Charitable Choice at Work: Evaluating Faith-Based Job Programs in the States. By Sheila Seuss Kennedy and Wolfgang Bielefeld. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006. 248p. $44.95 cloth, $26.95 paper.

Faith, Hope, and Jobs: Welfare-to-Work in Los Angeles. By Stephen V. Monsma and J. Christopher Soper. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006. 240p. $44.95 cloth, $26.95 paper.

In 1996, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, a law designed to reform the prevailing welfare system. Although Section 104, known as the Charitable Choice Provision, allowed religious and faith-based organizations to compete for federal funding for social services, little was done to create the specific means by which this could be implemented. No surprise, then, that one of the first actions of the new President, George W. Bush, was to sign two Executive Orders in 2001 that established such a mechanism: the Faith-Based Initiative.