Churches have a hard time defending their moral values in the political sphere of an ever more secular and liberal Western Europe. A largely neglected means of navigating this crisis is through the Church’s role as a charitable provider during the implementation of morality policies. This paper examines this type of church involvement from a cross-national and cross-sectoral perspective. We describe the activities of Protestant churches in four morality policy areas in three European countries: Germany, England, and Denmark. The variation in religious engagement observed in these areas and countries appear to be driven by the churches’ room to maneuver and their policy congruence with state goals, whereas governance capacities are secondary. Thus, the provision of social services can still serve as a means by which Protestant churches can exert moral authority, especially if these social services are related to moral issues.

在日益世俗和自由的西欧政治领域，教会很难捍卫自己的道德价值观。应对这场危机的一个很大程度上被忽视的方法是通过教会在道德政策实施过程中作为慈善提供者的角色。本文从跨国和跨部门的角度探讨了这种类型的教会参与。我们描述了德国、英国和丹麦这三个欧洲国家的新教教会在四个道德政策领域的活动。在这些地区和国家观察到的宗教参与的差异似乎是由教会的回旋余地及其政策与国家目标的一致性驱动的，而治理能力是次要的。因此，提供社会服务仍然可以作为新教教会行使道德权威的一种手段，特别是当这些社会服务与道德问题相关时。