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 George W. Bush: A Faith‐Based Presidency

Gary Scott Smith

in Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush

Although George W. Bush is not more personally devout than Woodrow Wilson or Jimmy Carter, religious issues have played an even more important role in his presidency than for any of his predecessors. ... More

Although George W. Bush is not more personally devout than Woodrow Wilson or Jimmy Carter, religious issues have played an even more important role in his presidency than for any of his predecessors. The impact of Bush’s faith is evident in his personality, rhetoric, campaigns, appointments, and policies. It has helped shape his electoral strategy, his political agenda, and his relationship with domestic constituencies and leaders of other nations. The nature of his personal faith, the many religious factors involved in his campaigns, and the influence of his religious convictions on his policies have provoked an immense amount of discussion, debate, and disagreement. More than that of any other president, his White House is filled with individuals who have strong faith commitments. Bush has been frequently accused of being a Christian zealot who wants to remake America in accordance with his own religious views, as evident in his domestic agenda, political appointments, and approach to international relations. Detractors also protest that many of Bush’s policies and his belief that he is God’s instrument violate First Amendment guarantees of church-state separation and are extremely dangerous. Bush faithfully reads the Bible and stresses the power of prayer. The support Bush received from evangelicals and conservative Catholics contributed significantly to his narrow victories in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Bush’s faith played a major role in his promotion of compassionate conservatism and faith-based initiatives. The war on terrorism and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have provoked substantial debate among America’s religious communities. Critics and supporters reach dramatically different conclusions about Bush’s faith and its effect on his presidency. Some argue that Bush’s faith is insincere, hypocritical, and a political cover for his right-wing agenda. Others counter that his faith has sustained him during crises, strengthened his resolve, increased his courage, confidence, and compassion, and shaped his policies in many positive ways.Less

The Historical Role of Religion in Government Social Services and the Development of the Faith‐Based Initiatives

Rebecca Sager

in Faith, Politics, and Power: The Politics of Faith-Based Initiatives

Since 1996 states have created a variety of faith‐based practices, such as adding faith‐based members to advisory boards or creating programs that help faith‐based groups write grant applications. ... More

Since 1996 states have created a variety of faith‐based practices, such as adding faith‐based members to advisory boards or creating programs that help faith‐based groups write grant applications. This chapter explores the history of early implementation at the state level. The data show three main ways states have altered government culture to increase the access and information going to faith‐based groups: by creating faith‐based liaison positions, by passing faith‐based legislation, and by offering faith‐based conferences. This chapter also outlines the story behind the original implementation at the state‐level, starting with Texas and then Governor George Bush, and the subsequent spread to many states, in many different forms.Less

Introduction: Church-Based Social Ministry in Context

Heidi Rolland Unruh and Ronald J. Sider

in Saving Souls, Serving Society: Understanding the Faith Factor in Church-Based Social Ministry

Religious entities play a vital though limited role in our social safety net. The majority of congregations engage in community-serving activities, though their commitments tend to be shallow. Four ... More

Religious entities play a vital though limited role in our social safety net. The majority of congregations engage in community-serving activities, though their commitments tend to be shallow. Four currents in the broader political and social setting have particular implications for understanding faith-based social services: devolution, faith-based initiatives, changing norms for religion in public life, and ambivalence toward evangelism. Shifting patterns in church-state relations have generated both opportunities and uncertainties. This dynamic context invites a fresh conceptual framework for interpreting churches' public engagement. In particular, new language is needed to describe the “faith factor” that has meaning outside of the religious community, but does not reduce faith to a product of other social variablesLess

Conclusion: New Understandings, New Questions, New Opportunities

Heidi Rolland Unruh and Ronald J. Sider

in Saving Souls, Serving Society: Understanding the Faith Factor in Church-Based Social Ministry

Research on the “faith factor” in solving social problems should take into account the complexity of the religious dynamics of social action. More nuanced understandings of the role of religion in ... More

Research on the “faith factor” in solving social problems should take into account the complexity of the religious dynamics of social action. More nuanced understandings of the role of religion in public life are needed for accurate assessments of the risks and rewards of faith-based initiatives—shifting the focus from whether to how government should partner with faith-based social services. Well-crafted public policy can expand the civic contributions of religious groups with a public mission to serve society. As some Christians emphasize social service as a vehicle for evangelism, it is important to learn whether conversionist, socially engaged churches represent a growing movement. The “both-and” paradigm of a holistic mission orientation bridges the conservative-liberal dualism that has long characterized American Protestantism. Less

Does Faith Work?: Spiritual Dynamics and Social Outcomes

Heidi Rolland Unruh and Ronald J. Sider

in Saving Souls, Serving Society: Understanding the Faith Factor in Church-Based Social Ministry

Many supporters of faith-based initiatives claim that a religious approach is better at solving social problems. Without purporting to evaluate these claims, this chapter describes the ways Christian ... More

Many supporters of faith-based initiatives claim that a religious approach is better at solving social problems. Without purporting to evaluate these claims, this chapter describes the ways Christian activists explain a link between faith and social efficacy, in the form of five postulates: Being faith-based expands social service program capacity; people of faith serve more effectively; a religious perspective enhances program content; spiritual conversion empowers beneficiaries to achieve socioeconomic goals; and church-based programs offer beneficiaries the support of the faith community. While ministry practitioners disagree whether faith is necessary to social outcomes, seldom do they claim it is sufficient. The potential of faith-based approaches may be limited by a disconnect between the ideals of religious practitioners and actual praxis.Less

Introduction

in God's Economy: Faith-Based Initiatives and the Caring State

In recent years, America has found inspiration from European religious ideas about government and society to help it achieve welfare reform and end poverty. A new model of church-state relations in ... More

In recent years, America has found inspiration from European religious ideas about government and society to help it achieve welfare reform and end poverty. A new model of church-state relations in social welfare provision, similar to what is known in Europe as “Christian Democracy,” is increasingly well-established in constitutional law, federal and state legislation, new rules and principles of public administration, and many government contracting regimes. This book explores the legal and political developments behind this distinctive transformation of American welfare governance, the religious and political ideas that shaped it, and what a new era of “faith-based initiatives”—as the model came to be known under its first White House sponsor, George W. Bush—can and should mean for impoverished communities and destitute families and children across America. It discusses the Catholic and Dutch Calvinist theories of the limited state that shaped the design and implementation of the faith-based initiative, focusing on the Catholic concept of subsidiarity and the concept of sphere sovereignty. The book concludes by “reframing” the debate on faith-based social policy.Less

Faith-Based Foreign Aid

Gregorio Bettiza

in Finding Faith in Foreign Policy: Religion and American Diplomacy in a Postsecular World

The chapter identifies the constellation of desecularizing actors embedded in postsecular processes responsible for the emergence of the Faith-Based Foreign Aid regime under President Bush in the ... More

The chapter identifies the constellation of desecularizing actors embedded in postsecular processes responsible for the emergence of the Faith-Based Foreign Aid regime under President Bush in the early 2000s. It examines the continuation and evolution of the regime over time and shows how this has depended on the type of desecularizing actors that have had access to the Bush and Obama administrations. It argues that the regime generates considerable forms of institutional desecularization, sustained by parallel processes of ideological and state-normative desecularization. In terms of global effects, the regime is potentially shaping global religious landscapes primarily by supporting Christian organizations and communities, and contributing to processes of religionization especially through mechanisms of elevation. The conclusion summarizes the chapter’s findings, compares the regime to the International Religious Freedom regime, and considers developments occurring under President Trump.Less

Policies and Programs

Jeff Levin

in Religion and Medicine: A History of the Encounter Between Humanity's Two Greatest Institutions

Chapter 8 details the long-standing history in the United States of official position statements by religious institutions and organizations regarding medical and healthcare issues, legislation, and ... More

Chapter 8 details the long-standing history in the United States of official position statements by religious institutions and organizations regarding medical and healthcare issues, legislation, and policies that impact the health and well-being of the broader population. This history is highlighted by the recent national debate on healthcare reform, which was influenced by advocacy reports for or against features of proposed legislation issued by denominations and faith-based organizations across the religious spectrum. This chapter also provides perspectives on the contentious subject of federal faith-based initiatives since the passage of legislation authorizing charitable choice, under President Bill Clinton, which led to establishment of a White House faith-based office in the subsequent three administrations. Programmatic and policy successes of this initiative are described, especially in the areas of community and global health, an example being PEPFAR, the most successful program ever established to address AIDS in the developing world.Less

The Social Law

in God's Economy: Faith-Based Initiatives and the Caring State

This chapter tries to “reframe” the debate on faith-based social policy in America, arguing that the confessional/philosophical genealogy of the faith-based initiative is becoming more relevant in ... More

This chapter tries to “reframe” the debate on faith-based social policy in America, arguing that the confessional/philosophical genealogy of the faith-based initiative is becoming more relevant in the emerging debate on economic insecurity. It considers these confessional welfare models as an expression of pluralist thought, or what it calls social pluralism. Pluralist political theory, associated in different ways with thinkers such as Felicité de Lamennais, Otto von Gierke, Harold Laski, and J. N. Figgis, roughly coincided with the emergence of confessional challenges to welfare and liberal education, as well as with the earliest stages of the politics of Christian Democracy. This “social pluralism” built in part on the older legal traditions of “church autonomy” and “freedom of the church,” but should not be confused with the rationalistic “interest-group” pluralism that characterizes American political theory. Rather, social pluralism is essentially an idea of political order that depends on older ideas of the intrinsic sovereignty of natural social structures and morally integrated groups.Less

Conversionist Churches and Social Action

Heidi Rolland Unruh and Ronald J. Sider

in Saving Souls, Serving Society: Understanding the Faith Factor in Church-Based Social Ministry

The current conversation about faith-based initiatives calls for closer attention to socially active conversionist churches—those that serve society alongside, or motivated by, a desire to save ... More

The current conversation about faith-based initiatives calls for closer attention to socially active conversionist churches—those that serve society alongside, or motivated by, a desire to save souls. Five main dialectical qualities depict these churches' public mission: engaged orthodoxy that balances this-worldly engagement with anticipation of other-worldly salvation; a whole-person anthropology, concerned with meeting both spiritual and social needs; invitational voluntarism that recruits others to Christian faith while respecting their free will; expressive relationalism that promotes caring relationships as a channel for communicating the gospel; and expanded individualism that values personal regeneration and structural reform as mutually reinforcing objectives. These attributes help to explain how conversionist churches are able to adapt and diversify their outreach strategies to expand their access to secular resources. The impact of socially engaged conversionist churches is likely disproportionate to their number, particularly among evangelical, inner-city and ethnic minority congregations.Less

Religious Autonomy and the Limited State

in God's Economy: Faith-Based Initiatives and the Caring State

In a public debate dominated by ideological interest groups that thrive on creating fear about religion, the intellectual genealogy of the faith-based initiative was not well understood. Yet because ... More

In a public debate dominated by ideological interest groups that thrive on creating fear about religion, the intellectual genealogy of the faith-based initiative was not well understood. Yet because of its religious ideas, the faith-based initiative holds the key to a new debate on poverty, one that neither side of the culture war is prepared to have. This chapter examines the Catholic and Dutch Calvinist theories of the limited state that shaped the design and implementation of the faith-based initiative in America. It first looks at the Catholic concept of subsidiarity before turning to the concept of sphere sovereignty developed by the Dutch Calvinist statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper. The chapter also discusses Christian Democracy as opposed to Christian America, as well as social pluralism whose leading English theorists were John Neville Figgis and Harold Laski. Finally, it looks at Germany, in which confessional critics of the Weimar Republic's social-democratic welfare system helped pave the way for the Nazi seizure of power.Less

Introduction: Religion as Subject and Object of US Foreign Policy

Gregorio Bettiza

in Finding Faith in Foreign Policy: Religion and American Diplomacy in a Postsecular World

Since the end of the Cold War religion has increasingly become an organized subject and object of American foreign policy. This has been notable with the emergence of four religious foreign policy ... More

Since the end of the Cold War religion has increasingly become an organized subject and object of American foreign policy. This has been notable with the emergence of four religious foreign policy regimes—International Religious Freedom, Faith-Based Foreign Aid, Muslim and Islamic Interventions, and Religious Engagement—which together constitute an American foreign policy regime complex on religion. The introduction poses the book’s three guiding questions. First, why and how did these different, yet closely related, religious foreign policy regimes emerge? Second, have the boundaries between religion and state been redefined by these regimes, and if so, how? Third, what are the global effects of the growing entanglement between faith and American foreign policy? The chapter introduces the concepts and arguments that are central to answering these questions. It also highlights the contributions made to the existing literature, discusses some definitional and methodological issues, and presents the plan of the book.Less

A Village Rebuilds

Karl F. Seidman

in Coming Home to New Orleans: Neighborhood Rebuilding After Katrina

At New Orleans’ eastern edge, Vietnamese refugees settled and built a community in the Village de L’Est neighborhood. This chapter explains how this tight- knit community rebuilt after Katrina with ... More

At New Orleans’ eastern edge, Vietnamese refugees settled and built a community in the Village de L’Est neighborhood. This chapter explains how this tight- knit community rebuilt after Katrina with the strong leadership of its Catholic priest. It details efforts to help homeowners and businesses rebuild while fighting to close an adjacent landfill. Aided by the national Vietnamese-American community and other partners, the church formed a community development corporation to assist businesses and residents and pursue development projects. Despite difficulties completing real estate projects, grassroots rebuilding contributed to a high rate of homeowner recovery, the return and expansion of local businesses, a new charter school and two new health clinics. However, repopulation rates for renters and black households were low and many blighted properties remained. Greater political and civic capacity emerged from recovery efforts, including a new wave of young leaders committed to the community’s development.Less