Brave New Question-Filled World

Here is where the church-state issues of the future are going to be joined.

Here, in a church basement, where the volunteers who run a successful soup kitchen are expanding their outreach to include federally funded job training classes.

Here, in a chapel, where the pastor’s informal self-help group for alcoholics is being turned into a drug-addiction treatment center.

Here, in the synagogue, the mosque, the religious school, where faith-based organizations rooted in their communities are taking up the president’s call to get more involved in helping solve society’s problems.

Here, where good intentions and God’s spirit combine to help people on a most basic level, will the political and perhaps constitutional issues be joined.

This brave new world of cooperation between church and state to deliver social services more effectively (one hopes) also brings with it the imperative to redefine the relationship between government and the nonsecular, nonprofit sector.

And while everyone from President Clinton on down enthused last week about the possibilities of this partnership, the Philadelphia summit did not begin to tackle the implications of this movement, where the devil is surely in the details.

Interestingly, people from opposite ends of the political spectrum complained that religion was marginalized in this first-ever national discussion and pep rally on volunteerism. Several of the 250 religious leaders and academics at one of the summit’s break-out sessions said that it was misguided to separate religion from the broader debate.

“It’s frustrating to see that we’re still an afterthought in the mind of government,” said the Rev. Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine, a liberal, ecumenical publication.

Writing two days later in the Wall Street Journal, conservative thinker Marvin Olasky said the lastminute summit invitations to leaders of faith-based institutions “amounted to sticking God in a footnote.”

Even if the summit missed an opportunity to integrate religious leaders into the discussion, it’s already happening on the ground.

Faith-based community organizations are moving head-on into the social service delivery world, prompted by welfare reform and a push toward funding local solutions. At the summit, Joan Campbell, president of the National Council of Churches, cited a recent survey that showed community-based religious institutions are now the nation’s largest providers of preschool day care.

So the tough questions need to be asked: What limitations can or should be placed on religious institutions if they are going to do work formerly done by secular government agencies? What rights and roles are they granted in return?

What are the new rules of engagement? And how can they take into account the fact that religious communities are not alike?

These questions are more than philosophical. They go to the heart of how best our society - through government, community or individual work - can help its neediest citizens, and what are the accompanying trade-offs.

Faith-based organizations have always done some sort of social work, often with no strings - or taxpayer money - attached. Now, through proposals from block grants to tax credits, there’s a push to dramatically increase that activity.

But if the church does decide to run a federally funded job-training center, will that compromise its pastor’s ability to criticize government programs and practices? Can the outsider speaking with a prophetic voice also be the recipient of public monies?

What can the church ask for in return? There’s logic in imagining a religious leader saying: We can do addiction counseling successfully. We can run a fine adoption service. Now, give us public funds for school tuition.

Where is the line drawn, or if necessary, redrawn?

And where does God fit into the equation? Some of the more established religious communities deliver social services without proselytizing or promoting their beliefs. But evangelical Christians, with a deep commitment to spreading their faith, may have trouble finessing that issue. What if they believe that Bible study is intrinsic to drug-addiction counseling? Can they be forced to abandon that method? On the other hand, can a tax-supported client be forced to study the Gospel?

Answers can be found for these questions - especially if in this new era of what President Clinton calls “big citizenship,” social services are delivered with choice and accountability.

It’s foolhardy to pretend, as some conservatives do, that faith-based groups will smoothly step into the breach if government only disbands its social service bureaucracy and lets them do the job. It’s also foolhardy to expect, as some liberals do, that social problems of the magnitude described at last week’s summit can be tackled without intervention by churches and other religious communities.

In many needy neighborhoods, the church is the only thing still standing.

America can’t do without its faith-based societies; the nation is strengthened by these fixtures of morality, prayer and good deeds. But the new era of big citizenship has plenty of big questions to resolve if God and religion are going to play a bigger role.

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