Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Sedition, is penned by David Kuo, who left as deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in late 2003. The book was released three weeks before this month's mid-term congressional elections.
The book charges that White House officials ridiculed Evangelical leaders and used the program started by President Bush to build political support.
In excerpts of the book, published by The Free Press, Kuo described a meeting that took place nine months before the 2002 mid-term elections.
"We laid out a plan where we would hold ‘roundtable events' for threatened incumbents with faith and community leaders. Our office would do the work, using the aura of our White House power to get a diverse group of faith and community leaders to a ‘non-partisan event' discussing how best to help poor people in their area. The White House would win, not only because it was a political benefit to threatened incumbents, but also because it showed minority communities we cared. Evangelicals would be happy, too, because we would emphasize the President's deep personal faith.
While the conferences were being birthed, we were also figuring out what to do with the Compassion Capital Fund. Many of the grant-winning organizations that rose to the top of this process were politically friendly to the administration.
The practice was to make grand announcements, and then do nothing to implement them. Nowhere was this clearer than in Compassion announcements. The announcements were smart politics because absolutely no one called them on anything.
George W. Bush loves Jesus. He is a good man. But he is a politician; a very smart and shrewd politician. And if the faith-based initiative was teaching me anything, it was about the President's capacity to care about perception more than reality. He wanted it to look good. He cared less about it being good.
Christian leaders, Christian media, and Christian writers, however, didn't dare question or challenge him, or the White House. He wasn't a political leader to them, he was a brother in Christ–precisely what the White House wanted them to believe. What they didn't get to see was what the White House thought of them. For most of the rest of the White House staff, Evangelical leaders were people to be tolerated, not people who were truly welcomed. No group was more eye-rolling about Christians than the Political Affairs shop. They knew ‘the nuts' were politically invaluable, but that was the extent of their usefulness. Sadly, the Political Affairs folks complained most often and most loudly about how boorish many politically involved Christians were. They didn't see much of the love of Jesus in their lives. Political Affairs was hardly alone. There wasn't a week that went by that I didn't hear someone in middle-to senior-levels making some comment or another about how annoying the Christians were, or how tiresome they were, or how ‘handling' them took so much time."
Prior to leaving the administration, Kuo was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, which, he said in subsequent interviews, prompted him, in part, to write the book.
"I feel a pressing spiritual need to say what I think is important. And I really think that what is important is to be able to warn Christians about politics, that they should not throw so much at politics, because they're being used, and it will not answer the problems, and it corrupts the name of God we're trying to serve."
Kuo added, it's time for Evangelical Christians to take a step back "to have a fast from politics."
Kuo's assertions in his book were quickly denied by the White House.
Press Secretary Tony Snow relayed a letter Kuo sent to the President when he left the White House, praising the Faith-Based Office.
"‘I'm proud all the initiative has accomplished. Building on the extraordinary work started in 2001, we have advanced the cause of the faith-based groups, ensuring that they are treated fairly by the federal government, and have the tools necessary to make their efforts successful. Ultimately, however, it's your staff's keen awareness of your unwavering support for this initiative that's made the difference,"' Snow quoted the letter as saying.
Snow denied that the office was used for political purposes.
"If you take a look at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which is hardly a conservative group, it came to the conclusion that the faith-based initiative was dispensing money not on the basis of ideology; in fact, most of the money was going to blue states.
The President has been really clear, this is not to be used for politics. This is to be used for compassion. You know, the talk about the armies of compassion, this is to be used as a way of trying to use faith-based groups who know who the constituents are, who know who the neighbors are, who know what the problems are, to use their own compassion and their own knowledge of the local circumstances to be more effective in delivering services. So no, not for political use."
Snow also denied that "the assumption or insinuation" seems to be that the administration takes lightly faith-based groups.
"You've seen the President. When he talks about the faith-based initiative, this is something that's really important to him. This is one of these things where he believes, years and years down the road, when people are reviewing this White House, this is going to be one of the signal accomplishments -- using–harnessing -- the power of faith to deal with people one-on-one, face-to-face, in dealing with some of the most intractable problems that our society faces."
Likewise, the man who was Kuo's boss at the time of his departure, James Towey, said, he had never encountered such cynicism or condescension in the White House.
Now president of St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Towey said, Kuo's book appears to be "kind of a personal animus against Evangelicals and a kind of personal insulting behavior."
Towey added, "Over four years, we visited more Democratic districts than we did Republican ones. Everyone was trying to make some political hay, or find some political benefit, from the faith-based initiative. But my job was to keep the focus on the poor. And the President made it clear to me that I was to stay away from politics, and we did."
Prison Fellowship Founder Chuck Colson and President Mark Early issued a joint statement saying, they were "shocked and disappointed by what appears to be political timing to sell a book, and a very unfair characterization of the parties involved."
"We've worked with President Bush since his first faith-based meeting in the White House, only days after his inauguration. He has done everything humanly possible to advance the faith-based agenda. We have had many discussions with the President and his staff on this subject, and have never sensed the slightest attempt to do other than advance the full faith-based agenda," Colson and Early stated.
Carrie Earll, director of Issue Analysis for Focus on the Family, also questioned the timing of the book.
"The release of this book criticizing the Bush administration's handling of its faith-based initiative program seems to represent little more than a mix of sour grapes and political timing.
While Focus on the Family does not participate in the faith-based initiative program, we are allies with many who do–and they have far different impressions of the people and the events documented in Kuo's book. Our support for the program is unchanged, and we applaud the President's hard work in reducing dependency on government programs while connecting people to their communities. It's a commitment that dates back to his time as governor of Texas, and one that will be a large and important part of his White House legacy," Earll said.
Jason Christy, publisher of The Church Report magazine, said, Kuo's book is "nothing more than the ramblings of a disgruntled former employee looking to sell a few books."
Christy went on to say, "Questioning the faith and motivation of this administration is wrong. Millions of dollars are being given to faith-based groups, religious charities are being treated equally under the law and each day the armies of compassion move forward with the agenda that the Bush-led White House outlined in 2001."
Family Research Council President, Tony Perkins, said, he "feels sorry" for Kuo.
"Once you do something like this, you get your 15 minutes in the spotlight, but then after that, nobody will touch you. These kiss-and-tell books do more damage to the author than to the people they attack," Perkins said.
However, Americans United for Separation of Church and State Executive Director, Rev. Barry Lynn, said, Kuo's book reaffirms his premise that the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives should be "shut down today, before more taxpayer money is misused." "This is proof that the faith-based initiative was a deplorable sham from day one. This initiative was never about helping the poor; it was about shameless partisan politicking. It has undercut the constitutional separation of church and state, and it has been horrible public policy. The faith-based initiative is a travesty that has gone on far too long.
The White House politicized the initiative, and many religious leaders have ended up being manipulated. I hope this sorry incident is a lesson to them," Lynn said. Lynn is out with a new book entitled, Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom.
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