No hard definition of 'faith-based'.

The Rev. Joseph T. Robinson Jr., founder of Paterson, N.j.-based Pilgrimage Outreach Ministries, wondered a basic question minutes before a recent faith-based initiative event--what is the definition of a faith-based group?

It's a definition James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, was careful not to spell out during an event at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ.

"We don't define it," Towey said, when posed the question after a brief Speech. "We haven't gotten into the definition business." He referred people to U.S. Supreme Court case law and Title VII for guidance about defining a religious organization.

The term became popular as a euphemism for a religious organization, Marvin Olasky, senior fellow at Acton Institute, said in a telephone interview. "Most folks I talk with understand it as a political way of saying religion."

Faith-based includes a variety of groups that try to put religious beliefs into practice when engaging in social services of all kinds, said Olasky, who helped shape President George W. Bush's faith-based initiative while he was still governor of Texas and still talks with the Bush Administration.

The basic goal of the faith-based initiative is to open federal funding sources to those organizations. Towey called it leveling the playing field to get equal treatment for such organizations.

One problem is a lack of new money for the initiative, which led at least one person to wonder whether the initiative simply will reshuffle money already available.

"So far there is no new money appropriated for services," said panelist Sheila Suess Kennedy, an assistant professor of Law and Public Policy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and principal investigator of the Charitable Choice Project. Later at the event, she said she'd feel more comfortable with the initiative if there was new money, to a spattering of applause from the crowd of approximately 100 people.

During the session, Towey said the stagnant CARE Act would have provided $1.3 billion in grants from Social Services Block Grants and charitable giving incentives. There are initiatives in the president's budget, he added.

President Bush started moving forward on his faith-based initiative without supporting legislation by signing executive orders at a Philadelphia event in December.

"I will continue to work with Congress on this agenda," Bush said during his speech. "But the needs of our country are urgent and, as President, I have an authority I intend to use:'

The executive orders demand equal treatment for charities, sets in motion new agency actions eliminating discrimination against faith-based and community groups, expand faith-based offices to the Agriculture Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, and direct FEMA to revise its policy on disaster relief for faithbased nonprofits, Mercy Viana, a White House spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview.

The federal government has approved some $24 million in Capital Compassion Fund grants to intermediary organizations that will help smaller organizations with technical assistance and know-how, Towey said at the Seton Hall event.

OMB Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group, has raised questions about the government's ability to track these intermediary grants.

"There is a legitimate question about how well we provide oversight of existing grants," Towey said. One oversight aspect is if any abuse of federal funds happens it's a front-page story or lawsuit, Towey said.

The federal government is working to measure effectiveness of faith-based organizations, Towey said. He added that the government doesn't know how many faith-based groups receive federal grants because the government wasn't allowed to ask organizations if they were faith-based on applications.

This makes tracking faith-based organizations' effectiveness difficult. "There is zero data," about faith-based groups' effectiveness, Kennedy said.

As for the CARE Act, Towey blamed Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) for killing it, and cited a Washington Post report as his source.

Reed and Durbin objected to the unanimous consent of the bill when it was brought during the recent lame duck session, and there was little time to debate it, Reed spokesman Adam Bozzi said in a telephone interview.

Durbin and Reed wanted to add amendments that would have ensured religious organizations wouldn't discriminate, proselytize, break local laws, or fail to account for spending the money, Durbin said in a statement.

Towey said his only "beef" is why they chose to use the CARE Act for the civil rights fight, because the bill was designed to avoid employment issues.

"I recognize that government has no business endorsing a religious creed, or directly funding religious worship or religious teaching," Bush said in Philadelphia. "Yet government can and should support social services provided by religious people as long as those services go to anyone in need, regardless of their faith."

Towey said he doesn't understand what the uproar is about the initiative, or why there is criticism that it's breaking down the walls of separation of church and state, he said at the Seton Hall event. He added that former President Bill Clinton signed similar legislation into law.

Given the Republican control of Congress, the CARE Act could receive a boost, but the Bush Administration will have to reach out to new leaders in the House because of some departures, Towey said.

The weak legislation that stalled in the Senate could probably pass now, Olasky said. He wondered if it's worth passing because it doesn't provide clarity about what a religious group can do if it receives federal money.

Many groups are concerned that if they get involved with government "their ability to actually proclaim their faith would be constrained."

Officials at the event expressed concerns that the ongoing debate of legal impacts and political wrangling over President Bush's faith-based initiative is sidetracking the program's real goal to support faith-based groups' efforts to help the less fortunate.

Seton Hall University professor Jo Renee Formicola said it's important that the debate and initiative be freed from ideological bonds because once it becomes a partisan issue, its focus is lost. She views that possibility with pessimism. "I see it getting wrapped up in" partisan politics. If it does that it will fail, she said.

"We're now spending more time dealing with the end rather than focusing on providing the service," said panelist the Rev. Reginald Jackson, executive director of Black Ministers' Council of New Jersey. Churches have provided services without asking for other religious requirements of people receiving care, Jackson said.

"All we knew was that there were folk who needed to be fed, folk who needed to be clothed, children who needed a good education, (and) parents who needed childcare services so they could go to work," Jackson said. "All of these other issues arose when the government got involved."