March 19, 2001
MEAT VS. MISSION:
Homeless shelter chooses faith over funds
___By Mark O'Keefe
___Religion News Service
___MEMPHIS, Tenn. (RNS)--For 10 years, the Memphis Union Mission fed the hungry and homeless with help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
___Then came an ultimatum: If the mission wanted federal meat, it had to cut out the religious sermon served with it.
___The dilemma illustrates a challenge to President Bush as he tries to confront social problems with a government boost to faith-based charities.
SCOTT BJORK, Chief Operating Officer of the Memphis Union Mission (above) says the faith-based organization's success is so linked to evangelism that "our program is the gospel." To receive meals at the mission, all must hear the gospel, but not everyone listens.
___Many faith groups claim they defeat addictions, crime and poverty because they treat social maladies with religious remedies. But if government gives food or money to programs that include prayer, preaching and proselytizing, it violates the separation of church and state as the courts have interpreted it.
___Scott Bjork, the Memphis mission's chief operating officer, chose to reject the federal aid and raised the money from private sources.
___"Our program is the gospel," Bjork said, explaining the link between evangelism and impact.
___Dale Starr, in his ninth month of mission-directed recovery from a crack cocaine addiction, explained his conversion this way: "I no longer have the need to use those substances that used to carry me because I've filled my inner void with Christ."
___Here, for the president, is the rub: The left warns his plan could amount to state-sponsored religion. Evangelicals on the right say they simply won't participate if they have to hide or water down their message. And as details of Bush's faith-based plans emerge, it takes increasing amounts of faith to believe he can satisfy both constituencies in order to push his plan through Congress.
___The Memphis situation provides a ground-level case study.
___A U.S. Department of Agriculture site inspector visited the mission for the first timelast July. According to section F, part 251.10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, you cannot make any activity, religious or otherwise, a requirement for receiving U.S. Department of Agriculture food.
MICHAEL SOY sleeps as Osie Allan reads his Bible during preaching by Jeff Thomas, the mission's director of pastoral care. (RNS photos by Tyrone Turner)
___But at the mission, those in hopes of eating lunch and dinner must attend a chapel service with a born-again message and altar call. Last year alone, the mission counted 1,500 professions of faith. Soup, soap and salvation have been linked since the mission's founding in 1945.
___"It was pretty cut and dried. The regulations say you can't do that," said Terry Minton, commodity administrator of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, which oversees the federal food assistance program in Memphis.
___From January to July last year, 10 tons of government meat helped serve more than 100,000 free mission meals. Buying the meat on its own, the mission estimated, would cost about $30,000 for the rest of the year, a significant sum for a religious non-profit with an annual budget of $1.9 million.
___The way the mission saw it, dropping the religious requirement would violate the core of its character. The mission provides food, clothing, shelter and recovery programs--objectives nearly every American can agree with. But its main goal is stated in its literature--"to lead these hurting souls to Jesus Christ."
___Asked specifically about the Memphis mission, Don Eberly, the No. 2 official in Bush's White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, responded that organizations deeply grounded in faith "are doing the hardest work" in alleviating social problems. "These are the groups where we want to say, 'We're not going to change your character; that's what makes you effective,"' he said.
___But in a recent speech and question-and-answer session before leaders of some of the nation's largest Jewish organizations, the faith-based office's director, John DiIulio, seemed to contradict Eberly. When asked if the government would award grants to an overtly evangelistic program such as the drug-fighting Teen Challenge, which Bush supported while governor of Texas, DiIulio said, "The answer to your question is a strong no."
___Some of the Jewish leaders in the audience weren't convinced.
___"Existing law says that you can't proselytize, yet they say they don't want to change the character of these faith-based organizations," said Marc Stern, assistant executive director of the American Jewish Congress. "You can't achieve both goals."
___At the mission, Bjork praised Bush's efforts. Nonetheless, he said, he "will not accept any government funding with strings attached."
___He prefers using tax credits to encourage donations to charities. Arguably, that means the choice of whom to benefit is made by Joe Citizen rather than Uncle Sam, avoiding church-state entanglement.
___"The government doesn't have to write a check out to Memphis Union Mission, but government can give tax incentives for other people to write checks to us. That's what we're excited about," Bjork said.
___Bush has said he will encourage states to create a tax credit for contributions to poverty-fighting groups. The credit would be up to 50 percent of the first $500 for individuals and $1,000 for married couples and corporations.
___DiIulio, speaking March 7 at the National Association of Evangelicals convention, said organizations that could not strictly segregate privately funded preaching from federally funded social efforts could rely on government "vouchers" allocated directly to the person receiving the care, not the faith-based group providing it.
___Chief Operating Officer Scott Bjork of the Memphis Union Mission (above) says the faith-based organization's success is so linked to evangelism that "our program is the gospel." To receive meals at the mission, all must hear the gospel, but not everyone listens. Below, Michael Soy sleeps as Osie Allan reads his Bible during preaching by Jeff Thomas, the mission's director of pastoral care. (RNS photos by Tyrone Turner)
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