Kerene's Blog

This picture is fitting for the following blog which shows that Jonestown religion may not be the God of their roots but their religion was political. A member of the Peoples Temple washing their bus.

Whilst preparing for our presentation for Thursday 13th December, Our group have discovered many interesting things about the cult leader Jim Jones. One of the theories discovered by my fellow peer David, is food for thought in my opinion. He discovered a quote by Stanley Nelson, a documentary filmmaker, who interviewed many survivors from the Jonestown incident. He was quoted as saying that ‘ [T]here were a lot of people who joined the Peoples Temple who were really not necessarily looking for Christ, or religion.’ He also concluded to say that the reason they joined the cult was not for religious reasons but were rather ‘ looking to be part of this social experiment and change the world’.[1] I agree with David fully, as it seems that Jones’ aim was to build a ‘utopia’ and was not really for religious purposes but rather for political causes. This is also evident with other attitudes of Jim Jones that I have already argued in my previous blog titled ‘ Research found for presentation By Kerene’[2] and his dismissal of the Bible being the infallible word of God, which he argued in his The Letter Killeth[3]. From further research it became more apparent that Jim Jones’ cult was not religious necessarily in the sense of the worship of God, but was rather politically motivated, as once they reached Guyana, they stopped with their orthodox gatherings of worship services but rather they had community planning meetings and public events which replaced conventional worship[4]. One person puts it this way, ‘ he began to exchange religious rhetoric for political rhetoric[5].’ It is questionable therefore whether Jonestown was really that ‘religious’ as our current ideologies would permit religious to be described, or was it rather a political organisation? I have found a clip talking about Jones saying that the Bible ‘held down black people’ and then he kicked the Bile, showing his rejection of it. Although he started in a religious organisation, this is some proof that he was more politically motivated than religiously, enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn6bU1PzBA0&feature=related (In order to see this clip then please copy the link and paste it into the URL section, then click Enter)

[1] Stanley Nelson, lessons of Jonestown, ‘A new documentary explores the story behind the 1978 mass suicide in Guyana. When faith is turned against the faithful’ October 2006, http://www.rickross.com/reference/jonestown/jonestown44.html [accessed 30 November 2007]
[2] Kerene, Research found for presentation by Kerene, created Monday 26 November 2007, [accessed Monday 3 December 2007]
[3] Jim Jones, The Letter Killeth , June 2004 , <http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/PrimarySources/letter-rev.htm> [accessed 23 November 2007]
[4] Sawyer, The religious movements homepage project ‘Peoples Temple’ May 2005http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/Jonestwn.html [accessed 30 November 2007] (para. 30 of. 40)
[5] Sawyer (para 30 of 40)