On the role of religious organizations involved in the disaster response and recovery: actions by The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and Dharma Drum Mountain during Chi-Chi earthquake post-disaster
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Chou, Shin-Jung
Abstract
Religious organizations are important roles in the work of disaster management in Taiwan. In the vision of the public-private partnership of disaster management, if we learn what and how the religious organizations can do, we could strengthen the division of labor between religious organizations, non-governmental organizations and government. The study hopes to discover how religious organizations turn their inner and outer social capitals into their practical actions under their “world image” by the perspectives of religious sociology and social capital theory. Therefore we could understand their strength and weakness in disaster management.
By in-depth interview, the study surveys the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and Dharma Drum Mountain’s disaster managing strategy in Chi-Chi earthquake, including the practical actions, the connections between their belief systems and the disaster managing strategy, to analyze how their belief affect the actions and their internal and external social networks after disaster, and to explore the feedback of their participation. The study discovers that disaster management is not only a kind of belief practice but also a social network building for a religious organization. Furthermore, the two organizations gathered some feedback after the participation, such as the belonging sense of their members. Both of them applied their core doctrine to promote their beliefs, and to do their disaster prevention and rescue. The special characters and religious norms could affect the relationships between external structures, making people difficult to maintain long-term and stable relationships with the religious organizations.
As religious organizations have the superiority in spiritual care of religious organizations. Their long-term service in locality can strengthen their own social network and satisfy the need after the disaster. The study suggests that, in the numerous works of Taiwan’s disaster management, religious organizations could be considered as a main force of spiritual care. Furthermore, the government must make some policies to strengthen religious organizations’ professionalism about disaster management, psychotherapy, psychological counseling, etc., and to promote the cooperation between religious organizations, NGOs, and government. Also, government should ensure that all the policies of disaster management should satisfy the need after disaster.
Subjects
world image
social capital
religious organizations
disaster management
Type
thesis
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