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The
End of Days : Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount by Gershom Gorenberg Hardcover - 288 pages
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The script is called The End Times. The stage is Israel, specifically, Jerusalem. The players are members of three major religions — Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The spotlight is focused on the Temple Mount sitting smack-dab in the center of the stage.
That's how Gershom Gorenberg, author of The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount and senior editor of The Jerusalem Post portrays the social, political and religious climate surrounding the 35-acre piece of land in Jerusalem known as the Temple Mount. It's all part of a Divine Novel where "myths have always bent reality." This portrayal, especially noted by the title of Chapter seven — The Divine Repertory Theater Company — is helped along by fundamentalists, messianists, and extremists, whose words and religious beliefs are closely linked to the Temple Mount, are quoted and presented in this book.
Let me state beforehand that I'm not recommending this book because I agree with the author's philosophies or religious ideologies. He uses the word "myth" frequently when referring to Endtime beliefs while comparing them to the "realities" of the present world. Gorenberg is subtle in style and mildly sarcastic in tone; he is often cynical and arrogant, especially when quoting Christians. However, judging some of the quotes myself, if they are not taken out of context, I can't hardly blame him for that. For the most part, I've come to the conclusion that Christians, generally speaking, don't present themselves very well to an unbelieving world when speaking of Endtime events. But I'm also reminded that an unbelieving world isn't interested in Endtime scenarios as evidenced by Noah's generation.
Nevertheless, this was one very interesting and informative book. (My copy is heavily high-lighted). By exploring the religious Endtime beliefs of Christians, Jews and Muslims, and how they interact with one another in a political and social arena, one can gain valuable insight into events that are occurring today in the Middle East.
The problem, as Gorenberg sees it, is that Endtime beliefs, whether they be of Christian fundamentalists, Jewish messianists, or Muslims in general, have a profoundly complex effect on Israeli foreign policies, especially where the Temple Mount is concerned. He writes on why he focused on the Temple Mount as center stage:
"I've listened to Muslim sheikhs explain how verses in the Koran foretell Israel's destruction, and to American evangelical ministers who insist on their deep love for Israel and nevertheless eagerly await apocalyptic battles on Israel's soil so terrible that the dry river beds will, they predict, fill with rivers of blood. I also came to realize that the center of my story had to be the Temple Mount. What happens at that one spot, more than anywhere else, quickens expectations of the end in three religions. And at that spot, the danger of provoking catastrophe is greatest." [p. 6]
Reading "The End of Days" was like reading a "Who's Who" of Christian authors and personalities, as well as prominent leaders in various Jewish movements. One way of showing why and how these religious Endtime beliefs will continue to influence political policy in Israel and elsewhere, Gorenberg looks at the words and deeds of these religious movers and shakers. In the process, there were at least two themes that kept popping up: (1) the notion that fundamentalists and messianists are working to hasten the End by becoming active participants, and (2) Christian fundamentalists' support and love for Israel is based on what role it is believed the Jews play in an Endtime scenario.
Let's take the first theme. No longer are believers "watching" for the return of the Messiah, they are now active participants, hoping to be the catalyst that gets the ball rolling. Gorenberg presents this theme right away in the first chapter titled "The Cattlemen of the Apocalypse." Remember Melody, the red heifer many thought was *the* red heifer that the Jews have been waiting for as a sign that the Third Temple should be built? "The Cattlemen of the Apocalypse" gives interesting detail and behind the scenes dialogue on this topic.
One interesting observation that Gorenberg relates has to do with Zola Levitt. Levitt was apparently receiving a lot of letters — "too many letters" — inquiring about the red heifer. He stated in one of his newsletters that if Christians had as much concern about the Lord, salvation and correct doctrine as they did about the development of the red heifer that they would be fine Christians indeed. Gorenberg then noted a few paragraphs later that Levitt "had another beef: the rabbis wouldn't come through." He quotes Levitt as writing:
"'With their almost pathological insistence on the letter of the law, I suspect they will reject the heifer.'"
Gorenberg then surmises from this that the "polemic against 'legalism,' a shopworn standard of theological anti-Judaism, gained a new use— 'the law' could keep the Jews from fulfilling their role of building a Temple to facilitate the Christian apocalypse, and once again the Jews would fail Jesus."
As Gorenberg argues throughout his book, the Jews may not play according to the Endtime script that the Christian fundamentalists have laid out. To help Jews along, men like Clyde Lott and Guy Garner have gotten involved, or as Gorenberg would write, "cast [themselves] as bit characters," by driving "hundreds—eventually thousands— of head of cattle onto the set for the End of Days," for everyone knows that the Third Temple can't be built until a red heifer is found. Christian fundamentalists come to the rescue.
In chapter 2, the author is extremely critical of the Left Behind series. In part, I share Gorenberg's objection. After reading one of the books he writes:
"The experience is jarring, like meeting someone who calls you by your name, insists he knows you, remembers you from a high school you didn't attend, a job you never had. I'm reading a book set largely in the country where I live— but not really, because the author's Israel is a landscape of their imagination, and the characters called 'Jews' might as well be named hobbits or warlocks. Israel and Jews are central to Nicolae and the other books of the hugely successful Left Behind series— but the country belongs to the map of a Christian myth; the people speak lines from a script foreign to flesh-and-blood Jews. In this respect as in others, the books faithfully represent the apocalyptic vision known by the unwieldy name of dispensational premillennialism—a vision that, among other things, misdirects relations between real-life Jews and born-again Christians, and in the worse case could bend the future of the Middle East." [p. 31]
Gorenberg finds parts of the series laughable, but one disturbing idea that is presented in the Left Behind books concerns him and goes to the heart of his message in "The End of Days" is what is found on the last page of "Assassins." Gorenberg writes:
"Rayford, in Jerusalem and armed with a high-tech handgun, puts himself in God's guiding hand and is led toward firing at Nicolae, the political leader who promotes false peace, in the midst of a mass rally. The authors have shown that there's one Jew whose psychology they can subliminally make sense of— Yigal Amir, the religious extremist who gunned down Yitzhak Rabin for the 'sin' of making peace." [pp. 34-35]
Whether consciously or subconsciously, intentionally or non- intentionally, the authors of the Left Behind series have planted in the minds of its readers that making peace in the Middle East is not part of God's plan. Extremists in "real-life," like Yigal Amir, are made to look like they are acting according to God's will.
Gorenberg points out that John Hagee does the same thing:
"Hagee, pastor of a 15,000-member San Antonio church, starts by praising Rabin's brilliance and personal warmth. But then he gives the backdrop to Rabin's murder. Israel, he says, is divided between religious Jews who think they have a 'holy deed to the land' and Jews who 'put more faith in man than God of their fathers.' If his readers miss which side to sympathize with, Hagee stresses that the word of God gives the Jews the right to land stretching all way across Iraq. And, he says, Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir, belonged to the religious side of Israel. From there, readers are left to draw their own conclusions." [p. 165]
Gorenberg is, in fact, critical of several authors and lecturers who will quote or support anyone that tends to fit into their Endtime "drama." He gives examples and excerpts of Christian books where terrorist ideas are used as a barometer to gage all of Israeli viewpoints on the building of the Temple or messianic expectations. According to Gorenberg, Israeli culture is not interested in the Third Temple and there is not a messianic fervor in the air. It is the "fringe" groups that are in expectation of redemption:
"In the generation since 1967, the mood of most of Israeli society has swung from messianism to realpolitik, from nationalist fervor to watching NASDAQ prices of Israeli high-tech firms...But the idea that the State of Israel is a step toward redemption hasn't evaporated. It became common wisdom among religious Zionists; it drove the West Bank settlement movement. Those Jews who speak of building the Temple are the people who take the messianic interpretation of Israel's existence most literally." [p. 142]
Interestingly, I just finished reading another book, "Israel in Crisis: What Lies Ahead?" by David Dolan that confirms the messianic mood of Israel as well. Dolan's book is of a much different flavor than Gorenberg's but the message is the same concerning this point. Dolan writes: "In my international travels, I have discovered that a widespread perception exists among many Christians that the Israeli people are just aching to rebuild their temple. This assumption is fueled by exorbitant Christian media attention to a few small fringe movements that are working for immediate temple construction...The basically secular majority has not the slightest interest in a new temple. Quite the contrary; they view attempts to rebuild it as a barrel of dynamite that could easily spark off World War III." [p. 114, 115] Both Dolan and Gorenberg are reporters in Jerusalem. Dolan is a Christian, Gorenberg is not.
As to theme number two — questioning Christian love for Israel — this is where Gorenberg becomes the most critical and cynical in tone. He views support for Israel as superficial, based merely on what the Jews are expected to do in making prophecy come true. He also questions their claim to being anti-Semitic:
"Premillennialists often assert that they're free of theological anti- Semitism—unlike other Christians, they don't believe God has cast off the physical nation of Israel in favor of the spiritual Israel of the Church. Yet they speak of Jews as having rejected Jesus, and as being fated either to accept Jesus or to be destroyed in the End Times. A theology that says that Jews as a community have denied God in the past and are destined to be punished in the future is hardly free of anti-Semitism." [p. 127]
"...for those who accept dispensationalist doctrine, as so many evangelicals do, it's natural to proclaim love of the Jewish state. Israel's existence gives a believer the warm feeling that the world is behaving as he or she expects it to. Yet affection for Israel and "the Jew" doesn't keep dispensationalists from stressing Jews' failure to accept Jesus, or predicting their vast suffering during the Tribulation. This is a curiously cold affection, for dispensationalists do not look at Jews as normal people. Rather as premillennialist writer Randall Price puts it in his 1998 book Jerusalem in Prophecy, Jews are the 'players...for the prophetic drama,' or perhaps simply 'the scenery,' placed on the stage by the Director. Since they're in place, the 'curtain call' of the End, as Price calls it, must be near." [p. 160]
There are so many more points of interest I could bring up and quote, but I'll refrain from doing so and just let you read the book. Even if you disagree with Gorenberg's entire message as he writes it in his book, you will appreciate his behind the scenes look and interviews dealing with some of the recent items making Christian news: the red heifer, placement of the Third Temple, the popularity of the Left Behind series, the rush to find oil in Israel, the making Temple furniture and priestly garments, etc.
Aside from the differing views that you will surely have with Gorenberg, his book will no doubt make you think. Thinking about a matter does not equate to an agreement. It just means that you don't have all the answers and are willing to listen to someone else's take on the subject. Gorenberg's take was one of the most interesting reads I've had in a long time. I don't agree with him on many points. I was offended in a few others. Nevertheless, I'm glad I read it. For each time a bomb goes off in Jerusalem or riot activity is stirred up near the Temple Mount, I will remember this book. Each time a TV evangelist proclaims his love for Israel and then smiles when talking about the "Endtime destruction that is to come," I will remember this book. Each time I read an article that says that messianic expectation and the desire to build the Third Temple is high in Israel, I will remember this book.
Many believe that it's just a matter of time before war breaks out in the Middle East. It's quite realistic, considering the recent turmoil in Jerusalem, that the Temple Mount will be the powder keg that ignites it. As Gorenberg writes: "The danger isn't going away. Not as long as people think they know what God has to do next and where He has to do it, and are terribly impatient for Him to begin." [p. 227]
NOTE: For more information on David Dolan's book "Israel in Crisis" that was referred to briefly in this review please see http://www.ddolan.com/
— Ronni