PRRUCS Annual Issue: Vol. II (Spring 2021)

PRRUCS is pleased to announce its second annual collection of essays: Faith-Based Initiative at 25 Years: A Common Ground for Common Good Conversation. With the new administration’s re-establishment of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Dr. Stanley Carlson-Thies, a co-chair of the PRRUCS Common Ground for Common Good (C2G2) Project, reflected this spring on the 25 year arc of the faith-based initiative in his HistPhil essay, “The Biden Partnerships Plan is Faith-Based Initiative 5.0.”  Republished with permission below as Chapter 1, this seminal article elicited ten comments from other C2G2 colleagues, who respond from a diversity of experience and conviction, offering new insight into the past and future of government-funded faith-based social service.  The collection concludes with an Afterword by PRRUCS Faculty Director, John J. DiIulio, Jr., the inaugural director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Introduction: First 100 Days, Last 25 Years, and the Next “Godly Republic”? by Daniel J. M. Cheely

1. The Biden Partnerships Plan Is Faith-Based Initiative 5.0 by Stanley Carlson-Thies

2. New Faith-Based Frontiers: Black Lives Matter & “Dying of Whiteness” by Samuel Atchison

3. Will the Decline in Faith Institutions Harm the Faith-Based Initiative? by Jane Eisner

4. George W. Bush and Domestic Policy: The Faith-Based Office at its Most Personal by Tim Goeglein

5. Bush’s Faith-Based Program Helped Children of the Incarcerated by W. Wilson Goode

6. Where Does It End? The Religious Demand for Government Support Without Accountability to All Taxpayers by Marci Hamilton

7. Religion in the Public Square: Not so Divided After All by Michele Margolis

8. Faith That Hurts and Faith That Heals by Sister Mary Scullion

9. The New Faith-Based Office and The Case for Charitable Pluralism by Ron Sider

10. Government and Faith-Based Social Service: The Good & the Ugly by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

11. Muddling the Faith Based Concept by Tevi Troy

Afterword: Faith-Based, Then, Now, and Next by John J. DiIulio, Jr.

PRRUCS Annual Issue: Vol. I (Summer 2020)

In Summer 2020, PRRUCS released its inaugural annual volume entitled Should Groups Matter? Religion, Freedom, and Contemporary Civil Society, co-edited by Dr. Luke Sheahan and Dr. Daniel Cheely. This timely collection of essays features leading scholars of diverse outlook who deftly address current issues in a manner that is broadly accessible.

Jewish Counter Culture Oral History Project:

In 2018 PRRUCS cosponsored the development of a major oral American religious history project across multiple universities co-led by Dr. Beth Wenger, who is Associate Dean for Graduate Studies of Penn SAS, Berg Professor and former Chair of the History Department, as well as Resident Senior Fellow of PRRUCS. Commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the founding of Havurat Shalom in 1968, this recently concluded project builds a documentary record of the historic effort to reinvent Jewish communal worship and social life outside the framework of traditional synagogue denominations and structures, featuring interviews with dozens of the movements key members, which can be surveyed here and here.

“Halo Effects”:

In 2016, PRRUCS released a report prepared by Joseph P. Tierney, executive director of the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program at Penn, entitled “How Catholic Places Serve Civic Purposes: The Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Economic Halo Effects” — also known as the Hager Report, since the research was cosponsored by a generous gift from Mr. Francis Hager. The release of the report was marked by a public event featuring keynote remarks from the Archbishop of Philadelphia and covered by the Philadelphia Inquirer and other local newspapers.

PRRUCS Occasional Papers:

PRRUCS publishes occasional papers on a wide range of topics that engage with faith, reason and civil society, including:

• Prof. Peter Dodson, On Fossils and Faith
• Rev. Samuel K. Atchison, On Ministry and Urban Social Service
• Matthew Stengel, An Alternative Future for U.S. Economic Public Policy: Catholic Social Teaching, Applied Economics, and New Approach to the Modern Labor Question
• Dr. Marisa March, Put out into the Deep: Perspectives on the Relationship Between Christian Faith & Contemporary Physics

PRRUCS also supports empirical studies and surveys on religion through its PESS.

PRRUCS Student Voices:

PRRUCS Senior Staff and Affiliates also collaborate with Collegium to cultivate student voices, editors, and writers through Collegium’s affiliated journals, Dappled Things and Genealogies of Modernity as well as through the CI podcast, The Wheel and the blog, The Commonplace Book, both of which can be found here.