The story of a large yet little-known Protestant denomination

A glimpse into the lives of LGBTQ migrants in Johannesburg, in their own words Seeking Sanctuary brings together poignant life stories from fourteen lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) migrants, refugees and asylum seekers living in Johannesburg, South Africa. The stories, diverse in scope, chronicle each narrator’s arduous journey to South Africa, and their corresponding movement towards self-love and self-acceptance. The narrators reveal their personal battles to reconcile their faith with their sexuality and gender identity, often in the face of violent persecution, and how they have carved out spaces of hope and belonging in their new home country. In these intimate testimonies, the narrators’ resilience in the midst of uncertain futures reveal the myriad ways in which LGBT Africans push back against unjust and unequal systems. Seeking Sanctuary makes a critical intervention by showing the complex interplay between homophobia and xenophobia in South Africa, and of the state of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) rights in Africa. By shedding light on the fraught connections between sexuality, faith and migration, this ground-breaking project also provides a model for religious communities who are working towards justice, diversity and inclusion.

Abbot Christopher Jamison, from BBC2's THE MONASTERY and new show THE SILENCE, suggests ways in which the teachings of St Benedict can be helpful in everyday life. Have you ever wondered why everybody these days seems so busy? In FINDING SANCTUARY, Father Christopher Jamison offers practical wisdom from the monastic tradition on how to build sanctuary into your life. No matter how hard you work, being too busy is not inevitable. Silence and contemplation are not just for monks and nuns, they are natural parts of life. Yet to keep hold of this truth in the rush of modern living you need the support of other people and sensible advice from wise guides. By learning to listen in new ways, people's lives can change and the abbot offers some monastic steps that help this transition to a more spiritual life. In the face of many easy assumptions about the irrelevance of religion today, Father Christopher makes religion accessible for those in search of life's meaning and offers a vision of the world's religions working together as a unique source of hope for the 21st century.

In premodern English law, felons had the right to seek sanctuary in a church or ecclesiastical precinct. It is commonly held that this practice virtually died out after the medieval period, but Shannon McSheffrey highlights its resurgence under the Tudor regime and shows how the issue lay at the intersection between law, religion, and culture.

A pictorial history of Jewish houses of worship - past and present - in Nassau and Suffolk counties in New York State. Contains more than 300 photos.

Seeking Sanctuary explores a curious aspect of premodern English law: the right of felons to shelter in a church or ecclesiastical precinct, remaining safe from arrest and trial in the king's courts. This is the first volume in more than a century to examine sanctuary in England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Looking anew at this subject challenges the prevailing assumptions in the scholarship that this 'medieval' practice had become outmoded and little-used by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Although for decades after 1400 sanctuary-seeking was indeed fairly rare, the evidence in the legal records shows the numbers of felons seeing refuge in churches began to climb again in the late fifteenth century and reached its peak in the period between 1525 and 1535. Sanctuary was not so much a medieval practice accidentally surviving into the early modern era, as it was an organism that had continued to evolve and adapt to new environments and indeed flourished in its adapted state. Sanctuary suited the early Tudor regime: it intersected with rapidly developing ideas about jurisdiction and provided a means of mitigating the harsh capital penalties of the English law of felony that was useful not only to felons but also to the crown and the political elite. Sanctuary's resurgence after 1480 means we need to rethink how sanctuary worked, and to reconsider more broadly the intersections of culture, law, politics, and religion in the years between 1400 and 1550.

“An entrancing read, illuminating how life in Britain has been influenced and enhanced by those who arrived, often with nothing except their skills.” —Babs Horton, author of Winter Swallows Seeking Sanctuary explores the history of people looking for refuge in Great Britain. It starts with those Protestant refugees fleeing oppression and persecution from Catholic Spain who ruled the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. It traces successive waves of peoples in the context of why they fled. At various times this was due to religious persecution, political upheaval, war and ethnic cleansing. “The author writes from the perspective of her work with asylum seekers, which evidently generated her interest in Britain’s history as a refuge. Jane Marchese Robinson’s passion for displaced persons is apparent in her examples and case studies, and for anyone with an interest in, or connection with, the selected groups of refugees over the past 100 years, it will make interesting reading . . . The author demonstrates compassion for, and empathy with, the groups she examines, and many will find this the compelling aspect of the book.” —Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives “This is a wide-ranging book which explores these major refugee movements in depth and it is often emotional in its details.” —Bristol and Avon Family History Society