Office Of Faith And Neighborhood Partnerships
The Washington Post recently revealed that President Obama has decided to appoint Josh Dubois as the new director for the office of Faith Based Initiatives (Read article here). The office is getting a bit of a makeover and will be renamed, “The Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.” It sounds a bit more approachable, user friendly – let’s see if this will ease the grant application procedure. Heading this newly renamed office is Josh Dubois who served as the director of the Obama campaign’s religious outreach. Josh Dubois has served with other political figures in other religious outreaches. He is an ordained pentecostal minister from a small church in Cambridge (no website available) but his training seems mostly political. There is a great article with a limited interview about Dubois and his faith journey available here on the Wall Street Journal.
Dubois’ faith seems to be less of a concern however than does President Obama’s intentions for the policy of this office. Throughout his campaign then Senator Obama stated that he would revise the regulation for faith based organizations receiving federal money. These organizations would have to abide by all equal employment legislation, this is a sharp turn from the previous administration who allowed faith based groups to hire like minded individuals. If these new legal constraints are placed on churches and other ministries who receive federal money they will have to either hire qualified candidates who disagree with their beliefs or lose federal funding. In other words, if a church who runs a food pantry has a job opening they may be forced to hire an atheist if he is the most qualified.
What the problem with this scenario is that it brings the church under the authority of the state and fails to maintain their separateness. The faith based initiative in its inception recognized that many churches, mosques and other religious groups were doing a better job of community aid than the government. So, the government wanted to be efficient and help them help the community. This was not without constraints and restrictions. There were stipulations that recipients could not be screened or discriminated against on the basis of faith which is reasonable. There were also accounting requirements that had to be met. All of these previous requirements ensured an efficient outreach and let the church be the church. These new stipulations, however, rob the churches of the spirit that originally inspired these initiatives! What this will result in is a group of disenfranchised church goers returning to their churches with less resources to do the same job.
Many churches have spun off seperate non-profit organizations as a way to protect their church from federal requirements. Perhaps the better alternative is to not take money from the government to begin with! The money may appear to be free, but cost your soul in the end. I’ll partner with Christ and let the government keep their money.
