Columnist Says Faith-Based Initiative Has Been Counter-Productive

An interesting op-ed by Christopher Ringwald, published today by Yahoo News, suggests that President bush's faith-based initiative has been counter-productive. Ring says:

[T]he [faith-based] campaign, ignored by Congress and challenged in court, has dropped off the White House talking points. After a brief mention in the 2006 State of the Union address, it was left out entirely this year.

The initiative did leave another legacy: It gave spirituality a bad name in social-service circles. Sad, since spiritual or religious beliefs and practices help millions of people recover from addiction, mental illness and criminality. Unlike other social services that provide a generic good, such as housing, rehab programs often invoke spirituality as the very means of recovery. But after six years of faith-based talk and funding by federal agencies, mental-health and addictions-treatment professionals are wary of spiritual interventions, which they associate with one religious brand: the conservative Christianity of Bush partisans. In reality, the spirituality of treatment and recovery ranges much more widely, from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) to meditation, group confession, or yoga.