1.  Worshiping With Jews: A Few Basics

• There are about 50 synagogues in North Carolina, and a Jewish population of over 25,000.
• Jews celebrate the Sabbath (or Shabbat) from Friday evening until Saturday evening, with most major prayer services taking place both Friday nights and Saturday mornings.
• Most Jewish congregations welcome non-Jews to their weekly Sabbath services.
• The service is centered on prayer and the reading of Torah (the first five books of the Bible). Two major units of the service are the Amidah, which is comprised of thanksgivings, praises and petitions to God, and the Sh’ma, which is a declaration of faith based on passages of the Torah.
• Men should usually wear a jacket and tie, and will be required to wear the traditional Jewish head covering known as a yarmulke or kippah. Women should dress modestly and will be required to wear a hat or other head covering in some congregations. It is not recommended to wear visible symbols of other religions, such as a cross.
• Visitors will be expected to stand with the congregation. Participating in prayers and songs is optional. Non-Jews are typically not permitted to read from the Torah during the service.

2.  Worshiping With Muslims: A Few Basics

• There are about 35 mosques in North Carolina, and a Muslim population of over 20,000.
• While Muslims are required to pray five times daily, the most important prayer service occurs at noon on Friday. This is a congregational prayer that is recited at a mosque.
• Most Muslim congregations welcome non- Muslims to their weekly prayer service.
• The service consists of a series of prayers, memorized and recited in Arabic. Before praying, Muslims participate in a ritual cleansing known as wadu. The service is lead by an imam, who is responsible for leading public prayers and delivering a sermon. In addition, Muslims are called to prayer by a muezzin.
• Non-Muslims should arrive to the service early. Men may wear casual shirts and slacks, while women should dress very modestly and are required to cover their heads with a scarf. It is not recommended to wear visible symbols of other faiths; in addition, guests’  clothing and jewelry should not depict the faces of animals or people.
• Visitors should check with the mosque ahead of time as to whether they permit non-Muslim visitors to participate in the prayer service.

3.  America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity:
Insights from Sociologist Robert Wuthnow
 
In his recent book, America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity, Robert Wuthnow attempts to document American Christians’ attitudes towards religious diversity. He highlights three main categories into which American Christians can be placed: spiritual shoppers, inclusivist Christians, and exclusivist Christians.

Spiritual shoppers readily embrace practices and beliefs from numerous religious traditions while rejecting the notion that one may be more authoritative than others. Wuthnow notes that “The idea of shopping reflects the fact that American religion is shaped by the consumer culture to which all Americans are exposed from early childhood. Shopping connotes making choices and having the freedom to choose according to one’s personal tastes and needs.”

Second, inclusivist Christians do not accept religious diversity as much as spiritual shoppers, but they do believe that there is truth in other religions and that Christians have much to learn about relating to God and one another from adherents of other religions. According to Wuthnow, “Inclusive Christianity is difficult—difficult to understand and difficult to practice—because it involves achieving a delicate balance between a commitment to a radically particular way of relating to God and an ability to grapple sympathetically, even appreciatively, with the fact that a large part of the world’s population does not relate to God this way at all…. Inclusive Christians have somehow managed to retain their commitment to Christianity but apparently do not believe in the more exclusionary interpretations that have characterized Christianity in the past.”

Finally, Wuthnow discusses the importance of understanding exclusivist Christians, who hold that Christianity is superior to other religions and that Jesus is humanity’s only link to God. American Christians who hold exclusivist views typically uphold the civil rights of non-Christians to worship freely and believe that conversion should never happen through coercion. In light of religious diversity, spiritual shoppers, inclusivist Christians and exclusivist Christians all face different sets of contradictions and competing views. Each of these groups navigates the tensions caused by the demographic fact of religious diversity in different ways and arrives at very different conclusions.

ADDITIONAL KEY FACTS

4.  The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life published a survey in February 2008 which detailed the religious landscape of the United States and found the follow distribution of religious self-identification:

5.  According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of all American Christians (52%) think that at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life. Indeed, among Christians who believe many religions can lead to eternal life, 80% name at least one non-Christian faith that can do so such as Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism.

SOURCES

1.  Adapted from Arthur Magida, How to Be a Perfect Stranger: A Guide to Etiquette in Other People’s Religious Ceremonies (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1996). See also Sociation Today, “Religious Choices and Preferences: North Carolina’s Baskin Robbins Effect?” www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/religion.htm.
2.  Adapted from Magida. See also Islamic Valley, “Mosques in NC,” http://islamicvalley.com/prod/entitySearch.php/t/09L/s/nc.
3.  Robert Wuthnow, America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).
4.   Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey Religious Affiliation: Diverse and Dynamic, February 2008” http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf
5.  The Pew Research Center, “Many Americans Say Other Faiths Can Lead to Eternal Life: Most Christians Say Non-Christian Faiths Can Lead to Salvation,” December 18, 2008
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1062/many-americans-say-other-faiths-can-lead-to-eternal-life