Lost and Found in Secularization

Abstract

This chapter takes as its point of departure the premise that a religious perspective can shed some light on the meaning of social practices exercised in everyday life, inside as well as outside formal religious contexts. In accordance with this post-secular approach, it explores how volunteers perceive the meaning of volunteering by applying a theological framework. More precisely, it explores how volunteers deal with the ‘problem of goodness’, namely the tension people perceive between doing good for the sake of the other, being altruistic, while at the same time receiving ‘payment’ in the form of gratitude and fulfilment as a consequence. This predicament emerges and finds different solutions in various religions and world-views. However, since the empirical data is based on interviews with 40 Swedish volunteers, what will be described and discussed is how this problem is handled by using Lutheran theology. It is argued that by using a theological framework in the interpretation of the interviews, it is possible to understand some central and recurrent themes about the tension the volunteers perceived between their aim of being altruistic while at the same time receiving gratitude and fulfilment as a result of caring for their neighbours. It would seem that the Lutheran scheme fits the data and can offer an alternative to interpretations of the motives to volunteering cast in terms of a dichotomous choice between a naive altruism and a cynical egoism.