From: rpattree2@gmail.com   
      
   The faith-based initiative's dirty little secret    
      
   While the new guidelines may help to clarify some key concerns, there is   
   another elephant in the room for faith-based projects: are they actually   
   achieving positive results? This question has haunted the faith-based   
   initiative from its very inception.    
   There is little, if any, evidence to suggest that faith-based organizations   
   deliver services more effectively than government or secular agencies.    
      
   "I am unaware of any legitimate academic research proving that religious   
   organizations provide social services more effectively and cheaper than their   
   secular counterparts or government," Rob Boston, Senior Policy Analyst at   
   Americans United, told me in    
   an email. "To be sure, there are plenty of anecdotes and warm, fuzzy stories   
   out there, but these are not data."    
      
   Boston pointed out that some religious groups "attempted to cook the data to   
   prove that their programs work": "When Americans United litigated against the   
   late Charles Colson's InnerChange program in an Iowa prison in 2003, we had to   
   also fight an    
   aggressive P.R. campaign launched by the Colson group. InnerChange claimed an   
   incredibly high success rate in helping former inmates stay straight on the   
   outside and even released a study purporting to back this up. Many of us were   
   suspicious. It turned    
   out that InnerChange had fudged the data by excluding every inmate who flunked   
   out of or left the program. Since they were left with only successes, it's no   
   wonder the results looked so good."    
      
   Even John J. DiIulio - the first director of the faith-based office under   
   President Bush - "was remarkably candid about this" Boston added. In his 2007   
   book Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future.   
   "Speaking of the claims    
   made by group Teen Challenge, DiIulio wrote: 'But this assessment does remind   
   us that there is as yet no clear-cut empirical evidence that religious   
   nonprofit programs that promote spiritual transformation perform as well or   
   better than comparable faith-   
   based organizations that do not proselytize, or than comparable nonreligious   
   organizations.'"    
      
      
   Excerpt From:    
      
   Bush's Faith-Based Initiative in the Age of Obama    
      
      
   http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/bush%E2%80%99s-fai   
   hbased-initiative-in-the-age-of-obama/11500-bush%E2%80%99s-faith   
   ased-initiative-in-the-age-of-obama   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)