FAITH-BASED PROGRAMS MORE EFFECTIVE, LESS COSTLY THAN FEDERAL PROGRAMS

In his Feb. 12 Op-Ed "Oh, what a tangled web ...", columnist Nat Hentoff
argues that President Bush's new White House Office of Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives will have the "unintended result of so entangling
church and state as to regulate the free exercise of religion." The problem
with Mr. Hentoff's argument is that under the status quo, millions of
taxpayer dollars are being poured into government-run charities, and yet we
have seen no results.

Take drug rehabilitation. Back when George Bush senior was president, he
sponsored his "thousand points of light" program, which offered secular
drug treatment. While the program cost $400 a day, it saw few success
stories of people being able to kick their habits. The faith-based Teen
Challenge program, on the other hand, cost $35 a day and had more than 60
percent of its participants drug-free by the end of the treatment.

I fail to understand why Mr. Hentoff thinks it is a greater danger to
society that a man might turn to God and pray after receiving social
services, change his life for the better, become responsible, start
supporting himself, and leave his life of crime, than if he remains
addicted, steals to support his habit, abuses his family, etc.

Let me pose the question this way: If you were walking down a dark alley
one night and saw a group of men coming toward you, would it ease your
anxiety to know that they had just come from a Bible study at a faith-based
ministry? It would ease mine.

Christian faith-based ministries are about changed lives. And they benefit
everyone.

Adele Weeks, Racine, Wis.