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Christianity Today, April, 2008 |

Hazy Faith-Based Future

Charitable-choice funding will face challenges under the new administration.

Sarah Pulliam | posted 3/11/2008 08:38AM

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Jay Hein, current director of the White House's faith-based office, has sought to make the faith-based initiative permanent by expanding it to the state level. According to the White House, 35 governors and more than 100 mayors now have faith-based offices.

"Outside Washington, this is not a partisan issue," said Doug Koopman, a Calvin College political science professor. "Inside Washington, it's identified with President Bush, who is an outspoken evangelical. That edge to it has never gone away."

Related Elsewhere:

Christianity Today interviewed John Dilulio, the first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

More articles on law and politics are available in our full-coverage section.

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April 2008, Vol. 52, No. 4

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RJR_fan

Posted: March 12, 2008 8:22 AM


Thou shalt not steal -- not even by majority vote. Attempting to do God's work with stolen money is like buying an offering with the wages of a harlot, or sodomite.

JohnH

Posted: March 12, 2008 8:13 AM

Faith based social initiatives can be corrupting to all. They tempt groups into getting monies for projects which are not necessary ideal for their profile/objectives, open the way for misuse of monies in ways where public monies are less visible and accountable, and can be an abdication of the role of the governments role of proper administration of public monies and achieving public good. Get failures – no political accountability – their fault, successes – the politicians want all of the glory. Not ideal to use amateurs where good process and governance is needed.

Anna	Posted: March 11, 2008 11:05 PM

These faith-based grants being turned down by churches has nothing to do with evangelism or fundamentalism. The problem is the money is given to you as a deal to start up something and pulled with the expectation that the churches are to continue what was started up. Most churches are not like the government. They live on budgets and have to stay within the budgets. They can't continually raise taxes to keep the "projects" going year after year. The government found out how expensive it was to support people who did nothing to make their life better and tried to get the churches to take over most of the work and the expense. The turth is that Churches through the generations helped people by having a member give someone a job, members giving food, on an individual basis and than the people pulled themselves up and returned the favor to someone else in the future, all for free for the churches. It takes less money to do it this way but it works. The gov gift is not from the heart.

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