Introduction

The final part of this book explores a number of issues related to religious architecture. Inevitably, a number of themes raised earlier will recur. One will be a continuing protest against the marginalisation of the arts, including architecture. The contemporary attitudes, though, could possibly be changing is reflected in the fact that the first essay was first published in a philosophy of religion encyclopaedia. The following chapter shows not only the potential for such a dialogue between Judaism, Christianity and Islam but also some signs of it having already occurred, sometimes admittedly only implicitly, across the long history of these three religions. Then, the next two chapters first consider what has often been the very fraught relation between politics and religious architecture. The final chapter argues for the importance of the contribution of architecture and art alike to the kind of worship that takes place in a particular Christian building.