s George W. Bush hits the campaign trail after winning the GOP presidential nomination, he is likely to continue emphasizing his commitment to what has been described as "compassionate conservatism." The Republican platform still has most of the hard edges it did four years ago, when religious right groups like the Christian Coalition controlled half of the floor delegates, and won major victories in retaining the GOP plank for a constitutional ban on abortion. This year, the Coalition is less in evidence (only about 25% of delegates are associated with the Christian political group), but founder Pat Robertson is ensconced in a glitzy sky box high above the First Union Center arena along with his Christian Broadcasting Network operation. The theme for the year 2000 convention is "warm and fuzzy." On Monday, retired General Colin Powell gave delegates an upbeat paean to unity, tolerance and even affirmative action. Bush is being touted as a candidate with a new vision to help the poor, a field commander who will rally "the armies of compassion."

    Part of this strategy involves a significant expansion in the role churches and other faith-based groups would play in the administration of social programs. The idea has seduced even many in the Democratic Party, which for years has enjoyed a close relationship with mainstream and liberal sectarian groups. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the GOP-backed Welfare Reform Act which permitted religious organizations to apply for federal dollars to operate social welfare outreaches. Churches have benefited, and Washington has mobilized the bureaucracy -- especially the Department of Health and Human Services -- in providing hundreds of millions of dollars for religion-affiliated welfare relief programs. A special office within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, for instance, encourages participation by faith-based groups, and conducts seminars across the country to usher churches through the labyrinth of applying for federal money. Vice President Al Gore has stated that he would expand the role of sectarian groups in helping to combat poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, and in revitalizing neighborhoods. The rush to "reclaim God" often has the Democratic Party looking like a close imitation of their GOP counterparts.

    But it is George W. Bush who is the preeminent politician advocating a significantly greater role for churches and other faith-based organizations. The inspiration for this comes from a man Time Magazine recently described as "an unlikely guru." He is Marvin Olasky, a professor of Journalism at the University of Texas, and the person considered to be the architect of Bush's effort to increase the role of religion in the public sphere. Behind the talk about "compassionate conservatism," though, is a man who would seriously alter the relationship between church and state, and use religious belief as a tool in reconstructing civil society.

    Olasky has resurrected the idea that without some kind of mandatory funding provided by government, "churches would weaken and the whole society would suffer." He is sometimes vague as to the details of how the state should go about subsidizing faith-based groups, but he embraces programs such as school vouchers and other schemes to funnel public money into the coffers of churches which take the lead in providing charitable social services. In an opinion piece published in the Austin American-Statesman newspaper (July 5, 2000), he cautiously dusted off Patrick Henry's idea for a multiple Establishment of Religion through the 1785 "Bill Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion." The statute would have levied a property tax for the support of ministers, teachers and "alms distributors," with each taxpayer specifying which religion he wished to aid. "If the taxpayer did not designate a particular organization, the tax would be applied to the maintenance of a country school," Olasky added.

    Madison was skeptical of the proposal, and assembled a "coalition of deists, 'freethinkers,' low-taxers, Baptists and some Presbyterians." Full disestablishment won the day. For Olasky, this led to an erosion not only of religion in the public square, but its role as an "almsgiver" or administrator of charity.

    "Maybe disestablishment wasn't such a good idea," suggests Olasky.

    The "new establishment" Olasky proposes calls for a variety of government mechanisms to support everything from religious schools to faith-based welfare reform. Olasky says that this is a "multiple establishment -- not of churches, but of faith-based programs." George Bush has endorsed the idea, and so have many conservative foundations and think tanks in Washington. It is a brave new world melding religious groups and the public treasury, and its success in the future, says Olasky, "will show whether we will stop attempting to banish God from welfare and educational functions and start bringing life to what has become a naked public square."

    Few published accounts about Olasky omit his ideological peripatetics from liberalism, then communism to a rigid Christian conservatism. He grew up Jewish, the son of a Hebrew teacher and secretary in the suburbs of Boston. The broad outlines of his life seem to mesh with Eric Hoffer's "True Believer," the man in quest of a totalistic ideology which would provide all of the answers to life and the universe. In college at Yale he protested the Vietnam war, and by 1972 reportedly joined the Communist Party. From there, through his years in graduate school, be began a philosophical transmutation to the right.

"Behind the talk about 'compassionate conservatism,' though, is a man who would seriously alter the relationship between church and state, and use religious belief as a tool in reconstructing civil society..."

    The published accounts of how this supposedly happened seem contradictory. One story in the Los Angeles Times states that Olasky was supposedly up late one night "reading a passage from Lenin," when he was suddenly struck by the question of the existence of God. There is a different scenario, though, of his religious epiphany in an interview between Olasky and Avrel Seale published in the alumni magazine of the University of Texas. Here, Olasky describes himself as moving to the left from the age of 12 on, later even making a "pilgrimage" from Vancouver to visit the Soviet Union (a hegira which seems to have discouraged more than one orthodox Marxist.) Olasky says that in order to satisfy a graduate school language requirement, "I picked Russian, so that I could speak to my Soviet big brothers."

    "One night in my room, I was looking for something to read in Russian for practice ... I had a copy of the New Testament in Russian, which someone had given me a few years before and that I had held onto as a novelty item. I started reading it word by word, very, very slowly. It made great sense."

    Whatever the genesis of his religious conversion, by 1976 Olasky was attending a fundamentalist church, and heading full pace into a new ideological fever swamp. He devoured American literature, especially the Puritan sermons with their millenarian and punitive overtones. "The dead while males from 3000 years ago made sense," Olasky declared. He replaced the Marxist dialectic with a new weltenshauung where "Politics is secondary. The important stuff is theological..."

    In 1994, the Republicans -- aided by the politically energized precinct volunteers culled from the religious right and Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition -- swept to power on capitol hill. For the first time in four decades, the GOP was in control of both the House and the Senate. Speaker Newt Gingrich doled out a reading list to the "Freshman clash," and on it, along with writers like Alexis Tocqueville and Alvin Toffler was an obscure social commentator named Marvin Olasky. Gingrich was especially excited by Olasky's "The Tragedy of American Compassion," and began reciting chapter and verse from the congressional well. The book was a paean to religious activism in the 19th century, when faith-based groups supposedly ministered to unwed mothers and others on the fringes of society. One section claimed that the abortion rate was reduced by half from 1860 to 1910. Olasky's message of revitalizing private and faith-based charities and giving a greater role to religion in the public square was suddenly a hit inside the Republican beltway, and the "ex-communist and atheist" moved into the world of conservative think tanks and conferences.

   While political conservatives have always distrusted government efforts to deal effectively with social problems like poverty, drug abuse and broken homes, Olasky has championed a more proactive doctrine, one that calls for expanding the role played by private -- especially faith-based -- community groups. He has become one of the most outspoken "experts" on charity, and preaches a return to a pre-20th century era where neighbors and families took up the slack in times of need, and cared for each other. The message, blending personal obligation, familial responsibility, religious faith and private social service networks, has struck a cord with many politicians, from Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush to Democratic and liberal believers like Joseph Califano, described as the architect of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" experiment and later a cabinet member under Jimmy Carter. In 1996, while Olasky was acting as advisor to Bush's efforts in Texas to further involve faith-based groups in the welfare system, U.S. News and World Report was gushing about the prospect of a new "golden age of charity.,"

Madison was skeptical of propals for multiple Establishments of Religion, and assembled a "coalition of deists, freethinkers, low-taxers, Baptists and some Presbyterians." Full disestablishment won the day. For Olasky, though, this led to an erosion not only of religion in the public square, but its role as an 'almsgiver" or administrator of charity. Maybe disestablishment wasn't such a good idea, Olasky, says.

    "Can churches save America?" the magazine asked. Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice thought so and declared, "God, not government, will be the savior of the welfare system." Bob Dole supported Olasky's call for involving religious group to break the Gordian know of welfare dependency as well. Califano added that during a tour of a religion-based drug rehabilitation center, he was struck by the fact that supposedly nearly every ex-drug addict he met cited religion as a foundation for building a new life. "I don't see anything wrong with public funding for a drug-treatment program that provides for spiritual needs," said California, "if that's what an individual needs to shake cocaine, to shake alcohol, to shake heroin."

   The message was resonating in Texas, where Gov. George Bush was actively soliciting the help of Christian ministries in everything from operating drug and alcohol rehab centers to counseling prison inmates. Behind the scenes was Olasky, providing a bold -- some say dangerous and unconstitutional -- vision on everything from poverty to abortion.

   "When you look at the problems of the welfare state, these have come in part because we tend to emphasize entitlement, bureaucracy, and an attempt to ban God from the premises," Olasky told church groups in a boilerplate lecture. "When you look at abortion, there are many parallels."

   Back in Texas, faith-based rehabilitation was in vogue. In a landmark 1995 case, the state Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse allowed the Christian Teen Challenge group to continue operating a rehab center outside of the requirements of traditional programs. "The state's acquiescence in the Teen Challenge case," reported the Houston Chronicle, "illustrates an emerging courtship between government and Christian groups that are trying to tackle social problems." It was noted that Gov. Bush "helped smooth the way for Teen Challenge after it came under scrutiny."

   A Bush spokesman proudly added that the governor "believes that religious faith tends to make people more responsible."

    In July, 1999 while on the campaign trail in Indianapolis, Bush took Olasky's vision and began making it an integral component of his presidential campaign. During a speech at a church, he declared that if elected his administration would "mobilize the armies of compassion," and described the participation of faith-based groups as "the next bold step in welfare reform."

    "We should promote these private and faith-based efforts because they work," Bush opined. "But we should also promote them because their challenges are often greater than their resources." He pledged to dedicate $8 billion in public money to churches and other faith-based outreaches in the first year of his presidency through the establishment of an "Office of Faith-Based Action."

    Bush was the first of the nation's governor to rush forward in implementing the Charitable Choice clause of the 1996 Welfare Reform law. He ordered state agencies like the Department of Human Services to remind welfare providers that they were covered by the new federal legislation, and no longer had to remove "religious content" such as sacred symbols and Bibles from their programs. Conservative News Service quoted one department official saying that Bush "altered the whole environment of an enormous agency." Bush was also pushing ahead with other schemes, including a religion-based program in the state penal system operated by Chuck Colson's Prison Ministries Fellowship. Another was InnerChange, described as "the nation's first 24-hour, Bible and value-based prison prerelease program." A joint venture between Colson's group, churches in the Houston area and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the program begins indoctrinating clients in Bible study 12-18 months prior to their release, and continued for up to a year after the inmate leaves the system.

   "Government should welcome the help of faith-based institution," Bush said. "Church and state should work together with respect for our differences and reverence for our shared goals."

   Olasky's message, though, has gone far beyond just the Republican ranks. In calling for greater cooperation with religious groups, Bush was merely following the lead of Vice President Al Gore who two months earlier proposed a "New Partnership" between church and state. During a campaign stop at a Salvation Army drug rehab center in Atlanta, Ga., Gore proclaimed that if elected, "the voices of faith-based organizations will be integral to the policies set forth in my administration." Instead of "compassionate conservatism," Gore incorporated the religion-in-government message talking about "A politics of community which can be strengthened when we are not afraid to make connections between spirituality and politics."

    "I believe in the separation of church and state," Gore added, almost as an afterthought. "But freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion." The Vice President also denounced what he termed "the promise of hollow secularism." It was, one pundit said, part of a wider crusade to "take back God for the Democratic party."

    While the public persona of George Bush is one of a "compassionate" politician reaching out to groups not traditionally part of the Republican mainstream, Olasky is more radical in his plan for reconstructing American society. It is a vision combining what some say is a misguided and even romantic view of 19th century culture and a millenarian specter where Christians are called upon to prepare the world for the Second Coming of Christ. Indeed, Olasky seems to have exchanged the utopian view of a perfectionist Marxist society with a less secular "New Jerusalem" dominated by religion. As editor of World Magazine, Olasky now holds forth on a slew of cultural and political issues, and continues to speak out as the premier advocate of eroding the separation not only of church and state, but of modern secular culture and religious belief. He works closely with conservative groups, including Gingrich's Progress and Freedom Foundation," but managed to pique them -- as well as others on the political scene -- with his quirky views. He has irked some Christians by insisting that he would let all religious groups, including Wiccans and Scientologists, obtain government funds to operate social programs "as long as they were effective."

    "My tendency is to be inclusive," he recently told the Los Angeles Times. "If people are going to get mad at me, so be it." The Times added that Olasky appears to some "as a powerful Svengali bending Bush to a radical agenda."

    Women's groups have now become aware of Orlasky as well, especially in a newsletter article in which he wrote of the Biblical tale of Deborah and Barak. Barak said that he would not go to war unless accompanied by the leader of Israel, Deborah. "God does not forbid women to be leaders in society, generally speaking," Orlasky said. "As in the situation of Deborah and Barak, there's a certain shame attached to it. I would vote for a woman for the presidency, in some situations, but again, there's a certain shame attached. Why don't you have a man who's able to step forward?"

    Some say that in describing the 19th century and projecting his vision for 21st century America, Marvin Olasky is simply wrong. Critics like Robin Garr, author of "Reinvesting in America" accuse him of glorifying a misinformed past. "Charity wasn't sufficient in Dickens' time, it wasn't sufficient in Hoover's time and it isn't sufficient now," Garr says. University of Pennsylvania historian Michael Katz says that Olasky is also wrong in how he paints religious charity in the past century. Even in the 1890s in towns like Buffalo, N.Y., three-fourths of public assistance to the poor came from government.

    Others point to a lack of rigorous research to back up claims that religion-based social outreaches are more effective than their religious counterparts, or would not simply become huge bureaucracies on their own when government dollars began rolling in. "Private" philanthropic groups, including those linked to churches and sectarian organizations, are already heavily dependent on government funding. Nursing homes, child care facilities and even orphanages may identify themselves with a religious agency or group like Catholic Charities, but they still obtain nearly 75% of their operating costs from the state. Does this fact alone violate the separation of religion and government? Only a court suit could decide. But Olasky's plan to have these private and ersatz-private groups assume a substantially greater role in administering social services has many worried.

    How much more will Americans give to charities, even with added tax incentives? Not nearly enough to make up for some proposed cutbacks in social services, say some experts. While charitable giving has grown from $70 billion per year starting in 1963 to over $126 billion thirty years later, this is not taking up the slack. Dr. Katz observes, "To think Americans will spend a tax cut on the poor, instead of at the mall, is a very generous interpretation of American character."

    All of this is precipitating a constitutional crisis. Already, one "charitable choice" program -- in Texas -- which uses a Bible-based regimen to help the unemployed, is being challenged in federal court. Critics charge that faith-based programs have little public accountability, and suggest that sectarian groups would resist efforts to monitor their outreaches as an infringement on their religious exercise.

    On Monday night, the Republicans officially opened their convention in Philadelphia. After Colin Powell's rousing speech, the delegates drifted off the floor to the nocturnal parties being held across the city. Pat Robertson was in his skybox, gratis the Republican National Committee, with live video streaming out to his "700 Club" network. The guest on this segment was Marvin Olasky, the inspiration for George Bush, and the man some say is doing more to threaten the wall of separation between church and state that Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed ever could hope for. Olasky held forth on his vision for America. It was a peculiar blend of glorified, 19th century nostalgia and a possible future where all would be well with the inclusion of more religion in the public square. George Bush -- and perhaps, to a certain extent, even Al Gore -- would make this vision a political agenda. All it takes is dismantling Jefferson's wall, one brick at a time.

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