Obama's faith-based office: No 'blurring'

by Mark Silva

Former President George W. Bush, who campaigned with a plea to "rally the armies of compassion,'' created an Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives that helped steer more than $2 billion a year in federal funds to faith-based charities providing social services.

The president, who failed to convince Congress to legislate much on this front, carried out the work with an executive order carried out by a series of leaders, including a devout Catholic, and Democrat, who had worked for Mother Teresa, Jim Towey, who has gone off to become president of a Catholic university in Pennsylvania.

President Barack Obama has found a new leader for the initiative, and plans to broaden the reach of the effort to a campaign against poverty in announcing his office's new initiative today. He will sign an order in the Oval Office later this morning, and spoke of it just now at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

"The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another - or even religious groups over secular groups,'' Obama said this morning. "It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state.''

Obama's pick to lead a revamped Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships is Josh DuBois, a 26-year-old Pentecostal minister who directed religious outreach for the Obama campaign. He had been an associate pastor at a Pentecostal church in Massachusetts and holds a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University.

Obama is effectively continuing an initiative created by executive order during Bush's first month in office. Under Bush, the office helped faith-based and community organizations deliver social services with federal funding. The Obama administration plans to expand the role of the office to coordinate social services with a goal of combating poverty

Obama spoke of this this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast.

"Faith has always been a guiding force in our family's life,'' Obama said, noting the long tradition of the prayer breakfast, "so we feel very much at home and look forward to keeping this tradition alive during our time here...

"Too often, we have seen faith wielded as a tool to divide us from one another - as an excuse for prejudice and intolerance,'' Obama said. "Wars have been waged. Innocents have been slaughtered. For centuries, entire religions have been persecuted, all in the name of perceived righteousness.

"There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that some of our beliefs will never be the same. We read from different texts. We follow different edicts. We subscribe to different accounts of how we came to be here and where we're going next - and some subscribe to no faith at all.

"But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.

"We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together.

"Jesus told us to "love thy neighbor as thyself." The Torah commands, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow." In Islam, there is a hadith that reads "None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself."

"And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule - the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.

"It is an ancient rule; a simple rule; but also one of the most challenging. For it asks each of us to take some measure of responsibility for the well-being of people we may not know or worship with or agree with on every issue. Sometimes, it asks us to reconcile with bitter enemies or resolve ancient hatreds. And that requires a living, breathing, active faith. It requires us not only to believe, but to do - to give something of ourselves for the benefit of others and the betterment of our world.

"In this way, the particular faith that motivates each of us can promote a greater good for all of us. Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times. This is not only our call as people of faith, but our duty as citizens of America, and it will be the purpose of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that I'm announcing later today...

"This work is important, because whether it's a secular group advising families facing foreclosure or faith-based groups providing job-training to those who need work, few are closer to what's happening on our streets and in our neighborhoods than these organizations,'' he said.

"We will also reach out to leaders and scholars around the world to foster a more productive and peaceful dialogue on faith. I don't expect divisions to disappear overnight, nor do I believe that long-held views and conflicts will suddenly vanish,'' he said. "But I do believe that if we can talk to one another openly and honestly, then perhaps old rifts will start to mend and new partnerships will begin to emerge. In a world that grows smaller by the day, perhaps we can begin to crowd out the destructive forces of zealotry and make room for the healing power of understanding.''