May 14, 2001

Midland ministry learns perils of charitable choice
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___MIDLAND--President Bush's old stomping grounds have become a testing ground for his plan to provide government assistance to faith-based initiatives.
___The Midland Baptist Crisis Center recently lost its support from the government-supported West Texas Food Bank. Yet government collaboration with religious charities is a key plank in the faith-based initiatives platform.
___The food bank, which receives about one-third of its commodities from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, cited the crisis center for appearing to place religious restrictions on its clients in order for them to get food.
___The situation surfaced through a monitoring system, food bank Director Dolly Neff said. The food bank keeps tabs on about 400 charities it serves in 22 West Texas counties, covering 45,000 square miles.
___"It came to our attention through the intake form," Neff explained. The crisis center requires clients to complete a form regarding basic personal information before it gives them food.
___But rather than using a standardized form, the crisis center uses its own form, which asks some religiously oriented questions, such as a client's religious preference.
___"They were supposed to use a certain form if they were issuing commodities of USDA foods or America's Second Harvest foods," Neff said. Through Second Harvest, "all kinds of companies give food products to non-profits, with the understanding that there will be no conditions--including religious faith--placed on clients in order to receive food."
___Midland Baptist Crisis Center affirms that point, noted its board chairman, G.A. Magee, a retired pastor and member of First Baptist Church in Midland.
___"We don't discriminate in any form," Magee insisted. "We minister to all races, creeds, ethnic backgrounds."
___(See Midland, page 6)
___The religious questions on the crisis center's intake form merely serve to help the center minister to the needs of its clients, he explained.
___But even if that is the case, the center gives the impression that the clients' faith plays a role in determining if they are helped, Neff contended.
___"The client is not receiving food without answering the faith-based questions on the intake form," she said, noting even the perception of religious requirements violates the policy of keeping faith-oriented services separate from government-supported organizations.
___Government-appeasing restrictions on sharing faith are a burden to the ministry, Magee said. "If we agree to all their rules and regulations, there's hardly anything we can do."
___"It's easy to solve. And I don't mean that lightly," Neff countered. "Separate the functions."
___The crisis center needs to segment its food-distribution and faith-oriented ministries, she suggested, citing Sam Varela, a Texas Department of Human Services official in charge of distributing USDA commodities, who traveled to Midland to help mediate the dispute.
___Clients could first participate in the crisis center's food program, completing a form without religious questions, Neff said. They could receive their food and deliver it to their automobiles.
___Then they could re-enter the crisis center, preferably through a different door, and complete another form--which could have religiously oriented questions--to receive other non-governmental assistance, such as rent subsidies, help with utilities and prescription drugs. And during this phase, they could receive religious instruction and encouragement, she added.
___Such a plan isn't logistically feasible, Magee insisted.
___For example, this plan wouldn't allow crisis center volunteers to pray with clients until food has been delivered to the clients' cars. "How are you going to ask them to go back inside and pray when all their food is sitting in a hot car?" he asked.
___In addition, trained volunteers work throughout the crisis center, and a key component of their work is witnessing to the people who come to the center for help, he said, noting a moratorium on witnessing defies the volunteers' reason for serving.
___That may be a problem for Midland Baptist Crisis Center, but it works elsewhere, Neff said. "I have many other Baptists and other denominations. ... We've been rocking along just wonderfully with all sorts of faith-based initiatives. The agencies we've worked with have done a fine, fine job.
___"It has been understood from the moment the food bank was formed in 1985 that prayer could not be a condition or even a perceived condition for the client, regardless of what denomination was seeing the people."
___The issue is not opposition to religion, Neff added. Rather, it's protecting the separation between church and state and keeping faith with donors who provide the food.
___"We receive one-third of our commodities from America's Second Harvest, one-third from USDA, one-third from all over Texas, not just Odessa/Midland," she said. "This food is of such a great quality, I couldn't raise enough money, even the community couldn't raise enough money to buy this food and give it away."
___Placing real or perceived religious stipulations on distribution of food would imperil the entire food bank, she warned. "My hands are tied. I don't have ill will toward anybody. I have to protect the project and the food for all these people.
___"I would love nothing better than to get this worked out."
___For his part, Magee is skeptical.
___"Any time you get involved with the government as a religious organization, you're going to have problems," he said. "But if we cannot witness about Jesus Christ, we ought to get out."
___That's exactly what the crisis center and four other Midland faith-based ministries did.
___"We pulled out," Magee said, noting Church of Christ, Methodist and Nazarene ministries as well as a non-denominational organization all have decided to become self-supporting rather than follow the food bank's restrictions.
___"We feel we are not being honest with ourselves if we don't witness," he explained.

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