Churches are sanctuaries.

But what happens when the sanctuary is violated? When violence lights the sanctuary walls on fire? When the safe haven is riddled with the bullets of those broken and guilty who were welcomed within, with opened arms? How should we understand these realities?

For some, churches are “sanctuaries” because in them, the broken, the wounded, or even the guilty come to take refuge. In the medieval period, English common law and church canons held that a debtor or fugitive fleeing from the strong arm of the law could find a haven in the church.

For others, relatedly, “sanctuary” evokes the physicality of the church. In the early commonwealths of this world, the walls of the sanctuary—reverberating with the gospel of God’s forgiveness in the eternal kingdom—provided some respite. To speak of a sanctuary is to speak of the sanctuary: the building with a steeple, a pulpit, some pews, a baptismal font, and the table. Here is where the ...