Welfare in America : Christian perpectives on a policy in crisis
Should welfare be abolished because it fosters dependency, or should it be expanded to offer more effective help? Are people poor due to their own irresponsibility or as a result of social injustice? Is the key welfare problem non-work or illegitimacy? Should government help the poor, or is aid a job for the church? Such polarized questions have hampered the quest for constructive welfare reform and have left Christians criticizing each other as mere advocates of a bogus compassion or of a "tough love" that actually lacks love. This book moves beyond such polarities by developing a fuller biblical understanding of personhood, the multiple institutions of society, and the limited yet constructive responsibilities of government. It argues that assistance should aim to restore people and institutions to their diverse responsibilities in a healthy society. For shalom to replace poverty and social decay, families, churches, schools, government, and other institutions must each fulfill its own responsibilities. The topics range from family dysfunction to global economic restructuring, from constitutional disputes about government support for faith-based charities to social science's confusion about causation, and from welfare program changes to policy initiatives to revitalize civil society
Print Book, English, 1996
William B. Eerdmans Pub., Grand Rapids, Mich., 1996
xxi, 582 pages ; 23 cm
9780802841278, 0802841279
33281644
Introduction : the American welfare policy crisis : a challenge to Christian reflection / Stanley W. Carlson-Thies
Why end "welfare as we know it"? / Jean Bethke Elshtain
Beneath and beyond the state : social, global, and religious changes that shape welfare reform / Max L. Stackhouse
Who cares? Poverty and the dynamics of responsibility : an outsider's contribution to the American debate on poverty and welfare / Bob Goudzwaard
What's wrong with welfare rights? / Mary Ann Glendon
Defining poverty through the welfare debate : limitations for policy and program response / Stephanie Baker Collins
The question of being human in assessing the requirements of welfare policy reform / James W. Skillen
Biblical teaching and the objectives of welfare policy in the United States / John D. Mason
Foundations of the welfare responsibility of the government / Stephen Charles Mott
The poverty debate and human nature / Lawrence M. Mead
Opposite sexes or neighboring sexes? : the importance of gender in the welfare responsibility debate / Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Rights talk and welfare policy / Paul Marshall
The antipoverty dynamic of religion : lessons from Guatemala for U.S. welfare policy / Anne Motley Hallum
Family issues in welfare reform : developmental pathways as a theoretical framework for understanding generational cycles of poverty / Vynthia Jones Neal
Rural poverty : Christian charity and social justice responses / Mary P. Van Hook
Doing analysis as service along "the way" : the social policy analysis of the Center for Public Justice / John Heimstra
Free schools and the revival of urban communities / Charles L. Glenn
Overcoming poverty : the role of religiously based nonprofit organizations / Stephen V. Monsma
Correcting the welfare tragedy : toward a new model for church/state partnership / Ronald J. Sider and Heidi Rolland
Social service agencies and religious freedom : regulation, funding, and the First Amendment / Julia K. Stronks
Balancing care and cure : the place of health care reform in the welfare reform debate / Clarke E. Cochran
Conclusion : Reforming welfare and redirecting government / Stanley W. Carlson-Thies
Appendix : "A new vision for welfare reform : an essay in draft."