Religious and Faith-Based Organizations: Do We Know One when We See One?

A famous Supreme Court justice once commented that he could not define pornography, but he knew it when he saw it. There are those who make the same kind of claims about what have come to be called faith-based organizations (FBOs). Given the amazing variations in judgments by different people as to what organizations should be included in or excluded from this category, however, it seems that all such claims should be viewed with deep suspicion. At the beginning of their article proposing a typology of such organizations, at least of those in the fields of social service and education, Ronald Sider and Heidi Rolland Unruh (this issue) stated: The debates over the faith-based initiative have underscored the critical need for a new vocabulary that more accurately reflects the complex realities in contention. The current catch-all term faith-based organizations confuses and divides because no clear definition exists of what it means to be faith-based. (p. 109-110) As a long-time scholar of these organizations, as well as a person responsible for leading and managing one, I can only say, “Amen.” It is certainly true that the public debates about the purposes, roles, operations, and funding of these organizations—and the research conducted on them—are made much more complicated, and often less helpful, by the ambiguity and confusion of the terms and concepts. Developing better conceptual frameworks and language ought to help resolve some of these difficulties. It is that conviction that inspired me to create the earliest effort in this direction