The United Nations’ North American Geoscheme – consisting of the USA, Canada, Bermuda, Greenland, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon – makes sense spatially but comprises unlike entities with respect to religious freedom. The latter three have local characteristics but are not fully selfgoverning and, by history and current law, their freedoms also reflect the practices of their original European colonisers, the UK, Denmark and France, respectively. In North America, restrictions affecting Christians are often distinct from those in other parts of the world, especially outside the West. There is a wide range of freedom: for example, no need for entities to register as a recognised religion, even for tax benefits; well-established freedoms for core religious institutions, such as churches; and strong safeguards for the roles of clergy, including chaplains. With the exception of health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, religious practices such as prayer and worship continue freely. There are no ongoing attacks on congregations and no overt or explicit religious discrimination. Specific instances of anti-Christian violence have occurred, such as the killings of students at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, on 2 October 2015. And, of course, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have regarded their killings in the West, including in North America, as attacks on Christian ‘Crusaders’. But these are not pervasive patterns. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's ‘Hate Crime’ statistics for 2019 categorise only 12% of religiously based hate crimes as against Christians, far below the percentage of Christians in the population.

However, surveys by the Pew Research Center show that restrictions on religious freedom have increased in the twenty-first century in most of the West, including North America, and these affect Christians as well as others. Many of these restrictions are tied to cultural and intellectual changes leading to ‘secular’ or ‘post-Christian’ societies and to what have been described as ‘culture wars’.

Changing View of Secularity

North America's increasing religious diversity has undercut the previous privilege of Christian groups and led to more stress on state religious neutrality and to secularity. While the term ‘secular’ has a range of meanings, including referring simply to non-confessional states, one more recent usage, growing since the nineteenth century, characterises and often advocates for a state – and, in some cases, for a society – emptied of religious influence. This concept of secularism has resulted in increased pressure to exclude religion from political and social life.