Michael Wear To Lead Obama's Faith Outreach Campaign

By Mark Silk
Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama's re-election campaign has tapped a 23-year-old executive assistant in the White House faith-based office to head up its outreach to religious communities.

Michael R. Wear, who has worked in the White House for the past three and half years, will move to Chicago to become the campaign's Faith Vote director next week, White House officials confirmed on Monday (May 14).

"It has been an honor working with Michael Wear to create positive faith-based and nonprofit partnerships to serve people in need," said Joshua DuBois, executive director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Wear was DuBois' executive assistant.

A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Wear was an intern during Obama's 2008 campaign, specializing in outreach to religious groups. He helped arrange candidate Obama's appearance at a presidential forum at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in California as well as a meeting between Obama and prominent Christian leaders in Chicago.

After organizing the prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral following the president's inauguration, he went to work for DuBois, who himself headed religious outreach for the campaign before assuming the directorship of the faith-based office.

At the White House, Wear has been involved in a wide range of religious issues, with particular responsibility for adoption and foster care. He also sought to build connections with young evangelicals, including those involved in the campaign to capture Ugandan guerilla leader Joseph Kony.

"Michael has spent a number of years in the faith-based office so he knows the territory," said Amy Sullivan, author of "The Party Faithful," a book on religion and American politics. "But the Republicans would put somebody senior with years and years of experience and a big Rolodex in that position. And I guess that tells you something about how Democrats still view faith outreach and its importance."

Wear graduated from George Washington University with a B.A. in political science in 2011. He turns 24 on Wednesday.

(Daniel Burke contributed reporting.)

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Comments

[Brightening]

05:46 AM on 05/17/2012

Shows that Obama is in touch with the public, spirituality today is different today with the younger generation than it is with the elder ones.

[SarahRuth23]

10:30 PM on 05/16/2012

President Obama unwisely kept Bush's "Faith Based Initiative." He may have modified it. At least I hope he did, to make it not so blatantly favorable to the "Christian Right." But even if he did, it violates the Constitution and the Jeffersonian ideal of separation of church and state.

The "Faith Based Initiative" provided taxpayer funds directly to religious institutions that provide social services, and it allowed the churches of the Christian Right to use those public funds to proselytize and attempt to recruit and convert people to their brand of religion. It even allowed them to discriminate in certain ways on the basis of religious belief. The results actually harm both government and religion.

In the past religiously affiliated organizations were able to participate as grantees or contractors in federal charitable programs. That idea is not new. Catholic Family Services and Lutheran Family Services are traditional examples of that, and they have done a wonderful job. However, they have not been able to try to proselytize or "sell" their religious beliefs to those who come to them for help. They have acted like secular organizations, even though they were mostly staffed by people with private religious conviction. Until Bush’s “Faith Based Initiative,” government had been barred from providing direct assistance to religious organizations that are "pervasively sectarian" and that openly proselytize. Bush 's initiative changed that, specifically for the benefit of partisan sectarian churches like those on the Christian Right.

See http://messenger2.cjcmp.org/bushrecord.html

[Craig 212]

09:01 AM on 05/19/2012

In his defense, if Obama had dismantled the initiative, those on the right would finally have some halfway legitimate "proof" that Obama is anti-Christian.

[Mark Twaine]

08:03 PM on 05/19/2012

It was unwise. Look at the unappreciative receivers of the White House grants crying for "freedom of religion." Now they want freedom to spend our tax dollars to further their religious beliefs!

[grailknight]

05:48 PM on 05/16/2012

Wow, this is like being a student council president in high school, a job with no authority and the only perk is bragging rights.

[OtayPanky]

12:51 PM on 05/17/2012

It'll look good on his resume when he has to go look for a real job.

[fireart]

12:11 PM on 05/18/2012

Maybe. LOL

[Mark Twaine]

04:50 PM on 05/16/2012

I suppose he has to keep up with competition, however, it makes me almost throw up to think a candidate running for president of the USA feels it necessary to have a "Faith Vote Director."

[ready1923]

03:15 PM on 05/16/2012

If the Obama administration was really concerned about the Faith Vote he would have chosen someone affiliated with a REAL church rather than Rick Warren's Saddleback Church.

[Sjoerd W]

03:52 PM on 05/16/2012

What's your definition of a real church then?

Michael, congratulations. Both with the birthday and the promotion!

[ready1923]

05:01 PM on 05/16/2012

One that has real sacraments and a Mass that consists of prayer, Scripture and Holy Communion that is the Precious Body & Blood of ourLord rather than a concert with bread and a sip of wine

[grailknight]

05:50 PM on 05/16/2012

Well one thing would be to preach the gospel of Jesus rather than the gospel of fortune and success.