Civilian Empowerment: A Theological Inquiry

A theological inquiry into civilian empowerment approaches “god” or “gods” as sources of power. Since our conception of god depends on what we can say—our language—the gods of empowerment belong to our various social worlds. We could understand the flow of power here as one where God empowers the church and then shares it with society, or where God empowers people in society and the church gives witness to it. The protestant theologians Paul Lehmann and Edward Hobbs take the second view. Lehmann’s approach opens us to a community-creating power that other language communities besides the Christian church could articulate and celebrate. Hobbs explains how the Christian trinity exposes our limitations, hubris, and the call to care for others. These theologies reveal our human capacity to create caring communities with the power to call for change.

Is Suicide the Unforgivable Sin? Understanding Suicide, Stigma, and Salvation through Two Christian Perspectives

Is suicide the unforgivable sin? Most Western arguments against suicide stem from Christian arguments. Christianity has a long-standing position that suicide is morally wrong. However, on the issue of suicide and salvation, Christianity is divided. Debate, discussion, and interpretation through the centuries have led to two different positions. This result has divided the Christian community in multiple ways. These beliefs have likely impacted the level of stigma associated with suicide losses, suicide attempts, and suicide survivors within Christianity. The stigma of suicide can be lethal if it is not properly addressed. Stigma can easily push people away from caring communities of support and from God. This paper examines the two predominate Christian theological positions on suicide and highlights areas where stigma has hindered help, support, and care. Lowering the negative effects of suicidal stigma is a foundational piece of the solution for communities of faith to engage people at risk of suicide.

Interdependencia, cuidados y resistencia. Nikan Tipowih y la reproducción de la vida en Zongolica, Veracruz

The State of Veracruz, Mexico, ranks second for the crime of femicide in México, in addition to this, a scenario of increasing precariousness that puts at risk the possibility of reproducing life in decent conditions. Faced with this, women of diverse origins have organized to work in the construction of caring communities, as possibilities to preserve their lives, territories and culture. We approach this problem from the stakes of feminist political ecology and community feminism, to understand the complexity of the tensions waged by those who seek to weave strategies for the reproduction of living, in the midst of a plundering system that attacks bodies, knowledge and territories and damages the ties and exchanges between women. Our reflection is centered on the experience of Nikan Tipowih, political pedagogical resistance, linked to the defense of the territory, knowledge and the Nahua language of the Sierra de Zongolica. Veracruz.

STRATEGI PENCIPTAAN KOMUNITAS PEDULI DENGAN PENDEKATAN KOMPREHENSIF DI SEKOLAH DASAR

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan strategi penciptaan komunitas peduli dengan pendekatan komprehensif di sekolah dasar. Jenis penelitian adalah analisis konten inferensial. Prosedur penelitian yang dilakukan mencakupi pengadaan dan reduksi data. Sumber data berupa empat artikel jurnal yang memiliki fokus penelitian yang sama. Unit data menggunakan unit fisik dengan sampel unit berupa konteks tentang caring classroom sebagai bentuk implementasi Child Development Project (CDP) yang dipublikasikan pada tahun 1990-1996 dan diakses melalui Google Scholar. Teknik analisis data dilakukan secara kualitatif menggunakan peta kognitif, yaitu mencari kesesuaian pemikiran penulis artikel jurnal tentang strategi penciptaan komunitas peduli pada tahun tersebut dengan realitas saat sekarang. Semua data diringkas, dipahami, diinterpretasikan, diinferensikan, dan ditemukan pola hubungan dengan situasi terkini tentang fenomena kepedulian siswa SD. Penelitian ini menggunakan validitas semantis dan reliabilitas stabilitas (konsistensi). Konstruk analitis dibangun menggunakan teori kognitif dan afektif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa komunitas peduli di sekolah dasar diciptakan menggunakan beberapa strategi, yaitu: (1) menciptakan hubungan asuh yang peduli; (2) mengajarkan nilai-nilai kemanusiaan; (3) menghormati motivasi intrinsik, dan (4) mengajarkan untuk memahami. Strategi tersebut dapat berjalan efektif dengan melibatkan peran dan tanggung jawab administrator, guru, konselor, orang tua, dan masyarakat secara komprehensif. CREATION STRATEGY OF CARING COMMUNITIES USING COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS This study aims to describe the strategy of creating caring communities with a comprehensive approach in elementary school. The type of this research was inferential content analysis. The research procedures carried out include the procurement and reduction of data. The data sources were four journal articles that have the same research focus. The data unit used physical units with a sample unit in the form of context about caring classroom as a form of implementation of the Child Development Project (CDP) which was published in 1990-1996 and accessed through Google Scholar. The data analysis technique was carried out qualitatively using a cognitive map, which seeks to match the thinking of journal articles writers about the strategy of creating caring communities in that year with current realities. namely looking for the suitability of the thoughts of the authors of journal articles about the strategy of creating a caring community in that year with the current reality. All data were summarized, understood, interpreted, referenced, and found patterns of relationships with the current situation regarding elementary school students' concern phenomena. This study used semantic validity and stability reliability (consistency). Analytical constructs were built using cognitive and affective theory. The results show that the caring community in primary school was created using the following strategies: (1) creating the caring nurturing relationships; (2) teaching human values; (3) respecting intrinsic motivation; and (4) teaching to understand. The strategy can be effectively by involving the roles and responsibilities of administrators, teachers, counselors, parents, and the community comprehensively.

Ways to care: Forms and possibilities of compassion within UK food banks

Food banks are organisations which occupy an uncomfortable position, being seen both as a manifestation of caring communities as well as an undesirable feature of neoliberal government. By focusing on the encounters between volunteers and food bank users within these organisations, we excavate their caring side to find three forms of compassion: compassion ‘for’, compassion ‘with’ and compassion ‘within’. We show that while compassion ‘for’ can lead to countless selfless acts, it remains embedded within neoliberal discourses. This can serve to reinforce distance and inequalities between giver (volunteer) and receiver (food bank user), creating a chain of indebtedness as compassion becomes part of a transactional exchange offered to those seen as worthy. Compassion ‘with’ others focuses on the person rather than the problem of food poverty and manifests itself in expressions of connection and responsibility which can, however, become possessive at times. Compassion ‘within’ is a form of compassion that, although less visible and demonstrative in response to the immediate suffering of others, provokes ethical and political reflection for individual volunteers who at times may challenge the very need for food banks. By grounding compassion in a specific social and organisational context, we highlight its relational nature and the dynamic and uncomfortable relation between different forms of compassion in the context of UK food banks. We conclude that compassion is a socially embedded and differentiated relationship which can activate affective, ethical and political responses to food poverty.

Der apollinisch-dionysische Geist der Sozialpolitik und der Gemeinwirtschaft

In this book, the historical dynamics of social policy, common welfare economics and the politics of social services of general interest, justified by personalist ethics, are understood as endogenous, dialectical mechanisms of the polarity between the principles of Apollonian order and Dionysian transgression; as a logical form of the philosophy of history on the ontological pathway to the concrete utopia of the truth of socially caring communities comprised of free people living according to their belief in reciprocal responsibility; and as a system of solidarity based on love.

Lehren aus der Corona-Krise: Modernisierung des Wächterstaates im SGB XI

With empathy for the chasm between fundamental social rights and social reality, this study demonstrates there is an urgent need for transgressive cultural transformation of the logic behind care policy. The experience of social exclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic shows us that the landscape of care must be transformed to create a new, radical vision of future social policy according to the paradigm of deinstitutionalisation. The alternative is the idea of caring communities: the development of social capital as supporting systems of social networks in local spaces in the context of regional infrastructures.

Migrant-led organisations as caring communities: towards a re-appreciation of the reciprocal dimension of care

This article examines care in the context of a migrant-led non-governmental organisation run by and supporting London’s Latin American migrants. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article suggests that the non-governmental organisation can be best described as a ‘caring community’: it cares for migrants by helping them access their entitlements, information and care, while also fostering spaces where reciprocal caring relationships develop. This article concludes by arguing that examining care in the contexts of migrant-led non-governmental organisations can help us move beyond the tendency to confine care to the dyadic, unequal relationships dominating migration and care studies.