Faith, Hope and Charity: Why President Obama's 'Faith-Based' Agenda Must Change

[usregimechange]

Rev. Barry Lynn
Executive Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State


Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 4, President Barack Obama asserted that his administration has "turned the faith-based initiative around," implying that his policies represent a sharp break from past practices.

That's news to me. In fact, from where I'm sitting, the core of Obama's faith-based initiative looks pretty much identical to the deeply problematic one created by President George W. Bush. A few tweaks on the margins don't amount to real change.

One year after Obama announced his version of the faith-based office, civil rights and civil liberties groups such as mine are still fighting Bush-era battles over tax funding to religious groups that proselytize, job discrimination on religious grounds in public programs and lack of accountability. It's disheartening.

I am not a member of the president's 25-member Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the body Obama formed one year ago to examine these issues. But I did serve on a task force offering the Council advice on a range of questions.

During our deliberations, I often found myself on the other side from conservative religious activists who resisted even the most benign and reasonable rules that would safeguard the rights of taxpayers and the disadvantaged as well as help preserve the constitutional separation of church and state.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-w-lynn/faith-hope-and-charity-wh_b_450099.html
http://www.au.org/

[babylonsister]

1. Sour grapes? I must deliberate on this. nt

[RevCheesehead]

2. I love Barry Lynn!

He understands that the ultra-fundy churches are dragging the rest of us down and giving Christianity a bad name.
Finally, I can say that I'm proud of the United Methodist Church for taking a stand against the faith-based fiasco.

[Jax]

3. Get rid of the tax payer funded mythology now.

The misogynist racist bigots need not be funded with MY tax dollars, let the uber wealthy scum and their racist bigot sheep pay their own way.

[leftstreet]

4. K&R

[FreeState]

5. K&R

[upi402]

6. church and state seperate. period.

just want to make government not work so they can own America outright

but we have monstrous problems looming that will make this seem small

[TexasObserver]

7. Recommend

[patrice]

8. As long as anyone else does it for us, we will be propagating the same model that enslaves us now.

Just because someone hangs the word "Faith" on something doesn't mean that the work of those without whom there would be no "initiative" will not be exploited.

[mmonk]

9. Take it from these people:

"o compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the
propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical;
that even the forcing of him to support this or that teacher of his own
religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of
giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would
make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to
righteousness....Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no
man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place
or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or
burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of
his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to
profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion,
and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their
civil capacities."
--Excerpts from Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1786

Madison objected to state-supported chaplains in Congress and to the
exemption of churches from taxation. He wrote "Religion and government will
both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

"What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on
civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of
political tyrrany. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of
the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty
have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government,
instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy."

Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Jeremiah Moor, 1800

Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers, 2:545

"In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation' between church and state."
-- Hugo Black, Everson v. Board of Education (1947)