No "Faith" in the Constitution.

George W. Bush calls himself "the education president." But since his preferred policies would give public tax money to sectarian schools, he is more precisely "the Christian right education president." And he further proposes to offer federal funds to "faith-based" charities, which translates to "religious denominations of which the president and his appointees approve"-based charities.

Inevitably, these proposals have drawn a firestorm of protest from critics who question its constitutionality. If Bush and his officials accept some faith-based groups and deny others, clearly the secular government our founding fathers deliberately and carefully bequeathed to us is crossing the line between church and state and intruding where government is forbidden to venture.

Bush has already disqualified the faith-based Nation of Islam, explaining, "I don't see how we can allow public dollars to fund programs where spite and hate is the core message." Indeed, this sentiment would likely apply as well to such faith-based hate groups as the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations. However, it puts the president in the position of making religious determinations based on faith rather than service--which nothing in the Constitution he swore to uphold empowers him to do.

Bush also demurred at "the teachings of Scientology being viewed on the same par as Judaism or Christianity."

He did endorse faith-based groups opposed to abortion and birth control. How, then, would he judge the faith-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and Catholics for a Free Choice? Their members believe that abortion may at times be the only option for women faced with unwanted pregnancies--a conviction arising from their faith as firmly as the pope's stance that abortion is a sin. Would Bush deny government aid to these groups, despite their proven record of service to desperate women?

What about Christian Scientists? Will he, should he, offer tax money to practitioners to read from Mary Baker Eddy to children with pneumonia or broken bones or cancer?

The early objections to Bush's proposals came from civil libertarians and liberal and moderate faith-based groups, both Jewish and Christian. Reform Rabbi David Saperstein strongly challenged the Southern Baptist Convention's determination to convert Jews to Christianity. The Reverend Jesse Jackson admitted the church needs money; but, he continued, "it needs independence even more."

The proposal, however, has kindled controversy throughout the nation's religious communities--a broad spectrum that took Bush and his advisers much by surprise.

That wide spectrum now encompasses such radical right leaders as Pat Robertson. In addition to fearing that such programs would give government license to interfere in church business, Robertson worries about funding being provided to such groups as Scientology, Hare Krishna, and the Unification Church. "This thing could be a real Pandora's box," he warned. "You know, I hate to find myself on the side of the Anti-Defamation League and others, but this is, this gets to be a real problem."

Robertson and his son, Gordon, caution that the government would confront problems "when it gave grants to some religious groups and not others." His position is logical given his opinion of other faith-based groups--not only fringe ones, like the Moonies, which "are in touch with Satan and demon spirits," but mainline Christian congregations. In a 700 Club broadcast, he said:

   You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the
   Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing.
   Nonsense! I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the anti-Christ.

Robertson dreads the possibility of funding for any or many of what he deems the anti-Christ, demon-inspired sects.

As for the noisiest and most visible faith-based groups--the televangelists who infest the airways--would they expect handouts for their fright wigs, pancake makeup, gaudy clothes, garish sets, and fraudulent faith healing? Would they get it?

The sheer number of faith-based societies is staggering. Consider Christianity alone. Robert T. Pennock writes in The Tower of Babel a lively account of the creation-evolution war:

   The history of Christianity is a history of doctrinal schisms, and the
   fragmentation continues unabated. In 1990, David Barrett, an Anglican
   missions researcher who served as consultant to the Vatican and the
   Southern Baptist Convention, counted 23,000 separate and distinct Christian
   denominations.

How many of these will Bush's agency be compelled to scrutinize and assess? Is it qualified to do so? Bush's own theology is murky, as shown by his odd contention that Jesus is the philosopher who had the greatest influence on his political beliefs.

Jesus has been called many things but seldom, if ever, a philosopher or politician. He was born, raised, and educated a Jew in a large Jewish family. For about a year, he was an itinerant preacher, expounding ethics drawn straight from the Torah and the prophets. To Christians, and to some non-Christians, these are instructions on how to be a good person who lives a good life. Nothing in the gospels indicates that he saw himself as a philosopher or politician.

The early Christian who transformed an obscure Jewish sect into a global religion was not Jesus but Paul, who did so a generation later. Paul was a man who, morbidly obsessed with his own guilt, found salvation from sin in Jesus as Christ and metamorphosed him into a dying and resurrected savior god.

Bush views Jesus as a philosophical influence on politics. Most Christians view Jesus as an ethical teacher. But he is to them first and foremost the messiah predicted in the Jewish Bible, the redeemer from original sin, the conqueror of death.

John Ashcroft, Bush's new attorney-general, speaking at Bob Jones University, affirmed: "America has been different. We have no king but Jesus"--a statement with which millions of outraged non-Christian U.S. citizens would vehemently disagree. Even more offensive, at Bush's inauguration, no less, the Reverend Franklin Graham invoked blessings on the new president from "the father; the son, the Lord Jesus Christ; and the holy spirit"; and another cleric trumpeted, "Jesus the Christ is the name that is above all other names."

George W. Bush does admit that not all faith-based societies are benign. Indeed, Christianity's blood-drenched history--which includes persecution, the Crusades, pogroms, religious wars, the Inquisition, and countless other atrocities--is overwhelming proof that faith can inflict suffering and does so today through conflicts caused by religious animosities.

Although the United States has by far the highest proportion of avowed Christians in its population, it leads the world also in teenage suicides and pregnancies and, overwhelmingly, in gun deaths. Whether or not this is cause and effect, it shows that faith doesn't guarantee happiness or morality.

The fact is that faith may bring out the best in people who are innately good but, by the same token, the worst in those who are innately bad. That raises the question of how the new initiative will affect faith-based groups which are hurting for money. In their greed, will they jostle a, nd shove each other as they head for the trough?

Obviously George W. Bush is not the first to attempt to or actually blur the line of separation between church and state.

Bill Clinton's unseemly antics, gleefully publicized and prosecuted by a spiteful Kenneth Starr, embarrassed both Clinton and the country. But his actions were unofficial and should have remained private. It was much more egregious when he endorsed Christianity; then he was officially out of order and out of bounds.

In his 1997 Easter homily, in extremely poor taste, he told U.S. citizens:

   In this season of renewal, we must renew our pledge to make America one
   nation under God.... We must remember that Christ died to redeem all people
   black and white.

On another occasion, in a Thanksgiving message, Clinton had the unmitigated gall to urge citizens to pray. Oh, no! Thanks to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, so meticulously crafted by the founding fathers, nobody--not the president or anyone else--has the right to tell any citizen when, where, how, to whom, why, or whether to pray. Each individual's faith, or lack of it, is private; no trespassing allowed.

Trespass has been often attempted, at times successfully. "In God We Trust" sneaked onto one small coin during the Civil War and spread to all coins before World War I. The Eisenhower Congress added it to paper money in the same burst of religiosity that stuck "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance (without specifying whether it's a generic, one-size-fits-all deity or one of the 23,000 Christian varieties).

Then came Ronald Reagan's "Year of the Bible," also unspecified. He never stipulated whether he had in mind the Douay, King James, Revised Standard, or other version--or all of them--although he presumably didn't count the Jewish Bible, which omits the Christian part.

Our taxes pay a hefty salary to the congressional chaplain to utter Christian prayers to empty chambers, and faith-based organizations already benefit from generous tax exemptions and some fiscal assistance.

On the other hand, the Roman Catholic hierarchy's relentless drive for public money for their parochial schools, which their own flocks won't support, continues to meet repeated public rejection.

Now we have a president who unabashedly intends that the secular government should finance religious undertakings, although this would manifestly flout the First Amendment which has served the nation so well for so long. Apparently Bush has never come across Justice Hugo Black's memorable clarification in the Everson v. Board of Education 1947 U.S. Supreme Court decision:

   The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at
   least this: Neither a State nor the Federal Government can ... pass laws
   which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over
   another.... No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support
   any religious activities or institutions....

Bush is not the first religiously naive president of the United States. But his ignorance of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is inexcusable. He owes it to his office and to U.S. citizens to take a class on what church-state separation means and why the founding fathers deemed it essential before he leads us further into dangerous territory strewn with hidden landmines of church-state entanglement.

Fortunately, although liberal opposition to his faith-based plan is largely ignored, religious opposition has momentarily given Bush cause to pause. As the March 12, 2001, edition of the Washington Post reports, the Bush administration will now "delay action on parts of its plan to channel more government money to religious charities until it can quiet some of the surprisingly vehement opposition"--particularly from many of his religious right supporters.

Betty McCollister is a freelance journalist who has written extensively on women issues, church-state issues, and evolution.