Bush Should Keep the Faith

President Bush launched an ambitious initiative last week, aimed at empowering local charitable groups and faith-based organizations in their struggle to combat crime, drug addiction, and poverty.

The plan fulfills Bush's campaign promise "to mobilize the armies of compassion" by funneling increased government subsidies into faith-based charities. In the past, such assistance had been earmarked almost exclusively for government agencies.

"When we see social needs in America, my administration will look first to faith-based programs and community groups, which have proven their power to save and change lives," said Bush.

Traditionally, the government's response to urban decay has been to throw money at the problem. Despite spending billions of dollars on public education, assisted housing, and crime prevention, urban communities continue to experience increasing rates of drug addiction, criminal activity, eroding family structures, and welfare dependency.

The statistics are disconcerting: According to the National Assessment Governing Board, 54% of black high school seniors have "below basic" reading skills. Public housing is deteriorating, while the violent-crime rate has soared 280% since 1965. Meanwhile, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has increased nearly sixfold during the last 35 years. As the nuclear family goes boom, so do our communities--72% of adolescent murderers come from homes without fathers. Get it? Federal money alone cannot raise our children.

This rousing fact has not been lost on our president. By partnering with faith-based institutions, Bush has offered something no less pervasive than a new compact between church and state, and a new direction in the philosophy of the welfare state. Bush's faith-based strategy attacks poverty from the bottom up, not with distant programs, but by nurturing those local institutions that help affix hope and meaning to an individual's existence. It is here--in nurturing an individual's self worth and self-reliance--that America's faith-based organizations have proved far more successful than traditional government programs.

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