Evangelicals’ Uneasy History With The Government Trough
(ANALYSIS) Conservatives, Christian conservatives in particular, have always had a troubled and inconsistent relationship with the idea of government funding flowing to nonprofits and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Take, for example, the current debate over the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education. Many conservatives, including Christian conservatives, are troubled by the federal government’s involvement in education, believing education should be either a private or — at a minimum — a local activity.
That said, the school choice movement, which includes a lot of Christian conservatives, has championed vouchers and tax credits. Today, around 15 states (and the District of Columbia) have government funded voucher programs. An organization called EdChoice said in 2023 that “78 bills in 27 states relating to education savings accounts, vouchers, refundable tax credits, and tax-credit scholarships” were under consideration.
An important reason Christians oppose government funding for nonprofits is the fact that many nonprofits are engaged in activities that Christians actively oppose, such as abortion. But even in these areas, government funding has proved stubbornly durable.
Take Planned Parenthood, for example. Planned Parenthood started getting federal funds in 1970, three years before Roe v. Wade effectively legalized abortion, during the tenure of Republican President Richard Nixon. That funding stream never ended, and it has grown over the years. Donald Trump famously promised to “defund Planned Parenthood” when he was elected in 2016, but — in fact — funding for Planned Parenthood grew during his tenure.
Republican George W. Bush gave up the fight to rein in spending and limit grants to nonprofits. He championed what some called “big government conservatism.” One of his first acts as president was to establish — in January 2001 — the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI).
That office had a noble goal. Since federal money in the billions was going to NGOs, Christian groups should not be punished or penalized in the process. The OFBCI attempted to “level the playing field” by mandating that federal money could flow to Christian groups. There would be no “religious test.”
Many evangelicals welcomed this change. Bush’s initiatives were sometimes characterized as “charitable choice” or “compassionate conservatism.” It took a few years to get the money flowing, but between fiscal years 2003 and 2005, grants to faith-based organizations grew 21%, reaching $2.2 billion.
USAID Administrator Samantha Power hands over textbooks to a school principal in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Photo via USAID)
Donald Trump has reengaged the fight Bush abandoned, to reduce the size of government, though he is going about it in strange ways. A key initiative is his attempt to eliminate the United States Agency for International Development, which funds many Christian groups, though USAID’s entire budget — $40 billion — is less than 1% of the overall size of the federal budget. Still, you have to start somewhere, and USAID has been a troubled agency for decades.
Also facing the austerity axe are programs that resettle refugees. These programs send hundreds of millions of dollars to such Christian groups as World Relief (the benevolence arm of the National Association of Evangelicals) and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS).
Trump’s actions have the possibility of igniting a badly needed and long overdue national conversation, but — unfortunately — it is not at all clear that’s what is going to happen. Ideologues and grifters see this moment, instead, as an opportunity to enlarge their platforms by promoting half-truths and conspiracy theories about Christian groups.
For example, Gen. Michael Flynn tweeted the completely unfounded claim that LIRS is running a “money laundering operation.” Even if you do not like what LIRS is doing, to call it a “money laundering operation” is patently false.
Perhaps the most outlandish claims — amplified though not explicitly endorsed by Allie Beth Stuckey — suggested that Christianity Today was taking money from USAID. It did not, a fact I confirmed with CT President Tim Dalrymple.
The truth is that Christianity Today applied for an employee retention tax credit, a perfectly legal and widely utilized provision of the CARES Act, which provided financial relief to organizations impacted by the government mandated COVID-19 shutdowns.
Comparing a tax credit to a government grant is an apples to oranges comparison. Taking advantage of a tax credit, which means that you will legally pay less in taxes, is far different from taking a government grant.
Indeed, conservatives should applaud all efforts to reduce taxes. Part of the confusion came when CT’s accountants said the tax credit (which Dalrymple said CT has yet to receive) should be recognized as a government grant on the Form 990.
Said plainly: Neither Flynn nor Stuckey are honest brokers of the facts here. That said, I do give them credit for elevating the profile of an excellent tool called DataRepublican.com.
This website has aggregated IRS Form 990 data to create a searchable database, and that database is now revealing all sorts of previously hidden relationships — and more examples of the uneasy relationship between Christian ministries and federal funding.
We learned that not only do the Lutherans take government money, but so do Samaritan’s Purse ($55.55 million in 2023) and Liberty University ($19.5 million). Nearly half of World Vision’s $1.2 billion budget came from the federal government. About 85% of World Relief’s budget came from government contracts.
These outsized numbers cause me to hope that President Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is successful in significantly decreasing the size of government and reducing the amount of money the federal government spends.
But if it is successful, two things must happen that are currently absent from the current cultural conversation. First, Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE will have to take a look at entitlement programs.
Mandatory spending — which includes interest on the national debt, Medicare and Medicaid, make up two-thirds of the national budget. If Trump and DOGE don’t address this “inconvenient truth,” they are engaging in nothing more than ideological theatre.
Secondly, they must be guided by principle and not by the prospect of cheap and fleeting political wins. DOGE should not be just one more way for the federal government to show favoritism toward those organizations and people it likes, or to stir up chaos without accomplishing the efficiency it promises. We cannot simply push their hogs away from the trough to make room for our hogs.
Otherwise, this half-century love-hate relationship that conservatives have had with government handouts will continue.
This article was originally published at MinistryWatch.
Warren Cole Smith is the editor in chief of Ministry Watch and previously served as Vice President of WORLD News Group, publisher of WORLD Magazine and has more than 30 years of experience as a writer, editor, marketing professional, and entrepreneur. Before launching a career in Christian journalism 20 years ago, Smith spent more than seven years as the Marketing Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers.