Many people realized early on that George W. Bush's so-called faith-based initiative suffered from two serious flaws. First, it would likely violate the Constitution. Second, it would create a means for the Republican Party to reward Christian Right supporters - churches and non-denomination organizations - with huge government contracts and monetary awards. Both have come true.

Americans United explains:

U.S. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) told The Washington Post that federal grants have gone to the administration’s political targets because the initiative is impossible to sell to Republicans otherwise. “Quite frankly,” said Souder, “part of the reason it went political is because we can’t sell it unless we can show Republicans a political advantage to it, because it’s not our base.”

This shouldn’t surprise anyone except perhaps some of the original supporters of the Bush’s faith-based proposals — and not even all of them, because I’m sure that many expected exactly this and thought it was a good idea. Only the “true believers” who can’t conceive of churches being involved with anything base or corrupt imagined that this sort of program would manage to avoid the same problems and corruption that plague every other major government endeavor.

Marvin Olasky, the man who coined the term “compassionate conservatism” and who has been an important figure behind Bush’s “faith-based” initiatives, has admitted in the right-wing World Magazine that “faith-based” is nothing more than a code word for political patronage for Christian Right organizations:

The metamorphosis of “compassionate conservatism” is particularly sad. I never thought that a switch from 70 years of increasing Washington-centrism would come easily, but I hoped some decentralization was possible. There’s still hope—watch movement toward the use of social service vouchers—but I can’t refute the charge that this concept has become a rationale for patronage.

It’s a shame that Olasky was so taken in by his own naivete — but he frankly should have realized that funneling large amounts of money to churches and religious organizations would have led to exactly the sort of situation we have: churches sucking up to those in charge of the government for the sake of more money and government leaders funneling money to groups that share their religious ideology.

 

Separation of Church & State:

• Separation of Church and State 101
• Secularism 101
• What is the Separation of Church and State?
• Religion's Place in the Public Square
• Myths About Church/State Separation
• Church and State News
• Church & State Polls
• Faith-Based Programs