A Big Book Explores Big Faith in a Big State

c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) If you go looking for faith in the Lone Star State, travel slowly or you might miss the turns that take you deep into the heart of Texas. There you’ll find religious diversity as wide and varied as a summer Texas sky. Such a world awaits readers of the […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) If you go looking for faith in the Lone Star State, travel slowly or you might miss the turns that take you deep into the heart of Texas.

There you’ll find religious diversity as wide and varied as a summer Texas sky. Such a world awaits readers of the book “The Amazing Faith of Texas: Common Ground on Higher Ground” (Idea City Press, $24.95).


The 155-page coffee-table book, which celebrates how all faiths bring people together, could be the antidote for those disillusioned by materialism, commercialism and religious backbiting.

The book is the brainchild of Roy M. Spence, an advertising veteran with a penchant for purposeful public service ad campaigns and a reputation for success.

Spence is founder and president of GSD&M, an Austin-based advertising company whose client list is a veritable Who’s Who of American business, including such companies as Wal-Mart and AT&T.

Spence’s firm is known for groundbreaking work, including the “Don’t Mess With Texas” anti-litter campaign from the mid-1980s.

When he set out on the project, Spence said, “I wanted to find out: Could we build some bridges and mend some fences among people who have different religious beliefs? And I wanted to find out: Was there common ground?”

For the answer, he turned to his friends, neighbors and colleagues across the vast expanse of Texas. Joining him in the quest were Mike Blair, his firm’s executive vice president and creative director, who collected and edited the stories in the book, and Randal Ford, a young photographer who says he was ecstatic when hired for the project.

Spence traces the beginnings of the book to the dark days immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Stranded in Washington, D.C., he and others from his firm couldn’t fly home, so they drove back, chatting most of the way.


Their discussions led to a series of public service TV ads on the theme “I’m an American,” featuring people of diverse races and religions presenting a unified patriotic voice.

“At that moment in time, I felt the power of togetherness,” Spence says. “It was a terrible time. But at the same time, you saw the power of one. I continued to reflect on that.”

It took many months of traveling Texas, but the resulting book testifies to interfaith connection and community in an era marked by worldwide religious strife. “What unites us, not what divides us,” Spence says.

The book sounds the same theme in word and image. It shows the faces of Texas religion: a cowboy pastor, a Roman Catholic nun, a Methodist advocate for people with AIDS, a Bahai entertainer, a Buddhist songwriter, a Mennonite peace activist, a Reform rabbi, a Sunni Muslim and many more.

“It was so inspiring and humbling to see all those people with different walks of faith,” says Ford, the photographer. “They were all so kind and generous with their time. … If anything, it strengthened my faith.”

The book also reveals the places of Texas faith: tiny storefront churches in big cities, weather-beaten crosses in barren brown fields, a temple tower set against a tree-shaded sky, a stained-glass Star of David, megachurches and tiny country-church steeples.


“God is too big to fit inside one religion,” declares a quote from an unknown author on an opening page.

Minister Tim Cook of Austin’s Church of Conscious Community, a Christian contemplative congregation, builds on that concept.

“The Apostle Paul called us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and we only really know that is happening in a community by how we feel and act toward each other,” Cook says in the book.

(Cecile S. Holmes is the former religion editor at the Houston Chronicle and now teaches journalism at the University of South Carolina.)

KRE/RR END HOLMES

Editors: To obtain photos from “The Amazing Faith of Texas,” go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

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