Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

The future of the faith-based initiative

David Kuo and John DiIulio hope that President Bush’s successor will continue plugging away at something that, as Michael Gerson has written, "was not tried and found wanting. It was tried and found difficult — then tried with less and less energy.”

For DiIulio and his fellow Democrats, the sticking point has been mission-sensitive hiring, which they all too often slam as "religious discrimination." DiIulio is better than most, but he’s quite willing to sacrifice this little bit of religious freedom in cooperation with government in order to get the dollars flowing. He’ll trade shekels for shackles.

I, on the other hand, think that, without guarantees of religious liberty, the program won’t reach its full potential, a point I made way back when.

Discussions - 2 Comments

"without guarantees of religious liberty, the program won’t reach its full potential"

It'll become just another government aid program, essentially secular at its heart. In other words, a "faith-based" initiative absent much faith and probably absent God's involvement.

There's a portion of the Democratic Party that is willing to cooperate with faith-based organizations, so long as they're essentially indistinguishable from their secular counterparts. To his credit, DiIulio doesn't quite go that far. He's most interested in demonstrable results, and willing to accommodate a plurality of methods that may achieve them. But he is willing to sacrifice those who care about religious freedom in hiring to achieving results by other means.

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