Dr. Kjell Nordstokke

If I had given this lecture 50 years ago, the title probably would have been "Diakonia and the welfare state - strategies for co-operation". That is, if the lecture would have been given here in Finland or another Nordic country, or even in Germany for that matter. On the other side of the iron curtain, the theme would naturally have been different. It would have been more painful and less enthusiastic concerning the future of modern society.

Since then Europe, has experienced profound changes. The empire of the Soviet Union and its economic and social order has imploded. The European Union now appears as the project that promises political, economic and social order. The role of the strong national state seems to be outdated.

This development shows that profound ideological changes have taken place over the last decades. It also discloses the intrinsic relation between globalisation and market-oriented ideology. The values of modern society are being replaced by the values of post-modernity.

Can the idea of the welfare state survive these changes? Can its goals be achieved in spite of new ideological trends? In modernity, the strong state was responsible for the construction of welfare benefits. Can civil society be seen as a new political concept to make continuity possible in the form of welfare society? And can it achieve this in a way that is open for new strategies for participation and working with people?

There are at least two reasons for the expectation that many of us have regarding civil society as a new political concept.

1)  The first is that it portrays the individual as an active person in a network of relations. It resists tendencies towards reducing the person to a mere passive recipient of assistance. In that way, it affirms Christian anthropology and its vision of the person as a relational being. No one can live a meaningful life in isolation from others. Related to others we know who we are, what we can do, what we are longing for, and what makes life beautiful and meaningful.

2)  The second reason for our expectation regarding civil society is its description of society in a way that opens space for many different actors, each one with his or her own particular profile and with specific conditions for contributing to the construction of society. It resists tendencies towards totalitarianism, both the kind that gives the state an omnipotent role in society, and also the opposite neo-liberal position that gives the market a dominant role.

According to this understanding of civil society, there must be room for popular initiatives, for organisations and movements, for traditional and local groups and people's associations. This is due to the respect for diversity and the commitment to communication, especially between partners who are different.

The welfare state, at least as we know it in Northern Europe, has not always considered these values in the same positive way. That is also one of the reasons for the pressure it has experienced the last decades.

If we now look at the classical welfare state as this was modelled in the aftermath of World War II, it must be seen as one of the most ambitions projects of modernity. In the Nordic countries, this project was based on three fundamental principles:

1. The principle of universality. This means that the benefit given should be available to every citizen, not only the poorest.
2. The principle of redistribution. The financing of the benefits should be based on taxes, not on insurance payments, thus avoiding a differentiation of rights.
3. The principle of public responsibility. The government should organise the welfare services on behalf of its citizens.

These principles built on the conviction that only public services can guarantee equal rights for every citizen, free of attitudes of charity and discrimination. They also understand objective and neutral professionalism to be in the interest of the social client. Therefore private agents - either religious (diaconal) or idealistic - were not quite trustworthy. They should be tolerated as long as they were needed, but the intention was that they should be taken over or be substituted by public offices

As known, the German welfare model was developed in a different way. Here diaconal and philanthropic institutions have a central role in organising the welfare services (the principle of subsidiarity). Also the system of financing is different (the principle of insurance).

Today this model of welfare state has come under pressure for different reasons. Also, in our context, this pressure is related to ideological changes and to the fact that the costs of maintaining the kind of services that have been developed are growing more rapidly than most politicians and voters are willing to accept.

Here we do not have the time to go into all the different aspects of this crisis. It is important to see that many of them are being fomented by the ideas of post-modernity that show more faith in the market than in the state, in individual than in collective solutions, and in ad-hoc initiatives than in large-scale planned activity.

But there also exists a kind of fatigue towards a system that too often is experienced as arrogant and omnipotent, without the kind of sensibility that invites and promotes participation and openness in the construction of society. To many it has, therefore, become important to talk about the welfare society instead of the welfare state, thus at the same time defending the basic benefits of the system, but also being open to alternative forms of organising it.

In spite of the declared wish to establish a state monopoly in developing welfare services, many diaconal institutions have played an important role in the process of modernising the health and social services of the welfare state. There has been a close co-operation between state and diaconia. In many ways diaconal workers pioneered what is now understood as professional work. In Norway, for instance, diaconal institutions were the very first to introduce professional training for nurses and social workers.

From one point of view, there are reasons to be proud of this history. Fundamental values were brought into public life and the kind of services that were established by the welfare state. Even if some theologians have described this development as secularisation, since the church in many cases has lost her direct responsibility for welfare services, it also makes sense to affirm the opposite opinion, namely that the welfare state represents a social order marked by Christian visions and values. This may well be the reason why diaconal workers are often indomitable defenders of the welfare state.

From another point of view, this history also has some negative consequences. The alliance with the state has resulted in different forms of dependency. Most evident is the dependency on public money and welfare plans. But equally important is the dependency on the modernist logic of the welfare state, its view on professional work, on what is normal, and what intervention it should have as its result. The consequence of this has been that often no difference can be found between an ordinary, public and a diaconal institution. If that is the case, must it be organised separately from the public services?<(p>

This is not just a question of how welfare services should be organised. Rather it raises the question of whether there is only one way of doing professional welfare services. Do we then see a kind of ideological dependency in the sense that diaconal work is nothing but an affirmation of modernity and its confidence in constructing a perfect society ? Could that be interpreted as a sort of totalitarian approach that excludes whoever is not in line with modernity and its view of the person, society and history?

This question should be related to the observation that diaconal work in many cases has few if any active links to the church. It has become common to speak about church and diaconia as two separate social realities. This has, in my opinion, negative implications on the church which has to a large degree, been stripped of its diaconal mandate. But also for diaconal work this development has negative consequences. There have been less impulses from theology and from the life of the church that could have been wihsed, and the result has been that diaconal institutions have not always been able to keep in mind their specific identity and role in modern society.

As mentioned above, post-modern society does not have the same affinity for the principles of the welfare state. There is a growing scepticism towards governmental monopoly and bureaucratic power. Freedom of choice between alternatives is for many an important value.

This reflects the process of individualisation that characterises neo-liberal ideology. It goes together with a strong faith in the market and the kind of solutions the market promises for the welfare of human beings.

Here it is important to notice that an ideological shift does not necessarily mean or coincide with decreased popular support of welfare services in general. In many cases, the expectations for such support among people are higher today than ever before. However, people think that public institutions are not sufficiently effective and quality-oriented. Privatisation thus becomes an alternative or complement. For the politicians it also is viewed as an alternative that could mean a welcomed reduction of costs.

All this goes together with a new and much less powerful role of the state in a globalised world. The most important decisions are no longer taken by national governments, but by marked operators, media gurus and, hopefully, international political bodies. The debated conclusion by Francis Fukuyama that history has come to its end excludes the possibility of any political option like the one given by market-oriented liberalism.

At first glance, the trend of privatisation seems to affirm the role of diaconal institutions. But reality shows that this is not the case. Much could be said about this, only a few observations will be made here.

The first is that most diaconal institutions are organised in the shadow of the public welfare state. They are not structured for marketing and profit-making. They will, normally, not be able to compete with offensive commercial health institutions, especially in the field of management and productivity.

To this observation a second one should be added: Most diaconal workers are negative to the post-modern ideology. Their professional world-view has been formed by modernity and by its faith in the welfare state. Therefore they often become defenders of the systems of the past, they are critical of the processes of globalisation and individualisation (even if they enjoy the possibilities of these trends), and they run the risk of being more reactive than proactive towards today's kind of society.

Is this because diaconal institutions are so dependent on governmental structure, money and logic that they cannot see other options?

Until now, I have referred to diaconal institutions, initiatives or workers, not to diaconia as a whole. I have done this deliberately, because there is a tendency to define diaconia as how diaconal institutions appear to be and what they actually do. Such use of the term is merely descriptive. It has no normative connotations.

On the other hand, the term diakonia (with a k) is originally a Greek word, and its use in the New Testament gives some important directives on how it should be used, at least theologically.(1) Here diakonia has clear christological and ecclesiological traits.

From this perspective, diakonia is not in the first place what the church or some of its institutions do. This means that diakonia should never be seen as something beside the church, as an activity that might be organised or not, due to external circumstances. Diakonia is a visible expression of the church's nature, manifested in the way of being church. But always expressed by active doing, in favour of persons in need, and especially those at the margin of human existence.

From that same perspective, diakonia is a constant memory of Jesus, his words and deeds. "For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many". (Mark 10.45). This christological dimension of diakonia is closely related to the ecclesiological, as is expressed in the words of Jesus in John 20,21: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you".

The diakonia of Jesus was not one of humble and silent service as the tradition of the diaconal movement has often taught. Jesus acted with authority (exousia) in a way that provoked public interest and resistance. His diakonia announced dignity where the powerful only saw misery, faith where the religious experts only saw unworthiness, hope where the secure only saw hopelessness, and love where the moral authorities only saw sinfulness. We all remember stories from the New Testament portraying Jesus and his diakonia in this way.

In times of changes and new challenges to diaconal work, we should therefore take into consideration the provocative memory of Jesus and his diakonia, remembering his words: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you".

That indicates a diakonia incarnated in people's real lives. Jesus was recognised as one of the people, even one coming from the periphery. At the same time, Jesus was the messenger of new times to come, as the one who in word and deed announced that the Kingdom was near, as liberating good news to people, and first of all to the poor, the sick and the oppressed.

What kind of consequences must this understanding of diakonia have for us, for our churches and for the diaconal initiatives that we take ?

Here are a few important starting points :

• The work must be incarnated in people's lives.
• A high degree of sensitivity is needed in order to see what really happens, to hear the voice of the silenced, to sense the pain of the victims.
• Courage to act with authority, not only based on the authority given by governmental authorities, but based on the authority that God gives to his people as prophetic defence of the poor.

One basic element in this strategy is finding ways of building citizenship. It implies methods that empower the powerless and dignify the silenced.

The other basic element consists of being a partner in building a civil society. Genuine participation admits the right of the other to be different, and even more, to be an important partner in the relations that constitutes and are the fabric of any community. Thus it resists elitism, and tendencies to monopolise the understanding of what has happened and what needs to be done. Instead, participation always seeks practical ways of partnership (parceria), of initiatives that give different actors a role in the effort of constructing civil society, each one according to its particularity, adding to society's complexity and constituting its totality.

It implies both roles of denouncing and resisting mechanisms of exclusion in society, and a commitment to identify and construct mechanisms of inclusion.

In all of this, Christian realism regarding human life should not be ignored. Evil exists, and is daily experienced, especially by those who suffer. Neither political changes nor efforts on behalf of civilisation can eradicate the fact of evil and its power over human life. But, above all, evil should be resisted by doing good!

This also implies that there will never be a perfect society. It is right to struggle for a just and sustainable society. But it must be remembered that sustainability may also be turned into myths and illusions. Realism should remind us of the kind of limitations we have to live with - be it of a human, financial, or societal nature.

Such realism should, however, not lead to apathy but rather to action that expresses hope. Diaconal work always presupposes that some sort of change is possible, and that it is meaningful to act for and with people in need. This position is above all expressed in what diakonia is doing not only in concrete action, but also in words denouncing injustice and announcing that history has not come to its end. History is unavoidably placed in the gracious hands of the merciful God of life.

(1) I have elsewhere discussed the relation between diakonia as theory and praxis, see: "Theoretical framework of the science of diakonia", in : Riikka Ryökäs&Klaus Kiessling (Eds.): Spiritus - Lux - Caritas. International Congress in Diacony, Lahti, Finland, 23. -27.9.1998. Lahti 1999, pp.33-46.