Religion and Faith-based Welfare: From Wellbeing to Ways of Being

This original book makes a timely—and potentially controversial—contribution to social policy debates. Rana Jawad examines the workings of religious welfare organizations from the world’s major faiths, offering a critical overview of the role religious values, actors, and institutions have on social programs. Combining historical discussions of the relationship between religion and social policy in Britain with a comparative theoretical discussion that covers continental Europe and North America, she brings a host of perspectives together, arguing for an analytical shift in the definition of well-being through a concept she calls “ways of being,” which, she argues, better reflects the moral, ideological, and cultural underpinnings of social welfare.

Rana Jawad is a lecturer in social policy at the University of Bath and author of Religion and Social Welfare in the Middle East, also published by the Policy Press.