[From The Church Next Door: Local Christians Face America’s New Religious Diversity, draft manuscript by Dr. Paul D. Numrich.  Please do not quote or cite without author’s permission.]

 

Chapter 11: More Hindus and Others Come to Town

 

[figure approx. here: map of selected non-Christian sites in Aurora area in relation to the two primary church cases in this chapter]

 

            We left the churches of Aurora, Illinois in Chapter 1.  The arrival of Sri Venkateswara Swami Temple of Greater Chicago in the mid-1980s created a stirring public debate among Aurora Christians, who took three basic positions regarding the theological and civic issues raised by the new Hindu presence in town.  Some sought to prevent the erection of the Hindu temple altogether, claiming a biblical mandate to oppose idolatry.  Others recognized the Hindu community’s legal right to build a temple in Aurora but also viewed the temple’s membership as a missionary field for Christian evangelization.  The third camp welcomed the temple as a symbol of religious diversity, feeling no need to evangelize its members, rather seeing it as an opportunity to learn more about Hinduism as well as their own Christian faith.

            Chapter 1 ended by noting that the re-consecration of the Sri Venkateswara temple in 2003, fully covered by the local newspaper, stimulated no public response, in contrast to the controversy nearly 20 years earlier.  This chapter examines the current situation in Aurora more closely, exploring the city’s new religious diversity and revisiting the principal churches involved in the 1985 debate to see what they are doing in this regard today.

            The most recent estimate of the US Census Bureau places Aurora as the second largest city in the state of Illinois (behind Chicago), with nearly 157,000 residents.  Aurora’s historic racial and ethnic minorities, African Americans and Latinos, now make up a large percentage of the city’s total population, while the Asian population has increased noticeably in recent years, with Indians the largest Asian subgroup.

Since the census does not ask questions about religious affiliation, the contours of Aurora’s religious diversity are a bit more speculative.  Christians clearly comprise the majority religious group in the area, although the precise boundaries of the Christian fold are a matter of debate among the faithful.  The listing under “Churches” in the 2003 Smart Yellow Pages for greater Aurora stretches for 10 pages and includes dozens of Baptist churches, a page of Lutherans, more than a page of non-denominational churches, and myriad other kinds of Protestant congregations.  The listing also includes nearly 40 Roman Catholic parishes, 3 Byzantine Catholic churches, 7 congregations from the Mormon tradition, 4 Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Halls, 4 Christian Science groups, 3 Orthodox Christian churches, and 2 Unitarian Universalist congregations—all of which are considered non-Christian by some of the Protestants we interviewed for this book.  The non-Christian representatives in greater Aurora that everyone can agree upon include 2 Jewish synagogues, 2 Baha’i local spiritual assemblies, 3 Muslim mosques, and several Buddhist and Hindu groups.

We discussed two of the mosques in the Aurora area in Chapter 4, Batavia Islamic Center, which meets in the basement of Calvary Episcopal Church, and Fox Valley Muslim Community Center, which built a new facility in Aurora in the early 1990s.  The latter drew local news coverage when it opened, but no public debate.  Some of our interviewees speculated that the controversy over the Sri Venkateswara Hindu temple just a few years earlier may have muted public discourse about the new mosque.  Perhaps people had wearied of the topic.  Perhaps Islam, being a monotheistic religion with a historical relationship to Judaism and Christianity, was perceived by most Aurora Christians as less “different” than Hinduism.

            Several Hindu and Hindu-influenced groups have joined the Sri Venkateswara temple in the greater Aurora area.  A center for Transcendental Meditation, the movement made famous in the 1960s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, is planned near the local shopping mall.  Followers of the Arya Samaj Hindu reform movement meet in West Chicago, a town north of Aurora.  A large BAPS Swaminarayan temple, a small Yog Sadhan Ashram facility, and a mid-sized Swadhyah congregation are located further north, while a Siddha Yoga chanting group gathers regularly in Naperville, just east of Aurora.  Just a short distance from the Sri Venkateswara temple, another new Hindu temple has been built by followers of Sri Shirdi Sai Baba, whom they revere as both religious teacher and divine manifestation.  The unassuming facility includes a worship space and a multipurpose hall.  Local newspaper coverage of the new temple drew no public response, just as was the case with the re-consecration of the Sri Venkateswara temple in 2003.

 

Hindu diversity:

The diversity within Hinduism rivals that within Christianity.  Hindu immigrants and indigenous American converts practice a wide variety of religious sub-traditions in the United States.  A major distinction has to do with how divinity is worshiped, some Hindu groups focusing on gods and goddesses represented by images, others revering living gurus or spiritual teachers believed to manifest divinity in their lives.

The Hindu temples within the city limits of Aurora, Illinois illustrate these two basic approaches.  Sri Venkateswara Swami Temple of Greater Chicago houses 10 images of Hindu deities, the patron deity of the temple being Sri Venkateswara, a South Indian variation of the major Hindu god Vishnu.  Sri Shirdi Sai Baba Mandir Chicago reveres Shirdi Sai Baba (d. 1918), a teacher from the Bombay area in central India, as a living manifestation of the divine.  Note that both temples bestow the honorific title Sri (“Lord”) on their patron deities.

 

            We contacted the principal churches involved in the 1985 public debate about Aurora’s first Hindu temple.  Most have not pursued the issue of Aurora’s growing religious diversity in any systematic way since that time.

Recall the strong statements by Rev. and Mrs. John Riggs of Union Congregational Church in Chapter 1.  Rev. Riggs granted the truth claims of Hinduism no quarter, despite recognizing the local Hindu community’s right to build a temple.  Mrs. Riggs feared God’s judgment on both Aurora and the nation for allowing an idolatrous presence in the land and abandoning America’s Christian foundations.  Today, Union Congregational Church “isn’t doing a bless-ed thing” specifically on the topic of local religious diversity, according to a church leader.  The congregation focuses its energies on strengthening its own spiritual health rather than addressing external issues.  Church leaders do encourage members to witness to neighbors and acquaintances, which may include adherents of other faiths.

The two churches located within a few hundred yards of the Sri Venkateswara temple in Aurora have changed identities since 1985.  Souls Harbor Open Bible Church is now River of Life Christian Center.  Local religious diversity is not a major concern for the new church.  Mustard Seed Tabernacle Bible Church, an African-American congregation, disbanded not long after the Hindu temple controversy of the 1980s.

Westminster Presbyterian Church (USA), which organized a seminar series on Hinduism in the 1980s, has no comparable programming today.  A congregational leader told us about his stance on the Southern Baptist Convention’s intention to send evangelists to witness to the non-Christians of the Chicago area in the summer of 2000.  He criticized the letter sent by the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago to the Southern Baptist Convention, which asked the Baptists to call off their crusade.  A Presbyterian official involved in the controversy explained to him that the Baptists had made it sound like the Presbyterians didn’t evangelize.  “Well, then, what is the denomination doing?” he asked the official, without receiving a straight answer to his lament over the Presbyterian’s evangelical apathy.

            In 1985, Rev. Clara Thompson of First Baptist Church wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper deploring prejudice against Hindus and supporting the Hindu community’s presence in the city.  According to a congregational leader, there hasn’t been any discussion of Hindus or Hinduism at First Baptist Church for years.  The church offered one adult Sunday school session on Islam after the events of September 11, 2001, but that has been the extent of its programming on world religions.

            Only two churches involved in the 1980s controversy have devoted any significant time or thought to the topic of Aurora’s growing religious diversity, taking very different approaches.  Both New England Congregational Church and Orchard Valley Community Church find opportunity here, but defined it in very different ways.

 

New England Congregational Church: “The More, the Merrier”

            New England Congregational Church, a United Church of Christ (UCC) congregation, played a relatively minor role in the controversy over the new Aurora Hindu temple in the 1980s.  The church organized an adult study class on Hinduism, which took a field trip to the Sri Venkateswara temple when it opened.  As the church’s current senior minister, Rev. Gary McCann, explained to us, New England Church wanted to make a “welcoming statement” in contrast to those Christians who feared the new Hindu presence in town, or wished to keep it out, or saw it as an opportunity to evangelize.  A few years later the church organized another adult education class, bringing in a Hindu speaker and taking another field trip to the temple.  Through these initiatives, New England Church invited local Hindus to educate them about Hinduism, letting the Hindu community know that the church celebrated their unique contribution to the religious diversity of Aurora.  This approach was consistent with the church’s self-identity as an open and inclusive congregation vis-à-vis all groups.  Rev. McCann recalls the overwhelming response by members who participated in the two adult study classes as that of pleasant surprise at the parallels between Christianity and Hinduism.  “Wow, I believe that too!” was often heard after discussions of Hindu tenets.

            Of all the churches involved in the 1980s controversy, New England Church has sustained the most interest in the topic of religious diversity, incorporating it into its programming in a variety of ways.  Over the years, the church has had a close relationship with the Aurora synagogue, Temple B’nai Israel, such as participating in joint worship services.  In response to the events of September 11, 2001, Hamid and Mazher Ahmed, founders of Batavia Islamic Center (Chapter 4), represented Islam in two commemorative services at New England Church.  The Youth Ministries program is intentional about studying other religions, including field trips to local non-Christian religious sites.  The program’s Web site (www.chestnuthouse.org) features the motto adopted by the youth: the Golden Rule as expressed in seven world religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Taoism).

In recent years, Sunday morning worship services have often incorporated readings and ideas from non-Christian religions.  Rev. McCann says that some members of his congregation gave him the idea of pairing scriptural texts from other religions with biblical texts as the basis for his sermons, drawing upon the approach of a UCC pastor in Wisconsin.  Perusing the sermon archives on New England Church’s Web site reveals Rev. McCann’s preference for the Bhagavad Gita (Hinduism), the Tao te Ching (Taoism), and the Qur’an (Islam), with occasional selections from devotional writers like Khalil Gibran and Thich Nhat Hanh.  The sermon we heard during our site visit drew from Genesis and the Tao te Ching (see number 4 below under “For Discussion”).  Other than reading the passage from the Tao te Ching, the worship service overall, including the sermon, made only subtle references to Taoist ideas.

This understated approach to other religions, what associate minister Rev. Joe Dunham calls “respectful recognition,” typifies New England Church.  Although church leaders and most members are self-consciously liberal on social, political, and theological issues, their liberalism is not aggressively paraded in an “in-your-face” manner that would offend conservative members, according to Rev. McCann.  The first half of the church’s motto, “A Caring Church for Thinking People,” emphasizes the importance of the bonds of Christian community within the congregation, while the second half emphasizes free thinking without dogmatism, whether liberal or conservative.  For Rev. McCann, the biblical testimonies of Jesus and Paul challenge the boundaries that people set for themselves with regard to both caring and thinking, pushing the envelope of people’s openness to other groups and ideas.  He applies the parable of the Good Samaritan to today’s Hindus, Muslims, and other non-Christians.

We observed a bit of New England Church’s respectful openness to internal congregational diversity during our visit.  A statement in the worship bulletin read: “Please use the gender language most meaningful for your worship experience.”  During the singing of the Doxology, some worshipers followed the gender neutral text printed in the bulletin, but most sang the traditional masculine words.  Underlying the resulting lyrical disharmony one could detect a communal unity where liberal and conservative Christians have created comfortable space for each other in worship.

Associate minister Rev. Joe Dunham is also the chair of the philosophy department at nearby Aurora University.  Raised a Southern Baptist, he finds New England Church’s embrace of religious diversity a “breath of fresh air.”  He attributes the relatively harmonious co-existence of theological liberals and conservatives in the congregation to the absence of an overly prescriptive creed.  For instance, the church’s statement entitled “We believe” includes self-identification as a “theologically liberal” congregation, but it also states, “We believe in the teaching of the Gospel variously interpreted in a non-creedal environment.”  According to Rev. Dunham, those conservatives who feel uncomfortable with liberal aspects of the church usually take their membership elsewhere.

            Rev. Dunham chooses not to draw from the scriptures of other religions in his sermons.  “It’s too risky,” he told us, “especially if taken out of context.  I may be misusing the texts.”  His approach to other religions is based on inclusive New Testament passages, such as Jesus’ mention of “other sheep” in John 10, and the school of process theology derived from philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, which proposes an inclusive God.  Rev. Dunham feels quite comfortable with New England Church’s approach—as he put it, “we affirm the possibility of meeting the divine, or God, in a variety of ways and settings.”

            Dr. Martin Forward, executive director of Aurora University’s Center for Faith and Action, is a member of New England Church.  Dr. Forward preached a sermon there just days after 9/11, entitled “God in a World of Christians and Muslims,” that drew upon his long association with Muslims in England, India, and the Middle East.  He and Rev. McCann have lately discussed the possibility of establishing a local parliament of religious leaders, including the priests of the Sri Venkateswara Hindu temple and the imam of Fox Valley Muslim Community Center in Aurora.

            We asked Rev. McCann for his thoughts on Sri Shirdi Sai Baba Mandir Chicago, the new Hindu temple in town.  “The more, the merrier,” he replied without hesitation.  “Diversity always enhances who we are as communities of faith.  If your faith is strong, diversity will not threaten it.”  Rev. McCann also feels that Aurora churches should educate people about new and unfamiliar religious groups in order to avoid a repeat of the misinformation about Hinduism that circulated during the controversy over the Sri Venkateswara temple in the 1980s.

 

Orchard Valley Community Church: “The Greatest Opportunity That We Have Ever Had”

            Here is the paragraph from Chapter 1 describing the position of the pastor of our second Aurora congregation regarding the Sri Venkateswara temple in 1985, drawn from his letter to the editor of the local newspaper:

 

Rev. Larry Hodge, pastor of Aurora First Assembly of God, characterized himself both as “an American who cherishes freedom and as a Christian who serves the Christ.”  With respect to the first point, “As long as the owners of [the Hindu temple] meet the legal requirements for construction, they should be allowed to build whatever they choose.”  With respect to the second point, wrote Rev. Hodge, “I must stand in opposition to the teaching and practices the owners of this property will bring to this community.  Their teaching and practices produce no real spiritual hope or lasting social redemption.”  Come what may, Rev. Hodge pledged “to proclaim Jesus Christ as the only hope for this world and its inhabitants.”

 

In the years since the 1980s Hindu temple controversy, First Assembly of God changed its name to Orchard Valley Community Church and built an impressive new facility on the outskirts of Aurora.  Soon after settling in there, Rev. Hodge had a spiritual “encounter” with God that would lead him to shift the congregation’s focus toward reaching out to the unchurched masses of Aurora, which Rev. Hodge estimates to be 85 percent of the total population on any given Sunday.  The church adopted a “seeker sensitive” approach, inspired in large part by the Willow Creek Community Church model.  Willow Creek is the renowned megachurch in South Barrington, Illinois that promotes innovative worship and programming through its Willow Creek Association, to which Orchard Valley Community Church belongs.

            Rev. Hodge reflected on the Hindu temple controversy and the issues it raised for Aurora Christians, then and now.

            Aurora still had a relatively small town, parochial identity in 1985, noted Rev. Hodge, so a proposed Hindu temple shocked many local Christians.  Although he focused equally on the civic and theological aspects of the situation in his letter to the editor cited above, for Rev. Hodge the crux of the matter was the spiritual battle unfolding behind the scenes.  He saw the Hindu temple as “just another attempt of spiritual forces to manipulate and to maneuver and to oppose some of the free flow of the work of churches, in particular, in Aurora.  I don’t mean to be simplistic about this in my approach,” he continued, “but I believe that in the non-material world there are both good and evil forces at work, and I take that view from my interpretation of scripture.  And I believe, of course, that there’s really no contest there, that God is creator of all, and that Satan and all of his forces, after all, really were created by God.”

            Rev. Hodge went on to talk about idols, that is, anything people place between themselves and God, whether made of stone or other human materials.  “Behind each and every one of those idols are demonic spirits. . . .  So when I saw the Hindu temple coming into the city of Aurora, I saw, in my opinion, an attempt of the Enemy [Satan] to move an incredible amount of his force into this city, which I already thought had enough of it anyway.”

After much prayer and conversation with other Christian leaders about “the immense amount of spiritual opposition” he had always sensed in Aurora, Rev. Hodge eventually decided that the Sri Venkateswara temple was a non-issue.

“I handled it from a spiritual standpoint,” he explained.  “I understand spiritual warfare to the point of binding and loosing, and I simply let it go, and it’s been a non-issue to me.  It’s just a non-issue.  Now, it might be an issue as far as density and population and the look of the project [the temple facility] and all that kind of stuff, but as far as that affecting the city of Aurora and Christian testimony, Christian movement, I settled that issue—as far as I was concerned, it would never, ever be an issue.”

When the Muslim mosque was built in Aurora a few years after the Hindu temple, Rev. Hodge maintained that stance, as he did at the time of our interview regarding the imminent construction of yet another Hindu temple in town, Sri Shirdi Sai Baba Mandir Chicago.  The presence of these non-Christian facilities is simply a spiritual non-issue for the city of Aurora, in his estimation.  Temples or mosques certainly will not deter him or his congregation from their mission of reaching Aurora’s unchurched masses, which include Hindus, Muslims, and adherents of other non-Christian faiths.  Orchard Valley Community Church has not designed any programs or activities specifically for such non-Christian groups.  The church hopes to attract them the same way that it attracts other unchurched people—through personal evangelism by church members.  That is how one Muslim person became a regular attendee.

Rev. Hodge is more than willing to collaborate with non-Christians on practical good works to benefit the city of Aurora.  For instance, his church has co-sponsored a food distribution program with a local Mormon congregation (he considers Mormons to be non-Christians).  Rev. Hodge had an especially close personal and professional relationship with a former rabbi of Aurora’s synagogue, Temple B’nai Israel.  The two were integral to the establishment of an interfaith counseling service for the greater Aurora area, although Rev. Hodge told the rabbi upfront that he would never refer a member of his congregation to him for counseling, “because you do not believe in Christ, and I believe that He is the one who changes us all.”

“Probably,” Rev. Hodge speculated, “if the Hindus had some big thing going on that was going to help for the overall good of the community, and we could work together in some positive way, I’d probably do that too, . . . for the good of humanity.”

We asked Rev. Hodge for his opinion about the broader significance of America’s growing religious diversity, particularly through recent immigration.  He acknowledged that many Christians might view this growth in a negative sense, as an unwanted challenge to Christianity.  But he looks at it quite positively: “For the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the body of Christ on earth, it seems to me to be the greatest opportunity that we have ever had.”  Alluding again to the notion of spiritual warfare, Rev. Hodge said, “I personally believe that whenever Christ is put up against anything, He wins hands down.”

[Note: Rev. Hodge passed away in the years following our interview with him.]

 

For More Information

The Web site of the Sri Shirdi Sai Baba group is www.saibaba.org.  Information about Sri Shirdi Sai Baba Mandir Chicago in Aurora, Illinois can be found at www.saisamsthanusa.org/newsite.

The Web site of Sri Venkateswara Swami Temple of Greater Chicago is www.balaji.org.  Information about other Hindu temples in the United States can be found at www.sabarimalathanthri.com/html/hindtempleus.htm.

For the Southern Baptist Convention’s own coverage of the controversy over their intention to send evangelists to Chicago in the summer of 2000, see the article in BP News, an SBC Internet news outlet, at www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?Id=3077.

Contact information for this chapter’s two featured congregations: New England Congregational Church, 406 W. Galena Boulevard, Aurora, IL 60506, phone 630-897-8721, email office@newenglandchurch.org, Web site www.newenglandchurch.org; Orchard Valley Community Church, 101 Barnes Road, Aurora, IL 60506, phone 630-897-8888, email info@orchardvalleyonline.com, Web site www.orchardvalleyonline.com.

The Web site for Aurora University’s Center for Faith and Action is www.aurora.edu/cfa.  The Center’s motto is “Sustaining multifaith understanding and action.”  Dr. Martin Forward, Center director, has written a book entitled Inter-Religious Dialogue: A Short Introduction (Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2002).

 

For Discussion

  1. Do a Yellow Pages or Internet search of the religious diversity in your local area.  Is your area’s religious diversity comparable to that of Aurora, Illinois?  Is your area more diverse or less?  How do you draw the boundaries of the Christian fold?  Which groups do you include, which do you exclude, and what criteria do you use in making your judgments?  What implications are involved in such an identification process for inter-religious relations?
  2. Browse the Web sites of the Hindu temples listed in the “For More Information” section above.  What reactions do you have in reading about their Hindu beliefs and practices?  How might these Hindu temples compare and contrast to your church on an organizational level, as congregations?  What do you think about the Hindu understanding of divinity, particularly the focus on images of gods and goddesses in some temples, on human manifestations of divinity in others?
  3. Rev. Gary McCann of New England Congregational Church and Rev. Larry Hodge of Orchard Valley Community Church both expressed positive sentiments regarding Aurora’s growing religious diversity.  Discuss their differing reasons for welcoming non-Christian groups to town.  Which pastor do you agree with?
  4. Access Rev. Gary McCann’s August 4, 2002 sermon, “A Magnificent Defeat,” from the sermon archives of New England Congregational Church’s Web site (www.newenglandchurch.org).  Read the sermon and the scriptural texts it references, Genesis 32:22-31 and Tao te Ching 68-69 (the latter is printed in the sermon).  What do you think of Rev. McCann’s use of texts in this sermon—one from the Old Testament, another from a Chinese religion, a third from popular Christian writer Frederick Buechner?  How effective are these sources in communicating a Christian message?  Do you share Rev. Joe Dunham’s concern about possibly misusing scriptures from other religions in sermons?  Browse other sermons on New England Church’s Web site with the same questions in mind.
  5. Orchard Valley Community Church is a member of the Willow Creek Association, an arm of the megachurch, Willow Creek Church.  Access Willow Creek Church’s Web site at www.willowcreek.org, find the TruthQuest page and the “Tough Questions” section there.  Email a question about Willow Creek Church’s views of a particular world religion (several are listed) and see what response you get.
  6. What do you make of the fact that most of the churches involved in the Aurora Hindu temple controversy of the 1980s have not pursued the issue of the area’s growing religious diversity in any systematic way?  After reading the case studies in this book, how important is this topic to you?  To your congregation?

 

Back