In The Newer Deal, Ram A. Cnaan persuasively demonstrates that his fellow social work professionals have largely avoided religion in their research and pedagogy. He also provides several insights into the reasons for this rift between religion and social work. By recounting the historical role of religious-based service provision in the United States, Cnaan shows that this avoidance is unwarranted. He argues, furthermore, that this avoidance is unwise, especially in the current context of social service devolution—the process by which the U.S. government has relinquished some responsibility for social welfare to local governments and private organizations. Religious-based provision of social services has increased in the past twenty years, partially as a response to budget cuts initiated by the Reagan administration. Cnaan argues that social workers should establish a "limited partnership" with socially active religious communities as a way to prevent the further marginalization of their profession, but more importantly, to ensure that needed social services are effectively provided by either public or private agencies. The "newer deal" of the book's title is "a partnership between social work and religion that allows each to preserve its values and preferences yet jointly focuses on helping those in need across America." This report on the status and prospect of the newer deal, so well documented and analyzed by Cnaan and his colleagues, deserves the widest possible consideration.

Only recently have scholars begun to track the prevalence and impact of "religious-based social services," a phrase preferred by Cnaan and defined by him as services provided by religious organizations that extend in size and scope from local congregations to religious and interreligious groups with city, national, and international purviews. Virginia Hodgkinson and colleagues published the first surveys of the philanthropic efforts of the nation's religious communities in 1988 and 1992, sponsored by the Independent Sector. Coauthor Wineburg conducted more focused and detailed surveys of religious congregations in Greensboro, North Carolina, in the late 1980s and then again in 1992–96. For instance, he distinguished between in-house services and outreach assistance, with the former using religious buildings to provide food and shelter and the latter characteristically contributing funds and volunteers to other community-service providers. Cnaan himself conducted similar surveys in Philadelphia in 1996–98. He kept careful record of who benefited from the religious-based services and found that most churches acted "not merely as organizations that serve the church's members but rather as charitable organizations concerned with the welfare of others." The empirical heart of The Newer Deal consists of two chapters that summarize the results of the Greensboro and Philadelphia studies.

For the studies in both cities representatives of religious organizations, usually clerics, filled out questionnaires. Some limitations beset this methodology. In Greensboro, surveys were sent to all 330 identifiable religious congregations; however, only 38 percent returned completed questionnaires. In Philadelphia, 699 congregations were identified and a random sample of twenty-five was drawn from this list. While only one of the twenty-five congregations refused to participate, the original list was drawn up with heavy reliance upon a catalog of "historic properties." As the authors acknowledge, the list was probably not representative of newer and smaller congregations. For studies at both sites there was the possibility of recall bias and, especially, social desirability bias. This second type of bias would occur if clerics filling out the questionnaires over-reported the number and scope of social service programs in their congregations because they recognized that such programs are viewed as socially desirable by the researchers or the general public who might become acquainted with study results.

In all of these studies researchers found that health services were especially prominent among the assistance provided by churches, synagogues, and mosques. For instance, Hodgkinson and colleagues found that approximately 87 percent of surveyed congregations provided one or more welfare service and 68 percent provided some form of health service. One-third of the congregations surveyed by Wineburg housed twelve-step programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Alateen, and Overeaters Anonymous. He also describes a remarkable health clinic, established by the Greensboro Urban Ministry, and now a nonprofit corporation whose governing board has equal representation from congregations and a local hospital: "This clinic serves the needs of the clients and cuts health care costs by using volunteer nurses, doctors, social workers, and other members of local congregations." Cnaan found food pantries to be the most common social service provided by the congregations he surveyed; some 58 percent of them did so. Visitation of the sick in their homes and hospitals was the next most common health service, 46 percent and 42 percent respectively. Serving community health needs by providing food, shelter, clinics, and prayers is an important part of what Cnaan found; such activities, however, by no means exhaust religion's impact on social welfare in Philadelphia. "Our findings . . . suggest that religious based organizations are involved in social and community services that go beyond the well-noted congregational soup kitchens and include business incubators and community organizing for welfare rights."

The scientifically rigorous description of religious-based social services by Cnaan and his colleagues is an impressive and valuable contribution to the study of American religious life. It parallels a second remarkable development in the past two decades in which epidemiologists, sociologists, and psychologists have begun to document the association of various dimensions of religiousness with human physical and mental health. Reflecting the authors' breadth and generosity, The Newer Deal includes a chapter on religion's contributions to the quality of life of individuals. The chapter helpfully locates the authors' work in a broader disciplinary and cultural context. Although articles by leading figures in the field—Harold Koenig, Stanislav Kasl, and Kenneth Pargament—are cited, the survey of work in this area is one of the weaker parts of the book. The epidemiological literature is not represented well nor are articles published in the mid and late 1990s. At one point Cnaan cautions: "It is not clear whether findings from these studies are valid, as only a few studies controlled for potential confounding variables." While such caution is always advisable, this summary judgment is not true for recent work in the social epidemiology of religious factors affecting health: articles will simply not be published in leading journals if key control variables are absent from multivariate regression models.

In a similar fashion Cnaan should be applauded for including a chapter on theological teachings that emphasize service to the poor and ill. His survey of this topic is not entirely satisfactory, extending as it does beyond his primary areas of expertise. Yet it does highlight a more intangible contribution of religious communities to the broader welfare of society. The author notes: "Historically, congregational initiatives [in social service provision] have always been part of the broader community's philanthropic efforts, while creating an underlying community ethic of concern and assistance." Recent history in America's inner cities underscores how important religious organizations have been in sustaining this community ethic of concern.

Demographers have charted the flight of middle-class Americans from many poor urban neighborhoods; sociologists have documented the decline in nonreligious private organizations, such as lodges and fraternal orders; and political scientists have delineated the social service devolution begun in the Reagan administration and culminating in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, signed by President Clinton. At the same time, the number of religious organizations has increased, and they have stayed in the inner cities, with mainline Christian denominations often continuing to support congregations whose membership has thoroughly changed. Cnaan and his colleagues have documented the increase in religious-based social service provision that has occurred since the cutbacks begun in the early 1980s. This record of service and witness has not gone unnoticed by the American people. Cnaan cites sociologists of religion Nancy Ammerman and Robert Wuthnow, who report that most Americans now believe that helping the poor and ill is a religious virtue and now expect religious groups to be engaged in social service provision.

These developments are directly relevant to contemporary controversies about the "Charitable Choice" provision, section 104, of the welfare bill of 1996. Conservative politicians like President Bush want to expand aspects of section 104 by enabling religious organizations to receive government contracts for a wider array of social services and by further relaxing regulations that might compromise the religious character of some private providers. They are motivated by a political conviction that it is more appropriate for private organizations to provide certain types of social service than for the government to do so. They also cite an as yet unproven empirical claim that private providers like religious organizations are more effective in providing some services than are government agencies.

Some liberal critics of the Charitable Choice clause see it as a violation of the separation of church and state principle and believe that the courts will ultimately strike it down. They are also motivated in their opposition by a political conviction that the transfer of social service provision from government to religious organizations is a cynical exploitation of religious idealism that masks a relinquishment of governmental moral responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. Finally, some critics further claim, without demonstrable evidence, that governmental funding of religious organizations involved in social service provision will prove detrimental to the religious organizations themselves.

In this context Cnaan and his colleagues strongly reject the idea that religious organizations can or should carry the major responsibility of providing social services for the poor and ill in American society. They provide empirical evidence and careful arguments to support their views. On the other hand, they also say that religious organizations have historically contributed, and will continually contribute to the social welfare of Americans in myriad ways. Cnaan calls for a "newer deal" that represents a limited partnership between religion and social work. The details of the envisioned partnership are well worth exploring in Cnaan's new text. Yet perhaps an even more important contribution that Cnaan and his colleagues have made to contemporary public debate is the marshalling of empirical evidence relevant to issues that so often provoke ideological and emotional responses.

In conclusion, The Newer Deal offers its readers sound scholarship and sage recommendations on public issues of great importance. It also engenders hope. The book documents the emergence of an ecumenical religious ethos, one that insists that authentic religious communities in the United States reach beyond sectarian borders to serve poor and hungry neighbors who may differ greatly in ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic status. Cnaan notes that only one congregation he surveyed in Philadelphia did not report a community service program and that was a new, immigrant Korean congregation preoccupied with issues of growth and survival. If this Korean church follows the pattern of others, its acculturation to the new American context will result in an ethos of community service. The United Muslim Movement, founded in Philadelphia in 1993, represents this type of transition in a different way: as a community of "orthodox Muslims" united to address the needs of communities plagued by crime, drugs, and poverty, it stresses themes of self-discipline, education, and economic development associated with the Nation of Islam in previous decades.

One might interpret the willingness of diverse American religious communities to provide social services to the poor and ill as a naive collaboration with selfish political forces that intend to surrender government responsibility for the welfare of its most disadvantaged citizens. Yet a more hopeful reading is possible. Acknowledging with historians like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. that American political history has been characterized by cycles of cynicism and idealism, one can read the emergence of an ecumenical ethic of community service as an expression of religious idealism that can buffer the pain of recent government cutbacks and that may some day recall politicians and the public to higher standards of civic purpose and service. Cnaan and his colleagues have done research that feeds this hope.