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Religion in North America
Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown
Praise for the first ""[This] ambitious and courageous book [is a] benchmark of theology by which questions about the meaningful history of the Peoples Temple may be measured."" -- Journal of the American Academy of Religion Re-issued in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the mass suicides at Jonestown, this revised edition of David Chidester's pathbreaking book features a new prologue that considers the meaning of the tragedy for a post-Waco, post-9/11 world. For Chidester, Jonestown recalls the American religious commitment to redemptive sacrifice, which for Jim Jones meant saving his followers from the evils of capitalist society. ""Jonestown is ancient history,"" writes Chidester, but it does provide us with an opportunity ""to reflect upon the strangeness of familiar... promises of redemption through sacrifice.""
190 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1982
20 people are currently reading
332 people want to read
About the author
David Chidester
32 books12 followersDavid Chidester is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 30, 2016
I became aware of this book on the anniversary of the Jonestown massacre and snatched up the first copy I found. I had never really gotten my questions about Jonestown answered. This book really delivered -- it not only gave the facts of the case, but placed them in the context of religious-group suicides through history. The author defies the reader to call the People's Temple a cult. He points out that using that word dismisses the philosophy of thousands of People's Temple members who truly believed in what they were doing, even if it did end in disaster.
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May 1, 2021The value of Chidester's work is in its detailed analysis of the People's Temple's state of "otherness". Chidester demonstrates the relationship between Jones and his audience and while Jones' sermons were public performances, his audience was active in their encouragement of him. Jones interest in socialism and equality developed at an early age. The "otherness" of People's Temple was described with imagery of defilement. Chidester refers to Herberg's "tri-faith interreligious" landscape of American religion as involved in the construction of the insider/outsider relationship of the People's Temple with "traditional" American religiosity. American media and public discourse attempted to distance themselves as Christians and Americans from the People's Temple. The black community also distanced itself from this mostly black group. Chidester describes three levels of spatial orientation as the basic frame of reference within which the PT located itself. These spaces unified the group against the oppressive opposition they perceived. The displacement of even one member was regarded as a critical threat due to the tightly drawn boundaries of the community. They rejected the world and the world rejected them. Americans said they weren't american and socialists said they weren't socialist.
June 15, 2011
An interesting analysis of Peoples Temple and Jonestown, this book really tries to understand the viewpoint of the members of this group. Probably one of the most interesting analyses, to me, in this book is the amount of difficulty officials went through to get the bodies buried. The various ways in which citizens of Guyana and the U.S. treated the corpses as something other than human, something strange and foreign. I had never thought about how funerals relate to humanity. I'd certainly heard of non-burial being disrespectful, but the fact that no country or state wanted to be the final resting place for the 900+ bodies from Jonestown due to their connection with a cult and what was considered a repulsive means of death, was in some ways disrespectful to the dead in itself. The denouncement of any dealings with the group from people who HAD indeed dealt with the group further heightened the level of dehumanization of the Jonestown dead. These particular portions of the book were absolutely fascinating to me.
January 5, 2013
A few years ago I read several books on Jonestown, seeking to learn more about what happened there and why. This was the only book that really helped me understand. Written by a scholar of comparative religion, Chidester's approach unpacks biases against new religious movements and interprets Jonestown in terms of the members' own belief systems.
He does not sugarcoat the behavior of Jim Jones and other leaders in the movement, but he does provide tremendous insight into their actions that takes us beyond shallow dualisms of a powerful "cult" leader and unthinking followers.
I will never use the phrase "drink the Kool Aid" again. By not reducing the members to victims or dismissing them as sheep, Chidester honors the lives and intentions of the Jonestown dead.
This is a must read for anyone who thinks they know - or who wants to really know - the story of the People's Temple.
He does not sugarcoat the behavior of Jim Jones and other leaders in the movement, but he does provide tremendous insight into their actions that takes us beyond shallow dualisms of a powerful "cult" leader and unthinking followers.
I will never use the phrase "drink the Kool Aid" again. By not reducing the members to victims or dismissing them as sheep, Chidester honors the lives and intentions of the Jonestown dead.
This is a must read for anyone who thinks they know - or who wants to really know - the story of the People's Temple.
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May 16, 2025I wish they would change the cover art of this book :/
May 1, 2025
Review generated from my notes:
David Chidester’s Salvation and Suicide is a penetrating and empathetic study of the Jonestown tragedy, rooted in what he calls a method of structured empathy. This approach aims to imaginatively and critically inhabit the worldview of others—in this case, the members of Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple. Rather than pathologizing or sensationalizing, Chidester asks the central question: How might suicide have held meaning for those who participated in it?
At the heart of the book is a compelling notion: “A religion is a way of being a human person in a human place.” Religion, in Chidester’s framing, is not reducible to dogma or delusion but is an irreducible human experiment—an embodied, social, and historical way of making meaning. This perspective resists easy dismissal of Jonestown as an aberration or a mere cult, and instead seeks to understand how such a movement functioned as a form of religious life.
Chidester locates the Jonestown event within broader social, political, and religious contexts, especially highlighting how the civic ideal of self-sacrifice—so central to American civil religion—can be co-opted or mirrored in destructive ways. He unpacks the governmental and ideological machinery that enshrines self-sacrifice as a virtue, suggesting that Jones’s theology of “revolutionary suicide” was not simply madness, but a warped reflection of broader cultural scripts about meaning, death, and sacrifice.
The analysis of race and class within Peoples Temple is particularly provocative. Jones, a white man, positioned himself as a Maoist, socialist, and (spiritually) Black man, rejecting the Bible as a “paper idol” used to perpetuate racial and class inequality. The congregation itself was predominantly African American and working class, and Jones’s message held appeal precisely because it promised a historical and eschatological redemption from systemic oppression—a form of “revolutionary immortality.” This soteriology (doctrine of salvation) offered members a sense of destiny and salvation not just from physical death, but from lives rendered meaningless by the brutal cycles of American history.
Chidester also offers a compelling structural methodology, particularly in his treatment of ritual. He distinguishes between rituals of inclusion and exclusion—those that reincorporate the dead into society versus those that mark their otherness. This framework proves especially insightful when applied to the American public’s response to Jonestown and the highly politicized debates over how (and whether) the Jonestown dead should be buried. Funeral rites become, in Chidester’s terms, a stylized disinvestment: ways for the living to negotiate their emotional and ideological investments in the dead.
Another strong point is the critique of “brainwashing” narratives. Chidester argues that such explanations—framed in psychological or medical terms—serve to strip participants of their agency. We tend to reserve the label “brainwashing” for belief systems we disapprove of, thereby dehumanizing participants in new religious movements and denying the rationality or emotional coherence of their choices.
Chidester is at his best when unpacking how Jonestown became a cultural template—a cautionary tale used to delegitimize other new religious movements, especially when they reach moments of crisis (as in Waco). The tragedy was weaponized to pathologize non-mainstream religion, transforming complex social dynamics into simplistic narratives of cult manipulation.
One of the more intellectually engaging chapters (possibly chapter 8) explores how communal arrangements around property, love, and sex reconfigure the body’s relationship to social space. Jones’s promotion of communal property and “free love” weren’t just ideological quirks—they were deliberate reorderings of how people related to each other and to themselves, creating a new kind of embodied community. Chidester’s analysis here avoids the reductive question of whether Jonestown was “really” religious and instead reveals how religious life can be materially and sensually structured.
Ultimately, Salvation and Suicide is not only a compelling historical-critical account of Jonestown but a meditation on the boundaries of religious life in America. Its greatest strength lies in its refusal to dehumanize, its insistence on entering the world of its subjects without losing sight of moral and analytical rigor. It is a model of how to write about tragic religious phenomena—empathically, structurally, and with unflinching attention to the cultural and political forces that shape belief and behavior.
My Notes
- A method of “structured empathy,” which enters imaginatively into the worldview of others
- The modern governmental manipulation inherent to the civic/religious ideal of self-sacrifice
- Central question: how might those in Jones’s congregation have viewed suicide as meaningful
- “A religion is a way of being a human person in a human place”
- I think there’s something admirably empathetic about this kind of historical-critical/historicist scholarship
- Jonestown becoming a template people had when learning of new religious movements, especially those in crisis points (e.g., Waco)
- “Any religion is an irreducible experiment in being human”
- Jim Jones attacked the Bible as a “paper idol” used to deny equity across race and class. He alternately declared himself a Maoist, socialist, communist, and (spiritually) Black man. (He was white.)
- He breaks down rituals of the dead into rituals of exclusion and inclusion—those which distinguish and distance the dead from the living society and those which incorporate the dead back into it. This framework helps make sense of the burial politics the Jonestown dead were mired in in the eyes of the American public.
- Funeral rituals as a mediation the emotional investments of the living in the way. A stylization of disinvestment.
- We reserve the term “brain washing” for psychological influences of which we disapprove. The psychologization and medicalization of participation in new religious movements. It reduces humanity and agency of participants; they must have something wrong with them, they must be brainwashed.
- Some provocative analysis of race and class in Jones’s church, but overall the bug takeaway for me is how Jonestown became weaponized as a tool to discredit new religious movements and pathologize those who participated in them.
- The ordering of objects (eg property, loved ones) as extensions of the body in social space. Think of how communal property and “free love” reorder these arrangements and, in so doing, create different kinds of community. This is in chapter 8, if memory serves, and is interesting. One of the more effective structural methodologies used: it gives insight rather than just saying if X is an example of Y. His analysis of sex particularly at Jonestown is interesting.
- Soteriology: “the discernment of a sacred historical destiny… represented a promise of salvation from the terror of a historical continuum that recycled oppression, fascism, and totalitarian regimes” also “salvation from a meaningless life and death through a personal investment in that sacred destiny” salvation from death through “revolutionary immortality”
David Chidester’s Salvation and Suicide is a penetrating and empathetic study of the Jonestown tragedy, rooted in what he calls a method of structured empathy. This approach aims to imaginatively and critically inhabit the worldview of others—in this case, the members of Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple. Rather than pathologizing or sensationalizing, Chidester asks the central question: How might suicide have held meaning for those who participated in it?
At the heart of the book is a compelling notion: “A religion is a way of being a human person in a human place.” Religion, in Chidester’s framing, is not reducible to dogma or delusion but is an irreducible human experiment—an embodied, social, and historical way of making meaning. This perspective resists easy dismissal of Jonestown as an aberration or a mere cult, and instead seeks to understand how such a movement functioned as a form of religious life.
Chidester locates the Jonestown event within broader social, political, and religious contexts, especially highlighting how the civic ideal of self-sacrifice—so central to American civil religion—can be co-opted or mirrored in destructive ways. He unpacks the governmental and ideological machinery that enshrines self-sacrifice as a virtue, suggesting that Jones’s theology of “revolutionary suicide” was not simply madness, but a warped reflection of broader cultural scripts about meaning, death, and sacrifice.
The analysis of race and class within Peoples Temple is particularly provocative. Jones, a white man, positioned himself as a Maoist, socialist, and (spiritually) Black man, rejecting the Bible as a “paper idol” used to perpetuate racial and class inequality. The congregation itself was predominantly African American and working class, and Jones’s message held appeal precisely because it promised a historical and eschatological redemption from systemic oppression—a form of “revolutionary immortality.” This soteriology (doctrine of salvation) offered members a sense of destiny and salvation not just from physical death, but from lives rendered meaningless by the brutal cycles of American history.
Chidester also offers a compelling structural methodology, particularly in his treatment of ritual. He distinguishes between rituals of inclusion and exclusion—those that reincorporate the dead into society versus those that mark their otherness. This framework proves especially insightful when applied to the American public’s response to Jonestown and the highly politicized debates over how (and whether) the Jonestown dead should be buried. Funeral rites become, in Chidester’s terms, a stylized disinvestment: ways for the living to negotiate their emotional and ideological investments in the dead.
Another strong point is the critique of “brainwashing” narratives. Chidester argues that such explanations—framed in psychological or medical terms—serve to strip participants of their agency. We tend to reserve the label “brainwashing” for belief systems we disapprove of, thereby dehumanizing participants in new religious movements and denying the rationality or emotional coherence of their choices.
Chidester is at his best when unpacking how Jonestown became a cultural template—a cautionary tale used to delegitimize other new religious movements, especially when they reach moments of crisis (as in Waco). The tragedy was weaponized to pathologize non-mainstream religion, transforming complex social dynamics into simplistic narratives of cult manipulation.
One of the more intellectually engaging chapters (possibly chapter 8) explores how communal arrangements around property, love, and sex reconfigure the body’s relationship to social space. Jones’s promotion of communal property and “free love” weren’t just ideological quirks—they were deliberate reorderings of how people related to each other and to themselves, creating a new kind of embodied community. Chidester’s analysis here avoids the reductive question of whether Jonestown was “really” religious and instead reveals how religious life can be materially and sensually structured.
Ultimately, Salvation and Suicide is not only a compelling historical-critical account of Jonestown but a meditation on the boundaries of religious life in America. Its greatest strength lies in its refusal to dehumanize, its insistence on entering the world of its subjects without losing sight of moral and analytical rigor. It is a model of how to write about tragic religious phenomena—empathically, structurally, and with unflinching attention to the cultural and political forces that shape belief and behavior.
My Notes
- A method of “structured empathy,” which enters imaginatively into the worldview of others
- The modern governmental manipulation inherent to the civic/religious ideal of self-sacrifice
- Central question: how might those in Jones’s congregation have viewed suicide as meaningful
- “A religion is a way of being a human person in a human place”
- I think there’s something admirably empathetic about this kind of historical-critical/historicist scholarship
- Jonestown becoming a template people had when learning of new religious movements, especially those in crisis points (e.g., Waco)
- “Any religion is an irreducible experiment in being human”
- Jim Jones attacked the Bible as a “paper idol” used to deny equity across race and class. He alternately declared himself a Maoist, socialist, communist, and (spiritually) Black man. (He was white.)
- He breaks down rituals of the dead into rituals of exclusion and inclusion—those which distinguish and distance the dead from the living society and those which incorporate the dead back into it. This framework helps make sense of the burial politics the Jonestown dead were mired in in the eyes of the American public.
- Funeral rituals as a mediation the emotional investments of the living in the way. A stylization of disinvestment.
- We reserve the term “brain washing” for psychological influences of which we disapprove. The psychologization and medicalization of participation in new religious movements. It reduces humanity and agency of participants; they must have something wrong with them, they must be brainwashed.
- Some provocative analysis of race and class in Jones’s church, but overall the bug takeaway for me is how Jonestown became weaponized as a tool to discredit new religious movements and pathologize those who participated in them.
- The ordering of objects (eg property, loved ones) as extensions of the body in social space. Think of how communal property and “free love” reorder these arrangements and, in so doing, create different kinds of community. This is in chapter 8, if memory serves, and is interesting. One of the more effective structural methodologies used: it gives insight rather than just saying if X is an example of Y. His analysis of sex particularly at Jonestown is interesting.
- Soteriology: “the discernment of a sacred historical destiny… represented a promise of salvation from the terror of a historical continuum that recycled oppression, fascism, and totalitarian regimes” also “salvation from a meaningless life and death through a personal investment in that sacred destiny” salvation from death through “revolutionary immortality”
August 29, 2024
The power of religious blindness could be strong enough to swipe people away. I never thought about the aftermaths of the legal procedures of death this deeply before - from identifying the dead bodies to finding a home for the dead bodies. It also made me ponder how death erases racial distinctions. In the book, they struggled to even identify the races of the dead bodies, let alone their names. 'They all looked the same.'
Additionally, the arguments for socialism overpowering capitalism were strong. The influence of socialism on people's minds was strong enough to make them believe that it could lead them to god. However, were they following socialism? Or it was totally cynicism?
Additionally, the arguments for socialism overpowering capitalism were strong. The influence of socialism on people's minds was strong enough to make them believe that it could lead them to god. However, were they following socialism? Or it was totally cynicism?
November 2, 2021
"Religions are irreducible experiments in being human; they are enterprises of meaningful and powerful symbolic negotiation—generating, appropriating, manipulating, rejecting, and inverting symbols of classification and orientation that locate humans as being human."
August 24, 2025
I read for the details that were not found elsewhere and in this I wasn't disappointed. I also got a crash course in religious philosophy which was not unwelcome but also a bit much. Still worth the read.
July 21, 2023
very very chilling & a very thorough investigation of the tragedy that cuts through the initial premise presented by the media
Read
September 13, 2023cant escape learning abt Jonestown
October 1, 2023
Well-written account of the Peoples Temple. It is empathetic, inquisitive, and educational. Worth reading
October 8, 2024
actually the most insane book ever wtf
February 3, 2025
this is crazy i cant.
its so interesting bro and humans are so interesting
fyi it isnt just a summary of events but also an analysis of their beliefs
its so interesting bro and humans are so interesting
fyi it isnt just a summary of events but also an analysis of their beliefs
October 16, 2025
Really liked the reliohistorical methodology, kinda the saving grace of my Religion class
November 10, 2025
It’s like as if people do incomprehensible stuff for reasons and if you really try you may even be able to understand Daddy-O
September 20, 2008
I picked this up in my school library when I was in 9th grade because we were required to have books with us for free time. I never intended to read it, but found myself bored one day and decided to start it. Much to my surprise, it was incredibly interesting.
Up until that point, I had never heard of Jim Jones or The Peoples Temple (although I live in Indianapolis- just a few miles from an old Peoples Temple building, actually!) but was quickly hooked.
Very interesting read.
Up until that point, I had never heard of Jim Jones or The Peoples Temple (although I live in Indianapolis- just a few miles from an old Peoples Temple building, actually!) but was quickly hooked.
Very interesting read.
May 7, 2015
In Salvation and Suicide, Chidester looks at Jonestown in theological terms. To that end Jones’ worldview is exhaustively explored. He uses Jones’ writings, the accounts of survivors and other available documents and recordings to explore the theology of Jim Jones. Chidester narrates the story of Jones and Peoples Temple offering analysis along the way. Chidester attempts to give humanity back to the participants of the mass suicide/murder. This book contains an index and extensive notes.
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October 31, 2023religion major brain rot means that most of my reflections on this book are that we should consider the followers of Jim Jones to have had a legitimate faith in the purpose of divine socialism!!!……….. 913 people died, let’s remember that those 913 people were real people with real motivations and beliefs and emotions! That might include thoughts we may not agree with or understand………………… and we wade into that discomfort
September 17, 2012
Remarkably clearly organized and thoughtful assessment of the Peoples Temple. My qualms are more about methodology: the voices of survivors and adherents are erased in this account, which makes SOME sense, since there were so few survivors... but there's a huge hole that Chidester could have filled with some expansion from his archival research.
May 11, 2007
most intelligent scholarly discussion of jonestown so far. actually does justice to jones' ideas rather than just being reactionary and sensationalistic. "let's get gone."
July 13, 2010
I learned a lot about Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple and the power of religion.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews