Sanctuary Christian Quotes

Christians should put survival of the planet ahead of national security...Here is the mystery of our global responsibility: that we are in communion with Christ- and we are in communion with all people...The fact that the people of Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Russia, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia are our brothers and sisters is not obvious. People kill each other by the thousands and do not see themselves as brothers and sisters. If we want to be real peace-makers, national security cannot be our primary concern. Our primary concern should be survival of humanity, the survival of the planet, and the health of all people. Whether we are Russians, Iraqis, Ethiopians, or North Americans, we belong to the same human family that God loves. And we have to start taking some risks- not just individually, but risks of a more global quality, risks to let other people develop their own independence, risks to share our wealth with others and invite refugees to our country, risks to offer sanctuary- because we are people of God

It's funny how after all those years attending youth events with light shows and bands, after all the contemporary Christian music and contemporary Christian books, after all the updated technology and dynamic speakers and missional enterprises and relevant marketing strategies designed to make Christianity cool, all I wanted from the church when I was ready to give it up was a quiet sanctuary and some candles. All I wanted was a safe place to be. Like so many, I was in search of sanctuary.

If understood, believed, and lived out, God’s plan would naturally place Christians at the epicenter of their communities, like hope magnets, like soft places to fall, like living sanctuaries. We’d be coveted neighbors and trusted advocates, friends to all and enemies of none. Our reputation would precede us, and we would be such a joy to the world.

My concern is that many of our churches in America have gone from being sanctuaries to becoming stadiums. And every week all the fans come to the stadium where they cheer for Jesus but have no interest in truly following him. The biggest threat to the church today is fans who call themselves Christians but aren’t actually interested in following Christ.

The twentieth-century Lutheran martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, when asked why he meditated, replied, "Because I am a Christian.

A Christian, then, does not merely believe a certain dogma, but has a transformed vision, one that sees the world as it truly is, as Christ's footstool, as the sanctuary of God,

I love the idea of a home in our hearts. A sanctuary of love and peace right in the center of our being. A place of inner beauty, inner peace, inner healing, inner rest, and so much more. A simple and quiet life can be a beautiful one when it’s paired with an abundant and cavernous inner world. And when Jesus is dwelling there in spirit, it’s certainly a place worth coming home to.

Christian joy isn’t always laughing, always having a good, hilarious time. Christian joy is the deep, settled peace that comes to live within your heart when you know that the really important things are all right.

Lift your heart and let it rest upon Jesus and you are instantly in a sanctuary though it be a Pullman berth or a factory or a kitchen. You can see God from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey Him (pp. 94-95).

Let us be women who Love. Let us be women willing to lay down our sword words, our sharp looks, our ignorant silence and towering stance and fill the earth now with extravagant Love. Let us be women who Love. Let us be women who make room. Let us be women who open our arms and invite others into an honest, spacious, glorious embrace. Let us be women who carry each other. Let us be women who give from what we have. Let us be women who leap to do the difficult things, the unexpected things and the necessary things. Let us be women who live for Peace. Let us be women who breathe Hope. Let us be women who create beauty. Let us be women who Love. Let us be a sanctuary where God may dwell. Let us be a garden for tender souls. Let us be a table where others may feast on the goodness of God. Let us be a womb for Life to grow. Let us be women who Love. Let us rise to the questions of our time. Let us speak to the injustices in our world. Let us move the mountains of fear and intimidation Let us shout down the walls that separate and divide. Let us fill the earth with the fragrance of Love. Let us be women who Love. Let us listen for those who have been silenced. Let us honor those who have been devalued. Let us say, Enough! with abuse, abandonment, diminishing and hiding. Let us not rest until every person is free and equal. Let us be women who Love. Let us be women who are savvy, smart and wise. Let us be women who shine with the light of God in us. Let us be women who take courage and sing the song in our hearts. Let us be women who say, Yes, to the beautiful, unique purpose seeded in our souls. Let us be women who call out the song in another’s heart. Let us be women who teach our children to do the same. Let us be women who Love. Let us be women who Love, in spite of fear. Let us be women who Love, in spite of our stories. Let us be women who Love loudly, beautifully, Divinely. Let us be women who Love.

We Christians don’t get to send our lives through the rinse cycle before showing up to church. We come as we are—no hiding, no acting, no fear. We come with our materialism, our pride, our petty grievances against our neighbors, our hypocritical disdain for those judgmental people in the church next door. We come with our fear of death, our desperation to be loved, our troubled marriages, our persistent doubts, our preoccupation with status and image. We come with our addictions—to substances, to work, to affirmation, to control, to food. We come with our differences, be they political, theological, racial, or socioeconomic. We come in search of sanctuary, a safe place to shed the masks and exhale. We come to air our dirty laundry before God and everybody because when we do it together we don’t have to be afraid.

A church removed the American flag from its sanctuary. The pastor explained the flag’s removal: “There may have been a time when this national symbol, positioned so close to Christ’s holy table, might have been innocent. But in our day, when it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Christians to keep our symbols straight, and when we are asking too much of this flag, we don’t want to confuse people about the dominant signifiers of Christian reality. As you know, our hope is not in the flag of any nation; our hope is in the cross, the broken bread and shared cup.

You were blasted out of the sanctuary. The force of the explosion caused the first avalanche that buried the Qayom Malak, but the fig and olive trees remained exposed, a beacon for the other sanctuaries that were built in the coming years. The Christians were here, the Greeks, the Jews, the Moors. Their sanctuaries fell, too, to avalanche, fire, to scandal or fear, creating a nearly impenetrable wall around the Qayom Malak. You needed me to help you find it again. And you couldn’t find me until you really needed me.” “What happens now?” Cam asked. “Don’t tell me we have to pray.” Dee’s eyes never left the Qayom Malak, even as she tossed cam the towel draped over her shoulder. “Oh, it’s far worse, Cam. Now you’ve got to clean. Polish the angels, especially their wings. Polish them until they shine. We are going to need the moonlight to shine on them in precisely the right way.

Let the Christian world forget or depart from this true gospel salvation; let anything else be trusted but the cross of Christ and the Spirit of Christ; and then, though churches and preachers and prayers and sacraments are everywhere in plenty, nothing can come of them but a Christian kingdom of pagan vices, along with a mouth-professed belief in the Apostles’ Creed and the communion of saints. To this sad truth all Christendom both at home and abroad bears full witness. Who need be told that no corruption or depravity of human nature, no kind of pride, wrath, envy, malice, and self-love; no sort of hypocrisy, falseness, cursing, gossip, perjury, and cheating; no wantonness of lust in every kind of debauchery, foolish jesting, and worldly entertainment, is any less common all over Christendom, both popish and Protestant, than towns and villages. What vanity, then, to count progress in terms of numbers of new and lofty cathedrals, chapels, sanctuaries, mission stations, and multiplied new membership lists, when there is no change in this undeniable departure of men’s hearts from the living God. Yea, let the whole world be converted to Christianity of this kind, and let every citizen be a member of some Protestant or Catholic church and mouth the creed every Lord’s day; and no more would have been accomplished toward bringing the kingdom of God among men than if they had all joined this or that philosophical society or social fraternity.

We are reminded why the title pastor comes from the word shepherd, because most of Christian ministry will be spent attending to everyday life. My students at the divinity school sign up for the grand cause of joining God in bringing heaven to earth but mostly find themselves fiddling with the sanctuary sound system and trying to get what's-her-face off the church council.

Rather than boasting a doctrinal statement, the Refuge extends an invitation: The Refuge is a mission center and Christian community dedicated to helping hurting and hungry people find faith, hope, and dignity alongside each other. We love to throw parties, tell stories, find hope, and practice the ways of Jesus as best we can. We’re all hurt or hungry in our own ways. We’re at different places on our journey but we share a guiding story, a sweeping epic drama called the Bible. We find faith as we follow Jesus and share a willingness to honestly wrestle with God and our questions and doubts. We find dignity as God’s image-bearers and strive to call out that dignity in one another. We all receive, we all give. We are old, young, poor, rich, conservative, liberal, single, married, gay, straight, evangelicals, progressives, overeducated, undereducated, certain, doubting, hurting, thriving. Yet Christ’s love binds our differences together in unity. At The Refuge, everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable.24 Imagine if every church became a place where everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable. Imagine if every church became a place where we told one another the truth. We might just create sanctuary.

Sunday mornings, on the other hand, weren't going so well. On Sunday mornings, my doubt came to church like a third member of the family, toddling along behind me with clenched fists and disheveled hair, throwing wild tantrums after every offhanded political joke or casual reference to hell. During the week I could pacify my doubt with book or work or reality TV, but on Sunday mornings, in the brand-new, contemporary-styled sanctuary of Grace Bible Church, doubt pulled up a chair and issued a running commentary.

Home is among the holiest of words. A true home is one of the most sacred of places. It is a sanctuary into which men flee from the world's perils and alarms. It is a resting-place to which at close of day the weary retire to gather new strength for the battle and toils of tomorrow. It is the place where love learns its lessons, where life is schooled into discipline and strength, where character is molded. Out of the homes of a community comes the life of the community, as a river from the thousand springs that gush out on the hillsides.” -J.R. Miller

To get a sense of what I mean by evangelism as the practice of hospitality, visit your local church. Don’t go upstairs, to the sanctuary, go downstairs to that room in the basement with the linoleum tile and the coffee urn. That’s where the AA and NA meetings are held. At its best, Alcoholics Anonymous embodies evangelism as hospitality. They offer an invitation, not a sales pitch. They offer testimony — personal stories — instead of a marketing scheme. They are, in fact and in practice, a bunch of beggars offering other beggars the good news of where they found bread. At its worst, AA sometimes slips into the evangelism-as-sales model. You may have found yourself at some point having a beer when some newly sober 12-step disciple begins lecturing you that this is evidence that you have a problem. He will try to sell you the idea that you are a beggar so he can sell you some bread. The ensuing conversation is tense, awkward and pointless — the precise qualities of the similar conversation you may have had with an evangelical Christian coworker who was reluctantly but dutifully inflicting on you a sales pitch for evangelical Christianity.

The dream says that underneath the cathedral there is a mysterious place, which in reality is not in tune with a Christian church. What is beneath a cathedral of that age? There is always the so-called under-church or crypt. You have probably seen the great crypt at Chartres; it gives a very good idea of the mysterious character of a crypt. The crypt at Chartres was previously an old sanctuary with a well, where the worship of a virgin was celebrated - not of the Virgin Mary, as is done now - but of a Celtic goddess. Under every Christian church of the Middle Ages there is a secret place where in old times the mysteries were celebrated... ...the serpent is not only the god of healing; it also has the quality of wisdom and prophecy.

The tens of thousands of books, the remnants of the greatest library in the world, were all lost, never to reappear. Perhaps they were burned. As the modern scholar, Luciano Canfora, observed: ‘the burning of books was part of the advent and imposition of Christianity’. A war against pagan temples was also a war against the books that had all too often been stored inside them for safekeeping – a concept that from now on could only be recalled with irony. If they were burned then this was a significant moment in what Canfora has called ‘the melancholy experiences of the war waged by Christianity against the old culture and its sanctuaries: which meant, against the libraries’. Over a thousand years later, Edward Gibbon raged at the waste: ‘The appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every spectator, whose mind was not wholly darkened with religious prejudice.

In the very earliest passages of the Talmud, God was experienced in mysterious physical phenomena. The Rabbis spoke about the Holy Spirit, which had brooded over creation and the building of the sanctuary, making its presence felt in a rushing wind or a blazing fire. Others heard it in the clanging of a bell or a sharp knocking sound. One day, for example, Rabbi Yohannan had been sitting discussing Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot, when a fire descended from heaven and angels stood nearby: a voice from heaven confirmed that the Rabbi had a special mission from God.80 So strong was their sense of presence that any official, objective doctrines would have been quite out of place. The Rabbis frequently suggested that on Mount Sinai, each one of the Israelites who had been standing at the foot of the mountain had experienced God in a different way. God had, as it were, adapted himself to each person “according to the comprehension of each.”81 As one Rabbi put it, “God does not come to man oppressively but commensurately with a man’s power of receiving him.

Although many reviews have compared my novels to those written by Garrison Keillor, Phil Gulley, or Jan Karon, I personally try to stay clear of comparing and contrasting one author or series to another. What I can say, though, is that Lumby — its valleys, streets, townsfolk and stories — is an escape...a gentle, quirky sanctuary from life's harsher realities. At the heart of the town is the decency, levity and honorableness of good people who are carving out the best lives they know how. It is a town that is reminiscent of yesteryear, a community as it was intended to be—caring, forthright, ethical and authentic. And within that wonderful place, humor is a mainstay and an antidote (as I think it is in life) where the moral compass always points due north unless someone has dropped it in the PortiPotty at the county fair. With the help of the two well-intentioned inn keepers, the monks from Saint Cross Abbey (who make a tremendous rum sauce), a trustworthy newspaper publisher and a cast of unforgettable characters along Main Street, Lumby has a place in all of our hearts. From Christian Book Previews: "The Lumby Lines goes straight to the heart. The simplicity, humor, and downright friendliness make reading it a pleasure. Readers will close the book with a sigh of contentment and a desire to visit Lumby again. The author has faithfully carved out a slice of small-town living and topped it off with a large helping of humor. This reviewer can't wait for her next visit to Lumby!

The failure of the Crusades intensified anti-Jewish persecutions in Europe. Banned from owning land or joining trading companies, forced to wear special clothing, Jews were often involved in moneylending, supposedly taboo for Christians. Kings borrowed money from them, and so protected them, but whenever society was strained, by recession or plague, they were attacked. In 1144, after a boy was murdered in Norwich, England, Jews were accused of killing Christian children to make Passover matzoh, unleashing the ‘blood libel’ which in various forms – but always featuring a conspiracy of Jews to harm non-Jews – reverberates down to the twenty-first century. It spread: in 1171, it hit Blois, France, where thirty-three Jews (seventeen women) were burned alive. In the failed state of England, where Henry III struggled to maintain royal power in the face of endemic noble revolt, both king and rebels borrowed from a wealthy banker, David of Oxford. After David’s death, his widow Licoricia of Winchester, the richest non-noble in England, lent to both sides, partly funding the building of Westminster Abbey. But her murder in 1277 showed the perils of being a prominent Jew. In 1290, Henry’s son Edward I expelled the Jews from England. Yet in 1264 Bolesław, duke of Poland, had granted the Statute of Kalisz which gave Jews the right to trade and worship freely and banned the blood libel, legislating against Christian conspiracy theories and denunciations: ‘Accusing Jews of drinking Christian blood is expressly prohibited,’ declared the Statute. ‘If, despite this, a Jew should be accused of murdering a Christian child, such charge must be sustained by testimony of three Christians and three Jews.’ Poland would be a Jewish sanctuary for many centuries.

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth” (Psalm 127:3–4, emphasis added). Children were born to be arrows in the hands of warriors. They pierce deep into the darkness as they impact the hearts of our enemies. Christian schools have often become comfortable sanctuaries where children are sheltered from the devices of the devil, instead of becoming Holy Spirit terrorist training centers that sharpen these arrows for the destruction of evil forces. It is time that we give our children more than a Happy Meal. We need to teach them how to deal with the destructive forces of evil from

The “layman” need never think of his humbler task as being inferior to that of his minister. Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act. All he does is good and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For such a man, living itself will be sacramental and the whole world a sanctuary. His entire life will be a priestly ministration. As he performs his never so simple task he will hear the voice of the seraphim saying, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (p. 127).

Nay, we sometimes proceed so far as to trust in ourselves, and depend on our own power, strength, and abilities. Then it is that God in mere mercy interposes, and breaks us in pieces; humbles, and confounds us, and so empties us of ourselves, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Which we cannot be, without being first emptied of that arrogance and self-conceit which stand in perfect opposition to the grace of God. Hence it appears that hope is a MILITANT VIRTUE, fighting against all that confidence in ourselves; all that self-exaltation upon the score of our own gifts, merits, righteousness, prosperity, honours, and riches, in which the natural man reposes all his confidence. The business of hope is to oppose and conquer all these delusions of the devil, and to seek its rest in the sanctuary of God.

Christian documents praised missionaries for their sincere preaching of the Gospel, their piety, learning, good sense in daily life, chastity and good deeds. That they lived according to their teaching impressed the pagans. On a purely practical level, they often bought boy slaves in order to bring them up in the Christian way of life, and acquire acolytes. As Christianity is an exclusive religion, it was considered important to destroy pagan sanctuaries.

Norway’s first Christian king was Hákon Aðalsteinsfostri. He grew up and was baptized in England and remained a Christian after he became king of his native pagan country c. 935. According to the scalds, he did not destroy sanctuaries, but he brought priests from England and churches were built in the coastal area of western Norway. Further north and in Tröndelag Christianity did not take root. When Hákon was killed c. 960 he was interred in a mound in traditional pagan fashion; the scald Eyvind described his last great battle, his death and his reception in Valhalla in the poem Hákonarmál. Ironically, this poem about a Christian king gives some of the best information about Odin’s realm of the dead. Olaf Tryggvason became the next Christian king of Norway when he returned home c. 995 with much silver after many years abroad. He had also been baptized in England and brought clerics back with him. A systematic and ruthless process of conversion was initiated in conjunction with efforts to unify the realm. The greatest success was in western and southern Norway and around the year 1000 Olaf was responsible for the conversion of Iceland, probably under threat of reprisals. Shortly after this he was killed in the battle of Svöld. The conversion of Norway was completed during the reign of Olaf Haraldsson. He had also become a Christian on expeditions abroad and his baptism is said to have taken place in Rouen in Normandy. On his return to Norway in 1015 clerics were again in the royal retinue, among them the bishop Grimkel, who helped Olaf mercilessly impose Christianity on the people.

Can homosexual persons be members of the Christian church? This is rather like asking, “Can envious persons be members of the church?” (cf. Rom. 1:29) or “Can alcoholics be members of the church?” De facto, of course, they are. Unless we think that the church is a community of sinless perfection, we must acknowledge that persons of homosexual orientation are welcome along with other sinners in the company of those who trust in the God who justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5). If they are not welcome, I will have to walk out the door along with them, leaving in the sanctuary only those entitled to cast the first stone.

This was a region where beliefs had been changing, adapting and competing with each other for the best part of a century. What had been a polytheist world of multiple deities, idols and beliefs had given way to monotheism and to ideas about a single, all-powerful deity. Sanctuaries dedicated to multiple gods were becoming so marginalised that one historian has stated that on the eve of the rise of Islam traditional polytheism ‘was dying’. In its place came Jewish and Christian concepts of a single, all-powerful God – as well as of angels, paradise, prayer and alms-giving which can be found in inscriptions that begin to proliferate across the Arabian peninsula in the late sixth and early seventh centuries.

The land of delight is holy sanctuary.

God’s passion to be glorified and our passion to be satisfied are one experience in the Christ-exalting act of worship—singing in the sanctuary and suffering in the streets.

Yet even Christians who are dismissive of art continue to use it. Doing so is inescapable. Every time we build a sanctuary, arrange furniture in a room, or produce a brochure, we are making artistic decisions. Even if we are not artists in our primary vocation, there is an inescapably artistic aspect to our daily experience.

A heathen could say, when a bird scared by a hawk flew into his bosom, I will not betray thee unto thy enemy, seeing thou comest for sanctuary unto me. How much less will God yield up a soul unto its enemy when it takes sanctuary in his name, saying, ‘Lord, I am hunted with such a temptation, dogged with such a lust, either thou must par don it, or I am damned; mortify it, or I shall be a slave to it; take me into the bosom of thy love, for Christ’s sake; castle me in the arms of thy everlasting strength, it is in thy power to save me from, or give me up into, the hands of my enemy. I have no con fidence in myself or any other: into thy hands I commit my cause, my life, and rely on thee.’ This dependence of a soul

It maketh use of that which is good.  It can work with God’s own tools, his ordinances, by which the Holy Spirit advanceth his kingdom of grace in the hearts of his saints.  These often are prostituted to pride.  A man may be very zealous in prayer, and painful in preaching, and all the while pride is the master whom he serves, though in God’s livery. It can take sanctuary in the holiest actions, and hide itself under the skirt of virtue itself.  Thus while a man is exercising his charity, pride may be the idol in secret for which he lavisheth out his gold so freely.  It is hard starving this sin, because there is nothing al most but it can live on—nothing so base that a proud heart will not be lift up with, and nothing so sacred but it will profane; [it will] even dare to drink in the bowls of the sanctuary, nay, rather than starve, it will feed on the carcases of other sins.  ‘That sin is with great difficulty avoided which springs from a victory of our

Instead of the act of killing, the Law emphasizes two other parts of the ritual: burning the animal’s flesh and applying its blood to some part of the sanctuary.30 These actions could only be performed by priests—a restriction emphasized by Leviticus’s punctilious repetition of the phrase “the priests, the sons of Aaron.” Moreover, they could only be performed in particularly holy places: the flesh was burned on the bronze altar, and the blood was poured or daubed either there or within the sanctuary itself. Being performed by holy persons in holy places, these actions were marked as especially holy—the pinnacle of the ritual.

Christ’s atoning sacrifice not only triumphs over the web of the world’s sin; it also purifies the physical world from the uncleanness that has resulted from it. While atoning for the sanctuary allowed God to dwell there, Christ’s atonement allows the Holy Spirit to come to dwell in the entire world, and in all the world’s people,

CHAPTER ONE The Entrance into Jerusalem and the Cleansing of the Temple 1. The Entrance into Jerusalem Saint John’s Gospel speaks of three Passover feasts celebrated by Jesus in the course of his public ministry: the first, which is linked to the cleansing of the Temple (2:13-25), the Passover of the multiplication of the loaves (6:4), and finally the Passover of his death and Resurrection (for example, 12:1, 13:1), which became “his” great Passover, the basis for the Christian celebration of Easter, the Christian Passover. The Synoptics contain just one Passover feast—that of the Cross and Resurrection; indeed, in Saint Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ path is presented as a single pilgrim ascent from Galilee to Jerusalem. To begin with, it is an “ascent” in a geographical sense: the Sea of Galilee is situated about 690 feet below sea level, whereas Jerusalem is on average 2500 feet above. The Synoptics each contain three prophecies of Jesus’ Passion as steps in this ascent, steps that at the same time point to the inner ascent that is accomplished in the outward climb: going up to the Temple as the place where God wished “his name [to] dwell”, in the words of the Book of Deuteronomy (12:11, 14:23). The ultimate goal of Jesus’ “ascent” is his self-offering on the Cross, which supplants the old sacrifices; it is the ascent that the Letter to the Hebrews describes as going up, not to a sanctuary made by human hands, but to heaven itself, into the presence of God (9:24). This ascent into God’s presence leads via the Cross—it is the ascent toward “loving to the end” (cf. Jn 13:1), which is the real mountain of God. The immediate goal of Jesus’ pilgrim journey is, of course, Jerusalem, the Holy City with its Temple, and the “Passover of the Jews”, as John calls it (2:13).

I am not big enough to be my own refuge, but my ego thinks itself big enough to be a refuge from that reality.

The Christian Church became the sole sanctuary of learning and knowledge.

The Gnostics caused the Gnosis to be proscribed by the Christians, and the official Sanctuary was closed against high initiation. Thus the Hierarchy of Knowledge was compromitted by the violences of usurping ignorance, and the disorders of the Sanctuary are reproduced in the State; for always, willingly or unwillingly, the King is sustained by the Priest, and it is from the eternal Sanctuary of the Divine instruction that the Powers of the Earth, to insure themselves durability, must receive their consecration and their force.

At a very practical level, the way Protestantism has often failed to reflect the historical concerns of the church in its liturgy and practice, most obviously in the mega church movement and the manner in which it has frequently adopted the aesthetics of the present moment in its worship is arguably a sign of the penetration of the anticulture into the sanctuary of historic Christianity. Christians today are not opponents of the anticulture. Too often we are the symptoms of it.

At a very practical level, the way Protestantism has often failed to reflect the historical concerns of the church in its liturgy and practice, most obviously in the mega church movement and the manner in which it has frequently adopted the aesthetics of the present moment in its worship is arguably a sign of the penetration of the anticulture into the sanctuary of historic Christianity. Christians today are not opponents of the anticulture. Too often we are the symptoms of it.

bringing in folding chairs to place in the aisles. She didn’t know Reverend Kelley, but she had met his elder daughter, Kim Randall, through her community service, and her heart went out to the Kelley family. The life of every clergyman in the region was at risk, including Dewan’s life, a thought she could hardly bear. But everyone had to be wondering who the killer would target as his next victim. With her head held high and a brave expression on her face, she entered the sanctuary and found her spot in the front row between Deacon Fuqua and his wife, Dionne. She leaned across and spoke to the deacon. “Should someone adjust the air-conditioning? With so many people packed inside the church, it’s bound to get hot.” “It’s being done,” Deacon Fuqua told her. “Can you believe this crowd? I see God’s hand in this prayer vigil that Dewan organized.” “God’s hand is in everything my husband does,” she said. A flurry of activity up on the podium at the front of the sanctuary gained Tasha’s attention. The members of the choir, decked out in their white and gold robes, were taking their places and preparing to sing God’s praises. She closed her eyes, her every thought a prayer for all those whose hearts were heavy tonight. Patsy and Elliott Floyd had arrived in time to find seats in the middle aisle, a few pews from the back of the building. As she glanced around, Patsy was pleased to see so many of her parishioners here this evening. She had sent out e-mails to the entire congregation and made numerous personal phone calls. Tonight’s prayer vigil was of great importance on several different levels. First and foremost, Bruce Kelley needed the combined strength of this type of group praying. Second, holding this vigil at the black Baptist church went a long way toward bridging the gap between black and white Christians in the area. Third, this was an example of how all churches, regardless of their doctrine, could support one another. And coming together to pray for one of their own would bring strength and comfort to the ministers and their families who were living each day with fear in their hearts. As they sat quietly side by side, Elliott reached between them and took her hand in his. They had been married for nearly thirty years, and they had stayed together through thick and thin. They had argued often in the early years, mostly because Elliott had never been at home and she’d been trapped there with two toddlers. She had not been as understanding as she should have been. After all, Elliott had been holding down a part-time job and putting

can the New Testament, with a sound Church and Church doctrine, and its religious services, give us the true life and power of godliness. It is Jesus Christ we must know better. It is He who lives to-day in heaven, who can lead us into the heavenly sanctuary, and keep us there, who can give heaven into our heart and life. The knowledge of Jesus in His heavenly glory and His saving power; it is this our Churches and our Christians need. It is this the Epistle will bring us, if we yield to that Spirit who speaks in it, to reveal it in us.

At last she finds them in one of the village’s churches. Muslims and Christians—Palestinians all—crowded together, praying their place of sanctuary will not be hit.

Dorothy Bass explains this practice: “For all Christians, baptism embodies release from yesterday’s sin and receipt of tomorrow’s promise: going under the water, the old self is buried in the death of Christ; rising from the water the self is new, joined to the resurrected Christ.” Martin Luther charged each member of his community to regard baptism “as the daily garment which he is to wear all the time.”2 We enter each new day as we enter the sanctuary, by remembering our baptism.

This party started out as a Nazi party in the thirties. Just because we went to war with Germany doesn’t mean the Germans were wrong. That’s why our leaders were thrown in jail. Obviously we don’t use that sort of terminology anymore. It doesn’t look well. But the values are the same. Good, strong, Christian, and British values. And we should fight to keep foreigners out of here. They bring their ways here and try to dilute what we have.

A war against pagan temples was also a war against the books that had all too often been stored inside them for safekeeping—a concept that from now on could only be recalled with irony. If they were burned then this was a significant moment in what Canfora has called “the melancholy experiences of the war waged by Christianity against the old culture and its sanctuaries: which meant, against the libraries.

History tells lies. It is important to understand this to understand the ARCW. A particularly harmful lie is that the United States of America was founded as a Christian nation. The traitors truly believe this because it has been taught them since they colored pilgrims with crayons in church nursery school while their parents were in the sanctuary learning to be more judgmental. As the young bigots grew into adultery [sic], they accepted this teaching uncritically, just as they accepted that everything in the Bible is true, and that science is wrong, if not evil, when it proves that humans have evolved from non-human life forms. The traitors should, in fairness, be permitted to prove the intensity of this mental abuse in their defense at the ARCW war crimes trials.         America was not established as a Christian nation. To the contrary, it was intentionally set up as a godless nation. That’s why no god or religion of any kind is mentioned in our Constitution. This was so important that it was memorialized in the first words of the first amendment to our Constitution, to wit, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....” The people who started this country knew what religious war and holy terror was, and they wanted to be very clear that America was a democracy set up under human law, not religious authority or rule. This was made exquisitely clear when, in a treaty with Tripoli, signed by President John Adams on June 10, 1797, the United States Senate unanimously declared, “...the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.” That’s that, said the grammarian. People who don’t like the American way, and think church and state should not be separated, really ought to move to Serbia where they can kill and rape non-believers with impunity.

The heart itself is no safe sanctuary for sin to sit in. The word will take it thence—as Joab from the horns of the altar—to slay it.

Mr. Telner, I want you to start calculating every possible jump coordinate that the Alliance Fleet could have plotted. I want to know where they

Admiral, the...the Emperor would like to speak with you.” The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

But the Lord often leaves his servants, not only to be annoyed by the violence of the wicked, but to be lacerated and destroyed; allows the good to languish in obscurity and squalid poverty, while the ungodly shine forth, as it were, among the stars; and even by withdrawing the light of his countenance does not leave them lasting joy. Wherefore, David by no means disguises the fact, that if believers fix their eyes on the present condition of the world, they will be grievously tempted to believe that with God integrity has neither favour nor reward; so much does impiety prosper and flourish, while the godly are oppressed with ignominy, poverty, contempt, and every kind of cross. The Psalmist says, "But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious of the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." At length, after a statement of the case, he concludes, "When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me: until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end," (Ps. 73:2, 3, 16, 17).

you tell others that Christianity has become degraded, they may argue with you by saying that they have the Lord’s presence in their meetings. We must admit this fact. It is true that the Lord is a sanctuary for a little while to those in captivity. We should not say that they do not have the real presence of the Lord at all; rather, we should point out that this is only a temporary sanctuary.

Paul wrote,“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”That means that Christians, who have the Spirit of God living within them, have an inward interpreter who helps them to understand what the Bible means.

The first recorded representation of Perun was at the end of the tenth century, when Vladimir I established his rule in Kiev, and honoured the prevailing gods by setting up statues to them in an official sanctuary. Perun, as the god of thunder and lightning, was revered as one of the greatest among them, and was fetchingly depicted with a silver head adorned with golden moustaches. The sanctuary was short-lived, however, since only eight years later, when Vladimir converted to Christianity, he had the statues thrown into the river in a fit of piety. Perun, the Slavic god, was officially no more.

As hundreds of people swayed to the soft and guitars, lifting their hands to the Lord and murmuring praise under their breath, a woman with low hoarse voice delivered a word over the church. She claimed, years from that day, the congregation would triple and need to move yet again. The news traveled like electricity around that mauve sanctuary, and everyone around me squeezed their eyes closed and murmured their gratitude to God. Their voices rose again and I knew more prophecies were coming. But my right temple began to throb, and the sanctuary started to feel less like a temple and more like a cage. A refrain echoed and buzzed in my head: None of this is true.

The grave was never intended to be a sanctuary to defend sinners from the hand of justice, but a close prison to secure them against the day of trial, that they may be forthcoming.

Much of the recorded history of slavery, segregation, and racism gives scant treatment to the integral, active role that white Christian leaders, institutions, and laypeople played in constructing, maintaining, and protecting white supremacy in their communities. Writing in the midst of these upheavals, even historians critical of racism and segregation often depicted white Christians as being merely complacent. They were guilty of committing sins of omission by ignoring the post-Civil War turmoil of Reconstruction, Redemption, Jim Crow and the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and beyond. Even those who went further accused white churches only of complicity, of being unwitting captives of the prevailing segregationist culture. Both treatments are essentially protectionist, depicting the struggle over Black equality as external to churches and Christian theology. More recent scholarship, however, has begun to document the ways in which white churches, religious leaders, and members aggressively defended segregation and "worked with the same enthusiasm for white supremacy inside the sanctuary as out.

Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11).The center of joy for the Christian is Christ. The joy is Christ’s joy. It is simply the life of the Lord Jesus Christ being lived out in an individual. Christian joy is letting Christ live His life out through you so that what He is, you become. There are other kinds of joy found in other places in the world, but there is no place where you can find Christian joy except in Christ.

people who come through your doors and stay are there not because they have to be, but because they want to be. And that is very good news. I would rather have a congregation of one hundred people committed to walking on a journey of faith together than a packed sanctuary of five hundred people who won’t think about God again until next Sunday morning. The church of the willing will always be able to go deeper than the church of obligatory attendees. But when the willing come to our doors (or, if they are already there, decide to stay) we have to do some deep reflection on ourselves, on who we are, and on who we will be in the world.

ISIS Like Osiris, Isis was privy to the mysteries of perpetual birth. We know her image: a mother goddess breastfeeding her son Horus, as the Virgin Mary suckled Jesus much later on. But Isis was never what we might call a virgin. She began making love to Osiris when they were growing together inside their mother’s womb. And she practiced the world’s oldest profession for ten years in the city of Tyre. In the thousands of years that followed, Isis traveled the world resuscitating whores, slaves, and others among the damned. In Rome, she founded temples for the poor alongside bordellos. The temples were razed by imperial order, their priests crucified, but like stubborn mules they came back to life again and again. And when Emperor Justinian’s soldiers demolished the sanctuary of Isis on the island of Philae in the Nile, and built the very Catholic church of Saint Stephen on the ruins, Isis’s pilgrims continued paying homage to their errant goddess at the Christian altar.

In Palestine, the one sanctuary of the worship of Jahve, the Temple, retained its high prestige. The sacerdotal hierarchy, swayed by the aristocratic Sadducean party, strictly maintained the ritual observances. But the luxury, the depravity, the religious indifference of these sacerdotal leaders, their subserviency to the Roman authorities, their contempt for the Messianic hope and the doctrine of the resurrection, had alienated from them the affection of the people, and, in the eyes of some, even cast discredit on the Temple itself. Some indeed were so much disgusted that they fled from the official sanctuary and its servants, and, afar from the world, devoted themselves to the service of God and a strict observance of the Law. The Essenes represented this movement: grouped in small communities they lived on the borders of the Dead Sea, near Engaddi. The Sadducean priests persecuted Jesus Christ and His disciples. As for the Essenes, they lived alongside of the new Faith, and if they did embrace it, it was but slowly. The Pharisees, so often condemned in the Gospels for their hypocrisy, their false zeal, and their peculiar practices, did not form a special sect; the name was applied generally to all those who were ultra-scrupulous in following the Law, and not the Law only, but the thousand observances with which they had amplified it, attributing as much importance to them as to the fundamental precepts of morality. Still, they were faithful defenders of the Messianic hope and of belief in the resurrection. Beneath their proud and overstrained attachment to details of observance, they had a solid foundation of faith and piety. Amongst them the Gospel made many excellent converts.

Years from now when my kids are older, they’ll probably think of Jesus whenever they even smell a Goldfish cracker. I’m sure this is a kid thing, not just a Christian thing, but on about fifty-one Sundays of the year, that’s what they have for snack. And at our church, if your kid cries a ton, before they flash their number on the video screen in the sanctuary asking you to come get them, they put them in a wagon, pull them around, and stuff them full of Goldfish. It’s like this little red wagoned parade of wailing in the halls. Eyes streaming tears, mouth full of fish, tiny hands clutching the side of the “Bye Bye Buggy,” counting the minutes until a parent can come rescue them. Good times.

We have obsessed over Sunday-morning proclamation gatherings and organizational systems for so long, we have forgotten how to do honest missiological work in our own neighborhoods. Leaders would be well served by digging beneath the discussions of relevance based on speaking content, worship styles, sanctuary décor, branding, and prayer stations. These things all function on the proclamation template, which was designed during the Reformation; it is a teaching-based structure that assumes everyone has a churched understanding and is present for a greater understanding of Scripture. While that template is very meaningful for countless Christians, it was not designed to move people who hold a secular worldview toward faith.

Liturgy is the means that the church uses to keep baptized Christians in living touch with the entire living holy community as it participates formationally in Holy Scripture. I want to use the word 'liturgy' to refer to this intent and practice of the church insofar as it pulls everything in and out of the sanctuary into a life of worship, situates everything past and present coherently as participation in the revelation written for us in Scripture. Instead of limiting liturgy to the ordering of the community in discrete acts of worship, I want to use it in this large and comprehensive way, the centuries-deep and continents-wide community, spread out in space and time, as Christians participate in actions initiated and formed by the words in this book - our entire existence understood liturgically, that is connectedly in the context of the three personal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and furnished with the text of the Holy Scripture.

if the sublimest Truths of faith are still, for us, wrapped in impenetrable obscurity, the reason for this is because we have up to the present dissolved the connection between God, nature, and man.

Too often the church is a stumbling block that catches the feet of trans people on the road to God, rather than the sanctuary that houses the fountain of living water.

Men, women, and children were slaughtered in the streets, and the Crusader leaders went against their promise to uphold the sanctity of the city’s mosques as places of sanctuary. Even within the Aqsa Mosque, Jewish and Muslim civilians were killed. After the madness, the Crusaders lay down their weapons and prayed at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, thanking God for returning Jerusalem to Christian rule for the first time in 450 years.

It is a testament to Delphi’s unparalleled tenacity and ability to survive that Heliodorus wrote his novel about the love affair at Delphi and about Delphi’s crucial place at the center of a connected Mediterranean society not in the hey-day of the classical world, but in the third or fourth centuries AD, on the cusp of the Mediterranean world’s gradual conversion to Christianity and the end of pagan sanctuaries like the one at Delphi.⁵ And yet, even in this twilight, Delphi’s description glows bright. More tellingly, Heliodorus’s description echoes that of another ancient writer, the geographer Strabo, who labeled Delphi, above all, as a theatron: a theater.⁶ It was a space in which most of the moments that mattered in the history of the ancient world were played out, reflected on, or altered. As a result, an understanding of the ancient world and, I would argue, of humankind itself, is incomplete without an understanding of Delphi.

Christian schools have often become comfortable sanctuaries where children are sheltered from the devices of the devil, instead of becoming Holy Spirit terrorist training centers that sharpen these arrows for the destruction of evil forces. It is time that we give our children more than a Happy Meal. We need to teach them how to deal with the destructive forces of evil from the time they are little. Kingdom combat training should be part of every homeschooler’s life, every Christian school’s curriculum and every parent’s instruction.

A lot of Christian creatives are skeptical of other Christians, too. Many creative believers we’ve talked to feel undervalued in the church, so much so that the church no longer feels like home for them. It seems the only time the church needs them is when they want someone “artsy” to decorate the sanctuary for the Christmas Spectacular, or when they need a “creative” to be onstage to show the congregation that they can “relate” to the culture and appeal to those “other” generations.

The Godfather amounts to a visual parable of a challenge and critique that dogs the Cultural Liturgies project: while I extol the formative power of historic Christian worship practices, it would seem that there can be—and are—people who have spent entire lifetimes immersed in the rites of historic Christian worship who nonetheless emerge from them not only unformed but perhaps even malformed.2 Or, to put it otherwise: clearly, regular participation in the church’s “orthodox” liturgy is not enough to prevent such “worshipers” from leaving the sanctuary to become (sometimes enthusiastic) participants in all sorts of unjust systems, structures, and behaviors.

Any refuge other than God is probably something that I should seek refuge from rather than seek refuge in.

The funds for all this had to be found from somewhere. Now, Constantine turned to ‘those accursed and foul people’ who had chosen to stubbornly ‘hold themselves back’ from Christianity and continue visiting their ‘sanctuaries of falsehood’ – in other words, those people who would soon be called ‘pagans’. The means by which Constantine chose to take some of this wealth was simple – and humiliating: he demanded that the statues be taken from the temples. Christian officials, so it was said, travelled the empire, ordering the priests of the old religion to bring their statues out of the temples. From the 330s onwards some of the most sacred objects in the empire started to be removed. It is hard, today, to understand the enormity of Constantine’s order. If Michelangelo’s Pietà were taken from the Vatican and sold, it would be considered a terrible act of cultural vandalism – but it wouldn’t be sacrilege as the statue is not in itself sacred. Statues in Roman temples were. To remove them was a gross violation, and Constantine knew it.