The challenges of faith-based institutions to achieve a faith-based society and the analysis of their relationships

Introduction: While social science research has ignored the religious space and religion-based services for almost a century (Bielfeld and Cleveland, 2014: 443), the last three decades have seen the emergence of a new class of actors in the field of community development. They organize volunteers and provide services to citizens and even governments in the form of structures where faith in religions is the main pillar (Noor and Navi, 2023: 73-74) and we call them faith-based organizations.
Faith-based organizations (FBOs) do not have an accepted and uniform definition. In summary, faith organization and community refers to a group of people who have the same faith and values ​​and especially interact with each other to cooperate and support each other. Their main goal is not to gain profit or material reward but to obtain divine satisfaction and sublime spiritual goals, and as Malmin and Malmin (2015) and Noor and Navi (2023) have emphasized, this is the characteristic that distinguishes them from other similar secular institutions such as NGOs. (Malmin and Malmin, 2015: 168 and Noor and Navi, 2023: 88).
Having said that, although these social institutions have significant effects on development, social capital, resilience of society in crises, prevention of disasters with the help of volunteers, and especially solving the problem of poverty in society (Rivera and Nichols, 2014: 180-189); but in the growing literature on faith-based institutions, another motivation for exploring this field of study is the question we are now seeking to address. The question is, what is the relationship between them and the formation of a faith community, and what challenges do they face in this way?
One of the ways they propose to change the type of society and reach an alternative society of capitalism is "faith society" which can be done through "faith institutions" as one of the paths of this transition. Now the question is, if we want to spread these structures to the whole society and form a community of faith, what problems are we facing? To answer this question, after stating the background of the research, we will first examine the challenges of these social institutions to uncover the relationship between these institutions and the formation of the faith community, and finally based on the understanding of the challenges, we will explain this relationship.
Research Methodology: In this research, we are looking for an answer to the main research question with an analytical-descriptive method and within the framework of an institutional analysis. Through examining these institutions, we have taken into consideration that a part of them has a voluntary nature; because the other parts of these institutions, which are governed by the salary mechanism, have been discussed in detail in microeconomics, and therefore there is no need to repeat those discussions. It goes without saying that in this research, we take a large number of faith-based institutions as representatives and indicators of reaching a faith-based society; That is, the more the number of these institutions increases, the closer we will be to the community of faith, and conversely, the smaller their number, the further away we will be from the formation of the community of faith. Because it seems difficult to investigate the qualitative and internal characteristics and variables of a faith society, the number of faith-based institutions can be used as an indicator of them.
Results: At first, it seems obvious that the relationship between faith institutions and the formation of a faith community will be positive; but when we examined these groups with a closer look and listed the possible challenges facing them, we gradually distanced ourselves from this crude and primitive notion and found a more objective understanding of the existing reality of these faith-based social institutions, away from mental imaginations.
As it became clear in the examination of the challenges faced by religious organizations and groups, if the religious groups perform well and can overcome the challenges, positive feedback will be received from the society, which will lead to the increase of these groups, and as a result, that society will become closer to a faith-based society. Of course, sometimes the performance of these groups has such effects on the society that people participate in the creation and deepening of these groups in emotional reactions and in an upward way, as shown in Figure 1-A, Sometimes this happens in its normal way and not in an upward way, but with a gentle slope, it will enter the lower balance, as shown in Figure 2-b.
Figure 1: Illustration of the positive and non-linear relationship between the number of faith groups and the formation of the faith community
But if these groups do not show proper performance and cannot overcome the challenges, it creates a way of social divergence that will make the society further away from reaching the "faith based society". In this case, the negative effects may be of such intensity that the society will quickly distance itself from these groups in an emotional behavior, and therefore we will reach a social regression in a leap, as shown in Figure 2-a. Sometimes, this event will enter the lower equilibrium in its normal course and not in an upward way but with a gentle slope, as shown in Figure 2-b.
Figure 2: Illustration of the negative and non-linear relationship between the number of faith groups and the formation of the faith community
Discussion and conclusion: While at first, it seemed that there was a direct relationship between faith-based institutions and reaching a faith society, despite the challenges they faced, it became clear that the relationship between our institutions achieving a faith based society can be complex and non-linear and depends on various factors.
Moreover, we note that the process of forming a faith based society is not a definite and mechanical process that starts from exactly one point and ends at the other point. In other words, if we define a deterministic process as a process that has a fixed and predictable result regardless of initial conditions or random factors, a random process is a process that always ends in a random or possible outcome depending on the initial conditions and accidental factors. It is better put that a deterministic process can be modeled by a mathematical equation or a logical law, while a stochastic process can only be modeled by a probability distribution or a statistical inference. Now, considering that the process of transformation and alteration of a society, which is condemned to the hegemony of capital, into a faith society is a multidimensional and dynamic process in which the range of changes flowing in all economic, social, political, cultural, and environmental fields, and transformation and transition are influenced by factors it is a lot like history, geography, institutions, culture, technology, resources, conflicts, and human factors, this process cannot be definite and inevitable and is inexorably a random process and and it is caught in many uncertainties. This process can appear in different forms according to risks and opportunities such as natural disasters, epidemics, wars, trade, immigration, and innovation.