Opinion: Good pick for faith-based agenda

For speaking his mind about Florida government's budgetary indifference to poor people, Jim Towey was given the pink slip by angry Republican senators. After his confirmation was rejected in 1995, he left the job of secretary of Health and Rehabilitative Services and government altogether. Then he created a private group dedicated to helping people age with dignity. In 2000, he held a remarkable gathering of government leaders, jurists and business people aimed at sparking a spiritual awakening.

He also never stopped speaking out.

Towey is a good choice to head President Bush's Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives because of that combination of spiritual determination and political fearlessness. He once worked with Mother Teresa and believes fervently that faith can heal the nation, but he doesn't suffer political nonsense gladly.

Towey could bring a reasonable center of gravity to the congressional debate over the president's faith-based legislative agenda. After the House passed a religion-based bill in August along party lines, the Senate mostly ignored it. Following the Sept. 11 attacks and the outpouring of community giving, the president signaled his willingness to retreat from some of the more controversial parts of his legislation, including a provision that would have allowed religious groups to practice faith discrimination and still receive federal money.

In some respects, Towey represents the kind of broad-based spiritual support President Bush had claimed to seek in establishing the faith-based initiative. Certainly, Towey has long argued against the interfaith battles that have hampered the religious community, and he has sought to unify people for broader human purpose -- to protect the poor, to honor the elderly, to serve fellow man.

In his Awakening 2000 conference, Towey also revealed his own feelings about the role of government and religion. "There are many who do not believe in God and see a threat to the separation of church and state whenever public officials speak of God," he wrote. "These critics have a right to be skeptical and should judge a spiritual awakening by the fruit it bears. If it leads to a more tolerant, civil and merciful society, one with less condemning and more forgiving, one with less selfishness and more charity, then it will have remained faithful to its mission. On the other hand, if Awakening 2000 becomes a pretext to impose religion on others, or fails to reach out to the poor, then it will have become a monument to hypocrisy."

That's a fair test for the White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, as well.

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