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Roundtable Annual Conference 2007
Acts of Faith:
Congregations and Social Services
"Acts of Faith: Congregations and Social Services," the Roundtable’s sixth annual conference, focused on two aspects of government partnerships with religious charities. One was a look at what kind of social service work American congregations – the kind of small, grassroots organization targeted by the Faith-Based and Community Initiative – are doing around the country and the degree to which they are ready and able to enter into contracts with government funders. The second was a look at the legal environment in which these and other faith-based organizations must function when they choose to partner with the government to provide such services.
Acts of Law
The conference started with a look at legal developments. 2007 was a year of considerable legal activity on issues affecting faith-based and community initiatives, highlighted by the Supreme Court's June decision in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation. That decision held that taxpayers may not mount legal challenges against the federal government over support to religious organizations unless Congress has specifically authorized the programs that provide the money, and the ruling has numerous and complex implications for government partnerships with religious groups. In addition, the courts this year have been the stage for arguments over faith-based prison programs, government chaplaincies, legislative earmarks to religious groups, and the use of tax money to renovate religious structures, along with a variety of other issues. In this session, the Roundtable’s co-directors of legal research, Ira C. Lupu and Robert W. Tuttle, navigated the changes in the legal landscape.
Acts of Service
In this session, political scientist John Green of the University of Akron and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life presented the results of a new survey highlighting the social service work of congregations. The results, he said, reveal that while a majority of American congregations is providing social services, a slim minority is doing so with government grants. Congregations’ low level of government contracting, however, does not appear to be due to a philosophical or theological opposition to partnering with state or federal agencies.
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