God's Economy

God's Economy PDF Author: Lew Daly
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 145960587X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 666

Get Book Here

Book Description
President Obama has signaled a sharp break from many Bush Administration policies, but he remains committed to federal support for religious social service providers. Like George W. Bush's faith-based initiative, though, Obama's version of the policy has generated loud criticism - from both sides of the aisle - even as the communities that stand...

Religion Policy and the Faith-Based Initiative

Religion Policy and the Faith-Based Initiative PDF Author: Michael D. McGinnis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Despite widespread presumption of a wall of separation between church and state, boundaries between the activities of religious and policy organizations in the United States are fluid and endlessly renegotiated. Faith-based organizations (FBOs) are full participants in complex policy networks in some policy areas (health, education, and social services), while in other issue areas FBOs have minimal if any impact. Government policies at national, state, and local levels directly or indirectly manipulate the incentives and disincentives of believers' participation in policy-relevant activities. Religion policy encompasses a wide array of policy instruments (or policy tools), and this paper identifies the key determinants of diverse patterns of relationships among the leaders of religious and political organizations. The Bush-era faith-based initiative illustrates religion policy in action, revealing both its potential and its inherent limitations. This paper concludes with an examination of criteria by which the positive and negative consequences of increased FBO participation, for those involved in specific policy areas and for society as a whole, might be evaluated.

God's Economy

God's Economy PDF Author: Lew Daly
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 145960587X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 666

Get Book Here

Book Description
President Obama has signaled a sharp break from many Bush Administration policies, but he remains committed to federal support for religious social service providers. Like George W. Bush's faith-based initiative, though, Obama's version of the policy has generated loud criticism - from both sides of the aisle - even as the communities that stand...

Of Little Faith

Of Little Faith PDF Author: Amy E. Black
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589013827
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 374

Get Book Here

Book Description
George W. Bush had planned to swear his oath of office with his hand on the Masonic Bible used by both his father and George Washington, however, due to the inclement weather, a family Bible was substituted. Almost immediately on taking office, President Bush made passage of "faith-based initiatives"—the government funding of religious charitable groups—a legislative priority. However, "inclement" weather storm-tossed his hopes for faith-based initiatives as well. What happened? Why did these initiatives, which began with such vigor and support from a popular president, fail? And what does this say about the future role of religious faith in American public life? Amy Black, Douglas Koopman, and David Ryden—all prominent political scientists—utilize a framework that takes the issue through all three branches of government and analyzes it through three very specific lenses: a public policy lens, a political party lens, and a lens of religion in the public square. Drawing on dozens of interviews with key figures in Washington, the authors tell a compelling story, revealing the evolution of the Bush faith-based strategy from his campaign for the presidency through congressional votes to the present. They show how political rhetoric, infighting, and poor communication shipwrecked Bush's efforts to fundamentally alter the way government might conduct social services. The authors demonstrate the lessons learned, and propose a more fruitful, effective way to go about such initiatives in the future.

Faith-based Initiatives and the Bush Administration

Faith-based Initiatives and the Bush Administration PDF Author: Jo Renee Formicola
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 9780742523043
Category : Church and state
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this textbook noted scholars Jo Renee Formicola and Mary C. Segers analyze the administration's initiative from three distinct dimensions.

Faith, Politics, and Power

Faith, Politics, and Power PDF Author: Rebecca Sager
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199889341
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush made faith-based social services one of the centerpieces of his domestic agenda. These "faith-based initiatives," supporters argued, would reduce poverty, ease the strain on an overburdened welfare system, and prove more effective than government programs. Opponents feared rampant proselytizing with government funds. Instead, these practices created a system in which neither the greatest hopes of its supporters, nor the greatest fears of its opponents, have been realized. The product of five years of in-depth research, Rebecca Sager's Faith, Politics, and Power offers a systematic examination of where and how these programs were implemented, arguing that faith-based initiatives strayed from supporters' original aim of helping the poor, and instead were used as tools to gain political power by the Republican Party and the conservative evangelical movement.

The Faith Based and Community Initiative

The Faith Based and Community Initiative PDF Author: Brian Aurelio
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Chruch work with families
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
With the emergence of the Religious Right in America, there has been a movement to use political power to restore morality in the nation. President Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative (FBCI) serves as a prime example of this movement. The Religious Right is responsible for the development of this policy to provide government grants to Christian charitable organizations that work towards restoring the family and reducing poverty. This paper examines the specifics of this policy, taking a closer look at how the government can use this policy to control the faith-based organizations, robbing them of their religious character. It concludes that given the ineffectiveness of pouring millons of dollars in to the political process over the past two decades, Christians should contribute directly to the local organizations within their respective communities rather than to politicians promising to fund religious organizations in return for political support.

Faith-Based Policy

Faith-Based Policy PDF Author: John Chandler
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739179039
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 149

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 2001, George W. Bush created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The driving force behind the policy was to create a “level playing field” where faith-based organizations could compete on an equal footing with secular organizations for government funding of social aid programs. Given, on the one hand, the continuation of faith-based policy under Barack Obama and, on the other, the continued support by the vast majority of the American people for some form of such policy, the need has emerged to clearly understand what this policy is and the issues that it raises. Why? First, because the policy reveals new paradigms that explode traditional political and religious designations such as conservative–liberal or evangelical–progressive. Secondly, it is a policy which is setting precedents that with time will only become more entrenched in the institutional fabric of American government and the values of the culture. Finally, it does not seem to be a policy that is likely to just go away. And if it won’t go away, then, how should responsible policy be conducted? While John Chandler's Faith-Based Policy: A Litmus Test for Understanding Contemporary America responds to this need to understand, it also acknowledges that there is already a substantial amount of documentation available, which, taken together, provides a comprehensive, though sometimes biased, picture of faith-based policy. This book contributes a relatively brief, impartial analysis that draws on and synthesizes the available information. More specifically, in order to dissipate the confusion surrounding the perceptions that many have had concerning the intention and meaning of the policy, this book provides insight into: 1) the theological visions of the faith-based actors behind the policy; 2) how these actors have tried to apply these visions as the program has evolved in the 2000s; 3) the divisiveness and debate that has characterized the faith-based experiment, and; 4) how all of the above may be held up for contemplation by the reader as a mirror of developing American culture.

Centers for Faith-based and Community Initiatives

Centers for Faith-based and Community Initiatives PDF Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Reform. Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

Get Book Here

Book Description


Faith, Hope, and Jobs

Faith, Hope, and Jobs PDF Author: Stephen V. Monsma
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589013193
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Get Book Here

Book Description
A front-burner issue on the public policy agenda today is the increased use of partnerships between government and nongovernmental entities, including faith-based social service organizations. In the wake of President Bush's faith-based initiative, many are still wondering about the effectiveness of these faith-based organizations in providing services to those in need, and whether they provide better outcomes than more traditional government, secular nonprofit, and for-profit organizations. In Faith, Hope, and Jobs, Stephen V. Monsma and J. Christopher Soper study the effectiveness of 17 different welfare-to-work programs in Los Angeles County—a county in which the U.S. government spends 14% of its entire welfare budget—and offer groundbreaking insight into understanding what works and what doesn't. Monsma and Soper examine client assessment of the programs, their progress in developing attitudes and resources important for finding self-supporting employment, and their experience in finding actual employment. The study reveals that the clients of the more explicitly faith-based programs did best in gaining in social capital and were highly positive in evaluating the religious components of their programs. For-profit programs tended to do the best in terms of their clients finding employment. Overall, the religiously active respondents tended to experience better outcomes than those who were not religiously active but surprisingly, the religiously active and non-active tended to do equally well in faith-based programs. Faith, Hope, and Jobs concludes with three sets of concrete recommendations for public policymakers, social service program managers, and researchers.

Charitable Choice at Work

Charitable Choice at Work PDF Author: Sheila Suess Kennedy
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589012950
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Get Book Here

Book Description
Too often, say its critics, U.S. domestic policy is founded on ideology rather than evidence. Take "Charitable Choice": legislation enacted with the assumption that faith-based organizations can offer the best assistance to the needy at the lowest cost. The Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act—buttressed by President Bush's Faith-Based Initiative of 2000—encouraged religious organizations, including congregations, to bid on government contracts to provide social services. But in neither year was data available to prove or disprove the effectiveness of such an approach. Charitable Choice at Work fills this gap with a comprehensive look at the evidence for and against faith-based initiatives. Sheila Suess Kennedy and Wolfgang Bielefeld review the movement's historical context along with legal analysis of constitutional concerns including privatization, federalism, and separation of church and state. Using both qualitative and, where possible, statistical data, the authors analyze the performance of job placement programs in three states with a representative range of religious, political, and demographic traits—Massachusetts, Indiana, and North Carolina. Throughout, they focus on measurable outcomes as they compare non-faith-based with faith-based organizations, nonprofits with for-profits, and the logistics of contracting before and after Charitable Choice. Among their findings: in states where such information is available, the composition of social service contractor pools has changed very little. Reflecting their varied political cultures, states have funded programs differently. Faith-based organizations have not been eager to seek government contracts, perhaps wary of additional legal restraints and reporting burdens. The authors conclude that faith-based organizations appear no more effective than secular organizations at government-funded social service provision, that there has been no dramatic change in the social welfare landscape since Charitable Choice, and that the constitutional concerns of its detractors may be valid. This empirical study penetrates the fog of the culture wars, moving past controversy over the role of religion in public life to offer pragmatic suggestions for policymakers and organizations who must decide how best to assist the needy.