Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Hostility Towards Religion Continues To Grow In America
Hostility Towards Religion Continues To Grow In America
Aug 28, 2026 4:36 AM

Liberty Institute, a legal organization in Plano, Texas, has released the report, “Undeniable: The Survey of Hostility to Religion in America, 2014 Edition,” featuring more than 1,300 cases of religious hostility, persecution and/or Constitutional violations of rights in the United States.

According to the report,

Hostility to religion in America is still growing. Because religion is so vital to a free and well-ordered society, our goal is to expose and document this growing hostility to help Americans confront and reverse it. The hostility is growing in the “Public Arena” of public places, government, and the workplace. it is growing in the “Schoolhouse” of education, from K-12 through higher academia. it is growing in the sector of “Churches and Ministries” where one might expect it to be safest. And it is growing in the areas of society that pass the “Military,” which includes our veterans. The growth of hostility is undeniable and it is dangerous.

The report covers incidents such as one where a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy wrote a Biblical quote on his personal whiteboard. He was asked to remove it when other cadets said its mere presence was offensive. The report also cites numerous legal cases where churches, synagogues and other religious organizations were denied the right to build or expand; several of them were consistently harassed by local officials.

Nate Madden at the National Catholic Reporter quotes George Yancey, professor of sociology at the University of North Texas and co-author of So Many Christians, So Few Lions: Is There Christianophobia in the United States, about the report.

My research suggests a certain willingness of Americans to dehumanize conservative Christians. Yet many of these individuals also espouse a desire for religious neutrality. So how do we reconcile these two concepts? I discovered in my research that these individuals, who tend to be white, male, wealthy, highly educated, politically ‘progressive’ and nonreligious, tend to use mechanisms that can be justified for nonreligious reasons but have a disparate impact upon Christians.

Read “Undeniable: The Survey of Hostility to Religion in America” at Liberty Institute.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Economic inequality: Perception and reality
There is a link between economic inequality and national stress and unrest – but it may not be the relationship you assume. Rising media coverage of inequality makes people worry about their finances and believe their country is unjust, even if their es and economic fortunes are improving, a new study has found. The number of German media stories about inequality has “more than quadrupled between 2001 and 2016,” according to the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW). Reports about...
Knowledge, humility and evangelical witness
“On September 1, Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew issued a joint message for the ‘World Day of Prayer for Creation.’” says Rev. Gregory Jensen in this week’s Acton Commentary. “Their statement rightfully reminds us that we all have an ‘obligation to use the Earth’s goods responsibly.’ But exhortations by the pope and patriarch should not be read as a policy prescription.” Unlike theology, science speaks in probability. How the climate will change going forward and the role of human...
5 Facts about Antifa
Throughout 2017 a group known as Antifa has engaged in riots and violent protests at events across the country. Here is what you should know about the black-clad activists: 1. Antifa is a radical and often violent protest movement organized around “anti-fascism.” Unlike some political movements that define themselves by what they support, Antifa activists define themselves and their cause almost exclusively by what they oppose: individuals or groups who they define as “fascist.” Fascism is a difficult ideology to...
Religion & Liberty: Out of the frying pan into the fire
Public Domain. As summer in Michigan begins to wind down, Religion & Liberty Summer 2017 takes a look at several important issues. We explore religious liberty in Eastern Europe, “pink” issues, Martin Luther, cooking and recidivism, the “Jon Stewart of Egypt” and more. For the cover feature, I decided to revisit a subject we previously covered. We tracked down several graduates of Edwin’s Leadership and Restaurant Institute (which was profiled in the Fall 2015 issue of R&L) and talked to...
Book review: ‘Reckoning with Race: America’s Failure’ by Gene Dattel
Reckoning with Race: America’s Failure. Gene Dattel. Encounter Books, 2017. 312 pages. Long before they exploded into violence at Charlottesville, race relations seemed so intractable that Alexis de Tocqueville wrote “the white and black races will [never] … be upon an equal footing.” Nearly two centuries later, this seems to be another doleful example of Tocqueville’s prescience. In Reckoning with Race: America’s Failure, which is to be released later this month, Gene Dattel chooses to concentrate on what he dubs...
How’s socialism doing in Venezuela?
Because of high inflation and unemployment, Venezuela has themost miserable economy in the world. The inflation rate over the past 12 months was 460 percentand the unemployment rate is so high the government stopped reporting it last year. How did a country that once had a functioning democracy, a rapidly developing economy, and a growing middle class sink so low? In a word: socialism. As Debbie D’Souza, a native Venezuelan and political activist, explains, “Socialism is a drug. And like...
Markets fail, which is why we need markets
There are generally two views of markets. The first is that markets can do no wrong. The other is that markets fail—and fail often—which is why we need government intervention. But as Nick Schulz and Arnold Kling note, there is a third way that can be summarized as “Markets fail. That’s why we need markets.” Over the past two generations, a different view of markets and government has begun to emerge, one whose moment may have arrived. It is a...
Radio Free Acton: Gleaves Whitney on Russell Kirk and Upstream on Comrade Detective
On this newest edition of Radio Free Acton,Gleaves Whitney, director of Grand Valley State’s Hauenstein center for Presidential Studies speaks with Bruce Edward Walker on Russell Kirk and “The Conservative Mind.”Afterwards Titus Techera talks about the new Amazon Prime series “Comrade Detective,” and how munist satire is pro-free market. Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics: The Hauenstein Center at Grand Valley State University The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal Comrade Detective Do you have questions...
How monopolies use market power to increase prices
Note: This is post #47 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. AIDS has killed more than 36 million people worldwide, notes economist Alex Tabarrok. There are drugs available to treat AIDS, but the price in the U.S. of one pill is 25 times higher than its cost. Why is this life-saving drug so expensive? In this video by Marginal Revolution University, Tabarrok shows how patent rights have created a monopoly in the U.S. market for AIDS medication, causing...
Living in tension as a libertarian Christian
A “libertarian Christian” might seem like an oxymoron to some Christians. For Albert Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, you cannot be both a faithful Christian and a libertarian. For him, libertarianism is defined only by exaltation of the ego, freedom from all moral restraints, and secular humanism—ideals that are hardly in line with a God-centric faith. The left-leaning Christian political activist Jim Wallis would agree. For Wallis, libertarian political philosophy does not line up with what the...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved