George W. Bush’s controversial Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFCI) will live on under the Obama administration, but with a slightly altered handle: The President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (COFANP). More than mere semantics, this reimagined name signifies “a new commitment to strengthening the partnership between government and neighborhood community programs,” according to the Obama campaign’s position paper.

At Spiritual Politics, editor Mark Silk dissects the implications of the name change. “The Bush name implies that initiative comes from the non-profits, be they religious or otherwise; OFCI was supposed to ensure that faith-based entities were not shut out from government funding for what they wanted to do,” writes Silk, a professor of religion in public life at Trinity College. “COFANP makes the government an active participant in whatever happens—including in assessing the results.”

This new focus on partnership rekindles the issue of hiring discrimination for faith-based groups receiving federal funding. While Bush’s constitutionally dicey policy permits faith-based groups to hire only members of their own faith, the Obama plan expects religious groups to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws.

As partners with the federal government, faith-based groups will need to focus on using public funds for the public good, not to advance their spiritual agendas. The government’s role in the partnership will include judging programs based on effectiveness, and ending funding for programs that don’t work, regardless of their religious affiliation. As Silk puts it, under COFANP “programs will not be saved by faith alone; it will take works.”

By refusing to renew an executive anti-discrimination order, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has paved the way for faith-based discrimination in the state, Sandhya Bathija writes for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. The order, issued by Jindal’s predecessor Gov. Kathleen Blanco, prohibited discrimination in government services, hiring, or business contracting on the basis of religion, disabilities, race, gender, political affiliation, and sexual orientation. Jindal maintains that such anti-discrimination measures and “additional categories of special rights” are unnecessary. Bathija insists that the governor’s so-called “common sense approach” opens the door for companies to discriminate in hiring and employee treatment. She writes that Jindal is merely “catering yet again to his Religious Right friends at the Louisiana Family Forum… a group that seeks to ‘persuasively present biblical principles’ in political and other issues.” 

Photo by  KitAy , licensed under  Creative Commons .