Read the Internal Revenue Service’s rules on tax exemption for religious groups.

Greg W. Hamilton, president of the Vancouver, Wash.-based Northwest Religious Liberty Association, supports the idea of faith-based initiatives with an important qualification: He does not support government-funded faith-based groups discriminating in their hiring practices or offering sectarian programming. Hamilton is an ordained minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and a scholar of church-state issues.

Star Parker, founder of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education in Los Angeles, has expressed concerns about faith-based initiatives headed up by the government. Read a 2005 Agape Press interview posted by Crosswalk.com.

David Ryden is professor of political science at Hope College in Holland, Mich., and co-author of Of Little Faith: The Politics of George W. Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives (Georgetown University Press, 2004).

Doug Koopman is professor of political science at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., and co-author of Of Little Faith: The Politics of George W. Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives (Georgetown University Press, 2004).

Amy Black is a professor of political science at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill. She co-authored Of Little Faith: The Politics of George W. Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives and is the author of Honoring God in Red or Blue: Approaching Politics with Humility, Grace and Reason.

Robert V. Kemper, an anthropology professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, co-authored The World As It Should Be: Faith-Based Community Development in America, on his website.

Jimmy Dorrell is co-founder and executive director of Mission Waco, a ministry to empower the poor, mobilize middle-class Americans and address systematic social injustices. He is pastor of Church Under the Bridge and also teaches classes at Baylor University and Truett Seminary in Waco.

Helen Rose Ebaugh is a professor of sociology at the University of Houston who specializes in the sociology of religion as well as religion and new immigrants.