Charities are usually founded on high ideals and goals. But the difficult part comes when those behind the good cause must come up with the cold, hard cash to fund their charitable works.

One always supposes that there are benefactors out there who will be happy to support the cause. But they rarely appear in the way you imagine. It takes years to cultivate a funding base, and there is a potential for many missteps that don’t pay off: Expensive letters sent that don’t yield fruit, trips taken that turn up nothing, appeals that don’t appeal. The job of finding funding for charitable work is more difficult than it appears. You believe in your cause but convincing others is something else entirely.

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This is where federal funding can appear to be a grave temptation. It seems easy at first. You only need to fill out the forms — many of them. Then you wait. Then you fill out more forms, and you swear to abide by many conditions. You submit to some degree of oversight and you thereby surrender some independence. Managing the grant itself becomes a job, and you even end up sinking resources into hiring someone to do it. The grant may eventually appear, but is your charity the same one you imagined at the outset? How much of your operations have been compromised by the desire for a secure and lavish budget?

This is why I have never been a supporter of the Bush administration’s Faith-Based Initiative that makes religious charities eligible for federal funding. Charities with a religious mission shouldn’t be getting mixed up in all that bureaucracy, all those regulations, and all those rules concerning their own internal management. Nor should they become dependent on taxpayers. Doing so skews the institutional mission of the charity. It just isn’t worth it.

I also worry about the public backlash that the history of church-state intermingling suggests is inevitable. It is a normal facet of public life that taxpayers don’t look entirely kindly on institutions that are living off the proceeds of the tax state. When Catholic schools took government money in the late 19th century, it prompted a wicked public reaction that unleashed hatred against Catholics that lasted for many decades. Or think of the way people react when a local newspaper reports on evangelical efforts at a charter school.

The lesson of this long history is that if you want to do religiously motivated work in the United States, it is best to do it on your own dime. This is what American culture expects, a belief rooted very deeply in our history and current practice. I believe that this practice is best for the health of religion and the health of the state. We all benefit by keeping religion separate from the public sector so that it can better grow, flourish, and transform society.

Now to the reason I’m back on this topic. Barack Obama has announced that he likes President Bush’s program of public funding for religious charities. In fact, he wants to expand the program. Interestingly, he seems happy to employ the language of conservatives: “I know there are some who bristle at the notion that faith has a place in the public square. But the fact is, leaders in both parties have recognized the value of a partnership between the White House and faith-based groups.”