Analytical Assessment: 2026 Terrorism Threat Landscape for U.S. Churches

U.S. Churches

Prepared for Church Leadership and Safety/Security Teams

By Trinity Safety Training Group June 2026

The terrorism threat landscape facing churches in the United States in 2026 should be assessed as elevated, complex, and unpredictable, but not uniform across every congregation or region. There is no public evidence indicating that every U.S. church faces a specific or imminent terrorist threat. However, current public-source threat reporting, federal house-of-worship security guidance, hate-crime data, and church hostility reporting all support the conclusion that churches should maintain a calm but heightened preparedness posture in 2026.

The most likely terrorism-related concern for U.S. churches is not a large, coordinated foreign-directed attack. The more realistic concern is a lone actor or small group motivated by ideology, personal grievance, online radicalization, anti-religious hostility, anti-Semitic or anti-Christian beliefs, political extremism, or emotional instability. The 2026 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community identifies terrorism as a continuing national security concern and notes that foreign terrorist organizations and aligned actors remain capable of asymmetric attacks against U.S. interests, even where they have been degraded operationally.

For churches, this means the threat should be understood less as a single category called “terrorism” and more as a broader landscape of targeted violence, grievance-based violence, ideological motivation, and symbolic targeting. Churches are open, predictable, public-facing, emotionally significant, and often lightly secured. Those characteristics make them attractive targets for individuals seeking attention, ideological impact, or mass harm. CISA’s house-of-worship resources specifically exist because faith communities face targeted violence risks and need layered security, planning, assessment, communication, and preparedness measures.

Church hostility data also supports a heightened awareness posture. Family Research Council’s most recent church hostility reporting identified 1,384 acts of hostility against U.S. churches from January 2018 through December 2024, including vandalism, arson, bomb threats, gun-related incidents, and other crimes. The 2024 report focused on incidents occurring in calendar year 2024 and identified hundreds of hostile acts affecting churches nationwide. This data is open-source and may not capture every incident, but it is useful as a trend indicator for church leadership and safety teams.

Religiously motivated hate crime data should also be considered.

The FBI released 2024 hate-crime statistics in 2025 showing 11,679 hate-crime incidents involving 14,243 victims; religion was listed as the motivation in 23.5 percent of reported single-bias hate-crime incidents. DOJ and FBI hate-crime reporting is not church-specific, but it helps establish that religious identity remains a significant motivator in U.S. bias-related crime.

The terrorism threat environment also intersects with broader religious-targeting trends. Anti-Jewish hate crimes comprised nearly 70 percent of religion-based hate crimes in 2024, according to ADL’s review of FBI data. While anti-Semitic targeting is distinct from threats against Christian churches, it directly affects the broader house-of-worship security climate because threat actors often view religious institutions as symbolic targets.

The practical assessment for U.S. churches in 2026 is that terrorism-related risk is most likely to appear through pre-incident behaviors, not obvious organized plots. These may include surveillance of entrances, fixation on pastors or children’s ministry areas, repeated security-related questioning, hostile grievance language, online leakage, boundary testing, unusual concealment behavior, and attempts to access restricted areas. None of these behaviors automatically prove terrorist intent. However, clusters of behavior may justify observation, documentation, team communication, pastoral intervention, or law enforcement notification.

Churches should therefore adopt an intelligence-informed safety posture. This does not mean spying on congregants or creating a suspicious culture. It means developing systems to recognize and communicate relevant information before a crisis develops. A purely reactive model says, “If something happens, we will call 911.” An intelligence-informed model asks, “What information do we have today that can help us prevent problems tomorrow?”

For example, a traditional church security model might rely on one off-duty officer near the main entrance. An intelligence-informed model would involve trained greeters, ushers, children’s ministry workers, parking lot volunteers, medical volunteers, and safety team members all serving as observation points. If a visitor arrives unusually early, watches entrances for an extended period, avoids normal interaction, repeatedly walks sensitive areas, asks questions about security staffing, or demonstrates unusual interest in children’s ministry, the team does not accuse or overreact. Instead, they communicate observations, maintain awareness, document concerns, and engage calmly if appropriate.

This same posture applies to congregants in crisis. Escalating grievances, fixation on church leadership, threatening language, hostile online posts, repeated boundary violations, or emotional deterioration can provide opportunities for pastoral care, de-escalation, documentation, and intervention long before a violent incident develops. In this sense, church security is not merely tactical; it is also relational, behavioral, and ministry-centered.

The most effective church posture for 2026 is layered and prevention-focused. This includes behavioral threat recognition, monitored access points, children’s ministry protection, communication procedures, trauma medical readiness, incident command planning, scenario-based training, and coordination with local law enforcement. CISA’s resources for houses of worship emphasize improving security through assessment, planning, communication, training, and layered protective measures.

The first several minutes of any emergency will almost always belong to the church itself. Before outside responders fully arrive, pastors, greeters, ushers, children’s ministry workers, medical volunteers, and safety team members become the true first responders. This does not replace law enforcement; it recognizes operational reality. Prepared churches are better positioned to protect life, reduce panic, communicate clearly, and preserve ministry continuity.

Bottom line: U.S. churches in 2026 should not panic, but they should also not dismiss the threat environment. The terrorism-related risk to churches is best understood as part of a larger targeted-violence landscape involving lone actors, ideological motivation, grievance, online radicalization, anti-religious hostility, and symbolic targeting. The appropriate response is calm professionalism, intelligence-informed awareness, layered preparedness, medical readiness, and ministry-minded prevention.

At Trinity Safety Training Group, we help church leaders build a practical system of preparedness instead of relying on the usual reactive model. By equipping teams to recognize risk early, clarify roles, and strengthen coordination, we help churches protect people, reduce confusion, and sustain ministry continuity when it matters most.

Dan Perez

VP of Training and Risk Management

Trinity Safety Training Group

Trinitysafetygrp.com

Sources:

1. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2026 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

2. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, Protecting Houses of Worship Resources.

3. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, Mitigating Attacks on Houses of Worship: Security Guide.

4. U.S. Department of Justice / FBI, 2024 Hate Crime Statistics.

5. FBI, Hate Crime Statistics Data Collection.

6. Family Research Council, Hostility Against Churches in the United States: Analyzing Incidents from 2024.

7. Family Research Council, FRC Publishes New Edition of Hostility Against Churches Report.

8. Anti-Defamation League, Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes Comprised Nearly 70% of Religion-Based Hate Crimes in 2024, FBI Reports.

9. U.S. Department of Justice, Protecting Houses of Worship: Post-Event Resources / CISA SAFE Assessment Resources.