Whither the Wall? Measuring Church–State Separation During COVID-19

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.