A priest, a rabbi and an imam walk into a building, it could be the start of something beautiful! The House of One, the three Abrahamic faiths together in the same building, is to be built on the land that has been occupied by a church, built and rebuilt since the 13th Century. The church, which is in Berlin Germany, was destroyed in WW2 and the congregation that owns the property then chose to pave over the lot. Until now!
Seeking to give something back to the city, the congregation didn’t wish to build another church that might only see infrequent use. So they have decided to build a spiritual center with a common entrance and three separate, but equal in size, worship spaces for Christians, Muslims and Jews.
The charter for the House of One is founded on four principles;
- nonviolence and respect for all life
- solidarity
- respect and life lived with integrity
- equality
A design competition was conducted to seek out an architect. The firm chosen was Kuehn Malvezzi. They need €43 million for the project and currently they have only chipped away that goal by €1 million. They are taking a page from the building project for the Crystal Cathedral, back in the day and they are selling bricks for the project at €10 each. The rabbi involved in the undertaking, Tovia Ben Chorin, hopes that this is an idea whose time has come, the start of something that will spread to other multicultural cities around the world.
The images can be found in the link to the design firm Kuehn Malvezzi above.
The origin for this story is at Good.
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I can’t really picture a religious Jew, walking into a Synagogue that is attached to a Mosque…in Germany.
What is a religious Jew? Once again, you speak as if there is one monolithic Judaism, as you have regarding Islam. There are different Jewish denominations and sects, they are not all identical. Obviously the rabbi in the video represents Jews in Germany who don’t hold the prejudice towards their Muslim neighbors that you expect of them.
Is the goal for the 3 religions to (eventually) merge into one, as the name implies? [‘Church of One’]. I think that the religious people that have money, may prefer to remain separate.
There isn’t anything quite so silly mentioned anywhere in reports of the proposed building. The name is not Church of One, but House of One.
The One relates to the fact that Christians, Muslims and Jews worship the same God, each Abrahamic faith in their own manner.
Although it has become trendy to assert that “Although it has become trendy to assert that “Christians, Muslims and Jews worship the same God” it remains a hotly debated issue,” it remains a hotly debated issue
Funny, Brother Tom, I would have phrased it, “it has become trendy to *deny* Christians, Muslims and Jews worship the same God (and usually throw some insults at Muslims at the same time: “keep them out until we can figure out what the hell is going on”, for example).”
Or maybe making accusations of who’s “trendy” and who isn’t, isn’t the point.
Allah is God in Arabic. Like chai is tea in a number of Asian languages. Saying Chai Tea is saying Tea Tea. There is no God but Allah, is actually, there is no God but God, very akin to I Am that I Am, from the Old Testament.
Although it has become trendy to assert that “Christians, Muslims and Jews worship the same God” it remains a hotly debated issue, especially since the fracas as Wheaton College. I find it interesting that this is something that I only hear from Christians who seem to want to suppress the great differences among the three faiths. Christians worship the Holy Trinity, Jews worship YHWH, and Muslims are clear that “there is no God but Allah,” who is neither YHWH nor a Trinity. Each worships the God who has been revealed to them, and while there are similarities in how they see and understand God and how God has spoken to them, there are also vast differences. It’s better, and shows more respect to the true differences among the three faiths, to say that all three trace their ancestry to Abraham/Ibrahim, but not that they worship the same God.
It’s certainly something debated, but the consensus view is absolutely that Jesus was the Son of the God in the Old Testament; in Luke 4:16-22, Jesus says that Isaiah’s prophecy (that the son of God is in front of them; they even say “But aren’t you the son of Joseph”? before they try to throw him off a cliff.
What you’re saying sounds really similar to the ideas of Marcion; his rejection of the God of Israel led to his work being denounced as heresy. I’m not sure that such a controversial view can de facto trump the much more widely held belief–spoken by Jesus in the Gospels–that he was the Son of the God of Israel.
oh, sorry about that. I stand corrected. ‘House of One’.
Very nice indeed, makes sense.
Very noble idea