Peoples Temple

Peoples Temple was an American religious movement founded by Jim Jones in Indiana in the 1950s. Its relocation to Guyana ended in 1978 with the deaths of more than 900 members at Jonestown.

Jonestown: A settlement in Guyana established by Peoples Temple in the 1970s. The movement’s agricultural project became the site of its mass deaths in 1978.
Disciples of Christ: A Protestant Christian denomination formed in the United States in the nineteenth century. Peoples Temple emerged from a congregation affiliated with this denomination.
Marceline Jones: Jim Jones’s wife and a longtime member of Peoples Temple who worked as a nurse. She helped sustain the Temple’s communal work and died at Jonestown.
Port Kaituma airstrip attack: The 1978 attack on a delegation leaving Guyana, in which five people were killed. Temple gunmen killed Congressman Leo Ryan and others shortly before the deaths at Jonestown.
Jim Jones: An American religious leader who founded Peoples Temple and led it until his death in 1978. His authority shaped the Temple’s organization and its move to Guyana.
Pentecostalism: A Christian movement emphasizing the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including healing and speaking in tongues. Jones drew on Pentecostal styles of worship and claims of spiritual power.
Timothy Stoen: A former Peoples Temple attorney and member who became a prominent defector and critic. His custody dispute over his son helped draw attention to the Temple’s leadership.
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple: A 2006 documentary film directed by Stanley Nelson about Peoples Temple and Jonestown. Its interviews and archival material document the movement’s history and survivors’ accounts.
Mass suicide: A mass death in which multiple people intentionally end their own lives, sometimes under collective pressure. The deaths at Jonestown are commonly described this way, though many victims were forcibly poisoned.
Social gospel: A Protestant movement applying Christian ethics to social problems such as poverty and inequality. Its emphasis on social justice resonated with the Temple’s early public mission.

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Anti-cult movementRelated: The tragedy intensified public concern about groups described as cults and their leaders’ control.