Jones on Jesus: Who Is the Messiah?
Kristian D. Klippenstein
University of Alberta
Abstract
This article examines the effect of Jim Jones’s
understanding of Jesus as a messiah figure, both
on Peoples Temple and on his own self-
understanding as the Temple’s leader. Using
audio recordings created by the Temple, I draw
attention to some major themes in Jones’s
interpretation of Jesus during Temple sermons.
After sketching a brief history of the Peoples
Temple movement, I begin by explaining Jones’s
distinction between God—whom Jones strongly
criticized—and Jesus. I show that Jones
legitimized his own authority by showing
continuities between Jesus’s ministry and his
own. Additionally, I show how Jones’s
conception of the messiah recast the Temple
community as a persecuted and powerful
minority. The article concludes by examining the
role that two passages Jones often quoted from
the Gospel of John played in his message. Used
by Jones, these verses clarified that the power of
Jesus—and Jones—came from socialism.
Keywords: Jim Jones, Jesus, messiah, Peoples
Temple, Jonestown, socialism
The Peoples Temple, led by Jim Jones (1931–
1978), espoused a unique mix of Christian
doctrine, biblical exegesis, and socialist
teachings during its 25-year existence in the
United States and Guyana. Although socialism
eventually eclipsed Christian doctrine in Jones’s
teachings, his interaction with biblical themes
had a significant impact on the character, self-
understanding, and trajectory of Peoples
Temple. Of particular importance in Jones’s
exegesis and teaching was the figure of Jesus.
This article posits that the doctrine presented in
Peoples Temple was a product of Jones’s unique
theological vision, which he grounded and
defended biblically in his distinctive and
apocalyptic interpretation of Jesus as a messiah
figure. Such an interpretation allowed Jones to
reimagine himself as a powerful embodiment of
socialism, and cast the Temple and its members
as a persecuted minority whose hope for
salvation lay in divine socialist principle.1 With
Jones’s guidance, devout followers believed that
they could obtain this salvation self-sufficiently
in the face of hostile rulers and traditional
religion. Jones’s interpretive maneuvers caused
his followers to understand criticism of the
Temple’s legitimacy in a dualistic light and also
provided legitimization for Jones’s claims of
divinity and supernatural abilities. These
outcomes of Jones’s unique interpretation of the
messiah, founded biblically, fostered paranoia
and dedication amidst Temple members and laid
the groundwork both for the group’s final form
in Jonestown and the mass murder/suicides that
eventually took place.
This article also illustrates the scholarly
opportunities afforded to researchers by the
large body of audio recordings left behind by
Peoples Temple. Scholarship concerning
Jonestown continues to appear in academic
journals and other publications.2 Although
sources such as survivor accounts and textual
records have appeared throughout the Jonestown
scholarly canon,3 the audiotapes are
1 Divine socialism, or what Jones sometimes termed divine
principle, refers to the religion-framed form of socialism that Jones
advocated. Many of Jones’s sermon recordings contain variations
on these phrases, although he did not officially or exclusively use
this phrase to define his message. Jones’s use of the term was in no
way connected to the doctrine of Divine Principle found in Sun
Myung Moon’s Unification Church.
2 Four recent publications can serve as examples of contemporary
Temple scholarship. Taylor (2013) explores the Temple’s place in
the civil-rights movement and as an expression of black religiosity.
Kent (2010) and Griffin (2013) deal with physical abuse in relation
to Peoples Temple as a religious organization. Willey (2013)
examines Peoples Temple using a Marxist framework, connecting
Jonestown to a lineage of apocalyptic communities.
3 Some of the earliest survivor or eyewitness accounts suffer from
sensationalist leanings. Although firsthand accounts, such as
Fondakowski’s (2013) compilation of recollections and
ruminations by survivors, family members, and scholars, continue
to be published, the function of firsthand testimony has shifted. In
recent years, a trend toward paying attention to those who died,
former members, eyewitnesses, and survivors has occurred in an
attempt to reclaim Peoples Temple and Jonestown as a
34 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015

comparatively underutilized. Likewise, although
many Peoples Temple scholars have consulted
the tapes to describe or explain Peoples Temple,
few have engaged in close analysis of Jones’s
rhetoric in the tapes. This type of close analysis,
when it has happened, has mostly been confined
to examinations of Q 042,4 the tape recorded
during the mass murder/suicide in November
1978.5 To defend these claims about Jones’s
understanding of the messiah, I examined
recordings of Jones’s preaching in the United
States dating primarily from the 1970s.
Although it is important to take into
consideration the fact that Temple personnel
edited many of these recordings, the material
they contain comprises the doctrines of Peoples
Temple, either as Jones first presented them to
members or as Temple representatives wanted
the world to hear them. At the very least, the
audiotapes are faithful embodiments of Jones’s
doctrines because they do not contain
interpretations by secondary sources and
because their very presence shows at least some
interest in preserving “true” Temple teaching.
It should be noted that the cohesion with which
the speech excerpts used in this article fit
together should not be taken as evidence of a
systematic theology in Jones’s work. On one
hand, the sheer volume of audio material
generated by Peoples Temple resists the
possibility of creating a systematic or holistic
multifaceted community rather than allowing Jones to stand as its
lone figurehead.
4 For ease of reference, I refer to tape recordings according to the
letter-number designations given them by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. Information pertaining to the location and date of
each recording is retrievable from the Index of Tape Transcripts
and Summaries found on the Alternative Considerations of
Jonestown and Peoples Temple website (Fielding McGehee III,
research director, http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/). All locating
information—date and place—has been extrapolated from the
recordings by individuals who have transcribed the tapes for the
website, and thus should be viewed as provisional. All
transcriptions in this article are my own.
5 See Twemlow and Hough (2008, pp. 226–230) as one example.
David Chidester’s Salvation and Suicide (2003 [1988]) stands as
perhaps the best example of a published scholarly monograph that
explicitly relies on the audiotapes to reconstruct the worldview of
the Temple. Moore (2011) provides a recent example of
scholarship that interweaves excerpts from the tapes with an
examination of violence in Peoples Temple.
theology spoken by Jones.6 On a second—and
more important—hand, Jones’s message evolved
as the Temple moved from Indiana to California
and Guyana.7 Initially a sort of Social Gospel
ideology couched in black-worship styling and
civil-rights concerns,8 Jones’s message diverged
from mainline Protestant Christianity as the
Temple became ever more secretive about its
practices, taking on apocalyptic overtones and
incorporating Jones’s interpretation of socialist
rhetoric. By the time Jones took up permanent
residence in Guyana, his preaching was all but
devoid of Christian content and focused almost
entirely on socialism and international politics.
Moreover, Jones’s preaching—like that of many
extemporaneous speakers—could be highly
tangential and contradictory depending on his
topic and context. All of this is to say that Jones
did not found Peoples Temple on a fully
developed ideology that remained unchanged
from the group’s beginnings in the 1950s to its
end in the late 1970s. It is nonetheless possible
to identify key areas of concern that Jones
continually returned to. In this article, rather
than to defend fine doctrinal points, my use of
excerpts is intended to reveal two such areas of
concern: the measurement of virtuous conduct
by its social outcome, and the equation of
socialism with some form of divinity. Although
my article addresses these concerns in the
6 Hall (2001 [1987]) noted a similar methodological problem in his
analysis of the Temple: “I do not claim … that there is only one
correct history [that is, the history Hall presents]… The available
information is so voluminous that some practices of selection must
be involved in the construction of the narrative” (p. 313). In this
article, my “practices of selection” involved identifying those
biblical, political, or theological themes that Jones most often
returned to and that varied least during his American preaching
period.
7 Maaga (1998) describes the changing nature of the Temple and
its concerns throughout its existence in Indiana, California, and
Guyana. Her argument that Peoples Temple was essentially three
groups in one—a Protestant sect, a new religious movement, and a
black church—helps contextualize Jones’s message and the
Temple’s activities in light of mid-twentieth century American
religious trends (Maaga, 1998, pp. 74–86). It is appropriate to add
a fourth category—Peoples Temple as a socialist group—to
Maaga’s schema since her model does not situate the Temple
particularly well within its Cold War political climate.
8 Both Taylor (2013) and Smith (2004) attribute the growth of the
Temple in California to the Temple’s Social Gospel-style outreach.
As I show in this article, Jones himself was well aware of the
relative lack of social assistance offered by Christian churches in
late-1960s and early-1970s San Francisco.
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015 35