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Add to NewsvineHow do you get a single item to both shrink and grow at the same time? Ask Barack Obama, who did exactly that when he suggested that the Bush initiatives didn't go far enough. The expansion comes in his commitment to investing more dollars in faith-based institutions addressing big social and environmental issues.
"The challenges we face today -- from saving our planet to ending poverty -- are simply too big for government to solve alone," Mr. Obama said outside a community center here. "We need an all-hands-on-deck approach."
But it should be precisely the kind of expansion that liberals love, because it comes with the caveat that the "Federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs." In fact, Obama would go so far as to revoke the right of those institutions receiving federal money to use religion as a factor in deciding who they hire for such programs. And that is the shrinkage. It would have been nice of him to mention that, when he accused the current administration of not going far enough, when he meant that they went BOTH too far and not far enough.
Either way, his desire to simultaneously expand and contract the federal faith-based initiative is, contrary to Michele McGinty's post yesterday, a novel and potentially significant thing. Perhaps that is why it bothers her and anyone else who wants a candidate who remains an orthodox liberal.
They really may be so hostile to religion that the very idea that religious institutions will grow, simply makes them nuts, even if those institutions are doing work which those same people champion on a daily basis. Talk about being a prisoner of dogma!
Of course the response by religiously conservative leaders is no bargain either. Responding to Obama's plan to disallow consideration of religion in hiring for federally funded programs, National Association of Evangelicals', Richard Cizik commented:
"For those of who us who believe in protecting the integrity of our religious institutions, this is a fundamental right. He's rolling back the Bush protections. That's extremely disappointing."
And don't miss Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, who said:
"If you can't hire people within your faith community, then you've lost the distinctive that is the reason why faith-based programs exist in the first place."
I think that Mr. Cizik may be confusing integrity with exclusivity. Would a Christian program to end poverty lose its integrity if a non-Christian worked on it? Would it somehow be less effective, or even less Christian? I sure hope not. And I'm certain that it wouldn't be less Jewish if it were a Jewish program. In fact, it might make it "more Jewish," but that's not the kind of language I use, so I won't go there.
And what about Mr. Land's assertion that faith-based programs exist so they can hire only people of that faith? Don't they exist to serve those in need? Don't they exist because they turned professed values and heart-felt prayers into reality? If I were Land, I would worry more about how faith-based programs serve with distinction, and not what makes them distinctive.
So, while I would like a bit more meat on the bones of this plan, it seems to me that Obama is arguing for more religious involvement in the common good, which strikes me as a great thing - even if it simultaneously disquiets those who are hostile to religion on the one hand and those who think that theirs must be unique on the other. Actually, that's one of the best things about it.
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
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It s interesting that people label Obama as a Socialist. These people prefer to ignore O's rhetoric and focus on his actions. But is O a Socialist?
From looking at his actions, one might also conclude that he is a Narso-psychopath (combo of DSM IV-TR 301.81 and 301.7). He is not wedded to his prior positions. His actions indicate that he endorsed the socialist, liberationist rantings of Rev Wright because it served his own ends, not because he had any commitment to them. The death penalty is ripe for expansion and gun control is unconstitutional. Free trade is good as is isolationism and high taxation. Don't look for consistency of ideas -- the only stable aspect of O is that O will do whatever O thinks will personally benefit him. He's kind of a Scalia, Nixon, and Karl Rove rolled into one.
The real concern is McCain's increasing ineptitude. The sad thing is that so long after the Keating Affair, McCain is still in bed these these same reprehensible scum suckers. O does not have to do anything to prove his point that McCain is Bush III. Almost everyday, McCain is shedding his maverick clothing and to my disappointment, he's showing that he is the latest front man for the myopic and incompetent Republican oligarchy whose unchecked greed screwed up the war and is destroying the economy.
Posted by: Ruvain | July 5, 2008 1:08 PM
Some of the comments here are truly amazing --
"Obama is a Muslim plant" in the same post as saying that his wife (who has *no* Islamic connections whatsoever, other than her husband!) is the real "voice" in the family. Smearing Obama as a "Muslim plant" and at the same time lashing out at his connection to Rev. Wright, who is many things but most emphatically *not* a Muslim!!
Using DSM IV numbers and terminology to "diagnose" Obama -- it is either unprofessional (to do so publicly, and with respect to a person one has never examined or treated) or ignorant (if the author is not a trained mental health professional, which is unrevealed), if not both. In either case it is, in my opinion, despicable. Have we forgotten, so soon, how the old Soviet Union used "mental illness" as a weapon against dissent?
Obama has a working relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, and has introduced legislation (for divestiture of investments in companies that do business with Iran) that came from that relationship. Can we *please* drop the Obama-is-dangerous-to-Israel nonsense already?? I am the son of two Holocaust refugees, I have relatives on both sides of my family in Israel, and I take Israel's safety as seriously as anyone here.
If there are *any* rational voices among the Palestinian leadership (an entirely debatable point, I know!), they *must* know that if they are to have any chance to be heard by an American President, Obama is their once-in-a-century chance -- and Obama has already made it clear that he will not entertain the absurd and outrageous demands they have been making for decades.
Thank you, Rev. Schrag, and Amen!
To get to the point of the Rabbi Hirschfield's original post (finally), the idea is to distribute federal funding for the poor and underprivileged more efficiently than through governmental welfare organizations, while maintaining the essential and constitutionally-necessary separation of government and religion. Those who argue that this program would force religious organizations that are anti-gay to hire gays (whether they argue this as a good thing or a bad thing) are simply wrong. It means no more and no less than, as pointed out above, you don't have to be Catholic to be hired by Catholic Charities. Is it such a terrible idea, if a Jewish organization is (for example) running a program to deliver hot meals to shut-in's, for a non-Jew to be allowed to earn a living helping to prepare those meals -- and to work with caring and compassionate Jews on a daily basis and see that we really do *not* wear kipot just to hide our "horns?"
John McCain does not understand that having hundreds of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq -- and saying publicly that he contemplates keeping them there for a hundred years -- is one of the best "recruiting posters" the Islamic terrorists have. Does anyone here really think it was merely coincidence, that the most recent "intifadeh" and the election win by Hamas came *after* we invaded Iraq? John McCain would continue to further the government of this country by the rich and for the rich, and we simply cannot afford that any longer.
Posted by: trainman | July 6, 2008 11:47 AM
"And I'm certain that it wouldn't be less Jewish if it were a Jewish program. In fact, it might make it 'more Jewish,'..."
Exactly so.
Clearly thought through and well stated, rabbi. This is a fine example of precicely where the "focus on issues" needs to be.
Posted by: windbender | July 7, 2008 11:20 AM
Barack Obama is a very good orator. But just as McCain's heroic military service does not prove he would make a fine president, Obama's over-blown stardom cannot make him a fine president either. Inviting the participation of religious institutions in the healing of homeless people, people in need of health care, jobs, hope, and self-respect, etc., etc., etc., is stupid--for now. McCain has been endorsed by Dubya and Obama is saying he will adopt Dubya's plans about involving churches et al into the mix of what is turning out to be our governments own failure to take care of it's own citizens. I'm not a socialist, at least, not yet. And I'm not necessarily against religious institutions wanting to contribute their share of assistance to people who need their assistance, but if a Jew is a helping Jew in a synogogue and helps to feed some hungry children, I don't care if she's Jewish, straight, purple, or a man. Churches can hire and bring in volunteers of whomever they choose, and that will make any programs the government encourages to be a little more honorable as long as the people receiving the religious institutions assistance are like I was. Starving in the 1970s, I went into a Catholic church and I was given a big bag of food to take home. Given, not sold, of course not sold. It was a Catholic church that really served our suffering little community. Yes, they had clothes, too. If a nun gave a little Islamic child a sweater to cover her cold shoulders, then a human being would be helping another human being. And well, that's about all I have to say about this--for now. L'Chaym! (Did I spell "To Life!" correctly?)
Posted by: Judith | July 7, 2008 4:59 PM
Ah yes, mixing politics with religion and vice verse. Where's Islam? When were Christians pillaging and destroying non-Christian territories? Israel is superior to Palestinians? The three most powerful religions in the world are making a living hell out of the world because Israel is not about Judaism! It's about politics mixed with "Judaism." "Palestine" if ever there were such a place, is not about Islam! It's about land--politics--just like Israel. Christians? In the U.S. is it Christian to use secular government for it's own agendas? The U.S. is a Christian nation. So, I have heard. And, so "If not now, when?" First Christianity needs to liberate itself from the constraints of governmental political agendas or it will and it is now being squelched very steadily and very constantly and enough so that it will bleed to death and become subordinated and subjugated to political ideologies devoid of any spiritual humanity.
So, yes, religious institutions, help. But since when have rel. insts. not helped? The best Obama can do is encourage RIs to continue their good work. Giving money to them seems absurd especially since the governmental programs for human services have not been working well anyway. So why don't we put the money into improving these services? Oh, right. The government is too ignorant to run services for the citizens it serves. Huh?
Posted by: Judith | July 7, 2008 5:22 PM
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