Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

The Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI), was established January 29, 2001, when President George W. Bush "issued two executive orders related to faith-based and community organizations. The first executive order established a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The second order established centers to implement this initiative at the Department of Justice, along with the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Housing and Urban Development."[1]

Mission

The OFBCI website states that it "will be aggregating and disseminating information about the new office and its programs. Our Vision is to educate and assist new and existing Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to apply and qualify for competitive Federal Funding. Please note that we are an informational website and not the White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives nor are we affiliated with OFBCI in any manner.

"Effective immediately, the Federal Government has adopted a new attitude to honor and not restrict faith-based and community initiatives, to accept rather than dismiss such programs, and to empower rather than ignore them.

"In welfare and social policy, the Federal Government will play a new role as supporter, enabler, catalyst and collaborator with faith-based and community organizations. The White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives has been established to make Federal programs more friendly to faith-based and community solutions and to make federal funding more accessible.

"By Executive Order, effective immediately, each of the following Cabinet agencies will create its own Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to work in tandem with the White House OFBCI, to make federal grants available to Faith-Based and Community Initiatives nationwide."

• Cabinet Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives:

Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Department of Labor

Department of Justice

Department of Education

Charitable Choice

"Creation of the office is in concert with Bush's pledge to spend $8 billion in expanding 'charitable choice', in which churches and religious groups receiving federal funding to provide social services may now proselytize. Bush's transition spokesperson Scott McClellan said on Jan. 7 [2001]that 'reaching out to faith-based groups that have a proven record of saving and changing lives is a top priority of President-elect Bush.'

"The primary engineer of 'charitable choice' was John Ashcroft, Bush's controversial nominee for Attorney General, who as U.S. Senator pushed through a 'charitable choice' amendment to the 1996 Welfare Reform Act at the eleventh hour." [2]

Quotes

• "America is rich materially, but there remains too much poverty and despair amidst abundance…In this blueprint, I outline my agenda to enlist, equip, enable, empower and expand the heroic works of faith-based and community groups across America." President George W. Bush, Rallying the Armies of Compassion, January 30, 2001. [3]

Appointments

On January 30, 2001, it was announced that President Bush had created the new White House office "to give religious groups a role in the delivery of government social services, and ordered agencies to figure out ways to work with such groups." Bush appointed "University of Pennsylvania Professor John J. DiIulio Jr. to head the new office and named former Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith his advisor on faith-based issues. Bush also appointed Goldsmith to the board that controls the Corporation for National and Community Service, the agency that oversees the AmeriCorps program." [4]

DiIulio left the position in August 2001. [5] Also see the Washington Post, June 25, 2002.

• Jay Hein, Director Aug 2006 -

Contact details

URL: http://www.faithbasedcommunityinitiatives.org/fbci_members.htm

SourceWatch Resources

• Bush/Republican Initiatives
• communitarianism
• compassionate conservatism
• David Kuo
• Dominionism
• George W. Bush: The Culture War President
• Justice Sunday
• Moral Majority
• religion-in-prison movement
• Presidential Prayer Team
• religion and empire
• social conservatism
• Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction (2006 book)
• The Bush Theocracy
• The Courts: Shifting the Judiciary to the Right ... for Big Business

External links

Websites

• White House Fact Sheet: "Seeking Fair Treatment for Faith-Based and Community Charities", January 23, 2004. [6]
• "Pros and Cons of the Bush Faith-based Initiatives" by the National Congress for Community Economic Development (NCCED). [7]

Articles & Commentary

2000

• Hanna Rosin, "Bush Puts Faith in a Social Service," Washington Post, May 5, 2000.
• Eleni Curti, "God and Government," The Tablet, July 1, 2000.

2001

• "Separation of Church and State to Be Bush-Whacked?," Freethought Today, January/February 2001.
• Ron Hutcheson, "Bush treads closer to church-state line. Faith-based projects could reshape U.S., some say; others scoff," Detroit Free Press, January 26, 2001.
• Richard N. Ostling, "Bush's plan deeply rooted. Protestant thinkers helped shape his faith-based initiative," AP, February 10, 2001.
• "Reverend Bush and the Plan for Faith-Based Madness," Revolutionary Worker, March 4, 2001.
• Phil Wilayto, "Milwaukee Genesis. Where George W. Bush's 'Faith-Based' initiative really comes from," Media Transparency, March 11, 2001.
• William Pierce, "Faith-Based Plans: Make 'em Better Than Texas," Youth Today, April 2001.
• "No More Excuses. Bush's faith-based initiative should reinvigorate our mission of service," Christianity Today magazine editorial, April 2, 2001.
• Marvin Olasky, "Rolling the Dice. How a bill becomes a law, part one-WORLD's exclusive look at the House debate over President Bush's faith-based initiative," American Center for Law & Justice, July 27, 2001.
• Marvin Olasky, "A merciful resignation," Townhall.com, August 24, 2001: "Washington was buzzing this week about the resignation of John J. DiIulio, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. A smart and funny University of Pennsylvania professor, DiIulio (according to an Aug. 20 Washington Post editorial mourning his departure) 'presented his faith-based initiative as if it were a Gore-style reinventing-government program.' That did not thrill many conservatives."

2002

• Katherine Dunn Tempas, "Can an Office Change a Country? The White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. A Year in Review," Brookings Institution, February 20, 2002.
• Derek H. Davis, "A Not So Charitable Choice: New Religious Movements and President Bush's Plan for Faith-based Social Services," at the "Minority Religions, Social Change, and Freedom of Conscience," Salt Lake City and Provo (Utah), June 20-23, 2002.
• Dana Milbank, "Karl Rove, Adding to His To-Do List," Washington Post, June 25, 2002: "The highest turnover has been in Bush's faith-based office, where deputy director Don Eberly left earlier this year for the U.S. Agency for International Development and Don R. Willett joined the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy; the office's first director, John DiIulio, departed last year."
• "Faith-Based Legislation Stalled: White House moves ahead on regulatory, funding fronts," Christianity Today magazine, November 18, 2002, Vol. 46, No. 12, Page 25.

2003

• Weblog: "White House Widens Funding Possibilities for Religious Social Services," Christianity Today magazine, Weblog, 2003.
• Remarks by Stanley Carlson-Thies: "Religious Liberties. Charitable Choice Conference," Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, 2003.
• Christian History Corner: Six 'Faith-based' Stories and a Moral: Are Christian social ministries worth fighting for?," Christianity Today magazine, 2003.
• "Faith-Based Lite: Administration still seeks 'revolutionary' change," Christianity Today magazine, June 2003, Vol. 47, No. 6, Page 21.
• "Jails for Jesus," Mother Jones, November/December 2003: "President George W. Bush wants faith-based programs to take over social services. But what happens when evangelical Christians try their hand at running prisons?"

2004

• "The Twelfth of Never: Bush administration drastically lowers goals for faith-based initiative," 'Christianity Today magazine, January 2004, Vol. 48, No. 1, Page 28.
• Weblog: "Feds Granted More than $1 Billion to Religious Charities in 2003," ChristianityToday.com weblog, March 8, 2004.

2005

• Mariah Blake, "Stations Of The Cross. How evangelical Christians are creating an alternative universe of faith-based news," Columbia Journalism Review, 2005.

2006

• Bill Berkowaitz, "GAO report raises serious questions about Bush's Faith-Based Initiative", Media Transparency, August 2, 2006.
• John Aravosis, "Tucker Carlson: The Republicans hate evangelicals," AMERICAblog, October 10, 2006.
• Jonathan Larsen, "Exclusive: Book says Bush just using Christians. 'Tempting Faith' author David Kuo worked for Bush from 2001 to 2003," MSNBC, October 11, 2006. (Larsen is the producer of Keith Olbermann's Countdown.)
• John Amato, "Olbermann Exclusive: Dissecting new Book: Tempting Faith," Crooks and Liars, October 11, 2006. (WMV and QT formats).
• John Amato, "Tempting Faith: Christian Conservatives Duped by BushCo. Part II," Crooks and Liars, October 12, 2006. (WMV and QT formats).

2007

• Bill Berkowitz, "After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based Initiative", Media Transparency, February 19, 2007.

2008

• Anna Schecter, Brian Ross, and Murray Waas, "Justice Department Awards $650,000 Grant to Golf Group," ABCNews.com, June 9, 2008.
• Murray Waas, "The Price of Political Favoritism: Lost Lives and Teenage Suicides" June 18, 2008.
• Murray Waas and Anna Shecter, "Bush White House Pushed Grant for Former Staffer," ABCNews.com, June 24, 2008.