Related articles and links |  1 of 3

Faith-Based Initiatives and The Bush Administration: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Faith-Based Initiatives and the Bush Administration: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly by Jo Renee Formicola, Mary C. Segers, and Paul Weber Rowman and Littlefield 224 pages, $23.95

Since opening shop in February 2001, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives has led a controversial effort to bulldoze barriers that discouraged faith-based organizations from pursuing government grants and contracts to provide social services. In the past, many groups have feared they would have to remove the "faith" from "faith-based" because of government strings attached to public funds.

That landscape has now begun to change. Thanks in part to a series of executive orders by President Bush (as well as new religious freedom protections under Charitable Choice provisions first enacted in 1996), thousands of faith-based groups—including robustly religious ones—have now received millions of dollars to provide job training, housing, mentoring, and other important social services in their communities. More importantly, they have found that the government is using new and more respectful rules and guidelines that address many, if not yet all of their concerns.

A new book by three professors of political science, Faith-Based Initiatives and the Bush Administration: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, promises to tell an accurate, behind-the-scenes account of some of these profound changes. But their rendition of this remarkable story is a mixed bag, and at times it is misleading.

The book paints a fairly negative picture of the policies behind the initiative, while acknowledging some redeeming features. In a chapter on legal background, Paul Weber argues—contrary to many constitutional scholars—that the initiative likely violates the separation of church and state. His verdict, however, is based on an incorrect understanding of the initiative's basic intent.

To argue that it is unconstitutional, Weber cites James Madison and Thomas Jefferson's rejection of a bill introduced by Patrick Henry in Virginia in 1784. The bill called for taxes to fund teachers' salaries to "promote the general diffusion of Christian knowledge" and to "correct the morals of men."

The purpose of the Bush administration's initiative is quite different. These new policies do not create a separate program for the government to fund churches or give special privileges to religious groups. Instead, they ensure that no community organization (including groups like Teen Challenge, Habitat for Humanity, and Jewish Vocational Services) is excluded from eligibility because of its religious character.

Signs that the authors remain trapped in the old strict-separationist framework reappear later in the book. Weber insists that organizations receiving funding should play by the old rules requiring that they secularize their programs. Rejecting the intent of the initiative to "level the playing field," he insists that "the field has been level for some time. Religious organizations have long been able to apply for and receive funding on an equal basis with secular organizations in order to provide secular services" (italics in original).

But this is precisely the point. The reforms acknowledge the right of religious organizations to provide public services in a faith-based way, effectively doing away with the system's bias for a secular approach. Charitable Choice wrote into law the explicit right of religious groups to maintain their religious character.

The law strikes a delicate balance. Charitable Choice prohibits any form of religious coercion and the misuse of public funds for religious activities such as worship services or evangelism. It makes clear, however, that faith-based organizations may continue to provide these activities as long as they are supported with private dollars. They do not have to become religion-free zones.

next page... |  1 of 3

July 2004, Vol. 48, No. 7