BOB ABERNETHY: When this program began last September, we visited a place that we called the "Highway to Heaven." Afterward, a lot of people wrote and called asking, "Where is this highway? What country is it in?" We reported, and are happy to report again, that it's in the U.S.A., in Maryland, near Washington, DC, along a stretch of New Hampshire Avenue, just outside the beltway. Since more and more cities now have a similar religious diversity, we thought we'd celebrate this new landscape and the new year with a return visit to the Highway to Heaven.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: 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.
Unidentified Woman #2: The atmosphere is tranquil, which is something which I don't find outside of the synagogue. I feel as though I need something like this to sustain me a little bit.
Unidentified Woman #3: I was escaping my country in 1981 and we couldn'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.
