by Eric Ture Muhammad
Staff Writer

On Dec. 20, President-elect George W. Bush, Jr. called an interfaith gathering of approximately 30 members of the Islamic, Christian and Jewish communities in an effort to create dialogue and introduce his plans for faith-based initiatives from within the White House.

The event, a lunch and talk at the Austin, Texas, First Baptist Church, was also intended as a way for the president-elect to build support among Black voters, after winning only 9 percent of their support during the election. The meeting, extremely alienating by some accounts and cautiously praised by others, has stirred more controversy surrounding the incoming Bush administration.

"We are disturbed because the leadership of the historic Black churches was not invited to the discussion table," read a statement from the Congress of National Black Churches. "Yet the meeting purports to represent the leaders of Black churches. If Mr. Bush�s goal is to reach out to the Black church, then he should include those that authentically represent the Black church in America," it read. The statement was crafted by the group�s chairman, Bishop John Hurst Adams, and articulated at a Dec. 19 news conference by CNBC executive director Rev. Sullivan Robinson. The group�s eight member denominations represent 65,000 churches and more than 20 million congregational members.

Earlier in the week, mainstream press across America ran the headline, "Bush to Host Black Ministers," implying that the new president was in fact meeting with Black church leaders to discuss future federal faith-based initiatives.

"The meeting was unlike what some have stated," the Rev. Floyd H. Flake of Allen A.M.E. Church in Queens, N.Y., told The Final Call. "It was a mixed, interfaith meeting of Muslims, Catholics and Jews�obviously some Blacks," he said.

Rev. Flake is a former Democratic congressman and until recently, touted as the front-runner for secretary of education. He was in Austin as a secretary of education candidate to meet with Mr. Bush and decided to attend the interfaith group meeting.

Rev. Flake thought the encounter with Mr. Bush by those in attendance was serious and provided no illusions. "Half of the people in the room were not Bush supporters, and he knew that. So, it was a purposeful meeting to the degree that he wanted advice as to how to involve the interfaith community going forward, and putting an interfaith person in a position in the White House so that various religious groups would have somebody they could relate directly to He has a myriad of interfaith programs that he introduced," Rev. Flake said.

One of the initiatives introduced by Mr. Bush at the meeting was a plan to offer a $500-per-person tax credit for individual contributions to charities, and the loosening of federal regulation of groups that can provide social services with government grant money. In addition, he spoke of continued support for private school vouchers and chartered schools, and increased funding for prisoner reform and drug treatment programs.

"This is a meeting to begin a dialogue about how best to help faith-based programs change people�s lives, how best government can encourage as opposed to discourage faith-based programs from performing their commonplace miracles of renewal," Mr. Bush said during a news conference from Austin. "We all recognize that our society can change. We are a room full of optimists," he expressed.

One Houston-based religious leader, who did not attend the meeting, observed Mr. Bush was skillful at working across party lines during his tenure as Texas governor. But, the leader cautioned, "a Democrat in Texas, would be a Republican anywhere else."

"The progressive and liberal forces in Texas have literally been under siege the past six years under the Bush administration and have been excluded from meaningful participation in shaping governmental policies," the leader charged.

"With that being said, we have reached a fork in the road. Either we are going to continue in the way of government dependency, and giving ourselves totally to one particular party, or we are going to form new political force. A movement not based upon personalities, or parties but based upon principles and an agenda which is within our self-interest," the leader argued.

Not so optimistic still, are the 92 percent of Blacks that voted overwhelmingly for Vice President Al Gore. Even in his home state, where Mr. Bush received nearly 50 percent of the Hispanic vote, he didn�t place a dent in the national figures. Blacks comprised just five percent of the Bush vote in
the state of Texas.

"Basically it is too early to determine anything as a result of this meeting," commented Rev. Osborne of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Atlanta. "We have to keep our options open. One very basic fact to note is that by appointing one Black here and one Black there will not negate the fact, that the overall image and perception is that the Republican Party excludes Blacks, women and other people of color," he told The Final Call.

Washington-based Black conservative Robert Woodson suggested that Mr. Bush not meet with some civil rights leaders, including Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., Rev. Al Sharpton and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume. "The mistake Republicans have made in the past is assuming they�ve got to always go through the civil rights door to go to the Black community," Mr. Woodson said in published reports. "What Bush has got to do is not be trapped by these gatekeepers and go directly to the voters," he concluded.

Others take exception to that strategy.

"There is no way we can read his mind on what his intentions are but we can surely go to his past record," commented Rev. Willie Wilson of Union Temple Baptist Church in Washington. "The real test is what he will do. At this point it would only be conjecture on our part to say whether or not what he is doing is genuine. It�s logical being from Texas, that he would start in Texas, but I am sure that he is astute enough to know that just dealing with a few ministers in a meeting in Texas will not solve anything and the circle that was there will certainly have to widen.

"I think the strategy for the African American community, although voting against Bush 9 to 1, should be to look at the political parties as one party with two different names. Remember for the last eight years, it was under the Democrats� watch that the prisons were run-over with African American men and women. So it hasn�t been good for our community and the Democrats have been in office for eight years. I would hope that the leaders would strategize and come up with one that would be in the best interest of the African American community and not be divided by a group�whoever they might be," Rev. Wilson said.

Those who meet with Mr. Bush should represent the interest of the broad Black community and there should be dialog among Blacks from different perspectives on what agenda to pursue and how to pursue it, he argued. "Inclusion" can�t translate into a few dinners at the White House and some window dressing, Rev. Wilson concluded.

Faith-based initiatives out of government are extremely critical, asserts Rev. Flake "because the areas where people are most severely impacted and have the greatest needs of government intervention are those communities where government has failed. Those communities generally have strong faith-based groups that are trying to deliver various levels of services, but do not have access to the resources to make it happen. So as persons have paid their taxes and are not getting the full benefit of those taxes, I believe that it is appropriate to encourage faith-based participation, and for those faith-based groups to do what is necessary, whatever is essential, to get the benefits back to the people who are paying the taxes," he said.