Summary of movement
Peoples Temple (sometimes spelt People’s Temple) was a new religious movement founded by Jim Jones. At the peak of its membership it had around 5000 members across a number of churches in California. Whilst it began as a Christian movement, drawing on elements of Pentecostalism and the social and multiracial equality of liberal Protestant denominations, Jones turned against traditional Christianity over time, arguing that it had kept people enslaved. Instead, he preached a form of ‘apostolic socialism’, his own interpretation of communism, teaching his followers the importance of allegiance to the community.
The full text of this article has been moved to CenSAMM's open access Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements.
It is available at: https://www.cdamm.org/articles/peoples-temple
