Statement of the Hon. Chet Edwards, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas

Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources and
Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures
of the House Committee on Ways and Means

Hearing on H.R. 7, the "Community Solutions Act of 2001"

June 14, 2001

Chairman Herger and McCrery, Ranking Members McNulty and Cardin, and Members of the Subcommittees:

Thank you for allowing me to testify today on Charitable Choice as provided in H.R.7, the Community Solutions Act. I appreciate your and the subcommittee's interest in this very important issue and for giving it the attention it deserves.

I want to say that as a person of faith, I believe religion has a profound impact on our private values and personal lives and upon our public life as a nation. Because of this fact, I am not questioning the need for religious bodies to help with social problems.

But, I believe the fundamental question that faced our founding fathers and faces us today is this: what it the proper partnership of government and religion.

In my opinion, Charitable Choice is the wrong solution to a real problem. Under current law, faith-based groups may already accept federal dollars under three conditions: they cannot be pervasively sectarian, they cannot proselytize, and they cannot discriminate on the basis of religion in their employment practices.

Charitable Choice changes those conditions. Charitable Choice makes it possible for the government to subsidize churches and other thoroughly religious entities that provide social services. This proposal will provide tax dollars to religious groups and open the door to government review of church activities.

For many years the law has permitted groups that are affiliated with religious bodies (e.g. Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services, Jewish Federations) to receive tax funds to provide secular social services. But charitable choice represents a radical and misguided revision of the law. Indeed, many ministers believe that charitable choice will do great harm to religion.

Carl Esbeck, testifying as the Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, recently stated at a hearing before the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee that the charitable choice provisions of H.R. 7 do not allow proselytization, either warranted or unwarranted, during the government funded program. This is definitely a step in the right direction. However, this clarification does not solve all my problems with charitable choice.

Because regulation always follows tax funds, charitable choice opens the door to invasive government monitoring, regulation and accounting of churches, clergy, and other leaders of the church. For these reasons, people like Freddy Garcia, who runs the highly successful Victory Fellowship ministry for drug addicts in San Antonio, has said, "I don't want any grants. I'm a church… All I want is for the government to leave me alone."

Also, because there is limited money in the public purse and thousands of religious groups in our country, charitable choice will force the government to pick and choose which religions it funds. Churches may have to compete for government grants before elected legislators. "The best way I know of to destroy religion is to have all the churches fighting over a big pot of money, " says Rev. J. Brent Walker, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.

Charitable Choice will generate serious problems that have not been seen on a large scale in this country in over 200 years - outright religious infighting, intolerance and discrimination.

This is a perfect program if you want your tax dollars going to any and every self-proclaimed religious group, you'd like the government auditing your church and you have no problem with ignoring the Bill of Rights and its protections of religious freedom.

The American public recognizes the danger Charitable Choice poses to religious freedom. In fact, 68 percent of Americans contacted in a Pew Forum poll worry that Charitable Choice type programs could lead to government involvement in religion.

If we allow government to fund and become involved in religion, it will harm religion, not help it. It is people of faith who must point out that church-state separation does not mean keeping people of faith from being involved in government but rather it means keeping government from being involved in religion.

I believe Madison got it right in the Bill of Rights, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  For over two centuries, those 16 words have worked to protect our religious freedom, and in my opinion, make religious liberty the crown jewel of America's experiment in democracy.

As students of human behavior, and human history, Madison and Jefferson understood that, in general, politicians, if allowed, could not withstand the temptation to use religion as a means to their own political ends.

Our faith is and should be a powerful force in the private and public lives of elected officials; none of us has the right to use the power or laws of government to force our religious faith upon others.

The Bill of Rights and the high principle of church state separation have made America a land of unparalleled religious freedom and tolerance. We tamper with those principles at our own peril.

I will end with this statement made by Martin Luther king, Jr. "The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state." (Strength to Love, p. 47,1963)