Since the last quarter of the 19th century, dozens of religious congregations have made their homes in Cleveland Heights. They have been Presbyterian, United Methodist, Evangelical, Roman Catholic, Jewish (Conservative, Orthodox, and Egalitarian\traditional), Unitarian Universalist, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Disciples of Christ, Church of Christ, Lutheran, Christian Science, Episcopalian, African Methodist Episcopal, and Congregational and now also include a wide array of community and nondenominational churches. Sponsored by established congregations, encouraged by real estate developers and public officials, and usually welcomed by residents, churches, synagogues, and temples have fostered the suburb's growth, sometimes maintaining and sometimes changing Cleveland Heights neighborhoods. Their houses of worship, ranging from modest renovated storefronts to stately cathedrals, have enriched the city's landscape; their religious pluralism has nurtured ethnic, economic, and racial diversity, as well as controversy and conflict; their calls to action have sometimes aroused the community's conscience. Religious congregations, in short, have helped to sustain the vitality of Cleveland Heights.

The book provides a portrait of storefront churches in Cleveland, Ohio through topical essays, church profiles, photographs, and personal reflections of the author. It defines a storefront church as a small, urban congregation meeting in buildings adapted to use for Christian worship. It focuses on the spiritual and architectural witness of storefront churches, but also looks at the numeric, spatial, emotional, historical, linguistic, aesthetic, social, economic, legal, ethical, and theological testimony of storefront churches. It draws upon academic studies, denominational archives, vintage photographs, newspaper articles, personal interviews, and the author's photographs to paint a multi-dimensional portrait of Cleveland's storefront churches. The book provides profiles of 11 congregations: (1) Believers Body of Christ Ministries, (2) Christian Fellowship Mission, (3) Evening Star Missionary Baptist Church, (4) God's Will God's Word God's Way Ministries, (5) Heaventrain, (6) Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal MI, Shalom Adoni, (7) Iglesia de Dios Roca de Oro, (8) Kingdom Come Church Ministry, (9) People Love People House of God, (10) Tabernacle Bautista de Cleveland, (11) The Village Chapel. The book documents the appearance of storefront churches in the Central neighborhood of Cleveland in the 1910s, as part of the Great Migration of southern Blacks to northern cities. The book also documents the early history of Hispanic and Latino churches in Cleveland, Ohio, which began in the 1930s and blossomed through the founding of storefront missions in the 1950s. Subject Areas: History, Religion, City Churches, Church Buildings, Religious Life, African-American Churches - Ohio - Cleveland, Latino Churches - Ohio - Cle- Cleveland.

Eric Mendelsohn's modernist building, The Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, is one of the most significant post-World War II buildings in the United States. Notable for its magnificent dome and its natural wooded setting, it also had an immense architectural influence on other religious structures in the Midwest. Erected during the late 1940s, the Synagogue was built in response to a large majority of the downtown Cleveland Jewish population moving to the eastern suburbs. In 1934, under the leadership of Rabbi Armond Cohen, the struggling Anshe Emeth Beth Tefilo congregation bought the twelve-acre property of the defunct Park School in Cleveland Heights and later purchased an additional twenty-one acres of land adjacent to the Park property owned by John D. Rockefeller. Plans were developed for a new synagogue to be designed and built by the famous European architect Eric Mendelsohn. Today The Park Synagogue, dedicated in 1950, is home to one of the nation's major Conservative congregations. Eric Mendelsohn's Park Synagogue tells the story of the construction of The Park Synagogue and examines how Mendelsohn consciously sought to express the ideals and traditions of the congregation and Judaism in its architectural forms. From one of the world's largest copper-clad domes weighing 680 tons to the shape of the sanctuary and spectacular bimah, Mendelsohn sought to incorporate the architecture into Jewish ritual and worship. He favored dramatic curves of glass walls, circular stairwells, and porthole windows, and he used the circle as a dominant form throughout his career. The Park Synagogue is one of the few Mendelsohn buildings that remains virtually as it was built. Author Walter C. Leedy Jr. discusses how the construction of The Park Synagogue solidified the congregation, attracted new members, and set the stage for expansion into the next century. Eric Mendelsohn's Park Synagogue brings unique insight into the development of the American Jewish community during the post-World War II period and into the evolution of Mendelsohn's architecture.

Urban Apologetics examines the legitimate issues that Black communities have with Western Christianity and shows how the gospel of Jesus Christ—rather than popular, socioreligious alternatives—restores our identity. African Americans have long confronted the challenge of dignity destruction caused by white supremacy. While many have found meaning and restoration of dignity in the black church, others have found it in ethnocentric socioreligious groups and philosophies. These ideologies have grown and developed deep traction in the black community and beyond. Revisionist history, conspiracy theories, and misinformation about Jesus and Christianity are the order of the day. Many young African Americans are disinterested in Christianity and others are leaving the church in search of what these false religious ideas appear to offer, a spirituality more indigenous to their history and ethnicity. Edited by Dr. Eric Mason and featuring a top-notch lineup of contributors, Urban Apologetics is the first book focused entirely on cults, religious groups, and ethnocentric ideologies prevalent in the black community. The book is divided into three main parts: Discussions on the unique context for urban apologetics so that you can better understand the cultural arguments against Christianity among the Black community. Detailed information on cults, religious groups, and ethnic identity groups that many urban evangelists encounter—such as the Nation of Islam, Kemetic spirituality, African mysticism, Hebrew Israelites, Black nationalism, and atheism. Specific tools for urban apologetics and community outreach. Ultimately, Urban Apologetics applies the gospel to black identity to show that Jesus is the only one who can restore it. This is an essential resource to equip those doing the work of ministry and apology in urban communities with the best available information.