Research Catalog

Title

God and the welfare state / Lew Daly ; foreword by James Carroll.

Author

Daly, Lew (Lewis C.)

Publication

Somerville, Mass. : Boston Review ; Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2006.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xix, 132 p.; 19 cm.

Summary

"When the Bush administration introduced the faith-based initiative in 2001 as the next stage in the war on poverty, it provoked a flurry of protest for violating the church-state divide. Setting aside partisan ideas about religion and politics, Lew Daly considers the initiative on its own terms as an anti-poverty project. As he traces it from its roots in Catholic natural-law theory and 19th-century Dutch Calvinist ideas about the proper relationship between government and religion, he shows how century-old ideas were transformed into public policy by a small group of scholars, lawyers, and advocates who worked closely with George W. Bush from his earliest days as the governor of Texas." "Although Daly is deeply skeptical that Bush's initiative can be effective - it primarily helps churches, not poor people - he describes it as an innovative project and the only new strategy in fighting poverty in three decades. Most importantly, Daly suggests that a policy more faithful to the ideas behind it might actually work."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

• Poverty > Christianity
• Church work with the poor > United States
• Faith-based human services
• Church and social problems > United States
• United States > Economic conditions
• United States > Social conditions

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [127]-132).

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

1 If you care about fighting poverty 3 -- 2 A vision of rebuilding 11 -- 3 Charitable choice opened the door 21 -- 4 Executive action 31 -- 5 Kuyper's theory of the limited state 45 -- 6 The makings of a movement 59 -- 7 Mastering Catholic governance 73 -- 8 Corrupting ourselves 87 -- 9 The caring state 97 -- 10 False gods 111.

ISBN

• 0262042363 (alk. paper)
• 9780262042369 (alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2006049436

OCLC

70158587

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library