A Failure to Understand the Role of Faith at Religious Charities

To the Editor:

While agreeing with the headline “Religious Charities Can’t Do It All” (My View, November 2), I was dismayed to find that the commentary by Joel Schwartz presented a narrow and, as a consequence, inaccurate presentation of faith-based organizations.

In contrast to this commentary, the top 10 of your Philanthropy 400 lists six faith-based organizations and institutions: Salvation Army (No. 1), YMCA of the USA (No. 2), Lutheran Services in America (No. 6), United Jewish Communities (No. 7), Habitat for Humanity International (No. 9), and Harvard University, which was founded for the purpose of training clergy (No. 10).

Mr. Schwartz fails to acknowledge the major contribution of faith-based colleges, universities, hospitals, social-service agencies, and international-relief organizations to the common good. He appears to confuse “faith based” with “faith ended” and conveys an assumption that the sole mission of faith-based organizations is religious conversion and training. The column implies that the only contribution that faith-based organizations bring to the people they serve is religious conversion.

As a consequence, he misses the primary asset that faith brings to the base of community organization: the profound calling and motivation to serve one’s neighbors and community.

“Faith based” refers to the foundation of service, not its outcome. Many major faith-based organizations have the sole purpose of serving. Some invite those whom they serve to share the motivation and rewards that inspire a life of service to the higher causes of life. A small minority require an individual to demonstrate religious credentials to be eligible to receive services. While goals, purposes, methodologies, and effectiveness vary, faith compels service. This is the strength of the religious sector.

For those of us serving faith-based causes, a refreshing aspect of the new interest in faith-based organizations is the permission it grants to acknowledge the basic motivation that propels our organizations to serve. As a class of organizations, ours has felt the separation of church and state restrict our public discourse. As we go public in a more open way, we find that the base of faith is nuanced and multifaceted. It defies the stereotypical thinking that Mr. Schwartz advances.

The Rev. John S. Kidd
Executive Director
The Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport
Bridgeport, Conn.

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To the Editor:

Joel Schwartz voices a widespread belief, which I share, that depending on religious organizations to make up for cuts in government funding for social services will not work. However, despite his confidence that “plenty of ways exist” to prevent separation of church-state violations from occurring, he goes on to express reservations about faith-based efforts. His reservations rest largely on the assumption that recipients of services must become involved in the life of the religious group from which they are receiving assistance.

Actually, my understanding of the “charitable choice” provisions of welfare reform is that they do allow for things such as selectivity in hiring, display of religious symbols, and offering recipients the opportunity to participate in religious services, but that participation must be voluntary. In other words, the people in need receive services designed to meet that need, just as they would from a secular agency.

While religious beliefs motivate and sustain the increasingly beleaguered providers of faith-based care, that faith is not or should not be coercive as far as recipients are concerned.

John Cosgrove
Director of Research
Fordham University
Bronx, N.Y.