Religions cooperate for social work

Different religious communities frequently organize various social projects. There is a general discussion taking place during an ongoing conference how to run these social projects across the religious boundaries. One such unique project has been initiated in Sweden.

Diakonia (ex. The Church’s various forms of responsibility) is a well known concept in the context of churchly activities. But, diapraxis, who knows about that? The word is thrown out several times during the conference session termed “Religion and social work” taking place this week in Stockholm. Here, different religions are discussed in hope of finding ways to cooperate within the framework of shared understanding of social services. The word diapraxis is frequently used as to identify this particular form of cooperation. This cooperation praxis (i.e. diapraxis) has already been established between several religious communities initially supportive of inter-faith dialog. A Swedish Church pastor and the project leader for ‘House of God’ Henrik Larsson points out “when we talk of inter-faith dialogue there is a stage where you must do things together”. The ‘House of God’ project in Fisksätra (Stockholm) is a frequently publicised building project where protestant-catholic church will be built under the same roof as a (Sunni) mosque. Initial inter-faith dialogue has thereby evolved into a practical building project where one building houses several different religious places of worship, albeit separated by a hallway and walls.

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