Religious organisations within civil society
ly in the role they can play within the field of social care and welfare. In the Dutch situation, this increased role is obvious through the fact that religious organisations are invited to fulfill a social and political role to minimise social problems and to work for improvement of the social environment. This article is based on literature research and discusses the theological pros and cons for taking on such a social and/or political role. It will discuss the English theologian O’Donovan and the way he offers inspiration to religious organisations as they try to find an appropriate attitude within civil society. The focus will be on Christian churches, though the arguments brought forward are also partly valid for other religious organisations. Legislative changes in the Netherlands Since 2007, the Dutch government has made major changes in its social legislation; the establishment of the Social Support Act is an important part of this. The Act implies a huge shift within the whole system of social care and welfare. One of the most interesting changes is the fact that the national and local governments are no longer the primary responsible parties when people are in need. This responsibility is instead shifted towards people’s natural social network, such as family, friends, neighbours or church people. Only if this network is not able to help in solving the problem(s), the government will step in.
The Church's Religious Identity and Its Social and Political Mission
THE MISSION of the Church is at the center of much contemporary theology. One basic theological issue is the relation between the Church's mission and its religious identity. How does any activity or ministry relate to the Church's religious identity? Unless its ministry expresses this identity, the Church fails to be church. The recent loss of membership within American churches has been attributed to their focusing on social issues rather than on their religious message. This essay will explore the specific issue, how the Church's political and social mission relates to its religious identity. First, it will raise the basic theological issue by analyzing distinct interpretations of the relation between religious identity and social or political ministry. Second, it will offer hermeneutical reflections on an adequate methodology and will propose how the interpretative nature of religion and the Wisdom development of Christology can provide a basis and guideline for elaborating the Church's Christian religious identity in relation to a social ministry. Third, without touching on the complex relations between morality and legality, church and state, policy and strategy, it will point to the basic correlation between the Church's tradition of a social mission and its political mission.
What is an archival education?1
This article introduces the approach to Master's level archival education adopted at the University of Manitoba. It is intended as a contribution to the recently renewed discussion of graduate archival education in the UK and Ireland. The author maintains that recent major developments in the accessibility, uses, and very conception of archives powerfully underscore the distinctiveness of archival work. These developments foster continued collaboration between archivists and those in related professions such as records management, but, more importantly, reinforce their longstanding distinctiveness. The article discusses why and how the University of Manitoba has responded to the increasingly complex challenges facing archivists and archival educators in this evolving setting with an archival, conceptual, historical, and research-oriented curriculum.