According to an Obama campaign promise, the office will have to change its current policy, which allows faith-based groups to restrict the use of government funds along sectarian lines.
The New York Times reported today that President Obama has selected 26-year-old Josh DuBois, a Pentecostal pastor and political strategist, to lead the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
The newly renamed office is expected to expand the Bush administration's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, original created through an executive order made by George W. Bush during his first term in office, for the purpose of providing federal government funding for social services in the faith arena.
Obama and DuBois are faced with the decision of whether to rescind a controversial legal memorandum that permits fund recipients to hire only people who share their religious affiliation.
“If you get a federal grant,” Obama said in a campaign speech, “you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them, or against the people you hire, on the basis of their religion.”
DuBois, who received his Masters degree from Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International affairs at Princeton and was later enrolled in law school, worked for President Obama during the then senator’s presidential campaign. During the campaign, DuBois would attend house parties of religious voters nationwide in order to present President Obama as a faith-motivated leader. Read the original articles here and here.