President George W. Bush may be forever linked with faith-based initiatives due to his aggressive efforts to allow religious organizations to provide government-funded services. But it's President Obama who could yet turn out to be the chief executive who winds up most expanding the possibilities of government partnering with faith-based groups.
Joshua DuBois, a special assistant to the president and executive director of the rechristened White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, outlined the current administration's more expansive view of collaborations during an apperance Thursday at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Instead of "leveling the playing field" for federal contacting to faith-based groups -- which became a presidential obsession for much of Bush's eight years in office -- Obama is trying to involve religious groups in more extensive policy discussions.
To that end, he's created a 25-member advisory council and identified four priority areas that DuBois outlined: connecting faith-based groups to the economic recovery via job training and financial literacy programs; strengthening the role of fathers in society; promoting more interfaith dialogue, and reducing the number of abortions. The administration even is enlisting religious groups in ad hoc efforts to promote Middle East peace, by participating in planning for an entrepreneuship summit with the Arab world.
DuBois, a 26-year-old Pentacostal minister who's been dubbed Obama's "pastor-in-chief," said Obama is aware that Washington policymakers don't have all the answers, adding the White House is intent on "connecting to communities." It's establishing 11 centers for faith-based partnerships within federal agencies, to help connect local organizations to federal job-training services, immigrant aid and grant-making offices.
The outreach is part of a carefully calibrated attempt to try to steer more religous voters in the Democratic column and muffle some of the culture clashes that characterized the past eight years.
But it isn't as if Obama can erase all of the controversy surrounding the faith-based program.
The most prominent of these is whether religious groups can base hiring decisions for federally funded positions on a person's faith. During the presidential campaign, Obama said he wouldn't allow groups that receive public funding to discrminate on the basis of religion. But once in office, he stopped short of rescinding a Bush administration policy allowing recipients of faith-based funding to discriminate in providing services, instead ordering a Justice Department review.
DuBois carefully sidestepped the apparent flip-flop Thursday during a question-and-answer session, saying the president is relying on legal experts at the Justice Department to advise him on a case-by-case basis. Obama "needs to do this to fully understand" the legal issues and the regulations he inherited from the Bush administration, DuBois said.
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