After the establishment of President Bush's faith-based initiative program in 2002, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies recently conducted a survey of over 700 black churches, concluding that black churches have only been minimally affected. This is detrimental to a vital and successful source of social service programs, especially in the northeast. However, despite some political concern that churches which ideologically support Bush would overwhelmingly be helped, liberal churches were more likely to apply for the grants. The Bush administration's faith-based initiative is reaching only a tiny percentage of the nation's black churches, most of which have limited capacity to run social programs, hampering the initiative's promise of empowering those congregations to help the needy, according to a study to be released today. The Washington Post story can be found here.