Inclusion and Exclusion from the Perspective of Socioeconomic Rights and Religion

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores the legitimacy of religious relief agencies in the domain of diakonia and caritas in the perspective of the relation between socioeconomic rights and religion. It interprets this domain in terms of inclusion and exclusion of people living in poverty and dependence at the margins of society. It argues in favor of transcending the (traditional) competition between these religious agencies and civil or public agencies in this field. The argument is that the first order legitimacy of both types of agencies is identical, in case the socioeconomic rights these people are entitled to. Only if civil or public agencies do not succeed in fulfilling their task because of restrictions on the legislative, administrative or judicial level of the state, religious agencies may explicitly rely on their religious source texts, among which the bible, including the relevant law codes and prophetic pericopies, and plead for the marginalised in public discourse − in terms of a last resort, a second...