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The Quiet Revolution: An Active Faith That Transforms Lives and Communities
Through community-based efforts, the twenty-first century has seen an unprecedented rise in generosity and a steep decline in global poverty. Recent history reveals that American citizens are the backbone of ambitious solutions to the world's most pressing problems. In The Quiet Revolution, readers are invited inside the White House to see how past presidents have rallied Americans to carry out this service to their nation by serving in their own communities.
In the early years of the twenty-first century, President George W. Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative was a major catalyst for dramatic social improvements. Though the faith-based initiative has been the subject of heated debate in Washington, this book clearly shows how the efforts of community volunteers helped to turn President Bush's vision into reality.
The Quiet Revolution is about championing the unsung work of ordinary volunteers who achieved the president's vision and continue to carry it out. Spurred both by faith and simple goodwill, they rolled up their sleeves in order to care for their neighbors in need.
In the early years of the twenty-first century, President George W. Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative was a major catalyst for dramatic social improvements. Though the faith-based initiative has been the subject of heated debate in Washington, this book clearly shows how the efforts of community volunteers helped to turn President Bush's vision into reality.
The Quiet Revolution is about championing the unsung work of ordinary volunteers who achieved the president's vision and continue to carry it out. Spurred both by faith and simple goodwill, they rolled up their sleeves in order to care for their neighbors in need.
- GenresReligion
219 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 11, 2018
Disappointing; I was expecting something much different from this book, and can’t remember how I stumbled onto this. From the title, I thought this book would give me (& my little church) a blueprint of how to quietly live out our faith & change the world.
Instead, this book is a history/promotion of Pres. Bush’s faith-based initiatives & policies. I skimmed through various parts of the book, but it just wasn’t interesting to me, or what I wanted to read.
Instead, this book is a history/promotion of Pres. Bush’s faith-based initiatives & policies. I skimmed through various parts of the book, but it just wasn’t interesting to me, or what I wanted to read.
August 3, 2016
First, I will say that this The Quiet Revolution by Jay F. Hein opened my eyes to what takes place in faith-based organizations. If you would have asked me if I supported President Bush's Office of Faith-Based Community Involvement (OFBCI) before reading this, my answer would have been an emphatic "No." I believe my answer to that question still leans toward the negative, but I now see some of the merit of this program. The book catalogs several examples of faith-based organizations doing good work both in the U.S. and around the world (particularly Africa) in areas of healthcare, education, fighting slavery and sex trafficking, and acclimating former prisoners back into society. Further, the author explains the stipulations involved in faith-based organizations receiving federal money, i.e. that "groups could retain their religious character (free exercise) while not proselytizing on Uncle Sam's dime (no state-sponsored religion or establishment)" (153).
I still have issues with religious organizations receiving federal aid, and I probably always will. However, the problem is that many, if not a huge majority, of the grassroots organizations doing the kind of social work that is better suited to private charities than government bureaucracy (because they tend to do it better, as Hein argues) happen to be religious. The OFBCI supports these charities with certain restrictions on how the federal aid money can be used, but I'm not sure how strictly enforced these restrictions are, and the author does not go into this. Again, this book has slightly softened my stance toward state-sponsored, faith-based organizations, but I still have plenty of reservations that I would be happy to talk about but won't go into here.
Overall, the book is decently-researched and provides a good number of supporting statistics and sources. However, the citations seem as if they were written by a child. Hein includes footnotes that are simply web URLs or PDFs. Hein includes many bold statements that interject his personal opinions on faith and/or require a citation where one is not present.
One issue I have with the book involved the chapter titled "The Great Church and State Debate" (Chapter 6). I hold the U.S. Founding Fathers in very high regard. I believe they knew what they were doing when they established our government and wrote the Constitution/Bill of Rights as well as a certain "wall of separation between church and state" letter. These men did not happen to be deeply religious, so I tend to get aggravated when the same old quotes are cherry picked in order to make the same tired arguments about church and state.
I understand Quiet Revolution is exclusively about the OFBCI, but this program did not exist in a vacuum. This author, writing with the hindsight afforded to him in 2014, regularly refers to President Bush as a "compassionate conservative." Still. In 2014. Hein also details Laura Bush's dedication to education in Afghanistan and her husband's "success in...effective response to natural disasters" (14). I found this almost laughable, but mostly, it gave me the creeps.
Finally, Hein includes an anecdote about visiting the Oval Office with Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander.
Worth a read. Good for discussion.
***I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads Giveaways.***
I still have issues with religious organizations receiving federal aid, and I probably always will. However, the problem is that many, if not a huge majority, of the grassroots organizations doing the kind of social work that is better suited to private charities than government bureaucracy (because they tend to do it better, as Hein argues) happen to be religious. The OFBCI supports these charities with certain restrictions on how the federal aid money can be used, but I'm not sure how strictly enforced these restrictions are, and the author does not go into this. Again, this book has slightly softened my stance toward state-sponsored, faith-based organizations, but I still have plenty of reservations that I would be happy to talk about but won't go into here.
Overall, the book is decently-researched and provides a good number of supporting statistics and sources. However, the citations seem as if they were written by a child. Hein includes footnotes that are simply web URLs or PDFs. Hein includes many bold statements that interject his personal opinions on faith and/or require a citation where one is not present.
One issue I have with the book involved the chapter titled "The Great Church and State Debate" (Chapter 6). I hold the U.S. Founding Fathers in very high regard. I believe they knew what they were doing when they established our government and wrote the Constitution/Bill of Rights as well as a certain "wall of separation between church and state" letter. These men did not happen to be deeply religious, so I tend to get aggravated when the same old quotes are cherry picked in order to make the same tired arguments about church and state.
I understand Quiet Revolution is exclusively about the OFBCI, but this program did not exist in a vacuum. This author, writing with the hindsight afforded to him in 2014, regularly refers to President Bush as a "compassionate conservative." Still. In 2014. Hein also details Laura Bush's dedication to education in Afghanistan and her husband's "success in...effective response to natural disasters" (14). I found this almost laughable, but mostly, it gave me the creeps.
Finally, Hein includes an anecdote about visiting the Oval Office with Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander.
Worth a read. Good for discussion.
***I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads Giveaways.***
January 13, 2015
discover what may be possible
I've heard the phrase so often, until reading The Quiet Revolution I didn't realize "faith-based" was a recent 21st century buzzword! In some ways the content of The Quiet Revolution uses too many pages, words, and too much space to tell a story that could be the subject of a short print or online newspaper/magazine series, but then again, I lot of people passionate about certain causes or already trying to make a difference would do well to read and be encouraged by the many ways local individuals and non-profits have changed the lives of individuals and neighborhoods, that in turn have rippled far and wide into the larger society. Neighborhood groups? Church committees/commissions, sessions, vestries, (consistories, councils) etc??
Chapter 7 on page 163 opens with "This book has celebrated President Bush's creation of the faith-based initiative to fuel a wider compassion agenda aimed at desperate human needs." The next paragraph explains, "Through smart government reforms as well as creative and bold new funding initiatives, faith-based and community nonprofits found expanding markets open to them, including federal grant competitions."
In my review of late Boston Mayor Tom Menino's "Mayor for New America," I wrote, "Mayor for a New America leads us to ask questions about the role of government in different settings; in any case and place, how much government is too much? How much is not enough? Does a poorer or a literally poverty-stricken constituency legitimately need more services and more direct governing? How much can we expect under-educated and historically underserved populations to do for themselves? The work, the mystery, and sometimes the magic of politics helps create better lives."
Although some government participation (providing funding, population studies, decisions about where moneys go) on all levels is necessary, it's impossible to discern local needs from a long geographical distance. Most real, meaningful, living truly happens at the local, micro-level, between individuals and within small groups.
Despite being inspired by the George W Bush faith-based initiative, this book is totally non-partisan, as is the entire concept of actively changing lives because of your religious convictions. Just as in more formally political arenas, the work, the mystery, and often the magic of faith-driven, faith-inspired, faith-convicted individuals and groups helps create better lives. This excellent read can help you discover what may be possible in your own locale.
I've heard the phrase so often, until reading The Quiet Revolution I didn't realize "faith-based" was a recent 21st century buzzword! In some ways the content of The Quiet Revolution uses too many pages, words, and too much space to tell a story that could be the subject of a short print or online newspaper/magazine series, but then again, I lot of people passionate about certain causes or already trying to make a difference would do well to read and be encouraged by the many ways local individuals and non-profits have changed the lives of individuals and neighborhoods, that in turn have rippled far and wide into the larger society. Neighborhood groups? Church committees/commissions, sessions, vestries, (consistories, councils) etc??
Chapter 7 on page 163 opens with "This book has celebrated President Bush's creation of the faith-based initiative to fuel a wider compassion agenda aimed at desperate human needs." The next paragraph explains, "Through smart government reforms as well as creative and bold new funding initiatives, faith-based and community nonprofits found expanding markets open to them, including federal grant competitions."
In my review of late Boston Mayor Tom Menino's "Mayor for New America," I wrote, "Mayor for a New America leads us to ask questions about the role of government in different settings; in any case and place, how much government is too much? How much is not enough? Does a poorer or a literally poverty-stricken constituency legitimately need more services and more direct governing? How much can we expect under-educated and historically underserved populations to do for themselves? The work, the mystery, and sometimes the magic of politics helps create better lives."
Although some government participation (providing funding, population studies, decisions about where moneys go) on all levels is necessary, it's impossible to discern local needs from a long geographical distance. Most real, meaningful, living truly happens at the local, micro-level, between individuals and within small groups.
Despite being inspired by the George W Bush faith-based initiative, this book is totally non-partisan, as is the entire concept of actively changing lives because of your religious convictions. Just as in more formally political arenas, the work, the mystery, and often the magic of faith-driven, faith-inspired, faith-convicted individuals and groups helps create better lives. This excellent read can help you discover what may be possible in your own locale.
December 22, 2014
The Quiet Revolution was a good look at the establishment of the Faith-Based Initiatives office in the White House during the Bush Administration. Hein documents successes and notes a few slip-ups in the process as the idea came into action.
First, I found Hein's work encouraging. Had the Bush Administration not become, at least publicly, about the war on terror/Afghan War/Iraq War, the Faith-Based Initiatives Office would have been a better-known thing. The idea was well-based.
Second, the example stories are inspiring. Obviously, we know these are cherry-picked from all the options, but it's good to know that the idea worked at least some of the time. The most inspiring thought is that many of these groups were doing good for their communities already--government involvement only aided them.
Third, I liked the developments of the legal and religious freedom implications of the FBO concept. Religion must stand on its own--any of us who think we'd be better off using government to prop up our faith groups aren't thinking through the implications--but it is possible to aid the practical outworkings of religious groups without funding the religious group itself. It's a tangle, for certain.
I liked this. It shines a light into an area that was too easy to ignore in the "pro-GOP/anti-GOP" rhetoric of the last 4 years of President Bush's tenure. Worth the time to read, in my opinion.
First, I found Hein's work encouraging. Had the Bush Administration not become, at least publicly, about the war on terror/Afghan War/Iraq War, the Faith-Based Initiatives Office would have been a better-known thing. The idea was well-based.
Second, the example stories are inspiring. Obviously, we know these are cherry-picked from all the options, but it's good to know that the idea worked at least some of the time. The most inspiring thought is that many of these groups were doing good for their communities already--government involvement only aided them.
Third, I liked the developments of the legal and religious freedom implications of the FBO concept. Religion must stand on its own--any of us who think we'd be better off using government to prop up our faith groups aren't thinking through the implications--but it is possible to aid the practical outworkings of religious groups without funding the religious group itself. It's a tangle, for certain.
I liked this. It shines a light into an area that was too easy to ignore in the "pro-GOP/anti-GOP" rhetoric of the last 4 years of President Bush's tenure. Worth the time to read, in my opinion.
June 17, 2014
A great story, very enjoyable read!
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June 20, 2014How do u read them
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews