http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/534646.aspx

does this not scare anyone else? A council on Faith. Maybe I'm a little too paranoid about stuff like this but it sounds like religious leaders now have an in on government policy.....

I'm not sure what the end goal of this whole program is but it makes me nervous reading about it.

Associated Press article with a bit more detailed information.

As it turns out, Bush created the office, Obama is retooling a bit is all. While I am still skeptical as to how effective it will be, it is good to see that the Obama administration is willing to get the opinions of people from different walks of life. I do wonder if all groups are included, but I cannot find a full list yet.

I think the whole idea of this is terrible. Does separation of church and state mean anything to these people? This is a free country and a democracy; let's not turn into a theocracy now. religion should never govern a country

I agree it is a very bad idea to fuse religion with government. Currently we are all following the devil so in a way we are already sinning left and right and worshipping money like its god. Our money, our flag... pentagrams all over it... I think that explains who or what the nation USA follows. Anyone can disagree but money is simply pure evil.

I know people will think this is BS but to be honest... this is just apart of the New World Order. People need to wake up and realize it soon because we are past the point where our protectors have revealed their true selves. Basically they are trying to make themselves look like a god so we all betray our current ones... if any.

Jigsaw: well, you know where the current financial crisis is heading right? Obama is putting the US into 3.5 trillion dollars more debt over the next 2-3 years. He is going to bankrupt the US and the rest of the world in the process so that the UN, WTO, World Bank etc. have to swoop in with the world currency and world government to clean up the mess.

That is exactly what I've been trying to say glad we can agree on something Just finished a business class and it is disgusting to see how much we are in dept. Was also sickened by how some major corporations operate, they have basically sold out the hard workers domestically and outsource to cheaper countries in both labor and products that is also why we are in such a mess as well. We are importing more then we are exporting and that is never good for our economy... but we have been doing so for well over 20 years now it's just not until now most of us have realized it and have been smacked across the face from it's after effects.

I definitly feel 2012 propaganda is somewhat a timeline to this all. Some people think it's the world ending I think it's change, a change non of us want to see... as in one world government. Reason I mention 2012 is it will probably take a bit for it all to come together, definitly can't happen overnight but I can see within the next few years we will hit the fan and see this new world government with new currency in play, would you agree? Obama himself even said it will take a while for change to happen and I believe that change is going full force in 2012.

well, i wonder if some world leaders are working together on this nefarious plot, because here in australia PM Rudd "The Dudd" is trying to bankrupt us too on schemes that are if not un-feasable are impracticle.

There are stars on the flag, they represent the states. The whole flag is symbolic, but not of any religious nature. Also, if you want to get really technical, devil worshippers only use the inverted pentagram (upside down resembles horns) with Baphomet's head overlaid on it.

Yes, our country does seem to worship money... but you can hardly blame that on Obama as it's been happening for a LONG time now. America is a consumer culture, it always has been and unless something drastic happens it always will be.

Also, 2012 is when the Aztec calender ends. That is the only fact about 2012. Everything else is speculation, and in my opinion, a bunch of bulls***.

I find it interesting that no one said anything when Bush created the council (known then as the Faith Office), but now people are complaining because Obama is altering it. I also note that you are all jumping to conclusions and not bothering to check facts at all. The article in the first post gave barely any information at all, and honestly was in error by omitting that Obama was remaking the office, which is a fact that is so well known that all you have to do is google it. Honestly people, do your homework and check with reliable sources before you go spouting off stuff.


Obama to Rename Bush's Faith Office

Obama to rename Bush's faith office
By MIKE ALLEN | 7/1/08 10:22 AM EST

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) plans to slam President Bush’s faith-based program as “a photo op” and a failure on Tuesday, and says he would scrap the office and create a new Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that would be a “critical” part of his administration.

Obama, unveiling a plan to overhaul and expand Bush’s faith-based program during remarks at a community ministry in Zanesville, Ohio, said the White House Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives — which Bush founded during his second week in office — “never fulfilled its promise.”

“Support for social services to the poor and the needy have been consistently underfunded,” Obama says in prepared remarks. “Rather than promoting the cause of all faith-based organizations, former officials in the Office have described how it was used to promote partisan interests. As a result, the smaller congregations and community groups that were supposed to be empowered ended up getting short-changed.”

Obama was referring to accusations by John J. DiIulio Jr., the office’s first director, and David Kuo, his former deputy, that White House support for the program was driven more by swing-state politics than by compassion for the needy.

The White House views the office as one of the cornerstone's of Bush's legacy, making Obama's vow a very personal one.

Reaching out to evangelicals who are nonplussed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Obama declared: “I still believe it’s a good idea to have a partnership between the White House and grass-roots groups, both faith-based and secular. But it has to be a real partnership — not a photo op. That’s what it will be when I’m president. I’ll establish a new Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.”

“The new name will reflect a new commitment,” he continued. “This Council will not just be another name on the White House organization chart — it will be a critical part of my administration.”

Anticipating criticism from the left, Obama said: “I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don’t believe this partnership will endanger that idea — so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we’ll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work.”

The Obama campaign released plans saying his new President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, working within the White House, “will work to engage faith-based organizations and help them abide by the principles that federal funds cannot be used to proselytize, that they should not discriminate in providing their services, and they should be held to the same standards of accountability as other federal grant recipients.”

The campaign listed four goals:

—Train the trainers to enable local faith-based organizations to learn best practices, grant-making procedures and service delivery so that they can better apply for and use federal dollars.

—Partner with state and local offices so that federal efforts build on successes made at the state and local level.

—Hold recipients responsible by conducting rigorous performance evaluation, researching what works well and disseminating best practices.

—Close the summer learning gap by focusing faith-based and community-based efforts on summer learning programs for 1 million children.


Another Politico article, reprinted in a blog for Bread for the World, a Christian organization:

Obama to expand Bush faith program

Politico

February 5, 2009

By Carrie Budoff Brown

President Barack Obama, who has been reversing course on a host of Bush administration policies, Thursday will make a bid to expand and strengthen one of the programs most closely associated with his predecessor.

George W. Bush created the White House faith-based grant program, and Obama intends to keep the same structure. But Obama is going a significant step further, with the creation of a new board of advisers whose recommendations will be woven directly into his policy-making apparatus.

Under Bush, a White House-based program to encourage grants to faith-based social service programs began with high hopes and a barrage of publicity. But over time this Bush hallmark suffered amid complaints from many of its backers that it had become marginalized and used for partisan purposes by White House political aides.

Under Obama, the President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will allow 25 faith and secular leaders to provide regular input on policy and to advise the White House faith office, which is tasked with distributing grants. Obama is slated to announce the council Thursday and meet privately with members at the White House.

"The conventional wisdom suggests that, since Bush used much rhetoric about his commitment to working closely with religious leaders and communities, that the new Democrat coming to the White House might seek to diminish the role of religion in his administration," said the Rev. Jim Wallis, the president of the progressive Christian group Sojourners and a member of Obama's new council. "But I believe the opposite may turn out to be true. There will be a new paradigm of religious influence under the Obama administration."

The council will pull together an evangelical megachurch pastor, a Reform rabbi, a former Southern Baptist Convention president and the first female bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The membership is intended to cross the political and religious spectrum, fulfilling Obama's promise to run an inclusive administration. But with the diversity could come conflict.

"Some folks on the right and left will have heartburn when they look at the full range of people on this council," said Shaun Casey, a faith adviser to the Obama campaign and an associate professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary.

An early struggle could erupt over how Obama deals with a Bush administration rule that allows religious groups that receive federal funding to hire only staff members who share their faith - a move that critics say puts the government's imprimatur on discrimination. For example, Wallis favors the Bush rule, while another soon-to-be council member, Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, vociferously opposes it.

"These are people who are not used to going along to just get along," Casey said.

For now, however, faith leaders say they have been heartened by the extent to which, during the transition, Obama aides sought their advice on a broader range of issues than even they expected - from domestic poverty to the Gaza conflict. After eight years in Washington's political wilderness, moderate and liberal religious advocates are seeing their stock rise as Obama stitches together a governing coalition aimed at tackling big problems, meeting so often with aides before the Inauguration that there were jokes about setting up bunks for them at the transition office.

Obama, a Christian who worked as a community organizer for Chicago churches, spent considerable time courting the religious community during the election, sending personal letters as early as June 2007 to leaders who were never contacted by other candidates in either party.

Faith leaders say they are already seeing results. Most notably, Obama lifted the ban on federal funding for overseas abortion services, but he did it quietly and privately, heeding advice from the religious community not to follow the example of his two predecessors by tackling the issue on the Jan. 22 anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Instead, he waited until the next day to sign the memorandum.

Members of the council include Wallis; the Rev. Frank Page, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention; and Bishop Vashti McKenzie, the first female bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The Rev. Joel Hunter is an evangelical megachurch pastor in Florida who also will join the board. He prayed privately with Obama over the phone on Election Day and participated in a Middle East meeting two weeks ago, at the height of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Obama foreign policy adviser Dan Shapiro and other faith leaders.

Saperstein counted 24 meetings with Obama aides during the transition. Others reported sit-downs on foreign aid, climate change, immigration and debt relief.

"As they are formulating policy and getting organized, they are having brass tacks discussions with religious groups on what they want to achieve and how to move forward," said David Beckmann, president of the Christian-rooted Bread for the World, which was included in 10 meetings during the transition.

Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, pointedly told faith leaders during one meeting that they needed to make their congregations understand that solving poverty required more than helping the local food bank, according to one participant.

"It is who you vote for," said Beckmann, recounting Barnes' comments. "She was gracious and pointed in asking church leaders what they are going to do to help people in the pews understand that helping poor people will require change in politics and policy."

And the Middle East meeting in mid-January served as a vehicle for aides to test policy approaches, said attendee David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University.

"If the Obama administration feels it necessary to put some pressure on Israel to do something different, what they gathered from that particular group was the desire for a more even-handed policy," Gushee said. "They are taking the pulse of religious leaders, so they have a sense of how people would respond if they move in different directions in policy, and how to mobilize public opinion if they need support. They want grass-roots support for tough decisions."

Despite its goal of diversity, some conservative Christian leaders said they don't expect invitations to join the council, given their significant differences with Obama over abortion, gay rights and embryonic stem cell research.

"I don't expect them to be getting routine input from us," said Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, who received one call from an Obama aide.

Bush assiduously pursued the support of Christian conservatives, relying for most of his two terms on key advisers such as Karl Rove to keep leaders on speed dial. Bush used his Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to cast a wider net, reaching Hispanic and African-American churches with funding grants.

But liberal and moderate faith leaders say they felt left out during the Bush administration and are hopeful that their eight-year struggle for presidential face time may be over.

"They are very aware that in order to sustain broad-based support for cooperation in government, they are going to have to continue to be engaged in a way that leaders will take that message back to their constituencies," said Hunter, a board member of the National Association of Evangelicals. "It is very smart politically, and it is also what public service should be."