Faith-based funded El Shaddai plans opening with Santorum

Faith-based funded El Shaddai plans opening with Santorum
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-4shaddaiapr07,0,7198685.story
Bethlehem center has received $300,000 from Bush program.
By Daryl Nerl
Of The Morning Call

More than two years after buying a former car dealership on E. Broad
Street, El Shaddai Bethlehem Ministries is ready to open its glass doors
beginning a week-long celebration that starts Saturday night with an
inaugural dinner and remarks from U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum.

At once a church, school and social service agency, El Shaddai has received
more than $300,000 in federal aid through President Bush's controversial
Faith and Community Based Initiative, though the Rev. Marilyn Hartman, the
church's executive pastor, said the government grants have not been a
determining factor in its programming or in the extensive renovations of
the former Dick Milham car dealership at 529 E. Broad St.

Lehigh Valley Local Links
El Shaddai, which is also known as the Bethlehem Christian Training Center,
paid $1.1 million for the 24,000-square-foot building. Renovations will
take the total building cost to about $3 million, all of which has been
funded through donations, Hartman said.

The renovated building includes a community center/cafe, an auditorium
capable of seating 350 people, a smaller prayer chapel, classrooms for
programs and for a kindergarten to third grade elementary school for 105
pupils, conference rooms and offices.

The federal dollars have all gone toward programs — one that helps former
prisoners find jobs, another that teaches budgeting and financial literacy
to help people buy their own homes and a third that provides marriage
counseling, Hartman said.

Nonetheless, some have complained that faith-based money is being
distributed to advance Republican Party goals. Federal faith-based dollars
have flowed more readily to areas where Republicans are in tight races,
said Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church
and State, a Washington, nonsectarian, nonpartisan group.

Under the president's initiative, new offices in 10 Cabinet-level
departments have sought to broaden the pool of federal grant applicants.
Unlike other applicants for federal dollars, churches applying for federal
money do not have to comply with certain civil rights statutes and can
discriminate by hiring employees of specific faiths under an executive
order issued by Bush.


.... more readily to areas where Republicans are in tight races, said Rob
Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and
State, a Washington ...


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You are invited to check out the following:

The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm

American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm

The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html

[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]

HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/

[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]

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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote

"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"

That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.

It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.

*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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