Religion-related stress is the product of a predominantly secular society in which people are confronted with diverse religious practices. The phenomenon occurs where public meets private. How can employers ensure compliance with conflicting religious and other commitments in the workplace? The concept of respectful pluralism as formulated by Douglas Hicks in his book Religion and the Workplace, may go a long way to negotiating a solution to the debate between conformity and diversity.

Financial relationships between state, churches and religious organisations have existed for a long time in Dutch history. This could be understood from a general interest point of view in the nineteenth century and the social welfare state. However, that century and the welfare state do not exist anymore. Also society and people have changed. Do the financial relationships still exist nowadays and if so, to what extent and how should one assess these financial relationships? In order to deal with these questions, the article gives a comprehensive overview of the current situation of different financial relationships between state and religious organisations against a constitutional and historical background. It is argued that most of these relations are legitimate under certain conditions and that the constitutional framework of separation of church and state should not be overestimated in this field.

In the contemporary reform of the Dutch welfare state, civil society plays a prominent role in the solution of individual needs. This article investigates, from a normative point of view, the consequences for the churches as part of civil society. The outline of this policy is decentralization of welfare to local communities, saving of money, and a more active role of citizens in need to solve their problems alone. Then the normative framework is sketched with the help of the basic principles of Catholic Social Teaching (personality, subsidiarity, solidarity and common good), as well as ‘caritas’. The consequences for the churches are analyzed, first from the perspective of their participation in this legal and policy-framework. There is a great complementarity in theory and practice, but research shows that local governments are reluctant in cooperating with churches, which have to be careful that their own identity will be instrumentalized. Second, the consequences are analyzed for the core business of churches: it appears that the government wants to have an insight in the processes of giving meaning to life of individuals to give the help (financially), efficiently and effectively, according to the policy goals. Thus, although the government wants to appeal to civil society and calls upon the churches explicitly, the paradoxical consequence will be that the free expression of religion will be limited in the functioning of the future welfare state.