PENNSYLVANIA Growing faiths share space in Lehigh Valley

Groups and officials say the suburbs provide plenty of room to expand.
BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) -- The appearance of the Hindu Temple Society on Airport Road gives little sign of the experiment that's been going on inside for more than 15 years.
The little building just north of Schoenersville Road is home to Lehigh Valley practitioners of India's four major faiths -- Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism. Though all share a homeland, they almost never share space in India.
The temple in Hanover Township, Northampton County, offers a cohesion that practitioners of the four faiths don't find in their native land.
"It's an amazingly successful experiment in ecumenism," said Rahini Sinha, a spokesman for the center. "We are a community temple, in a way."
And they are not alone. Across the Lehigh Valley, worship centers, churches and temples are signaling a new religious diversity.
The much larger, salmon-colored Shree Swaninaryan Spiritual and Cultural Center opened in the spring and stands proudly atop a hill on the aptly named Clearview Road in North Whitehall Township, its domes and spires giving testimony to the rising number of Hindus.
The Presbyterian Korean Church of the Lehigh Valley sits across Schadt Avenue in Whitehall Township from the Islamic Center of the Lehigh Valley, while the Al Ahad Islamic Center for Shiite Muslims opened earlier this year on Ridgeview Drive in South Whitehall Township, less than a quarter-mile from Jordan United Church of Christ near Orefield.
A different diversity
"This is the way things are going," said Allen Richardson, an associate professor at Cedar Crest College and chairman of the Interfaith Alliance of the Lehigh Valley.
Many of the new religions come from Middle Eastern or Asian roots instead of the European Christian or Jewish heritage brought by earlier immigrants.
"It's not the diversity we used to think of," Richardson said.
Richardson said the growth in new temples, mosques and religious centers mirrors an increase in cultural diversity across the nation as immigrants reach the critical mass in both population and money needed to support their own local faiths.
Much of the increased diversity remains hidden, Richardson said, because members of many smaller creeds meet in private quarters until they have sufficient resources to build a house of worship.
"There is a small Buddhist society that meets in apartments and homes in the Macungie area," he said.
Room to expand
The move to the suburbs is tied partly to the location of worshippers, but also to the visibility, available land and room for expansion, say practitioners and local officials.
St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church of Allentown has land on Springhouse Road in South Whitehall Township, where it hopes to build a $5 million complex on 23 acres of farmland near Route 22. Temple Beth-El of Allentown has 16 acres on Springhouse Road just north of the highway for a synagogue that should be open within two years.
Schuylkill County is home to the largest Hindu temple in America for the Vallabha Sampradaya, a sect devoted to the god Krishna, Richardson said.
Michael Kaiser, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, said the U.S. Census tracks ethnic changes but not religions in an area.
From 1906 to 1936, the Census Bureau gathered data on membership in religious congregations. Although a similar survey was planned for 1946, it was stopped because of privacy concerns.
Kaiser said most of the new centers are probably built in the suburbs because that is where their members are, but he also said vacant churches in more urban settings probably would not fit the worship practices of many of the newer religions.
Sinha said the Hindus looked at the Airport Road site because it was convenient to Route 22 and its proximity to Lehigh Valley International Airport makes it easy to give directions to new members.
The slim minarets of the Shiite center are visible from Route 309 north.
That's important because some Muslims travel from New York and New Jersey for worship, said Mohammed H. Rajmohamed, a trustee at the mosque.
Improved cooperation
In many cases, sects or religions that might not see eye-to-eye in their native lands have learned cooperation in the freer religious atmosphere of the United States.
"It adds to the richness of faiths," Rajmohamed said. "We say in America, 'One nation, under God.' Diversity helps. What we face here together are common problems. We have a lot more in common with each other here than we have differences."
For the most part, the new faiths have been welcomed in the Valley.
"There have been some rough edges, but by and large it has been good. Maybe it's because the Lehigh Valley has always had a diverse culture," Richardson said.
The Interfaith Council works with religious leaders to help educate the public about the different faiths and their members.
"It's no different than a century ago, except that if you are talking about the melting pot, a lot of these people don't want to melt. They want to maintain their cultural identity," Richardson said.
They use their centers to teach their native language and customs to second- and third-generation offspring, and many retain contact with their homelands through frequent travel, he said.
However, some key differences are made possible because of the religious tolerance inherent in American society.
For instance, though Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism have their roots in India, they almost never share worship space there, Sinha said.
But for Indian natives and descendants in the Valley, it seemed natural to combine their efforts.
"The founding members really had a vision. They carried on; they had a unity of purpose," he said. "It's a religious place; it's a cultural place."
Interfaith organizations
Many of the newer groups become quickly active in local religious programs. Richardson and the Rev. Christine Nelson, director of the Lehigh County Conference of Churches, say their groups have had extensive interaction with the newer faiths in recent years.
"I think it's terrific, and we have definitely grown in respect for one another," the Rev. Ms. Nelson said.
Richardson participates in The Pluralism Project, a Harvard University examination of the growing religious diversity in the United States.
"We're a midsize group of communities. It's very important that we are seeing change like this. It's symptomatic of what's happening in America," he said.
"These people are not a threat. If anything, they are repeating some of the same processes our ancestors went through."