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Zanesville On Obama's Faith-Based Initiatives: Thanks But No Thanks
A week after Senator Obama and his campaign descended upon Eastside Community Ministries in Zanesville, Ohio, where Obama delivered his controversial remarks calling for an expansion of federal funding to faith-based ministries that deliver social services, I head to Zanesville to see if its churches share the Senator's vision. After spending the better part of a day talking to people there -- at seven downtown churches, another over the Muskingum River, and at Eastside itself -- I find little interest in Obama's plan. Indeed, the lack of enthusiasm for the plan among these churchgoers matches the lack of enthusiasm it has generated among secular Democrats.
"We don't want any strings attached to help from Washington," says Scott Johnston, the pastor of Market Street Baptist Church, founded "as a statement against slavery" in 1837. Scott walks me through the historic church -- which he points out contains "the most Tiffany-style glass of any church in America" -- and then, when we finally sit down in his office, tells me about his experience meeting Senator Obama at Eastside Ministries.
"I'm a political junkie, and the whole church knows it," Johnston says. "So I get this phone call from a guy named Joe asking if I want to meet Senator Obama, and I think it's a joke. I'm not taking him seriously, but then to prove it to me, Joe rattles off all my phone numbers, various things about me -- now I know it's not a joke." So Johnston goes to Eastside on the appointed day. "There were about fifty press," he says, "lots of campaign staffers, including Joe, some Eastside volunteers and thirty kids. All the windows had been taped over with construction paper, and there were trucks parked to block any view into the courtyard where Obama gave his speech.
"Joe takes me to an upstairs room. The mayor is there, and the lady in charge of United Way, and this old guy... who started Eastside Ministries about fifty years ago. 'Will we get to hear Senator Obama?' I ask. 'The Senator wants to talk to you personally,' Joe says. 'He'll be here in ten minutes.' The four of us just look at each other."
Johnston, as a clergyman and a connoisseur of a certain style, shares his impressions of Obama. "Very nice, very personable, very much a politician. His body language--he knows how to lean into a person when listening--he has been to school! He makes good eye contact! Very much a politician."
I ask him what the four representatives of Zanesville told Obama. "We are a community that takes care of our own," the United Way lady told him. The old guy didn't say much, the mayor talked money and Johnston pressed for more help for the elderly -- specifically, a change in the privacy laws so that outsiders can act as advocates for old people who don't have any family.
But Johnston is dubious about Obama's plans and about the man himself. "There are more strings attached under his program than under Bush's. You can hire a person who agrees with your theology, under Bush. With Obama, you're getting more government involvement -- we don't need that."
While we're talking, Johnston is waiting for a phone call from the Cleveland Clinic, where one of his congregation, a thirty-seven year-old man with two young children, is dying. Scott and his wife have spent much of the last few weeks driving back and forth between Zanesville and Cleveland. And so on the day Obama came to Zanesville, Johnston got a call from Cleveland and had to leave Eastside before Obama had finished his speech. Walking down the hill to his car, he encountered "a lot of people strung out along the road holding Obama signs." "'Did you see him? Did he touch you? What is he like?' they asked me," Scott says. "'Very nice, very personable, very much a politician,' I replied."
Earlier in the day, driving east from Columbus, I had gone straight to Eastside Community Ministries, an unprepossessing building with an annex and playground half-way up the side of one of Zanesville's many hills. Eastside's appearance belies its importance: most of the local churches funnel their social outreach through Eastside. The neighborhood is all nineteenth-century houses -- well-fitted clapboard and pre-Civil War red brick, beautiful in decrepitude. Poverty shouldn't be appealing to the eye -- and certainly rotting porches and broken window glass are a warning against any illusions -- but there's an irresistible charm to a city with no split-levels, no Tuscan villa homes, no post-World War Two houses at all. Zanesville is on the farther edge of Appalachian Ohio, marked by hills and hollers. Johnston tells me that he and his wife love the hills of southeast Ohio. "You can see where the glacier stopped and the hills start," he says. "The hills fold us into them. There's a comfort to it."
When I walk into Eastside Ministries, a counselor at the front desk is trying to help a couple find a source for affordable prescription drugs. Volunteer Mary White sits down with me and shares her impressions of Obama. "I was very much impressed with his people skills. He interacts easily with people, makes people feel comfortable. He does a lot of listening. He's a nice person. Very compassionate." White has offered her observations in such a way that I know she has no intention of voting for him. She's the kind of soft-spoken Appalachian woman who will go out of her way to phrase her remarks so as not to offend. Not causing distress, especially to a stranger, is uppermost in her mind. Interestingly, she's more ebullient about Obama's entourage than the man himself. "They had done a lot of research on us!" she says. "But we don't know how they found out about us." As the day passes, I find no one in Zanesville who can answer that question. "Their campaign people and Secret Service are great to work with! Not what you would expect -- very friendly."
White is less sanguine about Obama's proposal for federal funding of faith-based ministries like Eastside. "Every aspect of us has some aspect of faith built into it," she says. She gestures towards the second floor. "Our youth program has a Bible Club." She points out the food pantry. "Each order of food has a prayer in it." She goes further. "People come to us to pray with them. You see we have a chapel there. In emergency situations, and we are often helping people in emergencies, people want prayer. So we have to be very careful in the money we take. It's very important to us, it's very important to the individuals who fund us, that we be able to minister with faith."
Eastside, the site of Senator Obama's proposal to fund faith-based ministries, has no intention of applying for or accepting tax-payer dollars. Eastside is not even tied to any one particular branch of the Christian faith. For the most part, Zanesville's downtown churches share ecumenical Eastside's disposition. While Pastor Steve, newly arrived from Wesley in Jackson, Mississippi, unpacks books in his office, his secretary Judy explains that Grace United Methodist Church has no need for government funds. Grace United used to give food to the pantry at Eastside but winter weather had proved problematic, and so they had quit. Next door Jane, the secretary at St. James Episcopal, is equally emphatic that her church is not interested in federal monies. The diocese gives them the wherewithal for the free dinner they host the last Saturday of every month. Everything else the church members raise themselves and give to Eastside.
The prescription drug program I had seen in action up at Eastside had actually begun down at St. James Episcopal with the death of a parishioner. Taking her bequest, St. James had asked a local druggist to help the church set up something for the uninsured in Zanesville. Eventually, that druggist had gone out of business, and St. James had transferred its program up to Eastside. Now St. James, with the exception of its Saturday meal, funnels all its members' local outreach dollars to Eastside.
In fact, faith-based social programs in Zanesville are a closed loop. The mainstream churches give their money to Eastside and rely on Eastside to do the work; Eastside eschews federal funding. Moreover, none of the churches with whose members I speak are interested in expanding into the kind of ambitious social programs, in education for example, that Senator Obama mentioned in his speech. When I ask Renee at St. John's Lutheran about any summer school programs, she says that, yes, they have a two-week Amazing Grace day camp for which they bus in fifty children. Mary at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, like Renee at St. John's a few blocks away, shows a distaste when I mention government funding. Their outreach is to seniors and shut-ins and nursing homes; sometimes they bring food, but importantly they bring the Eucharist. St. Thomas Aquinas also holds rummage sales, and the leftovers go to Eastside. Mary at Saint Nicholas, an imposing basilica-like Catholic Church with three cross-crowned domes, tells me that their collections are down, but everything they have they give to Eastside.
Most of these churches have an outreach beyond Zanesville, as well. Typically in Catholic and Episcopalian parishes, a portion of all collections must go to the diocese and from there abroad. Often Protestant churches directly support missions abroad. Scott Johnston proudly tells me about the hospital in Vanga, Congo, and the work with Burmese refugees in Thailand that Market Street Baptist supports.
Central Presbyterian is different than the other churches I visited, the exception that proves the rule. Mary Perone, director of outreach, tells me that "if he [Obama] can do it, it would be fantastic." She's all in favor of federal grant money for her faith-based outreach. She'd like to start a parish nurse program and do more with adult literacy. But the first thing she says, when we each take a folding chair at a long dining table in the low-ceilinged basement, is critical of Obama's visit to Zanesville. "He really didn't get to meet the people," this Perone says. "The people he got to meet were on his level -- not the common people -- he didn't touch base with them." She is disapproving. "They're really hurting, and they don't think people listen."
Perone proceeds to give me a very different picture of Zanesville than I hear elsewhere. The steel and wire plants have cut back. Even Longaberger Baskets near Dresden has laid off workers. "Paying for gas, people don't have money for baskets," she says. She runs a soup kitchen here in the basement on Sunday evening, "the last free meal in town after lunch on Saturday." The local Sam's Club has given Central Presbyterian and the other eighteen food pantries in the local Hunger Network a refrigerated truck to carry off the outdated meat Sam's Club supplies them. "But I could use some help cutting it up," Perone says. "A lot of the other downtown churches sit idle. They could at least come over here and help me with the meat." She tells me about some of the people she feeds. "There's this dad, he has a good job, but three kids and a wife with some health problems. He mows yards in the evenings to help make ends meet, but still if his family don't eat here Sunday, they wouldn't eat. It's all service jobs now, and they don't pay enough." But even Perone wonders how the federal funding for faith-based programs would work. "We say grace before our meal," she says. "And when I go out into the countryside, people often want me to say a prayer with them."
Zanesville is like many of the small cities I've visited on the campaign trail in that its inhabitants have very different views of what is rather a cohesive place. Scott Johnston assures me that "the town is making it." One of the main industries now is medicine. Johnston mentions the heart center, the black lung center. He praises the work ethic and honesty of Zanesville. Mary Perone, on the other hand, tells me about the substance abuse. "The prostitutes line up out there on Seventh Street and proposition people on their way to church."
On my last stop of the day, I'm standing in front of Putnam Presbyterian across the Muskingum River from the rest of Zanesville and staring up at the lead-shingled needle spire resting upon the frail wooden body of the narrow old church. Putnam was an Abolitionist Church (the first minister was a brother of Henry Ward Beecher), and just recently an Underground Railroad tunnel from the church to the river has been discovered. I have a strange feeling as a Southerner in Putnam's presence, for its people and my people once fought and died over an issue of faith and politics.
It's going on six o'clock and suppertime; nevertheless, I try the door to the vestry and find it unlocked. Hearing a fan whirring somewhere, I climb the stairs past the smell of must and very old oak. In the office I find Wade Coffey working at his laptop a young man with curly hair pushed down under a baseball cap. He's not with Putnam Presbyterian, although the first thing I ask him about is Putnam's tunnel. Coffey is the outreach director for Muskingum Valley Vineyard Church, which rents space from Putnam. I have never heard of the Vineyard Churches, but Wade tells me they originated in California with one of the Righteous Brothers, and that their form of worship combines Scripture and healing. I ask him about his church's social services.
Muskingum Vineyard, not surprisingly for a church that tithes, does quite a bit. They contribute to the food pantry at Eastside and the Door of Faith Orphanage. They're starting a teenage substance abuse program. The church has just bought the old pottery on the street, Coffey tells me, and is turning it into a "mall of ministries" in which they will locate their furniture bank, as well as places for haircuts and free oil changes. Coffey's Vineyard Church applies for private grants and in fact just got one for a "Jobs and Life Skills" training program in downtown Zanesville. But Coffey laughs when I ask about Senator Obama's proposal for federal funding. "Cut out the Jesus part? I don't think so!" Coffey says that Vineyard is an affiliate of the Bethel Mission down near the river. "Their heart is to set up camp in that part of town," he explains. "They throw picnics, plant flowers, fix up homes -- they help people through prayer, to be honest." "They're healers -- people don't have insurance -- so broken bones, spider bites, tumors -- all those for what it's worth, they've had some success."
Coffey and I chat for a while about the neighborhood ("a lot of drug dealers") and the Book of Acts, as well as government bureaucracy. Eventually, Coffey gives me his opinion of faith-based social outreach. "The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this world --" He works his hands to show that they are not a fit. "You'll never find the full answer in humanity. But you have to belong where you are planted. And you are planted in this world." Before I leave, Coffey asks if he may say a prayer for me. Somehow he has divined that I have a troublesome right leg and hip, and so he prays for me to be healed.
Driving away, I marvel at the distance from Putnam Presbyterian to the river. I drive it twice, to make sure. It has to be at least half a mile. How had those folk dug a tunnel down to the Muskingum? Likely they had had miners to help. But surely the underground commotion had agitated most of the dogs and horses in the neighborhood. And what backbreaking work for people the laborers would never meet. It's almost dusk now, and I'm driving west down out of the hills back through the barely-ridged land that the glacier smoothed millennia ago. Blackbirds are wheeling away from my car across the long rows of mown hay waiting for the baler, and the clumps of Queen Anne's lace lining the back road to Chillicothe are white lanterns in the twilight. I'm trying to untangle my thoughts about faith and politics, but really all I'm sure of are the Ohio boys, like the ones from Iowa and Pennsylvania I've also remembered now and then along the campaign trail, those Ohio farmboys part of a high bluff on another river, the Tennessee, above Pittsburg Landing, near the small city in which I grew up. It's a slow road to Chillicothe, but strangely my leg and hip never bother me once.
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I stopped reading this article at; "But Johnston is dubious about Obama's plans and about the man himself. "There are more strings attached under his program than under Bush's. You can hire a person who agrees with your theology, under Bush...."
Ironically, this is where my ears perked up - not because I agree with Johnson but because Barack reached out and will have been given a first-hand account of what's going down in places like Zanesville.
Assuming Sen. Obama has a brain (and, from all indications, he has a rather spectacular one), there should be truth in the principle that "better understanding = better policy."
Politically, Sen. Obama needn't carry every small town Ohio - He only needs to peel away enough votes from those areas to put him over the top in the entire state to win Ohio's electoral votes.
Any effort is better than no effort. And Obama supporters shouldn't leave Zanesville disappointed - success needn't be measured in terms of total victory (a few small wins would be terrific both for the campaign and for the country).
I dont understand why Obama must even bother with the faith based community...those that oppose women's rights to choose, oppose contraceptives and gays among many other medieval issues. We should ignore them at best and not give them so much attention which actually empowers them.
Lets stick to attracting and helping people and groups who are actually trying to better this world, offering help with research for alternative fuels, helping protect wildlife and the environment, creating a health insurance for all like they have in most civilized countries, better education and peace and freedom for all, not war and hatred.. Good relations and Diplomacy is the key to the future if there is going to be a future for all of us! Why waste time and effort on the religious right anyway?Do we really want their vote? if they were true Christians, they would already be democrats...but they are not. They love their guns and their hatred too much.
. What good are they doing by trying to interfere in everybody's personal lives, telling them what they should and should not do, and spread their hatred to all that don't agree with their medieval philosophies???..Obama, dont waste your precious time on those folks...they will never vote for you anyway.
You are missing on the brilliance of this plan and the Sun-Tzu worthy strategy of the attempt.
The conservatives are constantly talking about cutting off money to social welfare programs and that non-profit groups and chruches should be the source of such programs. Pres. G.W. Bush created the Faith-based program as a way to funnel millions of dollars to some of his biggest private donnors and shore up his credentials in the evangelical community.
Sen. Obama is taking a two pronged attack on this topic, he is talking about spending more money on the program which sounds great to evangelicals, especially the more moderate or even liberal members of various Christian churches. IT makes them more likely to keep an open-mind about him and possibly sway several to vote for him. Second is that by requiring the help to be without conversion, essentially faith-free, he turns the local churches into extensions of our own governmental programs.
Even if the programs don't pan out, because of lack of interest, he has gained sizable good press in a demographic Sen. McCain is struggling with throughout battleground states... all without actually having had to do anything.
Brilliant.
Dems lose elections because they are uncomfortable reaching out to the constituency that has faith as a LARGE part of their lives. Big O can't afford to lose votes simply because he didn't reach out to as many Americans as he could.
President Bush created the Department of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives on Jan. 29, 2001. This first-of-a-kind office created a threefold union between the presidency, the congressional Republican majority and faith-based groups. This unholy trinity is opposed to the America envisioned and established by our nation"s founders.
Defending Bush"s veto of stem cell research, the "Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (CBHD) opposes ESCs (embryonic stem cell) trials because they result in "the dismemberment of living, distinct human beings."" The CBHD, an Illinois-based evangelical "think tank," quotes former House leader, Rep. Tom DeLay.
DeLay, indicted on federal money laundering charges, violated House rules in 2004 when trying to pass a corporation-friendly health-care bill. It is telling that Christian ethicists look to DeLay as a model of moral excellence in medical ethics policy-making.
Republicans professes great respect for a cellular mass the size of a grain of salt used in ESC research. Yet, their Patient"s Bill of Rights" restricts patients" legal recourse against negligent HMOs. Republicans championed HMOs" rights to deny treatment for patients with catastrophic illnesses thereby minimizing costs and upholding the corporate "covenant" to enrich stockholders.
Bush"s administration promises federal funding largely to "faith-based" 501(c)(3) groups agreeable to its guidelines. In turn, tax-sheltered Christian think tanks, lobbies and "ministries" give birth to policies and practices acceptable to the administration in order to get cash. Congress, "informed" by these groups, turns Christian dogma into law.
Jay Walsh, Springfield IL
"Faith-based" social programs are often far more efficient at providing services than are government-based programs. It seems to me that this is because they have a high proportion of volunteer labor -- which is not only free, but often more motivated than "hired help" -- and because they can draw on the altruism (not just the money) of their contributors. Example: the druggist mentioned in Mayhill's article.
Certainly, many faith-based charities do NOT vigorously proselytize, or "vet", their recipients. I, personally, do not think that a brief prayer before a meal is a violent overthrow of the separation clause -- I mean, there's an invocation at the opening of Congress, after all. And I say this as an irreligious agnostic.
What makes me uneasy about Obama's plan is the same thing that made me uneasy about Bush's -- how do you make sure that it's not abused? Because there are also many faith-based charities that DO insist that staff be members of their particular faith; that insist that recipients be "qualified"; that insist on their right and, in fact, sacred obligation to proselytize. I respect their right to hold such views, but I definitely don't want to support them with my taxes.
The detail-devil in this case is: can the government implement safeguards to guarantee that grant money goes only to "faith-neutral" branches of faith-based programs, without adding so much administrative clutter that it erases the efficiency advantage the faith-based programs once had?
I'm sure we'd all like free, no-strings cash from the government, if that's what this guy thinks he's going to get. Where do I sign up?
" no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry "
-Thomas Jefferson
With federal funds going to these service programs the fact that a person might have to convert to a religion in order to get the job would be a violation of this principle.
religous do not have to accept these funds if they feel that this principle is a problem.
Not every church in every community needs government help. Those that do, however, should be able to get it. Certain areas have a larger proportion of poor to wealthy and it does not (or should not) surprize anyone that too often the wealthy are not generous. It has been proven time and again thaat the poor are much more likely to give in times of trouble, and give a greater percentage of whatever they have, than those who are better able to afford to do so. Areas with great need and few resources should have a safety net of some kind. Let's let Obama formulate solid plans and present them. The finishing touches and smoothing over the rough spots is going to be necessary with any plan to get the country on the road to recovery, we do not need the naysayers and fault-finders to pick apart every idea put forth. An idea is a general overview, not a carved-in-stone declaration. Aid to those in need should never have strings attached. To those of you who are devout Christians, what would Jesus say if he heard one of you say to a family who had lost everything in a fire "We will give you a place to live, food, and clothing if you are a member of the Methodist (Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal, etc) church but not if you're a Jew (an atheist, or a Druid)"? Hmm?
Some of these places, especially the many Christian cults that are rampant in Ohio, don't want federal supervision, especially not if it impedes their forceful proselytizing. There are Christian megacults, based in Columbus and Cincinnati, that use lovebombing, social engineering, guilting, Satanizing of the recruit's family, and other aversive behavior modification tactics, even on underage recruits against the wishes of their parents, to get their thousands of members. They really don't need federal money because they get very rich by preying on the undereducated and the emotionally needy. If these religious predators get rich enough, then they get to have a voice in the Bush administration.
Isn't it interesting how they want the "guvmint" to lay off them when they brainwash and collect their money, but then they turn right round and beg that same "guvmint" to invade everyone's bedrooms, uteruses and sex lives?
Who knew god needed the SCOTUS to do "his bidding"??!!?? LOL! And here I thought god did his own goddamn work.
Mayhill rides again!
Hi ho Silver !!!!!
Churches are dark and unoccupied 80% of the time, they often sit in needy communities and giving of oneself is a tradition that has almost faded away in the U.S. So, why not encourage honest, open and devout service through faith-based initiatives? George Bush and the Rethuglicans' pay to play faith-based initiative and their sorry Republican preachers have left a cloud over the term "faith-based" and Christianity.
Two words.........................Salvation Army!
I think the idea of my tax dollars going to faith-based organizations is simply wonderful. How else is the Los Angeles Archodiocese going to pay their 600 million dollar settlement for raping children?
HuffPost's Pick
Part II. Conditions... However, in order for this government funding-stream to work honestly, there must be clear lines of demarcation. First line: where the people's money is used, all funded services must be open to all people. Catholic charities can not target Catholics; etc.... This may sound obvious but it won't work for all services; so all services must not be candidates for public-grants. Second, there can be no religious services connected to the service; for example, if you run a food-kitchen that accepts public funds, no one must be required to sing hymns or to listen to hymns sung in order to get a seat a the dinner table. If this sounds obvious to you, you probably have never eaten at a soup-kitchen or taken a client to a one to be fed. Third, none of the people's money can be used to proselytize or evangelize; these charitable organizations must not use all-the-people's money to seek converts for their religion. For those of fervent faith, this line is too easily and too often crossed; in order to protect the integrity of the process, this limit must be set in criminal law. The law must explicitly state that to divert public funds for sectarian religious purposes is criminal fraud. Without that hard line in law, a diversion of resources and a dilution of humanitarian missions will be the certain result. To pass legislation without that explicit limit is to implicitly accept an unacceptable result.
HuffPost's Pick
If you make a violation criminal, you'll scare people away from taking the money and doing the work because there will have to be lines of demarcation and people will be afraid of getting the lines wrong. Cutting funding or charging fines would also address the issue. You can't take my tax money and then force people to "do" religion in order to be fed. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with a faith based food program having a chapel area off in one corner that people can voluntarily go to if they want to. There is a very large difference between making something available on one hand and forcing people to do it on the other. Jesus never forced people. He loved them. And out of that love we can do as he suggested. We can feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the downtrodden----And to bring it up to our day, we can teach people to read. It's about winning hearts and minds and that is done better when you give a hot meal with nothing but love than when you give a hot meal that has to be earned by going through the motions of religious practice. If you love them, and feed them, they will come.
" "I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink, (etc...)." His disciples asked, When did we do this, Lord?" Jesus responded, "When you did this for the least of my brethren, you did it for me." " That's the Biblical basis of Christian charity. I am not a Christian but I know wonderful people powerfully motivated by that belief, who serve my community. I know them because I've run a non-profit street-outreach program in Silicon Valley for 19 years. Unfortunately, the big money in religion is not made by spreading human kindness; the big money in religion is made hustling suckers. It is the big money religions who will hire professional grant writers for complicated federal grants. They must know that the people"s money is to be employed serving people in need; they can "further the gospel of Jesus Christ" on their own dime. If that frightens them from competing for public funds with organizations dedicated to serving lives rather than saving souls, then they should be frightened and they should stay away. I am a Jew with a Jesuit education; as the late Paul Hilllsdale, ex-S.J., taught me decades ago: "All morality like all art begins by drawing a line." If faith-based organizations are prepared to respect this line in law, we need them. There is much invisible suffering around us; we can work together.
You are absolutely right, but who is going to supervise, to assure that this is exactly how it happens? Who will pay for that supervision? Where will that money come from to pay for that supervision, to assure that your view of this, which I really like! will actually happen?
On the public funding o faith-based charities, once again Senator Obama is on the right track; once again the devil is in the details.
People have a right to express their love of God through service to humanity. It is a powerful resource that would be unwise for any nation to ignore. American resources must be free to unleash all the pent up energy available to deliver services to the under-served. It is obscene for the agony of so many unmet needs to persist amid the luxury of America; each of the statistical glitches in service is a person, a family and a community suffering. To restrain efficient and wholesome channels for the delivery of essential services condemns men, women and children to suffer needlessly.
Opening up funding to faith-based organizations will negatively impact some mainline charities. For example, religious organizations can often attract volunteers to do jobs for which the rest of us need paid staff. We must welcome that efficiency. There is far too much suffering around us, for us to reject lower-cost competition. At the end of every day, there will remain people in crisis and people in pain who need help where no help is given.
MORE to come...jt
keep faith and politics apart. People have helped each other and there towns and co mmunitites for years and believe it or not with out Obama. He wants to rule the country and its religion not a good combo. Small towns may cling to there Bibles but will do it amoung themselves. If he wasnt so apart of it all he would know this.
Churches, for centuries have relied on their parishoners and the public for funding. To mix government intervention with altruism is just plain wrong. The entire point of altruism is to ameliorate the individual, by improving his physical existence and hopefully thereby, improve his spiritual existence. If the money is coming from some faceless bureauocracy, with restrictions on whom you can help and how, where is the spiritual benefit??? Isn't the spiritual benefit the whole purpose of theology??? Involve the government, and that will disappear faster than you can say, "faith based initiatives."
"Grace is indeed required to turn a man into a saint; and he who doubts this does not know what either a man or a saint is."..........................Pascal
I have a friend who out of her own pocket pays for and makes a couple of hundred sandwiches and takes them out at night to give away to street kids. She does it out of love and kindness. She says that she wouldn't have less love if she had more money to buy sandwich makings, but she would make more sandwiches for more kids. The people with the hearts to serve will still be there giving from the heart. The difference is that they'll have supplies to work with. Government money's effect can be vastly expanded if volunteers do the work out of love and government money helps buy the cheese and tuna fish. If it was a totally government program they'd need a building, paid staff, supervisors, protocols, reams of statements, rules and guidelines-----and that's all before they gave out the first meal. And believe me, there is very little love involved, but there is often a degree of groveling required if you want to get past the absolute law and make it to a worker who will really work hard to help you. Give me a church lady with a hot meal and a smile who's willing to just feed me out of love. Not all churches will be willing, but some will. And those are the jewels this program could use to help more people in need. They've always done it, but with help, they could do it a lot more. Bless 'em!
Bless them indeed Karela.
Your friend sounds like a real mensch. (Yiddish, for 'human being') Maybe I'm wrong about this issue, but it is a tricky one, for sure. Altruism, like most things in life is a double-edged sword. It is amazingly beneficial to those in dire need, but one must be leery of enabling a dependency on government institutions. I am firmly against the federal government getting mixed up in religious and community affairs.
Thanks for the civil tone of your post. It is greatly appreciated.
I agree he is so out of touch ,never was in touch with the blue collor men and women he cannt understand. We will help our onw and do .It is our blessing to do for others not needing Obama to be our all in all.Scary thought all that power political and religion. Sounds like takeing our whole life away. Nope not me.
"You can hire a person who agrees with your theology, under Bush. With Obama, you're getting more government involvement -- we don't need that."
Is this guy really refusing help from someone overing to help a person in need, because they don't hold the same beliefs he does. Would his GOD feel proud of him for saying this. What kind of preacher is he, for goodness sake. Why do some churches practice segregation of religion. This guy is a joke!
Read Joseph Cambell's "The Power of Myth." He explains it a whole lot better than I could, right now. In essence, religions were very tribal in their origins. The God that favors a particular tribe, may not favor another. It's not spirituality, it's "religion." Big difference, dude.
Your point is an excellent example of why the government needs to stay out of it. This is not the function of government. It is the function of churches and their, flock, but most of all, it is the responsibility of the preacher himself to inspire his parshioners, to help their fellow man/woman.
Obama missed his calling. He should be a preacher, not a president.
Well put but there is just a little flaw,if the churches and flock won't help someone because of their secular beliefs do we just let all these people go?It seems selfish for someone that professes to help people to turn away help as most of these clergymen did.No matter a needy persons religion or non-religion,that person will always remember who helped them in their time of need. I guess if you're not a believer they believe you should find your own help or fate will take over and do the "Lords work".
I think some churches would prefer not to have restrictions on their outreach... they prefer to do religion-specific activities. Cool. No federal fund for them.
What's the problem?
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Posted July 10, 2008 | 09:38 AM (EST)