This week, with Congressional hearings under way, the debate begins in earnest over President Bush's proposal to allow religious organizations to spend federal money on programs that help the disadvantaged. But that support is undercut by two objections.

The first is that this spending will weaken the constitutional separation of church and state. Inevitably, the argument goes, money will help support religious teaching and allow religious groups to hire only those who share their faiths. Even worse, the government will probably allow the money to go to "undesirable" religions, like the Nation of Islam or the Church of Scientology.

The other objection is that churches and synagogues taking such money will become helpless dependents of federal bureaucrats and compromise their religious missions. Federal money, it is argued, will prohibit churches from using their spiritual qualities—their beliefs, prayers and rituals—to help drug abusers, juvenile delinquents and unwed mothers get their lives back on track.

Can religious social-service programs find a reasonable path between the dual errors of promoting sectarianism and harming religion? I think the answer is yes.

Whether religious groups receiving federal aid should be allowed to hire only those who share their spiritual views ought not to be an issue. Protestant black families that send their children to Catholic schools aren't worried that their children are taught by nuns; they care only about whether the nuns supply a good education. Planned Parenthood gets federal money, but no one objects if it refuses to hire people who oppose abortion.

The bigger challenge is to religious groups. Can a church help a homeless drug addict in a way that avoids sectarian instruction without at the same time denying its own deep beliefs?

It can be done if the federal money is spent in the form of vouchers. This strategy allows the user, not the government, to select the service. Recipients could use vouchers at any facility, spiritual or secular, that has a worthwhile program.

Although the Supreme Court has yet to decide on the voucher issue, there are signs that such a program may pass muster. Poor people already receive vouchers to help them rent decent housing. Low-income women receive vouchers (without effective legal challenge) to buy day care at religious institutions. Some cities, like Milwaukee, give vouchers to parents sending their children to religious schools. And last year, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal program that placed computers and other "instructional equipment" in parochial schools did not violate the constitutional separation of church and state.

Studies show that people benefiting from a church-run program are not upset by the added spiritual instruction and may even welcome it. But a voucher plan would work only if spiritual and secular groups offered similar services in the same neighborhoods, so that recipients could have meaningful choices. That would almost certainly happen in every large city.

The alternative to vouchers—direct grants to religious institutions—is harder to impose constitutionally without compromising a church's spiritual message. Several proposals have tried to reconcile the irreconcilable. Some have suggested that the money be used for service programs, not for overhead; but money is fungible. Others have suggested spending the money on the basis of an impartial formula (for example, one new computer for every 20 students). But the most important programs—for drug users and delinquents—cannot be measured by a formula.

Perhaps there is a way to support church-run programs directly without supporting religions. But there are many other problems: Small religious groups must be able to apply easily, the programs must produce verifiable results and faith-based groups must not be burdened with endless regulations. Before trying anything on a national scale, perhaps we should mount an experimental demonstration program in a few cities where these ideas can be tested.

I hope the White House intends to do just this. In the meantime, we should fight for a voucher program.

James Q. Wilson is the chairman of AEI’s Council of Academic Advisers.