In God We Trust.

• Author: Freund, Charles Paul
• Position: Brief Article

The right wants to do to faith-based charity what the left has done to culture.

George W. Bush's initiative to give federal money to faith-based organizations has drawn criticism in many tongues. Progressives are concerned about the separation of churches from a state that may play religious favorites; left-leaning churchmen are worried that Washington will muffle their calls for social justice; libertarians predict that charity's voluntary essence will be undermined by federal pottage.

Given that the history of religion as a politicized force can be encompassed under these same problematic headings of state establishment, censorship, and corruption, it's plainly a good idea to pay heed to such latter-day Jeremiahs. To join faith to taxes more intimately than is now the case is to matchmake a marriage you wouldn't want next door.

In fact, we already have such a noisy union to deal with. What conservatives want to do to religious altruism, a matter of fundamental meaning to them, is not unlike what liberals have already done to one of their own favorite enterprises: culture-making. Yet the liberal project of joining state largess to culture has hardly been a success. It has proved baneful, but not because of any predictable issues of federal power. The state has not attempted to impose its taste on the populace, or necessarily tried to subvert or censor anyone (though some cases may be arguable). Given the small amounts of money involved, it hasn't even overtaxed anyone on culture's behalf. Rather, the effect of joining culture and taxes has been to distort culture's social role, and ultimately to belittle its stature.

Why has the state proved such a lousy arts patron? Because it suffers the liberal democratic delusion that it can do good while avoiding risk. Champions of state support for culture understand the arts as an ennobling, uplifting enterprise. Assemble persons of appropriate taste to parcel out tax money to deserving creators, they argue, and the general result will be a benefit to all. Art, in other words, is good for us.

In fact, much state support for the arts is not especially controversial. But some is, and that's where all the public attention is directed. Urinate on stage under an arts grant, use tax money to hang photographs of gentlemen with bullwhips in their anuses, or display likenesses of sacred figures fashioned from elephant shit, and you are likely to make the papers, offend people whose money you are using, and...