Justice for Partners in Social Service

Fourth Quarter 2003

Excerpt from A Revolution of Compassion

Are you among those who think the faith-based initiative is dead? Or do you find yourself in the camp of those who believe that the debate over religion and government is never ending and hopelessly irresolvable? Or perhaps you are an optimist who thinks a just resolution of past church-state confusions lies just around the corner.

Whatever your doubts or convictions, you should know that a significant "revolution" has been unfolding for more than a decade and continues full-steam ahead. The controlling legal dogma of the last half century that demanded "strict separation" and "no aid to religion" has been crumbling. The evidence is laid out in a new book whose title trumpets the turn: Religion Returns to the Public Square: Faith and Policy in America (edited by Hugh Heclo and Wilfred M. McClay, Woodrow Wilson Center and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).

The chief arenas of controversy and revolution in the United States are those of education and welfare policy, and the authors in this book who explain what has been happening are Charles Glenn, a Fellow of the Center for Public Justice and professor at Boston University, and Stanley W. Carlson-Thies, also a Fellow at the Center and director of the Pew Civitas Program in Faith and Public Affairs.

Another new book that addresses the revolution in welfare policy, is A Revolution of Compassion: Faith-Based Groups as Full Partners in Fighting America's Social Problems (Baker Books, 2003). Dr. Carlson-Thies also has his hand in this effort as co-author with Dave Donaldson, the founder and CEO of We Care America, which coordinates and multiplies the strength of social service ministries. Both authors have had important influences on the faith-based revolution of which they speak.

If you have wondered what all the fuss is about or want to know where the battle lines and signs of progress and regress are to be found today, then this is the book you should read. It both explains and admonishes, both tells the stories and provides the analysis. It will help those who lead service organizations as well as those who want to understand the dynamics of this growing controversy in American law and politics.

The book's main concern is to show how faith-based social service ministries can strengthen, not weaken, their efforts through effective partnering with government, businesses, and other social-sector organizations. A Revolution of Compassion is clearly written, answers the most frequently asked questions, provides pointers to organizations that can help, and provides important bibliographical and electronic resources. Here is an excerpt from A Revolution of Compassion.

Believers, not the government, should fund worship and evangelism. Good enough. Yet what about a faith-based program, say one that works with drug addicts, alcoholics, or the long-term homeless, in which religious activities are part and parcel of the social service itself? What if giving their hearts to Jesus is the way certain people stop giving their lives to alcohol or drugs? In that case, if the government funds the program, is it funding religion-—which it shouldn't-—or an effective social service—which it should?

Sad to say, the courts have not progressed as far as they should in this matter, and therefore the law is not as liberating as it ought to be. You might think that, as long as people have a choice about where they can go for help, then it should not be a problem if the government funds a program in which a person escapes addiction and becomes a good citizen, employee, and family member through religious transformation. Of course, such a transformation is good, but for now, the government cannot give grants or contracts to programs that depend on religious activities such as evangelism, worship, or discipleship as the form of assistance. Is that restriction wrong? Isn't the faith-based initiative intended to eliminate such discrimination, to create a truly level playing field on which all service programs can compete? All true. However, until the courts move even further away from the "no-aid" idea and even more firmly adopt the "equal treatment" interpretation [of the Constitution's First Amendment], government officials, including legislators devising reforms like Charitable Choice, are restricted in what they can do. For now, the courts' commitment to equal treatment is undercut by a concern that if an official awards a grant or a contract to a program that includes religious activities, it will appear that the government is unconstitutionally endorsing those activities and that religion. That is unfortunate and unfair, but it is the reality.

Let's not forget, however, that by design, many faith-based programs do not use discipleship training and worship as their chief means of providing help. They offer job training and life skills courses in a loving and respectful environment, and they also invite those they help to worship on Sunday, to join a Bible study, or to seek pastoral counseling. They witness to the Good News in every way but do not think that helping a person prepare for the GED is the same as teaching them the Gospel of John. They offer a warm bed and a warm meal and also the Good News, but they are convinced that no one should be required to listen to the Bible in order to get a meal or a safe place to sleep.

Two Different Kinds of Ministry

Amy Sherman calls the two different kinds of ministries "salad ministries" and "brownie ministries." What's the difference? "Salad ministries" have programs with various parts, some that are clearly religious and some that are not, just as a salad is a combination of tomatoes, lettuce, and other ingredients. These ministries offer both Bible-based life-skills training and Microsoft-based job training on word processing and spreadsheets. The government funds the job training, and the church funds the life-skills class. Everyone is invited to both, but no one has to listen to the pastor talk about biblical principles for life if they have decided they only want to learn how to use the computer. (They might already be learning life skills from someone in their own church.)

"Brownie ministries" do not have the same kind of separation between program elements. Like a brownie, the ingredients are all blended and baked together. The alcoholic gets medical help that is connected with spiritual counseling, which flows into intensive and constant worship and Bible study, and these undergird close mentoring relationships. For this kind of ministry, salvation from alcoholism is a side effect of a commitment to Jesus Christ. Religious activities and religious change are the social service.

It is not appropriate to ask which kind of ministry is better than the other. What style of ministry is better depends on the kind of need, who is helping, and who is coming for help. Working through such issues is absolutely essential for every ministry.

One thing is very clear, however. "Brownie" ministries should not try to pretend they are "salad" ministries in order to obtain grants or contracts. What gain would there be in destroying the ministry in order to expand it? "Salad" ministries can accept grants or contracts in good conscience because they separate inherently religious elements from the other parts of their assistance out of conviction, not because of government pressure. For them the challenge is to maintain a strong conception of "holism"—that both kinds of assistance are vital even though, out of respect, no one will be forced to participate in discipleship or worship activities. Without care, the two dimensions of service will fall apart rather than support each other.

A Better Way

Do [current] restrictions on grants and contracts seem too confining? It so happens that there is a different way government can fund faith-based programs, which does not require them to separate the inherently religious activities out from the rest of the assistance they offer. It's called "indirect" funding.

Here's the basic idea: if the person needing help, instead of a government official, decides the government money should go to a faith-based group, then no one can think the government is singling out that group for favor. So then it does not matter if that group's programs have religious activities built into them; even if government money supports those programs, there's no violation of the ban on government establishing religion. With indirect funding, "brownie" programs that include discipleship training as an integral part of the service can be funded by government.

Of course, the purpose of the government funding is still to help the person get off drugs, into work, or out of a life of crime. The programs that government funds indirectly still have to have such purposes and effects. The money cannot be used merely for evangelism with the argument that saved people are better citizens. With indirect funding, however, a drug treatment program with worship and Bible study at its core can receive government money. There is a long line of court cases approving indirect funding for programs that include religious elements. These are the Supreme Court cases upholding vouchers to fund religious education.... Vouchers and other forms of indirect funding are not very common in the area of social services. Most of the time the government awards grants or contracts to groups, and such direct funding comes with the rule that the government money cannot pay for any inherently religious activities. Officials can redesign government social service programs, however, so that the funding is indirect instead of direct....

By the way, there is one area of policy where indirect funding is common—federally-funded child care. Since 1990 states may use federal funds for child care to give certificates or vouchers to low-income families that enable the families to get care for their children at whichever day care provider they choose. Because the funding is indirect, there are no restrictions on the religious content of the day care....

So churches across the country are providing federally funded day care without religious restrictions. Parents are glad to have choices. States are glad not to have to administer thousands of contracts, and no anti-faith group has wasted time challenging the system as unconstitutional.