Jonestown

This past week, my husband Chris and I sat down to watch the CNN special on Jonestown that we'd recorded on DVR. I thought I knew a good amount, of course I have heard the "drinking the koolaid" saying. I even, knowing I'd be watching it and not being a patient person...at all...Googled the story to learn a bit more.

If you don't know much about Jonestown, you should learn about it. One of the ironies that they closed the CNN special was a sign at the site of the mass gathering where all of those 900+ people committed sucide or were killed, that said basically, "Those who don't know the past are doomed to repeat it."

The rise of cults is increasingly understood by experts in the light of the social and pyschological elements they touch upon. And we are increasingly learning about how a person's religious journey then ties into it all. So now that we know so much, you'd think we'd know enough to stop it from happening. The challenge is, so often these things begin "innocently enough." I mean, Jim Jones (who from many angles now looks like a crazy guy) started off as a local preacher in the Methodist Church who got kicked out of his little church in Indiana for trying to integrate it. I mean, just on that level, sounds like he could have gone on to great things, right?

As I prepared to send a list of resources out to my congregation for a Sunday discussion this week on Jonestown, I came across an article from the American Psychological Association that describes how it seems like Jones used George Orwell's 1984 as a guidebook to mind-control! The book was saying that experts should be careful how they research and share findings, because people can take them and use them for harm. I.e. if a social pyschologists discovers a great way to control a group, what a helpful insight for a cult leader!

The truth is we have always struggled with the dangers when well-intentioned discoveries are used for other purposes. I've heard that many researchers who worked on atomic physics were devestated by the use of their research for creating weapons.

I wonder though, as we learn more about incidents like Jonestown...and as we try to remember them as cautionary tales, if we can do so while not distancing ourselves from the always present possibility that someone, somewhere, is still finding ways to draw people into communities that will destroy them later. And I wonder what all of this has to say to us in the church...both as we seek to keep our communities of faith healthy, and also as we seek to invite others into community who perhaps rightfully so, given the example of history, wonder about our motives. It's a call both to forming authentic communities and also, I think, a reminder that we all need to hold each other accountable as we lead. Because even when the body count isn't there, I suspect there are more than a few "charismatic leaders" in a variety of settings who have nonetheless been able to lead people from good intentions into a place that endangers them.

What do you think that might look like today?