Potential Advantages and Disadvantages to Obama's Faith Based Initiative

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President Obama’s decision to reform, as opposed to terminate, the faith based office George W. Bush created in 2001 has raised eyebrows among advocates of separation of church and state and created dissension among Obama supporters. In his article, Church-State Separationists Question Obama’s Faith Based Office, Fred Lucas claims that Obama’s faith based initiative is receiving criticism from both sides of the isle much akin to the reaction Bush’s program received. Obama’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast can be classified as an injunction to religious believers to support this office as a way of fulfilling both their moral and civic duty. Obama effectively integrates the concept of religion into his overall message of American unity & diversity and attributes his religious sentiments to recognition of altruism in those he worked with in Chicago.

While President Obama is effective in framing the idea of religion as a vehicle for unification and progress; it does not change the inherent problems associated with government funding being doled out to religious entities. Giving religious organizations funding to pursue secular social welfare programs still challenges the integrity of the Establishment clause. Opposition to the office (coming from both conservative and liberal view points) is upset that the office has yet to set restrictions on hiring practices and discriminatory allocations; yielding the office a lot of liberty and potential for corruption. On the other hand, if the government refuses to fund organizations with a religious connotation, they begin to toe the line of discriminating against the group because of religion, which is in violation of the Free Exercise clause. To keep in accordance with stipulations regarding government neutrality, government funding must be made available to all civic organizations, including those with religious affiliation. The White House Office of Faith Based & Neighborhood Partnerships has the potential to act as a watch dog which will be able to guarantee the equitable distribution of hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars. The office can further be used to determine if the purpose and effect of the religiously affiliated programs utilizing government funding fulfill a valid secular purpose, such as poverty prevention. The current state of the economy makes the distribution of funding for social welfare programs extremely important, given that many religious groups initiate programs that benefit the poor. If improperly managed, however, the office has the potential to misuse taxpayer’s money and violates their First Amendment rights by showing favoritism and indirectly establishing a government religion.