Neighborly Love: A Public Service

January-February 1995

WASHINGTON, DC—In mid-October, the Center for Public Justice hosted a consultation here to discuss the important role played by Christian social service organizations in meeting the needs of poor, unemployed, undereducated, hungry, and homeless people in America—especially in urban areas. Ministries such as The Door in Baltimore and Bethel New Life in Chicago—actually thousands of ministries across the country—organize countless volunteers and raise millions of dollars from private donors to help the needy.

And yet these ministries often meet with difficulty and discrimination from government agencies that offer housing vouchers, educational and job training funds, and other welfare benefits. The difficulty, explained Stanley Carlson-Thies, who organized the consultation, arises because Christian organizations are "religious." Despite the fact that they provide an important public service, they are not always treated with equal respect by public authorities who believe that government assistance should flow only through "secular" channels.

The October meeting brought together representative leaders of Christian nonprofits, such as Mary Nelson who directs Chicago's Bethel New Life; some First Amendment legal experts, such as Carl Esbeck from the University of Missouri School of Law; and several people experienced in public policy making, such as Stephen Monsma, now at Pepperdine University, who was a Michigan State Senator and then served in that state's health and human services department, and Sharon Daly of Catholic Charities/ USA.

The group of 20 began the process of developing a strategy for challenging government's discriminatory treatment of Christian and other religious organizations that obviously perform a public service even though they do so on an explicitly confessional basis. The hypothesis to be tested is that organizations that perform a public service, regardless of their religious profession, should be treated without discrimination by government.

Among the 10 summary statements drawn up by Dr. Carlson-Thies following the meeting are the following:

—Christian providers of services to distressed neighbors are motivated by a strong sense of mission. Their work is, in their eyes, obligatory and not optional.

—Such ministries will pursue their missions in any case, but government policies should be designed to recognize and facilitate, not hamper, their work.

—Although most religious social ministries may have found or negotiated a regulatory and funding relationship with government that is palatable or even valued, it is apparent that a firmer foundation for a positive relationship is necessary.

—Governments have a legitimate regulatory role. However, their regulations should respect the independence and integrity of Christian social ministries and not interfere with their ability to fulfill their missions.

—Many Christian social ministries fear losing their autonomy by becoming dependent on government funding. Yet they recognize that such funding may enable them to carry out their missions more extensively and effectively. Moreover, they believe that they ought to be acknowledged as important parts of society's effort to help the needy; indeed, because their ministries are especially effective, government should support their efforts instead of putting all of its resources into "secular" social services.

—Christian (and other religious) social ministries seek from government nondiscriminatory treatment and not favoritism. They affirm that government should neither favor nor restrict any group solely on the basis of its religious or non-religious confession.

The message of the very encouraging consultation was passed on to more than a thousand Christian social ministries whose representatives gathered in Baltimore a few weeks later for the annual convention of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA), whose leaders include Mary Nelson and John Perkins. Perkins is an adviser to the Center for Public Justice. The strategic initiative begun in October will now expand to touch the new Congress and many state legislatures as the process of welfare reform picks up steam.