Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America

3. An Interpretation of Peoples Temple and Jonestown: Implications for the Black Church

3 An Interpretation of Peoples Temple and Jonestown Implications for the Black Church archie smith jr. In this paper I shall (1) consider two theories which emerged to “explain” Jonestown; (2) identify secularism as a central theme; (3) relate this central theme to a plausibility crisis in Black Church religion and the appeal of Peoples Temple; and (4) suggest some implications for the Black Church and its ministry in the light of Peoples Temple and the Jonestown holocaust. EXPLANATORY NARRATIVES It is important to consider the social science interpretations that emerged to “explain” the so-called mass murders-suicides at Jonestown, Guyana. Social scientists are in a particularly strategic position to influence our definition of reality, the role of religion in the lives of black people as well as influence our understanding of what happened at Jonestown. The “Psychoanalytically Oriented Worldview” Explanation One of the major paradigms or worldviews that emerged to explain Jonestown I call the “psychoanalytically oriented worldview” explanation. This explanatory framework has its roots in secularism This essay was first presented as a paper by Dr. Archie M. Smith Jr. at the annual meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion in Boston on 27 August 1979. It was first printed as an “Occasional Paper” in the PSR Bulletin 58, no. 2 (February 1980), a publication of the Pacific School of Religion , in Berkeley, California. It is reprinted here by permission. 48 archie smith jr. and contributes towards a plausibility crisis in traditional understandings of religion. The bottom line in this worldview is that religious phenomena are based upon an illusion—perhaps the oldest, strongest, and most persistent illusion of humankind. Religion is perceived as an inadequate attempt to deal with the reality demands of civilization. Religious cults, formed around a charismatic leader, have their origins in the sociopathic make-up of the leader. Persons who are drawn to religious cults and take up membership in them tend to be passive-dependent types in search for a surrogate parent or authority figure. In other words, the prime targets for recruitment into such movements as Peoples Temple were the oppressed, especially poor blacks, the lonely, dependent, and insecure who welcomed the message of egalitarianism . According to this worldview, such persons had little or no sense of inner value, sought direction from a paranoid charismatic leader, and in the process took on his developing psychosis and messianic hopes. A fusion or total and fatal identification was made with the charismatic leader in the isolated jungles of Jonestown, Guyana. He and the group had become one. When the leader made the decision to commit suicide, he took the entire group with him. This general worldview was one of the explanations that emerged to give meaning to the mass murders-suicides at Jonestown. This particular worldview sought to locate the origins of the holocaust of Jonestown within the psychological framework—i.e., the thinking processes and mindset of Jim Jones and his followers. “Audience corruption” is a term used to identify the interaction between the leader and his followers. Followers learn to give the responses the leader wants them to learn; they feed them back to the leader on cue, who in turn believes even more in the power and rightness of his leadership. When he announces that he is God, the followers feed back the supporting behavior, and the leader soon comes to believe unquestionably in his own deification. In turn his unquestioned assent to divinity is believed by the followers. Absorbed in the immediate crises, the present is the only reality, and the sole authority within that closed cosmos is the leader, who is deemed beyond challenge . This, in brief form, is the essence of the psychoanalytically oriented view of religion. Religious cults, from this perspective, are a form of psychosis, a break with reality. In Marxism, it is a source of error, a false consciousness incapable of correctly diagnosing reality as it actually exists. The psychoanalytic worldview has helped persons to An Interpretation of Peoples Temple and Jonestown 49 understand some of the inner forces that move individual men and women, but it has not enabled a social critique of personal life or a critique of the evolving social order. And it has not been decisive for understanding the social or relational character of our existence. The “Only in California” Explanation The other explanation I wish to consider is...