This article highlights the challenges and opportunities of Christian social workers in the tradition of deaconesses and deacons in today’s Germany. Their professional self-conception as social workers between church and society is analysed. By this, a new approach of linking up a theological perspective with diaconal professionalism, is presented.

With the introduction of zoom and cell group Bible study and fellowship gathering with church members from 6 to 10, congregation members of each Korean church have come to appreciate the diversity within each consistory encompassing multigenerational American born Koreans, foreign expats, diplomats, immigrants from middle class and up from the greater Seoul, South Korea area, political refugees and migrant workers who categorically entered this country with Republic of Korea visa but who originally were able to date back (...) their earlier life from Communist Regimes such as Siberia, China, Vietnam and North Korea (Ibuk chulsin) and other Asian of color looking foreigners and mix-breeds with Korean heritage and other combinations. The focus of their Christian practice has been more passive concept of God’s grace grounded on John Wesley tradition rather than their yoking and making progress in lineal fashion into the future with and by believers out of Christian love. A premium is placed in smooth transitioning from static Confucianism and Christianity embracing education, meritocracy, social harmony and order. (shrink)

St. Stephen's Society, Hang Fook Camp, Kowloon, Hong Kong was formally registered in 1981, but its origins go back to 1966. It is a member of the Hong Kong Council of Social Services and the central Registry of Drug Abuse. The Society works in cooperation with the courts, doctors and social workers to provide a spiritual, physical, emotional, educational and social rehabilitation programme. St. Stephen's houses about 300 people on any given day. It meets in Hang (...) Fook Camp which is leased to them by the Hong Kong Government where a regular meeting is held for Christian Fellowship, the Hang Fook Christian Fellowship. (shrink)

International framework agreements represent a new generation of transnational agreements between multinational companies and global trade union federations. This paper analyzes the impact of such an agreement on a successful union organizing campaign in Colombia in 2012. We argue that management strategies towards corporate social responsibility and social dialogue influence the impact of IFAs on worker rights. However, this relationship is mediated by the capacity of managers and worker representatives at multiple levels to mobilize their capabilities. The results (...) highlight the importance of institutionalized dialogue between managers and worker representatives, of the dissemination of capabilities across multilevel coordination structures and, most importantly, of their complementarities at various levels. (shrink)

The millions of farm workers in the Global South are an important resource for smallholder producers. However, research on their labour organisation is limited. This article focuses on smallholder farm workers in Ghana’s cocoa sector, drawing on insights from qualitative interviews and the concept of bargaining power. We review the labour relations and working conditions of two historical and informally identified labour supply setups (LSSs) in Ghana’s cocoa sector, namely, hired labour and Abusa, a form of landowner–caretaker relations, (...) and identify an imbalance of horizontal power. Further, we analyse the labour relations and working conditions of an emerging and formal LSS in Ghana’s cocoa sector: private labour providers (PLPs). We argue that PLPs are likely to address the imbalance of horizontal power between farm workers and smallholders and bring about significant improvements in the working conditions of farm workers. We also assess the sustainability potential and limitations of PLPs and argue that tensions exist. We contribute to the growing horizontal power perspective by providing avenues for research and policy related to promoting sustained labour rights for farm workers in smallholder agriculture in the Global South. (shrink)

Christian Marazzi's first book: a post-Fordist classic on the roots to economic crises in the contemporary age. Communication as work: we have recently experienced a profound transformation in the processes of production. While the assembly line excluded any form of linguistic productivity, today, there is no production without communication. The new technologies are linguistic machines. This revolution has produced a new kind of worker who is not a specialist but is versatile and infinitely adaptable. If standardized mass production was (...) dominant in the past, today we produce an array of different goods corresponding to specific consumer niches. This is the post-Fordist model described by Christian Marazzi in Capital and Affects. Tracing the development of this new model of labor from Toyota plants in Japan to the most recent innovations, Marazzi's critique goes beyond political economy to encompass issues related to social life, political engagement, democratic institutions, interpersonal relations, and the role of language in liberal democracies. This translation at long last makes Marazzi's first book available to English readers. Capital and Affects stands not only as the foundation to Marazzi's subsequent work, but as foundational work in post-Fordist literature, with an analysis startlingly relevant to today's troubled economic times. This Semiotext edition includes the afterword Marazzi wrote for the 1999 Italian edition. (shrink)

PurposeThere are a lot of discussions about privacy in relation to contemporary communication systems (such as Facebook and other “social media” platforms), but discussions about privacy on the internet in most cases misses a profound understanding of the notion of privacy and where this notion is coming from. The purpose of this paper is to challenge the liberal notion of privacy and explore foundations of an alternative privacy conception.Design/methodology/approachA typology of privacy definitions is elaborated based on Giddens' theory of (...) structuration. The concept of privacy fetishism that is based on critical political economy is introduced. Limits of the liberal concept of privacy are discussed. This discussion is connected to the theories of Marx, Arendt and Habermas. Some foundations of an alternative privacy concept are outlined.FindingsThe notion of privacy fetishism is introduced for criticizing naturalistic accounts of privacy. Marx and Engels have advanced four elements of the critique of the liberal privacy concept that were partly taken up by Arendt and Habermas: privacy as atomism that advances; possessive individualism that harms the public good; legitimizes and reproduces the capitalist class structure; and capitalist patriarchy.Research limitations/implicationsGiven the criticisms advanced in this paper, the need for an alternative, socialist privacy concept is ascertained and it is argued that privacy rights should be differentiated according to the position individuals occupy in the power structure, so that surveillance makes transparent wealth and income gaps and company's profits and privacy protects workers and consumers from capitalist domination.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the establishment of a concept of privacy that is grounded in critical political economy. Owing to the liberal bias of the privacy concept, the theorization of privacy has thus far been largely ignored in critical political economy. The paper contributes to illuminating this blind spot. (shrink)

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), whose leaders govern well over half of the 80 million Anglicans worldwide, have put forward ‘a contemporary rule,’ called The Jerusalem Declaration, to guide the Anglican realignment movement. The FCA and its affiliates, e.g. the newly-formed Anglican Church in North America, require assent to the Declaration. To date, there has been little serious appraisal of the Declaration and the status accorded to it. I aim to correct that omission. Unlike ap-praisals in the (...) class='Hi'>social media, however, mine grants the FCA’s conservative stand on same-sex unions and homosexual practice. Nevertheless, I argue, the Declaration mischaracterizes the traditional Christian teaching on marriage, binds Anglicans to falsehoods and dubieties in the Thirty-Nine Articles, and adds to the gospel. Two things follow. First, no one—especially no Anglican who identifies herself as con-servative, traditional, orthodox, evangelical, Anglo-catholic or simply concerned with the truth—should assent to the Jerusalem Declaration. Second, since the FCA and its affiliates know that these defects ex-ist in the Declaration, they should fess up to these shortcomings and retract the Declaration’s status as ‘a contemporary rule’ and they should stop requiring assent to it. Anything less constitutes intellectual dis-honesty of a most egregious sort. (shrink)

In Belgium, a service voucher scheme – known as Titres Services – was launched in 2004 in order to create employment and regularize the labor conditions of domestic workers. The extent to which this scheme has represented an improvement in domestic workers’ labor conditions, however, is still a matter of debate. This article explores the workers’ experience of the changes introduced by this scheme. It focuses on Latin American migrants that are currently working under this scheme in (...) Brussels, situating them in relation to their previous experiences and the experience of other migrants who currently work in the informal market. The authors distinguish two tropes in their informants’ discourse, which describe their ambivalence regarding these changes. Using the Titres Services scheme’s rhetoric, the first one seeks to increase the social status of this occupation by presenting it as a ‘profession’. Contrarily, the second trope highlights the limits to professionalization. (shrink)

The sharing economy has transformed economic transactions, created new organizational forms, and contributed to changes in consumer culture. Started as a movement with promises of a more sustainable, democratic, and inclusive economy, the sharing economy, and its impact on issues such as privacy, discrimination, worker rights, and regulation, is now the subject of heated debate. Many of these issues root in the changes that digital technologies have brought and the unresolved moral and ethical questions emerging therefrom. This special issue contributes (...) to this ongoing debate with five articles that develop theoretical frameworks and conduct empirical investigations, providing fine-grained analyses of urgent issues in the sharing economy. In this article, we highlight these and other issues that we believe deserve further attention from business ethics scholarship. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill had strong sympathies with a liberal form of market socialism based on worker-owned and worker-managed firms. He thought that only very few government interventions were needed to trigger a peaceful and spontaneous transition to such an economic system. This article recapitulates his thesis and argument by focusing on his major workPrinciples of Political Economy, which is rather neglected by philosophers, especially in the German-speaking world. I will argue that Mill was too optimistic in his hope for a (...) spontaneous transition without government intervention. Since it is possible to reconstruct how Mill thought this transition would proceed, it is also possible to identify at what point the transition did not advance in the way envisioned by him, but was blocked by antagonistic forces. I will argue that this insight is not only of historical value, but still poses a serious problem for John Rawls’s theory of justice. Rawls follows Mill closely in his discussion of the proper economic system and he faces the same problem of transition. (shrink)

This paper explores the significance of dignity for our understanding of the rights of workers. It surveys important uses of the idea of dignity in several discursive contexts, and offers an interpretation that illuminates the content, scope, and normative force of labor rights. The discursive contexts considered include human rights, socialism, Kantian practical philosophy, and Christian social thought. The interpretation of dignity offered illuminates basic rights to decent conditions in which workers for example choose their occupation, (...) receive adequate remuneration, and are able to form unions to defend their interests. It is also illuminates more ambitious rights to work in ways that fully further workers’ interests in flourishing and involve avoidance or minimization of their domination, exploitation, and alienation. (shrink)

In Catholic social thought (CST), work that is exploitative, immoral, or hopelessly monotonous can be labeled alienating: its performance makes the worker a stranger to her own, God-given human nature. CST traditionally understands sex work, which directs the human sexual faculties to ends other than the unitive and procreative, as a paradigmatic example of alienating work, and this paper will not disagree. Instead, I will show how accepting sex worker advocates’ claim that “sex work is work” reveals that while (...) sex work is indeed alienating by CST’s standards, many forms of paid work available today are alienating in similar ways. Listening to sex worker advocates helps CST strengthen its critique of alienating work while acknowledging sex workers’ moral agency. (shrink)

Background: Healthcare workers in the front line of diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 are at great risk of both infection and developing mental health symptoms. This study aimed to investigate the following: whether healthcare workers in general hospitals experience higher mental distress than those in psychiatric hospitals; the role played by religion and alexithymic trait in influencing the mental health condition and perceived level of happiness of healthcare workers amidst the stress of (...) the COVID-19 pandemic; and factors that influence the resilience of healthcare workers at 6 weeks' follow-up.Methods: Four-hundred and fifty-eight healthcare workers were recruited from general and psychiatric hospitals, and 419 were followed-up after 6 weeks. All participants filled out the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, five-item Brief-Symptom Rating Scale, and the Chinese Oxford Happiness Questionnaire.Results: Under the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, 12.3% of frontline healthcare workers in general hospitals reported having mental distress and perceived lower social adaptation status compared with those working in psychiatric hospitals. Christians/Catholics perceived better psychological well-being, and Buddhists/Taoists were less likely to experience mental distress. The results at 6 weeks of follow-up showed that the perceived lower social adaptation status of general hospital healthcare workers was temporary and improved with time. Christian/Catholic religion and time had independent positive effects on psychological well-being; however, the interaction of Christian/Catholic religion and time had a negative effect.Conclusions: Collectivism and individualism in the cultural context are discussed with regard to alexithymic trait and Buddhist/Taoist and Christian/Catholic religious faiths. Early identification of mental distress and interventions should be implemented to ensure a healthy and robust clinical workforce for the treatment and control of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

IntroductionIn highly developed countries, as many as 16 percent of children are physically abused each year. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the most common injury in non-accidental trauma (NAT) and is responsible for 80 percent of fatal NAT cases, with most deaths occurring in children younger than three years old. Cases of abusers who refuse withdrawal of life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT) to avoid criminal charges have previously been reported. Therefore, we hypothesized that NAT is associated with a lower risk for (...) withdrawal LSMT in pediatric TBI.MethodsThe pediatric Trauma Quality Improvement Program database was analyzed (2014 to 2016) for patients aged 16 and younger with TBI and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) of 8 and lower on admission. Patients with a head Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) of 2 or less or who died within 48 hours were excluded. A multivariable logistic regression model was used for analysis.ResultsOf 2,209 TBI patients, 92 (4.2 percent) had withdrawal of LSMT. Compared to those without withdrawal of LMST, those with LMST had statistically similar median age (three years of age versus seven years, p = 0.07) and a higher rate of NAT (33.7 percent versus 13.5 percent, p < 0.001). The most common specified perpetrator was a father/stepfather/ male partner (70 percent). After adjusting for covariates, factors associated with higher risk for withdrawal of LSMT included age of less than three years (OR 2.38, CI 1.34-4.23, p < 0.05) and NAT (OR 1.86, CI 1.02-3.41, p < 0.05).ConclusionNAT is associated with increased risk for withdrawal of LSMT in pediatric TBI. Age of less than three years is similarly associated with a higher risk for withdrawal of LSMT. Future research in this population is needed to determine what other factors predict withdrawal of LSMT and what resources, such as social workers and/or ethics consults, are utilized. (shrink)

Drawing on several recent studies, and a few personal interviews with leadership, the author reviews the history (1937-1968) of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) in order to demonstrate how this Chicago-based labor movement exemplified radical commitments to social welfare and civil rights, in addition to more traditional concerns with pay and other shopfloor issues. Not only did the union have significant membership among African-American workers, but it also undertook active programs of anti-racism in order to (...) fight racial discrimination with its own ranks. The union also resisted much of the anti-communist politics of the post-Cold War era, resulting in a tradition of racial commitments to “social unionism.” For example, this was one of the first unions to offer financial support to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference soon after the civil rights organization was founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (shrink)

Christian Socialism is a movement that arose in England in the mid-nineteenth century and continues into the twenty-first century. This form of socialism was aimed, in the first instance, not at institutional reform or the nationalization of the means of production but at what its proponents viewed as the moral rot that lay at the foundation of first industrial and then digital society. They opposed what we call neoliberalism and what was then known as political economy because supporters of (...) these ideologies believed that moral convictions had no proper place in the operation of markets. This conviction rested upon the false belief that people are essentially selfish, competitive individuals seeking personal happiness. The aim of Christian Socialists was to replace this “rotten” moral foundation with another based on the view that people are social and cooperative by nature rather than competitive. Their goal was nothing less than a new society built not upon selfishness and aggression but upon social virtues such as equality, fellowship, cooperation, service, and justice. They did not deny the presence of selfishness; however, they believed that the social nature of humankind lies deeper than egotism and conflict, and they sought a society built upon this belief. (shrink)

CHRISTIAN ECOLOGICAL ETHICISTS INCREASINGLY RECOGNIZE THAT MORAL response to contemporary problems such as mass extinction and climate change must incorporate and build upon established movements for social justice. This essay contributes to that work by learning from the twentieth-century union organizer César Chávez and his advocacy for justice and environmental health among farm workers. I argue that understanding key themes of Chávez's morality in his context, particularly the universality of human dignity and the importance of personal and (...) collective sacrifice, can contribute to a Christian ecological ethics with a program for social change and justice. (shrink)

Christian physicians, nurses and other health care workers must manage a daily conflict of conscience between their Christian faith and predominantly secular health care institutions. This essay examines various efforts for managing these conflicts: a turn towards social justice or a seeking of holiness. Seeking social justice, however, is theologically empty. Traditionally, the Christian requirement that we be “in this world but not of it” requires a journey along a narrow path to holiness. (...) class='Hi'>Christian medical morality must, therefore, be understood within this light. However, just as there cannot be generic health care, but rather health care for a particular person's needs and problems, there cannot be generic holiness, but only a holiness grounded in worshiping God rightly. In so worshiping the Christian will be assisted in negotiating the inescapable and perilous vocation of being in the world but not of it. (shrink)

Today is dedicated to the remembrance of the Holy Innocents, who were victims of a state sponsored terrorist attack at the very beginning of the Christian era. We believe this is an appropriate spiritual time to review and question the moral judgement of the Catholic Bishops of the United States of America that our nation's war on the people of Afghanistan is just. We do this in a spirit of fidelity to the teachings of the Catholic Church and to (...) the charism bequeathed to us as Catholic Workers by our founders, the Servants of God Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day of New York. Our statements, questions, and conclusions may seem startling to you, they may make you uncomfortable. This is because we come to you, not as the rich and powerful, but as the weak, poor, and powerless. (shrink)

This paper explores conservative Christian demands that religious-based objections to providing services to lesbians and gay men should be accommodated by employers and public bodies. Focusing on a series of court judgments, alongside commentators’ critical accounts, the paper explores the dominant interpretation of the conflict as one involving two groups with deeply held, competing interests, and suggests this interpretation can be understood through a social property framework. The paper explores how religious beliefs and sexual orientation are attachments whose (...) power has been unsettled by equality law. But entangled with this property is another—that held in workers’ labour and public bodies’ resources. Arguing against the drive to balance competing interests, the paper uses social property to illuminate the agonistic character of the stakes. At the same time, it questions property as a normative framework for sexual orientation and religious beliefs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Incorporating Religion into Psychiatry:Evidenced–Based Practice, Not a Bioethical DilemmaMary D. MollerFor over sixteen years I was the owner and clinical director of an advanced practice nurse–managed outpatient rural psychiatric clinic staffed by APNs, a social worker, a licensed counselor and several graduate students. Many of our patients were victims of severe and often brutal trauma and abuse suffered at the hands of family, friends, and various professionals including (...) spiritual leaders. We also uncovered sources of abuse suffered from those involved in occult practices ranging from seemingly innocent white witchcraft (Wicca, Paganism, New Age) that includes such activities as astral projection and remote viewing to the darkest possible black witchcraft (perpetrating evil, incanting evil spirits, casting spells and hexes, creating dissociative identities) such as occurs in ritual abuse and satanic rites. Both types of witchcraft also typically involved family, friends, various professionals, and spiritual leaders. Recognizing the controversy surrounding the reality of witchcraft I am sharing a story that I hope will help break down the barriers that prevent many patients from receiving the treatment that would provide the most benefit to recovery.Seeking services for these patients led me on an intense personal and professional journey that included a profound Christian born–again experience at almost 50 years of age. My professional career grew in nearly indescribable terms as a result of the incorporation of prayer and deliverance ministry as part of the services we selectively provided. Today I always include assessment of spiritual experiences a patient has as well as spiritual supports that are available with every new patient intake. For patients who indicate that prayer is one of their supports, I ask if they would like prayer at the conclusion of the session. The gratitude that is expressed by individuals who appreciate being able to pray with a psychiatric provider is often profound.In the field of psychiatry there has been a long–standing and distinct taboo regarding incorporating religious and spiritual aspects of life experience into treatment unless it is to frame most of these discussions within the context of psychosis. This stems from the advent of psychoanalysis in which religion was deemed a neurosis and atheism became the goal. Some still hold to that belief and there certainly remains controversy regarding the incorporation of prayer into routine outpatient or inpatient care. The essential starting point is the determination of accurate differential diagnosis, which can often be a lengthy process. The clinician must be careful about distinguishing between religious experiences and religious delusions, and often this takes time to sort out. The determination of the etiology of hearing the voice of God or the devil or demons must be carefully parsed and framed within the context of the situation and culture the patient describes. If the clinician denies the existence of God or the devil or demons or the practice of witchcraft, the patient’s descriptions of such experiences will be quickly [End Page 206] labeled psychotic. The patient may then experience a lengthy hospitalization and treatment with psychotropic medications that can have an extremely negative effect on the possibility of recovery. Once I witnessed the level of healing that occurs with carefully administered spiritual interventions that are related to specific spiritual experiences that are based on the patient’s belief system, there was no going back to using only allopathic medication and non–spiritual psychosocial interventions, even in spite of the criticisms from others. The key is to understand and respect the patient’s belief system, if this is not congruent with the practitioner’s belief system, then practitioner must refer out.In the United States, an increasing persecution of Christianity and a devaluing of the Judeo–Christian heritage of our Constitution are creating a climate of intolerance to the expression of religious values resulting in an expectation that Christians should compromise their beliefs for the sake of political correctness. As a doctorally prepared psychiatric–mental health advanced practice nurse I experienced a profound born–again Christian experience that ultimately led to study of the Hebrew roots of Christianity and I now worship in a Messianic Jewish synagogue. It is impossible for me to not include the concept of spirituality into... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 21-32 [Access article in PDF] Re-Creating Christian Community:A Response to Rita M. Gross Donald W. Mitchell Purdue University In Rita M. Gross's well-written, insightful, and provocative paper entitled "Some Reflections about Community and Survival," Rita says: "I am challenging my Christian colleagues to consider what role Western religious concepts about the individual may have played in getting us into the current hyper-individualism. (...) I also am asking whether the Buddhist concept of interdependence might be very useful in providing tools with which to think about why this hyper-individualism cannot survive."In terms of Rita's challenge, one could make the generalization that the notion of the individual soul being saved or on a journey to union with God has certainly played an important role in Christianity. At the extreme in this regard, Thomas à Kempis even advised solitude and the actual avoidance of other people, seen by him to be distractions to the spiritual life. However, most Christians would see this advice as an unhealthy extreme, agreeing with Rita that solitude has a "valued role...in the context of social life, not a substitute for it" (11). It is much more common for Christians to see themselves as parts of the mystical body of Christ, and to believe that their authentic selfhood and discipleship are found in the context of fellowship and community life in the church.In what follows here, I will try to show how the notions of selfhood and discipleship are being defined in a particular re-creation of Christian community, which includes persons of other faiths. I have been asked to make my response from the perspective of my own Christian community, the Focolare, which focuses on the kinds of social, economic, and environmental issues that we have been discussing for the past three years. In so doing, I will also try to show how the Focolare's trinitarian vision of God, community, and the cosmos is a possible answer to the above-quoted question Rita asks about how interdependence might be an antidote to hyper-individualism. Along the way, I will raise issues that relate to other points Rita makes in her paper, and then address her conclusions at the end of my paper. Seeds of a New Christian Community The Focolare began duringWorld War II with a small group of young women, whose ages ranged from fifteen to twenty-five, living in the city of Trent, Italy. 1 At the center [End Page 21] of the group was Chiara Lubich, who was only twenty-three at the time. In May of 1944 Lubich's home was destroyed by bombs, and her family decided to leave the city. Lubich made the difficult decision to remain with her companions in Trent, where they would meet in the bomb shelters as often as eleven times each day. They would take with them to the shelters only the Bible, which they searched for guidance in that difficult situation. What they came to understand in those hours together and then put into practice became the basis for re-creating a Christian community, one that is sensitive to the social, political, and economic conditions that had produced the war in which they were caught.A foundational discovery for these young women was a collective and yet very personal experience, in the midst of the death and destruction of the war, that "God is Love" (I John 4:8). Their contemplation of the First Letter of John, as well as other parts of the Scripture, strengthened not only their belief in the existence of God, when many were doubting God's existence, but also their faith in the love of God for each one of them.Wanting to respond to this experience of God's love, they again found in Scripture that God does not seek just a response of individual prayerful sentiment or personal piety, but a response that includes doing God's will: "It is not those who say to me, 'Lord, Lord,' who will enter the kingdom of heaven... (shrink)

One of the major works of the great German theologian Emil Brunner, The Divine Imperative deals with what we ought to do. People are unconvinced that there is an inviolable moral obligation governing human life because they do not believe that the 'good'can be precisely and clearly known. Haven't some generations called bad what others have called good? Aren't moral standards relative? Doesn't religion lack uniform and practical moral guidance? Brunner discusses the moral confusion we face. He analyses the nature (...) of the Good, showing why the Christian faith as understood by the Protestant Reformers provides the only true approach and answer to the ethical problem. Philosophical ethics, whether ancient or modern, cannot correctly define the Good, becausethe Good is regarded either as too abstract and absolute or as too concrete and relative. Christianity, by contrast, sees the moral problem as one of responsibility between humans who are created so as to respond to God. He created men for responsive fellowship with Him, establishing orderly ways of acting in the world. Correct understanding of the nature of society, family, state, economic life, is needed to discern one's duty. Because Brunner's analysis is at once fundamental and comprehensive, this book remains a fresh and compelling treatment of the moral problem. It offers a provocative discussion and solution of a perennial human problem. (shrink)

In reply to Dr Benians's article which suggests that social workers at times abuse their authority, three areas can be considered: the broader context of the social work task, the legal process itself, and the contribution made by child psychiatrists.

Clerical workers are an important segment of the work force. Catholic social teachings and eucharistic practice shed useful morallight on the increase in contingent work arrangements among clerical workers. The venerable concept of “the universal destination of the goods of creation” and a newer understanding of technology as “a shared workbench” illuminate the importance of good jobs for clerical workers. However, in order to apply Catholic social teachings to issues concerning clerical work as women’s work, (...) sexist elements in traditional Catholic social teachings must be critically assessed. Participation in the Eucharist helps share a moral stance of inclusivity and sensitivity to forms of social marginalization. While actual practice fails fully to embody gender or racial inclusivity, participation in the inclusive table fellowship of the Eucharist should make business leaders question treating contingent workers as a peripheral work force. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Suffering of Economic Injustice:A Christian PerspectiveUlrich DuchrowTogether we are facing a global kairos of humanity because these years are decisive for whether our civilization will irreversibly continue to produce death or whether we find a way out toward a life-enhancing new culture. So let me try to make a humble contribution to our common search for liberation from suffering toward life through justice.suffering caused by economic injustice (...) in the axial age and in the capitalist civilization of modernityWe do not need to spend much time on describing the sufferings caused by economic injustice. They cry to high heaven every day. Jean Ziegler, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, speaks of more than 60 million people dying of hunger and its consequences every year, especially children, although there is more than enough to feed them. That is an annual World War II against the poor. He continues to say: “A child that dies of hunger is murdered.” He calls this a daily crime against humanity.1 Others call it structural genocide.2 All these victims are human beings with a human face, according to biblical tradition created in the image of God. So we are talking about murdering living images of God, about blasphemy.Also, the blue planet Earth’s suffering is growing dramatically. The extinction of species is accelerating, desertification is expanding, the poisoning of water and soil is increasing, and climate change is producing irreversible effects like lifting the sea level, devouring islands in the Pacific and growing parts of Bangladesh, creating weather disasters everywhere, and possibly increasing temperature in parts of Africa by ten degrees. We all know this, but so far we have not been able to make the necessary changes in global economics and politics to stop or at least slow it.Often forgotten are the psychological and spiritual sufferings and diseases of a growing number of people. In India an average of more than fifty farmers, driven into debt beyond their means, commit suicide daily out of despair.3 Workers suffer increasing stress and anxiety, and middle-class people fall into depression, projected to be the second most common illness in 2020, according the World Health Organization. So what are the roots of all of this? [End Page 27]My thesis is that what we are experiencing now started nearly three thousand years ago within what is called the Axial Age, beginning in the eighth century bce, in the whole of Eurasia from Greece to China. At that time a new economy started to appear in daily life, built on money and private property. It had tremendous social as well as psychological and spiritual effects. To analyze what happened then helps us understand what is happening today. Looking at the responses to this development by the different faiths and philosophies in Israel/Judah, India, China, and Greece may also help us to better understand the tasks and possibilities of engaged Buddhists and liberation theologians in our age.The philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term “Axial Age.”4 According to him, the experience of violent crises between 800 and 200 bce might have prompted the parallel efforts of the prophets, the Buddha, Confucius, Daoism, and Greek philosophy to find new foundations for living together. He characterized the new approach as intellectual and spiritual (geistig), looking only marginally at the economic and political context. Recently Karen Armstrong and, based on her findings, Jeremy Rifkin took up this theory, looking particularly at war and violence as causes for the responses within the different cultures.5 Also José María Vigil, who is present here, has just published a chapter in his book on Theology of Axiality and Axial Theology.6 As far as the sociohistoric context of the Axial Age is concerned my thesis comes nearest to what David Graeber has worked out in his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years,7 although he is not very interested in the religious responses. Combining his insights with my own research,8 let me summarize how the new economy affects ancient societies.Money as unit of account was used in the palaces and temples of Mesopotamia as early... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Earthquake of 1906, the Christian Anarchy of Dorothy Day, and the Opened “Tomb” of René GirardAnn W. Astell (bio)The autobiographical writings of Dorothy Day (1897–1980) feature a childhood memory of catastrophe and conversion, her traumatic experience at age eight of the earthquake that rocked San Francisco and Oakland in 1906, leaving half of San Francisco in ruins and sending 50,000 refugees in flight from the burning city, (...) many of them in ferries across the bay. Day’s observations of the spontaneous behavior of people who helped one another at that time of crisis guided her later in dealing with the great crash of 1929 and the subsequent economic depression, during which, in 1933, she cofounded with Peter Maurin (1877–1949) the Catholic Worker Movement and its many Houses of Hospitality.Day’s experience of an anti-sacrificial civilization of love emerging spontaneously out of a chaotic situation of social crisis seems to challenge René Girard’s theory of the scapegoat-mechanism as the normative way of restoring order and peace to a community whose very existence is threatened by anarchy. A closer examination of Day’s experience and social thought in conversation with Girard’s reveals that Girard and Day agree about the violent origins of all culture, which Day envisages as revealed by an earthquake, Girard as concealed by a tomb—related foundational images that, as we shall see, Scripture scholars [End Page 19] find collocated especially in the final chapters of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The difference between the two images—one natural and one man-made—should not, and indeed cannot, be overlooked, however. The earthquake and its social effect as observable phenomena force the consideration that Girard’s early formulations of his theory, which explicitly distanced it from naturalistic explanations of myth, need to be revised in a way that accords more closely with his own later, apocalyptic thought.In an article published recently in Contagion, Matthew Pattillo has shown that Girard’s writings parallel, and to some extent directly affected, those of Jacques Ellul,1 the noted Christian anarchist who cites Girard explicitly on occasion and whose many books, according to Mark and Louise Zwick, “influenced the later Catholic Worker Movement.”2 In this article, I follow Pattillo’s lead, going back in time in order to examine ways in which the mimetic theory of Girard illumines the early thought and practice of Day, highlighting the originality of Day’s Christian anarchism as a remedy for a culture founded on violence. Whereas Girard posits a prereligious phase of anarchic, contagious violence, to which the rituals and prohibitions of religious societies responded (thus distantly preparing the way for a secularized modernity in which “law and order” stand opposed to an ever-threatening “anarchy”), Day finds a freely chosen Christian anarchy the best cure for anarchic destruction and totalitarianism alike, thus forging what Pattillo calls a “‘third way’ beyond law, beyond morality, beyond chaos.”3 In the end, the prolonged crisis within which the Catholic Workers shape their anarchistic “new society” against an eschatological horizon confirms Girard’s apocalypticism, even as it serves to place it in conversation with the apocalyptic philosophy of history of the Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev (1874–1949), whose thought influenced Maurin and Day.4The Earthquake and the TombFor Girard, the tomb is the real and metaphoric evolutionary origin of human civilization. “Culture,” he writes,always develops as a tomb. The tomb is nothing but the first human monument to be raised over the surrogate victim, the first, most elemental and fundamental matrix of meaning. There is no culture without a tomb, and no tomb without a culture; in the end, the tomb is the first and only [End Page 20] cultural symbol. The above-ground tomb does not have to be invented. It is the pile of stones in which the victim of unanimous stoning is buried.5Moving from its literal, historical meaning in connection with a primeval murder, Girard elaborates the metaphorical significance of the tomb for culture as a whole. As a site serving two functions simultaneously—namely, those of honoring the dead and of concealing a corpse—the tomb... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Other Dreams of Freedom: Religion, Sex, and Human Trafficking by Yvonne C. ZimmermanAbbylynn HelgevoldReview of Other Dreams of Freedom: Religion, Sex, and Human Trafficking YVONNE C. ZIMMERMAN New York: Oxford, 2013. 223 pp. $35.00In Other Dreams of Freedom, Yvonne Zimmerman develops a genealogical analysis of US antitrafficking policy. She aims to show how antitrafficking initiatives in the United States are influenced by and expressive of distinctively Protestant norms (...) regarding gender, sex, and freedom. Zimmerman argues that US antitrafficking initiatives are limited in their ability to promote [End Page 229] diverse expressions of freedom because they are both implicitly and explicitly framed from within such a religious worldview. As a result of the biases that have shaped US antitrafficking efforts, the complex social phenomenon of human trafficking, which involves a variety of forms of exploitation and abuse, has become essentially identified with the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and girls. According to Zimmerman, this has led to a disproportionate focus on “freeing” trafficking victims from sexual slavery and exploitation to “choose” to live lives that better reflect “good old American values” (126). Instead of respecting the agency of victims and promoting their freedom to make diverse choices about their own lives, current initiatives encourage conformity to “American” (i.e., middle class, white, and Protestant) values. If dreaming “other dreams of freedom” is ever to become a reality for the wide range of individuals who are or have been trafficked, becoming critically aware of these biases is an important first step.Zimmerman’s primary aim is to reveal these biases, and she examines them from a number of different angles. Thus, she examines the historical development of antitrafficking legislation; the gendered and theological language of US antitrafficking public policy; the implementation of policy under the Bush and Obama administrations; and the historical influence of distinctively Protestant conceptions of human freedom, morality, and sexual expression on what many typically consider to be “traditional American values.” Zimmerman’s analysis urges readers to become critically aware of how the language used in public policy communicates and enforces particular norms. She highlights the gendered language that normativizes female passivity and male aggression, and pays close attention to the deeper theological meaning of terms like “evil” and “God-given potential” used in US public policy that link Christian understandings of freedom to sexual expression. According to Zimmerman, understanding the religious moral imagination evoked by such language helps to explain the otherwise unreasonable “conflation of sex work and human trafficking” in US policy (173).On the whole, the threads of sex, gender, and freedom that Zimmerman picks up are generally well supported throughout Other Dreams. Her research also raises some difficult questions that are beyond the scope of her book but worth considering. For example, even if the language of evil carries with it certain theological assumptions, is it possible that there are good reasons for using such language in addition to the language of justice? Or, even if one challenges the Protestant norms that are being used to shape antitrafficking efforts, are there other reasons for supporting the policy that is in place?Zimmerman’s book is clear, well-written, and accessible. Other Dreams of Freedom will likely appeal to a number of different audiences: diverse scholars interested in the relationship between religion and public policy; political activists, social workers, or policy makers interested in the problem of human [End Page 230] trafficking; and teachers of advanced undergraduate or graduate courses that deal with these issues. Other Dreams of Freedom is edifying, thought-provoking, and timely. As more attention turns toward the global social problem of human trafficking it is important that the policies in place and the activities of those who implement them are not hampered in their usefulness by unexplored biases.Abbylynn HelgevoldUniversity of Northern IowaCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The Next Step in Religion: An Essay toward the Coming Renaissance is a classic religious essay by Roy Wood Sellars that examines christianity and humanism includes the following excerpt: More than people are consciously aware, a new view of the universe and of man's place in it is forming. It is forming in the laboratories of scientists, the studies of thinkers, the congresses of social workers, the assemblies of reformers, the studios of artists and, even more quietly, in (...) the circles of many homes. This new view is growing beneath the old as a bud grows beneath its covering, and is slowly pushing it aside. (shrink)

Based on individual and focus-group interviews, this article describes how social workers in a variety of settings and geographical areas within Ontario approached ethical issues in their daily practices. Two primary approaches to professional ethics emerge from the data: principle based and virtue based, reflecting the orientation of groups we label believers and skeptics, respectively. The code of ethics appears to be the fulcrum from which our participants swing. The believers show faith in the code of ethics and (...) the skeptics are dubious that codes are necessarily in the best interests of clients. The article describes the thinking behind the actions of the believers and skeptics and explores possibilities for future practice and research with respect to decision-making regarding ethical issues in the social work profession. (shrink)

A survey form sent to psychologists (Pope, Keith-Spiegel, & Tabachnick, 1986) was adapted and sent to 1,000 clinical social workers (return rate = 45%). Most participants reported sexual attraction to a client, causing (for most) guilt, anxiety, or confusion. Some reported having sexual fantasies about a client while engaging in sex with someone other than a client. Relatively few (3.6% men; 0.5% women) reported sex with a client; training was related to likelihood of offending, though the effect is (...) small and complex. An analysis of eight national studies (data from 5,148 therapists) found significant effects for gender (more male offenders) and year of study (about 10% annual decrease in reported offenses since 1977) but not profession (i.e., no difference among psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers). Most social workers reported no graduate training whatsoever about sexual attraction; only 10% reported adequate training. (shrink)

The article considers the research developed by the UniNomade project concerning the global financial crisis within the theoretical framework of Italian ‘workerism’ and post-workerist theory. On the whole, the UniNomade project offers a rich variety of stimuli to debate. However, in the work of UniNomade, there are some problematic elements, particularly when the authors invoke a series of ‘excesses’ in ‘cognitive capitalism’. This review-article argues that the old post-workerist thesis of an obsolescence of the law of value introduces into UniNomade’s (...) work an ambiguous determinism. (shrink)

The article deals with theoretical, practical, partly - historical aspects of scientific research of modern Ukrainian and foreign sociologists and social workers. The aim of the research is to analyze and summarize the following three key aspects: a) historical destructive moments in the development of Ukrainian/Soviet sociology; b) the orientation of the vector of postmodernist research of foreign scholars who had no censorship restrictions on their works; c) the main problematics of current Ukrainian sociological research. The latter, despite (...) their deep materialistic tradition, find opportunities for new non-empirical approaches. In the article with the help of analysis of methodical sources, generalization of their content and presentation and interpretation of individual statistical data the authors substantiate: socio-economic, managerial and pedagogical reasons can systematically present the problematics of the current research of social workers. However, the postmodern aspect, still not "reworked" by the Ukrainian society, has not yet left its final mark on the social research. The international significance of the article lies in the interest of countries of transitional democracies and economies, previously under totalitarian influence, to acquire full emancipation and neo-liberalization concerning social problems and humane ways of solving them. (shrink)

Purpose/methods: This study investigated the relationship between ethics education and training, and the use and usefulness of ethics resources, confidence in moral decisions, and moral action/activism through a survey of practicing nurses and social workers from four United States (US) census regions. Findings: The sample (n = 1215) was primarily Caucasian (83%), female (85%), well educated (57% with a master's degree). no ethics education at all was reported by 14% of study participants (8% of social workers (...) had no ethics education, versus 23% of nurses), and only 57% of participants had ethics education in their professional educational program. Those with both professional ethics education and in-service or continuing education were more confident in their moral judgments and more likely to use ethics resources and to take moral action. Social workers had more overall education, more ethics education, and higher confidence and moral action scores, and were more likely to use ethics resources than nurses. Conclusion: Ethics education has a significant positive influence on moral confidence, moral action, and use of ethics resources by nurses and social workers. (shrink)

School achievement and failure have become growing political and social concerns due to the negative consequences of school failure for individuals and society. The inclusive educational movement, which calls for equal access, permanence, participation, and promotion of all students worldwide, poses many challenges for schools and school systems. As a public policy strategy, some countries have provided additional funds for incorporating non-teaching professionals such as school psychologists and social workers in regular K-12 schools. However, there is lack (...) of research on the effects of these psychosocial professionals on student outcomes. This national multilevel study explored the effect of psychologists (n= 8,469) and social workers (n= 3,524) on indicators of eighth-grade (n= 147,531) and 10th-grade (n= 106,347) students' academic achievement and dropout in Chile. A multilevel secondary analysis was performed using national records of non-teaching professionals working as school staff members, achievement scores on the national SIMCE test, and dropout rates based on official records. Results showed that after controlling for individual and school variables known to affect achievement and dropout, schools with psychologists and social workers working as staff members had lower short- and long-term dropout rates. The presence and higher number of school psychologists per school was positively associated with higher math achievement, with a reduced effect in low-SES schools. Lower-SES schools with more social workers had higher math scores. These results support policies that increase funding for school psychologists and social workers, since their incorporation partly explains better school achievement and less school failure when controlling for individual and school characteristics, but emphasize the need to further explore the mechanisms through which school achievement and failure are developed with the support of psychologists and social workers in schools. We discuss the need to regulate the type of prevention and intervention strategies from a whole-school, evidence-based approach, as well as to incorporate psychosocial training modules and comprehensive guidelines as part of professional training programs and as certified requisites for working in schools. (shrink)

COVID-19 has been studied extensively for its direct effects on healthcare workers. Despite this, very little is known about the effect of COVID-19 fear on future orientation. Studying medical social workers’ fear of being infected with COVID-19 and their future orientation was the primary method used to examine this relationship. 204 Turkish medical social workers on the pandemic’s front lines were included in the total sample. Social workers were found to be extremely concerned (...) about contracting COVID-19. Although only gender is a significant predictor of the fear of contracting COVID-19 infection, the study also found that female social workers have a higher fear of infection than males. Also, no correlation exists between social workers’ vaccination status and their fear of contracting COVID-19. There was a weak negative correlation between social workers’ fear of contracting COVID-19 and their future orientation, but in general, social workers had a positive future orientation. Medical social workers and front-line health care providers can use these findings to develop effective and culturally appropriate intervention programs to reduce COVID-19 concerns and foster a forward-looking outlook. (shrink)

In the last 20 years, amid extensive social and economic reforms, China’s social structure and community life have changed considerably. A large number of social workers are needed to provide many more social services to community residents. The central government has issued many policies to rapidly develop human service organizations and increase the number of social workers. Thus, by the end of 2019, the number of social workers has reached more than (...) 1.5 million in China. At the same time, local governments have issued many policies to promote an increase in the number of social workers. According to statistics from the Chengdu Civil Affairs Bureau, from 2010 to 2021, the number of social workers in Chengdu City increased, remarkably, from 553 to 17,622. Although the number of social workers has increased rapidly, some problems still exist. According to a survey by the Chengdu Social Workers Association, the turnover rate of social workers has reached approximately 20% in Chengdu City in 2018. Therefore, we aim to determine what influences social workers’ job burnout. Through regression analysis and mediation effect tests, we found the following: First, when controlling for gender, age, education, and workday, social support of social workers had a significant negative impact on job burnout. Second, the mindfulness of social workers had a significant negative impact on job burnout. Third, the mindfulness of social workers played a mediating role between social support and job burnout. The mediating effect was −0.116. Fourth, among the three dimensions of social support, mindfulness played a partially mediating role in family support and other support. The mediating effect between other support, which is the support from leaders and colleagues, and job burnout was the strongest, with a mediating effect of −0.109. In other words, the support provided by agency leaders and colleagues can maximize the level of mindfulness of social workers, thereby reducing social workers’ job burnout most effectively. We can thus reduce social workers’ job burnout by improving their level of mindfulness and the social support for them in China. (shrink)

There is a disproportionate number of complaints about social workers in England to the Health and Care Professionals Council (HCPC) as compared with the other health care professionals regulated by HCPC. This paper discusses findings from interviews and focus groups that formed part of a mixed methods study that aimed to find out the reasons for complaints and the strategies that may reduce complaints. Four themes were identified: social work as an evolving profession; social work involves (...) challenging practice; social work takes place in a pressurised environment; and public perceptions and expectations of social work are often negative and unrealistic. Findings highlight explanations that focus on organisational culture and public responses to social workers’ control functions. We argue that, at a time of change for the profession, there is a need for public education regarding the role and function of social workers and for regulators to have more proactive engagement with registrants and employers. (shrink)