Omaha is a small city in the center of the Great Plains, the largest metropolitan area in the state of Nebraska. A city of 419,000 in a state of less than two million, Omaha is notable not only for its size but also for its diversity. While African Americans form the largest minority group in Omaha, Latino residents are increasing at a rate of 174 percent annually. Omaha’s Asian population has grown by almost 90 percent since 1990 while immigrants from Africa are steadily increasing as refugees from Sudan make their way to this crossroads on the prairie. The religious landscape of Omaha...

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New York City is perhaps the only city in the world where one can find a kosher Indian vegetarian restaurant run by Hindus and a halal Chinese restaurant run by Buddhists. The religious and ethnic diversity of the city’s five boroughs is a far cry from the former 17th-century Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam where the only permitted form of public worship was Dutch Reformed Christianity. Under the Dutch, brutal suppression of local native peoples was accompanied by religious persecution of many immigrants, including the flogging of Quakers, imprisonment of Lutherans, and restriction of...

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Milwaukee, Wisconsin is a city marked by the flourishing of diversity and by the challenge of persistent segregation. From a French trading post beginning in the 1670s to the city’s founding in the 1830s, Milwaukee’s early decades were dominated by German immigration. Although no longer the “most German city west of Berlin,” the lasting contributions of Milwaukee’s early residents are still visible: the city’s baseball team, the Brewers, play at a stadium named for one of Milwaukee’s oldest breweries. Today, annual festivals reflect and celebrate the many ethnic groups that have shaped...

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When heavyweight boxing champion and Louisville native Muhammad Ali became a Muslim in 1964 there was not a single mosque in his hometown. Located at the northern cusp of the Bible Belt, the city is known for Louisville Slugger baseball bats and its large Evangelical churches. Yet, for nearly twenty years, the Festival of Faiths has also put Derby City on the map. The Festival—a week-long celebration of the nation’s religious diversity—is also a celebration of Louisville’s own growing diversity.

Today, Greater Louisville is home to twelve Islamic centers and mosques, in...

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Los Angeles is truly a cosmopolis—a world city. Its many ethnic and religious communities are so large that each one has a vibrant life of its own. Sprawling today over nearly five hundred square miles, Los Angeles got its start in 1771 as a small Spanish mission village. It was named El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles, “The Town of our Lady, Queen of the Angels”: its early residents called it “El Pueblo.” In 1850, when California achieved statehood, this town was over 85 percent Spanish-speaking and Mexican. Even today, Latinos constitute the largest ethnic group in the...

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The lights of Las Vegas glitter for miles along a stretch of highway, an oasis in the vast Mojave Desert, just east of Death Valley. In the nineteenth century, the city—its name Spanish for “the meadows”—became a beacon for Mormon settlers headed west between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. As the nineteenth century wore on, gold rushes and the Transcontinental Railroad brought people from all over the world to the American Southwest; Las Vegas’ rail, mining, and dam industries boomed. By the early 1900s, this desert oasis was home to thriving immigrant communities, especially...

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From early on, Kansas City signaled a “land of opportunity” for travelers in search of a fresh start. Beginning in the 1830s, the growing settlement at the convergence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers became the first stop for many Mormons trekking along the Santa Fe, California, and Oregon Trails. Over the next century, Kansas City became a hub of African American culture and music as well as home to a sizable Jewish community. Today, the City of Fountains is bubbling with energy as new immigrants add to the complexity of the region’s religious diversity.

The first synagogue...

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In Jacksonville, Florida, one interfaith leader explains, religion is like the sugar in sweet tea: “It permeates every aspect of life. … I can’t think of much that isn’t touched by religion in one way or another.” The city is predominantly, often presumptively, Christian. Jacksonville is home to the headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention; First Baptist Church occupies eleven blocks of the city’s downtown, right next to City Hall. Until 2010, the City Council’s chaplain offered Christian prayers to open each meeting.

The Jewish community has a small but historic...

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Houston, once a small oil and rail yard town, is America’s second fastest growing city, covering an area slightly smaller than Massachusetts but bigger than New Jersey. The city is also one where no single ethnic group claims more than 33 percent of the population. Although diversity can sometimes be a source of tension, the Kinder Houston Area Survey has reported a steady increase over recent decades in the positive ratings area residents give different ethnic groups.[1] In 2013, a local newspaper headline read “Houston Losing Bible Belt Bragging Rights,” acknowledging that, while Christian congregations abound, the diversity of Houston’s religious landscape is keeping apace with the city’s rapid expansion.

Since 1996 the Houston Zoroastrian Center in Southwest Houston has served the city’s Iranian, Pakistani, and Indian Zarathushtis. The Center is home to the nation’s first Zoroastrian Sunday School and a library that serves as a repository for historical and scholarly information about the tradition. Annually, the public is invited to attend a Jashne Sadeh fire celebration as part of the Center’s efforts to educate the broader Houston community about Zoroastrianism.

Houston is home to the largest Muslim population in Texas and one of the largest in the South overall.[2] For over a decade, Houston’s mayor has partnered with the city’s diverse Muslim groups and cultural organizations to host an annual iftar dinner during the month of Ramadan. Counted among the city’s numerous and diverse Muslim communities is the Ismaili Principal Jamatkhana (“House of Prayer”) and Centre, which serves as the headquarters for a quarter million Shia Ismaili Muslims living in the United States.

Though the Jewish community in Houston can trace its roots back to the mid-nineteenth century, the city has only recently reached critical mass. The Orthodox Union declared Houston a destination city and identified it as the first “Affordable Orthodox Living” community.[3] According to the Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities, as of 2011, the Houston area was home to 23 different Jewish congregations.

Houston’s Hindu community is also sizable. The area’s largest temple, BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, is located in South Houston, just a short drive from the Ismaili Principal Jamatkhana. Founded in 2004, it took craftsmen sixteen months and 1.3 million volunteer hours to carve by hand the white marble and limestone temple. Before a small mandir was established in 1988, Swaminaryan devotees in the Houston area met in each other’s homes to hold weekly religious gatherings. Today, the smaller mandir still stands and is now part of the new temple complex, which also includes a monastery and an interactive museum where visitors can explore the history and beliefs of Hinduism.

“We are home to an incredible variety of people with different backgrounds and of different faiths. In order to have a successful future, we have to know how to work with and for each other,” remarked then-Mayor Annise Parker in an interview with The Houston Chronicle. While the City has done much to promote and celebrate the diversity of its residents, it has also been criticized for infringing upon the religious freedom of some. In 2014, some interfaith groups and Christian organizations, both local and national, expressed disapproval at the City’s plan to issue subpoenas for the sermons of five local pastors. The pastors had been vocal about their disapproval of a proposed human rights ordinance in Houston that aimed to ban discrimination of LGBT people [4] Soon after Parker met with concerned parties, the subpoenas were withdrawn.[5]

In 2015, the Houston Chronicle reported that Houston has 37 of the state’s 207 mega-churches.[6] Lakewood Church, founded by Joel and Victoria Osteen, is just off of Route 59, where traffic can be backed up for miles on a Sunday morning. Some might be surprised to learn, just a short drive west, members of Houston Oasis, a community of self-described “freethinkers,” also gathers on Sunday mornings. Founded in 2012, Houston Oasis meets at the Norris Conference Center and is part of a growing number of Humanist groups forming across the United States.

Interfaith initiatives in Houston have shaped, and are being shaped, by national and international efforts. Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston, a hub for interfaith activity in the city, organizes popular bi-annual “Dinner Dialogues” which have been replicated in other cities and states. Near a business park just off Bellfort Avenue, the Institute for Interfaith Dialogue, part of the global Gülen Movement, is currently building the Houston Peace Garden where visitors will be able to visit replicas of a synagogue, church, and mosque. The Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance at Rice University engages the campus and Houston communities in inter- and intra-faith conversations. The Rothko Chapel, founded over 40 years ago as a space for all in the heart of the city’s museum district, features the work of abstract expressionist Mark Rothko.

“No city more clearly exemplifies the trends that are rapidly refashioning the social and political landscape of all urban America,” writes the Kinder Institute at Rice, whose Kinder Houston Area Survey findings were the subject of a 2012 documentary by founding director, Dr. Stephen Klineberg.[7] The film’s title—Interesting Times—is apt for a city “where the American future is going to be worked out” in light of the nation’s new multiethnic and multireligious reality.[8]

 

Promising Practices and Leadership Profiles
 

Dinner Dialogues
Promising Practice: Breaking Bread and Making Neighbors in Houston and Beyond

 

Research Reports
 

Embodying Ethics, Performing Pluralism: Volunteerism Among Ismailis in Houston, TX (2003)

Gujarati Hindu Temples in Metropolitan Houston (2007)

Houston Oasis: A New Model for Non-Faith Based Communities (2013)

 

Directory of Religious Centers in Houston
 

The Pluralism Project is no longer updating its directory of religious centers outside of Boston, but you can find an archive of the Houston directory here.

 

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Founded as a Puritan colony in 1636, Hartford, Connecticut is today home to over ten Buddhist temples, nearly fifteen synagogues, five Islamic centers, two Hindu temples, and one of the nation’s premier centers for Christian-Muslim relations: Hartford Seminary. A Christian seminary with Congregationalist roots, Hartford Seminary has made news in recent decades for becoming the first Christian seminary to name a Muslim to its core faculty. Just a few decades after its establishment in the mid-nineteenth century, Hartford Seminary became interested in Islamic culture as it sought...

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In 1956, Fremont, California was born when five smaller Bay Area communities—Centerville, Niles, Irvington, Mission San Jose, and Warm Springs—came together to form one city. Today, each of the five communities maintains a distinct identity as a “district,” while also being a vital part of the larger city. In a similar way, Fremont’s diverse ethnic and religious communities contribute to the life of this city of nearly 217,000 residents.

Today, Fremont is one of the nation’s most diverse cities for its size. A rajagopuram rises in a tidy suburban...

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“Thriving” is the word one scholar used to describe the religious diversity of Cleveland. Recent decades have brought immigrants willing to invest “their money in temples, churches, cathedrals, synagogues,” challenging any notion of Northeastern Ohio as “beige and rusting.” Although Cleveland’s population has decreased—the city is half the size it was in 1920 when it ranked it fifth largest in the nation—the religious diversity of the Rock and Roll Capital of the World has increased significantly.

New immigration has caused exponential growth among the city’s Muslim population...

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Chicago holds a special place in the history of the world’s religions in America. It was here, in 1893, that the World’s Parliament of Religions took place as part of the great Chicago World’s Fair. It was inspired by the energy, growth, and optimism of an America just beginning to lay claim to a place in the world of nations. The Parliament planning committee sent out 10,000 invitations to people around the world, and representatives of many of the world’s great religious traditions converged on Chicago. It was the first time that Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Jews met together on...

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“Keep Austin Weird” is a current that pulses through the life of this university town in the heart of Texas. The state’s capital comes with a bohemian vibe and a booming technology industry. Its vibrant music, arts, and film scenes bring together an eclectic mix of students, high-tech professionals, artists, and a constant stream of tourists. Between 1990 and 2000, Greater Austin experienced rapid growth: its population leapt 48 percent and the number of immigrants tripled. Thanks to a thriving economy, 1.8 million people call the Austin area home.

Immigrant communities have...

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Atlanta, Georgia, the “birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement,” commemorates the nation’s struggle for racial equality in an international World Peace Rose Garden. Here, bands of red and white roses interweave, symbolizing the bringing together of people across racial and ethnic lines. In a similar way, the roses symbolize the way a philosophy of nonviolence brought together two unlikely and geographically distant compatriots in their struggle for equal rights: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Today, the world seems much smaller and global friendships much more frequent as diverse communities of immigrants from India, Pakistan, Korea, and Vietnam have come to make their home in “the Buckle of the Bible Belt.”

It takes but a short drive down Buford Avenue to see Atlanta’s new multiethnic and multi-religious reality. Along the highway is Drepung Loseling Monastery, Inc., one of over forty Buddhist communities in the metro area. Drepung Loseling has been a center for Tibetan Buddhist studies, practice, and culture in Atlanta since 1991. Today, its academic programs connect Emory University in Atlanta with Drepung Loseling’s parent monastery in India.

Botanicas and masjids line Buford Avenue, adding to the street’s global microcosm. Nearby, Masjid Abu Bakr serves approximately eight hundred Muslim families, many of whom live within a six-mile radius of the mosque. Another masjid, Al-Farooq Mosque, was established in 1980 by Pakistani and Arab immigrants, and is home to one of the few Islamic cemeteries in the country. Elijah Muhammad, then leader of the Nation of Islam, founded the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam in 1958, the oldest of the city’s nearly three dozen mosques.

It was also in 1958 that Atlanta’s oldest synagogue, the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation (“The Temple”), was bombed, likely due to the fact that Rabbi Jacob Rothchild made public his ardent support of racial integration. Today, there are over twenty synagogues in metro Atlanta, including Congregation Or VeShalom whose members can trace their roots “from the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, North and South America, and even Atlanta!”

The Hindu community of Greater Atlanta is thriving, adding several new temples in recent decades. The Hindu Temple of Atlanta opened in the southern suburb of Riverdale in 1990 and is now one of over fifteen temples in the metro area. In 2007, BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir opened in the northeastern suburb of Lilburn, a 27,000 square foot structure that sits on twenty-nine acres. Temple volunteer Ritesh Desai spoke of the mandir‘s opening to one NPR reporter: “Many of us have assimilated into the mainstream American culture. Yet the mainstream American culture does not know about India per se, or they might not have been to India. We’re bringing a little bit of India to you.”

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 81 percent of Georgians profess a belief in God and 38 percent identify as Evangelical Christian. Evangelist Billy Graham was no stranger to the city; over the course of several decades Atlanta was the site of at least three of his crusades. While Evangelical Christianity continues to shape Atlanta’s cultural milieu, the city is now home to a number of Atheist groups as well. One such group, Black Nonbelievers, Inc., is notable for its fellowship and service opportunities for African Americans, including at 2011 rally at the state house to honor international “Support an Atheist Day.”

Interfaith efforts in Atlanta are thriving and diverse. Interfaith Airport Chaplaincy, Inc. (IAC, Inc.) is based in Hartsfield-Jackson International, the world’s largest airport and supports travelers of all faiths by providing assistance and a quiet place to pray or meditate in one of the airport’s three chapels. The Interfaith Community Initiatives (ICI) seeks to transform Atlanta into “a model city for interfaith appreciation and cooperation” and does so by hosting weekend “immersion” trips to local religious communities and programming for youth.

The World Peace Rose Garden stands directly in front of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Historical Site, a reminder both of the city’s commitment to new growth and to honoring its storied past. As industry and technology continues to attract the world to “the ATL,” the city’s religious diversity expands and makes its mark on Atlanta’s landscape and history.

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