2025 Edition of Hostility Against Churches Report Shows 415 US Attacks in 2024

Family Research Council (FRC) has released the newest edition of its report, Hostility Against Churches in the United States: Analyzing Incidents from 2024, which records 415 hostile incidents across 383 churches, including vandalism (284), arson (55), bomb threats (14), armed aggression (28, which is more than double the number (12) identified in 2023), and other crimes (47).

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“Religious freedom is seldom handed to the passive,” says Tony Perkins, president, FRC. “It’s claimed by those who exercise it even when a hostile culture says they may not. This report clearly shows religious freedom faces substantial threats here at home.”

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Notable findings in this edition include the following:

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● The previous six years (2018-2023) featured an increase in hostile incidents against US churches. FRC identified 50 incidents in 2018, 83 in 2019, 55 in 2020, and 98 in 2021. The total number of incidents in 2023 (485) was more than double the number identified in 2022 (198).

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● The number of incidents in 2024 (415), from one 12-month span, is nearly equal to the findings from FRC’s very first report (420), which covered 57 months.

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● California had the most incidents in 2024 with 40, followed by Pennsylvania with 29, Florida and New York with 25, Texas with 23, and Tennessee and Ohio with 19.

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● FRC has identified 1,384 acts of hostility against US churches that have taken place since January 2018.

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Four churches within two adjacent counties in Ohio were completely destroyed by arson over four months. Armed incidents jumped from 12 to 28 in 2024. One case involved a gunman who pointed a gun at a pastor during his sermon. However, his gun jammed, and a deacon tackled the gunman. In Texas, a woman with a long gun injured two people at Lakewood Church in Houston.

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“The reality presented by this report may be surprising to many, as we are often accustomed to thinking of ‘the West’ as the place of freedom,” says Travis Weber, FRC’s vice president for policy and government affairs. “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 ‘automatically’ safe to live and worship in peace in the United States—a trend that is at work in other Western countries as well. We must prepare ourselves for how to live amid such hostility, should this trend continue or perhaps get even worse.”

Read previous editions of this report on the FRC website.

Also read these SemperVerus articles featuring research reports:

●  LaSorsa & Associates Executive Protection Incidents Report

●  US Secret Service Threat Assessment Church Case Study Links Domestic Violence with Mass Attacks

●  Church Security: Most Church Attacks Occur During Activities Other Than Sunday Morning Worship Services

●  2024 Edition of Hostility Against Churches Report Shows a Doubling of Attacks

●  Criminals and Terrorists Overwhelmingly Select Gun-Free Zones For Mass Attacks in Public Spaces

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