When a church seeks to control every vestige of existence of its members through doctrinaire dictates and pedantic strictures it is no longer a household of faith as conceived by the early Christians in Antioch, but a cult.
In the 1970s, churches built around personalities were popular. Jim Jones was a striking figure in the US at this time. He had founded the ‘Peoples Temple’ in the 1950s as a “Bible Church”, but then as the church grew he introduced his own divergent rules. He was larger than life, and anything he said was law.
The Peoples Temple became Jones and Jones became the Peoples Temple. His followers had already taken in too much of his doctrinaire barbiturate; hence could not save themselves.
On November 18, 1978, at Jonestown in Guyana, Jones, an ordained “Disciples of Christ” pastor, led 900 of his followers to their death. They ingested poison because…
Read More…..Sahara Reporters
