c. 2006 Religion News Service

Report: Church-State Lines Not Always Drawn With Faith-Based Groups

(RNS) An examination of the White House’s faith-based initiative has found that some organizations are not separating religious activities from federally funded services.

At the request of two members of Congress, the U.S. General Accountability Office spent more than a year conducting a review of federal and state agencies related to the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. The GAO also investigated religious groups that have received government grants.

The report, released Tuesday (July 18), said officials at 26 faith-based organizations that were visited by investigators said they understood that government funds could not pay for religious activities.

But reviewers found “four of the 13 FBOS (faith-based organizations) that offered voluntary religious activities _ such as prayer and worship _ did not appear to understand the requirement to separate these activities in time or location from their program services funded with federal funds.”

One faith-based worker told investigators that she discusses religious matters while providing a service funded by the government if a participant asks and others don’t object. In a few cases, staffers at faith-based groups said they prayed with program beneficiaries if they requested it.

Alyssa J. McClenning, a spokeswoman for the White House faith-based office, said efforts are made to prevent such situations.

“The administration is engaged in continuous efforts to ensure that the regulations governing appropriate use of federal financial assistance are disseminated and understood by grantees,” she said.

But the congressmen who sought the review said the results show management of the fund is in question.

“The Bush administration has failed to develop standards to verify that faith-based organizations aren’t using federal funds to pay for inherently religious activity or to provide services on the basis of religion,” said Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., who requested the report with Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.

George Washington University Law School professor Ira Lupu, said the overall report showed no widespread abuse of federal funds but pointed out the need for more monitoring on church-state matters.

“People don’t understand that you couldn’t do a prayer service in a government-funded program, that you had to do it separately,” he said. “People somehow think in those groups so long as it’s voluntary, it’s OK. … That’s not the constitutional law.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

England May Allow Students to Opt Out of Religious Worship

LONDON (RNS) The British government, seeking to defuse a potential student revolt, has announced that it intends to give high school-age students the right to opt out of collective worship in the nation’s schools if they so wish.

In Britain, collective worship currently is mandatory in all state-operated schools unless parents specifically request that their child or children be excluded.

Education Minister Andrew Adonis, told the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament, this week (week of July 17) that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government plans to relax the laws on compulsory attendance for “sixth-formers” _ the equivalent of juniors and seniors in U.S. high schools.

“It is contradictory to say we think young people are old enough at 16 to work and pay taxes, get married and even fight for their country, but then not give them the right to choose whether they participate in worship,” Baroness Joan Walmsley, a key supporter of the government’s planned relaxation, told the chamber.

The announcement came less than two weeks after one of the prime minister’s key cabinet members, Alan Johnson, insisted there were no plans to allow pupils to exempt themselves from acts of collective worship in schools. He was responding to claims that the law, if left unchanged, could violate students’ human rights.

But an initially small rebellion had already broken out a few days earlier,when students at St. Luke’s Roman Catholic school in south London boycotted Mass and the institution’s compulsory attendance policy. They accused the school of being “more concerned about religion than education.”

Canon John Hall, chief education officer for the Church of England, insisted to The Daily Telegraph newspaper in London that worship sessions in schools helped foster community links.

But in a statement to journalists, Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said, “It has seemed intolerable to us that young people are being forced to worship at school, sometimes against their will.”

This, he argued “is self-evidently a breach of their human rights. Indeed, it can be argued from a human rights perspective that the age limit for self-exemption should be lower.”

Wood added that “the church is quite happy to allow 14-year-olds to confirm their commitment to Christianity, yet it will not accept that other children of that age can feel equally certain that they don’t believe.”

_ Al Webb

Protestants Say Welfare Reform Anniversary Not a Celebration

(RNS) On the 10th anniversary of sweeping welfare reforms, half a dozen leaders of mainline Protestant churches told Congress that poverty remains a problem.

“This is a celebration in which we cannot join,” wrote five representatives of national church groups. “Welfare may have ended as we know it, but poverty in our nation has not.”

The written testimony was included in the proceedings of a Wednesday (July 19) hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee that marked the anniversary of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.

The signatories were the Right Rev. Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church; the Rev. Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly; the Rev. John H. Thomas, president of the United Church of Christ; and Bishop Beverly Shamana, president of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society.

In addition to their comments, Bishop Roy Riley, chair of the ELCA’s Conference of Bishops, appeared on a panel that marked the anniversary.

“Our concern was then and is now for welfare reform that truly operates to strengthen American family life and creates meaningful work opportunities, moving people from poverty to sustainable livelihood,” he said.

While the House committee has stated that welfare caseloads have been reduced 64 percent over the last decade, Riley pointed out that the number of people living below the poverty line has increased since 2000 and requests for emergency food assistance are also on the rise.

“That welfare caseloads have been reduced dramatically is not finally the proof of successful welfare reform,” he said.

_ Adelle M. Banks

American Atheists Criticize Military Official’s Remark

(RNS) The American Atheists criticized remarks by the chief of the National Guard Bureau after he reportedly said in a Wednesday (July 19) speech to an awards dinner of the NAACP that “agnostics, atheists and bigots suddenly lose all that when their life is on the line.”

Army Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum made the remarks during a speech in Washington at an Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs dinner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was the recipient of the organization’s 2006 Meritorious Service Award.

Blum spoke about the National Guard’s diversity and thanked the NAACP for helping the National Guard “look like America,” reported the American Forces Press Service, a Department of Defense news service.

He added that the battlefield makes all equal.

“Agnostics, atheists and bigots suddenly lose all that when their life is on the line,” Blum said. “Something that they lived their whole life believing gets thrown out the door, and they grasp the comrade next to them, and they don’t care what color their skin is, and they don’t care where they pray.”

Ellen Johnson, president of the New Jersey-based American Atheists, said Blum’s speech addressing tolerance was “stained by an animus directed at agnostics and atheists.” She said atheists should be respected along with other military members.

“Why is he singling out the millions of Americans who simply have doubts about religion or do not believe in religious teachings, and then comparing this group to `bigots’?” she asked in a statement.

“Religious belief, or the lack of it, shouldn’t be a litmus for patriotism, on or off the battlefield. Officials with the National Guard need to issue an apology for these ill-considered remarks made by Gen. Blum.”

A National Guard spokesman defended Blum’s remarks.

“His comments are … a reflection of a soldier and a leader who has served under hostile conditions and whose personal battlefield experience has reflected that issues that may sometimes divide people fade quickly when lives are on the line,” said Air National Guard Lt. Col. Mike Milord. “There was, and is, no intent to offend anyone by these uplifting remarks.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Quote of the Day: Former leader of the Christian Coalition Ralph Reed

(RNS) “Stay in the fight. Don’t retreat. And our values will win in November.”

Former leader of the Christian Coalition Ralph Reed conceeding electoral defeat in his bid to become lietenant governor of Georgia on July 18. He was quoted in the Washington Post.

DSB/JL END RNS