On April 5, President Obama issued Executive Order 13640, continuing for another two years the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. No word yet on what its membership and areas of focus will be.

The current Council, which numbers 14 religious and nonprofit leaders, was charged to consider specifically how to better combat human trafficking, including by better coordinating government efforts with those of faith-based and other civil society groups. Its report was published on April 10.

The initial Advisory Council numbered 25 leaders and was chaired by Melissa Rogers, who recently was appointed director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Its lengthy set of recommendations spanned these themes: economic recovery and domestic poverty, fatherhood and health families, environment and climate change, inter-religious cooperation, global poverty and development, and “Reform of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.” This latter topic was the subject of a religiously and ideologically diverse task force that included Melissa Rogers and IRFA President Stanley Carlson-Thies. It recommended maintaining, with a few changes, the church-state principles that are reflected in the Charitable Choice provisions and in President Bush’s Equal Treatment regulations.