Faith-Based Inefficiency: The Follies of Bush’s Initiatives

On January 29, 2001, President Bush established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Its stated mission is to fight society’s ills by rallying the armies of compassion inside America’s churches. In Faith-Based Inefficiency Bob Wineburg argues that beneath the compassionate camouflage lies a five-star war plan to demolish government programs, mobilize and increase the size of the evangelical Christian voting block, shift government money to churches and other faith-based organizations in the conservative-led culture war, and develop a smoke screen of convincing media images and baffling words to confuse detractors. This largely understated relationship between the plan’s politics and its service delivery has been overlooked, until now.

Wineburg untangles the web of motives and complex activities in this newest dimension of the ongoing culture war to capture America’s soul. He identifies the parties--religious extremists, social engineers, and politicos--and shows how they work to further the agenda of the core constituency of compassionate conservatism. His analysis clearly explains this initiative and exposes the naivete of the Administration’s approach to fixing the serious and complex problems of persistent poverty. In addition, Wineburg illustrates through first-hand examples what is required for effective services, and he shows how local communities can develop plans to produce more skills for coping with local problems. He addresses complex issues like worker displacement, illiteracy, child abuse, substance abuse, and prison reentry, while offering workable options for small churches to participate in partnerships with government and other local nonprofits to prevent, solve, and manage such problems.

Bob Wineburg is Jefferson Pilot Excellence Professor of Social Work at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He is the author of many book chapters, published articles, and the books A Limited Partnership: The Politics of Religion, Welfare and Social Service and The Newer Deal: Social Work and Religion in Partnership. He was an advisor to Catholic Charities USA on its Vision 2000 Project, and served as a panelist on the President’s Faith-Based Initiative at the United Jewish Communities bi-annual conference, along with Senator Joseph Lieberman, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, and USA Freedom Corps Director John Bridgeland.