Joe Did What? Ecumenism Edition

 

Never heard of this 2020 movie at all. Times seems to have hated it, is that a recommendation these days?

Speaking of theological politics, Faith-Basedness is in the news from the Biden administration, and it's not bad...

The W. Bush administration invented the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001 as an organ of "compassionate conservatism", encouraging ways of funneling congressionally appropriated money for social services through religious organizations, kind of like the equivalent of a charter school movement for anti-poverty programs, sometimes in ways that looked an awful lot like violations of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, and dominated, as you might expect, by white Christian denominations. 

Under the former community organizer Barack Obama, it was renamed, Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and given a council of religious and secular leaders from a very wide variety of ethnicities and traditions, and goals were retooled from a kind of market-oriented idea of competition in the 2001 formulation

The paramount goal is compassionate results, and private and charitable community groups, including religious ones, should have the fullest opportunity permitted by law to compete on a level playing field, so long as they achieve valid public purposes, such as curbing crime, conquering addiction, strengthening families and neighborhoods, and overcoming poverty.

to one of asserting some federal regulatory control over the organizations, assuring their compliance with the Constitution and the quality of their work in 2009

It is critical that the Federal Government strengthen the ability of such organizations and other nonprofit providers in our neighborhoods to deliver services effectively in partnership with Federal, State, and local governments and with other private organizations, while preserving our fundamental constitutional commitments guaranteeing the equal protection of the laws and the free exercise of religion and forbidding the establishment of religion. The Federal Government can preserve these fundamental commitments while empowering faith-based and neighborhood organizations to deliver vital services in our communities, from providing mentors and tutors to school children to giving ex-offenders a second chance at work and a responsible life to ensuring that families are fed. The Federal Government must also ensure that any organization receiving taxpayers’ dollars must be held accountable for its performance. Through rigorous evaluation, and by offering technical assistance, the Federal Government must ensure that organizations receiving Federal funds achieve measurable results in furtherance of valid public purposes.

Trump, of course, let the whole thing slide: he failed to name anybody to serve in it, and the office and its website more or less disappeared, until 15 months into the term, 3 May 2018, when somebody who sounds a lot like Stephen Miller trying to channel Trump wrote a new order for a White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative

Faith-based and community organizations have tremendous ability to serve individuals, families, and communities through means that are different from those of government and with capacity that often exceeds that of government 

restoring the "competition" concept and melting the regulation concept into drivel

The executive branch wants faith-based and community organizations, to the fullest opportunity permitted by law, to compete on a level playing field for grants, contracts, programs, and other Federal funding opportunities. The efforts of faith-based and community organizations are essential to revitalizing communities, and the Federal Government welcomes opportunities to partner with such organizations through innovative, measurable, and outcome-driven initiatives.

(the government will partner with organizations "through" initiatives that are measurable—how does one measure an initiative?—and driven by outcomes, but the idea that outcomes will be measured has dissolved in one of Miller's uncomfortable rhetorical threesomes). 

But nothing at all was done to implement it for another 17 months until Trump consigned it, in November 2019, into the sticky hands of his "personal pastor", Paula White, who seems to have assumed the office a couple of months later, around 10 January, and a few days nine federal agencies—the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and Veterans Affairs, and the Agency for International Development, announced their various plans to ensure the "religious freedom" of any faith-based organizations they might award contracts to, meaning guaranteeing the charities' right to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people, people who practice contraception, people who take Saturday off from work, or whatever else might offend the charities' doctrinal principles. 

And I haven't been able to unearth any evidence that Paula White ever did anything in her capacity other than to help organize photo ops in which Trump and/or Pence appeared with clergy members. It's interesting, isn't it, that hardly anybody ever writes the story about the agency that rips off the public by not doing any work at all.

Anyhow, the Biden program reverts back to Obama's name, Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. and brings back the executive director from Obama's second term, Melissa Rogers, who will also have clout as a senior director on the Domestic Policy Council. But the policy statement in the executive order offers some completely new language on who is supposed to benefit from the partnerships

Faith-based and other community-serving organizations are vital to our Nation’s ability to address the needs of, and lift up, low-income and other underserved persons and communities, notably including persons of color. 

and leaves out the regulatory language, changing the focus yet again, to refer to "empowering" the organizations:

It is important that the Federal Government strengthen the ability of such organizations and other nonprofit providers in our communities to deliver services effectively in partnership with Federal, State, and local governments and with other private organizations, while preserving our fundamental constitutional commitments guaranteeing the equal protection of the laws and the free exercise of religion and forbidding the establishment of religion.  The Federal Government can preserve these fundamental commitments while empowering faith-based and secular organizations to assist in the delivery of vital services in our neighborhoods.

(Note the bold appearance of the word "secular".) The concept of regulation goes into a new section on Functions spelling out the expectations that programs need to be "more effective", and that the government will "lead", "develop", "coordinate", and "optimize" them.

In a separate fact sheet, Biden lays out a somewhat startling set of goals, bringing in vital issues from Covid-19 to cultural and religious pluralism:

Address the Covid-19 Pandemic and Boost Economic Recovery

By working with diverse civil society organizations, the Partnerships Office will help more Americans get facts about COVID-19 and vaccinations, and support economic recovery efforts. Faith and community leaders are frequently anchors of their neighborhoods...

Combat Systemic Racism

The Partnerships Office will work closely with organizations and community leaders to tackle systemic racism and other forms of bias. Whether it is health, education, economic opportunity, housing, or the criminal justice system, racial and other disparities abound, and it will take an all-hands-on-deck effort to fix these problems....

Increase Opportunity and Mobility for Historically Disadvantaged Communities

The Biden-Harris administration has made a firm commitment to serving vulnerable communities and people in need, and the Partnerships Office will play an important role in this work. From supporting immigrants and welcoming refugees to addressing childhood hunger to helping minority-owned and rural small businesses... 

Advance International Development and Global Humanitarian Work

U.S. agencies’ partnerships will also serve people around the world. Whether it is promoting child and maternal health or defusing conflicts...

Strengthen Pluralism and Respect Constitutional Guarantees

A key commitment of the Partnerships Office is embracing pluralism. At its best, the United States is not only a country with remarkable peace across our religious differences, it is a nation where people of diverse faiths and beliefs regularly make common cause. When Methodists and Muslims, Buddhists and Baptists, Sikhs and Secular Humanists serve together, we strengthen one another and we strengthen America. As part of this commitment, the Partnerships Office will work to protect the right to practice faith without fear, implementing promises President-elect Biden made about safeguarding faith communities that are at risk of discrimination, harassment, and hate-based acts of violence and vandalism.

Especially amazed by the explicit naming of systemic racism in this context, maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention, and the way it seems like a direct response to yesterday's Brooks, but also by the reference to increasing social mobility (as a kind of less controversial stand-in for decreasing inequality), and the attack at the very end on the rightwing concept of "religious freedom" as freedom to discriminate—no, guys, discrimination is what must stop.

"Methodists and Muslims, Buddhists and Baptists, Sikhs and Secular Humanists"—eat your heart out, Stephen Miller, this is tripleting and alliteration with class. You'll never come close.