Volunteering in Religious Congregations and Faith-Based Associations

Is There a Bidirectional Causal Relationship Between Religiosity and Volunteering?

“…Especially if those secular activities can be defined as social ministry, some of the religious volunteers will transition to being secular volunteers. By contrast, secular volunteering lacks this adaptability, mostly concerned with its own goals and in any case it is difficult for secular organizations to recruit in religious congregations (Cnaan et al 2016).…”

“…Half of all congregants in one U.S. survey said their church routinely provides volunteers to help with social service activities in the community (Chaves and Tsitsos 2001). Most social surveys show that church going encourages secular volunteering, albeit not so much as religious volunteering (Bekkers and Schuyt 2008;Cnaan et al 2016;Mersianova and Schneider 2018;Musick and Wilson 2008:279;Ruiter and De Graaf 2006;Storm 2015;Wuthnow 2009). Although in some studies religiosity is unrelated to secular volunteering (Beyerlein and Hipp 2006;Jackson et al 1995;Paik and Navarre-Jackson 2011) and in others it has a negative effect (Park and Smith 2000), it nevertheless makes sense to expect that religiosity has a positive effect on secular, as well as religious, volunteering.…”

The Palgrave Handbook of Global Philanthropy

“…Most religious communities encourage prosocial behavior among their members with their values, norms, practices and social pressure (Park & Smith, 2000;Putnam & Campbell, 2010;Cnaan et al, 2015). The more friends an individual has within a religious congregation, the more likely he or she is to donate money or volunteer (Putnam & Campbell, 2010).…”

“…The specific mechanisms driving the connections between religion and prosocial behavior have been and continue to be examined (for outlining explanations on the mechanisms see, for example, Wiepking & Bekkers, 2012;Cnaan et al, 2015). They have been explained in terms of psychological, social and societal factors.…”

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“…Включение религиозной компоненты в поле исследований гражданского общества представляется нам ценным в связи с возможностью религиозных институтов заполнить те ниши социального пространства, в которых участие государства и других институтов гражданского общества недостаточно для достижения желаемых социальных эффектов. Во всяком случае, такая перспектива всерьез рассматривается исследователями (Crisp, 2014, Cnaan et al, 2016. Безусловно, сформулированная постановка вопроса и её реализация требует общественной консолидации, поиска новых форм солидарности (Cladis, 2017).…”