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Fat, rumpled, plainspoken, funny, and seemingly possessing total recall of hundreds of public policy studies, DiIulio is an immensely refreshing presence. On his right was Herb Lusk, the pastor of Philadelphia's Greater Exodus Baptist Church; on his left, Luis Cortes of Nueva Esperanza, also from Philadelphia. The two men represent the sort of faith-based community services DiIulio hopes to encourage.

Since World War II, DiIulio reminded us, hardly a single major domestic program has been directly administered by the U.S. government. What we have instead is "government by proxy," whereby federal funds are disbursed to various non-governmental organizations. So, for example, Medicare is mostly administered by non-governmental intermediaries. So too, DiIulio said, in countless other instances, citing as a less familiar example some 135 programs for at-risk youth. The point he was making, with clarity and force, is that far from entailing a risky departure from standard operating procedures, the Office for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives is right in the mainstream.

Nevertheless, in the Q&A session that followed (cut short, alas, because DiIulio had to leave for an appointment with the president), many of the media queries proceeded as if DiIulio had said nothing, as if the most obvious church-and-state issues hadn't already been explicitly addressed in the 1996 Charitable Choice legislation. Sharon Samber of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency wanted to know what would happen if a church said we will help you, but you have to accept Jesus as your savior. Well, DiIulio said pleasantly, as if this were a perfectly reasonable question, churches can't do that in the context of federally funded programs. And so it went.

Less prominent in this forum though not entirely missing was a very different set of concerns, having to do with the potentially compromising impact of such partnerships on the churches, which might be coerced into watering down their distinctively Christian message. Oddly enough, Marvin Olasky—who has been credited as one of the formative influences in shaping President Bush's understanding of "compassionate conservatism"—has been among the most vocal critics of DiIulio's policy. A number of reports in the secular media—such as Franklin Foer and Ryan Lizza's April 2 article, "Holy War," in The New Republic—have given the misleading impression that Olasky and other critics represent evangelicals across the board: "So a program designed to appeal to evangelicals is instead deeply offending them," Foer and Lizza write.

Nonsense. While some prominent evangelicals have expressed doubts, many others are hopeful. "We have confidence," said the lead editorial in the April 2 issue of Christianity Today, "that the White House Office for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives will come up with a system that will neither co-opt nor excessively limit churches."

The proof of the pudding, of course, will be in the eating. And no matter how well administered, such programs will not usher in the New Jerusalem. I should know. For the 32 years we've been married, my wife has been a one-woman office of faith-based initiatives. My role has been to contribute funding, represent normal human selfishness, and ward off the occasional psychopath who has homed in like a smart bomb on a source of exceptional caring and generosity.

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April (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45