RFI President Eric Patterson was featured today in a CBN News story highlighting how religious freedom advocates are addressing the uptick of threats in the United States by providing legal and media resources for religious people and organizations.
“So often Christians and other people of faith feel really besieged right now,” Patterson told CBN News. “They feel besieged by neo-Marxism, by wokeism, by sexual orientation and gender ideologies that seem to be pressing a new view, that nothing is real. There’s no male, there’s no female.”
The story pointed to RFI’s resources documenting these growing threats, such as Religious Pro-Life Americans Under Attack: A Threat Assessment of Post-Dobbs America, and RFI’s factsheets on the surge in anti-Semitism in the United States, United Kingdom, and France since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.
Patterson explained that attacks in the United States are increasingly carried out using state power and increasingly hinge on the assertion that freedom of expression should be restricted in a variety of ways.
“What you’ll often hear is ‘it’s ok for you to worship. There’s freedom to worship’…behind closed doors at home as long as you don’t offend me,” said Patterson.
The story also referenced RFI’s Crisis Toolkit for Religious Institutions as a proactive resource with legal and communications guidance that religious organizations can use to prepare for and navigate these threats.
Watch the full segment and read the article: “Advocates Offer Protections Against Religious Liberty Threats: ‘People of Faith Feel Besieged.’“
![](https://religiousfreedominstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/EricPatterson_CBN-993x556.png)
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