Spiritual Capital - Cardiff

This new project to be launched officially in September 2007 in the Capital City of Wales Cardiff aims to promote the contribution that faith makes to the City.




Objectives of the Project

Provide up to date research, a directory and details of organisations and case studies of how religions and cultural groups work with institutions and governments across civic life in Cardiff.

Provide a setting for a vision to establish interactive networks within the City of Cardiff and project the advantages of living in a City with intimate cultural and religious diversity.

Convene and hold a landmark conference in 2008 which focuses on key matters arising from the research together with the emerging themes for the future.

What is Spiritual Capital?

The effects of spiritual , cultural and religious practices, beliefs, networks and institutions have a measurable impact on individuals, communities and societies. Cardiff is developing as City and the emphasis must be on how its inhabitants live and work together as the City develops . This Project is about what spiritual resources Cardiff can draw upon in 2007 and its aim is to help indicate how it should look to the future for communal prosperity.

Why is it important?

The concept of spiritual capital builds on recent research on social capital, which shows that religion and cultures are a major factor in the formation of social networks and trust. In addition, the impetus for focusing specifically on spiritual capital draws on the growing recognition in economics and other social sciences that religion is not an epiphenomena, nor is it fading from public significance in the 21 st century, and the importance to social/economic dynamics of human economic intangibles. Recent developments in the social sciences suggest a growing openness to non material factors, such as the radius of trust, behavioral norms, and religion as having profound economic, political, and social consequences (Source the Metanexus Institute).

Who is involved? Funding and Delivery Framework

The Community Development Foundation in Cambridge funds the Project and will monitor the progress.

A Steering Group, appointed by project sponsors, Cardiff City Centre Churches Together and the City Parish of St John the Baptist, is led by the Project initiator, the Rev. Keith Kimber, Vicar of St John's.

The Public Trust Partnership (PTP) through Roy J. Thomas, manages the Project .

Cardiff University -Regeneration Institute Dr Robert Smith and Rebecca Edwards will provide the research and will write the Report with PTP.

The Steering Group members are Professor Paul Ballard; Rev. Monica Mills; Malcolm Thomas; Chris Daley; Dr Keshav Singhal; Mohammed Jabbar and one other member who has been extended an invitation.

The work undertaken should be placed in the context of what is currently happening in the City such as the re-development of the City Centre and other parts of Cardiff, the emergence of a new private/public company Cardiff & Co. to promote the City and the economic and the community plans of Cardiff Council.

"It is my belief that no greater good has ever befallen you in this city than my service to my God; for I spend all my time going about trying to persuade you, young and old, to make your first and chief concern not for your bodies or for your possessions, but the highest welfare of your souls, proclaiming as I go, ‘Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the state.”

—Plato, The Apology