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In a move to “rally the armies of compassion,” a centerpiece of the Bush
administration’s social policy involves promotion of faith-based initiatives. Scholars are
just beginning to assess the potentials and pitfalls of faith-based policy (Dionne and Chen
2001). Much of the attention on faith-based initiatives examines congregational
involvement in community development initiatives and on congregation-based services
for low-income individuals. The emphasis on the latter has become particularly intense
since the passage of the Charitable Choice provision of the Welfare Reform Act. Since
then, Charitable Choice provisions have been passed in other policy areas. Meanwhile,
spurred in large part by a grassroots parish nursing movement, more religious institutions
are considering the role of congregations in facilitating individual and public health in
their communities. This paper profiles federal government activity and congregational
activity in health care, community development, and social welfare services and explores
the characteristics that distinguish active congregations from those with no programs in
each area. We also test for differences between those clergy who encourage
congregations to develop new programs in each area from those clergy who do not and
conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results for assessing the potential of
faith-based initiatives and for future research on faith-based initiatives.
This paper is not an evaluation or a position paper in the on-going debate over
charitable choice. Work in this area debates the effects of charitable choice on the
religious organizations themselves, on clients of services, and on the civil rights of
workers and clients (Dionne 2000; Rogers 2000; Sherman 2000; Sider and Unruh 2000;
Wilson 2000; Initiatives 2003). Instead, we briefly overview what the federal
Convention