ANTH 3368 Urban Life

Kemper "Religious Institutions and Cities"

INTRODUCTION

Urban life and religious institutions are inseparable. The story of the world’s great cities is also the story of the world’s great religious traditions. In China, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, Egypt, West Africa, Mesoamerica, and Peru – seven sites that guided the transformation of human culture from pre-urban to urban society – ceremonial centers provided the heart of urban experience. Massive architectural structures and ritual precincts dominated these ancient urban settlements and their hinterlands. The shared leadership of religious and political specialists – sometimes marked by separate priestly and noble classes, sometimes combined into a single "god king" – manifested the fundamental importance of religious rituals in their subjects’ daily lives. From the beginning of urban ways of living, religious institutions have defined our sacred spaces and places, have offered hope and essential services to the poor while giving the wealthy opportunities for doing good works, and have determined the cycles of calendar and renewal in which we live, die, and – according to some – live again.

During the past three thousand years, religious institutions have been powerful forces in local, regional, and global urban developments. From the Forbidden City in Beijing to Vatican City in Rome, from Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem to Westminster Abbey in London, from the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlán to the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City – everywhere we look, we find symbols of religious power embedded in modern urban life. Despite proclamations to the contrary by nineteenth- and twentieth-century social theorists as diverse as Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Louis Wirth, and Robert Redfield, urban life has not become purely secular, nor have cities become religious deserts. Far from it!

Religious institutions and their leaders continue to play significant roles throughout the world. Churches, temples, and mosques offer sanctuary to refugees in body and in spirit. On the other hand, religious conflicts, especially in the context of ethnic nationalism, daily result in tragedies in the cities of the Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia – all areas where "world" religions have been in tension for centuries.

TYPOLOGIES OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS IN URBAN LIFE

In a recent, much lauded, effort at "imagining the city," Setha Low (1999) explored twelve images of the city for their theoretical relevance. These twelve images fall into four categories: social relations, economics, urban planning and architecture, and religion and culture. In her typology, Low suggests that the "Sacred City" is a place where "there are many religious discourses in the urban arena, some of which produce strong counterreactions." As examples of the Sacred City, she offers Hindu cities (especially, the traditional Newar city of Bhaktapur and the city of Mathura) and Islamic cities (particularly, Cairo) as places where the city has served for centuries as a symbolic setting – expressed in festivals, collective rituals, and religious architecture – that reflects Hindu (or Islamic) morality and cosmology. Considering the Sacred City more broadly, Low notes that urban sacredness also can serve as a basis for urban resistance movements, class politics, gay identity, and immigrant survival (1999:20).

Going beyond Low’s typology of cities considered wholly, we also recognize the existence of "sacred" spaces within cities throughout the world. Often, these sacred spaces are not defined so much by major architectural structures (e.g., Westminster Abbey, Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.); but because of events that have become sacred in a people’s memory (e.g., Dealey Plaza in Dallas, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963; the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Mexico City, where hundreds of university students were gunned down by Mexican police and soldiers in October 2, 1968; the Oklahoma City Federal Building, where 168 people were killed by a terrorist bomb on April 19, 1995). These sacred spaces not only become embedded in a nation’s "public" religion, they also become tourist attractions generating significant revenues for their cities.

"World" Religions and Local Religious Practices

History and geography have given us a legacy of "world" religions, the great religious traditions that have emerged from centuries of testing in the cleansing fires of heresy. Although some of these religions began in remote rural settings, all now have a substantial presence in metropolitan areas. In fact, as demonstrated by the cases of Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), becoming an "urban" religion is an important element in reaching the status of "world" religion.

Since the beginning of civilization, cities have served as incubators for new religious practices, and an examination of the telephone book of any major U. S. city will show that this is still true. For instance, in the Dallas – Fort Worth metropolitan area, there are more than five thousand different religious entities (including congregations, temples, mosques, churches, meetings), affiliated with more than 125 different denominations or independent orders. While many of these are affiliated with "world" religions or major American denominations, hundreds of others are independent religious enterprises that came into being in Dallas, have their only meeting place there, and – depending on their leaders’ capabilities – will either prosper or disappear from the religious landscape.

In discussing the "Social Organization of Tradition," Robert Redfield (1956) distinguished between Great Traditions and Little Traditions in civilizations. Recognizing that civilizations have both great regional scope and great historic depth, Redfield observed that world religions – Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, among others – also have local manifestations (i.e., Little Traditions) that represent variant syncretisms of the major features of the corresponding Great Tradition. Typically, the Great Tradition represents the orthodox form of the cultural and religious metropolis, maintained by an urban elite which has learned, cultivated, and transmitted its rules and rituals through special schools and temples. On the other hand, Little Traditions represent heterodox forms found at the cultural and religious periphery, and are sustained by local practices and oral transmission rather than through written texts.

Redfield’s work among the Maya of Yucatan – made famous in his study (1941) of the "folk-urban continuum" (the tribal community Tusik, the peasant village Chan Kom, the small market town Dzitas, and the state capital Mérida) – suggested an evolutionary and acculturational progression from the Little Tradition of folk communities to the Great Tradition of urban places. In a sense, the Little Traditions of rural folk represent survivals of older forms of religious practices as well as accommodations to the demands of contemporary requirements imposed by representatives of the urban-based Great Tradition. Even today, at the time of planting the corn fields, a visitor to Chan Kom would witness local interpretations of standard Roman Catholic liturgies combined with survivals of pre-Columbian Maya rituals. Such syncretic practices have been labeled "folk religion" (Madsen 1967:390).

"Centripetal" and "Centrifugal" Religious Traditions

Some religious traditions are inward-directed, while others are outward-directed. For instance, Buddhism and Hinduism focus on individual spirituality and transformation, while Judaism emphasizes the covenant of the one true God with a chosen people. Religions of this "centripetal" type are not dedicated to proselytizing new adherents; indeed, entry standards may be extremely difficult to meet, or may even be based on one’s birth. Centripetal religious traditions include not only world religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism, but also much smaller groups, including the Shakers, the Amish, the Mennonites, and certain Greek Orthodox monastic orders. Like the ancient religious community at Qumran, these groups more often are found in remote rural locations where their religious practices might be less influenced by outsiders.

When they do exist in urban settings, members of centripetal religious traditions are likely to be restricted (whether by choice or by law) to live, work, and practice their religions in enclaves, such as the Jewish ghettos in medieval European cities. Even today, the Lubavitch Jewish enclave in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, maintains practices (e.g., clothing and hair styles) that intentionally mark their members as distinctive from other urban dwellers. On the other hand, when Jewish populations are more dispersed in a particular urban setting – as in San Francisco – their synagogues are more likely to expand their social programs to reach out to non-Jewish groups in the wider urban community.

Over the generations, centripetal religious groups may shift their theologies or organizational strategies, and thereby take on a "centrifugal" orientation. An example of one such group is the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), who traveled en masse in the nineteenth century to the Utah desert to escape from the persecutions they had been suffering in eastern and midwestern towns and cities. Since the 1950s, the Mormons have developed a highly successful strategy to expand their membership in the U. S. and abroad, and now number more than eleven million members worldwide, most of whom are associated with large temples in major urban areas.

"Centrifugal" religious traditions are focused outward in their concern for membership growth and to provide for the social welfare of the entire urban community. Because religions of this type are aggressive in their evangelism efforts, cities provide better venues for pursuing new adherents than does the countryside. Christianity became a "centrifugal" religion as the first generations of its adherents attempted to follow Jesus’ instruction: "you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Over the past two thousand years, the Christian faith has grown many branches, some of which have become much more like the centripetal, inward-looking religious traditions than to the more evangelical branches of Christianity.

Between the seventh and fifteenth centuries, Islam expanded dramatically throughout the Middle East and Mediterranean, with significant penetrations into Africa, Iberia, India, and southeast Asia. Though its expansion started in the Arabian deserts, it culminated in controlling cities as diverse as Córdoba, Granada, and Seville in Spain; Gao, Jenne, Timbuktu, and Cairo in Africa; Damascus in Syria; Istanbul in Anatolia; Baghdad in Iraq; Isfahan in Persia; Fatehpur Sikri, Agra, and Delhi in India; and Malacca at the tip of southeast Asia. The religious expansion of Islam was facilitated by its widespread use of spoken and written Arabic as the key to studying the Quran, the holy book said to have been communicated by the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad Ibn Abd Allah (died 632). All faithful Muslims throughout the world were required to follow a common creed; to pray five times a day; to give alms for the common need; to practice fasting during the ninth month of the lunar year, Ramadan; and to make a pilgrimage to Mecca if they had the means. These shared obligations, often called the "five pillars of Islam," fostered solidarity among far-flung Muslim communities, and meant that commercial travelers and pilgrims could practice their faith with confidence everywhere they went (Robinson 1982:40-43).

Charisma and Structure in Religious Institutions

While many Americans subscribe to the myth that anyone can become President, it is much more likely that someone will start a new religious community than become President. Everyday, new religious groups are formed in the U. S. With very few restrictions, and even without formal religious training in a seminary or divinity school, an individual with a sense of calling, a gift of the spirit – what Max Weber (1947:358) labeled "charisma" – can start a new church and take on a title like minister, pastor, or even bishop. These churches often represent a unique representation of theology and culture. For example, in San Francisco, California, faithful members of St. John’s African Orthodox Church, known as the "John Coltrane Church," have combined contemporary Black liberation theology and Black cultural expression – especially as revealed in the life of the great jazz composer and saxophonist John William Coltrane, whom they revere as a saint – into a message of liberation and aesthetic for the oppressed peoples of the world (Baham 2001).

In contrast, established religious groups come to have a significant bureaucractic structure. No matter how much individual charisma a Billy Graham, a Bishop T. D. Jakes, a Pope John Paul II, or a Dalai Lama may have, their religious work is accomplished through an ecclesiastical organization. Thus, we can distinguish among religious groups according to their forms of bureaucratic structure or polity.

In modern America, the three major arrangements of church polity are known as "congregational," "episcopal," and "presbyterian." The congregational approach to polity stresses the independence of local congregations from outside influences, although a loose network of individual congregations may exist. Southern Baptists and the Southern Baptist General Convention are exemplars of this form of polity. The episcopal structure features a singular leader who directs the affairs of the church in consultation with appointed and/or elected subalterns. Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, and Anglican denominations adhere to this hierarchical system of polity, some claiming an "apostolic succession" from Jesus’ charge to his disciple Peter ("you are Peter, on this rock I will build my church," Matthew 16:18). The presbyterian system combines certain features of congregational and episcopal approaches to polity. It offers a measure of local control, while connecting local churches to a hierarchy of power. For instance, in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the session is the ruling body of a local congregation; the presbytery rules all of the churches in a metropolitan region and its hinterland; the synod rules a collection of presbyteries, usually spread over several states; and the general assembly connects and controls the denomination at the national level. An important difference from the congregational and episcopal models is that power is shared among ordained clergy and ordained laypersons, rather than being held only by clergy. Such a system of shared power also can be found in some episcopal traditions. For example, in The Episcopal Church, USA, the House of Bishops is matched by a lay House of Deputies – and to change church policies, votes must pass both Houses with a majority.

The presence of all three systems of polity in urban areas, distributed across dozens of denominations, creates serious challenges to the never-ending discussions about building ecumenical alliances among different denominations. Thus, in 1999, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Episcopal Church – both operating within the episcopal system of polity – signed an agreement to be in "full communion." This permits priests of either denomination to exchange or share pastoral responsibilities, including celebration of the Eucharist, among their congregations. On the other hand, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) – which has no bishops – is still struggling to build similar agreements with both of these denominations.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVES ON RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS AND CITIES

The Bible as a Guide to Understanding Urban Life

In the Western intellectual tradition, the Bible has served as a key source for understanding cities, which are mentioned more than 1,200 times in the Old and New Testaments. Even when contemporary Americans look for an "authority" with which to criticize the moral qualities of our cities, the Bible is frequently cited. Thus, it is important to comprehend the powerful role the Bible still plays in defining our relationship to cities in contemporary American culture.

Going back to the "beginning," the Biblical story of the garden of Eden – clearly, not an urban setting – ends with the Lord God driving out Adam and his wife. In the course of time, their older son Cain ends up killing his younger brother Abel. Then the Lord put a mark on Cain, who went away to the land of Nod, where "he built a city" (Genesis 4:17). The message was clear to the ancient Hebrews and is still obvious today: the "good" life was lost when the garden was closed to humans; by constrast, cities came into existence in the wake of fratricide.

Generations later, as reported in Genesis 11:4, the people said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." But, as in any good etiological tale, the Lord still scattered the people over the face of all the earth and confused their language so that they could not understand one another’s speech (Genesis 11:9). As with the case of the garden of Eden, this tale of human pride and folly shows a strong bias against urban communities. Still later, during the time of Abraham, the moral depravity of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:6 - 19:29) caused the Lord to overthrow those cities.

More generations passed before King David brought the ark of the Lord into the captured city of Jerusalem, which eventually became the site of the great Temple during Solomon’s reign. Ever since, despite the destruction of the Temple first by the Babylonians and then later by the Romans, Jerusalem has served as focal point of their heritage for Jewish people everywhere, as well as for Christians (both Orthodox and Western) and Muslims who continue to venerate and struggle over its holy places (Idinopulos 1994).

From Judaism to Christianity

The first century saw a transformation in the relationship between traditional Judaism and Jerusalem. Most importantly, narratives about the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of a man known as Jesus of Nazareth began to circulate in oral and written form by the mid-century. Small numbers of believers – first Jews and then Gentiles – gathered initially in house churches in and around Jerusalem, and later built dedicated religious structures in major cities like Antioch, Thessalonica, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Athens, Rome, and the like. Though these "Christians," as they came to be known, were urged to support the religious community of believers back in Jerusalem (Romans 15:26; I Corinthians 16:3), it soon became clear that Jerusalem was no longer the major seat of power within their multinational community spread across the Roman Empire. Further contributing to the decline in Jerusalem’s role among Christians and Jews was the destruction of the Temple by Roman soldiers in 70 C.E., and the subsequent forced diaspora of the Jewish people throughout the Empire.

As a minority in the Graeco-Roman World, first-century Christians did not emulate the Essenes or the Qumran community, both of which sought to withdraw from the world (Winter 1994:202). On the contrary, Christians chose to participate in urban public affairs, as benefactors and citizens (recall that Paul often mentioned his status as a Roman Citizen; e.g., Acts 16:38), in order to "seek the welfare of the city" (Jeremiah 29:7).

By the third century, the Christian religious communities were headed by bishops located in important cities throughout the Roman Empire, with the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople eventually emerging as the two most powerful voices in the Church. These bishops would assemble from time to time to thrash out theological matters and to declare the losers as heretics who should be excluded from the one and true Church. Even before the Church was freed, at long last, from official persecution in 323, under the patronage of the Emperor Constantine, urban dwellers throughout the empire were forbidden to work on Sunday, gifts and legacies to the clergy were permitted, and great church buildings began to be erected in Rome, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and elsewhere under Imperial auspices. When, in 330, the capital of the Empire was moved eastward to the rebuilt Byzantium (soon renamed Constantinople) the connection between State and Church was obvious to all: a new era for religious institutions had come to the Empire and to its cities.

Saint Augustine’s Interpretation of the Great Tradition: The City of God

The ancient conflict between righteousness and sinfulness is at the heart of Augustine’s fifth-century treatise on human history, The City of God. In his struggle to comprehend how the barbarians’ conquest of Christian Rome in 410 fit into God’s plan for the world, Augustine offered a striking contrast between the "The City of Man" and "The City of God." Yet, Augustine also recognized a central tension in the earthly city:

. . . this city is often divided against itself by litigations, wars, quarrels, and such victories as are either life-destroying or short-lived. . . . But the things which this city desires cannot justly be said to be evil, for it is itself, in its own kind, better than all other human good. For it desires earthly peace for the sake of enjoying earthly goods, and it makes war in order to attain to this peace; . . . These things, then, are good things, and without doubt the gifts of God (1950:481-482).

For a thousand years, Augustine’s recognition that the earthly city was not evil incarnate, but rather was incomplete, always falling short of the perfection of the heavenly city, provided the essential touchstone for European views of cities and religious institutions.

Crusades and Cathedrals

Under attack from the seventh century onward by the expansionist forces of Islam, Western Europeans eventually responded with crusades to regain control of the Holy City, Jerusalem. Vast fortunes and thousands of lives were expended in seven crusades, beginning at the end of the eleventh century and ending in the middle of the thirteenth century. Paradoxically, the leaders who encouraged these crusades spent little time in the cities of their own realms, much preferring to reside in greater splendor, safety, and health at their landed estates and abbeys.

Even with the ramparts of power located in the countryside, medieval European cities did not lack significant religious structures. A bishop’s cathedral served as a city’s physical symbol of religious authority, and also established that city as preeminent among its peers. The competition among cities to construct great cathedrals was a dominant theme of the Middle Ages. Enormously costly and requiring generations to build, cathedrals became the great symbols of their communities of faith.. Even centuries later, to speak of Saint Peter’s, Notre Dame, or Saint Stephen’s is to know immediately that one is referring to the Vatican (Rome), Paris, and Vienna.

European Expansion: God, Gold, and Glory

As European nation states divided up the globe into colonial territories in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Roman Catholic Church sent along its representatives to pursue souls for Christianity. Even though many of the peoples encountered by Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch explorers were not city dwellers, these representatives of the European way of life soon established towns and cities. And in these places, the Church began to build cathedrals and parish churches to serve conquerors and conquered alike. The most dramatic evidence of European determination to establish the Church in these new colonies came in Tenochtitlán, where the Templo Mayor of the Aztecs was destroyed, and its stones used to construct a cathedral on its former site.

When the Portuguese made contact with the Chinese, their most successful relationships were established and maintained by members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), which recently had been established to defend the Church against Protestants in Europe. Matteo Ricci (1551-1610) and his successors learned the Chinese language so that they had the freedom of the courts of the Forbidden City, where other "South Sea Barbarians" (as the Chinese called the Europeans) were not permitted. The Society for Jesus also established a significant Christian missionary presence in Japan, until the Tokugawa Shogunate withdrew Japan from international affairs in the early 1600s. The so-called "Rites Controversy" of 1715 greatly diminished the Jesuits’ influence in China and back in Rome, and they lost control of the maritime commerce between China and Europe from which they had profited so greatly.

Reformed, and Always Being Reformed: Church, City States, and New Models of Governance

The enduring connection between religious institutions and urban life was not undone by the Reformation in the sixteenth century. On the contrary, Martin Luther and most of the other reformers ignored the peasants and the countryside in favor of the cities, where they could influence large groups of independently-minded members of the expanding middle class. To this end, John Calvin established a "Presbyterian" Church in the city-state of Geneva in Switzerland. Calvin’s democratic model of church governance was based on a carefully constructed theology that did away with bishops and provided a balance of power between ministers and laymen. Taken by John Knox to Scotland, and then by Puritans to the new English colonies in New England, Presbyterianism eventually was influential in the constitutional arrangements of the fledgling United States government.

A "Methodical" Approach to the Problems of Industrial Cities

During the early phases of the Industrial Revolution, John and Charles Wesley led the way in bringing religion into the lives of laborers in England and America. Splitting off from the established Church of England, the Wesleys developed a new, "methodical" approach to theology and practice, which continues to find expression in the United Methodist Church and related denominations. The Wesleys led a movement to establish "foundry" church centers where both worship and works might be accomplished in even the most impoverished urban areas.

A century later, beginning in the 1870s, William Booth was influenced by both Methodist and Presbyterian friends to start what would become The Salvation Army – to save and to serve the poor in England’s industrial cities. By 1880, The Army had entered the United States, where it has continued its role as an urban religion for more than a century. For example, in their early years in New York City,

the Salvationists sent out ice carts in summer, coal wagons in winter, and salvage crews all year round. They established soup kitchens, rescue homes, employment bureaus, hospitals, shelters, and thrift shops. Along with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, the Army’s annual kettle drive marked the onset of the Christmas holiday season, and each spring colorful posters heralded its fundraising appeal (Winston 1999:2).

By the turn of the century, the fame of the Salvation Army – and the opportunities for women to play leadership roles in its organization – was such that George Bernard Shaw used it as the principal dramatic element of his play, Major Barbara, first performed on stage in 1905 and then made into a movie (1941) starring Rex Harrison, Wendy Hiller, Robert Morley, and Deborah Kerr.

Missions to the Rest of the World

The industrial revolution shrank the globe in the nineteenth century. Travel that formerly had taken months now took only weeks, and messages now could be sent instantly through telegraph cables being laid across the continents and under the oceans. This second wave of European expansion was accompanied by a new missionary spirit among Protestants in Europe and in America. Regions of the world previously restricted to Roman Catholic (or Islamic) proselytizing efforts now were subjected to major missionary efforts by diverse Protestant Bible societies and missionary groups. Protestant denominations – especially the Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists – began to send missionaries with medical and educational skills to China and Korea with good results. Missionaries also went to Latin America countries which, before their independence from Spain and Portugal, previously had been closed to anyone outside the Roman Catholic Church. One, perhaps unexpected, result of these enormous investments in international missionizing was the establishment of independent national churches. By the middle of the twentieth century, national versions of European and American denominations had been organized and operated by local leaders in many former colonies. And, by the end of the twentieth century, there were more Presbyterians in Korea than in the United States, with the Youngnak Presbyterian congregation in Seoul claiming more than 60,000 members!

RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The Rest of the World Comes to America

The religious mosaic of American cities has been transformed in the past one hundred years. Once characterized as a "Christian" nation where "One Nation Under God" and "In God We Trust" historically were understood to refer to the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, Americans enter the twenty-first century with a new awareness of religious pluralism – even though recent polls show that about eighty percent of Americans still consider themselves to be "Christians."

In any major American city, and even in smaller towns, we are no longer surprised to encounter a Hindu temple, an Islamic mosque, a Bahá'í community center, or a Buddhist monastery. Diana Eck, whose earlier work (1982) illuminated our understanding of Hinduism’s oldest and most fabled city, Benares, the "City of Light," created the Harvard Pluralism Project in order to examine religious diversity in the United States. In her book, A New Religious America (2001), she presents data to show that the United States has become the most religiously diverse country in the world. Pointing out that America now is home to more Muslims than Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Jews, Eck reports that the U.S. Navy has commissioned its first Muslim chaplain and opened its first mosque to meet the needs of its sailors. This new spiritual diversity is transforming and strengthening the fabric of American national culture, but it does so more at the local level than through regional or national institutions.

The presence of diverse non-Western religious organizations is a relatively recent feature of metropolitan America, and reflects the substantial immigration of ethnic and foreign populations since the 1970s. As these populations have settled permanently in urban areas, their need for places in which to practice their historical religious traditions has been manifest. Although some migrant groups participate in mainstream US-based denominations (e.g., Korean Presbyterians, Hispanic Catholics, Chinese Baptists, and Native American Methodists), many immigrants prefer to follow the religions of their homelands. Thus, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism have accompanied immigrants from Asia, while Islam has come from the Middle East and Africa.

The opportunity for inter-denominational dialogue is alive and well as we move into the 21st century. The diversity of peoples and cultures enriches us all. The "decline" of mainline Protestant denominations in recent years is, to a significant degree, being offset by the growth of non-Western religious congregations in many urban areas. On special Holy Days, the faithful may attend in the hundreds or even thousands to honor a Hindu god, to remember the prophet Muhammad’s ascension to heaven, or to celebrate the Bahá'í Festival of Ridvan. In school districts in many American cities, where most of these new immigrants groups are present, school districts now recognize the importance of these religious holidays, and even permit students to have "excused" absences from their classes during such Holy Days.

Just as Jews went through a major transformation in the 19th century in the United States – i.e., from being a "nation" to being a "religious community" – so other, more recent arrivals to this country currently face similar pressures to integrate themselves into mainline American culture. It is likely that their traditional religious beliefs will be the least changeable element of their cultural baggage. Mosques, temples, shrines, etc. are now a permanent feature of the American urban landscape. No metropolitan area is exempt from this religious reconfiguration.

So, despite the decline in membership of mainline Protestant denominations since the 1960s, the strength of non-traditional Christian groups and the increase of new immigrant religious groups shows that religion is still a major feature in American life, with religious pluralism most visible in large urban areas (Dudley and Roozen 2001). For example, Charles Prebish has argued that "the Buddhist movement in America is essentially an urban movement" (1986:327-328). He claims that the modern American city represents a new "wilderness," in which chaos and creativity exist in tension for the benefit of religious institutions. Buddhist groups typically enter this new wilderness in its urban core, followed by an expansion into a network of urban and suburban centers, and the eventual establishment of a monastery retreat center in the countryside.

Megachurches in Urban America

In recent years, the phenomenon known as the "megachurch" has become a significant trend in urban American religious life. Generally defined as congregations with two thousand or more persons attending worship weekly, these religious centers offer opportunities for their members to be involved in worship, biblical studies, social activities, and recreational programs for all ages and interests at all hours of the week.. They may provide childcare facilities, schools, health clinics, shelters for abused women and children, and conference centers for large community gatherings.

Megachurches usually have a conservative and often non-denominational Protestant theological stance, a charismastic senior minister, a multitude of social justice and outreach programs, and a complex administrative structure to handle the myriad details associated with such a large and complex organization. Best estimates are that some seven hundred Protestant megachurches together have about 2,500,000 persons attending their services in person plus unknown millions watching live and tape delayed television braodcasts throughout the week. If the very large congregations among Roman Catholic, Muslim, Mormon, and other religious traditions were included, then more than 2,200 megachurches would exist in the contemporary United States.

Religious Institutions Beyond America

Religious groups are growing, if not prospering, all around the world. Even in China, where persecution is still commonplace, the number of religious gatherings has increased significantly in recent years. Although much of this religious activity is related to the efforts of American and European missionaries, local initiatives are becoming more important in many countries. In fact, some missionaries from Latin America, Africa, and Asia now come to the U. S. and to Europe to work with immigrant groups from their respective homelands. As examples of the diverse issues confonting religious institutions in the contemporary world, we examine the distinctive developments in Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

Asia

Urbanism in Asia always has been closely linked to sacred ceremonial centers. For the ancients, only the realm of the "sacred" was real, while the realm of the "profane" was inconsequential. The importance of traditional symbolism is apparent in the planning of Chinese cities from the second millennium B.C.E. onward. As Paul Wheatley (1971:419) has pointed out in his magesterial study The Pivot of the Four Quarters, "Like architects in other realms of Asia, Chinese city planners were well aware that the fortunes of a city could be assured only if its site were adapted to the local currents of the cosmic breath (ch’i)." This religious and philosophical pursuit of harmony in urban planning is quite different from Western notions that treat cities as proof of human domination over the environment.

In Asia, more of the Great Traditions developed and prospered than in any other area of the world. Hinduism, Buddhism (in its Theravada and Mahayana branches), Jainism and Sikhism, Taoism, and Shintoism have their roots and their greatest number of adherents in this vast region. In addition, Islam has played a significant role in Indonesia and in India (especially during the period of the Mughal Empire, from the sixteen through the eighteenth centuries), and today is the state religion in Bangladesh.

Asia also has seen the emergence of numerous "new religions" in the twentieth century. Certainly, the best known and most successful among the "new religions" is Soka Gakkai ("The Society for Value Creation"), a branch of Nichiren Buddhism, begun in Japan before World War II. It grew rapidly in the 1950s and now claims more than sixteen million members, especially among urban residents for whom materialism and economic success has provided little real "prosperity" in the new Japan.

Since World War II, dramatic changes in Asia societies have occurred – the independence and partition of British India into India and Pakistan (and eventually, Bangladesh); the creation of the People’s Republic of China and its subsequent assimilation of British Hong Kong; the end of colonialism in southeast Asia, and the division of North and South Korea since the early 1950s. In 1976, at the mid-point of the post-WWII period, the Gallup organization did a public opinion survey about religious beliefs among the world’s industrialized nations. In response to the question "How important to you are your religious beliefs?", India rated the highest (81% replied "very important"), while Japan rated the lowest (12% "very important") and in response to the question "Do you believe in God or a universal spirit?" India also rated the highest at 98% while Japan scored lowest at only 38% (cited by Davis 1992:233).

The case of China reveals the tensions between traditional religious practices and its current institutional setting. With an estimated 100 million adherents, Buddhism remains the dominant religious belief system, yet involves less than eight percent of the country’s population. Traditional Taoism (and Confucianism) also are practiced, especially in rural villages, where many ancestral shrines still exist. Other religious traditions include at least eighteen million Muslims, ten million Protestants, and four million Catholics. While the constitution provides for religious toleration, the government currently gives official sanction to only two Christian organizations: a Catholic church without ties to Rome and the "Three-Self-Patriotic" Protestant church. Unauthorized Christian "house" churches have sprung up in many cities, often abetted by foreign tourists who smuggle in Bibles and other religious materials.

Thus, the current situation is far different from what Chinese urban dwellers have taken for granted for generations, when placating the gods, ghosts, and ancestors was central to popular religion both in the countryside and in cities. The Communist government found these traditional beliefs inconsistent with the new socialist order because they celebrated a narrow community rather than the society as a whole. By the 1960s, the government also had closed most Christian churches, Buddhist temples, and Islamic mosques established in earlier times by foreign missionaries. According to Whyte and Parish,

Despite these difficulties, a small number of urban churches, temples, and mosques remained open through the early 1960s. A few of the people we interviewed mention attending church service themselves or having had secondary school teacher swho attended. A few temples of special architectural value such as the Zu Temple in Foshan outside Canton were maintained by the Historic Relics Commission and continued to draw a steady stream of petitioners burning incense and imitation paper money. In major cities with sizable Muslim minorities, such as Peking and Canton, mosques remained open and held regular services. This was all brought to an end with the Cultural Revolution (1984:307).

Since the 1980s, governmental restrictions on traditional and institutional religions generally have relaxed, although state control and oppression of religion still concerns many human rights groups. The long-term exile of the Dalai Lama from Tibet, concerns over the future of Catholic and Protestant churches in Hong Kong, and recent attacks on the Fulan Gong "cult" suggest that the PRC government still sees religion as a "problem" (cf. MacInnis 1989; Human Rights Watch/Asia 1997)

The example of Korea sheds a much different light on the importance of religious institutions in Asian urban life. In Korea, Confucianism provides an underlying philosophical and ideological position to which Buddhist and Christian beliefs have been melded. More than two hundred "new" religious groups have been organized in recent decades, at the same time that the ancient practice of shamanism remains a significant force in Korean society. This distinctive religious pluralism is visible in Seoul and other cities, where churches and temples dot the urban scene.

Especially impressive is the proliferation of "megachurches" in Korean cities. The Yoido Full Gospel Church, established in 1958 by Pastor David Yonggi Cho, offers seven Sunday services at its Seoul worship center (capacity 25,000) as well as real-time Internet broadcasts in Korean, simultaneously translated into Chinese, Japanese, English, French, and Spanish (http://www.fgtv.com). With a membership that surpassed 675,000 in 1994, the Yoido Full Gospel Church witnesses to the success of evangelical Christianity in modern Korea (Clark 1997).

Christianity in Korea, as in the rest of Asia, went through an initial missionary phase, but today the churches are operated by national bodies; the few remaining foreign missionaries operate in Korea with the approval of Korean church leaders. Korean Christianity has developed its own program for sending missionaries, trained in seminaries in Seoul and elsewhere in the country, to go abroad to minister to expatriate Korean communities, especially in the United States, and to spread the word that God has "chosen" the Korean people to play a great role in the world. For example, although started in Europe during the Reformation and then brought to the British colonies that eventually became the United States, far more Presbyterians now practice their faith in Korea than in the U.S.! This fact was made manifest in 2000 when Rev. Syngman Rhee, the first Korean-American elected to serve as Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), visited the land from which he had emigrated in the 1950s.

Europe

Source of the sixteenth-century Reformation, Europe continues to witness religious conflicts in many of its constituent lands. Belfast, Kosovo, and Skopje have become household names as we watch CNN reports about their ethnic and religious struggles. At the same time, religious participation is very low in many of the region’s major cities, and the situation of religious practices in the formerly Communist states of Eastern Europe remains unclear. The historical relationship between the state and the church still exists in several countries. The Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and the Lutheran church, which has operated as the state church of the Scandinavian countries for several centuries, are all suffering from low rates of participation and declines in attendance. There appears to be a popular interest in religion and spirituality, but little in the Church as an institution. For example, the "country church" seems to be in decline throughout England (Jenkins 1999), even finding itself the subject of an award-winning television comedy series, "The Vicar of Dibley." Meanwhile, urban ministry programs are flowering throughout England, especially in the Sheffield Inner City Ecumenical Mission and the Urban Theology Unit, as they respond to the people and problems of the inner cities (Vincent 2000).

Africa

The area of the world with the highest urban growth rates, Africa also presents the greatest challenges for religious institutions. Influenced for centuries by the Great Traditions of Islam and Christianity (both Roman Catholic and Protestant), African cities are noteworthy pastiches of religious practices (Shorter 1991). One hears the call to worship from the local mosque, while church bells ring out to encourage late-comers to hurry to Roman Catholic masses. Ethnic and religious conflicts have broken out in many nations, with the cities suffering most of the devastation. The AIDS pandemic is sweeping throught the continent, destroying a generation and demoralizing many of the survivors. In such circumstances, local congregations struggle to fulfill their mission to worship God and to serve their people. Yet, the lessons of South Africa remind us that the sacrifices of persons like Bishop Tutu have resulted in greater social justice for millions. As in Latin America, local church leaders and their denominations are learning to wean themselves from their missionary-dominated origins. As they take charge of worship, liturgy, education, and even theology at local and national levels, they also face the financial needs of the church as well as providing services to the impoverished souls sitting outside their parish doors.

Latin America

Although Roman Catholicism has dominated Latin America for the past five hundred years, today a number of religious groups – not only from Europe and America, but also with roots in the African slave trade and among South Asian immigrant laborers – vie for the people’s attentions. Other arrivals have brought Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and other "world" religions to the continent. Considerable diversity in religious practices exists in the region, especially in urban areas, where rapidly growing evangelical Protestant groups are establishing a significant presence (Berryman 1996; Smith and Prokopy 1999).

Pilgrimages are a significant feature of religious life throughout Latin America, and often the sacred sites which attract dedicated sojourners are located in cities (Crumrine and Morinis 1991). The most significant pilgrimage center is the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, located in the northeastern sector of Mexico City. Long venerated by the people of Mexico, the Virgin of Guadalupe is recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as the Patron Saint of all of the Americas and also is honored by millions of Hispanics in the United States (Elizondo 1997).

Since Vatican II (1962-1965), Roman Catholicism in Latin America has given rise to what we now call "Liberation Theology," an effort to make the Church more relevant and involved in the life of the people, especially the urban poor (Batstone et al. 1997). Liberation Theology constructs history as a process in which oppressed peoples will inherit the Kingdom of God. The "preferential option for the poor" developed among Catholic (and some Protestant) theologians as a way to describe God’s view of urban and national life. For instance, Gustavo Gutiérrez, a leading proponent of Liberation Theology, served as pastor of a church in one of the poorest sections of Lima, Peru. A mechanism for improving the lives of poor urban residents was the establishment of Christian Base Communities, which serve as worshiping units as well as the agencies for community development and morale building. These theological and political developments have, in many urban areas, been transforming the Church from a conservative force into a radical movement for social justice (Cook 1985, 1994).

CONCLUSION: NEW ISSUES FOR RELIGIOUS PRACTICES IN CITIES

When, on January 29, 2001, President George W. Bush issued an Executive Order creating the "White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives," a clear signal was conveyed to religious leaders throughout America that the federal government was seeking new ways to deal with the historic separation of church and state in America. Specifically, religious entrepreneurs were being encouraged to find solutions to the social and economic problems of poverty, homelessness, domestic violence and abuse, etc. that seem to be beyond government’s ability to handle. "Charitable Choice" places previously under-appreciated and under-funded urban ministry programs at the heart of national debates about the appropriate role of religious groups in our cities. Through its action, the White House revives the prophet’s proclamation to a people taken from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon: "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7).

As religions come and go across the urban landscape, they can transform social, political, and economic realities. The work of religious institutions and religious leaders does not occur in isolation. As we enter the twenty-first century, we remember that the second half of the twentieth century was affected for all time by religious leaders and those who walked the city streets with them. The works of Mother Teresa in India, Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United States, Archbishop Romero in Guatemala, and Bishop Tutu in South Africa – to name just a few – bore fruit because people in their societies were willing to change past practices in the face of religious and moral pressures.

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