(RNS) — For decades, Stanley Carlson-Thies has worked to demystify the “faith-based office” that has been part of the White House during the last five presidential administrations.
The founder of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance also has worked to defend faith-based organizations, making sure they, along with secular groups, are heard and supported by governments and given an equal chance at funding for the social services they provide.
“It’s not a theocracy; there’s no automatic money going to religious groups,” Carlson-Thies said in an interview days before his retirement party at Washington’s Museum of the Bible. “If you read the regulations, it says they can’t get it just because they’re religious, or they can’t be turned away just because they’re religious.”
Stanley Carlson-Thies. (Photo courtesy of Center for Public Justice)
After working in the first White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, he initially started the IRFA as an independent organization in 2008. It now is part of the Center for Public Justice, a nonpartisan organization headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, and focused on policy research, where Carlson-Thies worked before he started IRFA and since the alliance came under the center’s umbrella.
As of his Wednesday (April 30) retirement, Carlson-Thies will continue as a CPJ fellow and consultant.
Carlson-Thies, 75, was born in Tokyo to missionary parents and describes himself as a Reformed Christian Calvinist and a “centrist conservative.” He has also taught Sunday school at his Presbyterian Church in America-affiliated congregation in Maryland.
Looking toward retirement, he talked with RNS about what the White House faith-based office has accomplished, how it has been misunderstood and what he hopes for its future.
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The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Why did you found the IRFA?
Often conceptually what springs to mind is individual religious freedom, which is critical. But one way communities and people of faith live out their faith is through institutions. And although that w …