PEOPLES TEMPLE Lohn R

30 PEOPLES TEMPLE lohn R. Holl The two central questions about Peoples or reluctantly, virtually everyone present Temple have always been these: why did took the poison. At the very end, Jim Jones the murders and mass suicide take place? and a close aide died by gunshots to the And what is their cultural significance? head, consistent with suicide.1 Peoples Temple began like many Ameri If these tragic events had not occurred, can religious groups—in the mind of a self- Peoples Temple might never have become styled visionary prophet. But it ended in the subject of widespread attention. But an apocalypse without precedent in U.S. with the murders and mass suicide, the religious history. On November 18, 1978, group became infamous. A film, a televi over nine hundred people from the United sion docudrama and more than twenty States died in the small, poor South Ameri books enshrined Jim Jones in popular cul can country of Guyana. On that day gun ture as the image incarnate of the men from Peoples Temple's communal Antichrist, Peoples Temple as the paragon settlement of Jonestown murdered five of the religious "cult." Like other religious people who had just left their jungle com communal movements—both historical munity—a visiting U.S. congressman, three and contemporary—Peoples Temple prac newsmen, and a young defector. Back at ticed a way of life alien to mainstream Jonestown, Jim Jones, Peoples Temple's America. Like other collectivist organiza white charismatic leader, was orchestrat tions such as religious orders and the mili ing a "revolutionary suicide" at which the tary, the Temple demanded individual members of the agricultural community— submission to collective authority and it mostly black, some white—drank a deadly used social control to forestall internal dis potion of Fla-Vor Aid laced with poison. sension. Temple staff carefully monitored How many people willingly gave up their the commitment of members, and they lives at Jonestown? The question will al held public meetings for "catharsis," al ways be open to debate. Certainly young lowing the assembled populace to deter children could not have fully understood mine punishments for wrongdoers and the consequences of drinking the potion, backsliders. Like other religious social and during the suicide council, one woman movements Peoples Temple practiced a pleaded against Jones's proposal. But many communal socialism that flew in the face people supported the plan—mothers of the dominant American ideology that marching up to have their children killed, embraces capitalism, individualism, and elderly people telling Jones they were ready the nuclear family. to go, the sharpshooters who had killed the congressman. Wittingly, unknowingly, In the early years, the Jones family ex panded through adoption. Eventually, 303 304 John R. Hall Peoples Temple as a group took on the worship and speaking in tongues. In his functions of an extended family. More sig high school years, Jones was seen preach nificantly, Jim Jones was bisexual, and he ing on the street in a factory neighbor led the way in exploring unconventional hood of Richmond, Indiana, to an audience relationships. Sex became something like of both whites and blacks. By the summer a currency Jones used, supposedly, "for the of 1949, Jim Jones had married Marceline cause." With it, he gave some people inti Baldwin, a young nurse from a Richmond macy, and controlled or humiliated oth family of Methodists and Republicans. ers. The offspring of Jones's sexual unions Marcie was shocked, Jones later recounted, included Stephan, the one child born (in when he revealed his sympathies with po 1959) to Jones's wife Marcie. In addition, litical communism and his disdain for the Jones was the father of Carolyn Layton's "sky god." son Kimo Prokes, and he was widely be Jim and Marcie Jones moved to India lieved to be the father of John Victor Stoen, napolis in 1951, and soon Jones was on born in 1972 to Grace Stoen, wife of Temple his way to becoming a preacher. Along attorney Tim Stoen. this path, Jones forged a volatile mix of Quite apart from his controversial theology and practice. Exposed variously sexual practices, Jones called his followers to the Methodists' liberal social creed, com to what Max Weber has termed an "ethic munist ideology, and the apocalyptic vi of ultimate ends": he recruited only the sion of the Pentecostalists, he preached most highly committed individuals, and he racial integration and a veiled communist insisted that followers pursue the cause of philosophy within a Pentecostal framework Peoples Temple selflessly, tirelessly, with that emphasized gifts of the spirit—discern out compromise. Members of Peoples ing of spirits and faith healing. Jones dis Temple in effect took a path that black played a knack for preaching, and he activist Huey Newton had once described learned some tricks of the Pentecostal re as "revolutionary suicide": they gave up vival circuit—how to convince audiences their previous lives, friends, and commit of his abilities in matters of discernment ments, and became born again to a col and faith healing by sleights of hand and lective struggle against economic, social, fakery. More important, he gradually dis and racial injustice that had no limits other covered a formula for building a social than victory or death. This radical stance movement out of a church. Over the years, deepened the gulf between Peoples Temple out of an unlikely amalgamation of dis and the wider society and set the stage for parate ideas and practices, Jones forged the a protracted conflict with organized oppo mantle of a prophet who foresaw capital nents who were equally committed to their ist apocalypse and worked to establish a own cause. It was specifically this conflict promised land for those who heeded his that led to the murders and mass suicide. message. How, then, did it develop? This question Organizationally, Jones started in India can only be addressed by tracing the biog napolis with a small church called Com raphy of Jim Jones and the historical emer munity Unity. After visitors took in his gence of his movement. services following a revival appearance, James Warren Jones was born in east Jones was invited to preach at the central Indiana in the time of the Great Pentecostalist Laurel Street Tabernacle. A Depression, May 13, 1931. The only child crisis ensued when Jones brought blacks to of working-poor parents, he grew up with the service of the racially segregated a strong sense of resentment toward people church, and after witnessing his preaching of wealth, status, and privilege. He was and healing performance, a substantial exposed to a variety of Protestant churches, segment of the Tabernacle voted with their from the mainstream Methodists to the feet, leaving their congregation to walk pacifist Quakers, the Holiness-movement with Jones. Together, on April 4,1955, they Nazarenes, and the then-marginal established Wings of Deliverance, the cor Pentecostalists with their revivalist-style porate vehicle of what was to be called Peoples Temple 305 Peoples Temple. Combining the Pente¬ Guyana), and spent two years in Brazil. costalist ethic of a caring community with Even as he returned to Indianapolis in the social gospel of liberal denominations, 1964, Jones already was laying the ground Peoples Temple became a racially inte work for a collective migration to Califor grated community of believers in practical nia by his most committed followers. Tired service under the umbrella of a church. of racial intolerance and citing fears of Jones modelled Peoples Temple partly af nuclear holocaust, they moved to the quiet ter the Peace Mission of American black town of Ukiah, in the Russian River valley preacher Father M. J. Divine, who, in the of northern California. About seventy fami 1920s and 1930s, had established a racially lies, half white, half black, made the jour integrated religious and economic commu ney in the summer of 1965. nity with himself at the center. Like Father Jones's congregation became reestab Divine, Jones took to being called "Father," lished slowly, counting only 168 adult or, sometimes, "Dad." Like the Peace Mis members by 1968. But in 1969 the congre sion, Peoples Temple was to become an gation completed its own church building extended family that offered its commu in the hamlet of Redwood Valley, about nal fellowship as a shelter from the uncer eight miles north of Ukiah. The church be tain world beyond. In turn, Jones used the gan to attract the interest of a wide range organization of Peoples Temple as a spring of people—hippies, socially concerned pro board to social action, establishing care gressive professionals, fundamentalist homes for the elderly, running q free res Christians, political activists and militants, taurant to feed the hungry, maintaining a street people, delinquents, and the elderly. social service center to help people with Propelled by these diverse streams of mem needs to get their lives back together, and bership the Temple grew rapidly in the precipitating public confrontations to pro 1970s, establishing churches in San Fran mote racial integration. The unconven cisco and Los Angeles, running a fleet of tional congregation attracted the attention buses to carry followers to church func of the Christian Church (Disciples of tions, running a "human services" minis Christ), which long had been committed try of "care" homes for juveniles and the to a social ministry. In 1960, Peoples elderly, and using the care homes as a Temple became affiliated with the Disciples nucleus for promoting a communal orien of Christ, and in 1964 Jones was officially tation among followers. ordained a minister. By its California heyday in the mid- Peoples Temple not only prospered in 1970s, Peoples Temple had become a col- Indianapolis, it provoked controversy.

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