The U.S. Government and Faith-based Organizations: Keeping the Uneasy Alliance on Firm Ground
Stanley Carlson-Thies Tuesday, 6 July 2010
In his masterful 1988 book tracing the role of religious organizations and religious views in U.S. refugee and foreign policy, Bruce Nichols termed the partnership between government and faith-based organizations an "uneasy alliance." Religious humanitarian agencies from the beginning have been integral to the U.S. response to the floods of overseas refugees, Nichols observed. Yet the compassionate goals of the religious agencies sometimes conflicted with the government's security and diplomatic agenda. More generally, there was uncertainty about the constitutional legitimacy of the prominent religious role in the overseas effort. Because of the coincidence of interest, the government extensively collaborated with the religious programs. And yet there was doubt that such extensive collaboration fit the constitutional parameters on church and state.
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