News
and Opinion
President Bush's
Faith Based Initiative
Forrest Church & C. Welton Gaddy, Executive Director, Interfaith
Alliance
February
1, 2001
Several of our
liberal and mainstream religious friends are taking a wait and see approach
to President Bush's Faith-based funding initiative. Based on a deep
commitment to serving the poor, they argue that its noble ends justify
the means by which this service will be provided. We join them in supporting
tax incentives to encourage charitable giving, but cringe at the potential
consequences both to "church" and "state" of a massive
shift in federal welfare monies to local religious and community organizations.
Here are six reasons why.
Buyer Beware. President
Bush's plan to subsidize religious charities is not a partnership, it
is contractual employment with rules, regulations and hazards. Receipt
of tax dollars risks turning religious leaders into government puppets.
However "faith-friendly" the final legislation, there will
be strings attached. How will they constrain our mission? If we turn
to the principalities and powers to support our livelihood, what will
become of our moral independence and prophetic authority?
Bait and Switch.
The growing demand on religious organizations to provide social services
is not thwarted by barriers to government support so much as it is engendered
by government abdication of its responsibility to those in need. Few
religious leaders oppose dedicating more resources to the poor, but
that is not what this proposal is about. It is about cutting an already
reduced pie in new ways. The ideological underpinning for this can be
traced to several right-wing think tanks, including the Acton Institute
and the Heritage Foundation. To major funders of these groups, including
Bradley Foundation President Michael Joyce, one key virtue to Charitable
Choice and Faith-based Action is that diverting billions of dollars
to faith- and community-based groups will help to dismantle the federal
welfare system. Whatever you may think of it, the Faith-based initiative
has deep roots in right-wing soil.
Paying Peter to
Pay Paul. No new law is required to permit religious groups to compete
for federal dollars. What is new here is the promise of deregulation
to allow direct integration of religion in the services. Defending his
executive order to suspend foreign aid to social service agencies that
also offer abortion counseling, administration representatives pointed
out that money put in one pocket could easily end up in another. By
the same logic, government funding for soup frees up money for Bibles.
This may not bother you, but you can't pretend otherwise.
Ward Healing. In
minority communities especially, where Republicans are few and far between,
the political benefits accruing to the Republican party from direct
federal support of religious institutions are evident. To the extent
that those in need receive better attention, we don't begrudge these
benefits but welcome them. On the other hand, in every neighborhood
being served, the potential for political abuse in the distribution
of billions of dollars to thousands of programs should be equally obvious.
Add deregulation to the mix and one ends up with the potential for more
"walking around money" than ever before in the history of
American politics.
The Tilted Playing
Field. Religion is not a generic idea and the substance of each faith
is very specific. There is a big difference between Evangelical Christianity
and Hinduism, or the Catholic Church and Unitarian Universalism. In
a politically charged environment like the White House, religious minorities
that could spark controversy are highly unlikely to receive federal
support.
The Trojan Horse.
Religious groups who invite federal support into their precincts run
the danger of being sacked. For instance, many evangelical drug-treatment
programs are successful precisely because of their emphasis on the gospels.
Even with the latitude some deregulation may offer, the mere modicum
of church state separation that must surely be required by law could
compromise the effectiveness of such programs. Beyond this, a dependency
on government monies will make all faith-based programs vulnerable to
collapse should legislative priorities change.
We must never forget
that religion flourishes in the United States (far more than in any
other industrialized Western democracy) precisely because of the separation
of church and state. Should our nation's religious communities welcome
this gift horse into their protected sanctuaries, not only the walls
separating church and state, but the very walls of the church itself
will be in jeopardy.
© Forrest
Church 2001
