as long as some people continue to share the OTS ideology
and regard the “transit” as both reasonable and desirable.
SEE ALSO Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Com-
mandments of God; New Religious Movements, overview
article and articles on New Religious Movements and Mil-
lennialism and New Religious Movements and Violence.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hall, John R., and Philip Schuyler. “The Mystical Apocalypse of
the Solar Temple.” In Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem:
Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements, edited by Thomas
Robbins and Susan J. Palmer, pp. 285–311. New York,
- An early scholarly approach.
Introvigne, Massimo. “The Magic of Death: The Suicides of the
Solar Temple.” In Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence:
Historical Cases, edited by Catherine Wessinger,
pp. 138–157. Syracuse, N.Y., 2000.
Introvigne, Massimo, and Jean-François Mayer. “Occult Masters
and the Temple of Doom: The Fiery End of the Solar Tem-
ple.” In Cults, Religion, and Violence, edited by David G.
Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, pp. 170–188. New York,
- An assessment of the tragedy’s meaning.
Mayer, Jean-François. Der Sonnentempel: Die Tragödie einer Sekte.
Updated ed. Freiburg, Germany, 1998. The standard schol-
arly approach.
Mayer, Jean-François. “‘Our Terrestrial Journey Is Coming to an
End’: The Last Voyage of the Solar Temple.” Nova Religio:
The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 2, no. 2
(April 1999): 172–196.
MASSIMO INTROVIGNE (2005)
TEMPTATION. Approaches to the complex phenome-
non of temptation are as diversified as are cultures, world-
views, the self-understanding of men and women, the con-
cept of sin, and so on. But behind all the astonishing
differences there might well be discovered agreement on one
point: that the center of human temptation is egocentricity,
and genuine love is its victor. In the Judeo-Christian tradi-
tion, reflection on temptation arises in the quest for the
sources of evil, which leads to a questioning of both God’s
nature and the nature of humankind. However, for the He-
brews, these questions were further complicated because of
their own negative reactions to earlier solutions put forth by
their neighbors. A continuing theme in Israel’s history is the
belief that their neighbors were tempting them to abandon
faith in Yahveh and the law of Moses. Consequently, they
must destroy those who were or could become such a temp-
tation. This sad pattern reappears in Christianity as a motive
for the crusades, inquisitions, and the burning of so-called
witches. Christians were thus diverted from the actual, horri-
fying temptations that drew them away from humanness,
love of neighbor, and even from the true image of God as
a merciful Father of all.
The problem of temptation seems to resist a rational,
conceptual approach. Perhaps the most adequate approach
to its historical study is by way of its symbols. The prototype
of these symbols and myths is the Genesis story of Adam and
Eve. Similar symbols are to be found in most African cul-
tures. It seems that with these stories there is not yet the ques-
tion of original sin but, rather, the more basic question: what
is the response of humanity when confronted with evil?
The Fall of Adam and Eve—of humanity in general—
and its consequences are presented in the first twelve chapters
of Genesis. There we see Cain tempted to do violence, a
temptation to which he yields, killing his brother. The in-
crease in violence finds its symbol in Lamech, whose warlike
attitude is reflected also in his relationship with women. Fi-
nally, the world is so flooded with sin that Noah can with-
stand it only with utmost difficulty.
However, while a one-sided, legalistic understanding of
faith and morality warned against the temptation of disobe-
dience, it remained blind to the temptation to disown the
prophetic tradition and blind to unjust structures and the
unjust exercise of authority, which today’s Christians sharply
denounce as “institutionalized temptations.”
All too often in Christendom the tendency prevailed to
condemn any form of doubt about religious and moral doc-
trines and traditions, while today many Christians pray that
God may grace them with the courage to doubt at the right
point and, thus, to be preserved from the disgraceful tempta-
tion of choosing a false security over the sincere search for
truth. Some Christians seem not to care much about the exis-
tential question of whether they are truly on the road to sal-
vation, but for Martin Luther and many other Christians of
all denominations, it has been a matter of faith to fight des-
perately against such a temptation.
In Western religions there have always been conflicting
trends between those who gave primacy to the fight against
temptations arising from one’s own heart and those who gave
first place to fighting unjust and dehumanizing structures as
the main sources of temptation. There were and still are
those who are overly optimistic about the individual’s battle
against temptation and, at the same time, pessimistic about
changing immoral society. Today many who call for renewal
of church institutions fall into the temptation of overlooking
the interwovenness of persons and society and the difficulty
of achieving simultaneously the ongoing individual conver-
sion and the changing and healing of public life, including
church structures.
For many religious people in the West it is still difficult
to recognize the enormous temptation involved in renounc-
ing one’s own responsibility and yielding to anguish instead
of making clear decisions about the Christian’s mission to
be salt to the earth. One aspect of this all-pervasive tempta-
tion is easy conformity to a culture of greed, consumerism,
and a wasteful style of life.
Christians are awakening only gradually to the tempta-
tion to waste our human and ecological resources. Many are
struggling with the temptation to render indiscriminate mili-TEMPTATION 9069