{"id":13565,"date":"2025-08-13T16:26:48","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T20:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=13565"},"modified":"2025-08-13T16:26:48","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T20:26:48","slug":"acts-against-christian-churches-are-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/08\/acts-against-christian-churches-are-on-the-rise.html","title":{"rendered":"Acts Against Christian Churches Are on the Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13568\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13568\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13568\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/08\/Church_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13568\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Acts of hostility against Christian churches are on the rise, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.frc.org\/issueanalysis\/hostility-against-churches-is-on-the-rise-in-the-united-states#gsc.tab=0\">a new study<\/a> released by the Family Research Council (FRC). The FRC released its first report in 2022, which covered data going back to 2018. Since that point, each year the report has been released has found more incidences of hostility towards churches. In 2018, there were 50 incidents. In 2024, that number skyrocketed to 415. The incidents included occasions such as vandalism, arson, bomb threats, gun-related incidents, and other crimes.<\/p>\n<p>Vandalism continues to be the main source of hostility, while gun-related incidents doubled. The report noted that the rise is taking place \u201cin a context in which fewer Americans are attending religious services or identifying with a specific faith.\u201d Researchers cautioned, however, in assuming each incident indicated a hatred for Christianity. \u201cIt is important to note that not all crimes against churches are motivated by hatred for Christianity. Some vandals appear to be motivated by financial gain through theft, while other culprits are teenagers engaging in a destructive pastime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report did cite several incidents of apparent intentional hostility towards Christianity. For example, in once incident, a man in Georgia disrupted the services of three separate church services and filmed his actions. While doing so, he encouraged others to join him in disrupting the services. Arielle Del Turco, Director of FRC&#8217;s Center for Religious Liberty, stated that regardless of the intentions, politicians and those in power have a responsibility to make such acts against churches unacceptable. \u201cNo instance of vandalism or other crimes against churches is acceptable, and political leaders should be quick to condemn such actions and affirm the importance of religious freedom,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.frc.org\/newsroom\/frc-publishes-new-edition-of-hostility-against-churches-report-indicating-over-400-acts-of-hostility#gsc.tab=0\">said Del Turco<\/a>. \u201cReligious freedom does not rely on legal protections alone, but also on cultural support. We must bolster cultural support for religious freedom and respect for our Christian heritage.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Travis Weber, FRC&#8217;s Vice President for Policy and Government Affairs framed the report as a wake-up call. \u201cThe reality presented by this report may be surprising to many, as we are often accustomed to thinking of &#8216;the West&#8217; as the place of freedom. Yet, my hope and prayer is that anyone who is a friend of freedom will observe the trend documented here and sit up and take notice. The fact that hundreds of churches around the United States are denigrated in this manner highlights the broader reality that Christians, Jews, and others are no longer &#8216;automatically&#8217; safe to live and worship in peace in the United States &#8212; a trend that is at work in other Western countries as well,\u201d he said. \u201cGovernment leaders should do their part in ensuring that our laws and constitutional protections for the free exercise of religion are enforced, and our culture and its institutions must do their part in ensuring honor and respect for religious freedom. Meanwhile, we must prepare ourselves for how to live amid such hostility, should this trend continue or perhaps get even worse.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Acts of hostility against Christian churches are on the rise, according to a new study released by the Family Research Council (FRC). The FRC released its first report in 2022, which covered data going back to 2018. Since that point, each year the report has been released has found more incidences of hostility towards churches.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":13568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Acts Against Christian Churches Are on the Rise<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"FRC report finds hostility against US churches has surged from 50 incidents in 2018 to 415 in 2024.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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