Diaconia and Interreligious Cooperation in Switzerland

One of the most important areas of tension for diaconia in the Western European, German-speaking context is the demands of an interreligious and plural society. The social challenges to churches with their congregations and parishes, diaconal organizations, and the state with its social institutions are complex. This article deals with religious layers of social transformations that shape helping actions. It focuses on innovative projects in the field of spiritual care and diaconia that created new spaces of diaconal practice in the last ten years in the Canton of Zurich and Switzerland. Specifically, the process of accrediting the first imam at the University Hospital in Zurich, the employment of chaplains of Muslim and Jewish faith in the Swiss Army, and the training of Muslim chaplains in the Canton of Zurich are presented. On the one hand, the aim is to adequately define the relationship between diaconia and spiritual care in a pluralistic society. On the other hand, interreligious cooperation is analyzed as a process of intercultural communication and transcultural practice. From this, theses for prospective, innovative, and well-founded interreligious cooperation in diaconia can be gained, which can be further developed and discussed in other European and global contexts.