Read a December 2008 Brookings Institution report on faith-based programs. The report was prepared by E.J. Dionne Jr., senior fellow in governance studies at Brookings, and Melissa Rogers, director of Wake Forest University Divinity School’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs.

The Charles Frank Reavis Sr. Professor of Law at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, N.Y. Shiffrin has written that liberals need to give faith-based groups more leeway to receive federal funds.

Stephen Goldsmith is Daniel Paul Professor of Government and director of the Innovations in American Government program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He was a special adviser to President George W. Bush on faith-based initiatives. A former mayor of Indianapolis, Goldsmith is the author of Putting Faith in Neighborhoods: Making Cities Work Through Grassroots Citizenship.

Stanley Carlson-Thies is founder and senior director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, which has called for a “Fairness for All” approach to religious freedom and LGBTQ rights. He previously worked on faith-based initiatives for the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

James Dobson is founder and former president and chairman of the board of Focus on the Family. In 2010, he founded a new ministry called Family Talk.

Read a Jan. 26, 2010, essay on the Web site of Christianity Today in which Stanley Carlson-Thies reflects on George W. Bush’s faith-based initiatives.

Read a post from Jan. 8, 2010, by sociologist Mark Chaves at the Faith & Leadership site of Duke Divinity School. Chaves summarizes his research, based on the National Congregations Study, showing that federal faith-based initiatives have had little or no impact on houses or worship and religious social service organizations, or on the delivery of social […]

Read a Feb. 3, 2010, Washington Post story timed for the first anniversary of Obama’s announcement that he was revamping the faith-based office. The story details concerns among faith leaders.

Read a Feb. 4, 2010, story in The Wall Street Journal that discusses Obama’s decision to allow religious groups that receive taxpayer dollars to discriminate to some extent in hiring.