Exploring Spiritual Capital: Resource for an Uncertain Future?

1. Exploring Spiritual Capital: Resource for an Uncertain Future? Dr Chris Baker William Temple Foundation University of Manchester Manchester Research Institute for Religion and Civil Society

2. Outline of lecture – 4 dimensions to the spiritual capital debate • Context - Finding a new role for faith – the emergence of the postsecular • Policy - Faiths and UK government policy – the long courtship • Theory - Spiritual and religious capitals – locating in the field of social capital • Praxis - Producing virtuous cycles of production/ Levels of transformation • Macro – locating values in the public square • Meso – Faith communities as agents of change at the institutional/neighbourhood level • Micro - individuals as agents of change (Narrative and empirical evidence)

3. Emergence of the Postsecular – The Context • Emerging and contested term – at least 6 dimensions • Philosophical • Theological • Spatial • Cultural • Sociological • Political • Governance and civil society

4. From Secularisation to Desecularisation • Berger – secularisation = ‘process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols’ (The Social Reality of Religion 1973:113) • Wilson ‘ process by which religious institutions, actions and consciousness lose their significance’ (Religion in Sociological Perspective 1982: 149)

5. Desecularisation • Berger – ‘desecularisation’ – the re-emergence of ‘furious, supernaturalist, fundamentalist or conservative expressions of religion in politics/public life’ (1999: 6) • Habermas – ‘a postsecular self-understanding of society as a whole… the vigorous continuation of religion in a continually secularising environment …’ (2005; 26)

6. Spiritual Capital – The Policy Dimension • The Long Courtship of Faiths by New Labour via the Third Way and the prominence of the Third Sector. Faith groups bring: • Buildings • Leadership • Transferable Skills • Connections to hard to reach people • Long term presence • Values of caring for neighbour/speaking against injustice (Faiths Hope and Participation – 2001 – NEF)

7. Faith as Social Capital – connecting or dividing (JRF 2006) • More sceptical discourse: • Hidden motives of faith sector • Unrealistic expectations and insufficient investigation • Lack of clarity re basic aims • Lack of equal opps procedures • Tendency towards crisis management

8. Three rationales for Government to involve the faith sector (Lowndes and Chapman, 2005) • Resources – buildings, volunteers etc. • Leadership – trained personnel but also opportunities for leadership training • Normative – norms and values FBOs bring which are ‘motivated by their theology… harnessing and supporting faith-based motivations for engagement can contribute to civil renewal objectives…’ (2005: 27)

9. Religious and Spiritual capital – as subsets of Social capital - the Theoretical dimension. • Social Capital – the importance of relationships, networks and norms that can be used to enrich individuals and communities (Putnam, 2000) • Religious Capital: ‘… is the practical contribution to local and national life made by faith groups’ (Baker and Skinner, 2006) • Spiritual Capital: ‘ energises religious capital by providing a theological identity and worshipping tradition, but also a value system, moral vision and a basis for faith… is often embedded locally within faith groups, but also expressed in the lives of individuals’ (as above)

10. Existing definitions of Spiritual and Religious capital • Iannaccone (Metanexus) – SC is ‘The effects of spiritual and religious practices, beliefs, networks, and institutions that have a measurable impact of individuals, communities and societies’ (2003) • Bourdieu – RC is ‘.. A deliberately organised corpus of secret knowledge’ necessary for the smooth functioning of the ‘habitus’

11. Other related concepts • Religious Spiritual Capital (Smidt, 2003) • … a particular kind of social capital – social capital; that is tied to religious life – and the kind of consequences that flow from its presence • Faithful capital (Faithful Cities – 2006) • Two distinguishing elements • Language (concepts such as ‘love’. ‘hope’, ‘judgement’, ‘forgiveness’, remembrance’, ‘hospitality’ • Practices (such as ‘local rootedness’, acceptance of failure, ‘genuine participation and working together’)

12. Figure 5: The virtuous cycle of spiritual and religious capital Ethos S C R C Moods The interaction of religious and spiritual capital – a virtuous cycle of capital production

13. Three levels of transformation – the praxis dimension • Macro – universal public values and ethics – a bridging concept? • Lowndes and Chapman – normative discourse • Rowan Williams • Supplementary jurisdiction • Transformative accommodation • Moral energy Leonie Sandercock (secular spiritual capital) ‘The faith at the heart of planning is very simple..’

14. Leonie Sandercock ctd • “The faith at the heart of planning is very simple. It’s our faith in humanity, in ourselves as social beings, in the presence of the human spirit and the possibility of realising/bringing into being the best of what it means to be human” (Sandercock, 2006, p 65).

15. Leonie Sandercock – ctd • ‘to moderate greed with generosity, to conjoin private ambition with civic ambition, to care for others as much as or even more than ourselves, to think as much or more about future generations as we do our own, to thoughtfully weigh the importance of memory alongside the need to change…’ (Sandercock, 2006: 66)

16. Meso and mirco levels of transformation • Meso – The message Trust – Eden projects • The Matrix Mentoring System • Entry to Enterprise Programme • ‘ an incarnational theology’ • Results in a structural and strategic redistribution of goods, knowledge and opportunity in favour of those most excluded within society at local neighbourhood level.

17. From meso to micro … • ‘The inspirational work kind of breaks your heart and makes you want to do more…’ • Serve others out of a sense of gratitude and happiness for what these volunteers perceive as a life-changing transformation for themselves through an ongoing encounter with God.

18. Quantitative Coda • Religion is one of Layard’s Big 7 sources of happiness (Happiness- Lessons from a new Science – 2005) • Borgonovi, Francesca (LSE). Doing well by doing good. The relationship between formal volunteering and self-reported health and happiness. (2008) • Religious volunteering : 6% more likely to be in excellent health and 13% more likely to report being very happy compared to peers who don’t volunteer • Secular-based volunteering: 4% and 9% respectively

19. Conclusion – resource for an uncertain future? • A fairly unqualified ‘Yes’ – more reliable than other forms of capital • Why? – it operates on the notion of altruism/voluntary donation – it doesn’t rely on usual market mechanisms such as rational choice theory – it tends to have its own system of immaterial rewards • Well-placed to take advantage of the immaterial shift in the market • Is likely to provide resources for good supplies of mental capital – especially resilience, self-esteem etc.