RNS
WASHINGTON, DC, USA, April 6, 2009: Advisers tapped to help guide the White House’s revamped faith-based office say their role is still evolving as the initiative expands its portfolio and tries to find its footing in the young Obama administration.
While some viewed the Bush administration’s efforts mostly as a one-way directive on how to expand the reach of faith-based groups, Obama’s unpaid advisers report more of a two-way dialogue. And the discussion centers on a broader array of issues that allows for more input from beyond the Beltway. “The sense that you have is that there’s really somebody who is listening to what you have to say and will take it into consideration,” said one adviser, Bishop Vashti McKenzie, who oversees African Methodist Episcopal congregations in Tennessee and Kentucky. The Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, said it was helpful when faith-based director Joshua DuBois got on the phone and explained the administration’s position on charitable deductions.
Richard Stearns, president of the evangelical relief agency World Vision and a member of the advisory council, said the panel seems to have two roles: serving as “a council of elders” that can offer their expertise to the White House, and also representing their constituents to decision-makers. Paul Monteiro, an official from the White House, stressed that council members have a “one-year term because we want to make sure that there are different voices represented.”