Attacks on Churches Increase Threefold in 4-Year Period

(UnitedVoice.com) – The religious have come under attack in recent years, but not just by politicians. Criminals have literally targeted churches, synagogues, mosques, and other places of worship. Recently, the Family Research Council (FRC) released a shocking report about how the uptick in attacks has impacted Christian churches.

The FRC studied attacks on churches over the last four years, between January 2018 to September 2022. According to their report, there were 420 incidents at 397 houses of worship. The acts against the churches ranged from 12 gun crimes to 342 incidents of vandalism.

The attacks are a threefold increase from previous years. There were 50 incidents reported in 2018 and 137 in just the first nine months of 2022.

The types of attacks included vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents, bomb threats, and more. There also appeared to be an increase in frequency over the course of the reporting period, between January 2018 and September 2022.⁠
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Report: https://t.co/CvL5E64T8b pic.twitter.com/AjiSPlkD69

— Family Research Council (@FRCdc) December 19, 2022

In 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding abortion precedent Roe v. Wade, dozens of churches suffered attacks directly related to the ruling, the FRC report claims. For example, on July 7, someone destroyed an anti-abortion display at the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Ontario, Oregon. That same day, a suspect entered St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in California, started a fire, and threatened to kill everyone.

There have been plenty of incidents that didn’t involve the SCOTUS decision. In 2019, 43-year-old Keith Thomas Kinnunen shot and killed two people inside the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas. The attack occurred just four days after Christmas. In August 2021, a volunteer was shot while serving food to the homeless at the Mount Washington Missionary Baptist Church in Missouri.

It’s unclear how many of the perpetrators authorities charged for the crimes documented in the four years.