Mr. Olasky isn't one for big parties and hoopla. But the writings of the little-known Texas professor -- ideas that would break down the traditional barriers between church and state -- will be on the lips of many members of the new Republican ascendancy, including its leader.

The phrase "compassionate conservatism" tripped off Mr. Bush's lips hundreds of times during the campaign.

It sounded, to most observers, like something aimed at appeasing moderate voters.

But to fundamentalist Christian conservatives, it signified the beginning of a radical public-policy experiment, one that is neither glib nor moderate.

The phrase was coined by Mr. Olasky, a slight, tweedy man who teaches journalism at the University of Texas and has become one of Mr. Bush's most influential intellectual advisers.

He did not hold an official position in Mr. Bush's Texas administration and that won't change as the former governor moves to the White House.

But Mr. Bush is preparing to make the professor's ideas a central part of his government.

In short, compassionate conservatism is a taxpayer-funded mission to allow religious groups to provide most government social programs, allowing them to operate homeless shelters, drug-treatment programs, pregnancy-counselling services, prisons and unemployment offices -- even if their mission is to convert their clients to religious faith.

To opponents who charge that this will set social programs back a century, Mr. Olasky pleads guilty. This, he says, is exactly the point.

"Historically, what we've found is the most useful kind of poverty-fighting is spiritual," he said in an interview yesterday at his home in the hilly suburbs of Austin. "If I've been any use in this process, it's [been by] bringing up some history and showing how in this country we knew how to fight poverty, through compassion that's challenging and personal and spiritual. And we forgot that in the 20th century."

Mr. Olasky, like Mr. Bush, is a fundamentalist born-again Christian. The two have shared ideas since 1993, shortly before Mr. Bush was elected governor. Their last meeting was just last month.

Mr. Olasky's book, Compassionate Conservatism, published last year, contains a laudatory introduction by the President-elect and a reprint of a campaign speech in which Mr. Bush promised to bring religious groups into the government fold.

"In every instance where my administration sees a responsibility to help people, we will look first to faith-based organizations, charities and community groups that have shown their ability to save and change lives," Mr. Bush said, adding that the greatest hope for the poor is not found in "reform" but in "redemption." In other words, religious belief.

In recent days, Mr. Bush has created an Office of Faith-Based Programs. It likely will be headed by Stephen Goldsmith, a former Republican mayor of Indianapolis who allowed religious groups to offer many of the city's social services. Mr. Bush has promised to expand the scope of a 1996 law that allows people to redirect tax dollars to private charities and religious groups. He has stressed that those programs will also be offered by non-religious organizations.

Mr. Olasky and his followers believe that poverty is not caused by a lack of money, but by a lack of moral values on behalf of the poor. As such, they see welfare as a poor alternative to religion.

"When I've gone around and talked to guys who've been homeless for a long time or are alcoholics or addicts, when they do come out of it, nine times out of 10, in my experience, it's a religious transformation," Mr. Olasky said. "When you're thinking about helping the people in the greatest need, then it doesn't happen except through a type of religious transformation."

Many Republicans and religious conservatives believe that the Office of Faith-Based Programs should be just the beginning. Jesse Helms, the Republican chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, said this week that foreign aid should be placed under the care of religious organizations.

All of this has raised the ire of freedom-of-expression groups and constitutional scholars, who point out that the United States was founded on the notion of a resolutely secular state. It is one of the few major Western nations, along with France, whose Constitution does not have a theological basis (mention of God in the Pledge of Allegiance and the In God We Trust slogan on currency were added just decades ago to differentiate the United States from Communist countries.)

"This is on its face a kind of constitutional crisis. The merger of church and state in the White House represents a terrible reversal of the country's principles," said Barry Lynn, head of the Washington advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, he notes, contains the phrase "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," and the Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean that governments cannot direct funds to religious groups.

But Mr. Olasky and his followers believe separation of church and state is based on a misinterpretation of the Constitution. In his books, he offers a rereading of U.S. history in which such luminaries as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are replaced by more spiritually minded early Americans.

"The government was meant to be secular in the sense of not preferring any religion. That's what the First Amendment was all about," Mr. Olasky said yesterday. "The founders would have seen what we've done to the public square not as neutrality, but as nakedness."

Mr. Olasky has devoted his life to extremes. Raised in the Jewish faith, his political views became increasingly radical and isolated at university. He joined the Communist Party in the early 1970s, when even members of the extreme left had rejected Moscow-style leadership. He toured the Soviet Union and became an agitator on the University of Michigan campus, until a second, equally dramatic transformation occurred, shortly after he married his second wife, Susan Northway.

"We asked ourselves which denomination represented the extreme opposite of the hard-left," Ms. Northway said in a 1999 interview. "Then we looked in the phone book and found the Conservative Baptist Church. By the end of that summer of '76, we had come to Christ."

In 1985, Mr. Olasky founded a weekly newsmagazine, World, which reviews events from a rigidly biblical perspective (he claims it is now the fourth-largest newsmagazine in the country). He created a new Presbyterian church suited to his views.

A decade later, his book, The Tragedy of American Compassion, which introduced the concept of compassionate conservatism, got him noticed in Washington.

When Newt Gingrich led the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994, he sent a copy of the book to every congressman. It was eagerly read by George W. Bush, who had converted to fundamentalist Christianity in the 1980s in an effort to end his drinking problems.

During his tenure as Texas governor, Mr. Bush became the first state leader to allow proselytizing Christian organizations to offer state-funded social programs, including a ministry-run prison program.

Mr. Olasky and Mr. Bush appear to have met at an opportune moment, when devoutly religious citizens -- almost half of all Americans believe that the Bible is literally true -- felt profoundly alienated from their government.

Throughout his election campaign, Mr. Bush made outspoken appeals to disenfranchised Christians. His Democratic opponent, Al Gore, is also a fundamentalist Christian and made equally frequent mentions of God and Jesus Christ on the stump, but Mr. Bush peppered his speeches with phrases, such as "personal redemption," that carry special meaning for the religious right.

A poll of 1,500 Americans conducted this week by Public Agenda, a nonprofit research organization, found that 44 per cent think government funding for social services offered by religious groups is "a good idea." About 30 per cent consider it "a bad idea," while 23 per cent would support it if the programs did not carry religious messages.

In other words, many Americans seem to agree with Mr. Olasky that religious and secular groups should compete for the souls of the American poor.

"The thing that's been debated for 2000 years is what is Caesar's and what is God's," he said. "You can't dissociate your policymaking from religious views, but you can do what Bush does, which is neither to encourage nor discourage religious groups, but to judge by results."

Copyright © 2001 Globe Interactive

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