Susan Turner Haynes and Scott Bledsoe, Whither the Wall? Measuring Church–State Separation During COVID-19 (2025)

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“Susan Turner Haynes and Scott Bledsoe, Whither the Wall? Measuring Church–State Separation During COVID-19 (2025).” Original at www.cambridge.org. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/susan-turner-haynes-and-scott-bledsoe-whither-the-wall-measuring-churc-da667b9109/, SHA-256 30f631a3fdbc2f7a4fb79e65347b6d0b8ebb749cc471cde67941b1edb3dada60.

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Politics and Religion (2025), 18, 454–466
doi:10.1017/S1755048325100096

NOTE

Whither the Wall? Measuring Church–State
Separation During COVID-19
Susan Turner Haynes and Scott Bledsoe
Lipscomb University, Nashville, TN, USA
Corresponding author: Susan Turner Haynes; Email: sthaynes@lipscomb.edu

Abstract
Many scholars now contend that the wall separating church and state has been effectively
dismantled. One of the strongest pieces of evidence used to make this argument is the
transfer of over five million taxpayer dollars to churches during Covid-19. But who exactly
received this money? When the wall separating church and state came crashing down, as
some assert, was there an ambush of religious actors seeking to collect federal funds? Or
did we see many religious actors maintain their distance? What distinguishes one group
from the other? This research note examines the behavior of religious congregations during
Covid-19 with regard to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). We compare a sample of
2020 and 2021 PPP congregation recipients with the 2020 US Religious Census to note
which denominations are over- and under-represented and then test the hypotheses
suggested by the existing literature on faith-based organizations and government funding.

Keywords: church-state relations; Covid-19; religion

Introduction
Although the idea of the separation of church and state is often perceived as
foundational to American government, the wall separating the two may no longer be as
“high and impregnable” as once assumed. Instead, the actions of the executive and
legislative branches and the rulings of the Supreme Court over the past two decades have
led some to argue that the wall now resembles “a chain link fence” (Russo and Thro
2022). Others suggest there may be no barrier at all, but instead a “well-worn path,” or

The authors would like to thank the following students for their assistance on this project: Andrew Cahill,
Zach Bitzer, Jackson Hinkle, Meci Kimbrough, Doug Laing, Aylene Palacious, McCasland Podlesney, Emma
Shanahan, Erica Taylor, William Turner, Josh Joshlin, Valerie Montanez, Britney Lin, Keysi Lacunza, Laura
Bailey, Oreoluwa Abijoye, Elijah Connelly, Emy Fawzy, Hannah Fritsch, Cooper Haney, Jay Hawkins,
Kendall Keninitz, Eddie Mason, Dillon McCracken, Liam McFarlane, Mia McKinney, Herman Ochoa
Castor, Austin Parker, Brian Pearson, Morgan Parker, Jane Podlesney, Alitrise Soderstrom Theodoriches,
Gabriel Thomas, and Teria Tibbs.

© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Religion and Politics Section of the
American Political Science Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use,
distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.

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Politics and Religion 455

even an “expressway” between the two (McGinnis 2011, 27). Some consider the transfer
of $7.3 billion in public funds to religious entities in response to Covid-19 evidence in
support of this conclusion (Fearnow 2020). However, even if American jurisprudence
toward religion has changed and the executive and Congress are more willing to
cooperate with and subsidize religious actors, the question remains whether all religious
actors are equally willing to cross this threshold. If there is, in fact, an “expressway” now
between church and state, with the transfer of funds more commonplace, do different
religious groups equally avail themselves of available funding?
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) presents researchers with an unparalleled
opportunity to examine this question. Congress established the PPP as a vital
component of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act early
in the 2020 pandemic. The program sought to combat the deleterious economic effects
of the Covid-19 pandemic on America’s small businesses by allowing them to apply
for forgivable loans to maintain their workforce.1 One of the most unique and
controversial features of the program was its inclusion of America’s religious
institutions. In particular, the program made permissible what had once been strictly
prohibited—direct federal payments to America’s priests, ministers, rabbis and
imams.2 This article explores this unique phenomenon by examining the variance
among the program’s religious recipients. At a time when religious groups were
relatively similarly situated in anticipating economic duress, did we see differences in
their behavior with regard to applying for federal funds? If so, what organizational
attributes help explain the difference?
This research matters for several reasons. First, most of the religious institutions
across America were not given explicit guidance by their religious authorities to apply or
not to apply for PPP loans. As a result, many churches felt as though they made the
decision in a vacuum. A quantitative analysis of funding trends broken down by
religious denomination will thus allow church leaders and others to see, for the first
time, the extent to which churches of the same denomination responded similarly
to the government’s invitation to apply for PPP loans. Second, in addition to
intradenominational differences in behavior, this article examines interdenominational
differences, which is also worthwhile, because it counters the common public treatment
of the American “church” as a monolith, especially as it relates to conversations
regarding “church–state relations.” By disaggregating the “church” in America and
acknowledging that separate denominations may respond to the state differently, we
provide a more nuanced assessment of how America’s religious institutions relate to the
government. Lastly, a better understanding of how various denominations reacted to
available federal funding during Covid may help us to better understand other federal
funding scenarios, such as security enhancements offered by the Department of
Homeland Security or repair and relief grants offered after natural disasters by the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, both of which continue today.

Literature Review
Despite the proverbial wall separating church and state, there has always been, and
will likely continue to be, a plethora of points where the two intersect. Each of these
areas has attracted its own scholarship, from prayer in public schools, to religious

displays in government buildings, to laws limiting the work week and alcohol sales, to
others. However, this article focuses specifically on funding.
During the latter half of the 20th century, the doctrine of the separation of church
and state was viewed to generally prohibit public funds from going to private religious
entities. This position was first articulated by the Supreme Court in Everson v. Board of
Education, when Justice Hugo Black explained that the wall separating church and
state meant, at minimum, that “No tax in any amount, large or small should : : : be
levied to support any religious activities or institutions.”
Strict separatism was the doctrine du jour for the next three decades, leading the
Court to strike down a multitude of laws subsidizing student tuition, teacher salaries,
remedial instruction and instructional material at sectarian schools. Things shifted
slightly in the mid-1980s, when the Court ruled that the Establishment Clause did not
bar the government from providing grants to individuals, who, in turn, could spend
the funds at a religious institution.3 It also ruled that directly funding religious entities
could be sustained under the Establishment Clause as long as the funded entities were
not “pervasively sectarian” institutions like parochial schools.4
Another shift came when Congress passed the Charitable Choice provision of the
1996 Welfare Reform Bill, which allowed the privatization of previously state-run
welfare programs and included religious groups among the service providers eligible to
receive government grants.5 Rather than excluding specific organizations from funding
based on their religious nature, the program extended eligibility to all “social service
organizations” and prohibited the use of aid for “inherently religious” activities. This
position was effectively affirmed by the Court in 2000.6 It also set the stage for the 2001
Faith-Based Initiative, a federal program implemented by President George W. Bush
that provided greater legal clearance for religious entities to apply for federal grants.
Since both the Charitable Choice Provision and the Faith-Based Initiative
represented substantive shifts away from strict separatism in church–state relations,
both programs became hotbeds of academic inquiry. However, the vast amount of
literature on the pecuniary boundaries between church and state to date has been
normative. Legal scholars, for instance, have asked whether the US government
should fund religious entities in light of the stipulations surrounding church–state
relations in the US Constitution. Theologians, on the other hand, have asked whether
religious leaders or organizations should accept government largesse in light of the
order of human authority described in scripture. Apart from these two streams of
scholarship are studies which approach the issue empirically.
One of the questions most germane to the Charitable Choice Provision was
whether religious entities would choose to apply for state government funds once they
were eligible. A National Survey conducted by Mark Chaves shortly after Congress
passed the Charitable Choice Provision revealed that only 36% of US congregations
anticipated applying for such funds to support their secular services. According to
Chaves (1999), the primary difference between the congregations that expressed a
willingness to apply for funds and those that were opposed was theological
orientation.7 Congregations from more liberal religious traditions, such as moderate
protestants and Catholics, were more willing to engage the state, while conservative
and evangelical protestants were less willing to do so. Stephen Monsma investigated

organizations that actually applied for and received aid and found a similar trend
among religious child service providers (1996, 73).
Chaves and Monsma’s earlier research on religious organizations and Charitable
Choice was later supplemented with research on religious organizations and federal
funding under the Faith-Based Initiative. The findings were largely the same. Scholars
Ebaugh, Chafetz, and Pipes (2006), for instance, suggest that the more evangelical or
conservative an organization, the less likely it is to apply for federal funds. The work of
Scheitle (2009) and Altamuro et al. (2022) also supports this conclusion, though they
framed their analyses in terms of overt religiosity, making the case that organizations
more likely to be explicit in their religious identity are the ones less likely to receive
government funds. Haynes’ interviews of faith-based humanitarian organizations
provide additional evidence in this direction (2024).
Another group of scholars finds less evidence that conservative organizations eschew
public funds. Hackworth (2012) notes that while conservative religious institutions have
been historically hesitant to accept governmental funding, these organizations have
increasingly accepted and utilized public funds as a religious alternative to state-based
welfare services. Hackworh argues that these conservative religious groups have justified
their acceptance of funding as a morally superior alternative, and a private-sector
solution, to traditional forms of governmental welfare. This sort of “religious
neoliberalism” has also shown up in religious organizations’ acceptance of funds in
prison reform programs (Sullivan 2009) and school voucher programs (Green 2012).
Taken together, the available evidence seems equivocal on which type of religious
organizations is most likely to participate in federal funding programs. However, one
could make the case that the extant literature on FBOs and public funding is altogether
ill-suited to explain the behavior of congregations during Covid. One of the immediate
limitations of the existing literature is the general exclusion of congregations from
analysis. Previously, US congregations were only eligible for federal funds if they used
the funds for secular purposes and kept funded activities separate in time and space
from their religious activities. This meant very few congregations (<10%) accepted
government funds (Chaves 2021). Loans provided under PPP were categorically
different. They were intended to directly fund the salaries of religious leaders and staff.
Another reason previous research may not fit well with the PPP is due to the unique
nature of the program.
One of the contributing factors some researchers cite for why Evangelical
organizations are more likely to eschew government funding is a fear of church–state
entanglement and loss of autonomy. The assumption is that accepting government
funding once is a springboard for additional funding and can be the genesis of a
prolonged relationship, where the religious entity increasingly caters to the will of its
patron. A similar worry could keep some congregations from applying for PPP loans,
but the temporary and ad hoc nature of the program could also serve to mitigate
this fear. Unlike other discretionary grant programs, the PPP was designed to be
transactional and not relational. Due to these differences, rather than general studies
relating to religious organizations and public funding, one could argue that the more
appropriate analog to study congregations and PPPs might be the allocation of
postdisaster recovery funds.

Weather, like disease, can be indiscriminate, unexpected, and cause deleterious
consequences. It can also leave religious organizations in immediate need of
assistance. In such circumstances, research shows that more congregations are willing
to apply for government aid. Jaime Hilton surveyed 62 congregations in New Orleans
following Hurricane Katrina, and the vast majority (83.9 %) indicated they were
willing to accept government funds to rebuild their institutions (2008, 27). Only 9.7%
answered they would not accept government funds, despite nearly a third of Hilton’s
sample being Baptist (2008, 23). Further evidence that congregations may view
disaster relief differently comes from the lobbying efforts of disparate denominations
for changed regulations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
When Hurricane Katrina hit, houses of worship were technically prohibited from
accepting public funds. This changed in 2018 as a result of the lobbying efforts of a
broad-based coalition of religious actors, including the US Conference of Catholic
Bishops, several Orthodox and Conservative Jewish groups, the Council of Churches
of the City of New York and the National Association of Evangelicals. Marc Stern,
general counsel of the American Jewish Committee, explained why his clients viewed
FEMA funds differently than other government grants. With FEMA, he explained,
you have funds in response to an emergency. In other situations, if a synagogue relies
on the government, it risks displacing and devaluing the parishioner (Silk 2018). If
Stern’s words reflect the reasoning of other denominations, then it is possible that
there is less of a divide on theological grounds as to who seeks government funds in
emergency circumstances.
It is unclear whether the case of congregations and the PPP is likely to follow the
general trend of religious social service organizations and public funding and include
fewer conservative congregations or whether the congregations accepting PPP loans
are more representative of the congregational population and look more like what one
might expect after a natural disaster. One could also argue that the PPP is sui generis,
in which case we might find entirely different funding trends.
Several factors distinguish the PPP program from others. First, unlike other
government grant programs, in the case of PPP, the government framed the funds as a
loan rather than a grant, specifying that while organizations could apply for forgiveness
within 2 years under certain conditions, they could also accept the money with the
intent to pay it back with interest. This means that some congregations who might have
been adverse to government “handouts” before might have seen the PPP loan differently
and justified their application as a necessary “stopgap” measure.8 Another reason
congregations could have justified applying for a PPP loan was that the circumstances
for their economic stress, while ultimately caused by Covid, were often compounded by
government regulations. During 2020, especially, most of the US was subject to state or
local “stay at home” orders and many congregations were also subject to restrictions on
large in-person gatherings. Since the vast majority of congregations (78%) receive their
donations during their in-person worship services, the effect of this, for a plurality of
congregations (41%), was a decline in individual giving (Lake Institute, 2020). At the
beginning of the pandemic, in particular, congregations faced significant financial
uncertainty, with the US government arguably playing a contributory role. It could be
conceivable, then, that congregations operating in this environment might be more
willing to accept government aid.

To our knowledge, no study has investigated congregational participation in the
PPP. This article seeks to fill this gap by first describing the denominational
delineations and variance of the PPP’s congregational recipients and then testing
existing hypotheses for reasons of variance.

Methodology
This study relies upon secondary data collected from three sources: the 2020 and 2021
PPP recipient list released by the Small Business Administration (SBA), survey data
from the 2020 US Religions Census conducted by the Association of Statisticians of
American Religious Bodies (Grammich et. al 2023), and survey data from the
2018–2019 National Congregation Study (Chaves 2021)9 According to the SBA, a total
of 122,779 “religious organizations” received PPP loans in 2020 and 2021. We selected
a random sample of 1,000 organizations from the 2020 recipient list and 1,000
organizations from the 2021 recipient list for a total sample of 2,000 organizations.
In order to further analyze the data, student researchers coded all PPP recipients
based on their religious type, assigning each organization a code of 1 through 70
(DENOM1), corresponding to those used by the National Congregation Study. These
codes were then aggregated into six larger denominational affiliations (DENOM2),
including Jewish, Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Black Protestant, Evangelical
Protestant, and Other. Mormon, Muslim, Christian Non-denominational, Other
Protestant, Other Christian, and Other Non-Christian were also included in the
original aggregate coding scheme (DENOM2) before focusing on the previously
mentioned six faith traditions. This aggregated code was based on the religious
tradition classification scheme first articulated by Steensland et al. (2000), which is
now widely used in the academic literature (Stetzer and Burge 2016).
In order to determine whether the proportion of PPP loan recipients matched the
hypothesized proportion of congregations in the population, a series of one-sample
proportional z-tests were conducted for the 2020 data, the 2021 data, and the
combined 2020 and 2021 data. We did the same when testing for variance in
theological orientation and denomination centralization.
To preliminarily test our first hypothesis, we also conducted a limited number of
interviews with leaders of American houses of worship to discuss their experience with
and perception of PPP funds. We reached out to approximately 350 institutions across
20 different denominations/faiths and secured 23 interviews. Of our 23 respondents,
nine represented Evangelical congregations, five Mainline Protestant, two Catholic,
three Unitarian Universalists, two Orthodox, one Black Protestant, and one Muslim.
These interviews were recorded, transcribed, and thematically coded.

Analysis
Unlike prior public grant programs, one of the PPP’s primary beneficiaries were
religious congregations. Our sample shows that approximately 88%–90% of the
recipients
the SBA classified as “religious” likely fit this description at 95% confidence.
The remaining 10–12% are service-providing nonprofits with a religious mission or

Table 1. Test Results for 2020 and 2021 PPP Recipients by Denominationa

Combined Results for 2020 and 2021
Denomination p-value z-score PPP Sample Proportion US Population Proportion

Jewish 0.000*** 15.751 3.48% 0.6%
Catholic 0.000*** 13.8301 12.80% 5.4%
Mainline Protestant 0.000*** 13.5892 31.56% 18.95%
Black Protestant 0.0039*** −2.8846 2.08% 3.3%
Evangelical 0.000*** −15.9143 30.73% 49.59%
Other 0.000*** −15.3982 1.46% 14.2%
Unclassified 0.012*** 2.511 17.87% 15.7%
a
P-values for all tables: * = p < 0.1, ** = p < 0.05, *** = p < 0.01***

affiliation. Since our analysis compares the PPP recipient sample against the National
Congregation data, we excluded all noncongregations from our analysis, leaving 1,782
congregations.
When conducting a one-sample proportion test, we found that the discrepancy
between our PPP sample and the larger population of US congregations aligns with
the previous literature on FBOs and public funding. Namely, the proportion of Jewish,
Catholic, and Mainline Protestant congregations that received PPP funds was
significantly higher than one would expect given the proportion of such congregations
in the population. We found that our combined 2020 and 2021 PPP recipient
sample contained 3.48% Jewish congregations (z = 15.751, p < 0.000), 12.8% Catholic
congregations (z = 13.8301, p < 0.000), and 31.56% mainline protestant congregations
(z = 13.5892, p < 0.000). Conversely, the proportion of PPP recipients that was coded as
Evangelical and Black Protestant congregations was significantly less than one would expect
given the proportion of such congregations in the US, with Evangelical congregations
at 30.73% (z = −15.9143, p < 0.000) and Black Protestant organizations at 2.08%
(z = −2.8846, p = 0.0039).
These findings hold even when one disaggregates the data by year. However, you do
see a significant difference between the proportion of Evangelical congregations in 2020
and 2021, with 36.81% in 2020 compared to just 24.57% in 2021, p < 0.000 for both
years. This finding might suggest that the exigent circumstances presented by Covid-19
and the unique nature of the PPP convinced some conservative organizations to apply
for funds in 2020 that otherwise would not have done so. Table 1 shows this data in
more detail.

Findings and Discussion
What accounts for significantly fewer Evangelical and Black Protestants receiving PPP
funds compared to other denominations? The literature on FBOs suggests aversion
to state entanglement might provide a partial explanation, at least with regard to
evangelicals. Apart from this ideological or attitudinal variable, we also test more
descriptive variables to measure possible differences in the financial situation of

different congregations. The specific variables we examine are average congregation
size, socio-economic status, and technology adoption.
Our first hypothesis comes from the research on religious social service
organizations. Scholars examining Charitable Choice and Bush’s Faith-Based
Initiative consistently found that Evangelical organizations were less likely than
other types of organizations to apply for government funds. Ebaugh, Chafetz, and
Pipes suggest that this is due to the belief among Evangelicals that accepting
government funds would lead to an organization compromising its religious beliefs
(1999, 390). More recent research supports this conclusion, showing that Evangelicals
are significantly less likely than other denominations to trust the federal government
(Hsiung and Djupe 2019, 617).
Since the quantitative data does not measure this variable, we conducted
preliminary interviews to assess if there was a clear and immediate difference among
leaders of different denominations on this point. Notably, all 23 respondents framed
their acceptance or rejection of PPP funds in terms of financial necessity, and no one
admitted to needing financial assistance and eschewing the government’s offer to help.
Moreover, while expressions of distrust were prevalent among Evangelical leaders,
it was equally evident among mainline protestants. For example, one mainline
protestant respondent explained that his church “wrestled long and hard” about
whether or not to take PPP funds, and although they ultimately took the loan, they
also felt as though they were effectively signing “a deal with the devil” when they did
so.10 Others were only slightly more sanguine, expressing the belief that government
funds often come with “strings attached.”11 These were comparable to the statements
provided by Evangelical respondents, which mentioned their denomination had “a
natural distrust or a natural dislike” for the government,” and they were worried the
loans may provide the government with an opportunity to “work their tentacles into
influencing what [the church] can and can’t say.”12 Only Catholic respondents seemed
to think otherwise, and generally framed the program in a positive light, without
discussing potential repercussions.
Our interviews, though limited, do not support the idea that Evangelicals and Black
Protestants are underrepresented among PPP recipients because they were more wary
of government influence. Instead, it seems many churches from across denominations
and faith traditions harbored such beliefs. Why, then, did we see differences among
denominations in the acceptance of PPP funds? It is possible that the difference is not
one of theology but of necessity? This would follow the primary account we heard in
our interviews. When asked whether or not their congregation applied for PPP funds,
every respondent explained their decision was made based on the church’s poor or
uncertain financial situation at the time the loans were made available. Is it possible,
then, that the need for PPP loans differed across denominations and thus the pattern
we see is less reflective of the FBO literature and more in line with studies on FEMA
funding? We tested several hypotheses related to this idea.
One of the notable differences among our interview respondents concerned the size
of the congregation. This brought us to our second hypothesis. If certain
denominations had, on average, larger congregations, this could contribute to greater
giving and less need for outside funds. Conversely, if a denomination averaged
significantly smaller congregations, they would likely receive less congregational

giving and also be less likely to have paid staff, therefore making them less likely to
apply for funds. If a church was especially small, it might not even have one full-time
employee, and therefore it wouldn’t be eligible for PPP funds, which required at least
one paid staff member. (Several of our interview respondents explained being in this
situation.)
In order to test this variable, we utilized data from the 2018–2019 National
Congregations Study, using the number of people who associate with the congregation
in any way and the number of full-time staff to account for congregation size.
A Chi-Square test reveals a significant difference among denominations on this
variable, but not in a way that explains the denominational variation in PPP
recipients.13 Evangelical and Black Protestant congregations were much smaller in
overall size, given the number of people who associate with the congregation in any
way as well as the number of full-time paid staff than both Catholic and Mainline
congregations. In fact, according to the NCS data, around 90% of white conservative
congregations had fewer than 500 members, while 95% of Black Protestant congregations
also had fewer than 500 members, compared to only 40% of Catholic congregations.
Again, while one might expect larger congregations with more adherents to contribute
more funds and in turn have less need for PPP loans, we observe denominations with
fewer congregants receiving PPP loans at a lower rate than larger denominations.
Our third hypothesis looks directly at congregational giving as a measure for a
denomination’s socio-economic status. Evangelicals and Black Protestants might be
underrepresented among PPP recipients because they had higher levels of member
giving than other denominations and thus were in less need of financial assistance.
Like our second hypothesis, this hypothesis was also tested using data from the
2018–2019 National Congregations Study. A Chi-Square test revealed there was a
significant difference among denominations with regard to giving, but not in a way
that supports our hypothesis. Instead, the data showed that Black Protestants and
white conservative congregations had far lower rates of individual contributions than
Catholics or mainline congregations, a sign that giving levels of denominations may
not be fully explanatory.
Our final hypothesis had less to do with congregational attributes and more to do
with the operational practices of a given church; namely, a church’s use of technology
immediately prior to Covid. Our interviews indicated that more “high-tech” churches
likely adapted more quickly to the pandemic and experienced less financial loss,
whereas churches with little online presence or experience had a harder time and were
more likely to see a disruption in congregational giving when in-person meetings
were prohibited. We chose to test this empirically again with data from the National
Congregations Study.
The 2018–2019 NCS Survey asked churches if they streamed their main service
to accommodate those who could not attend. The survey revealed that, at that
time, Catholics were the least likely to adopt this practice, with only 3.9% of
Catholic congregations confirming that they streamed their main service.14 This
number went up to 7.9% for non-Christian congregations and 13.6% for Mainline
Protestants, compared to 34.2% of Black Protestants and 21.5% of Evangelicals.
Here, we see a significant difference that aligns with the pattern we see in PPP
funding. Denominations who were already streaming their services in 2018–2019

were likely more prepared for social isolation rules and would have had less trouble
pivoting to online services. This, in turn, might have kept congregants engaged and
connected to the life of the church and contributed to a steady stream of
congregant giving. Churches that did not already stream services, by contrast, may
have had more difficulty adapting quickly to the online environment or perhaps
chose another way to satisfy state and city regulations that significantly affected
attendance. This might have led to decreased giving and an increased need for
outside assistance.15 Importantly, the presence of an online giving option alone
does not follow the same pattern. This suggests that the primary distinction is
likely the perceived connectedness of the congregation. This introduces the
possibility, not testable with the NCS data, that the disparate behavior of
Evangelicals and Black Protestant churches with regard to PPP funding might also
be related to whether congregations in these denominations were less likely than
others to ever have fully remote services or whether this period was shorter for
these congregations than others. More research would need to be done to test this
specific hypothesis, and one would likely need to also know more about how a
congregation conducted its in-person services, since our interviews suggest a wide
variance in this regard and also indicate that the continuation of in-person services
does not automatically equate with sustained or increased levels of giving.
One of our Catholic respondents described such a scenario: “We were
prohibited from worshiping indoors for probably two years, so we move[d] our
services outdoors, not without some chaos,” they said. They further explained that
this decision led to the parish offering two masses instead of five, and that the
parish consequently suffered a 60% drop in attendance. They also mentioned the
impact this decision had on giving. “We just we’ve lost a lot of what we call ‘the
plate.’ The people who come and simply, you know, throw some money in the
basket, so that pretty much dried up : : : there was no doubt we probably dropped at
least a third in terms of our donations.” This same respondent explained that they
were “grateful” for the PPP loans for “keeping [the] lights on.”16

Conclusion
In July 2020, Micah Schwartzman, a professor at the University of Virginia School of
Law, told Reuters that the PPP was evidence that “The notion of separation of church
and state is dead.” Unlike other government grant programs, PPP loans allowed
taxpayer dollars to go directly to institutions of religious worship and instruction—
and slightly more than one-third of all US churches took advantage of the opportunity
(Belz 2023). The flow of cash from the government to church coffers made big
headlines, and alarmism seemed the tone de jour.
However, three points are worth emphasizing: First, it is uncertain at this
juncture—only 2 years after the federal government stopped providing relief
funding—if Covid-19 represents a true and lasting change in government behavior or
whether its actions were temporary and fitting for extreme circumstances. Will we see
the government in the future step forward and collaborate more with the church or
retreat back to its previous position? At this point, the answer remains unclear. It is
also true that a comprehensive assessment of church–state relations should include

more than a history of pecuniary transactions. If one is to claim that the wall between
church and state is crumbling, they will need to cite more than the PPP as evidence.
They will need to also evaluate the degree to which local, state, and federal
governments are willing to exempt religious actors from general policies or write
accommodating policies, the extent to which the government is seen as endorsing
religion or a particular type of religion by allowing or promoting specific religious
imagery in government spaces, and whether or how the government allows religion to
be included in the public school curriculum, to name a few. Lastly, an accurate
assessment of modern church–state relations in the US will not only examine
government action and perceptions on each of these fronts, but will also look at how
those within American churches perceive these issues. Even if the government
continues to lower the wall between church and state, it does not necessarily follow
that all religious actors will stretch out their hand across the divide.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom that theological conservatives are always
eager to ally themselves with the state and use its machinery to their benefit, our
research suggests that Black Protestant and Evangelical congregations were the least
likely to avail themselves of PPP funds. Instead, Mainline Protestants and Catholics
comprised the bulk of the PPP’s congregational recipients. This tracks with the
existing literature on faith-based organizations and public funding, yet the reasons we
suggest for these differences go against this literature. Our findings suggest that need
was likely the primary factor influencing denominational differences in applying for
PPP funds, with government distrust being a possible secondary factor. Evangelical
and Black Protestant denominations, while exhibiting a general wariness of
government funds, were also, in general, better able than other denominations to
respond to Covid and government shutdowns by switching their services to a fully
online format and thus might have been advantaged in keeping their congregations
engaged and giving. Mainline protestants, meanwhile, while potentially still desiring
to maintain distance from the state, likely experienced a greater need for assistance
during Covid due to not having the technological infrastructure in place at the start of
Covid to ensure a smooth and efficient transition to online services. Catholic parishes
may have been more amenable to government assistance from the outset and also in
greater need of assistance due to many having to figure out, for the first time, how to
change from in-person, indoor services.
Several questions remain. First, it is unclear to what extent other federal funding
programs are likely to see the differences among denominations that we see with the
PPP loans. Are we likely to see more Evangelicals and Black Protestants apply for
government funding in emergency situations like after a natural disaster if the need for
such funds is higher among such congregations? Or is there anything to the fact that
PPP funds were framed as forgivable loans as opposed to outright grants? Does the
desire for church–state separation among these and other denominations lead to a
significant difference in who repaid the loans after the pandemic? These questions are
unanswered by the present research but present interesting areas for future analysis. In
particular, while this research note narrows its analysis to largely examine the
quantitative data associated with congregations’ acceptance of loans under the PPP,
additional qualitative data in the form of surveys or additional interviews could
further elucidate the subject.

Notes
1. Under PPP, organizations with fewer than 500 employees could apply to receive a loan for 2.5 times their
average monthly payroll, with a cap of $10 million per loan. For the loan to be forgiven, organizations
needed to demonstrate financial uncertainty of the loan’s distribution and allocate at least 75% of the loan to
direct payroll costs
2. In addition to directly funding religious entities, some argue PPP provided religious organizations with
special treatment, since religious bodies associated with a governing body were treated as separate, smaller
entities and made eligible for the program, while similarly situated secular businesses were ineligible.
3. See Witters v. Wash. Department of Services for the Blind, 474 US 481(1986)
4. See Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 US 589 (1988)
5. The bill was officially entitled “The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.”
(PL 104–193) HR 3734]) [Welfare Reform Act].
6. Mitchell v. Helms, 530 US 793 (2000)
7. Chaves notes that one could just as easily identify the distinction as one pre-millenialist and
postmillenialist congregations or fundamentalist and modernist congregations as one could say it is between
conservative and liberal congregations (130, 1999).
8. This reasoning was provided by Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
for the Southern Baptist Convention.
9. The PPP data is available from multiple government sources, but our list was obtained through the
government site pandemicoversight.gov, since it allows one to apply filters and download bulk national data.
10. Interview #18 conducted on Zoom by Austin Pearson on October 17, 2024.
11. Interview #20 conducted on Zoom by Jane Podlesney on October 16, 2024.
12. Interview #12 conducted on Zoom by Mia Grace McKinney on October 25, 2024; Interview #8
conducted by Jay Hawkins on November 13, 2024.
13. We used the National Congregation Study’s “religious tradition - collapsed” variable for denomination
in these tests, which places congregations into broad religious traditions, similar to our previously utilized
RELTRAD variable. This variable, “TRAD3,” has categories for Roman Catholic, White conservative,
evangelical, or fundamentalism, Black Protestant, White liberal or moderate (Mainline), and Non-Christian.
14. A possible reason for fewer Catholics streaming their services online is because, as one respondent put
it, Catholic and like traditions are a very “tactile” faith. They explained that you don’t just hear a sermon; you
engage your other senses. The mentioned the candles and weekly communion as examples. Interview #16.
Conducted on Zoom by Morgan Parker on October 15, 2024.
15. It is worth noting, that the 2018-2019 NCS Survey also revealed a significant difference among
denominations in the availability of electronic giving and that one could find this variable to correlate with
streaming services. However, here, significantly more Catholics and non-Christians were represented, with
57.1% of Catholics and 68.2% of non-Christian denominations confirming that they offer electronic giving
and only 45% of White Protestant, Black Protestant, and Evangelicals doing so. Thus, unlike the streaming
of church services, the availability of online giving is not a sufficient explanation for why we see fewer
Evangelical and Black Protestant congregations among PPP recipients.
16. Interview #9 conducted on Zoom by Kendall Kenintz on November 20, 2024.

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Susan Turner Haynes is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Lipscomb University. Her most recent
book, Faith in Foreign Aid, was published by Routledge in July 2024.

Scott Bledsoe is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Lipscomb University. His forthcoming book,
To Love Thy Neighbor, published by Lexington Books, is expected in the Fall of 2025.

Cite this article: Haynes ST and S Bledsoe (2025). Whither the Wall? Measuring Church–State Separation
During COVID-19. Politics and Religion 18, 454–466. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048325100096

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