How the church should respond to the rise of anti-Semitism in America
By / May 19

Simmering beneath the surface of so much of our unhelpful national rhetoric is a deep-seated suspicion of those we view as “other” than us. When that suspicion goes uncorrected, it seethes and grows until, eventually, it morphs into hate. Unchecked, hate finally lashes out in the form of nasty words or, as we’re seeing, violent actions. And in many cases, religious and ethnic minorities are the ones who bear the brunt of it.

A documented rise in anti-Semitism

Though we could point to a number of groups experiencing a rise in harmful mistreatment, a report recently published by the Anti-Defamation League revealed that in 2021 Jewish Americans were subjected to a shocking amount of antisemitic “incidents,” a term the report uses to capture a combination of harassment, vandalism, and/or assault. According to the report, “antisemitic incidents in the U.S. reached an all-time high in 2021.”

The report outlines, “In 2021, [the] ADL tabulated 2,717 antisemitic incidents across the United States,” which “represents a 34% increase from the 2,026 incidents recorded in 2020 and is the highest number on record since ADL began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979.” Some additional findings from the report include:

  • Of the 2,717 incidents, 1,776 were categorized as harassment (up 43% from 2020), 853 were categorized as vandalism (up 14% for 2020), and 88 were categorized as assault (up 167% from 2020). 
  • Attacks against Jewish institutions, including synagogues, increased 61%. Incidents at K-12 schools jumped 106% and incidents on college campuses rose 21%.
  • Incidents occurred in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia. The states with the highest number of incidents were New York (416), New Jersey (370), California (367), Florida (190), Michigan (112) and Texas (112). Combined, these states account for 58% of the total incidents.

Furthermore, corroborating the findings of the ADL, a report produced by the American Jewish Committee and published in November 2021 “found that about 25% of Jewish people in America have experienced some form of antisemitism.” To put that number into perspective, that’s almost two million Jewish Americans (a conservative estimate) who have encountered discrimination and/or cruelty due to their religious or ethnic identity. 

The Jewish community, both here and abroad, is no stranger to injustice. For centuries they have endured some of the most abominable and inhumane treatment on record. And these statistics—what The New York Times has called “an outbreak of antisemitism“—indicate that Jewish Americans face life in a culture that is increasingly antagonistic toward them. So, what ought Christians to do for our Jewish neighbors?

Blessed are the peacemakers

In the first several lines of Jesus’s well-known Sermon on the Mount, it opens with a series of pithy statements known as the “Beatitudes” (Matthew 5:1-12). After ascending a mountain, Jesus sat down with a crowd of his followers and began his teaching, pronouncing a series of blessings upon some unlikely recipients. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (v. 3), he says, and “Blessed are those who mourn” (v. 4). These Beatitudes make plain what living as a citizen of God’s kingdom looks like here and now. 

And Jesus goes on, eventually uttering a statement that, for Christians in America, is pertinent for our response to the rising antisemitism in our country: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (v. 9). An ethic of peacemaking, Jesus says, is central to belonging to the family of God. So, I ask again: what ought Christians to do for our Jewish neighbors? We are called by Jesus to make peace.

What does it mean to be a peacemaker? It means to be an active agent in bringing the peace of God to bear in the context where we live; actively looking for opportunities to introduce God’s shalom to the people and places that we encounter every day. Making peace is a way that we love our neighbors, a way that we “seek the welfare of [our cities]” (Jer. 29:7), and a way that we mimic our Father in heaven, who is the Lord of peace (2 Thess. 3:16; Rom. 15:33). 

Making peace practically

According to the statistics above, we are surrounded by Jewish Americans who have personally experienced antisemitism, regardless of what state we reside in. So, there are ample opportunities for the church to act as peacemakers to our neighbors. Here are a few ideas:

  • Take the initiative to build friendships with your Jewish American neighbors. 
  • If you encounter hate speech among peers aimed toward Jewish Americans, speak up on their behalf. Seek to respond winsomely and charitably, but truthfully, insisting that Jewish people be treated and spoken of with dignity.  
  • When you see injustice perpetrated against Jewish Americans, speak up about it. One constructive use of your social media platform is to call attention to those who receive unfair treatment and to advocate for them, as SBC pastor Griffin Gulledge did on behalf of the Uyghur people.
  • Get to know your local elected officials. Use those relationships to advocate on behalf of your Jewish American neighbors and others. 

As Christians, we recognize that our mission is to see “God and sinners reconciled,” as the old Christmas hymn says. We are called to be agents of divine reconciliation, establishing peace between God and sinners through the person and work of Christ and by the power of his Spirit. But we might never gain the audience of our Jewish American neighbors to share that good news until we take seriously Jesus’ call in the Beatitudes to take up our post as peacemakers. Until Jewish Americans see us working to undo the injustice perpetrated against them, they may never lend us their ears and, therefore, never receive the “gospel of peace” (Eph. 6:15). 

So, let us practice the work of making peace on behalf of our Jewish American neighbors. “After all,” as Drew Griffin has written, “if one Jew was willing to give his life to save humanity, surely those of us who claim his name can stand up for the people to whom he came, and through whom the gospel came to us.”

Survey: Proportion of Christians in the U.S. has stopped shrinking
By / Jul 9

A new survey on American religion finds that the percentage of Christians has stabilized, after falling for two decades.

The survey, called the 2020 Census of American Religion, finds that 7 in 10 Americans (70%) identify as Christian, including more than 4 in 10 who identify as white Christian and more than one-quarter who identify as Christians of color. Christians of color include Hispanic Catholics (8%), Black Protestants (7%), Hispanic Protestants (4%), other Protestants of color (4%), and other Catholics of color (2%). Nearly 1 in 4 Americans (23%) are religiously unaffiliated, and 5% identify with non-Christian religions.

The largest religious demographic are those who identify as white and Christian. More than 4 in 10 Americans (44%) identify as white Christian, including white evangelical Protestants (14%), white mainline Protestants (16%), and white Catholics (12%). Black Americans are also mostly Christian (72%). More than 6 in 10 (63%) are Protestant, including 35% who identify as evangelical and 28% who identify as non-evangelical Protestants.  Three in 4 Hispanic Americans (76%) also identify as Christian, and half (50%) are Catholic. About 1 in 4 (24%) identify as Protestant, including 14% who say they are evangelical and 10% who identify as non-evangelical Protestant.

Six in 10 Native Americans (60%) identify as Christian, with most (47%) identifying as Protestant (28% evangelical, 19% non-evangelical) and an additional 11% who are Catholic. Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans are as likely to be religiously unaffiliated (34%) as they are to be Christian (34%). The Christian subset includes 1 in 5 (20%) who are Protestant (10% evangelical, 10% non-evangelical) and 10% who are Catholic.

(All respondents who identified as Christian were asked: “Would you describe yourself as a ‘born again’ or ‘evangelical Christian,’ or not?” Respondents who self-identified as white, non-Hispanic, or Protestant and affirmatively identified as born-again or evangelical were categorized as white evangelical Protestants.)

A much smaller percentage of Americans identify as Latter-day Saint (Mormon), Jehovah’s Witness, or Orthodox Christian. The rest of religiously affiliated Americans belong to non-Christian groups, including 1% who are Jewish, 1% Muslim, 1% Buddhist, 0.5% Hindu, and 1% who identify with other religions. Religiously unaffiliated Americans comprise those who do not claim any particular religious affiliation (17%) and those who identify as atheist (3%) or agnostic (3%).

Until 2020, the percentage of white Americans who identify as Christian had been on the decline for more than 20 years, losing roughly 11% per decade. In 1996, almost two-thirds of Americans (65%) identified as white and Christian. But a decade later that had declined to 54%, and by 2017 it was down to 43%. The proportion of white Christians hit a low point in 2018, at 42%, but rebounded in 2020 to 44%.

The recent increase is primarily due to an uptick in the proportion of white mainline Protestants, as well as a stabilization in the proportion of white Catholics. The report notes that since 2007, white mainline Protestants have declined from 19% of the population to a low of 13% in 2016. But over the last three years, the mainline has seen small but steady increases, up to 16% in 2020. White Catholics have also declined from a high point of 16% of the population in 2008 to 12% in 2020.

Since 2006, the most radical decrease in affiliation has occurred among white evangelical Protestants, a group that shrank from 23% of Americans in 2006 to 14% in 2020. That proportion has generally held steady since 2017 (15% in 2017, 2018, and 2019).

The proportion of white Christians decreases for the younger generations. A majority of white Americans 65 and older (59%) identify as Christian, as do those ages 50-64. But that drops to 41% for those ages 30-49. Only 28% of Americans ages 18-29 are white Christians (including 12% who are white mainline Protestants, 8% who are white Catholics, and 7% who are white evangelical Protestants).

Roughly one-in-four Americans ( 26%) are Christians of color (including 9% who are Hispanic Catholics, 5% who are Hispanic Protestants, 5% who are Black Protestants, 2% who are multiracial Christians, 2% who are AAPI Christians, and 1% who are Native American Christians). More than one-third of young Americans (36%) are religiously unaffiliated, and the remainder are Jewish (2%), Muslim (2%), Buddhist (1%), Hindu (1%), or another religion (1%). 

The shift among Christians of color is more modest. While the numbers are small, African American Protestants make up 8% of Americans ages 65 and older but only 5% of Americans under the age of 30. Among those aged 18-29, 26% are Chrisitans of color (including 9% who are Hispanic Catholics, 5% who are Hispanic Protestants, 5% who are Black Protestants, 2% who are multiracial Christians, 2% who are AAPI Christians, and 1% who are Native American Christians). By contrast, the proportions of Hispanic Protestants are significantly higher among younger Americans than among people over 65. 

White evangelical Protestants are also the oldest religious group in the U.S., with a median age of 56, compared to the median age in the country of 47. Black Protestants and white mainline Protestants have a median age of 50. 

5 facts about Independence Day and the Declaration of Independence
By / Jul 2

This Sunday marks the 245th anniversary of Independence Day, a day celebrating America’s Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. Here are five facts you should know about our country’s founding document and the observance of its commemoration.

  1. Americans celebrate Independence Day on July 4. But July 4, 1776, was not the day the Continental Congress decided to declare independence (that occurred on July 2, 1776). Nor was it the day that the American Revolution began (that happened in April 1775), the day when the Declaration of Independence was delivered to Great Britain (that wasn’t until November 1776), or the date it was signed (Aug. 2, 1776). July 4 was merely the day when the Continental Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence.
  2. The first Independence Day was celebrated on July 8, 1776, the day the Declaration was first made public. Over the next two decades, though, few people celebrated Independence Day on that date. Celebrations became more common after the War of 1812 until about 1870, when Congress first declared July 4 to be a national holiday. The July 4 date stuck because printed copies of the Declaration began to circulate in the 1800s with the date of “July 4, 1776” listed at the top. 
  3. When it was approved on July 4, 1776, the Declaration did not include all 56 signatures, since most of the men were not present in the same room at the time. The official signing event took place on August 2, 1776, when 50 men signed the document. Several months passed before all 56 signatures were in place. The last man to sign, Thomas McKean, did so in January of 1777, seven months after the document was approved by Congress. Robert R. Livingston, one of the five original drafters, never signed it at all since he believed it was too soon to declare independence.
  4. The signed copy of the Declaration is the official, but not the original, document. The approved Declaration was printed on July 5, and a copy was attached to the “rough journal of the Continental Congress for July 4th.” These printed copies were signed only by John Hancock, the president of the Continental Congress, and Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Congress. Copies were distributed to state assemblies and conventions, and even to the commanding officers of the Continental troops. On July 19, Congress ordered that the Declaration be copied by hand with a new title, “the unanimous declaration of the thirteen united states of America,” and “that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress.”  
  5. While the U.S. Constitution makes no reference to God, the Declaration includes three such references: “their Creator,” “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” and “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” The document also makes two references that tie natural law to God. Although the primary author of the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, was not a Christian, he had studied the work of Henry de Bracton, an English jurist and natural law proponent. Bracton has been referred to as the “father of common law” and is said to have “succeeded in formulating a truly Christian philosophy of law.”