When Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to the Supreme Court earlier this month, he was immediately congratulated by Michael Farris, the president of Alliance Defending Freedom, who called Gorsuch a “natural successor” to the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Farris said Gorsuch would “affirm our most fundamental freedom—religious liberty,” the issue he claimed was at stake in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, which is scheduled for oral arguments on Wednesday. But for Farris’s opponents, Gorsuch’s presence on the court is cause to fear that the Court could hand down a major decision breaching the wall between church and state.

The dispute at the center of the case is an ostensibly modest one. ADF, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group, is representing Trinity Lutheran, a Missouri church that sued the state’s Department of Natural Resources after it was denied a scrap tire grant to resurface its school playground. The crux is that Missouri’s constitution prohibits the use of state money by religious entities, and ADF argues that Trinity Lutheran is a victim of religious discrimination, in violation of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. The state’s policy “exhibits hostility to religion by singling out and excluding religious institutions solely because of who they are,” the group’s lawyers have told the Supreme Court.

The possible impact of this case could go far beyond the question of whether Trinity Lutheran will be able to use state-funded rubber on its playground. It is being closely watched by school choice advocates, who hope a ruling in Trinity Lutheran’s favor could ultimately lead to a legal assault on the so-called Blaine Amendments, constitutional provisions in 38 states that prohibit direct government aid to schools with a religious affiliation. In the most dystopian scenarios, such a ruling could give free rein to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and other proponents of government vouchers for private religious schools, further eroding support for the public school system.

At its core, the case is about the “play in the joints” between the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment, the twin pillars of American religious freedom law. On the spectrum between total government accommodation of religion and the complete separation of church and state, the two clauses meet somewhere in the middle. There’s wiggle room there, and Gorsuch has a history of leaning toward the Free Exercise side. Critics worry a ruling in favor of Trinity Lutheran could tip the balance of power towards religion over secularism.

If the eight justices were indeed split, all signs point to Gorsuch breaking a tie vote for the church.

The case got a new wrinkle late last week when Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, a Republican who assumed office this January, announced the state would no longer be excluding churches from similar state grant programs. For now, it looks like Supreme Court will still hear arguments, but the justices have asked for additional briefing on the impact of Greitens’s announcement. (Greiten’s office said his decision “is not expected to affect the Trinity Lutheran case before the Supreme Court.”)

