Obama signs order to reform faith-based office

"President Obama signed an executive order Wednesday (Nov. 17) that reforms the White House's faith-based office in a bid to improve transparency and clarify rules for religious groups that receive federal grants.

The nine-page order reflects numerous recommendations made more than six months ago by a blue-ribbon advisory council charged with streamlining and reforming the office created under former President George W. Bush."

This certainly bears watching. During the 2008 campaign, Obama alluded to "fair hiring" in faith based programs, taking some religious freedoms by strangling churches ability to preach the gospel through what was once a popular Bush I and Bush II program--the 1000 points of light and the office of faith based initiatives. In 2008 I wrote a number of blogs about the dangers churches were facing with the Faustian agreement to take government support and grant money for everything from food pantries to housing rehab in distressed neighborhoods to after prison work programs to immigrant resettlement. I thought he had launched it when in 2009 he had Georgetown University remove all religious symbols when he gave a speech, but he became so embroiled in the healthcare debacle and the financial industry problems, that he wasn't able to turn his attention to it until . . . after the Democrats lost the House in 2010.

Once churches take government money, the administrators of that program by law, law suit, regulation or political pressure can tell them

1. who to hire
2. pull their tax exempt status
3. which in turn can destroy other funding
4. can hold up building plans that need to pass code
5. can deny the retirement plan set in place for employees
6. can affect the Medicare and Medicaid funding for the nursing home the church might run
7. can restrict the adoption agency supported by the church plan to only place children with married couples
8. and most importantly, can dictate what is said from the pulpit on any topic deemed politically sensitive, like marriage, abortion, environment, health, stem-cell research, euthanasia, war, etc.

RNS: Obama signs order to reform faith-based office - Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
Ten years ago City Journal (Winter 2000) reported that Catholic Charities had lost its soul by promoting government programs rather than traditional church teaching, and the author tosses in Jews and Lutherans for good measure because their charitable acts had also been compromised. "Catholic Charities—and the same could be said about the Association of Jewish Family and Children's Agencies or the Lutheran Services in America—has become over the last three decades an arm of the welfare state, with 65 percent of its $2.3 billion annual budget now flowing from government sources and little that is explicitly religious, or even values-laden, about most of the services its 1,400 member agencies and 46,000 paid employees provide."

I believe if we are to fulfill the Great Commission, we'll have to disentangle ourselves from the federal and state government.

Obama and Faith based organizations

For once I agree with the ACLU, although for different reasons. Christians should not be fooled. This is a deal of Faustian proportions. And we were losing at this one under the Bushes and Clinton. What's different now is Obama has promised to restrict our religious freedoms, and I believe it’s a campaign promise he will keep--most likely through a faith czar so he won’t have to take the heat. Don't let the prayer breakfast fool you.

“President Barack Obama's willingness to keep Bush-era policies on government-backed religious charities opposed by many liberals is helping to woo traditionally Republican evangelical leaders who can influence key blocs of voters.

The approach, according to conservative leaders and liberal critics alike, is part of a broader strategy by Mr. Obama and fellow Democrats to regain credibility with centrist and conservative voters who tend to be more religious and have supported the GOP in recent polls and elections.” WSJ story

After churches have been weakened by accepting government money for everything from summer lunch programs for children to housing renovations in declining neighborhoods to work release programs for prisoners, they are at risk of having their "missions" dictated or coming to a screeching halt at the whim of a government bureaucrat.

We do not worship good works. Even successful ones. Leave that one for the people who have a heart for social programming and no faith in Jesus. We worship Jesus. Not an idea. Not an -ism. Not a government program. When the government can tell you where and whom and how you can evangelize, it's time to stop the grant writing, send the volunteers home and to get back in the business of telling the good news. Jesus never took tax money to feed the poor or to provide a job. Churches shouldn't either. He never robbed Peter to pay Paul. If he had, Peter probably would have gone to his grave denying him instead of founding the church.

"You should grasp Christ, his words, works and sufferings in a twofold manner. First as an example that is presented to you which you should follow and imitate. . . However this is the smallest part of the gospel, on the basis of which it cannot yet even be called gospel. For on this level Christ is of no more help to you than some other saint. . . before you take Christ as an example, you accept and recognize him as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own. . . .when you have Christ as the foundation and chief blessing of your salvation, then the other part follows: that you take him as your example, giving yourself in service to your neighbor just as you see that Christ has given himself for you." Martin Luther

Churches provide millions of unpaid laborers in the form of "volunteers" to run these government programs. This is not the Gospel of Christ. This is not the harvest. By accepting grants from USDA, Dept of Labor, HHS, Dept of Ed. etc., the real figure for federal and state workers is kept artificially low. It is just government "out sourcing." It's time for churches to reread Matthew 25 and then rewrite their mission to the poor, sick, widowed and imprisoned.

Faith based initiatives are in for a jolt

Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Obama's "common ground" initiative doesn't broaden the base, it narrows it. The new regs will be so sticky, so complex and expensive, to say nothing of forcing Christians to deny the Great Commandment of Christ (which many were doing anyway without help from Obama), that most small ministries won't be able to participate, and only the most liberal, largest most non-evangelical quasi-Christian and Warrenized churches will dabble in government grants. That means more grant money for the ACORNies, pantheistic warmists, and Muslim groups, which of course in the name of diversity, won't be held to the same standard as evangelical Christians.

However, it was a bad idea for churches to become so dependent on government money, and in effect, become an arm of the federal government in housing programs and food distribution plans (my church does both, maybe more). Folks, it's time to get back to saving the world for Jesus instead of the USDA, HHS and HUD.

What he'll miss about President Bush

"I remember coming to the West Wing one morning before the daily 7:30 senior staff meeting and seeing Mr. Bush at his desk in the Oval Office, reading a daily devotional. I remember the look of sorrow on his face as he signed letters to the families of the fallen. When he met with recovering addicts whose lives were transformed by a faith-based program, he spoke plainly of his own humiliating journey years ago with alcohol. When a Liberian refugee broke into tears after recounting her escape to freedom in America, the president went over and held and comforted her.

Little acts behind the curtain like these inspired intense loyalty by staff members. They spoke of someone never too busy or burdened to care -- like when he took time on Air Force One to call my wife when she was sick. The president's true character rendered his media image pure caricature."

Jim Towey writes a very touching remembrance of President Bush. He was director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives from 2002-2006 and is currently president of Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa. When I write analytically of the faith-based initiatives that are in almost every branch of the federal and state governments, I don’t do it to be mean or hostile to "good works." I am sounding an alarm based on Obama's promises. He may be too busy in the beginning dismantling the courts, but it will come.

People in social programs of housing, nutrition, food pantries, summer lunch programs, post prison work, nursing home ministries, fostering abused children, etc., particularly conservative Christians who are heavily involved in these areas to live out their faith with works, need to realize this can be taken away from you much faster than it was given (over a period of almost 20 years). Once you take government money (or, even if you don‘t) to train ex-convicts, or feed Somali immigrants, or provide outings for medicaid patients at the nursing home, the administrators of that program by law, law suit, regulation or political pressure can tell you who you have to hire (Obama has already said he will do this), can pull your tax exempt status which will destroy your funding, your building plans which need to pass code for an expansion, your retirement plans for your staff, your Medicare and Medicaid funding for the nursing home for your people, your right to have adoption programs limited to married heterosexual couples. And don’t forget what you’re allowed to preach from the pulpit about abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, stem-cell research, or any type of morality from polygamy to sex with children in a society whose values come from Hollywood, Wall Street and the Federal government bureaucracy.

Christians, we need to get back to the business of God. Gospel first, works resulting from faith second. And stop depending on kick backs from the government to change lives. The Bible never tells you to do this, nor does it ever say that even if you do it without government help, that the service you perform to clean up, feed or house a person on the outside will change his life or turn him to God. That's an inside job, and it belongs to God.

Obama and The PAJAMA Christians

No, I'm not referring to Christian bloggers, of which there are thousands, maybe millions. Or Christians who secretly are watching porn, listening to phone sex or gambling in their home offices at night on the internet. Or baggie pants Christians eschewing or setting current fashion trends chasing hip-hop idols. I'm talking about Peace-and-Justice-and-More-Aid ChristiansThe Christian reformers of the 15th-16th century had two problems with God's Word. First, they had to get it into the language of the people through direct translation and paraphrase from Greek and Hebrew into German, or English or French in a way that people could understand the simple, clear meaning of the Gospel. Second they needed to liberate scripture from the encrusted allegories that spiritualized or created retellings of Greek and Roman myths covering up the clear word of the Gospel, particularly in the Old Testament.

Over the years, scripture again became entangled in a variety of "correct" translations (with some American Christians believing only the KJV is acceptable, which is tough on speakers of French, Russian, Navajo, etc.) and fascination with prophecy with cherry picking of verses for seven dispensations and times of The Rapture, to extreme pietism that requires women to dress or fix their hair in a certain way or men not to use technological advancements (no TV but computers are OK), or scholarly treatises so dull and obscure with multiple editors and authors of various books of the Bible, they send the parishioner fleeing the pew into the waiting arms of the atheists, humanists or government program that promises to save the world.

The gospel preached from Jeremiah Wright's pulpit may have shocked some, but a quieter version of liberation theology has been recycled through American churches for years--actually predates Black Liberation Theology. PAJAMA Christians turn Christ into Moses, and he's not just leading them in some exodus from evil, Satanic capitalism. He's got a long list of rules to create a just kingdom on earth. However, instead of personal belief, behavior or sacrifice, they want the government to bring in the kingdom through our ever more bloated programs supported by taxes. (From my pocket to Washington, to a government employee, back to Ohio, to a government employee, then to a trust fund for the poor, to the pocket of a government employee with a few bucks left over for the poor.)

The Gospel isn't difficult, but you would think so, as seldom as it is preached, taught or sung either by conservatives or liberals. Luther writes in "A brief instruction on what to look for and expect in the Gospels":

For at its briefest, the gospel is a discourse about Christ, that he is the Son of God and became man for us, that he died and was raised, that he has been established as a Lord over all things. . . . Just as there is no more than one Christ, so there is and may be no more than one gospel. . . .Thus when Isaiah in chapter 53 says how Christ should die for us and bear our sins, he has written the pure gospel. And I assure you, if a person fails to grasp this understanding of the gospel, he will never be able to be illuminated in the Scripture nor will he receive the right foundation. . .

You should grasp Christ, his words, works and sufferings in a twofold manner. First as an example that is presented to you which you should follow and imitate. . . However this is the smallest part of the gospel, on the basis of which it cannot yet even be called gospel. For on this level Christ is of no more help to you than some other saint. . . before you take Christ as an example, you accept and recognize him as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own. . . .when you have Christ as the foundation and chief blessing of your salvation, then the other part follows: that you take him as your example, giving yourself in service to your neighbor just as you see that Christ has given himself for you."

Obama has promised to undo the "faith based initiatives" the federal and state governments now use to rebuild and change society by requiring "nondiscriminatory" hiring. This in fact means for Christians, their organizations would become non-Christian. Christian non-profits have become so dependent on the government for funding, using their own funds to build bigger campuses, I suspect most would rather give up the Gospel than give up their own idea of what the gospel is--i.e., helping people through government grants, most of which go to pay their staff, keep their buildings open, and provide an outlet for volunteerism and service for their members to feel more holy.

Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings edited by Timothy F. Lull is google scanned.

Obama has promised to change the country

McCain wanted to change the government. There's a difference, you know. I've always considered McCain left of center, and I think most conservatives do. But that was our ticket, and he was certainly way to the right of Obama! As was Hillary. It's simple. Obama doesn't like us. How do I know? Have you ever had a friend/spouse/boss who said, "You're great, I love you, but you need to change who you are, and do everything I say, or else?"

So the election is history; what will Ohio bloggers do next? For your city and county, I suggest you look at the web site of the Ohio Department of Development. The CHIP, Community Housing Improvement Program, in my opinion is a tiny piece of the current meltdown facilitated by the CRA, banks and Congress. No, it's not exactly putting working class families in suburban bi-levels and ranches with balloon mortgages, it's more like rehabing houses for the poor and then putting them in mortgages (with a government funded down payment) they can't afford in struggling, older neighborhoods.

It has about $25 million (the 2008 awards come to over $30 million, so I don't know why the numbers don't match the web page). Ottawa Co. where we have a second home, got over $500,000 for Port Clinton. I can't figure out which pot Franklin County uses, because it's not on that list. Seems to have its own list. But with amounts this large, going to every state, snarled and tangled in obfuscating names, not only of the agencies, but the non-profits, it could be a life-time hobby or research project to sort it all out.

It's really slippery, the acronyms endless--HDAP, OHFA, ODD, OHTF, OHCP plus all the codes, RRS, IPMC, RCO, NEC, OPC, OMC, IECCC, IFGC . We have an alphabet soup of federal money and housing codes here. I think we really need to take a look at the whole "faith based initiatives" and other non-profits (like ACORN) the government is using to cover up some of these wasteful, ill conceived and failed programs. They are sprinkled everywhere--some housing programs are through USDA. You find pockets of housing money buried in almost every agency, from employment to health, because government is no longer about governing, but about changing lives through nutrition, housing, technology, medicine, etc. If a roof that doesn't leak or a window not broken or no trash in the yard were enough to stop crime, reduce obesity, or get junior to finish school, we'd never have someone from Worthington or Shaker Heights who was in jail, or fat, or taking a GED.

So Obama's a little late to the starting gate, it's been going on since FDR's day. But because the Republicans were so big on "faith-based" I think the churches have actually been weakened. They're flabby, singing happy praise songs and talking about being spirit filled while Obama has promised he will remove our right to evangelize or speak out from the pulpit (many don't do it any way). Rather than dismantle their programs and lay off their staff, many of whom are poor, they'll cave. I know churches. Every peace and justice verse will be brought out to trump life changing salvation.

So take a look around your neighborhood. The problem may be closer to home than Barney Frank. Yesterday I went from the New Deal to the CRA to my collapsing 403-b in just a few paragraphs. Check it out.