Kerby Anderson

For the last five years, First Liberty Institute has published a document with the title, Undeniable: The Survey of Hostility to Religion in America. It provides an overview of the various documented examples of religious hostility.

The idea for the document came from testimony given to a U.S. Senate subcommittee. After some of the examples of religious hostility were presented, some of the senators asked if the testimonies represented more than just a few isolated incidents. Back then, that was a typical question.

More than a dozen years ago, David Limbaugh published his book Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity to answer that question. He noticed that whenever you talked about a case that threatened religious liberty, the typical response was to suggest that this was merely an isolated case. His 450-page book made it difficult to argue that religious hostility was rare.

First Liberty is providing a service by reporting on these cases. They say that since 2012 that there has been a 133 percent increase in instances of hostility. The current edition includes 1,400 anecdotes of religious discrimination in America.

By the way, even this list is not complete. What are listed are just the recorded stories and anecdotes that appear in newspapers or are part of some litigation. They obviously don’t include all the cases where religious hostility is not reported or litigated.

Kelly Shackelford of First Liberty is quick to point out the significant victories for religious liberty. Their 2012 case for a veteran’s memorial is one. The Hobby Lobby case of 2014 is another. And this year the Supreme Court case with Trinity Lutheran was also a victory for religious freedom.

Nevertheless, this latest edition of Undeniable should make it clear to just about anyone that religious hostility in America is indeed undeniable.