Diakonin och omsorgen om vårt gemensamma hem - en könskritisk analys

Sammendrag

This article takes its starting point in a recent tendency to include care for creation in
the interpretation of diaconia as a ministry of the Christian church. Among those who
argue for a renewed care for our neighbor and for the earth as our common home, we
find such diverse Christian leaders as Pope Francis and the bishops of the Lutheran
Church of Sweden. The article relates these arguments to a feminist discussion on the
present crisis of welfare and care in the Western world. Both social care and ecological
systems are exhausted in a system where care and reproductive work is subordinated
to market oriented goals of growth and increased consumption. In order for the
understanding of diaconia to integrate a responsibility not only in relation to needy
human beings, but also to ecological systems that are under serious threat, the article
argues for the importance of relating to this wider discussion on the crisis of care
within feminist social theory. Feminist social theory may thus enrich theology in order
to guard social care as a basic aspect of a global eco-system.