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Show Hinckley Journal of Politics 2006 Making Others Conditions Our Own: Faith-Based Initiatives and Other Mediating Structures as Public Policy Scott R. Rasmussen This paper will briefly examine efforts by the state to address social welfare problems and will subsequently argue that mediating structures, specifically faith-based organizations, do a better job of addressing these problems by creating and sustaining social capital, and therefore ought to be encouraged and employed as public policy. Specifically the Peter Berger and Richard Neuhaus article, To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy, has provided a valuable framework for much of this analysis. Introduction ]ohn Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, famed for calling America "a city on a hill," expressed another vision for the newfound continent, nthrop said "We must delight in each other, make others c°riditions our own, rejoyce [sic] together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our c°mmunity as members of a body" (Bellah, Madson, Sullivan, Swindler & Tipton, 1996). Winthrop envisioned a community of cooperation where neighbor cared for neighbor and all Were yoked with the responsibility of addressing such social ills ^ poverty. This essay will argue that this vision of community should be encouraged, but not administered, by the state. We should look to private means to address the rampant unemployment, homelessness, illiteracy and other social health prob-erns that plague our society. These private means include ^diating structures, like neighborhoods and churches. This paper will briefly examine efforts by the state to Caress social problems and subsequently argue that mediat-lt*g structures, specifically faith-based organizations, do a bet-er job of addressing these problems by creating and sustain-lrig social capital, and therefore ought to be encouraged and eittployed as public policy. *^E Welfare State America's short history offers an amazing breadth of implementations, attempted and otherwise, of Winthrop's vision, he 20th century in particular saw two major efforts by the ^ttited States government to address social problems. The ^ew Deal, passed in response to the Great Depression, saw an ^plosion in the federal government's role in society, historian and former FDR speechwriter Samuel Beer said that the New Deal created "among Americans the expectation that the federal government could and should deal with the great economic questions . . ." (Joyce &. Schambra, 1996, p. 19). That expectation increased about 30 years later when President Johnson launched his "war on poverty" and introduced the widely criticized Great Society. Authors Michael Joyce and William Schambra, with tongue in cheek, wrote that the Great Society came the closest to the progressive ideal: "public policy securely in the hands of an elite cadre of professionals, dispensing programs through vast, gleaming, rational bureaucracies . . ." (1996, p. 20). Whether for good or for ill, the New Deal and Great Society created programs, bureaucracies, and regulations that were all focused on improving the social standing of Americans. Winthrop's vision of making others' plights our own was channeled through at least one, if not several, government agencies and programs. Power and responsibility to address social ills were transferred to the federal government, creating what many consider the American welfare state. This top-down approach to social problems left (and still leaves) many with a bad taste in their mouth. Rather than receiving warming face-to-face interaction, those seeking help are forced to deal with faceless agencies and unwieldy regulations, and often complain about the speed and quality of service. Many see the welfare state as a government attack "against the traditional prerogatives of locality and neighborhood to define and preserve their own ways of life" (Joyce &. Schambra, 1996, p. 22). It is an attack on social capital. Social capital, as defined by author Robert Putnam (2000), refers "to connections among individuals - social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them" (p. 19). Social capital gives value and meaning to living and participating in one's community. It gives value to 49 |