Experts to debate the pros and cons of faith-based organizations

Experts
to debate the pros and cons of faith-based organizations
…………………………………………………………………

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News Staff

A panel discussion
on “Faith-Based Organizations and the Provision of
Social Services” at Rice April 3 will feature experts
for and against government-funded religion.

“President
George W. Bush has made the delivery of social services
through faith-based organizations a substantial part of
his agenda, so this has been a hot topic in the news,”
said William Martin, the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Professor
of Religion and Public Policy in Rice’s Department
of Sociology and a senior scholar at the James A. Baker
III Institute for Public Policy. “We invited panelists
who will present diverse views about the White House Office
of Faith-Based Initiatives that President Bush established
to eliminate legislative, regulatory and other bureaucratic
barriers that might impede effective faith-based services.”

Martin will
serve as a moderator for the panel that will include:

• Marvin
Olasky, professor of journalism at The University of Texas
at Austin, who has been one of Bush’s counselors on
compassionate conservatism but has recently expressed caution
about possible government interference with religious organizations;

• Mark
Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center
of Reform Judaism in Washington, D.C., who has been critical
of the faith-based initiative on the grounds that government
funding can easily lead to preferential or discriminatory
treatment of various religious groups; and

• Samantha
Smoot, executive director of the Texas Freedom Network in
Austin, whose watchdog organization monitors the activities
of the religious right.

The 7 p.m. presentation
at James A. Baker III Hall is the last of three in the Harry
and Hazel Chavanne Lecture Series on Religion and American
Public Policy for the spring.

he Baker Institute
will host another series on religion and public policy this
fall. Harry Chavanne is a former Rice trustee who was instrumental
in building the Department of Religious Studies at Rice.

Rice students,
faculty and staff who want to attend the program should
R.S.V.P. to (713) 348-5794 by March 30.