Two houses of worship were recently attacked within days of each other. In Michigan, a man rammed his truck into a chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, opened fire and set it ablaze. In Manchester, during Yom Kippur, a man rammed into worshippers outside a synagogue and began stabbing.
Two communities. Two continents. Two sacred spaces under assault in the same week.
Both were attacks not just on people but also on places of peace.
We often use the word “sanctuary” to describe the rooms where we pray, from the cavernous, awe-inspiring architectural triumphs that make us feel small in the best of ways, to the cozy, intimate chapels that envelop us in the warm embrace of community.
But sanctuary means more than that. It’s any place — physical or spiritual — where a person finds refuge from the vicissitudes of the day. A space replete with the potential for profound connection with others in our community and with something greater than ourselves.
A world in which sanctuaries are no longer safe is one where none of us are. When these spaces that are supposed to be beacons become battlefields, it isn’t only believers who suffer. It’s the entire moral fabric of a society that begins to fray.
When we don’t even feel safe in our places of worship, then where can we feel safe?
These attacks are not unprecedented. That’s both a blessing and a curse. First the curse: sadly, anti-religious violence has a long, devastating history, especially for minority religious groups like ours. Latter-day Saints were once attacked, murdered and driven from their homes in the 1800s; Sikhs have been targets of hatred and violence both in their homeland of Punjab and in the diaspora; Jews have faced centuries of antisemitic persecution. These attacks continually remind us that, for too many, to be different is to be in danger.
But here’s the blessing. We also know what it takes to come back. Across our faiths and across generations, communities have found ways to rebuild not just our buildings but also our capacity for belonging. The story of faith in the face of violence is, paradoxically, one of persistence. We mourn, we gather, we repair. And in doing so, we coalesce, insisting that hate will not have the last word.
When the smoke clears out of the sanctuary and the dust settles after the latest attack, the question every faith community faces is the same: How do we begin again?
Over time, patterns emerge.
First, people show up. Attendance rises, not falls. After the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, synagogues around the country filled with visitors of every background, determined to show solidarity. When a Sikh temple in Wisconsin was attacked in 2012, local churches and mosques helped fund the rebuilding. People in Wisconsin and across the United States wore shirts with words inspired by Sikh teachings: “No Fear, No Hate.” In every instance, resilient communities have refused to cede public space to fear.
Second, leaders turn grief into service. Food drives, vigils, counseling, interfaith meals — each becomes a way of reknitting the community. In Michigan, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints launched a fundraiser not for his faith community, but for the family of the accused shooter. As the late President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said in 2019 at the NAACP Convention, “We are all connected, and we have a God-given responsibility to help make life better for those around us. We don’t have to be alike or look alike to have love for each other. We don’t even have to agree with each other to love each other. If we have any hope of reclaiming the goodwill and sense of humanity for which we yearn, it must begin with each of us, one person at a time.”
Third, communities tell their story. Instead of letting a tragic event define them, they remind the public what their faith actually teaches: love, compassion, justice, forgiveness, hope. These aren’t easy virtues; they require daily practice. But they’re also deeply human, and they have a way of inspiring the broader public when shared openly.
Rebuilding sanctuary, in other words, isn’t just about the bricks and mortar it will take to put things back together. It’s about strengthening the social bonds that allow any of us to live openly, however we choose to pray, and even if we choose not to.
When people target minority communities, we tend to think of them as isolated incidents. “They were attacked because they were Muslim,” we say, or “The violence was motivated by anti-Buddhist hate.” These statements may be true, but there’s more to the story.
Attacks on houses of worship are not only attacks on the communities that are targeted. They’re also attacks on pluralism, democracy and shared civic life. The forces that targeted these two faith communities earlier this month are the same forces that work to sow hatred and inspire violence in other sectors too.
Religious spaces are among the last places where people still gather across generations, political divides and backgrounds. They are laboratories of pluralism. When those sanctuaries cease to be places of refuge, we lose the critical threads for reweaving our torn social fabric.
In a society where our sanctuaries are no longer safe, we have two options. We can give in to fear and stay home, hoping no one notices us. Or we can be courageous, returning to worship, showing that our communities won’t stand down in the face of hate. This week, each of us is making the choice to visit our places of worship with pride, fearlessness, and a renewed commitment to piecing our communities and our country back together.
Sanctuaries have always been more than religious spaces; they’re civic symbols of belonging. And yet, violence against faith communities isn’t new. What’s new is the speed with which our societal cynicism tells us not to care and pushes us to close our hearts to one another in their time of need.
These brazen acts of terror present us with an option that is simple, albeit stark: Do we let fear drive our actions and continue turning against one another, or do we choose to follow our values and become kinder, more open and more inclusive? The choice is ours to make.