Sacred Places, Civic Purposes : Should Government Help Faith-Based Charity?

Intro -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- When the Sacred Meets the Civic: An Introduction -- Framing the Debate: Faith- Based Approaches to Preventing Teen Pregnancy -- Joseph's Promise: Extending God's Grace to Pregnant Teens -- Conservative Triumph: Successes of Worship and Family in Preventing Teen Pregnancy -- Defining the Terms of Collaboration: Faith- Based Organizations and Government in Criminal Justice -- Not by Faith Alone: Religion, Crime, and Substance Abuse -- Community Development and Religious Institutions -- Many Are Called, but Few Are Chosen: Faith- Based Organizations and Community Development -- Partnerships of Schools and Faith- Based Organizations -- Faith- Based Organizations and Public Education Reform -- Faith Communities and Public Education: The View from the Superintendent's Office -- The Child- Care Landscape -- A Survey of Congregation- Based Child Care in the United States -- Promises and Perils: Faith- Based Involvement in After- School Programs -- Sacred Places? Not Quite. Civic Purposes? Almost. -- Compassion in Truth and Action: What Washington Can Not Do to Help -- Testing the Assumptions: Who Provides Social Services? -- Appropriate and Inappropriate Use of Religion -- In Good Faith: Government Funding of Faith- Based Social Services -- The Breaking Points: When Consensus Becomes Conflict -- Holy Waters: Plunging into the Sea of Faith- Based Initiatives -- Contributors -- Index.

Long before there was a welfare state, there were efforts by religious congregations to alleviate poverty. Those efforts have continued since the establishment of government programs to help the poor, and congregations have often worked with government agencies to provide food, clothing and care, to set up after-school activities, provide teen pregnancy counseling, and develop programs to prevent crime. Until now, much of this church-state cooperation has gone on with limited opposition or notice. But the Bush Administration's new proposal to broaden support for "faith-based" social programs has heated up an already simmering debate. What are congregations' proper roles in lifting up the poor? What should their relationship with government be? Sacred Places, Civic Purposes explores the question with a lively discussion that crisscrosses every line of partisanship and ideology. The result of a series of conferences funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and sponsored by the Brookings Institution, this book focuses not simply on abstract questions of the promise and potential dangers of church-state cooperation, but also on concrete issues where religious organizations are leading problem solvers. The authors - experts in their respective fields and from various walks of life - examine the promises and perils of faith-based organizations in preventing teen pregnancy, reducing crime and substance abuse, fostering community development, bolstering child care, and assisting parents and children on education issues. They offer conclusions about what congregations are currently doing, how government could help, and how government could usefully get out of the way. Contributors include William T. Dickens (National Community Development Policy Analysis Network and the Brookings Institution), John DiIulio (White House Office of Faith-Based and Community

Initiatives and University of Pennsylvania), Floyd Flake (Allen AME Church and Manhattan Institute), Bill Ga.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.