faith-based initiative
Talking about hiring
By Mark Silk — July 9, 2009
The OFANP Advisory Council has been meeting in D.C. the past couple of days, hearing reports from its various task forces. In his account over on WaPo’s GinG, William Wan notes that although the contentious hiring issue has been formally taken off the Board’s plate and assigned to the lawyers, questions about it were nonetheless […]
Faith-Based Future
By Mark Silk — June 22, 2009
Anyone interested in following the fortunes of Son of Faith Based: the Obama Years needs to download “Taking Stock: The Bush Faith-Based Initiative and What Lies Ahead,” a Pew-sponsored report of the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy released this month. Author David J. Wright gives provides a fine (if […]
The Faith-Based Office
By Mark Silk — June 8, 2009
Say what you like about, George W. Bush’s Office for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives had a real public policy commitment; to wit: “Our Vision is to educate and assist new and existing Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to apply and qualify for competitive Federal Funding.” Before his administration was run over by the events of 9/11, […]
Little Faith-based
By Mark Silk — April 27, 2009
Over at CT Politics, Douglas Koopman is unhappy with the Obama administration’s faith-based initiative so far. A political science prof at Calvin College, Koopman is one of those center-right evangelical types who was disappointed at the politicizing of the Bush effort but nevertheless remains an enthusiast of the approach. His is not the clearest exposition […]
Hire me this
By Mark Silk — April 22, 2009
Pastordan is a bit befuddled by Michelle Boorstein’s God in Government post reporting that the Advisory Council of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (OFANP) is not, after all, going to take up the thorny faith-based hiring issue. Since I reported a month ago that the Council was going to take it up, let […]
Left at the Altar
By Mark Silk — April 2, 2009
Dan Gilgoff has canonized the battle over commongroundism in a useful piece in U.S. News. On his account, it’s religious progressives v. religious lefties, with the latter (Schultz, Laarman & Co.) portrayed as ideological hardheads. I’m not sure I’d cast it quite the same way, however. Substantively, the commotion is mostly about abortion, with some […]
OFANP Redux
By Mark Silk — March 25, 2009
Whatever happened to the president’s Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships? After being created with considerable fanfare and three-fifths of its outside advisory council on February 5, it retreated into the White House woodwork. Director Joshua DuBois, administration factotum for all things religious, was charged with helping the First Family find a church. (Still waiting […]
Fly on the Wall
By Mark Silk — March 16, 2009
O to be a fly on the wall when the Concerned Women of America and allies meet with Joshua DuBois and the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships gang at the White House. Brody’s got the story, and via a CWA email to him it’s clear that these paladins of the Religious Right will come […]
What Chuck has to offer
By Mark Silk — March 3, 2009
Colson really really wants to be able to hire only his own kind, with government money. Christ is all he’s got to offer, sezee. Your tax dollars at work? See Gilgoff’s report.
NOFANP
By Mark Silk — February 25, 2009
Last July 1, when he announced that he would continue President Bush’s faith-based office in the White House on bigger and better terms, Barack Obama said: But what we saw instead was that the Office never fulfilled its promise. Support for social services to the poor and the needy have been consistently underfunded. Rather than […]
Sooner rather than later
By Mark Silk — February 16, 2009
The NYT weighs in on OFANP in the usual, straight-ahead separationist way it has with church-state issues: no faith-based hiring discrimination. My admittedly anecdotal sense is that there is more ambient interest in/concern about Obama’s continuation of the Bush office than mainstream media coverage would lead you to suspect. (It would be interesting to see […]
What is to be done?
By Mark Silk — February 13, 2009
Now that I’ve established my separationist bona fides up around the Americans United and ACLU level, I’d like to take a walk back through some of the complexities the administration confronts as it wades into faith-based social service provision, department of hiring. First, it is a mistake to imagine that hiring discrimination by faith-based providers […]
Lead them not into temptation
By Mark Silk — February 10, 2009
OFANP may be off to a less than splendid start, but Winnie Sullivan’s smirky essay in Religion Dispatches only confuses the issue. She begins by claiming that the press has missed the point by focusing on the hiring question. Why? Because, according to her, that’s a distraction from the fact that the new administration, like […]
Case by Case?
By Mark Silk — February 6, 2009
In her story on OFANP in today’s NYT, Laurie Goodstein writes: Joshua DuBois, a 26-year-old Pentecostal minister who led religious outreach for Mr. Obama during the presidential race, will direct the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Mr. DuBois said in an interview, “The president is still very much committed to clear […]
OFANP at First Glance
By Mark Silk — February 5, 2009
1. Notwithstanding the hat-tip to church-state separation, this is definitely a walk-back from Obama’s campaign promise not to allow faith-based hiring discrimination for federally funded programs. 2. Kicking it over to the lawyers will provide him with some cover–but it won’t solve everything. 3. Using the office to engage the rest of the world in […]
