Church, State and Money

Both Al Gore and George W. Bush promised during last year's campaign to involve religious organizations in delivering social services. Bush, in putting forth a broad plan Monday to help churches and charities get a piece of the federal pie, signaled his seriousness on the issue. However, as the experience of the states has already shown, there's no easy path through America's sectarian thicket.

The controversy over attorney general nominee John Ashcroft's religious beliefs and their effect on his secular work should serve as a warning about how divisive this issue can be if it is mishandled by the new administration.

The work of funneling federal dollars to faith-based communities currently is done at the state level under the Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 welfare reform law. In Los Angeles, for instance, First AME Church operates a welfare-to-work program funded by Charitable Choice dollars. There is a longer history of religious involvement in federal spending for social services ranging from subsidies to Catholic hospitals to money spent in low-income neighborhoods during the war on poverty.

Most religious groups involved in this work understand and support the importance of separation of church and state, but abuses can occur, especially where Christian evangelicals see opportunities to make converts of those who need services. A number of states, including California, have not even implemented some Charitable Choice regulations or have been slow to embrace the program in part because they still are sorting out complex questions about how to protect civil rights and prevent proselytizing.

The White House initiative would get in trouble quickly if its approach were to sweep aside constitutional questions in favor of cutting red tape. Bush showed sensitivity to this issue in naming John J. DiIulio Jr., a University of Pennsylvania political scientist who has done research on religion and criminal justice, to head the White House office and former Indianapolis Mayor Steve Goldsmith as chairman of the new Corporation for National Service. They can start with important guideposts--the Supreme Court's long-standing instruction that social programs administered by faith communities be secular in intent and the congressional prohibition against proselytizing by programs using Charitable Choice dollars.