We used to keep religion out of politics

                  By Scott Lehigh, Globe Staff, 06/27/99 

Is it really time to restore faith in American politics?

George W. Bush thinks so. Brimming with stories of Bible study and personal redemption, the Texas governor and Republican presidential front-runner wants to join church and state in a holy charitable union.

Vice President Al Gore agrees. 

Telling tales of the transforming power of faith, the Democratic front-runner says Democrats should catch up with the country by putting religion that guides everyday life into government practice.

Add Elizabeth Dole, Lamar Alexander, Pat Buchanan, and Gary Bauer all talking about the power and the glory religion has brought to their lives or stressing Christian values, and Campaign 2000 has all the makings of a national revival meeting.

The last time religion so consumed political life was 1960, when the public wanted assurances that John F. Kennedy would keep his faith out of his government if elected president.

And to think that just a few months back, Christian conservatives Cal Thomas, Ed Dobson, and Paul Weyrich declared that religion had failed in its quest to change politics, and said it was time to give up the struggle. Talk about premature surrender.

These days, in a campaign that looks like a battle for the Bible Belt, both Bush and Gore are calling for greater reliance on faith-based organizations to deliver basic government services. Those groups should be eligible for tax dollars to run drug treatment, homelessness, and youth-violence prevention
programs, for example, the two front-runners say.

That approach - which expands on a 1996 experiment with welfare reform that allows religious organizations to operate job-training, counseling, nutrition, and basic medical programs - marks a key change from the past, when religious groups that wanted government dollars for charitable work
had to set up a secular arm, such as Catholic Charities.

''Who better to help those who need help than people of faith who are following a religious imperative to love their neighbors?'' says Bush.

''If you elect me president, the voices of faith-based organizations will be integral to the policies set forth in my administration,'' promises Gore. ''The moment has come for Washington to catch up with the rest of America.''

Over at the Bush campaign, the charge is that what Gore really wants is to catch up with George W. ''Bush has been doing this almost since he became governor in 1995,'' sniffs David Beckwith, Bush's communications manager. ''Gore apparently had an election-eve conversion on this matter.''

No matter what may have happened to Gore on the road to Des Moines, the public also seems accepting of the new approach.

''Our polling suggests people are much more comfortable mixing religion and politics than they were in the '60s, when the separation of church and state was more in keeping with public opinion than it is today,'' said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director and counsel for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, a church-state watchdog group, sees three trends that have come together to make politicians more willing to embrace religion.

The first is federal budget politics: The programmatic squeeze created by the move from federal entitlement programs to block grants has created a need to rely on private charities for social service previously provided by government, he says.

Second, religious groups, rebuffed on more controversial areas such as prayer in school, have focused on winning government support for their charitable work.

''They have an agenda of trying to chip away at the wall'' between church and state, Saperstein said. ''This feels like a vulnerable area where they might succeed, and they are all pushing at it.''

Finally, there's a recognition that faith-based approaches do indeed work for some people.

So why is it a problem to let those same groups tap tax dollars? Start with the devil that lurks in the details.

Despite Gore's assurances that he would prohibit ''direct proselytizing,'' it would be nigh unto impossible for a religious group to stop delivering a strong religious message just because it had accepted federal money.

''You can't separate the secular from the sacred,'' says Melissa Rogers, associate general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, a watchdog and educational group. ''It is like vanilla flavoring in a cake. It all flows through it.''

Indeed, when it comes to sectarian charity, faith is often the central point. As US Representative Barney Frank says, religious groups cite the religious message they impart as the very reason for their success.

''Churches are now saying, `It is precisely because we inculcate religion and make them better people that you should give us [taxpayer] money,''' Frank says. ''My answer to that is, you have a right to do that, but you don't have a right to have the government pay you to do that. ''

The Massachusetts Democrat sees several problems. Not the least of them is this: In a universe of religions that run the gamut from moderate mainstream to fundamentalist to groups most people consider cults, who would get government dollars?

''Would Louis Farrakhan get money?'' says Frank, referring to the Nation of Islam leader. Or the Scientologists? Or, perhaps, the group of wiccan practicing witchcraft at Texas's Fort Hood Army base that recently got US Representative Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican, so exercised?

Joseph Conn, spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, puts it even more starkly. Because the 1996 charitable choice language prohibits discrimination based on religious character, ''If David Koresh's Branch Davidians were still around, they could apply for money through this program. That sounds extreme, but it's true.''

Conversely, if government starts choosing one religion over another, then it gets into the dangerous business of establishing favored faiths.

It would be vexing indeed to be forced to finance the activities of a faith one doesn't share; that, after all, was Thomas Jefferson's very definition of religious tyranny. But it would be more galling still to see one's tax dollars go to a rival faith when one's own place of worship had been denied money.

But that's an inevitable result, says Rabbi Saperstein.

''Churches and synagogues and mosques will begin to compete for limited funding available, and government will have to choose which groups it thinks can do a better job,'' he predicts. ''This will have an enormous divisive impact on the religious communities of America.''

Then there are the historical lessons that led the Founding Fathers to separate church and state in the first place. ''The first divine,'' that grand old anti-cleric Voltaire acidly observed, ''was the first rogue who met the first fool.''

Certainly from Depression-era demagogue Father Coughlin to fallen televangelists Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, and Marvin Gorman to cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, modern America has never suffered from a shortage of rogues, rascals, and God frauds. Nor is there any scarcity of    religious ideas that seem antediluvian for a nation whose religious diversity makes official tolerance a prerequisite for social order. 

A sampler: In just the last year or so, the Southern Baptist Convention has declared that wives should ''submit graciously'' to their husbands' leadership; the Anglican bishops have declared that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Scriptures; conservative clergy from across different religions have called on America to take decisive action to oppose homosexuality; and Jerry Falwell has declared that the Antichrist is stalking the land in the guise of a Jewish man.

And, finally, what of the poor pagan, atheist, or agnostic who would not only prefer religion-free government, but a public discourse free of smarmy professions of personal piety?

Alas, there seems to be no respite. Unless, of course, one takes his cue from Huck Finn, who, when churchy civilization pressed too close for comfort, decided to light out for the Indian territory. There, at least, one can play a quiet game of blackjack with only the whimsical gods of chance peering over
his shoulder.

                  This story ran on page F01 of the Boston Globe on 06/27/99. 

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