Compassionate centrism
Oct 11th 2007
From The Economist print edition
There's still life in the “faith agenda”
THE lone Democrat in the White House did not have an easy time as the president's “faith tsar”, back in 2001. John DiIulio was appalled by the lack of a serious “policy apparatus”. He later complained that the White House was run by “Mayberry Machiavellis” who sacrificed everything for political gain. He quit after only seven months.
Yet today, happily ensconced in the University of Pennsylvania, Mr DiIulio has lost none of his enthusiasm for faith-based solutions to America's social problems. He has just published a new book, “Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future” (University of California Press). He can talk eloquently for hours on the case for extending a helping hand to religious organisations. Particularly exciting, for him, is the idea that a Democratic administration could reinvigorate his faith-based policies and return them to their bipartisan roots.
Mr DiIulio is the ideal salesman for faith-based social services. He is one of America's leading political scientists — a man who has all the latest data at his fingertips, but who also knows his “Federalist Papers” and his de Tocqueville. In a world where people like to talk about Jesus changing their hearts, he presents the case for “faith” in scrupulously secular terms. He is also one of those rare things in professional America — a working-class boy made good who nevertheless clings on to his roots.
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In his new book Mr DiIulio argues vigorously that there is no constitutional problem with giving public money to religious organisations — provided the rules are written tightly and monitored carefully. The Founding Fathers did not intend to banish religion from the public square any more than they intended to create a Christian nation. And much of America's government work is currently subcontracted to “proxy institutions”. If religious proxy institutions can do the job effectively, then there is no reason to discriminate against them. This is the sort of argument that infuriates the Democratic Party's powerful secular wing. Nevertheless, Mr DiIulio hopes that a future Democratic president will prefer pragmatism to what he regards as misguided ideology. The origins of the faith-based idea were bipartisan.
The Clinton administration endorsed “charitable choice” (which let religious organisations compete on a level playing field) in his second term. Andrew Cuomo, Bill Clinton's second secretary of housing, established the first “faith centre” in the federal government. Mr DiIulio advised both Al Gore and Mr Bush. Two-thirds of American states have now enacted “faith-friendly” laws. Mr Gore's enthusiasm for “faith” is shared by all the leading Democratic candidates. Hillary Clinton in particular has gone out of her way to emphasise her support for faith-based social services. In January 2005 she told a group of pastors in Boston that people who see “God's work in the lives of even the most hopeless and left behind” are most likely to “go out onto the street to save some poor, at-risk child.”
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http://economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=3856663&story_id=9947085