A Synagogue Comes to Arkansas

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Wal-Mart's hometown has a synagogue.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Residents of Benton County, in the northwest corner of Arkansas, are proud citizens of the Bible Belt. At last count, they filled 39 Baptist, 27 United Methodist and 20 Assembl[ies] of God churches. For decades, a local hospital has begun meetings with a reading from the New Testament and the library has featured an elaborate Christmas display.

Then the Wal-Mart Jews arrived.

Recruited from around the country as workers for Wal-Mart or one of its suppliers, hundreds of which have opened offices near the retailer's headquarters here, a growing number of Jewish families have become increasingly vocal proponents of religious neutrality in the county. They have asked school principals to rename Christmas vacation as winter break (many have) and lobbied the mayor's office to put a menorah on the town square (it did).

The article goes on to describe the way Wal-Mart's Jewish employees banded together two years ago to convert a former Assembly of God church into a synagogue named Congregation Etz Chaim, or Tree of Life. The congregation does face some challenges, one of which is that some of Wal-Mart's suppliers have a policy of rotating their Wal-Mart teams, which can cause turnover in the leadership at the synagogue. Another is the mix of traditions:

The members of the congregation come from observant religious families in Connecticut, reform synagogues in Kansas City, Mo., and everything in between. Though they agreed to share one roof, they are struggling to reconcile varied backgrounds and traditions, which has made for hours-long debates over, among other things, whether congregants can take photos inside the synagogue on the Sabbath. (The answer is yes, but only with the flash turned off.)

But what impressed me most, as a Christian, is the tone of the article. It's written from the perspective of the Jewish community in Bentonville, and it's positive. The article ends this way:

With its purple carpet and orange pews, both vestiges of the Assembly of God church it once was, Etz Chaim is not the synagogue that all of its members envisioned growing old in. But in a short time it has become the center of the Jewish community here — and has begun to weave its way into this overwhelmingly Christian community.

This year a prominent local faith-based charity, consisting exclusively of churches, invited Etz Chaim to join. The charity promptly reworded it mission statement, replacing "churches" with "congregations."

The Bentonville community, in the heart of the Bible Belt, has taken such steps as renaming "Winter Break," placing a menorah on the town square, and inviting the synagogue to join the faith-based charity. Talk-show host and religious Jew, Dennis Prager has dedicated hordes of column-inches to explaining to American Christians why Jews (especially secular Jews) mistrust them, and explaining to Jews why American Christians are the Jews' best friends. And this article captures what American Christianity is about.

The willingness of Bentonville's churches to include this new synagogue in the life of the town, and the town's willingness to make the Jewish congregation feel welcome reveal the best of who we as Americans and we as Christians are. I am so pleased--and so proud--over what the New York Times article said, as well as what they didn't say.