They're Killing Our Brothers and Sisters.
They're Silencing Our Faith.

For too long, the protection of persecuted Christians abroad has been rhetorical. Statements are issued. Condolences are offered. Then nothing changes. Chris will push for legislation that makes the protection of persecuted Christians a binding foreign policy priority, not a discretionary afterthought subject to diplomatic convenience.

This means conditioning foreign aid on measurable progress in protecting religious minorities, mandating that the State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom report directly to the Secretary of State, and requiring that religious persecution be formally considered in all bilateral and multilateral negotiations with countries on the World Watch List. Nations that receive American taxpayer dollars while permitting the slaughter of Christians will face real consequences, not just press releases.

The United States has extensive sanctions authority under the Global Magnitsky Act and other statutes. This authority has been used against human rights abusers in dozens of countries. Chris will push for its aggressive application to individuals, organizations, and governments directly responsible for the persecution of Christians.

Sanctions will include asset freezes for officials who enable or ignore anti-Christian violence, travel bans for members of persecuting regimes and their families, and designation of terrorist organizations specifically targeting Christians. When a Fulani militia commander orders the burning of a church, he should know that he will never set foot in America, never access the international banking system, and never escape accountability for his crimes.

Christians fleeing genocide deserve priority in America's refugee admissions process. When a family has lost everything because of their faith in Christ, when their church has been burned and their neighbors murdered, when they have nowhere else to go, the United States should be their refuge. Chris will fight for legislation that explicitly prioritizes refugees fleeing religious persecution, with particular attention to Christians from the most dangerous countries on the World Watch List.

This is not about excluding other refugees. It is about recognizing that Christians are disproportionately targeted in many of the world's most dangerous places and ensuring that our refugee system reflects that reality. In Nigeria, Christians are 2.7 times more likely to be killed in attacks than Muslims. In Syria, ancient Christian communities face extinction. These believers deserve protection.

The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment guarantees the right of every American to practice their religion without government interference. That right has been eroded by agencies that treat religious conviction as an obstacle to policy goals, by employers who demand ideological conformity, and by courts that too often balance away religious liberty against competing interests. Chris will fight to restore the First Amendment to its original meaning and strength.

This includes supporting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and pushing for its consistent enforcement, opposing any federal regulation that conditions employment, funding, or participation in public programs on abandonment of religious beliefs, and ensuring that religious exemptions to generally applicable laws are granted on the same terms as secular exemptions. If the government can exempt you from a requirement for medical reasons, it can exempt you for religious reasons. Period.

Parents have the fundamental right to direct the education and upbringing of their children in accordance with their religious beliefs. This right has been recognized by the Supreme Court for over a century. But across the country, school districts are refusing to let parents opt their children out of instruction that directly contradicts their faith, treating religious objections as less legitimate than secular ones.

Chris will fight for federal legislation protecting the right of parents to opt their children out of any instruction that conflicts with their sincerely held religious beliefs. He will oppose any federal education funding that conditions receipt on abandonment of parental rights. And he will support school choice initiatives that allow parents to direct their education dollars to schools that share their values, including religious schools.

The FBI memorandum targeting "radical-traditionalist" Catholics was not an isolated incident. It was a symptom of an institutional culture that treats devout religious belief as inherently suspicious. Chris will demand structural reforms to ensure that no federal agency ever again treats Americans as threats because of their faith.

This includes mandatory religious liberty training for all federal law enforcement personnel, explicit prohibition on using religious affiliation or practice as a factor in threat assessments, whistleblower protections for federal employees who report anti-religious bias within their agencies, and congressional oversight hearings with subpoena power to investigate past targeting of religious groups. The government works for the people, not the other way around.

Organizations like Open Doors, Voice of the Martyrs, International Christian Concern, and Aid to the Church in Need have spent decades documenting persecution, supporting survivors, and advocating for the persecuted church. They are the eyes and ears of the global Christian community in the world's most dangerous places. Chris will push for federal support of these organizations' documentation and advocacy efforts.

This includes grants for persecution research and reporting, partnership with the State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom, and formal consultation in the development of foreign policy toward persecuting nations. The federal government does not need to reinvent the wheel. The infrastructure for responding to Christian persecution already exists. It just needs to be funded, empowered, and listened to.

Healthcare workers have been told they must perform procedures that violate their religious beliefs or lose their jobs. Federal agencies have sought to interpret nondiscrimination statutes to require participation in abortions, gender transition procedures, and other interventions that many Christians believe are morally wrong. Chris will fight to ensure that no healthcare worker is ever forced to choose between their conscience and their career.

This includes robust enforcement of existing federal conscience statutes, opposition to any regulation that conditions healthcare participation on willingness to perform procedures that violate religious beliefs, and support for legislation that creates a private right of action for healthcare workers whose conscience rights are violated. The Hippocratic tradition has always recognized that physicians are not mere technicians. They are moral agents with the right to refuse to participate in procedures they believe are harmful.