Same Church, Two Faiths, One God

IRVINE — Once a week, a dome-shaped church here undergoes a magical transformation.

The cross on the altar is placed in a closet. Christian hymnals disappear from the pews. And a custodian removes the New Testament Bible from the lectern under the stained-glass window.

In place of these, he puts out an ark containing the Torah, Shabbat candles, a set of Jewish prayer books and hundreds of yarmulkes.

Voila! The Irvine United Church of Christ has become the University Synagogue.

“It’s an amazing thing to see,” said Larae Cunningham, administrator of the 350-member church. “Every once in a while, something gets left out and we just put it away.”

The arrangement, said Rabbi Arnold Rachlis, “gives us a feeling of security and comfort and affection. It’s very much become part of my spiritual life.”

For seven years the two congregations have shared the worship space, and the members of this church and synagogue say that they have grown from the experience in unanticipated ways. And today they plan to celebrate the latest stage of that growth by jointly consecrating a new sanctuary built by the Christians with both groups in mind.

“One of the tragedies of Christianity is that it’s forgotten its roots,” said the Rev. Fred Plumer, pastor of the Christian church. “We’ve forgotten that we’re a Jewish religion.”

Rachlis acknowledges the surprising nature of that sentiment.

“Jews are not very accustomed,” he said, “to having their religion affirmed by Christians.”

The relationship, which is not unique in Southern California, began more as a business arrangement than an affirmation.

The Jewish congregation, part of the Reconstructionist movement in Judaism, had been meeting at UC Irvine’s Interfaith Center, but needed more room. In 1990, representatives of the synagogue approached several groups, eventually contracting with the Irvine United Church of Christ to rent space in its sanctuary.

Almost immediately, though, it became clear that the two congregations would have much more than a tenant-landlord relationship.

To make the Jews feel welcome, church members decided to remove a weaving of the Madonna and Child hanging on the sanctuary wall.

“We were willing to live with it,” Rachlis recalled, “but out of kindness to us, they felt that it would be uncomfortable.” In its place, a depiction of the Garden of Eden was hung by both congregations.

Then, in a gesture that melted Jewish hearts, the Christians invited the newcomers to observe an ancient Jewish custom by posting a mezuza, a miniature ark containing Hebrew prayers, on the doorpost of the church.

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Over the years, such accommodations have flowed both ways.

Every Christmas, for instance, the Jews buy the church its annual Christmas tree, which the Christians refrain from decorating until after the last Friday night Shabbat service before Christmas. Members of the Jewish congregation frequently have provided baby-sitting during important Christian holidays. And in addition to a joint Thanksgiving service, the two congregations work together to produce several educational programs each year.

The cooperation continued during the planning and financing of the new religious sanctuary, a 6,000-square-foot geodesic dome that holds 400 seats and cost $900,000. University Synagogue members bought a portion of the bonds that helped pay for construction. And members of the church showed religious sensitivity in the building’s design; among other things, it contains no permanently affixed crosses, has a stained-glass window with no overt Christian theme and features a quote from the Old Testament on the foyer wall.

“We have the Jewish closet and the Christian closet,” Plumer said in explaining the building’s weekly transformation from a synagogue on Friday night to a church on Sunday morning.

That transformation hasn’t always occurred without conflict.

Some Christian congregants had to be taught, Plumer said, why their symbols can be particularly offensive to Jews, whose history is rife with instances of persecution at the hands of self-described Christians. And there has been occasional competition over space.

“Sometimes we’re like a family of six in a two-bedroom apartment with one bathroom,” Plumer said.

Such issues are generally resolved, he said, by a committee with representatives of both groups that meets once a month.

For the most part, though, members of the congregations say they have learned from each other. The church is in the process of revamping its confirmation ceremonies to more resemble the bar and bat mitzvahs of Judaism. Plumer says he also would like to initiate some sort of celebration similar to Purim, the Jewish festival of spring.

The arrangement, Rachlis said, “teaches us how we are more similar than dissimilar as people.”

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At a Saturday night service celebrating this weekend’s consecration, both clergymen spoke of their congregations’ history together. Later, the Jews ceremoniously placed another mezuza in the door frame of the new sanctuary. And at a reception hosted by the synagogue, members of the two groups got lessons in Israeli folk dancing.

The celebration continues today with Christian services in the morning, followed by the official consecration at 3 p.m.

Roger Laule, a member of the church council, said the two groups’ long-standing relationship has “broadened our minds and their minds as well. Both congregations realize that we are headed in the same direction, but have different paths to get there.

“Countries could learn from this,” he said.