Shannon Wright Ministries

For Immediate release:

Pastor Shannon Wright of Faith Grace and Mercy World Wide Ministry Association Calls for the removal of the pretense of faith from the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships was originally known as Office of Faith Based Initiatives started under the Bush administration. It was a place where faith based organizations could come and get resources to be able to provide necessary services in their respective communities while upholding the principle of their faith. Now as mere shadow of its former self, going from “the office of” to “advisory council on” this once worthwhile endeavor has been relegated to a pretense of faith.

With its new leader who the White House quietly appointed, Melissa Rogers, the new director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Ms. Rogers is a scholar of church-state legal issues which signals a troubling focus for the office. Ms. Rogers has been vocal about her disagreement with current policy on an important issue of allowing religious organizations to hire based on religion for programs that receive federal money.

“While I believe religious organizations should have full freedom to make religious calls regarding jobs subsidized by tithes and offerings,” Ms. Rogers said, speaking to the Baptist Joint Committee in 2011, “when government-funded jobs are involved, I believe the calculus changes.”

This combined with the partnering with USAid on its hidden agenda of programs “for marginalized groups such as the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender community”; and the White House Priorities which include “resources” to help with unplanned pregnancy and all leading to abortion and resource with Planned Parentohood.

It is time to remove the already diluted faith from the polluted agenda.