This is the first of two volumes that are the product of a wide-ranging research endeavour: the mapping of welfare and religion in Europe at the beginning of the third Christian millennium. What is the place of religion in contemporary European welfare regimes? The Centre for the Study of Religion and Society at Uppsala University in Sweden has performed an invaluable service to the sociology of religion and to social policy by attempting a systematic answer to this question. The outcomes of the study – Welfare and Religion in a European Perspective (WREP) – are two volumes, the second of which takes a thematic approach, analysing data sociologically, theologically and by gender. The first volume, the subject of this review, is an attempt to map churches as welfare agencies through case studies of medium-sized European cities.

The opening chapter sets out the parameters of the WREP project, the background to the study and what motivated it, its conceptual building blocks and its place in the wider work of the research centre at Uppsala. Several distinct but interconnecting themes in the development of welfare and religion have thrown up key questions that this book has sought to answer. To what extent has welfare regime type affected the pattern of church-based involvement in the governance and provision of social welfare, and how far has it been shaped by the pressures and strains that have influenced regimes in recent decades? Is faith-based welfare simply one aspect of the re-emergence of civil society as a major player in the welfare field? Or does it reflect developments of its own that draw from the disparate church traditions of different European countries? The editors are well aware of the timeliness of their project, alongside a growing interest on the part of academics and politicians in the re-emergence of faith in the quest for social cohesion. The presumed inevitability of the onward march of secularisation in the field of social welfare (Prochaska, Reference Prochaska2006) is now being questioned, and the authors are seeking to explore the legitimacy of that questioning.

The WREP project sought to gather data on the role of majority churches in welfare delivery in eight European countries, selected to be indicative of Esping-Anderson's (Reference Esping-Anderson1990) main welfare regime types: social democratic (Sweden, Norway, Finland), conservative (Germany, France, Italy), liberal (England) and Southern European (Greece). However, the sample was also designed to reflect the major church traditions to be found in Europe: Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox. Within each country, a medium-sized town (population c100,000) was selected and data gathered on co-operation between church agencies and local authorities in welfare delivery, the views of each on the role of each other, the opinions of the wider population on the church's role as a welfare provider, the theological position of church leaders and the place of gender in the whole field of church-based welfare provision. All these data are set in the context of the wider characteristics of the welfare systems and church traditions of selected countries. What was missing was any attempt to draw non-Christian faith communities into the survey, and it is not clear why gender is privileged above ethnicity in the analysis, given the growing importance of African and African-Caribbean churches in the welfare of those communities.

The English case study town of Darlington may serve as a useful illustration of the approach adopted by the various authors. The author begins by identifying characteristics that distinguish the English context, highlighting its liberal welfare regime that distinguishes it from other European nations, and its established church, which differentiates it from other liberal welfare regimes, typically the US, Canada and Australia. Moreover, despite its established status, the Anglican Church operates in a pluralist religious context, with many other churches and non-Christian faith communities competing for popular allegiance. However, because of its status, the Church still sees itself as a channel of Christian opinion to Government on a wide range of social policy issues. Against this background, church involvement in Darlington is typified by clergy representation on school governing bodies, the employment of hospital, college and police chaplains, a church-based drop-in for homeless and unemployed people, the use of church premises by other welfare bodies and the involvement of church members in civil society more widely. The author identifies three expectations of the Anglican Church locally: it provides neutral ground in the local community on which local people can draw, regardless of religious affiliation; it mediates between community interests and the public authorities; and its social position enables it to serve as a critic on social issues on behalf of interests other than its own, a role I have observed elsewhere (Bowpitt, Reference Bowpitt, Brenton and Ungerson1989, Reference Bowpitt, Jones and Lansley1995).

The final chapter attempts to reflect on the analysis theoretically. One conclusion is that the churches tend to behave in ways that complement the welfare regime and the church traditions of the countries in which they operate, rather than challenge them. Thus the Lutheran Church, based on Luther's ‘two kingdoms’, justifies universal welfare theologically in the Nordic countries, filling in gaps in provision where appropriate. However, in keeping with belief in ‘subsidiarity’, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches endorse the family as the principal welfare provider in Southern European countries. In England, in keeping with liberal welfare regimes, churches and Christian organisations are increasingly competing for state contracts in the welfare market place. The editors then raise the possibility of a convergence emerging around the churches as major players and critical voices in the voluntary sectors of all countries, reflecting the increasing marginality of the churches as they identify with communities that are themselves marginalised. This brings the editors to the other main theme of their conclusion: the relationship between state welfare development and secularisation. Drawing on David Martin's work (Reference Martin1978), they argue that patterns of church involvement reflect not only welfare regime type, but differences in the way that secularisation has unfolded and the way that the churches have met its challenges in different European contexts, according to their traditions and theological interpretations. It is to the development of this theme that the second volume will have a particularly valuable contribution to make.