Spiritual Life

Religious faith, effort and enthusiasm: motivations to volunteer in response to holiday hunger

“…Faith has been theorised in the geographies of religion in multiple ways. Holloway 30 argues that faith is differentiated spatially and temporally which means that faith should be examined across a range of spatialities and more consideration given to the interaction between the religious and secular because there is not a clear boundary between the religious and non-religious. 31 Further afield, Caputo 32 philosophises religion without religion, by which he argues that God and love are more important than institutional religion.…”

“…As will be shown from volunteers' narratives at Lunch, this means that volunteering can be a way to act out one's faith. Returning to Holloway, 34 he argues that a faithful disposition is characterised by 'space-time as immanently diffused with divinity'. Building on Holloway and Miles, this article argues that faith as a motivation for action (including volunteering) is ongoing, and continually affected by God.…”

“…Holloway 35 concludes that 'the spiritual life therefore is a realisation and a mode of realising space-time as infused with the divine that the faithful enact and continually re-presence'. This represencing is important for faith and volunteering because when faith is intrinsically related to action, in terms of faith and motivations to volunteer, this changes how motivation must be understood: motivation is ongoing, rather than a static notion at the start of volunteering.…”

“…Therefore, bringing these together, in this article, effort is understood as the body striving to act despite barriers to action, whilst enthusiasm is understood as a passion for action that can turn a motivation into volunteering; recognising that a motivation does not necessarily result in action. Effort and enthusiasm are crucial for understanding faith and volunteering in the geographies of voluntarism and religion if we are to avoid romanticising these, and casting them in an idealised manner -as Holloway 52 argues, we need to take faith seriously, but also give attention to how it is challenged. This article draws on extracts from seven volunteers' narratives (using pseudonyms) which illustrate the motivation themes found across the 42 participants' narratives.…”

“…Anna's motivation to volunteer therefore changed as her understanding of faith changed to recognise that acting out faith is not necessarily reading the Bible. Her faith motivation was therefore not only at the start of volunteering at Lunch, but changed over time through her experiences at Lunch: following Holloway 60 Anna's faith changed through experience and how she understood God. As in the study by Muers and Britt, 61 the social action at Lunch was therefore neither straight forward in being faith-based or secular: the relationship between faith and volunteering at Lunch was 'untidy' 62 as the practical action of the project was play and food, the majority of volunteers were Christian, and yet this was not a requirement as volunteers were only asked to be sympathetic to Lunch's Christian ethos.…”