THE WAR THAT MATTERS:

Faith-Based Chief Cites 'Culture War' (Peter Wallsten, June 2, 2004, LA Times)

"It's true that much attention is being placed on the war in Iraq, but there's also another war that's going on," said Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, during a conference promoting the funding of religious groups engaged in social service activities. "It's a culture war that really gets to the heart of the questions about what is the role of faith in the public square."

Towey, who has worked for Democrats and Republicans and was a lawyer for Mother Teresa of Calcutta, warned that when faith was driven out of that public square, "you almost wind up creating a godless orthodoxy."

His remarks came shortly after President Bush delivered an emotional 40-minute address to the gathering of 2,000 religious leaders and social service workers in which he pledged to increase the money available to faith-based organizations.

Bush had just signed an order establishing faith-based offices in three more parts of the executive branch — the Department of Commerce, the Small Business Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs — bringing to 10 the federal agencies that house offices devoted entirely to helping religious organizations tap into government grants.

"I told … the people in my government, rather than fear faith programs, welcome them," Bush said. "They're changing America. They do a better job than government can do."

The renewed focus on faith-based initiatives comes as the president continues to highlight what he calls his "compassion agenda" — one that political experts say will be key in mobilizing millions of Christian evangelicals and other religious conservatives to back him over his presumed Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. Bush met last week with nine editors and writers for religious publications and is to meet Thursday in Colorado with James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, a Christian-based advocacy group. Towey's remarks, blunt given the White House's efforts to promote faith-based programs while carefully emphasizing respect for basic church-state separation, underscored what both sides say is a growing tension in the debate over interpretation of the 1st Amendment.

Al Qaeda can't do much to us, but secularism is deadly.

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Preaching to the Choir, Bush Encourages Religious Gathering (ELISABETH BUMILLER, 6/02/04, NY Times)

In 40 minutes of mostly off-the-cuff and impassioned remarks to a White House Conference on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Mr. Bush gave a pep talk to religious groups seeking money that his administration has made available to them for programs for drug addicts, alcoholics, children of prisoners and others.

The White House also announced that Mr. Bush had signed an executive order on Tuesday morning creating religion-based offices in the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Commerce and the Small Business Administration. Mr. Bush was to have announced it in his prepared remarks, but he dispensed with his text, as he often does with religious groups that he addresses more personally.

Parts of his speech, in the grand ballroom of the Washington Hilton, sounded like a revival meeting.

"I will tell you, the cornerstone of any good recovery program is the understanding there is a higher being," Mr. Bush said.

"Yeah, yeah," audience members responded.

"To whom you can turn your life and therefore save your life," Mr. Bush continued.

"That's right," an audience member said, while the rest of the crowd applauded.

Mr. Bush, who has in the past credited Jesus Christ with helping him to recover from alcoholism, stopped short of mentioning his own experiences to the group, as he has in more private settings. But many in the crowd appeared to understand what the president meant.

"How do we gather up the strength of the country, the vibrancy of faith-based programs, the social entrepreneurs?" Mr. Bush said. "How do we encourage them? And one way to do so is to hold conferences like these that frankly give me a chance and a platform to speak to the country and say, as clearly as I can, we welcome the army of compassion, we understand the power of faith in America, and the federal government will assist, not discriminate against you."

The conference was held by the White House to help religious groups seek government money for social services, a program that Mr. Bush has sought to make a central part of his "compassionate conservative" agenda. Although legislation to create such a program faltered in Congress because of critics who said it blurred the separation between church and state, Mr. Bush pushed ahead to enact part of the program administratively.

"I got frustrated and signed an executive order," Mr. Bush said, to laughter and cheers.

Bush Joins Meeting of Faith-Based Groups: Attendees Cheer President's Speech, Point to Signs of Government's Friendlier Attitude (Mike Allen, June 2, 2004, Washington Post)

The cover of the glossy, full-color booklet being distributed during a conference at the Washington Hilton yesterday showed a flaming shrub and proclaimed: "Not everyone has a burning bush to tell them their life's calling."

The Old Testament imagery suggested a religious tract, but this was a government brochure.

The guide, published by the Department of Labor, tells congregations how they can apply for federal grants to provide job training and services for veterans and disabled people.

On a nearby table, a sheet from the Environmental Protection Agency described a "congregations network" that encourages churches to become more energy efficient and, thereby, to put more money into their missions.

Supporters of President Bush's "faith-based initiative" point to those programs as signs of how much friendlier he has made the government toward religious groups seeking federal funding for social service programs, even though Congress thwarted the plan he had campaigned on in 2000.

More than 1,600 religious leaders and social workers from across the country converged on the Hilton yesterday for the first White House National Conference on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. It followed 12 regional conferences that drew more than 15,000 people.

Bush spoke to the group, at times adopting the rapid cadence of a Baptist preacher, and was greeted with hearty responses of "Amen!" and "Yes!"

Churchgoing closely tied to voting patterns (Susan Page, 6/02/04, USA TODAY)

Forget the gender gap. The "religion gap" is bigger, more powerful and growing. The divide isn't between Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles. Instead, on one side are those of many faiths who go to services, well, religiously: Catholics who attend Mass without fail, evangelical Christians and mainline Protestants who show up for church rain or shine, some Orthodox Jews. On the other side are those who attend religious services only occasionally or never.

The religion gap is the leading edge of the "culture war" that has polarized American politics, reshaped the coalitions that make up the Democratic and Republican parties and influenced the appeals their presidential candidates are making. The debate over same-sex marriage is expected to make it wider than ever this year. Gay rights, partial-birth abortion, definitions of patriotism and other "values" issues are likely to exacerbate the divide between the most observant and others.

Republicans target the most faithful for political conversion so aggressively that critics say they skirt the law. At the White House, President Bush has courted people of faith with his policies and language. They are a huge group: In 2000, one in four voters said they attended church

Bush Campaign Seeks Help From Thousands of Congregations: The Bush campaign's effort is the latest indication of its heavy bet on churchgoers in its bid for re-election. (DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, 6/03/04, NY Times)

In the message, dated early Tuesday afternoon, Luke Bernstein, coalitions coordinator for the Bush campaign in Pennsylvania, wrote: "The Bush-Cheney '04 national headquarters in Virginia has asked us to identify 1,600 `Friendly Congregations' in Pennsylvania where voters friendly to President Bush might gather on a regular basis."

In each targeted "place of worship," Mr. Bernstein continued, without mentioning a specific religion or denomination, "we'd like to identify a volunteer who can help distribute general information to other supporters." He explained: "We plan to undertake activities such as distributing general information/updates or voter registration materials in a place accessible to the congregation."

The e-mail message was provided to The New York Times by a group critical of President Bush.

The campaign's effort is the latest indication of its heavy bet on churchgoers in its bid for re-election. Mr. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and officials of Mr. Bush's campaign have often said that people who attended church regularly voted for him disproportionately in the last election, and the campaign has made turning out that group a top priority this year. But advisers to Mr. Bush also acknowledge privately that appearing to court socially conservative Christian voters too aggressively risks turning off more moderate voters.

What was striking about the Pennsylvania e-mail message was its directness. Both political parties rely on church leaders — African-American pastors for the Democrats, for example, and white evangelical Protestants for the Republicans — to urge congregants to go the polls. And in the 1990's, the Christian Coalition developed a reputation as a political powerhouse by distributing voters guides in churches that alerted conservative believers to candidates' position on social issues like abortion and school prayer. But the Christian Coalition was organized as a nonpartisan, issue-oriented lobbying and voter-education organization, and in 1999 it ran afoul of federal tax laws for too much Republican partisanship.

The Bush campaign, in contrast, appeared to be reaching out directly to churches and church members, seeking to distribute campaign information as well as ostensibly nonpartisan material, like issue guides and registration forms.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 3, 2004 8:15 AM