The Peoples Temple: The Jonestown Massacre

This leads to a major issue within the slave community. Slaves possess little knowledge of life outside the plantation or house in which they are working at. This means they have no idea how humans are supposed to be treated, and rather that a “god” would never allow for another to be beaten in such severity. This is an advantage that the slave owners held over the actual slaves. If the slaves were to gain an understanding of the world around them, the “religious” quotes recited by slave owners would quickly lose their worth and soon mean nothing as well as hold no influence over the slaves. Frederick Douglas was fortunate enough to understand this, and even addressed the issue in his life story, “What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference- so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked(71).” Douglas understands that the Christianity practiced by the slave owners was far different from the Christianity intended by Jesus Christ. As Douglas referred to it, the “Slaveholding religion” was prominent throughout the slavery era, not only was this damaging for the slaves,

“What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word "We.”

The leader of Jonestown, Jim Jones, applied this tactic to help fund the People’s Temple move to Guyana. Members of his church signed over personal items such as homes and custody of their own children. They also donated money for the move to Guyana, which Jones wanted because he faced unwanted media attention and investigations. The signing over of belongings was the smaller request Jones asked of his followers. The larger request Jones asked was for everyone to kill themselves by drinking poison. Since his followers agreed to the smaller request of signing over money and belonging, they are more likely to agree to his larger request of suicide. In addition to Jim Jones, Family International founder, David Berg, used the same tactic to help him achieve his goal. In order to join his cult, he suggested to his members that they

A quote that states this is “I have said my master found religious sanction for his cruelty.” (98) This quote relates back to my second reason why I think “cruel” is the most important word. Most of the time, slaveholders laughed and smiled while abusing the slaves. Reading this book, i noticed that there were very few slaveholders that actually took care of their slaves.Those people were the ones that lived in the cities. They took care of them because they didn’t want to have their slaves look bad in public. Other than those slaveholders, the rest of them were quite aggressive with their slaves. Cruelty in the slaveholders, as well as finding satisfaction in abusing the slaves was very

Slave owners used Christianity as an excuse for the awful ways they treated their slaves. Christianity played a major role on the increase of brutality and violence that spirited the slave owners. The scriptures in the Bible were twisted in the eyes of slave owners to how they wanted to interpret them. Douglass had a powerful experience with one of his masters, Thomas Auld. Mr. Auld was not a religious person and treated the slaves very poorly. In August 1832, Auld attended a Methodist camp meeting and that marked the day when he became religious, and suddenly even more cruel. “Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” After becoming religious, Auld uses scripture to justify his cruelty. Douglass thought that with discovering religion and using it, Auld would become more polite as how Douglass viewed Christianity. Unfortunately that was not the case. Auld justifies that being affiliated with religion would not change a person for the better. Being a slave, Douglass found that slave owners found religious sanction for their cruelty. “He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.", was what a slave owner had said to justify why he beat

Cultic activity has taken place since the practice of religion was established thousands of years ago. Since then, literally thousands of denominations have been inoculated throughout the world, especially in the United States. A cult, according to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary is a system of religious beliefs and rituals. By definition, this includes organizations such as Baptists, Catholics as well as Satanists and Witches. While this maybe true, cults have been popularly perceived as Separatists who are consumed by the belief of apocalyptic events, and the leader is someone who believes he or she is chosen by God or some other deity to lead those who are to follow him or her. One group that fits this description is the

Around 1811 John Jea, wrote a spiritual narrative called “The Life, History and Unparalleled Sufferings of John Jea”, in which he tells about the abuse of the slaveholders towards their slaves. He emphasized how Christian slave owners like his own master who would torture the slaves without any mercy: “…we were corrected with a weapon an inch and-a-half thick, and that without mercy, striking us in the most tender parts…” Nevertheless, not all the slaves that were converted became free. A man called Elias Neau, founded a school for slaves, that later would became famous, declared that Christian baptism could not alter civil condition; “Even if a slave was to somehow be converted, his conversion would not alter the fact that he was a slave.”

He then give the implicit example saying that once black liberation is seen as a primary goal for black theology, black suffering becomes a necessary starting point. Jones states that a black theologian must hold the view that black oppression is

Cults have existed throughout history since the beginning of time. A cult is defined in Webster’s dictionary as a “system of religious worship with a devoted attachment to a person, principle, etc.” Over the past thirty years numerous religious cults have caused “ tens of thousands to abandon their families, friends, education’s, and careers to follow the teaching of a leader they will never meet”(Beck 78).

In the PBS film, “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples’ Temple”, it illustrates an extreme example of one radical religious leader's control over hundreds of people to the extent of convincing them to voluntarily commit a "revolutionary suicide" in their attempted utopian settlement in Guyana. In the 1970's various changes were being made and through social and cultural movements, including political and religious, people wanted something to believe in. They wanted to fight for a cause that would change the world. Jim Jones preyed on the members of the Peoples' Temple and gained his ultimate control through promoting activism, managing all the finances of each member while providing them with benefits, and through creating a sense of

     For many years, cult leaders always had a psychological hold on their followers' minds. Whether it was to kill other people or to kill themselves, they did it without question. Some cult leaders used fear, violence and guilt as a means of a weapon to control the minds of their followers. Other cult leaders used persuasive and spiritual speeches that made their followers believe they were doing good and fulfilling God's plan. Because cult leaders are powerful through psychological offenses, the people that belong to their cults are brainwashed into doing things they wouldn't normally do in their right state of mind.

Religion is one of, if not the, central theme in the movie Prisoners, directed by Denis Villeneuve. The plot of the movie is driven by the characters evolving towards a brutal form of themselves, as they try to cope and solve the abduction of two young girls. Beginning with the opening scene which has Keller Dover, played by Hugh Jackman, saying the Lord’s prayer while he and his son are out hunting in the woods, the movie tries to explore themes of justice and brutality, and the fine line that runs between them. Religion could be seen as the driving force behind this action, as Dover, tries to exact justice on Alex Jones, a mentally deranged young man who seems to know about the crime that has been committed.

The people yielded to real or imagined social pressure. There were loyalty tests to prove their loyalty to Jim Jones. One of these tests was to do a practice suicide of drinking the Kool-Aid. They were told the drink was poisoned, but it really wasn't. The people thought it was though and drank it anyways.

A cult is defined as a social group or a social movement under one charismatic leader. It maintains a belief system, which includes a transformation of a group member. Members of the group have a high level of commitment to the leader, members, and beliefs (Lalich). An additional definition to consider is from the American Journal of Psychotherapy:

By doing so he played into his followers emotions, making suicide appear to be the best solution. Jones isolated his followers and made the Peoples Temple their only connection and family. Jones made the idea of separation from the family not an option he was willing to accept; “We can’t separate ourselves from our own people. People twenty years laying in some old rotten nursing home.” Jones made the decision of suicide as the answer for himself and his followers.