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Final decisions of the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships have been put off without new dates being announced yet.  The Council was scheduled to take its final votes on the recommendations of its six taskforces by conference call on February 2, and to present its recommendations to the President in a White House conference on February 9-10.  No reason was announced for the delays, but some of the taskforces are continuing with additional work on their recommendations.  

When rescheduled, both the Advisory Council meeting to vote on the recommendations and the White House event will be open to the public.

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Just days after the announced delay of the final Advisory Council vote on recommendations from the various taskforces--including the taskforce on the church-state rules that apply to federal funding (the Reform of the Office taskforce)--a group of extreme church-state separationists calling themselves the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination issued a letter to the President asking him reshape the faith-based initiative according to their own guidelines.  

In its February 4th letter the Coalition called on the President to ban religious hiring by religious organizations that receive federal funding, expressing its disappointment that the President had kept the Advisory Council from dealing with "this important issue that taints the faith-based initiative."  The letter also calls for other changes to the existing rules, implying that in crafting them the Bush administration cared little for the constitutional boundaries that protect the religious freedom of persons and institutions.  An uninformed reader would be tempted to believe that the Constitution is being violated daily in the federal government's extensive partnerships with religious organizations--and that the President is casually violating his oath to uphold the Constitution.  However, the letter contains more heat than light, implying violations to justify its own restrictive vision of appropriate partnerships.

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A vital part of the federal faith-based initiative has always been reforming federal policy and practice so that faith-based organizations with obvious religious commitments, and grassroots organizations, whether religious or secular, have a fair opportunity to participate in federally funded service programs.  Yet there has always also been another focus or intention:  to re-balance the relationship between the government and civil society.  As the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity and the neo-Calvinist theory of sphere sovereignty stress, it is not only, or even primarily, the government that is responsible for assisting neighbors in need:  that responsibility also comes to persons, churches, businesses, and charities, each in its own way.  

So the faith-based initiative has worked not only to fix the rules attached to government funds but also to open the eyes of government to the essential work done by nongovernmental organizations of all kinds--so that the government can financially support such work where appropriate, coordinate with it whether or not any money changes hands, encourage private giving to it, provide technical assistance to strengthen it without dominating it, or get out of its way if past government practices have unwisely restricted the private activities.  

The Obama faith-based initiative--version 3.0, we can call it--has maintained both emphases.  However, it seems to be stressing less the independent good that is done by faith-based and community-based organizations while stressing more all of the opportunities there are for those groups to join with the government.  Indeed, coordination is good, collaboration is good, and there should be no barriers that inhibit faith-based organizations that desire to seek government funds to provide services.  And yet government should not take on the role of guide to and organizer of all that is good.  Civil society groups, closer to and more intimately involved with people and communities in need, may have better ideas and more effective solutions than does government, in many instances.  What they may most need from government is freedom and its respect--rather than to be organized into a partnership.

See also this editor's comments in a Washington Post article:  "Stanley Carlson-Thies, who helped set up the Bush office and now sits on one of the Obama faith council's task forces, said he has noticed a change in tone from the previous administration. There had been a clear reaching out to faith groups, he said, but now the attitude is: 'We're the government, doing wonderful things, YOU can come join US.'"  Michelle Boorstein and William Wan, "Religious leaders worry that Obama's faith council is for show," Feb. 3.

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As in the United States, but more so, in the United Kingdom government is adopting laws and regulations that impose on religious organizations and persons policies that conflict with their deeply held religious commitments.  To the activists who find it laudable--rather than troubling--that British law now requires faith-based adoption agencies not to "discriminate" based on homosexual orientation when placing children in adoptive homes, it was an outrageous and retrograde intervention when the Pope recently criticized the law's lack of respect for the religious freedom of those agencies.  The non-discrimination crusade is all to the good, in their view.  If religion doesn't want to go along, that only shows how against human rights religion is.  

But that narrative is both simplistic and deeply wrong, according to Lord Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.  In a London Times commentary entitled "The Pope is right about the threat to freedom," Rabbi Sacks points to the religious roots of human rights.  Rights are protected when the state is held in check, and religious institutions and motivations are among the key forces that set limits on the state.  

As Rabbi Sacks says, "Religion in Britain is part of the ecology of freedom because it supports families, communities, charities, voluntary associations, active citizenship and concern for the common good.  It is a key contributor to civil society, which is what holds us together without the coercive power of law. Without it we will depend entirely on the State . . . .

"When Christians, Jews and others feel that the ideology of human rights is threatening their freedoms of association and religious practice, a tension is set in motion that is not healthy for society, freedom or Britain. Rather than regard the Pope's remarks as an inappropriate intervention, we should use them to launch an honest debate on where to draw the line between our freedom as individuals and our freedom as members of communities of faith. One should not be purchased at the cost of the other."

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