A year after the new restrictions on welfare became law, California churches and other religions organizations -- once severe critics of the new rules -- are at the forefront of smoothing transitions from welfare to work. This "conversion" is stirring controversy within church circles. PNS associate editor Joan Walsh, a Bay Area based journalist, authored a recent report for the Rockefeller Foundation entitled "Stories of Renewal: Community Building and the Future of Urban America."

Once fierce critics of welfare reform, many California churches are now working hard to make the state's new time limits and work requirements succeed. This "conversion," as some critics call it, is generating heated debate within the faith communities.

At issue is whether, and how, religious institutions should step into the breach created by government efforts to reduce welfare rolls and encourage work. Some warn that by collaborating with government, churches and other religious organizations risk losing their prophetic voice, if not becoming inundated with demands they can never meet. But those who advocate the move say the churches literally have no choice in the face of intensifying needs.

Right now, the advocates of engagement with welfare reform appear to have the upper hand. Most clerics still oppose the punitive sanctions in the new law, which terminates aid to able-bodied recipients after two years. But after a year of dealing with the new restrictions, more and more see a silver lining in the law's expanded funding for support services and local flexibility.

In South Central Los Angeles, First African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church offers job training, placement and support services to welfare recipients. In Oakland, the much smaller Westside Missionary Baptist Church is working with county officials to open an intake center for welfare clients and to help with job placement services. Like the Los Angeles church, it has also established its own Community Development Corporation to seek government contracts to rebuild a job-generating shopping center, open a grocery store and connect hundreds of unemployed people to jobs at the Port of Oakland. In Sacramento, congregations have banded together to open 12 One-Stop Service Centers for welfare recipients seeking placement services.

Contradiction? No, says Scott Anderson, executive director of the California Council on Churches, one of the main groups galvanizing the new welfare initiatives. "The religious community has opposed welfare reform for a long time. But now that it's a done deal, we have to find a role. We can't just keep saying 'no.' We have a moral obligation to help these families."

The Council has developed a pilot project in Los Angeles to get churches involved in meeting the child care crisis created by welfare reform by opening centers and training care providers. "Child care is the place churches can make the most difference, because many have classrooms they only use on weekends," Anderson points out.

Religion's collaboration with welfare reform was hotly debated at a recent conference sponsored by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Larry McNeil, West Coast director of the Industrial Areas Foundation, the venerable community-organizing powerhouse, warned that the government was letting congregations "pick up the casualties" of its welfare cuts. Too much collaboration with government, McNeil predicted, would cost religious leaders their "prophetic voice" in speaking out about social injustice.

Other critics warn that by taking public funding church leaders risk becoming "gate keepers," forced by government rules to deny services to those outside of narrow categories. "We used to serve those no one else would, but now churches are being asked to take over the role of government," warns Jim Conn of the Urban Strategy Office of the United Methodist Church. "And it's very difficult for us to take public money and do advocacy. If we take that money, limitations are demanded."

But for many churches, mosques, synagogues and other faith-based institutions serving predominantly low- and moderate-income communities, the issue boils down to financial survival. In Los Angeles alone, of the 1,354 non profit groups affiliated with congregations, about 500 deliver social services, and the vast majority receive some type of government funding, according to the Center for Religion and Civic Culture. Public funding currently accounts for 37 percent of the resources that congregations use to deliver social services, according to US News and World Report.

"There's a different history here," says Ron Steif of the Center for Ethics and Economic Policy in Berkeley, who consults with congregations on welfare and economic development issues. "The inner city congregations with a history of community development have always taken government funding. That's where the money is. Welfare reform is just the latest way to do that."

Rev. Velma Union who runs a "business ministry" to help low income African Americans understand the world of commerce applauds efforts to get government resources into the hands of faith-based leaders. "The government is too far removed to do welfare well," she says. "Our communities need to be more self-sufficient."

No one argues that religious organizations can replace the government safety net, let alone reform welfare on their own. In 1996, Catholic Charities estimated that each of the nation's 258,000 congregations would have to contribute $225,000 apiece to make up for congressionally proposed welfare cuts.

Nor do church-run efforts always succeed. The state of Mississippi's Faith and Families project, which tried to get congregations to "adopt" welfare families and help parents work, got only 21 families off welfare in its first year and a half. And in some inner cities, lucrative "community development" contracts have been known to turn once-militant ministers into defenders of a corrupt power structure.

Nevertheless, with a good deal of unease and self-reflection, churches and other religious institutions in California are beginning to partner with their erstwhile enemies --welfare reformers -- and the results just may smooth the transition of thousands of Californians from welfare to work.