St Crux, York

This is all that is left of York’s Church of St Crux. It is now a parish hall, built from the surviving material of the old medieval church that bore the name. Despite protestations by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, in 1887 it was destroyed, with the help of dynamite (so much for the arguments about how weak and unstable it was). It is the most famous ‘lost church’ of York, and the architecturally rich city was made the poorer on account of the decision.  

Church buildings aside, churches themselves can be destroyed by the state. The French Huguenots were largely wiped out by their Catholic governments, and the rich Christian heritage of Turkey and Egypt and suffered under the weight of the Islamic sandal. More dangerous than dynamite and more potent than persecution, however, is false teaching, for it acts like a cancer, weakening and destroying from within, even while all without appears to thrive. Yet it is also the opponent over which we have greatest control. Swallowing falsehood is optional; reading, believing and obeying the truth, mandatory.

And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth: for I wait for thy judgments. Psalm 119:43

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