Jonestown anniversary: when faith is fatal
Nov. 18 will mark the 25th anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy, when 913 members of the Peoples Temple died in the jungles of Guyana after drinking poison-laced punch at the command of the Rev. Jim Jones.
The group had followed their troubled visionary from California in hopes of creating a new heaven on earth. Instead, they were led to their deaths in an event that shocked people, religious or not, and intensified scrutiny of what have become known as new religious movements.
Families described victims as idealistic followers who wanted to work for peace and justice. Survivors – particularly those who left before the deaths – described a charismatic leader who inspired high ideals, even as he quickly unraveled at the end. Twenty-five years later, “Jonestown” is a cultural catchphrase, and new religious movements – some healthy, some deadly – continue to spring up on American soil.
Scholars say the question for this country is what makes one person’s religion a dangerous movement? And what responsibility do government and family members have for monitoring or intervening in them?
Scholars say the United States has had a rare relationship with new religious movements, starting with the Pilgrims, who were considered a renegade religious group in Europe. Since then, they say, thousands of new religious movements have been born here, with a variety of characteristics:
• The Mormons’ Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has spread widely and quickly.
• Some evolve into mainstream religions, as when the apocalyptic Millerites became the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
• Some, such as Scientology and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, exist amid questions about their practices.
• Others, such as the Quakers, Shakers and the Theosophy movement, quietly exist or fade away.
• Some piece together religious and cultural traditions, as did Wicca and Neo-Paganism.
• Members of Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, have been persecuted in China.
• Some conflicts are diffused, as was the 1996 Freemen standoff in Montana (see a CNN.com profile).
• Other New Religious Movements that have taken root in the United States include the Hare Krishnas and the Unification Church.
• Some, including the Peoples Temple, the Branch Davidians and Heaven’s Gate, meet spectacularly violent and troubling ends.
Questions for reporters
• Most areas have groups associated with new religious movements as well as experts on them.
• What makes these groups successes or failures? Why have some become a synonym for tragedy while others thrive?
• In a country based on religious freedom, does the government have an obligation to protect the practices of budding religious movements? Does it have an obligation to protect members or intervene if it thinks the group may do harm?
• What is the role of new religious movements in the American religious landscape?
• What makes one person’s church another person’s “cult”?
• In a country with freedom of religion, do officials have the right to intervene in alleged cults? Why do some new religious movements end in violence and others do not?
Why it Matters
Scholars say new religious movements are the cutting edge of religion as it is practiced, making today’s new religious movement tomorrow’s mainstream religion.
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National sources
• John R. Hall is a professor of sociology and director of the Center for History, Society and Culture at the University of California, Davis. He wrote the forthcoming Gone From the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History (Transaction Books, 2004, second edition). He can discuss new religious movements, why violence sometimes emerges and how law enforcement officials and family have learned to deal with members. Contact by email only, jrhall@ucdavis.edu.
• Catherine Wessinger is a professor of religious studies at Loyola University in New Orleans and author of How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate (Chatham House Publishers, 2000). She says most new religious movements fall into one of three categories – fragile, assaulted or revolutionary – and that understanding these categories can aid in law enforcement response. Contact 504-865-3182, wessing@loyno.edu.
• James T. Richardson is director of the judicial studies program at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is an expert on new religious movements and religious minortween tities and the law and presented a paper at Southwestern University in which he drew an indirect link behe Waco tragedy and the Patriot Act. He says the Patriot Act, in part, was encouraged by the attitude he says was shown in Waco, that law enforcement can do anything to a religious group it considers “different.” Contact 775-784-6270, jtr@unr.edu.
• Rebecca Moore is a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University and an expert on Jonestown. She maintains a web site that includes scholarly research and family recollections on the Peoples Temple. Contact 619-594-6252, remoore@mail.sdsu.edu.
• Eugene Gallagher is a professor of religious studies at Connecticut College in New London, Conn., and contributor to Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (WHO, 1996). He says violence sometimes occurs when new religious movements come in conflict with outside society because the political sphere and the religious sphere are both interested in how people organize themselves toward certain goals and in response to certain kinds of power. Because of this, conflict is inevitable, he says, but violence is not. Contact 860-439-2169, evgal@conncoll.edu.
• Timothy Miller is a professor in the department of religious studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and has written an overview of new religious movements in American history. He recently became chairman of the editorial board of the New Religious Movements homepage at the University of Virginia, established by the late Jeffrey Hadden. Miller says the most important contribution of new religious movements to American society is their penchant for innovation. Contact 785-864-7263, tkansas@ku.edu.
Background
• Read The Jonestown Report, an annual newsletter about research into the Peoples Temple and Jonestown published by Rebecca Moore at San Diego State University. It includes a list of eight former members and the father of a victim, all of whom are willing to talk about their experience.
• The American Academy of Religion maintains a page devoted to the study of new religious movements.
• The University of Virginia maintains a new religious movement informational web site with articles about and profiles of many groups.
• The Center for Studies on New Religions maintains a web site with research and reporting on new religious movements, including a page on the Branch Davidians, Falun Gong, Aum Shinri-kyo, the Unification Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses and The Children of God/The Family.
• The American Family Foundation, a nonprofit education and resource group that studies the psychological effects of new religious movements, which it calls “cults,” maintains a web site with information for scholars, clergy, former “cult” members and their families and the press.
• Read a Beliefnet article by new religious movement expert J. Gordon Melton comparing the Peoples Temple with the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, both of which ended in the deaths of hundreds of followers.
• Read a February 2002 Atlantic Monthly article by Toby Lester about new religious movements around the world.
• Read an article by Dr. Michael Nielsen of Georgia Southern University about society and new religious movements.
Regional sources
STATE BY STATE
The FBI lists regional offices with contact information on its web site.
• Philip Lamy is a professor of sociology and anthropology at Castleton State College in Castleton, Vt., and an adviser to the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University. Contact 802-468-1345, lamyp@sparrow.csc.vsc.edu.
• Nancy Ammerman is a professor of the sociology of religion at Boston University and has written extensively about Waco and law enforcement. Contact 617-353-3066, nta@bu.edu.
• Michael Barkun is a professor of political science at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y., and editor of Millennialism and Violence (Frank Cass, 1996). He says that the vast majority of new religious movements are nonviolent and that when violence does erupt, it can appear in many forms. Some movements turn in on the group, and others turn on outsiders. He was a consultant to the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the Freemen conflict in Montana and says he thinks law enforcement officials have learned a great deal about new religious movements since Waco. Contact 315-443-9339, mbarkun@maxwell.syr.edu.
• Stephen Dunning is a professor of modern Western religious thought at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He teaches a course in religious violence and cults and the problems outsiders have understanding them. He questions whether it is fair to identify religious “cults” with violence any more than it is to identify new political movements with violence. Contact by email only, sdunning@ccat.sas.upenn.edu.
• Philip Jenkins is a professor of history at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pa., and author of Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History (Oxford University Press, 2000). Contact 814-863-8946, jpj1@psu.edu.
• Benjamin D. Zablocki is a professor of sociology at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., and co-editor of Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field (University of Toronto Press, 2001). Contact 732-445-3344, zablocki@rci.rutgers.edu.
• Courtney Bender is a professor of religious studies at Columbia University and can discuss new religious movements in America. Contact 212-854-3716, cb337@columbia.edu.
• David G. Bromley is a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., and co-editor of Cults, Religions and Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2002). Contact 804-828-6286, dbromley@saturn.vcu.edu.
• Michael Nielsen is a professor of psychology at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga., and maintains an extensive web site on the psychology of religion that includes a segment on new religious movements. Contact 912-681-5344, mnielsen@gasou.edu.
• Sean McCloud is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who specializes in new religious movements. Contact 704-687-2542, spmcclou@email.uncc.edu.
• Danny Jorgensen is the chair of the religious studies department at the University of South Florida in Tampa and an expert in new religious movements. Contact djorgens@chuma1.cas.usf.edu.
• Brent L. Smith is a professor of criminal justice in the sociology department at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark., and author of Terrorism in America: Pipe Bombs and Pipe Dreams (State University of New York Press, 1994). He teaches a course on social and law enforcement response to domestic terrorism and has written about Waco. Contact 479-575-3205, bls@uark.edu.
• Bob Waldrep is the state director of the Watchman Fellowship of Alabama, an evangelical Christian outreach ministry to cults and new religious movements, and executive director of Evangelical Ministries to New Religions. Contact bwaldrep@watchman.org.
• Don Malin is the Mississippi state director of the Watchman Fellowship, an evangelical Christian outreach ministry to cults and new religious movements. Contact 601-924-3879, dmalin@watchman.org.
• James R. Lewis is a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in Stevens Point, Wis., and the editor of Odd Gods: New Religions and the Cult Controversy (Prometheus Books, 2001). He is editing the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of New Religions (Oxford University Press). Contact 715-346-3803, jlewis@uwsp.edu.
• Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is an assistant professor of justice and peace studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., and author of Is Religion Killing Us? Violence in the Bible and the Quran (Trinity Press International, 2003). He can discuss the effect of biblical language and images about violence on millennial and apocalyptic new religious movements. Contact 651-962-5336, janelsonpal@stthomas.edu.
• John A. Saliba is a professor of religious studies at the University of Detroit Mercy in Detroit and has written extensively about new religious movements and the Catholic Church. Contact 313-993-1088, 313-993-1687 (department), salibaja@udmercy.edu.
• Douglas Cowan is an assistant professor of sociology and religious studies at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and can discuss new religious movements, their impact on culture and mainstream Christian response to them. Contact 816-235-1492, cowande@umkc.edu.
• Mary R. Sawyer is associate professor of religious studies at Iowa State University and co-editor of the forthcoming Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America (Indiana University Press, 2003). She will deliver a paper at the 2003 meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion called “The Peoples Temple and the Continuing Dilemma of Religious Typologies.” Contact 515-294-3341, sawyerm@iastate.edu.
• William Pitts is a professor of religion at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and an expert on the Branch Davidians. Contact 254-710-6321, William_Pitts@baylor.edu.
• Grant Underwood is a professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and can discuss the progression of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from a new religious movement to a mainstream religion. Contact 801-378-7522, grant_underwood@byu.edu.
• Stuart A. Wright is a professor of sociology at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, and has written extensively on the Waco standoff and the Branch Davidians. Contact 409-880-1722, wrightsa@hal.lamar.edu.
• Marion Sherman Goldman is a professor of sociology and religious studies at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Ore., and author of Passionate Journeys: Why Successful Women Joined a Cult (University of Michigan Press, 2000). Contact 541-346-5167, mgoldman@oregon.uoregon.edu.
• Sarah M. Pike is a professor of religious studies and American studies at California State University, Chico and a specialist in new religious movements. Contact 530-898-6341, spike@csuchico.edu.
• Milmon F. Harrison is an assistant professor of African-American and African studies at the University of California-Davis and author of a paper on Jim Jones and black worship traditions that examines Jones’ appeal among African-Americans. Contact 530-752-1548, mfharrison@ucdavis.edu.
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