4
1999; Baum 2000; Lynch, Due et al. 2000; Muntaner, Lynch et al. 2001; Putnam 2002;
Smidt 2003).
In 1996, Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Personal
Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act, also known as welfare reform. Among the
various changes to welfare policy was the passage of the “charitable choice” provision,
which sought to increase the involvement of community and faith-based organizations in
antipoverty efforts. Prior to 1996, FBOs that sought public funds to provide social
services generally had to form a separate nonprofit organization that was more secular in
nature (Cadge 2003). The charitable choice provisions, however, relaxed these
requirements and allowed FBOs that wanted to compete for federal dollars to remain
more explicitly “religious,” with some conditions. For example, such groups could not
use federal funds to proselytize, nor could they discriminate religiously against
individuals who were to receive their services. Later in the Clinton administration,
charitable choice provisions were extended to other programs, including substance abuse
and mental health programs overseen by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SMHSA, located in the Department of Health and Human
Services) and in “Welfare to Work” programs overseen by the Department of Labor.
After campaigning for president as a “compassionate conservative,” George W.
Bush sought to extend the opportunities for faith-based organizations to compete for
federal grant money even further. One of his first domestic acts as president was to
establish the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives in January
2001, as indicated here in the following Executive Order (January 29, 2001):
Faith-based and other community organizations are indispensable in meeting the
needs of poor Americans and distressed neighborhoods. Government cannot be
Convention