While Christians have long been persecuted in many of the world’s closed countries, people of faith have never had to anticipate facing the same kind of antagonism here in America. Yet today – according to sociologist George Yancey – there is a rising tide of animosity toward Christians that is similar in some ways to Antisemitism or racial discrimination.

Yancey discusses his findings and offers helpful responses as we talk about his new book  , on this edition of Connecting Faith.

George undertook qualitative and quantitative research efforts to look at the situation. He wanted to determine what the level of animosity really looked like, and he came to the conclusion that there is an unreasonable level of hatred and fear of Christians in today’s America.

We look at the way our system of higher education has begun to slowly reshape society’s attitude toward Christianity. The shift hasn’t been immediate at all, it’s taken time for negative stereotypes to take root.

An interesting feature of that process deals with what George calls contact hypothesis: when you don’t have people in your circle of familiarity that are Christians, it’s far easier to develop negative attitudes. If there were Christian individuals in your daily life, they would likely be able to refute some of those attitudes.

In light of the numbers, does George believe it’s fair to compare the “persecution” Christians face in America to the challenges our brothers and sisters encounter in some of the world’s most dangerous countries? He argues that it’s not a reasonable comparison. Yes, we face increasing obstacles here, but American Christians still live a much more free and comfortable existence.

In the face of extreme efforts to push our faith out of the public square, what should our response be? Do we turn the other cheek? Do we vigorously push back?

Highlight: Our response

Living in a hostile world