A recent report shows that hostility towards churches in the United States remains alarmingly high, according to the Christian group that has tracked such incidents since 2018.
The Family Research Council (FRC) publishes this data annually. Its latest figures show there were 415 documented hostile acts targeting 383 churches across 43 states last year.
As Fox News reports, these numbers represent a decline from the 485 incidents recorded in 2023, but the incidents in 2024 are still double the number of attacks seen in 2022.
The FRC is a conservative Christian advocacy and lobbying group that promotes a Judeo-Christian worldview in public policy. To date, the FRC has identified 1,384 acts of hostility towards U.S. churches between January 2018 and December 2024. These incidents include vandalism, arson, bomb threats, firearms-related incidents, and other crimes.
"Such acts are destructive and have the potential to intimidate religious communities," researchers said in the report. "They therefore warrant unequivocal condemnation."
FRC researchers note that while the motivations for many of these incidents remain unknown, they believe the rise in crimes against churches is occurring within “a context in which fewer Americans are attending religious services” or identifying with a specific faith.
According to Gallup, 42% of U.S. adults regularly attended religious services 20 years ago, but that figure has since declined to 30%.
“This decline means that fewer Americans share a common understanding of what church buildings represent,” said the researchers.
One of the most significant church attacks in the U.S. in 2024 was the Abundant Life Christian School shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, in which two people died and six others were injured.
In another incident in Houston, Texas, there was an active shooter inside Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church. Video obtained by ABC News showed the suspect, Genesse Ivonne Moreno, walking into the church holding her seven-year-old son’s hand, carrying an assault-style rifle and a bag that investigators said also contained another rifle.
Read the full report here.