Do faith-based initiatives work?
In Ohio yesterday, Obama pledged to expand the role of faith-based organizations in delivering social services:
In an interview from Ohio, Obama, D-Ill., said faith-based groups can deliver more services with less bureaucratic red tape, and should not be prevented from receiving public money because of their religious affiliations.
“Frankly, in some communities,” faith-based social services “may be the only game in town,” he said. “And it’s important that we don’t leave them out as they carry on their work.”
A liberal Democrat pledging to expand a signature program of a conservative Republican president may come as a surprise, but as a former community organizer in Chicago, Obama knows personally the outsize role that houses of worship can play in their neighborhoods.
Obama is also making a heavy push to reach religious voters — particularly Catholics and centrist evangelicals. Polls show his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, leading among those communities, but Obama may be quickly closing the so-called “God gap.”
The plan Obama unveiled Tuesday would expand President Bush’s Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, which the Illinois senator said was under-funded and “never fulfilled its promise.”
I’m skeptical of Obama’s decision, but not out of any susipicion of faith-based initiatives themselves. I do think it’s a good thing that religious charities are eligible for federal funding. And as long as affected religious organizations adhere to federal civil rights laws (meaning they can’t discriminate in hiring or the distribution of services), and use the money for secular purposes (running a soup kitchen, and not paying for a new sanctuary), then I don’t see anything particularly wrong with providing government sending money their way.
If there is anything to protest about Obama’s support for faith-based intiatives, it is that it relies on the unproven assertion that faith-based organizations are more effective (than the government) at distributing social services. Despite being a pretty big part of the social landscape, there hasn’t actually been that much research done on the effectiveness of faith-based organizations. As far as I know, the last major piece of research was a study conducted in 2002 by Byron Johnson of the Manhattan Institute. Johnson reviewed more than 800 studies, most of them conducted between 1998 and 2002, in an attempt to determine if it’s possible to draw a conclusion about the effectiveness of faith-based organizations. And as it turns out, there simply isn’t enough research available to draw a real conclusion:
Proponents of faith-based initiatives feel strongly that faith-based programs are effective providers of many different kinds of social services. This systemic review has uncovered a number of solid case studies and multivariate evaluations providing at least preliminary evidence that faith-based programs can provide effective interventions. It is important to note, however, that the small number of intentional studies reviewed by itself, cannot unequivocally certify the claim that faith-based programs are more effective than their secular counterparts. [...]
Granted, as Johnson notes, there are positive implications to the research. It is completely possible that further study will find that faith-based organizations are more effective than their government counterparts (already, Johnson is willing to say that when it comes to highly personal interventions – like drug addiction – faith-based organizations may be superior). But further study is required before we can definitively make that judgment. In the meantime though, I don’t think Obama should make expanding funding faith-based organizations the “moral centerpiece” of his administration. Instead, he should work on making existing programs work, and ensuring that recipients are adhering to federal laws and regulations (since, if this is any indication, that hasn’t been the case). Like I said before, I do think providing funding for faith-based organizations is a good thing, but first we need to make sure that they work.
My objection to “faith-based initiatives” is not around first amendment issues or around efficacy, but that they that they undermine another (in my view, more central) role of the Church as a prophetic voice holding political and economic systems accountable.
There’s a congregation in my organization that just got a big loan from the city for its new building. So now how are they supposed to help hold the city accountable for dragging its feet on affordable housing? If they do, they might lose their loan. If the church is getting a million dollars a year from the federal government to run its drug program, will it really be able to do much (other than talk) about a range of justice issues?
An organizer colleague of mine wrote that “government funding of religious organizations will lead to more ‘non-prophet’ organizations.” That’s my fear. Obama, closely tied as he is to congregation-based community organizing, and to the prophetic tradition of the Church, has fewer excuses than most. He should know better.
I agree with you that Obama should focus on making existing programs work. The Faith-Based Initiative is an existing program.
Ben,
First, it’s good to hear from you! And second, I’ve never actually given much thought to that side of the discussion. But you’re right, those churches and organizations that do take funds from the government are setting themselves up to be “captured” by the state.
While I am hesitant about churches taking state money, I do sense some inclinations in Obama that I didn’t think I’d see for some time, but that I think can be attributed more to the church than to the state or him being a politician.
Ben is right in his hesitancy and worry about a more blatant complicity, but I think more striking is Obama’s acknowledgement in his speech around the limits of the liberal nation-state (definitionally here, liberal does not equal democrat) — that the state needs people of faith to actually, holistically solve problems at hand, aaaand I think he actually means it. Solving the problems that is, with Bush it just seemed like he was trying to make a theocracy (the theologian says “eww”), or make a path for the religious conservative status quo (read here those in Colorado Springs) to make laws.
So on one hand, Obama seems to improve over Bush (so far), but in the other hand, Obama seems to undercut somewhat the notion of salvation by the state. Then again, Obama is running for president, so, ultimately, are state based initiatives that support faith programs with the same money that drops cluster bombs on people really that much better under Obama for the church? Like Ben, I don’t see the change in complicity, even with Obama’s small but important move.
Great entry. I agree with you, that the funds should go to secular projects. I think it’s a good thing because the funds would be able to go to people in a somewhat more personal way because their community church doesn’t have the impersonal feel of the “Big government.”
Hope that made sense.