Failed Attack On Illinois Temple Spotlights Anti‐Hindu Hate In US

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In September 2025, Alexander Duncan, then a Republican US Senate candidate in Texas, objected to a large image of the deity Hanuman in Sugar Land, Texas. He asked,“Why are we allowing a false statue of a false Hindu god to be here in Texas? We are a Christian nation!” This post was viewed over 6 million times. In August 2026, pastor Dale Partridge posted an image of the Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in New Jersey, claiming that“our 1700s Christian forefathers would have this demon temple leveled in 24 hours.”

Such rhetoric is widespread online. A September 2026 report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate found that Hindus“have been singled out for attacks on the basis of their religion.” The report states that posts routinely refer to devotees as“demon worshippers,” deride Hindu deities and sometimes call for temples to be destroyed and replaced with“American” monuments. The report finds that these posts frame Hindu worship as“fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.”

When these posts invoke America and Christianity, they represent an outlook that sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry call Christian nationalism: the belief that America should be distinctively Christian. In their survey from 2017, almost a third of Americans said that the federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation.

I believe this current manifestation of Christian nationalist hostility to Hinduism is best understood in the context of the broader history of American Christian responses to Hinduism.

The long history of prejudice

As religious studies scholar Michael Altman argues, the charge that Hindus worship false gods and idols took hold in American national culture nearly two centuries ago. Nineteenth-century American schoolbooks, shaped by Protestant beliefs, sorted religions into“true and false,” treating Hindu“idolatry” as proof of moral degradation.

In her study of Hinduism in America, scholar Vasudha Narayanan demonstrates that in the early 20th century, some Americans embraced Hindu ideas while keeping Hindus themselves at a distance. She explains that although a 1917 law barred most immigration from Asia, some Americans found inspiration in Hindu thought and yoga practices, presenting these not as Hindu but as“universal” spirituality.

Religion scholar Diana Eck estimates that after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act opened the door to immigrants from Asia, the population of Hindu Americans reached over one million by 2000.

Starting in the 1970s, these Hindus built dozens of temples. However, Eck shows that these new temples were often met with hostility. In 1983, for example, attackers desecrated a temple outside Pittsburgh, smashing sacred images and scrawling“Leave” on the temple altar. In the early 1990s, vandals spray-painted a future temple site in New Jersey with“Get out Hindoos.”

Religious studies scholar Sailaja Krishnamurti traces how this animosity continued into the 21st century. She points to the film“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” which depicted Hindus performing human sacrifice, and to televangelists such as Pat Robertson, who denounced Hinduism as“demonic.” These depictions, she argues, are reflected in violence against Hindus. In 2019, a vandal spray-painted messages about Jesus and defaced images of Hindu deities.

Reading religion as race

The Aurora suspect's manifesto does not single out Hindus nor does it mention“false gods.” According to US Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the manifesto describes“Indians, Jews, Black people and other minorities as 'sub-human.'” Yet police Chief William Nord said the suspect“was looking for a large Hindu temple.” The suspect's hatred was expressed in racial terms, but his target was a Hindu place of worship.

Education scholar Khyati Joshi calls this blending of racial and religious animosity the“racialization of religion.” In a society where whiteness and Christianity have been treated as the norm, she argues, brown skin can serve as a stand-in for a presumed“other” faith. As a consequence of this racialization, Joshi argues that“the religious nature of discrimination is overlooked.”