WASHINGTON (ABP) — President Obama has followed through on his promise to declare May 6 the National Day of Prayer despite a controversial April 15 ruling by a federal judge who said the government encouraging its citizens to pray violates the First Amendment.

“We are blessed to live in a nation that counts freedom of conscience and free exercise of religion among its most fundamental principles, thereby ensuring that all people of goodwill may hold and practice their beliefs according to the dictates of their consciences,” Obama said, in an April 30 proclamation declaring the day for 2010. “Prayer has been a sustaining way for many Americans of diverse faiths to express their most cherished beliefs, and thus we have long deemed it fitting and proper to publicly recognize the importance of prayer on this day across the nation.”

Presidents since at least 1952, when Congress declared a prayer day, have issued such proclamations noting the observation, extolling the role of prayer in many Americans’ lives and encouraging prayer for the nation as well as others in the world. In 1988, Congress fixed the date of the observance as the first Thursday in May.

But on April 15, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb of Wisconsin agreed with plaintiffs who had sued to put an end to the federal government’s involvement in the event, which is marked by ceremonies both public and private around the country.

“It bears emphasizing that a conclusion that the [First Amendment’s] Establishment Clause prohibits the government from endorsing a religious exercise is not a judgment on the value of prayer or the millions of Americans who believe in its power,” Crabb wrote in a 66-page opinion. “No one can doubt the important role that prayer plays in the spiritual life of a believer. However, recognizing the importance of prayer to many people does not mean that the government may enact a statute in support of it, any more than the government may encourage citizens to fast during the month of Ramadan, attend a synagogue, purify themselves in a sweat lodge or practice rune magic.”

Crabb stayed enforcement of her ruling until all appeals of it have been exhausted, however. Obama’s Justice Department announced April 22 that it would appeal the decision.

While some religious-liberty advocates have praised Crabb's decision, others have said acknowledging the role that prayer has historically played for many Americans does not rise to the level of violating the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Interfaith Alliance both said the decision was well-reasoned and sensitive to the true nature of uncoerced faith. The Alliance Defense Fund and American Center for Law and Justice criticized the decision and said it would likely be overturned.

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty did not take an official stance on the ruling, but the Washington-based religious-liberty group has criticized the National Day of Prayer before. BJC Executive Director called the event misguided last year.

"The problem with the National Day of Prayer is that it is an official act of the government urging citizens to engage in a religious exercise," Walker said. "A day of prayer is more appropriately called for by pastors, rabbis and imams among us — not civil magistrates, Congress or even an American president."

A representative of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, however, lambasted the ruling.

"[W]e are deeply offended by the fact that this judge would decide that the National Day of Prayer actually establishes religion," said Barrett Duke, the agency's vice president, according to an ERLC press release. "I think her understanding of the establishment of religion exceeds the founding fathers’ understanding of what that means."

The National Day of Prayer historically was a broadly ecumenical enterprise, but the event has become controversial in recent years. Some moderate and liberal religious leaders have criticized the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a conservative evangelical group led by the wife of Christian broadcaster James Dobson that serves as the event’s unofficial sponsor, for hosting religiously exclusive prayer events in state capitols and municipal facilities around the country.

Some conservatives, meanwhile, criticized Obama last year for his decision not to mark the day as his predecessor did, with elaborate and highly publicized prayer events at the White House. Obama instead observed the day privately.

–Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

Previous ABP stories:

Obama administration to appeal ruling against National Day of Prayer (4/22/2010)

Judge rules National Day of Prayer unconstitutional (4/16/2010)

Conservative ‘National Day of Prayer’ supporters upset over Obama snub (5/7/2009)

WASHINGTON (ABP) — A divided Supreme Court rendered a complex decision April 28 on the fate of a lonely cross in the California desert. The decision — the first major church-state case of Chief Justice John Roberts’ tenure — upset religious-freedom advocates but heartened religious conservatives.

By a 5-4 vote, the court’s majority agreed only that the case should be returned to a lower court to re-evaluate an injunction that required the cross be removed from public view.

The cross — successor to one first erected as a World War I memorial in 1934 — stands atop Sunrise Rock, next to a road in a remote part of California’s Mojave National Preserve. Although several crosses erected by private groups have stood on the spot over the years, the current version was built of painted metal pipes by a local resident in 1998. It has been the site of community Easter services for years, but federal officials have covered it with a plywood box to comply with court orders.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the court’s plurality opinion, but was only joined in his reasoning fully by Roberts and partially by Justice Samuel Alito. Kennedy said a lower federal court had erred by denying an attempt by Congress to transfer a small parcel of land on which the cross is located to a private owner who would maintain the monument.

The lower court called the attempted land transfer an impermissible government attempt to avoid enforcement of a previous court decision — a decision not at issue in this case.

But Kennedy disagreed. “By dismissing Congress’s motives as illicit, the [federal] district court took insufficient account of the context in which the statute was enacted and the reasons for its passage,” he wrote. “Private citizens put the cross on Sunrise Rock to commemorate American servicemen who had died in World War I. Although certainly a Christian symbol, the cross was not emplaced on Sunrise Rock to promote a Christian message.”

Case’s origins

The origins of the case date to 1999 when the National Park Service, which oversees the land, denied an application from a group that wanted to build a Buddhist shrine near the cross. The agency studied the history of the monument, said it did not qualify as a historic landmark and announced plans to remove it.

Congress intervened with a series of actions that effectively preserved the cross.

In 2001 Frank Buono, a Catholic and a retired National Park Service employee who once worked at the preserve, filed suit with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union. His attorneys claimed that the cross violated the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.

A series of federal-court decisions went against both the cross and the government’s attempts to preserve it. In 2007, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated the land transfer. President Bush's administration appealed the ruling, and President Obama’s Justice Department continued to defend the monument.

Decision leaves standing intact

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote separately to assert that, while he agreed with the judgment, he would have settled the case by determining that Buono did not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place.

Many church-state separationists had feared that conservatives like Scalia and Thomas could use the case to further curtail the ability of taxpayers to bring such challenges to government endorsements of religion. However, the plurality explicitly found that Buono’s standing was not in question.

“To date, this court’s jurisprudence in this area has refrained from making sweeping pronouncements, and this case is ill suited for announcing categorical rules,” Kennedy wrote.

Acceptable congressional remedy?

Alito wrote separately to assert that there was no need to send the case back, because Congress had come up with an acceptable remedy to a difficult constitutional situation.

“The singular circumstances surrounding the monument on Sunrise Rock presented Congress with a delicate problem, and the solution that Congress devised is true to the spirit of practical accommodation that has made the United States a nation of unparalleled pluralism and religious tolerance,” he wrote.

“If Congress had done nothing, the government would have been required to take down the cross … and this removal would have been viewed by many as a sign of disrespect for the brave soldiers whom the cross was meant to honor. The demolition of this venerable, if unsophisticated, monument would also have been interpreted by some as an arresting symbol of a government that is not neutral but hostile on matters of religion and is bent on eliminating from all public places and symbols any trace of our country’s religious heritage.”

Dissenters: Cross is Christian, injunction is appropriate

But retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, joined in a fiery dissenting opinion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said the lower court had every right to enforce its earlier decision — affirmed by an appeals court — that the government could not “permit the display” of the cross in the area of Sunrise Rock.

“A Latin cross necessarily symbolizes one of the most important tenets upon which believers in a benevolent Creator, as well as nonbelievers, are known to differ,” he wrote. “In my view, the district court was right to enforce its prior judgment by enjoining Congress’ proposed remedy — a remedy that was engineered to leave the cross intact and that did not alter its basic meaning. I certainly agree that the nation should memorialize the service of those who fought and died in World War I, but it cannot lawfully do so by continued endorsement of a starkly sectarian message.”

He also criticized a separate effort by Congress to preserve the cross by making it an official national memorial. And he expressed bafflement at Kennedy and Alito's notion that the cross is more than merely a symbol of Christianity, but also a universal symbol for the dead.

“Making a plain, unadorned Latin cross a war memorial does not make the cross secular. It makes the war memorial sectarian,” Stevens wrote. “The Mojave Desert is a remote location, far from the seat of our government. But the government’s interest in honoring all those who have rendered heroic public service regardless of creed, as well as its constitutional responsibility to avoid endorsement of a particular religious view, should control wherever national memorials speak on behalf of our entire country.”

Church-state advocates’ reaction

Some church-state separationists, while relieved that the court did not use the case to gut normal citizens’ ability to bring such lawsuits, nonetheless expressed serious disappointment with the decision.

“This decision lets Congress bypass the Constitution and devise a convoluted scheme to keep a cross on display in a federal park,” said Americans United for Separation of Church and State President Barry Lynn, in a press release. “That’s bad law and bad public policy. The court majority seems to think the cross is not always a Christian symbol. I think all Americans know better than that.”

But religious conservatives cheered the decision — while urging their comrades to fight on as the case returns to the lower court.

“It is a disgrace that this memorial to our fallen veterans has been covered in a box of plywood for ten years while the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Liberty Institute President Kelly Shackelford, who filed friend-of-the-court briefs on behalf of the current monument’s caretakers and veterans’ groups in the case. “We applaud the Supreme Court for overruling the decisions below, but this battle is not over. This box must come off. No war memorial with religious imagery is safe until the Court rules that these memorials, which serve to remember our fallen heroes of the military, are allowed under the Constitution.”

The decision is Salazar v. Buono, No. 08-472.

–Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

Read More

Supreme Court plurality, concurring and dissenting opinions in Salazar v. Buono

Previous ABP stories:

Supreme Court gets technical in arguments on Mojave cross (10/7/2009)

Supreme Court agrees to hear case involving cross on federal land (2/23/2009)

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Religious events across the country are being planned this weekend to protest Arizona's new law giving police more power to crack down on illegal immigration. Critics said the bill, signed into law April 23 by Gov. Jan Brewer, encourages racial profiling and illustrates the need for comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level.

"We are deeply concerned about the enactment of SB 1070 as it goes beyond anti-immigrant sentiments and supports racial profiling," John McCullough, executive director of Church World Service said in a statement. "This legislation feels reactionary and hateful. It is a clear representation of the politics of division and exclusion."

The law makes it a state crime for illegal immigrants to not have an alien registration document. It also would require police to question people about their immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the country illegally.

Speaking on behalf of the relief-and-development organization of the National Council of Churches — an ecumenical body with 36 member communions including the Alliance of Baptists; American Baptist Churches USA;  National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.; National Missionary Baptist Convention of America and Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. — McCullough urged the Obama administration to do "everything in its power to prevent its implementation and the consequences it will have for human rights."

Other progressive faith leaders joined McCullough in denouncing the measure. Jim Wallis of Sojourners called it "a social and racial sin."

"This law will make it illegal to love your neighbor in Arizona, and will force us to disobey Jesus and his gospel," Wallis said. "We will not comply."

Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said the new law makes Arizona "the state with the most xenophobic and nativist laws in the country." Rodriguez called for "a multi-ethnic firewall against the extremists in our nation who desire to separate us rather than bring us together."

"I fear that all we aspire to be as a nation is in jeopardy with today's passing of SB1070 by Governor Brewer in Arizona," Noel Castellanos, CEO of the Christian Community Development Association, said after the bill's signing. "On behalf of millions of Christians throughout our nation, we lament the passing of this legislation and will do all we can to stand on the side of families effected by this divisive new law."

Faith in Public Life has scheduled a press conference later in the week to kick off a series of faith-based events calling for urgent action for immigration reform.

President Obama called the Arizona law irresponsible and said he has instructed members of his administration to study civil-rights and other implications of the legislation. "If we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country," he predicted.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—In Chicago, black Baptists announced they would raise $50 million for health clinics, schools and reconstructed churches in earthquake-devastated Haiti.

In South Carolina, three black Methodist denominations launched a plan to host Saturday academies nationwide to mentor young black males.

And in Miami, African-American Baptists, Methodists and Pentecostals decided to re-establish the Conference of National Black Churches to work together on health disparities, economic empowerment and social justice.

Recent months have seen a resurgence of interdenominational relations in some of the nation’s most prominent predominantly black churches.

While some are responding to the tragedy in Haiti and others are trying to revive long-term efforts to help black communities, they all say they’ve determined they can do more together than any one group could do by itself.

“If we can make a difference with black men in our communities, it will affect the whole community,” said Carolyn Tyler Guidry, president of the Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the denominations that met at the black Methodist summit in Columbia, S.C. “It will affect families—black families in particular—when their men are not incarcerated or on drugs.”

Members of the AME Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church met in early March to plan the academies that will train youth in job preparation and study skills.

Just weeks before, leaders of those three denominations met with black Baptists and leaders of the Church of God in Christ to restart and rename the defunct Congress of National Black Churches.

The organization’s absence, combined with cyclical leadership changes, meant some black denominational leaders had lost touch with one another, said Franklyn Rich-ardson, chair of the new Conference of National Black Churches.

Now, he said, the denominations—with a combined membership of more than 21 million—hope to partner with groups like the Children’s Defense Fund and Al Sharpton’s National Action Network on AIDS, education, social justice and economic development.

“Denominations are so absorbed in trying to sustain … their specific mission that no denomination has the resources to take on education by itself or to take on social justice by itself,” said Richardson, a Baptist pastor in Mount Vernon, N.Y., who also chairs Sharpton’s network.

Stephen Thurston, president of the National Baptist Convention of America, said the gravity of a tragedy like the earthquake in Haiti prompted the leaders of five black Baptist churches to join forces for their five-year project.

Staccato Powell, who chaired the black Methodist summit in South Carolina, said African-American faith groups are taking responsibility for the challenges in the black community in ways that might not be as effective when they work with predominantly white denominations.

“Their passion is not the same because they don’t have the same issues at stake as we do,” he said. “Their children are not being carted off to prison by busloads. … This is about the survival of our people.”

WASHINGTON (ABP) — The U.S. Justice Department announced April 22 it would appeal a federal court ruling that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.

Attorneys for the White House filed a notice of appeal in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin of District Judge Barbara Crabb's April 15 ruling that laws by Congress establishing a National Day of Prayer endorse the Constitution's Establishment Clause by endorsing religion. Read the appeal here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/30347344/Notice-of-Appeal-Natl-Day-of-Prayer

Advocates of the separation of church and state hailed the ruling in a lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, while those who read the First Amendment more narrowly decried it as an attack on religion. Richard Land of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention called it an "egregious and revealing decision" that he said "shows the brooding hostility toward religion that exists at some levels of federal, state and local government in this country."
http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5056/53/

The White House said previously that despite the ruling President Obama intends to recognize a National Day of Prayer, as every president has done since 1952, on May 6.
http://twitter.com/whitehouse/status/12239071343?loc=interstitialskip

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press

MADISON, Wis. (ABP) — A federal judge has found a National Day of Prayer mandated by Congress unconstitutional, saying it violates the separation of church and state.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb of the Western District of Wisconsin ruled April 15 that laws passed in 1952 and 1988 establishing a national day of prayer are unconstitutional because they endorse religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. 

"It bears emphasizing that a conclusion that the establishment clause prohibits the government from endorsing a religious exercise is not a judgment on the value of prayer or the millions of Americans who believe in its power," Crabb wrote in a 66-page opinion. "No one can doubt the important role that prayer plays in the spiritual life of a believer. However, recognizing the importance of prayer to many people does not mean that the government may enact a statute in support of it, any more than the government may encourage citizens to fast during the month of Ramadan, attend a synagogue, purify themselves in a sweat lodge or practice rune magic."

Americans United for Separation of Church and State hailed the decision as "a tremendous victory for religious liberty." 

"The Constitution forbids the government to meddle in religious matters," said AU Executive Director Barry Lynn continued. "Decisions about worship should be made by individuals without direction from elected officials. That's what freedom is all about."

Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister who heads up the Interfaith Alliance, said the ruling, while "sure to be controversial," is upon careful reading "sensitive to the integrity of religion by keeping government mandates out of it."

Conservative Christian groups, meanwhile, protested the decision. The Alliance Defense Fund said Crabb's ruling undermines an "underlying heritage and tradition of the American people which dates back to the nation's founding."

Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice called it a "flawed decision" and predicted that it would ultimately be overturned. 

Congress passed a law establishing a National Day of Prayer in 1952, following the suggestion of evangelist Billy Graham, who had just finished a six-week religious campaign in Washington.

In 1988 Vonette Bright, founder of the Campus Crusade for Christ and the National Day of Prayer Committee, persuaded Congress to amend the law establishing its annual observance on the first Thursday in May.

Crabb said while the Supreme Court has held that some forms of "ceremonial deism" — such as legislative prayer — do not violate the Establishment Clause, the National Day of Prayer "serves no purpose but to encourage a religious exercise, making it difficult for a reasonable observer to see the statute as anything other than a religious endorsement."

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in 2008 by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based group of atheists and agnostics who argued the day of prayer violated the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.

The group's attorney, Richard Bolton, said the decision means that government shouldn't take sides on religious issues. 

"For those who think this decision means the sky is falling, it's not," Bolton said. "Judge Crabb is simply saying 'Do these things privately if you want to, but do not expect the president to lend the credibility or prestige of the office to the effort.'"

Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said she was "euphoric" over the decision.

"It is such a profound violation of conscience for Congress to direct our president to tell all citizens to pray, and that they in fact must set aside an entire day for prayer once a year," she said.

Gaylor said the 1952 law establishing a National Day of Prayer "was predicated on bad history — the lie that our founders prayed at the Constitutional Convention — and defending our lawsuit involved a major debunking of bad history presented by the Obama administration."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press. 

WASHINGTON (RNS)—When President Obama was elected, some black pastors—fresh from a campaign that featured extensive outreach to their churches—expected meetings with the president, or at least to be enlisted as informal advisers.

For better or worse, those expectations have largely fallen flat.

“I think he doesn’t avail himself as fully as he could of the input of black religious thinkers, and this is not a judgment upon his regard for us,” said Obery Hendricks, a professor at New York Theological Seminary. “I’m not sure why that is.”

James Forbes, the former senior pastor of New York’s Riverside Church, said the White House is doing a delicate dance in the aftermath of Obama’s ties—and public breakup—with Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor, whose fiery sermons nearly derailed his campaign.

“It has to be a consideration: How does the first black president position himself in the public eye in regards to blacks?” said Forbes, who has neither been invited nor sought access to the Obama White House. “I think his handlers would assume that they want to make him as color-blind as he can possibly be.”

Black religious leaders say they’re not asking the president to help them; they want to help Obama. Some get calls and e-mails updating them on policy issues, including messages from Joshua DuBois, a black former Pentecostal pastor who directs the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Still, some want more.

“That’s not the president,” said Amos Brown of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, of DuBois, describing the phone calls as “for-your-information sessions.”

The White House declined to comment.

Hendricks noted “glimmers” of a change when the president unexpectedly “got on the line to thank us,” during a conference call with DuBois on March 21, after Obama’s health care reform package cleared the House.

Gerald Durley, senior pastor of Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, said he and other clergy would like to sit down with the president—not staffers like DuBois—to discuss topics like unemployment, foreclosures and green jobs.

“I just want to certainly have that opportunity to give the kind of input to him personally rather than the advisers,” said Durley, chair of the Regional Council of Churches in Atlanta.

Timothy McDonald, pastor of Atlanta’s First Iconium Baptist Church, attended a White House meeting with dozens of black clergy last September, but left disappointed that it was “more informational than interactive.” The real loser in all this, he said, is Obama.

“Why haven’t we been engaged to counter the activities of the Tea Party and the birthers? Why haven’t we been engaged even now to prepare for immigration reform legislation?” asked McDonald, founder of African American Ministers in Action, a subsidiary of People for the American Way.

“One thing that you cannot do is ignore the clergy, whether you’re the first black president or not.”

The complaints, however, may be rooted in unrealistic expectations, generational differences or levels of political maturity, observers say.

Some black clergy, including those who served on an advisory panel for DuBois’ faith-based office, say they’ve had no problem getting their voices heard at the White House.

Otis Moss Jr., who just ended his one-year term on the council, said he has talked to Obama directly, but also knows from experience in previous administrations that connections to senior staff can be just as, if not more, significant.

“It is at that level that you get things accomplished that you may not get accomplished in a 15-minute audience with the president because … he is dealing with national and global issues that impact all of us,” said Moss, a retired Cleveland pastor whose son now is pastor of Obama’s former Chicago church, Trinity United Church of Christ.

Vashti McKenzie, bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, who also just finished her term as an adviser, said the council was a “major step forward” for blacks being included in communication with the White House.

What’s more, she said, it’s simply not “humanly possible” for Obama to meet with everyone.

“Is the president apprised of our concerns? I believe so,” she said. “Is he moving decidedly on a course to respond to the issues that are near and dear to us? I believe he is. Is he ignoring us? No. Is he keeping us out of the loop? No.”

WASHINGTON (ABP) — A new survey finds broad support across party lines and religious groups for comprehensive immigration reform that reflects the rule of law and respects the dignity and wholeness of immigrants and families.

The study, released March 23 by the Public Religion Research Institute, comes as Congress gears up to debate immigration reform. It found little difference between religious leaders and the average congregation member about what values ought to guide America's immigration policy or whether religious leaders should speak out about immigration issues.

“By a two-to-one margin, American voters strongly support a comprehensive approach to immigration reform, and they want a solution that reflects strongly held values,” said Robert Jones, the institute’s CEO and co-founder. “More than eight in 10 Americans — including overwhelming majorities of white mainline Protestants, Catholics and white evangelicals — believe strongly that immigration reform should be guided by the values of protecting the dignity of every person and keeping families together as well as by such values as promoting national security and ensuring fairness to taxpayers.”

In the poll — conducted in early March with 1,402 registered voters nationwide plus additional samplings of 402 registered voters each in Arkansas and Ohio — more than 80 percent of voters rated each of four values as “extremely important” or “very important” guidelines for immigration reform:

1. Enforcing the rule of law and promoting national security (88 percent)
2. Ensuring fairness to taxpayers (84 percent)
3. Protecting the dignity of every person (82 percent)
4. Keeping families together (80 percent)

There were few significant differences between major religious groups. For example, white evangelical voters were as likely as white mainline, Catholic and unaffilated voters say protecting the personal dignity is a very or extremely important in immigration reform.

A strong majority (71 percent) also said “providing immigrants the same opportunity that I would want if my family were immigrating to the U.S.” — what the study’s sponsors called the “Golden Rule” question — as a very or extremely important value in immigration reform.

“One of the things I discovered in this poll is that there really is broad agreement across denominational lines, and that is very encouraging. And it is very rare in this partisan environment that we have that sort of agreement,” said Rich Nathan, pastor of the 10,000-member Vineyard Church of Columbus in Westerville, Ohio, in a press conference associated with the poll’s release.

Nathan, whose congregation includes members who hail from 75 different countries, said he had personally experienced how broken our nation’s immigration system is — including families of church members separated from their loved ones by deportation or inability to visit sick or dying relatives.

“For us evangelicals, the immigration is a family issue,” he said. “And we’re watching families broken up in our own congregation.”

–Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (ABP) — After a year of work by President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the panel has made its recommendations. According to experts in religious liberty, some of them represent long-sought victories for supporters of strong church-state separation.

Nonetheless, neither the report’s recommendations nor the White House actions on the subject have gone far enough to please many who were critical of previous administrations’ efforts to loosen government rules on funding social services through churches and other religious organizations.

The report, released earlier this month, makes recommendations in several areas the council was tasked with reviewing. A set of the council’s recommendations about reform of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and its related programs in federal agencies dealt with many of the most controversial church-state issues surrounding the faith-based effort.

On two issues in particular — strengthening the guidance that religious groups receiving government funding receive to ensure that they do not violate the First Amendment’s ban on government promotion of religion and houses of worship forming separately incorporated charities through which to carry out government-funded programs — the council’s recommendations heartened church-state separationists.

But the panel was not charged with bringing a recommendation on what may be the most controversial issue surrounding the faith-based effort — the hiring rights of religous organizations that use federal funds to deliver social services.

Recommendations go 'a long way' to rectifying church-state problems

The recommendations go “a long way in righting the church-state problems that have plagued the faith-based initiative over the past decade,” said Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, who served on a sub-panel of the council that helped craft the recommendations.

Brent Walker

“We made major strides in seeking to honor constitutional principles while ensuring the autonomy of religious organizations, including churches. The requirement of a separate corporation to receive the money and perform the services is crucial to achieving this goal.”

That recommendation was one for which groups critical of President George W. Bush’s efforts to expand faith-based partnerships had long contended. The BJC and other church-state separationist groups have argued it is the best way to ensure that government money intended for secular social services isn’t diverted to worship, devotional or other religious activities.

But it was the one recommendation over which the council’s members had the most sharply differing views.

“Council members are almost evenly divided over the issue of whether the government should also require houses of worship that would receive direct federal social-service funds to form separate corporations to receive those funds,” the report said. “A narrow majority of the council (13 members) believe the federal government should take such a step as a necessary means for achieving church-state separation and protecting religious autonomy, while also urging states to reduce any unnecessary administrative costs and burdens associated with attaining this status. A minority of the council (12 members) believe separate incorporation is sometimes, but not always, the best means to achieve these goals and should not be required because it may be prohibitively costly and would disrupt or deter other successful and constitutionally permissible relationships.”

Melissa Rogers

Melissa Rogers, a former BJC general counsel and currently a professor at Wake Forest Divinity School, chaired the council. She said that even the disagreement over the separate-incorporation requirement, while closely dividing the council, nonetheless revealed some common ground on the issue.

“I certainly believe that — for the good of both church and state — the government should take this step. So I was pleased to see the proposal draw support from a large and diverse group of council members,” Rogers said. “If you read the arguments back and forth in the report, you see that even those on the other side of this question believe separate incorporation for houses of worship is advisable in many cases, so that’s also worth noting.

Charles Haynes of the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center said separate incorporation is a best practice. “Religious charities would be wise to form separate 501(c)(3) organizations because that would both help ensure that tax money is not used for religious purposes and protect the autonomy of faith communities,” he said. “For those who believe that separation of church and state is good for religion, this would be a victory for the principle of separation.”

Clearer church-state guidance to grantees

The council also recommended that granting agencies provide much clearer guidance to charities receiving government funding on how to avoid spending government dollars on activities that violate the First Amendment’s prohibition on government-endorsed religion. Those recommendations drew broad support from the panel, which included Rogers and Walker as well as former Southern Baptist Convention president Frank Page and prominent African-American Baptist leaders Otis Moss, Jr., and William Shaw.

“We are at a new stage when some who supported charitable choice [the Clinton-era forerunner of the Bush faith-based effort] as well as some who opposed it can agree on a list of common-ground standards that should control many issues in this area,” Rogers said. "These aren’t personal victories. Instead, they are a demonstration of the merit of the ideas and a testament to the group’s dogged commitment to listen to one another and work together despite our differences on some important issues.”

The clearer guidance, in particular, was a valuable step for avoiding lawsuits and constitutional violations, said one legal scholar who’s been tracking the faith-based effort since its beginning.

“The general thrust is that the clarity is of the sort that will help,” said George Washington University Law School professor Chip Lupu, who along with colleague Bob Tuttle has been monitoring the legal issues surrounding government funding of religious charities for the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. “Bob and I hopped for years on this Bush-era regulation about ‘inherently religious activities’ [being non-fundable with government dollars] and how ambiguous that was. And the task force here clarified that.”

To be resolved: Hiring-discrimination questions

What remains unclear is the other big controversy surrounding the faith-based initiative: Whether religious charities receiving government funding to carry out ostensibly secular social services can, nonetheless, discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring for positions dealing with those charities. Opponents of Bush’s effort — including most strong church-state separationists — believe they can’t. Bush and his supporters contended that not allowing religious charities to take faith into account when hiring would force them to change their fundamental nature in order to receive government funds.

Obama promised, during a 2008 campaign speech, to reverse a Bush policy that had allowed religious charities receiving government funds to take faith into account when hiring. But, since taking office, White House officials have taken a more cautious approach to the question. While church-state separationists have pressed Obama  to overturn the policy in one fell swoop, administration officials have instead said federal agencies would address concerns over discrimination in hiring on a case-by-case basis.

That leaves Rogers, Walker and other church-state separationists hoping for more.

“I trust the administration will implement all of our recommendations, and in the next year fulfill President Obama's campaign promise to eliminate religious discrimination in employment for governmentally funded programs,” Walker said.

–Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

Previous ABP stories:

Faith-based panel narrowly recommends separate 501(c)(3) entities for churches (2/11/2010)

Church-state groups press Holder to withdraw Bush-era hiring memo (9/18/2009)

On church-state issues, Obama brings new perspective, slow policy change (7/8/2009)

On Bush’s faith-based programs, Obama says save best, ditch rest (7/6/2008)

WASHINGTON (ABP) — A Baptist preacher who leads a national interfaith organization has written leading publishers around the country to urge them to reject changes made to standards for teaching about social studies, history and economics in Texas.

Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, said March 22 that recent amendments adopted by the Texas state board of education emphasizing Christianity's influence on the founders and downplaying political reasons for the separation of church and state will give students a picture that is "historically inaccurate."

Gaddy, who also serves as pastor for preaching and worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in Monroe, La., said through amendments to the teaching standards, a conservative voting bloc on the Texas board "proposes to teach our children not that we are a pluralistic democracy, founded as a safe haven for minorities and the freedom of religion, but instead the fallacious notion that we are a 'Christian nation,' founded upon and governed by Christian beliefs."

"I know that the state of Texas is a major consumer of your textbooks, but I call upon you to reject these erroneous, ill-advised changes and maintain your commitment to an accurate education of superior quality for our nation's children," Gaddy wrote. "I urge you to ensure that they receive a better education, one that is not shaped by narrow-minded opinions that are being passed off as fact."

Texas and California are the two largest purchasers of textbooks nationwide. As such, their teaching standards historically have influenced what is taught in other states, as publishers sought to gear books toward the largest markets.

Some observers say that in today's publishing world, changes adopted in Texas may not have as much effect on the rest of the country as some critics fear.

Jay Diskey, executive director of the school division for the Association of American Publishers, told E-School News, a website that covers technology for educators, the notion that Texas curriculum automatically hops state borders is "a bit of an urban myth" and that nearly all states require or expect publishers to align to their own standards.

Patte Barth, director of the Center for Public Education at the National School Boards Association, said that while there is still a large demand for traditional textbooks, there has been a movement to put more textbook type material on-line, where it is cheaper and easier to adapt to state and local standards.

Despite that, Gaddy said the Interfaith Alliance, which represents 75 faith traditions as well as Americans who have no faith tradition, isn't taking the matter lightly.

"At this point we are working to ensure that other children across the country are not taught an inaccurate history of our country," Gaddy said. "We understand that textbooks will not be uniform, but it simply is incorrect to state we are a Christian nation founded upon and governed by Christian beliefs. Unfortunately, this is just one of multiple inaccuracies that will now be included in Texas textbooks."

Gaddy said changes include removing Thomas Jefferson from curriculum that covers the Enlightenment period and rejecting language articulating that the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom by barring the government from favoring or disfavoring any one religion over another.

"The Texas SBOE members certainly are entitled to believe whatever they want about our country and its history," Gaddy said. "The problem arises when their religious beliefs begin to essentially rewrite history for our children."

"Separation of church and state was a core tenet of our nation's founding," he said. "Whether you like him or not, Thomas Jefferson was a leading thinker during the Enlightenment. It's almost unfathomable to think that Texas schoolchildren won't learn these basic facts now. We urge the publishers to ensure that other children still will."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

Previous stories:

Baptists decry Texas board’s votes on textbook standards

Social-studies-curriculum debate in Texas has national implications

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A White House advisory council March 9 submitted 164 pages of recommendations on ways the federal government can partner better with faith-based groups in tackling a host of social problems, from poverty to improving interfaith relations.

Still, some of the thorniest issues surrounding public-private partnerships—especially legal questions of discrimination in hiring—remain unsolved after White House officials decided early on they would not be included in the panel’s portfolio.

Administration officials, however, promised the 25-member panel’s suggestions will not suffer the fate of countless blue-ribbon commissions.

Melissa Rogers

“It won’t just be a document on a shelf,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. “I promise you this document will become an active action plan in the Department of Health and Human Services.”

Sebelius, one of several officials who met with the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based & Neighborhood Partnerships , said she hopes to work with churches and other community organizations on a range of issues, including how to continue free-lunch programs for needy students during school vacations.

The 25 members of the council, which included representatives of national faith-based and secular charities, finished their one-year term with a 164-page report that included more than 60 specific recommendations.

Melissa Rogers, chair of the council, said the diverse panelists were able to reach common ground beyond the “lowest common denominator” and will remain available as the administration considers how, or whether, to implement the recommendations.

“Whether it’s been through press statements, books or sermons, all of us have been trying to tell the government what to do for years,” she said. “But we’ve rarely received a White House invitation to make a list of recommendations.”

President Obama met with council-members in the White House after they concluded their final meeting. New members of the council, who also will have a one-year term, are expected to be named soon.

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson told the council she is open to their recommendations to create faith-based and community-based liaisons in regional EPA offices and to sponsor a public education campaign on the environment.

“We’re taking for granted the fact that people know in this day and age how important it is,” Jackson said. “We probably need to remind them that the abundance we’re fighting to save is their heritage. It is a heritage they got from God.”

The council was formed after President Obama announced in February 2009 that he would revamp, but keep open, the former White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Initiatives that he inherited from President George W. Bush.

The group's recommendations came in six different areas, including reform of the renamed White House Office of Faith-based & Neighborhood Partnerships. They suggest increased guidance so religious organizations use federal funds while respecting the separation of church and state.

In other areas, recommendations include vastly increasing the scope of interfaith service projects in cities and on college campuses; involving faith-based organizations more in addressing poverty; promoting fatherhood in the military and in prison programs; limiting the Pentagon’s role in development work; and helping nonprofit groups “green” their buildings.

Religious leaders who worked with the council describe their work as serious but said the actual implementation of the recommendations remains unclear. Joshua DuBois, the director of the office, said the administration would review the council’s recommendations and determine what could and could not be implemented.

Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, said he was pleased with the “valuable process” of the task force on reforming the office but remains concerned that the hiring and discrimination questions are unresolved. Administration officials have said the White House will consult with the Justice Department on the outstanding legal questions.

Groups like the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination have criticized Obama for not fulfilling his campaign promise to prevent social service groups that receive federal money from hiring and firing employees based on their religion.

“The recommendations we’ve made could be scuttled in importance if we don’t take care of the discrimination issue,” Gaddy said. “And that’s out of the hands of the task forces and of the advisory council.”

Even so, Gaddy said, he hopes the president will act on the council’s recommendations.

“I know that there are a lot of people in this nation who want to be supportive of that office but are worried because it is still operating with the procedures put in place by former President Bush.”

Stanley Carlson-Thies, who helped Bush open the original faith-based office and was on the task force charged with reforming it, said the council’s work demonstrates that collaboration between government and religious organizations will continue, albeit in new ways.

“It is a further development down the path of a very robust engagement … that’s carefully designed not to be biased for religion and against secular but to be very inclusive of all the faith based efforts,” said Carlson-Thies, founder and president of the International Religious Freedom Alliance.

WASHINGTON (ABP) — President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used the occasion of the National Prayer Breakfast Feb. 4 to denounce a draconian proposed anti-homosexuality law in Uganda — even though the event’s organizers have been closely associated with the Ugandan leaders pushing the bill.

In a speech largely about maintaining civility among political and religious diversity, Obama said, “We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are — whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.”

Obama referred to Clinton’s remarks earlier at the event, when she said the United States was “standing

up for gays and lesbians who deserve to be treated as full human beings” around the world. She added that she had called the president of Uganda to express “our strongest concerns about a law being considered in the Parliament of Uganda.”

The remarks came at the event — a Washington tradition, attended by every president since Eisenhower as well as many members of Congress, administration officials and the diplomatic corps — amid calls from many gay-rights supporters for Obama to boycott the prayer breakfast altogether.

The breakfast is not an official government event, but is organized annually by a secretive Virginia-based Christian organization known as “The Fellowship” or “The Family.” The group — which coordinates similar prayer-breakfast events in scores of states and nations around the world — has come under more scrutiny in recent years for its connections to developing-world politicians with autocratic or oppressive regimes as well as its connections to scandal-plagued U.S. politicians, such as South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R).

The proposed Ugandan legislation would impose extreme penalties on gay sex, make some sex acts punishable by death or life imprisonment and even require heterosexuals to turn in their gay family members and acquaintances in to authorities or face prosecution themselves. When it was publicized last fall, international leaders broadly condemned it. But The Family came under fire after journalists discovered the group had close ties with the bill’s chief supporters in the Ugandan Parliament.

As a result, many moderate and progressive leaders in the United States called on Obama and other government leaders to boycott the breakfast this year. They organized alternative events, called the American Prayer Hour, in cities around the country. Calvary Baptist Church in Washington hosted one of the alternative events.

Wayne Besen, a longtime gay activist and chief organizer of the alternative prayer events, said Feb. 4 he was pleased that Obama used the event to speak out against the Ugandan proposal.

“The easy and safe course would have been for President Obama to remain silent,” said Besen, who is also founder of Truth Wins Out, a group that fights the notion that gays can be converted into heterosexuals through prayer and counseling. “Instead, he walked into The Family’s house and held them accountable for their actions in Uganda. It was a huge victory for human rights and the president’s actions were courageous and honorable.”

While many prominent conservative Christian leaders in the United States — such as Southern Baptist mega-pastor Rick Warren — have also denounced the Ugandan proposal, a handful of conservatives have defended it. They have claimed that the powerful evangelical Christian majority in Uganda is simply trying to protect the nation’s children.

“Uganda's people and government deserve support, not criticism, from the United States," said Cliff Kincaid, editor of the conservative group Accuracy in Media, in a press release issued after Obama’s comments. "They are up against the international homosexual lobby… They are trying to create a Christian culture that is protective of families and children."

–Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

Previous ABP stories:

Ugandan pastors blast Rick Warren for opposing anti-gay law (12/22/2009)

Rick Warren breaks silence on Ugandan anti-gay law (12/10/2009)

U.S. Christian leaders denounce Ugandan anti-gay bill (12/8/2009)