International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 1, No. 1, 2010 27
House of Judah, the Northeast Kingdom Community, and ‘the Jonestown
Problem’: Downplaying Child Physical Abuses and Ignoring Serious Evidence
Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D.
Department of Sociology
University of Alberta
Abstract1,2
This article offers a critique of the discussions
concerning physical child abuse that occur in
the standard academic sources on Peoples
Temple and Jonestown—most especially John
Hall’s Gone From the Promised Land, which he
published in 1987. Using accounts about
children in Peoples Temple and Jonestown from
personal accounts and respected journalistic
sources, the article shows that sociological and
religious-studies scholarship has downplayed
the extent of the physical and emotional abuse
that the children suffered prior to their murders.
Moreover, some of this scholarship even has
minimized the children’s deaths themselves.
Hall’s discussion of corporal child punishment
comes under special scrutiny, because he
attempted to contextualize it by analogizing
Jonestown’s child punishment regimes to
practices within both conservative Protestantism
and two groups operating in the same period as
Peoples Temple and Jonestown—the House of
Judah and the Northeast Kingdom Community.
The Jonestown3 deaths of November 1978
remain the most dramatic and tragic American
‘cult event’4 to have occurred after the Second
1 This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the
International Cultic Studies Association conference on June 27,
2008, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
2 Thanks go to Terra Manca and Ashley Samaha for their editorial
suggestions.
3 The technical name of the group that followed Jim Jones (1931–
1978) was Peoples Temple, and the community that Jones and
more than a thousand of his followers established in Guyana was
Jonestown. Often, however, people use Jonestown to refer to the
entire movement, and at times I may be guilty of doing so myself.
4 I use the ‘cult’ term in a manner that is in line with standard
dictionary (in this case, Webster’s) definitions as both a religion
that most people consider unorthodox and spurious, and a small
circle of persons devoted to an intellectual figure. In simple terms,
Jones’s self-deification, harsh punishments, and fake healings
made his movement unorthodox if not spurious in the eyes of
many, and his combination of Christianity and Marxism made him
something of an intellectual leader (at least in the eyes of his
World War, and a generation of people still
remember the nightly news broadcasts of
increasingly dire information as reporters and
government officials struggled to make sense
out of the bodies bloating in the sun. The
generation of people who hold those memories,
however, is aging (and, alas, dying—see R.
Moore, 2000: 7–8), and at some point future
generations will have to acquire information
followers). I am also aware of the early attempt by an opponent of
the so-called anticult movement, James T. Richardson, to isolate
Peoples Temple and Jonestown from the debate around new
religions and cults. According to Richardson, most new religions
developed in America during the 1960s or early 1970s Peoples
Temple began in the 1950s (Richardson, 1980: 241-242). Most
new religions comprise Caucasians/whites many of the Peoples
Temple members were African Americans/black (Richardson,
1980: 242). Jones’s organization was more authoritarian than most
new religions (Richardson, 1980: 243-244). Peoples Temple grew
more wary toward outside society over time, while most new
religions become less wary of the dominant society over time
(Richardson, 1980: 245-246). In a remarkable admission,
Richardson acknowledged that some of the resocialization
techniques that Peoples Temple used seemed to share “at least
some important facets with the thought reform model developed by
R. J. Lifton...,” while most new religions used resocialization
techniques closer to effective persuasion (Richardson, 1980: 247).
Jones was a socialist, whereas the new religions “reflect Western
culture’s emphasis on individualism” (Richardson, 1980: 248).
Jonestown’s members were not crazy or brainwashed in
committing suicide they committed what Durkheimian
sociologists call ‘altruistic suicide’ (Richardson, 1980: 249). In
addition, new religions tended to be introversionist, whereas
Peoples Temple attempted to involve itself in the political process
(Richardson, 1980: 251). Finally, participants in most new
religions engage in their groups’ rituals sincerely and see symbolic
meaning to their actions, while Jones probably “manipulated ritual
behavior to accomplish his own ends” (Richardson 1980: 251).
According to Richardson, even though Peoples Temple/Jonestown
bore little relation to the new religions, those groups were under
increasing pressure from deprogrammers, anticult groups, and even
the Internal Revenue Service because of the inaccurate analogies
between the two (Richardson, 1980: 252). Suffice it to say that no
anticultist identifies a cult according to the ages of its members or
the racial composition of the group. Nor does the time period in
which a group emerges or flourishes influence a cultic designation.
Moreover, authoritarian leadership is more pervasive than
Richardson implied, which certainly can contribute to outsiders
seeing a group as spurious and cultic. In fact, many groups do
engage in politics in varying degrees, and now several of them also
have committed murder/suicide. For anticultists, a major factor for
labeling a group to be a cult is a determination of harm caused by
group actions, and this very determination of harm often is what
makes a group spurious in the eyes of many societal members.
House of Judah, the Northeast Kingdom Community, and ‘the Jonestown
Problem’: Downplaying Child Physical Abuses and Ignoring Serious Evidence
Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D.
Department of Sociology
University of Alberta
Abstract1,2
This article offers a critique of the discussions
concerning physical child abuse that occur in
the standard academic sources on Peoples
Temple and Jonestown—most especially John
Hall’s Gone From the Promised Land, which he
published in 1987. Using accounts about
children in Peoples Temple and Jonestown from
personal accounts and respected journalistic
sources, the article shows that sociological and
religious-studies scholarship has downplayed
the extent of the physical and emotional abuse
that the children suffered prior to their murders.
Moreover, some of this scholarship even has
minimized the children’s deaths themselves.
Hall’s discussion of corporal child punishment
comes under special scrutiny, because he
attempted to contextualize it by analogizing
Jonestown’s child punishment regimes to
practices within both conservative Protestantism
and two groups operating in the same period as
Peoples Temple and Jonestown—the House of
Judah and the Northeast Kingdom Community.
The Jonestown3 deaths of November 1978
remain the most dramatic and tragic American
‘cult event’4 to have occurred after the Second
1 This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the
International Cultic Studies Association conference on June 27,
2008, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
2 Thanks go to Terra Manca and Ashley Samaha for their editorial
suggestions.
3 The technical name of the group that followed Jim Jones (1931–
1978) was Peoples Temple, and the community that Jones and
more than a thousand of his followers established in Guyana was
Jonestown. Often, however, people use Jonestown to refer to the
entire movement, and at times I may be guilty of doing so myself.
4 I use the ‘cult’ term in a manner that is in line with standard
dictionary (in this case, Webster’s) definitions as both a religion
that most people consider unorthodox and spurious, and a small
circle of persons devoted to an intellectual figure. In simple terms,
Jones’s self-deification, harsh punishments, and fake healings
made his movement unorthodox if not spurious in the eyes of
many, and his combination of Christianity and Marxism made him
something of an intellectual leader (at least in the eyes of his
World War, and a generation of people still
remember the nightly news broadcasts of
increasingly dire information as reporters and
government officials struggled to make sense
out of the bodies bloating in the sun. The
generation of people who hold those memories,
however, is aging (and, alas, dying—see R.
Moore, 2000: 7–8), and at some point future
generations will have to acquire information
followers). I am also aware of the early attempt by an opponent of
the so-called anticult movement, James T. Richardson, to isolate
Peoples Temple and Jonestown from the debate around new
religions and cults. According to Richardson, most new religions
developed in America during the 1960s or early 1970s Peoples
Temple began in the 1950s (Richardson, 1980: 241-242). Most
new religions comprise Caucasians/whites many of the Peoples
Temple members were African Americans/black (Richardson,
1980: 242). Jones’s organization was more authoritarian than most
new religions (Richardson, 1980: 243-244). Peoples Temple grew
more wary toward outside society over time, while most new
religions become less wary of the dominant society over time
(Richardson, 1980: 245-246). In a remarkable admission,
Richardson acknowledged that some of the resocialization
techniques that Peoples Temple used seemed to share “at least
some important facets with the thought reform model developed by
R. J. Lifton...,” while most new religions used resocialization
techniques closer to effective persuasion (Richardson, 1980: 247).
Jones was a socialist, whereas the new religions “reflect Western
culture’s emphasis on individualism” (Richardson, 1980: 248).
Jonestown’s members were not crazy or brainwashed in
committing suicide they committed what Durkheimian
sociologists call ‘altruistic suicide’ (Richardson, 1980: 249). In
addition, new religions tended to be introversionist, whereas
Peoples Temple attempted to involve itself in the political process
(Richardson, 1980: 251). Finally, participants in most new
religions engage in their groups’ rituals sincerely and see symbolic
meaning to their actions, while Jones probably “manipulated ritual
behavior to accomplish his own ends” (Richardson 1980: 251).
According to Richardson, even though Peoples Temple/Jonestown
bore little relation to the new religions, those groups were under
increasing pressure from deprogrammers, anticult groups, and even
the Internal Revenue Service because of the inaccurate analogies
between the two (Richardson, 1980: 252). Suffice it to say that no
anticultist identifies a cult according to the ages of its members or
the racial composition of the group. Nor does the time period in
which a group emerges or flourishes influence a cultic designation.
Moreover, authoritarian leadership is more pervasive than
Richardson implied, which certainly can contribute to outsiders
seeing a group as spurious and cultic. In fact, many groups do
engage in politics in varying degrees, and now several of them also
have committed murder/suicide. For anticultists, a major factor for
labeling a group to be a cult is a determination of harm caused by
group actions, and this very determination of harm often is what
makes a group spurious in the eyes of many societal members.
