Obama's Vision of the Faith-Based Initiative Prefers "Progressive" Religion

Senator Barack Obama has indicated that he would not abolish the various "offices" and "task forces" within the executive branch dedicated to faith-based and community initiatives if he is elected president.

However, he also indicated that he would change the rules governing the partnerships between faith-based organizations and government. Most significantly, he would curtail the freedom of such religious groups to (1) preserve their religious character by drawing their personnel from among those who voluntarily share their religious commitments; and (2) engage in religious activities.

Some observers declared (incorrectly, in my view) that Sen. Obama's willingness to maintain the faith-based initiative at all was some sort of "Sister Souljah moment" in which he distanced himself from the secular left. These observers seemed surprised that a liberal Democrat was willing to allow any religious groups to participate in government-funded social service programs.

As I see it, and with all due respect, these observers misunderstand the mainstream liberal-left position on church-state relations. Very few on the left categorically oppose the participation of any religious group in a government-funded social service or education program. Instead, they favor the inclusion of a certain kind of religious group and the exclusion of another kind. More specifically, they tend to favor the inclusion of groups that do not integrate religion into their operations and do not draw their personnel from among co-religionists. (In constitutional jargon, such groups are "religiously affiliated.") On the other hand, under the liberal-left view of church-state relations, groups that do the opposite (i.e., integrate religion in their operations and engage in faith-based hiring) are generally ineligible. (Such groups are deemed "pervasively sectarian.") [All this is concededly a bit of an oversimplication, but the general thrust is accurate.]

Those who are surprised that Sen. Obama is willing to fund some religious groups are apparently unaware that the principal divide in American religion is not between religion and irreligion, but between "progressive" religion and "orthodox" religion. [Sociologist James Davison Hunter explores this reality in his indispensable book Culture Wars.] According to Hunter's thesis, evangelical Protestants have more in common with orthodox Jews than with liberal Protestants when it comes to cultural questions. [My own experience confirms this: the Center (part of the theologically orthodox Christian Legal Society) is more likely to be on an amicus brief with the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations than it is with the liberal United Church of Christ.]

"Progressive" religious organizations are less likely than "orthodox" ones to integrate religion into their operations or use religious criteria in choosing personnel. Therefore, progressive groups would be far freer than orthodox ones to participate in social service programs under Sen. Obama's proposed system. In other words, to put it bluntly, Sen. Obama would fund his cultural and religious friends while de-funding those with whom he tends to disagree.

The First Amendment (among other things) forbids government from preferring one religion over another. A set of rules that systematically prefer "progressive" religion over "orthodox" religion, in my opinion, is inconsistent with this fundamental First Amendment principle.

A Supreme Court Chronicler Tackles the Kulturkampf

Peter Irons, emeritus professor of political science at the University of California - San Diego and co-editor of the groundbreaking May It Please the Court series of audiotapes and transcripts of key Supreme Court decisions, has published God On Trial (Viking 2007), a travelogue of sorts through half a dozen American communities that have been impacted by the religious cultural wars of the last twenty years.

Irons reminds us that just as “all politics is local,” so also is all jurisprudence, and particularly constitutional law. Irons’ thesis is that the big decisions about the constitutionality of religious symbols such as public memorial crosses and Ten Commandments displays that emanate from the Supreme Court have their genesis in local political struggles between factions that view the symbols as vibrant and meaningful and those who regard them as exclusionary and imperious. The seeds of the book, Irons says, are found in Oliver Wendell Holmes’ aphorism, “We live by symbols,” and he seeks to tell the stories of the people who have played key roles on both sides of these so-called “symbol cases.”

The book’s readability and unpretentiousness have Irons sounding like an Ernie Pyle of the Kulturkampf. Irons combines solid, fact-combing legal journalism with fascinating interviews of the personalities who instigated the cases or found themselves swept up in them, from trial lawyers and politicians to preachers and regular folks. These are presented in unbroken monologues spoken in the subjects' own voices, like an oral folk history, and are deftly edited and detailed. The effect is refreshingly different from the stale Q&A format - rather like being taken on a personal walking tour by, for example, Barry Lynn, through his early life as a Goldwater Republican in blue-collar Bethelehem Steel country, or by Jay Sekulow as he recounts growing up Jewish on Long Island.

As a strict separationist himself, and a veteran of several of the court battles he discusses, Irons cannot help but cast the conflict (perhaps unconsciously) as one between those who desire to impose their religious beliefs on others and those who want tolerance. He maintains the overall balance of the book fairly well, though, and he is clearly trying to be honest and accurate in his portrayals of both sides. For its small flaws, God On Trial is a delightful summer read.