Obama's Faith-Based Initiative: Throw the Constitution a Bone

When President Obama introduced the White House Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in Feb. 2009, an expansion of the Bush-Era faith-based initiative, he explained its underlying purpose:

[The Golden Rule] is an ancient rule, a simple rule... 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 any issue. ... That requires a living, breathing, active faith. It requires us to not only belief but to do. To give something of ourselves for the benefit of others and the betterment of our world. In this way (we can) bring about a greater good for all of us... Our beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted... 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 our duty of citizens of the world. And it will be the purpose of the White Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. ... The goal... will not be to favor one religious group over another or even religious groups over secular groups... And to do so without blurring line that our Founders so wisely drew between church and state.

Obama promised to undo the Bush Administration's Constitution-be-damned permissiveness towards faith-based grant recipients, namely their evangelism and proselytizing. Another criticism of the Bush-era program, religious-based hiring discrimination, was officially sanctioned by a Justice Department ruling that okayed hiring discrimination by faith-based groups. Such groups as World Vision flaunted their lack of intention to hire anyone for their faith-based social programs who didn't meet their Christian standards.

One year ago, Obama formed a 25-member Advisory Council to examine the Faith-Based program and to draft recommendations for reform and to set goals for the Obama Administration's Office. It is noteworthy that many of Obama's appointees to that Advisory Council also happen to have received millions of dollars of Faith-Based grant money over the past 10 years, like Catholic Charities ($521 million), Catholic bishop conference ($304.8 million), World Vision ($405.9 million), and other groups such as Orthodox and Jewish organizations.

Granted these groups are on the front lines of doing the "community" work, but it is hard not to take notice of an obvious conflict of interest. On the other hand, perhaps they reasoned that a few concessions to a little piece of paper like the Constitution would keep the cash flowing. But the deed is done.

The multi-million dollars of Faith-Based programming carried on business-as-usual while Obama awaited the Council's recommendations. Finally, this month the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships presented its final report of recommendations to senior officials of the Obama Administration.

If you're really interested, the 176-page report can be read word-for-bureaucratic word.

In the report is a section on "Reform." It includes several recommendations:

• Strengthening constitutional and legal footing of partnerships
  
• Fidelity to constitutional principles
  
• Increasing transparency and monitoring
  
• Grant making decisions be free from political interference
  
• Participants in the grant-making process refraining from taking religious affiliations or lack thereof into account in this process
  
• Prohibiting the use of direct aid to subsidize "explicitly religious activities, such as worship, religious instruction, and proselytization"
  
• A majority of the Council (16 members) believe that the Administration should neither require nor encourage the removal of religious symbols where services subsidized by Federal grant or contract funds are provided, but instead should encourage all providers to be sensitive to, and to accommodate where feasible, those beneficiaries who may object to the presence of religious symbols.

This last issue may be significant. I think Barry Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, makes a valid point in saying, "What is a more potent promotion of any religious system than having the central symbols of that faith (a Christian cross, for example, or religious statements like "Jesus said, 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life'") on the walls of a soup kitchen or counseling center? Many religious groups promote the idea that a single encounter with the core message of the faith can lead to spiritual conversion."

As far as the hiring bias problem, the Advisory Council was instructed not to address it because it has been remitted to the Justice Department, which has yet to make a ruling.

So, as it stands, no reforms of the Faith-based initiative have actually occurred since Obama has taken office. But the Advisory Council has issued some reform recommendations, addressing constitutional issues bashed during the Bush era, and the Justice Department still has the hiring bias problem in their court.

Obama's Faith-Based program is here to stay, and my guess is he will be highly motivated to ensure that any Constitutional glitches get fixed.

In the world view of a President who was spiritually indoctrinated in a Black Liberation Theology which links "economic justice" with "race, ... freedom, and dignity for humanity", these Faith-Based programs aren't just on the periphery of his grand purpose for "Change." In justifying the Faith-Based program, he outright declares that as Americans we are duty-bound, not only to anybody and everybody in America, but to the world to sacrifice for the betterment of others.

The fact that he throws defenders of the Constitution a bone with his promise to avoid "blurring" the line separating church and state (a pretty weak wall) is a feeble compromise to keep his duty-driven welfare train running at the expense of the wealth-creators in society -- and at the expense of the American Dream of the individual pursuing his own happiness.

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Obama's "We Are the World" Atruism Is Not Just Good Christian Works

In my last post, Obama's Black Liberation Theology: Rescuing the World, Paul Hsieh asked:

Do you know how much of this global altruism also took place under white liberals (such as President Clinton), or under a white Christian Republican (like President Bush)? In particular, is President Obama's pursuit of this kind of "save the world" altruism significantly greater under his presumed guiding philosophy Black Liberation Theology than with those other Presidents?

Thanks for your question, Paul. I believe that it is driven by different values. To answer it in depth would be beyond the scope of this blog. But I think a couple of key examples will elucidate the underlying altruistic positions of Clinton, Bush, and a representative service-oriented global Christian organization, contrasted with Black Liberation Theology's teaching about America's global responsibility.

As most know, former Presidents Bush and Clinton partnered to form the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. The purpose of the charitable organization is much the same as what Obama sold to America (with American tax dollars):

To help the Haitian people reclaim their country and rebuild their lives. Our immediate priority is to save lives. The critical needs in Haiti are great, but they are also simple: food, water, shelter, and first-aid supplies. The best way concerned citizens can help is to donate funds that will go directly to supplying these material needs....There is no greater rallying cry for our common humanity than witnessing our neighbors in distress. And, like any good neighbor, we have an obligation and desire to come to their aid.

The William J. Clinton Foundation is Clinton's philanthropic organization focusing "on worldwide issues that demand urgent action, solutions, and measurable results -- global climate change, HIV/AIDS in the developing world, childhood obesity and economic opportunity in the United States, and economic development in Africa and Latin America."

In his video on the website, Clinton directly states what his global values are. He speaks about "our common humanity," that we live in an "interdependent world ... with shared values, responsibilities and benefits ... where everybody counts, where everybody deserves a chance, where everybody has a responsibility to fulfill ... We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more."

George W. Bush's altruism was best exemplified by his "compassionate conservatism":

Government cannot solve every problem, but it can encourage people and communities to help themselves and to help one another. Often the truest kind of compassion is to help citizens build lives of their own. I call my philosophy and approach "compassionate conservatism." It is compassionate to actively help our fellow citizens in need. It is conservative to insist on responsibility and on results. And with this hopeful approach, we can make a real difference in people's lives. (April 2002)

The World Council of Churches, a worldwide community of more than 340 Christian churches of many different denominations serves to "speak out with a strong voice to promote peace, justice and care for God's creation." Also, to help "churches join hands to serve people forgotten in today's world."

Enough on these altruists.

Black Liberation Theology, on the other hand, doesn't try to sell emotion-provoking exhortations about our "common humanity," "making a difference in people's lives," "shared responsibility" or "service."

It is out for revenge. It is out for "justice."

James Cone, the founder of Black Liberation Theology, said:

What does black theology have to say about the fact that two-thirds of humanity is poor and that this poverty arises from the exploitation of the poor nations by rich nations? ... Thus, in our attempt to liberate ourselves from white America in the U.S., it is important to be sensitive to the complexity of the world situation and the oppressive role of the U.S. in it.

Obama's former pastor for 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, excoriated the U.S. for what his calls a "terrorist" foreign policy in a speech responding to the September 11 attacks.

Black Liberation Theologian Dwight Hopkins explains that global welfare is a form of "justice" in response to the alleged egregious crimes of American capitalism:

[T]he past rise of capitalism and its existence today suggest a fact of capital accumulation by ruling-class families of the globe (primarily based in the United States and Europe) who keep their monopoly over God's resources by taking capital from people of color and the Third World. Injustice against God comes from monopolized capital, which is stolen from blacks, other people of color, and Third World nations ... [We must] return God's capital and resources back to the poor (i.e., the majority world community)...

You might find this kind of preposterous bombast from modern Marxists and other anti-American "liberationists," but not from "common humanitarians" like Clinton, "compassionate conservatives" like Bush, or world-wide organizations of Christians doing the good works of Jesus.

Obama came of spiritual age in the Black Liberation Church. He is a proven enemy of capitalism. His priorities for global welfare were set very high at the first opportunity. He surrounds himself with spiritual advisers from the Black Liberation community (as well as a couple of garden variety Christian liberals).

So, my answer is basically "Yes." Obama's global welfare is about what Black Liberation Theology says is a justifiable duty America has to the rest of the world.

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Obama's Black Liberation Theology: Rescuing the World

As we know, President Obama is a religious leftist, and I have argued that his brand of religious leftism is the more radical anti-American Black Liberation Theology, the religion under which he came of spiritual age and nurtured for over 20 years before it became politically strategic for him to break public ties with it during the presidential race.

Obama's religion and policies are class-oriented, anti-capitalist, and egalitarian. I have covered some of this in previous posts. Today I focus on another tenant of Black Liberation Theology: to serve the oppressed all over the world. James Cone (the founder of Black Liberation Theology) says, Black Liberation Theology should be "concerned with the quality of human life not only in the ghettos of American cities but also in Africa, Asia, and Latin America... [T]here will be no freedom for anyone until there is freedom for all."

Then in January, "God" rattled the earth under Haiti, creating a devastating earthquake and the perfect opportunity for Obama to pour his heart out to the suffering people of this poorest country in the hemisphere. In his essay in Newsweek, entitled "Why Haiti Matters", Obama justifies his response:

When we show not just our power, but also our compassion, the world looks to us with a mixture of awe and admiration. That advances our leadership. That shows the character of our country. And it is why every American can look at this relief effort with the pride of knowing that America is acting on behalf of our common humanity.

Hello?! What about that individual's "Pursuit of Happiness" business that is the backbone of our Constitutional principles?

This effort to salvage Haiti -- a chronically corrupt failed state addicted to the regular injections of American and international aid and perpetually suffering disasters worse than its crushing endemic misery -- is a futile and wasteful and anti-American undertaking.

Obama has given Haiti 12,000 of our brave American military personnel to the cause -- an amount that is over 40% of the number sent as the surge in Afghanistan, a front for the biggest threat to America: Islamic Totalitarianism!

Obama has mobilized a team of our key officials "to discuss ongoing relief efforts": Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of Health and Human Services, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, FEMA, wide-ranging staff of the Department of Homeland Security, USAID, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

That doesn't even include coordinating the broad international relief effort, providing a US Naval Hospital ship, military and government aircraft, Coast Guard vessels, food and water, more cash.

How can any rational American leader even conceive that "rescuing" a hopeless beggar nation justifies ordering the costly diversion of our governmental resources and security infrastructure? These institutions should not be diverted from focusing on legitimate threats to the very survival of America: the Iranian goal of building nuclear weapons, the Iranian-inspired infestation and spreading epidemic of Islamic Totalitarianism, the ongoing game-playing and extortion of resources by North Korea in its quest for nuclear weapons, the serious issue of European debt and its threat to global security, etc., etc.

But to Obama, "lead(ing) the world in this humanitarian endeavor" is at least as equally important as protecting America from the most insidious threats to our freedom and even existence. Such is the illogic of our liberation-minded President.

This President's philosophy of Black Liberation Theology is a driving force for all of his major policy initiatives. He will community-organize the United States right in to a socialist state with the altruistic mission of sacrificing America for whatever neediness is out there--in the spirit of Black Liberation Theology "justice." In my view, Obama's presidency is defined by violations of the separation of church and state.

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