Faith-Based Outreach Advancing Despite Fears

Despite concerns from right to left, the White House is using the levers of executive power to move forward with President Bush’s plan to expand the role of faith-based charities in the nation’s social safety net.

The administration has begun to set up offices inside five federal agencies--the departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, and Education--to dismantle obstacles that have blocked faith-based organizations from receiving federal contracts in the past.

Under an executive order signed by Bush, the offices are expected to report findings this summer, an effort that proponents say could significantly increase the role of faith-based groups in providing social services for the needy.

“People are getting appointed. Staffing is happening in these different agency offices,” said Stephen Lazarus, a scholar at the Center for Public Justice, a Christian think tank that has advised the White House on the initiative. “All of that is proceeding as planned.”

Elements of the White House initiative have set off so many alarms that the Senate may put off part of the debate until next year, when Congress revisits welfare reform. In particular, the administration has raised anxieties that its plan would allow an erosion of the church-state wall--a charge that officials deny.

Yet key aspects of the initiative are moving forward. Next week, members of Congress plan to introduce bills to create tax breaks for charitable donations and promote other elements of the initiative.

“Writing this initiative into law will let our country better harness the talent and experience of dedicated people around the country who care about the poor and those in need,” Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. (R-Okla.) said in a statement Thursday.

Other parts of the initiative do not require new legislation; one of Bush’s major goals is to promote and fully implement a provision that Congress passed five years ago as part of welfare reform.

That approach, known as Charitable Choice, already prohibits government officials from discriminating against faith-based providers of social services that seek federal contracts. But many of the charities that potentially could make use of the funds are unaware of their eligibility. Bush has ordered that the new offices in the five Cabinet agencies coordinate efforts to eliminate red tape and other obstacles that still block the organizations’ participation.

One advocate, noting all the things that Bush could do to push his faith-based agenda without any help from Congress, professed bewilderment at the outcry. “The amazing thing is the criticism is about a program that’s already in place,” said Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), the Senate’s chief advocate of the initiative.

In a manifesto titled “Rallying the Armies of Compassion,” Bush pledged to build on the Charitable Choice provision, noting that it has affected only “a small portion” of federal social spending and urging federal agencies to reach out to faith-based organizations.

“Many states and localities continue to ignore the legal requirements of Charitable Choice,” and red tape still limits “the involvement of faith-based groups more than current law warrants,” Bush said.

The initiative is directed at churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious groups that provide social services. Among the programs Bush has said he would like to see receive funds are homes for unwed mothers, after-school activities for poor children, inmate rehabilitation and counseling services for children of prisoners.

Anxieties about the initiative seem to have started among liberal groups, who fear an erosion of the church-state wall and government acceptance of religious discrimination. It spread to some conservative evangelicals who have complained that the initiative will finance programs far outside the Christian mainstream.

John J. DiIulio Jr., the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has sought to defuse fears that the administration plan would breach the church-state wall. In audiences with some of his critics, he has insisted that the administration has no plans to favor particular religions in granting contracts.

Typical is the view of the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister and executive director of the Interfaith Alliance Foundation, a religious coalition that this week released a highly critical report on Charitable Choice. “It promises an unhealthy and unconstitutional entanglement of religion and government,” he said.

In the process of trying to answer such criticisms, however, DiIulio has provoked some on the right who had been counting on a much greater blend of religion and public service activities.

“I think the concerns of the left were foreseeable--and foreseen,” said Marvin Olasky, the journalism professor and scholar whose writings formed much of the basis of Bush’s approach to “compassionate conservatism.”

“In the process of trying to satisfy these concerns, John [DiIulio] veered to the left, and now there are the concerns on the right.”

Increasingly, debate is focusing on whether the initiative should ease the emphasis on direct government funding and increase the priority for tax incentives that help faith-based charities. Some also are pushing for a program of vouchers that users of social services could cash in at faith-based programs.

Bush sought to prevent any perception that the initiative was beleaguered, choosing to highlight it at a campaign-style visit to a church in Plainfield, N.J. “The reports about our Charitable Choice legislation not going full-steam ahead are just simply not true,” he said Wednesday at an after-school mentoring program at the Grace Episcopal Church.

Yet key senators have shied away from legislation that would strengthen direct government aid to faith-based charities. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) posed these questions this month: “What exactly can faith-based groups spend federal funding on, what criteria would be used for evaluating applicants, what safeguards would protect the rights of service recipients and employees, as well as taxpayers?”

He added: “This is one case where, if you’ll allow me to put it this way, the devil really is in the details.”