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government has been doing to encourage involvement of faith-based programs in these
three policy areas and the challenges of assessing the impact of these efforts. Such
efforts by the federal government to expand the role of religious organizations in these
three areas of social policy can only be successful, however, if clergy, congregations and
local faith-based organizations are open to such involvement. To that end, we examine
the level of activity and interest of clergy and congregations from various religious
traditions in programs in these three areas. We examine how the congregational
component of the “armies of compassion”—to use President Bush’s term—are rallied to
provide welfare services, as have others. However, we broaden the focus by recognizing
that there is more to rallying the armies than the White House office and the federal
agencies and that battle on the frontlines of compassion includes more than welfare-type
services for low-income individuals.
Background
Long before the establishment of the White House Office of Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives under the Bush administration, and before the Charitable Choice
provisions of the welfare reform act in 1996, churches and other faith-based
organizations (FBOs) have been providing social services to the poor (Miller 1961;
Netting 1982; Netting 1984; Olson, Reis et al. 1988; Wuthnow, Hodgkinson et al. 1990;
Monsma 1996; Dionne 2000). In the past decade, however, a more concerted effort to
recruit FBOs to provide government-backed social services has developed, as scholars
and pundits recognize that religious congregations are an important basis for the
relationships and trust central to fostering social capital (Wood 1997; Lomas 1998; Baum
Convention