THE JOURNAL FOR PEOPLE OF FAITH AND SOCIALISM Religion and Labor

THE JOURNAL FOR PEOPLE OF FAITH AND SOCIALISM

Motivated by our differentreligious traditions, we believethat attitudes, priorities, and

institutions can be changed toreflect a just and democraticuse of the universe’s bounty;

we believe in the value of workthat contributes to the

common good; and in thehealing influence of respectfor the differences as well as

the commoness of humanexperience.

Religion and Labor:Coast to Coast

RESURGENCE IN LOS ANGELESRev. Dick Gillett

It would have been unimaginable a decade ago in LA: athree week city-wide strike of 80,000 janitors in the springof last year, tying up downtown streets, tramping eightmiles to a rally point— and clergy of the major religiousprominent throughout. Cardinal Roger Mahoneycelebrated a mass for the strikers, a rabbi held a seder mealfor them; and Episcopal bishop, a Roman Catholic sisterand a rabbi addressed a candlelight rally of 2000 janitors and their families inLA’s Pershing Square. The janitors won the strike, and new-city wide contracts

The janitors’ crusade for decent wages, fair treatment and health benefits caughtthe imagination of the entire city, and dramatically raised public awareness ofthe plight of the masses of low wage workers in general in Los Angeles. Yet thegroundwork for this and otherreligion-labor collaboration hadbeen laid as far back as early1996, when a small butinfluential group of clergy andlaity drew up a theologicalstatement and formed aninterfaith group to support thecampaign for a living wage ordinance in the City of Los Angeles. In the yearssince, that group, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), chairedby prominent civil rights leader and Martin Luther King, Jr. colleague- the Rev.James Lawson, has grown dramatically in numbers and influence. It has forgedcollaborative strategies with LA’s forward-looking labor movement as itchampioned the cause of low wage workers both in and beyond Los Angeles.

Following the passage of L.A. ‘s landmark living wage ordinance in 1997 therehave been rallies, religious processions, letter-writing campaigns, civil

Inside...2...Editor’s Notes

4...Religion and Labor (continued)• Rev. Joyce Caggiano• Dr. Jonathan Fine

8...DSA Forum on Faith-BasedInitiatives in Boston:

• Rev. Alexander Hunt• Hon. Byron Rushing• Norman Faramelli

12...Book Review: Say It Ain’t So,Lester Thurow!

13...Religion and SocialismCommission Statement on theSeptember 11 Attacks

AUTUMN 2001

cont’d on page 4

THREE PERSPECTIVES FROM ACROSS THE NATION

Religion still has great moralauthority to command attention

and respect when it enters thepublic arena and calls attention

to injustice...

VOLUME 25, ISSUE 4

2 Religious Socialism • Autumn 2001

the editors

Andrew HammerWinter Issue

Maxine PhillipsSpring Issue

Alex MikulichSummer Issue

Norm FaramelliFall Issue

editor’s notes

Religious Socialism (ISSN 0278-7784) ispublished four times per year by theReligion and Socialism Commission ofthe Democratic Socialists of America,and is produced by the DemocraticSocialists of America Fund.Subscriptions at the basic rate are$10.00 per year.

©2001 Religion & SocialismCommission, Democratic Socialists ofAmerica

Religious Socialism1 Maolis RdNahant, MA

[email protected]

www.dsausa.org/rs

The Religion & SocialismCommissionCo-Chairs: Rod Ryon, Juanita WebsterSecretary: Maxine PhillipsTreasurer: John Cort

Executive Committee:Rev. Judith DeutschRev. John EndlerRev. Norm FaramelliMark FinkelAndrew HammerDavid KandelAlex MikulichTharen RobsonJuanita Webster

Member, International League ofReligious Socialists – ILRS (SocialistInternational)

RS Contributing Editors:Jack Clark, Rev. Judith Deutsch, HarveyCox, Michael Eric Dyson, Rev. Marcia L.Dyson, David O’Brien

RS Advisory Board:Jack Clark, Harvey Cox, Rev. JudithDeutsch, Michael Eric Dyson, Rev.Marcia L. Dyson, David O’Brien, CornelWest

•Articles in this issue are the opinionexpressed by the writers, and not ofDSA or the Religion & SocialismCommission or Religious Socialism.Contributions to the DemocraticSocialists of America Fund are taxdeductible.

•Writers may submit manuscripts viapostal mail, e-mail, or on a 3.5”computer disk formatted to text files anda hard copy. Photos are encouraged.

UNION MADEPRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER

Most of this issue was prepared before the tragic events of Sept.11, and the ensuing“war on terrorism”. As editor, my first impulse was to “scrap it” and then beginanew addressing the meaning of the Sept. 11 events and its aftermath. But we arenot going to do that. It is imperative that we address the critical issues facing oursociety, particularly because the “war’ effort will be diverting much attention andresources from those issues. For example, the issues related to Religion and Laborin the quest for economic justice are even more important today as the economysinks into recession. Similarly, the role that faith-based organizations can playaddressing society’s needs — utilizing government funds — is significant. Alongwith others, we at RS express our deep sympathies to the families and victims ofthe Sept.11 events, as well as to those who are suffering in Afghanistan from thebombings. An expression of DSA concerns, and in particular, those of the Religionand Socialism Commission —- written shortly afterward Sept. 11 — can be foundelsewhere in this issue.

At this time we are fearful that the US bombings will be perceived as a war againstthe Muslims, despite our intentions. We are also concerned that the bombing willhave the same unifying effects on others as the bombing of the World Trade CenterTowers had on the US. There will be much said on these topics in the forthcomingissues of RS and other publications.

This issue of RS is composed primarily of two major units — one is a section onReligion and Labor — three brief articles under the title of “Religion and Labor:Coast to Coast” — which reflect different locations and different aspects of theissue. There are views from Los Angeles presented by the Rev. Richard Gillett whohas been active in interfaith efforts in the LA area — from Detroit — by the Rev.Joyce Caggiano who heads a church-based social service agency — Crossroads —which spends considerable efforts on employment issues among low incomepeople; and finally, words from Dr. Jonathan Fine, Director of the MassachusettsInterfaith Committee for Worker Justice.

The second unit addresses the issue of Faith-based Initiatives which have beenconsidered in previous RS issues (Spring and Fall 2000). Since the BushAdministration came into office, that initiative has created a political firestorm. OnAugust 17, John DeIilluo resigned his position as Director of the BushAdministration’s Faith-based Initiatives. The next day the Boston DSA Chapter helda Forum on Faith-based Initiatives, as part of its summer strategy meeting. Thepanel was moderated by the Rev. Judy Deutsch , RS Commission member, and thethree panelists were: the Rev. Alexander Hurt , pastor of Kingdom Church inBrockton, MA; The Hon. Byron Rushing, State Representative in Massachusetts;and the Rev. Norm Faramelli, from RS. We are including major portions of thepanel presentations in this issue along with some highlights from the discussion.

Religious Socialism • Autumn 2001 3

No issue of RS would be complete without a word fromour dear brother and friend, John Cort . This one is noexception, as John sends a “thank you” note and offershis insightful review of Thomas Frank’s, One Marketunder God, under the caption of “Say It Ain’t So, LesterThurow”.

John gives an important admonition to those who arereligious socialists. We should not get stuck on what ispossible or feasible, but should always be ready tostretch the boundaries of the possible — and to expandthe spectrum of political and economic feasibility.Thanks, John.

—Norm Faramelli

editor’s notes cont’d...

CORT IS NOT DEAD, BUT GRATEFUL

To the Editor:

When my wife, Helen, saw the Summer Issue of RS she said,“They must think you are either dead or dying. Otherwise-it’s too much”.

Too much or not, I am grateful to Maurice Isserman,Monsignor Higgins, and Alex Mikulich for the kind wordsand their defense of ACTU (Association of Catholic TradeUnionists), however, modified.

Two corrections: I graduated from Harvard in 1935, not1936. Secondly, it is misleading to say that “religiousunionists like Cort.... expelled communists from the labormovement.” We actually defended communists fromexpulsion until the CIO convention in 1949 votedoverwhelmingly to expel communist controlled unions. Thekey actors in this move were Phil Murray, the Catholicpresident of the CIO, Walter Reuther of the Auto Workersand Emil Rieve of the Textile Workers. As far as I know,Reuther and Rieve were not religious.

In grateful solidarity, John Cort

In the next RS:

September 11and Beyond:

Our Responses ToTerror and What

To Do About It

Aside from the condemnationof the attacks, the left hasfound it hard to speak withone united voice on the matterof how to respond to theevents of September 11. TheWinter issue will presentdifferent opinions from ourpolitical community.

www.dsausa.org

Check out DSA on the

World Wide Web for the latest

news and updates!

Back issues of RS are now available on our web site!

www.dsausa.org/rs

Letters


Religion and Laborcont’d from page 1

disobedience in support of workers’ organizingcampaigns and intensive lobbying at Los Angeles andSanta Monica city halls-many of these actionsreceiving wide press coverage. A further indication ofthe momentum building across southern California forworkers’ rights and living wages is the passage this pastSpring of a living wage ordinance in Ventura County (aconservative, largely rural area north of LA). Central toits success was a separate religion-labor coalition.

CLUE has three campaigns currently underway whichbuild upon these experiences, both in religiousparticipation and in strategies that move towardaddressing the deeper causes of the powerlessness andpoverty of working people. Its most ambitiouscampaign is focused around the “Declaration ofConscience”, an initiative signed last March by almost200 religious leaders and addressed to elected officials

in Los Angeles. It calls for a fundamental reordering ofthe city’s economic development priorities andproposes six policy recommendations to be required ofdevelopers when they come to Los Angeles seekinggenerous subsidies for their projects. The mayor andseveral City Council members have either explicitly orimplicitly endorsed it. But its real clout will comewhen CLUE, in close concert with a broad coalition oflabor and community groups, begins to leverage thevoice of religious leaders in the council districts atthose strategic moments when large developmentprojects come before the Council for approval.

This is a very ambitious undertaking and will requiremobilization and coordination efforts that will testCLUE’s organizing capabilities. But here a tremendousasset is the leadership of a organization at the center ofsuch efforts. The Los Angeles Alliance for a NewEconomy, which has been decisive in building a broadcoalition of groups to address these developmentissues. Not least among its multifaceted work is itsstrong research capability and its ties to key allies inand around the city. Most importantly for the religiouscommunity, LAANE has had the wisdom to include itas a strong partner.The second CLUE program, theHotel Organizing project focuses upon supportinghotel workers in their efforts to organize unions in key

hotels on LA’s wealthy West Side (including SantaMonica) and in downtown Los Angeles.

A key to this effort is a “chaplaincy in the field “program , which involves clergy in various ways fromhome visits with workers to listen to their stories andsupport their efforts in the workplace, to standing withthem at a particular labor actions. One such action lastSpring, directed toward Loews Hotel in Santa Monica,was a march in which over 150 clergy and laity or allthe major faiths participated. This has been followedby a concerted letter-writing campaign involving notonly our area but the New York area to persuadeLoews, a prominent Democrat and New Yorker torecognize workers right to organize at his hotel.

The third program, now gearing up to address theplight of low-income workers in nursing homes in L.A.County, is using strategies similar to those of the HotelOrganizing project. Here the union is the ServiceEmployees International Union (SEIU) whose

organizers pair with a full time CLUE staffperson, a Baptist clergyperson, on thisproject. This kind of collaborativestrategizing, i.e., giving a real role inplanning to Church folks is new to theunions. It will take patience to nourishthis relationship into its full potential, butwe believe that the unions will over timewill see the value of clergy participationas far more effective than, say the “rent-a-collar” mentality that unionssometimes exhibit when they call upon

clergy to show up at a picket line with them.

How did we come to witnesses a revived religiousparticipation in labor’s struggles comparable, as oneprominent union leader here observe, to theinvolvement of the clergy and laity in the farmworkers’struggle led by Cesar Chavez?

First, is the reality of poverty in Los Angeles, whichperhaps epitomizes the problem of working povertymore than any other metropolitan area in the UnitedStates. Over the 1990s, poor families rose in numberfrom 36 to 43 percent of the total population in the L.A.County (according to the calculation of a needs-basedpoverty threshold of $33,000 annually for a family offour). A sharply rising immigrant population over thesame period contributed to this rise.

But a key factor in the recent successes of organizedlabor (it organized about 90,000 new workers in 1999alone) has been labor’s new willingness to organizeundocumented immigrant workers. Just as important,the leadership of the two most active unions (the HotelWorkers’ Union and the Service EmployeesInternational Union) has passed to Latinos whoseunion formation and experience came directly out ofChavez farmworker movement. Moreover, the head of

A key factor in the recent successes of organized labor... has been labor’s new willingness to organize undocumented immigrant workers.

the Ordinance. But soon the press began toacknowledge the clergy’s participation. I honestly thinkthat it were not for their joint actions and advocacytogether with the unions, community groups andothers, we would not have passed the ordinance.” AndMaria Elena Durazo, president of Local 11 of the HotelWorkers union, told a Los Angeles church conferencein 1999 that the most important force in workerstruggles— next to that of the workers themselves-, isthe interfaith religious community, giving the workersstrength and courage and signaling to the communitythe moral rightness of their struggle.

To whatever degree lofty pronouncements andreligious processions of the past may or may not haveresulted in true advancement of the dignity and respectof the workers, we should do well today to remindourselves that Israel’s great “searchings of the heart”included these stirring words of the prophet Isaiah(65:22-23)

My chosen ones will enjoy the fruit of their labor,They will not toil to no purpose, or raise children for misfortune,Because they and their issue after themAre a race blessed by the Lord. ◗

The Rev. Dick Gillett, minister for social justice in theEpiscopal Diocese of Los Angeles, is program chair forClergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, and along-time advocate for worker justice.

Religious Socialism • Autumn 2001 5the county AFL-CIO federation, Miguel Contreras, wasa farmworker organizer. In these unions, a bottom-up,democratic union movement is being built.

But how did religious participation in worker struggleshere become so widespread? Going back to the mid-nineties, at the beginning of the new involvement, Ifound that a good number of people in our churchescould already sense that something was terribly wrong:How could so many people be working at full-timejobs yet barely surviving, while there was so muchprosperity and affluence all around them? So therequest to support a living wage ordinance fell uponreceptive ears.

So that initial experience of working shoulder toshoulder with ordinary working people on the livingwage campaign was a quantum step up in the‘conscientization’ process. It fueled the passion and thecommitment of significant numbers in the religiouscommunity to expand the work in the ways describedhere.

The power of the religious voice and its presence inissues of worker and economic justice cannot beoverstated. Religion still has great moral authority tocommand attention and respect when it enters thepublic arena and calls attention to injustice, especiallyamong the most vulnerable and voiceless.Commenting on the religious presence in the livingwage campaign, its chief legislative advocate,Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg said, “Early on, themedia portrayed only the unions as the advocates of

A WORD FROMDETROITRev. Joyce Caggiano

I have never been in a realhuman stampede. But each time Iopen Crossroads’ door I fear thatit will happen that day. We willbe stampeded by the brave onesof the desperately poor whodemand to receive justice. The brave ones are the oneswho demand their right to a decent wage and a roofover their heads and food for their bellies and shelterfrom the storms of life. I couldn’t help but make thecomparison with those who dashed down the manyflights of stairs in desperate need to survive the assaulton the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The twogroups have one thing in common— the drive tosurvive.

We at Crossroads serve nearly 10,000 people in thecity of Detroit each year—ninety percent African

RELIGION AND LABOR: COAST TO COAST

American, and sixty-seven percent male-thepopulation the William Julius Wilson calls “the trulydisadvantaged”. They come to our doors each day toget help for basic human needs. And we are therebecause we are committed to justice; we arecommitted to the ethical standards of Jesus Christ— notthe standards of the Dow Jones index. And so, wefeed, clothe, and love those who come to us withoutjobs, transportation, or even the basic necessities of arespectable human life, i.e. a home with a toilet andshower and a place to wash clothes. But this is notenough to secure safety against the persistent pressureof extreme poverty. It is not enough, because we canonly help on a limited basis— because everyindividual has a right to a decent wage and secureemployment.

Crossroads is working to assist those who have thestrength and potential to survive in our capitalistnation— the ones who have the will to push to theshores of safety- to seek a living wage. Ouremployment office has reengineered its operation byestablishing a mentoring program for the potentially

cont’d on next page

A VIEW FROM MASSACHUSETTSDr. Jonathan Fine

The Massachusetts InterfaithCommittee for Worker Justice(MICWJ) is one of more than 30local Committees in the USorganized primarily to bring themoral force and teachings ofdiverse faith communities to thecause of labor. Founded in 1997,and based in Boston, theCommittee to date has concentrated its effortsprimarily in the Greater Boston, the home andworkplace of two-thirds of Massachusetts’ residents.Consistent with its statement of purpose, theCommittee’s work focuses on strategies and campaignsto aid low-wage workers and, among these, especiallythe unorganized.

Four principal program elements have emerged:

employable. We are working to help those who can,find meaningful employment. We help everyone byhelping the most severely disadvantaged to overcomebarriers to full-time employment. In a one-on- oneinterview process, weare working to imbuethe depressed anddowntrodden with aspirit of success andself-worth. We kickedoff our program with ameeting of all our newmentors. After hearingtestimony from aformer client and crack addict, one of ourcounselor/mentors exclaimed “Oh! I understand now .You mean that we don’t need to be experts in theemployment field. All we need to do is to love ourfellow brothers and sisters”. Too bad it is such a rarething for so many to find. Skills alone, althoughnecessary, will not do it.

Each of Crossroads’ Employment Office Mentors has anumber of clients whom they follow from week toweek in an effort to help them focus on their search fora way out of poverty and homelessness. More than ahundred churches of many denomination assist in thiseffort through contributions of time, money, andvolunteer hours. Our success is yet to be measured interms of numbers, but the satisfaction of finding workfor many, who were not previously employed, issufficient to keep us going.


Two week ago, I met one of our clients who had founda real “place” in the work world. He works for aCondominium management company. He greeted mewith smiles and blessings, proudly telling me that henow had a van, a new wardrobe, and for the first timein his life-a bank account and an ATM card! His joy

lifted my spirit and givesus all hope. Yes, we canfind safety and love andcare in our world, with alittle help from thereligious community.

The rush of the crowd atCrossroads’ door is stillan ominous sigh of

poverty’s desperation in Detroit., perhaps it isdesperation not unlike those who descended thedozens of flights down the World Trade Centerstairwell. They ran because a group of fanatics werewilling to commit suicide and mass murder.

So as the two airlines crashed into the World TradeCenter towers, I thought about the rush of the people toleave the building that had sheltered them. The peoplehad to run to get to a place- away from the center ofworld trade. Crossroads is perhaps another shelter fromthat center—one in which love, hope, faith, courageand self-assurance fight the tide of fear and oppressionthat will lift the cloud of doom and destruction fromover the disadvantaged. ◗

The Rev. Joyce Caggiano is an Episcopal priest andExecutive Director of Crossroads.


...we help everyone by helping themost severely disadvantaged toovercome barriers to full-time

employment...

(1) Enlisting religious congregations in Massachusettsin the struggle for worker justice.

The committee seeks to identify activists (clergy andlaity), and work with them for mobilization ofadditional support within faith communities. This effortis now enhanced by the August 2001 appointment tothe MICWJ of a full-time organizer.

(2) Solidarity with organized labor in support oforganizing and contract campaigns, especially in thesupport of low wage workers.

While in solidarity with all unions, the Committee hasworked especially with the Service EmployeeInternational Union (SEIU) locals in Massachusetts andthose of the building trades, e.g.., the Painters RegionalCouncil, which have to a greater extent than manyothers concentrated sources on organizing low-wageworkers.

RELIGION AND LABOR: COAST TO COAST

Religious Socialism • Autumn 2001 7(3) Campaigning against sweatshop conditions

Anti-sweatshop campaigning by MICWJ has evolved inthe period of 1997-2001 parallel to that elsewhere inthe nation- from participation in protests directedagainst large, name-brand retailers, strategies designedto bring aggregate purchasing power of municipalitiesand other public bodies to pressure sweatshopproduction facilities to conform to domestic andinternational labor standards.— Two campaigns byMICWJ and its labor partners are bearing fruit. The first;a municipal ordinance drafted by UNITE theinternational garment workers union -and now law(2001) in the City of Boston- is designed to prevent thepurchase of sweatshop-produced uniforms and othergarments with public funds. The second: a proposedstate statute that would set up a mechanism formonitoring of state contracts for goods and services forsweatshop conditions. The first of its kind in the nation,this state bill was proposed by the Commission on Lawand Social Action of the American Jewish Congress buthas been actively supported byMICWJ and the Greater Boston LaborCouncil since its inception. In mid-2001, the bill is still making its waythrough the MassachusettsLegislature.

(4) Empowerment of immigrantworkers

With assistance from foundations andthe National Committee for WorkerJustice, MICWJ played a strategic rolein the development of the Ana daHora Workers Center in East Boston.The Center serves Brazilian and otherimmigrants from the working classcommunities north of Boston. TheCenter seeks to empower theimmigrant community. It is governedby an elected, all-Brazilian working class board ofdirectors. In addition to providing ESL classes and afree legal clinic staffed by the Greater Boston LegalServices, the Center focuses on mobilization in supportof immigrant rights.

Uniting all of these elements is a newly forged alliancebetween MICWJ and the Greater Boston Labor Council(GBLC). The history of this alliance is instructive. Fromits inception, the Committee responded to appealsfrom the national AFL-CIO and local unions forreligious presence in organizing and contract actions.Consequently, MICWJ has participated in scores oflabor struggles. A few of these campaigns have been ofhistoric proportions: the national UPS contractcampaign (1998), and the St. Vincent’s Nurses Strike inWorcester, MA and the East Coast Bell Atlantic /Verizoncampaigns (2000). Recognizing the importance of

active support from communities of faith to laborstruggles, the GBLC Mobilization committee and theOrganizers Roundtable, a monthly gathering of labororganizers in Eastern Massachusetts, both invitedMICWJ to participate in their regular meetings. Thesearrangements not only gave clergy and active laity aplace at the table of Labor, but it helped the Committeegain insight and acquaintance with the thinking offront-line organizers and state and national AFL-CIOleadership.

One clergyman in Massachusetts, in particular, hasresponded to the calls from Labor and has served thecause of Labor, the Rev. Edward Boyle, S. J., ExecutiveSecretary of the Labor Guild of the Archdiocese ofBoston. With more than thirty years of service to laborthrough the Guild, he has brought his vast credibility,experience, and sense of justice to the development ofMICWJ and has served as its President since itsinception. Father Boyle joined in founding MICWJforeseeing the need for an activist, interfaith entity to

take up the cause of labor.

At the same time, responding to anappeal from Father Boyle, thePresident of the State AFL-CIO RobertHaynes and Tony Romano, theSecretary-Treasure of the GBLC, urgedtheir organizations and the localunions of Massachusetts to providefinancial support for MICWJ. In theYear 2000-2001, this initiative hasresulted in $12,000 to help buildMICWJ.

As this alliance strengthened locally,the National Interfaith Committee forWorker Justice, under Kim Bobo’sleadership, gained new ground in itspartnership with the AFL-CIO.Beginning in 2000, the AFL-CIO

urged its representatives in each state to strengthenlocal interfaith-labor alliances. As a result, SandyFelder, the AFL-CIO’s director in Massachusetts, offerassistance of her staff to MICWJ to bolster itsadministrative and organizing capacity. Frequentconsultations between both entities and Tony Romanoof the GBLC, led to an unprecedented April 2001breakfast meeting of 50 leaders of faith communitiesand local unions. All present were called upon tospeak to the challenges that they felt the twocommunities should address together.

In June 2001, the newly formed alliance met againchoosing five function areas for joint planning andaction (a) education, organizing and mobilizing withinfaith communities, (b) the Justice for Janitors campaign(and others), (c) sweatshop initiatives, (d) living wagecampaigns, and (e) empowerment of immigrantworkers.

THE EXHORTATIONOF ALL THE GREATRELIGIONS TO GIVE

PREFERENTIALTREATMENT TO THE

POOR IS BEINGTRANSLATED INTO A

STRATEGICMOVEMENT IN

SUPPORT OF LABORORGANIZING.

cont’d on page 14


REV. ALEXANDER HURTKINGDOM CHURCH, BROCKTON, MA

Pentecostal preachers do not often receive invitationsfrom DSA, so I am anxious about today’s session,anxious because there is confusion in the Left-of-Center coalition around this particular policyinitiative.— I want to focus on an emerging trend in USpolitics and consider some suspicions and challengesto the coalition, using Faith-based initiatives as aconversation partner.

A new progressive movement is emerging that looksvery much the one that began in the early 20th century.The Left-of-Center and Center-Left needs tounderstand that there will be people who populate thiscoalition that will be moderates. That is, there will beoccasions when these people will be in coalition withothers who are part of a Center-Right coalition. This isimportant, because Faith-based initiatives started out asa brilliant idea on the Right in order to frustrate thesuccessful coalition of Women, African-Americans,and Labor Unions.

In a general philosophic and ideological way, thereform movement makes for an interesting point ofdeparture. On the left, Ralph Nader and on the Right,John McCain both arguing that the political systemneeds to be fixed. In the same way, there is a very largereligious revival movement— the charismaticmovement. All of these are about to coalesce aroundthe Faith-based Initiatives.

The Black Church position has been very interesting,and illustrative of how opposition and a knee-jerkreaction to this initiative can create problems. Theleadership of the Black churches has been saying—“It’s (the initiative) from Bush and since Bush is fromhell, we cannot accept it”. But of the 8 large blackchurches where 80 % of the blacks reside, there areonly 8 leaders, and there are 32 million followers. And,on this issue, the 32 million black Christians are with

Bush, and the 8 black leaders are with the opposition!

Three Levels

Reform is happening on three levels- the first is a policychange; second, there is a political change; and third,there is a theological and ministerial change. Faith-based initiatives represents a significant departureaway from the way that things are done. That is, thereis a shift away from direct grants and purchase ofservices to a voucher-based system. What is interestingis that the Left has not picked up on what the realargument is all about. So to DSA I say-start reading allthe magazines on the Right, like World Thesemagazines are very good at telegraphing what theRight is trying to do. On the Right, nobody cares aboutsupporting urban ministry. This fight is not aboutchurches. Faith-based initiatives is a small piece ofgiving out social services through vouchers. It makesthe intellectual and policy argument for theappropriateness of a voucher-based social servicedelivery.. And we can guess, the second iteration willbe extended to public schools and so forth.

This real game is not what the Left is fighting about. Sowhat I always step back and say to my friend Jim Wallis(editor of Sojourners), and to DSA : “You have missedthe boat”— just as the Left missed it on welfare reform.If we focus our attention on the things that were reallydetrimental to the least, the lost and the left out, we

The real fight is the attempt by

the Right to legitimize vouchers,

as an appropriate public policy

mechanism to deliver services

from government.

DSA FORUM ONFAITH BASED INITIATIVES

On August 18, the Boston Chapter of DSA held a forum on the Bush Administration’s Faith-basedInitiatives. The forum, moderated by Judy Deutsch (member of the RS Commission), included TheRev. Alexander Hurt, pastor of Kingdom Church in Brockton, MA ; the Honorable Byron Rushing,Massachusetts Legislature; and the Rev. Norm Faramelli of RS. Excerpts edited from theproceedings follow:

Religious Socialism • Autumn 2001 9could have been more successful. The real fight is theattempt by the Right to legitimize vouchers, as anappropriate public policy mechanism to deliver theservices from government to those who are in need. Sothat is how it represents a policy change.

This represents a political change in that the Center-Left coalition is crumbling under the real differencesinternal to this coalition. The reality is-brothers andsisters- that the black community is a sociallyconservative community. Because of that, if youragenda is exclusively wrapped around non-economicissues-and not the economic issues which we share incommon (where there is some convergence in terms ofinterest), you will lose that community.

Finally, there is a significant religious movement afootin the charismatic movement, and these people arenatural coalition partners to the progressive movement.I don’t think that the progressive movement is going toreach out to them, because they are theologicalconservatives, but they are often social progressives.And as long as there is a near genetic opposition on theLeft to all things religious, you will not be able to tapinto members of a community that is growing by leapsand bounds. The next 50 years will be dominated bythis community. T. D. Jakes has 30,000 congregantsevery Sunday, Chuck Singleton, in Calif., 32,000congregants every single week and many looking todo some progressive stuff Yet such people are afraidthat DSA will not welcome them because of theirreligious commitments, even if they share theeconomic and political vision of DSA. They fear theywill be forced to check what they think about“ultimacy” at the door. That has been a major mistakeof the Left historically, and Faith-based initiativesprovide a major opportunity to correct that.

THE HONORABLE BYRON RUSHINGSTATE REPRESENTATIVE, MASSACHUSETTS

I will talk about Faith-basedinitiatives historically, and also incurrent politics. I am assumingthere is a controversy about thisbecause of a long tradition in theUS that began in the 18th centuryabout how we should treatreligion, politics and government.We would not be having thisdiscussion in the United Kingdom

or in other democracies . We are having it in ourdemocracy because we have worked over most of ourhistory to test out this consensus of the majorityview.— And the majority view is found in these words:“Congress shall make no law respecting anestablishment of religion or prohibiting the freeexercise thereof”. Those are the words. Even in a

society where slavery was legal, where diversity meantonly differences in nationalities, there might be someproblems if we established one religion—so we saidgovernment will establish no religion.

The Background

On the other hand, we knew that if you are going toallow diversity to flourish then everybody’s religionshould be allowed. We should not be banishing,burning or hanging people with different religions, aswe did in the first years of the colony of Massachusetts.That is the general consensus of the people today.There are definitely, however, minorities who havewanted to establish a religion and at times they havebeen able to do so— de facto— such as the Mormonsdid in Utah. Generally, that is not the majority view.The majority view is against the establishment of andfor freedom of religion. Yes I know we have a hard timewith that when the religions are really kooky. And wehave to fight it out and we do. I won’t get into thatmore, but those of you who know my position in theMassachusetts Legislature know that I am a “radical:freedom of religion” person. That is where I split witha good number of people on the Left, especially withregard to the welfare of children. If you are going takea radical position in a state that is the Vatican ofChristian Science, you will run into conflicts withpeople who are concerned about children’s welfare.That happens and those conflicts get worked out in oursociety.

The Politics in Historical Context

Every once in a while we have a proposal that seemsto speak against that consensus and that causescontroversy. I am assuming that if we take the Faith-based initiatives people at there word, that is thecontroversy we have right now.

But I agree with Alex, you can’t take the Faith-basedinitiative people at their word. It is not about that.

Think about this for a moment. We are a society thathas always felt that government can support religiousinstitutions when they are doing certain things. And wehave believed that for a long period of time, evenbefore we thought that the Bill of Rights had to applyto states. In Mass, we funded the descendants of thePuritans until the 1820. That is, we paid for the salariesof ministers in Churches We were able to do it becauseit was state money, and state government had thatability. For political reasons, that support ended inmany states, but constitutionally, it ended with thepassage of the 14th amendment. More importantly,governments in the US have always looked to religiousorganizations to do several kinds of work. And what wewould call social work has always seemed like anappropriate kind of work to ask religious organizationsto do. cont’d on next page


Sometimes religious organizations did that work well;some times they did not. When we ended the Indianwars in the US in the 1880s, the US governmentdecided that they should do social work in thereservations. There was a tremendous amount ofcontroversy about the government bureaucrats whowere sent out to do that work, so US governmentstopped that by urging Churches to do the work. Theyhad a meeting in New York City and brought togetherthe heads of all the denominations. They literally put amap of the reservations on the table, and they askedthe churches to pick the reservations they wanted. TheEpiscopal Church picked the Dakotas. You can go toNorth and South Dakota today and most nativeAmerican Christians are Episcopalians. Note there wasno Supreme Court case about that. It was seen assomething appropriate to do.

And we know that US government and most stategovernments have used religious institutions as anappropriate way to do certain tasks that thegovernment felt were important in the community.With urban renewal, the US government urgedChurches to build housing for low and moderateincome people, and we developed a program duringthe Johnson Administration to doexactly that. If you go to most cities inthe US that have had urban renewalprograms, you will find housing thatwas not only built by the churches, butwas probably named after thechurches. St Mark’s Church, Bostonbuilt Marksdale. Union Methodistbuild Met Union . So why thecontroversy today?

Two things came together with theRepublican attempt to regain the WhiteHouse. One idea was that conservativechurches are not getting enough of thismoney. There seemed to be built intothe system a process by which largedenominations (but alsodenominations that seemed to be Left of center), weregetting all the money. How do we get the money to theChurches that theologically are on the Right?

The other reason why this was done, is the old tacticthat Alex alluded to.

Create an enemy that never existed, insist that it exists,and then go after it. The enemy is the fact that religiousorganizations are discriminated against because ofsomething that they do, or because of something that istaught in those religious organizations. So you tellpeople that is what is happening. And you say it over

and over again and soon people begin to believe thatis a reality. And soon people sound surprised whenthey find out that religious organizations have beengetting money for years and years. For example, atCatholic Charities in Mass., almost 70 % of its budgetcomes from the taxpayers of Mass. via stategovernment. Most of the refugee work that in done inthe US is done by religious organizations. Where doesthe money come from? The State Department— Yet lotsof people think it is not so.

Is It New?

Consider that wonderful test that the Right winginvented a few years ago- political correctness. Theytold the Left that the Left was “politically correct”.Then they went around telling people about howterrible political correctness was, while nobody that Iknew was “politically correct”. And they said it sofrequently that we started to defend ourselves and nowwe have people defending themselves about theirposition regarding receiving aid from the federalgovernment.

Yesterday I watched a TV reporter talking as if aid toreligious institutions is something brand new. It is notnew. What will it be if the Republicans are successfulin accomplishing what they desire? There will be waysthat money will go to the Churches they like. So that is

what this whole argumentis all about. We on the Lefthave to sit back and decideon how we respond to that.In responding, we need toremember that we are notin an argument aboutwhether religiousorganizations should getgovernment money. Theargument is: do we need tochange the ways in whichreligious organizations getthis money? That argumentyou do not have withbureaucrats. You have thatargument with other

churches. Its the conservative churches - that want themoney . So let’s get the churches together—let thosechurches that do not get the money meet with thosethat do, and let them figure out ways and reforms thatneed to be made so every religious group has access tothe funds. Now part of that means there will bedisagreements among religious organizations. Let’shave those disagreements among the churches. Let’snot make this some great argument between the Rightand the Left. It is being made that kind of argument,because it is in the Right’s interest to have argumentswith the Left. If the Right cannot have arguments withthe Left there would be no Right.

We are a societythat has alwaysfelt thatgovernment cansupport religiousinstitutions...

Faith Based Initiativescont’d from page 9

Religious Socialism • Autumn 2001 11NORMAN FARAMELLIRELIGIOUS SOCIALISM

I appreciate the remarks of both. I agree with Byronthat government financial support to religiousinstitutions is not new, but I also agree with Alex thatthe context is now different.

In my remarks I will not address the thorny Church-State issues, or the intentions of government for theseinitiatives. But I am concerned about what governmentthinks of its role is in addressing social needs, and alsowhat effects Faith-based initiatives will have onreligious institutions.

I would like to focus on the WHY—the WHO, and theWHAT:

The WHY...

Some progressives like Michael Walzer think thatFaith-based initiatives can be consistent with ourcommunitarian principles and values. And I wouldagree, but I would concur only if these Faith-basedprograms were being pursued as a positivecomplement to the role of government. I clearly see thepositive role that mediating structures or voluntaryassociations can play in American society, as was firstpointed out by deTocqueville. But that is not what I seetoday. I see a federal government (particularly theWhite House) backing away from the responsibilities ofgovernment, so these programs are seen less as acomplement and more as a substitute. Furthermore,although I see the value of religious institutionsfunctioning as a complement to government, I havesome doubts about the capacity and competence ofmany religious organizations to deliver the types ofservices that are needed.

The WHO...

The issue immediately surfaces: which religiousinstitutions? Will a Muslim or a Buddhist group beeligible for government funding? Or will funding belimited only to those groups that are in the Judeo-Christian tradition? To have the government decidewhich religious groups are worthy and which are not isa very dangerous business.

The WHAT...

There are three elements to be considered.

1) Why do some Churches desire this money? My ownexperience is that some religious institutions see this asa way to procure funding that is needed for theircontinuation. If that is the case, they will be verysurprised. I encountered this attitude in a congregationthat was considering taking advantage of the a

Charitable Choice funds that were made possiblethrough the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. The Churchwas asked to provide the social services that were theresult of a badly flawed welfare reform program.

2) Take another situation—Some Churches might usegovernment funding to religious institutions andcircumvent government regulations. For example, willa religious organization (like the Salvation Army) beexempt from federal fair employment practices if itrefuses to hire a person who will deliver the services,simply because that person is gay or lesbian?

3) There is still another aspect of acceptinggovernment funds that troubles me. Will those fundsskew the mission of the religious institution, in a waythat will further dampen the prophetic role of thereligious institution? Now I have always been skepticalof the billing given to religious institutions in the 60’sfor their work in civil rights and in the anti-warmovement. Some groups were very active and highlyvisible, while others did little. There is a chronictendency in religious institutions to shy away fromadvocacy or prophetic roles. What will happen if manyChurches are receiving government funds? I fear thatthose funds will be a further damper on their ability tocritique federal policies.

A Balance That Works

Now there are current arrangements where there seemsto be a proper balance between federal funding andfunding from religious constituencies. For example, thenational refugee/immigration ministries of both theRoman Catholics and the Lutherans are 85-90 percentfunded by the federal government. The money comesfrom the US State Dept and Health and HumanServices Dept. and it is designated primarily for refugeeresettlement. These organizations have built asophisticated professional capacity to deliver socialservices.— But the advocacy work of theseorganizations is not funded by the government. Forexample, these groups know that you cannot critiquethe federal government’s policy -such as the curtailingof benefits to legal immigrants— by using the

cont’d on page 14

I see the federal government

..backing away from the

responsibilities of government so

(Faith-based Initiatives) are seen

less as a complement and more

as a substitute

12 Religious Socialism • Autumn 2001Over the years I followedThurow’s writing and began tofear that he was driftingrightward. So I wrote and askedhim if he still believed what hewrote in 1980. He replied: “Ithink that a real right to work isthe central issue and thatgovernment should guaranteethat right. But on this issue I amso far off the feasible politicalspectrum that I have given up

talking about it.”

Now comes the really bad news. In 1999 Thurow wroteanother book, Building Wealth. In this he wrote:

Wealth has become increasingly theonly dimension by which personalworth is measured. It is the only game toplay if you want to prove your mettle. Itis the big leagues. If you do not playthere, by definition you are second rate.

Thomas Frank quotes this passage in One Market UnderGod and in a note comments:

As astonished to encounter this passageas you are, I searched Thurow’s text forevidence that he was kidding, or that hewas citing these attitudes in order toshock readers. I am sorry to report thathe was not. Although these are clearlyattitudes that Thurow believes arecommon to our time rather than eternaltruths, he makes no effort to distancehimself from them.

With all due respect to one of America’s foremosteconomists, I am compelled to say: It is time to distanceyourself, Professor. To hell with “the feasible politicalspectrum!” In 1980 you spoke of “moral responsibility.”What about your own moral responsibility to do whatyou can, and say what you can, to make an unfeasiblepolitical spectrum more feasible? We mentallydisadvantaged folks depend on smarter folks likeyourself. When you fail us, Milton’s bitter reproachapplies, “The hungry sheep look up and are not fed.”

Thomas Frank is certainly not worrying about feasiblepolitical spectrums. With erudition, wit and sarcasm hehas riddled both the political and economic spectrumsthat bedevil us and-especially significant for us religioustypes—demonstrated that popular pundits like GeorgeGilder and Thomas Friedman are trying to sell the worldthat God has, in fact, finally come to the conclusion thatgreed is good, after all.

Incredible? Judge for yourself from quotes that Franksupplies. George Gilder in his 1984 book, The Spirit of

Say It Ain’t So,Lester Thurow!by John C. Cort

One Market Under God:Extreme Capitalism, MarketPopulism and the End ofEconomic Democracy, Thomas FrankDoubleday, 2000, 414pp.

This is a review of an excellentbook by Thomas Frank and we willget around to that excellence in duetime, but first we must deal withwhat he says about our old friend,Lester Thurow, which also happensto be relevant to the message of thebook.

Back in the seventies DSA membersin New England gathered for a

weekend retreat on a beach in Saco, Maine. (We wereDSOC then, the Democratic Socialist OrganizingCommittee.) The key speaker was a brilliant youngeconomist at MIT, Lester Thurow. I don’t rememberwhat he said, but he would not have been invited if itwas not agreeable doctrine. I do remember that at onepoint he was stretched out on the floor in the middle ofan admiring group of DSOCers and seemed to beenjoying himself immensely.

Years later I was indulging my incurable habit of writingabout the need for a federal job guarantee and I seizedon a great passage from Thurow’s most popular book,The Zero-Sum Society:

We need to face the fact that oureconomy and our institutions will notprovide jobs for everyone who wants towork. They have never done so, and ascurrently structured, they never will.Since we regard the United States as awork ethic society, this restructuringshould be a moral as well as aneconomic goal. We consistently preachthat work is the only “ethical” way toreceive income. We cast aspersions onthe “welfare society”. Therefore we havea moral responsibility to guarantee fullemployment. Not to do so is like lockingthe church door and then saying thatpeople are not virtuous if they do not goto church [emphasis added].

I especially liked that religious reference at the end.


Enterprise: “It is the entrepreneurs who know the rulesof the world and the laws of God.”

Frank tells us that Friedman in The Lexus and the OliveTree (1999) speaks of how “a visionary geo-architect”,who could be no one else but God, in designing theperfect society, would be sure to let employers “hire andfire workers with relative ease.” Frank concludes:

Today American opinion leaders seemgenerally convinced that democracyand the free market are simplyidentical...that there is somethingnatural, something divine, somethinginherently democratic about markets.

And of course they try to make you feel guilty if you saya single critical word about globalization and theopportunities it presents for poor children in Pakistan toearn a few honest pennies to keep their parents fromstarving.

This reminds me of a conference at Harvard aboutglobalization and the sweatshops from which we nowbuy 85 percent of our clothing. A handsome blonde ina tight red dress emphasized the Nike angle in herspeech: “Isn’t it better that these children should bemaking a few dollars rather than fending off starvationby selling their bodies in prostitution?”

A man in the audience rose in the question period andsaid, “You make a persuasive case. But let’s apply thatsame reasoning to our situation here in the U.S.: Thereare plenty of families living in extreme poverty whowould be better off if we repealed our child labor lawsand our minimum wage laws and allowed their childrento work for peanuts so that the family could at least eatpeanuts. Is that what you want?”

No, that wasn’t exactly what she wanted. She onlywanted, like the pundits whom Frank riddles so well, tomake us think that globalization is not all bad, and inany case unstoppable, and therefore by definition good.

Even liberal religious magazines like Commonwealhave fallen for this line.

And so we sit back, paralyzed by self-doubt, obliviousto the fact that it isn’t all or nothing. There are middleways. There are choices. Nothing is inevitable orunstoppable. We can devise ways to help those poorchildren abroad just as we devised ways, still imperfectthough they be, to help our children here at home. Wehave the clout to bring pressure on the greedyemployers and politicians who are responsible for themisery of those children so that the children and theirparents are better off, and at the same time the pooremployers and workers who are competing with themhere, are also better off.

Frank’s excellent book deserves more space, but wemust close with some scary statistics that he supplies outof Business Week. In 1990 the ratio of American CEO’sincome was 85 times greater than that of their averageblue collar employees. This was up from 29 to 1 in1979. By 1999 it had ballooned to 475 times greater.Jack Welch, the whizbang CEO at GE, has to get by on1400 times the earnings of his average blue collaremployee in the US and 9,571 times that of the averageMexican worker, many of whom are now GEemployees.

This contrasts with a ratio in Japan, the second largesteconomy in the world, of 11 to 1. In Great Britain, undera socialist government which our lefties here like toridicule as a bunch of phonies, the ratio is 24 to 1.

In any case, read One Market Under God. Our onlycriticism would be of the sub-title, “The End ofEconomic Democracy.” As long as one decent tradeunion remains alive, economic democracy has notcome to an end. And we still have plenty of decent tradeunions. Cheer up, Frank. ◗

John C. Cort is the founding editor of ReligiousSocialism.

RELIGION AND SOCIALISM COMMISSION STATEMENT ON THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKSThe Religion and Socialism Commission of the Democratic Socialists of America condemns with the utmost severity the horrible actsof murder committed in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.

This was a crime not merely against Americans, but the entire world. The victims of this tragedy were people of many faiths, includingIslam. They were working people as well as stockbrokers, people of all races from many nations. The idea that such violence againstinnocent people can ever be warranted is deeply appalling. Equally appalling is the notion, put forth by the perpetrators of these acts,that religious belief can ever be a justifiable motive for the massacre of humanity.

The complex political background to these events is not to be ignored, but for now, our thoughts and prayers are with the familiesand friends of the victims. We join with our comrades in the International League of Religious Socialists and the Socialist Internationalin calling for a time of remembrance, and for solidarity among all those who support the ideal of a democratic society.

September 15, 2001

from around the country are opposed. I am talkingabout pastors who opposition is only matched by theirconservatism. This is part of a much larger project, andpart of what I am concerned about is that very soon inthe Black community there will not be a Black Left left.Because the Left has not spent enough time trying toget the issues right. This is not about Churchesproviding social services.

I can tell about my denomination — 6.5 million —18,000 churches in 454 countries — WE DON’T LIKEGOVERNMENT INVOLVED IN THE WORK THAT WEDO. And the Left needs to understand that there is afundamental difference between social ministry andevangelism.

This goes to Norm’s point — about governmentfunding of social ministries. The church is not going toabdicate its role for evangelism. With regard to socialministries, the church not only seeks out public dollarsbut private dollars as well. But that does not precludethe Church from being aggressive in evangelism. Andthat evangelism will be funded by the church.

One of the reasons I am a proponent, and incounterdistinction to Norm, I have seen what churches



government’s nickel. All of the public policy andadvocacy work relating to immigration policies, workwith asylum seekers-detention centers, is funded by thechurches, not by government. Also, both the Lutheransand Roman Catholics are making great strides ingetting their congregations involved in immigrationissues. This work is also not funded by government. Sothere are models that have been around for some time.

I give these illustrations to say that these are existingprograms— being funded over a long period of time.They reflect the balance that is needed, and very oftenyou will not get that balance in local congregations. Sowe must remember that this issue is not new.Discussion

In response to the presentations, Hurt said:— Since Iam the person here today representing the proponentwing of this issue—maybe I could do a better job ofexplaining it. Rep Rushing and I have a disagreement.Being a theologically conservative pastor, I can tell youit is simply not that case that conservative churchesthroughout the US are breaking down the doors to getmoney from government. Many conservative pastors

Barely six months old, it is premature to predict howdynamic and functional the new Coalition will prove.Early indication is that there is heightened interest byboth parties who have come to view each other asindispensable partners in the struggle for labor justice.

The potential of this alliance is considerable. With anadverse, thirty year trend in the proportion of theworkforce organized, labor has come to viewcommunity support as indispensable to gain newsupporters. Labor and a variety of communityorganizations have long collaborated to advance thenation’s social agenda; social security, minimums andliving wages, unemployment insurance, paid familyleave, health coverage for all union families and muchmore. But the alliance to strengthen organizing hasnever been so solid. While many communityorganizers at the local level in Massachusetts andthroughout the nation, have provided support fororganizing, by and large arrangements with religiousand notably, interfaith bodies have been spotty andintermittent until NICWJ, spearheaded by Kim Bobo,came on the scene in 1995.

While a few local communities preceded the NationalCommittee, most, like that of Massachusetts, followedby example, adopting a charter based on that of thenational organization. With the arrival of JohnSweeney at the national AFL-CIO, labor organizing


came to be the primary challenge before the interfaithcommittees and organized labor.

Due to the vast networks of faith communities in theUS and the almost universal support of denominationalteachings in support of the right to organize, laborincreasingly views alliances with faith communities asan indispensable, strategic element in the struggle toincrease the proportion of organized households in thenation. Concomitantly, in an era of increasingcorporate domination and declining loyalty ofcorporate America to its workers, public opinion pollshave shown rising support for unions among theAmerican public.

In summary, we see a convergence of factors fosteringthe formation of this new alliance— labor’sreawakening to the need for community support andpartnership, increasing attention by religious bodies toeconomic and worker justice, and growing publicsupport for unions. The exhortation of all the greatreligions to give preferential treatment to the poor isbeing translated into a strategic movement in supportof labor organizing. In a remarkably few years, theMICWJ and the newly forged Labor and ReligionCoalition of Greater Boston have demonstrated thatfaith communities, labor and immigrants in alliancecan achieve significant victories. ◗

Dr. Jonathan Fine is the Director of the MassachusettsInterfaith Committee for Worker Justice.

cont’d on next page

can do in incredible ways, because we can get topeople that you guys can’t. We can talk to the peoplethat the government cannot. Moreover, we can talk tothem in ways that the government cannot. Forinstance, I can show up in a case of truancy and say tothe parents – ‘Take your kid to school’. There is certainlevel of legitimacy that I have that a bureaucrat won’thave. You can send a truant officer there, but it will notwork. Consistent with the progressive movement, weneed to form non-traditional partnerships across theideological spectrum today. Let’s not look at where wedisagree, but let’s look at where we agree in order tosolve problems of common concern.

Byron responded:

I think the factual error is that churches do some ofsocial services better than others; in some areas, theydo not do as well as others; and at some of the socialservices, they are simply awful. Historically, Churcheshave seen significant social problems in communitiesand set up social institutions to solve them. But at somepoint most churches realized that they were not ableto provide those new services to everybody so thosechurches said that the Commonwealth— i.e., thegovernment— should be the place where this happens.The churches realized that they could not do enoughby themselves. So they had to change the structure ofsocial services. Why is it so important to pretend thatthis is new?”

During the discussion several questions were raised:“Will there be a gag rule on churches that acceptgovernment money, just like you have in othercountries, where if you do some things like abortion ,it precludes you from receiving any funds for familyplanning?” cont’d on page 16


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Byron responded:“That’s going to happen any way if you allow the Rightto take over the government — they will change therules. There is too much support for hospitals in the US,so the government cannot say to hospitals in the USA-if you perform abortions, you will lose federal funding.They can and do say that abroad”.

A debate ensued about whether the current recipientsof government money have to be 501 c-3organizations. The faith-based initiative would givedirect grants to churches, it does not necessitate thatthe recipient to be a 501-c-3 organization. It was clearthat some religious groups receiving federal fundingtoday are independent 501-c-3 organizations, butothers are not. Direct grants to religious institutions(that are not 501-c-3s) to perform social services is nota new thing.

There was discussion on the communitarianpossibilities of Faith-based initiatives. It was noted thatif religious institutions are seen as substitutes forgovernment, then we can forget about communitarianideals. Reference was made to the federalgovernment’s backing away from social services aswell as housing programs.


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Another point was raised about proselytizing — Forexample, consider a homeless shelter where one of theconditions of being taken in overnight is that theperson must attend worship services and take part ofthe religious instruction that the group offers. “Ifpeople are forced to participate in worship before theycan accept the services — paid for by governmentmoney — is not the government then establishing areligion?”

Near the end of the sessions one participant observed:“Rarely do we talk about what Faith-based initiativesreally mean. Little of the debate is about thedetails.During the presidential campaign last year, theRight never uttered a negative word about Faith-basedinitiatives. The first opposition came the first day afterthe President hired the wrong guy to head it. Theconservatives thought it would be their bureaucracy”.

That was an interesting observation since the seminarwas held on the day that the resignation of JohnDiIullio was announced. So this debate will continue,even if the events of Sept.11 have temporarily pushedit off the center stage. ◗


THE JOURNAL FOR PEOPLE OF FAITH AND SOCIALISM Religion and Labor

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