WASHINGTON (ABP) — President Obama announced a revamped version of his predecessor’s office on faith-based charities Feb. 5, restructuring it with a broad advisory council and vowing to pay close attention to church-state concerns.
“The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another — or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state,” Obama said, in announcing the overhaul during his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
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Nonetheless, some supporters of strong church-state separation expressed frustration that Obama did not immediately undo Bush administration policies that allowed religious discrimination in hiring for jobs funded through the program.
“During the campaign, President Obama made clear that religious organizations that receive federal money should not discriminate. We strongly support that principle, but it’s disappointing that today President Obama has missed an opportunity to put it into practice immediately,” said a statement from People For the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert. “It’s not about left or right: it’s about upholding the Constitution. If churches accept federal funds, it’s deeply inappropriate for them to discriminate on the basis of religion in their hiring.”
According to some news reports Feb. 5, Obama will separately order the Justice Department to study the policy behind the Bush executive order, as well as other thorny church-state questions raised by the faith-based enterprise. Requests to the White House for the details of such an order were not returned by press time for this story.
In a July campaign speech, Obama promised that he would not allow religious discrimination under the program. But he has not elaborated on the promise since.
Some strong church-state separationist groups had hoped Obama would undo the office altogether. Under President Bush it became very controversial, with repeated accusations that Bush was politicizing the faith-based efort.
The office was formed in 2001 as one of the centerpieces of Bush’s domestic policy. He repeatedly attempted to expand the government’s ability to fund social services through churches and other pervasively religious charities.
Bush’s legislative attempts to push the initiative largely failed, but he nonetheless achieved many of his goals through administrative means, such as executive orders and revising policies on the agency level. The faith-based effort spreads across scores of federal departments, offices and programs.
Bush officials insisted that public funds distributed through the program would not go to fund proselytizing, worship or other clearly religious content. But church-state watchdogs said it would be difficult for agencies whose ministries were entwined with religious content to separate out the secular content suitable for government funds. And it would be difficult for the government agencies providing the grants to monitor such programs without entangling itself in the churches’ affairs.
A series of lawsuits — including a 2007 one that ruled a government-funded Christian program for inmates in an Iowa prison unconstitutional — raised questions about the ability of government officials to ensure constitutional standards in such programs.
Moreover, critics noted, religious organizations that provided primarily secular services — such as Catholic Charities or Head Start programs — had always been eligible to receive government funds through many social-service programs. They simply had to play by the same rules as secular grantees.
Leaders of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, which has been a stalwart opponent of government funding for churches, welcomed Obama’s approach,but urged him to avoid what they viewed as Bush’s mistakes.
“Partnerships between government and faith-based organizations are a given,” said BJC Executive Director Brent Walker. “However, the rules of cooperation must be carefully crafted to protect religious liberty. I urge the president to ban religious hiring discrimination in government-funded programs. The BJC will continue to press for it.”
Other religious groups and leaders from across the spectrum praised Obama’s approach — and particularly the scope of the office and the creation of the advisory council.
Obama’s order “has moved faith and community outreach in a new direction that represents an improvement over what we saw during the Bush administration,” said Welton Gaddy, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance and pastor for preaching and worship at Northminster Baptist Church in Monroe, La.
Faith in Public Life, a centrist group, released a statement saying Obama’s creation of an advisory council for the project that is both religiously and ideologically diverse “captures a new moment in American faith and politics. Just as people of faith are transcending traditional categories of left and right, so is the President’s Council.”
The council includes executives of secular and religious charities, mainline Protestants, evangelicals, Catholics, Muslims and Jews. It also has members who strongly supported Bush’s approach to faith-based funding and those who strongly criticized it.
The enterprise’s scope also is much broader than that of Bush’s faith-based office, which focused only on government funding for charities. The executive order creating the office and council noted that it would help Obama find ways to reduce poverty, address teenage pregnancy, reduce the abortion rate, “support fathers who stand by their families,” and “work with the National Security Council to foster interfaith dialogue with leaders and scholars around the world.”
There are at least four Baptists among the 15 announced members of the panel, which will ultimately have as many as 25 members. Frank Page, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Taylors, S.C. and the immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention is one. The panel also includes Melissa Rogers, a professor at Wake Forest Divinity School and former general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee. Rogers has long been a critic of government efforts to fund pervasively religious charities. Her church — Columbia Baptist in Falls Church, Va. — is affiliated with both the SBC and the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
The two other Baptist members of the council are from African-American Baptist backgrounds: William Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention USA and a BJC board member; and Otis Moss, who recently retired as pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland.
Page, reached by telephone Feb. 5, said he anticipated that some of his conservative brethren in the SBC would criticize him for agreeing to serve on a body appointed by a president they dislike. But, he added, he was impressed so far by Obama’s approach to the issue and by assurances from the president and White House officials that the council would be a true advisory body in terms of formulating policy
“I want to be a voice in the process, and I think that’s why I took it. If I’m going to make a difference, I think I need a place at the table,” he said.
“I think that anyone who knows me knows that I’ll be true to a relatively conservative, biblically based viewpoint,” Page added. “I let them know that, and if at some time that my voice is nothing more than just a token conservative voice, I’ll resign.”
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Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.
Related ABP stories:
Obama picks religious adviser DuBois for faith-based post; questions remain (1/30)
Bush administration leaves major mark on faith-based funding, experts say (12/3/2008)
On Bush’s faith-based programs, Obama says save best, ditch rest (7/6/2008)
Appeals court upholds ruling against funding for Christian prison programs (12/3/2007)