A FRONTAL ASSAULT ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT
Ashcroft and Charitable Choice -- A Personal Reflection
James Dunn is a visiting professor of Christianity and Public Policy at Wake Forest University Divinity School.
   

John Ashcroft is touted for his intelligence and integrity.  We will all have the chance to judge that for ourselves at his upcoming confirmation hearing for the position of U.S. Attorney General. 
       
When government advances religion in any way, it inevitably becomes involved in religious practice.  It seems that "charitable choice" is a frontal assault on the First Amendment's Establishment Clause that forbids government from advancing or becoming entangled in religious affairs.  Yet "charitable choice" allows and perhaps compels state governments to provide taxpayer-funded social services through pervasively sectarian institutions.  I've spent my life protecting the separation of church and state, and the "charitable choice" concept sets my alarm bells ringing.
       
So, I have some questions, particularly about so-called "charitable choice," one of Ashcroft's favorite policies.
       
Do people know that he was the principal architect of "charitable choice" legislation tacked on to welfare reform in a last-minute midnight vote in August 1996?  Would this legislation be constitutional simply because it allows churches to use federal tax dollars for social programs that would otherwise be funded by government?  Does anyone really understand how dangerous this dumping of tax dollars on "faith-based" programs can be?
       
How can one reconcile Ashcroft's role as reckless innovator with his history as a rigid ideologue? Why has one of his most irresponsible initiatives been almost ignored by media critics?

Are we willing as a people to abandon the separation of church and state, the greatest contribution of the United States to the science of government?  Who can deny that the American way in church-state relations has been good for the church and good  for the state?
       
Is it not clear that religious liberty's essential corollary is separation of the structures of state from the institutions of religion?  Who does not see that when anyone's religious freedom is denied everyone's religious freedom is endangered?
       
Can anyone deny that having one's tax dollars taken by government coercion and turned over to pervasively sectarian outfits to do good threatens, at least a little bit, everyone's civil and religious liberties? And yet, don't we know that some truisms are true, like "he who pays the fiddler calls the tune?" What religion-related regime wants the rules and regulations, even the reporting, that goes with government-handled money?  Is it not clear to most ministries that they sell their souls for a mess of politics-tainted pottage the very day they embark on the course of government gimmes?
       
Who is there who believes that taking tax dollars will not change the nature, even the freedom and effectiveness, of faith-based programs?  Is it not a leap of faith too great for even Kierkegaard to think that the source of funds will not shape to some degree the programs paid for?
       
Isn't it ironic that a face card for faith like Senator Ashcroft is so willing to ignore the first freedom: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"?  Is it too much to call him a reckless innovator?
       
But then there's the rigid ideologue side of the Senator.  When it comes to civil rights, civil liberties, concealed weapons, and abortion issues, he is clearly a right-wing extremist.
       
He opposes therapeutic abortions even in instances of rape and incest.  He lied about the record of Justice Ronnie White.  He distorted the purpose and nature of United Nations protections for children.
       
Any reasonably objective observer of his style would have to flinch at what seems to be self-righteous religiosity and spiteful moralisms.  How painful for me, a Baptist preacher for fifty years, one thoroughly immersed in the "language of Zion," one who has sung at least as many gospel songs (necktie tenor) as Ashcroft has, to suffer his pieties.  His reported self-anointing with Crisco oil when he became governor of Missouri is in the view of serious scholars: weird.  Hebrew bible scholars cite only three instances of self-administered anointing in the Old Testament.  All three episodes were either cultic or cosmetic.  If for Mr. Ashcroft it were a cultic exercise, at least he should have used olive oil.  If, rather, it were a cosmetic splash, Old Spice shaving lotion would have worked.  Ludicrous, brother!
       
I wonder if the club-headed Senate will sacrifice civil rights and civil liberties for a tradition of civility?  Oh God (that's a prayer not an expletive), I pray that they will not. Should they do so it will be bad for the church, bad for the state, bad for freedom, and bad for folks.  We do not need such a pious polarizer.
       
President Bush's nominee for Attorney General should not be confirmed.
     
Copyright 1999-2000 The Florence Fund