Iglesia Pentecostal Arca de Refugio, Brooklyn, New York

Christian Century, July 17, 2002

THOMAS ROMA has captured the haunting, unexpected presence of churches amid the gritty streets of Brooklyn. His collection of photos, Sanctuary (Johns Hopkins University Press, 96 pp., 52 images, $29.95), with an introduction by Henry Louis Gates Jr., displays how these buildings insert a spiritual presence into their neighborhoods--sometimes majestically, but often humbly and obliquely.

Says Gates: "These churches are way stations, and signposts, on pilgrims' arduous journeys from the perils of contemporary urban life to the promise of eternal reward." The Pentecostal church above is in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn. Roma, whose photos of church services appeared in the 1996 book Come Sunday, is director of photography at Columbia University's School of the Arts.