After Keith Brooks lost his job as a systems administrator he was forced to apply for welfare. But Brooks wasn’t the type to sit on the sofa watching soap operas and ball games. He immediately began looking for a new job. The federal welfare-to-work program offered several job placement services in his area, and so he regularly made the rounds to each facility to see if work was available. But only one placement center succeeded in finding Brooks employment—Shield of Faith, a Pentecostal church located in Pomona, California, where Brooks resides.
Thanks to the historic Welfare Reform Act signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, Shield of Faith received $250,000 in government funding in 1999 to run a job placement service. This legislation included a “charitable choice” provision that gave states and local jurisdictions the flexibility to contract with faith-based organizations to help administer welfare-to-work programs. When President George W. Bush took office in January, one of his first acts was to announce his intention to enlarge dramatically upon this program, making it even easier for faith-based organizations to receive federal funding for social service programs. His proposal has generated heated protest from both ends of the political spectrum.
Opponents of President Bush’s policy are troubled that we are stepping into uncharted territory. They fear that his proposal to allow churches, synagogues, and other religious institutions to compete for government dollars will result in government coercion and discrimination against minority religious groups.
Keith Brooks doesn’t really relate to these arguments. In his view people in trouble are not concerned with church/state issues. They just want help, and faith-based organizations provide the best opportunity for getting the help they desperately need.
“I haven’t found employment through any other agency,” says Brooks. “When you get into a slump like this [being laid off], you need to do more than just look for a job. There’s a certain emotional side of a person that takes you down. You need support—spiritual support—and I found that at Shield of Faith. Everybody there is willing to help. They kind of stepped in and grabbed me. They nurtured me, they talked to me. It’s really like a family. . . . The way [secular] government programs are set up, they can’t actually nurture people. They try to come up with their own services, but that’s not the answer. The answer is God.”
Meron Belachew agrees. Belachew is program director for the Shield of Faith welfare-to-work program. She supervises the agency’s small staff (five employees, including herself). Their offices are located across the hall from the church sanctuary.
“When people walk into our offices they are usually depressed. Their self-esteem is low. We’re the only faith-based organization in Los Angeles County that is funded by the government,” says Belachew. “When people see a church or a faith-based organization, especially people who have had a hard time in life, it is like their last hope. Here they find a group of people not only willing to help them find work, but help them get a bus pass, maybe help them get off drugs, get out of an abusive relationship, or help them care for their kids.”
While all welfare-to-work programs offer services such as résumé writing, job leads, and job fairs, many secular organizations are not willing or able to make the same personal commitment to their clients that faith-based organizations such as Shield of Faith are eager to make. For instance, Shield of Faith agency employees often drive clients to job interviews, provide on-site child care, help them open bank accounts, and even visit them at home if they’re late for a job or fail to show up for work.
“When people have been hurt so badly, some of them revert back to the state of a two-year-old, and you have to take them by the hand and walk with them,” says Belachew. “As soon as they see doors opening, that they’re capable of making it on their own, suddenly they’re 35 years old again. Not everyone is like that, of course. Some people have simply lost their jobs and have had to go on welfare. All they need is another opportunity. We’ve had great success stories like that too.”
In one case Belachew and her staff baby-sat a woman’s five children for an entire summer, keeping them busy with activities around the office, while their mother worked at a warehouse job—a job Shield of Faith found for her. The woman was promoted to an administrative position and was able to move her family out of House of Ruth (a shelter for abused women and children) and into her own apartment. She never went back to collecting welfare.
Although government-funded secular welfare-to-work agencies do perform some similar services, for Belachew and her staff such acts are part of their duty—not simply their professional duty, but also their spiritual duty. Only the most cynical of opponents would fault Shield of Faith’s staff members for going the extra mile for their clients, and their dedication is reflected in the success they’ve enjoyed. Out of the approximately 100 people that Shield of Faith has served in the past year and a half, about 70 percent have successfully made the welfare-to-work transition. According to Belachew, many of the remaining 30 percent are not working because they’ve gone back to school (an option provided by the Welfare Reform Act).
In Keith Brooks’s case, he has yet to find permanent employment as a systems administrator. The jobs Shield of Faith has found for him have been temporary positions. In the interim he volunteers at Shield of Faith in a number of capacities, both for the agency and the church. On weekdays he helps new clients to feel comfortable when they enter the agency by greeting them at the door and taking them through the first steps of the registration process. He has joined the Shield of Faith congregation, and he runs the audio board during church services. “I do whatever I can to keep myself busy,” says Brooks. “When you’re not doing anything your self-esteem really goes down.”
Brooks also attends the Shield of Faith Bible College. He wonders if he’s seeking employment in the wrong field, speculating that perhaps God is leading him into the ministry. While Brooks says he has always believed in God, he remembers how surprised he was when he had first completed his job placement application at Shield of Faith and the development coordinator asked to pray with him for his success.
“I said, ‘Pray?’” laughs Brooks. “I had a big smile on my face. It was kind of funny because no one had ever . . . I mean, I’d prayed for jobs before, but not actually at an employment agency. It really made me feel good.”
Of course, offering prayer at a government-funded job placement agency is precisely the sort of activity that makes opponents of President Bush’s expansion policy nervous. Questions immediately arise: How much religion is permissible in government-funded programs? Will clients feel pressured, directly or indirectly, to participate in religion in order to obtain assistance? Will the government favor certain churches or religious groups over others when doling out federal funding? And how will local governments monitor agency staff members to determine if they are mixing too much religion with state business?
So far the Bush administration has not offered any clear answers to these questions. Of course, such religious organizations as Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services have been receiving government funding for social service programs for decades. And when President Clinton first announced the “charitable choice” provision as part of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act few objections were voiced. (The charitable choice provision was later extended to include community development and drug treatment programs, again with little fanfare or protest.) However, until now, faith-based organizations receiving federal funding were required to keep church and state agency activities distinctly separate. President Bush’s plan does not appear to take such a strict stance on the separation issue—one of the reasons his initiative has met with such vocal criticism. The Bush team has promised to present more clear-cut guidelines in the next few months.
Of course, to Belachew, such questions simply brew a tempest in a teapot, stirring up problems where none exist. “When we offer to pray for clients, they are delighted,” says Belachew. “Often they’re grabbing our hands for prayer before we can even reach for theirs. We ask them if we can pray for them, we would never force it on anyone. It’s like when someone walks in, we might ask, ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ A person has the option to say yes or no. If someone says no, that’s not going to stop us from helping them. It’s just a simple offer.”
Opponents contend that it’s a dangerous, or even unconstitutional, offer when voiced by an employee of a government-funded agency. Not surprisingly, the most vocal opposition to the expansion plan has come from such organizations as Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union. These groups maintain that Bush’s plan essentially amounts to government funding of religion. These secular groups are currently making strange bedfellows with a host of religious groups that are equally jittery about the
Bush proposal.
“This thing could be a real Pandora’s box,” stated Pat Robertson, head of the Christian Coalition and a Bush supporter during the presidential campaign, on his television program, The 700 Club. “And what seems to be such a great initiative can rise up to bite the organizations as well as the federal government.”
Robertson has expressed his concern that Bush’s policy will allow religious groups from outside the mainstream—such as the Hare Krishnas, the Church of Scientology, and the Unification Church—to compete for federal funding on an equal footing with more conventional religious groups.
“You know, I hate to find myself on the side of the Anti-Defamation League . . . but this gets to be a real problem,” said Robertson, referring to the Jewish group that has also verbalized concerns about Bush’s plan.
Robertson’s son, Gordon Robertson, furthered his father’s argument, saying, “If we’re going to open up federal programs for funding to faith-based initiatives . . . the government can’t make a judgment as to what faith is legitimate and what is illegitimate.” He also stated, “I don’t see how on a constitutional basis you can say, ‘Well, this belief is OK, and this belief is not.’”
Many faith leaders agree. They question the Bush administration’s understanding of the religious pluralism in America and his commitment to protecting religious minorities from discrimination. “With more than 2,000 religious traditions practiced in the United States, President Bush has yet to offer a plan that will demonstrate how political appointees will award money in an equitable manner,” said Michael Carrier, president of the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado and pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church in Denver. “If different faith charities representing widely differing religious groups proffer the same results, who decides which religion deserves funding and who should be excluded?”
When President Bush announced his plan, he stated that the government “will not fund religious activities of any group,” but then went on to say that “faith-based charities should be able to compete for funding on an equal basis, and in a manner that does not cause them to sacrifice their mission.”
Noting the contradictions inherent in the president’s statement, C. Welton Gaddy, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance, said that the “president cannot have it both ways . . . . There are numerous questions about how this federal initiative will treat religious groups and whether it is even possible to claim a commitment to equity,” noted Gaddy. “After all, religion is not a generic idea, and the substance of each faith is very specific. There is a big difference between evangelical Christianity and Hinduism, or the Church of Scientology and Buddhism. In a politically charged environment like the White House, religious minorities from unknown or ridiculed faith traditions that could spark controversy are highly unlikely to receive federal support.”
“Tax dollars come with strings that will effectively turn religious leaders into government puppets,” Gaddy warned. “Take away the strings, and you take away the accountability, which opens the door to lawsuits . . . . President Bush’s plan to subsidize religious charities is not a partnership; it is contractual employment with rules, regulations, and risks. ‘Buyer Beware’ should be posted on the door of this White House office.”
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, vehemently opposed to the Bush proposal, views the opposition of Pat Robertson and other religious leaders as an indication that Bush’s plan will ultimately fail. When asked about Robertson’s comments, Barry Lynn, the group’s executive director, said, “This means Bush’s plan is in enormous political trouble.”
So far Bush is standing by his decision to expand upon the Welfare Reform Act’s charitable choice option. Responding to criticism from religious leaders, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said: “We think this program is based on sound principles, and that it is the right thing to do, and the president is very committed to it.”
The White House has some reason to be optimistic. Not all religious organizations have taken a negative stand. Many religious leaders have praised Bush’s proposal and have high hopes for its success. In fact, when Bush made his announcement in January he was joined by 25 representatives of faith-based organizations, all of whom expressed enthusiasm for the initiative and made it clear that they intend to take full advantage of the chance to secure federal funding for their churches’ community service programs.
Several government officials have also voiced their support of Bush’s expansion plans. “In many communities, the only institutions that are in a position to provide human services are faith-based organizations,” said Sheri Steisel, director of the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Human Services Committee. “Contracting with faith-based and other community organizations to provide government services is something that has proven effective in the states over the past five years. We are extremely pleased that the president is joining the states in exploring these new opportunities.”
Representative Tony P. Hall, (D-Ohio) has praised the Bush proposal as a promising way of helping faith-based organizations battle poverty, hunger, and other social ills to a degree that they might not be able to without the availability of government funds. Hall actually thinks the program should be extended even further to include food banks and other entities that provide not only food, but literacy training, drug rehabilitation, and other services to the needy.
“To those who worry that we are in uncharted territory, I would point out the work American charities do overseas, coping with . . . terrible earthquakes . . . easing famine in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and promoting development around the world,” Hall stated. “Many of these organizations are closely affiliated with religious groups; many of their projects are from missionary roots. This work leverages private funds and achieves results that often last generations. . . . This is a common sense approach that deals with the challenges many Americans face head on. It deserves a chance, and I commend President Bush for giving it one.”
With such strong arguments being voiced on both the left and the right, it’s clear that the issue of federal funding for faith-based organizations will not disappear in the foreseeable future. While the issue of maintaining a separation of church and state is obviously an extremely important matter, so are the lives of the thousands of people who are seeking help in getting their lives back on track. Most agree that the government and private charities must both assist in providing these people with an effective path to becoming productive citizens. The question is, Can—and should—the government and religion work together in this effort?
The folks at Shield of Faith clearly believe that they can help more people with government funding than they could if they had to rely on private funding only. Meron Belachew insists that the Shield of Faith program is strictly geared to helping people in need and has nothing to do with proselytizing. “Sometimes clients end up joining our church, sometimes they don’t,” says Belachew. “There’s no pressure, because that’s not our focus. These fears that people are feeling, I don’t think they’re legitimate, because the church is not funded to be a church. The church is funded for a singular purpose—serving people. That’s what the agency staff focuses on, then if clients want to take spiritual steps, that’s up to them.”
On the other hand, is she concerned that the government will interfere with church affairs? “In my experience, the government is simply concerned with whether we are achieving our goal of serving people, whether our files are in proper order. They haven’t interfered with our church, and I don’t believe they would ever do that. If we stay focused on serving people, then we won’t get into a lot of church and political clashes or a lot of unfounded fears. Fear is causing people to tear down a program that’s working well, but that’s common of any new venture. The thing is, if we don’t do this job, someone else will have to. The government will have to hire more people, build more buildings, spend more money. Why? We’re already here. Use us.”
This front line report illustrates well why there is such a groundswell call for assisting faith-based programs that work. If the issue is cast wrongly, it turns into a discussion of whether these are valid social programs. Correctly addressed, the question should focus on the advisability and constitutionality of any funding partnership between church and state. Editor.
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