Attacks against Christian churches have tripled in the last four years
According to a report by The Family Research Council, violence against certain places of worship, have intensified since 2018, recording 420 attacks. Abortion and the death of George Floyd are listed as being among some of the reasons.
In August, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito warned that hostility and violence against religion was on the rise. He was right. In the last four years, attacks against churches have intensified. According to a report by the Christian non-profit organization Family Research Council (FRC) prepared this month, between January 2018 and September 2022, 420 assaults encompassing vandalism, bomb threats, arson and gun violence were recorded against 397 different Christian houses of worship in the United States.
The deputy director of the FRC's Center for Religious Freedom, Arielle Del Turco, noted that the number of attacks occurring in 2022 is nearly triple the number documented in 2018. "The first nine months of 2022 saw more than double the number of reported acts of hostility against churches that occurred in the entirety of 2018," she wrote in the report. Due to this increase, Del Turco has condemned these violent attacks and asks for respect to exercise freedom of worship, one of the simple fundamental rights of human beings:
Assaults in 33 states and Washington, D.C. in 2022
During the first nine months of 2022, vandals defiled more than 130 churches in Washington, D.C. and 33 other states. In its dossier, the FRC notes that July of this year saw the highest number of monthly attacks - more than 30 - in the last four years and details several of the violent actions against Christian Churches:
In the period from January 2018 to September 2022, violence occured against Christian, Unitarian-Universalist or Mormon churches in 45 states and the capital.
George Floyd's death and abortion, some of the motives
Following the death of George Floyd in May 2020, violence and vandalism increased in the streets and churches were one of the main targets of attacks, Del Turco describes:
After the Supreme Court reversed Roe vs. Wade, pro-abortion associations and groups have taken their anger out on churches. In the first nine months of 2022, 57 attacks for this reason were recorded, a "1,140 percent increase over the past four years."
Other reasons, the report notes, are "radical pro-LGBTQ activism, support for COVID-19 church closures, secularism, Satanism, Islamic fundamentalism, and anti-Americanism has also wrought havoc in parishes nationwide."