30Jun 2026 by mano601

The Center for Inquiry’s (CFI) article on “Combating Religious Privilege in the United States” opens with the dramatic declaration that America is “riven top to bottom by religious privilege” and that religion “enjoys incredible power while taking no responsibility.” These are sweeping assertions — and the facts don’t support them. Below, we go point by point through the CFI’s major claims and respond with documented evidence.

Claim 1: America Is “Riven Top to Bottom” by Religious Privilege

The CFI’s charge: That society is saturated, at every level, with religious advantage.

The reality: Religious influence in America is declining, not dominating. According to a major 2025 Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Study, Christianity’s share of the U.S. adult population has stabilized after years of decline, sitting at about 62% today — down from 78% roughly two decades ago. Gallup data confirms that U.S. church membership fell below a majority for the first time in its polling history, and regular church attendance has dropped to approximately 30% of adults — a figure 10 percentage points lower than Gallup measured a decade ago. Pew Research further documents that 28% of Americans are now religiously unaffiliated — atheists, agnostics, or “nothing in particular”. A society where nearly one-third of its citizens claim no religion at all — and where institutional religious participation is measurably declining — is not one “riven top to bottom” by religious privilege.

Flourishing in Religious Privilege

The First Amendment itself is the best evidence against this claim. The Establishment Clause explicitly prohibits the government from sponsoring, favoring, or establishing any religion, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated the government may not “unduly favor one religion over another” or “prefer religion over non-religion.” The legal architecture of the country is specifically designed to prevent the kind of totalizing religious dominance the CFI implies exists.

Claim 2: Religion “Enjoys Power Without Responsibility”

The CFI’s charge: That religious organizations wield influence with no accountability for how they use it.

The reality: This claim ignores an extensive web of legal obligations that govern religious organizations. Under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, churches and religious organizations are absolutely prohibited from participating in political campaign activity, engaging in substantial lobbying, providing private inurement to individuals, or acting contrary to fundamental public policy. Violations result in real consequences — the IRS actually revoked a church’s tax-exempt status in the landmark Branch Ministries v. Rossotti case after the church ran political newspaper ads, and the federal court upheld the revocation. Religious organizations are also subject to civil lawsuits, criminal prosecution, property disputes, child abuse claims, and personal injury suits just like any other institution. The claim of zero accountability is simply false.

Furthermore, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act requires religious employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees’ religious practices, and the EEOC actively enforces these provisions — including against religious institutions themselves. The idea that religious organizations operate in a lawless power vacuum is a caricature, not a fact.

Claim 3: Tax Exemptions Are an Unjustified “Privilege”

The CFI consistently frames tax exemptions as unfair special treatment for religion.

The reality: The Supreme Court settled this question in Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York (1970), ruling that religious tax exemptions are constitutional because the purpose is not to single out churches for special favor; rather, the exemption applies broadly to all non-profit organizations — churches, museums, hospitals, libraries, and charitable groups — all dedicated to social betterment. The Court explicitly held that the “primary effect” of the exemption is secular, and any benefit to religion is merely incidental.

More importantly, these exemptions are tied to enormous, documented public benefits. Research by Brian and Melissa Grim found that the total economic contribution of U.S. religious congregations ranges between $1.2 trillion and $4.8 trillion annually, including $418 billion in direct contributions to U.S. GDP. Congregations contribute an estimated $158.8 billion in individual counseling and support services and $91.3 billion in educational activities each year. As the Family Research Council notes, tax exemption is a commensurate response to the church’s economic and social contributions — absent these programs, the state would have to make an enormous investment to fill the gap. This is not privilege — it is a rational exchange between civil society and the organizations that hold it together.

Claim 4: Religious Exemptions Harm Others and Serve Only the Powerful

The CFI argues that religious carve-outs from laws harm vulnerable people while benefiting religious institutions.

The reality: The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993 was not a gift to power — it was a protection for the powerless. RFRA was passed with near-unanimous Congressional support after the Supreme Court’s Employment Division v. Smith ruling left minority religious practitioners — including Native Americans using peyote in sacred ceremonies — vulnerable to generally applicable laws. The law requires the government to show a “compelling interest” before substantially burdening any person’s religious exercise. RFRA explicitly creates a two-prong balancing test to ensure the government uses the “least restrictive means” of advancing its interests — hardly a blank check for religious organizations to harm others.

Moreover, it is demonstrably not true that only Christians benefit from religious protections. The EEOC has recently sued Apple for failing to accommodate a Jewish employee’s Sabbath practices, and Marriott for failing to accommodate a Seventh-Day Adventist employee’s religious observance. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 2025 that Wisconsin violated the First Amendment by denying the Catholic Charities Bureau a religious tax exemption — a decision that protects religious minorities and majorities alike.

Claim 5: Religion Faces No Real Discrimination — Its Problems Are Self-Made

The CFI frames religious organizations as pure oppressors, not as institutions that can be targets of discrimination.

The reality: Religious discrimination is not a one-directional phenomenon. According to the EEOC, the number of religious discrimination charges filed in the workplace rose to 13,814 in 2022 — six times higher than in prior years — and now comprises nearly 1 in 5 of all workplace discrimination complaints. These complaints cover Christians, Jews, Muslims, Seventh-Day Adventists, and other believers. Research from Rice University found that Muslim (63%) and Jewish (52%) employees reported the highest rates of workplace religious discrimination — but 36% of evangelical Protestants and roughly 20% of Catholics and mainline Protestants also reported experiencing it. Experts at the Family Research Council have documented rising hostility toward traditional Christian beliefs in American culture, including cases where Christian couples were denied foster care licenses due to their faith, and teachers were fired for declining to implement certain curricula.

To claim that religion in America operates from a position of unchallenged power, immune from discrimination, is to ignore the lived experience of millions of religious Americans of all traditions.

Must See Also: What Is Christian Privilege?

Claim 6: Religious Organizations Don’t Serve Society — They Serve Themselves

The CFI implies that religious power is not balanced by genuine public service.

The reality: The opposite is true, and the data is massive. Catholic Charities USA alone has more than 2,500 local agencies serving 10 million people annually across food security, housing, healthcare, immigration services, disaster relief, and addiction recovery. Catholic Charities USA maintains more than 38,000 permanent housing units for families, seniors, and veterans and serves as the official domestic disaster relief agency of the U.S. Catholic Church. A 2022 economic impact study on United Methodist churches in rural North Carolina found that individual churches generate more than $735,000 on average in annual economic benefits to their local communities, through community service, healthcare, childcare, unemployment programs, and disaster relief. Faith-based organizations (FBCOs) played a critical role in Gulf Coast hurricane recovery after Katrina and Rita, providing services to populations that government agencies could not always reach. To characterize these organizations as irresponsible wielders of power with no accountability is to gaslight the millions of people whose lives have been improved or saved by faith-based service.

The Bottom Line on Combating Religious Privilege

The Center for Inquiry’s framing of “combating religious privilege” rests on unsubstantiated assertions and selective readings of American law and culture. As theological and political commentator Roger Olson has noted, in large swaths of American society — particularly academic and professional institutions — being openly religious can carry social costs, and “being secular gives one special social privilege” in many contexts. The real picture is far more nuanced: religious organizations in America operate under substantial legal constraints, contribute trillions in economic and social value, serve the vulnerable without regard to faith, and are themselves frequently the targets of discrimination. The First Amendment guarantees that no religion will be established — but it equally guarantees that religion will not be suppressed. That isn’t privilege. That’s the American promise.

Combating Religious Privilege: A Point-by-Point Refutation of the CFI’s Claims