Visit Your Local PBS Station PBS Home PBS Home Programs A-Z TV Schedules Watch Video Donate Shop PBS Search PBS
Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly -- An online companion to the weekly television news program
Keyword Search
Topic Index Stories by Week
Home
Current Stories
Headlines
Election Coverage
Calendar
TV Schedule
Newsletter
Subscribe or unsubscribe to the E-mail Newsletter, or edit your preferences.
The Series
For Teachers
Resources
Feedback

FEATURE:
Highway to Heaven
September 5, 1997    Episode no. 101
Read stories by week: 
Go
Graphic of Highway to Heaven BOB ABERNETHY: Just outside Washington, DC, there's a 10-mile-long stretch of New Hampshire Avenue. It's lined with houses of worship: churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. It's been called the Highway to Heaven. It's literally a drive-by tour of America's new religious landscape, strikingly diverse.

Unidentified Man #1: There's not any of the great religions of the world that doesn't have some place of worship along New Hampshire Avenue. Someone else referred to it as, "If you want to see the many faces of God, New Hampshire Avenue is the place to come."

Unidentified Woman #1: It is the Highway to Heaven. You have anything from the Buddhist temples to the Vietnamese to the Spanish-language service, to our service, which is in both languages.

Unidentified Man #2 (Seventh-Day Adventist Church): We come from different cultures, we come from different countries, and we speak English, you know. But what's exciting is that when you come to the House of God, you know there's a chair for you.

Photo of Cambodian Buddhist Temple Unidentified Man #3 (Cambodian Buddhist Temple): We try to do everything like we practice in Cambodia, according to our tradition. So the people who just arrived here, they just, "Wow, just -- my arriving to this temple, we just feel at home."

Continue to top of next colum
Tools:
E-Mail this article
Resources
Unidentified Woman #2 (Conservative Jewish Synagogue): The atmosphere is tranquil, which is something that I don't find much of outside of the synagogue. I feel as though I need something like that to sustain me a little bit.

Unidentified Man #4 (Hindu Temple): Most of the people from Hindu faith, they come here to worship, and we have as many two to 3,000 people sometimes. You know?

Photo of worshipers Unidentified Woman #3 (Vietnamese Catholic Church): I escaped from my country in 1981 and we can't believe it: when we came in the United States, we can have our own church like this one. That really is a dream come true for us.

Unidentified Man #5 (Muslim Mosque): This country has given us religious freedom to practice the religion we would like. Of many countries in the world, this is the place where we can really practice our religion well.

Did you like this story? How can we improve our program or Web site?
Resources






TOP