ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 9, 1997 TAG: 9702120038
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: AUSTIN, TEXAS
SOURCE: BILL MINUTAGLIO THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
The ex-atheist, ex-Marxist is weighing how his social revolution might march across America.
Sitting on his screened-in back porch, tree leaves chattering nearby, reed-thin Marvin Olasky hardly appears to be an architect of controversial change.
In fact he looks, all bearded and buttoned-down, exactly like the Presbyterian elder and university professor that he has become.
``I hope,'' he finally, slowly, says, ``that I have been useful in some way.''
Useful to some. Odious to others.
When President Clinton signed a fiercely debated bill in August that set in motion a disassembling of this nation's safety net - the federal welfare system - it could be traced, in part, to Marvin Olasky, 46, from Austin, Texas.
Beyond the politics of the president's move - and the ripple effect on state leaders who now have to do more to help the needy - it was a decision that touched on a deep spiritual issue: What it means, for an individual and for a nation, to be compassionate.
In the end, the entire debate has been blanketed by essential themes raised by Marvin Olasky.
Reared on Judaism, later a member of the Communist Party, USA, and finally a convert to Christianity, Olasky had comfortably settled 13 years ago into a career teaching journalism at the University of Texas. Working in a city and at a university with liberal auras, he sought ways to link his conservative faith with his rising interest in conservative politics.
Then in 1992, he wrote ``The Tragedy of American Compassion,'' a book that essentially suggested this country erred when it allowed government, not charities, to care for the poor.
The book was little noticed until someone pressed a copy into Newt Gingrich's hand. The conservative firebrand realized the treatise answered the needs of his frustrated allies - all those lawmakers looking for some spiritual velvet to wrap around the Republican Revolution.
In his book, Olasky went deep into the conservatives' political kitchen, importing dollops of impassioned Christianity.
He offered examples of how to link what some see as stringent policies with a sense of Christian caring. How to suggest that ending massive federal assistance to millions of the needy is actually the humane, religious, moral thing to do - not the sign of a coldhearted capitalist.
The private sector is better able to care for the poor, Olasky argues. People are best served when both their physical and spiritual needs are met - and churches can do that better than the federal government. Faith-based charities once shouldered more care - and should lead the way again.
Boosted by good timing and Gingrich's approval, the book was feverishly delivered up and down the halls of Congress - and the son of a Hebrew teacher suddenly found himself dubbed the ``guru of compassion.'' But his critics, meanwhile, said he was blind - maybe deliberately - to the realities of modern poverty.
In short order, he became a nationally known player inside the tricky politics of welfare. His name was regularly dropped in politicians' speeches and in the ``Wall Street Journal'' and ``USA Today.'' He crisscrossed the country spreading his Bible-based views. People paid closer attention to his writings in the conservative Christian news magazine World, a publication he serves as editor.
And right now state legislatures across the country are wrestling with some of the very problems Olasky first explored: How to take over federal welfare programs - and how to involve the private sector, including churches, in embracing more poor people.
``In recent years, compassion has often been used to mean that you pass a billion-dollar bill. Then you are compassionate. Vote against it and you are not compassionate,'' says Olasky, as he fields an occasional interruption from his wife, Susan, an author of children's books.
``But it is not compassionate. You really don't have any personal connection with the people. We've lost that personal connection with compassion. So, I'm just trying to reawaken that sense.''
For him, reawakening often means reconnecting with the church. ``If you have strong churches, then you will have strong families in those churches,'' says Olasky. ``And you will have people in those churches wanting to help the folks who are poor materially and spiritually.''
Too often, churches can be ``government look-alikes,'' simply doling out money or aid to the needy, he says.
``It's important to have the churches still centering on the need for spiritual change, which in turn will bring about a change in how people act in their own lives and toward other people.''
As the government shifts welfare responsibility to the states and the private sector - a complex process, says Olasky, that will evolve over several years - churches will be faced with extraordinary challenges.
The biggest test, he adds, will be to strike a balance between caring for the congregation and caring for the needy community beyond the church.
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)
On a personal level, he occasionally finds himself struggling with his own sense of balance.
He is pleased that his ideas have entered the national dialogue, and, perhaps, influenced policy. But his work on the ``big picture'' - consulting with Republican bigwigs, think-tanking with the Center for Effective Compassion and the Progress & Freedom Foundation - has taken time away from his conservative Christian battles closer to home.
He says, for example, that he wants to focus more of his ideas for change within his own church. He and his wife helped to found Redeemer Presbyterian in Austin.
Through his position as a church elder, he is planning to work more closely with the congregation's families. As an extension, he also wants to become even more involved with LIFT - Labor Integrity Faith Thrift - an Austin organization that he supports and that works to move mothers off welfare.
Olasky says he wants to spend more time with the Austin Crisis Pregnancy Center - something his wife formed as an adjunct to her anti-abortion activities. And, also locally, Olasky says, he will continue to write columns for the Austin American-Statesman - columns that generate endless, often vitriolic, letters to the editor.
Finally, Olasky points to family commitments - especially to his four children. (His youngest, adopted son is black.)
``I'm really going to cut down on going around the country and giving speeches,'' he says with a small smile.
Yet the national spotlight isn't going away any time soon. Close friend and conservative activist Arianna Huffington, someone who has embarked upon her own complex journey into national politics, told him that there would always be demands on him - ``that once a guru, always a guru.''
Olasky is straightforward - but low-key - about the long, strange, personal trip that led him from Judaism, to Marxism, to this unofficial conservative Christian guru status. (He converted to Christianity about 20 years ago, after exploring a Russian-language copy of the New Testament.)
These days, he is working on yet another book - there have been 11, including ``A Social History of Abortion in America'' and ``Central Ideas In the Development of American Journalism.''
The new one will be about key American leaders. And the subplot, like most things with Marvin Olasky, will be religion.
In this case, it will be an examination of how the spiritual views of different heads of state - from Jefferson to Clinton - influenced their jobs.
And just in case anyone had any doubts about where the book might be inclined, Olasky offers a hint as he segues into a brief aside about President John F. Kennedy:
``Kennedy was a Catholic,'' begins Olasky, ``but he was probably our first pagan president.''
LENGTH: Long : 141 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROBERT GIROUX/KRT. Marvin Olasky wrote ``The Tragedy ofby CNBAmerican Compassion,'' a book that essentially suggested this
country erred when it allowed government, not charities, to care for
the poor.