Obama would keep faith-based office at White House

If elected president, Sen. Barack Obama would retain the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and focus its efforts on reducing poverty, the Democratic presidential contender said April 13 in a televised forum on religion.

"I want to keep the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives open, but I want to make sure that its mission is clear," Obama said in response to a question about his commitment to reduce poverty in America. "It's not to simply build a particular faith community. The faith-based initiatives should be targeted specifically at the issue of poverty and how to lift people up."

He added that government should partner with religious organizations to provide social services as long as it is done within the requirements of the Constitution.

"We make sure that it's open to everybody," he said. "It's not simply the federal government funding certain groups to be able to evangelize."

Obama's comments came during a televised 45-minute question-and-answer session at Messiah College, a small private Christian College in Pennsylvania, a state that will hold election primaries April 22. The forum was sponsored by Faith in Public Life, a group of self-described progressive religious leaders who have said they want to "reclaim" the religious dialogue in politics from conservative Christians, who have championed high-profile electoral topics in past elections. The forum underscored how pervasive religion has become in the 2008 election as a focus of both the candidates' personalities and their positions on various public policy topics.

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, who also appeared at the forum prior to Obama in a similar but separate question-and-answer session, did not specifically discuss President George W. Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative.

She did speak, however, in more general terms about partnerships between individuals, organizations and government to reduce poverty and provide international relief efforts.

"It's a personal call, it's a family community, religious call, and it's a governmental call. And we've got to do more to respond to that call," Clinton said. "I want us to have a partnership, government to government, government with the private sector, government with our NGOs and our faith community to show the best of what America has to offer."

Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee for President, declined an invitation to participate in the forum.

While all three candidates have said in the past that they support federal funding of faith-based social services, Obama is the first candidate to express in such specific terms his intent to retain the White House faith-based office that President Bush created in 2001 to encourage and advance government partnership with religious organizations.

Before Sunday night, Obama said he wanted to examine the Faith-Based and Community Initiative before deciding what to do with it.

"I want to see how monies have been allocated through that office before I make a firm commitment (to) sustaining practices that may not have worked as well as they should have," Obama told Christianity Today magazine in January.

Calls by the Roundtable to the Clinton and McCain campaigns about Obama's plans for the federal office or further explanations about their own plans were not returned by press time.

Some religious groups said this week that they welcomed Obama's endorsement of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

"This statement, combined with previous statements and actions by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain, all but assures the continuation of this critical initiative," according to a press release by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (UOJCA), which has actively supported the Initiative since its inception.

"In the 2000 campaign, this initiative was something candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush agreed upon; it is most welcome that the principles of government's equal treatment of faith-based charities and utilizing them to serve those in need is a matter of commonsense consensus again," said Nathan J. Diament, director of the UOJCA's Public Policy Institute.

Since the inception of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, critics have charged that aggressive government partnering with religious organizations has blurred the constitutional line separating church and state. The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the next President should make significant changes to the White House faith-based office or shut it down.

"We think the office should be closed," Lynn said. "During the Bush administration, it has been an ongoing source of constitutional problems and partisan political intrigue. If the next President wants to keep it open, it ought to be thoroughly overhauled to come into compliance with the Constitution and sound public policy."

One emphasis of the Faith-Based and Community Initiative has been the funding of faith-based organizations in the fight against HIV/AIDS, including funding for controversial programs that promote sexual abstinence-only, without mention of condoms or other contraception, as part of the President's Emergency Plan For Aids Relief (PEPFAR).

During the forum, both Obama and Clinton praised PEPFAR, particularly in African countries.

"I commend President Bush for his PEPFAR initiative," Clinton said. "It was a very bold and important commitment, but it didn't go far enough in opening up the door to generics (prescription drugs) and getting the costs down. And as President, I will do that."

Obama also praised the President for PEPFAR and said he supports abstinence programs in conjunction with contraception use.

"I actually think that the PEPFAR program is one of the success stories of his administration," Obama said in response to a question about the role of faith in fighting HIV/AIDS from Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Page's group sponsors a faith-based abstinence-only program in Uganda called True Love Waits.

"My view is, is that we should use whatever the best approaches are, the scientifically sound approaches are, to reduce this devastating disease all across the world," Obama said. "And part of that, I think, should be a strong education component and I think abstinence education is important. I also think that contraception is important; I also think that treatment is important; I also think that we have to do more to make antiviral drugs available to people who are in extreme poverty. So I don't want to pluck out one facet of it. Now, that doesn't mean that not-for-profit groups can't focus on one thing while the government focuses on other things. I think we want to have a comprehensive approach."

Obama and Clinton were asked about their personal religious beliefs and how faith informs their decisions in public life. Clinton said she was raised to keep those matters to herself, but added, "I have, ever since I've been a little girl, felt the presence of God in my life. And it has been a gift of grace that has, for me, been incredibly sustaining."

Obama said his Christian faith, which he discovered as a young man, was his motivation to work as a community organizer and bring about social justice. In response to questions about God informing his political positions, Obama said, "It takes a certain self-righteousness where we think we have a direct line to God. … The public square is not the place for us to empower ourselves in that way."

Some religious conservatives, including the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, said the forum focused too heavily on "liberal issues" such as HIV/AIDS, climate change and global poverty rather than abortion, same-sex marriage, and religious liberty.

Joseph Loconte, a senior fellow at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy, wrote in The Weekly Standard, a magazine about Washington politics, that forum questions about the candidates' personal faith provided more information about "political theology that has attracted evangelical audiences to their message" than about the candidates' religious principles.

"No matter how the candidates answer questions of this sort, they tell us next to nothing about their ability to confront an economy in recession, for example, or a nuclear-armed Iran," Loconte wrote.

— Anne Farris, Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy Washington correspondent