Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509110092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
Leading a tour of Sacred Heart's bustling classrooms and homey, if threadbare offices, the Rev. John Dear pauses to voice his outrage at the clamorous national debate over untwining government and the poor.
"Those churches that are working with the poor are totally overstretched at the moment, and we're just touching the tip of the iceberg," says the 36-year-old Jesuit priest. "To think that government has the audacity to ask churches to take on more boggles my mind."
Virginia government will be doing just that this week, however, as Gov. George Allen convenes a two-day conference in Fredericksburg aimed at proselytizing religious and community groups on behalf of welfare reform.
A few hundred church and community leaders are expected to gather for workshops, forums and speeches by several of the nation's leading advocates of the view that charity should start - and stop - in the home community.
The message, according to a news release from the Department of Social Services, is that for welfare reform to work, families, individuals, businesses, and religious and service groups must "re-embrace the natural responsibilities that were theirs long before government usurped those responsibilities in the name of compassion."
Coming against a backdrop of congressional debate over slashing federal spending for the poor, such rhetoric is tapping a deep divide in Virginia's religious circles, interviews suggest. At issue is whether churches, synagogues and mosques can or should substitute for government in providing for the poor.
That debate is almost certain to surface in Fredericksburg. Several critics of the Allen approach said they will attend the conference.
"We're not going to be disruptive. But we want to be critical thinkers," said Virginia O'Keefe, social justice minister at St.John the Apostle Catholic Church in Virginia Beach. O'Keefe is part of a local group called The Coalition for the Common Wealth, which opposes government retrenchment from anti-poverty efforts.
While the leaders of many mainstream religious groups, including various Jewish organizations and members of the National Council of Churches, share Dear's concern, leaders of some other conservative, independent churches take a skeptical view of government's ability to effectively combat poverty.
"It would be a disaster if government was to walk out this year, but when the church is ready to take its place, I would hope government would gracefully bow out," said Pastor Courtney McBath of Norfolk's Calvary Revival Church. The church, described as a "Pentecostal, charismatic" fellowship, has burgeoned to about 2,500 members since its founding in 1990.
McBath was a member of Allen's Empowerment Commission, which recommended the extensive state welfare reform that began recently. Many of Virginia's 74,000 recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children will be required to work under the plan, and their benefits will be limited to two years. Additional reforms take such steps as ordering recipients to name the fathers of their children and insisting that minor mothers live at home and stay in school before getting payments.
The reason religion should replace government in fighting poverty, McBath said, is that "it's a God-given purpose for the church. The church can minister to the entire need of a person, which government cannot do."
Theologically, in Judeo-Christian circles, the split comes in part between those who view the Bible as ascribing God-given rights to the poor and those who think the Biblical mandate is to provide charity.
Marvin Olasky, the author of "The Tragedy of American Compassion" and the dinner speaker at Allen's conference, said he thinks the apostle Paul's directive to Timothy on the treatment of widows is one the Bible's clearest guides regarding the poor.
In 1 Timothy 5, Paul says the church should care for poor widows if they are godly, but not if they're running around gossiping and seeking pleasure.
"The message there is to be discerning, be careful, because you can do harm if you put people on the list who should not be on the list," said Olasky, who is one of the gurus of the Republican movement to overhaul the nation's social welfare policy. His book cover bears the tag line: "Recommended by Newt Gingrich."
"Today, not only have we put widows on the list, we've put women on the list who've never been married; we've put men on the list who have disabled themselves with alcohol. We have been promiscuous with charity," said Olasky, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the editor of "World," a Christian news magazine.
Asked if he believes individuals with solid values will lift themselves out of poverty, he added, "there may be exceptions, but in general in American society, that has been the case."
An opposing view comes from individuals such as the Rev. Dow Chamberlain, director of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, and Stephen Colecchi, assistant to Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of the Catholic diocese covering southern Virginia.
Chamberlain points to the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy in explaining his belief that the poor have a right to government assistance. Chapter 15, which lays out various laws of the Jewish people, is clear that "it was not a matter of, if you did for the poor, you were being generous. You were giving them their legal right or due," he said.
Colecchi added that in Catholic teaching, tasks such as caring for the poor are to be handled at the lowest level at which they can be adequately addressed, starting with the family and moving on to the community or government.
While there may be times when government help is sought too readily, "I don't think it's realistic to assume - given how pervasive poverty is in our country - that individual charitable response will be adequate to the need," he said.
A major purpose of Allen's conference, said spokesman Martin Brown, is to show religious and community groups how they can take the place of government, by mentoring welfare recipients, offering day care and transportation, or helping with job training and education, he said.
Others questioned whether Virginia's roughly 20,000 churches can assume as huge a role as some Republican theorists envision. When GOP congressmen introduced their "Contract With America" last winter, the plan called for about $60 billion in social services cuts.
Bread for the World, an anti-hunger organization based in Silver Spring, Md., estimated that it would cost each American church $170,000 to fill the gap.
by CNB