Claiming Society for God: Religious Movements and Social Welfare
Nancy J. Davis and Robert V. Robinson, "Claiming Society for God: Religious Movements and Social Welfare"
English | ISBN: 0253002389, 0253002346 | 2012 | 224 pages | PDF | 3 MB
English | ISBN: 0253002389, 0253002346 | 2012 | 224 pages | PDF | 3 MB
Claiming Society for God focuses on common strategies employed by religiously orthodox, "fundamentalist" movements around the world. Rather than employing terrorism, as much of post-9/11 thinking suggests, the most prominent and successful religiously orthodox movements use a patient, under-the-radar strategy of infiltrating and subtly transforming civil society. Nancy J. Davis and Robert V. Robinson tell the stories of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Shas in Israel, Comunione e Liberazione in Italy, and the Salvation Army in the United States. They show how these orthodox movements are building massive grassroots networks of religiously based social service agencies, hospitals and clinics, rotating credit societies, schools, charitable organizations, worship centers, and businesses. These networks are already being called states within states, surrogate states, or parallel societies, and in Egypt have now brought the Muslim Brotherhood to control of parliament. This bottom-up, entrepreneurial strategy is aimed at nothing less than making religion the cornerstone of society.