Obama’s Unveils Faith-Based Initiatives Plan
Today marks the second day of Obama’s “Enduring American Values” week. Today’s topic: faith.
The Illinois senator will unveil its plan to overhaul the Bush Administration’s Faith-Based and Community Initiatives by helping religious organizations better learn how to apply for federal aid with a “Train the Trainers” program, and focusing the groups to provide summer learning programs to children.
Obama’s plan will not “scrap” the current program, the campaign says, but will fix it. “President Bush came into office with a promise to “rally the armies of compassion,” establishing a new Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. But what we saw instead was that the Office never fulfilled its promise,” Obama will say today in Zanesville, Ohio.
The $500 million a year program, the campaign says, will level the playing field for religious groups and federal funds cannot be used to “proselytize or provide religious sectarian instruction.”
The proposal drew praise from President Bush’s one-time director of Faith Based and Community Initiatives office, John Dilulio. In a statement distributed by the Obama campaign, Dilulio said, “His plan reminds me of much that was best in both then Vice President Al Gore’s and then Texas Governor George W. Bush’s respective first speeches on the subject in 1999.”
Read Obama’s prepared remarks below the jump.
You know, faith based groups like East Side Community Ministry carry a particular meaning for me. Because in a way, they’re what led me into public service. It was a Catholic group called The Campaign for Human Development that helped fund the work I did many years ago in Chicago to help lift up neighborhoods that were devastated by the closure of a local steel plant.
Now, I didn’t grow up in a particularly religious household. But my experience in Chicago showed me how faith and values could be an anchor in my life. And in time, I came to see my faith as being both a personal commitment to Christ and a commitment to my community; that while I could sit in church and pray all I want, I wouldn’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I went out and did the Lord’s work.
There are millions of Americans who share a similar view of their faith, who feel they have an obligation to help others. And they’re making a difference in communities all across this country – through initiatives like Ready4Work, which is helping ensure that ex-offenders don’t return to a life of crime; or Catholic Charities, which is feeding the hungry and making sure we don’t have homeless veterans sleeping on the streets of Chicago; or the good work that’s being done by a coalition of religious groups to rebuild New Orleans.
You see, while these groups are often made up of folks who’ve come together around a common faith, they’re usually working to help people of all faiths or of no faith at all. And they’re particularly well-placed to offer help. As I’ve said many times, I believe that change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up, and few are closer to the people than our churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques.
That’s why Washington needs to draw on them. The fact is, the challenges we face today – from saving our planet to ending poverty – are simply too big for government to solve alone. We need all hands on deck.
I’m not saying that faith-based groups are an alternative to government or secular nonprofits. And I’m not saying that they’re somehow better at lifting people up. What I’m saying is that we all have to work together – Christian and Jew, Hindu and Muslim; believer and non-believer alike – to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
Now, I know there are some who bristle at the notion that faith has a place in the public square. But the fact is, leaders in both parties have recognized the value of a partnership between the White House and faith-based groups. President Clinton signed legislation that opened the door for faith-based groups to play a role in a number of areas, including helping people move from welfare to work. Al Gore proposed a partnership between Washington and faith-based groups to provide more support for the least of these. And President Bush came into office with a promise to “rally the armies of compassion,” establishing a new Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
But what we saw instead was that the Office never fulfilled its promise. Support for social services to the poor and the needy have been consistently underfunded. Rather than promoting the cause of all faith-based organizations, former officials in the Office have described how it was used to promote partisan interests. As a result, the smaller congregations and community groups that were supposed to be empowered ended up getting short-changed.
Well, I still believe it’s a good idea to have a partnership between the White House and grassroots groups, both faith-based and secular. But it has to be a real partnership – not a photo-op. That’s what it will be when I’m President. I’ll establish a new Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The new name will reflect a new commitment. This Council will not just be another name on the White House organization chart – it will be a critical part of my administration.
Now, make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don’t believe this partnership will endanger that idea – so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we’ll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work.
With these principles as a guide, my Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will strengthen faith-based groups by making sure they know the opportunities open to them to build on their good works. Too often, faith-based groups – especially smaller congregations and those that aren’t well connected – don’t know how to apply for federal dollars, or how to navigate a government website to see what grants are available, or how to comply with federal laws and regulations. We rely too much on conferences in Washington, instead of getting technical assistance to the people who need it on the ground. What this means is that what’s stopping many faith-based groups from helping struggling families is simply a lack of knowledge about how the system works.
Well, that will change when I’m President. I will empower the nonprofit religious and community groups that do understand how this process works to train the thousands of groups that don’t. We’ll “train the trainers” by giving larger faith-based partners like Catholic Charities and Lutheran Services and secular nonprofits like Public/Private Ventures the support they need to help other groups build and run effective programs. Every house of worship that wants to run an effective program and that’s willing to abide by our constitution – from the largest mega-churches and synagogues to the smallest store-front churches and mosques – can and will have access to the information and support they need to run that program.
This Council will also help target our efforts to meet key challenges like education. All across America, too many children simply can’t read or perform math at their grade-level, a problem that grows worse for low-income students during the summer months and afterschool hours. Nonprofits like Children’s Defense Fund are working to solve this problem. They hold summer and afterschool Freedom Schools in communities across this country, and many of their classes are held in churches.
There’s a lot of evidence that these kinds of partnerships work. Take Youth Education for Tomorrow, an innovative program that’s being run by churches, faith-based schools, and others in Philadelphia. To help narrow the summer learning gap, the YET program hires qualified teachers who help students with reading using proven learning techniques. They hold classes four days a week after school and during the summer. And they monitor progress closely. The results have been outstanding. Children who attended a YET center for at least six months improved nearly 2 years in reading ability. And the average high school student gained a full grade in reading level after just three months.
That’s the kind of real progress that can be made when we empower faith-based organizations. And that’s why as President, I’ll expand summer programs like this to serve one million students. This won’t just help our children learn, it will help keep them off the streets during the summer so they don’t turn to crime.
And my Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will also have a broader role – it will help set our national agenda. Because if we are going to do something about the injustice of millions of children living in extreme poverty, we need interfaith coalitions like the Let Justice Roll campaign standing up for the powerless. If we’re going to end genocide and stop the scourge of HIV/AIDS, we need people of faith on Capitol Hill talking about how these challenges don’t just represent a security crisis or a humanitarian crisis, but a moral crisis as well.
We know that faith and values can be a source of strength in our own lives. That’s what it’s been to me. And that’s what it is to so many Americans. But it can also be something more. It can be the foundation of a new project of American renewal. And that’s the kind of effort I intend to lead as President of the United States.
This is now an almost daily event! B.O. will say ANYTHING to be elected. Note that I did not say “do anything”. He’s just a charlatan with great dreams for himself. Watch out that this guy has himself in mind, not the prosperity and wellbeing of this country
The only ‘genocide’ going on in America is Abortion - which Obama supports.
Keep the government out of the mosques!
What? This guy is using the Bush Administration to make his policies? Scary!
Did Obama say yet that he was thinking about using Christian teachings or the teachings from the Nation of Islam? Just curious.
What Obama is saying is something you cannot believe. He has lied to the American people in some way everytime he has spoken publicly. He is a puppet and chameleon who does not know christianity and controlled by his mentors, advisors and financial supporters.
He is a traitor and a fake whose intension is to give America to the terrorists.
Why does CNN responses outnumber Fox’s reply’s, about 25 to 1.
Seem to me like there are more Dem to Rep comments about the upcoming race to the WH.
Gobama08
Please we dont need fed. money in our churches functions, that will bring fed laws into it then we cannot keep out what we dont believe , Pastors and Church leaders you must stop this dont take any money from fed. gov.
I have faith that five years from now no one
will remember Obama ever existed.
[...] trying to distance himself from Bush. That doesn’t surprise me too much. However, we have Obama running with Bush’s Faith Based Initiative while touting McCain as “four more years of [...]
I am hip hop puff daddy yo.
wus up wif yu?
Obuffa so def.
Roosta in da house.
Send Obummer to Siberia
for the summer.
obama is a FRAUD!!! The American people will NEVER take advice from you on Religion.
YOU learned all your values from your radical, racist church & Rev. Wright.
Wright was RIGHT about this “Obama will say whatever he has to - he is a Politician”!
Hillary Clinton is the best qualified to lead our country - BUT - the DNC picked the WEAK guy.
McCAin 2nd Choice - NEVER obama
Maybe Obama can appoint Wright to head his faith based department. I see no Problem there. The two of them would instill a lot of faith in people around this country. Maybe Wright’s 10,000 sq. ft. house could be open to a few homeless people. Maybe Michelle could write about her black discimination expierince as she rose to vp of a major hospital. That would make good reading for a homeless person. They could identify with her real good. Boy am I comming up with some good ideas. Let me know if I can be of any more help guys. There’s nothing phony about these people at all.
Come on Fox, dont be so afraid, print our comments…
OMG - seriously? That bus must be pretty big to fit all the people and principles underneath it.
PUMA.
The Lord’s work, huh? Would voting to legalize post-birth infanticide fall under that? A commitment to “Christ” he says. I wonder if he’s got the gall to use the ‘J’ word, or would that offend too many liberals?
I hope that all the Christians realize that Obama believes in partial birth abortions. He also believes that if the baby survived the abortion (remember this is a formed child, a human being)it is ok for the doctors not to try and keep the baby alive. Obama’s reason for this is that no teenager should have to worry about having a baby.
Let him court you but remember he is a murderer and backs murder of innocent babies. A partial birth abortion is not like having an abortion in the first trimester. It is murder
I see he is insulting jewish people again, this guy never stops, I have have never seen a candidate try so hard to not be elected—LOL
I see he is insulting jewish people again, this guy never stops, I have have never seen a candidate try so hard to not be elected
Obummer rode with Jesus in a hummer.
I see he is insulting @jewish people again, this guy never stops, I have have never seen a candidate try so hard to not be elected—LOL
Yes, by all means let’s give hundreds of millions to faith-based groups. Look how beneficial the $15 million in government grants to Obama’s church has been to that community. People live with out of control crime, in extreme poverty while Rev. Wright retires and drives out of the community in one of his Mercedes to his $10 million mansion.
Obama said: “You know, faith based groups like East Side Community Ministry carry a particular meaning for me. Because in a way, they’re what led me into public service.”
Seems I remember Obama saying the same thing about Trinity before Rev. Wright became a problem for him.
I certainly hope this is no more than Senator Obama aggressively soliciting votes from voters of religious faith.
I support the federal government helping to fund programs administered by state and local governments, however, I strongly oppose the federal government giving money to faith-based groups where accountability is at best, questionable. In addition, the government funding of faith-based groups appears to conflict with the separation of church and state.
Cool post! It seems that everyone has an opinion of Obama, good or bad. Despite this he still seems to be touching peoples lives. I found this article this morning that was kind of nice about a veteran who got to introduce Obama at his speech in Independence, MO. It was a big deal to him and a cool story. Here is a link if you would like to check it out…http://www.pitch.com.
Re: David Adams
You need to open up your scope of issues and stop clinging to dead issues. Abortion is a private woman and family matter. It is not a national election campaign issue. Genocide is happening in Iraq.
test
Chuck the last time a President lied 4,000 very young men and women died in Iraq and hundreds and thousand of women and children died. I have been a Republican all my life and I am from a large family who were all Republicans….. we are voting for Barack Obama!!
Senator Obama, In trying to ingratiate yourself with anybody and everybody you lose credibility and become just another politician who will do anything to get elected. You are disillusioning your hard-core supporters. Your pitch on religion is a case in point. In courting the religious far right (anathema to us), you may get some of them , but lose a lot of us. We may not vote for McCain, but we can always stay home on election day. We expected better of you.
Given your background and temperament, it is unlikely that you are a particularly religious person. and the insincerity shows. Religion, in any case, should have no place in politics, although everyone running for office feels obligated to inject GOD into his campaign. John Adams could never have been elected today. He said that, “In the best of all possible worlds there would be no religion.”
not that I agree with Obama on this….. I thought it was a fraud under Bush… But to see all of the closed-minded comments here… I mean… this is YOUR program, right, guys… One can only conclude that ifObama CURED CANCER, and JESUS came down to be Obama’s running mate, YOU WOULD STILL BASH HIM……
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH! Obama will say ANYTHING to get elected. The problem is that we don’t know what he’l actually do if elected. He has yet to show honesty in his true belief system. If he’s with the liberals, he’ll say that the poor/ignorant cling to guns and religion. When in church, he probably laughed and applauded as Jeremiah Wright dissed the non-black people in this country. Oops, but now he needs the Christians to vote for him. So, he’s saying what he thinks we want to hear. Sorry, he does not fool me…
Jack-Because CNN only allows the people who are pro-Obama and here they have both. How hard is it to block anyone with a negative remark about their dimi-God? As for Obama and his great faith is it the one where they hate whites? Or the one where they hate the United States? Which one is he behind today? Has he thrown Clark under the bus yet? Wont be long now. So that makes his minister, his granny, his church, and how many others? Gees, if these are how he makes intelligent choices we better start worrying about what choices he will make when running our country. He can’t choose freinds, church or minister. He makes unwise choices all over the place. then he goes from banning guns to it is our right to bear arms, he goes from aborting and tossing living babies in the trash to we need more christian faith in our government. I will use public funding to I wont use public funding, I will do somehing about illegals, we have something in common and are all Americans, I’m cutting taxes, but raising social security taxes to double and did I forget gas taxes and oh by the wy I wont say this now but you know all those “freebies” I promised? Well some one has to pay for them and there aren’t that many rich people to tax soooooo…….. I get it Obama, maybe some of us don’t but I do.
McCain 2008
Oh and by the way Obama did you tell the people this was McCains’ idea and you just added to it like you did Bushs’ and Hillarys’? When will you come up with an idea all your own? Or can you? Everything you promised was more taxes and more government spending when we need less government spending and less taxes.
BO is a FRAUD and according to some also a FRUITCAKE!
To Jack on CNN comments.
CNN, CNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS are all bias news networks and cator to the mentally challenged populas who are unable to distinguish truth from lies. This is one reason Obama has such a large number of worshipers.
The fact is, Obama is a chameleon puppet whose strings are pulled by wealthy militant extremists worldwide whose primary goal is total anialation of democracy.
Help put this puppet in the whitehouse and your days of freedom, democracy and constitutional rights are numbered.
BEWARE OF THE WOLF WHO COMES IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING! May America recognize this fraud for what he truly is and not fall under his spell.
Fox News, why don’t you allow my comments to post? Could you please let me know? Thanks.
Do we really want to give Rev Wright and Trinity another $15,000,000 (15 million $$$)?
How about Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam?
So they can use Acorn.org to “organize” the “people” to take what’s theirs?
Just say NO Deal
When it comes down to it, Obama is the best candidate. McCain would just be a continuation of president Bush. McCain started off as a rebel, but now he’s like “W”. Do we really want four more years of the same thing? Please support Obama. Friends, check out, http://www.committothedream.com, to show the nation that you support change!
LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL
I’m falling over laughing. The scary part is there are college educated Americans
out there who believe this idiot! Oh…..my…..gosh! And we thought the Clintons
would do anything??!!! Obummer takes the prize!
DID YOU NOTICE WHAT HE SAID ABOUT THE FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS HAVING TO FOLLOW THE FEDERAL HIRING POLICIES? THIS IS NOTHING MORE THAN A WAY TO FORCE PEOPLE OF FAITH TO HIRE INDIVIDUALS WHO PARTICIPATE IN/PROMOTE LIFESTYLES THAT ARE CONTRARY TO THE CHURCH’S RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, i.e., abortion activists, homosexuals. For someone who preaches separation of church & state, he is certainly anxious to make the churches fall in line with the state’s shameful policies. Hopefully, the religious faithful will not fall for his deceptive attempt to court their votes.
Is this concidered a brive or just a token of his love .
OR I NEED YOUR VOTE I”LL DO ANYTHING.
Change of Faith maybe thats what he’s doing. Just think all for us. He forgot the American Pin he’s started wearing because we asked.
Yeah, Wright
Wow, never witnessed so much floundering and flipping as does the O man. As much as he talks, we still do not know who he really is, but suspect what/who he stands for. I don’t believe for a minute that he is sincere in his heart about the faith based/community programs for ALL people, perhaps his own. The ‘culture’ is so about their own churches and their own organizations, that if Ob is reviving those programs, guess where the $500M will go..
Obama said”
now, make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don’t believe this partnership will endanger that idea – so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we’ll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work.
“”You can`t discriminate”"
If a church recives the money you must fall to federal laws, This means you are selling your church to the federal gov. It is their way to stop the church from preaching and teaching what the bible says, now we understand when Jesus said
Render unto Cesar the things that are Ceasers and Render unto God the things that are Gods.
or Keep the federal government out of churches.
talk about real issues, mc cain not paying real estate taxes for 4 years. how come no reports on this?
talk about real issues, mc cain not paying real estate taxes for 4 years. how come no reports on this? scared? you cowards rip obama on every issue, but always let mc cain slide
Todays headlines…..Obama vows $500m in faith-based aid.
Who is he vowing it to Jeremiah Wright?
He is wooing the evangilicals one day and the gay’s the next day.
He’ll suck up to anything to get a vote.
This is the same person that supports gay marriage. How does he equate the 2? Alos, how much will Wright’s church receive?
As a practicing Catholic, I have worked both in my church and in my community all of my adult life. I am aware of what social programs can and cannot accomplish. What I do not support is more public funding for causes like abortion. If Sen. Obama is advocating a faith initiative I would be highly suspect of where these monies would go, who would administer them and what legal ramifications he would surely impose in regard to their inclusions and exclusions. I do not trust him or his speech because he uses what has been called “quantum politics” when speaking on most issues. Quantum politics refers specifically to Sen. Obama when he takes the same topic (i.e. nuclear energy) and speaks both for and against it at the same time. Listen closely to what he says about any given topic; there’s always a “but” clause. He’s a very smart lawyer and I’m afraid most people are just naive when it comes to his purpose and what he envisions as the future for our country.
Did anyone notice when this story first came out yesterday, the very next story was about Obama approving Gay Marriage? How can you have “Faith Based” policies and approve everything the far right hates?
Goes to she the ends this guy will go through to get elected.
Vote McCain.
I have some other questions… this time for the Christian Right. Why do you feel obligated to force your religion on others? Why can you not just be content with following your own faith and allowing others to do the same? If you don’t believe in abortion… don’t have one. If you don’t believe in same-sex marriage… don’t get married to someone with similar anatomy. Its that simple! Why not let people make up their own minds? What are you so afraid of? and, most importantly, what happened to “judge not lest ye be judged”?
To Jack: I think you’re right. There are more dem. responses on the left wing CNN blogs. Maybe because dems. don’t have jobs and have more time to blog. I happen to be on a day off.
What happened to separation of church and state … one of the basic pillars of our founding fathers … one of the basic principals which separates us from the theocracies which are providing the intolerance that’s threatening peace in the world. Using faith and religion in a political race is just a way of preaching platitudes, while ignoring reasonable responses to real issues … a favorite red herring used by Barrack Obama.
In an effort to obtain an Evangelical Christian vote that he cannot muster through his own fuzzy-faith and mock-sincerity, Obama now attempts to bribe Christians with grandiose expansions (i.e., money, and lots of it) of a faith-based program originally established by George Bush (with certain new strings, of course).
Should Evangelical Christians take this bait, they can wave good-bye to their simplistic, results-driven programs in which they can now take so much well-deserved pride. Instead of passing a plate through the pews, a simple soup-kitchen effort or homeless shelter renewal program will need to pass beneath the eyes of Government bureaucracies before funds are approved and passed along.
It will be cross-between Hansel & Gretel and Kafka’s Castle:
Did you like your treats, my sweeties?
Well, there’s more where that came from…
if you do as I say, and fill these out in triplicate.
Obama would breathe new life into an ogre that should have been put down a long time ago.
There might be some other way that he can by-pass the thorny path he’s on to get to the Evangelical Christians; but this way ain’t one of ‘em.
In an effort to obtain an Evangelical Christian vote that he cannot muster through his own fuzzy-faith and mock-sincerity, Obama now attempts to bribe Christians with grandiose expansions (i.e., money, and lots of it) of a faith-based program originally established by George Bush (with certain new strings, of course).
Should Evangelical Christians take this bait, they can wave good-bye to their simplistic, results-driven programs in which they can now take so much well-deserved pride. Instead of passing a plate through the pews, a simple soup-kitchen effort or homeless shelter renewal program will need to pass beneath the eyes of Government bureaucracies before funds are approved and passed along.
It will a be cross-between Hansel & Gretel and Kafka’s Castle:
Did you like your treats, my sweeties?
Well, there’s more where that came from…
if you do as I say, and fill these out in triplicate.
Obama would breathe new life into an ogre that should have been put down a long time ago.
There might be some other way that he can by-pass the thorny path he’s on to get to the Evangelical Christians; but this way ain’t one of ‘em.
I think the key words in this article are “learn how to apply for federal aid…”
Socialism rears its ugly head again.
“Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more”—Ten Years After, 1971
Comment by jeremy
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:51 am
I have some other questions… this time for the Christian Right. Why do you feel obligated to force your religion on others? Why can you not just be content with following your own faith and allowing others to do the same? If you don’t believe in abortion… don’t have one. If you don’t believe in same-sex marriage… don’t get married to someone with similar anatomy. Its that simple! Why not let people make up their own minds? What are you so afraid of? and, most importantly, what happened to “judge not lest ye be judged”?
==============================================================
Hey Jeremy, What about “thou shall not kill (babies or anyone else)”???
Don’t cherry pick scriptures when you don’t believe them anyway.
“Pay the rich, starve the poor
Till there are poor no more” ——- Common Sense Response to Idiotic Conservatism, Jeremy, 2008
Why is Obama so Wishy Washy on every issue?
Thanks
[...] together to solve them. I see subsidiarity reflected in Senator Obama’s commitment to “training the trainers.” A key part of his program is providing education for smaller, localized faith communities so [...]