CHURCH, SYNAGOGUE, MOSQUE
The Jerusalem temple, while it stood, and the Christian church are functional-
ly parallel structures. Both are sacred precincts within which God was wor-
shiped, primarily through sacrifice; their principal furnishing is an altar and
their chief officer is a priest, a dedicated male whose function it is to offer the
sacrifice on behalf of the community of believers: animal sacrifice in the case
of the temple, the Eucharistic sacrifice in the church.
The synagogue and the mosque are even closer analogues and quite differ-
ent from the temple-church complex, though there have been functional
exchanges between them since the early church services owed their form to
both synagogue and Temple. Both synagogue and mosque are essentially
assembly halls for prayer, places where the community can gather on occa-
sion to worship together for prayer. A prominent piece of furniture is the pulpit
from which a homily/instruction is given–also taken over by the church—and
their chief officer is a prayer-leader who can be, and often is, a layman. Often
there is also some provision for a purificatory ablution before prayer. And if the
church took over the ancestor of the pulpit from the synagogue, the mosque
borrowed the church’s belltower for its minaret.
The Protestant view of the Eucharist as a commemoration and not an actual
sacrifice has moved the Protestant church away from its temple prototype and
closer in function to the synagogue and mosque. Pre-Reform synagogues and
mosques, like the Jerusalem Temple and the early Christian churches, separate
men and women, and for the same traditional reasons: modesty and the problem
of ritual impurity. Reform synagogues and Christian churches have abandoned
the practice of segregation.