Leveraging social capital of the church for development: A case study of a farming community in Wellington

Abstract

This article explores how a farming community in Wellington (Bovlei) moved from dependence towards an empowered community through non-profit organisations’ (NPOs) transformative community development initiatives, undertaken together with the church’s social capital. This example serves as the backdrop to explore critical viewpoints by various scholars who are critical about how the church engages in an unequal and unjust society. The critical questions that remain are the following; who is the church?, what is the church’s role as a change agent? and how should churches leverage social capital for development? Although various definitions have been given in conceptualising the church and its role in society, through this article, the author engages with the social capital theory in understanding how the transformation came about in this community by describing the churches’ involvement through a case study.

Diaconia and Development: The Study of Religious Social Practice as Lead Discipline in the Religion and Development Debate

“…1). This is exemplified in the works of scholars such as Ignatius Swart (Swart 2021;Swart et al 2022), Nadine Bowers-Du Toit (Bowers Du Toit 2019; Bowers-Du Toit 2016), Simanga Kumalo (Kumalo 2015(Kumalo , 2014, and Jacques Beukes (Beukes and Beukes 2023;Beukes 2019), among many others. An example from practice is the Latin American Protestant Foundation, the diaconia and development wing of the Evangelical Church of the River Plate, which uses diaconia and development almost interchangeably, as the website illustrates: "Diaconia that transforms .…”