Word: religion
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Before he entered his teens, Jones picked up religion from a neighbor, Mrs. Myrtle Kennedy, who was a devout member of the Church of the Nazarene. He took to carrying a Bible, but no one made fun of the husky boy, who got into fights easily. He was a natural leader, gathering friends around him and telling them what...
Jones briefly attended Indiana University in Bloomington, but left for Indianapolis to preach and later form his own church. He went to night school at Butler University there, and ten years later he finally won a degree in education. At matriculation, he listed his religion as Unitarian, and for a time linked himself to the Methodists, but the first church he founded, called the Christian Assembly of God, had no affiliations. It was in a poor neighborhood, and he won worshipers by distributing free food and helping people find jobs. He raised money by importing monkeys and selling them...
Although Jonestown has prompted a widespread revulsion against cults, both fairness and the First Amendment suggest that one standard of judgment can still be applied: "By their fruits ye shall know them." Visionaries, even when they operate from a cult, can bring dimensions of aspiration and change to religion, which otherwise might be merely a moral policeman. But the historical record of cults is ominous and often lurid. Jonestown, for all its gruesome power to shock, has its religious (or quasireligious) precedents...
...Finally we are beginning to do what we had hoped to do for so many years. I'm very happy. Hopefully the new building will be a center to Jewish culture and religion at Harvard," Gold said...
Speaking about last week's mass suicide by members of the People's Temple, Carter said that the nation should not overreact by trying "to inject government into religion...