Given the recent backlash against Chick-fil-A and the Family Research Council shooting, it’s not hard to see the rise of religious hostility in the U.S. Now, Liberty Institute and the Family Research Council (FRC) are offering the results of a survey that set out to measure it.
The Survey of Religious Hostility in America is a compilation of more than 600 documented incidents of hostility to religion that have occurred in the United States most of them over the last 10 years.
“America today would be unrecognizable to our founders. Our first liberty is facing a relentless onslaught from well-funded and aggressive groups and individuals who are using the courts, Congress, and the vast federal bureaucracy to suppress and limit religious freedom,” says Kelly Shackelford, president of the Liberty Institute. “This radicalized minority is driven by an anti-religious ideology that is turning the First Amendment upside down.”
In light of this rise in hostility, The Pennsylvania Pastors’ Network is urging pastors to stand up for truth and preach the whole counsel of God, especially as it relates to current or cultural events. The goal is for Christians to have a better understanding of what God’s Word says and how they should react to critical, cultural issues from a biblical perspective.
“More and more, we are seeing religious persecution from a variety of sources, not only abroad but here in our own backyards,” says Sam Rohrer, president of the Pennsylvania Pastors’ Network.
“Bible-believing pastors must rise and stand for Biblical truth by teaching the whole counsel of God to their congregation, omitting nothing and encouraging people to live out God’s Word in their day-to-day lives. Christians also need to boldly stand for truth and live out their convictions in their communities and how they vote, so that our Constitutionally protected freedom of religion is preserved.”
FRC President Tony Perkins offers hope. As dark as the survey is, he says, there is much light: “The secularists’ agenda only advances when those who love liberty are apathetic. Let this be a call to stand for religious liberty in the United States.”
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