Jonestown In the heartfelt documentary about Jim Jones and the people of The People’s Church, it starts off very well in the state of Indiana. The first church known as The People’s Church was created by Jim Jones to show a different side of what life was all about. The church was not racist, it was not biased, it saw everyone as equal and people bought into that. Jim Jones invited everyone into his church and gave all his followers a reason to be happy. He gave the people a reason to believe in him by gaining their trust through ways such as giving them food, giving them a place to stay, giving them their necessities in order to live a healthy life. Soon enough he found that Indiana couldn’t be his center focus on getting more members into his community. He gathered his current followers and set off to a small town in northern California, which he had oddly selected by looking at a study that said it was in the top nine places to survive a nuclear attack. Jones’ church quickly grew and more and more people were coming from all across the country to follow Jim Jones and his teachings. The People’s Church was a way of life for people and through the persuasive talk of an unbelievable leader, the church was at an all time high and needed to be moved to yet another …show more content…
The reporter stats that the move happened nearly over night and that The People’s Church, was now known as Jonestown. Jim Jones had all of his people come with him to build the community and get away from everything else. He cut off his followers from the outside world; they had no access to radio, or contact with other people in any way. This is one of the techniques he used when getting those to not be able to leave him. He made people feel loved and when they would say they wanted to leave he would tell them, “you can’t leave me, you are my people.” People stayed just so they could make Jim Jones happy. As Jim Jones’ drug and alcohol addiction became worse and worse, he grew paranoid and was no longer the leader he once was. This is where I believe Jones thought he was in too deep and had no other choice but to finally go through with his massive suicide. He told his people, “if we can not live in peace, then we shall die in peace.” He handed out drinks that were injected with poison and told his people to drink it. The followers of Jones drank the drink with no hesitation and this to me is the best example of how strong of a leader Jim Jones was. He made the people believe that it was their time, and a total of 909 people were recorded dead in the
Against all Odds is a very interesting Documentary that follows the early settlement of Jamestown in the 17th century .With endless against the odds situations thrown out in from of the people of Jamestown left and right things seemed bleak. But a lot of perseverance from the early settlers including the Documentaries depiction of the original leader John Smith things seemed to resolve themselves. In Documentary there were several parts where it conceited with what is in chapter three of the Textbook the American Promise. For example, In the Documentary when the subject of the Tobacco business came up it was exampled in the same way as the first page of chapter three. With examples of how the product was grown and distributed out into the world. Making it a very valuable trade to be doing although very labor intensive, which is why it would soon lead into the slave trade. Something that was briefly shown in the documentary mainly to show what lengths the people of Jamestown were willing to go to make things work out in their new home.
In Erik Gellman’s book Death Blow to Jim Crow: The National Negro Congress and the Rise of Militant Civil Rights, he sets out with the argument that the National Negro Congress co-aligned with others organizations in order to not only start a militant black-led movement for equal rights, but also eventually as the author states they “launch the first successful industrial labor movement in the US and remake urban politics and culture in America”. The author drew attention to the wide collection of intellectuals from the black community, labor organizers, civil rights activists, and members of the communist party, to separate them from similar organization that might have been active at the time. These activists, he argues “remade the American labor movement into one that wielded powerful demands against industrialists, white supremacists, and the state as never before, positioning civil rights as an urgent necessity.” In Gellman’s study of the National Negro Congress, he is able to discuss how they were able to start a number of grassroots protest movements to disable Jim Crow, while unsuccessful in dealing a “death blow to Jim Crow”, they were able to affect the American labor movement.
Southland Christian Church, one of several worship centers in the United States that has earned the moniker “Six Flags over Jesus,” is Lexington’s largest megachurch. With a weekly attendance of 8,000 people and an operating budget that supports a staff of over eighty members, Southland far exceeds most U.S. congregations in terms of financial resources and social clout. In recent years, popular and scholarly studies have attempted to situate the megachurch movement within a broad cultural context. Although the majority of these analyses dispute the precise definition of a megachurch, most distinguish these multiplex sanctuaries from smaller worship communities by using the same criteria—i.e. weekly attendance, campus acreage, annual budget, etc.—that megachurches themselves draw on to represent their own success. [2] However, the essence of a megachurch is not its large buildings, but rather the theology of consumption that informs its programming.[3] In this way, a megachurch ethos has infiltrated even the smallest congregations in the United States and has helped to solidify Christianity’s inextricable connection to consumer capitalism. To those who see megachurches as symptomatic of a flawed Christianity, market-minded church growth confounds one of the faith’s oldest dualities, the contradiction of living in the world without conforming to its ways, as Paul puts it in Romans 12. Megachurches at once reject “the world” and participate in it by seeking to win the lost and wow the consumer at the same time.
One can witness the more attractive face of Southern religion in several areas. Religion was an important part of the lives of the Chandlers and of Black Oak, Arkansas. The center of the Chandler devotion was the Black Oak Baptist Church, and nothing was more important besides the family and the farm than church. “There was more to Sunday church
...s already small portions of food and horrible tasks given to those who didn’t obey Jim Jones. Also, Reverend jones clearly didn’t mind the fact that he was forcing more than nine hundred people to commit suicide, a third if them children. Being me, I feel like the way Jim Jones treated these people, and the way he led this cult compound was completely wrong. I feel like Peoples Temple was a humungous mistake. I also feel truly sorry for those who lose friends and family in this horrible event and for those who went through this. Although this is all over the Jim jones Massacre will forever be remembered and never be forgotten.
They are forcing people to come together under regimented beliefs and social structures, while teaching them to abandon their own identity and opinions. The sole focus of this community is to create generations upon generations who are replicas of one another. It is a community that functions amidst uniformity. Jesus Camp is a tell tale documentary that depicts such clear cut standards. It is showcasing the brunt of such rigid standards and how they translate into the lives of innocent children. They are being stripped away from their innocence and molded into a disciple of the religion. These children are being cognitively disabled of all righteousness and integrity they bestow. A community without boundaries, one that functions on the basis of prolonging the disparity of the evangelical
Racism has jumped to the forefront of conversation politically as well as socially recently. However, many fail to see the full extent of racism and the harmful effects it has had in American history. Post civil war brought a realization to the nation, that although now free, blacks, Indians and mixed descendants or mulatto’s were considered a lower class and Jim Crow Laws help cement them in this class of society. These laws, many referenced post Civil War, have origins dating pre Civil War as well. In 1835, “North Carolina passed a new constitution, which declared that ‘free Negroes, free mulattos, and free persons of mixed blood’ could not vote.” This de facto movement not only affected the lives of African Americans but also immigrants, Catholics, Jews and other groups of people.
People join cults as a way of feeling a sense of belonging within a community (Winner 2011:417). This need for belonging is eventually why members find themselves so involved that they cannot get out. This is especially true in the case of the cult created by Jim Jones. He established a cultic Church called the People’s Temple, most famously known for being the largest group suicide consisting of 909 people, including 276 children (Nelson 2006). Between five to seven million young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 are involved in cult groups (“Cult statistics” 2010). Nearly 180 000 people are recruited into cults each year (“Cult Statistics” 2010). The sense of identity, purpose, and belonging are appealing aspects to why people join cults as the use of power and manipulation coerces them to stay.
Mills, Jeannie. Six Years With God: Life Inside Rev. Jim Jones's Peoples Temple. New York: A&W Publishers, 1979.
...fortunately, when a person is given that much power and control over a large group of people their decisions as well as reasoning can become altered. In the case of Jim Jones his power lead to an enflamed ego, which led to a greed, not only of loyalty but of money. Money then lead to drug use, and in the end, drug use led to insanity. Those who are gifted with the ability to influence others have a huge responsibility. They must recognize what they have as a gift and not abuse what God has given them. Jim Jones is a person who had this gift as well as good intentions, yet he could not balance and keep in perspective that what he was doing was to benefit the world, not to benefit himself.
The Declaration of Independence stated that, "All men are created equal" but this statement did not have any meaning for white men between 1876- 1965 due to the institution of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was passed in 1865and put an end to slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment granted equal protection under law, and the Fifteenth Amendment gave black people the right to vote. Despite these Amendments, African Americans were still treated differently than whites. According to the law, blacks and whites could not use the same public facilities, ride the same buses, attend the same schools, etc. These laws came to be known as Jim Crow laws. The documentary focused on Charles Hamilton Houston, also known as “the man who killed Jim Crow.” He was a prominent African American lawyer, Dean of Howard University Law School, and the director of The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He began his fight against segregation between whites and blacks alone but gradually started to encourage other young lawyers to join him in his fight. These young lawyers continu...
In “Jim Crow in Tri-Cities, 1934-1950,” on page 126, Robert Bauman writes that Hanford was so segregated, that “… Hanford officials planned separate Christmas events for each night of the month of December 1944 for blacks and white.” How might have these minor actions invigorate racial segregation and prevention from any societal changes in the
The first one would be when Jim Jones made it known after he moved to San Francisco that he was interested in politics, and legal changes strengthened political groups like the temple. In 1975 when George Moscone won the election and appointed Jones as Chairman of San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. The negative impact was when Congressman Leo Ryan and a group of journalist visited People’s temple in Jonestown,Guyana During the Congressman's visit several members of the group wanted to leave with the congressman and on the afternoon of november 18 when they accompanied Congressman Ryan to the local airstrip to leave they were intercepted by a group of temple security guard who opened fire on the group killing Congressman Ryan ,three journalist and one temple defectors a few seconds of gunfire was captured on video by Bob Brown one of the journalist that was killed in the
On November 18, 1978, a notorious religious organization lead by Jim Jones became international news. As a result of manipulation and isolation, Jim Jones influenced his followers to commit suicide. Not only, but his followers were utterly convinced that what they were doing was for a good cause, specifically, a political movement. With kool-aid and a dash of cyanide, 918 people, adults and children, ended their lives that day. The aftermath of this horrific event resulted in numerous documentaries, on of which being, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. Created in 2006, this documentary gives a thorough and accurate account of the events that lead up to as well as occured that day.
Another issue that arose in the Vineyard movement was the Vineyard Church “covering” of a group known as the Kansas City Prophets. The Kansas City Prophets (KCP) were a group that claimed that it was time to bring back modern day prophets into the church. Claiming that an “energy was everywhere they went” and that “when God entered their prophetic meetings the energy was so strong to fry electronics”. This was a very controversial group that at one time in Kansas claimed that there should only be “One true church” per city and that church should have a “prophet directing all aspects of the congregation”. In a way many churches felt they attempted a hostile takeover of local churches. In 1991 Christianity Today ran an article about some of the negative buzz surrounding the Kansas City Prophets movement. In the article they documented claims had been made against them claiming: “False prophecies were used to promote their ministry, strange claims that new testament unlike old prophets can be fallible, promoting extra biblical activities such as out of body experiences, and all claims that their prophecies to some people have caused spiritual and psychological harm. (8)” Due to their rising