With nod from Bush, state and religion join forces for jobs

By Scott S. Greenberger- American-Statesman Capitol Staff - Sunday, December 26, 1999

OBRENHAM -- "You are a mighty man of valor, Andre King!"

King's been called a dishwasher, a fry cook and a drug dealer. "Man of valor" is a new one.

King, 25, is in a classroom at the First Assembly of God Church listening to former missionary Marcus Lawhon talk about Jesus Christ and the workplace. It is Week 2 of a 12-week course designed to transform Brenham's welfare recipients and perennially underemployed into reliable, God-fearing workers who can command more than the minimum wage.

Lawhon pulls the "mighty man of valor" line from the Bible, the only required text for the course. He tells King and the six other students that faith will enable them to overcome abusive bosses and that God has plotted a career path for each of them. They are beginning to believe it.

Religion, specifically Christianity, permeates nearly every aspect of the Jobs Partnership of Washington County -- and the State of Texas helps pay for it. The program's successes -- its organizers say about four-fifths of its graduates have found jobs -- bolster Republican presidential front-runner George W. Bush's contention that faith can transform lives in ways that government can't.

But the Brenham program also raises questions about government support of religion, which the First Amendment prohibits. And even as Bush says taxpayer money should not pay for proselytizing, the program seems to conflict with state rules that prohibit the practice.

The Department of Human Services kicks in $8,000 of the program's $20,000 annual budget, paying the bulk of the salary the Rev. George Nelson earns for running it. The agency's contract with the program says that "no state expenditures can have as their objective the funding of sectarian worship, instruction, or proselytization." Several times during the 12 weeks, a state worker stops by unannounced to make sure instructors are following the rules.

But department officials themselves don't agree on how much religion is too much. Becky Corkran, the worker who does the spot inspections, says instructors "aren't allowed to coerce anyone to believe in a certain way, or try to change their beliefs" -- in other words, they can't proselytize.

Department attorney Margaret Roll, however, says the key is how state money is being used.

"They can proselytize all they want. We are just not going to pay them to do that," Roll said. "We are funding a job-training program with certain elements that we want in there. If they want to include other elements, we're not going to stop them."

In the state's view, the Brenham group is following the terms of its contract -- even though Nelson gets state dollars to oversee the whole program, not just the nonreligious parts of it. And instructors readily acknowledge they are trying to change students' beliefs. Only Jesus, they say, can transform their lives.

"We want to change from the inside out, rather than from the outside in, and that can only be accomplished through a relationship with Jesus Christ. That will become more obvious as the program moves along," instructor Rick Flammer tells the students during their second day in class.

As governor, Bush took advantage of changes in federal law to encourage Texas social service agencies to contract with religious groups and has promised that as president he would give tax dollars to community and faith-based groups to address social problems. Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic front-runner, has made a similar pledge. If either man is elected president, it is likely that taxpayer dollars will be used to support many more programs like the one in Brenham.

Learning to trust

Eight churches and eight businesses in Brenham launched the Jobs Partnership three years ago to help county residents find jobs. The state began to help pay for it this year.

The students gather twice a week, with Monday nights reserved for Bible study and Thursdays dedicated to job-skills training. On many nights, it's hard to tell the two apart.

On the first Thursday, Flammer takes the class to the church gym to teach them about interdependence. The students are paired off, and half of them are blindfolded. As Nelson stands in the center of the room and reads Psalm 23 in his booming baritone -- "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" -- the students without blindfolds lead their partners around tables, chairs and sawhorses scattered around the room.

The lesson is that you've got to trust in God and in other people. "Do you think that as individuals we can ever truly be independent?" Flammer asks, before gathering the students around him for a closing prayer.

One Monday, Lawhon asks the students to describe their difficult bosses. He writes their responses on a white board: "nasty attitude," "grouchy," "lack of ability," "won't listen," "lazy."

Those frustrations can be overcome, Lawhon says, as long as the students remember a simple fact: They're working for God.

"He cares about his creations, he cares about his kiddos," Lawhon says. "God knows what's going on in your workplace. He was there when the boss said that to you. God is in the process of justice."

Lawhon's words are a revelation for the students, most of whom have bounced from one low-wage, low-prestige job to another. He is arming them to endure life at the bottom of the ladder long enough to move up to the next rung.

"I have faith in God to help me find a job," King says after several weeks of the course. "I don't feel like the same old person that I used to be -- acting bad, staying in trouble, not wanting to do nothing."

He is standing outside the Faith Mission, a homeless shelter and food pantry where he has been living for the past three months. Lawhon, who runs the Faith Mission, told King about Jobs Partnership.

As a teen-ager in a small town outside Galveston, King says, he sold drugs and joined a gang. After high school, he held a series of menial jobs, including dishwasher at a dog track and fry cook at a seafood restaurant. In the short term, he'd be happy with a steady construction job, although he dreams of cooking crawfish etouffee someday at his own Cajun restaurant.

Another student, 28-year-old Yvette Adams, wants to be a teacher. A single mother with three sons -- she first got pregnant at 16 -- Adams has worked at Sonic and an Exxon station, but she never took those jobs too seriously, figuring she could get by on child support if she had to. The class has changed her, too.

"Before, I didn't care if I got fired. Now it's different. You're not just working for your employer, you're working for God," said Adams, who found out about the program after she began attending Nelson's church. Nearly all of the students say learning that God wants them to work has given them an extra incentive to find and keep a job.

Adams, who was recently baptized, says her nonreligious family thinks "I'm losing my mind." She doesn't care. Every night before her sons go to bed, she gathers them around her to talk to them about God.

"The Bible pushes you a whole lot. This is the right way -- it's in the book so you know it's the right way."

Mastering the basics

The course has a biblical foundation, but it includes some job training that isn't overtly religious. Students learn basic skills that may be second nature to steady workers but are new to them: They must stand up and speak clearly when they answer a question in class. There is a dress code, and they must show up on time. The students sell themselves in mock job interviews, which are videotaped so they can spot their weaknesses and correct them. They learn how to put together a resume.

During one class a guest speaker, Appel Motors owner Gregg Appel, offers this insight: "The last thing an employer wants to do is work on personal hygiene with somebody," he says.

In those respects, the class at the church isn't much different from the job-training course across town at the Texas Workforce Commission. The decor in the government's class is different: The wall is decorated with a keyboarding chart, not pictures of Jesus. There isn't a Bible in sight, and the bookshelves are crammed with titles such as, "Cover Letters That Knock 'Em Dead" and "Occupational Outlook Handbook." There are computers, so students get some keyboarding practice and experience using basic software programs. The organizers of the church program are trying to raise money to pay for computers.

But building students' confidence -- albeit without religion -- is a big part of the government course, too.

"We're all going to make it to the workplace. We're going to get there eventually, we're just not there now," instructor Laura Burrell said in the inspirational cadence of a preacher.

Burrell, who taught biology for 31 years in the Rockdale public schools, is no bloodless bureaucrat. Flashing around the room in her red polka-dot dress and owlish glasses, she is energetic, patient and warm. The students, mostly welfare recipients who must take the class to fulfill job training requirements, call her "Miss Laura" with obvious affection.

During a recent class, Burrell noticed one student squinting at a W-2 form and asked her whether she had glasses. They were broken, the young woman replied, and Medicaid wouldn't pay for a new pair for another two years. But Burrell wasn't satisfied with that response, and she called in a Workforce Commission official to help. Within the hour, the agency had found a way to get glasses for the woman.

"They don't know that they can, because everything has been a brick wall for them," Burrell says after class. "I know she came out of here just a little bit taller today. That's the kind of hope we hope to instill in people."

A religious obligation

But organizers of the church class say secular programs can never measure up to religious ones.

"Most of the organizations that have no religious ties deal with the outer man. What we do is address the inner man," Nelson said. "We change them by giving them hope, and making them feel good about themselves. We make them realize that the world is not against them, that the world is a cornucopia of opportunity."

The religious and moral aspects of the class are crucial, Nelson said. Students learn that they will "benefit and profit in the long run from doing things right, and doing the right thing," he explained. "Many of them have changed their lives totally -- and not just from an employment point of view."

In the past three years, roughly 80 percent of the church class graduates have found jobs, working as secretaries, forklift drivers, and nurse's assistants, according to Nelson. The Department of Human Services wasn't involved in the program during its first two years, but 10 of the 13 students who have graduated since department involvement have found full-time jobs, according to an agency official. One of those who hasn't is working part-time, and the other two have about two more months to find work under the terms of the contract between the agency and the church program.

In the first eight months of this year, 62 percent of the people who completed the Texas Workforce Commission course found jobs within a month of finishing the class. But unlike Jobs Partnership, which is optional, the government class is required for welfare recipients, so it might be that some of the students aren't as motivated as those who choose to attend the church class. Jobs Partnership organizers hope that state officials will clear their program as an alternative for welfare recipients who must fulfill the job training requirement, but they haven't yet.

Helping their students isn't a job for Nelson, Lawhon and Flammer -- it's a religious obligation. Lawhon, a 27-year-old Baylor University graduate, spent a year in the former Soviet republic of Moldova as a missionary and views his participation in the Brenham program as a continuation of that work. Flammer, a retired chemical company executive who now breeds Arabian horses, said he began to give back to the community as a baseball coach in Harlem, where he was touched by the desperation of the kids he coached.

"I think I've been blessed in my life, and this is an opportunity for me to give something back to people who are less fortunate," Flammer said. "That's something that Christ taught, and I believe in it strongly."

Nelson says running the job-training program is part of his job as a member of the clergy.

"Taking care of widows and orphans, from a biblical standpoint, was the responsibility of the church. For a long time, we've neglected our responsibility as mandated by God," Nelson said as he stood in front of the stone building that houses his Grace Fellowship Baptist Church. "I think the churches ought to be involved. They've been just inside these four walls long enough."

Church vs. State

Most clergy members agree that they have a social responsibility, but some are uneasy about accepting government aid.

"It's awfully hard in my position to criticize when people are being helped -- that's what we're all about. But the danger of government money going to any religious group is the entanglement of church and state," said the Rev. Larry Bethune of University Baptist Church in Austin. "The state has to require accountability for our tax dollars; if they don't, they're not fulfilling their role. But when they do, they begin to interfere with the internal life of the churches."

Bethune said that when the government gives money to any religious group, it promotes religion and violates the Constitution.

"Charitable choice," a part of the 1996 federal welfare reform law, cleared the way for government dollars to flow to religious programs. The provision, little noticed when it was passed, allows states to give money to religious groups to provide job training and other services to former welfare recipients as long as there are secular alternatives. It has since been expanded to cover other social services.

Religiously affiliated groups such as Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services have been getting government money for years -- but before "charitable choice," they had to use it for secular social services. Churches were supposed to maintain a wall between their religious and nonreligious endeavors, with separate financial records and different directors.

Bush, who has signed legislation in Texas easing regulations on religious organizations, has made the state a leader in enacting "charitable choice." In announcing his presidential plans, Bush pledged "a commitment to pluralism" in choosing which groups to support. But it might not be possible to treat every faith-based group equally when there is limited government money.

"Who will decide which churches or synagogues, which denomination or sect will be funded and which will be excluded? The answer is obvious: The personal religious preferences of those with authority, no matter how extreme, will override the need to provide efficient social services to Americans," Dallas Rabbi Peter Berg said.

Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington advocacy group, said it's only a matter of time before there's a lawsuit challenging "charitable choice."

"It is fundamentally based on the idea that there is a Christian value system that is going to help you be a better person," Lynn said of programs like the one in Brenham. "Whether that's true or not is irrelevant. What's important is that government funds can't be used for that sort of indoctrination."

But Flammer said the state should help pay for the Brenham course because it "clearly helps people to become self-sustaining and become productive citizens -- and from the standpoint of government, this is what they want to see in these programs."

Nelson isn't about to strip religion out of Jobs Partnership. After all, he says, that's the key to its success.

"When you talk about faith, you talk about Christianity. That's what I am and what I do," he said. "I'm a pastor and a preacher and a Christian -- so I stick to basic biblical teachings."


You may contact Scott S. Greenberger at sgreenberger@statesman.com or 445-3654.

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