For the large churches in Germany (Catholic and Evangelical, i.e. Protestant) the German government collects the church tax, which is then given to these churches. For this reason, membership in the Catholic or the Evangelical Church is officially registered.[23] It is apparent they were politically motivated. For this reason Historian Richard Steigmann-Gall argues that "nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context"[24] and determining someone's actual religious convictions should be based on other criteria.