Innovative Service Or Proselytizing: Exploring when Services Delivery Becomes a Platform for Unwanted Religious Persuasion (Report‪)‬

Since passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-193), including section 104 (also known as Charitable Choice), social work scholars have responded by increasing their attention to spirituality and religion as areas for research that are important for social work practice. As a case in point, in a search of the Social Work Abstracts database before 1996, only 56 articles or books were published that included the terms "spirituality" or "religion" in their tides, keywords, or abstracts. In the past 10 years, however, the number increased nearly 300 percent to 153 publications (http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/search? vid=1&hid=120&sid=51b7556220f4-4bb2-b519-d577f55c20d8%40sessionmgr108). Despite the increase, the literature is void of articles that specifically investigate when services delivery is consistent with ethical social work practice and when it becomes an opportunity for proselytizing. This article uses an in-depth case study of a faith-based organization hoping to acquire federal funding to explore the question: When does services delivery cross the line and become an opportunity for proselytizing? For present purposes, proselytizing refers to efforts to induce someone to join or convert to a certain religious faith. In the context of social work practice, proselytizing refers to social workers using their professional roles and relationships with clients to create unwanted opportunities for discussion about converting to their religious beliefs. Although the case study is of a Christian nonprofit agency, the findings warrant caution for social work practice in any religious setting.