How Quickly Government Changes It's Tune

The other day I was at a friend’s house and I looked over and saw a picture of them with President Bush and I thought what happen to all our hopes and dreams. By the mid 1990’s the federal government was warming up to the idea of faith-based organizations being involved in the welfare issues of the country. But in 2000 President Bush dramatically accelerated the faith-based issue. President Bush raised the heart, passion, issue when he delivered a Rose Garden speech on the Faith Based Initiative in the spring of 2001.

“Government can write checks, but it can’t put hope in people’s hearts, or a sense of purpose in people’s lives. That is done by people who have heard a call and who act on faith and are willing to share that faith.” Read between the lines and it is easy to read “people who have heard a call and passionately respond to their calling.”

Involvement of faith-based organizations remained a high priority of Bush’s domestic agenda. In 2002 in a speech at the White House he said:

“I hope that every faith-based group in America, the social entrepreneurs…, understand that this government respects you work. We want you to follow your heart. We want you to do the works of kindness and mercy you are called upon to do.” (from the back cover of Pastorpreneur)

And just this week President Obama signed an executive order making clear that religious organizations that receive federal money may maintain their religious character, but may not include explicitly religious activity as part of any taxpayer-funded program.
The order doesn’t change the basic rules about who qualifies for funding. Instead it tries to balance the desire to drive federal dollars to faith-based groups while clarifying some of the constitutional questions that have surrounded the program ever since former President George W. Bush touted religious charities as a new way for government to deliver social services.

Words that President Bush used like, “call” and “faith” were nonsense to those who launched the War on Poverty. Today government on every level city, county, state and federal is backing out of the welfare business. After being beaten up in the welfare sector for a few decades, word like “call” and “faith” are back in vogue in government circles.