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View from the Pew
Mary Adamski
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Codes guide church use of public money
A national interfaith group proclaimed a message this week to President Bush and to all 2006 congressional candidates: Stick to your business and stay out of religion.
The Interfaith Alliance news conference in Washington, D.C., told Bush Wednesday it's time to call a halt to his "faith-based initiative" through which federal government money is bestowed on churches. It's become a "cash cow of the Christian right," according to one of the speakers.
More than 40 nonprofit organizations in Hawaii have benefited from the Faith Based and Community Initiative. They received "capacity-building" training and cash grants dispensed from nearly $3 million awarded in the president's Compassion Capital program. Some were church-affiliated groups, usually providing grass-roots help in their neighborhoods.
To understand why some churches, which chronically operate on short budgets, would want to shut the faucet of financial aid, calls for a look behind the lineup at the news conference. The Interfaith Alliance was founded in 1994 to provide an alternative voice from the religion world to offset the growing political influence of the conservative Christian Coalition.
The alliance describes itself as a nonpartisan, grass-roots group "dedicated to promoting the positive and healing role of religion in the life of the nation and challenging those who manipulate religion to promote a narrow, divisive agenda." Its goal is to "promote compassion, civility and mutual respect for human dignity in our increasingly diverse society." It has 150,000 members from more than 75 faith traditions, according to the Web page www.interfaithalliance.org.
Hawaii's chapter reflects the diversity of the national alliance, with members who are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Bahai, Unitarian and many versions of Christian.
John Heidel, president of the Interfaith Alliance Hawaii, said: "What is alarming is that nationally a lot of faith-based programs promote a political agenda -- anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-war. That's not right. If they are promoting a particular religion, and a particular brand of one religion, it is against separation of church and state. That is behind the national drive, that we need to be wary of blurring the separation.
"I think there are a lot of people who believe we would be a better nation if we were all Christians. I would say that if we all lived Christian values, we would be a better nation," said Heidel, a retired United Church of Christ minister.
The Bush program operates from the White House Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives. The program is embedded in several executive departments that disseminate grants to churches and other organizations for housing, educational, health and social service projects.
A partnership of three Hawaii organizations received $1.8 million in faith-based initiative funds for a just-completed three-year cycle, and just got a second $950,000 grant. The money is going to train people in nonprofit organizations how to do their thing better than before, whether they are into athletic programs for disadvantaged youths, services for immigrants or providing food, housing, job training or medical care for homeless people.
Hawaiian Islands Ministries, which usually organizes seminars and conferences for Christian church leaders, presents "capacity-building" seminars for people involved in small, grass-roots efforts. The University of Hawaii Center for the Family and the Hawaii Community Foundation are partners in the project, which has dispensed grants to 25 grass-roots groups. Another 17 organizations are beginning the process.
"We teach finance management, strategic planning, leadership, grant-writing ... with resources the nonprofits would not be able to afford," said Mary Vinson, director of Hawaiian Islands Ministries.
Free communitywide seminars featuring experts and guest speakers draw as many as 150 people. Best-selling business motivational author Guy Kawasaki used his book "Art of the Start" for a workshop on how to start a nonprofit group or a new program within a nonprofit. Coming up in July will be a seminar on "Stress for Leaders," to be offered on Oahu and the Big Island.
A more intensive training series, "Hawaii Moving Forward Fellowship Program," brought about 40 selected people in for more specialized training at quarterly conferences. Some of the participants worked with AIDS patients and their families, or with families of incarcerated people, Vinson said. Training for a second group of fellows from 17 organizations was set in motion in October with the second grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Hawaiian Islands Ministries is able to translate its expertise in gathering Christians for an inspirational experience into the business of providing training and resources for a diverse crowd of community service providers.
There is no question of proselytizing to the seminar attendees. That is one of the criteria for a community- and faith-based program grant, said Vinson.
And the church members who attend workshops are taught the same principle. "You keep faith and religion separate from what you are doing, such as feeding the hungry. You cannot require someone to go to church service or to pray in order to be fed."
The Interfaith Alliance might be right in its fears that the president's program is being perverted in the cause of religion somewhere. Nurturing diversity is one area where Hawaii is at the leading edge of the learning curve.