The Faith-Based Organization in the Post-Secular Society

Abstract

Faith-based organizations have begun to be analyzed from the point of view of the efficiency and effectiveness of services provided with the re-emergence of the religious element at the forefront of public discourse, and the recognition of the partial failure of policies for forced separation of social services from the religious element, as well as their secularization. This trend, started in the US, quickly became an important one in the UK and generally in Europe, where religious communities were reconsidered as partners of public social services (Beaumont & Cloke, 2012; Dinham & Lowndes, 2008). This change, in the sense of moving to a post-secular social assistance, comes in the wider context of post-secular society, at least in part recognizing the role of religious communities as a depository of traditions and a facilitator of community energies, a source of motivation for human resources and, in general, the promoter of the public good (Dinham, Furbey, & Lowndes, 2009).