Beyond Ideology

Discovering Hope

What is the most effective way to respond to the material and spiritual poverty that afflicts the inner city? Princeton Professor and Penn alumnus John DiIulio, C'80, G'80, says he's been "coerced by the data," and it all points beyond the prevailing ideologies. You might say the data transcends conventional political poles, recommending unorthodox solutions carried out by religious institutions that minister to the urban poor in their communities. In America, liberals and conservatives are gradually being converted too.

Professor DiIulio will deliver the keynote address for the 1998 Steinberg Symposium, Beyond Ideology: Discovering Hope for America's Cities in Leadership, Management, and Faith. Presented by the School of Arts and Sciences on November 17—19, the symposium will bring to campus religious activists who labor on some of America's meanest streets and a few of the nation's most innovative mayors and civic officials. Panelists include the Reverend Eugene Rivers of the Ella J. Baker House in Boston, Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, C'65, Philadelphia Police Commissioner John F. Timoney, and others. Professors Thomas Sugrue from History and Elijah Anderson from Sociology will be among the Penn faculty participants.

The symposium is funded by Gayfryd and Saul, W'59, Steinberg. Most of the events are free and open to the general public. Alumni who cannot attend may participate in an online discussion with Professor DiIulio. See the website for details. For more information, contact Anita Mastroieni at mastroie@ben.dev.upenn.edu or (215) 898-5262, or visit the symposium web site: www.sas.upenn.edu/home/alumni/steinberg.html.

Have Faith in Inner-City Youth
By John DiIulio

Under what, if any, conditions can the prospects of poor inner-city children be improved, and how can we foster those conditions? Based on four years of research and direct observation, I believe a necessary condition is the support of churches, synagogues, mosques, and other faith-based grassroots organizations that perform youth and community outreach in the inner city.

Supporting inner-city churches means sustaining, at the street level, clergy and volunteers whose religious testimony is "spoken" in daily deeds of dedication to helping inner-city youths avoid violence, achieve literacy, access jobs, and otherwise reach adulthood whole. It means identifying and "lifting up" the unsung people of urban faith communities who monitor, mentor, and minister to the poorest of the urban poor. It means studying and funding people motivated by religious sentiment, who invoke spiritual language but work mainly on behalf of children who are not themselves "churched." These religious witnesses do not make profession of faith or church membership a condition for entering their buildings and receiving their services–or for receiving their sometimes tough but unconditional love.

Of course, religious institutions alone cannot cure the poverty, joblessness, and other problems that disproportionately afflict the inner-city. But there is growing empirical evidence that faith-based initiatives can be supported and taken to scale in ways that transform lives, revitalize neighborhoods, reduce poverty, prevent violence, improve education, and yield other morally desirable social consequences.

Belief in God remains the norm in America, with levels of belief ranging between 94 and 99 percent over the past five decades. Black Americans are in many ways the most religious people in the nation: a substantially greater percentage of blacks are church members, say that religion is "very important in their life," and believe that religion "can answer all or most of today's problems." Since the end of the Second World War, we have witnessed what has been aptly described as the "churching of America." By the mid-1990s, there were an estimated half million churches, synagogues, and mosques; more than 2,000 religious denominations; and uncounted independent churches. Surveys show that churches and other religious bodies are the major supporters of neighborhood voluntary activities, and people who attend services weekly are far more likely to volunteer than those who attend less frequently.

In 1996, Congress enacted the so-called Charitable Choice provision, part of an otherwise badly flawed welfare overhaul. The provision encourages states to use faith-based organizations to provide services for the poor. It allows religious organizations to receive contracts, vouchers, and other government funding on the same basis as other providers while protecting the religious integrity and character of those organizations.

Hopes for child-focused outreach partnerships among corporations, philanthropies, government agencies, secular nonprofits, and inner-city faith communities are strengthened by the growing recognition of and tolerance for religion in the public square. It is not too soon to bear witness to the belief that supporting religious persons who are living out their faith among "the least of these" is a promising path that embraces a new civic and political vision beyond ideology.

Earlier this year (June 1), Newsweek ran a cover story about an inner-city ministry, noting that for "decades, liberals and conservatives have argued past each other about the crisis in the inner city. The right was obsessed with crime, out-of-wedlock births, and the 'responsibility' of the underclass; the left only wanted to talk about poverty, the need for government intervention, and the 'rights' of the poor. Now both sides are beginning to form an unlikely alliance founded on the idea that the only way to rescue kids from the seductions of the drugs and gang cultures is with the only institution with the spiritual message and the physical presence" to reclaim poor inner-city children: "the church."

Say amen.