The Sanctuary movement, which began in 1982, is topically significant and presents the opportunity for a methodologically innovative sociological analysis. Sanctuary is a religiously based manifestation of the growing current of peace and justice sentiments and the growing trend toward direct action politics among the educated middle class. Sanctuary also warrants investigation as a paradenominational “special purpose group” of the type discussed by Wuthnow. These groups have implications for understanding the larger divisions and groupings within American Protestantism and other religious communions. The denominations active in Sanctuary span a broad spectrum from Baptists through Presbyterians. Mennonites, and Friends to Unitarian Universalists. Level of involvement ranges from the highly involved Unitarians to the underrepresented Baptists. Catholics and Jews are represented, but pentecostal denominations are not represented at all. Most current studies of the Sanctuary movement are case studies or small sample studies and so suffer from problems of inference. This study includes all 371 declared sanctuary congregations in America through 1988. Using primarily extant data on congregations as the unit of analysis, the categories of explanatory variables employed are: 1)organizational, and 2) environmental (which comprise both geographic and demographic variables). The effects of structural features of congregations such as denomination, theological party, organizational polity, cosmopolitanism, and geographic location on the propensity of these congregations to declare sanctuary are tested. Preliminary analysis indicates that denomination and location are significant factors explaining involvement in the movement.