My UU church has been vandalized a few times. It’s certainly possible, perhaps likely, that it was motivated by the church’s stances. But in the incidents I’m aware of, nobody was ever caught. And the vandalism was just damage, no messsage included. So it’s anybody’s guess, really.
I work at my synagogue. We have guards at the High Holidays, but not on a regular basis. We’re a small shul and can’t afford that kind of expense. We recently received a federal grant for security upgrades, so there are better detection and warning systems. I’m the first person an intruder would see. When I first started here nearly two weeks ago, it was a homey and comfortable place to work. I’m much more anxious about doing so these days.
All of the synagogues we’ve attended routinely have a security guard for Shabbat services. In Chicago, our synagogue had walk through metal detectors for high holiday services the last few years and bags were searched. There was extra security when the Israeli Consul General was in attendance (he spoke every year) - a guard dressed all in black continually scanning the congregation. We used to refer to him as the Mossad agent.
My synagogue has never been wealthy enough to hire security for regular services. We do have security for the High Holidays, but only because we rent space from a suburban private school and staff comes with it.
20-25 years ago, we worried about this a lot more than we do now. We are fairly far over on the left side of the political spectrum of American synagogues, and our founding rabbi was very outspoken on human rights issues in Palestine and what he saw as a moral imperative to recognize a Palestinian state. He would get death threats on a regular basis, and for a long time his address and phone number were closely guarded secrets. But I don’t remember any security guards for regular services then, ever.
We were – and are – small enough that everyone pretty much knew everyone, so a hired security guard would be very noticeable, even if plainclothed. (A stranger come to shoot us would also be noticeable.) We’re also not an organization that has a lot of beefy guys who look like they work out. No guns of any kind.
One of the churches I serve has one entrance/exit at the back of the sanctuary and stained glass windows that have tiny openings. There would be no way to escape an armed intruder. Especially for me standing up in the chancel at the front. We would all be killed in minutes.
@jhs. I’m not being snarky; I’m curious. How do you know there are no guns of any kind? People who carry aren’t necessarily “beefy” guys.
I attend a Catholic church. It has a guard whenever the church is open. The Sunday guard is an off-duty cop. I wouldn’t know that if I hadn’t been told. He doesn’t look at all like a cop. I don’t think he caries a gun–but I’ve never asked.
If a house of worship hires security guards during religious services, does it hire guards not of the same religion who could pay full attention to security duties since they do not need to observe or participate in the religious services?
Because I know these people. And because if you proposed a repeal of the Second Amendment it would get 95% of the vote in the communities from which our members come. It would likely be 100% in my synagogue. Around here, people have a higher opinion of cancer than they do of guns. It seems like every other day there is some teenager shooting another over nothing, and often hitting some innocent bystanders in the process. Or two kids find their Dad’s gun and one of them dies. Or someone shoots a cop, or a cop thinks someone might shoot him and shoots first.
I do know people who own guns here, but no one who would walk around with one.
A few years ago, my synagogue put small boulders around the perimeter of the building near the sanctuary to prevent truck attack. We have a county provided police presence frequently - marked police cars and armed police officers in front of building. Some if this is traffic control, but reassuring to have armed police presence.
Forgive me, but the idea of the availability of UU security guards is somewhat comical. 
We have had members who were captains in the merchant marine, but that’s about as close as it comes.
Earlier this year I volunteered to sit in the church for an afternoon each week so that we could be open for meditation/prayer. One of those days I ended up being alone with two people who were living in the homeless shelter and wanted me to talk/pray with them, and another street person who asked to use the bathroom and assured me that he wouldn’t shoot up while in there.
It did make me wonder whether it was wise to be there alone.
My daughter is an Episcopal priest at a small, fairly rural church. Our denomination does not typically believe in locking the doors while the church is “open”, and in some cases, even when it is not occupied. Her vestry is nervous now and wants to lock the doors 10 minutes after the service starts. She is very opposed to this. I suspect she has parishioners who are armed. She is there alone most of one weekday and does not lock the doors. It’s just not what our theology is. I think there is a lot more fear- with justification- now.
But the question is, how much does the increase in fear match up with an actual increase in violence against houses of worship and people in them?
Statistics are hard to find; one person seems to be trying to collect them:
http://www.carlchinn.com/deadly-force-statistics.html
Number of deaths per year from 1999-2017 has been 3 to 77, out of 4 to 248 deadly force incidents that he has found. The partial 2017 numbers (through August) indicate that, if deaths and incidents occur at the same rate, 2017 could exceed the previous high.
There has been an increase over the years, but note his disclaimer about media accessibility (i.e. making stories available on the web), so some of the increase over the years may be due to stories being easier to find.
The listing also shows what denominational groups’ houses of worship were targeted, but one needs to know the context of how many houses of worship each denominational group has to make any observation of relative risk. (Note: listings do not break out historically black congregations in categories like Baptist and Methodist.)
http://www.usreligioncensus.org/images/ACP%2020120501.pdf has some information on number of congregations for some denominational groups; perhaps there is more at http://www.usreligioncensus.org/ .
For context, the number of murder and non-negligent homicides in the US per year has ranged from 14,164 to 17,250 in the years over the same period:
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
Obviously, these counts do not include other types of attacks directed at houses of worship and the people in them, such as vandalism, arson (when unoccupied), etc…
Just as a follow up, my church has hired a security service for Sunday mornings. The person is unarmed, but visible, wearing a jacket that says “Security.”
I haven’t read through this entire thread, but my synagogue – as well as every synagogue on the planet – has security. Indeed, every Jewish institution has strong security. This includes Jewish summer camps – even the camps that are not sponsored by Jewish organizations, but have Jewish roots and majority Jewish campers (as do many/most summer camps on the east coast).
I am a Jew and attend various Jewish houses of worship and community centers here in Texas and we do have security, especially during the High Holy Days and after some terrorist attack. I have never felt unsafe and to my knowledge our community has never had an incident.
Our synagogue has a plain clothes security guard for weekly services. Our police dept sends a uniformed officer for the high holidays (generally off duty and we do pay for this). In addition our doors are locked all the time. Members get a key fob, everyone else needs to be buzzed in (we have cameras at the entrance connected to monitors in the main office).
A few years ago we added a security assessment to bills. No one complained. This covers the added expense.
The big synagogues in NYC have metal detectors in addition to uniformed guards.
Thinking about all of this makes me miss how much more open our society was in the 1960s and '70s and '80s when it comes to unrestricted movement. Ball parks, theaters, synagogues, museums, any publicly accessed building. It was unrestricted.
Our doors are all locked most of the time, and we have security cameras so that the office administrator and/or minister can see who is buzzing to be let in, monitor suspicious activity, etc. We have a side garden, and the far back is frequented by street people, mostly at night…our sexton increasingly cleans up needles, condoms, and even feces. 
Bizarre, because at midday it is simply a pleasant green spot in the city.
It is really very safe there, but a downtown church attracts troubled and derelict people.
Our church sent out an email that they had hired security for the Sunday service, but the guard(s) must be discreet because I haven’t noticed anything different. We meet in the middle school. We also have a ministry center that I wonder about - a lot of the time, only one or two staff members are in the building during the week.