In the first few months of his presidency, President George W. Bush has proposed a major government program to establish increased funding opportunities for religiously based charities. Both political and religious leaders have criticized his proposals; most interesting and least often examined are the reactions of African American political and religious leaders to Bush’s faith-based initiatives. Traditionally, blacks have been classified as liberals and have been associated with political groups that oppose programs such as Bush’s initiatives; however, black Christianity is rooted in evangelical Christianity with a particular emphasis on churches’ involvement in social welfare due to African Americans’ background of slavery and social and economic oppression. These political and religious cross pressures on blacks create an interesting tension on their views on faith-based initiatives. How do the reactions in the black community compare to the theological and ideological backgrounds of blacks? This paper will examine the compatibility of black Christianity with the idea of faith-based initiatives and how black religious leaders have reacted to Bush’s proposals in recent months.
A majority of African Americans identify themselves as Christians; in fact, a greater percentage of blacks do so than white.[1] Black Christianity is distinct from white Christianity and contains two important elements: evangelicalism and a liberation and survival tradition. Evangelicalism is prominent in black religion in part because evangelical denominations such as Baptists and Methodists dominated the South during the period in which blacks inhabited the area.[2] Evangelical Protestantism increased in the South in the early 1800s; Baptist and Methodist memberships had more than tripled from 1790 to 1830.[3] These evangelical denominations interpreted the Bible strictly and held it as the truth.[4] Evangelicalism was also an “intensely personalist religion” which was a source of comfort and relief to black slaves.[5] Because of their physical and emotional hardships as slaves, African Americans were able to embrace evangelical Protestantism. There is, however, a strong distinction between black and white Christianity. Milton C. Sernett, author of Black Religion and American Evangelicalism, acknowledges this distinction:
In matters of work and life, it is true, there were two different worlds in which white Christians and black Christians lived. But in matters of faith and order, the Negro churches reflected the structure and doctrines of Evangelical Protestantism. To borrow an image used by Booker T. Washington, black religion and white religion were as distinct socially as the five fingers of the hand, but they were one like the hand itself in sharing the evangelical heritage.[6]
Black Christianity is rooted in white evangelical Christianity; however, they differ because of the history of physical and economic oppression of blacks.
The effects of slavery and oppression are visible in black Christianity. The tradition of liberation and survival is the result of African American suffering.[7] Forrest E. Harris, Sr. gives an overview of the liberation and survival tradition in black Christianity in his book Ministry for Social Crisis. He states that
the black church and its liberation tradition are products of a struggle against oppression and the spiritual pain and social oppression it perpetuated. The historical carry-overs of physical enslavement, psychological slavery, and racial oppression present formidable challenges to the ministry of contemporary black churches.[8]
Even after slavery, black churches continued to serve as a center for relieving the oppressed, especially during the period from 1900 to 1955.[9] Urban poverty for African Americans in the early 1900s directed black churches along a survival track. In response to the urban crisis of blacks in poverty, black ministries were gathering their resources to establish social programs and welfare assistance.[10] Black churches have had a long history in the African American community; first as a support network in slave society and later as a center for assistance for black poverty. Black churches’ tradition of liberation and survival has allowed them to aid black communities.
Despite all these similarities in black religion, a serious lack of cohesion exists among black churches, but their common traditions are a sign of the shared experiences of African Americans. Harris discusses the difficulties for black Christian leaders to find common ground regarding “(1) a theology of social change and political action, (2) evangelism and social action, (3) the relationship of black theology and the black church.” [11] Though all these differences are present, black Christians still have many similarities because of their evangelicalism and history of oppression. In general, African Americans viewed Christianity in a similar manner:
Black Christians tended to have an existential understanding of Christianity rather than a magesterial conception of God and a scholastic view of the Scriptures. Their Faith was both personal and social, their hope both individual and corporate, their charity both private and public.[12]
Even though blacks’ have a strong affiliation with evangelical Protestantism, which is often associated with political conservatism, they lack the economic and social conservatism.[13] Conservative Protestantism, in fact, has a different effect on black and white Christians.
Blacks are less suspicious of government intervention and as a group more supportive than whites on issues involving government aid.[14] For example, in the General Social Survey conducted in 1986, almost 60 percent of blacks favored busing children to schools for racial integration purposes whereas only approximately 25 percent of whites supported the issue; likewise, a little less than 50 percent of blacks supported increased welfare spending while only 20 percent of whites favored the increase.[15] Black evangelicals tend to be more even more supportive of government support for African Americans than non-evangelical blacks. On the other hand, evangelical whites are even more opposed to government aid than non-evangelical whites and adhere strictly to their politically and socially conservative viewpoints.[16] Evangelicalism seems to have opposing effects on blacks and whites that forces their views farther apart: “It appears that conservative religion intensifies the different values and experiences of each racial group, sharpening and increasing the divide between black and white Americans.”[17] The African Americans’ experience of oppression has been intensified by their evangelicalism, which is the reason blacks are more likely to support government aid.
African Americans have historically been among the oppressed, first in slavery and later in economic and social oppression; these hardships have led them to create their own strain of evangelicalism with an emphasis on social work. Although the myth that the majority of people living below the poverty line are blacks persists, it is true that “the incidence of poverty is much higher among blacks than whites.”[18] In fact, over 50 percent of blacks were classified as living in poverty in the 1960s and even though the percentage is declining, there is still a greater percentage of those living below the poverty line among blacks.[19] Economic inequality between whites and blacks was and still is prevalent in America. In the book Divided By Faith, Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith compare the unemployment rate and the average incomes of the two races to show that African Americans are still economically disadvantaged. The authors state that the ratio of two unemployed African Americans to one unemployed white American has remained constant since the 1950s and that as recent as 1994, the median income of blacks was 62 percent of that of whites.[20] The economic inequality between blacks and whites elicit little reaction from white Americans because of their negative perceptions of blacks. Donald R. Kinder and Lynn M. Sanders study attitudes of whites towards African Americans, in their book Divided by Color, and detect a strong sense of racial resentment, which they define to be similar to racial prejudice in that it predicts negative stereotypes but it is not expressed directly to blacks.[21] From the 1986 National Election Study survey, Kinder and Sanders extract data showing that a majority of whites either agreed strongly or agreed somewhat with the statements “Most blacks who receive money from welfare programs could get along without it if they tried” and “It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites.”[22] Racial resentment causes white Americans to stereotype blacks as lazy, unintelligent, and violent and it perpetuates the myth that most Americans living below the poverty line are blacks. These factors combined force Americans, particularly whites, to question the use of government aid in solving economic inequality between the two races.
Whites also question government aid when examining whether or not government welfare programs have been successful. The history of public assistance and welfare programs is extremely long—many programs, from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which was the brainchild of a 1909 White House conference on dependent children and mothers’ aid, to the Food Stamp Act of 1964, which was a food distribution program aimed at increasing the purchasing power of low-income individuals.[23] Despite the numerous attempts of government to provide assistance to those in poverty through welfare programs, the general conception has been that none of these programs have been helpful. Even with all the welfare programs, in 1994 there were still 38.1 million people of all races living below the poverty line; this figure was 14.5 percent of the total population in America in 1994.[24] The failure of government welfare programs has been criticized from both the right and the left. On the conservative end of the political spectrum, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, writes: “Three decades of social welfare policies have failed, condemning too many of our fellow citizens to lives of despair. . . . [The] Great Society view set us on a track that has been an unmitigated disaster.”[25] Even President Clinton, a Democrat, played off Americans’ frustration with welfare in his 1996 campaign slogan to “end welfare as we know it.”[26] Clinton did exactly as he promised in his slogan. In August 1996 he signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act into law[27]; this act is also known as the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. The attempts of President Clinton were controversial not only because of its restrictions on personal welfare assistance but also because of a Charitable Choice provision in the act.
Because the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 did indeed “end welfare as we know it,” Clinton was criticized by numerous groups that felt his welfare reform was actually an end to welfare. In the act the AFDC, which had provided cash assistance to poverty-stricken women with children, was overhauled and transformed into the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). States were given the responsibility of determining the funding eligibility and were required to terminate payments to recipients after two years. To many liberal politicians and academics, the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 was seen as heartless and
a dramatic and very controversial measure that brought an end to, or reversed, six decades of federal social policy—that of guaranteeing at least a minimum level of financial assistance, or some sort of safety net, to the nation’s destitute and dependent citizens, especially its young people.[28]
The act was also criticized by more liberal Christian leaders such as Jim Wallis, an activist preacher and spokesperson for Call to Renewal, a church-based coalition to end poverty. In his book Faith Works, Wallis writes that not only does the Welfare Reform Act create confusion among states in deciding how they should set guidelines but also it fails to create a system to help people off welfare.[29] Wallis states that “the ‘good’ news about welfare reform is that the crisis facing our poorest mothers and their children has mobilized faith communities more than anything in a very long time.”[30] The consensus among Christians, both conservative and liberal, including Wallis, is that the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 has resulted in a positive increase in the role of churches in public assistance.
The greater limitations of the new welfare act has thrust private charitable organizations, especially churches, in a more prominent role in providing social services. The 1996 act recognizes to some extent the role religious organizations will have after the government safety net is broken by including a provision known as Charitable Choice. Section 104 of the Welfare Reform Act contains the Charitable Choice provision, which encourages states to grant federal funds to religiously based charities while attempting not to compromise the religious messages of the organizations. The Center for Public Justice, a self-described “independent civic education and policy research organization . . . that grounds its research, publications, training, and advocacy in a comprehensive Christian political perspective”[31], has studied the Charitable Choice provision in-depth and has helped states and faith-based charities implement the new provision, which consists of the following guidelines:
- If a state elects to involve independent-sector providers in the delivery of social services, then it may not exclude providers because of their religious character.
- If a faith-based organization is selected as a provider of government-financed social services, its religious expression and identity may not be censored or otherwise diminished on account of its participation in the welfare program.
- A faith-based provider may not discriminate against a beneficiary on the basis of religion nor require the beneficiary to actively participate in religious practices.
- If a beneficiary objects to receiving social services from a faith-based provider, then he or she has the right to obtain services from another provider.[32]
In short, Section 104 of the Welfare Reform Act established a system to allow religious charities to compete for government funds and it also formed a set of rules that protected both the religious charity and the recipients of welfare against discrimination. Even though churches and many religious organizations, especially black churches, have been long involved in helping their communities and providing public assistance, the government had excluded them from being eligible for public funds. The inclusion of the Charitable Choice provision in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and the recent calls by President Bush to expand Charitable Choice are signs of a new strain of thought in how churches and government should interact to provide public assistance.
Marvin Olasky, called “compassionate conservatism’s leading thinker” by President George W. Bush, has been one of the most vocal proponents for faith-based initiatives.[33] His vision of compassionate conservatism has been the groundwork for faith-based charities in recent years. In his book Compassionate Conservatism, Olasky describes the seven principles to which compassionate conservatives adhered: assertive, basic, challenging, diverse, effective, faith based, and gradual.[34] In this philosophy, Americans are expected to assert themselves by forming voluntary associations to fight poverty; to look for the most basic solution to a problem rather than seeking the complications of the government; to challenge those in poverty to achieve better lives and to challenge themselves to create ways to help the poor; to accept public assistance programs from diverse religions; to assess private charities to insure that they are effective; to provide faith-based public assistance because religion has been shown to be more effective in improving the lives of welfare recipients[35]; and to maintain a gradual change to test if the programs are working.[36] Olasky’s views are embraced eagerly by many Christians like Stanley W. Carlson-Theis, who directs the Charitable Choice research at the Center for Public Justice. He believes that compassionate conservatism is a reflection of God’s concern for the needy:
I believe we are hearing a word of the Lord when Marvin Olasky and others urge Christians individually and corporately to become directly involved with the poor. As Olasky emphasizes, true compassion means ‘suffering with’ the needy. In his memorable words, the problem with governmental welfare is ‘not that it is extravagant, but that it is too stingy.’ The poor receive only material benefits, when they need a personal investment in their lives by a Good Samaritan.[37]
Religious organizations even in the early 1990s have been active in aiding those in poverty; figures in 1991 show that approximately $2 billion to $6.6 billion were spent by religious organizations for charity work.[38] This monetary figure, however, does not account for all the hours volunteers and workers spend providing public assistance through the faith-based institutions. President Bush hopes to tap into this new idea of compassionate conservatism, the money, and most importantly the manpower of religious organizations to change the state of the underclass in America.