Remembering Jonestown

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:28-30, ESV)

Before the Apostle Paul left Ephesus for the last time, he called the church elders together and exhorted them to stay true to the gospel they had received from Paul. He warned them that people would come into the fellowship who look and sound like authentic believers, but their teaching will betray them. They will speak “twisted things” or “distorted things” which is why the elders, charged with guarding the flock, need to pay heed to all that Paul taught them.

This speech from Paul reminds us that the gospel message is not something we can play around with. There is a true gospel message of forgiveness and grace in Christ, and there are distortions of that message. The truth will, indeed, set you free to worship and serve the Lord in Spirit and truth. The distortions will draw you away from the Lord to your destruction.

Forty years ago today, that principle was horrifically illustrated in Jonestown, or “The People’s Temple Agricultural Project,” in Guyana. Facing investigations and defections by church members, Jim Jones led 909 of his followers, including 304 children, to their deaths by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide. This was just after church members shot and killed five people as they about to leave the church compound. The five included a church defector and U.S. Senator Leo Ryan.

Jim Jones started his church, The People’s Temple, in Indiana in 1955. From the outside not much seemed wrong with Jones and his congregation. They helped the poor and were very strongly in favor of racial integration, even in the early 1960s. But by his own admission, Jones was much more interested in promulgating his own flavor of Marxism than Christianity and saw the church as a means to that end. To that extent, he used the popular revivalist movement to infiltrate the church, even faking “faith healings” to increase membership.

There are plenty of places online you can read about Jones and his teaching. What is clear is that this man was no minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He played on people’s emotions, leading them astray through good works and distorting Scripture to further his own ends. He openly expressed the idea that religion is the opiate of the masses and confessed to being an atheist, at least to those outside the church. He grew increasingly critical of the Bible, and when the church moved to Guyana, they didn’t even conduct worship services. The faith of the church centered around Jim Jones and his “apostolic socialism.”

Jesus taught that a tree is known by its fruit (Matthew 12:33). By both his doctrine and practice it’s clear Jim Jones did not bear fruit we would expect from someone whose life had been transformed by the gospel. He was a wolf among the sheep, and the church paid a terrible price for letting him in.

I pray that the church will cling more to the solid foundation of God’s word than the philosophies of men. That we will always examine our doctrines to the standard of Scripture, and reject those who would teach otherwise. May we learn the lesson of Jonestown.