Editorial by Franklin Graham in The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC

Samaritan's Purse
Sunday, 8 April 2001

We Appreciate the Help, But We Remain Christian

As the federal government considers closer ties between Washington and faith-based organizations, let me be one of the first in line to express gratitude but also to raise caution.

Recent articles on religious activities by organizations that receive government assistance for international relief, including the agency I head, Samaritan's Purse, show why people of strong faith must be cautious about receiving government aid for their work. The criticisms of reporters, officials and some relief workers provide a glimpse at the issues that faith-based organizations will face as they consider beginning an alliance with the government.

Over the last several months, Christian workers with Samaritan's Purse have constructed nearly 5,000 cinder block homes for families whose villages were devastated by Hurricane Mitch in Honduras. In El Salvador, we have provided clean water, food and 2,000 temporary shelters for victims of recent earthquakes. We did some of this with the help of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development. We did most of it with donations from concerned Christian individuals, churches and other private sources.

As a Christian relief organization, we are interested in the physical and the spiritual condition of those we serve. Our religious outreach is funded entirely with private contributions. Our relatively small grants from USAID have been used to buy bricks and mortar and supplies, and have never funded any religious program. (Ironically, on every federal dollar we spend, the U.S. government stamps "In God We Trust.")

Samaritan's Purse has never used federal funds for its evangelistic work, but if we were asked to check our faith at the door in order to receive federal money, we would graciously decline such grants.

If the government is going to use a type of profiling, "religious profiling," to question groups' relief work simply because they are Christians, we would disqualify ourselves, for our help is intended for the body and the soul. Does the government really intend a litmus test through which people of faith would be forced to convert to secularism in order to serve as relief workers?

Recent comments from the Bush administration suggest otherwise, for which I commend the president.

Christians are celebrating the fact that there are now people in the White House who are not ashamed to talk about their personal faith and not afraid to recognize that faith can motivate the heart and restore the soul.

Much good can result from the new attitude toward faith-based initiatives. I welcome the recognition for matters of faith, the desire of this administration to make it easier for faith-based groups to do their work without interference and the intention to make it easier for individuals to contribute to the charities of their choice.

Government funding can be a problem, but not—in my view—the way some have suggested.

The prospect of some federal funding of faith-based initiatives is not dangerous for the state and not a threat to the Constitution. In fact, the presence of faith in the public arena can be uplifting and can give our society the spiritual foundation that it so badly needs. The motivation of faith also puts people in the hard and dangerous work that most people resist. (Building homes and risking dangerous conditions to help disaster victims in places such as Sudan and El Salvador, for instance, is not particularly glamorous work.) There are many charities—people of many faiths—doing this tough work. They deserve government support.

But federal funding can be most dangerous to the church because politicians inevitably will seek to use the connections for their own advantage. And as recent media coverage shows, there are always forces seeking to use government entanglement to secularize. Those forces could be stronger in another administration.

The Christian Church should have enough money to do the Lord's work, and it will continue its good deeds with or without assistance from the government. In Central America and in more than 100 countries, Samaritan's Purse will continue to provide tangible assistance in the face of disaster. And, yes, we will point to the One who motivates our work and who we believe is the only hope for the world, the Lord Jesus Christ.

If the federal government wants to contribute by providing funds for cinder blocks and other building materials, we welcome the assistance—and so will the victims we are attempting to help. But if that same government requires us to put our faith in some kind of bureaucratic lock box as a condition of that assistance, we will respectfully decline.

For more information, or to contact Samaritan's Purse, see their website at: www.samaritanspurse.org