Faith-Based Foolishness

Christianity Today reports:

The White House estimates that faith-based and community organizations have received $7.5 billion in government grants since 2003, while secular nonprofits have received $25 billion. In January's State of the Union address, President Bush called on legislators to permanently extend laws making federal funding available to religiously affiliated social services.

The next President will face several challenges in continuing the faith-based office's work, however. One is the unresolved debate over whether faith-based organizations can discriminate in hiring based on applicants' religious beliefs, a nonnegotiable for many Christian social-service providers. Perceptions of partisanship and questionable success in distributing funds have also clouded the office's achievements.

President Bush's unconstitutional faith-based initiatives merely allowed the federal bureaucracy to get its foot in the church door. Christian organizations foolish and greedy enough to accept federal funds (i.e., taxpayer dollars confiscated through brute force) need to wake up to the fact that the time will come when they will be expected to dance to the government's tune.