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eNews for Faith-Based Organizations
August 22, 2012
Editor: Stanley Carlson-Thies
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Undermining the Good in the Name of the Good
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Milton Friesen of Cardus recently wrote a good reminder of the need for our governments and activists to refrain from undermining and destroying social institutions that may not mirror all of the latest progressive values. (Cardus is the excellent Canadian Christian think tank "dedicated to the renewal of "North American social architecture"; I'm a senior fellow there.) He reminds us of the well-intentioned but misguided urban renewal projects of the postwar era that sought to improve cities by replacing old, jumbled, inefficient neighborhoods with modern, scientific, planned housing, shops, offices, and roads. Thriving communities were lost; sterile and car-dominated cityscapes were created.
And he asks, as economic trends, government policies, cultural forces, and activist campaigns undermine sometimes unfashionable and admittedly flawed families, churches, and community organizations, Are we doing to our social architecture what a previous generation did to the cityscape? "We may," he says, "discover that what seemed archaic, extraneous, superfluous, or old-fashioned . . . plays an indispensable role in sustaining social and cultural features that we cannot function without."
That's a warning worth pondering as the contemporary anti-discrimination crusade rolls onward, undermining and sometimes causing the closing of faith-based organizations that support mother-father families, protect life from conception to natural death, and acknowledge religion as a positive force. Unfashionable and "discriminatory" these organizations might appear to some to be, but suppressing the vast role they play in our society would be like destroying a village to save it or cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Here are just a few, rather random, indicators of that vital role:
Contributions to the community. Last year Christianity Today published an amazing graphic, "What's a Congregation Worth?," based on research by professor Ram Cnaan of the University of Pennsylvania. The graphic highlights the annual value to the community of just a single church, First Baptist Church in Philadelphia. It records the value of the k-12 schooling provided, the crimes and recidivism prevented, the divorces avoided, the jobs gained through the church's services, the suicides that were prevented, and much more. The annual total of the positive contributions to the community of just this single congregation? An amazing $6,090,032!
Contributions to prisons. Alan Cooperman, then a Washington Post reporter, noted that, when Florida a decade ago cut spending on prisons, churches stepped in: "As Florida has slashed spending for prison rehabilitation programs, money is not flowing from the state to religious groups. It is flowing from religious groups to the state.
The Rev. J. Stephen McCoy of Beaches Chapel Church in Neptune Beach listed a few of the expenditures his congregation has made in [a prison's] dorm: $1,163 for ceiling fans, $4,000 for musical instruments, $1,500 for a sound system, $2,500 for computers, $500 for Bibles, $840 for books, $2,500 for food, games and candy. Altogether, McCoy said, his 1,000-member evangelical church has injected more than $30,000 into the prison, and that does not begin to count the value of volunteers' time. More than 100 Beaches Chapel members visit [the prison] each month, teaching inmates about computers and job hunting as well as about Jesus and the Bible. Other churches sponsor other dorms."
Supplementing government's funds. Fr. Larry Snyder, President of Catholic Charities USA--the national office of the more than 1,700 local Catholic Charities agencies--was formerly head of Catholic Charities for Minneapolis and St. Paul. Catholic Charities agencies receive a large amount of government funding to provide services, and yet, Fr. Snyder says:
"[F]aith-based organizations are not just in it for the money. We're not just chasing the money. We will stay the course whether the money is there or not. We can do a lot more with federal money, with government money, than we could on our own, but the reality is also that I think folks think that the government pays the full fare. I can say from my time in Minneapolis, the programs that we had that were contracted with the government, the government would pay somewhere between two- thirds and three-fourths of what we needed and we had to make up the rest. So we were subsidizing the government, if you will, by hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. We were happy to do that because it furthered our mission and the mission of the common good."
Getting kids out of foster care. In 2010, the Denver Post reported on an innovative partnership between government and churches that was initiated by Focus on the Family:
"The number of Colorado children in foster care awaiting permanent adoption has been cut in half by a partnership between churches and government that places parentless kids in 'forever homes.' When the Colorado Springs-based ministry Focus on the Family began spearheading the 'Wait No More' adoption initiative in November 2008, the state had 8,000 children in foster care. That number included almost 800 children who were eligible for adoption because their parents had lost parental rights after the state found serious and repetitive neglect and abuse in their families. In early 2010, only 365 children eligible for adoption remain in foster care, said Sharen Ford, manager of permanency services for the Colorado Department of Human Services."
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Contraceptives Mandate Only a Lull
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Because one of the lawsuits against the federal government was rejected by a judge and the political headlines have been dominated by other issues as the election battles heat up, it may seem that the momentum is running out of the legal challenge to the requirement that all health plans, unless specifically excused, must cover a wide range of contraceptive pills and services, including some items that some pro-life groups regard to be abortifacients.
That would be a mistaken impression. There are more than 20 active cases involving nearly 60 plaintiffs, with more lawsuits to come (the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty lists all of the cases, with links to the documents). One case, Nebraska v. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, involving 7 states and a number of Catholic organizations and individuals, indeed was tossed out--not because the judge vindicated the federal government but because the plaintiffs had not convinced the court that they could not avoid the harms they feared--for example, the judge suggested that the administration's promised future "accommodation" might prove to be an adequate solution.
On the other hand, in Newland v. Sebelius, the judge granted a preliminary injunction stopping application of the mandate to Hercules Industries, whose Catholic owners claimed that the requirement to cover birth control in their employee health plan violated their convictions. A full trial remains to be held, but in the meantime the judge was persuaded that the Catholic owners are likely to prevail on their argument that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
And Wheaton College's petition for an injunction is pending. Wheaton College has joined Catholic University of America's lawsuit against the federal government. But this evangelical college is likely to have to decide what to do about its health coverage before the lawsuit is taken up by the court. In just a few months, Wheaton's employees are supposed to be able to begin enrolling for the college's new plan year. Will the college offer a plan that includes the mandated contraceptives coverage or will it instead decide it must stop offering employee health insurance to avoid providing insurance that covers what it believes to be abortifacients?
The federal government did create a one-year "temporary enforcement safe harbor" so that faith-based service organizations are shielded from prosecution for a year as some kind of "accommodation" is designed by the federal government for these non-exempt (because non-church) entities. But the safe harbor is available only to nonprofit religious organizations whose health insurance, as of Feb. 10, 2012, did not include coverage of contraceptives, due to reasons of conscience.
Wheaton College discovered--too late to change it in time--that its insurance did cover emergency contraceptives, and so it is not eligible for the temporary enforcement safe harbor but instead is subject to the mandate as soon as its new plan year begins. Thus the plea for the court to stop enforcement of the mandate while the lawsuit goes forward.
The Jezebel website posted a snarky article accusing Wheaton College of insincerity because of its slip-up. And yet a conscience claim is no less a serious conscience claim because it is made by an institution or individual that has changed its mind about something or that erroneously or carelessly made a contrary decision in the past.
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SUNY Buffalo Religious Student Club Rights are (Partially) Vindicated
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The Christian Post story begins, "InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is no longer a de-recognized organization at the State University of New York at Buffalo." The group had lost its status as a recognized student organization after being charged with discrimination when an openly gay student who was serving as its treasurer felt pressured to resign. IVCF chapters require their leaders to abide by a doctrinal statement and a conduct code.
But in July the campus Student-Wide Judiciary ruled that the student Senate had erred instripping recognition from the IVCF club. The student government "cannot expect student organizations to ignore their defining purposes in selecting officers," SWJ said. "It is common sense, not discrimination, for a religious group to want its leaders to agree with its core beliefs." The extensive SWJ decision discusses religious freedom, nondiscrimination policy, association rights, and other principles, and refers to, among others, the recent Hosanna-Tabor U.S. Supreme Court decision which unanimously upheld the principle that religious organizations should be free to select their own leadership. The SUNY Buffalo policy, the SWJ decision says, is not the same as the Hastings Law School's "all-comers" policy that the Supreme Court upheld in its 2010 CLS v. Martinez decision.
Both the ruling and the extensive explanation are positive developments, given the repeated efforts to label religious student clubs on public campuses as discriminatory groups that should not be allowed the privileges offered other student groups.
Yet there is this oddity: In the end, the SWJ decision rested on the fact that IVCF's allegedly discriminatory policy applied only to officers, not members, whereas the student organization anti-discrimination rule concerns restrictions on membership, not leadership.
But why should it be illegal for a student group created to express some particular point of view or some set of interests to restrict membership and not only leadership? Must a fraternity accept female members? Should the Muslim student group be obligated to open its doors to non-Muslims? The gay group to accept an influx of students opposed to its aims? Surely it should be up to the student club to decide how open or how restrictive its membership criteria should be.
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Contributing to the Common Good: Taxes or Charitable Gifts?
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Challenged to release more of his income tax returns, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney at a news conference a week ago suggested that his critics should consider his charitable contributions and not only the taxes he has paid: "Every year, I've paid at least 13 percent, and if you add, in addition, the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent."
Romney's comment has prompted some discussion: how are these forms of giving different? A Washington Post piece on Romney's comment notes opposite views. Michael Tanner of the libertarian Cato Institute says that conservatives want to limit taxes because individuals can make wiser decisions about who to help and how. Garrett Gruener, the founder of Ask.com and a member of Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength says, "Democracy is not a charity. It's an enterprise of all Americans to accomplish things that we democratically decide are important. Charity is something I do on my own, and I don't expect others to have the same priorities I do."
Indeed, charitable contributions are not a substitute for taxes gathered to accomplish the government's aims. There are common purposes and collective goods that should be funded by everyone in an equitable way. One reason is that hearts are not always moved to generosity even when generosity is what is needed. Jonathan Edwards, the famed preacher of the First Great Awakening, in a book promoting charitable giving, nevertheless justified the obligation on New England town governments of his day to take care of the very destitute by observing that "voluntary charity" is a "precarious source of supply" and "an uncertain thing."
And yet Garrett Gruener's rather casual justification of taxation as necessary to underwrite the "things that we democratically decide are important" is deeply troubling. As he admits, he doesn't "expect others to have the same priorities" that he does. Indeed, Americans are a diverse people with many different and sometimes conflicting priorities. But majority votes override minority preferences; and so, the more it is government that makes the spending decisions, the more the majority's preferences and understandings dominate over the preferences and wisdom of multiple minorities. Uniform solutions adopted by majority votes may often turn out to be less appropriate than smaller-scale, diverse, solutions.
That's not to imply that government spending--and the taxation necessary to support it--is bad; rather, that while government ought to do what only it can do, it should refrain from doing what other institutions and individuals can do--diversely--if they are allowed the freedom and resources to make their own decisions. There's even a word for this idea: "subsidiarity." That's far from the only important principle to consider when thinking about charitable contributions and taxation, but for the sake of the (heterogeneous) common good, it must not be neglected.
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Worth Reading
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"States with the least religious residents are also the stingiest about giving money to charity, a new study on the generosity of Americans suggests.
"The study, released Monday by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, found that residents in states where religious participation is higher than the rest of the nation, particularly in the South, gave the greatest percentage of their discretionary income to charity.
"The Northeast, with lower religious participation, was the least generous to charities, with the six New England states filling the last six slots among the 50 states. . . .
"Alan Wolfe, a political science professor at Boston College, said it's wrong to link a state's religious makeup with its generosity.
"People in less religious states are giving in a different way by being more willing to pay higher taxes so the government can equitably distribute superior benefits, Wolfe said. And the distribution is based purely on need, rather than religious affiliation or other variables, said Wolfe, also head of the college's Boisi Center for Religion and Public Life.
"Wolfe said people in less religious states 'view the tax money they're paying not as something that's forced upon them, but as a recognition that they belong with everyone else, that they're citizens in the common good. ... I think people here believe that when they pay their taxes, they're being altruistic.'"
NOTE: Wolfe might be right about the motivations of those New England taxpayers, and yet, an expanding government does not only "equitably distribute superior benefits." It regulates as well as distributes in a uniform, secular, and mandatory way--important qualities when it is only government that can achieve the goal but less than ideal when flexibility, diversity, personal responsibility, moral uplift, and interpersonal trust should be part of the equation. Charity is no substitute for government action--nor is government a substitute for the action of private organizations and individuals.
* Yuval Levin, "The Hollow Republic," National Review Online, August 6.
"The president simply equates doing things together with doing things through government. He sees the citizen and the state, and nothing in between--and thus sees every political question as a choice between radical individualism and a federal program.
"But most of life is lived somewhere between those two extremes, and American life in
particular has given rise to unprecedented human flourishing because we have allowed the institutions that occupy the middle ground--the family, civil society, and the private economy--to thrive in relative freedom."
* Mike Metzger, "Hoisted On Our Own Petard," Doggieheadtilt.com, August 6.
"In medieval times, a petard was a small engine of war used to blow breaches in gates or walls. They were full of gunpowder--a danger for the naìˆve. Inexperienced engineers could literally blow themselves up. To be hoisted on your own petard is to be injured by the device that you intended to use on others.
"The evangelical petard is a privatized faith. Russ Douthat calls it the primary heresy of American Christianity. In his new book Bad Religion: How We Became A Nation of Heretics, Douthat argues that most American expressions of faith are actually distortions of traditional Christianity. The central heresy is privatization, a debased version of Christian faith that breeds hubris, greed, and self-absorption. It can be seen in the simple misunderstanding that the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights guarantees 'freedom of belief' and 'freedom of worship.' No such language exists.
"The words 'freedom of belief' do not appear in the First Amendment. Nor does 'freedom of worship.' Douthat notes the Bill of Rights guarantees Americans something that its authors called 'the free exercise' of religion. That's not a coincidence, as the founders' understanding of faith predates modern evangelicalism. 'It's a significant choice of words, because it suggests a recognition that religious faith cannot be reduced to a purely private or individual affair.'"
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