Rethinking the role of church in a socio-democratic welfare state

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to focus on the role of church in relation to state in providing support for needy. Design/methodology/approach - The analysis takes place in a Nordic welfare state context between two recessions in the early 1990s and late 2000s. The welfare state regime hypothesis suggests that the kind of traditional assistance the church lends to the poor would die out in the course of socio-democratic welfare state development, a statement analogous with the secularization hypothesis. Findings - With data on the volume of poverty alleviation activities of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church it is shown that after decades of marginalization, the role of the church's poverty alleviation became more pronounced after the recession in the early 1990s and continued to do so throughout the economic collapse of 2008. Research limitations/implications - The results give ground to challenge the conventional clear cut conception of the universal Nordic welfare state model. Originality/value - European welfare state research has focused on the links between religious values, religious cleavages and the shaping of the welfare state but has mostly ignored the role of faith-based institutions in improving welfare. The current economic crisis may provide religious institutions a window of opportunity to expand their poverty alleviation activities.