European Dream The Political Theology of George W. Bush's Faith-Based Initiative

George W. Bush's controversial effort to direct government funds to religious social-service groups—his so-called 'faith-based initiative'—was influenced by confessional ideas about political order that are little understood in U.S. politics. Two key ideas from the Christian Democratic tradition in Europe played a formative role: the Dutch Calvinist theory of 'sphere sovereignty,' and the Catholic principle of 'subsidiarity'. This article describes what Bush set out to do with his faith-based initiative and investigates the confessional influences on this policy agenda in their European context. Viewed in this comparative light, Bush's vision of faith-based welfare is shown to be deficient in its understanding of the religious ideas on which it draws

Confessional · Democracy · European union · Faith · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · Subsidiarity · Theology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Public Administration · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development