I caught up with John DiIulio, the first director of President Bush’s office of faith-based and community initiatives after the faith caucuses today. DiIulio quit his job after only seven months on the job because of a struggle with Congress to get financial support for the office.
Is Barack Obama’s plan for the faith-based initiatives better than President Bush’s?
I don’t think it’s better, but I think it’s different. It’s got sort of a thicker operational spine at this stage than I will say at this stage in 2000 either the plans Gore or Bush plans had. It’s also got a much broader vision behind it. It’s not just about faith-based and grants, it’s an idea about labor and business representatives. When he talked in July, he had a line when he talks about the faith based office or council being a moral center of his administration, that was intimating or suggesting this notion of having diverse religious leaders involved in thinking out loud about other policy issues, immigration, education, health care, the way labor and business and other sectors have usually been represented. That’s an interesting twist and different I think from before.
I know something that has been an issue has been whether organizations can hire based on religion.
It seems to me that he’s endorsing the status quo, the constitutional, the administrative, and the statutory status quo, versus those on the one side who would want to expand that so you want sort of a cart blanche. I think he’s taking a center left position. I have asked people including many of my friends in the evangelical community to tell me specifically what has been said, because there hasn’t been anything that would change the existing constitutional administrative and statutory status quo. The overall plan is very good because it focuses on getting real resources, human and financial, where hope hits the streets.
