Religion
Since its founding, Memphis has been home to persons of many different faiths. An 1870 map of Memphis shows religious buildings of the Baptist, Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, and Christian denominations and a Jewish congregation. Today, places of worship exist for Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus.
Baron Hirsch Synagogue, which was founded in Memphis in the late 19th century, has the largest congregation of Orthodox Jews in the United States.
Bellevue Baptist Church is a Southern Baptist megachurch in Memphis that was founded in the early 20th century. Its current membership is approximately 27,000. For many years, it was led by Adrian Rogers, a former three term president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The international headquarters of the Church of God in Christ, one of the fastest growing sects of Christianity and the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States, is also in Memphis. The headquarters, Mason Temple (named after the denomination's founder, Charles Harrison Mason), is where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous I've Been to the Mountaintop speech the day before he was killed.
The denominational headquarters of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church are located in Memphis. Memphis is also home to the main Cumberland Presbyterian seminary, the Memphis Theological Seminary. The Cumberland Presbyterian church maintains a library and archival facility at the headquarters.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Memphis has its seat at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Memphis, founded as a parish in 1921.
The Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee has its cathedral, St. Mary's in Memphis.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Memphis, Tennessee
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“Not thou nor thy religion dost controule,
The amorousnesse of an harmonious Soule,
But thou would’st have that love thy selfe: As thou
Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now,
Thou lov’st not, till from loving more, thou free
My soule: Who ever gives, takes libertie:
O, if thou car’st not whom I love
Alas, thou lov’st not mee.”
—John Donne (1572–1631)
“Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.”
—Josephine Baker (1906–1975)