English summary of the article "Christian Social Work as Indication of Secularization"

(In Danish: Sune Wadskjær Nielsen, "Diakoni som sekulariseringsindikator: Sekulariseringens påvirkning af menighedsplejen i Skt. Johannes sogn i Århus i perioden 1905-1997" i Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift Nr. 35 (1999), s. 3-21.

This article deals with secularization and christian social work. It is a study of how the parish based social work in Sct. John Parish in Aarhus has been influenced by the secularization process in Denmark.

The major source material of the study has been two journals with summaries of all the meetings between the vuluntary social workers in the parish in the period from 1905 to 1997. Karel Dobbelaere's three dimensional secularization concept, which divides secularization into a socital, institutional and individual level, has been used in order to structure the material. Four major tendencies has been identified. 1) After the first world war there is a decrease in the need for help in Sct. John parish and a stagnation in the recruitment of vuluntary social workers, which suggests that secularization was increasing. 2) The period of German occupation of Denmark was a sacralization phase, where there was progress in most areas of the social work. At this time the Parish based social work had a sectarian "gemeinschaft" like attitude towards collobrating with other public and vuluntary social work. 3) The late fifties and the beginning of the sixties was the period where the secularization trend is most predominant. The social work lost its nursing sister and recruitment was bad probably due to the increasing number of women at the labour market. Traditionally, the vulontary social workers had been recruited from among housewives, but they were now mobilized to participate in the booming Danish economy. 4) In the eithties and nineties there has been a tendency towards sacralization. This was due to the employment of a professional parish worker in 1985 who could organize the activities of the vulunteer social workers. It was the favourable economical situation of the Danish Lutheranian church made it possible to employ a professional parish worker. Recruitment was still low in this period as the vuluntary social workers preferred to collobarate with non-religious institutions. Some of these tendencies are probably general for the secularization process in Denmark. They suggest that secularization in Denmark has not been a strait forward unilinear process.



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