From its baby steps of cooperative community ministries and international dinners on the campus of Emory University — which started taking root in the 1960s as a result of the civil rights movement — Atlanta’s interfaith efforts took a giant leap forward immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

“We live in a climate where we need interactions to get rid of stereotypes and to become friends while acknowledging our differences,” said Umit Goker, 29, a Turkish native and a lead volunteer at the Istanbul Cultural Center in Gwinnett County.

The Istanbul Cultural Center is a tangible symbol of Atlanta’s international growth; its programs are indicative of one culture’s attempts to bring about greater understanding of its lifestyle and faith traditions.

Each October, the facility hosts an interfaith dinner for clergy of all faiths. More recently, it has begun broadening its outreach to the greater community, with programs in cooking, dance, art forms and language offered to the public.

Another is the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, where courses have been taught on Jewish heritage and culture since the Midtown facility’s opening in 1996.

Yet another, the Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta, is a membership organization sponsoring monthly luncheons and programs that reach out to Buddhists, Bahais, Muslims, Jews, Christians and other faith groups in Atlanta.

Local clergy agree that interfaith efforts are gaining speed throughout metro Atlanta.

In Fayette County, the Rev. Bob Hudak, rector of the Episcopal Church of the Nativity, has established a burgeoning relationship with The Muslim Community Center of Atlanta in Fayetteville. In February, the church women’s group hosted Huma Faruki from the Muslim center, who explained the role of women in Islam.

According to Hudak, members of his congregation and others within the Fayette Interfaith Community Network regularly visit the homes of their Muslim neighbors. Several even participated in Ramadan services, while Muslims brought a gift of peace trees to his church on Christmas Eve last year.

“Since 9/11, I have observed a new energy going into interfaith work in Atlanta,” said the Rev. Gilbert “Budd” Friend-Jones, senior minister of Central Congregational United Church of Christ. “Before 9/11, there was a sort of barrenness here, but now there is a rich symphony of various religions coming together. At our own church building in Decatur, services are held by a Jewish congregation and a Korean congregation, as well as our own.”

Growing movement

There are so many new organizations that Friend-Jones recently made a personal catalog to keep track of all the interfaith organizations in the metro area for his own efforts as leader of World Pilgrims, an organization that plans an annual journey for Christians, Jews and Muslims. World Pilgrims was the brainchild of Friendship Force founder Wayne Smith to bring clergy and lay leaders of these faiths together in an ongoing dialogue.

“It’s been said that if you want to get to know someone really well, you can do one of three things: lend them money, go into business with them or travel together,” Friend-Jones said. “With World Pilgrims, we are using the ‘travel together’ approach and find that it has really worked. The friendships that have been started and that continue today through the Pilgrims are amazing.”

Through ongoing fund-raising efforts, World Pilgrims is not limiting its future trips to church leaders only.

Friend-Jones’ list of interfaith groups includes those working on such diverse issues as disabilities, AIDS, children’s advocacy and keeping clergy involved in the inner workings of the city. A new name on the list is the CommUnity Institute, which was founded by local interfaith and interracial advocate Jan Swanson and funded by the Cousins Foundation.

“Our mission at the CommUnity Institute is to create friendships between people of different faiths and races — really break down the barriers that exist that stop people from inviting people into their homes and into their lives,” Swanson said.

The CommUnity Institute recently received a $232,000 grant and office space from the Cousins Foundation at East Lake. The grant is being used to facilitate its Friend to Friend program which pairs churches of similar economic demographics and member size, but of different races or faiths, along with other programs including the Congregational Exchange Initiative and Building Opportunities for Leadership and Long-term Dialogue.

One such program involves childrenkids from Catholic, Muslim and Jewish high schools who will have regular get-togethers, team-building exercises and ultimately, a shared camping experience.

A model for the Institute’s Congregational Exchange Initiative exists in the extraordinary relationship between majority-white Roswell Presbyterian Church and majority-black Zion Missionary Baptist Church, both in Roswell.

Fighting racism

Some five years ago, Roswell Presbyterian member Lin Holloman, who is vice president/regional leasing for Ironstone Bank, was motivated to do something about the racism within his own heart and community following an unusual sermon on racism by the church’s associate pastor, Richard Hill. Holloman got involved with the Greater Atlanta Presbytery’s Task Force to Combat Racism and from there met Swanson, who was working with the Christian Council of Metropolitan Atlanta.

Shortly thereafter, Holloman spearheaded the formation of the Roswell Racial Reconciliation Council, a partnership between his congregation and that of Zion Baptist.

“Our goal is to create situations where blacks and whites can gather together, to get comfortable and share each other’s inner thoughts and understand one another’s perspectives,” Holloman said.

Holloman was surprised and humbled to be asked to be the keynote speaker at Zion’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration service in February.

“It’s hard to believe that a conservative Republican such as myself was chosen to do that,” he said. “But we don’t have to agree about politics to agree that racism is bad. This whole process has changed me a lot.”

Holloman is moved to tears when he remembers the pastors of the two congregations with the arms around each other singing “We Shall Overcome” at the MLK service that day.

These days, church members often tell him they’ve been to dinner or the theater with a friend they made at Zion Missionary Baptist Church.

“This wouldn’t have happened seven or eight years ago,” he said.