![]() ![]() Rémi, however – unlike many Congolese migrants in Atlanta – does not go to church YetĪt the same time he deplored what he viewed as their lack of community and intimacy compared to smaller, more homely, moreĬonvivial African diasporic churches (even if most of these are often storefront churches or converted spaces in anonymous ![]() What he termed the mboka ya bible (‘the land of the Bible’ in Lingala). In his eyes these mega-churches were a manifest testimony to the place religion occupies within To those of the mega-churches – such as Creflo Dollar Ministries or Eddie Long’s New Birth Ministry – we Rémi was clearly impressedīy the ‘exotic’, quasi-orientalist aesthetics of the Lilburn Temple, and by its ‘super size’, akin Out, strolling around a small section of the thirty acres of land on which the temple was built. Of the temple, playing the role of a tourist in his own city amid the Indian-American middle-class families enjoying a day ![]() Rémi, who until then had only seen it from the road, asked to be photographed in front ![]() Size, architecture and unmistakable majesty stood out against the bland suburban landscape of the sprawling capital of the With magnificent and intricately carved domes and pillars of white marble, was a striking statement of sacred grandeur. The temple had been constructed in 2007 entirely supported by donations from the Atlanta Gujarati community and, adorned The ‘mosque’ in question was, as it turned out, the largest Hindu temple in the United States, the Swaminarayan The latter suggested a short detour to the northeastern suburb of Lilburn ‘to check out an amazingly beautiful mosque’. With a close friend, Rémi, a Congolese who had emigrated to the United States more than a decade ago, when In 2011, one of the authors (DG) was touring Atlanta’s mega-churches ![]()
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