9 783374 031689

ISBN 978-3-374-03168-9

EUR 38,00 [D]

Poverty and exclusion are rising challenges in all European countries. Christian welfare organizations such as Diaconia have been committed to working against poverty and marginalization since many years. However, a change of the structures which cause poverty is often not accomplished. Poor people remain in dependent situations and do not really participate in society. What are the main challenges to diaconal institutions combating poverty and exclusion? Which innovations are necessary within diaconia and civil society in order to meet future challenges? With contributions from all over Europe, this volume tries to answer these questions by applying a multi-perspective angle to the main challenges, by examing new concepts and by developing new perspectives for the future of Christian social practice.

Dia

coni

a ag

ains

t Po

verty

and

Excl

usio

n in

Eur

ope

VDWI 48

Johannes Eurich Ingolf Hübner (Eds.)

Diaconia against Poverty

and Exclusion in Europe

Challenges – Contexts – Perspectives

48-Eurich_Hübner_Umschlag.indd 148-Eurich_Hübner_Umschlag.indd 1 30.04.13 17:0730.04.13 17:07

Diaconia against Poverty and Exclusion in Europe

Veröffentlichungen des Diakoniewissenschaftlichen Instituts an der Universität Heidelberg (VDWI)

Begründet von Theodor Strohm

Herausgegeben von Johannes Eurich und Volker Herrmann

Band 48

Johannes Eurich/Ingolf Hübner (Eds.)

Diaconia against Poverty and Exclusion in Europe

Challenges – Contexts – Perspectives

EVANGELISCHE VERLAGSANSTALTLeipzig

Bibliographische Information der Deutschen NationalbibliothekDie Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar.

© 2013 by Evangelische Verlagsanstalt GmbH · Leipzig Printed in Germany · H 7626

Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlags unzulässig und strafbar.

Das Buch wurde auf alterungsbeständigem Papier gedruckt.

Cover: Kai-Michael Gustmann, LeipzigSatz: Jochen Busch, Leipzig Druck und Binden: Hubert & Co., Göttingen

ISBN 978-3-374-03168-9www.eva-leipzig.de

This publication has been made possibleby a grant from Ecclesia Versicherungsdienst GmbH.

Contents

Johannes Eurich/Ingolf HübnerIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Challenges

Wolfgang GernMake Poverty History? Poverty as a Challenge for Diaconia and European Union Social Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Johannes A. van der VenDiaconia and Socioeconomic Human Rights: Their Mutual Relevance . . . 21

Ninna EdgardhGender and the Study of Christian Social Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Helmut K. Anheier/Annelie Beller/Norman SpenglerNon-profits during Times of Crisis: Organizational Behaviour and Policy Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Klaus SeitzDiaconia and Ecological Crisis: Challenges for International Diaconia . . . 90

Contexts

Martin HorstmannDiaconia in Local Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Mikko MalkavaaraCrises as Agents of Changes in Finnish Diaconia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Christoph SigristReflections on the Paradigm Change in Voluntary Work, with Reference to Switzerland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

6

Peter HerrmannMergers and Competition among Value-Oriented Enterprises: Value-BasedActors between Economization and Social Self-Positioning? . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Wolfgang MaaserEU-Anti-Discrimination Policies and the Protestant Identity of Diaconia in Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Perspectives

Heinrich Bedford-StrohmCivil Society – Welfare State – Diaconia: International Perspectives for Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Kari LatvusThe Conventional Theory about the Origin of Diaconia. An Analysis of Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Andreas MüllerDiakonia in the Ancient Church – A Reply to Kari Latvus . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Kaia D. Schultz RønsdalCitizenship and the Recognition of the Other – The Impact for Christian Social Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Martin SchenkActive Agents as a Model of Social Advocacy:Participation and Self-organization of People Experiencing Poverty . . . 242

Tony AddyPerspectives for Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Contents

Introduction

Throughout Europe, poverty and exclusion remain ever mounting challenges. Europe’s economic crisis has only deepened since the European Year for Com-bating Poverty and Social Exclusion in 2010. High unemployment rates in many European countries have resulted in a larger number of people affected by poverty and exclusion. At the same time, these same economic stressors reduce the level of public resources available to combat social problems. This situation constitutes a great challenge for Christian welfare or diaconal or-ganizations. For many years, diaconal agencies have fought against poverty and marginalization. Despite this focus, however, little to no change has been made to the underlying structures that cause poverty. The poor remain in dependent situations and are often hindered from full participation in wider society.

What are the main challenges to diaconal institutions focused on com-bating poverty and exclusion? What innovations are necessary both within the field of diaconia and civil society to meet future challenges? To answer these questions, of course, the basic challenges have to be charted and thor-oughly analyzed. Only a person who knows a given context and its potential is capable of developing perspectives and measures to address poverty and exclusion. Only if the causes are known and professional knowledge is ap-plied, can new forms of action be developed and implemented.

This volume is divided into three parts: challenges, contexts and per-spectives. One of the challenges currently before institutions of diaconia is proving themselves as non-profit organizations located between civil society, market, and the welfare state. Those tasked with diaconia must reflect on the constitutive elements of the work, including the questions of human rights, poverty and social exclusion. There is a tendency that the forces of market competition dominate the key mission of diaconia. This challenge is apparent in many national contexts. Of course, the contexts of diaconal work in Europe vary from country to country. The examples given in this book paint a good picture of both the vitality and the problems of diaconal work today. As to its future direction, this is the concern of the last section. ‘Perspectives’ names new models for the development of diaconal work and posits as yet unan-swered problems.

This volume is based on the presentations given at the conference ‘Diaco-nia against Poverty and Exclusion in Europe: Future contexts and challenges’

8

held at the University of Heidelberg in the fall of 2010. Not every presentation made at the conference could be included here.

We would like to thank all authors for their contributions as well as the Volkswagen Foundation, which supported the conference. We are especially grateful to Ecclesia Versicherungen, whose grant made this publication of the conference volume possible. Our gratitude belongs to Mr. John Flett who has been very helpful in proofreading the English text. Mr. Dietmar Kauderer has been in charge of the editorial work – we are very thankful to him for his tremendous work. To his team belong the following student workers: Mrs. Tanja Hensel, Mrs. Hanna Horst, Mrs. Lena Maurach and Mr. Oliver Seel who deserve our sincere appreciation for their accurate corrections.

Heidelberg and Berlin, Johannes Eurich und Ingolf Hübner

Introduction

Challenges

Make Poverty History?

Poverty as a Challenge for Diaconia and European Union Social Policy

Wolfgang Gern

The strength of a people matches against the wellbeing of the weak.Swiss Constitution

1. A growing experience of poverty and powerlessness

There are two pictures in my mind. The first comes from Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish writer. Pamuk talks about a man passing through the streets of his town. Occasionally he sees a door with the sign ‘No entry’. He thinks why the entry is forbidden and who is allowed to pass that door. He also asks himself why this sign is there, and why they don’t distribute keys so that people can orderly go through this door. He feels that this door – originally made for opening – causes desires, and that it signifies for the rest of mankind that the door is irrevocably closed. You imagine things that might be behind, and some individuals behind the door even decide that no keys should be distrib-uted. Because otherwise the door could open as well for people who should remain excluded. And one would be able to see what happens behind the door.

Pamuk says: ‘The people out there clearly understand only by that sign that they are outside …, that with this sign the world is, so to speak, divided in two parts. Some are allowed in, the others not… The man gets more and more infuriated at those people with the sign, who exactly had foreseen that he would stand so long in front of this door and get furious at the humiliating aspects of the sign’. Orhan Pamuk’s picture has a drastic meaning for Europe: there is a growing number of people standing outside, who feel excluded, who are waiting powerlessly or even are full of rage.

12 Wolfgang Gern

The second picture is from a Diaconia advice centre. We are confronted with the following story: Imagine you wake up in the morning without an alarm clock or any gentle welcome, but your feelings tell you that it’s time to get up. You roll out of your uncovered and dirty bed. Since long you have no warm bed cover anymore. You get up, go to the bathroom and wash your face with ice-cold water, because the water heater is damaged since weeks. – You don’t need to think about what to wear today, because you are wearing the same clothes day and night since several days already. Forget about going to the kitchen, because the refrigerator was empty already yesterday. So you take your bag, grab a jacket from the pile of clothes in the corridor, and put on your only pair of shoes. These are sandals, even though you saw through the window that it is snowing. You leave the apartment without having seen any other member of the family. Imagine, you are on your way to school, as you are now seven years old.

Both stories mirror the attitude towards life of many people in Europe. We encounter them on the road, or in the advice centres and institutions of Diaconia. A lot of them have so far in vain been searching for a key to solve their problems. Or even worse: Not seldom they have completely given up the hope for themselves, or even their self-confidence. Many have fallen silent about the marginalization they are experiencing. But we cannot remain indif-ferent when the number of needy persons and those in search of assistance is growing – especially among children and youth unable to defend themselves. Child poverty means being badly nourished, being sick more often, having less help with problems at school. It means more often a premature leaving of school and lower chances in professional life. It is an early experience that you cannot keep pace. The sad experience is that children of poor parents become again poor parents.

2. Diaconia stands up against the separation between inside and outside

Diaconia is protest. The practical, passionate and hopefully loving protest against a world that divides between inside and outside. It is protest – also against a Christianity that wants to claim and conserve God’s grace for itself. The founder of modern Diaconia, Johann Hinrich Wichern, in this sense gave the Christian bourgeoisie at Hamburg a good going over in the middle of the 19th century. He spoke of the temptation of a ‘wooden Christ’ who is adored, but has no influence on the church. Wichern said: ‘Did you not have long

13Make Poverty History?

enough made your little private peace with God? Have you not seen how your labourers are crowded with their wives and children in holes? … Didn’t you realize that they only have a derisive laughter when you talk to them of God, State, Fatherland and charity?’

Martin Niemöller has asked the Church and Diaconia directly after World War II: ‘What does it mean for us that the cross of Jesus Christ in Golgotha stands in the middle of the world?’ And I ask you now: What does it mean in the light of the cross, that every fifth child is living in poverty, and that many more children have very little chances for education, that they must very early experience that they are not able to keep pace? What does it mean for us that the number of young homeless is growing? What does it mean, in the face of the cross, that many are poor despite their work, particularly in the big cities of our countries? What does it mean, in the face of the cross, that old people more often have a pension below the living minimum, even if they have worked for decades? What does it mean for us that ten per cent of the population in Europe are holding more than fifty per cent of the financial assets in their hands? What does it mean after all that in many countries thirty to forty per cent of the people no more go to the polls, that they expect nothing from democracy and a European social order?

Who talks today of social basic rights has to go back to the development debate in the 1970s and 80s. When in 1966 the concept of a ‘responsible world society’ was coined in the ecumenical debate of the World Council of Churches, it happened simultaneously that the ‘International Pact on econo-mic, social and cultural rights’ underlined in Article 11 ‘everyone’s right to an adequate life style for him or herself and the family’. Erich Fromm speaks in this connection of an innate right – regardless whether the person is useful for the society or not. As far as that goes, the question of a social balance in our country is also a question of international standards of behaviour and social laws, as were demanded by the United Nations in 1995.

Altogether it is important that we don’t lose our hope for the human being beloved by God and for man’s humanity, that we do not accept indifference, injustice and inhumanity. And that we keep in mind: a European legal order also lives from preconditions that it cannot posit itself. It lives from a culture wherein human dignity and social justice belong inseparably together.

14

3. Europe is a rich continent – Poverty is an avoidable scandal

Exactly ten years ago, the heads of government in Europe wanted to commit themselves at Lisbon to the goal of overcoming poverty in the EU until 2010. But they didn’t go as far as that, rather they carried the modest goal for the EU of ‘decisively promoting the elimination of poverty’. And not even this has succeeded. Since the year 2000, poverty has continuously increased in the EU. More than 80 million people here are officially classified as poor, among them 19 million children. The European Parliament and the European Com-mission have proclaimed the year 2010 a European year against poverty and social exclusion, because ‘the strengthening of the social cohesion and the elimination of poverty and social exclusion’ must ‘become a priority for the European Union’.

A sustainable struggle against poverty in the EU requires the reconstruc-tion of the EU into a social union. After the eastward enlargement of the EU this is more necessary than ever: the economic and social gap between the EU member countries is bigger than ever before. The EU members states failed to link the eastward enlargement with measures for an integration policy that would serve to combat poverty. However, the common house of Europe needs a strong and sustainable fight against poverty, for the sake of social cohesion.

The EU is one of the richest islands of wealth in the world. Although Eu-rope comprises less than 15 per cent of the world population, these 15 per cent possess nearly one third of the world’s fortune. On the other hand, there are officially about 80 million persons of poor income in the EU, among shortly 500 million inhabitants. In 2008, there were 2.6 million dollar-millionaires in the EU. This concentration of wealth forms a scandalous contrast to the growing number of poor people in the rich EU. It is true that the EU issues a social statistic informing about the dimensions of poverty. But the European statisticians keep tacit regarding the distribution of the riches. The average income of the 20 per cent of population at the upper end of the income scale was in 2007 five times as high as the income of those 20 per cent of population at the lower end of the scale. The inequality is growing continuously, and that is why we already speak of a re-feudalization of Europe.

So 17 per cent of the whole population in the EU are affected or endan-gered by poverty: more than 80 million people with low income, among them many long-term unemployed and jobless without sufficient security, and low wagers. Single parents and large families as well as migrants are particu-larly threatened by poverty. A particularly scandalous circumstance is the

Wolfgang Gern

15

proportion of child poverty in the EU: here, every fifth child is poor. In Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland and Great Britain almost every fourth child is living in poverty, and in Rumania and Bulgaria every third one.

The poverty rate is varying in the individual members states of EU, be-tween 10 and 25 per cent. At the one end of the range, there are the Nether-lands with a poverty rate of 10 per cent and Sweden with 11 per cent. At the other end of the range, countries like Bulgaria (22 per cent) or Rumania (25 per cent) show the highest poverty rates. A new curtain is dividing Europe: it’s a curtain that separates poor and rich in East and West, and within the countries of Europe. The Iron Curtain has been replaced by a golden curtain of money.

More and more people are poor, despite their work. The absolute number of people in the EU who are employed and still are poor, the so-called ‘working poor’, is more than the double of the number of jobless being poor. Not only unemployment, but above all low wages and badly paid work is the main indicator for poverty in Europe. The fact that elderly people are exposed to a higher risk of poverty (women 22 per cent and men 17 per cent) testifies that the pensions in many European countries are not sufficient to protect older people against poverty. Although the average unemployment rate in the old EU member states decreased until 2007, poverty has increased. This proves that the new European deregulation is aggravating the trend to lowering wages and other job standards.

4. Europe is by far no common economic and social area

There is an enormous economic and social gap between the old and the new EU member countries. This leads to the fact that today the EU is far away from being a uniform economic and social area – even if uniform rules of competition are valid. The EU and its members states are prioritizing as far as possible these competition rules, over and above the regulations of the national economic and social orders. This has the effect that the national job standards and social systems get under pressure.

This, for instance, is true for the removal of jobs: companies exploit, by transferring jobs, the lower job and social standards in the new EU member states – such as wage level, add-on costs, and annual holidays. Nokia has in 2008 transferred its factory at Bochum to Rumania. The sharp protest of the workforce at Bochum and the union IG Metall contrasted with the enthusias-

Make Poverty History?

16

tic reaction of the Rumanian public. On the other hand, enterprises from the new EU members states use the freedom of establishment to send workforce at their home conditions into the old EU member states. Thus, nursing staff comes – legally or illegally – particularly from Eastern Europe and works for wages far below the German wage level.

This means: with the eastward enlargement of the EU a new east-west working migration has originated. The migrants accept lower job standards. But this undermines the job standards in Europe as a social state. This new deregulation within the EU leads to a general lowering of wage levels and job standards, to a loosening of the protection against unlawful dismissal, to more employment contracts limited in time, and to an extension of the low wages sector. This downward spiral is significant for the search for ways toward a sustainable struggle against poverty, because a job with social se-curity and sufficient payment is still the best protection against poverty.

5. The Lisbon Strategy to fight poverty has failed so far

The social crisis and the present financial crisis are two sides of the same medal: if poverty shall sustainably be fought against, we need a redirection of the economic policy. The financial crisis is not only a temporary crisis in the system, it is an ethical orientation crisis of the financial system. That is what the EKD (German Protestant Church) thinks, concluding in its memorandum on the financial crisis under the title ‘Like a cleft in the wall’: ‘The idea of ever efficiently functioning financial markets has been defeated by the crisis’ (page 14). The conviction that markets would correct themselves, and private undertaking were as a principle superior to the public sector, is broken down.

Long before the financial crisis there was already the social crisis in Europe. The ‘Lisbon Strategies’ passed by the European heads of government in the year 2000, with the aim of making the EU until 2010 the ‘most compet-itive and most dynamic knowledge-based economic zone in the world’, stand for the project of transforming the uniform European Single Market into a place of an unknown unleashing of competition. Karl Heinz Narjes, German member of the EU Commission, spoke of the EU as the ‘largest deregulation in the economic history’. However, economic competition is no longer un-derstood as a competition of performance within a framework of common norms, which therefore should be adapted and harmonized by the states with different norms. Rather, the competition of performance now turns into a

Wolfgang Gern

17

competition of the location. Since the Lisbon Strategy, the harmonization of the social order is no longer on the agenda. This also was the opinion of the then British premier Tony Blair, as he said about the conference at Lisbon in 2000: ‘The summit stands for a change in the European economic policy: away from the policy of social regulation in the 1980s – towards a spirit of innova-tion. … There is no longer this insanity of harmonization wanting to adjust everything.’ So a reversal is taking place: the social is being subordinated to the economic, and becomes a factor of competition. At the place of a ‘positive’ integration by shaping common general conditions for the competition, there is now the ‘negative integration’ by an elimination of all market barriers. This neo-liberal economic policy has, from the beginning, forced the East Euro-pean candidates for membership into a policy of open markets and austerity, what has aggravated the overall transformation crisis. It has triggered off a social polarization within Europe in the member states, and also between Eastern and Western Europe.

Poverty increased and unemployment also. The unemployment rate went up to 9.1 per cent in 2009. The dismantling of the European welfare systems leads to a downward movement in the social standards and conditions of life. These developments explain that the strategy of Lisbon has failed, matched against its own goal. The ‘post-welfare capitalism’ is now, from Eastern Eu-rope, threatening Western Europe and its social model.

The struggle against poverty is impeded if the European Union gives priority to assuring a free competition over and above social political goals. The faith in positive social effects of a policy of deregulation has proven er-roneous. Why shouldn’t we then define competition anew? Let us call on the member states that they may enter into a competition for the best social and ecological standards. The goal of economic growth would then get another sense and another direction.

The neo-liberal Lisbon Strategy of EU, oriented towards growth and com-petitiveness, has not been able to fulfil its promises of full employment with job quality, equality, prosperity, or of social and ecological sustainability. Its socio-political strategy (‘European Social Agenda’) and its foreign trade strategy (‘Global Europe’) also did not promote these goals.

Make Poverty History?

18

6. Europe needs a new agenda: Economy must serve man – and not conversely

Considering these results, it would have been only logical that the EU would have used the values, policies and instruments of the ‘Scandinavian social model’ as a target and benchmark. Those are more orientated towards equal-ity, social justice and protection of the environment. The positive experiences and results in the Protestant discourse should be a motive for the Protestant churches in Europe to interfere in the debate about a social Europe. The Com-munity of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE) has already initiated a study project ‘Stand up for justice’ and plans to present a memorandum for a social Europe in the year 2011.

If Scandinavia is evaluated as successful, we have to talk also about the confessional roots of the welfare state. Unfortunately, this is largely unknown even in the churches themselves. Recent research shows the outstanding part, particularly of Lutheran churches, in the building up and the extension of the welfare state. Especially at places where there are strong Lutheran tra-ditions, such as in the Scandinavian countries and in Germany, the welfare state has been developed since the 19th century.

The bond between throne and altar in Lutheran tradition was rather suc-cessful in the social policy, because the state was not only seen as a governing and constitutional state, but also obliged as a welfare state. Such a welfare state is not an alms state only for the ‘really needy’. It is a ‘universal welfare state’ that grants its benefits to all citizens, cares for social balance by an active, creative social policy, and calls on the capacity of the economy for financing the welfare state. Stand up for justice – the consultation process within the Protestant churches in Europe – should in this sense encourage to a new esteem for and further development of a European form of welfare states, in the ethical tradition of the churches.

In this sense we have to take up five issues: First – the employment sit-uation must be improved, the low wage sector must be contained by a fixed minimum wage.

Two – families with children need a comprehensive support in view of assistance and school requirements, and more than before a tax relief. Re-garding the German situation we may state: Who wants a sustainable policy for children cannot treat them in social welfare like small adults for whom only crumbs are left. They need a security of existence that is safe against poverty, and this can best be obtained by a child basic provision. Three – it is time by now to guarantee the basic provision for the old age and to stabilize

Wolfgang Gern

19

the financing of geriatric care. That means: only a strong revenue state can be a strong welfare state. This is true also and particularly in Europe. Fourth – we need to strengthen civil society, where one recognizes that churches and federations and civil organizations contribute more to mercy and justice than governments and state institutions can do. Fifth – the social cohesion in Europe can only be strengthened if social dumping is prevented, and a stra-tegic struggle against poverty becomes programmatic in a European social contract.

7. A just Europe needs the churches with their grassroots perspective

A Europe-wide strategy to combat poverty needs a strong legislative compe-tence on the EU level. But the crisis shows that the EU presently is not the solution, but part of the problem itself. That is why a ‘counter-based social policy’ (Wilhelm Röpke) by the civil society is indispensable, if policy shall impose priority for a social market direction above the economy. The welfare state is not an appendage of market economy, it is a cultural achievement.

However, there is the danger that the economic competition of the EU member states ends up in an east-west split of the civil society. Trade unions and civil-society organizations in the old EU countries (West) urge to protect the obtained social standards and to refine them. But some civil-society actors in the new EU-states (East) hope to get better development chances for their countries from a lowering of the standards. Still, civil-society groups will only then be able to initiate reforms for the struggle against poverty if they show a Europe-wide perspective for social justice and for a European welfare state.

Such an European civil-society exchange is still at its very beginning. It is part of the churches’ social obligation in Europe to develop this, if they want to maintain their former socio-political impulse and continue it on the European level. One church contribution to the discussion of an alliance of more than 30 church organizations has requested in a ‘Yearbook on Justice’, that will come out in a few weeks, that the churches should engage themselves in this sense. For they bring a lot in to build up the common house of Europe: strong roots, much community, fixed values, and a lot of hope – and the spirit of love and solidarity that is firm even in crises, that has staying power, and still and ever again believes in resurrection.

Various historical experiences, however, led to the fact that churches in the old and in the new EU member countries often have different ideas about

Make Poverty History?

20 Wolfgang Gern

the functions of the welfare state: whereas many churches in the old EU member countries see themselves as guarantors of the welfare state, some churches in Eastern Europe tend to a distance from the government, due to negative experiences with public action in the socialist countries. But exactly the welfare state is the key to containing the destructive dynamics of the market. Since its origin, its task has been to correct and contain the market by a policy of redistribution, intervention and compensation. But this, today, can only be successful in the European context if the welfare state is strength-ened politically, culturally and ethically straight in its resistant function. The churches have played a very decisive role in history, in strengthening exactly this ‘resistant function of the welfare state’. This of course is based on their conviction that no one should be lost, and that we can only live altogether. And of course that, especially in tax policy, strong shoulders can carry more than weak ones.

I conclude: First – social security is the foundation of freedom. That is why social justice and democracy belong together as the two sides of one medal (Gustav Heinemann). The churches in Europe also carry responsibility for the further development of the welfare state in Europe, given their public role in word and action. Second – Diaconia and churches have the duty to assure that human dignity and social balance are being held together in Europe. Protestantism in Europe with its view from the bottom and as the voice of the dump must remain unmistakable. People trust in that, and this confidence shall not come to naught. Third – Jesus did not speak of honey and jelly, but of the salt of the earth and the light for the world. You are it! He meant it just as he said it: that the Kingdom of God on earth begins with carrying burdens (Martin Luther), as a compassion with those who cannot do as they want. This will show whether or not our witness of Jesus’ hope for the world is credible. And this means: Europe’s strength shall match against the well-being of the weak. If this is valuable and dear to us, then it also will have its price. If this price were paid, the rich Europe would appear in a new light.

Diaconia and Socioeconomic Human Rights: Their Mutual RelevanceJohannes A. van der Ven

Both topics in the title of this article run the risk of being neglected. Diaconia does so because the social welfare state has almost entirely taken over its goals and tasks. For socioeconomic human rights there always is the chance to be neglected because they are not direct rights of the individual as civil and political human rights are, but indirect rights, being implied in the obligation of the state to take care of them. Moreover they are not enforceable, as we will see further on. This makes this article a challenge, because the churches claim the relevance of diaconia, whereas the proponents of socioeconomic human rights try to raise the status of these rights.

But this article contains still another challenge. Time and again the churches have hammered onto the complementarity of both diaconia and the social welfare state, but so far this seems to remain a nice peace-bringing or, for that matter, peace-keeping incantation without sufficient practical effect in terms of common planning, coordination, cooperation, and joint assess-ment and evaluation. In this article I will attempt to shed a new light on this complementarity. I do not have the illusion that it will bring a solution to a problem that already originated in the Middle Ages and came to its peak since the beginning of the previous century. But it might shed new light on some aspects of the relation between diaconia and the social welfare state’s obligation in regard to socioeconomic human rights.

This paper is divided into three parts. I begin with the history of differ-entiation between religious and public agencies for socioeconomic welfare, including the increasing competition between the two (1). I then explore so-cioeconomic rights as the basis for public legitimacy of all social welfare agencies, public and religious alike. I elaborate on the empirical basis for this legitimacy by investigating the consent to these rights among students, as the leaders of tomorrow, from six countries in North-West Europe (2). After that I reflect on the impact of religion on this legitimacy, to be explored once

22 Johannes A. van der Ven

more by empirical research among these students. In this reflection I present the idea of religious social welfare agencies’ interventions in public debate in terms of last resort (3). I close with a short conclusion. In all of this I take ‘socioeconomic rights’ to include refugee rights, unless I distinguish between socioeconomic rights in the strict sense and refugee rights.

1. The history of differentiation between public and religious social welfare agencies

Dividing history into large-scale phases within a longue durée is perilous because they always overlap.1 This is especially true for the history of public and religious agencies social-economic welfare, the more so as, to my knowl-edge, grand-design studies in this area are rather lacking at both national and international levels. With this in mind, I provisionally schematize this history into three overlapping phases: Middles Ages, early modernity and modernity, each characterized by different forms of structural differentiation.2 But first I will deal briefly with the early church.3

1 Cf. F. Braudel, Écrits sur l’histoire, Paris 1969.2 Cf. N. Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt a.M. 1998; N. Luh-mann, Die Religion der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt a.M. 2002.3 In this part of the article I generally rely on the following publications I consult-ed: B. Beinhauer-Köhler/M. Benad/E. Weber, Diakonie der Religionen 2, Frankfurt a.M. 2005; E. Beyreuther, Geschichte der Diakonie und Inneren Mission in der Neuzeit, Berlin 1983; K. Borgmann, Caritas, in: LThK2 2, Freiburg 1958, 941–947; A. de Swaan, Zorg en staat, Amsterdam 1990; F. Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order, New York 2011; C. Grethlein, Art. Schule und Kirche, in: RGG4 7, Tübingen 2004, 1024–1026; R. Herrmann, La charité de l’église de ses origines à nos jours, Mulhouse 1961; A. Hollweg, Diakonie und Caritas, in: F. Klostermann/R. Zerfass (Eds.), Praktische Theologie heute, München 1974; A. Jäger, Diakonie als christliches Unternehmen. Theologische Wirtschaftsethik im Kontext diakonischer Unternehmenspolitik, Gütersloh 1986; J.-C. Kaiser (Ed.), Soziale Arbeit in historischer Perspektive. Zum geschichtlichen Ort der Diakonie in Deutschland, Stuttgart 1998, 255–269; J.-C. Kaiser, Art. Caritas, in: RGG4 2, Tübingen 1999, 66–69; J.-C. Kaiser, Art. Diakonie, in: RGG4 2, Tübingen 1999, 792–794; J.-C. Kaiser, Art. Wichern, in: RGG4 7, Tübingen 2005, 1511–1514; K. Kohl, Christi Wesen am Markt. Eine Studie zur Rede von der Diakonie als Wesens- und Lebensäußerung der Kirche, Göttingen 2007; M. Lehner, Diakonie. Konkretion: Diakonie-Institutionen, in: H. Haslinger et al., Handbuch der Praktischen Theologie 2, Mainz 2000, 410–421; W. Liese, Geschichte der Caritas, Freiburg 1922; C. Link, Art. Schule, kirchliche, in: RGG4 7, Tübingen 2004, 1023–1024; N. Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung, Opladen 1975; G. Schreiber, Art. Hospital, in:

23Diaconia and Socioeconomic Human Rights: Their Mutual Relevance

1.1. Early church

In the early church diaconia is marked by care for widows and orphans, for the poor, who made up the majority of Christians, for prisoners incarcerated as a result of persecution, for slaves and captives who suffered from forced labour in the mines, for the sick, especially victims of plagues, and for the dead, whose bodies were left unburied after execution. After the Constantini-an Shift, the fourth-century bishops allocated funds for relief centres known as xenodochia (guest houses for strangers). Similar homes were established by monasteries without episcopal links. Moreover, various women in Rome headed similar guesthouses. Civil authorities also did their bit by urging the church to provide care for the poor. Some of them occupied themselves with this task, such as senator Pammachius, who started a home for the poor at the mouth of the Tiber. But the collapse of the Roman Empire put an end to this Christian care. It ensued a period of non-existent or unknown diaconia, the exception being Diocese of Gaul, where the development led to the beginnings of parochial charity. However this may be the four care providing agencies which we will find time and again in the future: the church (dioceses and parishes), the monasteries, the state, and associations and individual people from society at large.

1.2. Middle Ages

The Middle Ages formed anything but a unitary period. The structures of society, including agencies for social welfare, underwent radical, albeit over-lapping developments from a segmented society based on kinship and tribes, to a feudal society, the remnants of which continue to exist today, to an ur-banising society.

Segmented society Kinship-based societies rest on horizontal systems centring on extended families, whose members live in close proximity in a given area. These com-prise not only parents and children, but also members of the horizontally and vertically ramified family network of grandparents, uncles and aunts, and grandchildren. Tribe-based societies may be considered an extension of kinship-based society. They hold together a number of extended families, the

LThK2 5, Freiburg 1960, 491–492; R. Turre, Art. Diakonisches Werk, in: LThK3 3, Frei-burg 1995, 187–188; M. Schibilsky, Art. Diakonie, in: RGG4 2, Tübingen 1999, 798–801; H.-G. Ziebertz, Sozialarbeit und Diakonie. Eine empirisch-theologische Studie zu Iden-titätsproblemen kirchlicher Sozialberufe, Weinheim 1993.

24

identity of which is considered to reach back in time to a common descent. The members of extended families and tribes are linked by relations of interde-pendence based on mutual obligations of support and help. These obligations are expressed in promises on the one hand and signs of gratitude for past fulfilment of these promises on the other. The identity of an individual con-sisted of membership in such networks of interdependence on gifts in return that extended over generations.

If the family failed to help because of straitened material means, the need could be met from the churches’ poor boxes or the brotherhoods established by the churches. Before such compensation was granted, the church admin-istrators investigated the family’s background and financial means. The need for monitoring was understandable in view of the church’s limited resources, but it caused frustration. For the purpose of poor relief, the church assigned parishes the task of collecting tithes, which resulted in irritation and, in due course, hatred, since the clergy was suspected of profiting by the system.4 But the parish organizations were not only short of funds, structurally and organizationally, too, they were shaky. Apart from the church and its brother-hoods, there were other forms of charitable work extended by monastic orders which, according to chapter 58 of the Rule of Benedict of Nursia, focused on guests, the poor and aliens. But they were equally unable to make a dent in the massive wave of poverty.

In the same way as there are two sides to every coin, this family system of gift and gratitude led to segmental care for the needy, because it was restrict-ed to people who belonged to specific families and tribes. In other words, the inclusion of these people ended in the exclusion of others. Moreover, it was not all about gift and gratitude. The forms of charity mentioned sought to protect rural and village communities against the poor who, in the absence of such care, would turn to beggary, vagabondage, banditry and the like, and would join lawless hordes that would transform the ‘cosmos’ of society into ‘chaos’. Hence concern for the poor was mingled with fear.

Feudal societyThe period between 4000 and 1000 BC that is called the ‘dark Middle Ages’ began with the decline of the Western Roman Empire, that lead to its end in 476 AD. In traditional scholarship this decline was characterized as the crum-bling process of the Roman Empire by economic and political implosion on

4 Cf. J. Le Goff, La civilisation de l’Occident medieval. Dutch translation. De cultuur van middeleeuws Europa, Amsterdam 1987, 361 f.

Johannes A. van der Ven

25

the hand and invasions by the ‘barbarians’ from all sides on the other. Recent scholarship has shown it that there was a decreased infrastructure, economic simplification and political downsizing indeed, but after all there rather was continuity than discontinuity in the areas of social structure and religion, which is to say the church kept this social structure intact.5 This was caused by much mutual border traffic and migration since the 2th century between the Romans at the one side and Burgundians, Franks, Visigoths, Hungari-ans, Vikings, Arabs or Saracens on the other. This is not to deny that in the course of time there were ‘barbarian’ riots, but by and large they calmed down in settlements with the originally Roman landowning aristocracy, in which the ‘barbarians’, after having served as military in the Roman army, functioned as ‘alternative Romans’, being either subordinate or partners or masters. These settlements led to the establishment of ‘barbarian’ cities and from there to ‘barbarian’ kingdoms’. In these cities and kingdoms the bishops step by step got leading positions, because, for instance in Gaul, they were taken from the landed aristocracy. This period of more than a half millennium may be characterized as ‘a messy business, redeemed by flashes of genius’, but permeated by ‘an applied Christianity’.6

But through this new social structure of settlements people could no longer fall back on their families and tribes for assistance. They turned to other forms of social support, based not on natural kinship or family ties but on an individualized structure for mutual protection. This was the source from which the solemnized feudal contract arose between liege and liegeman, lord and vassal. The liege ceded part of his territory as a fief to the liegeman, who for his part swore an oath of allegiance and military support. The vassal, having some control over the fief, was able to create subfiefs and bind other vassals to him: ‘feudalism arose as an alternative to kinship’.7

The Catholic Church played a basic role in doing away with what at the time was considered inadequate kinship and tribal rules by religiously legit-imising the restriction of the extent of its power and structure. It restricted marriages between close relatives, marriages to the widows of dead relatives, adoption of children, and divorce. In this way, on the one hand it gradually prevented the extended family’s property from being distributed over a con-stantly expanding clan and on the other hand allowed widows and spinsters

5 Cf. P. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom. Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200–1000, Oxford ²2003, 128.6 Brown, Western Christendom, 6, 25–29, 93–113.7 Fukuyama, Origins of Political Order, 236.

Diaconia and Socioeconomic Human Rights: Their Mutual Relevance

26

to dispose of their property as they liked and, in some cases, donate it to the church. From there the church built a fortune on which it was able to support the poor and take care of the sick. But this charity was not considered to be a church task alone; the feudal lords were also supposed to take care of the needy who lived on their land and depended on them. At his coronation in Aachen in 802, Charlemagne urged them to do so. By imposing the obligation of diaconia on the lords he became an ‘arch-deacon’ himself and set the feudal lords an example of protector et defensor of the poor, the sick, prisoners, and strangers.

All this made charity a task of the church, the state and society, whereas the monasteries practiced charity towards the poor and aliens in their hos-pitalia hospitia.

Urbanizing society The pre-urban, medieval society based on family ties and feudal contracts gradually made way for a pattern of differentiation based on the relationship between centre and periphery, i.e., city and countryside. Economic power shifted from the feudal structure in hamlets and villages to the cities. The burgeoning market economy caused the cities to flourish, spreading their influence to the countryside and adding to their attraction. However, this was accompanied by massive poverty at the bottom end of society, partly as a result of incessant warfare, famine and epidemics.

Church charities and monasteries did what they could, but their resources were not up to the task. New – mendicant – religious orders were formed, such as the Franciscans, with special funds (montes pietatis) to assist the poor. Reli-gious and semi-religious brotherhoods also expanded steadily, as did non-re-ligious ones. In addition, urban authorities increasingly took charge of social services. They did so in a Christian, ecclesiastic spirit, but their projects were run by the city councils. This was not merely because the church’s services were poorly funded and administered, competition between ecclesiastic and civil authorities was a major factor. The latter wanted to curtail the church’s power, as all public works came into their hands.

But it was not all about the social welfare for the needy based on the virtue of love. Where possible, beggars and the poor were kept outside the city gates and summoned to line up for food at appointed times and places, according to promulgated rules. Thus the Council of Augsburg decreed that to be permitted to beg, persons had to be citizens of the city (in Strasbourg considered worthy poor, albeit second-class citizens), have a licence from the mayor, and gather every Friday to register. Foreign beggars (in Strasbourg

Johannes A. van der Ven

27

considered foreign paupers, unworthy poor) were restricted. They could not beg from door to door for more than three days. Charity was confined to the citizen beggars. This restricted the church as a universal mystical body to the boundaries of the local congregation (Gemeinde).

1.3. Early modernity

In early modernity the differentiation between city and countryside increased. The city authorities became even more dominant in poor relief, despite the efforts of the Reformation to curb them. Luther, for example, wanted to make the entire Christian community exclusively responsible for diaconal work, at least if you had the people to do so, but he was obliged – for the time being, he thought – to leave it to the civil authorities. Bucer envisaged a twofold diaconia: that of the confessing community and that of the church as societas christiana. But he, too, had to abandon his scheme because the civil magis-trates in Strasbourg opted to regard poor relief as a civil responsibility. Calvin located diaconia in the context of the confessing church community, but the civil administration of Geneva refused to surrender its responsibility for fear that one kind of clerical dominance – that of the Catholic Church – would simply make way for another, the Calvinist one. Only Zwingli had managed to reach an accord with the civil authorities in Zurich, but that was because he advocated transferring diaconal responsibilities to the government.

1.4. Modernity

Whereas European society was originally based on segmented differentiation and gradually developed in the direction of a differentiation between city and countryside, modern society is marked by functional differentiation. This means that it is increasingly structured along the line of functions to be executed in accordance with specific codes, programmes and organizations that are institutionally grouped into separate systems, such as economic, political, juridical, familial, medical, educational, and scientific. Each of them functions relatively autonomously in relation to the others. This does not exclude what is called the ‘interpenetration of systems’, though that can only happen when the sending system informs the receiving system in codes of the latter, which enables the latter to link up with existing information in its own programmes. If not, the information is unrecognizable and no more than background noise.8

8 Cf. J.A. van der Ven, Human Rights or Religious Rules? Leiden 2010, 355–366.

Diaconia and Socioeconomic Human Rights: Their Mutual Relevance