Social Service: Godly and Godless

Secular social service is a recently arisen profession; until late in the nineteenth-century world most social welfare was connected with a religious impulse or auspice. Some religious social services responded cooperatively to the challenge presented by this new profession. Between social work and the more resistant religions, however, there was an almost Darwinian struggle. Now professional social work and religious service agencies tend to work apart from each other out of lack of interest or, in some cases, even out of hostility. The separation between the functions of these two branches of social work is, however, artificial. "Secularization" would perhaps better be described as a migration of religiosity away from organized institutions to individuals themselves. A review of key figures in modern social work history reveals the religious base of social work. These traditions are still a part of social work and deserve to be kept alive.