Faith-Based Inefficiency: The Follies of Bush's Initiatives

On January 29, 2001, President Bush established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Its stated mission is to fight society's ills by "rallying the armies of compassion" inside America's churches. In Faith-Based Inefficiency Bob Wineburg argues that beneath the compassionate camouflage lies a five-star war plan to demolish government programs, mobilize and increase the size of the evangelical Christian voting block, shift government money to churches and other faith-based organizations in the conservative-led culture war, and develop a smoke screen of convincing media images and baffling words to confuse detractors. This largely understated relationship between the plan's politics and its service delivery has been overlooked, until now.

Bob Wineburg is Jefferson Pilot Excellence Professor of Social Work at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He is the author of many book chapters, published articles, and the booksA Limited Partnership: The Politics of Religion, Welfare and Social Service andThe Newer Deal: Social Work and Religion in Partnership. He was an advisor to Catholic Charities USA on its Vision 2000 Project, and served as a panelist on the President's Faith-Based Initiative at the United Jewish Communities bi-annual conference, along with Senator Joseph Lieberman, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, and USA Freedom Corps Director John Bridgeland.