The United Congregational Church in Bridgeport has decided to sell its 1920s-era church to the Bridgeport Islamic Cultural Center, and to work with the center on community programs including soup kitchen and a homeless shelter.

A Wall Street Journal article on the topic, Historic Bridgeport Church to Become a Mosque, quotes Prof. David D. Grafton:

“In recent years, more Muslim communities across the U.S. have begun to engage in the types of fundraisers and social-service projects that Christian congregations and Jewish synagogues often host or organize, said David Grafton, professor of Islamic studies and Christian-Muslim relations at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn.

‘As the national landscape has become much more suspicious of Muslims, and as Islamophobia has become more common, Muslim communities have consciously engaged in the process to normalize — or become part of the religious landscape of organizing into voluntary associations that form the bedrock of American civil and religious life,’ he said.”