Overview:

• Recognition and registration are amalgamated rather than ideally differentiated; the focus is entirely placed on legal registration specifically with the IRS for the goal of tax-exempt status; there are no procedures for the existential recognition of belief systems or their derivatives.

• Unstructure exists within the system which has lead to a lack of distinct provisions for religious entities to gain both legal registration as such and to gain a sense of existential recognition; rising rates of hate crime and ongoing reports of discrimination and both online and offline abuse directed towards religious persons, especially minorities, are signs of a severe lack of provisions put in place by US law for religious recognition.

Positive elements:

• Freedom of religion or belief is universally upheld in practice by the government.

Recommendations:

• Establish a formal recognition system to set out provisions for both existential recognition for belief systems, denominations, communities based on a shared belief identity and legal registration for parishes to add to the existent provisions for individual religious buildings.

• To become dynamic, establish a recognition agency that is independent of government control but nonetheless reports to government and possesses the same authority as government in its area of speciality, namely the management of the religious recognition system.