Analysis
Unanswered questions abound as faith-based plan advances
By JOE FEUERHERD
Washington
The idea of “faith-based” programs to aid the poor
appears to enjoy wide support. But when it comes to funding church-related
social service efforts, or identifying which efforts are worthy of federal
support, the devil is in the details.
The Senate is moving forward on one aspect of the Bush faith-based
program -- legislation that would allow non-itemizing taxpayers to take
deductions for their charitable contributions and provide $1.3 billion in
additional funding for state antipoverty programs. At the same time, however,
many questions remain about implementing direct federal aid to religious-based
social service providers:
• Should congregations be eligible to receive federal
funds directly, or should they be required to establish affiliated nonprofit
entities to administer their charitable work?
• Do recipients of church-sponsored assistance have a
genuine choice if they would prefer to seek aid in a secular setting?
(Bush’s proposed budget includes $600 million over three years in vouchers
that addicts could use to seek help at treatment centers, including those that
are church-sponsored.)
• Must faith-based organizations receiving federal
funds obey employment antidiscrimination laws, or should the exemption they
have enjoyed for nearly 40 years continue?
• Will government auditors and grant managers be
aggressive in monitoring federally funded church-based programs, unduly
entangling the religious mission of the organization with government regulation
and red tape?
Beyond the questions, there is the politics. The Bush
administration wants religious charities to have the same opportunity to
administer social service programs as their secular counterparts, director of
the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Jim Towey told
more than 300 researchers, religious representatives, officials of nonprofits,
foundation representatives and government officials at a March 7 forum on
“The Role of Faith-Based Organization in the Social Welfare
System.”
Said Towey: “The question shouldn’t be, ‘Does your
organization believe in God?’ The question should be, ‘Does your
program work?’ ”
Critics, meanwhile, see the effort as a constitutionally dubious
attempt to solidify support among the religious right through government
funding, even as they are wary of administration outreach to inner-city
congregations who typically vote for Democrats. Those churches say they are
closest to the social problems everyone wants to fix -- homelessness, crime,
illiteracy -- but that they have been shut out of government funding because
they lack the track record of such preferred providers as Catholic Charities
and Lutheran Social Services.
Describing himself as a “lifelong Democrat” and “no
fan of the current administration,” South Bronx Pentecostal minister
Raymond Rivera offered this critique: “The social service structure in
this country has been basically white [and] mainline-dominated. Most of the
money has gone … to Catholic Charities, Lutheran Community Services, the
Salvation Army, the Episcopal Mission Society, and I praise the Lord for that
[because] they’ve done a good job, but it shouldn’t stay that
way.”
Rivera, founder and president of the Latino Pastoral Action Center
in the Bronx, said, “There is room for indigenous organizations that are
closer to the community. The social service system is in need of renewal, and
we can be part of that renewal.”
Direct funding of congregations involves risks to the church and
the government, said Thomas Jeavons, general secretary of the Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. “We have a real
possibility of money going directly to a congregation in large amounts and then
at some point some appropriately zealous federal official” will decide to
audit the books. “As a church person I can tell you what the books are
going to look like -- there is not going to be any dishonesty, probably, but
they’re not going to be done according to FASB [Federal Accounting
Standards Board] rules … and it’s going to look like a scandal.”
Once money “flows into a congregation directly, then accountability
without an entanglement of church and state becomes impossible,” said
Jeavons.
The answer to the dilemma of direct congregational funding, said
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform
Judaism, is simple enough: Require congregations to establish nonprofit
affiliates. “We can have a divisive, angry battle over direct government
funding of churches, synagogues, mosques and other institutions, or working
together [we can] set up a sensible way, in a pattern we are familiar with that
we know can work, to really make a difference in increasing the number of
churches and synagogues working in cooperation with each other to provide
vastly needed social services.”
While the administration encourages churches to establish
nonprofits to deliver services, it does not want to require it, said Towey. A
better approach, he said, is to require faith-based social service providers to
abide by the same regulations and oversight as their secular counterparts.
“We’d like to see transparency” and “no impermissible uses
of money,” said Towey.
Yet another concern was expressed by Jim Wallis, editor of
Sojourners magazine and convener of Call to Renewal, a national
federation of churches working to overcome poverty.
“I support equal access for faith-based communities,”
said Wallis. “But the faith-based initiative must not be reduced to equal
access to the crumbs falling from the table in a resource scheme where the poor
are being pushed off [the national agenda].”
Joe Feuerherd is NCR Washington correspondent. His
e-mail address is jfeuerherd@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, March 21,
2003
|
