; Mitsuo, 2001; Haynes, 2003; Madeley and Enyedi, 2003; Sutton and Vertigans, 2005; Bacon, 2006; Freston, 2007; Thomas, 2007; Delibas, 2009).
Is Tony Blair, previous leader of one of the most advanced and secular nations of the world, now a global development protagonist, lecturing on faith and globalisation at Yale University and seeking to broker Middle East peace, blowing the trumpet of neoliberalism and pointing us in the direction of things to come? Can religious identity be party to the making of the good society of the future?
- Type
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- Information
- Social Welfare and Religion in the Middle EastA Lebanese Perspective, pp. 1 - 24Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2009