Page 49 - Satan in the Sanctuary

Opening Pandora's Box—Prayer on the Mount 51

explosiveness. If such strong ob- permits "access to the different
jections are to be found in the religions to the places sacred to
principal nationalist party, which them." The Israeli Government
itself represents only a minority would be the last body in the
of the electorate, it is safe to as- world to deny that the Temple
sume that the great majority of Mount is sacred to the Jews, and
the population is at least as op- it does permit access, yet it will
posed. Gush Emunim, which not permit the Jews to pray
has not hesitated to challenge the there.
Government head-on in asserting By their insistence on Jewish
its views of Jewish rights of set- prayer on the Temple Mount,
tlement in the Holy Land, has Solomon and his colleagues—
refrained — apparently on reli- who have rarely mustered as
gious grounds — from walking many as a dozen adults at any of
through the door to the Temple their pray-in attempts—are open-
Mount that Judge Or tried to ing the way, theoretically at least,
open. to demands by Moslems or
The chief vehicle for pressing Christians to pray at the Western
the drive, such as it is, for Jewish Wall if they feel it is holy to
prayer on the Temple Mount has them.
been the Betar Youth Movement, The present situation is in-
which is a nationalist and not a deed ambiguous, but it is am-
religious organisation. By doing biguities that often permit na-
so they are admittedly challeng- tions, like individuals, to go on
7
ing an area of ambiguity. The living together.
Protection of Holy Places Law
It is hard to imagine a prayer meeting giving rise to inter-
national concern anywhere else in the world. The Temple
site at Mount Moriah has become a center of global contro-
versy, as, in fact, it always was. Where the past controversies
were spiritual in nature, we now see the secular world deeply
involved; where the question used to be, Shall we Jews offer
our sacrifices here, Lord? it has now become, Will this Mid-
dle Eastern rioting and United Nations debating take us into
World War III?
How typical that God's choice of place, that thirty-four
acre site, is so important in the affairs of men. Indeed, this
place at the center of the earth is still very crucial.