Obama Pushes Own Faith-Based Initiative

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Obama Pushes Own Faith-Based Initiative

a church and a state government building

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama share a faith in Christianity, yet they have markedly different approaches to how they'd incorporate religion into their administration if elected.

COURTING EVANGELICALS? Barack Obama announced Tuesday he would give taxpayers' money to faith-based organizations that provide social services if he's elected president. His proposal provoked criticism from conservatives who worry it involves government in religious groups' hiring decisions, and from liberals who see it as an effort to chip away at the religious right's support for the Republican Party.

by Laura Major
Informify Staff Writer
July 3, 2008

President George W. Bush instituted a similar program at the beginning of his first term. Under his program, organizations that made religious affiliation a condition for employment still qualified for federal funds. Obama would expand Bush's program, but not for organizations that made religious affiliation a condition for employment, or that used their federally funded social service programs to recruit church members.

Religion Now Major Issue in Presidential Campaign

So far, Obama's proposal contains the following points:

provide $500 million each year for a summer learning program for poor children
review all current executive orders on religious-based programs
make the program the moral center of his administration
ensure small groups don't miss out on the federal funds
change the name from Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to Council for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships
elevate the program's director to a cabinet position
keep offices in federal agencies that oversee the faith-based grants
launch a training program to help large groups learn how to help small groups get money
conduct rigorous performance evaluations of programs

Conservatives and Liberals Criticize Obama's Faith-Based Plan

Although they disagree about the why, both liberals and conservatives dislike Obama's plan.

Liberals Say...

Obama's plan is a shameless attempt to woo young and moderate evangelicals whose agenda has moved to contemporary concerns of genocide, climate change, AIDS and the Iraq war
Obama is trying to juxtapose his religious involvement with John McCain's lack of religious involvement (see sidebar)
separation of church and state must be rigorously protected, for the sake of the religious and nonreligious alike

Rev. Barry Lynn, a United Church of Christ minister and the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said Obama's proposal is "tax-supported religion" and that "religion should pay its own way in the world." (The Huffington Post, 7/1/08)

Conservatives Say...

religious organizations should have the right to hire staff based on religious affiliation
Obama may be making false promises the same way Bush did about his faith-based initiative, which did not accomplish what he said it would

"You can't mention the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities as models of what's appropriate [as Obama did], and then say you can't engage in religious discrimination in employment, because both of those organizations do discriminate," said Marc Stern, a lawyer for the American Jewish Congress. (Christian Science Monitor, 7/2/08)

Even those who like the idea aren't totally won over.

David Kuo, former deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said, "I think it is a bold, smart, engaging attempt to use religious organizations to help the poor and to do for the faith community what the Bush administration could not. But I'm concerned that his position on hiring rights will bog down this initiative just like Bush's position on the other side did the same thing." (The New York Times, 7/02/08)

Question for Readers:

Do you think that Obama is moving too far to the center in the eyes of those who voted for him in the primaries?

John McCain keeps his religious views private and low-key. So far, this is his approach:

no significant mention of religious faith
raised an Episcopalian, switched to a Baptist church when he married his current wife, but has not been baptized there
no mention of how faith served him during his long ordeal as a prisoner of war
called televangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson "agents of intolerance," making his relationship with evangelicals problematical
dismissed endorsements from two evangelical leaders who made anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim statements
against abortion and wants Roe v. Wade overturned
opposed to same-sex marriage and speaks in favor of the proposed ban in California
voted for the U.S. Senate's version of Bush's faith-based initiative
wants faith-based initiatives under his administration to have the same standing as they do now
disagrees with Obama that government would have any say over who faith-based groups hired

You see, while these groups are often made up of folks who've come together around a common faith, they're usually working to help people of all faiths or of no faith at all. And they're particularly well-placed to offer help. As I've said many times, I believe that change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up, and few are closer to the people than our churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques.