Two weeks ago I discussed Christianophobia and defined what it is. Last week I documented who tends to have Christianophobia and one of their major goals. This week I want to look at evidence that Christianophobia results in real and damaging actions against Christians.

Although my research has documented real animosity towards Christians, many are convinced that Christians do not suffer any real loss from this bigotry. And certainly the bigotry is more subtle than some other forms of bigotry. Those who tend to have Christianophobia are highly educated and progressive. Perhaps they bend over backwards to be fair even to those with whom they disagree.

Yet the bigotry and effects of Christianophobia are real. Right before I did research on Christianophobia I conducted work on bias in academia. I anticipated that academics would have bias against political conservatives since I knew very few Republican academics. In fact I knew more Christian academics than Republican academics. To my surprise I found that bias was much stronger against religiously conservative Protestants than against political conservatives.

When I talk about bias I am not merely talking about progressive academics not liking conservative Protestants or their seeking to do research that hurts conservative Protestants. I am fairly confident that both occur, but it goes beyond this.

In my research I asked academics whether they would be less willing to hire someone if they found out that the candidate was either a fundamentalist or evangelical. Depending on the discipline the academic was in, I found that from about 25% to nearly 60% of academics were less willing to hire a potential professor if the job candidate was an evangelical. The numbers were worse if the job candidate was a fundamentalist.

Since my book came out I have found other research indicating a higher education bias against Christians. A study of medical student admission also shows evidence of bias, and other research used student diaries to explore anti-Christian incidents. Another study of academics found that those with social conservative values are in lower status occupational positions even after controlling for their academic achievements.

The strength of the argument of anti-Christian bias in academia is so strong that when I present evidence of it I rarely get critiques of the research but rather I get justifications for why such discrimination is okay. Many say they believe Christians cannot engage in critical thinking and are too narrow-minded to do scholarship. In other words, they have accepted Christianophobic stereotypes.

Inhibiting Christians from entering the ranks of academia also helps meet the goal I discussed last week – keeping Christians out of the public square and from positions of influence. The fewer Christians in academia, the harder it is for them to shape the larger social culture. Furthermore, without enough Christian academics to investigate Christianophobia in other areas of society, it becomes more likely that this dysfunction will be allowed to go unchecked.

If Christianophobia leads to unfair treatment in academia, and academia is one of the major institutions that holds society accountable for unfair treatment of groups, then it is not surprising that we do not readily see other examples of Christianophobia in our society.

There are other possible ways Christianophobia can misshape our society. Ideally in time we will be able to document them. But it’s already clear from the data I and others have already collected that Christianophobia exacts a real cost on American Christians.

The proper response isn’t to pout or accept the situation. I will complete this series next week by exploring what Christians should do about Christianophobia. I suspect it will be a long haul to reverse many of the effects of this dysfunction, but I do believe that it can be done.