(RNS) The Interfaith Alliance has asked the presidential campaigns of President Bush and Sen. John Kerry to pledge to eliminate the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Welton Gaddy, president of the Washington-based nonpartisan alliance, sent letters to Kerry and Bush in mid-July.

“We ask you to put forward a clear, unequivocal plan in your platform which includes nothing short of a pledge to dismantle completely the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and reverse the past four years of bad public policy which inappropriately has mixed religion with politics in the appropriations process,” Gaddy wrote to Kerry.

Bush instituted the office early in his presidency and continued to open related Cabinet-level centers to expand his faith-based initiative when legislation codifying his plans stalled on Capitol Hill.