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Philadelphia might just have easily
been a city where faith-based initiatives petered out. The city is run by
a Democratic mayor -- John F. Street -- and is in a state that is becoming
solidly Democratic. Pennsylvania has come up blue in a string of
presidential elections stretching back to 1992. And last year, voters
ousted Sen. Rick Santorum, a Christian conservative Republican. He lost
his bid for a third term, in part, because he failed to win support in
Philadelphia's suburbs.
But the rejection of Republican Christian politicians doesn't mean rejection of
a faith-based approach to social problems. A 2006 study, "The Other
Philadelphia Story," by University of Pennsylvania researcher Ram A. Cnaan,
found that religious fervor for providing social services remains vibrant.
His researchers gathered information (often visiting) from nearly all of the
city's 2,120 congregations. They confirmed previous estimates that these
congregations supply services that would cost the city at least a
quarter-billion dollars a year to provide. These services include food
pantries, drug and alcohol prevention programs, homeless shelters, health
screening, day care, crime watch, anti-violence programs, welfare-to-work
programs.
In welfare-to-work and a few other areas, faith-based organizations are the
plurality social service providers. Secular nonprofit organizations,
for-profit firms and government agencies bring up the rear.
Faith-based groups that have received federal, state or local government grants
have expanded their services without dampening their religious identities or
suffering anything worse than the paperwork hassles that typically come along
with public funding. A burden to be sure, but not the one many feared,
that faith-based organizations would drop their faith-based approach to solving
social problems.
One reason why the faith-based approach is taking root and growing in the City
of Brotherly Love is Mayor Street. He is one of scores of mayors and local
officials across the country who have set up a local faith-based initiative
office, or who have made supporting faith-based organizations a large focus of
their tenure in office.
One program Mayor Street is particularly vocal in supporting is "Amachi," which
focuses on mentoring children of prisoners. The name comes from an
Ibo-Nigerian word meaning, "who knows what God has brought us through this
precious child." Amachi is spreading like wildfire across the country.
In a half-dozen years, it has grown from nothing to nearly 300 programs in 48
states, involving over 6,000 churches and over 70,000 mentoring matches, some of
which are funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Another Amachi convert is Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican. His state
is among the 33 that now have their own office of faith-based initiatives.
A dozen of these initiatives have persisted even after the governor's office has
changed hands or parties.
A recent case study by Byron Johnson at Baylor University's religion research
institute focused on the Ohio Governor's Office of Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives, which has lived on under the state's newly elected Democratic Gov.
Ted Strickland. Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and many other states have made
strides in leveling the playing field for religious nonprofit organizations by
following the president's lead in taking a pragmatic, bipartisan approach.
Ironically, the biggest obstacles that remain for faith-based organizations
receiving government funding are now in Washington. Some of those
obstacles are within the Bush White House, where some gun-shy staffers are
intent on placating libertarian activists who blame the president and spending
for the GOP's recent woes, and the faith-based initiative as one reason for
runaway spending.
Legacy-minded loyalists of the president, however, need to keep in mind that on
children's health insurance, preschool education and other issues, Mr. Bush
risks giving historians reason to see "compassionate conservatism" as nothing
more than anti-government conservatism in religious drag.
There is, however, reason to commend the White House. Jay Hein, a
Republican and evangelical Christian with a bipartisan head for policy, is now
heading up the president's faith-based initiative. Under his leadership,
it has begun to regain respectability among diverse religious leaders. It
may yet receive significant support from Washington -- if not under this
president, then under his successor, no matter who he or she is.
Several presidential candidates, including Democrat Hillary Clinton and
Republican Mike Huckabee, are offering a faith-based social policy vision that
reads like a page from Mr. Bush's 2000 presidential-campaign hymnal.
Whatever Washington does or fails to do, however, the faith-based armies of
compassion will keep on serving the poor while winning disciples in places like
Philadelphia.
Mr. DiIulio was the first director of the White House Office
of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and is the author of the just-released
"Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future"
(University of California Press).
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