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PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
MI
MANHATTAN INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH
MI
MANHATTAN INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH
52 Vanderbilt Avenue
New York. NY 10017
Phone: 212.599.7000
Fax 212.599.3494
PHOTOCOPY
e-mail: [email protected]
PRESERVATION
www.manhattan-institute.org
.
C i
CENTER FOR CIVIC INNOVATION
-
Henry Olsen, Executive Director
Center for Civic Innovation
at the Manhattan Institute
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Phone: 212-599-7000 Fax: 212-599-3494
[email protected]
www.manhattan-institute.org
The Wall Street Journal
Friday, November 20, 1998
Civil Society's Paramedics
With all the "mm-hmms" and "he's
the Republican mayor of Indianapolis,
rights" humming around the room last
pointed out: "The government had a mo-
week, the normally staid University Club
nopoly on good deeds for too long and
in midtown Manhattan seemed at times as
pushed out a lot of local initiative."
much a gospel meeting as an academic
Asked whether he finds himself on a
caucus. But then, that's the point.
church-state tightrope. Mayor Goldsmith
The event was convened by the Manhat-
stressed that there's a difference between
tan Institute, an urban think tank of mildly
the government "facilitating" religiously
libertarian bent, to look at whether reli-
affiliated programs and endorsing a par-
giously motivated groups have any more
ticular religion. But he also recalled a
luck than others in reaching out to urban
friend's counsel that "there are things that
kids. Church-based programs have been
are more dangerous to inner-city children
around for a long time, operating "beneath
than religion."
the radar screen of our liberal policy
And sometimes the church is the only
elites," said the Rev. Eugene Rivers. Only
functioning institution, civil or political.
recently have they begun to attract main-
That fact alone earns it the respect of the
stream attention.
community. to the point where ministers
The institute gave the proceedings a
take on a role of "provisional governance.'
double-entendre title: "Can Churches Save
In Camden, N.J., a city where four out
the Inner City?" Representing one view of
of five ZIP Codes are below the poverty
the issue was Mr. Rivers. He had been a
line, the Rev. Mark Aita is reading every
report card at his parochial school. It's
Houses of Worship
paying off. In a town where more than half
the kids drop out, 90% of his kids graduate.
"If we can just father and mother these
By Collin Levey
kids from sixth grade to college," he told
the conference audience. "they" going to
make it."
member of a street gang in Philadelphia un-
The church is a natural in this role, and
til he was saved "both my butt and my
there is plenty of room for secular appreci-
soul." as he has been heard to by a lo-
ation of the miracles being worked. David
cal street preacher. After doing time at Har-
Larson of the National Institute for Health-
vard and Yale, he took his mission to Dorch-
care, who is researching programs to com-
ester. one of the sketchiest neighborhoods
bat juvenile delinquency, confessed:
inBoston-preaching in crackhouses. orga-
"We're out to show that God does not make
nizing after-school programs and working
a difference, and we're having a really
with police to help defuse tensions.
hard time doing that." But he also cites the
"You have to be part Jesuit, part Ma-
old Garrison Keillor quip: "If you think
rine," Mr. Rivers said. His policy is zero
that by going to church you'll become a
tolerance for missteps by kids on his
Christian, go sit in your garage and you'll
watch. "We tell the children. 'we will send
become a car."
you to jail and ask the Lord to bless you on
His point is that not everyone who is
the way.'
helped by the church is necessarily reli-
But this occasion brought together so-
gious or ends up being converted. This may
cial scientists and grass-roots activists as
be just the thing to ease the minds of secu-
well as ministers, and even after hearing
lar do-gooders who worry about sponsoring
many "finding God" testimonials, some
faith-based programs. With corporate
participants still saw the initiatives as
foundations like Chase and Texaco on the
mostly about the community, not the
conference guest list. along with private
church. If the faith-based programs work,
groups like the Hearst Foundation, there
they say, it's because the pastor lives
was some quiet collection-plating going on.
around the corner, knows his neighbor-
Preaching to his makeshift congrega-
hood and can speak the language of the
tion at the University Club, former Rep.
people he's trying to help. Secular initia-
Floyd Flake now the pastor of a church in
tires are usually staffed with Ivy League
Queens-zeroed in on the bottom line. Re-
sociology majors bused in for a few hours a
gardless of the religious content of the pro-
week. What's needed is help every hour,
grams, "when corporations see you putting
every day. all year long "24-7, 365," as
your own money into your community." he
John Dilulio, a professor at Princeton and
said, "you don't have to go to them. They'll
authority on crime, put it.
come to you.
Despite good-natured disagreement,
pragmatism was the order of the day.
Ms. Lerey is " member of the Journal's
What works. works. As Stephen Goldsmith,
editorial page staff.
C
i
CENTER FOR CIVIC INNOVATION
AT THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH
Simply stated, the Center for Civic Innovation's purpose is to improve the quality of life in cities by
shaping public policy and by enriching public discourse on urban issues.
To extend, formalize and strengthen its relationship with the country's urban leaders, the Center has brought
together a bipartisan group of mayors who have achieved dramatic changes and improvements in their
cities. Their efforts are focusing on moving municipal governments away from dependence on state and
federal subsidies toward more self-help and competitive approaches of governing. The Center has also
brought some of the nation's foremost intellectual talents under one roof to develop a new generation of
public policy prescriptions tailored to the needs of urban areas.
A major focus of the Center looks at the efforts of black and Hispanic ministers to rebuild civil society in
our nation's cities. This effort, named The Jeremiah Project, includes work to study, assist, and popularize
the important progress these inner-city ministers are achieving with at-risk populations.
Leading this work is Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow John Dilulio. John is a nationally renowned crimi-
nologist who has recently redirected his talents to the study of inner-city urban ministries. Though too
often ignored by politicians and the mainstream press, he has found that churches play a unique role as
service providers in at-risk inner-city communities.
CCI's Chairman is Indianapolis' Mayor Stephen Goldsmith. During his tenure, Goldsmith has reduced
government spending every year in office, cut the city's bureaucracy, held the line on taxes, eliminated
counterproductive regulations, and identified more than $400 million in savings. He has reinvested these
savings by putting more police officers on the street and implementing a $700 million infrastructure im-
provement program. His book, The Twenty-First Century City: Resurrecting Urban America, (Regnery
Publishing, Inc., 1997) chronicles Goldsmith's experiences reforming city government and provides a
blueprint for urban leaders while articulating the range of policies that CCI advocates.
CCI's Executive Director is Henry Olsen. Prior to his current role, Mr. Olsen served as President of the
Commonwealth Foundation and was a lawyer in private practice.
CAN CHURCHES SAVE THE INNER CITY?
A LOOK AT FAITH-BASED COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
November 13, 1998
The University Club
New York, New York
8:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.
Registration & Continental Breakfast
9:00 a.m. - 9:10 a.m.
Welcoming Remarks and Introduction of Keynote Speakers
Henry Olsen, Executive Director, Center for Civic Innovation
9:10 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
"The Jeremiah Project: Hope for Our Cities"
John Dilulio, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
9:30 a.m. - 9:50 a.m.
"Government and Ministers in Partnership: The Indianapolis Example"
Mayor Stephen Goldsmith
9:50 a.m. - 10:50 a.m.
Religious Belief and Activity among Urban Residents: Salvation for our Cities?
Moderator: Midge Decter, Author and Editor
Panelists: John Dilulio, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School,
Princeton University
"The Extent, Efficacy and Capacity of Faith-Based Approaches to Urban Problems"
David Larson, M.D., President, National Institute for Healthcare Research
Byron Johnson, Ph. D., Director, Center for Crime and Justice Policy
Summary of the Research on the Efficacy of Faith-Based Factors
Gary Walker, President, Public/Private Ventures
Discussion of 30 Years of Research on Youth and Community Development and Mentoring
10:50 a.m. - 11:05 a.m.
Coffee Break
11:05 a.m. - 12:05 p.m.
Faith-Based Activity That Works: A View from the Trenches
Moderator: Father Richard John Neuhaus, Editor-In-Chief, First Things
Panelists: Father Mark Aita, Holy Name of Camden/JUST
Rev. Gene Rivers, Pastor, Azusa Christian Community
Featured for his work in Boston by Newsweek magazine
Rev. Rivers will discuss his work in reducing juvenile crime and delinquency
Tom Lewis, The Fishing School Ministry
Will discuss his successful after-school program in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Luis Lugo, Director, Religion Program, Pew Charitable Trusts
Will discuss Pew's Urban and Hispanic Ministry Program
12:05 p.m. - 12:35 p.m.
Reception
12:35 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Lunch and Featured Speaker
Introduction: Henry Olsen, Executive Director, Center For Civic Innovation
"Urban Ministers and Their Communities: A View from the Pulpit"
Rev. Dr. Floyd Flake, Fmr. Cong. (D-NY); Senior Pastor, Allen AME Church, Queens NY
The Manhattan Institute
52 Vanderbilt Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10017
Phone: 212-599-7000
Fax: 212-599-3494
E-mail: [email protected]
The Jeremiah Project
An Initiative of the Center for Civic Innovation
Religion: The Forgotten
Factor In Cutting Youth Crime
and Saving
At-Risk Urban Youth
Report 98-2
By
David B. Larson, M.D., M.S.P.H.
President, National Institute for Healthcare Research
and
Adjunct Professor, Duke University Medical Center
And
Byron R. Johnson, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Crime and Justice Policy
and
Senior Fellow, Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
Introduction by
John J. Dilulio, Jr.,
Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute
Director, The Jeremiah Project
C
i
CENTER FOR CIVIC INNOVATION
AT THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH
Promote the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you;
pray for it to the Lord, for upon its welfare depends your own (Jeremiah 29:7).
The Jeremiah Project
Begun in 1998, The Jeremiah Project (TJP) of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Civic Innova-
tion (CCI) is dedicated to identifying, documenting, publicizing, and funding outstanding examples
of faith-based programs that help inner-city youth and young adults to avoid violence, achieve
literacy, and access jobs while resurrecting hope and opportunity in America's most distressed
urban neighborhoods.
John Dilulio, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and Professor at Princeton University,
directs TJP. He began his "faith factor" line of research in 1994. In 1996 he founded Public/Private
Ventures' Partnership for Research on Religion and At-Risk Youth, and developed the Partnership's
national research agenda on faith-based approaches to youth and community development. Known
widely for his work on crime, social policy, and government reform, he predicts that by the year
2006, America will be home to 30 million teenagers, the highest number since 1975. Much of the
increase in the nation's youth population, he stresses, is occurring in "forgotten urban neighbor-
hoods with high rates of child abuse and neglect, poverty, crime, illiteracy, and chronic unemploy-
ment
Where secular mentoring and conventional social services programs for severely at-risk
inner-city youth and young adults normally end, faith-based programs often begin.
Not all
churches do it, and churches certainly can't do it all alone. But there's good news. From pre-
schools to prisons, religion works, and adequately supported outreach ministries-the clergy and
other religious paramedics of inner-city America's civil society-can save lives and offer a better
chance in life to those whom the Bible call the 'least of these.' We will need, however, to learn more
about the extent, efficacy, and capacity of faith-based efforts, and the general conditions under
which they succeed. We need not only research but a willingness-here and now-to help proven
urban outreach ministers to meet their unmet everyday needs, from money for fixing a broken pipe
in a church basement where an after-school latchkey learning ministry runs, to help writhing a grant
proposal, to brokering positive connections with other local institutions The bottom line is lever-
aging the 'spiritual capital' of inner-city ministries into more children who are safe, literate, job-
ready-and loved."
Others affiliated with the Institute who have roles in TJP include Reverend Floyd Flake, CCI Di-
rector Henry Olsen, and the Editor of City Journal, Myron Magnet. With Institute President Lawrence
Mone, Professor Dilulio co-directs The Jeremiah Funds (TJF) which in just six months provided
over $100,000 in support for specific unmet needs of outreach ministries and religious schools in
Boston, New York, Camden, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The Institute invites support for
both TJP and TJF.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1
Section I
5
Religiosity and Youth Crime
5
Systematic Reviews of Research
5
Methodology
6
Results
9
Conclusion
11
References
13
Appendix A
15
Section II
18
Religiosity and At-Risk Urban Youth
18
Escaping from the Crime of Inner-Cities:
18
Religiosity and Young Black Males
Conclusions
20
Black Churches and Youth Outreach
22
Conclusions
24
Religion and Youth
25
Findings
26
Discussion and Conclusion
28
Endnotes
29
INTRODUCTION
Religion Reduces Deviance
John J. Dilulio, Jr.
My friend and occasional co-author Dr. William J. Bennett has half-jokingly defined social
science as "the elaborate demonstration of the obvious by methods that are obscure." To some readers,
this report may justify that definition. Do we really need social science to "prove" that religion reduces
many forms of deviance, including but not limited to crime and delinquency and other problems that
are highly concentrated among inner-city youth?
Yes, we do, and for a host of reasons. First, in every major field of intellectual endeavor,
including social science and criminology, the expert consensus has been that religion has either no
effect on human behavior and social outcomes - indeed, most research on social problems omits any
measure of religion as either an explanatory or a control variable - faith is indeed "the forgotten factor"
- or a net negative effect on human behavior and social outcomes.
Essentially, the dominant theory has been that religiosity (almost universally assumed to be
highly correlated with low intelligence and less than average formal education) probably conditions
people to be more rather than less prone to poor physical and mental health outcomes, and no less likely
to commit deviant, delinquent or criminal acts.
Second, even if one accepts that religion probably reduces deviance, it is important to know
both the conditions under which this relationship holds and how robust the relationship is over time.
For example, does "religion" as in mere church-going have any effect? Does it have the same effect as
church going in concert with daily prayer or other behavioral manifestations of religiosity? Other
things held equal, does exposure to faith-based programs among unchurched children have the same
effect on deviance as church going among otherwise comparable young persons? Do prisoners ex-
posed to Bible studies commit fewer crimes after release than otherwise comparable prisoners do one
year out of prison? Two years? More?
Third, for the last three decades, most major social programs, especially those supported with
government monies, have been developed, institutionalized, and funded without much in the way of
research indicating they might actually work or the conditions under which they might eventually
succeed. In areas from teen pregnancy to teen illiteracy, youth crime to welfare dependency, child
abuse to substance abuse, Americans have paid a terrible price for this triumph of ideological advocacy
over empirical analysis, policy-pushing dogma over policy-relevant data. That a generation of social
engineers "got away with it" is all the more reason for persons interested in faith-based approaches to
avoid, not repeat, the mistake. We should proceed enthusiastically but realistically, inductively, and
incrementally, always with genuine openness to whatever serious social science, obscure methods and
all, can tell us about the efficacy (or lack thereof) of churches and religious non-profits in relation to
avoiding violence, achieving literacy, promoting employment, and achieving other desirable secular
social goals among disadvantaged urban youth and young adults.
There is also a fourth reason to pursue faith-factor efficacy research, both statistical (as in the
present paper) and field-based (as in other work of The Jeremiah Project), namely, the religiosity of
1
most Americans, the majority's belief in the efficacy of faith-based approaches in a day when "decline
of morals, values" consistently tops the list of major public concerns.
From the famous nineteenth-century observations of Alexis de Tocqueville to the latest find-
ings of survey researchers and social scientists, it is abundantly clear that Americans have been, and
continue to be, a religious people. "The United States," observes George Gallup, Jr., "is one of the
most devout nations of the entire industrialized world, in terms of religious beliefs and practices."
Belief in God remains the norm in America, with levels of belief ranging between 94 percent and 99
percent over the past five decades. Claims of membership in a church, synagogue or similar place of
worship have ranged from a high of 75 percent in 1947 to a low of 65 percent in 1988 and 1990.
Black Americans are in many ways the most religious people in America. Some 82 percent of
blacks (versus 67 percent of whites) are church members; 92 percent of blacks (versus 55 percent of
whites) say that religion is "very important in their life;" and 86 percent of blacks (versus 60 percent of
whites) believe that religion "can answer all or most of today's problems."²
All reports of the death of organized religion and religious sentiment in America have been
greatly exaggerated. Since the end of the Second World War, we have witnessed what Roger Finke
and Rodney Clark have aptly described as the "churching of America," resulting by the mid-1990s in a
nation with an estimated half a million churches, temples, and mosques, 2,000 or more religious de-
nominations, and an unknown number of independent churches.³ In 1995, Gallup's Religion Index, an
on-going measurement of eight key religious beliefs and practices of the American public, hit a ten-
year high.4 That same year, Nobel economist Robert W. Fogel of the University of Chicago speculated
that the United States was in the midst of "its Fourth Great Awakening," a "new religious revival
fueled by a revulsion with the corruptions of contemporary society."⁵
Great Awakening or not, public laws have grown more faith-friendly. For example, the federal
government's latest welfare reform overhaul measure, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportu-
nities Reconciliation Act of 1996, contains Section 104, the so-called Charitable Choice provision,
which encourages states to utilize "faith-based organizations in serving the poor and needy," requires
that religious organizations be permitted to receive contracts, vouchers, and other government funding
on the same basis as any other non-governmental provider, and "protects the religious integrity and
character of faith-based organizations that are willing to accept government funds."6 As enacted in
1996, Charitable Choice covers each of the major federal anti-poverty and social welfare programs
(Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income and Food Stamps).
Congressional efforts begun in 1998 could eventually expand its scope to juvenile justice programs and
other federal policy domains. Many states, most notably Texas, have moved aggressively to reorient
their anti-poverty programs around Charitable Choice and kindred state laws favoring church-state
cooperation.⁷
Philanthropy, too, has been gradually tilting toward religion. Over the last few years, many
foundations have either launched new grant-making initiatives focused on religion, increased their
support for research on religion, or increased grants for technical or direct financial assistance to com-
munity-serving ministries. For example, in 1996 three foundations with long-standing programs in
religion, Lilly, Pew, and Irvine, made record religion grants of $60 million, $13 million, and $7.7
million, respectively. In 1997, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation made its 800th $25,000 grant to
its "Faith in Action" program, which mobilizes interfaith networks of religious volunteers to serve
2
some 200,000 elderly and disabled Americans. The program's director describes it as "the first mega
program undertaken" by the foundation, and "the largest program" in the foundation's history.⁸
It is hardly surprising that networks of interfaith volunteers are the backbone of such a program.
As Father Andrew Greely has aptly summarized the evidence, research has consistently shown that
both "frequency of church attendance and membership in church organizations correlate strongly with
voluntary service. People who attend services once or more are approximately twice as likely to volun-
teer as those who attend rarely if ever."9 As Greely also notes, the best available data suggest that
religious organizations and "relationships related to their religion" are clearly the major forces in mo-
bilizing volunteers in America; even a third of purely secular volunteers (persons who did not volun-
teer for specifically religious activities) also relate their service "to the influence of a relationship based
on their religion.
What, if any, broader social consequences for blacks and other Americans flow from religiosity
and faith-based charitable, volunteer and community-service work? In social science terms, what, if
any, data are there to indicate that, other things being equal, religious belief, church-going, community-
serving ministry, or some combination thereof, varies inversely with poverty, joblessness, crime, sub-
stance abuse, or other social ills? In plain English, is there any scientific evidence to show that reli-
gious do-gooding does any good, or to justify the faith of most black Americans that religion can
"answer all or most of today's problems"?
Over the last several years, journalists seem to have become more interested in this question.
For example, Newsweek magazine wrote a cover story on the inner-city ministry of Boston's Rev.
Eugene Rivers, "God V. Gangs," following stories on the same ministry by a diverse set of writers,
including Joe Klein of The New Yorker and columnists George Will of The Washington Post, Bob
Herbert of The New York Times, and several others. In each case, they credited the ministry with
working cooperatively with police and probation officials, working one-on-one with the city's most
severely at-risk youngsters, and thereby helping to engineer a dramatic drop in youth crime and the
virtual elimination of gun-related homicides. Two months before the Newsweek story, Time magazine
featured "In the Line of Fire," the tale of Brother Bill, a Catholic lay worker who "repeatedly walks into
gunfire to stop the shooting - and love the unloved."¹¹ Two years earlier, the cover of U.S. News &
World Report asked "Can Churches Cure America's Social Ills?," and the story answered largely in the
affirmative.
12
While such "faith factor" journalism is out ahead of the empirical research on religion and
social action, it is hardly pure hype. As UCLA's James Q. Wilson has succinctly summarized the small
but not insignificant body of credible evidence to date, "Religion, independent of social class, reduces
deviance. "13
Exhibit A is the present report, summarizing the latest research of David Larson, the medical
research scientist who pioneered the development of the scientific "faith factor" research on public
health outcomes (physical health, mental health, addictions) that led to new training programs at Harvard
and three dozen other medical schools. 14 With criminologist Byron Johnson, Larson has reviewed
some four hundred juvenile delinquency studies published between 1980 and 1997. They have found
that the better the study design and measurement methodology, the greater the likelihood the research
will produce statistically significant results associated with "the faith factor." In other words, the more
3
scientific the study, the more optimistic are its findings about the extent to which religion reduces
deviance.
This conclusion squares with the results of another major review of the relevant research litera-
ture as it pertains to adult criminals: "Our research confirms that the religiosity and crime relationship
for adults is neither spurious nor contingent
[R]eligion, as indicated by religious activities, had
direct personal effects on adult criminality as measured by a broad range of criminal acts. Further, the
relationship held even with the introduction of secular controls."¹ In other words, "religion matters"
in reducing adult crime, too.
But in relation to black inner-city poverty and related social ills, perhaps the single most illus-
trative line of "religion reduces deviance" research begins with a 1985 study by Harvard economist
Richard Freeman, runs through Larson's work, and continues through the community development,
mentoring, and "faith-factor" research of analysts with Public/Private Ventures, a Philadelphia-based
national nonprofit youth policy research organization, and the Manhattan Institute's Jeremiah Project.
In 1985, Freeman reported that church-going, independent of other factors, made young black
males from high-poverty neighborhoods substantially more likely to "escape" poverty, crime, and other
social ills. 16 In this analysis and extension of Freeman's work, Larson and Johnson mine national
longitudinal data on urban black youth and find that, using a more multi-dimensional measure of reli-
gious commitment than church-going, religion is indeed a powerful predictor of "escaping" poverty,
crime, and other social ills, more powerful even than such variables as peer influences.
Like Freeman, Larson and Johnson conjecture that the potential of church-going and other
religious influences to improve the life prospects of poor black urban youth is in part a function of how
church-going and other "faith-factors" influence how young people spend their time, the extent of their
engagement in positive structured activities, and the degree to which they are supported by responsible
adults.
Larson and Johnson's report on the "forgotten factor" is organized into two main sections.
Section one, "Religiosity and Youth Crime," previews the findings of a research paper in which they
examine the findings of virtually all extant scientific studies of the relationship between religiosity and
delinquency in the United States. Section two, "Religiosity and At-Risk Urban Youth," extends the
aforementioned work of Freeman and mines national data on religiosity and young black urban makes,
black church youth and community outreach efforts, and a nationally representative sample of youth.
The bottom line of their research is that religion reduces deviance under a wide range of condi-
tions and for diverse populations of youth and young adults. Their work is, as it were, hardly the final
word about the social efficacy of religious belief, but it speaks powerfully to the need for researchers
and others to start remembering the faith factor and to take religion as an ally in repairing lives, saving
children, and resurrecting the civil society of inner-city America. The Manhattan Institute's Center for
Civic Innovation and Jeremiah Project are grateful to the authors and pleased to have sponsored this
paper and publicized their findings.
John J. Dilulio, Jr.
Senior Fellow, The Manhattan Institute
Director, The Jeremiah Project
4
Section I
Religiosity and Youth Crime17
The relationship between religiosity and delinquency has been an area lacking research review,
study, and explanatory consensus in the research literature (Evans et al., 1995; Johnson, 1987; Title and
Welch, 1983). While some studies have found a strong negative or beneficial relationship between
religion and delinquency (Benda, 1995; Brownfield and Sorenson 1991; Tittle and Welch, 1983), oth-
ers have suggested that religion has only a weak or insignificant effect on delinquency (Cochran, Wood,
and Arneklev, 1994). Another issue of equal importance but often overlooked in researching the rela-
tionship between religion and delinquency is how well religiosity or religious commitment is mea-
sured. To provide an accurate and unbiased summary of the research on religion and delinquency, a
review method is needed that is systematic yet sufficiently flexible to encompass and review a wide
range of studies using diverse methodologies as well as using different measures of religion.
Systematic Reviews of Research
An innovative review strategy called a systematic review (SR) uses a method that permits a
quantitative, or replicable, review of a specific research literature. In this way, the SR minimizes the
opportunity for bias found in more traditional research review approaches. In this approach, key as-
pects of the review design are quantified, including inclusion and exclusion criteria regarding the pub-
lished studies, or the study "subjects" to be sampled, the method for analyzing the methodologies of
each study sampled, determining and specifying interrater reliabilities, and finally, summing the re-
sults across all reviewed studies. Results can be simply presented and understood as numeric items.
Thus, the review and its results, like any good research protocol, are replicable. In areas of controversy
such as the study of religion, replication of a literature review should be an available option.
The SR surveys a specified sample of representative research usually over a certain specified
time period, reviewing and evaluating the field's leading, or "tenure-granting," journals (Bareta, Larson,
Zorc, & Lyons, 1990; Beardsley et al., 1989; Larson, Lyons, Hohmann, et al., 1989; Lyons et al.,
1990). These leading journals are often those most frequently cited and thus often define or at least
provide the lead for clarifying the state of research in a certain field. In addition, the SR can sample
various types of studies with diverse samples and different research methodologies as long as they all
have the study factor of interest (e.g. religiosity) in common.
Like another type of analytic review method, or meta-analyses, systematic reviews are objec-
tive, with reported interrater reliabilities generally above 0.90. A clear advantage of SRs is that, like
meta-analyses, the review method and thus the study (i.e. review) findings can be replicated. There-
fore, the systematic review represents an objective, accurate method for reviewing within a particular
scientific literature how a specific and potentially controversial factor like religion is handled both in
terms of frequency of study and quality of study. One of the authors and numerous collegues have
pioneered a series of studies using the SR methodology to gain insights on religion, beginning with
another field that has shown some difficulty in handling and measuring religion - psychiatry (Larson
1993; Larson et al., 1986; Larson et al., 1989; Larson et al., 1992; Larson and Larson 1994). In this
effort, our goal was to follow-up on previous systematic reviews by using this innovative strategy to
review and critique the state of research on religiosity and juvenile delinquency.
5
Methodology
Article Selection
The study population of interest for the present SR is a specified group of study publications
rather than a population of individuals. Our population consists of journal articles that examined the
effect of religion on juvenile delinquency published from January of 1980 to December 1997. By
utilizing an online library database, we searched for published research, or quantified articles (i.e. not
commentaries or reviews) with key terms: religion, spirituality, church, delinquency and matched these
terms with deviant behavior, deviance, or delinquency. After identifying articles utilizing the database,
we then checked the references of each article to determine if additional articles could be identified. In
the current study, we reviewed peer-reviewed journals in relevant study fields (i.e. addiction, adoles-
cence, criminology, psychology, sociology) because the leading journals in criminology published
very few studies on religion and delinquency.
To be selected to our sample for systematic review, an article must have met the
following criteria:
1. Contained at least one quantified variable of any kind. A quantified variable was defined as
one about which data were collected for a group of subjects. The sample primarily consisted of
juveniles under the age of 18, although some studies looked at young adults up to age 20.
2. Published in a peer-reviewed journal in the United States between January 1980 and De-
cember 1997.
3. Used a sample collected from the USA. Studies using international and cross-
national samples are excluded.
4. Analyzed both religiosity and juvenile delinquency measures.
All total, we located 402 articles that quantitatively studied an aspect of delinquency and were
published between January, 1980 and December 1997. Each of the 402 studies was read independently
by two different reviewers to determine how many of the studies contained any measures of religion or
religious variables. Forty articles, or approximately 10 percent out of the pool of 402 studies examined
the relationship between religiosity and juvenile delinquency (see Appendix A). The focus of the
current systematic review, as with previous SRs, was to systematically examine these 40 studies, not
the remaining studies that did not include religious variables. Our sample of forty articles provides us
with the opportunity to assess how well religion was treated in relevant peer-reviewed journals in a
very recent eighteen year time period.
Characteristics of the Study Sample
The average sample size of the forty studies reviewed was 2,324, with a maximum sample size
of 34,129 and minimum sample size at 123. Only five of the forty studies used samples smaller than
300 and ten studies had samples smaller than 500. None of the studies used a small group sample-a
sample smaller than 50. The samples studied in these published articles varied in scope and type.
Eighteen studies, or 45 percent, used samples collected from a population within the boundaries of a
state. Sixteen, or 40 percent, of the studies were based on regional samples drawn from the populations
of two or more states. Only six, or 15 percent, of the studies used nationally representative samples.
6
There were also notable differences in sampling methods and sample response rates. The ma-
jority of the studies-(25 of 40), or 63 percent-failed to adopt a random sampling procedure. Four-
teen, or 35 percent, of the studies did not report sample response rates. Of those that specified sample
response rates, 14, or 35 percent, of the studies had response rates higher than 70 percent, nine, or 25
percent, of the studies had response rates between 50 percent and 70 percent, with three studies having
response rates smaller than 50 percent.
Quality of Research
Specific criteria were used to measure the quality of research methodology in the current sample
of articles that were systematically reviewed. These criteria were derived primarily from Cook and
Campbell's well known methodological text on quasi-experimental research (1979). Eleven items or
criteria are used to rate the methodology of the articles in the current SR: (1) no ambiguity about causal
inference; (2) the use of prospective data; (3) specification of response rate; (4) specification of missing
data; (5) specification of race of subjects; (6) specification of gender of subjects; (7) specification of
reliability of measures; (8) no mono-operation bias (refers to the use of multiple measures to represent
a particular possible cause or effect construct); (9) no mono-method bias (refers to the use of diverse
methods to collect data for operational representation of a construct); (10) use of multivariate statistics;
and (11) interpretation of statistical findings. These eleven items were chosen since they represent
basic criteria from which researchers are able to draw acceptable causal inference and to achieve opti-
mal reduction of measurement problems (Cook and Campbell, 1979). For coding purposes, the eleven
criteria are dichotomized thus facilitating the construction of an index that quantifies the quality of
research methodology. If a study includes or utilizes one of these eleven methodological procedures
(or criteria), it is coded one (1), while the absence of a procedure resulted in the coding of zero (0).
Measures of Religiosity
In parallel with a previous review (Larson et al., 1986), the focus of the present review is on the
measurement of religious variables and their evaluated relationship within the published delinquency
research. Studies were reviewed to determine whether they contained at least one quantified variable
of delinquency. Delinquency was defined as referring to any criminal, delinquent, or status offense
committed by a juvenile (and in several study instances by young adults). Studies were also reviewed
to determine whether they reported at least one quantified religious variable. This approach permits
comparison of occurrence, results and quality of the measure of religious variables with the delin-
quency variables.
Role of Religiosity Measures
The forty published articles in the sample were reviewed to determine the role assigned to the
religious variable or variables within each study. All of the study articles assessed religion as an
independent variable impacting other variables. As an independent variable, religion can be treated in
one of three ways: (1) a central explanatory variable, (2) a peripheral explanatory variable, or (3) a
covariate used for statistical control. We reviewed every article in our sample to determine how reli-
gious measures were treated by researchers over the recent eighteen years covered by the systematic
review.
7
Effect of Religiosity Measures
Each of the articles was also examined with a view toward identifying the relationship (if any)
of the religiosity measure upon the dependent variable of delinquency. Specifically, we were inter-
ested in identifying: (1) if the relationship between religiosity and delinquency was not specified; (2) if
there was no relationship between religiosity and delinquency; (3) if there was an inverse relationship
between religiosity and delinquency; (4) if there was a positive relationship; or (5) if there was a mixed
or reciprocal relationship between religiosity and delinquency.
Religiosity Measures
Six categories of religious measures were examined in the current SR:
(1) Attendance. As a straightforward measure, church or synagogue attendance has been found to be
one of the most commonly used single-item measures for religiosity; (2) Salience. Researchers some-
times incorporate measures of religious salience (e.g., importance of one's religion or God in one's
life) into studies. Such measures of religiosity can operate independently of other religiosity measures
which might for example focus on church attendance (see above) or prayer or Bible study (see below);
(3) Denomination. This particular variable refers to the denominational affiliation of the study subjects
(e.g. Catholic, Baptist, Jewish, Muslim, other, or no religious affiliation); (4) Prayer. This variable
typically refers to the degree to which one indicates that prayer is an active and/or meaningful part of
one's life; (5) Study of scripture. This measure usually refers to the frequency of reading or studying
sacred scriptures such as the Bible, Koran or Torah; And, finally, (6) Religious activities. Generally
refers to the recognition that an individual participates in various religious activities both inside and
outside of typical church settings.
Number of Research Items used to Measure Religiosity
Often times religiosity has been measured with a single-item like church attendance or level of
participation in various religious activities (e.g., small groups, study or mid-week meetings). In fact,
much of the previous research in the religiosity and delinquency area has used church attendance as the
sole measure of religiosity (see Evans et al, 1995; Johnson, 1987; Title and Welch, 1983).
A continuing concern among researchers deals specifically with the question of whether
religiosity is best measured as a unidimensional or multidimensional concept. And though we recog-
nize that single-item measures like church attendance remain a frequently used measure within the
literature, the frequent use does not make such a unidimensional assessment an acceptable research
practice. It is important to acknowledge that treating religion as a multidimensional concept should be
a more methodologically desirable goal (Gorsuch and McFarland 1972). Therefore, the current sys-
tematic review examined the forty published studies to determine how many research items were used
to measure religiosity. For example, we were interested in determining if church attendance only was
used (one factor) or if salience and prayer were both used (i.e. two factors). Or finally, if several
indicators were used to develop a multidimensional measure of religiosity (i.e. three factors, or four or
more factors).
Religiosity Measures and the Influence of Religiosity on Delinquency
One of the goals of the current study was to examine the differences in methodologies between
published studies of religiosity and delinquency and to assess if these differences influence researcher
8
findings in regard to the relationship between religiosity and delinquency. We first sought to identify
how religiosity was operationalized in the study sample (e.g. attendance, salience, prayer) and then to
determine the effect of religiosity measures on delinquency outcomes. A preferred approach would be
to analyze the effect size of each of these studies, whereby we are able to make comparisons between
the statistical levels of significance in each of these studies. The issue of effect size is an important
feature when examining any body of literature. However, the forty studies reviewed in our sample do
not all contain data necessary to compute statistical effect size that can be generalized across these
studies. As an alternative we computed crosstabulations to determine if the operationalization of reli-
giosity affects research outcomes. While this approach has limitations such as our inability to assess
levels of significance and the impact of sample size due to insufficient data, it does allow us to gain
important insights into how research on religiosity and delinquency may potentially be impacted by
research methodology.
Reliability of Religiosity Measures and the Effect of Religiosity on Delinquency
We also sought to determine whether studies that assessed reliability of religiosity measures
would generate results systematically different from those produced by the studies that did not admin-
ister reliability tests. Data collection was performed by two trained raters, who reviewed all 40 articles
independently.
Rater reliability was calculated as the percentage of agreement between the two raters for deci-
sions made independently about dimensions of religious measures, effect of religiosity, and quality of
research methodology. This reliability check allowed us to determine the degree to which these inde-
pendent reviewers reached similar conclusions after reading and coding the 40 studies. Interrater reli-
ability averaged 0.83 for all measures assessed. Interrater reliabilities for the separate variables were as
follows: quality of research methodology 0.75, dimensions of religious measures 0.83, and effect of
religiosity 0.91. In other words, the coding decisions of the independent reviews were very sufficiently
similar to warrant confidence in the reliability or consistency of our findings.
Results
Quality of Research
Examining a basic frequency distribution of the eleven items outlined on page seven reveals
that there were extreme high and low scores, indicating that this group of articles performed well
against some criteria but underperformed in some other areas. On the positive side, 85 percent of the
studies had no ambiguity about the causal order that they were intended to test (see item 1) and 92.5
percent of the studies used multivariate statistics to test the causal relationship (see item 10). On the
negative side, only 12.5 percent of the studies used prospective, longitudinal data, while the remaining
87.5 percent were all based on cross-sectional data (see item 2). Further, only five percent of the studies
controlled for mono-method bias (see item 9), and in only half of the articles were there test for the
reliability of the study's measurements (see item 7).
A composite measure of the quality of research methodology is computed by taking the average
of these individual items across all studies. The scale of this composite measure ranges from 0 to 1. The
40 articles as a whole had an average score of 0.59 on the quality index.
9
Religiosity Measures
The Role of Religiosity Measures
Of the 40 studies reviewed, 27 articles (67 %) treated religion as the central explanatory vari-
able. To assess religion as a key or central explanatory variable is somewhat unusual given past SRs.
Nine treated religion as a peripheral variable and four studies treated religion as a control variable.
The Effect of Religiosity Measures
The vast majority (75%) of studies reviewed revealed that religious measures consistently had
a negative, or beneficial, effect on delinquency, whereby higher levels of religiosity were associated
with inhibiting or reducing delinquency. Only one of the 40 studies found that religiosity had a posi-
tive impact on delinquency, whereby religiosity was associated with increases in delinquency. This
lone study, however, was one of the four studies that utilized religiosity as a control variable. The
remaining studies found that the effect of religion was either not significant or inconclusive depending
on its interaction with other variables.
Dimensions of Religiosity
Consistent with past systematic reviews of religious measures, salience and attendance were
the two most frequently used variables to measure religion (85 percent and 65 percent respectively).
Prayer was used to measure religiosity in 35 percent of the studies. Participation in religious activities
was utilized in 27.5 percent of the studies to measure religiosity, while denomination and Bible study
were both used in only 22.5 percent of the forty articles, respectively.
For the sample as a whole, only three studies took account of all six dimensions. Five out of the
forty studies included five dimensions and only one study examined four different dimensions. Thus,
15 of the 40 assessed four or more dimensions of religiosity. The majority of the studies (24 or 60%)
measured only 1 or 2 dimensions, usually religious participation and/or religious salience. Twenty-one
studies included measures of both religious participation and religious salience.
Number of Items used to Measure Religiosity
Although it has been suggested that it is preferable to use multiple questions or items to mea-
sure religion (Gorsuch and McFarland, 1972), most of the studies in our study sample failed to do so.
Less than half of the studies (19 of 40) used more than two items to assess or measure religiosity.
Slightly more than half of the articles (21 of 40) reviewed in the current study measured religiosity with
one or two items.
Dimensions of Religiosity and the Effects of Religiosity on Delinquency
Utilizing a crosstabulation analysis we examined the interaction between dimensions of religi-
osity and the effects of religiosity on delinquency. Of the nine studies that measured four or more
dimensions of religiosity, all nine found that religiosity had a negative or beneficial effect on delin-
quency. Among the 31 studies that measured three or fewer dimensions of religiosity, 21 (67.74%)
found that religiosity negatively affected delinquency, five (16.13%) found that religiosity had no
10
association with delinquency (an additional study did not specify an effect), three (9.67%) found inter-
active or mixed effects, and only one (3.13%) found a positive or detrimental effect between religiosity
and delinquency. A summary of these findings reveal that studies utilizing more religious dimensions
to measure religiosity were clearly more likely to demonstrate a negative, or beneficial, relationship
finding between religiosity and delinquency. Though a majority of the studies using three or fewer
dimensions to measure religiosity continued to indicate this negative relationship, the likelihood of
religiosity to have mixed effects or even positive or harmful effects only occurred in those studies
utilizing fewer dimensions of religiosity. Thus, the more religiosity is treated as a multidimensional
variable, the more likely researchers will find a negative, or beneficial, relationship between religiosity
and delinquency.
Reliability of Religiosity Measures and the Effect of Religiosity on Delinquency
Each of the studies in the sample was reviewed in order to determine if reliability tests had been
performed on the study's religiosity measures. Of particular interest was determining if those studies
that assessed the reliability of the religiosity measures generated results different from those produced
by the studies that did not administer reliability tests.
The 13 studies that assessed the reliability of their religious measures all found that religion had a
negative or beneficial effect on juvenile delinquency. In contrast, the 27 studies that did not administer
reliability tests yielded somewhat mixed results. Among those studies, 17 (62.96%) still found that
religion had a negative effect on delinquency, five (18.52%) found no effect, three (11.11%) found
mixed effect, one article (3.70%) found a positive or harmful effect, and in one last study, no effect was
specified. The SR results reveal that the studies using demonstrated reliable measures of religiosity are
more likely to find a negative or beneficial relationship between religiosity and juvenile delinquency
than those studies that failed to access the reliability of their measurement. In sum, studies which
included reliability measures reached a unanimous consensus that religiosity is inversely related to
delinquency, while those which failed to include reliability measures were not able to make such a
pervasive claim. Interestingly, the majority of those studies that did not administer reliability measures
still found the negative or beneficial relationship between religiosity and delinquency.
Conclusion
The current systematic review of the state of the art of religious measures in crime and delin-
quency research documented that the role of religiosity in explaining and understanding juvenile delin-
quency has been an overlooked factor in many studies. In fact, the present study found that only 10
percent of the quantitative delinquency studies in an eighteen year sample frame included religious
variables as either central, peripheral, or covariate measures. Since public opinion polls have consis-
tently shown for decades that a majority of Americans, particularly adolescents, indicate that religion is
an important part of their lives (Gallup and Bezilla, 1992), it is indeed intriguing that only 10 percent of
the 402 published delinquency studies located from 1980 to 1997 included religious measures. Of the
40 articles we systematically reviewed, only four included religiosity as a control variable. By so
frequently excluding, and, in particular, not controlling for religious measures, researchers may have
misspecified their theoretical models, especially if religiosity serves as a common cofounder to a target
relationship.
11
While there exist some good studies, research on religiosity and delinquency has often been
plagued with many methodological problems. The same remains in the recent studies, representing the
present, state of the art of the research. Many studies in our sample did not use random sampling, did
not use multiple indicators to control measurement errors, and did not test for the reliability of their
religious measures. Almost all of the studies had mono-method bias. In addition, very few studies
were based on longitudinal data.
The current review reminds us that research methodology can have an important effect on
research findings. Studies that adopted multiple indicators to measure religion consistently found that
religiosity was negatively related to delinquency. Likewise, studies that selected religious measures by
means of reliability tests also found that religion consistently had a negative effect on delinquency. In
contrast, studies that generated mixed findings regarding the impact of religiosity on delinquency did
not use multiple indicators and did not administer reliability tests. The results of the current review
suggest that the previously assumed "inconsistent findings" inconsistent findings regarding the role of
religion in explaining delinquency are due at least in part to different research strategies employed in
the state of the art sociological and criminological research. With improvement in measurement and
analytic methods, we should expect more consistent empirical results.
Finally, most of the studies we reviewed showed that religion had an inverse, or benefi-
cial, impact on delinquency. Notably, this was particularly true with the studies that demonstrated
higher quality of research methodology as discussed above. Survey research has long indicated that a
majority of American youth are exposed to religion early in their lives. As this systematic review
found, given such population prevalence, commitment to religious values and beliefs can have both an
immediate and a long-term impact on deviant or delinquent behavior. Religion is a large part of many
adolescents' lives, but it remains is a small part of the criminological research. Unless this disparity is
reconciled, researchers will limit unnecessarily their ability to understand this phenomena in delin-
quency research.
12
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the Research Show. Rockville, MD: The National Institute for Healthcare Research.
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13
Larson, D.B., E.M. Pattison, D.G. Blazer, A.R. Omran, and B.H. Kaplan. 1986. "Systematic Analysis
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14
Appendix A
Articles Comprising the Systematic Review:
January, 1980 - December, 1997
1. Barnes, G. M., Farrell, M. P., and Banerjee, S. (1994). Family influences on alcohol abuse and other
problem behaviors among black and white adolescents in a general population sample. Special issue:
preventing alcohol abuse among adolescents: preintervention and intervention research. Journal of
Research on Adolescence 4: 183-201.
2. Bahr, S. J., Hawks, R. D., and Wang, G. (1993). Family and religious influences on adolescent
substance abuse. Youth and Society 24: 443-465.
3. Benda B. B. (1997). An examination of a reciprocal relationship between religiosity and different
forms of delinquency with a theoretical model. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 34:
163-186.
4. Benda, B. B. (1994). Testing competing theoretical concepts: Adolescent alcohol consumption.
Deviant Behavior 15: 375-396.
5. Benda, B. B. (1995). The effect of religion on adolescent delinquency revisited. Journal of Re-
search in Crime and Delinquency 32: 446-466.
6. Benda, B. B., and Whiteside, L. (1995). Testing an integrated model of delinquency using LISREL.
Journal of Social Service Research 21: 1-32.
7. Bliss, S. K., and Crown, C. L. (1994). Concern for appropriateness, religiosity, and gender as pre-
dictors of alcohol and marijuana use. Social Behavior & Personality 22: 227-237.
8. Brownfield, D., and Sorenson, A. M. (1991). Religion and drug use among adolescents: A social
support conceptualization and interpretation. Deviant Behavior 12: 259-276.
9. Carlucci, K., Genova, J., and Rubackin, F. (1993). Effects of sex, religion, and amount of alcohol
consumption on self-reported drinking-related problem behaviors. Psychological Reports 72: 983-
987.
10. Chadwick, B. A., and Top, B. L. (1993). Religiosity and delinquency among LDS adolescents.
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 32: 51-67.
11. Cochran, J. K. (1989). Another look at delinquency and religiosity. Sociological Spectrum 9: 147-
162.
12. Cochran, J. K. (1988). The effect of religiosity on secular and ascetic deviance. Sociological Focus
21: 293-306.
15
13. Cochran, J. K. (1993). The variable effects of religiosity and denomination on adolescent self-
reported alcohol use by beverage type. Journal of Drug Issues 23: 479-491.
14. Cochran, J. K., and Akers, R. L. (1989). Beyond hellfire: An exploration of the variable effects of
religiosity on adolescent marijuana and alcohol use. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency
26: 198-225.
15. Cochran, J. K., Wood, P. B., and Arneklev, B. J. (1994). Is the religiosity-delinquency relationship
spurious? A test of arousal and social control theories. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency
31: 92-123.
16. Donahue, M. J. (1995). Religion and the well-being of adolescents. Journal of Social Issues 51:
145-160
17. Dudley, R. L., Mutch, P. B., and Cruise, R. J. (1987). Religious factors and drug usage among
seventh-day adventist youth in north America. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 26: 218-233.
18. Ellis, L., Thompson, R. (1989). Relating religion, crime, arousal and boredom. Sociology and
Social Research 73: 132-139.
19. Engs, R. C., Diebold, B. A., and Hanson, D. J. (1996). The drinking patterns and problems of a
national sample of college students, 1994. Journal of Alcohol & Drug Education 41: 13-33.
20. Evans, T. D., Cullen, F. T., Burton, V.S., Dunaway, R. G. et al (1996). Religion, social bonds, and
delinquency. Deviant Behavior 17: 43-70.
21. Fernquist, R. M. (1995). A research note on the association between religion and delinquency.
Deviant Behavior 16: 169-175.
22. Free, M. D. (1991). Clarifying the relationship between the broken home and juvenile delinquency:
a critique of the current literature. Deviant Behavior 12: 109-167.
23. Free, M. D. (1994). Religiosity, religious conservatism, bonds to school, and juvenile delinquency
among three categories of drug users. Deviant Behavior 15: 151-170.
24. Free, M. D. (1992). Religious affiliation, religiosity, and impulsive and intentional deviance. So-
ciological Focus 25: 77-91.
25. Free, M. D. (1993). Stages of drug use: A social control perspective. Youth and Society 25: 251-
271.
26. Hardert, R. A., and Dowd, T.J. (1994). Alcohol and marijuana use among high school and college
students in Phoenix, Arizona: A test of Kandel's socialization theory. International Journal of the
Addictions 29: 887-912.
27. Hawks, R. D., Bahr, S. J., and Wang, G. (1994). Adolescent substance use and codependence.
Journal of Studies on Alcohol 55: 261-268.
16
28. Humphrey, J. A., Leslie, P., and Brittain, J. (1989). Religious participation, southern university
women, and abstinence. Deviant Behavior 10: 145-155.
29. Ingram, A. L. (1993). Type of place, urbanism, and delinquency: further testing the determinist
theory. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 30: 192-212.
30. Johnson, R. E., Marcos, A. C., and Bahr, S. J. (1987). The role of peers in the complex etiology of
adolescent drug use. Criminology 25: 323-340.
31. Mitchell, J., Dodder, R. A., and Norris, T.D. (1990). Neutralization and delinquency: A compari-
son by sex and ethnicity. Adolescence 98: 487-497.
32. Nagin, D. S., and Paternoster R. (1991). On the relationship of past to future participation in
delinquency. Criminology 29: 163-189.
33. Peek, C. W., Curry, E. W., and Chalfant, H. P. (1985). Religiosity and delinquency over time:
Deviance deterrence and deviance amplification. Social Science Quarterly 66: 120-131.
34. Perkins, H. W. (1987). Parental religion and alcohol use problems as intergenerational predictors
of problem drinking among college youth. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 26: 340-357.
35. Ross, L. E. (1994). Religion and deviance: Exploring the impact of social control elements. Socio-
logical Spectrum 14: 65-86.
36. Sloane, D. M., and Potvin, R. H. (1986). Religion and delinquency: Cutting through the maze.
Social Forces 65: 87-105.
37. Stark, R. (1996). Religion as context: hellfire and delinquency one more time. Sociology of Reli-
gion 57: 163-73.
38. Walsh, A. (1995). Parental attachment, drug use, and facultative sexual strategies. Social Biology
42: 95-107.
39. Yarnold, B. M., Patterson, V. (1995). Factors correlated with adolescents' use of crack in public
schools. Psychological Reports 76: 467-474.
40. Zimmerman, M. A., and Maton, K.I. (1992). Life-style and substance use among male African-
American urban adolescents: A cluster analytic approach. American Journal of Community Psychol-
ogy 20: 121-137.
17
Section II
Religiosity and At-Risk Urban Youth
In Section I we systematically reviewed the recent religiosity and delinquency research and
summarized a number of methodological shortcomings present in many of these studies. In Section II
of this paper we present in summary fashion the research results from three forthcoming studies which
offer important theoretical and methodological improvements to the research publications systemati-
cally reviewed in Section I.
Religiosity and Young Black Males
In the first study we examine the efficacy of churchgoing to help young black males residing in
poverty tracts in Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, to escape criminal and delinquent activity so often
associated with at-risk youth living in urban communities. Drawing upon relevant criminological
theories and utilizing hierarchical regression analysis, the findings confirm that churchgoing is signifi-
cantly associated with lower levels of crime and delinquency. This finding holds after controlling for
various demographic, family, and other social control variables, suggesting that churchgoing has its
own unique effect on crime prevention.
Black Churches and Youth Outreach
The second study builds upon the beneficial finding of churchgoing among young black males
in poverty tracts by examining the role of the African-American church to reduce delinquency among
black youth residing in urban communities in a national sample. Improving on earlier research by
incorporating a multidimensional measure of religiosity and utilizing a longitudinal study design, the
hierarchical regression models demonstrate that religiosity is significantly linked to reduced levels of
minor and general delinquency over time. The historical legacy of the African-American church as an
agency of social control is well documented in the sociology literature, but the current longitudinal
finding is the first to demonstrate its significance in reducing delinquency over time. Indeed, the
beneficial legacy of the African-American church is one that continues to the present.
Religiosity and Youth
The third study examines the indirect and directs effects of religiosity upon delinquency in a
nationally representative sample of youth in a longitudinal panel study. Religiosity, a multidimen-
sional variable, was found to have a positive direct effect on adolescent belief and a negative indirect,
or beneficial, effect on delinquency in three separate time periods. The effects of religiosity among
both white and black youth remain significant even after controlling for peer association, belief, and
other background variables. The results suggests that religiosity can influence current behaviors and
attitudes of youth, and thus can affect their involvement in delinquency.
Escaping from the Crime of Inner-Cities:
Religiosity and Young Black Males18
Sociologists and criminologists have often studied the propensity for crime or deviance among
at-risk adolescent groups in inner-cities, but the role of religious institutions has often been overlooked
18
or ignored (Larson 1993; Larson and Larson 1994). Freeman's (1986) finding of the importance of
churchgoing in helping inner-city black male youth escape from the world of poverty, drug use, and
crime is a rare, much needed research effort with substantial implications for criminological theory.
For example, the influence of religious belief in social learning as well as the role of the faith commu-
nity in enhancing social control, particularly in urban areas often typified by social disorganization and
decay is worthy of much more extensive study.
The present study is intended to extend and modify Freeman's economic model into one that
fits into a criminological framework, especially within the context of research on the effects of religios-
ity on youth deviance. The core hypothesis of the present study concerns whether a youth's church
attendance has any independent effect on delinquent behavior, especially among inner-city black youth.
Although church attendance might be found to have little or no significant direct effect on deviance, we
are still interested in identifying potential intervening variables between church attendance and devi-
ance.
Data from the National Bureau of Economic Research
The present study will be primarily focussed on reanalyzing data collected on inner-city black
youth by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a coalition of research economists inter-
ested in studying black youth joblessness in America. NBER researchers developed a survey (Survey
of Inner-City Black Youth) that made it possible to study the problems facing black youth including
delinquency, drug use, and school dropout. NBER researchers developed this survey as a response to
the perceived inadequacy of existing governmental data,²⁰ to study and understand the problem of
employment among American black youth in the inner-city.²¹
Measures of Delinquency
In the NBER data set, delinquency is measured on a dichotomous, or "yes - no," scale. The
respondents were asked whether or not they committed any of nine different illegal activities (played
street numbers or gambling; sold or fenced stolen goods; sold marijuana or other drugs; committed
burglary, larceny, or auto theft; shoplifted or stole from cars or trucks; committed muggings or purse
snatchings; committed robberies or stickups; cashed or forged stolen checks; run or been part of any
con games, swindles, or frauds) over the past 12 months. All nine of these activities can be determined
as serious offenses. Since we do not know the frequency of offenses and all the known offenses are
serious ones, we use a simple dichotomous variable to measure delinquency involvement. Respon-
dents who reported involvement in any of the offenses during the past 12 months are classified as
delinquents. Those who did not report any involvement are treated as non-delinquents.
Drug use in the NBER data is also measured on a dichotomous scale. Respondents were asked
whether they used marijuana or other drugs such as cocaine, heroin, barbiturates, amphetamines or
LSD at the time of the interview. Those who reported use of any drug are given the value of 1. Those
who did not report drug use are assigned the value of 0. Ideally, regular and habitual users should not
be distinguished from experimental users - those who use drugs four times or less (see Elliott, Huizinga,
and Menard, 1989).
Two measures of alcohol use are also introduced in the analysis. In the descriptive analysis, a
simple dichotomous measure is used to distinguish frequent users from nonusers and infrequent users.
19
Respondents who used alcoholic beverages every day or almost every day are given a value of 1.
Otherwise, they are given the value of 0. In the hierarchical regression analysis to follow, an index of
alcohol consumption was used to measure alcohol use in the NBER data. The index consists of three
items: frequency of drinking beer, frequency of drinking wine, and frequency of drinking hard liquor.
The reliability coefficient (α) for the three-item index is 0.731.
Hierarchical Models for the NBER Sample
We conducted a series of hierarchical regression analyses to test the relationship between reli-
giosity and delinquency. A hierarchical analysis allows us to adjust for different sources of study
impact or influence so that the net effect of religious commitment or religiosity on delinquency can be
determined. For each delinquency measure, we first examined the effects of religious measures on the
outcome. We then entered a set of background variables into the equation to test whether the impact of
religiosity on delinquency is spurious. Age, family structure, family size, welfare status, and illegal
opportunities have been shown in past research to correlate strongly with delinquency. Previous stud-
ies have also suggested that urban residence has an impact on the commission of illegal behavior. Two
dichotomous variables measuring urban residence (i.e., Boston and Chicago) were also entered into the
equation to control for this geographic effect.
The results indicate that church attendance: (1) has a direct inverse, or beneficial, impact on
delinquency, drug use, and alcohol use; and (2) has a positive influence on a juvenile's behavior net of
the impact of age, family structure, family size, urban residence, and illegal opportunities. Regular
attendance at religious services seems to produce many socially desirable outcomes, such as strong
attachment to education and stable job records. The results indicate that in addition to its direct effect
on delinquency, church attendance also indirectly reduces delinquency involvement by fostering stron-
ger social bonds, good peer relationships, and high involvement in productive social activities. Though
the inner-city may present the same challenges for all the kids who live in it, those who attend religious
services seem to have a much better chance to build strong attachment and commitment to conven-
tional values and activities such as the church and school, which in turn decreases their involvement in
delinquency.
In sum, these findings suggest that when it comes to church attendance, the less deviant behav-
ioral patterns among churchgoing inner-city black youth cannot be accounted for by either background
factors or social process variables (i.e., social bonding and social learning variables). These findings
provide evidence that church attendance itself has its own unique effect on deviance among inner-city
black youth. Further, the findings lend support to the notion that religiosity, as measured by church
attendance, appears to be a strong protective factor in insulating at-risk youth from the crime and
delinquency of inner-city poverty tracts.
Conclusions
We find that regular church attendance has a consistent direct impact on all three types of
deviance (i.e., illegal activities, drug use, and alcohol use) for those high-risk youth. This pattern
remains even after controlling for background and non-religious or secular bonding and learning vari-
ables. As expected, the effect of church attendance on deviance somewhat decreases when those vari-
ables are held constant, indicating that the effect is indirect as well as direct. However, the lower levels
of deviance reported by inner-city black male youth who are religiously committed could not be fully
20
explained by their stronger bond to family and school, more conventional peer networks, or higher
involvement in productive activities.
Thus, a policy implication from this finding would be to bolster weakened social control mecha-
nisms, such as the family, and to encourage utilization of other urban institutions, like churches, syna-
gogues, or mosques, whose ability to influence youth through informal means of social control remain
largely intact. Criminologists have historically focused on the school and family, paying little atten-
tion to religion when they address the etiology of deviance among at-risk urban youth whose chance to
escape from the substance abuse and crime of inner-cities is relatively low. Therefore, from a social
disorganization perspective for at-risk youth in poor urban environments, the church can be viewed as
a remnant of social organization amidst the otherwise disorganized and troubled areas so often found
in inner-cities.
One might also argue that participating in a church community is much of what leads to the
protective or beneficial influence of religion. From a life course perspective, it is the quality of rela-
tionships formed within the participation in that faith community (i.e., whether church, synagogue,
mosque, or temple) that is important. In this way, youth commitment to the church can be seen as
analogous to other life changing events such as employment or marriage, that research shows can help
shape in a pro-social or positive fashion, an individual's behavioral trajectory over the life course.
Further, churchgoing may play a key a role as a protective factor that insulates inner-city black
male youth from various forms of deviance. Church teachings in general, tend to run counter to various
forms and expressions of anti-social behavior such as that espoused by gangs. Therefore, social sup-
port networks and the influence of mentors provide what criminologists call "buffers" that help protect
otherwise vulnerable youth to the criminal and delinquent elements adversity of poverty tracts in the
inner-city. Indeed, if churchgoing matters and is a source of resiliency among youth, then we have a
basis for arguing that we need to support public and private policies that strengthen inner-city churches
and bring youth into these churches.
Finally, the authors believe these findings have both theoretical as well as policy implications.
First, this study adds to the small, but mounting, body of evidence already suggesting that religiosity is
a neglected, but relevant, variable in delinquency research. Second, the findings suggest that at a
minimum, religiosity is a variable with considerable relevance for social disorganization, life course,
and resilience perspectives. Additional research is needed which examines additional ways religiosity
may influence theories of social control as well as its unique contribution to pathways and turning
points in the life course. We need to know more about how religious commitment, religious practices,
religious institutions are linked to protective factors and the resiliency of youth in general, and specifi-
cally, youth from socially disorganized communities.
21
Black Churches and Youth Outreach²²
The historical significance of the African-American church as an agency of social control and
organization is well documented in the sociology literature (see for example: DuBois, 1898, 1903;
Frazier 1963; Lincoln, 1974; Lincoln and Mamiya, 1992; Mukenge, 1983; Nelsen, Yokley, and Nelsen,
1971; Paris, 1985; and J. Washington, 1964). However, one will search the criminological literature
with difficulty to locate empirical studies examining the role of the black church as agency of social
control with regard to crime and delinquency.
Therefore, the current study examines the significance of the African-American church in im-
pacting delinquency among black youth living in urban communities. Bursik and Grasmick (1993)
point out that local religious institutions such as churches or mosques can play an important role as the
agent of community socialization and informal social control. That is, the African-American church
can provide relational networks of community social organization for urban black youth living in envi-
ronments of structural disadvantages that have been shown to be predictors of adolescent deviance.
Urban communities are often characterized by various structural disadvantages, such as family
disruption and unemployment (Wilson 1987), which put youth who live in those communities at in-
creased risk of delinquency, especially criminal violence (Sampson 1987). However, it is also true and
should be underscored that many urban youth do not turn to delinquency as a result of living in disad-
vantaged communities. That is, there exists a significant proportion of children who develop through
adolescence without serious problems, such as juvenile delinquency, in the face of great adversity
during the early and formative years of life (e.g., Williams and Kornblum 1985). Often referred to as
"resilient youth," developmental criminologists have recently begun to focus on factors that not only
tend to protect at-risk youth from the risk factors associated with structural disadvantage, but help
provide an explanation of the significant within-group variation in delinquent involvement (Rutter
1985, 1988; Rutter and Giller 1983; Smith et al. 1995; Werner 1989; Werner and Smith 1992).
Identifying protective factors which may serve to buffer or shield at-risk children and adoles-
cents like urban black youth from negative behavioral outcomes (e.g. delinquency, drug use, school
dropout) has strong implications for delinquency prevention and intervention policy as well as impor-
tant theoretical implications. Though previous research has mostly focused on risk factors, resilience
research is far more promising in that it takes into consideration the contribution of often overlooked
protective factors. For example, social disorganization theory can be expanded by incorporating com-
munity-level protective factors like local religious institutions given that social organization and social
disorganization are conceptualized as opposite ends of the same continuum of systemic networks of
community social control (Bursik and Grasmick 1993; Elliott et al. 1996; Sampson and Wilson 1995).
Resilience researchers have begun to examine various sources of protective factors such as
family, school and peers (Smith et al. 1995), but like many other research fields (Larson 1993; Larson
and Larson 1994; Larson et al., 1997) have largely ignored religion though it has been shown to protect
children and adolescents from negative behavioral outcomes (Anthony and Cohler 1987; Gartner, Larson,
and Allen, 1991; Stark 1996). Criminological research on the effects of individual religiosity on ado-
lescent deviance also provides evidence that religious adolescents (e.g., those who regularly attend
church) are less likely than their non-religious peers (e.g., those who never or irregularly attend church)
to engage in deviance, especially what has been referred to as "ascetic" deviance like alcohol and drug
use (Benda and Corwyn 1997; Brownfield and Sorenson 1991; Burkett and Warren 1987; Cochran and
22
Akers 1989; Elifson et al. 1983; Evans et al. 1995; Higgins and Albrecht 1977; Johnson et al. 1997a,
1997b; Tittle and Welch 1983). What is relatively lacking, however, is research that investigates
whether individual religiosity protects at-risk adolescents such as urban youth from engaging in delin-
quency.
The present study defines individual religiosity as the extent to which an individual is commit-
ted to religion he or she professes and its teachings so that the individual's attitudes and behaviors
reflect such commitment. Applying this definition to the present study, urban black youth who are
religiously committed are expected to (1) more frequently attend religious services, (2) more often
participate in religious activities besides regular services, and (3) attribute more significance to religion
and religious activities in his or her life as compared to those who are less committed.
Measurement
This study incorporates four sets of variables, including: (1) measures of delinquency (divided
into three categories: minor delinquency, general delinquency, and serious delinquency); (2) an index
of religiosity (measured by four variables: frequency of attending religious services; time spent on
community-based religious activities during weekends; salience; and importance of involvement in
religious activities); (3) measures of social control and delinquent peer association; and (4) a set of
variables measuring demographic characteristics and family background.
Data come from Wave 3, Wave 4, and Wave 5 of the National Youth Survey (NYS), a multi-
wave panel survey based on a national probability sample. The survey started in 1977 with a sample of
1,725 youth ranging in age from 11 to 17. The survey items used in the NYS have been validated in
numerous refereed publications in criminology and sociology over the last decade.
Bivariate Analysis
Bivariate scatterplots between religiosity and delinquency demonstrated that most minor, gen-
eral, and serious delinquent acts were committed by juveniles who had low levels of religious commit-
ment. Those juveniles whose religiosity levels were in the middle to high levels committed very few
delinquent acts. However, to determine the actual impact of religiosity on the delinquency measures
we ran a series of multivariate models that allowed us to control the influence of any number of vari-
ables.
Hierarchical Regression Analysis
We ran three separate models to test the effect of religiosity on minor, general, and serious
delinquency when controlling for other explanatory variables in the model. In all three models, the
effects of religiosity, social bond, and peer association were assumed to have similar effects on this
group of individuals. This is a reasonable approach because the subjects of this study belonged to a
relatively homogenous group (i.e. urban black youth), compared to the general population.
Both hierarchical regression models with minor and general delinquency as the response vari-
ables indicated that religiosity had a negative effect on delinquency, controlling for social bond, asso-
ciation with delinquent peer, demographic characteristics and family background. In these models,
religiosity was one of only four variables (the others being age, gender, and belief in conventional
23
values) that were significantly related to minor and general delinquency.
The effect of religiosity on serious delinquency was small and non-significant. Our inability to
detect a significant relationship between religiosity and serious delinquency might be due at least in
part to the fact that very few respondents in the small sample we examined committed serious delin-
quency. Because serious delinquency is less prevalent than minor or general delinquency, a larger
sample is needed to accurately test the relationship between religiosity and serious delinquency.
Conclusions
Prior delinquency research has not examined the role of the African-American church as an
agency of local social control that might help black youth to be resilient to and thus resistant to delin-
quency. The present study examined a national sample of urban black youth to determine the relation-
ship of religious commitment to delinquency in urban areas.
Urban black youth tend to come from more disadvantaged backgrounds and report more in-
volvement in deviant as well as non-productive activities than other black or white youth. We have
found that higher levels of religiosity have a beneficial impact on lower levels of delinquency over
time. This pattern remains even after controlling for background and non-religious or secular bonding
and learning variables.
The present findings have theoretical, methodological, and policy implications. First, the cur-
rent findings provide evidence that religiosity can be seen as a relevant protective factor for urban
youth. As resilience researchers continue to pursue factors that may provide buffers from deviant
activities for at-risk youth, religiosity measures should clearly not be overlooked in such future studies.
Similarly, more research is needed which examines more closely what contribution religious variables
may make to our understanding of delinquency over the life-course.
Second, much of the prior research on religiosity has relied upon single-item measures of reli-
giosity rather than multidimensional measures. In the present study we have created an index of religi-
osity that consists of four observed variables that capture levels of religious participation as well as the
intensity of religious commitment. We believe that inadequate measurement and operationalization of
religiosity in previous research has contributed at least in part, to the mixed results so often referred to
in the literature. Further, utilizing longitudinal panel data allowed us to examine in a multilevel mod-
eling approach, the effects of religiosity over time, a feature that has been missing from the religiosity-
delinquency literature.
Third, the current study suggests that future delinquency prevention and intervention policies
that overlook the role of the African-American church in reducing delinquency among black youth in
urban areas will, at a minimum, be unnecessarily short-sighted. In the spirit of multidisciplinary and
multifaceted approaches to various social problems, it would seem that common sense, coupled with
empirical evidence, warrant the inclusion of the faith community in various partnership strategies to
fight urban delinquency. This is quite important given the prevalence of religious belief among Ameri-
can adolescents. Though more research is needed in this area, the current study provides important
nationally-relevant evidence that the African-American church can play a key role as an agency of
local social control in communities too often typified by disorganization and disadvantage.
24
Religion and Youth23
In this article we make the theoretical argument that religious commitment can be seen as
influencing the key processes of social learning: differential reinforcement, definitions, differential
association, and imitation. Drawing mainly upon Akers' social learning perspective, we outline sev-
eral hypotheses that lead us to expect direct as well as indirect effects of adolescent religiosity on
delinquency. The behavior of adolescents who are religiously committed is expected to be strength-
ened through: (1) the learning from religious beliefs that are opposed to deviant behavior; (2) being
exposed to religious as well as behavioral patterns that are pro-social (i.e. conventional or law-abid-
ing); and (3) modeling the behavior and attitudes of pro-social spiritual role models that youth like and/
or respect.
As outlined in Section I of this paper, prior research in the area of religiosity and delinquency
has a number of methodological shortcomings. One of these flaws is the failure to pay adequate atten-
tion to both indirect and direct effects of religious commitment variables in regard to various measures
of delinquency. For example, if religiosity is not found to be significantly related to delinquency in a
particular study, one cannot state that there is no relationship between these two variables. If, for
example, increasing religiosity is directly related to a variable called belief, and belief is directly re-
lated to delinquency, then the indirect relationship between religiosity and delinquency is indeed mea-
surable and important. Further, the sum total of all the indirect effects can be substantial in explaining
variance in the dependent variable even though there may not be a direct link between the two.
Data and Sample
This study examines the relationship between religiosity and delinquency using data from the
National Youth Survey. We selected data from Wave 3, Wave 4, and Wave 5 of the National Youth
Survey (NYS) since the data in each of these waves contains an identical list of variables that can be
used to assess both religiosity as well as delinquency. Because the variables we selected represent the
same attributes measured at different points of time, we can use them to test whether the same relation-
ships hold true across time. The NYS is a multi-wave panel survey based on a national probability
sample. The study started in 1977 with 1,725 youth aged 11 to 17. The sample originally selected was
representative of the total 11-year old through 17-year old youth population in the United States as
established by the U.S. Census Bureau (Elliot & Ageton, 1980).
Variables and Measurement
The same set of variables is used in all three waves. The variables are either composite mea-
sures or factors represented by several indicators. We deliberately incorporate latent variables into our
analysis to control for measurement errors, which are often unexamined in previous studies of religion
and crime (Tittle & Welch 1983; Burkett & Warren 1987). Failure to control measurement errors can
have serious consequences. One of these is inconsistency in parameter estimation, which can result in
either overestimation or underestimation of the population parameters (Bollen 1989:151-178). To
minimize the effects of measurement errors, most of the variables in our model are measured by mul-
tiple indicators.
Social bond elements proposed by Hirschi (1969), including attachment, commitment, involve-
ment, and belief, are often cited as important correlates of religion and crime (Brenda 1997; Burkett &
25
Warren 1987). Researchers argue that a strong social bond attenuates the effect of religion because the
restraining effect of religiosity may not be necessary when personal bond to family, school, and con-
ventional values is sufficiently strong (Cochran et al. 1994). Thus in addition to personal belief, we
controlled several additional measures of social bond, including attachment to parents and school and
commitment to conventional social activities, in a separate analysis. These social bond variables did
not have significant effects on the outcome variables. This finding is consistent with Agnew's (1991)
finding that social bond does not contribute significantly to the explanation of delinquency in the NYS
data. Therefore, based on our preliminary analysis and previous literature, we eliminated the measures
of attachment and commitment from the model.
Two sets of causal effects are specified in the study. The first set of effects consists of contem-
poraneous effects among the variables in the same wave. Consistent with our hypothesis, religiosity is
proposed to have direct effects on delinquent attitudes, delinquent peer associations, and delinquency.
Delinquent attitudes are expected to have direct effects on delinquent peer associations and delin-
quency. Finally, delinquent peer associations are expected to have a direct effect on delinquency. The
second set of relationships comprises stability effects among the same attitudinal and behavioral vari-
ables measured at different waves.
Direct Effects
Based on the development of the social learning processes, we expect the effect of religiosity
on delinquency to remain significant after controlling for other religious as well as secular variables
that we hypothesize mediate some portion of the behavioral impact of religiosity. In this study we
focused on two key social learning concepts as intervening variables between adolescent religiosity
and delinquency: (1) delinquent attitudes and (2) associations or relationships with delinquent peers.
We hypothesize that delinquent attitudes have significant direct effects on delinquent relationships as
an adolescent's belief system plays a significant role in determining the normative or law-abiding
behavior of his/her peer group (Hirschi 1969).
Indirect Effects
The centrality of relationships with delinquent peers (henceforth, delinquent relationships) in
the social learning perspective is well documented in the literature (Akers 1985, 1997; Akers et al.
1979; Elliott, Huizinga & Ageton 1985; Thornberry et al. 1994; Warr 1993). The attitudes of adoles-
cents and those of their friends, has a strong, independent effect on adolescents' behavior (Thornberry
et al. 1994). Therefore, we hypothesize that the effect of religiosity on delinquency is partly mediated
by delinquent relationships to the extent to which an adolescent's religious commitment enhances the
selection of conventional or law-abiding friends and the avoidance of delinquent friends.
Findings
Direct Effects of Religiosity
In general, the effects of religiosity are consistent with our hypotheses. Religiosity has a posi-
tive direct effect on delinquent attitudes and a negative direct effect on delinquency in all three waves.
In addition, religiosity also has a negative direct effect on association with delinquent peers in Wave 3.
All the direct effects, except the one from religiosity to delinquent attitudes in Wave 3, are moderate in
26
strength. The highest standardized coefficient in absolute term is 0.17 and the lowest is 0.07.
Indirect Effects of Religiosity
In addition to the direct effects, religiosity also has significant, indirect effects on delinquency
in all three waves. The indirect effects of religiosity on delinquency in Wave 3 are especially strong.
Through its direct impact on delinquent attitudes and peer association, religiosity in Wave 3 exerts a
significant, negative effect on delinquency in Wave 3. It also has negative, indirect effects on the
delinquency measures in Wave 4 and Wave 5 through other intermediate variables. The standardized
coefficients of the three indirect effects are -0.23, -0.30, and -0.35, for Wave 3, 4, and 5 respectively
indicating that the indirect effects of religiosity in Wave 3 on delinquency becomes progressively
stronger from Wave 3 to Wave 5.
Total Effects of Religiosity
Overall, religiosity in Wave 3 has a strong, negative total effect on delinquency in all three
waves. The effects of religiosity in Wave 4 and Wave 5 follow the same pattern. They all have a
negative total effect on delinquency in the same wave, and, when applicable, on delinquency in the
subsequent wave. The indirect impact of religiosity in Wave 3 on delinquency is especially strong.
More than two-thirds of its total impact on delinquency in any of the three waves consists of indirect
effects through intermediate variables, including delinquent attitude, peer association, and religiosity
in later waves.
In comparison with the other variables in the model, religiosity, especially religiosity in Wave
3, contributes significantly to the explanation of delinquency in the adolescent's life. The two vari-
ables most strongly related to delinquency are association with delinquent peers and religiosity. These
two variables directly affect delinquency across three waves. In addition, the total effects of these two
factors on the delinquency measures are all significant. Peer association has a stronger effect on delin-
quency than religiosity, but the effects of religiosity, however, remain quite robust after controlling for
peer association, delinquent attitudes, and the background variables.
The major findings regarding religiosity can be summarized as follows: (1) All three measures
of religiosity have direct, negative effects on delinquency; (2) Religiosity in Wave 3 has the strongest
effect on delinquency, suggesting that religious commitment and involvement in early age has a strong
inhibiting effect on delinquency; (3) All three measures of religiosity have significant indirect effects
on delinquency. The indirect effect of religiosity in Wave 3 is much stronger than its direct effect. This
result suggests that one can seriously underestimate the total effect of religiosity if one focuses on
either only direct or else on only indirect effects; and (4) Religiosity remains an important explanatory
variable of delinquency after the effects of peer association, delinquent attitudes, and the exogenous
variables are controlled. Though association with delinquent peers has a stronger total effect on delin-
quency than religiosity, the total effect of religiosity remains substantially robust.
These results indicate that a youth's current behavior and attitude, such as church attendance
and conventional belief, can affect their involvement in delinquency one year or even two years later
by increasing their future participation in the same type of behavior and by strengthening their belief in
the same value system. In sum, the variables in the model show both strong contemporaneous effects
27
and stability over time. The results suggest an adolescent's behavior may be more affected by current
rather than past events and beliefs.
Discussion and Conclusion
We proposed that religiosity would have a direct effect on delinquency independent of the
effects of other social and economic variables. We find that religiosity has a consistent direct effect on
delinquency, independent of the effects of all the other variables controlled in the model. We also find
that the indirect effects of religiosity through delinquent attitudes and peer associations to be signifi-
cant and substantial.
In addition to theoretical limitations, previous research concerning the effects of religiosity on
deviance and crime has also been plagued by methodological limitations. Rarely have such studies
used nationally representative or longitudinal data, and thus, tend to lack generalizability. Further,
studies in this area tend to use data from relatively small samples, often having problems with response
rates and missing data. And, finally, the concept of religiosity has often been measured with only
single items.
In the current study we have eliminated many of the methodological flaws that have too often
plagued studies examining the relationship between religiosity and delinquency. The NYS is a longi-
tudinal and nationally representative data set, making our findings more generalizable than previous
studies. Further, we have operationalized religiosity as a multidimensional variable, thereby measur-
ing the influence of religious attendance and activities as well as indicators of salience. Finally, given
that religiosity is an abstract and, thus, not directly observable construct, we have modeled the concept
as a latent variable and applied a structural equation model to examine the indirect and direct effects of
religiosity.
In light of these findings we are intrigued that among the host of published delinquency studies
using data from the NYS, we have yet to find one article which acknowledges the contribution of
religiosity in the etiology of delinquency. Thus, it would seem prudent for delinquency researchers to
reconsider any number of theoretical arguments by considering religious measures in future delin-
quency research.
28
Endnotes
I
George Gallup, Jr., Emerging Trends, Princeton Religious Center, Volume 18, Number 3, March 1996, p.5. Also see
Richard Morin, "Keeping the Faith: A Survey Shows the United States Has the Most Churchgoing People in the Developed
World," The Washington Post Weekly Edition, January 12, 1998, p.37.
2 George Gallup, Jr., "Religion in America: Will the Vitality of Churches Be the Surprise of the Next Century?," The Public
Perspective, October/November 1995, p.4.
3 Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America (New Brunswick, NJ; Rutgers University Press, 1992).
4 Gallup, Emerging Trends, op. cit., p. 1.
5 Robert W. Fogel, "The Fourth Great Awakening and the Political Realignment of the 1990s," paper prepared for presen-
tation at the Seventh Annual Bradley Lecture Series of the American Enterprise Institute, September 11, 1995, p. 2.
6 Center for Public Justice, A Guide to Charitable Choice (Washington, D.C.: Center for Public Justice, 1997). Also see
Carl H. Esbeck, "A Constitutional Case for Governmental Cooperation with Faith-Based Social Service Providers," Emory
Law Journal, Volume 46, Number 1, Winter, 1997, pp. 1-83, and Stanley W. Carlson-Thies and James W. Skillen, eds,
Welfare in America: Christian Perspectives on a Policy in Crisis (Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996).
7 For example, see Governor's Advisory Task Force on Faith-Based Community Service Groups, Faith in Action: A New
Vision for Church-State Cooperation in Texas (State of Texas, December 1996).
8 Mike Jackson, "Faith in Action Supporting Volunteering with 800 Grantees," Advances: The Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation Quarterly Newsletter, issue 1, 1998, p.10.
9 Andrew Greely, "The Other Civic America: Religion and Social Capital," The American Prospect, Number 32, May-June
1997, p.70.
10 Ibid., p.72.
11 Ron Stodghill II, "In the Line of Fire," Time, April 20, 1998, pp. 34-37.
12 Joseph P. Shapiro, "Can Churches Save America," September 9, 1996, pp. 46-53.
13 James Q. Wilson, "Two Nations," paper delivered as Francis Boyer Lecture, American Enterprise Institute, December 4,
1997, p. 10.
14 For example, see David B. Larson, et al., Scientific Research on Spirituality and Health (Radnor, PA: The John M.
Templeton Foundation, October 1, 1997).
15 T. David Evans, et al., "Religion and Crime Reexamined: The Impact of Religion, Secular Controls, and Social Ecology
on Adult Criminality," Criminology, Volume 33, Number 2, 1995, pp. 211-212.
16 Richard B. Freeman, "Who Escapes? The Relation of Church-Going and Other Background Factors to the Socio-
Economic Performance of Black Male Youths From Inner-City Poverty Tracts," Working Paper, Number 1656, National
Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 1985.
17 Based on a forthcoming article entitled, "A Systematic Review of the Religiosity and Delinquency Literature: A Re-
search Note," (Johnson, Li, Larson, and McCullough, 1999).
18 Based on a forthcoming article entitled, "Escaping from the Crime of Inner-Cities: Churchgoing Among At-Risk Youth,"
(Johnson, Larson, Li, and Jang 1999).
19 Specifically, the Current Population Survey (CPS), produced the by Census Bureau.
20 The NBER survey was administered in 1979 and 1980, by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., to black males, aged 16 to
24, residing in Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The sample encompassed persons living on city blocks identified by the
1970 Census as having at least 70 percent black residents and 30 percent of families living below the poverty line. Well
over 2,800 survey interviews were attempted in the worst poverty tracts of these three cities, and more than 2,300 inter-
views were completed.
21 Based on a forthcoming article entitled, "The 'Invisible Institution' and Urban Delinquency: The African-American
Church as an Agency of Local Social Control," (Johnson, Li, Jang, and Larson, 1999).
22 Based on a forthcoming article entitled, "Does Adolescent Religious Commitment Really Matter?: A Reexamination of
the Effects of Religiosity on Delinquency," (Johnson, Larson, Li, and Jang 1999).
29
The Center for Civic Innovation
at the Manhattan Institute
52 Vanderbilt Avenue New York, N.Y. 10017
Telephone: 212.599.7000
Fax: 212.599.3494
e-mail: [email protected]
Henry Olsen
Executive Director
C i
CENTER FOR CIVIC INNOVATION
The Jeremiah Project
In Initiative of the Genter for Givic Innovation
The Jeremiah Project
An Initiative of the Center for Civic Innovation
Faith-Based Outreach
to At-Risk Youth
in Washington, D.C.
Report 98-1
By
Jeremy White
Mary de Marcellus
Public/Private Ventures
C i
CENTER FOR CIVIC INNOVATION
AT THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH
Promote the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you,
pray for it to the Lord, for upon its welfare depends your own (Jeremiah 29:7).
The Jeremiah Project
Begun in 1998, The Jeremiah Project (TJP) of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Civic Innova-
tion (CCI) is dedicated to identifying, documenting, publicizing, and funding outstanding examples
of faith-based programs that help inner-city youth and young adults to avoid violence, achieve
literacy, and access jobs while resurrecting hope and opportunity in America's most distressed
urban neighborhoods.
John Dilulio, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and Professor at Princeton University,
directs TJP. He began his "faith factor" line of research in 1994. In 1996 he founded Public/Private
Ventures' Partnership for Research on Religion and At-Risk Youth, and developed the Partnership's
national research agenda on faith-based approaches to youth and community development. Known
widely for his work on crime, social policy, and government reform, he predicts that by the year
2006, America will be home to 30 million teenagers, the highest number since 1975. Much of the
increase in the nation's youth population, he stresses, is occurring in "forgotten urban neighbor-
hoods with high rates of child abuse and neglect, poverty, crime, illiteracy, and chronic unemploy-
ment
Where secular mentoring and conventional social services programs for severely at-risk
inner-city youth and young adults normally end, faith-based programs often begin.
Not all
churches do it, and churches certainly can't do it all alone. But there's good news. From pre-
schools to prisons, religion works, and adequately supported outreach ministries-the clergy and
other religious paramedics of inner-city America's civil society-can save lives and offer a better
chance in life to those whom the Bible call the 'least of these.' We will need, however, to learn more
about the extent, efficacy, and capacity of faith-based efforts, and the general conditions under
which they succeed. We need not only research but a willingness-here and now-to help proven
urban outreach ministers to meet their unmet everyday needs, from money for fixing a broken pipe
in a church basement where an after-school latchkey learning ministry runs, to help writhing a grant
proposal, to brokering positive connections with other local institutions The bottom line is lever-
aging the 'spiritual capital' of inner-city ministries into more children who are safe, literate, job-
ready-and loved."
Others affiliated with the Institute who have roles in TJP include Reverend Floyd Flake, CCI Di-
rector Henry Olsen, and the Editor of City Journal, Myron Magnet. With Institute President Lawrence
Mone, Professor Dilulio co-directs The Jeremiah Funds (TJF) which in just six months provided
over $100,000 in support for specific unmet needs of outreach ministries and religious schools in
Boston, New York, Camden, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The Institute invites support for
both TJP and TJF.
Executive Summary
As summarized in this report, our research helps answer the following five questions:
What is the extent of faith-based outreach to at-risk youth in Washington, D.C.?
What shape does this faith-based outreach take?
What are some of the technical and financial needs of these organizations?
How might the effectiveness of these programs be enhanced?
Would these programs and the youth they reach benefit from increased financial and tech-
nical support?
Our survey clearly suggests that there is a critical mass of faith-based organizations in
Washington. D.C. that work directly and intensively with at-risk youth. Most of these
youth live in impoverished families or neighborhoods, come from single-parent back-
grounds, and/or are confronted with drugs and/or violence on a daily basis.
Excluding schools, the programs fell into five major categories: tutoring programs; youth
groups; evangelization; gang violence prevention; and mentoring.
Few faith-based programs (5% of those we studied) focused exclusively on evangeliza-
tion for children in the form of youth church, Bible study, or street evangelization.
Volunteers were the backbone of most programs. Fifty-six percent of the programs were
run entirely by a volunteer staff.
Excluding schools, we estimate that the faith-based organizations we interviewed, worked
with a total of roughly 3,500 youth on a weekly basis.
Throughout our survey we repeatedly encountered five issues which shaped the work of the
faith-based non-profits and church ministries: leadership, faith, funding, location, and teen participa-
tion.
Most ministries and faith-based non-profits we studied were borne of the vision and initiative
of one individual. Almost without exception, each organization we visited conjures up one name:
Children of Mine, Hanna Hawkins; The Fishing School, Tom Lewis; The Children's Center, Myrtle
Loury; Calvary Baptist, Paget Rhee; The Unique Learning Center, Sherry Woods; and so on.
Our interviews suggested that the directors of faith-based organizations make enormous, seem-
ingly irrational, sacrifices to reflect God's unconditional love in their love for the children; and yet few
programs focused solely on evangelization. Instead, they centered on filling the daily practical needs of
the children by providing a safe haven, tutoring, and productive activities.
Throughout our interviews and site visits we discovered many common difficulties faced by
non-profits as they sought funding.
First, many of the faith-based organizations we interviewed have difficulty finding the time and
i
resources to put together proposals, yet have basic needs such as rent, food for the children, a play-
ground, school materials, or a salary that allows full-time ministry. In addition, many of these organi-
zations lack the training to create a proposal and the funding to hire someone to do part-time or full-time
development work.
Second, one of the non-profits' greatest needs was funding for the salaries of staff. As an orga-
nization grows and increases the number of children it serves, it naturally requires more staff to ensure
that each child receives the individual attention he or she needs.
Third, many non-profits found that seeking grants placed them in the position of possibly com-
promising or obscuring the faith component of their program, even where, as was almost universally
true, evangelization was more motive than method and the programs served purely secular purposes
such as keeping kids safe, fed, literate, and so on.
Programs like these are "below the radar screen" as far as foundation and corporate support is
concerned. The volunteers who staff these ministries often do not have the contacts and education
needed to draw resources from foundations and the wealthier organizations in D.C.
There are several means of ensuring that support, both technical and financial, reach faith-based
organizations that are working with the most at-risk youth on a daily basis. These steps lie in a
number of funding, collaboration, and mobilization strategies.
Funding. There is no shortage of worthwhile causes where programs for at-risk youth in
Washington are concerned. By using this report to become acquainted with churches and non-profits
in the at-risk communities through site visits, interested individuals and organizations could:
Administer small grants to faith-based non-profits, reaching a whole segment of at-risk
youth, which up to this time most grants have been unable to reach.
Encourage corporate givers to support the work of faith-based non-profits in Washington.
Draw attention to faith-based non-profits by publishing studies and articles on their pro-
grams. (Love Thy Neighbor, a small tutoring program in Southeast, was able to quantify
the financial benefit of a newspaper article about the center at about $4,000.)
Church Mobilization. With anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 churches in Washington, there is
practically a church on every corner. The potential for the churches to become safe havens for at-risk
youth is enormous. Although most churches have not developed an outreach to at-risk youth, many
have. However, their outreach remains small and focuses on retaining only the younger children. Training
in youth ministry could empower these ministries to reach the older youth out on the streets.
Collaboration Strategies. Supporting the work of faith-based non-profits involves facilitating
the collaboration and the sharing of resources between organizations. Often, we found organizations
with the same goals and just down the street from each other that were not aware of each other's
existence. As a result, many grassroots programs had to reinvent the program wheel simply because
they were not aware of the solutions and resources discovered by other organizations.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreward
1
Youth Outreach in D.C.
4
Faith-Based Schools
7
Church Ministries
7
Faith-Based Non-Profits
8
Leadership
9
Faith
10
Funding
11
Location: Grassroots VS. Suburban
12
Teen Outreach and Gang Prevention
13
Recommendations
14
Funding
14
Church Mobilization
14
Collaboration Strategies
14
Appendix A: Note on Study Procedures
15
Appendix B: Compendium of DC Youth
17
Outreach Programs
Appendix C: Contacts at DC Youth
21
Outreach Programs
Foreword
In the 1990s there has been a surge of interest in the potential of faith-based approaches to
urban and social problems. Academic researchers from many disciplines have begun to push the enve-
lope on "faith-factor" studies into how, if at all, religiosity, spirituality and church-going, variously
measured, relate to a wide range of socio-economic and public health outcomes. Leading journalists
representing a diversity of ideological perspectives have published more stories about religion in the
public square. The federal government has passed a number of new laws with profound implications
for church-state relations, most notably the "Charitable Choice" provision of the 1996 welfare law
which permits expressly religious organizations that are in compliance with federal anti-discrimination
regulations to receive federal dollars for the delivery of certain services. Major foundations have launched
or expanded programs on religion, and major for-profit corporations have considered contributing di-
rectly to faith-based organizations that serve secular social and community-building purposes. Mean-
while, pollsters continue to find that over 90 percent of Americans believe in God, and that over 60
percent of all Americans, including over 80 percent of African-Americans, believe that religion in
some form is vital to solving social problems.
In 1996, Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) began to investigate the empirical research evidence
on faith-based approaches to social and urban problems. P/PV conducted preliminary fieldwork, and
began an active dialogue with leaders of youth and community outreach ministries all across the coun-
try. In 1997, P/PV established its Partnership for Research on Religion and At-Risk Youth (PRRAY),
and launched a multi-site demonstration project designed to produce credible information that might
help answer four important sets of questions:
1) What is the extent of faith-based youth and community outreach efforts in America's
inner-city neighborhoods? How, if at all, do their efforts engage substantial numbers of
at-risk youth? What, if any, partnerships do they have with secular non-profits or govern-
ment agencies? What range of services, programs or interventions do they provide? Do
they tend to work in collaboration with other faith-based organizations? Across denomina-
tions? Via inter-faith alliances?
2) What is the efficacy of faith-based youth and community outreach efforts? For example,
under what, if any, conditions do they succeed in helping at-risk inner-city youth to avoid
violence, achieve literacy, and access jobs? How, if at all, do they accomplish other major
youth development goals?
3) What is the capacity of faith-based youth and community outreach efforts? Even if we
knew that certain types of faith-based programs worked under given conditions, we would
still need to know how to foster those conditions. For example, what are the typical human
and financial resource needs of these programs? How, if at all, can so-called
community-serving ministries be strengthened via para-church organizations that provide
technical assistance and training?
4) What is the replicability of faith-based youth and community outreach efforts? For ex-
ample, how, if at all, have faith-based anti-violence programs, which seem to have worked
well in some places, been replicated in other jurisdictions or neighborhood settings?
1
This report is derived from the fieldwork of two very talented P/PV junior staff, Jeremy White
and Mary de Marcellus. Essentially, the senior staff involved in planning P/PV's systematic research
on religion and at-risk youth was challenged by these two junior colleagues. They argued that a great
deal could be learned about the extent of faith-based youth and community outreach efforts simply by
the sort of intensive if episodic field research aptly characterized by the award-winning Rochester
University social scientist Richard Fenno as "soaking and poking, or just hanging around." We took
them up on their challenge, arranging to have them spend six months in Washington, D.C. and learn as
much as they could about that city's youth and community outreach ministries. This report highlights
the main findings from their study, the complete text of which is available from P/PV.
As the authors stress, this report is not a "survey" in the formal sense, and the programs studied
or profiled may or may not be representative of the District's faith-based efforts targeted on at-risk
youth. A formal survey of the District's faith-based service providers was completed recently by The
Urban Institute. The Urban Institute found that 95 percent of the city's congregations perform outreach
services. This finding is quite consistent with the findings of earlier formal surveys, including the
six-city survey released in 1997 by the Brookings Institution and conducted by Professor Ram A.
Cnaan of the University of Pennsylvania for Partners for Sacred Places. Professor Cnaan found that 91
percent of congregations provided at least one social service. The average was four services per con-
gregation, the main beneficiaries of which were neighborhood youth and adults who were not members
of the congregation. Such findings spell "outreach."
As noted candidly in The Urban Institute survey, "collecting information from religious con-
gregations is challenging because many do not keep detailed records, do not have the time or staff to
complete a survey," and have other limitations that make objective, systematic data gathering on what
they do difficult.² Also, as the present report makes plain, much of faith-based outreach in the District
occurs not via congregations as such but via faith-based non-profit organizations with secular-sounding
names. If anything, therefore, the formal surveys completed to date probably underestimate the extent
of faith-based outreach to at-risk youth.
This informal survey is rich in precisely the ways that our junior colleagues predicted it would
be, providing not only a credibly affirmative answer to the question "Are they out there?" but also a
sense of how the "faith" in "faith-based" matters as both motive and method in what outreach workers
do and how they do it. This report provides useful baseline information about the extent of faith-based
programs in one city, and usefully raises cross-cutting questions about how the intangible qualities of
such programs (in particular, their leadership) may or may not matter to their efficacy, capacity, and
replicability.
The authors wish to thank the people of the churches, schools and faith-based nonprofits with-
out whose cooperation this report would not have been possible. They also wish to acknowledge the
help of several agencies: The Mayor's Office on Religious Affairs; World Vision; Greater DC Cares;
The Southeast White House; the District Schools Community Relations Department; Metropolitan
Washington Council of Churches; and the Skinner Farm Leadership Institute.
2
P/PV is grateful to the American Enterprise Institute and The Brookings Institution, each of
which provided the authors with office space while they were conducting this study in the District.
Finally, P/PV is grateful to the Manhattan Institute's Center for Civic Innovation and The Jeremiah
Project for sponsoring the release of this summary of the study.
John Dilulio
Senior Counsel
Member of the Board
Public/Private Ventures;
Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute
3
Youth Outreach in D.C.
In a six-month period between October 1, 1997 and April 1, 1998, we conducted an intense but
informal survey of faith-based outreach to at-risk youth in Washington, D.C. As summarized in this
report, our research helps answer the following five questions:
What is the extent of faith-based outreach to at-risk youth in Washington, D.C.?
What shape does this faith-based outreach take?
What are some of the technical and financial needs of these organizations?
How might the effectiveness of these programs be enhanced?
Would these programs and the youth they reach benefit from increased financial and tech-
nical support?
The organizations we selected to study were faith-based, served at-risk youth, and were located
in Washington, D.C. Following these simple selection criteria, this report profiles a variety of commu-
nity organizations, including church ministries, non-profits, and schools of varying sizes, faiths, and
purposes. Seven of the more interesting general aspects of our survey are as follows:
Our survey clearly suggests that there is a critical mass of faith-based organizations in
Washington, D.C. that work directly and intensively with at-risk youth. Most of these
youth live in impoverished families or neighborhoods, come from single-parent back-
grounds, and/or are confronted with drugs and/or violence on a daily basis.
We interviewed leaders and volunteers in a total of 129 faith-based organizations which
met our criteria (faith-based, youth-focused, and located in Washington, D.C.). The survey
suggests that there are three main groups of programs: faith-based schools, faith-based
non-profits. and church-anchored outreach programs. We interviewed staff and volunteers
in 13 faith-based schools, 52 faith-based non-profits, and 64 outreach programs operated
inside church buildings. (See table 1.)
Table 1
Church Ministries
Non-Profits
Schools
Total
Interviewed
98*
70
13
181
Fit criteria
64
52
13
129
On-site interviews
21
46
13
80
Telephone interviews
43
6
0
49
*34 churches indicated that they had no youth ministry.
*Other programs include detention ministry, pregnancy counseling, foster care, group homes, sports, summer camp
and domestic violence.
NOTE: Many programs provide multiple services so their primary focus was used for this chart.
4
Figure 1 - Faith-Based Programs by Type
Tutoring 56%
*Othe I 9%
Mentoring 5%
Youth Group 21%
Gang Prevention 3%
Evangelization 5%
Excluding schools, the programs fell into five major categories: tutoring programs; youth
groups; evangelization: gang violence prevention: and mentoring. (See figure 1 and table
2.)
Few faith-based programs (5% of those we studied) focused exclusively on evangelization
for children in the form of youth church, Bible study, or street evangelization.
Table 2
Faith-based Programs by Type
Tutoring
65
Youth Group
24
Evangelization
6
Gang Prevention
4
Mentoring
6
Other*
11
Total
116
*Other programs include detention ministry, pregnancy counseling, foster care, group homes, sports, summer camp,
and domestic violence.
Volunteers were the backbone of most programs. Fifty-six percent of the programs were
run entirely by a volunteer staff. Nine percent had one full-time staff person, two-thirds of
which were also full-time clergy members. Thirty-five percent had two or more full-time
staff. Almost all the organizations with paid staff were non-profit organizations.
(See table 3.)
5
Table 3
Volunteer
57
1 Paid Staff
9*
2 or more Paid Staff
35
Total**
101
*Six of these are paid clergy who coordinate youth programs.
**This information was not available on 15 programs.
Only five programs charged a fee for their services. None of them charged a fee over
twenty-five dollars a month. Those that did charge a fee for their services believed that
charging a nominal fee encouraged parental investment in the program's activities.
Excluding schools, we estimate that the faith-based organizations we interviewed, worked
with a total of roughly 3,500 youth on a weeklv basis. An estimated 49 percent of the
organizations worked with a group of ten to thirty children on a regular basis. Thirty-five
percent worked with 31 to 60 children. Sixteen percent worked with over 60 children. (See
table 4.)
Table 4
Programs with 10-30 children
43
Programs with 31-60 children
31
Programs with over 60
14
Total number of programs*
88
*Twenty-eight programs did not provide an estimated number of children because attendance varies so widely.
Table 5
7 days a week
4
4-6 days a week
46
2-3 days a week
16
Once a week
26
Once or twice a month
5
Seasonal
4
Total number of programs*
101
*Fifteen programs did not report set schedules in their work with the children.
6
Faith-Based Schools
Faith-based schools are often overlooked as an important source of outreach to at-risk youth in
the inner city. Our survey includes thirteen faith-based schools located in at-risk neighborhoods in
Washington, D.C.: six Christian, one Muslim, and six Catholic. We are aware of at least eighteen other
Christian schools that do youth outreach in the District. The thirteen schools studied were affiliated
with a particular church or mosque, from which they received support and guidance.
All the faith-based schools we studied seemed to work wonders as far as basic literacy was
concerned. They took advantage of the opportunity to provide individualized academic attention as
well as an atmosphere of encouragement and moral structure every day from 7am to often as late as
7pm.
Even though these schools took some of the most at-risk children in their communities, many of
their students went on to attend college. Sister Elizabeth, principal of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, told
us, "Around here it's just expected that the child will go to college." Most of the schools charged a
tuition which generally fell between two hundred and three hundred dollars a month (far below the
actual cost).
The principals did what they could to find scholarships and forgive debts for as long as they
possibly could, and only rarely let students go for unpaid tuition. It was common in the schools we
interviewed to find teachers going unpaid for months and students taking tests copied on the back of
old letters and flyers. Most of the schools had six or seven students receiving some type of scholarship
through scholarship programs such as One on One, the Washington Scholarship Fund, or the Black
Fund. However, scholarships were rare and required involved parents, which many neighborhood chil-
dren lacked.
Our survey suggested that the more a school's leaders considered the school an "outreach pro-
gram," the lower the tuition and the more the school struggled to meet its most basic needs. The direc-
tors of each school commented on how many more at-risk students they would be able to enroll with
increased funding.
A typical example of a faith-based school in D.C. is the Sacred Heart Catholic School. Sacred
Heart is located in the Mt. Pleasant/Adams Morgan neighborhood, the city's predominantly Latino
community. The school's budget is so tight that its teachers often are forced to buy their own supplies.
Yet it excels at providing a nurturing environment that promotes positive reinforcement. The children
are encouraged to be creative and to encourage one another. They are excited to learn. Many of the
children have become literate since enrolling. The school, which was founded in 1932, enrolls 213
students in grades Pre-K through 8, eighty percent of whom are Latino.
Church Ministries
Although almost every church in D.C. has a youth ministry, many of them work only with the
children from their church, who often come from suburban neighborhoods. We included in our survey
only those ministries that worked with children from the at-risk, inner-city neighborhoods surrounding
the church.
7
Church ministries are an extension of the church activities and outreach. They are usually housed
in the church and are often operated entirely on a volunteer basis by members of the church with little
to no funding. Other ministries are part of the church's regular activities such as church youth groups.
These groups typically meet weekly and provide an informal outlet for the youth and an alternative to
the streets. Church ministries are usually small and meet with an average of thirty children per week.
They are designed with the needs of the community children in mind and rarely charge any fee for their
services. Many churches we studied also had some form of a daycare program.
In response to an enormous need in inner-city Washington to keep children well-fed, engaged
in school, and off the streets, the majority of the ministries we interviewed offered after-school tutoring
programs with small meals. Other programs included sports programs, youth groups, and Bible study.
Some met once or twice a week, and some met every day after school. Their doors always seem to be
open.
Faith-Based Non-Profits
As noted in the foreword, a recent survey by The Urban Institute focused on outreach by con-
gregations. The Urban Institute's survey was not designed to include faith-based non-profits or those
that have secular names (for example, Growing Together, The Unique Learning Center, The Fishing
School, and the Neighborhood Learning Center). Because such non-profits were not included in The
Urban Institute study, it probably underestimates somewhat the extent of faith-based outreach that can
be attributed to the District's communities of faith.
The church ministries described above are often the incubators for faith-based non-profit orga-
nizations. Church members motivated by their faith provide the original ideas and initiative, while the
church provides the facilities, volunteers, and the funding to get a ministry off the ground.
While many ministries remain within the church, some grow to a point where church funds are
no longer sufficient to support their increasing expenses. Often they decide to apply for 501-C3 status
in order to seek foundation funding that will allow them to expand.
Faith-based non-profits provide much the same services as church-based ministries. Due to
larger budgets, which allow for more staff, non-profits generally provide these services with more
depth. For example, many non-profits have the time and staff to visit with parents and teachers to
monitor each child's progress. Like ministries, the majority of the non-profits we interviewed provide
after-school programs with meals and one-on-one tutoring.
We found that faith-based non-profits were constantly stretching their budgets to the limit so as
to provide more services for the children. Like the church ministries, non-profits constantly encoun-
tered difficulties in recruiting participation by the parents of the children they served.
Other non-profits are best described as para-churches. They had a particular purpose, such as
tutoring the children each day after school, but also considered themselves a church and conducted
their own worship services. For example, Love Thy Neighbor, a non-profit, began in an impoverished
section of Southeast D.C. While the organization's primary purpose is to minister to the children within
the tutoring program, Sara Thompson, its founder, also used her facilities as a place of worship, minis-
8
tering to those who came on Sundays and going to her students' homes when counseling and prayer
were requested.
Throughout our survey we repeatedly encountered five issues which shaped the work of the
faith-based non-profits and church ministries: leadership, faith, funding, location, and teen participa-
tion.
Leadership
Most ministries and faith-based non-profits we studied were borne of the vision and initiative
of one individual. Almost without exception, each organization we visited conjures up one name:
Children of Mine, Hanna Hawkins; The Fishing School, Tom Lewis; The Children's Center, Myrtle
Loury; Calvary Baptist, Paget Rhee; The Unique Learning Center, Sherry Woods; and so on.
These leaders usually worked alone or with a few volunteers, and made enormous sacrifices of
time, money, and even health to keep their ministries afloat. We frequently interviewed directors who
worked long hours, often unpaid for months.
The directors we interviewed demonstrated deep religious and moral convictions. They felt a
call to reach out to inner-city youth. Their faith is contagious. Through daily demonstrations of what
we can only describe as unconditional love, they seemed to be able to motivate the children and staff to
accomplish incredible feats.
The type of leadership which drives these non-profits is best expressed through their stories.
Sara Thompson founded Love Thy Neighbor Community Center five years ago after tiring of seeing
the community's children left with nothing better to do than to kick bottles around in a parking lot each
day after school. With no other space available, she opened her basement to the children, allowing
them a place to receive help with their homework and to play games. Most importantly, it kept them off
the streets. When she could, Sara would take as many children as she could fit in her car on field trips.
Soon she quit her job, spent her meager life savings, and opened the community center in a storefront.
Through the community center, Ms. Thompson was able to provide everything from clothing
and food to bus tokens and other supplies that the children often needed (all paid for largely from her
own pocket). She said "If I had more money, I could do more [for the children] sometimes I wonder
how I'll keep the roof over my head." However, Sara always had an ample supply of the invaluable
commodities of love, kindness, patience, faith, and devotion to the 40 or 50 young people she guided.
Her willingness to serve did not end with the children. It extended to the entire community as she
provided drug and family counseling and job referrals to many of the members of the community.
Her work did not go unnoticed. Love Thy Neighbor received coverage from local television
news stations as well as a few articles in The Washington Post. Ms. Thompson and her children were
even visited by Oprah Winfrey (she displayed the pictures to prove it). Still, financial resources were
often hard to come by and it was during the times when the rent was overdue and the future of the center
was in doubt that Sara Thompson's faith was tested, although not broken. Time and time again she was
able to pull resources from individuals and other sources to keep the doors of the center open. Even
when she was diagnosed with cancer and was restricted to her hospital bed she continued to pay the
9
center's bills. On March 27, 1998, Sarah died. To the end, she struggled to support the center. Today,
the doors of her center are closed and its future, like the futures of the children she served, is in doubt.
The devotion and faith of the program leaders are often the key element to their success. They
work up close and personal with and for youth whom many other people would not help. They do this
work where the children live, in places where many dare not go. It is the strong commitment and faith
of the leaders of these non-profits which sustains them in spite of dire circumstances and long odds
against success.
Faith
Our on-site interviews revealed enormous variety in the way programs chose to translate their
faith through their services, not only between the different denominations but within denominations as
well. Some programs were founded in churches and involved volunteers from the church who were
motivated by their faith, yet provided no faith component in their activities with the children. Others
were not affiliated with any religious institution but shared their faith with the children on a regular
basis through Bible study or prayer.
Even determining what is faith-based and what is secular became difficult when interviewing
organizations that, while not directly linked with a community of faith, made very strong expressions
of faith and featured some religious teaching. This was particularly true of the faith-based grassroots
organizations.
For example, the Barry Farms Community Center, directed by Mrs. Dorathea Ferreal, was not
officially connected with a religious organization. However, Mrs. Ferreal is very strongly motivated by
her faith. As one enters the center a sign on the door reads "Relax, God is in charge" and the programs
involve "God talk" with the children and Bible study with the reverend of a nearby church.
Our interviews suggested that the directors of faith-based organizations make enormous, seem-
ingly irrational, sacrifices to reflect God's unconditional love in their love for the children; and yet few
programs focused solely on evangelization. Instead, they centered on filling the daily practical needs of
the children by providing a safe haven, tutoring, and productive activities. For us. the seeming paradox
of faith-motivated outreach workers who evangelize mainly or solely by example is resolved by the
Biblical injunction, "Ye shall know them by their works."
The directors felt that by being the object of this unconditional love, children learned to love
themselves and to understand that they are loved by God and are part of a greater plan. It is this spiritual
plan, they confided, which alone can make sense of the child's world filled with chaos and pain. In the
lives of many at-risk children, answers to the complex problems they face often have spiritual compo-
nents as well as practical ones. A program that offers a child a hot meal, tutoring, and other assistance
is beneficial. But the program that provides those things as well as a sense of self-respect, faith, and
hope to combat their often depressing surroundings offers a different approach and maybe "something
more." Perhaps it is that extra something borne of faith-based human relations that helps turn at-risk
youth into resilient youth.
10
Funding
Faith and effective leadership are the only absolutely crucial elements of ministry. However,
funding quickly becomes necessary to allow those in ministry to dedicate themselves full-time to the
needs of the children.
Almost all of the faith-based outreach organizations that we have interviewed, grassroots and
non-grassroots, are in need of funding in order to continue their work and strengthen their outreach
capacity. Some programs, such as Love Thy Neighbor, were in clear need of financial assistance just
to keep their doors open. Throughout our interviews and site visits we discovered many common
difficulties faced by non-profits as they sought funding.
First, many of the faith-based organizations we interviewed have difficulty finding the time and
resources to put together proposals, yet have basic needs such as rent, food for the children, a play-
ground, school materials, or a salary that allows full-time ministry. In addition, many of these organiza-
tions lack the training to create a proposal and the funding to hire someone to do part-time or full-time
development work.
Second, one of the non-profits' greatest needs was funding for the salaries of staff. As an orga-
nization grows and increases the number of children it serves, it naturally requires more staff to ensure
that each child receives the individual attention he or she needs. However, many organizations said
they found that foundations and corporations were willing to fund special projects but that few were
willing to fund any general operating expenses.
Third, many non-profits found that seeking grants placed them in the position of possibly com-
promising or obscuring the faith component of their program, even where, as was almost universally
true, evangelization was more motive than method and the programs served purely secular purposes
such as keeping kids safe, fed, literate, and so on. For example, in order to seek funding from founda-
tions, government, and corporations, ministries must file for 501-C3 status. Several organizations we
interviewed were agonizing over the decision to become a non-profit, fearing that it might weaken their
strong ties to their church and thereby weaken the faith expressed in the program.
Furthermore, as faith-based programs apply for funding, they are compelled to present a radi-
cally secularized version of their mission to their funding source. For example, in a great number of
non-profits we interviewed, Bible study or prayer is described as "character building" or "spiritual
awareness." Similarly, we found that many of the directors were very careful to mention that religious
activities were voluntary and downplayed the Bible study. Still we found that a large number of organi-
zations that received grants from numerous foundations continued to include prayer time and Bible
study in their daily activities with the children.
The majority of the organizations we interviewed shied away from government funding. Al-
though they were concerned that it would restrict religious study, they were primarily concerned with
two practical limitations incurred by government funding. First, they felt that the enormous paper work
and guidelines required by government grants would take away their autonomy and flexibility, not to
mention their time with the children. Second, government grants would bring a large influx of funds
into the program only to have them disappear with the next budget cut, leaving the organization
floundering.
11
Location: Grassroots vs. Suburban
Despite their enormous variety in terms of activity, size, and religious affiliation, the programs
fell into two distinct groups: those church ministries and non-profits which drew their leadership and
resources from outside the at-risk communities they served, and those that drew resources only from
within these communities.
This difference between grassroots and suburban organizations greatly affects the shape of
their outreach and their ability to find resources. The organizations that are not grassroots generally
offered more structured programs. They, too, were in need of funding, but with their education and
connections to more affluent neighborhoods, they were able to write successful grant proposals that
could pay a small staff and support an office. They generally focused on a group of inner-city at-risk
children, but were less likely to be involved with the families or communities of these children. In a
word, they were not "holistic" even though they were marginally better funded.
In contrast, about half of the grassroots programs we studied had almost no funding and relied
entirely on a handful of volunteers who dedicated their own money and their time to their ministry in
addition to holding down a job. These organizations tended to be very small and were located in the
heart of the at-risk neighborhoods. The volunteers were members of the community and personally
knew the families of the children involved in their activities.
Children are attracted to the grassroots programs for a variety of reasons. The staff is from the
neighborhood and is familiar with the children's families and the difficulties they face. They will visit
the homes of children to pray and counsel with the family. The programs meet the children where they
are. This is particularly true of gang prevention programs. Their doors are left open in the most danger-
ous sections of the city so that youth feel safe to come and just hang out.
Programs like these are "below the radar screen" as far as foundation and corporate support is
concerned. The volunteers who staff these ministries often do not have the contacts and education
needed to draw resources from foundations and the wealthier organizations in D.C. Their numbers are
limited because without any funding these programs often fold (not fail, but close) after two years due
to an inability to pay rent, find materials, or support a full-time staff member.
Another characteristic of most of the grassroots non-profits is a sense of frustration, bitterness,
and skepticism about the middle class. They have seen a line of media, celebrities, and foundations
come to their communities, use their stories, and leave no funding behind. They struggle every day
with life and death and want to know who is going to help for real.
This divide has grown in the past forty years as families have left the at-risk inner-city neigh-
borhoods to live in surrounding communities in Maryland and Virginia. Despite suburbanizing, many
of these families continue to attend their inner-city churches. This seems particularly true of mainline
denominations.
Washington is full of churches located in the inner city whose congregations do not live in the
surrounding community. Many of the "commuting congregations," not all, lose their ties to the com-
munities and to their needs. In addition, these congregations also tend to be elderly and often do not
have the energy to place into projects with youth. Many of the congregations want to tune into their
12
communities but don't know how. There is real potential for some of the willing churches that may
have few youth, but plenty of resources, to get involved. They need to know where they can offer help
and how they can be of assistance.
Many of the grassroots organizations expressed frustration that they had received neither vol-
unteer nor financial support for their projects from the neighboring churches. They complained that
each church had its own political turf and its own projects and did not work on community projects.
In our study we found that, despite these differences, both grassroots and suburban leadership
ran meaningful youth programs. The ability of suburban programs to reach the most at-risk youth
seemed to weigh heavily upon their ability to cross the urban/suburban divide and make the sacrifices
necessary to root themselves in the lives of the children, families, and communities. For some, like
Steve Park of Little Lights, this means moving into the communities they serve. Indeed, many pro-
grams see the need (and for a few it is a requirement) to live in the community. The struggles for the
grassroots organizations lie in maintaining the organization necessary for applying for 501-C3 status,
locating funding sources, and presenting a structured program.
Teen Outreach and Gang Prevention
One obstacle, which confronted nearly every outreach organization we interviewed, was the
difficulty of reaching the teenagers, particularly males who were already involved in at-risk activity.
Programs tried a variety of tactics to attract teens off the streets and into their programs. Some pro-
grams, such as Calvary Baptist, were able to draw a small group of teens through a basketball program.
Others, like New Community Center, created special teen hangout zones. Still others, like the Unique
Learning Center, had a handful of teens, which had grown up through the program and now helped
with the younger children. Many programs, such as Love Thy Neighbor, encouraged their teens to stay
involved by using them as counselors. However, most had difficulty retaining their teens.
The only programs that seemed able to maintain a relationship with a substantial number of
at-risk teens were a handful of extremely grassroots gang-intervention programs. The three main pro-
grams in Washington are Cease-Fire: Don't Smoke the Brothers, Alliance of Concerned Men, and
Barrios Unidos. The leadership of these programs consists without exception of men, some of them
ex-felons, who from a very early age were involved in the street life of Washington themselves.
The work of these programs is often late at night on the streets and ad hoc. For example, Luis
Cardona of Barrios Unidos spends much of his time roaming the streets in his car late at night looking
for various groups of teens hanging out. He hangs out with the homeboys, who he knows by name.
Sometimes he plays ball, sometimes he just talks, and sometimes he takes them home. Although the
program is not structured, many of his homeboys are now in college.
Unfortunately, the same characteristics that draw the teens also make these programs difficult
to support. Because their activities are sporadic and unstructured, it is difficult for them to demonstrate
to foundations exactly where time is spent and what shape their activities will take from one month to
the next. The other conundrum is that the most effective "witnesses" to gangs are former gang mem-
bers themselves. Some former members have criminal records and negative opinions of and/or reputa-
tions with law enforcement. This complicates their outreach for two reasons. First, foundation support
becomes scarce when the criminal history of the directors is revealed. Second, collaboration with the
13
police (which is vital to gang programs) is often difficult either as a result of program directors' distrust
of the police or vice versa. Despite the difficulties of working with these faith-based organizations,
they remain perhaps our "last best hope" for reaching the at-risk teens who seem "unreachable."
Recommendations
There are several means of ensuring that support, both technical and financial, reach faith-based
organizations that are working with the most at-risk youth on a daily basis. These steps lie in a
number of funding, collaboration, and mobilization strategies.
Funding. There is no shortage of worthwhile causes where programs for at-risk youth in Wash-
ington are concerned. By using this report to become acquainted with churches and non-profits in the
at-risk communities through site visits, interested individuals and organizations could:
Administer small grants to faith-based non-profits, reaching a whole segment of at-risk
youth, which up to this time most grants have been unable to reach.
Encourage corporate givers to support the work of faith-based non-profits in Washington.
Draw attention to faith-based non-profits by publishing studies and articles on their pro-
grams. (Love Thy Neighbor, a small tutoring program in Southeast, was able to quantify
the financial benefit of a newspaper article about the center at about $4,000.)
Church Mobilization. With anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 churches in Washington, there is
practically a church on every corner. The potential for the churches to become safe havens for at-risk
youth is enormous. Although most churches have not developed an outreach to at-risk youth, many
have. However, their outreach remains small and focuses on retaining only the younger children. Training
in youth ministry could empower these ministries to reach the older youth out on the streets.
Collaboration Strategies. Supporting the work of faith-based non-profits involves facilitating
the collaboration and the sharing of resources between organizations. Often, we found organizations
with the same goals and just down the street from each other that were not aware of each other's
existence. As a result, many grassroots programs had to reinvent the program wheel simply because
they were not aware of the solutions and resources discovered by other organizations.
Many of those we interviewed commented that one of the most useful services we could pro-
vide was a copy of our list of non-profits. In response, we are creating a resource book which includes
not only all the faith-based programs we have contacted but also secular organizations with resources
often sought by faith-based organizations, such as the Prevention Partnership which gives free techni-
cal training to small non-profits. There are also many new government initiatives that could also be
instrumental in any collaborative effort, such as HUD's Public Housing Graduates program, which
pays students to stay in school while demanding study and service hours in return.
Finally, churches and non-profits are often busy with the interests of their own congregation
and are reluctant to place scant resources into projects other than their own. However, if the faith
community-with the aid of the corporate sector and foundations-can be mobilized to "save" the youth
of the city, then we could witness a radical reduction in youth violence, and an overall improvement in
the lives and well being of Washington's most truly disadvantaged children.
14
Appendix A: Note on Study Procedures
There has yet to be a comprehensive survey of faith-based outreach in the District that includes
less visible grassroots non-profits. We were given access to a list of non-profits involved in projects
sponsored by World Vision, a large database of care providers compiled by People's House, and a list
of churches gathered by the Mayor's office. All our contacts were gathered primarily through these
lists, newspaper articles, and referrals by other non-profits.
Organizations that met our selection criteria were researched for as much of the following
information as was available:
Name of Outreach:
Director:
Contact:
Address:
Telephone:
Size of Staff (full-time, part-time):
Hours of Operation:
Nature of Youth Outreach:
Years of Operation:
Current Source of Funding:
Immediate Funding Needs:
Future Funding Needs:
Church Affiliation(s):
Nature of Affiliation: (i.e. church ministry or para-church)
Number of Members:
Denomination:
In both site visits and phone interviews, we sought answers to five sets of questions:
Faith
To what extent is religious faith explicitly or implicitly expressed?
Is faith the main motivation behind the leadership?
Community
To what extent does the outreach involve the local community?
Is there a sense of community/family within the program?
What seems to be the parents' opinion of the program?
Youth
What is the nature of interaction between adults and youth?
What is the attitude of youth with regards to the program?
Do graduates of the program come back to participate?
15
Leadership
Leadership Profile (faith, education, personality).
How much of the staff work is on a volunteer basis?
Do they share resources with other churches or para-churches?
In their opinion: What is the role of faith-based outreach to youth in D.C.?
What is necessary to reach D.C.'s at-risk youth?
How should faith-based outreach be funded?
Funding
How do they fund themselves at present?
Could the program manage increased funding?
The interviews generally lasted an hour or an hour and a half and were usually with the director
of the programs. We were able to observe the youth activities of most of these organizations.
Because faith-based outreach organizations usually are small and often unlisted, locating, con-
tacting, and visiting these organizations was a challenging and time-consuming process. Interviews
were limited by the amount of time directors were able to or willing to provide (rarely going beyond
two hours). Observation was limited because their activities were often sporadic and often conducted
in the evenings in dangerous settings.
Still, we feel confident that we have contacted the majority of the larger organizations and a
substantial portion of the smaller ones that fell within our criteria in metropolitan Washington.
I Diane Cohen and A. Robert Jaeger. Sacred Places At Risk (Partners for Sacred Places, 1997). p. 4.
2 Tobi Jennifer Printz, "Faith-Based Service Providers in the Nation's Capital: Can They Do More?." Charting Civil Society (The Urban
Institute, April 1998). No. 2.
3 "Faith-based organizations" are defined as organizations or programs which claim to be affiliated with a religious congregation. or those
organizations that are independent from a religious congregation or order, but who express a religious motivation for working with
at-risk youth.
"Tobi Jennifer Printz. "Faith-Based Service Providers in the Nation's Capital: Can They Do More?." Charting Civil Society (The Urban
Institute, April 1998), No. 2.
16
Appendix B: Compendium of DC Youth Outreach Programs
Organization
Main Category
Number of Children
Days of month
Type of Program
Number of paid staff
15th Presbyterian
Church Ministry
30
20
tutoring
0
Allen Community Outreach Center
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
4
tutoring
2
Alliance of Concerned Men
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
24
gang prevention
N/A
All Souls
Church Ministry
N/A
1
tutoring
0
Ark Foundation Church
Church Ministry
40
8
youth group
0
Assemblies of God-Urban Outreach, Inc
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
spring/summer
evangelical
0
Barrios Unidos
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
24
gang prevention
2
Barry Farms Community Center
Faith-Based Non-Profit
70
24
tutoring
0
Beacon House Community Ministries
Faith-Based Non-Profit
40
20
tutoring
2
Brightwood Park United Methodist Church
Church Ministry
30
20
tutoring
0
Building Bridges
Faith-Based Non-Profit
40
2
youth group
N/A
Calvary Baptist
Church Ministry
100
20
tutoring
0
Calvary Christian Academy
Faith-Based School
N/A
N/A
school
2
Calvary-Episcopal
Church Ministry
11
8
tutoring
0
Campbell AME Church
Church Ministry
25
4
tutoring
2
Capitol Hill Crisis Pregnancy Center
Faith-Based Non-Profit
10
20
pregnancy
2
Capitol Hill Group Ministry
Faith-Based Non-Profit
30
4
mentoring
2
Casa del Pueblo
Faith-Based Non-Profit
40
20
tutoring
2
Cease Fire
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
28
gang prevention
0
Central Union Mission
Faith-Based Non-Profit
60
4
evangelical
0
Children of Mine
Faith-Based Non-Profit
80
20
tutoring
0
Children's Trust Neighborhood Initiative
Faith-Based Non-Profit
25
8
tutoring
2
Chinese Community Church
Church Ministry
25
4
youth group
N/A
Christ Lutheran-Teens On Their Guard
Church Ministry
10
4
youth group
0
Christ Our Shepherd Church, Jesus House
Church Ministry
20
4
evangelical
0
Church of Jesus Christ
Church Ministry
40
4
evangelical
0
Church of the Ascension and St. Agnes
Church Ministry
N/A
N/A
tutoring
0
Church of the Atonement
Church Ministry
25
N/A
tutoring
N/A
Church of the Redeemer Presbyterian
Church Ministry
20
20
tutoring
2
Church of the Reformation
Church Ministry
80
16
tutoring
2
Clara Mohammed School
Faith-Based School
N/A
N/A
school
N/A
Community Children's Ministry of the National
Church Ministry
119
20
tutoring
2
Community Family Life Services
Faith-Based Non-Profit
120
16
tutoring
2
Community of Hope
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
20
tutoring
2
Concerned Brothers
Faith-Based Non-Profit
30
20
gang prevention
2
Contee AME Church
Church Ministry
N/A
8
tutoring
0
Covenant Baptist
Church Ministry
N/A
4
youth group
0
Organization
Main Category
Number of Children
Days of month
Type of Program
Number of paid staff
Covenant House
Faith-Based Non-Profit
575
20
shelter
2
DC Christian Ministries
Faith-Based Non-Profit
100
24
tutoring
2
Derrel Greene Youth Life Foundation
Faith-Based Non-Profit
35
20
tutoring
2
Dupont Park School
Faith-Based School
N/A
N/A
school
2
E. Washington Heights Baptist Church
Church Ministry
20
4
tutoring
1
Ebeneezer Baptist Church
Church Ministry
N/A
N/A
tutoring
0
Ella's Kids
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
seasonal
gift give out
0
Emmanuel Baptist Church
Church Ministry
20
20
tutoring
2
End Time Harvest Ministry
Faith-Based Non-Profit
60
N/A
mentoring
0
Faith Untied Ministries
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
2
youth group
N/A
Fellowship of Christian Athletes
Faith-Based Non-Profit
60
N/A
youth group
0
First Baptist Church
Church Ministry
40
4
youth group
0
First Baptist Church of Washington
Church Ministry
15
4
youth group
1
First Baptist Church of Deanwood
Church Ministry
35
20
youth group
1
First Rock Baptist Church School
Faith-Based School
N/A
20
school
0
Fishing School, The
Faith-Based Non-Profit
40
20
tutoring
2
Florida Avenue Baptist Church
Church Ministry
20
4
tutoring
0
For the Love of Children
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
N/A
foster care
N/A
Frederick Douglas Community Center-resident
Faith-Based Non-Profit
35
4
tutoring
0
Freedom Youth Academy
Church Ministry
N/A
20
tutoring
N/A
Friends of the Children
Faith-Based Non-Profit
32
28
mentoring
2
18
Garfield House
Faith-Based Non-Profit
35
20
tutoring
0
Glory Tabernacle
Church Ministry
35
4
youth group
0
Good Shepherd Children's Ministries
Faith-Based Non-Profit
100
20
tutoring
2
Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church
Church Ministry
50
N/A
youth group
0
Growing Together-St. Stevens Episcopal Church
Faith-Based Non-Profit
100
20
tutoring
2
Hermanas Unidas
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
8
domestic violence
0
Highland Community Center
Faith-Based Non-Profit
25
20
tutoring
0
Holy Comforter St. Cypria
Faith-Based School
N/A
N/A
school
N/A
Hughes Memorial
Church Ministry
20
12
tutoring
0
Imani School
Faith-Based School
N/A
N/A
school
N/A
Immaculate Conception
Church Ministry
60
N/A
youth group
1
Israel Baptist Church
Church Ministry
20
16
tutoring
0
Joenning Baptist Church
Church Ministry
20
20
tutoring
1
Jones Memorial U.M.C.
Church Ministry
40
8
tutoring
0
Kid's Konnection
Faith-Based Non-Profit
100
12
evangelical
2
Liberty Temple Zion Church
Church Ministry
N/A
spring
evangelical
0
Little Lights
Faith-Based Non-Profit
20
8
tutoring
0
Love Thy Neighbor
Faith-Based Non-Profit
40
20
tutoring
0
Michigan Park Christian Disciples of Christ
Church Ministry
20
8
youth group
1
Midtown Youth Academy
Falth-Based Non-Profit
50
20
tutoring
0
Mother Dear's Community Center-St. Ann's Church
Faith-Based Non-Profit
12
16
tutoring
N/A
Mother's on the Move
Faith-Based Non-Profit
25
4
tutoring
0
Organization
Main Category
Number of Children
Days of month
Type of Program
Number of paid staff
Mt. Gilead Baptist Church
Church Ministry
10
20
tutoring
0
Mt. Horeb Baptist Church
Church Ministry
N/A
8
tutoring
0
Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church
Church Ministry
20
16
tutoring
0
Neighborhood Learning Center
Faith-Based Non-Profit
36
20
tutoring
2
New Bethel
Church Ministry
30
20
tutoring
2
New Community Church
Faith-Based Non-Profit
40
20
tutoring
2
New Covenant Church-School
Faith-Based School
N/A
N/A
school
N/A
New Hope Freewill Baptist Church
Church Ministry
25
summer
camp
N/A
New Macedonia Baptist Church
Church Ministry
N/A
N/A
camp
N/A
New Testament Church School
Faith-Based School
N/A
N/A
school
N/A
New United Baptist Church
Church Ministry
20
2
youth group
0
Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Faith-Based School
N/A
N/A
school
0
Our Lady of Queen of Peace
Faith-Based School
N/A
N/A
school
1
Our Lady Queen of the Americas
Church Ministry
20
16
tutoring
0
Paramount Baptist Church
Church Ministry
N/A
8
tutoring
0
Peace Lutheran
Church Ministry
20
4
youth group
0
Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church
Church Ministry
30
12
youth group
0
People Congregation Church
Church Ministry
20
4
youth group
1
Peter Bug Youth Entrepreneurship
Faith-Based Non-Profit
30
12
tutoring
N/A
Pilgrim Baptist Church
Church Ministry
N/A
N/A
mentoring
0
Plymouth Church
Church Ministry
20
12
tutoring
N/A
19
Purity Baptist Church
Church Ministry
N/A
N/A
youth group
0
Refuge Hope Warehouse
Church Ministry
30
4
youth group
1
Sacred Heart Catholic School
Faith-Based School
N/A
8
school
2
Sacred Heart Church
Church Ministry
50
20
youth group
N/A
Samaritan Ministry of Greater Washington
Faith-Based Non-Profit
40
20
tutoring
2
Sargent Memorial Presbyterian Church
Church Ministry
35
16
tutoring
2
Shaw Prison Service Program
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
N/A
detention ministry
N/A
Shiloh Baptist Church
Church Ministry
35
20
tutoring
2
Sojourner's Neighborhood Center
Faith-Based Non-Profit
40
20
tutoring
2
St. Aloysius
Church Ministry
N/A
4
homeless meal
2
St. Francis de Sales
Faith-Based School
N/A
N/A
school
N/A
St. Ann's Maternity Home
Faith-Based Non-Profit
428
28
shelter
2
St. Matthews Lutheran Church
Church Ministry
N/A
1
youth group
0
St. Monica's Church
Church Ministry
35
N/A
youth group
0
Step Foundation
Faith-Based Non-Profit
70
12
tutoring
1
The Children's Center at Wilkerson Elementary
Faith-Based Non-Profit
72
20
tutoring
2
The Gage-Eckington School/St. George's Episcopal Ch
Faith-Based Non-Profit
29
16
tutoring
0
Third Street Church of God
Church Ministry
20
4
youth group
0
Union Temple-Rites of Passage Program
Church Ministry
35
4
mentoring
0
Unique Learning Center-One Ministries
Faith-Based Non-Profit
20
20
tutoring
2
United Church (United Methodist), The
Church Ministry
10
4
tutoring
0
United Triumphant Church
Church Ministry
50
N/A
camp
N/A
Organization
Main Category
Number of Children
Days of month
Type of Program
Number of paid staff
Upper Room Baptist Church
Church Ministry
N/A
4
tutoring
0
Ward Memorial AME Church
Church Ministry
N/A
N/A
mentoring
0
Washington Middle School for Girls
Faith-Based School
40
4
school
0
Way of the Cross Ministries
Faith-Based Non-Profit
20
4
tutoring
0
Western Presbyterian Church
Church Ministry
10
4
tutoring
0
Young Life
Faith-Based Non-Profit
N/A
28
tutoring
2
20
Appendix C: Contacts at DC Youth Outreach Programs
15th St. Presbyterian
Calvary Episcopal -- Tutorial Outreach Program
Mrs. Brown
Dr. Ridley
(202) 234-0300
(202) 546-8011
All Souls
Campbell AME Church
Mrs. Embry Howel
Deborah Davis
(202) 232-4244
(202) 778-9824
Allen Community Outreach Center
Capitol Hill Crisis Pregnancy Center
Milton Douglas
Renee Swanson
(202) 889-5607
(202) 546-1018
Alliance of Concerned Men
Capitol Hill Group Ministry
Eric Johnson or Tyrone Parker
Kim Jackson
(202) 645-5098
(202) 544-0631
Ark Foundation Church
Casa del Pueblo
Sister Roi Kaima
Edwin Gonzalez
(202) 832-5420
(202) 332-1094
Assemblies of God-Urban Outreach, Inc.
Cease Fire
Rev. Ken and Kathy Brown
Al Malik Farakhan
(202) 575-4867
(202) 541-9807
Barrios Unidos
Central Union Mission
Luis Cardona
Jack Martin
(202) 424-6309
(202) 745-7118
Barry Farms Community Center
Children of Mine
Dorothea Ferrell
Hanna Hawkins
(202) 645-3854
(202) 610-1055
Beacon House Community Ministries
Children's Trust Neighborhood Initiative
Rev. Donald Robinson
Ally Bird
(202) 529-2862
(202) 396-4102
Building Bridges
Chinese Community Church-Youth Group
Faith Fowler
Sharmine Lao
(202) 393-4820
(202) 637-9852
Calvary Baptist
Christ Lutheran-Teens On Their Guard
Paget Rhee
Peggy Parry
(202) 347-8355
(202) 829-6727
21
Christ Our Shepherd Church, Jesus House
Contee AME Church
Paul Bowman
Rosemary McCall or Valerie Robinson
(202) 3877-5466
(202) 396-0638
Church Of Jesus Christ
Covenant Baptist Church
Phyllis Venison
Deborah Camphor
(202) 584-8488
(202) 562-5576
Church of the Ascension and St. Agnes
Covenant House
Catherine Held
Pastor Williams
(202) 347-8161
(202) 610-9612
Church of the Atonement
Darrell Green Youth Life Foundation-Learning
Douglas Bowman
Center
(202) 582-4200
Donnell Jones, Deborah Knight
(202) 398-7902
Church of the Redeemer Presbytarian
Marilyn Fleming
DC Christian Ministries
(202) 832-0095
Bob Mathieu Jr.
(202) 574-3053
Church of the Reformation
Pastor Wanda McNeil and Craig
Dupont Park School
Middlebrook
Mrs. Quinnonez
(202) 543-4200
(202) 575-5307
Clara Mohammed School
E. Washington Heights Baptist Church
Ann Sanders
Mrs. Willis
(202) 610-1090
(202)582-4811
Community Children's Ministry of the
Ella Kids
National City Christian Church
Ella Strother
Mrs. Mary Ann Brown
(202) 547-5076
(202) 797-0106
Emmanel Baptist Church
Communtiy Family Life Services - -Tutoring
Margaret Cooper
Ann Marie Foley
(202) 678-0884
(202) 347-0511 x 333
End Time Harvest Ministry
Community of Hope
Gail Addison
Rev. Phillips
(301) 345-7548
(202) 232-9091
Faith United Ministries
Concerned Brothers and Sister of Benning
Mrs. Sturdivant
Terrace
(202) 543-3251
Derick Ross
(202) 645-0918
22
Fellowship of Christian Atheletes
Good Shepherd Children's Ministries
Rev. Steve Fitzhugh
Kim Montrol
(202) 393-2870
(202)483-6043
First Baptist Church City of Washington
Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church, Youth
Roger Underwood
Department
(202) 387-2206
Evangelist Anthony Franklin
(202) 529-4547
First Baptist Church of Deanwood
Rev. Bennett
Growing Together-St. Steven's Episcopal
(202) 393-0534
Church
Theresa Knudson
First Rock Baptist Church School
(202) 232-8016, (202) 882-5359
Sister Della Tillman, Grace Jones
(202) 583-0992
Hermanas Undias
Rosa Rivas
The Fishing School
(202) 387-4848
Tom Lewis
(202) 399-3618
Highland Community Center
Brenda Wright
For the Love of Children
(202) 574-2863
Fred Taylor
(202) 42-8686
Holy Comforter St. Cyprian Catholic School
Dr. Leighton
Frederick Douglas Community Center-
(202) 547-7556
Resident Council
Brenda Graham
Hughes Memorial United Methodist
(202) 678-7911
Miss Diane Tynes
(202) 398-3411
Freedom Youth Academy
Mrs. Gaskins
Imani School
(202) 889-1682
Rose Pope, Iris Robinson
(202) 724-8641
Friends of the Children
Sammy Morrison
Immaculate Conception Catholic Church
(202) 581-7010
Deacon Genis
(202) 332-8888
Garfield House
Rosemary Akimboni
Isreal Baptist Church
(202) 232-0130
Rev. Martin
(202) 269-0288
Glory Tabernacle
Pastor Dennis Pisani, Joel Garret
Johenning Baptist Church
(202) 234-3716
Yvonne Chambliss
(202) 561-2095
23
The Center for Civic Innovation
at the Manhattan Institute
52 Vanderbilt Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10017
Telephone: 212.599.7000
Fax: 212.599.3494
e-mail: [email protected]
Henry Olsen
Executive Director
C C i
CENTER FOR CIVIC INNOVATION
The Jeremiah Project
The Indiatine of the Genter for Civic Innovation
The Jeremiah Project
An Initialive of the Center for Civic Innovation
Living Faith:
The Black Church
Outreach Tradition
Report 98-3
By
John J. Dilulio
Senior Fellow, The Manhattan Institute
Director, The Jeremiah Project
C
i
CENTER FOR CIVIC INNOVATION
AT THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH
Promote the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you:
prav for il 10 the Lord. for upon its welfare depends your own (Jeremiah 29:7).
The Jeremiah Project
Begun in 1998. The Jeremiah Project (TJP) of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Civic Innova-
tion (CCI) is dedicated to identifying. documenting, publicizing, and funding outstanding examples
of faith-based programs that help inner-city youth and young adults to avoid violence, achieve
literacy. and access jobs while resurrecting hope and opportunity in America's most distressed
urban neighborhoods.
John Dilulio. a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and Professor at Princeton University,
directs TJP. He began his "faith factor" line of research in 1994. In 1996 he founded Public/Private
Ventures' Partnership for Research on Religion and At-Risk Youth. and developed the Partnership's
national research agenda on faith-based approaches to youth and community development. Known
widely for his work on crime. social policy. and government reform. he predicts that by the year
2006. America will be home to 30 million teenagers. the highest number since 1975. Much of the
increase in the nation's youth population. he stresses. is occurring in "forgotten urban neighbor-
hoods with high rates of child abuse and neglect. poverty, crime, illiteracy, and chronic unemploy-
ment
Where secular mentoring and conventional social services programs for severely at-risk
inner-city youth and young adults normally end. faith-based programs often begin
Not all
churches do it. and churches certainly can't do it all alone. But there's good news. From pre-
schools to prisons, religion works, and adequately supported outreach ministries-the clergy and
other religious paramedics of inner-city America's civil society-can save lives and offer a better
chance in life to those whom the Bible call the 'least of these.' We will need. however, to learn more
about the extent. efficacy, and capacity of faith-based efforts. and the general conditions under
which they succeed. We need not only research but a willingness-here and now-to help proven
urban outreach ministers to meet their unmet everyday needs. from money for fixing a broken pipe
in a church basement where an after-school latchkey learning ministry runs, to help writhing a grant
proposal, to brokering positive connections with other local institutions The bottom line is lever-
aging the 'spiritual capital' of inner-city ministries into more children who are safe, literate, job-
ready-and loved."
Others affiliated with the Institute who have roles in TJP include Reverend Floyd Flake, CCI Di-
rector Henry Olsen, and the Editor of Journal, Myron Magnet. With Institute President Lawrence
Mone, Professor Dilulio co-directs The Jeremiah Funds (TJF) which in just six months provided
over $100,000 in support for specific unmet needs of outreach ministries and religious schools in
Boston. New York, Camden. Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The Institute invites support for
both TJP and TJF.
HISTORY OF OUTREACH
Where secular mentoring and conventional social services programs for poor urban youth typi-
cally end, churches and religious outreach ministries often begin, especially in predominantly black
communities.
The black church has a unique and uniquely powerful youth and community outreach tradition.
Indeed, the black church's historic role in providing blacks with education, social services, and a safe
gathering place prefigured its historic role in the civil rights movement.
There are eight major historically black Christian churches: African Methodist Episcopal; Afri-
can Methodist Episcopal Zion; Christian Methodist Episcopal; Church of God in Christ; National Bap-
tist Convention of America; National Baptist Convention, USA; National Missionary Baptist Conven-
tion; and the Progressive National Baptist Convention. There are also scores of independent or
quasi-independent black churches or church networks, and at least nine certified religious training
programs operated by accredited seminaries that are directed toward ministry in black churches and
black faith communities. Together, the eight major black denominations alone encompass some 65,000
churches and about 20 million members.
To illustrate how the black church outreach tradition has been transmitted and lives on today,
let me briefly offer just three sets of examples, the first set emanating from major denomination churches,
the second set from an independent church, and the third from inter-denominational faith-based nonprofits
that serve predominantly black churches, congregations, and communities.
In 1794, Richard Allen and a delegation of ex-slaves started Philadelphia's Mother Bethel A.M.E.
Church, breaking off from the parent Methodist church the better to meet the particular ministerial
needs of black congregations and communities. While Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church in Philadelphia
is often cited as America's oldest black church, First African Baptist Church of Savannah is, in fact, the
"oldest continuing black church in North America."
First African Baptist Church of Savannah's first four pastors responded to events from the
British occupation of Savannah (1779 to 1782) to the coming of General Sherman in 1864. With each
response, the church was "moved out beyond its preaching, praying and singing." For example, the
church's fourth pastor, Reverend William J. Campbell, led a delegation of ministers who met with
General Sherman and advised the government on how to implement the Emancipation Proclamation.
Four days after his dialogue with Pastor Campbell, General Sherman issued Field Order #15 which set
aside forty acres of land for each black family ("forty acres and a mule"), and provided federal troops
to protect them.³
Between 1982 and 1995, the seventeenth pastor of First African Baptist Church of Savannah,
Reverend Thurmond Neill Tillman, consciously continued to combine the church's "spiritual or privatistic
I Judith Crocker Burris and Andrew Billingsley. "The Black Church and the Community: Antebellum Times to the Present. Case Studies in Social
Reform," National Journal of Sociology, 8, numbers 1 and 2, Summer/Winter 1994, p. 26.
2 Ibid., p. 33.
3 Ibid.
1
mission with its social or communal mission."⁴ Tillman, a former probation officer and apprentice
aircraft pilot, emphasized the development of church-anchored programs for neighborhood youth, in-
cluding juveniles who had gotten into trouble with the law. With 200 years of outreach tradition to
guide him, Tillman explained the church's mission: "Whatever the needs of the people, that they can-
not meet themselves, it is the mission of the church to help them
We can tackle any problem our
people face because the church comes to the problem not bound by its own resources and capacities.
The church is God's representative on earth. We have access to all the resources that implies."5
BLACK CHURCH OUTREACH TODAY
The denominational descendants of Richard Allen may not have the nation's oldest continuing
black church, but they, too, have an extraordinary outreach tradition. That tradition is alive and well in
the work of New York's Reverend Floyd H. Flake, the former U.S. congressman who leads the historic
Allen A.M.E. Church. Over the last decade, Flake's 8,000-member congregation has raised millions of
dollars and devoted countless volunteer hours to the slow, but steady redevelopment of the church's
surrounding working-class Queens community. Equally impressive, in 1992 Flake launched the Shekinah
Youth Chapel in Jamaica Queens, one of the city's poorest, most drug-and-crime-torn minority neigh-
borhoods.
As Flake initially outlined it, Shekinah's mission would be to mentor and minister to neighbor-
hood children ages 3 to 19 (not just the children of Allen A.M.E. members, referred to as "remnant
youth"); encourage older Shekinah youth to reach out to their unchurched peers in schools and on the
streets; and use the chapel building as a community "safe haven" for any child who simply wanted to
get off the surrounding mean streets or find something constructive to do.
Flake entrusted Shekinah's development to Reverend Anthony Nathaniel Lucas, then a
26-year-old graduate of Columbia's Union Theological Seminary. Lucas pastored Shekinah from 1992
to mid-1998. Before coming to Shekinah, he had worked as a youth minister in the Bronx. He began
Shekinah with only two dozen youngsters, virtually all of them remnant youth of Allen. By 1998,
however, Shekinah had over 500 youth members, some 80 percent of them children from its surround-
ing neighborhood.
Shekinah's outreach success is captured by the tale of two of its members from different worlds.
Michelle Lawrence, age 16, is one of Shekinah's remnant youth, a comfortably middle-class black
daughter of two black lawyers who are members of Allen A.M.E. She has many not-so-fond memories
of Abraham Abdul, age 23. "As a younger child," she recounted to me, "I remember seeing him out on
the streets hustling drugs
He was very threatening
a neighborhood roughneck, plain and simple."
Abraham confirmed her recollection: "I did what she saw and worse
At age 17, I left home
At
home, I was physically abused
sometimes I starved for food
On the streets, whatever I did, I
didn't go hungry, and I didn't care about anybody else."
Jailed at age 19, Abraham escaped a possible five-year prison term, but he finally could not
escape the relentless outreach of Lucas and the tug of Shekinah. "Pastor Lucas," he recalled, "meets
J Ibid., p. 44.
5 Ibid., p. 38.
2
with me one-on-one and says, 'Right now, let it go. Put it all on Christ and let it go
Our church in
Queens, not the streets, is our home
All of a sudden, I'm struggling to see how I can help him reach
other kids on the streets." Michelle confirmed his transformation: "He's definitely a positive influence
in the neighborhood now, like a big brother in Christ Jesus to everyone, especially to the boys from
group homes, street gangs, or on the streets."
Having cut his outreach teeth at Shekinah, Lucas, now age 33, is completing his doctoral stud-
ies at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and planning a new youth outreach minis-
try, one focused in part on the needs of poor black inner-city children who have one or both parents in
prison or jail.
While Lucas came up through a major black denomination, the outreach ministry of Boston's
Reverend Eugene Rivers evolved out of Philadelphia's Deliverance Evangelistic Church. Begun in
1960, Deliverance developed as an independent church out of the North Philadelphia home of Pastor
Benjamin Smith, a Pentecostal preacher. Smith's "concern was to have a church that worshiped God
and served the total needs of the community."6 Over four decades, the ministry remained rooted in
North Philadelphia's poorest black neighborhoods. In time, it transcended its storefront beginnings to
become a 10,000-person congregation occupying a 5,000-seat sanctuary and ministry complex built
where a Major League Baseball stadium (Connie Mack) once stood. The Deliverance ministry began
providing food, clothing, and shelter for neighborhood residents as far back as 1962. Today it is home
to several dozen different outreach programs, including community patrols, special education, and a
Bible school. "Ain't God," I have often heard Pastor Smith ask rhetorically, "so very good?"
Pastor Smith, now age 85, has always had what church folks call a "special heart" for troubled
inner-city youth. Thirty years ago his street outreach ministry saved one such youth, a then 16-year-old
gun-toting gang-banger named Eugene Rivers. Smith, whom Rivers and other Deliverance "gradu-
ates" call "Pops," was the inspiration for just about everything that Rivers and affiliated clergy have
done in Boston. "Pops," Rivers told me, "was the one who put it on the line when nobody knew and
nobody cared. He stayed faithful to the kids and the black community when others fled the violence and
the noise to the suburbs. More than anyone else, for me personally, he firmly embodies the black
church outreach tradition, especially regarding 'the least of these,' the poor, and made me feel called to
live up to it and to call others to do the same."
Organizationally, that tradition is not confined to major black denomination or independent
churches. Inter-denominational faith-based organizations (sometimes referred to as "pro-church" or
"para-church" organizations) that train black pastors to do outreach work, provide them with technical
or financial assistance, or focus on particular community-serving projects are also very much a part of
the tradition. In Boston, for example, Rev. Rivers and his church volunteers have often worked via the
Ten Point Coalition, an inter-denominational group of black clergy that focuses on a wide range of
youth and community problems.
Likewise, in Philadelphia, Reverend Willie Richardson, pastor of Christian Stronghold Church,
is also the chairman of the Center for Urban Resources (CUR). After decades as an urban outreach
minister, Richardson recognized that, because of their religious origins and lack of familiarity with
", Harold Dean Trulear. "Deliverance Evangelistic Church: Transforming Lives and Communities." Impact. 10. no. 3. Fall 1997. p. 10.
7 Interview with author, June 1998.
3
secular grant making organizations, many community-serving urban ministries, most especially those
associated with black urban churches, were constantly struggling to obtain needed training and finan-
cial support. Working out of his own church, in 1987 he established what became CUR as an
inter-denominational faith-based nonprofit organization. CUR has since assisted over 550 local church
leaders in obtaining training and money to perform a wide variety of community-serving tasks: pre-
schools; day care centers; job training programs; drug counseling; shelters; programs for elderly shut-ins;
food distribution programs; and more.⁸
Similarly, in 1994 Elder Eugene Williams helped to establish the Los Angeles Metropolitan
Churches (LAM), which by 1997 had grown to encompass thirty-four black churches working in part-
nership to "train and develop the capacity of clergy, lay and community leaders to revitalize their
communities." Among recent LAM initiatives are a literacy program for parolees who return to the
community and a "one church, one school" program, described to me by Williams as sort of a "latch-
key learning ministry" that tends to the educational and after-school supervision needs of the city's
most severely at-risk black youth.
The foregoing illustrations, of course, only lightly scratch the surface of the living black church
outreach tradition. Unfortunately, until quite recently, that tradition and what it portends for social
action against inner-city ills has been largely ignored by a strange bedfellows assortment of academics
and intellectual elites.
Until the 1990s, for example, the richly religious lives of black Americans and the black church
outreach tradition were given short shrift by both historians and social scientists, and not just by white
historians and social scientists. Writing in 1994 in a special double edition of National Journal of
Sociology, Andrew Billingsley, a dean of black family studies, noted that the subject was largely ig-
nored even by leading black scholars who were keenly aware of "the social significance of the black
church," including many who "were actually members of a black church. "10
For example, James Blackwell's 1975 book The Black Community, considered by Billingsley
and several other experts to be "the best study" of its kind since Dubois' 1899 classic The Philadelphia
Negro, devoted not a single chapter to the black church; and Billingsley's own 1968 book Black Fami-
lies In White America, written as a rebuttal to the 1965 Moynihan Report, "devoted less than two pages
to discussing the relevance of the black church as a support system for African-American families. "11
Billingsley speculates that black intellectuals ignored black churches in part out of a false fidelity to the
canons of objective scholarship.
A refined and empirically well-grounded perspective on variations in the extent of black church
outreach is provided by sociologist Harold Dean Trulear, an ordained black minister who did outreach
work in New Jersey, taught for eight years at the New York Theological Seminary, has conducted
8 For an overview, see Center for Urban Resources: Directory of Community Service Programs. 1995-1996 (Philadelphia. PA: Center for Urban
Resources, 1996).
") Los Angeles Metropolitan Churches, 1997 Annual Report. p. 1.
10 Andrew Billingsley, "The Social Relevance of the Contemporary Black Church," National Journal of Sociology, 8. numbers 1 and 2. Summer/Winter
1994, p. 3.
II Ibid.
4
extensive research on black clergy training, and is presently Vice President for research on religion and
at-risk youth at Public/Private Ventures in Philadelphia.
"When it comes to youth and community outreach in the inner city," Trulear cautions, "not all
black urban churches are created equal
Naturally, it's in part a function of high resident member-
ship. Inner-city churches with high resident membership cater more to high-risk neighborhood youth
than
black churches with inner-city addresses, but increasingly or predominantly suburbanized or
commuting congregations
[The high resident membership black churches] tend to cluster by size
and evangelical orientation
It's the small- and medium-sized churches
[especially]
the
so-called
blessing stations and specialized youth chapels with their charismatic leader and their
small, dedicated staff of adult volunteers [that]
do a disproportionate amount of the up close and
personal outreach work with the worst-off inner-city youth. "12
When it comes to social action against urban problems and the plight of the black inner-city
poor, the reality is that black churches cannot do it all (or do it alone) and that not all black churches do
it. But that reality should obscure neither the black church outreach tradition nor its many and powerful
contemporary manifestations from Boston to Austin, from New York to Los Angeles.
Today, a number of intellectual and policy leaders are reclaiming the black church tradition. Let
me cite just two examples. First, in a 1997 essay, Boston University economists Glenn Loury and
Linda-Datcher Loury argue persuasively that a "spirit of self-help, rooted in a deep-seated sense of self
respect, was widely embraced among blacks of all ideological persuasions well into this century. "13
They rebut the view that "economic factors ultimately drive" behavioral problems "involving sexual-
ity, marriage, childbearing, and parenting," and, in turn, challenge the notion that merely fiddling with
economic incentives via policy changes can change behavior for the good. Rather, they argue, volun-
tary associations, "as exemplified by religious institutions," can be valuable allies in the battle against
social pathology.¹⁴
Although they themselves write not only as economists but as blacks attached to black churches,
and despite Glenn Loury's own quite eloquent personal testimony and research-based meditations on
the social power and potential of black spirituality and churches, the Lourys are duly cautious about
just how much the churches can achieve, but without being unduly pessimistic about what, supported
by other sectors of society, the churches may yet achieve. 15
From a less academic, more practice-driven perspective, Robert L. Woodson, Sr., president of
the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise in Washington, D.C., reclaims the black church out-
reach tradition in his 1998 book on how "today's community healers are reviving our streets and neigh-
borhoods. The children depicted with Woodson in the photo on the book's inside dust jacket are
inner-city District youth who have been ministered to by Tom Lewis, a retired black city police officer
who has spent the last decade building a tiny neighborhood outreach ministry called The Fishing School.
12 Interview with the author, June 1998.
13 Glenn Loury and Linda Datcher-Loury, "Not By Bread Alone," The Brookings Review. 15, no. 1, Winter 1997, p. 13.
14 lbid., pp. 10-11.
15 Ibid., and Glenn Loury, One on One From the Inside Out: Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America (New York: The Free Press.
May 1995).
16 Robert L. Woodson, Sr., The Triumphs of Joseph: How Today's Community Healers Are Reviving Our Streets and Neighborhoods (New York: The
Free Press. 1998).
5
Lewis is one of innumerable faith-motivated inner-city leaders of all races whom Woodson has
helped fund, battle inane government regulations, or otherwise supported over the last thirty years.
Some of these men and women, like Freddie Garcia, an ex-drug user whose Texas-based Victory
Fellowship has rehabilitated (or, as people of faith generally prefer, "saved") over 13,000 persons, are
fairly well known outside church circles and faith communities. Countless others, like Lewis, who
feeds, tutors, shelters, and otherwise helps scores of poor black children every week, remain faceless
even to many fellow churchmen. "We're always," Lewis told me, "in need of extra hands and money to
repair a broken pipe or what have you. But the children come, we have God, God helps always, and we
always do our best. "17
SURVEYS OF CHURCH-BASED OUTREACH
Still, tradition is not always prologue, and the plural of inspiring anecdote is not hard data.
Black church history and present-day examples aside, just how common are black-led outreach minis-
tries like those of Lewis, how much of what Rivers terms "high-octane faith"18 is in the black church
tank, and what, if any, more systematic evidence is there to suggest that the extent of youth and com-
munity outreach by black churches is nontrivial? As Trulear has observed, "Simply stated, there has yet
to be a survey of the blessing stations and youth chapels that do most of the actual work with the
worst-off kids in black inner-city neighborhoods." But the path breaking research of scholars such as
Eric C. Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, combined with recent systematic research by Trulear and
others, should persuade even a dedicated skeptic to take church-based outreach seriously.
The Urban Institute published the results of a survey of "faith-based service providers in the
nation's capital" in 1998. 20 The survey found that 95 percent of the congregations performed outreach
services. The 226 religious congregations (out of 1,100 surveyed) that responded (67 of them in the
District, the rest in Maryland or Virginia) provided a total of over 1,000 community services to over
250,000 individuals in 1996. The services included food, clothing, and financial assistance. The survey
was limited to religious congregations. Local faith-based nonprofits like The Fishing School were not
surveyed.
In the mid-1990s a six-city survey of how over 100 randomly selected urban churches (and four
synagogues) constructed in 1940 or earlier serve their communities was undertaken by Ram A. Cnnan
of the University of Pennsylvania. The study was commissioned and published by Partners for Sacred
Places, a Philadelphia-based national nonprofit organization dedicated to the care and good use of
older religious properties.²¹ Congregations were surveyed in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, India-
napolis, Mobile, and the Bay Area (Oakland and San Francisco). Each church surveyed participated in
a series of in-depth interviews.
Among the Cnnan-Partners survey's key findings were the following: 93 percent of the churches
opened their doors to the larger community; on average, each church provided over 5,300 hours of
17 Lewis Conversation with Princeton freshman seminar, Spring 1998.
18 Eugene F. Rivers, III, "High-Octane Faith and Civil Society." in E. J. Dionne. Community Works. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute, 1998),
pp. 59-63.
19 Interview with the author, June 1998.
20 Tobi Jennifer Printz, Faith-Based Service Providers in the Nation's Capital: Can They Do More? (Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute.
April 1998).
21 Diane Cohen and A. Robert Jaeger, Sacred Places At Risk (Philadelphia, PA: Partners for Sacred Places, 1998).
6
volunteer support to its community programs (the equivalent of two-and-a-half full-time volunteers
stationed year-round at the church); on average, each church provided about $140,000 a year in com-
munity programs, or about 16 times what it received from program beneficiaries; on average, each
church supported four major programs, and provided informal and impromptu services as well; and
poor children who were not the sons or daughters of church members or otherwise affiliated with the
church benefited from church-supported programs more than any other single group.
Typical of the churches behind these heartening statistics is Hyde Park Union Church, located
in a Chicago neighborhood where half of recent murder victims have been juveniles. Pastored by
Reverend Susan Johnson, the church sponsors Vigil Against Violence, an anti-violence grassroots
initiative, and houses the State Attorney General's Support Group for Victims of Violence program.
The church also houses a Parent Support Network and operates an 89-year-old daycare center that
serves fifty neighborhood children, none of them congregation members. "It's our mission," explains
Pastor Johnson, "to offer programs that stabilize family welfare. "22 "We don't have much money," she
adds, but her church and others like it are the "most durable institutions in the community--more so
than many businesses or (even) public schools."23
The best-known and still the most comprehensive survey focusing exclusively on black churches
was published in 1990 by Lincoln and Mamiya. 24 In their book The Black Church in the
African-American Experience, they reported on the results of surveys encompassing nearly 1,900 min-
isters and over 2,100 churches. Some 71 percent of black clergy reported that their churches engaged in
community outreach programs including day care, job search, substance abuse prevention, food and
clothing distribution, and many others. Black urban churches, they found, were generally more en-
gaged in outreach than rural ones. While many urban churches also engaged in quasi-political activities
and organizing, few received government money, most clergy expressed concerns about receiving
government money, and only about 8 percent of all the churches surveyed received any federal govern-
ment funds. 26
A number of site-specific and regional surveys of black churches followed the publication of
Lincoln and Mamiya's book. So far, all of them have been broadly consistent with the Lincoln-Mamiya
survey results on black church outreach. To cite just two examples, in a survey of 150 black churches
in Atlanta, Naomi Ward and her colleagues found that 131 of the churches were "actively engaged in
extending themselves into the community."27 Likewise, a survey of 635 Northern black churches found
that two-thirds of the churches engaged in a wide range of "family-oriented community outreach pro-
grams," including mentoring, drug abuse prevention, teenage pregnancy prevention, and other out-
reach efforts "directed at children and youth." "28
22 Ibid., p. 40.
23 Ibid., P. 40.
24 Eric C. Lincoln and Lawrence W. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African-American Experience, (Durham. NC: Duke University Press, 1990)
25 Ibid., p. 151.
26 Ibid., p. 15.
27 Naomi Ward et al., "Black Churches in Atlanta Reach Out to the Community." National Journal of Sociology, 8. numbers 1 and 2. Summer/Winter
1994. p. 59.
2X Roger H. Rubin et al., "The Black Church and Adolescent Sexuality," National Journal of Sociology, 8, numbers 1 and 2. Summer/Winter 1994, pp.
131. 138.
7
The raw data from the Lincoln-Mamiya surveys were reanalyzed in the course of a 1997 study
of black theological education certificate programs (Bible institutes, denominational training programs,
and seminary non-degree programs). The study was directed by Trulear in collaboration with Tony
Carnes and commissioned by the Ford Foundation. Trulear and Carnes reported no problems with the
Lincoln-Mamiya data. Rather, they compared certain of the Lincoln-Mamiya survey results to data
gathered in their own survey 724 students representing 28 theological certificate programs that focused
on serving black students. Again, the findings were quite consistent with those of the Lincoln-Mamiya
study. For example, three-quarters of those surveyed by Trulear and Carnes reported that their church
encouraged them "to be involved in my local community," more than half said relevance to "my
community's needs" was of major importance to them in choosing a theological certificate program,
and about half were already involved in certain types of charitable community work. 30
New outreach surveys are underway. As Trulear's colleague, P/PV's Dine Watson, told
Newsweek. "there is a lot of interest in this area now, because secular institutions have failed."3¹
But, then again, if black church outreach is so potent, then how come inner-city poverty, crime,
and other problems remain so severe? That is a fair question, but it can easily be turned around: How
much worse would things be in Boston and Jamaica Queens, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, and other
cities were it not for the until recently largely unsung efforts of faith-based youth and community
outreach efforts? How much more would government or other charitable organizations need to expend,
and how many volunteers would suddenly need to be mobilized, in the absence of church-anchored
outreach? The only defensible answers are "much worse" and "lots," respectively.
Citizens who for whatever reasons are nervous about religion or enhanced church-state partner-
ships should focus on the consistent finding that faith-based outreach efforts benefit poor unchurched
neighborhood children most of all. If these churches are so willing to support and reach out to "the least
of these," surely they deserve the human and financial support of the rest of us--corporations, founda-
tions, and, where appropriate, government agencies.
I agree with Father Richard John Neuhaus of First Things magazine when he characterizes one
of my earlier writings on black poverty as advancing the view that "religion is the key to anything good
happening among the black poor" (well, at least the key to most good things that are happening among
them). And I confess to being doubly in agreement with Father Neuhaus when he writes that, rather
than turn our heads and harden our hearts to the plight of the black inner-city poor, rather than merely
exposing "liberal fatuities about remedying the 'root causes' of poverty and crime
there must be
another way. Just believing that is a prelude to doing something. The something in question is centered
in religion that is both motive and means, and extends to public policy tasks that should claim the
attention of all Americans.³²
29 Harold Dean Trulear and Tony Carnes, A Study of the Social Service Dimension of Theological Education Certificate Programs: The 1997 Theologi-
cal Certificate Program Survey, submitted to the Ford Foundation, November 1. 1997.
30 Ibid., pp. 34, 40-41.
il Dine Watson as quoted in Leland, "Savior of the Streets," Newsweek, June 1, 1998. p. 23.
12 Richard John Neuhaus, "The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion and Public Life," First Things. no. 81. March 1998. pp. 63-65.
8
Notes
The Center for Civic Innovation
at the Manhattan Institute
52 Vanderbilt Avenue New York, N.Y. 10017
Telephone: 212.599.7000
Fax: 212.599.3494
e-mail: [email protected]
Henry Olsen
Executive Director
C i
CENTER FOR CIVIC INNOVATION
The Jeremiah Project
An Instiative of the Genter for Civic Innovation