Raising Them Unto the Heavens

Within the next few years, construction of more than a dozen major buildings in various religious communities will give Orange County’s spiritual skyline a more cosmopolitan feel, complete with a Buddhist monastery, one of the country’s largest mosques and a $65-million Jewish community center.

The building spree spans the county from north--where Yorba Linda Friends has a $23.5-million megachurch in the works, after using temporary quarters nearby for some time--to south, where a proposed $70-million Catholic high school hopes to find a home in San Juan Capistrano.

Even by conservative estimates, more than $400 million will have been spent if all the projects are completed. For example, on a single two-mile stretch of Bonita Canyon Road in Irvine, more than $150 million in construction is planned by the Christian, Jewish and Mormon communities.

The tapestry of faith traditions that accounts for the major structures reflects the growing diversity of the county, once home to only two remarkable religious buildings: the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove and Mission San Juan Capistrano.

“One of the scintillating things about Orange County is that we have indeed become a melting pot of different people who brought with them their own faith traditions,” said professor Marvin Meyer, chairman of religious studies at Chapman University. “The new buildings are just an expression of this.”

A study of 2000 census data concluded that Southern California’s most dramatic changes in diversity have occurred in Orange County, which has gone from having one so-called ethnically balanced city in 1980 to 15 in 2000, according to USC’s Population Dynamics Group.

The construction by religious communities has been fueled by a unique combination of factors: a sharp rise in population over the last decade, especially among immigrants. An affluence that makes the county one of the richest areas in the nation. And a landscape that had been relatively empty of spectacular houses of worship because the county’s faith communities, though strong, hadn’t settled in enough to finance and fill them.

Now the makeshift, overcrowded sanctuaries in strip malls and abandoned schools are giving way to roomier, custom-built facilities.

Two of Orange County’s largest synagogues have spent years sharing space with hospitable churches. But Temple Beth El in Aliso Viejo recently opened an $18-million synagogue, at 65,000 square feet the largest in the county. And University Synagogue in Irvine just broke ground on its 52,000-square-foot building.

“The dream is to make the synagogues big and beautiful, because they’re looked at as temples with a small T,” said Bunnie Mauldin, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Orange County. “They are not just a religious place, but something beautiful that we can take pride in.”

And the Jewish community center is scheduled to be built in Irvine. “We’ve reached a certain level of maturity in Orange County where the Jewish community is ready to commit [itself] to a permanent position here,” said Suzanne Butnik, executive director of the American Jewish Committee of Orange County. “When that Jewish community center is built, it will be the defining center for us.”

Churches are also trying to create community centers for their worshipers, building complexes that are designed to be used throughout the week.

Mariners Church in Irvine recently unveiled the most ambitious of these plans: a 10-year project that will sprawl across 40 acres near UC Irvine. Plans include a 4,000-seat worship center with an outdoor amphitheater; a “community hub” with coffeehouse, food court, bookstore and library; and a two-story youth center with roll-up garage doors, jumbo video screens, volleyball courts and a rock-climbing wall. The first of three phases is budgeted at $50 million.

A few miles away, Bethel Korean Church in Irvine has just completed the $8.4-million, 54,000-square-foot Bethel Vision Center, an entire complex devoted to the youth of the 3,000-plus member congregation.

“We wanted to build an attractive facility for our children so they want to come to church to spend their time,” said David Won, executive pastor. “Then we can prepare them to be godly men and women.”

The Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove is in the middle of a $9-million project, which includes a new mosque, gymnasium, meeting and dining rooms, and a school expansion.

Nearly complete is the stately Pao-Fa Buddhist Monastery, a $5-million, 45,000-square-foot project on 3.2 acres. Its Far East architecture dominates the business landscape on Jamboree Road in Irvine.

The desire to build architectural marvels in the name of religion has ancient roots. For example, tradition says it took 183,000 laborers 13 years to build King Solomon’s majestic temple in Jerusalem. As part of its 14-day dedication ceremony about 960 BC, Solomon and the Israelites sacrificed 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep and goats, according to the biblical book of 1 Kings.

Elaborate gathering places aren’t needed for meetings of the faithful, says the Rev. Joseph Mann, who chairs the Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art, and Architecture for the American Institute of Architects.

“Still, I don’t think there’s any doubt that there’s always been a human desire to create monuments that somehow either adore the gods or are places where God could be felt,” the Duke University professor said. “It’s a very primordial kind of experience.”

In the Mormon faith, temples are thought to be a gateway between heaven and earth and the only place where church-sanctioned marriages and baptisms can take place. Orange County’s estimated 45,000 Mormons rejoiced earlier this year when church leaders announced plans for a temple in Newport Beach.

“The temple is an ultimate indicator of the maturing of the church,” said Joseph I. Bentley, a local church official. “But it’s not just a feather in the cap. Now even more is expected of us.”

The Catholic Church, the heavyweight of the Orange County faith community, also has ambitious plans for its estimated 1 million members. In the next few years a new cathedral in Santa Ana will replace Holy Family Cathedral in Orange.

Catholic officials also have approved plans for building five more churches and expanding 15 parishes and four schools. At Our Lady Queen of Angels in Newport Beach, behind the altar of the new 1,200-seat sanctuary will be an exact replica of the tiny Portiuncula Chapel in central Italy, the favorite church of St. Francis of Assisi. A new parochial school, 1,800-student JSerra High, is planned on 35 acres in coastal south Orange County.

At Chapman University, the construction boom converged with the county’s diversity of faiths to generate the idea for a $5-million All Faiths Chapel. College officials are on their third set of plans to develop a sanctuary that’s pleasing to all religions and to city planners.

“It’s a rather flamboyant idea, this all-faiths approach,” said Meyer of Chapman. “This idea of having sacred space special to everyone but offensive to none is a different kind of concept.”

The flurry of building shows a healthy faith community in Orange County--in terms of both its commitment and purse. In addition to the high-profile projects, many other congregations are building sanctuaries or expanding outgrown facilities, with the price tag often in the millions.

“Demographics is a powerful engine,” said Mike Regele, president of Percept Group Inc., a church consulting company in Rancho Santa Margarita. “The money base in Orange County is now stronger, and you’re seeing the dynamism that comes with a densely packed urban area.

“I have strong faith,” Regele said, “but at the end of the day, it’s economics and demographics that create these buildings. Remember, the missionaries don’t go out and build a cathedral first.”