A November 2009 survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows Americans broadly support faith-based programs, and Democrats more so than Republicans, for the first time. Yet a strong majority also has concerns about possible church-state violations.

Read arguments from Mark Chaves, a professor of sociology, religion and divinity at Duke University and lead researcher on the National Congregations Study, in which he cites evidence that Bush’s faith-based program “did not broadly change congregations’ behavior in terms of social service activity or their role in the social welfare system.” The comments are in […]

Stanley Carlson-Thies is founder and senior director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, which has called for a “Fairness for All” approach to religious freedom and LGBTQ rights. He previously worked on faith-based initiatives for the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

Read a Jan. 26, 2010, essay on the Web site of Christianity Today in which Stanley Carlson-Thies reflects on George W. Bush’s faith-based initiatives.

John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who served in the Justice Department from 2001-03, writes in The Wall Street Journal that the successful raid vindicates the Bush administration’s interrogation policies.

E.J. Dionne Jr. is a senior fellow for governance studies at the Brookings Institution. His books include, as co-editor, What’s God Got to Do With the American Experiment?

A story on President Bush’s proposal of $1.9 billion in aid to students affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Written by John Danforth (Viking Adult, 2006). Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri and an ordained Episcopalian minister, speaks out against the conflation of political agendas with religious views and the religious right’s focus on wedge issues.

Written by Gregory A. Boyd (Zondervan, 2006). Boyd, a theologian and pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn., discusses his worry over the growing alignment of Christianity and the right-wing ideology of the Republican Party.